A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey finds that
62% of Likely U.S. Voters believe most Christians living in the Islamic
world are treated unfairly because of their religion. Just 17% disagree,
while 21% more are undecided. (To see survey question wording, click here.)
...
By comparison, 39% feel most Muslims living in the United States are treated unfairly because of their religion. That’s up from 31% last year and is the highest finding in surveys to date.
A plurality (46%) still believes Muslims are not treated unfairly because of their faith, while 15% more are not sure.
Fifty-six percent (56%) of Democrats, however, believe most Muslims in
this country are mistreated, a view shared by only 22% of Republicans
and 39% of voters not affiliated with either major party. Fewer
Democrats (47%) think most Christians are mistreated in the Islamic
world, compared to 76% of GOP voters and 64% of unaffiliateds.
And for those who think women are smarter... they're not - at least when they're Democrats.
Women are more likely than men to think most American Muslims are
mistreated here but less likely to believe Christians are mistreated in
the Islamic world.
Unbelievable....
By the way, note that no one talks about mistreatment of Jews despite study after study that shows that attacks on Jews due to their religion far exceed attacks on persons of any other religion.
Orthodox Rabbis call on US government to save historic Middle East Christian communities
In a Wall Street Journal editorial, two Orthodox rabbis, Rabbi Abraham Cooper and Rabbi Yitzchok Adlerstein of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles, have called on the United States government to step up and save the ancient Christian communities of the Middle East, which are now threatened with extinction.
Islamist terror attacks like the ones in Paris
and San Bernardino, Calif., have underlined the need for more and better vetting
of refugees from the Middle East who seek safety in the U.S. But with tens of
thousands pushing at the gate, who should to get first preference?
In our view, as rabbis, any immediate admissions
should focus on providing a haven for the remnants of historic Christian
communities of the Middle East. Christians in Iraq and Syria have been suffering
longer than other groups, and are fleeing not just for safety but because they
have been targeted for extinction. In a region strewn with desperate people,
their situation is even more dire. Christians (and Yazidis, ethnic Kurds who
follow a pre-Islamic religion) have long been targeted by Muslim groups—not only
Islamic State, or ISIS—for ethnic cleansing. Churches have been burned, priests
arrested.
In the worst cases, Christians have been
tortured, raped and even crucified. Mosul, Iraq, which was home to a Christian
population of 35,000 a decade ago, is now empty of Christians after an ISIS
ultimatum that they either convert to Islam or be executed. In Syria, Gregorios
III Laham, the Melkite Greek Catholic Patriarch of the Church of Antioch, said
in 2013 that “entire villages” have been “cleared of their Christian
inhabitants.”
Unlike some others, Middle East Christians have
nowhere else to go. As a result of turmoil not of their making and beyond their
control, these Christians are the region’s ultimate homeless. Should some sort
of peace ever return, the likelihood is that maps will be redrawn, carving up
the pie among larger ethnic groups. There will be no place for Christians among
hostile Muslim populations.
The animosity toward Christians is illustrated
by a horrific incident earlier this year off the Italian coast. In April,
Italian police investigating events on a boat that had departed from Libya said
12 Christian refugees who were attempting to cross the sea to Europe were thrown
overboard by Muslim migrant passengers, and drowned.
The U.S. can do much good for Christian
refugees. Their religious heritage establishes an important basis of commonality
in the many Christian communities in our country.
When Secretary of State John Kerry
announced in September that the U.S. will accept as many as 100,000 refugees by
2017, many of them Syrian, the State Department provided a list of more than 300
agencies in 190 locations that would assist on the local level. Of those
agencies, no less than 215 are Christian. It makes sense to play to the
strengths of those agencies.
Unfortunately, the Obama administration seems to disagree.
Tragically, present policy does not take into
account the uniquely precarious situation of displaced Christians. Instead of
receiving priority treatment, Christians are profoundly disadvantaged. For
instance, the State Department has accepted refugees primarily from lists
prepared by the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner on Refugees, which oversees
the large camps to which refugees have flocked, and where they are registered.
Yet endangered Christians do not dare enter those camps.
George Carey, the former Archbishop of
Canterbury, wrote in the Telegraph in Britain in September that a similar
protocol in the U.K. “inadvertently discriminates against the very Christian
communities most victimised by the inhuman butchers of the so-called Islamic
State. Christians are not to be found in the UN camps, because they have been
attacked and targeted by Islamists and driven from them.”
But the world is too busy focusing on the 'Palestinians,' who themselves have driven Christians out of towns like Bethlehem. Where are the Christian demonstrators on behalf of their brethren in the Middle East? Darned if I know.
Levin's description of Obama trying to 'protect the Muslim faith' strikes the perfect balance between (largely unsubstantiated) claims that Obama is actually a Muslim and Obama's claim that he's a Christian. This is really spot-on.
"No country in the region - including Iran - is as homogenous in terms
of Islam as Turkey," says writer Cengiz Aktar. "It's a mono-colour
country - it's a Muslim country."
After the Turkish Republic was born in 1923, it carried out a
"population exchange" with Greece to create more ethnic and religious
consistency. More than a million Greeks were forced out of Turkey to
Greece while around 300,000 Muslims from Greece were relocated here.
