Of Democrats and Jews: Obama is Losing

On the great issues of our time, when those issues involve our nation's future (and by extension the future of 300 million Americans and billions worldwide), a question of whether we stand with or against our country is relevant to ask - do we believe in a strong United States, able to stand up to an enemy or belligerent and force them to stand down if need be, do we believe the United States should and must act to prevent genocide whenever and wherever it may occur, in whatever form we need to act, do we believe that the United States has been the greatest harbinger of peace and hope the world has ever witnessed, do we believe not everyone wants to have tea and crumpets - some people and some cultures want to utterly and totally destroy us and anyone who disagrees with them.  These are pretty simple statements of belief, and not exhaustive by any means.

Either we do believe or we do not.  There is no sort of.  The sort of answers / questions were not included to avoid such distinctions.  If you do not accept the premise - I do not believe you are a positive influence on our country and our future, and may in fact be a negative - more harmful than positive. 

We can have differences of opinion, but not on issues as clear cut as those listed above.  We can disagree on how great and how positive, not on whether we have been a positive influence.  Likewise, on an issue like Israel - we can have a range of opinions, but as Americans, our first loyalty must be to the United States, and then to any other state - including Israel.  Therefore the question of Jews always voting for or against a candidate they believe supports or does not support Israel is simplistic and hopefully Americans, whether Jewish or not, recognize the failure of such a policy and vote for or against a candidate, based upon more than just one value.

It may be less simple and more complicated than it appears on its face - an administration supportive of Israel is an administration that stands against values and ideas antithetical to the West.  Perhaps Jews understand this better than many other Americans.

