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Class and crass in saga of Sgt. Gilad Shalit
By Bruce S. Ticker
Bruce S. Ticker
PHILADELPHIA–What a touch of crass. The Free Gaza Movement lacked the sense to even pretend that they recognize Jewish humanity when it smacks them in the face.
Before the violent Memorial Day clash with Israeli commandos, their Freedom Flotilla was supposedly packed with food, clothing and construction materials for the people of Gaza, but they had no room for a letter and package that Noam Shalit and his family wanted to send to his son, Gilad Shalit, held hostage by Hamas since June 25, 2006, according to media reports.
In Washington, D.C., two congressmen – a Jew and a Christian, a Democrat and a Republican, a New “Yawker” and a “heartlander” – jointly introduced House Resolution 1359 urging the immediate release of Shalit, the Israel Defense Forces sergeant seized by Hamas terrorists in a cross-border raid. They hope the measure passes before the fourth anniversary of Shalit’s kidnapping.
Rep. Gary Ackerman, whose district covers Jewish communities in Queens and Nassau County, chairs the House Subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia, and represents portions of Queens and Nassau County. Rep. Dan Burton, of Indiana, co-sponsored the resolution in his capacity as senior Republican member of the subcommittee; about 10,000 Jews are estimated to live in or near Burton’s district.
The timing of 1359, announced in a news release from Ackerman, affords supporters of Israel an ideal opportunity to reassess efforts to seek Shalit’s release. No sustained drive to press for his freedom has ever been evident in the United States, though loosely organized efforts crop up every so often. Strong street protests in Israel may even be counter-productive, writes Haifa University Professor Steven Plaut.
Their common cause reflects the elementary injustice of Shalit’s plight. What Hamas persists in doing to the sergeant is intolerable. It is a compelling issue that ranks in priority close to Iran’s nuclear threat and the arms build-up in Gaza and southern Lebanon. Shalit’s kidnapping is a blatant act of war that justifies use of force by Israel. How can anyone dispute this?
Our protests in both America and Israel must be persistent, coordinated and full-throated, but we cannot be optimistic that it will spur Shalit’s release. That would be the best result, but at minimum we need to call the world’s attention to Shalit’s struggle. When critics pressure Israel, we should remind them of Ackerman’s words when he announced his legislation: “This outrageous and deeply immoral conduct is absolutely contrary to both international law and the most basic standards of human conduct.”
It is refreshing that the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism – the umbrella organization for the Conservative movement – announced its launch of a drive to raise awareness of Shalit’s plight.
USCJ stated in an e-news article on its Web site that participants can join a Yellow Balloon campaign to mark the fourth anniversary by e-mailing virtual yellow balloons along with a message to friends, who can e-mail messages to others. The campaign, run by USCJ’s youth and young adult services department, urges the display of real yellow balloons in front of synagogues, affiliated organizations and private residences during the week of June 21.
“If this campaign keeps international pressure on the world community, we will have accomplished something,” says Richard Moline, USCJ’s youth and young adult services director, in the e-news article.
USCJ also calls upon people to lobby their elected officials and write his parents to express support.
In this vein, we can all write to our representatives in Congress asking them to sign onto Resolution 1359, especially those members of Congress perceived as harshly critical of Israel. Interestingly, some members of Congress called on Israel to expand access of supplies to Gaza without mentioning Shalit’s situation. That group includes Rep. Joe Sestak, the Democratic nominee for Senate in Pennsylvania.
This is also an opportune time for Jewish organizations to demand that leaders of the Free Gaza Movement explain why they refused to deliver the Shalit family’s letter to Gilad.
Congress already passed a resolution on Shalit’s behalf during the preceding congressional session, said Ackerman, also co-sponsor of the first resolution. If you are learning this only now, you are not alone. Coverage of Shalit’s situation has been sporadic in the mainstream daily newspapers, and reporting in American Jewish newspapers has not been much better.
The media share the blame with Jews and other supporters of Israel who exerted limited effort to make news about Shalit. They were too busy pursuing less substantial matters such as disparaging Jimmy Carter, objecting to a potential Israel-bashing conference, demonstrating against a mosque near Ground Zero and hunting down Mel Gibson with the zeal of Tommy Lee Jones in “The Fugitive.”