The Greeks of Istanbul were initially saved but after a
crippling wealth tax, anti-Greek pogroms in 1955 and mass expulsions in
1964, the Greek community was left in tatters. And so was the Orthodox
Christianity they practised.
...
"The ethnic cleansing of these non-Muslim minorities was a huge
brain drain," says Mr Aktar, who has created a new exhibition on the
loss of the Greeks here.
"It also meant the disappearance of the bourgeoisie because
not only were they wealthy but they were artisans. Istanbul lost its
entire Christian and Jewish heritage."
...
It was not just the exodus of the Greeks that hit Christianity here.
Armenians were the other large Christian community. Hundreds
of thousands were deported in 1915. They were either killed or died from
starvation and disease. The label "genocide" is rejected by the Turkish
state. From a population of two million Armenians, around 50,000 remain
today.
...
"Most of the believers hide their cross inside their shirt. They
can't open it and walk freely on the street because they could prompt a
reaction. I don't want to say all the Turkish population is against
Christianity but nationalism is so high that people are afraid to
express themselves."
That is now the worry among the Christian minority here: that
Turkish Muslim nationalism has grown under the Islamist-rooted
government of Recep Tayyip Erdogan, prime minister for 11 years before
being elected president last August.
After Wednesday night's terror attack in which Yehuda Glick, an advocate of Jewish prayer rights on the Temple Mount, was shot and seriously wounded, the Israel Police announced on Thursday that no one would be allowed on the Temple Mount.
Since the 'cease fire' came into effect at 9:00 am, Hamas has fired more than 35 rockets at Israel, including rockets that hit as far away as Haifa. Is anyone really surprised?
Code Red rocket alert sirens sounded in several western Negev
communities bordering Gaza , as well as in Ashdod, Ashkelon, Kiryat
Malachi and Gan Yavne. The rocket fired then moved north to Rehovot,
Ness Ziona and Rishon Lezion. The IDF was still checking the source of
Code Red sirens that went off shortly afterward in Binyamina , Zichron
Ya'akov and the Haifa area.
One of the rockets landed in the courtyard of a house in Ashdod,
while another rocket hit a warehouse in the Sha'ar Hanegev Regional
Council. No injuries were reported in the attacks.
The Iron Dome
intercepted several rockets over Ashdod and at least one in Netivot. A
soldier was lightly wounded by shrapnel in Sderot.
Hamas took responsibility for the rocket fire.
The
IDF stated that the government had instructed it to refrain from
responding to the rocket attacks as part of the ceasefire deal.
...
The
IDF said just after noon on Tuesday that 35 rockets had been fired into
Israel from Gaza since Israel accepted the ceasefire initiative.
...
Diplomatic officials said the security cabinet's decision to halt the
operation at this point will give Israel international legitimacy to
continue with widespread military action if Hamas does not stop its
rocket attacks.
אין שלום, אין בטחון, ביבי כשלון.
(There is no peace, there is no security, Bibi is a failure).
Twisting the law of return: Messianic 'rabbi' establishes law firm to help Messianics immigrate to Israel
The former 'spiritual leader' of the largest messianic congregation in the United States has immigrated to Israel and opened a law firm (as a 'foreign lawyer,' which means he doesn't have to be admitted to the bar here) in Petach Tikva to help Messianic 'Jews' to immigrate to Israel under the law of return.
Infamous
U.S. Christian leader "rabbi "Jamie Cowen, who managed to make aliyah
in 2011, has changed his name to Cohen and established the messianic law
firm Cohen, Pex and Brosh, with its main branch in Petach Tikvah.
The Messianic Times reports that the law firm is comprised solely of "dedicated followers of Yeshua the Messiah" but as of this writing, none of that appears on the Cohen, Pex and Brosh website.
Before immigrating to Israel, Jamie Cowen was the charismatic leader of the large Christian messianic congregation, Tikvat Israel, in Richmond Virginia. Dedicated to evangelizing the Jewish people, Cowen served for several years as president of The Union of Messianic Jewish Congregations(UMJC) and is currently listed as a member of the Messianic Jewish Rabbinical Council.
As mentioned, as of this writing, none of Cowen's "messianic" background information appears on attorney Jamie Cohen's profile, as seen on his firm's website (although there is mention of his studies at a Catholic University and school of theology).
What is featured prominently in the law firm's section under Areas of Practice is "Immigration to Israel":
"All issues of immigration to Israel: Aliyah according to the Law of Return – 1950. Permanent residency. Temporary Residency. Work Visas. Student visas. Tourist visas. Volunteer visas. Clergy visas. International Refugee Law according to the UN convention (Asylum seekers)."
This is of major concern to Jews worldwide but especially in Israel. A number of evangelical/messianic lawyers in Israel have put interpreting the Law of Return to favor messianic Christian aliyah at the top of their agenda, and they are making inroads. In fact, another Israeli messianic law office, the Jerusalem Institute of Justice (JIJ), has recently issued pro-bono advice, which is being widely disseminated online and in email, geared for the throngs of believing Christians who want to make Aliyah. This will be the subject of JewishIsrael’s next report.
