Religion and Poverty: Let All Who Are Hungry Come and Eat,

By Rabbi Steve Gutow, president of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs,

and Dr. H. Eric Schockman, president of MAZON: A Jewish Response to Hunger

A Jewish Call to Protect America’s Hungry

Over the coming months, Spotlight will host a conversation that asks how and whether religious and faith communities should address the issue of poverty in America and explores the relationship between religion and public policy.

As the weather grows warmer and the days grow longer, American Jews are preparing to celebrate Passover. Every spring, we remember our people’s escape from bondage and flight to freedom with songs and stories read from the Haggadah, our traditional guide to the Seder meal. Our primary symbol is a very simple one: matzo, the dry, cracker-like food that we also call “the bread of affliction.”

As we gather, our homes filled with friends and our tables with food, our thoughts on slavery, affliction, and remembrances that we were once “strangers in a strange land,” it is easy to forget that affliction is not a thing of the distant past—that even as we sit down to our holiday meal, many Americans are virtual strangers in their own land, afflicted and enslaved by hunger.

The Seder is not merely a meal, however; it is a tool for education, a call to social action. This year, it comes at a time when many, many American families face times harder than they ever imagined. Today, some 37.5 million Americans live in poverty — a number that includes 13 million children — and the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities estimates that as many as 10 million more of our fellow citizens will have slipped below the poverty line by year’s end. The people who suffer the most in hard times are not those at the top, but those who were already in need when the hard times hit.

The Haggadah wisely guards against the tendency to see religious ritual as a lifeless thing that refers only to the story of the Israelites from the past. We are told that in every generation, we must see ourselves as if we had personally gone out of Egypt. We must take the lessons of bondage and freedom into our daily lives and apply them to the world around us. As we break matzo with those we love, this year of all years, we must certainly remember the millions who do not have enough food on their own tables.

That is why, next week, we will bring together not just Jews, but people of all faiths and backgrounds, lawmakers and activists, students and community leaders, to hold a special Seder in the U.S. Capitol, focused on the issues of hunger and child nutrition. This event will kick off a series of similar Seders to be held across the country, as Jewish groups and interfaith leaders convene not just to celebrate the Jewish people’s historical escape from slavery, but to highlight this country’s obligation to ensure that all of our children escape the affliction of hunger.

As a nation, we are only as strong as our weakest members, and, surely, we cannot move forward if we fail to care for our children. As the ancient Israelites had to take action in order to achieve their own exodus, so it is today: hunger can only be defeated if we all take on the responsibility.

As such, these Seders will call on Americans to educate themselves, to advocate on behalf of the hungry to their legislators, and to organize their loved ones and community to take action. Our hope is that the universal message of the right to freedom from want will echo in the halls of Congress, and that our elected officials will see to it that our next federal budget prioritizes meeting Americans’ most basic human needs.

To effectively grapple with childhood hunger, Congress will have to invest substantially in new funding for child nutrition programs. More communities must have access to school breakfast and summer feeding programs, rules must be shaped that will make it simpler for families to participate, and the nutritional quality of the food provided must be improved. $20 billion, over the next five years, will be a critical investment toward making the improvements that these programs urgently need—but not only will such changes make a real difference in the lives of boys and girls currently living in poverty, they will be a vital step toward meeting President Obama’s stated goal of ending child hunger in this country by 2015.

The good news is that these ideas build on an existing foundation, laid by Congressional advocates in recent years. Increases in the Food Stamp benefit were an important part of the Administration’s stimulus package, and last year’s Farm Bill contained a robust nutrition title, with 73 percent of the bill’s total dedicated to the funding of nutrition programs such as Food Stamps and emergency food assistance, as well as programs designed to bring more fresh fruits and vegetables to schools in low-income areas.

It is simply not enough to leave these issues to the good will of individual people or philanthropies. The simple truth is that hunger, like slavery, is a political condition. It is not a lack of food, but a lack of action and will that perpetuates hunger in the lives of our youngest citizens.

When the Israelites were called to leave behind their suffering, they had to do so in a hurry—and so, not having time to allow their bread to rise, they traveled into the desert with matzo, hard bread that served also to remind them of the hard life they had left behind. Today, we too are in a rush, as every day spent in hunger is one too many. The time to act is not next month or next year, but now.

