Clinton Meddled In Israeli Elections

BILL CLINTON ADMITS TO HAVING MEDDLED IN ISRAEL'S 1996 ELECTIONS

Adam Eliyahu Berkowitz : Apr 4, 2018 : Breakingisraelnews.com

Clinton justified his actions by claiming them to have been for the benefit of Israel.

(Israel)— [Breakingisraelnews.com] At a time when the United States continues to be embroiled in a lengthy investigation into alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential elections, former US President Bill Clinton admitted that he himself once meddled in a foreign election, specifically in Israel. Clinton's interference in Israeli elections would be the first of two times in which a sitting Democratic US President would make an apparent attempt to oust Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. (Photo: Shimon Peres, Bill Clinton, Yasser Arafat/IDF/via BIN)

Clinton made the revelations in an interview published on Tuesday and conducted by Israel's Channel 10, in which worked to boost the campaign of the late Israeli President Shimon Peres during Israeli elections in 1996. 

"It would be fair to say that I tried to help Peres win the elections, and I tried to help him in such a way that I would not be openly involved," Clinton said in the interview referring to Israeli elections in 1996...

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We Are Getting "Played" By Turkey And Its Prime Minister Erdogan.

Who Does Turkey Support?

by Burak Bekdil
October 7, 2014 at 11:00 am

http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/4764/who-does-turkey-support

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In short, to finish off jihadists, Washington will now work with the man who until recently funded and reinforced these same jihadists, and is proud of his love affairs with Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood. Hamas's overseas command center happens to be based in Turkey. Good luck.
Turkish soldiers in tanks are lined up along Turkey's border with Iraq, "observing" ISIS troops close in on the Syrian Kurdish town of Kobani, in what appears an approaching massacre.
In pragmatic Islamist thinking, one does not properly become a "martyr" if he gets killed by an army other than Israel's.

Last week, U.S. Vice President Joe Biden had to zigzag between the truth that accidentally spilled out of him and Washington's pragmatism. In a speech at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, Biden said: "[Turkish] President (Recep Tayyip) Erdogan, he is an old friend, said you were right, we let too many people through, now we are trying to seal the border."
The "people," however, whom Erdogan said Ankara had "let through" were the jihadists whom Turkey had supported with arms and money, and who have now become an international nightmare.
In other words, the U.S. vice president was publicly saying that the Turkish president had confessed to supporting terrorists.
Then Erdogan threatened: "If he [Biden] really said that, he would become history for me." Finally, a White House statement announced: "The vice president apologized for any implication that Turkey or other allies and partners in the region had intentionally supplied and facilitated the growth of ISIL or other extremists in Syria."
Erdogan has never hidden that he is ideologically a next of kin to the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas. Hamas's overseas command center happens to be based in Turkey. Erdogan has been Hamas's staunchest (non-Hamas) cheerleader in the last decade, and the Brotherhood's key regional ally. Press reports say that Turkey has recently welcomed in the Brotherhood's top brass, who were expelled on Sept. 13 from their five-million-star hotels in Qatar. Ankara has not denied that it is offering a safe haven to the leaders of the Islamist organization.
In short, to finish off the jihadists who have captured large swathes of land in Iraq and Syria, Washington will now work with the man who until recently funded and reinforced these same jihadists (and their various offspring) and is proud of his love affairs with Hamas and the Brotherhood. More ironically, a U.S.-led coalition of nations including Arab states recently killed one of Erdogan's heroes when the coalition forces struck an ISIS camp in Syria.

Turkish tanks near the border with Syria, October 2014.