A few comments: First, I have nothing against Christians. I have nothing against Christians supporting Israel. I have written dozens of posts defending Christians from persecution. I have a lot against Christians who try to proselytize Jews.
Second, the law of return is meant to facilitate Jewish immigration to Israel - not anyone else's. After all, this is (supposed to be) the only Jewish state in the world. 40 years ago, in what might have been the last chance to enact a specific definition in the law of return of 'Who is a Jew,' the National Religious Party (forerunner of today's 'Jewish Home') asked Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik zt"l (may the memory of the righteous be a blessing) whether they should insist on adding the word 'k'halacha' to the law of return as a condition to their entering Yitzchak Rabin's first government. He told them that they should not enter the government without that condition. They ignored him (as a teenager growing up in Boston, the story got around quite quickly...). As a result, the law is ambiguous about who is allowed to immigrate to Israel under the law of return, and we are now paying the price (isn't it ironic that even an Orthodox convert to Judaism has to jump through hoops to immigrate here, but Messianic Christians are allowed to immigrate under the law of return?). This is an illustration of why the Haredim argue that you have to listen to your rabbis....
Third, as to my comment about the 'foreign lawyer' designation: For years, lawyers have been pressing the organized bar to allow us to partner with foreign lawyers. Within the last year, the bar, in its infinite wisdom, has allowed foreign lawyers who are not admitted to the bar here to hold themselves out as lawyers. Just like Cowen is doing. Israeli lawyers, on the other hand, are still forbidden to share their fees with 'non-lawyers,' with term lawyer being defined as - you guessed it - anyone who is admitted to the Israeli bar.
Habash told Wafa news agency that the agreement outlined coordination
for the protection of all Islamic and Christian holy sites in Jerusalem.
The agreement confirmed Jordan's historic role in protecting
sacred sites in Jerusalem, Habash said. It also confirmed Palestinian
sovereignty over all of Palestine, including its capital East Jerusalem,
the minister added.
But I guess that the 'Palestinians' don't consider Jerusalem to be a holy site for Christians, a position I suspect that many Christians would dispute.
Israeli police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld told Ma'an that forces
arrested six Palestinians in the compound for throwing stones at groups
of Jewish and Christian visitors.
The compound is the third holiest site in Islam. It is known as the Temple Mount to Jews and is Judaism's most sacred site.
I received a message from a colleague alerting me to Ravid’s piece in Haaretz
condemning Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for radicalizing
“his traditional Christmas greeting into an attack on Muslims in Arab
countries.”
Whoah, that’s a serious charge.
Apparently, in his Christmas greeting, Netanyahu made the
unforgivable sin of stating the obvious: That Christian populations are
shrinking and are in danger in the Middle East.
Netanyahu then added
salt to the wound and reminded his listeners that Christians are safe in
Israel.
According to Ravid, “Netanyahu did not specify in his greeting who is threatening to annihilate the Christians, but it’s clear from the wording that he means the Muslims.”
Earth to Barak Ravid: Netanyahu didn’t have to say who was threatening the annihilation of the Christians because we already know.
Unless they’ve been living under a rock for the past few years, most
Christians know that Muslim extremists throughout the Middle East have
been attacking Christians on a regular basis for the past few years.
Their churches have been bombed. Their pastors kidnapped, held for
ransom and killed.
And moderate Muslims and secularists in the region do not have the
power necessary to stop the attacks on their Christian neighbors. They
can’t even defend themselves.
Read the whole thing. Van Zile is right. Israel's Left probably has the most active Jewish guilt complex in the world.
Christmas has become an occasion to bash Israel because Christians are fleeing Bethlehem. Leaving aside the fact that Israel is the only country in the Middle East in which the Christian population has grown over the last 50 years, it's simply not Israel's fault that Christians are leaving Bethlehem or any other city (Ramallah used to have a large Christian population) in Judea and Samaria.
In a particularly vicious piece of this genre in al-Guardian, Harriet Sherwood tries to create the impression that Christians are leaving Bethlehem because Jews are setting up 'settlements' on abandoned plots of land across the city line in Jerusalem, thereby 'choking' Bethlehem.
Amid plastic bags snagged on gorse bushes, rusting hulks of cars in a
breakers yard and a few shabby trailers, traces of a biblical landscape
are still to be found on a hillside between the ancient cities of
Jerusalem and Bethlehem. A couple of donkeys are tethered to a gnarled
olive tree; nearby, sheep and goats bleat as they huddle against the
chill December air.
But this terrain will soon be covered in
concrete after the authorisation last week of the construction of more
than 2,600 homes in Givat Hamatos, the first new Israeli settlement to
be built since 1997.
It lies between two existing settlements:
Gilo, home to 40,000 people, sits atop one hill; to its east, on another
hill, stands Har Homa, whose population is around 20,000, with further
expansion in the pipeline. Both are largely built on Bethlehem land.
Givat
Hamatos will form a strategic link between these twin towns, further
impeding access between Bethlehem and the intended capital of Palestine,
East Jerusalem, just six miles away. Israel
considers these and other settlements across the Green Line to be
legitimate suburbs of Jerusalem, which it claims as the unified,
indivisible capital of the Jewish state. Prime minister Binyamin
Netanyahu and official bodies have announced a spate of expansion plans
in recent weeks.