It is important to remember, however, that Passover is not just a holiday of exodus, but also a time of renewal. As the ragtag crowd of Israelites left Egypt and were formed into the Jewish people, so too can the America people rise to their own challenges, and become a better, stronger nation as a result.

As people of faith, we know that we are called to meet the needs of the most vulnerable. To not do so would be an affront to God and all we hold dear. As Americans, we know that generational poverty — the empty belly of a child — weakens and destabilizes our country as a whole.

“Let all who are hungry come and eat,” we read in the Haggadah, “let all who are in need come share our Passover.”

Let us all — Jews, Christians, Muslims, people of any and all faiths — carry this simple, powerful message with us into the world, and take the actions so urgently needed to free American children from hunger.

Rabbi Steve Gutow is the president of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs. Dr. H. Eric Schockman is the president of MAZON: A Jewish Response to Hunger.

 

Teen killed in West Bank terror attack

Terrorist carrying axe attacks and kills 16-year-old youth in settlement of Bat Ayin in Gush Etzion Thursday noon; seven-year-old child sustains moderate injuries. Terrorist flees scene, IDF launches manhunt. Palestinian Authority security official tells Ynet terrorist apparently working on his own
Efrat Weiss  ynetnews  April 2, 2009

Sixteen-year-old Shlomo Nativ was killed and a seven-year-old boy was moderately injured in an attack carried out by a terrorist carrying an axe in the West Bank settlement of Bat Ayin Thursday noon.

 

According to the police, the terrorist managed to flee the scene. The IDF launched a hunt for the terrorist, set up roadblocks and boosted security throughout the communities in the area.

 

Palestinian sources reported that IDF forces were surrounding a house in the nearby village of Khirbet Safa where they suspected the attacker may be hiding. 

 

A Magen David Adom rescue team tried to resuscitate the teen, who they said ran into a house after being attacked, but he died of his injuries.

Netanyahu: Israel seeks lasting peace with Arabs By Haaretz Service

 

Incoming Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared on Tuesday that under his leadership, Israel would continue to work toward a comprehensive peace with the Arab and Muslim world.

"We will not let anyone question our right to exist," he told lawmakers gathered at the Knesset in Jerusalem for the swearing-in of the new coalition. "Israel can`t afford to treat statements against it light-heartedly."

In his address, Netanyahu called radical Islam and the Iranian regime major threats to regional security, but praised Islamic culture as "great and rich, with many branches in our people's history which has known periods which flourished for Arabs and Jews who lived together and created together."

He said that blocking the Iranian nuclear program was in the interest of both Israel and the Muslim world, adding that he hoped the region could work together "to block terrorism in every direction and fight it until the end."

"Israel has always, and today more than ever, strives to reach full peace with the entire Arab and Muslim world, and today that yearning is supported by a joint interest of Israel and the Arab states against the fanatical obstacle that threatens us all," he said.

Netanyahu did not explicitly endorse an independent Palestinian state while declaring his commitment to peace, but said: "We do not wish to rule another people. We do not want to rule the Palestinians... Under the permanent status agreement, the Palestinians will have all the authority necessary to rule themselves."

He also warned the Palestinian Authority that it must do its part to fight terror if it is serious about peace.

"I say to the Palestinian leadership that if you really want peace we can achieve peace," Netanyahu told a Knesset session interrupted by heckling from Arab and left-wing lawmakers.

He offered negotiations on "three parallel tracks, economic, security and diplomatic" with the Palestinian Authority.

Netanyahu also pledged to do whatever it takes to free abducted Israel Defense Forces soldier Gilad Shalit, who has been in Palestinian captivity since he was abducted in a 2006 cross-border raid from the Gaza Strip.

The incoming premier promised that his government would "work to bolster national security and achieve personal security for Israel's citizens... maintain the Jewish character of the state and Jewish tradition, and also respect the religions and traditions of the country's ethnic communities."

Netanyahu thanked outgoing Prime Minister Ehud Olmert for his "devoted service" to the state, and promised to engage in peace talks with "sincerity and a clear mind."

