SEEKING AN ACT OF KINDNESS ON TISHA B'AV

In the past two weeks we have heard about everyone and everything except Gilad Shalit, Ehud Goldwasser, and Eldad Regev.

We have heard about the Israeli incursion into Gaza....
We have heard about Qassam rockets again hitting Sderot these past few days....
We have heard that Hezbollah is ready to take on Israel at any time....
We have heard that the UN forces in southern Lebanon would fire on Israel to "stop a war"....
We have heard of the release of 256 FATAH members, gifts to Abu Mazen (a.k.a. Mahmud Abbas)....
We have heard about sexual scandals and financial scandals in Israel's Government....
We have heard emphatically that Olmert will not leave Government....
We have heard that now is the time to negotiate "peace" with FATAH, and with Syria, too (ergo, it is time to surrender Golan, Samaria, Judea, and East Jerusalem)....
We have heard about the attempted theft of Ismail Haniyeh's shoes during prayer in a Mosque....
We have heard Israel spurn overtures from Ismail Haniyeh of HAMAS....
We have heard about Tony Blair's arrival in Israel, intending to operate from the Government House (from which the British ruled 'Palestine' before WW2)....

MAY TONY BLAIR BE ENLIGHTENED to seek more suitable quarters than Government House or the King David Hotel, neither of which recall wonderful memories of British Occupation. If a message of "occupation" is what Tony Blair has in mind (implying that just as Israel hates occupation, so do the 'Palestinians'), then it is at best an oblique message and at worst it is an insinuating, insulting way of pushing a highly loaded, controversial agenda and viewpoint (which agenda and viewpoint lack controversy only to those, who hold to that particular bias, which Mr. Blair is presumably in Israel to represent).

MR. BLAIR, when on July 25 the SUMMIT commences, place one and only one item on the agenda - that Gilad Shalit, Eldad Regev, and Ehud Goldwasser be released from their nightmare of captivity!

MR. ISMAIL HANIYEH, I offer myself in place of Gilad Shalit, that Gilad Shalit be returned home to his mother and father....

MAY THE ONE GOD BLESS AND INSPIRE ISMAIL HANIYEH to a simple and great act of kindness, as we of Israel enter the Fast of Tisha B'Av, and release Gilad Shalit (and even inspire Nasrallah of Hezbollah to release Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser).

MAY GOD HAVE MERCY on Gilad Shalit, Eldad Regev, Ehud Goldwasser, and on all Benei Ismail and Benei Itzak.

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07/24/07 - ADDENDUM TO ABOVE POST

Today is Tisha B'Av. In Israel Tisha B'Av is already almost concluded as I write. In the USA there is much of the day yet to go. Those are fasting, who can, and who in addition to the Beth HaMikdash, have the names Gilad Shalit, Eldad Regev, and Ehud Goldwasser in mind.

May the captors of these men immediately show at least the great mercy of proof beyond doubt that all three men are alive and well and that their imminent freedom is not even a question! May there be peace and not war, even for one day!

May this day conclude with happy miraculous news!