These other concerns are important and should be addressed, but we are talking proportions here. We need to focus on what is most significant, and I think a soldier’s kidnapping qualifies.
Israelis have been active holding demonstrations, but Haifa’s Steve Plaut reports in a commentary that they may be hurting Shalit’s cause. He writes, “These protests issue demands to and put pressure on the Israeli government rather than on Hamas. Hamas is indifferent to the desires and passions of the demonstrators. By demanding that ‘everything’ be done to obtain Shalit’s release, the only real effect of the protests is to raise the price it will take to obtain Shalit’s freedom. The protests also make such a release more remote and unlikely.
“The terrorists understand perfectly well that all this only serves to increase the pressure on the Israeli government to offer ever-greater capitulations,” he adds.
Many people are appalled that Israel would even consider Hamas’ demand that it release 1,000 or more Arab prisoners including – perhaps especially – mass murderers in exchange for Shalit. Israelis correctly fear that releasing prisoners will only encourage Hamas and other terrorist organizations to abduct more Israelis.
Maybe there are other ways for Israel to retrieve Shalit. One suggestion: Perhaps Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu can refer to the attack on Gaza last year by telling Hamas, “If you return Sgt. Shalit, we will not finish the job.”
Hamas may never give up Shalit no matter what we do. Yet if Jews do not show that we care, why should the rest of the world care?
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Bruce S. Ticker is a Philadelphia freelance journalist. He blogs at www.Jewishconcerns.blogspot.com. He can be reached at bticker@comcast.net.
US Congressmen and senators defend Israel against criticism
(WJC)–The ‘Jerusalem Post’ reports that more than a dozen US senators and over 60 members of the House of Representatives have issued statements since the flotilla interception last week, with almost all of them overwhelmingly supportive of Israel. In the Senate, former Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry said that “Israel has every right in the world to make certain that weapons are not being smuggled in after the thousands of rockets that have been fired on it from Gaza… It is not just Israel conducting this blockade; it is Israel and Egypt.”
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, also Democrat, noted that “Israel has an obligation to protect its citizens and therefore has a clear right under international law to prevent weapons from getting in the hands of terrorists determined to target them. Israel indicated it was willing to put in place a process to ensure that legitimate humanitarian relief reached Gaza. Unfortunately this offer was rejected. Israel has pledged to carry out a transparent and thorough investigation of this incident, and I look forward to its findings.”
Senator Joe Lieberman, an independent senator, said, “We should be very clear about who is responsible for the unfortunate loss of life in the attempt to break the blockade in Gaza. Hamas and its allies are the responsible parties for the recent violence and the continued difficulties for the people of Gaza. Israel exercised her legitimate right of self defense.” Lieberman said he appreciated “the way in which the Obama administration has refused to join the international herd that has rushed to convict Israel before the facts were known and has apparently forgotten that Israel is a democratic nation and Hamas is a terrorist group.”
The Republican senator Scott Brown added that “Israel is at war. Each and every day thousands of its innocent men, women and children face the threat of lethal rocket attacks out of Gaza. Some of the usual critics of Israel have used recent events to question the strong relationship between our countries… Israel is not a liability to the United States. There is no greater US ally in the critical area of the Middle East and perhaps no better strategic partnership in the world.”
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Preceding provided by World Jewish Congress.
Israel and Egypt ease blockade of Gaza
(WJC)–Israel has relaxed the blockade of the Gaza Strip to permit more provisions into the area. Officials said the list of items allowed into the Gaza Strip has been expanded to include goods from soda drinks to shaving cream and spices. There has been international pressure for Israel to lift the blockade following the raid on a Gaza-bound flotilla carrying supplies. The blockade has been in place since Hamas seized power in Gaza in 2007.
Egypt – which also had closed its border with Gaza – reopened it last week and said it would remain open for the time being. Since then, around 5,000 Gazans have crossed into Egypt. People with documents granting them entry into Egypt or other Arab countries have been allowed to leave the coastal enclave, while Palestinian patients who had received medical treatment in Egypt were allowed to return to Gaza.
Egypt has occasionally opened its border with the enclave for three or four-day periods. This is the first time that the border has been opened for an indefinite period of time.
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Preceding provided by World Jewish Congress.
