Jerusalem Post, May 21, 2008
French court overturns al-Dura libel judgment
by Haviv Rettig
The French Court of Appeals on Wednesday found in favor of Jewish activist Philippe Karsenty, overturning a lower court decision that he had libeled France 2 and its Jerusalem correspondent Charles Enderlin when he accused them of knowingly misleading the watching world about the death of the Palestinian child Muhammad al-Dura in the Gaza Strip in 2000.
"The verdict means we have the right to say France 2 broadcast a fake news report, that [al-Dura's shooting] was a staged hoax and that they duped everybody - without being sued," Karsenty told The Jerusalem Post shortly after the verdict was issued at 1:30 p.m. Paris time.
Al-Dura was filmed cowering with his father, Jalal, behind a barrel at the Gaza Strip's Netzarim junction on September 30, 2000, during an apparent gun battle between Palestinians and IDF troops.
Fifty-five seconds of video footage were released to the world by France 2 at the time, out of some 18 minutes that were shown in court and even more footage that France 2's detractors claim is not being shown to the public.
The video, taken by Palestinian cameraman and France 2 stringer Talal Abu Rahma, shows al-Dura hiding, and then cuts to footage of him lying, apparently dead, at the junction. It does not show the child killed.
The footage, and Enderlin's broadcast assertion of Israeli responsibility for the killing of al-Dura, turned the 12-year-old's death into a cause célèbre in the Muslim world.
According to Middle East and media expert Tom Gross, "Osama bin Laden referred to al-Dura in a post-9/11 video; the killers of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl placed a picture of him in their beheading video; streets, squares and academies have been named after al-Dura. He became a poster child for the [second] intifada."
Karsenty, the head of the media watchdog Media Ratings, was sued for libel after calling for Enderlin's and France 2 news director Arlette Chabot's dismissal, saying the footage was "a hoax."
Enderlin, who was not present in Gaza at the time of the incident, has vehemently denied the charge, expressing confidence in cameraman Abu Rahma's honesty.
Convicted of libel in 2006, Karsenty was slapped with two $1,380 fines - one to be paid to France 2 and one to the station's reporter - and ordered to pay another $4,000 in court costs when he wrote that the incident constituted a "masquerade that dishonors France and its public television."
On Wednesday, his appeal against that conviction was upheld.
The IDF, which initially apologized for the death of al-Dura, concluded after an investigation that the boy could not have been hit by Israeli bullets.
A statement forwarded to the Post from Enderlin said "the appeals court ruled that Karsenty's words were, in fact, libelous, and that Karsenty failed to prove that the news was staged and/or false."
The statement added that the case was nevertheless overturned because "the court believed Karsenty had the right to stridently criticize the [France 2] report, since it dealt with an emotional topic, and that Karsenty's investigation into the matter convinced the court he was being sincere."
A source close to Enderlin's side of the case explained that "you can get out of a libel suit either by proving you're right, or by showing you were sincere and had some research. The court found the latter to be the case."
The source also said Enderlin and France 2 would appeal the verdict, noting that they had won three out of four instances of judgment in the matter.
But, replied Karsenty, the only appeal left would be to France's Supreme Court.
"If they continue to insist they are correct," added Karsenty, "we will have victims of terror attacks that directly resulted from the [al-Dura] footage sue France 2."
Karsenty also called on French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who Karsenty sees as "ultimately responsible" for the publicly owned television station, "to take responsibility for the French state's defense of the worst anti-Semitic lie around. It's time to apologize to the world for broadcasting a fake news report that has inflamed the Muslim world and endangered world peace."
Karsenty's claims are based on inconsistencies in the footage, including a publicly available video-taped admission by Abu Rahma that there are untold secrets related to the case, the fact that only seven bullet holes are seen behind al-Dura despite Abu Rahma's repeated statements that the child survived 45 minutes of continuous shooting by Israeli forces directed at the boy, footage clearly showing pretend gun battles and faked ambulance runs at the junction that day, testimony of the IDF soldiers stationed at the junction who said they did not participate in any firefight that day, and the lack of footage of al-Dura's actual shooting.
Despite France 2's playing down of the verdict, some analysts believe it is significant. According to Gross, "Today's ruling shows there are serious doubts about France 2's version of events, and that the entire world press was irresponsible in being so quick to take at face value the claims of a local Palestinian cameraman, who has admitted his partisanship."
Several months ago, the deputy commander of the IDF Spokesman's Office, Col. Shlomi Am-Shalom, wrote to France 2 asking for the entire unedited 27-minute film shot by France 2's Palestinian cameraman on September 30, 2000, as well as footage the cameraman filmed on October 1, 2000. Am-Shalom stressed that the IDF had "ruled out" the notion that al-Dura was killed by Israeli fire.
Citing the findings of the IDF's probe into the incident, ordered by then-OC Southern Command Maj.-Gen. Yom Tov Samia, Am-Shalom wrote, "The general has made clear that from an analysis of all the data from the scene, including the location of the IDF position, the trajectory of the bullets, the location of the father and the son behind an obstacle, the cadence of the bullet fire, the angle at which the bullets penetrated the wall behind the father and his son, and the hours of the events, we can rule out with the greatest certainty the possibility that the gunfire that apparently harmed the boy and his father was fired by IDF soldiers, who were at the time located only inside their fixed position [at the junction]."
Thursday, June 19, 2008
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
In Defense of our Friend, Pastor Hagee
Our World: Jews united for Israel's friends
Caroline Glick , THE JERUSALEM POST
Jun. 2, 2008
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad suffered a humiliating setback this week in his quest for international legitimacy. Ahmadinejad is expected to arrive in Rome this week to participate in a UN summit on the global food crisis (which has been caused by the rise in oil prices that Ahmadinejad is so pleased to have had a role in fomenting).
