from The Washington Times, Editorials/Op-Ed, July 7, 2005 ...
With the start of disengagement of Israel from Gaza less than six weeks away, the differences between the Israeli and Palestinian Authority approaches could hardly be any greater.
On the Israeli side, the government of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is carefully preparing for Aug. 15 -- the day it will begin to remove 8,500 men, women and children from 21 settlements in Gaza and more than 500 from four settlements in the northern West Bank.
To bolster the sagging fortunes of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Mr. Sharon, who transferred the West Bank cities of Jericho and Tulkarm to Palestinian security control in the spring, wants to do that in Bethlehem, Ramallah and Qalqilya before the withdrawal begins.
On the Palestinian side, for all of Mr. Abbas' stated good intentions about making peace with Israel, he hasn't done much.
Palestinian security forces remain in disarray. Lt. Gen. William Ward, the American soldier who four months ago was tasked with the responsibility to help the Palestinians rebuild their security forces, last week described his experience in trying to help reorganize a "dysfunctional" system of command. He told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that only about 22,000 of the 58,000 persons in the security forces actually bother to show up for work. But on paper, even 22,000 security officers should be quite capable of taking on Hamas and the other rejectionist groups.
One reason the security forces have failed so badly, Palestinian Interior Minister Nasser Youssef candidly told the Palestinian Legislative Council recently, is that they include terrorists and gangsters responsible for creating the lawlessness that has enveloped the West Bank and Gaza.
Instead of disarming terrorists, Mr. Abbas has tried, unsuccessfully, to persuade groups like Hamas to take their gunmen into his security forces. Earlier this week, Hamas rejected Mr. Abbas' offer to join his government. It has responded to his efforts to halt the anti-Israel violence by firing rockets at the Gaza settlements and Israeli towns in the Negev Desert.
Even more ominously -- both for Mr. Abbas and the Israelis -- Hamas has taken advantage of the Israeli decision taken earlier this year, to help Mr. Abbas, to refrain from offensive military operations against Hamas.
The Israel withdrawal from Gaza and the northern West Bank next month will be extraordinarily difficult. The Israeli military is bracing for an extensive campaign of civil disobedience by settlers. The terrorist attacks and threats emphasize the remarkable risks Mr. Sharon is taking to achieve historic compromise with the Palestinians.
Friday, July 08, 2005
Thursday, July 07, 2005
United Church of Christ joins divestment bandwagon
from SFGate.com, by ERRIN HAINES, Associated Press Writer, Tuesday, July 5, 2005
(07-05) 21:34 PDT ATLANTA, (AP) --
The United Church of Christ voted Tuesday to use 'economic leverage' to promote peace between Israel and Palestinians and to call for the dismantling of the Jewish state's security fence.
The resolutions were criticized by some Jewish leaders, who called them anti-Semitic.
...Peter Makari, the church's executive director for the Middle East and Europe, said the church remains committed to religious dialogue and participation among Jews, Christians and Muslims.
"These resolutions condemn all acts of violence on both sides and indicate a clear desire by the Synod to end violence and promote peace," Makari said.
However, Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean for the Simon Wiesenthal Center, called the resolutions "functionally anti-Semitic." He accused the UCC, which has 1.3 million members and 5,700 congregations, of holding Israel to a different moral standard.
"The UCC has disqualified itself as a legitimate partner for a just and equitable peace in the Holy Land," Cooper said.
.....The second resolution calls for the Israeli government to stop construction of the security barrier ....David Elcott, the American Jewish Committee's U.S. Director of Interreligious Affairs, criticized the measure. "We understand Christian concerns about a wall, but we believe that saving human lives is more significant than property," he said. "That wall has saved the lives of Jews, Christians and Muslims."
(07-05) 21:34 PDT ATLANTA, (AP) --
The United Church of Christ voted Tuesday to use 'economic leverage' to promote peace between Israel and Palestinians and to call for the dismantling of the Jewish state's security fence.
The resolutions were criticized by some Jewish leaders, who called them anti-Semitic.
...Peter Makari, the church's executive director for the Middle East and Europe, said the church remains committed to religious dialogue and participation among Jews, Christians and Muslims.
"These resolutions condemn all acts of violence on both sides and indicate a clear desire by the Synod to end violence and promote peace," Makari said.
However, Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean for the Simon Wiesenthal Center, called the resolutions "functionally anti-Semitic." He accused the UCC, which has 1.3 million members and 5,700 congregations, of holding Israel to a different moral standard.