Helen Thomas’ career finished after anti-Jewish remarks
(WJC)–President Barack Obama has welcomed the immediate retirement of journalist Helen Thomas, 89, following her call on Jews “to get the hell out of Palestine”. Thomas was the longest-serving reporter in the White House press corps. The end of her career was announced by Hearst Corp., where she worked as a newspaper columnist. “Helen
Thomas announced Monday that she is retiring, effective immediately,” Hearst News Service said in a short statement.
Thomas, who served for decades as White House correspondent for ‘United Press International’ (UPI), apologized last week for the remarks she made about Israel during a “Jewish Heritage Celebration” at the White House at the end of May. Asked at the event by the website ‘RabbiLive.com’ whether she had any comments on Israel, she replied: “Tell them to get the hell out of Palestine. Remember these people are occupied and it’s their land, not Germany and not Poland. They can go home, Poland, Germany, and America, and everywhere else.”
Obama said in a television interview that Helen Thomas’ remarks were “offensive”. He added: “I think those comments were out of line, and hopefully she recognizes that”. However, Obama praised Thomas’ long career as a journalist.
Thomas issued an apology on her website. “I deeply regret my comments I made last week regarding the Israelis and the Palestinians,” she said.
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Preceding proWorld Jewish Congress.
Former Israeli chief rabbi Mordechai Eliahu dies at 81
(WJC)–Over 100,000 mourners have attended the funeral of the former Sephardic chief rabbi of Israel, Mordechai Eliahu, in Jerusalem. He died on Monday at the age of 81. Eliahu, considered a key spiritual leader of the religious Zionist community, played a major role in moving parts of this community closer to ultra-Orthodox thought and practice, spawning what became known as the Hardal movement.
Eliahu was also a spiritual patron of the settler movement, national religious political parties and various right-wing organizations. He was revered by Ashkenazi and Sephardic religious Zionists alike, and despite his Zionism was also widely respected by ultra-Orthodox rabbis.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a statement expressing the sadness at the loss of a great rabbinic leader. Chief rabbis Shlomo Amar and the Yona Metzger spoke at the funeral.
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Preceding provided by World Jewish Congress.
OPINION – Menachem Rosensaft: Glenn Beck Promotes Vicious Anti-Semite on Radio Show – Huffington Post, USA
(WJC)–Just when we thought that we had heard all the offensive, Nazi-related comments that could possibly be
uttered, we are proven wrong with a vengeance.
First we had Newt Gingrich’s absurd pronouncement that the Obama Administration’s policies represent “as great a threat to America as Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union once did.” Then Helen Thomas went into her rant about how the Jews should “get the hell out of Palestine” and “go home” to Poland and Germany, where Nazi Germany murdered millions of Jews. And now Tea Party movement hero and Fox News host Glenn Beck promotes a vicious anti-Semite and Nazi fellow traveler on his radio show.
At least Helen Thomas had the good sense to resign as a Hearst columnist. Beck, on the other hand, is utterly unapologetic, secure in the knowledge that his reactionary audiences applaud his hate mongering.
On his June 4 radio program, Beck sang the praises of Elizabeth Dilling’s 1936 book, The Red Network: A “Who’s Who” and Handbook of Radicalism for Patriots, in which she declared that “the problem of the large number of revolutionary Russian Jews in Germany doubtless contributed toward making Fascist Germany anti-Semitic.” “Naziism [sic],” Dilling wrote in the screed Beck is now heralding, “has directed its attacks more against conspiring, revolutionary Communist Jews, than against nationalist German Jews who aided Germany during the war.”
Dilling’s book, Beck told his audience, was “from people who were doing what we’re doing now.” Ok, at least we now know what Beck purports to be doing.
Dilling, it should be noted, was an admirer of Adolf Hitler who appeared at rallies organized by the German-American Bund, the largest Nazi group in the United States. As Eric Hananoki observed on Media Matters for America, http://mediamatters.org/print/blog/201006040053, she has become a cult hero for White Supremacists like Women for Aryan Unity and Stormfront.org “who revere her ‘fearless’ work against Jewish people.”
