Tuesday, March 31, 2015
Historic Practice Passover Offering
The Temple Institute reenacted the entire Pesach sacrifice ceremony (which was essentially a nationwide BBQ in Jerusalem).
In olden Days, and hopefully soon again, families would come to Jerusalem, sacrifice a lamb, cook it on the alter in the Temple, and then each family would gather together and eat the lamb for dinner on Pesach night.
As this was a reenactment and not an actual Pesach sacrifice, the meat was distributed to needy families.
Shmot 12:8: “And they shall eat the meat on this night, roasted over the fire, and matzot; with bitter herbs they shall eat it.”
US Rabbi Calls on Jews to Rally Against Obama's Israel Policies; 'Strange' bias against Israel calls for rallies like there were during the Intifada and other Israel crises, Rabbi Yoel Schonfeld says.
Rabbi Yoel Schonfeld
Arutz Sheva
Many American Jews are becoming increasingly concerned over US President Barack Obama's approach towards both Israel and Iran. While Israel, a close US ally, has been on the receiving end of increasing hostility from the White House, Iran, a sworn enemy of America (which its leaders refer to as "the Great Satan"), has been wooed and even fawned over in an attempt to achieve a deal over its nuclear program deemed favorable to Tehran.
Seen in that light, Obama's behavior toward Israel recently is "very strange," opined Rabbi Yoel Schonfeld, the rabbi of Young Israel of KewGarden Hills in Queens, NY, and a member of both the Queens Rabbinical Council and the Rabbinical Council of America, in a special Arutz Sheva interview this week.
Schonfeld noted that he has written unpublished letters to the New York Times over the issue, and added that he has written extensively about the hypocrisy of Obama calling out Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on comments he made involving Arabs during the elections, while the Palestinian Authority (PA) banning Jews is ignored.
Similarly, he blasted Obama for continuing to negotiate with Iran, despite Ayatollah Ali Khamenei calling Jews "monkeys and apes."
"Suddenly, when it comes to Prime Minister Netanyahu, it's a different story altogether," Schonfeld lamented.
Schonfeld called for an organized rally, by both Jews and non-Jews alike, against Washington's policies on Israel and the involvement of the US in the elections in particular - such as there were at other times over Israel, e.g. during the Second Intifada.
Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News: Latest nutty Arab rumor: Jewish suicide bombers are coming!
ver the weekend a number of Arabic websites "quoted" Israel's Channel One website with a bizarre story.
The story supposedly said that there was a cell of 30 young Jews who are being incited by rabbis to carry out suicide bombings against Arabs in the West Bank. The story said that the Shin Bet warned about these impending attacks but didn't want to do anything about them because of political considerations.
The stgory goes on to say that those responsible for these attacks are rabbis and religious extremists in Jerusalem and the West who sow hatred among young religious Jews against Arabs and Palestinians and therefore try to persuade them to follow the methods of Palestinian terrorists.
Needless to say, no such story can be found on the Channel One website, or anywhere else. And if it was a real story it would be in the front pages of Israeli newspapers - secular and religious -within hours.
It is rare that Arabic stories are completely made up, so maybe there was a Purim spoof or something that someone read.
Or it is just an extreme case of Arab projection.
I did once find an Arab political cartoon of a Jew with a suicide bomb belt shaped like minarets to show how Jews like to attack mosques, apparently.
The story supposedly said that there was a cell of 30 young Jews who are being incited by rabbis to carry out suicide bombings against Arabs in the West Bank. The story said that the Shin Bet warned about these impending attacks but didn't want to do anything about them because of political considerations.
The stgory goes on to say that those responsible for these attacks are rabbis and religious extremists in Jerusalem and the West who sow hatred among young religious Jews against Arabs and Palestinians and therefore try to persuade them to follow the methods of Palestinian terrorists.
Needless to say, no such story can be found on the Channel One website, or anywhere else. And if it was a real story it would be in the front pages of Israeli newspapers - secular and religious -within hours.
It is rare that Arabic stories are completely made up, so maybe there was a Purim spoof or something that someone read.Or it is just an extreme case of Arab projection.
I did once find an Arab political cartoon of a Jew with a suicide bomb belt shaped like minarets to show how Jews like to attack mosques, apparently.
‘The Haggada’s Politics’ – A Conversation between Rabbi Sacks and Sen. Joseph Lieberman
On Sunday, March 22, 2015, Yeshiva University presented a conversation with former Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks and former Senator Joseph Lieberman on “The Haggada’s Politics: From 2,000 Years Ago to Today.”
