In October of 1998 , Netanyahu capitulated and said he'll give 13 percent  now, hardly any more later and is readying to trade all Golan  for  peace  with Syria, says  ex-army intelligence  chief Sagui. The price was high on President Clinton's part, only  $1.2 billion dollars  to Israel and $500 million  to  Yasser  Arafat. (Tampa Tribune 11.26.98)

In the meantime the Green Party is making inroads and called  for a  global boycott of Bank Hapoalim, which is providing  financing for the controversial, multi-billion dollar Trans-Israel Highway. 300 people died in Tel Aviv last year because of vehicular pollution. An estimated 427 tons of pollution were pumped into the air in  Tel Aviv each year. (The Jerusalem Report 10.26.98)  

A  month  later, in November Israel turned over  to  Palestinians authority control of 220 square miles of the West Bank.

Treason! cried Israeli settlers when the American-brokered  peace deal was reached in the Mideast peace pact, vowing to topple  the premier  for his "betrayal". The pullback would leave up  to  20 communities  stranded in a sea of Arab control.. Stripped of  the religious  right's backing, Netanyahu may be forced to  move  the center  forming a new national unity government with his  liberal adversaries in the Labor Party.

The  one  big unanswered question is what Hamas will do  next.  A centerpiece of the agreement is a pledge by Arafat's  Palestinian Authority  to  crack  down on Islamic militants -  particularly Hamas.  Last night (12.2.98), a report came through  that  Arafat followed up on his pledge, when he cracked down on  them  after another attack on Israelis. Dozens of Hamas have been rounded  up even  before  the agreement was reached in  effort  to dismantle Hamas infrastructure including a network of schools, clinics  and financial institutions. (Tampa Tribune 12.25.98)

Yasser  Arafat  made another visit to the U.S. in  late  November with the question, "when do we open Jerusalem Airport?" He  spoke at  the Palestinian American Congress in Arlington, Virginia.  He was  introduced by a spokesman who reminded the audience  of  his three  million  membered  Palestinian state which  is  missing  a capital: "Jerusalem."

President  Yasser Arafat reassured the listeners  that  Jerusalem would be the capital of independent Palestine on May 4, 1999  and invited  everyone  to come and celebrate the 2000th year  of  the birth  of  Jesus in Palestine with them. He stated  that  he  had negotiated  with all major Christian leaders which  included  his Holiness the Pope, to participate in this international  celebration  and they have agreed. He smiled pleading, ":don't  deprive us."

The  new  agreement was reached in Madrid, Spain  before  it  was brokered in the U.S. and they agreed to split Jerusalem into East and  West Jerusalem with Israelis and Palestinians living  openly side by side in a spirit of peace. A new Middle East in which our children  can  live together in peace, safety and  security  will radiate throughout the whole world.

President  Yasser Arafat was heading for a Donors  Conference  in Washington  D.C. to get wealthy countries to kick in  to  collect some  five billion dollars of business investments in  Palestine. He achieved a response for $3 billion. President Clinton's  offer went  from $100 to $500 million (C-Span 11.29.98/  Tampa  Tribune 11.30.98)

Netanyahu has won some recognition as having an unrivaled  understanding  of the weaknesses of Israel's political system and  has managed to turn these to his advantage at the price of a state of national depression, confusion and helplessness for most of those who live there. In the eyes of a center-left Israeli, the  country's young democracy is headed steadily downhill and the news on election  night was perceived as the murder of a dream. The  two ideals  are  confronting  each other: the model  of  the  modern, Western,  secular state opposing the halakhic  state.  Religious Zionists  speak  of rebuilding the Temple, rather  than  building modern state institutions.

Politics  are  rapidly changing, neutralized by the  Green  Party which is gaining momentum. Jerusalem Mayor Ehud Olmert is on for another  five years, plans to change the Holy  City's historical landscape  beyond  recognition by forty-four  highrises,  ranging from 16 to a skysplitting 62 stories, zigzagging across the  skyline  of  Jerusalem. Jerusalem's historical character  is  under serious threat. At a seminar sponsored by the Rothschild  Foundation, Israeli architect Moshe Safdie warned "there are plans  for Jerusalem  that  will make it unrecognizable."  (taken  from  The Jerusalem Report 11.9.98)

An  Islamic offshoot, a universal religion called Baha'i,  claims five  million  members worldwide, preaches  human  equality  and religious unity, led by Husayn Ali Nuri, is thriving. Husayn  Ali Nuri  has  decided  that Mount Carmel  should  become  a  billion -dollar  center,  Baha'i world headquarters,  for,  according  to them, the world's fastest-growing religion.