"The UCC has disqualified itself as a legitimate partner for a just and equitable peace in the Holy Land," Cooper said.
.....The second resolution calls for the Israeli government to stop construction of the security barrier ....David Elcott, the American Jewish Committee's U.S. Director of Interreligious Affairs, criticized the measure. "We understand Christian concerns about a wall, but we believe that saving human lives is more significant than property," he said. "That wall has saved the lives of Jews, Christians and Muslims."
Saudi King Fahd is sinking - The Saudi stock exchange slumps
from DEBKAfile : July 7, 2005, 11:31 AM (GMT+02:00)
Saudi King Fahd is sinking. He is unconscious and hooked to a breathing machine.
Wednesday, July 6, his doctors decided to carry out a tracheotomy to help him breath.
Saudi official spokesmen claim the king is on the mend from a bout of pneumonia. But news of his deterioration spread through the oil kingdom and caused sharp drops on the Riyadh stock exchange.
Saudi King Fahd is sinking. He is unconscious and hooked to a breathing machine.
Wednesday, July 6, his doctors decided to carry out a tracheotomy to help him breath.
Saudi official spokesmen claim the king is on the mend from a bout of pneumonia. But news of his deterioration spread through the oil kingdom and caused sharp drops on the Riyadh stock exchange.
Jews embarrass the world
by Olive Schreiner, South African novelist, as quoted by Chief Rabbi J.H. Hertz, p,177,180, Ibid, p. 180
(thanks to Doron for passing this on.....)
Indeed it is difficult for all other nations of the world to live in the presence of the Jews. It is irritating and most uncomfortable. The Jews embarrass the world as they have done things which are beyond the imaginable.
They have become moral strangers since the day their forefather Abraham introduced the world to high ethical standards and to the fear of Heaven. They brought the world the Ten Commandments which many nations prefer to defy.
They violated the rules of history by staying alive, totally at odds with common sense and historical evidence. They outlived all their former enemies, including vast empires such as the Romans and the Greeks.
They angered the world with their return to their homeland after 2000 years of exile and after the murder of six million of their brothers and sisters.
They aggravated mankind by building, in the wink of an eye, a democratic State which others were not able to create in even hundreds of years.
They built living monuments such as the duty to be holy and the privilege to serve one's fellow men.
They had their hands in every human progressive endeavor, whether in science, medicine, psychology or any other discipline, while totally out of proportion to their actual numbers. They gave the world the Bible and even their "savior".
Jews taught the world not to accept the world as it is but to transform it, yet only a few nations wanted to listen. Moreover, the Jews introduced the world to one God, yet only a minority wanted to draw the moral consequences. So the nations of the world realize that they would have been lost without the Jews. And while their subconscious tries to remind them of how much of Western civilization is framed in terms of concepts first articulated by the Jews, they do anything to suppress it. They deny that Jews remind them of a higher purpose of life and the need to be honorable, and do anything to escape its consequences. It is simply too much to handle for them, too embarrassing to admit, and above all too difficult to live by.
So the nations of the world decided once again to go out of its way in order to find a stick to hit the Jews. The goal: to prove that Jews are as immoral and guilty of massacre and genocide as some of themselves are. All this in order to hide and justify their own failure to even protest when six million Jews were brought to the slaughterhouses of Auschwitz and Dachau; so as to wipe out the moral conscience of which the Jews remind them.
And they found a stick.
Nothing could be more gratifying for them than to find the Jews into a struggle with another people (who are completely terrorized by their own leaders) against whom the Jews, against their best wishes, have to defend themselves in order to survive. With great satisfaction, the world allows and initiates the rewriting of history so as to fuel the rage of yet another people against the Jews. This in spite of the fact that the nations understand very well that peace between the parties could have come a long time ago, if only the Jews would have had a fair chance. Instead, they happily jumped on the wagon of hate so as to justify their jealousy of the Jews and their incompetence to deal with their own moral issues.
When Jews look at the bizarre play, taking place in The Hague (sandgroper says: and in the Presbyterian and Anglican Churches, and in so many ways.....) they can only smile as this artificial game once more proves how the world paradoxically admits the Jews uniqueness. It is in their need to undermine the Jews that they actually raise them.
The study of history of Europe during the past centuries teaches us one uniform lesson:
That the nations which received and in any way dealt fairly and mercifully with the Jew have prospered; and that the nations that have tortured and oppressed him have written out their own curse.
