Peretz: What the president apparently learned

"What [President Obama] learned was that the Palestinians aren't exactly ready to negotiate with anyone...unless the outcome is settled in advance and gives them everything. Even George Mitchell cannot now believe otherwise."  -- Martin Peretz,  July 28, 2010  http://goo.gl/fb/LavZ3
 

Hagee: Why Christian Zionists really support Israel

Why Christian Zionists Really Support Israel

By John C. Hagee

Published in the  May 21, 2010 issue of the Forward

On May 23, pastors, ministers and priests at more than 1,500 churches in all 50 states and over 50 foreign countries will dedicate their Sunday services to teaching the importance of Christian support for Israel.

On that day — the second annual Christians United for Israel Sunday — church leaders will speak to their congregants about God’s enduring covenant with Abraham and the Jewish people, including God’s promise in Genesis 12:3 that He will bless those who bless Israel. Worshippers will learn about the tragedies of Jewish history. Christian leaders will speak the truth about our culpability and silence during the Holocaust, pogroms and Crusades. The message at churches around the world will be clear and unequivocal: Christians can never again be silent in the face of threats to the Jewish people.

Christians attending these churches will also learn about the miraculous rise of the modern State of Israel and the existential threats it faces today. Many will leave church with a better understanding of the dangers of Iran’s nuclear weapons program, Palestinian terror and the international campaign against Israel’s legitimacy.

As is the case for many Jews, our support for Israel starts with God’s promises in the Hebrew Bible, but it does not end there. Christian Zionists recognize that we owe an enormous debt of gratitude to the Jewish people. As I have stressed to my Christian audiences for years: If you take away the Jewish contribution to Christianity, there would be no Christianity. From the patriarchs to the prophets, from Jesus and his family to the men who wrote down the Bible, Jewish people have provided us with the fundamentals of our faith.

Christian Zionists also recognize that Israel is not the cause of militant Islam’s hatred of America, but an ally in the fight against militant Islam. Until 9/11 and the ensuing events, Israel largely confronted this threat alone. And to this day the frontline of this conflict remains Israel’s backyard. But Christian Zionists understand that Israel is merely militant Islam’s first target. While American and Israeli soldiers do not fight on the same battlefield, they defend the same values.

Given the history of Christian antisemitism, I am not at all surprised that many in the Jewish community are skeptical of Christian support for Israel. Some worry that our efforts are motivated by a desire to convert Jews. Others posit that our Zionism is tied to an effort to speed the second coming of Jesus. Both of these allegations are flat wrong. All we ask of our Jewish friends is that they get to know us before they judge us harshly on the basis of myths such as these.

Like all people of faith, we Christians firmly believe that our religion is true. But we also believe in religious freedom and have enormous respect for the Jewish faith. The first rule adopted by Christians United for Israel was that there would be no proselytizing at our events. CUFI exists only to honor and support the Jewish people, never to convert them.

Regarding the other allegation, the fact is that the vast majority of Christian Zionists and Evangelicals do not believe there is anything we can do to hasten the second coming of Jesus. Our theology is clear that we humans are utterly powerless to change God’s timetable. Yes, like many Jews we do believe that the creation of Israel was the fulfillment of biblical prophecy. And like our Jewish friends we also search the Scriptures to understand what may come next in God’s plans for His creation. But since we are powerless to change these plans, our motives for standing with Israel come from elsewhere. They are the motives discussed above.

Another concern that some individuals have expressed is that Christian Zionists will use our influence to stand in the way of efforts to advance a two-state solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict. Such a claim shows a complete disregard for our record. Like many supporters of Israel, some Christian Zionists have certainly grown skeptical of land-for-peace in the face of the failures of this formula the last few times it was tried. Yet from our founding four years ago, we decided that CUFI would never presume to tell Jerusalem how to conduct its foreign or domestic affairs. We have never, and will never, oppose Israeli efforts to advance peace. Our involvement in the peace process will continue to be restricted to defending Israel’s right to make decisions free of international interference or pressure — including U.S. pressure.

We cannot change the past. But we can try to learn from it. During the Holocaust there were Christians who risked their lives to save Jewish families. Christian Zionists believe that the tradition of the righteous gentile has an important role in the world today. We are not the heroes they were. We do not have to risk our lives as they did. But following their example, we will stand with the Jewish people as they face threats of a second Holocaust from Hitler’s ideological kin in Tehran and elsewhere.

Christian support for Israel starts with the Bible, is strengthened by an understanding of history and endures because of the Judeo-Christian commitment to democratic values. Everything that forms the Christian understanding of the world leads to the same conclusion: Christians should support Israel because it is simply the right thing to do.

Pastor John C. Hagee is founder and chairman of Christians United for Israel.

Harassment in Sweden. Windows shattered by explosion at Malmo Synagogue

http://swedenisrael.blogspot.com/2010/07/attack-against-synagogue-in-malmo.html

 

Sunday, July 25, 2010

Attack Against the Synagogue in Malmö Revives Threat Concerns for the Jewish Community.

In the early morning hours on Friday a large explosion was reported outside Malmö's synagogue. The explosion is suspected to have been caused by a substantial firecracker and is seen as an attack on the synagogue. The attack can also be seen as a resurgence of the threat against the Malmö Jewish community.

Some minutes before 2am the night between July 22nd and the 23rd a big explosion was reported outside the synagogue in Malmö. Residents living close to the synagogue reported that an explosion was heard and there was also a very bright flash. Spokesperson for the police, Göran Billberg commented that the explosion most probably was due to "some kind of firecracker", and did not characterize the explosive as a bomb.

The local newspaper Sydsvenskan reported incorrectly that no damage was done to the synagogue; in fact the explosion was so strong that several of the synagogue windows were blown out by the blast.