In the birthplace of Jesus, the impact of Israeli
settlements and their growth has been devastating. In a Christmas
message, the Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas said Bethlehem was
enduring a "choking reality".
He added: "For the first time in 2,000 years of Christianity
in our homeland, the Holy Cities of Bethlehem and Jerusalem have been
completely separated by Israeli settlements, racist walls and
checkpoints."
By the way, when Christianity started in this area, it started in Israel during the existence of the Jewish Temple which is denied by Abu Bluff.
But it's also important to point out that much of the land in question has actually been owned by Jews since long before 1948. Take Gilo, for instance.
The majority of Gilo, however, is built on
land legally purchased by Jews prior to 1948. In the 1948 war, Jewish
lands in Gilo were captured and confiscated by the Jordanian government.
From 1948-67, Jewish landowners did not relinquish ownership to their
land in Gilo, and when Israel recaptured the land in the Six-Day War,
Gilo was built - not because of war victories, but because of
longstanding legal land purchases.
Gilo lies within Jerusalem's
municipal boundaries and is geographically contiguous to surrounding
Jewish neighborhoods that pre-dated the 1967 reunification of the city.
You could never figure that out from reading Harriet Sherwood, could you?
Then there's the inevitable discussion of 'the wall.'
The wall already snakes around most of Bethlehem, its 8m-high
concrete slabs casting a deep shadow, both literally and metaphorically.
At the Christmas Tree restaurant, where there are almost no takers for
the "Quick Lunches" on offer, business has slowed to a standstill since
the wall blocked what was once the main Jerusalem-Bethlehem road. Scores
of shops along the closed-off artery have shut down altogether.
A
few hundred metres along from the empty restaurant, a long steel-caged
corridor leading through multiple turnstiles to a checkpoint is the main
exit from the city for Palestinians wishing to go to Jerusalem. The
Israel Defence Forces issues thousands of extra permits to Christian
Palestinians to allow them to visit holy sites in Jerusalem over
Christmas, but the lack of routine access has had a dire impact on
businesses and employment rates.
The 'wall' (which is really nothing more than a fancy fence in much of
the country) is there because it has reduced terror attacks outside it
by a huge percentage over the last four years despite the fact that it
is not yet complete. The reason
it's a wall and not a fence in the Bethlehem area is because
'Palestinian' terrorists used Bethlehem's suburbs to shoot at the Jews
of the Jerusalem suburb of Gilo during the early part of this decade,
and that in Gilo they also have a wall where the 'Palestinian' gunfire
most often hit. It's much easier to shoot through a fence than it is to
shoot over a wall, although shooting over a wall is also not impossible.
Just go visit Gaza.
But the most vicious libel here is the implicit one that Israel is somehow responsible for the declining Christian population. That's an out-and-out lie.
Since
assuming control in 1995, Arafat has Islamized Bethlehem by changing
the municipal boundaries of Bethlehem and its twin towns Beit Jallah and
Beit Sahour. Together, they used to constitute the Christian enclave in
Judea and Samaria. Arafat transformed the demography there by
incorporating into the town three neighboring refugee camps, Dehaisheh,
El-Ayda and El-Azeh. Thus 30,000 Muslims were added to the 65,000
residents in Bethlehem's municipal boundaries. He intensified the
Islamization of Bethlehem by adding to its population a few thousand
Bedouins of the Ta'amrah tribe, located east of Bethlehem, encouraging
Muslim immigration from Hebron to Bethlehem, and inducing Christian
emigration/flight away from Bethlehem. The Christian population has been
reduced from a 60% majority in 1990 to a 20% minority (23,000) in 2001.
As
a result, more Beit Jallah Christians reside in Belize (Central
America) than are left in Beit Jallah itself! A similar process has also
afflicted the Christians of Ramallah, now down to 20,000.
Aware
of what was likely to happen under Arafat, Christian leaders had sought
to prevent the transfer of Bethlehem to the Palestinian Authority.
Between the 1993 signing of the Oslo Accords and the 1995 transfer of
Bethlehem to the PA, Palestinian Christians lobbied Israel against the
transfer. The late Christian mayor, Elias Freij, warned that it would
result in Bethlehem becoming a town with churches but no Christians. He
urged Israel to include Bethlehem in the boundaries of Greater
Jerusalem, which had been the Jordanian practice until 1967. On July 17,
2000, upon realizing that then Prime Minister Barak recklessly proposed
to repartition Jerusalem, the leaders of the Greek-Orthodox, Latin, and
Armenian Churches sent a letter to Clinton, Barak, and Arafat,
demanding to be consulted before such action was undertaken. Barak's
proposal triggered a flood of requests for Israeli I.D. cards by East
Jerusalem Arabs, who dreaded PA rule with its oppressive track record.