Following his address, Netanyahu began to name the 30 new ministers and deputy ministers appointed to serve in the new government coalition, set to be voted in at the end of the ceremony.

Olmert delivered his final speech as premier just before Netanyahu's address, urging the new coalition to follow in his government's path and make the peace process a central focus of the coming term.

"Our avid peace efforts were acknowledged by the international community," he said. In particular, the outgoing prime minister called on Netanyahu to continue on the Syria track, a process which Olmert jumpstarted during his term.


"As I step down from the premiership, I am not the least bit resentful," Olmert said, adding that he was proud of his own government's achievements.

Olmert's tenure as prime minister was heavily criticized throughout, with two wars and a dozen investigations into his alleged corruption.

During his address, the outgoing prime minister defended his government's decision to carry out the 2006 war in Lebanon and the recent operation in the Gaza Strip.

The Israel Defense Forces is "most moral army in the world," Olmert declared, adding that this was evident by Israel's actions during its offensive on the Gaza Strip earlier this year.

He also defended the government's decision to carry out the 2006 Second Lebanon War against Hezbollah militants, despite widespread criticism of the state's handling of that war.

"The outcomes of Second Lebanon War, in long run, are positive," Olmert said, adding that the war "changed strategic balance along the border in our favor."

Opposition leader Tzipi Livni, who lost out on the opportunity to form the new government despite her Kadima party's slim win in the February elections, took the podium to deliver the third address at the government swearing in.

She began her speech by wishing the new government success, but quickly added that could not wish success to a coalition deal that would "not benefit the state at all."

She then vowed that under her leadership, the opposition would act responsibly to bring the public's faith back to the Knesset.

Mar. 26, 2009  Editorial  , THE JERUSALEM POST

[ Islamic extremists make clear their goals.  Why not believe them?]

If you follow the trail of arms from Iran - through Somalia, Sudan and Egypt to the Gaza Strip - you come to a fork in the road. One direction leads to the conclusion that Teheran's smuggling of weapons to Hamas for its fight against Israel is but a facet of the greater Islamist confrontation with Western civilization; the other to the determination that there is no war of civilizations, and that Iran and Hamas are ripe for inclusion in the international community.

YESTERDAY, CBS News reported that in January, Israeli aircraft bombed an Iranian arms convoy in Sudan bound for Hamas during Operation Cast Lead. The attack took place northwest of Port Sudan. All the casualties were Sudanese, Eritreans and Ethiopians and all the trucks were destroyed. They were presumably thought to be carrying rockets that would extend Hamas's range to Tel Aviv, making the mission worth the risk.

• The arms start off in Iran, which sees itself at war with Israel on every continent, using all available means and proxies. Teheran orchestrated the bombing of the Israeli embassy in Argentina in 1992, and the Buenos Aires Jewish Community Center in 1994. Iranian instructors taught Hizbullah the art of truck-bombing, which claimed hundreds of Israeli lives in Lebanon.

The mullahs began courting Hamas in 1990, once they had determined that destroying Israel trumped any theological differences with the Sunni jihadists.

Today, Iran is heavily invested in Hamas - financially, diplomatically, militarily and politically.

• The weapons move to Somalia, a failed state and humanitarian basket case controlled by warlords who seek to surmount clan differences with radical Islam. Youthful Shabab extremists are their shock troops. The goal is a world caliphate, but for now they'd settle for Wahhabi control of Somalia. A moderate Islamist president sitting in Mogadishu is too weak to exert power; Muslim pirates rule the coastal waters.

• The next port of call: Sudan. Once Osama bin Laden's headquarters, Sudan is notorious for its genocide against non-Arabs in Darfur. The country has close ties with Iran, whose Revolutionary Guards are training its reconstituted army.

On March 4, the International Criminal Court in The Hague issued a warrant for the arrest of Sudanese leader Omar Hassan al-Bashir. Since then al-Bashir has been to Cairo - twice - to strategize with President Hosni Mubarak. And he means to attend next week's Arab League Summit in Qatar. Beyond the backing he has in the Organization of the Islamic Conference and the African Union, Bashir's support is being spearheaded by Iran, Hamas, Hizbullah, Syria and Islamic Jihad. Iran's parliament speaker, Ali Larijani, called the arrest warrant an "insult directed at Muslims."