Ahmadinejad was hoping that while in the Italian capital he would be able to have a photo-op with Pope Benedict XVI. To secure the meeting, Ahmadinejad - who has called for all nations to convert to Islam or be destroyed (except for the Jews who can do nothing to avoid destruction) - has been sweet talking the Vatican for months. In his latest move, during a meeting in April with Archbishop Jean-Paul Gobel, the Vatican's representative in Iran, Ahmadinejad referred to the Vatican as a "positive force for justice and peace."
But Benedict was unmoved by Ahmadinejad's flattery. His request for an audience with the pontiff was unceremoniously rejected.
Not surprisingly, the Israeli government has nothing to say about Benedict's humiliation of Ahmadinejad. This is unsurprising because the Olmert-Livni-Barack-Yishai government has never bothered to pay attention to anything that the pope does. His bold moves in recent years to challenge Islamic leaders to repudiate murder and coercion in the name of Allah have elicited no support and indeed no reaction of any kind from Jerusalem.
The Olmert-Livni-Barack-Yishai government's neglect of the Vatican is regrettable, but it is par for the course for this government which has limited Israel's foreign policy to appeasing Palestinian terrorists and kowtowing to the State Department. The best that can be said for this state of affairs is that at least Israel's neglect of the Catholic Church - like its neglect of Africa, Asia, Europe, South America and Australia - is benign. In contrast, the treatment that the Vatican has received from some American Jewish leaders has been far from neglectful and far from benign.
RATHER THAN stand with the Catholic church as Benedict moves boldly against radical Islam, American Jewish leaders led by ADL Director Abe Foxman have been attacking the church for its theological decisions. Last year, fresh from his bitter campaign against Mel Gibson's movie about Jesus, Foxman began targeting the Vatican for its decision to permit wider use of the traditional Latin Mass which includes a prayer for Jews to convert to Christianity.
While it is unpleasant for Jews to consider millions of Catholics praying for us to abandon our faith, it is unclear why what they say in their churches should interest us so long as they aren't demanding our presence at disputations or forcibly converting us. After all, in our prayers, we explicitly reject their faith as false. And this is to be expected.
Every religion asserts itself as the one true faith and demeans all others as false. As the American Jewish radio host Dennis Prager noted at a lecture for the David Horowitz Freedom Center in Santa Barbara, California this weekend, "There is no Judeo-Christian faith. There are Judeo-Christian values."
JUDAISM AND Christianity are different religions. But they share common moral values and it is on the basis of these values that joint action can be taken and separate actions can be judged. Jews and Christians cannot judge each other on the basis of theology, only on the basis of morality.
Pope Benedict's actions clearly show him to be a friend of Israel and the Jewish people. Unfortunately, due to the grave absence of Jewish leadership in both Israel and the US today, he has little to show for it.
But any grief that Israel's neglect, and men like Foxman's unnecessary criticisms may have caused the pope are nothing compared to the insults Jewish leaders have heaped in recent months on our most prominent Protestant Christian friend. The humiliating treatment that Pastor John Hagee, the founder and national chairman of Christians United for Jews has suffered at the hands of American Jewish leaders is simply a travesty.
This week in Washington, DC, AIPAC is hosting its annual policy conference. It will be an illustrious affair. Heavy-hitters from both American political parties will be in attendance, as will scholars and activists from Israel and the US. But one name is noticeably absent from the three-day program. John Hagee - who in three years has transformed CUFI into a grassroots pro-Israel movement that dwarfs AIPAC in size - is not on the program. And this is a horrible thing.
AIPAC's decision to shun Hagee says something terrible about the state of American Jewish politics today. Quite simply, Hagee has become a victim of liberal American Jewish leaders' decision to place their leftist political preferences above their concern for Israel's survival and for the well-being of American Jewry.
SENATOR BARACK Obama, the presumptive Democratic nominee for President, has a problem with his religious background. Until last weekend, Obama was a 20-year member of the Trinity United Baptist Church in Chicago. In recent months, his former pastor Jeremiah Wright, the man who converted him to Christianity, officiated at his wedding and baptized his daughters, has been exposed as an anti-American, anti-white and anti-Semitic political activist who preaches a black supremacist version of Christian teachings to his enthusiastic congregation. Then too, Obama's Catholic friend, and friend of Trinity United, Father Michael Pfleger, has been exposed as an anti-American, anti-white and anti-Semitic political activist who preaches a black supremacist version of Christian teaching to his enthusiastic congregation.
Obama's longstanding and deep connections to these spiritual mentors have placed him in a problematic position vis-à-vis the American electorate. To mitigate the damage, Obama's supporters have sought to counterbalance Wright with a conservative clergyman of equal weight in the Republican camp. And Hagee, with his avowedly anti-homosexual, anti-abortion views and public prominence was the chosen target.
THE FIRST Obama supporter to hone in on Hagee was Rabbi Eric Yoffie, president of the Union for Reform Judaism. Yoffie has long sought to discredit Hagee who he sees as a threat to his view that the only way to be pro-Israel is to support the establishment of a Palestinian state.
Hagee endorsed Republican John McCain for President in March. In early April, Yoffie called on McCain to reject Hagee's endorsement and he called on American Jews to reject CUFI, claiming that CUFI's unconditional support for Israel precluded its support for a Palestinian state.
In his words, "No, we cannot cooperate with Christian Zionists. What [Hagee and his allies] mean by 'support of Israel' and what we mean by 'support of Israel' are two very different things. Their vision of Israel rejects a two-state solution, rejects the possibility of a democratic Israel, and supports the permanent occupation of all Arab lands now controlled by Israel."