Jewish Dems losing faith in Obama Ben Smith Politico June 29, 2011

David Ainsman really began to get worried about President Barack Obama’s standing with his fellow Jewish Democrats when a recent dinner with his wife and two other couples — all Obama voters in 2008 — nearly turned into a screaming match. Ainsman, a prominent Democratic lawyer and Pittsburgh Jewish community leader, was trying to explain that Obama had just been offering Israel a bit of “tough love” in his May 19 speech on the Arab Spring. His friends disagreed — to say the least. One said he had the sense that Obama “took the opportunity to throw Israel under the bus.” Another, who swore he wasn’t getting his information from the mutually despised Fox News, admitted he’d lost faith in the president. If several dozen interviews with POLITICO are any indication, a similar conversation is taking place in Jewish communities across the country. Obama’s speech last month seems to have crystallized the doubts many pro-Israel Democrats had about Obama in 2008 in a way that could, on the margins, cost the president votes and money in 2012 and will not be easy to repair. (See also: President Obama's Middle East speech: Details complicate 'simple' message) “It’s less something specific than that these incidents keep on coming,” said Ainsman. The immediate controversy sparked by the speech was Obama’s statement that Israel should embrace the country’s 1967 borders, with “land swaps,” as a basis for peace talks. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu seized on the first half of that phrase and the threat of a return to what Israelis sometimes refer to as “Auschwitz borders.” (Related: Obama defends border policy) Obama’s Jewish allies stressed the second half: that land swaps would — as American negotiators have long contemplated — give Israel security in its narrow middle, and the deal would give the country international legitimacy and normalcy. But the noisy fray after the speech mirrored any number of smaller controversies. Politically hawkish Jews and groups such as the Republican Jewish Coalition and the Emergency Committee for Israel pounded Obama in news releases. White House surrogates and staffers defended him, as did the plentiful American Jews who have long wanted the White House to lean harder on Israel’s conservative government. Based on the conversations with POLITICO, it’s hard to resist the conclusion that some kind of tipping point has been reached. Most of those interviewed were center-left American Jews and Obama supporters — and many of them Democratic donors. On some core issues involving Israel, they’re well to the left of Netanyahu and many Americans: They refer to the “West Bank,” not to “Judea and Samaria,” fervently supported the Oslo peace process and Israel’s unilateral withdrawal from Gaza and believe in the urgency of creating a Palestinian state. (Arena: Are Jewish voters still pro-Obama?) But they are also fearful for Israel at a moment of turmoil in a hostile region when the moderate Palestinian Authority is joining forces with the militantly anti-Israel Hamas. “It’s a hot time, because Israel is isolated in the world and, in particular, with the Obama administration putting pressure on Israel,” said Rabbi Neil Cooper, leader of Temple Beth Hillel-Beth El in Philadelphia’s Main Line suburbs, who recently lectured his large, politically connected congregation on avoiding turning Israel into a partisan issue. Some of these traditional Democrats now say, to their own astonishment, that they’ll consider voting for a Republican in 2012. And many of those who continue to support Obama said they find themselves constantly on the defensive in conversations with friends. “I’m hearing a tremendous amount of skittishness from pro-Israel voters who voted for Obama and now are questioning whether they did the right thing or not,” said Betsy Sheerr, the former head of an abortion-rights-supporting, pro-Israel PAC in Philadelphia, who said she continues to support Obama, with only mild reservations. “I’m hearing a lot of ‘Oh, if we’d only elected Hillary instead.’” Even Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who spoke to POLITICO to combat the story line of Jewish defections, said she’d detected a level of anxiety in a recent visit to a senior center in her South Florida district. “They wanted some clarity on the president’s view,” she said. “I answered their questions and restored some confidence that maybe was a little shaky, [rebutted] misinformation and the inaccurate reporting about what was said.” Wasserman Schultz and other top Democrats say the storm will pass. (Related: Debbie Wasserman Schultz: Jewish voters will stick with Obama) They point out to anyone who will listen that beyond the difficult personal relationship of Obama and Netanyahu, beyond a tense, stalled peace process, there’s a litany of good news for supporters of Israel: Military cooperation is at an all-time high; Obama has supplied Israel with a key missile defense system; the U.S. boycotted an anti-racism conference seen as anti-Israel; and America is set to spend valuable international political capital beating back a Palestinian independence declaration at the United Nations in September. The qualms that many Jewish Democrats express about Obama date back to his emergence onto the national scene in 2007. Though he had warm relations with Chicago’s Jewish community, he had also been friends with leading Palestinian activists, unusual in the Democratic establishment. And though he seemed to be trying to take a conventionally pro-Israel stand, he was a novice at the complicated politics of the America-Israel relationship, and his sheer inexperience showed at times. At the 2007 AIPAC Policy Conference, Obama professed his love for Israel but then seemed, - to some who were there for his informal talk - to betray a kind of naivete about the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians: “The biggest enemy” he said, using the same rhetoric he applied to American politics, was “not just terrorists, it’s not just Hezbollah, it’s not just Hamas — it’s also cynicism.” At the next year’s AIPAC conference, he again botched the conflict’s code, committing himself to an “undivided Jerusalem” and then walking it back the next day. Those doubts and gaffes lingered, even for many of the majority who supported him. “There’s an inclination in the community to not trust this president’s gut feel on Israel and every time he sets out on a path that’s troubling you do get this ‘ouch’ reaction from the Jewish Community because they’re distrustful of him,” said the president of a major national Jewish organization, who declined to be quoted by name to avoid endangering his ties to the White House. Many of Obama’s supporters, then and now, said they were unworried about the political allegiance of Jewish voters. Every four years, they say, Republicans claim to be making inroads with American Jews, and every four years, voters and donors go overwhelmingly for the Democrats, voting on a range of issues that include, but aren’t limited to Israel. But while that pattern has held, Obama certainly didn’t take anything for granted. His 2008 campaign dealt with misgivings with a quiet, intense, and effective round of communal outreach. “When Obama was running, there was a lot of concern among the guys in my group at shul, who are all late-30s to mid-40s, who I hang out with and daven with and go to dinner with, about Obama,” recalled Scott Matasar, a Cleveland lawyer who’s active in Jewish organizations. Matasar remembers his friends’ worries over whether Obama was “going to be OK for Israel.” But then Obama met with the community’s leaders during a swing through Cleveland in the primary, and the rabbi at the denominationally conservative synagogue Matasar attends — “a real ardent Zionist and Israel defender” — came back to synagogue convinced. “That put a lot of my concerns to rest for my friends who are very much Israel hawks but who, like me, aren’t one-issue voters.” Now Matasar says he’s appalled by Obama’s “rookie mistakes and bumbling” and the reported marginalization of a veteran peace negotiator, Dennis Ross, in favor of aides who back a tougher line on Netanyahu. He’s the most pro-Obama member of his social circle but is finding the president harder to defend. “He’d been very ham-handed in the way he presented [the 1967 border announcement] and the way he sprung this on Netanyahu,” Matasar said. A Philadelphia Democrat and pro-Israel activist, Joe Wolfson, recalled a similar progression. “What got me past Obama in the recent election was Dennis Ross — I heard him speak in Philadelphia and I had many of my concerns allayed,” Wolfson said. “Now, I think I’m like many pro-Israel Democrats now who are looking to see whether we can vote Republican.” That, perhaps, is the crux of the political question: The pro-Israel Jewish voters and activists who spoke to POLITICO are largely die-hard Democrats, few of whom have ever cast a vote for a Republican to be president. Does the new wave of Jewish angst matter? One place it might is fundraising. Many of the Clinton-era Democratic mega-donors who make Israel their key issue, the most prominent of whom is the Los Angeles Israeli-American billionaire Haim Saban, never really warmed to Obama, though Saban says he will vote for the Democrat and write him a check if asked. A top-dollar Washington fundraiser aimed at Jewish donors in Miami last week raised more than $1 million from 80 people, and while one prominent Jewish activist said the DNC had to scramble to fill seats, seven-figure fundraisers are hard to sneer at. Even people writing five-figure checks to Obama, though, appeared in need of a bit of bucking up. “We were very reassured,” Randi Levine, who attended the event with her husband, Jeffrey, a New York real estate developer, told POLITICO. Philadelphia Jewish Democrats are among the hosts of another top-dollar event June 30. David Cohen, a Comcast executive and former top aide to former Gov. Ed Rendell, said questions about Obama’s position on Israel have been a regular, if not dominant, feature of his attempts to recruit donors. “I takes me about five minutes of talking through the president’s position and the president’s speech, and the uniform reaction has been, ‘I guess you’re right, that’s not how I saw it covered,’” he said. Others involved in the Philadelphia event, however, said they think Jewish doubts are taking a fundraising toll. “We’re going to raise a ton of money, but I don’t know if we’re going to hit our goals,” said Daniel Berger, a lawyer who is firmly in the “peace camp” and said he blamed the controversy on Netanyahu’s intransigence.

obama

German Tolerance and Openness.

Very carefully - the way Euros insert anti-Semitic statements or arguments into conversation.


And once again - why articles that are 8 years old (this one is from November 1, 2002).

Why?  because very nearly every attack and criticism of the US is based on drivel pulled out of someones rusty file cabinet, and or just printed and taken from one of those sites that highlight change and masquerade as lucid while they have no change to spare and clearly need more sense than they have.  I am so tired of contending with ancient wrongs by the US, culled from a media so willing to make available the opinions of reporters, taken for fact by willing accomplices and spread like butter for the masses to swallow. 

If they can do it, I think all these articles, factual and evidenced by sources - are equally as useful to delve into the character of a government or people - as useful as what is so often done by those who are so effortlessly propelled to the highest levels of the media in Europe and the US from where they pontificate their sad and miserable views onto a public who knows only what they hear and read ... from a media so ready to capitalize on the negative.