When, in 2010, a Turkish-led flotilla that included the ship Mavi Marmara sailed towards Gaza to "break Israel's siege" of the Hamas-controlled land, Erdogan greeted everyone on board as "heroes." And when the Israel Defense Forces [IDF] raided the Mavi Marmara and killed nine Turks aboard, Erdogan greeted the Turks as "martyrs."
Since then, Erdogan has vehemently denied any Turkish governmental support for the Mavi Marmara. He claims he was merely objecting to "Israel's unjust oppression of the Palestinians."
But, he insists, no governmental involvement at all.
About a fortnight after the incident, the foreign press in Turkey received a package from the Press and Information General Directorate, a government office reporting to Erdogan. The envelope did not contain a letter, or an explanatory note. Instead, its only content was a DVD, the cover of which showed a photomontage of an Israeli soldier pointing a rifle at a vessel. The vessel was encircled in David's Star. The DVD cover read: "Moments of Horror." The line below that read: "Interviews With the Injured Aboard the Aid for Gaza Ship / WithEnglish Subtitles."
As the package arrived, the radio was still quoting Erdogan and his ministers as saying that the flotilla was entirelya nongovernmental initiative.
The Mavi Marmara incident was a wake-up call to Jerusalem, where diplomats had earlier been unrealistically optimistic about building a working relationship with Erdogan despite several other, earlier, warnings, including Erdogan's famous tirade in Davos against (then) Israeli President Shimon Peres that, "You (Jews) know well how to kill!" The Turkish government has since frozen ambassadorial-level diplomatic relations between Turkey and Israel, and Erdogan has increased his calculated explosive rhetoric against Israel.
Erdogan's principal argument was that a foreign military had killed Turkish nationals outside of Turkey; that those who were killed were martyrs; and that he would never allow a foreign military to harm one single Turkish citizen. Once again, he was wrong.
One of the lucky survivors of the Mavi Marmara was Yakup Bulent Alniak, an Islamist activist for the Turkish "humanitarian aid group" IHH which organized the Gaza-bound flotilla. IHH is listed by many Western countries as a terrorist organization; but its members, including Alniak, were simply heroes for Erdogan.
Alniak survived the IDF raid in 2010 but lost his life recently, at the end of September, when a U.S.-Arab coalition struck one of the largest ISIS camps in Syria. A coalition of foreign armies had killed a Turkish citizen whom the Turkish leader had declared a hero, but since then Erdogan has remained mute.
Will Erdogan downgrade Turkey's diplomatic ties with the U.S. and five Muslim nations because their militaries killed a Turkish citizen outside of Turkish territory? No. Probably because, in the pragmatic Islamist thinking, one does not properly qualify as a "martyr" if he gets killed by an army (or armies) other than Israel's.
As of this writing, on the Turkey-Syria border, CNN correspondent Phil Black hourly beams pictures of the Syrian Kurdish city of Kobani, with a black ISIS flag atop a building in the eastern part of the city, as Turkish soldiers in tanks lined up along the Turkish border "observe" ISIS troops close in for the approaching massacre.
Washington is expecting Ankara wholeheartedly to fight the rougher boys of the Islamist camp to which it belongs? Good luck.

Israel Violence Escalates Significantly.

Violence in Israel at Highest Level since Intifada

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Israeli authorities are fighting lawlessness on several fronts as well as violence allegedly committed by fringe Jewish extremists.

Minister of Education Shay Piron reading books with Israeli children in a bomb shelter in the southern Israeli town of Sderot. (Photo by Edi Israel/FLASH90)

Israelis, while suffering the worst upsurge in violence since the Second Intifada, are also reeling from the news that six Jewish nationalists, including three minors, are suspects in the barbaric murder of Palestinian Arab teenager Mohammed Abu Khdeir.

Violence in Israel has increased dramatically over the past week all over the country since the discovery on Monday of the bodies of three Israeli boys who were kidnapped and shot to death by Hamas terrorists and the subsequent murder of a Palestinian Arab teen who was savagely burned to death.

On Tuesday last week, close to 100 demonstrators in central Jerusalem called for revenge for the murder of three Jewish boys. The event became violent and resulted in several arrests.

Palestinian Arabs Call for Third Intifada

Calls for a new Intifada pervaded the funeral on Friday for Abu Khdeir, which took place in the eastern Jerusalem neighborhood of Shuafat, known for its anti-Israel activism.

Since Abu Khdeir’s death, forest fires caused by arson have erupted throughout the country. Palestinian hooligans did millions of dollars’ worth of damage to the Jerusalem light rail stations in their neighborhoods, which could take months to repair – ironically, as the transportation system was established for their benefit.

Violence in Jerusalem’s Arab districts swept into Jewish areas over the Sabbath, including an attack on a yeshiva on Mount Zion. Jewish residents of mixed neighborhoods, such as the Mount of Olives, remained indoors.

A local tour guide told United with Israel that he was scheduled to lead two excursions in the Old City on Sunday morning but both were cancelled by the fearful tourists.