(thanks to Doron for passing this on.....)
Indeed it is difficult for all other nations of the world to live in the presence of the Jews. It is irritating and most uncomfortable. The Jews embarrass the world as they have done things which are beyond the imaginable.
They have become moral strangers since the day their forefather Abraham introduced the world to high ethical standards and to the fear of Heaven. They brought the world the Ten Commandments which many nations prefer to defy.
They violated the rules of history by staying alive, totally at odds with common sense and historical evidence. They outlived all their former enemies, including vast empires such as the Romans and the Greeks.
They angered the world with their return to their homeland after 2000 years of exile and after the murder of six million of their brothers and sisters.
They aggravated mankind by building, in the wink of an eye, a democratic State which others were not able to create in even hundreds of years.
They built living monuments such as the duty to be holy and the privilege to serve one's fellow men.
They had their hands in every human progressive endeavor, whether in science, medicine, psychology or any other discipline, while totally out of proportion to their actual numbers. They gave the world the Bible and even their "savior".
Jews taught the world not to accept the world as it is but to transform it, yet only a few nations wanted to listen. Moreover, the Jews introduced the world to one God, yet only a minority wanted to draw the moral consequences. So the nations of the world realize that they would have been lost without the Jews. And while their subconscious tries to remind them of how much of Western civilization is framed in terms of concepts first articulated by the Jews, they do anything to suppress it. They deny that Jews remind them of a higher purpose of life and the need to be honorable, and do anything to escape its consequences. It is simply too much to handle for them, too embarrassing to admit, and above all too difficult to live by.
So the nations of the world decided once again to go out of its way in order to find a stick to hit the Jews. The goal: to prove that Jews are as immoral and guilty of massacre and genocide as some of themselves are. All this in order to hide and justify their own failure to even protest when six million Jews were brought to the slaughterhouses of Auschwitz and Dachau; so as to wipe out the moral conscience of which the Jews remind them.
And they found a stick.
Nothing could be more gratifying for them than to find the Jews into a struggle with another people (who are completely terrorized by their own leaders) against whom the Jews, against their best wishes, have to defend themselves in order to survive. With great satisfaction, the world allows and initiates the rewriting of history so as to fuel the rage of yet another people against the Jews. This in spite of the fact that the nations understand very well that peace between the parties could have come a long time ago, if only the Jews would have had a fair chance. Instead, they happily jumped on the wagon of hate so as to justify their jealousy of the Jews and their incompetence to deal with their own moral issues.
When Jews look at the bizarre play, taking place in The Hague (sandgroper says: and in the Presbyterian and Anglican Churches, and in so many ways.....) they can only smile as this artificial game once more proves how the world paradoxically admits the Jews uniqueness. It is in their need to undermine the Jews that they actually raise them.
The study of history of Europe during the past centuries teaches us one uniform lesson:
That the nations which received and in any way dealt fairly and mercifully with the Jew have prospered; and that the nations that have tortured and oppressed him have written out their own curse.
Wednesday, July 06, 2005
Christian Hate?: Anglican Consultative Council passes disinvestment resolution
from a new Blog by a concerned Anglican Christian Hate?: Anglican Consultative Council passes disinvestment resolution: Tuesday, June 28, 2005
As an Anglican I note with deep concern that the ...resolution ...passed unanimously at the meeting in Nottingham last week of the Anglican Consultative Council...
.....it raises all of the three basic concerns that I have about Christian Aid’s stance on the conflict.
As an Anglican I note with deep concern that the ...resolution ...passed unanimously at the meeting in Nottingham last week of the Anglican Consultative Council...
.....it raises all of the three basic concerns that I have about Christian Aid’s stance on the conflict.
- The singling out of Israel. Although the ACC passed other resolutions on political issues, and notably on the situation in Zimbabwe, none calls for economic pressure to be put on any other state.....In an orgy of destruction lasting just a month Robert Mugabe’s regime has left one and a half million Zimbabweans homeless, according to the UN’s estimate. Their crimes? Poverty, powerlessness and voting for the opposition. The ACC's resolution has strong words about the regime's record, but...no suggestion of disinvestment or any other form of economic pressure. And it "asks" the government to mend its ways - a courtesy not extended to Israel.