Setting
out to "religiously cleanse" Bethlehem, in 1995 Arafat, defying
tradition, slapped Christians in the face by appointing a Muslim from
Hebron, Muhammed Rashad A-Jabari, as its governor. Arafat fired the
Bethlehem city council (nine Christians and two Muslims) replacing them
with a council equally balanced between Christians and Muslims. The
entire top level of bureaucratic, security and political officials have
been cleansed of Christians. The area is run by the local Muslim Fatah
leader and his thugs, along with Tanzim gunmen, mostly Ta'amrah
Bedouins. The PA has seized control of the Church of the Nativity, and
has tightened the pressure on the Greek-Orthodox, Armenian, Latin,, and
Franciscan Order in East Jerusalem. The Abraham's Oak Russian Holy
Trinity Monastery in Hebron was seized by the PA on July 5, 1997, which
then violently evicted its monks and nuns.
In addition, Arafat
and the PA embarked on a campaign of physical and psychological
intimidation of Christians. During anti-Israel PA rallies the chant is
heard: "After we do away with the Saturday People, we shall take care of
the Sunday People." Mosques have mushroomed adjacent to--and usually
taller than--churches, implementing the tradition of Saladin, who
constructed two taller mosques, Al Khanqa and Abdul Malek, contiguous to
the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. The curriculum at church schools has
been altered, adding Islamic--and reducing Christian--studies. Loudly
magnified Muslim sermons have been aired during Christian services,
including the April 2000 address by the Pope in Bethlehem, which had to
be recessed until the purposely-loud Muslim sermon was concluded.
Abusing Church tradition, the PA has transformed a Greek Orthodox
monastery, located next to the Church of Nativity, into Arafat's
official residence in Bethlehem.
...
There has been
congressional testimony on Arafat's oppression of Christians. According
to former Senator Connie Mack (R-FL), "[The Palestinian Christian] was
arrested and detained [by the PA] on charges of selling land to Jews. He
denied the charge, since he owned no land. He was beaten and hung from
the ceiling by his hands for many hours. After two weeks, he was
transferred to a larger prison where he was held for eight months
without trial... These Christians conveyed to me a message of fear and
desperation." (Senate speech, March 3, 2000,
www.senate.gov/~mack/issue/statement.htm).
The PA has imported to
Gaza, Judea and Samaria in general, and most especially to Bethlehem,
its oppressive legacy of Lebanonization. The Christians of Bethlehem,
Beit Jallah, Beit Sahour and Ramallah are now undergoing the experiences
of Lebanese Christians from 1970 to 1982. They are perceived by the
PA--as were Lebanon's Christians--as a potential Fifth Column. Accused
of wearing "permissive" Western clothing, Bethlehem Christian women have
been intimidated by PA personnel. Rape of Christian women has occurred
frequently (especially in Beit Sahour) as was the case in Lebanon.
Islamic hostility, disregard for civil liberties and economic jealousy
have been harnessed by Arafat and his 20,000 terrorists imported from
Iraq, Yemen, Sudan, Tunisia, Jordan, and Lebanon in their campaign
against the Christian infidel. Christians who dare oppose PLO oppression
are accused of "collaboration" with Israel and face execution.
I think those numbers speak for themselves.
But then, we've come to expect out and out lies from al-Beeb, haven't we?
Here's an example of the type of family values a second Obama administration plans to support. Meet President Obama's friend, Dan Savage.
Let's go to the videotape.
I forgot.Those who have replaced Judaism with Liberalism believe in those same 'values.' That's why they'll vote for Obama anyway.This will only encourage them.
Here's Soccer Dad's Middle East Media Sampler for Sunday, July 8.
1) No order for the court
There a front page story in the New York Times, Arab Uprisings Point Up Flaws in Global Court, that makes some legitimate points. However, the closer one looks the bias of the article becomes clearer. After noting that the former President of Yemen, Saleh evaded prosecution of the court the article continues:
Now, as the world confronts increasing evidence of atrocities on a much vaster scale in Syria as President Bashar al-Assad’s government battles a growing rebellion, there are signs that Mr. Assad is likely to evade prosecution, much as Mr. Saleh has. The men have not been prosecuted because they have powerful allies, underlining what critics say are crucial flaws in the court’s setup. That now threatens to undermine the still-fragile international consensus that formed the basis for the court’s creation in 2002: that leaders should be held accountable for crimes against their own people. Already, the failure to act against some leaders challenged by the Arab Spring is emboldening critics who see the court as just another manifestation of a deeply undemocratic international order. So-called justice, they say, is reserved for outcast leaders, including an assortment of African officials from weak states with few powerful patrons.
Later the article observes:
The International Criminal Court began working a decade ago with very low expectations and little support from the major world powers. Three of the five veto-holding members of the Security Council — the United States, Russia and China — refused to subject themselves to its jurisdiction. Despite this, it has turned into a touchstone for justice-seekers so powerful that The Hague has become their desired destination for autocrats everywhere. The Security Council allowed the court to investigate Sudan’s president, Omar Hassan al-Bashir, who ended up being indicted on charges of war crimes in Darfur, though the court has been unable to apprehend him. ... But the court has not taken action in any other Arab uprising, in no small part because of the ties between the countries involved and veto-holding members of the Security Council. Bahrain and Yemen are allies of the United States, which is not a signatory to the International Criminal Court. Russia and China, neither of which is a signatory, are close to Syria’s government, and are likely to block any attempt to refer a case to the court.
