November 27, 2007
Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin
A mysterious, disembodied hand inscribed those words on a palace wall during a Mideast banquet in 539 B.C. The prophet Daniel, an exiled Jew, was summoned to interpret the message for the Babylonian king, who was engaged in drunken and pagan revelry with goblets removed from the Jerusalem Temple almost 70 years earlier.
President 
Bush drank from a goblet at a Mideast banquet Monday night. Sitting before him were Israeli and Arab leaders who, by morning, would open negotiations in Annapolis to dismantle and destroy the Jewish state. After Bush raised a toast to Israel's enemies Monday, I shuddered at this thought: the finger of God writing in the halls of the Naval Academy (Daniel 5:26-27 interpretation included):
MENE – God has numbered your kingdom, and finished it.
TEKEL – You have been weighed in the balances, and found wanting.
Addendum - News snippets from Annapolis:
• Bush linked Israelis to terrorism in his Tuesday address: "We express our determination to bring an end to bloodshed, suffering and decades of conflict . . . to confront terrorism and incitement, whether committed by Palestinians or Israelis." Mr. Bush, when did a Jew ever lob a Kassam rocket into a Palestinian schoolyard or strap on dynamite to maim and kill neighbors?• Tamar Yonah of Israel National Radio calls the summit a fake and a farce: "We, in Annapolis, are sitting down at a table with wolves. It's a gang rape against Israel. Nobody at this conference likes Israel. Nobody at this conference wants peace with Israel. . . . America is Rome. America, unfortunately, its leaders are Esau (brother of Hebrew patriarch Jacob who settled in Seir, which is present-day Saudi Arabia)."
• "The striking thing about the conference is the weakness of the central participants," writes Noah Pollak at Contentions. "Mahmoud Abbas purports to represent the Palestinians, but arguably is a less authentic representative than Hamas. On the Israeli side, Ehud Olmert, having failed miserably during Israel's war with Lebanon, is hugely unpopular and clings tenuously to power. The spectacle of these two trying to play Sadat and Begin would be funny, if it were not pathetic."
• A day after Bush announced an agreement by Olmert and Abbas to work toward peace, senior Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat waged a war of words against the U.S. president. He said Bush does not negotiate in the Palestinian's name, does not represent them and his words are not relevant to the Palestinian cause, DEBKAfile reported. On the issue of recognizing Israel, he said Bush is not competent to determine how Palestinians act, and if he wants to exchange land he should engage Mexico.
• Michael Freund uses a line from Alice in Wonderland to describe the folly at Annapolis: "Who cares for you? You're nothing but a pack of cards!"
• Palestinian TV airs a Mideast map with the Jewish state missing.
• Yoram Shiftan claims Bush's Road Map is illegal.
• The U.S. sponsored-summit coincided with two record-breaking weather disasters.
• Kassam rockets continue to rain on the Negev. More than 2,000 rockets this year have targeted the Israeli town of Sderot.
• The IDF might send ground forces to clean out terrorists in Gaza, the very land Israel surrendered in 2005 to foster peace (see item below).
Addendum – Overlooked by the media blitz is the fruit of Israel's last peace concession. Jews evicted by force from their Gaza communities in 2005 live in sqaulor. Their beautiful homes and synagogues were demolished. Palestinians now use the land as staging areas for terrorism. A Jewish commentator wrote "the scope of the tremendous Chillul Hashem (desecration of G-d's name) is almost too great for words." Watch what happened in this short video entitled Never Again.