The conversation, hosted by Yeshiva University’s Center for the Jewish Future and the Abraham Arbesfeld Kollel Yom Rishon and Mille Arbesfeld Midreshet Yom Rishon, was held at YU’s Wilf Campus, New York City. Rabbi Dr. Meir Soloveichik, director of YU’s Zahava and Moshael Straus Center for Torah and Western Thought, moderated the discussion.
Rabbi Sacks is a global religious leader, philosopher, author and educator. He is currently the Kressel and Ephrat Family University Professor of Jewish Thought at Yeshiva University and Ingeborg and Ira Rennert Global Distinguished Professor of Judaic Thought at New York University.
Joseph Lieberman represented Connecticut in the U.S. Senate from 1989 to 2013 after serving in the Connecticut State Senate for 10 years and as attorney general of Connecticut for six years. He was appointed the inaugural Joseph Lieberman Chair in Public Policy and Public Service at YU in July 2014.
Monday, March 30, 2015
Israel Matzav: Success? 'Palestinian Authority' to drop ICC in exchange for tax moneys
The Palestinian Authority will formally join the International Criminal Court on April 1, but – following Israel’s decision on Friday to release frozen tax revenues – is not expected at this time to take steps against Israel in the ICC regarding settlement construction.
In addition, The Jerusalem Post has learned that while the ICC prosecutor has – at the PA’s request – opened a preliminary examination on alleged Israeli war crimes during Operation Protective Edge over the summer, the PA is not expected at this time to take additional legal steps in the ICC regarding the Gaza operation.
As a result of Israel’s decision to free up the funds, the PA also does not intend now to stop its security cooperation with Israel, the Post also learned.
It was the PA’s steps to join the ICC at the end of December that led Israel to freeze the monthly tax transfers in the first place.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced Friday that, at the recommendation of the security establishment, the money that has accrued since then, some $500 million, will be freed up, though the PA’s electric, water and hospital bills to Israel will be subtracted from those funds.
...
One government official said that no decision has yet been made regarding whether March’s revenues will be transferred, an indication that this will depend on whether the PA does indeed not pursue other moves at this time at the ICC, and whether it maintains its security cooperation with Israel.So if you squeeze them hard enough, they eventually cry 'uncle.' There's a lesson here for the future.
With the security establishment recommending for weeks the transfer of the frozen funds in order to reduce tension in the West Bank, it was expected for some time that this move would take place relatively soon after the March 17 election.
Biden: American Jews Can Only Rely on Israel - US Vice President makes shocking statement, telling American Jews 'no matter how involved you are in the US, the only guarantee is Israel."
revealed, in which he told Jewish leaders that should the American Jewish community be in danger, it has only Israel to rely on - and not America.
Journalist Jeffrey Goldberg reveals in the April issue of The Atlantic how at a Rosh Hashana event in Biden's home last fall, the vice president told Jewish leaders and Jewish officials in US President Barack Obama's administration how he met former Prime Minister Golda Meir when he was a young Senator.
"I’ll never forget talking to her in her office with her assistant - a guy named (Yitzhak) Rabin - about the Six-Day War,” he recalled. “The end of the meeting, we get up and walk out, the doors are open, and...the press is taking photos. ...She looked straight ahead and said, ‘Senator, don’t look so sad...Don’t worry. We Jews have a secret weapon.'"
Biden states he asked Meir what the weapon was, noting "I thought she was going to tell me something about a nuclear program" - an ironic comment given the US's recent declassification of documents revealing Israel's nuclear program in a breach of understandings with the Jewish state.
But according to Biden, "she looked straight ahead and she said, ‘We have no place else to go.'" Addressing his guests at Rosh Hashana, Biden paused for effect and repeated, "we have no place else to go."
"Folks, there is no place else to go, and you understand that in your bones," Biden said. "You understand in your bones that no matter how hospitable, no matter how consequential, no matter how engaged, no matter how deeply involved you are in the United States...there’s only one guarantee."
"There is really only one absolute guarantee, and that’s the state of Israel," he stated.
Responding to the statement, Corey Robin of Salon wrote how disturbing the statement is, given that it consists of "a sitting vice president telling a portion of the American citizenry that they cannot count on the United States government as the ultimate guarantor of their freedom and safety."
"The occupant of the second-highest office in the land believes that American Jews should look to a foreign government as the foundation of their rights and security," she added. "A country that once offered itself as a haven to persecuted Jews across the world now tells its Jews that in the event of some terrible outbreak of anti-Semitism they should…what? Plan on boarding the next plane to Tel Aviv?"