Note the blame assigned to the United States, Russia and China. However, why hasn't the indictment of Bashir led to any further action. At the time the warrant for the arrest of Bashir was announced, he was hosted at an Arab League summit. The Washington Post observed at the time:
So it was interesting to see what else was in the latest statement issued by the kings, princes and authoritarian presidents of the Middle East and North Africa. First there was a call on "the international community to prosecute those responsible" for alleged "war crimes" committed by Israel in its recent offensive in Gaza. Then came an ardent defense of Sudanese dictator Omar Hassan al-Bashir -- who was welcomed to the Doha summit despite an outstanding arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court on multiple war crimes charges. "We stress our solidarity with Sudan and our rejection of the decision" of the ICC, said the communique, which Mr. Bashir welcomed in a bombastic address to the summit plenary. Leader after leader declared fealty. "We must also take a decisive stance of solidarity alongside fraternal Sudan and President Omar al-Bashir," said Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. Mr. Abbas is hoping that the Obama administration will pressure Israel to stop building "illegal" settlements in the West Bank; the next time he utters the phrase "double standard" in the presence of a U.S. diplomat, we suggest a query about Mr. Bashir.
There's no word in the New York Times article about the Arab League (or OIC) rejection of the ICC's authority in this case.
But other situations have escaped the court’s reach. At the bloody end of the civil war in Sri Lanka in 2009, 200,000 civilians were trapped on a beach between government forces and the Tamil Tigers. Tens of thousands are believed to have been killed, but the International Criminal Court has never investigated the case. Sri Lanka is a close ally of China. Charges of crimes in Gaza will never be investigated, international justice experts say, because of the ties between the United States and Israel.
According to this article the only countries who help international criminals escape justice are those who have vetoes at the UN. No responsibility is assigned to the Arab League. The article also doesn't mention that the court has no mechanism for preventing unjust prosecutions if enough tyrannies band to together to insist on an investigation.
2) Of the Presbyterian General Assembly and wheel chair tours
The scheduled deliberations regarding Middle East-related overtures have come to an end at the PC (USA)’s General Assembly in Pittsburgh. The assembly approved a overture calling for an end to violence in Syria by a wide margin. Among other things, the overture called on the United States to “refrain from military intervention in Syria.” It is highly unlikely the General Assembly will revisit any of the issues related to the Middle East between now and the final gavel, which will fall tomorrow morning. Divestment is dead, for now, in the PC (USA).
Accessibility also varied among the tourist sites we visited, but generally was pretty good. The Israeli government is trying very hard to make things accessible for people with disabilities without destroying the ancient sites they came to see. Our first stop was Caesarea National Park, where you can see the port built by King Herod and the place where Paul set sail to preach to communities around the Mediterranean. This was very accessible. Then north to the town of Nazareth, a large, thriving tourist city, we had to go up a steep hill to get to the Church of the Annunciation, which is built over the place where Mary is said to have been visited and told she would bear a child. Unfortunately, there were no cut-out ramps, the road was a bit bumpy, and we had to take our chairs up the narrow street with cars coming down the other way.
While a politicized Christian group sat in judgment of Israel, others found Israel to be supportive of their needs.
3) Pleased to meet you, hope you guess my name
There may be an alternative motive for Al Jazeera's program absurdly charging Israel with poisoning Yasser Arafat: for some reason Al Jazeera is making an effort to rehabilitate Arafat's image. It's true that many in the media don't consider Arafat to be a villain, but, at worst, an ambiguous figure. (See TimesWatch for some examples.)
Again, in my interpretation of things, Sheikh Yassin was the leader of a movement that was at the time producing havoc among Israelis, whether a thousand Israelis killed -- no, a thousand, was it? Or throughout the Second Intifada, and therefore, you were getting rid of a leader that was sending directly or indirectly, or inspiring people, or giving legitimacy to this mass campaign of suicide terrorism. That was the way that one could understand it. But Arafat was somebody that was negotiating with you. He was negotiating. He was the one that if you give a sober interpretation of his role throughout the last 20 years, you would see that he was the man with whom you need to have a kind of peace deal; otherwise, there is not going to be any kind of deal. So I draw a line between the way Israel fought leaders of Hamas during the Second Intifada and the person of Arafat. Yes, but all this does not necessarily lead to a physical assassination. They were trying to diminish his political clout, his political influence. And I saw it also as a way -- frankly, again, to me, it remains to be proved that Israel got rid physically of Arafat. I saw this campaign to appoint the prime minister, et cetera as part of the reforms that Israel and others were seeing as a prerequisite for a viable peace process. And frankly, I always saw that this was one shortcoming of the Palestinian National Movement. This is where Zionism had the upper hand.
What was Ben Ami thinking? True, he rejects the charge that Israel killed Arafat physically. But he seemingly is accepting the notion that Israel (unjustly) killed Arafat politically. No doubt Al Jazeera's viewers appreciate the subtlety of Ben Ami's distinction. Still we have a former high ranking Israeli government official saying that Arafat was sincere and unfairly demonized.
Another companion report was an interview with Mohammed Rashid.