Residents in the South Confined to Shelters

Southern Israelis are confined to shelters as rockets rain down on their homes. More than 150 rockets had landed on Israeli territory since efforts began to find the kidnappers of the three Jewish boys.

Rock-throwing at Israeli police in Shuafat neighborhood of eastern Jerusalem. (Photo: Sliman Khader/Flash90)

While the brutal deaths of three Jewish teens and a 15-year-old Palestinian Arab are tragic, the reaction of mainstream Israelis and lawmakers versus that in Palestinian society is as different as night and day. Palestinians were celebrating the kidnapping of Israeli teens, while Israelis were calling for the arrest of anyone, Jew or Arab, who commits violence against innocent civilians.

During the search for Eyal Yifrach, Gilad Sha’ar and Naftali Frankel, the Palestinian street was celebrating. At schools and summer camps, Palestinian youth were demonstrating a three-fingered salute, representing three captured Israeli teens whom they compared to rodents and had hoped to exchange for a large number of terrorists in Israeli jails.

Palestinian Human Rights Activist Defends Kidnapping

Prominent Palestinian human-rights activist and political analyst Bassem Eid, speaking to journalists in Jerusalem last Wednesday, conceded that Palestinians, including “moderate” Palestinians, were pleased about the kidnapping, although, he said, they were “sorry” about the murder, which “wasn’t the target.”

According to Eid, Palestinians in the West Bank were hoping the three boys would be traded for Palestinian prisoners. Asked whether they saw any difference between innocent schoolchildren being held captive and violent terrorists with blood on their hands, he acknowledged that indeed they did not differentiate between them.

“It’s no different than the IDF shooting at Palestinian teenagers,” he responded, although, as UWI pointed out, the Israeli children were on their way home from school while the Palestinian teens shot – allegedly – by the IDF would have been throwing rocks or committing some form of aggression against soldiers or civilians.

Nor do the Palestinians differentiate between civilian residents of Judea and Samaria and soldiers, Eid added.

Israel Condemns Violence against both Jews and Arabs

Meanwhile, Israeli politicians and human-rights activists have expressed horror at any incitement or violence instigated on the Israeli side. An investigation was launched immediately following the news of Abu Khdeir’s death, with Prime Minister Netanyahu condemning the murder in the strongest terms and vowing to find the perpetrators and bring them to justice.

Political analyst Bassam Eid presents Palestinian side on kidnapping of Israeli teens. (Photo: UWI)

The suspects are being questioned at an Israeli Security Agency (Shin Bet) facility. All other details regarding the investigation are under a judicial gag order.

“We will not sweep this under the rug,” President Shimon Peres stated. “The culprits will be caught and punished to the full extent of the law. There is no difference between [Arab] blood and [Israeli] blood.”

Author: Atara Bec
k

Hamas Should Pay With Their Lives For The Deaths Of The Three Israelis!

Netanyahu Says Hamas Responsible for Teens' Deaths; Terror Group Threatens to Open 'Gates of Hell' if Israel Strikes

Author(s):  algemeiner.com
Source:  Dave Bender.     Article date: July 1st, 2014

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday night said that “Hamas is responsible, and will pay the price” for the deaths of the three youths abducted on June 12.

‏Hamas officials warned that if Israel strikes Gaza in retaliation for the deaths, or for the past two weeks of rocket fire into Israel, then “the gates of hell” will open.

“If the occupiers carry out an escalation or a war, they will open the gates of hell on themselves,” Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri told AFP, according to the Palestinian Ma’an News Agency.

“The body of three settlers discovered,” Hamas MP Mushir Al-Masri wrote on his Facebook page, according to The Times of Israel.

“Better luck next time, God willing,” Al-Masri wrote, mockingly.

Israeli army searchers founds the bodies of Eyal Yifrach, 19, Gilad Shaar, 16, and Naftali Frankel, 16, buried under rocks in an open field north of Hebron Monday afternoon.

“They were abducted and murdered in cold blood by human animals,” Netanyahu said.

“On behalf of the entire Jewish People, I would like to tell the dear families – the mothers, fathers, grandmothers and grandfathers, and brothers and sisters – we are deeply saddened, the entire nation weeps with you. We will give the boys a proper burial.”

“Vengeance for the blood of a small child, Satan has not yet created,” Netanyahu said, quoting a well-known Israeli poem about pogroms in Kishniev in 1903.