And if Americans are all racist for X, then most certainly we can use news stories of German efforts to .... maintain, as evidence.  Fair is fair.






Berliners protest move to put 'Jewish' back into street name


Berlin (dpa) - Crowds of angry residents in Berlin Friday protested attempts to return a road to its pre-Nazi-era name of Jewish Street, with several shouting, ;The Jews have made us suffer enough.''

The protest began peacefully enough Friday afternoon when about 40 people turned out to protest the changing of Kinkel Strasse to Jueden Strasse, which had been approved by the Berlin city council.

Local residents, particularly several retailers, said they had not been adequately informed about the name change and they resented the inconvenience of changing business cards and advertisements.

The protest turned ugly, however, when representatives of Berlin's Jewish community arrived for the formal name-changing ceremonies. Then there were chants of ;You Jews have had enough say'' and ;The Jews have made us suffer enough.''

Jewish Community Chairman Alexander Brenner attempted to fend off the attacks as TV camera crews filmed the scene, but as the vehemence rose, he responded, ;You people are siding yourselves with the Nazis with such remarks,'' and turned and left.

Afterward, several retailers said the confrontation had been taken over by neo-Nazis.

I heard someone shout terrible things at him,'' one retailer told SFB television. ;I heard someone say, 'You Jews are to blame for the German plight,' and that is a horrible thing to hear. I was absolutely appalled.''

Other businesspeople said they had come to protest the fact that the street name was being changed at all and were not concerned that it involved a Jewish name.

I've had a business on this street for 39 years and object to having to change all my business cards and make new advertisements now,'' one business owner said. ;I don't care what the city council has decided the new name should be; I just want it to remain as it has been.''

Jueden Strasse was the name of the road until the Nazis changed it in the 1930s to an Aryan name. After World War II, it was changed to Kinkel Strasse in honour of a resistance fighter.

The move to return the street its historical name came after the Social Democrats gained control of the Berlin city government last year.





 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Germany

Anti-Semitic Euros

European Anti-Semitism Worse Since 2008




by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu and Yoni Kempinski
israelnationalnews.com


Anti-Semitism in Western Europe last year was the worst since World War II, according to the Jewish Agency’s arm for fighting attacks and incitement against Jews.

Diaspora Affairs Minister Yuli Edelstein directly linked worsening anti-Semitism with the United Nations “Goldstone Report” on alleged war crimes in last year’s Operation Cast Lead counterterrorist campaign aimed at putting a halt to eight years of lethal rocket attacks on Israeli civilians.


Israel is preparing a response to the Goldstone report, and Edelstein commented Sunday, "It is certainly already clear that, for many of the 'incidents' and 'crimes' described in the report, no proof was found.” He said he will tell U.N. Secretary-General Ban ki-Moon that the report fueled attacks, many of them violent, against Jews around the world.

“Another flare-up in the region, similar to the Gaza operation, will probably lead to an even more severe outbreak of anti-Semitic activity against communities worldwide,” warned the Jewish Agency’s Coordination Forum for Countering Anti-Semitism

The Jewish Agency’s report Sunday comes three days before the U.N.-designated International Holocaust Remembrance Day on Wednesday, which coincides with the liberation of the Auschwitz death camp in Nazi Germany.

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu told the Cabinet Sunday, "This anti-Semitism comes with a new twist, which is the bid to deprive the Jewish state of the right to self-defense."

Jewish Agency chairman Natan Sharansky said he will increase from 19 to more than 100 the number of emissaries to fight anti-Semitism, primarily on university campuses. The Agency’s report linked radical left elements and Muslims who spur incitement against Jews.

The member of attacks against Jews and synagogues in many places in Western Europe in the first six months of 2009 was more than the number for the entire previous year, according to the report. It pointed out that the “left and labor unions, at times [acted] in coordination with Muslims."


The anti-Semitic attacks “were mostly perpetrated by Muslims from large local Muslim communities, including Palestinians, mainly in France, Britain, Belgium, Scandinavia, Germany and the United States,” the report stated. In France, there were 631 incidents in the first six months compared with 464 for all of 2008, and more than 100 incidents were recorded in Paris, where the involvement of Muslim teenagers was noted. Among the attacks in France was one on a handicapped Jewish woman.

“The demonization and de-legitimatization of Israel in propaganda by the radical left and human rights organizations intensifies the hostile mood against Israel and its supporters, encouraging the extreme stands of local Muslims,” the Coordination Forum for Countering Anti-Semitism added in summing up the report's findings.













 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
euro

Toleration in Pakistan

Again, arguing that one story or one article takes it out of context - that poor people in Kentucky have some very odd beliefs just as poor people in Peshwar may do bad things ... so we remove those variables and bring back government actions which are not random and as dismissible.  In the end, he was sanctioned by his government.  There are no news articles about what may have happened to him later.



Saturday, 29 June, 2002, 10:21 GMT 11:21 UK

BBC


Pakistanis condemn Israeli tennis link



Pakistan's Aisamul Haq Qureshi has been condemned by his country's sports officials for partnering an Israeli at Wimbledon.

Qureshi has teamed up with Amir Hadad and together they upset 11th seed Rick Leech and Ellis Ferreira on Friday to make it to the third round of the men's doubles.

Qureshi, a 22-year-old Muslim, created history with the help of Jewish Hadad by becoming the first Pakistani player to reach the third round of a Grand Slam event.

A Jew and a Muslim playing together is not the end of the world.

But instead of being celebrated back in his home country, officials are considering imposing a ban over his choice of partner.

"Although he is playing in his private capacity, we officially condemn his playing with an Israeli player and an explanation has been sought from him," said Pakistan Sports Board director Brigadier Saulat Abbas.

"Since Pakistan has no links with Israel, Qureshi may face a ban."

