by Anne Bayefsky, National Review Online. Today, at the United Nations, the Obama administration is turning its back on Israel. For the very first time, the U.N. Security Council has invited the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights to “brief” the Council specifically on the subject of Israel and the commissioner’s list of trumped-up sins. Though the U.S. is a veto-holding power, the extraordinary move has full American approval, despite the fact that the global soapbox will be handed to Navi Pillay, a notorious anti-Israel partisan. Moreover, the American-backed action exposes President Obama’s profound weakness on the international stage. It turns out that the deal to sponsor an Israel-bashing session at the highest levels was a trade-off for having the high commissioner brief the Council on the subject of Syria. WASHINGTON — The much-hyped plan to end Syria’s misery and guide its transition to democracy appears to have fallen flat despite the endorsement of Western powers. Russia’s objections gutted the most stringent conditions on a potential interim leader in Damascus. The Syrian opposition quickly dismissed the proposal as a waste of time and with “no value on the ground.” Syrian opposition groups on Sunday rejected a U.N.-brokered peace plan for a political transition in Syria, calling it ambiguous and a waste of time and vowing not to negotiate with President Bashar Assad or members of his “murderous” regime. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov met on Friday in St. Petersburg, Russia. The U.S. wants Syrian President Bashar Assad to leave power. Russia opposes any ‘external meddling’ in Syrian affairs. By Ted Belman A few years ago I was encouraged by Felix Quigley and Gil-White and others of the same mind, that Serbia falsely accused of genocide and other war crimes, to investigate the record. It took me a year and a half of study before I would embrace their position. More specifically I cam to the conclusion that there was no massacre in Srebrenica as alleged. Now it appears that Bosnia wants to extradite from Israel an Israeli Serb for complicity. Julia Goren, a young Jewish journalist, one of the best journalists around today, who did yeoman work on reporting the truth about Serbia in the lead-up to the bombing of Serbia by NATO, comments on the extradition hearings. Will Israel Extradite a Citizen to a Show Trial in Muslim Bosnia? Forty-two-year-old Alexander Cvetkovic, accused of Srebrenica-related war crimes, is an Israeli citizen who is ethnically Serb. The latter usually means his chances of avoiding extradition to a Bosnian show trial aren’t... Last week, the president of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Putin, paid a visit to the Middle East including Israel, the Palestinian Authority (PA) and Jordan. Putin’s decision to begin his tour in Israel, along with the large size of his delegation, indicated that Israel was the focus of the visit, while the PA and Jordan were of secondary importance. Israel and Russia disagree on many fundamental policy issues, none more important than nuclear Iran. However, the two countries agree on another, no less relevant issue that dominates political discourse in the Middle East: the concern over the advent of the Muslim Brotherhood to power across the Middle East and North Africa. I just started reading Jonathan Haidt’s “The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion.” It is probably the most gripping book about moral philosophy and psychology that I’ve ever read, and that isn’t an oxymoron. His ideas go a long way toward answering the question, “why is the pro-Israel side doing so poorly in the information war and how can we fix it?” One of Haidt’s important insights is that judgments of right and wrong are based on intuition and only later justified by rational argument. The moral intuitions of different cultures — and different social groups within a culture — place different emphases on principles like avoiding harm or suffering, fairness, liberty, loyalty, authority and sanctity. The latter three are almost entirely not operative in liberal Western cultures, but very important, even predominant, in others. To a volunteer from New York in an IDF paratrooper unit, the rockets fired from Gaza last week felt like war By Talia Lefkowitz, TABLET MAG My Facebook page is covered with photos and posts about the latest round of missile attacks launched into southern Israel from Gaza. “Fifty Rockets Hit Israel In the Last Three Days” the photo caption reads. The comments below the photo range from sanctimonious pro-Israel sentiment and prayers for the Jewish state to angry rants against Israeli arrogance and calls for a Palestinian state in the West Bank. It’s a bit surreal to be reading these posts as I sit in a shelter with those very rockets shrieking overhead. I am a volunteer IDF soldier from New York City serving in