- The one-sided apportioning of blame, manifested in the assumption that only one side needs to be pressured into seeking peace and justice. Yes, there is the phrase about “violence against innocent Israelis”, but what an empty gesture of even-handedness that is – as if the C of E might have investments in companies that deal directly with Islamic Jihad! Much more to the point is that investment in “a future Palestinian state” is commended without any suggestion of its being made conditional on an end to terrorist violence.And note that, whereas the right to their land is asserted for Palestinians collectively and unconditionally, Israelis are divided into sheep and goats – the “innocent” who deserve to be spared from being blown up, and, implicitly, the guilty who don’t.
- The absence of the humility that should inform post-Holocaust Christians’ dealings with the Jewish people. Instead, we find Christians arrogating to themselves the right to pass judgment, without a hint of self-criticism, on the way Jews have tried to deal with their experience of persecution and ultimately genocide at the hands of a Christian culture.In present-day Germany there is a strong feeling that it is not for Germans - especially, not for the German state - to criticize Israel. One can argue whether the taboo has been taken too far, but the point is that it represents an owning of collective responsibility for the sins of the past – something deplorably lacking in the ACC’s stance.
......The ACC has met in an atmosphere of division and crisis unparalleled in the history of the Anglican Communion. In the identification of a common enemy, however, they have been enabled to achieve not just unity but unanimity. The psychological mechanism of scapegoating is familiar enough. That the common enemy turns out to be the ancient enemy of the faith speaks, at the very least, for an alarming lack of self-awareness.
... when the First Crusade set out on its journey to Palestine in 1096 (incidentally following a period of chronic division within the Church), it first turned its zeal on the Jewish communities of the Rhineland. ...they were presented at swordpoint with the choice between conversion and death. Loyalty to their faith cost 1300 men, women and children their lives in the city of Mainz alone.
Make no mistake, an unbroken thread links the prejudices of the eleventh century with those which helped the Nazis to power and enabled them to carry through the Final Solution with minimal resistance from the churches. And now it seems to me we are seeing something very close to an updated version of the old ultimatum being addressed to Jews. Now the choice is “give up your state or die”.
Jews are being categorized (for example by the academic boycott campaigners) into bad Zionists and good anti-Zionists. When Palestinian militants claim the right to inflict indiscriminate violence on the bad Zionist Jews, many on the western Left look the other way or openly applaud. And fury greets Israeli attempts to defend themselves, notably by the security fence. Yes, I know it’s been built on Palestinian land, and of course that’s wrong, but the sheer vehemence of the criticism, and the total lack of interest in the possibility that the fence has actually been effective in saving lives, leads me to suspect that there is something more primal underlying this: Jews are supposed to be defenceless. How dare they acquire power? How dare they place such an inflated value on their lives?
Is all this really something the Anglican Communion wants to be part of?
Anglican poll winner to face major disputes
from The Australian: : "Anglican poll winner to face major disputes ", Andrew West, July 06, 2005
AUSTRALIA'S four million Anglicans will have a new leader this weekend, with archbishops Peter Jensen from Sydney, Phillip Aspinall from Brisbane and the new archbishop of Perth Roger Herft the likely contenders.
Whoever takes over the position from Peter Carnley will have to wrestle immediately with the church's enduring disputes over women bishops and, even more controversially, the ordination of practising homosexuals.
Forty electors will meet in Sydney's St Andrew's Cathedral on Saturday to vote for the new primate, a position generally considered one of influence but holding little formal power. 'It has clout but it is not an Anglican papacy,' Dr Jensen said. "
.....Looming over the election will also be the spectre of a threat to the worldwide unity of the Anglican communion.
At a recent international summit, the Anglican Church of Canada and the Episcopal Church of the US were effectively sidelined because they have blessed same-sex unions and, in the US, consecrated a practising homosexual as bishop -- Gene Robinson of New Hampshire.
No Australian bishop has ever ventured that far but in the recent past Dr Jensen has suggested his Sydney diocese would find it hard to be in communion with a diocese that ordained or consecrated practising homosexuals. He has also lamented the possibility of "two Anglicanisms" developing and hinted he might be more comfortable as part of an informal network of Biblically orthodox dioceses in the developing world.
Dr Carnley, who announced his retirement last year, will head an international body established to resolve the dispute over the ordination of homosexual and female bishops. Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams appointed Dr Carnley last month to chair a 13-member panel that includes clergy, lawyers and lay theologians. The panel will have no power to intervene in disputes but will mediate between liberals and conservatives to try to avert further division within the church.
