Riyad, the capital of Saudi Arabia, has been discussing the procurement of up to 72 advanced F-15 fighters. The Saudi order could include the purchase of Boeing’s latest stealth design for the F-15, known as the Silent Eagle.

The U.S. defense Web site “Buzz,” citing industry and defense sources, reported that the U.S. Defense Department would approve any Saudi request for the F-15. The Pentagon’s Defense Security Cooperation Agency, which processes requests for major weapons procurement, has not confirmed the Saudi interest.

Boeing has reported interest by Israel and Saudi Arabia of the F-15 Silent Eagle, which remains in the design stage. The Silent Eagle was meant to comprise an F-15E platform modified to reduce its radar signature. The platform would also contain internal conformal fuel tanks.

Saudi Arabia has been operating about 150 F-15s, procured in deals with the United States in the 1970s and 1990s.

In 2008, Riyad received approval for Joint Direct Attack Munitions tail kits for the F-15 fleet.

Riyad has sought to modernize its F-15 fleet as well as bolster defense relations with the United States. The Saudis have also been preparing for the first deliveries of the Eurofighter Typhoon, a multi-role combat fighter, as part of an $8.9 billion deal with BAE Systems, a global defense, security and aerospace company.

Yes, the time has come to confess my sit, with my mitt and scorecard in hand, at the tender age of 14.

You see, I grew up in Philadelphia, a place where the Phillies never won. Prayers never helped.

1964 came, the year after my Bar Mitzvah, when our Rabbis taught us that it was now up to me to keep the commandments of God.

During that momentous year after my bar mitzvah, when our traditions have it that we pray as adults and that God listens intently to our prayers, the Phillies looked like they were going to win.

I put in a special prayer for the Phillies on the first day of Rosh Hashanah, 1964, reciting an incantation of the Phillies lineup and pitching rotation, adding special prayers for the Phillies bullpen when the Holy Ark was open for divine intercession.

It was on the second day of Rosh Hashanah, however, that I made a radical decision: to depart on a personal pilgrimage to Connie Mack Stadium.

The escape to the holy baseball grounds was well planned. Soon after I heard the Shofar Ram’s Horn being sounded to call for repentance, I quietly moved to the back of the schule, feigning a tummy ache to my little brother and sister.

I had five crisp one dollar bills that wouldn’t jingle in my pocket, saved from my summer paper route, violating the Jewish tradition of not carrying money on the holiday.

I had thought of everything: My Phillies Hat was even in my Tallis Prayer shawl bag.

Like Moses who had just killed the Egyptian, I looked this way and that, and saw no one in my way from the men’s room exit, and left a place of worship to quietly ascend a PTC bus to 69th street and ascend even higher to the heights of the Market Street subway and then on to the Broad Street Subway.

Wearing my bar mitzvah suit, the destined arrival was Connie Mack Stadium, at 21st and Lehigh, in time great unreserved seats behind home plate.

I clutched my Machzor Rosh Hashanah prayer book together with my score card.

The Phillies were playing the hapless Mets.

In the Fifth inning, time of afternoon mincha prayers back at the synagogue, Frank Thomas, the Phillies much-needed right handed power whom they had recently acquired, was on first. Thomas suddenly sprinted to second base on an infield ground ball, sliding head first into second base, breaking his thumb. Sliding into second base? Hmm…That never happens…

The play by play by former Phillie Whiz Kid Center Fielder Richie Ashburn was very loud on a transistor radio near by. Richie announced that Thomas would be out for the season. Richie Ashburn was the Phillies star turned Phillies announcer who died in 1997. He had been a Whiz Kid in the last Phillies victory during the year of my birth in 1950 and seemed to represent the glorious past and promising present of the Phillies.

In the end, the Phillies lost that day. This was only a sign of things to come. On Yom Kippur, 12 games left in the left in the season. six and a half games ahead, the Phillies began a ten game losing streak and lost the pennant,

I made it back to synagogue for the concluding Maariv service at Overbrook Park Congregation… Or that is at least what I told my mother.

Everything that could go wrong in those ten days of judgement went wrong for the Phillies

Perhaps I had jinxed the Phillies, by leaving the synagogue the second day of Rosh Hashanah.

By Yom Kippur, there was no joy in Philly mudville.

I remember the great despondency when the Sukkot Feast of Tabernacles occurred in early October, when the Yankees of Mickey Mantle, Roger Maris, Yogi Berra and Whitey Ford did not face our holy Phillies.

So I phoned a call in show on WCAU, then the CBS affiliate in Philly, to ask Richie Ashburn what had gone wrong.

Ashburn gave me an answer that I felt like a reproach for going to the ball game on second day Rosh Hashanah.

Richie said that a great lesson is never to be overconfident and not to do things that you shouldn’t do.

He was referring to Phillie manager Gene Mauch overplaying his star pitchers, Jim Bunning and Chris Short, whom he played with only two days rest at the end of the season…

Yet, at age 14, coming into an age where I was supposed to observe God’s commandments, I thought that he was referring to my mistaken pilgrimage to Connie Mack stadium on a day that was supposed to be devoted to prayer.

Forgive me, dear Philly fans of yesteryear, if my shortsighted trek of 1964 may have angered God in some way.

Last year as dawn struck early in the morning of the new Hebrew month of Heshvan the holy city of Jerusalem, word came forth of a Phillies World Series Victory.

Phillie fanatics in the Holy Land promptly cited the traditional Hallel prayer of thanksgiving, that is reserved for the new month, and, of course, dedicated to thanking the Lord for bequeathing a victory to the Phillies, 44 years after the disaster that befell our fallen Phillies in 1964.

Was this a sign of Messiah? Will he be riding on a white donkey from the dugout in Cooperstown?

Bassam Abu Sharif, a former senior advisor to late President Yasser Arafat, added his voice to a chorus of those raising the possibility of a third Intifada, or uprising against Israel. “The Palestinians are preparing themselves to carry out another Intifada of 
independence and freedom in response to Israeli violations, massacres and 
policies against the Palestinians and their land, against Jerusalem, the confiscation of land and the geographic separation of the Palestinian 
territories,” said the former Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) 
spokesperson in a press conference in Ramallah, Israel as reported by Maan, the Palestinian news agency.

Mr. Abu Sharif said Palestinians will not remain silent in the face of “Israeli 
violations” and the “failure” of peace talks.

“The Palestinians are working to establish a fully sovereign state on the 
land, sea and airspace in accordance with UN Security Council Resolution 242, which has not been implemented since it was issued 42 years ago,” he 
said, even though the UN security council resolution 242 says nothing about land, sea and air space.

Mr. Abu Sharif urged Hamas and Fatah movements to sideline their partisan 
interests for the sake of the Palestinian cause. In that spirit, PLO head Machmud Abbas reiterated his call to the Hamas terrorist organization to join the Palestinian Authority governing body.

The Bulletin asked the US consulate in Jerusalem for comment on the fact that Mr. Abbas was courting Hamas at a time when the United States has been training the Palestinian Authority to fight the Hamas. No comment from the United States consulate was forthcoming.