• Next port of call - Egypt. Every bullet shipped to Gaza by Iran traverses Egypt, either overland or via the Port of Damietta in a journey coordinated by Hamas in Damascus and Iran's Revolutionary Guard. By the time the shipments arrive at the smugglers' tunnels connecting the Sinai to Gaza, innumerable hands have facilitated them, and innumerable eyes looked the other way.

AMERICAN policy wonks who argue that Iran and Hamas are ripe for inclusion in the international community see taking that direction as "pragmatic." They've unearthed Hamas's "moderate" wing - and it's "open to compromise."

Not, granted, on the core issues of terrorism, honoring previous Palestinian commitments and Israel's right to exist. But Hamas would agree to a lengthy cease-fire. And it might allow Mahmoud Abbas to front for them. Further, say the wonks, with Hamas standing over his shoulder - who knows, Abbas might negotiate a peace deal! It would be brought to a Palestinian referendum, and Hamas would abide by the results.

But none of this will happen, the wonks warn, if the West remains hung up on what Hamas says it will do to Israel.

Similarly, when the US sits down Tuesday at The Hague, with Iran, to discuss Afghanistan, the wonks will likely argue that Teheran's attendance signals its underlying pragmatism - and that this pragmatism could be torpedoed by obsessing over Iranian threats to destroy Israel.

If the new Obama administration takes the easy road counseled by these wonks, willfully ignoring the implacable nature of Islamist extremism, it will have embarked on a journey of disastrous self-delusion.

This article can also be read at http://www.jpost.com /servlet/Satellite?cid=1237727552931&pagename=JPArticle%2FShowFull
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HUDSON INSTITUTE, March 24, 2009

On Campus: The 'Pro-Palestinians' Are

More Are Pro-Hamas Than Pro-Palestinian

 Khaled Abu Toameh

During a recent visit to several university campuses in the U.S., I discovered that there is more sympathy for Hamas there than there is in Ramallah.

Listening to some students and professors on these campuses, for a moment I thought I was sitting opposite a Hamas spokesman or a would-be-suicide bomber.

I was told, for instance, that Israel has no right to exist, that Israel’s “apartheid system” is worse than the one that existed in South Africa and that Operation Cast Lead was launched only because Hamas was beginning to show signs that it was interested in making peace and not because of the rockets that the Islamic movement was launching at Israeli communities.

I was also told that top Fatah operative Marwan Barghouti, who is serving five life terms in prison for masterminding terror attacks against Israeli civilians, was thrown behind bars simply because he was trying to promote peace between Israelis and Palestinians.

Furthermore, I was told that all the talk about financial corruption in the Palestinian Authority was “Zionist propaganda” and that Yasser Arafat had done wonderful things for his people, including the establishment of schools, hospitals and universities.

The good news is that these remarks were made only by a minority of people on the campuses who describe themselves as “pro-Palestinian,” although the overwhelming majority of them are not Palestinians or even Arabs or Muslims.

The bad news is that these groups of hard-line activists/thugs are trying to intimidate anyone who dares to say something that they don’t like to hear.

When the self-designated “pro-Palestinian” lobbyists are unable to challenge the facts presented by a speaker, they resort to verbal abuse..

On one campus, for example, I was condemned as an “idiot” because I said that a majority of Palestinians voted for Hamas in the January 2006 election because they were fed up with financial corruption in the Palestinian Authority.

On another campus, I was dubbed as a “mouthpiece for the Zionists” because I said that Israel has a free media. There was another campus where someone told me that I was a ‘liar” because I said that Barghouti was sentenced to five life terms because of his role in terrorism.

And then there was the campus (in Chicago) where I was “greeted” with swastikas that were painted over posters promoting my talk. The perpetrators, of course, never showed up at my event because they would not be able to challenge someone who has been working in the field for nearly 30 years.

What struck me more than anything else was the fact that many of the people I met on the campuses supported Hamas and believed that it had the right to “resist the occupation” even if that meant blowing up children and women on a bus in downtown Jerusalem.