“…neither has vengeance for the blood of three pure youths, who were on their way home to meet their parents, who will not see them anymore. Hamas is responsible – and Hamas will pay. May the memories of the three boys be blessed,” he said in a statement.

Netanyahu has said that Israel has intelligence information directly linking two missing Hamas members to the abduction and deaths of the three, who were heading home on the night of Thursday, June 12, from their yeshiva high school in Gush Etzion, south of Bethlehem when they were seized.

As of 22:00 IST, Israel’s Security Cabinet is in session and deliberating a range of responses, both military and diplomatic, to the grim discovery.

Outgoing President Shimon Peres’ office also released a statement on the discovery of the bodies.

“All of Israel bows its head today,” Peres said.

“For 18 days we hoped and prayed with one voice that we would find the boys safe and well. With this bitter news all of Israel mourns their deaths. Along with our deep sense of loss we remain committed to bringing the terrorists to justice. Our resolve in the fight against terror will only strengthen and we will ensure that murderous terrorism of this sort will not dare to rear its head again.”

President Peres continued, “At this difficult time my thoughts and prayers are with the family. They educated their children with dedication and embedded within them a love of their country.”

Economy and Trade Minister Naftali Bennett said on Facebook that “Murderers of children and those who direct them cannot be forgiven.”

“Now is a time for actions, not words,” Bennett said.

“We’d hoped to bring them home on our shoulders; but instead we’re bringing them home on stretchers,” said Israel Porush, Deputy Mayor of Elad, the Samaria community where Yifrach lived.

Peacemakers, If To Be Successful, Must Have A Partner With Whom They Can Depend To Uphold Their Part Of The Agreement. Neither Peres Or Israel Have One.

From: Commentary Magazine, Jonathan S. Tobin

Peres, Chamberlain, and the Quest for Peace

Shimon Peres’s retirement as Israel’s president will be one more opportunity for journalists to try and sum up a career that has spanned the entire history of his nation. As was true of many other moments when it seemed as if Peres had exited the spotlight for good, eulogies may also be premature today. Peres is planning on using his time in the future to promote various initiatives and may well seek to play the kingmaker of the left in future efforts to topple or replace Benjamin Netanyahu as the country’s prime minister. But since this is almost certainly the end of his time in public office, some appreciation of his impact on Israel is appropriate.

As an Agence France Presse article today noted, at 90, Peres truly can claim the title of “the last of Israel’s founding fathers.” That’s more than an honorific. As that piece pointed out, as an aide to Israel’s first Prime Minister David Ben Gurion, Peres played a significant role in the creation of Israel’s defense establishment and nuclear deterrent. In the 1970s, he was seen as the leader of the more hawkish wing of the Labor Party and supported the building of the first West Bank settlements. That he eventually became the leading figure in the peace movement and the architect of the failed Oslo process and then later left Labor to join Ariel Sharon’s centrist Kadima Party shows not so much his evolution as a thinker as the fact that opportunism can lead a politician, especially one who was considered an indefatigable schemer, all over the place if he hangs around long enough.

Nevertheless, despite decades of varied public service during which he held every major office his country could offer and enough achievements to fill several lifetimes, it is for Oslo and the peace process that Peres will be most remembered. That this, his most important initiative, failed cannot be denied and it is on that failure many will judge him. Yet those who are inclined to damn Peres for his colossal misjudgment of the Palestinians would do well to read Winston Churchill’s 1940 eulogy for Neville Chamberlain, the historical figure to which many of the outgoing Israeli president’s fiercest detractors often compared him.

Churchill despised Chamberlain’s appeasement policies as well as having no great personal affection for his former rival. But the death of the man who had come back from Munich waving a piece paper signed by “Herr Hitler” and saying that he had brought his country “peace for our time” did not cause Churchill to revisit Chamberlain’s obvious mistakes. Churchill was motivated in part by a desire to keep many of Chamberlain’s old supporters in Parliament from causing trouble. He also remembered his predecessor’s loyal service as a subordinate during the first months of his premiership and was moved by Chamberlain’s fortitude in suffering from the illness that took his life. But whatever the reasons for his decision, the great orator chose a different frame of reference for thinking about the great appeaser:

No one is obliged to alter the opinions which he has formed or expressed upon issues which have become a part of history; but at the Lychgate we may all pass our own conduct and our own judgments under a searching review. It is not given to human beings, happily for them, for otherwise life would be intolerable, to foresee or to predict to any large extent the unfolding course of events. In one phase men seem to have been right, in another they seem to have been wrong. Then again, a few years later, when the perspective of time has lengthened, all stands in a different setting. There is a new proportion. There is another scale of values. History with its flickering lamp stumbles along the trail of the past, trying to reconstruct its scenes, to revive its echoes, and kindle with pale gleams the passion of former days. …

It fell to Neville Chamberlain in one of the supreme crises of the world to be contradicted by events, to be disappointed in his hopes, and to be deceived and cheated by a wicked man. But what were these hopes in which he was disappointed? What were these wishes in which he was frustrated? What was that faith that was abused? They were surely among the most noble and benevolent instincts of the human heart-the love of peace, the toil for peace, the strife for peace, the pursuit of peace, even at great peril, and certainly to the utter disdain of popularity or clamour. Whatever else history may or may not say about these terrible, tremendous years, we can be sure that Neville Chamberlain acted with perfect sincerity according to his lights and strove to the utmost of his capacity and authority, which were powerful, to save the world from the awful, devastating struggle in which we are now engaged. This alone will stand him in good stead as far as what is called the verdict of history is concerned.

Like many other journalists who asked Peres about the dangers of the path he was charting for Israel at the height of Oslo euphoria, in 1994 he gave me his standard answer at the time. He said that such questions were like reading the disclaimer on the back of an airline ticket that warned of the possibility of a crash. One had to have faith in the pilot, the plane, and the importance of the destination, he told me, rather than dwell on the negative possibilities. As it turned out, the peace plane he was flying was badly constructed and operated more on his wishes than a grasp of reality, which led to its crash, a result that led to the deaths and injuries of many Israelis.

If Peres has outlasted some of his critics and is still considered popular, he cannot outrun history. But even as we judge him for his mistakes, his detractors must never forget his lifetime of service to Israel or that the real blame for the collapse of Oslo belongs to Yasir Arafat and the culture of Palestinian rejectionism that continues to thwart efforts to end the conflict. Just as that “wicked man” Adolf Hitler cheated Chamberlain, so, too, did Yasir Arafat trick Shimon Peres, Yitzhak Rabin, and all those who cheered the signing of the Oslo Accords. While Shimon Peres, like Chamberlain, must answer for his mistakes, the true blame for the carnage that Oslo wrought belongs to the terrorist, not the would-be peacemaker.

Is Pope Francis' Peace Meeting An Attempt To Restart Peace Talks Or The Latest Attempt To Paint Israel As The Problem?

Vatican Hosts Historic Prayer Summit for Peace in Israel

Posted by: Lea Speyer June 9, 2014 , 11:58 am

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“Pray for the peace of Jerusalem!…” (Psalm 122:6)

The Vatican hosted a historic prayer summit for peace in Israel, attended by Israeli President Shimon Peres and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. (Photo: Chaim Tzach/ GPO)

Pope Francis welcomed Israeli President Shimon Peres and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to the Vatican on Sunday in an attempt to broker peace between Israel and the Palestinians.

Hosting an evening of prayers for peace in Israel, Peres and Abbas joined the pope over a sunset invocation of Jewish, Christian and Muslim prayers. Francis told both leaders that he hoped the prayer summit would mark “a new journey” toward peace.

The Vatican also invited the spiritual leader of the Orthodox Christian church to present a united Christian front in supporting peace in Israel.

The pope urged Israel and the Palestinians to open up dialogue and usher in a new era of coexistence. He invoked the memory of children killed by war and conflict between the two sides to instill patience and strength to bring about peace.

“Peacemaking calls for courage, much more so than warfare,” Francis said. “It calls for the courage to say yes to encounter and no to conflict.”

Vatican officials insisted that the pope had no political agenda in hosting the two leaders. They said that Francis seeks to rekindle the fires of peace and that the meeting holds symbolic significance in restarting failed US-brokered peace talks.

The prayers, which were held in the Vatican gardens alongside St. Peter’s Basilica, incorporated Jewish, Christian and Muslim themes common to each religion. Prayers were delivered in Hebrew, English, Arabic and Italian.