FOLLOWING YOFFIE's lead, Democratic activists desperate to find a Republican counterpart to Wright, focused their fire on Hagee. They attacked him for anti-homosexual remarks he has made. And they grossly distorted remarks he made on historical Christian anti-Semitism to portray him as an enemy of the Catholic church. Then too, they attacked him for a sermon he gave where he argued that the Holocaust was God's way of getting the Jews to Israel and so absurdly implied that a man who has devoted his professional life to improving Jewish-Christian relations, ending Evangelical Christian drives to convert Jews and supporting Israel is an anti-Semite.
The Democratic Jewish charge against Hagee compelled McCain to reject Hagee's endorsement, and so drove another wedge between McCain and the Republican voting Christian Right. It also successfully created an illusion of symmetry between Wright and Hagee.
This in and of itself is morally repugnant since there is no moral equivalence between Hagee and Wright. Hagee clearly loves America, doesn't have a problem with whites or blacks and loves Jews. Wright is a man defined by his hatreds.
But even more insidious than Hagee's forced estrangement from McCain is the effort to have him disowned by the American Jewish community and Israel. Yoffie, together with the pro-Palestinian Jewish American lobbying group J Street, have been pressuring Jewish leaders to distance their organizations from Hagee and CUFI and to boycott CUFI's annual conference in Washington next month. Not surprisingly, Foxman answered their call by announcing that he was placing the ADL's relations with CUFI "on hold." And no doubt bowing to their pressure, AIPAC neglected to invite Hagee to its policy conference this week.
As for Israel, just as Yoffie made his initial attack on Hagee, Hagee was setting out to Israel with a thousand CUFI members on a solidarity mission. He held a rally of his supporters at the Jerusalem Conference Center. There he distributed six million dollars in contributions from CUFI members to Israeli charities and educational institutions. No doubt in response to Yoffie's pressure, the only prominent Israeli politicians who attended the event were Likud leader Binyamin Netanyahu and former Likud minister and MK Uzi Landau. No government minister attended and Prime Minister Ehud Olmert sufficed with a private meeting with Hagee.
HAPPILY, NOT all American Jewish leaders have agreed to toe the line. Senator Joseph Lieberman has rejected demands by Yoffie and J Street to boycott CUFI's conference in Washington. The American Jewish Committee and the Zionist Organization of America have refused to distance themselves from Hagee. Israel and American Jewry should follow their example.
These are terrible times for world Jewry. Islamic Jew-hatred is genocidal. The international Left has betrayed us. Our leaders are weak. Our friends are few and far between.
If we wish to persevere in this environment we must embrace those who support us while eschewing those - even in our own ranks - who tell us that support for Israel is conditional. Now is not the time to quibble over Christian theology. Now is the time to stand united with our friends against our common enemies.
caroline@carolineglick.com
Caroline Glick , THE JERUSALEM POST
Jun. 2, 2008
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad suffered a humiliating setback this week in his quest for international legitimacy. Ahmadinejad is expected to arrive in Rome this week to participate in a UN summit on the global food crisis (which has been caused by the rise in oil prices that Ahmadinejad is so pleased to have had a role in fomenting).
Ahmadinejad was hoping that while in the Italian capital he would be able to have a photo-op with Pope Benedict XVI. To secure the meeting, Ahmadinejad - who has called for all nations to convert to Islam or be destroyed (except for the Jews who can do nothing to avoid destruction) - has been sweet talking the Vatican for months. In his latest move, during a meeting in April with Archbishop Jean-Paul Gobel, the Vatican's representative in Iran, Ahmadinejad referred to the Vatican as a "positive force for justice and peace."
But Benedict was unmoved by Ahmadinejad's flattery. His request for an audience with the pontiff was unceremoniously rejected.
Not surprisingly, the Israeli government has nothing to say about Benedict's humiliation of Ahmadinejad. This is unsurprising because the Olmert-Livni-Barack-Yishai government has never bothered to pay attention to anything that the pope does. His bold moves in recent years to challenge Islamic leaders to repudiate murder and coercion in the name of Allah have elicited no support and indeed no reaction of any kind from Jerusalem.
The Olmert-Livni-Barack-Yishai government's neglect of the Vatican is regrettable, but it is par for the course for this government which has limited Israel's foreign policy to appeasing Palestinian terrorists and kowtowing to the State Department. The best that can be said for this state of affairs is that at least Israel's neglect of the Catholic Church - like its neglect of Africa, Asia, Europe, South America and Australia - is benign. In contrast, the treatment that the Vatican has received from some American Jewish leaders has been far from neglectful and far from benign.
RATHER THAN stand with the Catholic church as Benedict moves boldly against radical Islam, American Jewish leaders led by ADL Director Abe Foxman have been attacking the church for its theological decisions. Last year, fresh from his bitter campaign against Mel Gibson's movie about Jesus, Foxman began targeting the Vatican for its decision to permit wider use of the traditional Latin Mass which includes a prayer for Jews to convert to Christianity.
While it is unpleasant for Jews to consider millions of Catholics praying for us to abandon our faith, it is unclear why what they say in their churches should interest us so long as they aren't demanding our presence at disputations or forcibly converting us. After all, in our prayers, we explicitly reject their faith as false. And this is to be expected.
Every religion asserts itself as the one true faith and demeans all others as false. As the American Jewish radio host Dennis Prager noted at a lecture for the David Horowitz Freedom Center in Santa Barbara, California this weekend, "There is no Judeo-Christian faith. There are Judeo-Christian values."
JUDAISM AND Christianity are different religions. But they share common moral values and it is on the basis of these values that joint action can be taken and separate actions can be judged. Jews and Christians cannot judge each other on the basis of theology, only on the basis of morality.
Pope Benedict's actions clearly show him to be a friend of Israel and the Jewish people. Unfortunately, due to the grave absence of Jewish leadership in both Israel and the US today, he has little to show for it.