Qureshi was unperturbed by the controversy and is hoping his decision to leave politics on the sidelines will be seen in a positive light.

"I am surprised at the fuss being made over my partnership," he said. "I would like to be talked about for my tennis rather than politics.

"If we can change people's minds then that would be a good thing."

Qureshi played a key role in Pakistan's Davis Cup semi-final win over Taiwan in the Asia Oceania zone group II.

But his place in the team for their vital Davis Cup tie against China in September has been thrown into doubt.

"When players compete on the professional circuit they are not bound to national federations," Pakistan Tennis Federation President Syed Dilawar Abbas said.

"But we have sought an explanation from him and if advised by the government we may take action."

Saeed Hai, a former leading Pakistan player, also condemned his actions in the light of the current relations between the two countries.

"Due to the bloodshed in the Middle East, Qureshi's pairing with an Israeli player is wrong," he said.

But Pakistan's tennis captain Rasheed Malik spoke up in support of Qureshi.

"We should appreciate his progress in an international event rather than criticising it," Malik said.

"At times you have no option when it comes to choosing your partner and what he has achieved should be appreciated."

The 24-year-old Hadad also remained defiant against any criticism of their partnership.

"I don't care what people think about it," said the 24-year-old Hadad.

"As long as we enjoy playing together we will continue. When we agreed to get together it was all about doing well here, making some money and improving our doubles ranking.

"If we win here then I would dedicate the victory to my family and to peace.

"It would be good for those doubters to see that even though we are from different religions it is possible for us to work together and have some fun.

"A Jew and a Muslim playing together is not the end of the world. We are all human beings. We have the same blood, the same skin."






















Pakistan

The Jews - Controling animals, critters, fish, the weather - Earth, including vultures

Vulture tagged by Israeli scientists flies into Saudi Arabia ... and is arrested for being a spy


By Michael Theodoulou
4th January 2011
Daily Mail



A vulture tagged by scientists at Tel Aviv University has strayed into Saudi Arabian territory, where it was promptly arrested on suspicion of being a Mossad spy, Israeli and Saudi media reported Tuesday.

The bird was found in a rural area of the country wearing a transmitter and a leg bracelet bearing the words 'Tel Aviv University', according to the reports, which surfaced first in the Israeli daily Ma'ariv.

Although these tags indicate that the bird was part of a long-term research project into migration patters, residents and local reporters told Saudi Arabia's Al-Weeam newspaper that the matter seemed to be a 'Zionist plot.'

The accusations went viral, with hundreds of posts on Arabic-language websites and forums claiming that the 'Zionists' had trained these birds for espionage.

The Sinai regional governor last month suggested that a shark that killed and maimed tourists on its Red Sea port may have been intentionally released by Israeli agents in order to sabotage the country's tourist industry.

'What is being said about the Mossad throwing the deadly shark in the sea to hit tourism in Egypt is not out of the question. But it needs time to confirm,' Mohamed Abdel Fadil Shousha said, according to the Sun.


[And they wonder why they are so backward - a culture that believes the Jews control sharks, send prostitutes into Egypt to give their young men aids, control the weather to deprive the Arab states of rainfall, drain the blood of babies for their pastries, and send vultures in to spy ... are stoneage at least.]




 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
saudi arabia

Palestinians = Just like us, or maybe more like Mexico

They are just like us.



Tourist's body found near Jerusalem



After overnight search, Christine Logan's body found in wooded area; Kaye Susan Wilson, who was found stabbed and bound on Saturday, regains consciousness and recounts terrifying incident. 'Arabs came to kill,' she says

Ynet reporters Latest Update: 12.19.10, 09:59 / Israel News



Israeli police said the body of a female tourist who they feared was kidnapped by Arab assailants while hiking with a friend outside Jerusalem was found Sunday morning.

The woman has been identified as Christine Logan. Her identity has been given alternatively as British and American. Ynet has learned that her body was found in a wooded area, between bushes, a few hundred meters from the road connecting Beit Shemesh and Moshav Mata. Police suspect she was carried to the bushes by the assailant or assailants.

Logan's friend, identified as Kaye Susan Wilson, a 46-year-old tour guide, was also found bound with her hands behind her back Saturday in a mountainous area outside Jerusalem, bleeding from multiple stab wounds. She was hospitalized in Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital critical condition. On Sunday hospital officials said she had regained consciousness and that her condition has stabilized.

Speaking to Ynet Sunday morning, Wilson, not yet aware of her friend's death, recounted the incident. "Christine and I walked down a path in order to climb a small hill. We sat there, and two Arabs passed by and asked 'Do you have any water?' I said, 'I wish.' I felt something was wrong. I turned to (Christine) in English and told her something doesn't feel right and that we should return to the path.

"I pulled out a small knife from my pocket – a women's knife – and we began heading back. I saw that they (Arabs) weren't around, and I told her, 'Wait a second, I'll check to see where we are.' Suddenly I heard a noise. It happened so quickly – they came and attacked us. One of them pulled out a very long knife – like a bread knife with a sharpened edge," Wilson added.

"I was very scared, but my friend became hysterical. I told her to be quiet, but she told them, 'Take the money, take everything,' and they took everything. One of them took the Star of David necklace off my neck like a gentleman, and then they stabbed me 12 times. They came to kill. Nobody walks around with a knife like that for no reason. He stabbed me, but I sensed the knife did not penetrate my heart. I pretended to be dead; I thought they were waiting for someone else to come so I waited a few minutes and then threw myself onto a slope, my hands tied behind my back, and there was something covering my mouth," Wilson recalled.