AUSTRALIA'S four million Anglicans will have a new leader this weekend, with archbishops Peter Jensen from Sydney, Phillip Aspinall from Brisbane and the new archbishop of Perth Roger Herft the likely contenders.
Whoever takes over the position from Peter Carnley will have to wrestle immediately with the church's enduring disputes over women bishops and, even more controversially, the ordination of practising homosexuals.
Forty electors will meet in Sydney's St Andrew's Cathedral on Saturday to vote for the new primate, a position generally considered one of influence but holding little formal power. 'It has clout but it is not an Anglican papacy,' Dr Jensen said. "
.....Looming over the election will also be the spectre of a threat to the worldwide unity of the Anglican communion.
At a recent international summit, the Anglican Church of Canada and the Episcopal Church of the US were effectively sidelined because they have blessed same-sex unions and, in the US, consecrated a practising homosexual as bishop -- Gene Robinson of New Hampshire.
No Australian bishop has ever ventured that far but in the recent past Dr Jensen has suggested his Sydney diocese would find it hard to be in communion with a diocese that ordained or consecrated practising homosexuals. He has also lamented the possibility of "two Anglicanisms" developing and hinted he might be more comfortable as part of an informal network of Biblically orthodox dioceses in the developing world.
Dr Carnley, who announced his retirement last year, will head an international body established to resolve the dispute over the ordination of homosexual and female bishops. Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams appointed Dr Carnley last month to chair a 13-member panel that includes clergy, lawyers and lay theologians. The panel will have no power to intervene in disputes but will mediate between liberals and conservatives to try to avert further division within the church.
Tuesday, July 05, 2005
Zentai to be extradited
From: The Australian : "'War criminal' to be extradited :By Paige Taylor :05-07-2005...
CANBERRA is expected to authorise extradition proceedings against accused war criminal Charles Zentai this week.
Mr Zentai, a former warrant officer in the Hungarian army, is wanted for the murder of Jewish teenager Peter Balazs in Budapest in November 1944.
... Zentai's lawyer Michael Bowden said he expected Senator Ellison to sign off on the request on Friday.
Australia has never extradited an alleged war criminal. Alleged Nazi Konrad Kalejs died aged 88 in a Melbourne nursing home in 2001 while fighting extradition to Latvia.
....Efraim Zuroff of the Simon Wiesenthal Centre welcomed news of the impending decision.
"We are very hopeful that this time it will result in an extradition and a trial in Europe," Dr Zuroff said. "The most important thing now is that ... the defendant is not allowed to abuse the process. My feeling now is that Zentai will do his best to appear as ill, frail and unfortunate as possible. "This is a syndrome that we refer to as Wiesenthal-itis or Zuroff-itis. It happens in every case like this."
.....If the minister signs the receipt of request for Mr Zentai, Australian Federal Police officers will charge him and he will be required to appear before a magistrate and apply for bail.
The magistrate will also determine if Mr Zentai should be extradited to face trial in Budapest. However, Senator Ellison will have the final say on whether Mr Zentai is made to return to his homeland.
CANBERRA is expected to authorise extradition proceedings against accused war criminal Charles Zentai this week.
Mr Zentai, a former warrant officer in the Hungarian army, is wanted for the murder of Jewish teenager Peter Balazs in Budapest in November 1944.
... Zentai's lawyer Michael Bowden said he expected Senator Ellison to sign off on the request on Friday.
Australia has never extradited an alleged war criminal. Alleged Nazi Konrad Kalejs died aged 88 in a Melbourne nursing home in 2001 while fighting extradition to Latvia.
....Efraim Zuroff of the Simon Wiesenthal Centre welcomed news of the impending decision.
"We are very hopeful that this time it will result in an extradition and a trial in Europe," Dr Zuroff said. "The most important thing now is that ... the defendant is not allowed to abuse the process. My feeling now is that Zentai will do his best to appear as ill, frail and unfortunate as possible. "This is a syndrome that we refer to as Wiesenthal-itis or Zuroff-itis. It happens in every case like this."
.....If the minister signs the receipt of request for Mr Zentai, Australian Federal Police officers will charge him and he will be required to appear before a magistrate and apply for bail.
The magistrate will also determine if Mr Zentai should be extradited to face trial in Budapest. However, Senator Ellison will have the final say on whether Mr Zentai is made to return to his homeland.
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