I never imagined that I would need police protection while speaking at a university in the U.S. I have been on many Palestinian campuses in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and I cannot recall one case where I felt intimidated or where someone shouted abuse at me.

Ironically, many of the Arabs and Muslims I met on the campuses were much more understanding and even welcomed my “even-handed analysis” of the Israeli-Arab conflict. After all, the views I voiced were not much different than those made by the leaderships both in Israel and the Palestinian Authority. These views include support for the two-state solution and the idea of coexistence between Jews and Arabs in this part of the world.

The so-called pro-Palestinian “junta” on the campuses has nothing to offer other than hatred and de-legitimization of Israel. If these folks really cared about the Palestinians, they would be campaigning for good government and for the promotion of values of democracy and freedom in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Their hatred for Israel and what it stands for has blinded them to a point where they no longer care about the real interests of the Palestinians, namely the need to end the anarchy and lawlessness, and to dismantle all the armed gangs that are responsible for the death of hundreds of innocent Palestinians over the past few years.

The majority of these activists openly admit that they have never visited Israel or the Palestinian territories. They don’t know -and don’t want to know - that Jews and Arabs here are still doing business together and studying together and meeting with each other on a daily basis because they are destined to live together in this part of the world. They don’t want to hear that despite all the problems life continues and that ordinary Arab and Jewish parents who wake up in the morning just want to send their children to school and go to work before returning home safely and happily.

What is happening on the U.S. campuses is not about supporting the Palestinians as much as it is about promoting hatred for the Jewish state. It is not really about ending the “occupation” as much as it is about ending the existence of Israel.

Many of the Palestinian Authority and Hamas officials I talk to in the context of my work as a journalist sound much more pragmatic than most of the anti-Israel, “pro-Palestinian” folks on the campuses.

Over the past 15 years, much has been written and said about the fact that Palestinian school textbooks don’t promote peace and coexistence and that the Palestinian media often publishes anti-Israel material.

While this may be true, there is no ignoring the fact that the anti-Israel campaign on U.S. campuses is not less dangerous. What is happening on these campuses is not in the frame of freedom of speech. Instead, it is the freedom to disseminate hatred and violence. As such, we should not be surprised if the next generation of jihadists comes not from the Gaza Strip or the mountains and mosques of Pakistan and Afghanistan, but from university campuses across the U.S.

Abbas's government urges Europe to shun Hamas

Mon Mar 23, 2009 9:55pm IST

RAMALLAH, West Bank (Reuters) - Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's Western-backed government warned European states on Monday against easing a boycott of Hamas Islamists, saying it could put unity talks at risk.

Foreign Minister Riyad al-Malki said he relayed that message last week to European leaders during talks in Brussels.

Egyptian efforts to reconcile Abbas's secular Fatah faction, which holds sway in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, and Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, have so far been unsuccessful.

The talks, held in Cairo, were adjourned last week without agreement on the shape or agenda of a proposed unity government that would oversee the rebuilding of the Gaza Strip after Israel's offensive, as well as prepare for new elections.

Negotiations are expected to resume but big differences remain, including over demands by Fatah that Hamas agree to abide by interim peace agreements signed with Israel. Hamas has refused to make such a commitment.

The Islamist group, which beat Fatah in a 2006 Palestinian parliamentary election, is shunned by the United States and the European Union as a "terrorist" organisation for refusing to renounce violence, recognise Israel and abide by interim agreements.

But some European states have limited contacts with the group and hold out the possibility of further engagement if the group, which seized control of the Gaza Strip in 2007 after routing Abbas's forces there, softens its stance on Israel.

Malki said European overtures could undermine the unity talks by giving Hamas the impression that "the international community, and especially the European Union, is ready to change its position towards Hamas", whether the group agrees to abide by interim agreements or not.

"There wouldn't be any harm if (European states) talked to Hamas after we reach a reconciliation agreement and after Hamas joins the parties committed to the agreements," Malki said.

" [A Palestinian leadership's] refusal to recognize the inalienable right of the Jewish people to self-determination anywhere between the Mediterranean and the Jordan signals Palestinian society's continuing to define our conflict in zero-sum terms."