"I found myself between the bushes, and I didn’t know if they had left already. I just wanted to sleep and felt as though I were about to collapse, but I knew I could not fall asleep. I managed to walk away and made my way to a parking lot, where a strange thing happened. An Israeli vehicle arrived and parked 10 meters from me. (The driver) was looking straight at me, but I couldn't yell so he continued driving. I had to walk another 20 meters, then I saw children; I turned around so they would see that my hands were tied, and they called the police."

A massive manhunt for Logan was launched after Wilson was discovered. Hundreds of police officers and volunteers, accompanied by soldiers from special IDF units, searched every cave and pit in the area.

During the overnight search, a police official told Ynet, "It doesn't look good. The woman has been missing since 4:30 pm and is feared dead. If she were fine we would have found her by now."

During the search the army set up roadblocks and inspected vehicles travelling to the West Bank. Choppers and a number of drones also assisted in the search.

No arrests have been made as of yet. "So far we have searched a number of areas. The first was near the injured woman's car, where blood stains, hairs and signs of a struggle were found. Unfortunately, these signs could not lead us to the assailants' possible escape route," a senior Border Guard officer said.

"The woman (Wilson) was agitated and had trouble speaking, and refused to tell us anything beyond her first name," one eyewitness from the town of Mata, who summoned rescue forces, told Ynet.

"Her clothes were dirty and showed signs of a struggle."





 
 
 
 
 
 
palestinians

The Extinction of the Christians in Iraq

One way or another, for one reason or one method over another - the result is the same.





Iraqi Christians put to the sword


Worship in Iraq is now more dangerous than under Saddam's dictatorship as Islamists bomb churches in a campaign of ethnic cleansing.


Adrian Blomfield
The Telegraph
12 Nov 2010


Unless told what to look for, the casual visitor to the once glamorous Baghdad thoroughfare that hugs the east bank of the Tigris would almost certainly pass them by. The Stars of David carved into the stonework of the low-slung buildings that line the alleyways of Abu Nuwas Street are little more than a curiosity these days – a memento of a civilisation lost to the pages of history.

Judaism has a connection to Iraq that no other faith can match. The patriarch Abraham may well have been born there; the prophet Jonah reluctantly returned to foretell the destruction of Nineveh. Centuries later, the Bible tells us that the exiled Jewish people sat down by Babylon's rivers and wept for their homeland. Yet Jewish links to Iraq are far from ancient history.

In the 1920s, there were reckoned to have been 130,000 Jews in Baghdad, 40 per cent of the population. Today, after decades of persecution before and immediately after the creation of the state of Israel, there are no more than eight.

Iraqi Christians might not be able to boast such a heritage – though even if there is no way of proving their belief that the apostle Thomas brought the faith to Iraq in the first century AD, theirs is still one of the oldest Christian communities on earth. Yet after a series of attacks in the past month by Islamist extremists – whose creed is the parvenu of the monotheistic religions in the country – fears are mounting that Christianity in Iraq is doomed to follow Judaism into oblivion.

At the end of last month, in the most ferocious attack on the community yet, Islamist extremists linked to al-Qaeda burst into Baghdad's Our Lady of Salvation Church during evening mass and took the congregation hostage. The gunmen began executing clergymen and worshippers before tossing a grenade into a safe-room where 60 parishioners had huddled to hide. As Iraqi forces stormed the church, the assassins surrounded themselves with children and detonated explosives secreted in suicide vests.

By the time it was over, 52 Christians were dead. Blood smeared the walls of the church, body parts and scraps of seared flesh littered the pews. A policeman standing guard outside the church afterwards summed up the scene: "Blood, flesh and bones. You can't bear the smell."

A group calling itself the Islamic State of Iraq, a self-acknowledged front for al-Qaeda, claimed responsibility and issued a chilling warning, telling Christians it would "open upon them the doors of destruction and rivers of blood". Delivering on their promise, 11 car bombs aimed at Christian shops and homes in Baghdad exploded on Wednesday, killing another five members of the minority.

The US and British invasion of Iraq rid the country of Saddam Hussein and instituted a bloodily delivered democracy of sorts after decades of oppressive totalitarianism. And yesterday, eight months of political deadlock since elections in March were broken with a deal to form a new government. Nouri al-Maliki, a Shia, remains as prime minister, while Iyad Allawi, leader of the main Sunni faction al-Iraqiya, will lead a new council for national strategy.

The agreement may be taken by outsiders as a welcome sign of stability that ought to reassure Iraqi Christians, but it is a painful truth that they led a safer and more dignified existence under Saddam's brutal rule. However, in a sign of the coalition's fragility, the Iraqiya bloc last night walked out in protest before a vote on the presidency.

Earlier this week, Athanasius Dawood, the exiled archbishop of the Syriac Orthodox Church, one of the smaller Christian communities, gave a warning that the minority was facing extinction at the hands of a campaign of "pre-meditated ethnic cleansing". He said that the only hope of salvation for Iraq's Christians was if countries such as Britain gave them blanket political asylum.

Although most of the extremists attacking them are thought to be Sunni Arab, Christians are as fearful of the Shia-dominated government and the kind of rule they believe it will one day institute. Tellingly, Archbishop Dawood laid much of the blame for the Christians' plight on Mr Maliki's administration, calling it "weak, biased, if not extremist".

Statistics vary wildly, but according to the US State Department, there are between 550,000 and 800,000 Christians left in Iraq, compared with 1.4 million in 1987 when a census was taken. Those numbers may be an over-estimation, but it is generally agreed that the number has halved since Saddam's fall as members of the faith flee the pogroms. Iraqi Christians say they are in graver danger now than at any time in their history. As gruesome as last month's attack on the Our Lady of Salvation Church was, they have been living in terror since the first bombings of their places of worship in 2004.