Last time when I saw Sharon, it was -- there was an attack in Netanya. It was a big attack. It caused some 31 Israeli victims. I was on the way to the meeting, and I thought it is just wise to call it off and go back. I spoke to Omri Sharon, and he told me, “No. The prime minister waiting for you. Keep going.” And almost five hours meeting with him, uh, he was avoiding touching on the, on the event. In the last half an hour, I told him, “Mr. Prime Minister, we have to find a solution to stop attacks like these, more attacks like this in the future, and more reactions from the Israeli side on the Palestinians.” Then he told me, “I wasn’t willing to discuss this issue with you, but let me tell you. Tell your boss, next time it will be really tough. And I’m not sure there will be, after the next time, there will be any more time. So I’m fed up with this. This should stop. I hold him personally responsible, and I want, I want him -- let him do what he likes to do, but I want a responsible prime minister to work with me; otherwise, there is nothing, nothing will move.” So for, for me, this was more than political threat, and especially the tanks were getting closer to Arafat’s bedroom. I, I don’t think there was more than five meters’ distance between the tanks and his bedroom. So it was obvious another attack could lead to catastrophe, even a direct physical catastrophe. But it was obvious, time is ticking and Arafat’s days becoming really short and short. I would say the decision had been made in 2002 to get rid of him, politically and physically.
Rashid, just a few weeks ago, was convicted in absentia of embezzling millions from the Palestinian Authority. Now Al Jazeera is rehabilitating him, apparently at the expense of Mahmoud Abbas, allowing Rashid to appear as a defender of Arafat's legacy. What is Al Jazeera's agenda here? And why are so many lending uncritical support to Al Jazeera?
By a margin of 333-331 with two abstentions, the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA), being held in Pittsburgh, rejected a motion to divest from Caterpillar, Hewlett-Packard and Motorola Solutions.
The church's General Assembly instead passed a minority report that avoided divestment, but encouraged investing in businesses that operate for peace in Palestine, according to the Post-Gazette.
The General Assembly is the highest decision-making body for the church, which has some 2 million members.
What's amazing is that it was this close. Even Americans for Peace Now and J Street came out against divestment. 'Jewish Voice for Peace' was in favor.
The Rev. Susan Andrews, a former moderator of the General Assembly and influential liberal in the church, opposed divestment, saying that the church must remember both the current suffering of Palestinians and the centuries of Christian persecution of Jews. Jewish leaders, including a rabbi who had brought interfaith greetings to that assembly that morning, had argued that any support for the divestment movement would seriously harm relations between Jews and Presbyterians.
Others tried to argue that the move was against these three companies specifically and not against Israel generally.
The Rev. Brian Ellison, chairman of a denominational committee that researches and monitors socially responsible investing, had argued that the effort to divest in three companies did not mean broad divestment from Israel. The church continues to invest its pension funds in many companies that work in Israel, he said. But these three had been accused of egregious actions, such as Caterpillar's supply of militarized bulldozers used to demolish Palestinians homes, and had failed to respond to eight years of dialogue.
With Caterpillar, Hewlett-Packard and Motorola "we have reached the end of the line," he said. "The dialogue will produce no results."
But Rick Ufford-Chase, who served as a General Assembly moderator, the church's highest elected office, when the divestment debate began in 2004, said he was heartbroken by the outcome Thursday.
"No investment will make any difference if we fail to dismantle the apparatus of the occupation," said Ufford-Chase, executive director of the Presbyterian Peace Fellowship. He told the delegates they should be "naming the occupation for what it is: a form of apartheid. We must stand with our Palestinian brothers and sisters."
Apartheid? No. And anyone who calls it that doesn't deserve to be part of the debate.
In Tampa, many delegates took to the floor to testify that they had traveled to the Holy Land and met with Palestinian Christians who were suffering and increasingly desperate for an end to the occupation. But in the end, they listened to some Jewish leaders and fellow Methodists who warned that divestment was a one-sided strategy that penalized only Israel. The Rev. Alex Joyner, a Methodist pastor in Franktown, Va., and a member of an antidivestment caucus called United Methodists for Constructive Peacemaking in Israel and Palestine, said: “We are all concerned about the suffering and the ongoing occupation, because it is hurting Israeli and Palestinian society. But what the church has said is we want a positive step, and we reject punitive measures as a way of trying to bring peace.”
In the last seven weeks Israel has handed over six West Bank towns and more than 400 villages to the Palestinian Authority. The authority now controls about 90% of the West Bank's more than 1 million Arabs, and about one-third of the land in the Delaware-size territory.
Advocates for divestment say that Caterpillar supplies the bulldozers and earth-moving equipment used by the Israel Defense Forces to clear Palestinian homes and orchards; that Hewlett-Packard provides, sometimes through subsidiaries, biometric monitoring at checkpoints and information technology to the Israeli Navy; and that Motorola supplies surveillance equipment to illegal settlements in the West Bank and communications equipment to the occupation forces.
It would be nice if the reporter had taken the time to point out that these are security measures that have been necessitated by an ongoing terror war against Israel. But that's not the most outrageous element of the paragraph. It is inexcusable to refer to the Israeli army as "occupation forces." By adopting the language of Israel's enemies, the reporter, Laurie Goodstein lost any claim to objectivity and became an advocate.