Meantime  in  New York a new era: The Conservative  movement  has issued  an  updated guide to spiritual leaders of its  750  North American synagogues and 200 elsewhere the new edition of "Rabbi's Manual" which includes reworked rituals and entirely new ceremonies. The gender-neutral two volumes include a "grieving  ritual" for  couples after an abortion, suggestions for participating  in secular  New  Year's observances and stricter conversion  guidelines.

In  Israel the outcry among the young generation is "just let  us be  Israeli. We are not the enemy. We are not the threat. We  are battling to into the circle, not out of it."
Then  there  is  still the matter of the Temple.  To  bring  more confusion,  a maverick researcher has come along and claims  that the  Temple  lay below the Temple Mount plaza of  today,  is  not where  it has presumed to be all these years. That discovery  has an effect on the Western Wall which is supposedly part  of  the second  Temple.  Tuvia Sagiv has archaeologists in  dispute  with himself when he claims that the Western Wall is part of a Temple of  Jupiter built later by Hadrian. Tuvia Sagiv was  curious  and had  no intention of trying to destroy any myth, but spent  years solving the world's most volatile historic question.

Tuvia Sagiv took up iconoclasm during a mid 80s stint of  reserve duty. Privately he began asking himself questions about the Tombs of  the Patriarchs and they didn't seem to line up with  ancient sources  and eventually came to the conclusion that the  Tomb  we know today is really an Edomite sanctuary which has nothing to do with the Jews, which led him to wonder about the Temple. The Jews probably  wanted to fool the Arabs about the tomb why  not  about the  Temple.  Archaeologists state that if you ask  100  scholars you'll get 101 different opinions.

One  of Sagiv's arguments is the transportation of water  to  the Temple  via  an  aqueduct that would be  descending  rather  than ascending up Mt. Moriah. He used Josephus' descriptions and found that  the  size of today's Temple plaza is much bigger  than  the original second Temple.

The Arabs, Sagiv asserts, built Al-Aqsa and the Dome of the  Rock on  the  ruins of the pagan sanctuary - believing it  to  be  the "Temple  of Solomon." Tuvia produces a floor plan of  the  Muslim shrines  and  another,  on a transparency,  of  the  second-third century temple to Jupiter at Baalbek, in today's Lebanon.  Drawn to  the  same scale, it shows a rectangular hall and  a  hexagon. Putting  one plan on top of the other: They line up, proving, he believes,  that they come from the same period.  "That's  coincidence?" he says quietly. "It's like it's the same architect."  He goes on to state: "I looked for non-intrusive methods" of  studying the Temple Mount. "Infrared gives amazing results." He showed the  pictures of the Temple Mount that have the fuzzy look  of  a fetal  ultrasound.  Four  thick subterranean lines  can  be  seen between the Muslims shrines.

There  are people who want to blow up the Dome of the  Rock.  "It could  start World War III.. I don't know how  much  intelligence know,  but  the ground's on fire." Every theory of  the  Temple's precise  location on the Mount geography is weak,  because  "it's based  on the Mount geography of today." Researchers  have  major problems  with  his findings because the Roman street  that  runs along the Wall had 350 coins on the paving stones and not one was dated  later  than the end of the Great  Revolt.  That's  precise evidence that the street was used until "the ninth of Av in 3830" -  the date of the Temple's destruction, in 70 CE. And,  he  adds everything  was covered by stones that fell from above  when  the Temple was destroyed. (The Jerusalem Report 11.23.98)

Tuvia  just needed to look in the Bible to get  conclusive  proof that the Western Wall is not part of the Temple. Jesus said  that not  one stone would be left upon another, meaning it would  all be taken down.

A  new  attempt is being made to give birthrights back  to  young Jews  by promoting being Jewish. A new program will be  announced that  will  pay for a 10-day trip to Israel for any Jew  in  the world  between ages of 15 and 26. This is an attempt  to  rebuild religious identity among young Jews, who are marrying  none-Jews and  abandoning the faith in large numbers. The  program,  Birthright  Israel, is expected to cost $300 million over  five years and is to be financed by the Israeli government, a group of major Jewish donors from North America and the Council of Jewish Federations. Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu announced the program to the  General  Assembly of the Council of  Jewish  Federation.  It reopens  the question of "who is a Jew." The program is  to  mend the  disunity  that has evolved out of  peace  negotiations.  The Jewish  population  outside of Israel is about  8 million,  will decline  to 4 million in the next 30 years because  of  intermarriages. Their children do not remain Jewish. (from Tampa  Tribune 11.22.98)