In the northern city of Mosul, Christians have been routinely kidnapped and executed because of their faith. In the past two years, Islamist gunmen have frequently stopped young men and women on the street and asked for their identity cards. If they bore a Christian-sounding name, they were often shot dead where they stood.

To have any chance of survival, churches in Mosul have been forced to pay protection money to gangsters linked to al-Qaeda. Any doubts about the Islamists' ultimate intentions were laid to rest when a group calling itself the Secret Islamic Army delivered a letter to homes in the Christian enclaves of Dura, a district of Baghdad.

"To the Christian, we would like to inform you of the decision of the legal court of the Secret Islamic Army to notify you that this is your last and final threat," the letter read. "If you do not leave your home, your blood will be spilled. You and your family will be killed." With its chilling echoes of similar missives delivered to Tutsis during the Rwandan genocide, it is little wonder that Iraqi Christians fear extermination.

Some have fought back. Churches in parts of Kurdistan have formed militias to protect their congregations. "The only solution left for our people is to bear arms," Father Ayman Danna of the Church of St George in Bartella was quoted as saying. "We either live or die."

But the Church Guard, as the militia is known, has the benefit of being funded by a rich Christian in the Kurdish regional government. Christians elsewhere can find no such powerful patronage.

Iraq's Christians learnt the hard way that to survive they had to pledge unquestioning fealty to successive, Sunni-dominated governments. When British troops pulled out of Iraq in 1933, members of the Assyrian Church, now one of the smallest of Iraq's 12 Christian communities, began to agitate for independence. The army and Kurdish irregulars retaliated by massacring 3,000 of them. Ever since, Christians have known that their loyalty had to be beyond reproach, and under Saddam, they were largely left in peace to practise their faith.

Saddam espoused Ba'athism, an ideology founded by a Syrian Christian that promoted secularism while acknowledging the importance of Islam in Arabic culture. Christians were only represented at secondary levels in the army and government, with the notable exception of Tariq Aziz – born Michael Yuhanna – Saddam's former deputy prime minister. Despite the repression of the Saddam years, Christians believed that was preferable to a government dominated by the Shia majority whose leaders had close links with Iran.

Those fears were given added impetus in 1991 when, at the encouragement of the United States in the aftermath of the Gulf war, the Shia rose up in revolt. One of their first acts was to attack and desecrate churches in Basra. Mr Maliki is a particular target of suspicion because he spent eight years in Iran during the 1990s. Tehran was also intimately involved in attempting to end the eight-month political impasse to create a coalition government.

With Shia rule set to continue, Iraqi Christians believe that not only will they receive no protection against Sunni extremists, but also that Iranian-style intolerance towards religious minorities will grow more entrenched. A number of Shia leaders with popular backing espouse a greater role for Islamic Sharia in daily life and many also support a return to Dhimmi status for Christians, an old Ottoman construct that limited the rights of minorities in return for protection. That would represent a regression from the Ba'athist constitution of 1970 which acknowledged the "legitimate rights of all minorities" and gave formal recognition to the five main Christian communities.

As persecution of Christians grows across the Middle East, and numbers dwindle ever faster, it is a supreme irony for many Iraqi Christians that one of the safest places for their faith in an ever more dangerous region is Ba'athist Syria. As a member of the minority Allawi strain of Shia Islam, Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian president, has recognised the need to protect other vulnerable faiths. As a result, Christian holidays are observed by the whole country and work does not start until 10am on Sundays to allow Christians to go to church.

Christians across the border in Iraq can only look wistfully at Syria – for all its imperfections – as a reminder of how things once were.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Iraq

The Jews and Obama

Have American Jews lost faith in Obama?



US president's tough stands regarding Israel seems to be taking its toll as US Jews' support in him falters, contributions to Democratic Party drop 65%



Yitzhak Benhorin
10.12.10
Israel News, YNet.




WASHINGTON – Have American Jews given up on US President Barack Obama? Senior members of the US community Jewish have spoken up against Obama's foreign policy regarding Israel, and it what is considered a rarity, have said that should he continue on his current path, they will stop their contributions to the Democratic Party.

Since taking office, it seems as if Obama has lost ground across every sector in the United States, but throughout, he has always enjoyed wide-scale support from US Jews.

Malcolm Hoenlein, the executive vice chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, told the Huffington Post that although the US president enjoyed a 78% support rate among American Jews at the time of his election, he has now lost about a third.

According to the report, the Obama administration has annoyed Jewish leaders to the point where they are thinking of sitting out the 2010 election. Federal Election Commission records show contributions to Democratic candidates from the financial sector, where Jews hold important positions, are down 65% from two years ago.

"I started breaking with Obama ten months ago," Martin Peretz, editor in chief of The New Republic, told the Huffington Post, "And I know that a lot of West Coast Jews are also having buyer's remorse."

Hollywood billionaire Haim Saban echoed the sentiment: "The assumption on the part of the Obama administration is that because Jews are liberals, they simply will not vote for Republicans.

"Obama can invite the ten most prolific Jewish campaign bundlers to the White House for a discussion, and give a wonderful speech, and he'll think that this may resolve all his problems with American Jews. And it may – or it may not."

Abraham Foxman, director of the Anti-Defamation League, has voiced his policy concerns to Obama directly. Foxman later said that when the two met, he told the US president that while he agreed with his overall Middle East agenda, the perception was that he was lashing out solely at Israel and exempting the Arabs.

While Obama refuted Foxman's premise, the latter said he still left the meeting feeling that the White House's new strategy was "dangerous."

The Obama administration, said Foxman, believes that if the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is resolved, the wolf and the lamb shall dwell together and all will be well. To that end, all of his advisors are telling him that he should break away from his predecessors' policies and prove to the Arabs and the Muslims that he is different, that he can distance himself from Israel.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Jews

Who needs the Jews?