But any grief that Israel's neglect, and men like Foxman's unnecessary criticisms may have caused the pope are nothing compared to the insults Jewish leaders have heaped in recent months on our most prominent Protestant Christian friend. The humiliating treatment that Pastor John Hagee, the founder and national chairman of Christians United for Jews has suffered at the hands of American Jewish leaders is simply a travesty.
This week in Washington, DC, AIPAC is hosting its annual policy conference. It will be an illustrious affair. Heavy-hitters from both American political parties will be in attendance, as will scholars and activists from Israel and the US. But one name is noticeably absent from the three-day program. John Hagee - who in three years has transformed CUFI into a grassroots pro-Israel movement that dwarfs AIPAC in size - is not on the program. And this is a horrible thing.
AIPAC's decision to shun Hagee says something terrible about the state of American Jewish politics today. Quite simply, Hagee has become a victim of liberal American Jewish leaders' decision to place their leftist political preferences above their concern for Israel's survival and for the well-being of American Jewry.
SENATOR BARACK Obama, the presumptive Democratic nominee for President, has a problem with his religious background. Until last weekend, Obama was a 20-year member of the Trinity United Baptist Church in Chicago. In recent months, his former pastor Jeremiah Wright, the man who converted him to Christianity, officiated at his wedding and baptized his daughters, has been exposed as an anti-American, anti-white and anti-Semitic political activist who preaches a black supremacist version of Christian teachings to his enthusiastic congregation. Then too, Obama's Catholic friend, and friend of Trinity United, Father Michael Pfleger, has been exposed as an anti-American, anti-white and anti-Semitic political activist who preaches a black supremacist version of Christian teaching to his enthusiastic congregation.
Obama's longstanding and deep connections to these spiritual mentors have placed him in a problematic position vis-à-vis the American electorate. To mitigate the damage, Obama's supporters have sought to counterbalance Wright with a conservative clergyman of equal weight in the Republican camp. And Hagee, with his avowedly anti-homosexual, anti-abortion views and public prominence was the chosen target.
THE FIRST Obama supporter to hone in on Hagee was Rabbi Eric Yoffie, president of the Union for Reform Judaism. Yoffie has long sought to discredit Hagee who he sees as a threat to his view that the only way to be pro-Israel is to support the establishment of a Palestinian state.
Hagee endorsed Republican John McCain for President in March. In early April, Yoffie called on McCain to reject Hagee's endorsement and he called on American Jews to reject CUFI, claiming that CUFI's unconditional support for Israel precluded its support for a Palestinian state.
In his words, "No, we cannot cooperate with Christian Zionists. What [Hagee and his allies] mean by 'support of Israel' and what we mean by 'support of Israel' are two very different things. Their vision of Israel rejects a two-state solution, rejects the possibility of a democratic Israel, and supports the permanent occupation of all Arab lands now controlled by Israel."
FOLLOWING YOFFIE's lead, Democratic activists desperate to find a Republican counterpart to Wright, focused their fire on Hagee. They attacked him for anti-homosexual remarks he has made. And they grossly distorted remarks he made on historical Christian anti-Semitism to portray him as an enemy of the Catholic church. Then too, they attacked him for a sermon he gave where he argued that the Holocaust was God's way of getting the Jews to Israel and so absurdly implied that a man who has devoted his professional life to improving Jewish-Christian relations, ending Evangelical Christian drives to convert Jews and supporting Israel is an anti-Semite.
The Democratic Jewish charge against Hagee compelled McCain to reject Hagee's endorsement, and so drove another wedge between McCain and the Republican voting Christian Right. It also successfully created an illusion of symmetry between Wright and Hagee.
This in and of itself is morally repugnant since there is no moral equivalence between Hagee and Wright. Hagee clearly loves America, doesn't have a problem with whites or blacks and loves Jews. Wright is a man defined by his hatreds.
But even more insidious than Hagee's forced estrangement from McCain is the effort to have him disowned by the American Jewish community and Israel. Yoffie, together with the pro-Palestinian Jewish American lobbying group J Street, have been pressuring Jewish leaders to distance their organizations from Hagee and CUFI and to boycott CUFI's annual conference in Washington next month. Not surprisingly, Foxman answered their call by announcing that he was placing the ADL's relations with CUFI "on hold." And no doubt bowing to their pressure, AIPAC neglected to invite Hagee to its policy conference this week.
As for Israel, just as Yoffie made his initial attack on Hagee, Hagee was setting out to Israel with a thousand CUFI members on a solidarity mission. He held a rally of his supporters at the Jerusalem Conference Center. There he distributed six million dollars in contributions from CUFI members to Israeli charities and educational institutions. No doubt in response to Yoffie's pressure, the only prominent Israeli politicians who attended the event were Likud leader Binyamin Netanyahu and former Likud minister and MK Uzi Landau. No government minister attended and Prime Minister Ehud Olmert sufficed with a private meeting with Hagee.
HAPPILY, NOT all American Jewish leaders have agreed to toe the line. Senator Joseph Lieberman has rejected demands by Yoffie and J Street to boycott CUFI's conference in Washington. The American Jewish Committee and the Zionist Organization of America have refused to distance themselves from Hagee. Israel and American Jewry should follow their example.
These are terrible times for world Jewry. Islamic Jew-hatred is genocidal. The international Left has betrayed us. Our leaders are weak. Our friends are few and far between.
If we wish to persevere in this environment we must embrace those who support us while eschewing those - even in our own ranks - who tell us that support for Israel is conditional. Now is not the time to quibble over Christian theology. Now is the time to stand united with our friends against our common enemies.
caroline@carolineglick.com
about Mort Klein, president of ZOA
The Forward, a national Jewish weekly, named him one of the top five Jewish leaders in the country today, stating that "it's impossible to deny that Klein has been extraordinarily effective."