Suleiman's 'wisdom' (Or, weaseling-in Hamas)
Mar. 19, 2009, THE JERUSALEM POST

While top Israeli emissaries were in Cairo seeking Gilad Schalit's freedom this week, their usual interlocutor, Egyptian intelligence chief Omar Suleiman, was not. He was in Khartoum and Riyadh on Arab League business.

Suleiman then flew to Washington to see US Middle East envoy George Mitchell and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. He is hoping to convince the Obama administration to abandon the conditions set in January 2006, after Hamas beat Fatah in Palestinian elections, requiring Hamas to recognize Israel, renounce violence and accept past PLO commitments before the international community will deal with the Islamists.

In the wake of all that's happened in the past three years, Suleiman has concluded that an ever-more entrenched Hamas needs to be accommodated if the Palestinians are to speak with one voice and function in the international arena. Several EU states already flirt with Hamas, discreetly. Russia and China do so openly.

Suleiman has come up with a work-around to overcome international insistence - or what's left of it - on what Hamas must do to join a Palestinian government. What if Hamas vaguely promises to "respect" previous PLO commitments rather than declare its outright acceptance of them? Instead of dwelling on who recognizes whom, and how, isn't it better to have Hamas and Fatah acting responsibly together?

FOR ISRAEL, however, who recognizes whom, and how, goes to the heart of the conflict - since the refusal to recognize the inalienable right of the Jewish people to self-determination anywhere between the Mediterranean and the Jordan signals Palestinian society's continuing to define our conflict in zero-sum terms. So if Suleiman's creative diplomacy ushers Hamas into a Palestinian government without it having to change its stripes, he will be undoing decades of painstaking steps Palestinians and Israelis have taken toward mutual recognition. That would put a question mark over the entire Oslo edifice, which has been preserved by successive Israeli governments.

Put differently: If the international community turns its back on the most elementary prerequisites for Palestinian-Israeli cooperation - mutual recognition, non-belligerency and adherence to past agreements - it will be tearing asunder the existing basis for relations between the Palestinian Authority and Israel.

ISRAEL HAS long made a "nuisance" of itself trying to elicit recognition from Palestinian leaders - the only way to establish that the conflict has moved onto a non-zero sum basis. And that recognition seemed forthcoming.

On December 7, 1988 Yasser Arafat declared in Stockholm: "The PNC accepted two states, a Palestinian state and a Jewish state, Israel. Is that clear enough?" And leading up to the September 1993 Oslo Accords, Fatah's central committee and the PLO's executive committee endorsed the deal in which the Palestinians recognized Israel.

Yet the extent to which Israelis may have been deluding themselves was blatantly exposed this week, when Fatah leader Muhammad Dahlan declared on Palestinian television: "I want to say for the thousandth time, in my own name and in the name of all of my fellow members of the Fatah movement: We do not demand that the Hamas movement recognize Israel. On the contrary, we demand of Hamas not to recognize Israel, because Fatah does not recognize Israel even today."

Actually, Palestinian moderates have been making this point time and again.

On October 3, 2006, Mahmoud Abbas told Al-Arabiya TV that he didn't expect Fatah, let alone Hamas, to recognize Israel. But a Palestinian government, qua government, had no choice but to "function opposite the Israelis on a daily basis," and it could hardly do so if its ministers didn't "recognize" their Israeli counterparts.

Thus Palestinian "moderates" have had no change of heart about Israel: It's just that Israel has leverage over the day-to-day lives of millions of Palestinians, who are also dependent on international hand-outs and diplomatic support. Realpolitik forces their governing authority - but not them - to "recognize" Israel. In other words, if one has cancer, la sama'ha Allah, doesn't one "recognize" that fact and seek palliatives pending a cure?

Israel's failure to insist that Fatah adhere to its commitments hasn't brought peace any closer, but blurred the distinction between moderates and extremists.

We're not sure which is more disheartening - Suleiman endeavoring to cover up Hamas rejectionism, or Fatah reveling in its own.

This article can also be read at http://www.jpost.com /servlet/Satellite?cid=1237461629121&pagename=JPArticle%2FShowFull