By MATTHEW ACKERMAN
23/04/2010 16:50
The Jerusalem Post


US support for Israel always rested on what non-Jews think about Zionism.

The disenchantment of American Jews with the Jewish state, we are told, haunts Israel’s security. Polls have been taken, books have been written, and it is clear: American Jews don’t like Israel as much as they once did. As Daniel Gordis, the senior vice president of the Shalem Center, wrote recently in The Jerusalem Post, “The dangers to Israel’s security as a result of this change are obvious.”

But are they?

Gordis’s claim is based on the belief that Israel’s security is dependent on American support, and that American support is ultimately dependent on America’s Jews. But as pressures against Israel are tightened by an American president who has enjoyed nearly the full backing of American Jewry, a reconsideration of that premise is in order.

Assumptions and prejudices to the contrary, Diaspora Jewish support has never been a decisive factor in Zionist success. As has been chronicled most effectively by Michael Oren in his 2007 book Power, Faith, and Fantasy, gentile support for Jewish sovereignty in the Land of Israel far predates political Zionism’s coalescence as a viable movement.

To cite only two meaningful examples, John Adams, the second American president, wrote in 1819, “I really wish the Jews again in Judea an independent nation” and imagined an army of “a hundred thousand Israelites.” Daniel Deronda, the deeply Zionist novel by George Eliot, was published in 1876, 20 years before the appearance of Herzl’s The Jewish State.

Both were expressions of deep-seated pro-Zionist feeling among many American and European gentiles. And it was this feeling – more than anything else – that gave the pre-state Yishuv its two most important victories: the Balfour Declaration of 1917 (endorsed unanimously by both houses of Congress in the United States) and Harry Truman’s quick recognition of David Ben-Gurion’s declaration of statehood in 1948.

AMERICA’S JEWS did not come to a full-throated support for Israel until 1967, after the crucial battles for the state’s existence had already been fought. In the 1920s and 1930s – some of the years of the Yishuv’s greatest fragility – they were far more concerned with failed attempts to increase American support for Jewish rights in Eastern Europe or to allow greater Jewish immigration to America. Most of their leading organizations, like the American Jewish Committee, were explicitly anti- or non-Zionist, as was Cyrus Adler, perhaps the most influential American Jew of the age. (He helped found the AJC and later served as its president at the same time that he was president of the Jewish Theological Seminary, among other major leadership roles.)

American Jews like Adler opposed Zionism because, like most Westernized Jews of the time, they followed the classic Reform view of Jews as a strictly religious group, not a people or nation. This, they thought, was the path to full acceptance in the American (or French, or German) mainstream. They also saw the Yishuv’s aspirations as an unrealizable distraction to the tasks of ensuring the security of the Jews of Eastern Europe and managing the vicious outbreak of anti-Semitism that followed World War I. (Orthodox Jews – the most reliably pro-Israel Jewish group in America today – also largely opposed Zionism as a religiously forbidden attempt to jumpstart the messianic age.)

Zionism gradually became attractive to American Jewry because it was a position that easily found support in the US, enthusiastic as American gentiles had long been for reestablishing Jewish sovereignty in Palestine. Walter Russell Mead of the Council on Foreign Relations puts it this way: “American Jews didn’t drag reluctant American gentiles into the Middle East; it’s much more accurate to say that American gentiles pushed reluctant American Jews into the Zionist movement. If American Jews had the power to shape American policy towards the Jews through the 20th century, most likely there would be no State of Israel today.”

The efforts of notable exceptions like Louis Brandeis and Abba Hillel Silver notwithstanding, American Jewish support for Zionism only began to crystallize during World War II and exploded following Israel’s dramatic military victory in the Six Day War of 1967. Publicizing their support for Israel became a powerful way for major groups like AIPAC and the Anti-Defamation League to generate funds. Those funds in turn further increased the profile of Jewish organizations and their leaders. By the 1990s pro-Israel Jewish groups in America were seen as a juggernaut and crucial to the strength of the US-Israel relationship.

BUT AMERICAN politicians have not been (for the most part) foolish enough to believe that the votes of a religious minority that today is only 1.7% of the US population influence elections much. Pro-Israel campaign money, however impressive it may seem to an outsider, is a drop in the vast sea of American lobbying dollars. Whether in Congress or the Oval Office, most American politicians have supported Israel because it is what they think the majority of their constituents want them to do. When they have felt that their electoral fortunes or their country’s strategic interests lie elsewhere, they have supported policies deeply opposed by pro-Israel American Jews, however vociferous the opposition. This was the case for Ronald Reagan in the 1980s when he decided to sell advanced military equipment to Saudi Arabia, and it is the case now with Barack Obama’s repeated opposition to Israeli building in Jerusalem.

Already in the 1990s there were signs of a growing weakness in the attachment of American Jews to Israel. More recently, as the Jewish state’s political problems become more acute – and international opinion turns more strenuously against it – more and more American Jews have drifted away. Groups like J Street will come and grow, and their leaders are most likely correct when they assert that they speak for a wider swath of American Jewish opinion than pro-Israel groups.

But American support for Israel will continue to rest, as it always has, on what non-Jews think about Zionism. That is something – let it be said – that American Jews have little control over. If American gentile Zionism remains strong, the most robustly Zionist American Jews will retain their outsized influence, precisely because they stand outside the Jewish mainstream.

As Gordis and others have written, the turn away from Israel by American Jews is troubling for spiritual and cultural reasons. It should not be taken lightly. But it is far from a decisive factor affecting Israel’s security.







Israel

The French Involvement in the Deaths of Tens of Thousands of Jews

rance








The funny part - even though their legal system has found that the French people were complicit in the murders of tens of thousands of Jews, they are still in denial.