Elsewhere, Dilling wrote that “Talmudic Judaism is the progenitor of modern Communism and Marxist collectivism as it is now applied to a billion or more of the world’s population;” she called President Eisenhower “Ike the kike;” and she dismissed President Kennedy’s legislative agenda as the “Jew Frontier.”
Beck is not alone in praising the works of Elizabeth Dilling. Remember David Duke, the former Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan who served briefly as a Republican member of the Louisiana House of Representatives, received over 43% in his 1990 race for the U.S. Senate seat from Louisiana, and ran for the 1992 Republican presidential nomination? Dilling’s book, The Plot Against Christianity, is prominently featured on Duke’s web site, including her assertions that the Bolshevik Revolution was “heavily financed by outside Jewish financial and banking houses,” and that “This Jewish control still exists, despite propaganda to the contrary, designed to delude and deceive non-Jews.”
According to Amazon.com, “customers who bought” The Plot Against Christianity also bought such classics as Martin Luther’s The Jews and Their Lies and The Synagogue of Satan. One Amazon.com customer praised the Dilling book as “one of the best books I have ever read. This book exposes the fundamental teachings of modern day Jewry… the very Jewry that our Lord and Savior fought against.”
Nice.
This is the paragon whose writings Beck holds up to his listeners as required reading.
But then again, Beck announced on Fox & Friends last year that President Obama had “a deep-rooted hatred for white people;” told his listeners on August 12, 2009 that while he was “not comparing” President Obama to Adolf Hitler, “please read Mein Kampf;” and two weeks later denounced the president’s plan to expand the Peace Corps and AmeriCorps as “what Hitler did with the SS.”
The real problem is that Beck, like Rush Limbaugh, has become a Republican and conservative icon. Earlier this year, he gave the key note address at the Conservative Political Action Conference. He also appeared together with Representative Michele Bachmann (R.-MN) at the annual conference of the Constitutional Coalition, and addressed the recent national convention of the National Rifle Association.
When the conservative establishment, including much of the Republican Party leadership, bestows a mantle of credibility on someone like Beck, it means that his words have their tacit endorsement. When they do not disavow Beck’s promotion of an anti-Semitic pamphleteer, they give his national audience the green light to identify with and espouse Dilling’s toxic views.
The time has come for prominent Republicans such as Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele, Senator Mitch McConnell, the Minority Leader in the U.S. Senate, Representative John Boehner, McConnell’s counterpart in the House of Representatives, and Representative Eric Cantor, the Republican Whip in the House, to be forced to publicly address Beck’s irresponsible promotion of Elizabeth Dilling’s book.
While we’re at it, we are entitled to know whether other conservative political commentators like former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee and William Kristol are prepared to distance themselves from Beck’s offensive rhetoric.
As a nation, we simply cannot afford a resurgence in the American body politic of the xenophobic, racist, anti-Semitic sentiments once espoused by Father Charles Coughlin and his ilk. And we cannot allow Glenn Beck to get away with fanning the fires of intolerance to boost his ratings or to curry favor with his Tea Party crowd.
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Menachem Rosensaft is Adjunct Professor of Law at Cornell Law School, General Counsel of the World Jewish Congress, and Vice President of the American Gathering of Jewish Holocaust Survivors and Their Descendants.
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Preceding provided by World Jewish Congress.
Cairo court wants Egyptian men married to Israelis stripped of their citizenship
(WJC)–The Supreme Administrative Court in Cairo has upheld a ruling urging the government to consider stripping Egyptian men who are married to Jewish Israeli women of their Egyptian citizenship. The ruling requires officials to send all such cases to the Cabinet, to be decided on an individual basis. Egypt’s Interior Ministry had appealed against the ruling of a lower court last year. The judges – whose ruling cannot be appealed – called on the government to determine whether to remove the nationality of the men concerned, as well as that of their children. The court also said officials should take into consideration whether a man married an Israeli Arab or a Jew when making its decision to revoke citizenship.
It is estimated that about 30,000 Egyptians are married to Israeli women. The lawyer who brought the case, Nabih el-Wahsh, said it was aimed at protecting Egyptian youth and Egypt’s national security. He says that offspring of marriages between Egyptian men and Israeli women should not be allowed to perform military service. There should not be a new generation “disloyal to Egypt and the Arab world”, he said.