The NY Jewish Week has named him one of the top ten Jewish leaders who have made a difference. The Jewish Press recently stated that "Morton Klein is one of the best minds in this country."Thanks to Mort's achievements on behalf of ZOA, the Jerusalem Post has called the ZOA, "one of the most important and influential groups in the U.S. today." The Wall Street Journal called the ZOA "heroic and the most credible advocate for Israel on the American Jewish scene today" and added that we should "snap a salute to those who were right about Oslo and Arafat all along . . including Morton Klein, who was wise, brave and unflinchingly honest. When the history of the American Jewish struggle in these years is written, Mr. Klein will emerge as an outsized figure." The New York Times, in a profile called "Public Lives," called Klein, "an iconoclast who is a prolific speechmaker, writer and Congresional lobbyist."
Why Is Bush Helping Saudi Arabia Build Nukes?
From the Wall Street Journal
OPINION
Why Is Bush Helping Saudi Arabia Build Nukes?
By EDWARD J. MARKEY
June 10, 2008; Page A15
Here's a quick geopolitical quiz: What country is three times the size of Texas and has more than 300 days of blazing sun a year? What country has the world's largest oil reserves resting below miles upon miles of sand? And what country is being given nuclear power, not solar, by President George W. Bush, even when the mere assumption of nuclear possession in its region has been known to provoke pre-emptive air strikes, even wars?
If you answered Saudi Arabia to all of these questions, you're right.
Last month, while the American people were becoming the personal ATMs of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was in Saudi Arabia signing away an even more valuable gift: nuclear technology. In a ceremony little-noticed in this country, Ms. Rice volunteered the U.S. to assist Saudi Arabia in developing nuclear reactors, training nuclear engineers, and constructing nuclear infrastructure. While oil breaks records at $130 per barrel or more, the American consumer is footing the bill for Saudi Arabia's nuclear ambitions.
Saudi Arabia has poured money into developing its vast reserves of natural gas for domestic electricity production. It continues to invest in a national gas transportation pipeline and stepped-up exploration, building a solid foundation for domestic energy production that could meet its electricity needs for many decades. Nuclear energy, on the other hand, would require enormous investments in new infrastructure by a country with zero expertise in this complex technology.
Have Ms. Rice, Mr. Bush or Saudi leaders looked skyward? The Saudi desert is under almost constant sunshine. If Mr. Bush wanted to help his friends in Riyadh diversify their energy portfolio, he should have offered solar panels, not nuclear plants.
Saudi Arabia's interest in nuclear technology can only be explained by the dangerous politics of the Middle East. Saudi Arabia, a champion and kingpin of the Sunni Arab world, is deeply threatened by the rise of Shiite-ruled Iran.
The two countries watch each other warily over the waters of the Persian Gulf, buying arms and waging war by proxy in Lebanon and Iraq. An Iranian nuclear weapon would radically alter the region's balance of power, and could prove to be the match that lights the tinderbox. By signing this agreement with the U.S., Saudi Arabia is warning Iran that two can play the nuclear game.
In 2004, Vice President Dick Cheney said, "[Iran is] already sitting on an awful lot of oil and gas. No one can figure why they need nuclear, as well, to generate energy." Mr. Cheney got it right about Iran. But a potential Saudi nuclear program is just as suspicious. For a country with so much oil, gas and solar potential, importing expensive and dangerous nuclear power makes no economic sense.
The Bush administration argues that Saudi Arabia can not be compared to Iran, because Riyadh said it won't develop uranium enrichment or spent-fuel reprocessing, the two most dangerous nuclear technologies. At a recent hearing before my Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming, Secretary of Energy Samuel Bodman shrugged off concerns about potential Saudi misuse of nuclear assistance for a weapons program, saying simply: "I presume that the president has a good deal of confidence in the King and in the leadership of Saudi Arabia."
That's not good enough. We would do well to remember that it was the U.S. who provided the original nuclear assistance to Iran under the Atoms for Peace program, before Iran's monarch was overthrown in the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Such an uprising in Saudi Arabia today could be at least as damaging to U.S. security.
We've long known that America's addiction to oil pays for the spread of extremism. If this Bush nuclear deal moves forward, Saudi Arabia's petrodollars could flow to the dangerous expansion of nuclear technologies in the most volatile region of the world.
While the scorching Saudi Arabian sun heats sand dunes instead of powering photovoltaic panels, millions of Americans will fork over $4 a gallon without realizing that their gas tank is fueling a nascent nuclear arms race.
Rep. Markey (D., Mass.) is chairman of the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming.
OPINION
Why Is Bush Helping Saudi Arabia Build Nukes?
By EDWARD J. MARKEY
June 10, 2008; Page A15
Here's a quick geopolitical quiz: What country is three times the size of Texas and has more than 300 days of blazing sun a year? What country has the world's largest oil reserves resting below miles upon miles of sand? And what country is being given nuclear power, not solar, by President George W. Bush, even when the mere assumption of nuclear possession in its region has been known to provoke pre-emptive air strikes, even wars?
If you answered Saudi Arabia to all of these questions, you're right.
Last month, while the American people were becoming the personal ATMs of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was in Saudi Arabia signing away an even more valuable gift: nuclear technology. In a ceremony little-noticed in this country, Ms. Rice volunteered the U.S. to assist Saudi Arabia in developing nuclear reactors, training nuclear engineers, and constructing nuclear infrastructure. While oil breaks records at $130 per barrel or more, the American consumer is footing the bill for Saudi Arabia's nuclear ambitions.
Saudi Arabia has poured money into developing its vast reserves of natural gas for domestic electricity production. It continues to invest in a national gas transportation pipeline and stepped-up exploration, building a solid foundation for domestic energy production that could meet its electricity needs for many decades. Nuclear energy, on the other hand, would require enormous investments in new infrastructure by a country with zero expertise in this complex technology.