France found responsible for deporting Jews

Ruling adds, though, that post-war reparations have already been made

The Associated Press
Mon., Feb. 16, 2009

PARIS - France's top judicial body on Monday recognized the French government's responsibility for the deportation of Jews during World War II, the clearest such recognition of the state's role in the Holocaust.

The Council of State found that the government of Nazi-occupied France at the time held the "responsibility" for deportations that led to anti-Semitic persecution.

The decision released Monday also found that the deportation had been "compensated for" since 1945, apparently ruling out any reparations for deportees or their families.

[I am curious about this - how do you compensate more than 60,000 Jews - many who were exterminated, when for the last sixty years you have been in denial.  Please, tell me?]


Thousands of Jews were deported from France to Nazi death camps during the occupation. After the war, subsequent French governments took decades to acknowledge any role by the collaborationist Vichy regime in the Holocaust.

A Paris court had sought the Council of State's opinion on a request by the daughter of a deportee who died at Auschwitz for reparations from the French state. She was also asking for material and moral damages for her own personal suffering during and after the occupation.

The council left it up to the Paris court to rule on her request.

But the council in its decision said that it "considers that because the acts and actions by the state led to the deportation of people considered Jews by the Vichy regime, (they) constituted errors and became its responsibility."

The council called for a "solemn recognition of the state's responsibility and of collective prejudice suffered" by the deportees.

Today, France has western Europe's largest Jewish community of approximately 500,000.


There is great irony in this, but I don't have the time in the near future to spend on it.



















Jews

2009 American Jews Opinion Poll

Talk about one group that defies reaosn on many issues.  They speak one way, very passionately so, then vote another.  Their views are so contradictory as to cause a psychologist to get whiplash.


Odd.  The Jews in America and their views in 2009.











strange

India: Terrorists Hunting for Jews during New Year

The end of the holy month of Ramadan and the Feast of Eid. What we did not see this year or for that matter during any holy month, was Christian extremists hunting down Muslims during their holy month and targeting them for death.




Israeli, Western tourists in India under terrorist threat

September 18, 2009, 4:11 PM (GMT+02:00)

The counter-terror center in Jerusalem has warned Israelis travelling in India to attend the Jewish New Year events this weekend only at sites which are competently secured. Terrorist groups are reported seeking out sites popular with Western tourists, including Jewish centers in all parts of India. The Pakistani group which attacked hotels and the Habad center in Mumbai last November is cited.

Indian officials report they are liaising with Israel over the threats and have tightened security for tourists in the past year.

A special warning went out to Habad centers, which play host to Israeli and Jewish tourists, especially on festivals, and this year hired an Israeli security firm for extra protection.










islam

Broward County: Change is in the air.

Let the CHANGE begin!







19 Aug 2009

Sun Sentinel Broward Edition
By Anthony Man

POLITICAL WRITER






Fewer Jewish voters means political change



Moving households and deaths shrink Broward population


Jewish residents, who became Broward’s dominant political force in the last quarter of the 20th century and turned the county into a Democratic stronghold so powerful that even presidential candidates came courting, are dying and moving.


The resulting decrease in the Jewish population — down 23 percent, to 206,700, from 1997 to 2008 — along with an increase in the number of residents with Hispanic and Caribbean backgrounds augurs big political change in coming years. And the transition, said Florida International University political science professor Kevin Hill, “will not be pretty. People do not just go quietly into the night in politics.”


Today in Broward, half the members of Congress, state legislators and county commissioners are Jewish, as are most of the county Democratic Party’s top officers. The demographic makeup of the county’s political leadership undoubtedly will change, Hill and other experts said, but the big question is how fast.


“The 2012 elections are really going to be watershed elections when it comes to the political makeup of this county,” said state Sen. Chris Smith, D-Fort Lauderdale. “When the census numbers come out and it shows us as a majority-minority county, then you’re going to see the minority communities — and not just black, but Hispanic and others — really start to flex their political muscle.”



[To read the rest of the article, you will have to search out the newspaper with the details provided above. This article came from a pay only service.]

















Change

The Jews: Smarter than the Rest of Us!

COLUMN ONE

Jewish legacy inscribed on genes?

Ashkenazi Jews have a higher rate of some deadly genetic diseases -- and of high IQs. Scientists Gregory Cochran and Henry Harpending say that's no coincidence.

By Karen Kaplan April 18, 2009
Los Angeles Times

Gregory Cochran has always been drawn to puzzles. This one had been gnawing at him for several years: Why are European Jews prone to so many deadly genetic diseases?Tay-Sachs disease. Canavan disease. More than a dozen more.

It offended Cochran's sense of logic. Natural selection, the self-taught genetics buff knew, should flush dangerous DNA from the gene pool. Perhaps the mutations causing these diseases had some other, beneficial purpose. But what?

At 3:17 one morning, after a long night searching a database of scientific journals from his disheveled home office in Albuquerque, Cochran fired off an e-mail to his collaborator Henry Harpending, a distinguished professor of anthropology at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City and a member of the National Academy of Sciences.

"I've figured it out, I think," Cochran typed. "Pardon my crazed excitement."The "faulty" genes, Cochran concluded, make Jews smarter.

That provocative -- some would say inflammatory -- hypothesis has landed Cochran and Harpending in the middle of a charged debate about the link between IQ and DNA.

They have been sneered at by colleagues and excoriated on Internet forums. They have been welcomed to speak at a synagogue and a Jewish medical society. They were asked to write a book; that effort, "The 10,000 Year Explosion," was published early this year.

Scientists are increasingly finding that propensities for human behaviors -- for addiction, aggression, risk-taking and more -- are written in our genes. But the idea that some groups of people are inherently smarter is troubling to many. Some scientists say it has such racist implications it's unworthy of consideration.

[To read the rest of the article, click on the title link.]








Jews

Arabs