The main themes, as set by the pope, were centered on asking God for peace in Israel, thanking God for creation, and seeking forgiveness to wrongdoings.

At the end of the prayer summit, Francis, Peres and Abbas shook hands and planted an olive tree together as a sign of peace.

The Vatican expects no immediate results from the prayer summit but hopes that the event will help close the divide between Israel and the Palestinians.

“Nobody is fooling themselves that peace will break out in the Holy Land,” stated Father Pierbattista Pizzaballa, head of the Franciscan Order in the Middle East who organized the event.

“But this time to stop and breathe has been absent some time. Not everything is decided by politics,” he added.

Peres, speaking in the Vatican gardens, quoted Psalm 122 in asking for peace in Israel. “Pray for the peace of Jerusalem,” he urged, saying those who love the ancient and holy city will prosper.

Peres, Pope Francis and Abbas in the Vatican Gardens. (Photo: Chaim Tzach/ GPO)

The Israeli president thanked Francis for bearing a “renewed inspiration to trust in heaven, to love the people, and to care for the earth.”

“It is in that spirit that I have come here from Jerusalem, the cradle of three monotheistic religions, and the vibrant heart of the Jewish people. In Hebrew, the word Jerusalem and the word for peace, share the same root – Shalom,” Peres explained.

“And it is with that prayer in our heart and that call to action that we stand together. From Jerusalem, I have come to call for Shalom – Peace. Peace between nations. Peace between faiths. Peace between people. Peace for our children,” he said.

Peres pointed to a command in the Bible which “commands us to walk the peace of peace. It demands of us to toil for its realization.” Quoting further from the Bible, Peres said, “Whoever loves life and desires to see good days, let him turn from evil and do good, seek peace and pursue it.”

“It is a command to pursue peace. All year long. Every day. We greet each other with this blessing. Shalom. Salam. We must be worthy of the deep and demanding meaning of this blessing…Even when peace seems distant, we must pursue it to bring it closer,” Peres said.

“And if we pursue peace with determination, with faith, we will reach it. And it will endure through all of us, as it is written by Isaiah: ‘They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore.’”

Pope's Visit To Israel--Good Optics, Bad Message To Israel. Palestinian "State" And Prayer At Security Wall

Pope Ascends Temple Mount on Last Day in Israel

Posted by: Lea Speyer May 26, 2014 , 10:49 am

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“I lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come? My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth. He will not let your foot be moved; he who keeps you will not slumber. Behold, he who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep. The Lord is your keeper; the Lord is your shade on your right hand.” (Psalm 121:1-8)

Pope Francis seen touching the stones of the Western Wall, Judaism’s holiest site, in Jerusalem’s Old City, on May 26, 2014. Pope Francis is completing a 3-day official visit to Jordan, the West Bank and Israel. (Photo: Nati Shohat/FLASH90)

Pope Francis made his way to Tel Aviv yesterday after meeting with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and holding mass in Bethlehem’s Manger Square on Sunday.

During his visit with Abbas, the pope called for unity between Israel and the “State of Palestine” and said the failure of peace talks was “increasingly unacceptable.” He urged both sides to acknowledge “the right of two states to exist and to live in peace and security within internationally recognized borders.”

While presiding over mass, Pope Francis was interrupted by the Muslim call to prayer from the Mosque of Omar on Manger Square. According to Israel Radio reporter Gal Berger, choral music was turned up to drown out the call to prayer. At one point, Christians in the crowd responded with whistles and shouts.

Army Radio reported that the Muslim calls of “God is Great” in Arabic were met with Christians cheering “Viva Il Papa.”

Upon conclusion of his time in Bethlehem, Pope Francis invited soon to retire Israeli President Shimon Peres and Abbas to the Vatican for prayer for peace. “I offer my home in the Vatican as a place for this encounter for prayer,” the pope stated after mass. Both have accepted the pope’s offer and are expected to meet in June.

Before departing for Tel Aviv, Pope Francis met with Palestinian children. He urged the children to never “abandon hope, and always look forward.” One Palestinian boy told the pope, “Your visit gives up hope. This occupation is a sing against God and man. It deprives the Palestinians of their basic human rights. Let’s all pray for a fair, all-encompassing peace.”

“You don’t solve violence with violence,” he told them. “Peace is achieved with hard work and dignity.”