While the local police claim that there was no particular threat against the synagogue prior to the explosion, readers of this blog can easily argue that there is a general threat to the Malmö Jewish community. This is perhaps also why the local police decided to classify the explosion outside Malmö Synagogue as "vandalism" while the chairman of the Jewish community in Malmö states that the Jewish community sees the explosion as a "attack or an attempted attack" on the synagogue.

As reported by the local newspaper Skånskan, since the beginning of the year there has been an increased threat against Jewish families in Malmö. The feelings of insecurity and lack of personal safety are today so strong that some Jewish families have chosen to leave the city, or even to leave Sweden. Following the public outcry by the Jewish community in Malmö and the formation of a group to foster communication among various ethnic groups in the city, Chairman of the Jewish Community Fred Kahn had reported that hopes were that the situation now looked a little brighter.

Until now…

In an interview after this recent attack against Malmö's synagogue, Fred Kahn stated to Skånskan's reporter:
"We see this as an attack, alternatively as an attempted attack. This is not the case where somebody accidently happened to set off some firecrackers."

The local police force feels that it is not necessary to enforce security around the synagogue although it is evident that the Jewish Community remains in a state of constant threat. How long the small Jewish community can persist under threat in Malmö while being forced to bear the cost of intensive security protection, and without the freedom to openly identify as Jews, is anybody's guess.  Despite Mayor Reepalu's belief that this is the Jews' problem, evidence shows that violence is everybody's problem in Malmö.

ex-CIA chief: Strike on Iran "seems inexorable"

The Associated Press
Sunday, July 25, 2010; 12:31 PM

WASHINGTON -- A former CIA director says military action against Iran now seems more likely because no matter what the U.S. does diplomatically, Tehran keeps pushing ahead with its suspected nuclear program.

Michael Hayden, a CIA chief under President George W. Bush, says that during his tenure a strike was "way down the list" of options. But he tells CNN's "State of the Union" that such action now "seems inexorable."

He predicts Iran will build its program to the point where it's just below having an actual weapon. Hayden says that would be as destabilizing to the region as the real thing.

Chesnoff: Do the Palestinians Really Want Two States --Or Are they Just Stalling?

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  Richard Z. Chesnoff: Do the Palestinians Really Want Two States — Or Are They Just Stalling?

Published: July 21, 2010 

Khaled Abu Toameh, to my mind the best Arab journalist working in Israel and the Palestinian territories, reports in today’s Jerusalem Post that “Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has told his Fatah movement he wants a more specific US commitment on the borders of a future Palestinian state before agreeing to direct talks with Israel.

“Abbas says he received assurances from US President Barack Obama, but that they weren’t clear ‘enough. ,” reports Abu Toameh ” He says he expects enormous pressure, but that he will not go ‘blindly’ into negotiations. “

In other words, until Mahmoud Abbas knows the specific outcome of peace negotiations with Israel, he won’t even begin to negotiate the terms directly with Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu. Even in Arabic that’s known as “hutzpa“.

All of which resurrects the question many of us have been asking for decades: if the Palestinians are truly ready to divide Palestine into two peace abiding states – one Arab and one Jewish -, why have they turned down every offer that’s ever been made to them to do just that – even the one proferred in 2007 at a U.S.-sponsored peace conference in Annapolis by then Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert for a Palestinian Arab state in 97 percent of the West Bank and the entire Gaza Strip. Abbas also used the occasion, and has used several since then, to categorically dismiss the request to recognize Israel as a Jewish state alongside the would-be Palestinian state, insisting instead on full implementation of the “right of return” of Palestinian “refugees” and their millions of on the global dole descendants..

The answer, I fear, is that the Palestinians really don’t want that peaceful solution and will continue to stall for time until the Arab fantasy day when the Jewish state vanishes – their ultimate goal.

One of the best histories of this steady blockage procedure comes from Mideast historian Efraim Karsh. Editor of the Middle East Quarterly and author most recently of “Palestine Betrayed” (Yale), Karsh is professor of Middle East and Mediterranean Studies at King’s College, University of London.

In a biting new article in the Jewish Ideas Daily and reprinted by the Middle East Quarterly, Karsh carefully traces the history of Palestinian avoidance of a Mideast peace solution that will result in two states for two peoples. Indeed, as he pointedly asks, “… is there in fact a fundamental distinction between Hamas and Fatah when it comes to a two-state solution? Neither faction formally accepts Israel’s right to exist; both are formally committed to its eventual destruction. Moreover, for all the admittedly sharp differences between Arafat and his successor Abbas both in personality and in political style, the two are warp and woof of the same dogmatic PLO fabric.”

Anyone interested in the truth about the Mideast crisis should read Karsh’s article in full:

http://www.meforum.org/2689/against-two-state-solution

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Source: http://www.investingcontrarian.com/global/richard-z-chesnoff-do-the-palestinians-really-want-two-states-or-are-they-just-stalling/

Netanyahu opposes conversion bill

jtanews: Netanyahu tells Cabinet he opposes Rotem conversion bill http://bit.ly/a76dNg
Sent on the Sprint® Now Network from my BlackBerry®

JCRC deplores analogizing the president to Hitler and Lenin

Statement from JCRC       July 15, 2010

The Jewish Community Relations Commission of the Jewish Federation of Greater Des Moines, Iowa

 

JCRC deplores the rhetoric and imagery displayed on a billboard in Mason City analogizing President Obama to Hitler and Lenin.  Such analogies are distortions and are disrespectful of the president, those who were murdered by the dictators, and those whose families suffered the tragic loss of loved ones.

 

Steven Schoenebaum,  JCRC Chair

Mark S. Finkelstein,  JCRC Director

 

Contact: jcrc@dmjfed.org

The Jewish Federation of Greater Des Moines is online at http://jewishdesmoines.org