Have Ms. Rice, Mr. Bush or Saudi leaders looked skyward? The Saudi desert is under almost constant sunshine. If Mr. Bush wanted to help his friends in Riyadh diversify their energy portfolio, he should have offered solar panels, not nuclear plants.
Saudi Arabia's interest in nuclear technology can only be explained by the dangerous politics of the Middle East. Saudi Arabia, a champion and kingpin of the Sunni Arab world, is deeply threatened by the rise of Shiite-ruled Iran.
The two countries watch each other warily over the waters of the Persian Gulf, buying arms and waging war by proxy in Lebanon and Iraq. An Iranian nuclear weapon would radically alter the region's balance of power, and could prove to be the match that lights the tinderbox. By signing this agreement with the U.S., Saudi Arabia is warning Iran that two can play the nuclear game.
In 2004, Vice President Dick Cheney said, "[Iran is] already sitting on an awful lot of oil and gas. No one can figure why they need nuclear, as well, to generate energy." Mr. Cheney got it right about Iran. But a potential Saudi nuclear program is just as suspicious. For a country with so much oil, gas and solar potential, importing expensive and dangerous nuclear power makes no economic sense.
The Bush administration argues that Saudi Arabia can not be compared to Iran, because Riyadh said it won't develop uranium enrichment or spent-fuel reprocessing, the two most dangerous nuclear technologies. At a recent hearing before my Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming, Secretary of Energy Samuel Bodman shrugged off concerns about potential Saudi misuse of nuclear assistance for a weapons program, saying simply: "I presume that the president has a good deal of confidence in the King and in the leadership of Saudi Arabia."
That's not good enough. We would do well to remember that it was the U.S. who provided the original nuclear assistance to Iran under the Atoms for Peace program, before Iran's monarch was overthrown in the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Such an uprising in Saudi Arabia today could be at least as damaging to U.S. security.
We've long known that America's addiction to oil pays for the spread of extremism. If this Bush nuclear deal moves forward, Saudi Arabia's petrodollars could flow to the dangerous expansion of nuclear technologies in the most volatile region of the world.
While the scorching Saudi Arabian sun heats sand dunes instead of powering photovoltaic panels, millions of Americans will fork over $4 a gallon without realizing that their gas tank is fueling a nascent nuclear arms race.
Rep. Markey (D., Mass.) is chairman of the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming.
Silent majorities are useless, no matter how peaceful they may be
I don't know who wrote this, but it is one of those never-dying emails that deserves a second look.
We are told again and again by 'experts' and 'talking heads' that Islam is the religion of peace, and that the vast majority of Muslims just want to live in peace.
Although this unqualified assertion may be true, it is entirely irrelevant. It is meaningless fluff, meant to make us feel better, and meant to somehow diminish the spectre of fanatics rampaging across the globe in the name of Islam. The fact is that the fanatics rule Islam at this moment in history.
It is the fanatics who march. It is the fanatics who wage any one of 50 shooting wars worldwide. It is the fanatics who systematically slaughter Christian or tribal groups throughout Africa and gradually taking over the entire continent in an Islamic wave. It is the fanatics, who bomb, behead, murder, or honour- kill. It is the fanatics who take over mosque after mosque. It is the fanatics who zealously spread the stoning and hanging of rape victims and homosexuals. The hard quantifiable fact is that the 'peaceful majority' the 'silent majority' is cowed and extraneous. Communist Russia comprised Russians who just wanted to live in peace, yet the Russian Communists were responsible for the murder of about 20 million people. The peaceful majority were irrelevant.
China's huge population, it was peaceful as well, but Chinese Communists managed to kill a staggering 70 million people. The average Japanese individual prior to World War2 was not a warmongering sadist. Yet, Japan murdered and slaughtered its way across South East Asia in an orgy of killing that included the systematic murder of 12 million Chinese civilians; most killed by sword, shovel and bayonet. And, who can forget Rwanda, which collapsed into butchery. Could it not be said that the majority of Rwandans were 'peaceful & loving'? History lessons are often incredibly simple and blunt, yet for all our powers of reason we often miss the most basic and uncomplicated of points:
Peace-loving Muslims have been made irrelevant by their silence. Peace-loving Muslims will become our enemy if they don't speak up, because like my friend from Germany, they will awake one day and find that the fanatics own them, and the end of their world will have begun. Peace-loving Germans, Japanese, Chinese, Russians, Rwandans, Serbs, Afghans, Iraqis, Palestinians, Somalis, Nigerians, Algerians, and many have died because the peaceful majority did not speak up until it was too late.
As for us who watch it all unfold; we must pay attention to the only group that counts; the fanatics who threaten our way of life.
We are told again and again by 'experts' and 'talking heads' that Islam is the religion of peace, and that the vast majority of Muslims just want to live in peace.
Although this unqualified assertion may be true, it is entirely irrelevant. It is meaningless fluff, meant to make us feel better, and meant to somehow diminish the spectre of fanatics rampaging across the globe in the name of Islam. The fact is that the fanatics rule Islam at this moment in history.
It is the fanatics who march. It is the fanatics who wage any one of 50 shooting wars worldwide. It is the fanatics who systematically slaughter Christian or tribal groups throughout Africa and gradually taking over the entire continent in an Islamic wave. It is the fanatics, who bomb, behead, murder, or honour- kill. It is the fanatics who take over mosque after mosque. It is the fanatics who zealously spread the stoning and hanging of rape victims and homosexuals. The hard quantifiable fact is that the 'peaceful majority' the 'silent majority' is cowed and extraneous. Communist Russia comprised Russians who just wanted to live in peace, yet the Russian Communists were responsible for the murder of about 20 million people. The peaceful majority were irrelevant.