Upon arrival in Tel Aviv, Pope Francis was welcomed with full honors, including an IDF color guard. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Peres were on hand to welcome the pope to Israel.

Netanyahu told the pope that Israel is “committed to maintaining the status quo at the holy sites of Muslims, Christians and Jews.”

“Our hand is outstretched for peace to anyone who will take it,” the prime minister added.

Pope Francis arrives in Tel Aviv. (Photo: GPO)

Pope Francis thanked Israel for their warm welcome and said that he comes to the Holy Land as a pilgrim. He reiterated his support for a two-state solution and condemned the “brutal” attack “of an anti-Semitic hatred” in Brussels which left three dead, including an Israeli couple on holiday.

The pope spoke about peace between Israel and the Palestinians, highlighting the “universal value” of Jerusalem as a city of peace. He expressed hopes that peace “will become reality, and will not remain a dream.”

The pope ended his first day with a call for Christian unity after meeting with Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I in the Old City of Jerusalem. The meeting marked the 50^th anniversary of the historic meeting between Pope Paul VI and the Eastern Orthodox Ecumenical Patriarch Athenagoras in Jerusalem in 1964.

Pope Francis inspects the IDF Color Guard. (Photo: GPO)

Early Monday morning, Pope Francis made his way to the Temple Mount flanked by armed security officials. The pope was given a tour by the grand mufti of Jerusalem before entering the Al Aqsa mosque.

Grand Mufti Muhammad Ahmad Hussein told the pope that Israel is creating hardships for Palestinians on the Temple Mount. During his speech, Pope Francis responded that the Mount was for “all communities who look to Abraham.”

“May no one abuse the name of God through violence, may we work together for justice and peace,” the pope stated.

Pope Francis putting on his shoes after visiting the Al Aqsa Mosque. (Photo: Vatican TV Screenshot)

After touring the Temple Mount, Pope Francis made his way to the Western Wall and was greeted by Rabbi Shmuel Rabinovitch. The Western Wall Plaza was closed off to the public this morning.

Accompanied by Rabbi Rabinovitch, Pope Francis placed a note in the cracks of the wall, bowing his head and touching the ancient stone. He took some time to pray at one of the holiest sites revered by Jews. After praying, Pope Franics hugged Rabbi Abraham Skorka and Muslim leader Omar Abboud, who are accompanying him on the trip.

Pope Francis, accompanied by Rabbi Rabinovitch, is given a historical tour of the Temple Mount and Western Wall Plaza. (Photo: Vatican TV Screenshot)

(Photo: @MickyRosenfeld/ Twitter)

Pope Francis praying at the Western Wall. (Photo: Vatican TV Screenshot)

After his visit at the Western Wall, the pope visited the grave of Theodor Herzl on Mount Herzel. Pope Francis is the first ever pope to do so and the visit is seen as a nod to Zionism. While on Mount Herzel, the pope made an unplanned visit to a memorial for terror victims. The memorial was inaugurated in 1998 and commemorates terror victims who have died since 1851.

Pope Francis visiting the memorial for terror victims on Mount Herzl. (Photo: @IsraeliPM/ Twitter)

Lastly, before meeting with Israeli leaders, Pope Francis visited Israel’s Holocaust museum, Yad Vashem. While visiting Yad Vashem, which all state dignitaries must visit while in Israel, the pope “rekindled the eternal flame”, laid a wreath and met with six Holocaust survivors.

After meeting with the survivors, a solemn Pope Francis ascended the podium, stood silently for several moment, and began his speech by quoting Genesis: “Adam where are you, where are you, old man? In this memorial of the Shoah we hear this question once again.”

The Pope questioned humanity and asked how it could allow the tragedy of the Holocaust to happen.

“Who corrupted you, who disfigured you, who led you to believe you are the master of good and evil. Not only did you torture your brothers and sisters but you sacrificed them to yourself, because you made yourself a God.”

“Once again in this place we hear this voice of God. Adam, where are you? A great evil has befallen us, as such that has never occurred.”

“Grant us the grace to be ashamed of what men have done, to be ashamed of this massive idolatry. Never again, Lord, never again,” he concluded.

Read more at http://www.breakingisraelnews.com/15636/pope-ascends-temple-mount-last-day-israel/#yoZiypxJfF8RkZF5.99