One last question. Given that the not too subtle point of Bob Simon's Christians in the Holy Land report was "if Christians knew how badly Israel treated Christians, American Christians wouldn't be so quick to support Israel," was the report deliberately timed ahead of this vote?
He had presented himself as a cosmopolitan man—the un-George W. Bush. But the cosmopolitanism was just a veneer. Underneath the affectation of worldliness, there lay a calculating politician with a superficial knowledge. They have caught on in Karachi and Cairo, where the star of 2008-2009 has come down to earth. And they've caught on in Tehran and Damascus, where tyranny has had little to fear from the standard-bearer of American power. His announcement last week, in a speech at the Holocaust Memorial Museum, that he has created a new Atrocities Prevention Board is testament to this president's penchant for doublespeak and naïveté. It is as though atrocities are like hurricanes and tornadoes that the weather center tracks and anticipates. Meanwhile, there are daily atrocities in the bereaved cities of Syria, the prison cells of Iran. That General Motors has been rescued is true, but the price paid was far too high. Moreover, it set a precedent at variance with the economic tradition and values of our country. The markets, not the White House, should have administered the treatment. Nor can our national economy be reduced to the tale of GM. A presidency that gave us an unprecedented but largely ineffective stimulus of $825 billion, that hiked federal spending to 24.3% of GDP from 20.8%, and that is set to run a deficit of $1.3 trillion this year, is not one that can ask to be trusted with the store.
The historian Benzion Netanyahu, who died Monday at 102, was sometimes asked to explain the miracle of Jewish survival through millenniums of persecution. Netanyahu – the father of Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin – would answer in a way his interlocutors did not at all expect. “The Jews didn’t survive,” he would say. About 1,900 years ago, he would explain, there were about 9 million Jews in a world population of roughly 300 million. Today, there are about 13 million Jews in a world of 7 billion. How is it that the number of Jews has stayed essentially stagnant, even as global population has grown exponentially? Persecution, he explained, has driven the Jews nearly to extinction. So many murdered, so many forcibly converted to Christianity and Islam, so many choosing the dubious path of assimilation as a defense against hatred and isolation. The Jews of today, he said, are a remnant of a remnant.
In a highly significant move, ministers will fight a case at the European Court of Human Rights in which two British women will seek to establish their right to display the cross.
It is the first time that the Government has been forced to state whether it backs the right of Christians to wear the symbol at work.
A document seen by The Sunday Telegraph discloses that ministers will argue that because it is not a “requirement” of the Christian faith, employers can ban the wearing of the cross and sack workers who insist on doing so.
The Government’s position received an angry response last night from prominent figures including Lord Carey, the former Archbishop of Canterbury.
He accused ministers and the courts of “dictating” to Christians and said it was another example of Christianity becoming sidelined in official life.
The Government’s refusal to say that Christians have a right to display the symbol of their faith at work emerged after its plans to legalise same-sex marriages were attacked by the leaders of the Roman Catholic Church in Britain.
Certainly, some US Evangelicals would like to convert Jews, and Israel must fight them. However, the vast majority simply wants to bless Israel because that is what they believe is the right thing to do. The origins of Christian support can be traced back to the Gutenberg press (1456), which popularized ideas of “The Promised Land” and “The Chosen People.”
The hostility toward Israel encouraged by liberal Christians, such as the World Council of Churches and the Vatican, poses a much greater near-term threat to Jews than anything the evangelicals espouse. Last week, the head of the Catholic Church in England and Wales offered the Palestinians a powerful tool of propaganda: The comparison with Jesus’ passion.
“We are to be freshly attentive to the needs of those who, like Jesus himself, are displaced and in discomfort, a shadow falls particularly heavily on the town of Bethlehem tonight,” Archbishop Vincent Nichols said during his Christmas Mass sermon at Westminster Cathedral. This propaganda is much more dangerous for Israel than the pro-Israel fever of the US Evangelicals.
Israel’s leaders urgently need to set up a moral platform rejecting the “Judeo-Christian” blend, which theologically fuses Jews and Christians together without protecting the Jewish faith and maintaining Israel as an independent single-faith Jewish community. But the Bible teaches also that if there is the “gentile” who is jealous and aggressive (Amalek), there is also a “Righteous gentile” who is admiring and willing to help (Jethro.)
Israel will continue to struggle against Amalek-like governments and groups that utilize terror against innocent citizens, but it will be blessed by establishing Jethro-like partnerships with those who recognize the unique role and place of the Jews and Israel in this world.
The 'Palestinians' have made a 'Christmas video' and as you might imagine it shows the evil Joos keeping them behind fences and barbed wire. But truthfully, the last five seconds of the video say it all.
I am an Orthodox Jew - some would even call me 'ultra-Orthodox.' Born in Boston, I was a corporate and securities attorney in New York City for seven years before making aliya to Israel in 1991 (I don't look it but I really am that old :-). I have been happily married to the same woman for thirty-five years, and we have eight children (bli ayin hara) ranging in age from 13 to 33 years and nine grandchildren. Four of our children are married! Before I started blogging I was a heavy contributor on a number of email lists and ran an email list called the Matzav from 2000-2004. You can contact me at: IsraelMatzav at gmail dot com