China's huge population, it was peaceful as well, but Chinese Communists managed to kill a staggering 70 million people. The average Japanese individual prior to World War2 was not a warmongering sadist. Yet, Japan murdered and slaughtered its way across South East Asia in an orgy of killing that included the systematic murder of 12 million Chinese civilians; most killed by sword, shovel and bayonet. And, who can forget Rwanda, which collapsed into butchery. Could it not be said that the majority of Rwandans were 'peaceful & loving'? History lessons are often incredibly simple and blunt, yet for all our powers of reason we often miss the most basic and uncomplicated of points:
Peace-loving Muslims have been made irrelevant by their silence. Peace-loving Muslims will become our enemy if they don't speak up, because like my friend from Germany, they will awake one day and find that the fanatics own them, and the end of their world will have begun. Peace-loving Germans, Japanese, Chinese, Russians, Rwandans, Serbs, Afghans, Iraqis, Palestinians, Somalis, Nigerians, Algerians, and many have died because the peaceful majority did not speak up until it was too late.
As for us who watch it all unfold; we must pay attention to the only group that counts; the fanatics who threaten our way of life.
good article by Charles Krauthammer on why the peace process is a farce
CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER
TURNING 60
They weren't. They aren't anywhere. Their disappearance into the mists of history since their exile from Israel in 722 B.C. is no mystery. It is the norm, the rule for every ancient people defeated, destroyed, scattered and exiled.
With one exception, a miraculous story of redemption and return, after not a century or two, but 2,000 years. Remarkably, that miracle occurred in our time. This week marks its 60th anniversary: the return and restoration of the remaining two tribes of Israel -- Judah and Benjamin, later known as the Jews -- to their ancient homeland.
Besides restoring Jewish sovereignty, the establishment of the State of Israel embodied many subsidiary miracles, from the creation of the first Jewish army since Roman times to the only recorded instance of the resurrection of a dead language -- Hebrew, now the daily tongue of a vibrant nation of 7 million. As historian Barbara Tuchman once wrote, Israel is "the only nation in the world that is governing itself in the same territory, under the same name, and with the same religion and same language as it did 3,000 years ago."
During its early years, Israel was often spoken of in such romantic terms. Today, such talk is considered naive, anachronistic, even insensitive, nothing more than Zionist myth designed to hide the true story, i.e., the Palestinian narrative of dispossession.
Not so. Palestinian suffering is, of course, real and heart-wrenching, but what the Arab narrative deliberately distorts is the cause of its own tragedy: the folly of its own fanatical leadership -- from Haj Amin al-Husseini, the grand mufti of Jerusalem (Nazi collaborator, who spent World War II in Berlin), to Egypt's Gamal Abdel Nasser to Yasser Arafat to Hamas of today -- that repeatedly chose war rather than compromise and conciliation.
Palestinian dispossession is a direct result of the Arab rejection, then and now, of a Jewish state of any size on any part of the vast lands the Arabs claim as their exclusive patrimony. That was the cause of the war 60 years ago that, in turn, caused the refugee problem. And it remains the cause of war today.
Six months before Israel's birth, the United Nations
With a vengeance. On the day the British pulled down their flag, Israel was invaded by Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Transjordan and Iraq -- 650,000 Jews against 40 million Arabs.
Israel prevailed, another miracle. But at a very high cost -- not just to the Palestinians displaced as a result of a war designed to extinguish Israel at birth, but also to the Israelis, whose war losses were staggering: 6,373 dead. One percent of the population. In American terms, it would take 35 Vietnam memorials to encompass such a monumental loss of life.
You rarely hear about Israel's terrible suffering in that 1948-49 war. You hear only the Palestinian side. Today, in the same vein, you hear that Israeli settlements and checkpoints and occupation are the continuing root causes of terrorism and instability in the region.
But in 1948, there were no "occupied territories." Nor in 1967 when Egypt, Syria and Jordan joined together in a second war of annihilation against Israel.
Look at Gaza today. No Israeli occupation, no settlements, not a single Jew left. The Palestinian response? Unremitting rocket fire killing and maiming Israeli civilians. The declared casus belli of the Palestinian government in Gaza behind these rockets? The very existence of a Jewish state.
One constantly hears about the disabling complexity of the Arab-Israeli dispute. Complex it is, but the root cause is not. Israel's crime is not its policies but its insistence on living. On the day the Arabs -- and the Palestinians in particular -- make a collective decision to accept the Jewish state, there will be peace, as Israel proved with its treaties with Egypt and Jordan. Until that day, there will be nothing but war. And every "peace process," however cynical or well meaning, will come to nothing.
Friday, June 6, 2008
Wearing hate
Talk about 2 disgusting T-shirts - the first depicts children with guns, the Palestinian flag and the word, "Victimized." The second t-shirt sports of mug of Yasser Arafat with the phrase, "The good ole days" on it.
The CA based company, FreshJive manufactures them and they are sold in many small retail outlets across the country, but thanks to ZOA - Pittsburgh and an army of online activists connected with our efforts to clean up the antisemitism on Facebook, URBAN OUTFITTERS and AMAZON.COM are no longer selling these expressions of hate and insensitivity. (note: the Southside Urban Outfitters never offered them in that store; the shirts were in the catalogue.)
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
lyrics and link to Neighborhood Bully, by Bob Dylan
YouTube - Neighborhood Bully
Well, the neighborhood bully, he's just one man,
His enemies say he's on their land.
They got him outnumbered about a million to one,
He got no place to escape to, no place to run.
He's the neighborhood bully.
The neighborhood bully just lives to survive,
He's criticized and condemned for being alive.
He's not supposed to fight back, he's supposed to have thick skin,
He's supposed to lay down and die when his door is kicked in.
He's the neighborhood bully.
The neighborhood bully been driven out of every land,
He's wandered the earth an exiled man.
Seen his family scattered, his people hounded and torn,
He's always on trial for just being born.
He's the neighborhood bully.
Well, he knocked out a lynch mob, he was criticized,
Old women condemned him, said he should apologize.