an elite paratroopers unit. I am the only girl in a unit with 85 combat soldiers. Over the past year, we have served all over the country. Now we are based on the border of Gaza and Sinai, and things have started to get hairy. Dear Rabbi Dana Evan Kaplan, Thank you for your article in the Forward entitled “Losing Zuckerberg – Why Did Facebook King Move Away From Reform Judaism?” In the article you lament the intermarriage of Mark Zuckerberg and ask why a young man who comes from an affiliated Reform background would call himself an atheist and choose to marry out of our nation. Poignantly you write: “For those in the Reform movement and for those who are committed to non-Orthodox American Judaism generally, we need to take the sudden interest in Zuckerberg’s personal life as an opportunity to perform cheshbon hanefesh, to take an accounting of our accomplishments and, as in this case, our failings.” Democracy used to be about the will of the majority. This was softened by constraining the will of the majority making it subservient to the rights of minority. What should be included in these rights are the subject of debate. Chazan goes much further making democracy synonymous with the status of these rights. For her, the more these rights are realized, the greater, the democracy. Put another way, she negates the will of the majority. For instance, it doesn’t matter if a dictator is in power. So long as he protects the minority rights his government is a democracy. The majority no longer has a say. Perhaps she only negates the right of the majority to rule only in matters of minority rights. For her, they are sacrosanct. But this is not so simple. The most important of these rights is the right to be treated equally i.e., not to be discriminated against. But if the Majority want the state to be a Jewish state, however this is defined, and a minority say that such a state... LOOKS LIKE A GREAT CONFERENCE Thursday, July 12th 2012 All lectures are in Hebrew with simultaneous translation into English 16:00 Gathering 16:30 Greetings: (video) MK Ze’ev Elkin, Chairman of the Coalition and Chairman of the Lobby for E’retz Yisra’el MK Miri Regev, Chairwoman of the Knesset Lobby for the Application of Israeli Sovereignty over Judea and Samaria 17:00 Minister Rabbi Prof. Daniel Hershkovitz – Sovereignty, without further Disengagements 17:15 Adv. Daphna Netanyahu,editor of the Hebrew “Marah” internet magazine – Sold, for less than Lentil Stew 17:30 MK Uri Ariel, National Union -The program for... By Ted Belman Thank you World Net daily for publishing BLACK MOBS NOW BEATING JEWS IN NEW YORK while the ADL and ACLU and other Jewish organizations are silent. The Media prefers to suppress negative news about blacks and Islam. It loves to trumpet the virtues of Islam and to denegrate Jews and Israel. That’s the truth.
Obama Turns His Back on Israel at the U.N.
The Security Council has not acted on Syria since an April 21, 2012, resolution, which sent unarmed observers over to watch the bloodshed. France wanted a...Much-hyped plan endorsed by world powers to end Syrian crisis lands with a thud
Video
The U.S. and its allies insist the plan will force Syrian President Bashar Assad from...First Israel must determine if there was a massacre in Srebrenica
Posted by Julia GorinWJC ANALYSIS – After Putin’s visit: Are Israel and Russia inching closer together?
Putin’s arrival in the region must be viewed in contrast to President Obama, who has yet to visit Israel. The Russian leader’s visit to Israel might have been an attempt to align himself with America’s ‘best friend’ in the Middle East ahead of the US presidential...Zionism and righteous minds
If we accept his view, two things follow:The American Girl in the Bunker
The rocket attacks always stop at...Zionism is the answer for Reform Jews
As one who taught Reform Hebrew school for many years at the flagship Temple Emanuel in Manhattan, I agree with your concerns that Reform Judaism is too lax, too undefined, as you write: “We failed Zuckerberg and will continue to fail young people...Chazan: Democracy is Not Majority Rule
Second conference – Application of Israeli Sovereignty over Judea and Samaria
Machpela Visitors Center, Hebron, the City of the Patriarchs
Handing out of earphones for simultaneous translation from Hebrew to English
Ms. Geula Cohen, Israel Award Laureate, initiator of the Jerusalem and Golan Heights Bill
16:45 Rabbi Uziyahu Sharbaf, Head of the Shalhe’vet-Yah Kollel – One Nation and One LandThe main stream media is complicit
Ford and others, such as MSNBC news anchor Melissa Harris-Perry, say the media should not report news if it makes black people look bad. But most racial crimes and violence from black mobs in the New York area are usually not reported – not by the mainstream media anyway.
Ted Belman
Jerusalem, Israel
Tuesday, 3 July 2012
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