A law enacted prior to the 1979 peace treaty between Egypt and Israel requires the stripping of citizenship of those who married Israelis that have served in the IDF, or openly embraced Zionism.
In 2005, former Grand Mufti Nasr Farid Wasel issued a fatwa, a religious edict, saying that Muslim Egyptians may not marry Israeli nationals, “whether Arab, Muslim, or Christian.”
Israel’s Foreign Ministry said that if the ruling was as reported it would constitute a grave decision that stood in complete opposition with the peace agreement between the two countries. Jerusalem has asked the Egyptian government for clarification.
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Preceding provided by World Jewish Congress.
French authorities act against Hamas television channel
(WJC)–The French government has asked its broadcasting authority CSA to put an end to “incitement to hatred’ on the Hamas-run ‘Al-Aqsa TV’, broadcast via a Paris-based satellite company. Foreign Ministry spokesman Bernard Valero said that France had received a warning from the European Commission that ‘Al-Aqsa TV’, which is accused of inciting hatred of Jews and Israelis, had repeatedly breached European rules.
The station, broadcast via the Eutelsat satellite operator, shows programs which “incite hatred or violence for reasons of religion or nationality,” Valero told reporters. He added that French authorities were confident the CSA would take rapid action to ensure content broadcast via satellites owned by French-based firms and beamed into the EU respected French and EU law.
In 2008 and 2009, the CSA warned Eutelsat about breaching French laws that ban incitement to hatred, but these warnings did not lead to any change in the content broadcast via its satellites. The satellite operator said in a statement that it had always strictly complied with decisions taken by the CSA.
“In 2008 and in 2009, when the CSA informed us of its decisions concerning Al Aqsa, we immediately contacted our client Noorsat, the operator which handles the broadcasting of the ‘Al-Aqsa’ channel within its bouquet of programs,” it said. ‘Al-Aqsa TV’ is controlled by Hamas.
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Preceding provided by World Jewish Congress.
Ahmadinejad rules out further nuclear concessions; attacks Israel again
(WJC)–At a conference in Istanbul, Turkey, Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has said his country would no
t give any more ground on its nuclear program. A deal to swap fuel, negotiated with Turkey and Brazil, was an opportunity for the West to break the deadlock that would “not be repeated”. The deal resurrected elements of a UN-backed offer for Tehran to part with 1,200kg of low-enriched uranium – potential nuclear weapons material – in return for special fuel rods to make medical isotopes.
US officials have criticized the deal as too little, too late – partly because it would not stop Iran enriching uranium – and described it as an attempt to delay sanctions. “The meeting in Tehran [where the deal was brokered] created an opportunity for the US administration and for its allies, and we still hope that they will be able to use this opportunity,” Ahmadinejad said. “We say that this opportunity will not be repeated.” He warned that, if the US failed to change its stance, “the first ones to lose would be President Obama and the people of the United States”.
Speaking on the sidelines of the ‘Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia’ (CICA) summit in Istanbul, Ahmadinejad also criticized Russia – whose prime minister, Vladimir Putin, was attending the conference – for backing the sanctions. The Iranian leader warned Russia to “be careful not to be beside the enemies of the Iranian people”.
Ahmadinejad also launched another blistering attack on Israel. The raid on the Gaza-bound flotilla had sounded “the death knell of the Zionist regime,” he told an enthusiastic crowd at Istanbul’s Abou Ayyoub Ansari Mosque. The Iranian leader accused Israel of “unmatched crimes in the course of sixty some years of its history, that have been unprecedented in the history of mankind, the last of which has been invading the Gaza Peace Flotilla.” The crowd reportedly responded with “Allahu akbar” (God is great).
The Iranian president said Turkey and Iran were the “standard bearers of humanity and moralities.” He said that “everyone should know that the relations between the two countries are friendly, brotherly and deep rooted today.”
Turkey intended to propose a resolution to the 20 CICA member states condemning Israel’s raid.
On Monday, Israeli officials said the two ships the Iranian Red Crescent had announced it would be sending to Gaza would not be allowed to reach their destination. “If we didn’t let an Irish ship reach Gaza, we are certainly not going to let Iranian ships pass,” one diplomatic official told the ‘Jerusalem Post’.
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Preceding provided by World Jewish Congress.
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