Then he destroyed a bomb factory, nobody was glad.
The bombs were meant for him.
He was supposed to feel bad.
He's the neighborhood bully.
Well, the chances are against it and the odds are slim
That he'll live by the rules that the world makes for him,
'Cause there's a noose at his neck and a gun at his back
And a license to kill him is given out to every maniac.
He's the neighborhood bully.
He got no allies to really speak of.
What he gets he must pay for, he don't get it out of love.
He buys obsolete weapons and he won't be denied
But no one sends flesh and blood to fight by his side.
He's the neighborhood bully.
Well, he's surrounded by pacifists who all want peace,
They pray for it nightly that the bloodshed must cease.
Now, they wouldn't hurt a fly.
To hurt one they would weep.
They lay and they wait for this bully to fall asleep.
He's the neighborhood bully.
Every empire that's enslaved him is gone,
Egypt and Rome, even the great Babylon.
He's made a garden of paradise in the desert sand,
In bed with nobody, under no one's command.
He's the neighborhood bully.
Now his holiest books have been trampled upon,
No contract he signed was worth what it was written on.
He took the crumbs of the world and he turned it into wealth,
Took sickness and disease and he turned it into health.
He's the neighborhood bully.
What's anybody indebted to him for?
Nothin', they say.
He just likes to cause war.
Pride and prejudice and superstition indeed,
They wait for this bully like a dog waits to feed.
He's the neighborhood bully.
What has he done to wear so many scars?
Does he change the course of rivers?
Does he pollute the moon and stars?
Neighborhood bully, standing on the hill,
Running out the clock, time standing still,
Neighborhood bully.
Copyright © 1983 Special Rider Music
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WlHlXHimo_g
Well, the neighborhood bully, he's just one man,
His enemies say he's on their land.
They got him outnumbered about a million to one,
He got no place to escape to, no place to run.
He's the neighborhood bully.
The neighborhood bully just lives to survive,
He's criticized and condemned for being alive.
He's not supposed to fight back, he's supposed to have thick skin,
He's supposed to lay down and die when his door is kicked in.
He's the neighborhood bully.
The neighborhood bully been driven out of every land,
He's wandered the earth an exiled man.
Seen his family scattered, his people hounded and torn,
He's always on trial for just being born.
He's the neighborhood bully.
Well, he knocked out a lynch mob, he was criticized,
Old women condemned him, said he should apologize.
Then he destroyed a bomb factory, nobody was glad.
The bombs were meant for him.
He was supposed to feel bad.
He's the neighborhood bully.
Well, the chances are against it and the odds are slim
That he'll live by the rules that the world makes for him,
'Cause there's a noose at his neck and a gun at his back
And a license to kill him is given out to every maniac.
He's the neighborhood bully.
He got no allies to really speak of.
What he gets he must pay for, he don't get it out of love.
He buys obsolete weapons and he won't be denied
But no one sends flesh and blood to fight by his side.
He's the neighborhood bully.
Well, he's surrounded by pacifists who all want peace,
They pray for it nightly that the bloodshed must cease.
Now, they wouldn't hurt a fly.
To hurt one they would weep.
They lay and they wait for this bully to fall asleep.
He's the neighborhood bully.
Every empire that's enslaved him is gone,
Egypt and Rome, even the great Babylon.
He's made a garden of paradise in the desert sand,
In bed with nobody, under no one's command.
He's the neighborhood bully.
Now his holiest books have been trampled upon,
No contract he signed was worth what it was written on.
He took the crumbs of the world and he turned it into wealth,
Took sickness and disease and he turned it into health.
He's the neighborhood bully.
What's anybody indebted to him for?
Nothin', they say.
He just likes to cause war.
Pride and prejudice and superstition indeed,
They wait for this bully like a dog waits to feed.
He's the neighborhood bully.
What has he done to wear so many scars?
Does he change the course of rivers?
Does he pollute the moon and stars?
Neighborhood bully, standing on the hill,
Running out the clock, time standing still,
Neighborhood bully.
Copyright © 1983 Special Rider Music
Welcome to ZOA-Pgh!! The truth is neither left nor right!
Dear Friends of Israel,
Last week, at the ZOA - Pittsburgh District Annual Meeting and Kandy Reidbord Ehrenwerth Memorial Lecture, Dr. Andre Oboler showed us how our enemies are using the internet as an effective tool to spread lies and hate about Israel and the Jewish people. One of the ways that he suggested we fight back is by blogging. It's easy!! Just go to www.blogger.com and set up an account in 3 easy steps. We can all play a part in raising the internet profile of the pro-Israel community. I will explain more about that soon.
For now, I just want to share some great tidbits from the web that I hope you will spread around, especially in this blog format (as opposed to email, which does not help promote our rank).
For starters, some information about our national president, Mort Klein:
Mr. Klein is widely regarded as one of the leading Jewish activist in the U.S. The Forward, a national Jewish weekly, named him one of the top five Jewish leaders in the country today, stating that "it's impossible to deny that Klein has been extraordinarily effective." The NY Jewish Week has named him one of the top ten Jewish leaders who have made a difference. The Jewish Press recently stated that "Morton Klein is one of the best minds in this country."
Thanks to Mort's achievements on behalf of ZOA, the Jerusalem Post has called the ZOA, "one of the most important and influential groups in the U.S. today." The Wall Street Journal called the ZOA "heroic and the most credible advocate for Israel on the American Jewish scene today" and added that we should "snap a salute to those who were right about Oslo and Arafat all along . . including Morton Klein, who was wise, brave and unflinchingly honest. When the history of the American Jewish struggle in these years is written, Mr. Klein will emerge as an outsized figure." The New York Times, in a profile called "Public Lives," called Klein, "an iconoclast who is a prolific speechmaker, writer and Congressional lobbyist."
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