12 Jewish House Dems Tell Obama: Stop the Bibi Bashing 'Our constituents believe that the administration is stabbing Israel in the back,' a participant in the meeting said.
Twelve Jewish congressmen met Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes last week to convey a message of cease-and-desist to US President Barack Obama, regarding his persistent attacks on Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu after the latter's reelection.
Politico reveals that the meeting was held in the House's Longworth House Office Building last week, and describes the Jewish delegation's message as: “Enough. They’re just as upset about what Binyamin Netanyahu said ruling out a two-state solution, but President Barack Obama didn’t need to keep reminding them and everyone else.”
Obama and his aides, the Jewish congressmen said, “had to stop acting as if the Israeli prime minister’s comments are the only thing holding up a peace process that’s been abandoned for a year while not expressing a word of disappointment about Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas - and openly toying with allowing the Palestinians their provocative recognition bid at the United Nations.”
Has it worked? Rhodes reportedly left the meeting on the Hill “agreeing to relay a message of tamping down the rhetoric.” Since then, writes Dovere, Obama and White House press secretary Josh Earnest have avoided making more incendiary statements against Netanyahu.
The White House “has worked to cool down the rhetoric and public tension” with Israel, but it’s “not letting go,” writes Politico's Edward-Isaac Dovere.
“We’ve made our point. The message has clearly been received,” a WhiteHouse official said. “The next move is theirs (i.e. Israel's - ed.), presumably after the new government has been formed.”
On the night of the Israeli elections, “top people in the West Wing were holding out hope for the opposition even as the exit polls rolled in,” writesDovere. “They’ve gone very public with their complaint about Netanyahu in the two weeks since as they’ve internalized that he really will be the Israeli leader for Obama’s whole presidency, years of animosity brought to a boil by a speech to Congress that was unprecedented in having a foreign leader attack White House policy from the House floor.”
Among those present at the meeting were Reps. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.), Ted Deutch (D-Fla.), Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.), Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.), Brad Sherman (D-Calif.), Sander Levin (D-Mich.) and Nita Lowey (D-N.Y.).
The meeting was the latest in a series of regular briefings Rhodes has been holding with Jewish members of Congress about the Iran nuclear negotiations.
“The aggressive approach to Netanyahu was a problem,” they reportedly told him, "since the White House has made clear that it will be looking for their support in convincing people that the deal they’re hoping to get with Iran doesn’t put Israel in danger."
“You want us to go out and say the administration’s got Israel’s back. How are you going to get us to say that when our constituents believe that the administration is stabbing Israel in the back?” one Democratic Jewish member of Congress said later.
Boehner: Obama's Animosity to Israel Reprehensible; House Speaker, who is set to visit Israel, says US pressure on Netanyahu over 4-5 years 'pushed him to the point where he had to speak up.'
"I think the animosity exhibited by our administration toward the prime minister of Israel is reprehensible," US House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) told CNN's Dana Bash on "State of the Union" Sunday.
"And I think that the pressure that they've put on him over the last four orfive years have frankly pushed him to the point where he had to speak up."
Boehner will travel to Israel this week, while Congress is on recess, in a trip he said was scheduled before the rift between Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and President Barack Obama, over the speech to Congress that Boehner had invited Netanyahu to make.
He also promised to move "very" quickly toward imposing steep new sanctions on Iran if Obama doesn't strike a deal with the country to avert its nuclear ambitions.
Boehner also defended Netanyahu from criticism that Obama and the White House have been leveling at him over the last month.
He said Netanyahu didn't cross any lines when he said, in the lead-up to Israel's election, that a Palestinian state would not be established.
"Well, he doesn't have a partner," Boehner said. "How do you have a two-state solution when you don't have a partner in that solution, when youdon't have a partner for peace, when you've got a – when the other state is vowing to wipe you off the face of the earth?"
Meanwhile, columnist Charles Krauthammer said on Fox News that Obama has been waging "an incredibly hostile" campaignagainst Netanyahu.
Sunday, March 29, 2015
Ambassador/Advisor Avner Ascends Afterworld (Yehuda Avner 1928-2015)
Yehuda Avner served as advisor/speech-writer to 4 Israeli prime-ministers. His lovely memoirs record the events of Israeli history up through the Begin years. He was a true servant of the Jewish people. The Prime Ministers, is a must read for all people interested in recent Jewish history, especially in how the White House deals with the leaders of the Jewish State.
He is pictured above at R Moshe Feinstein's residence with R Moshe Sherer, R Yaakov Kamenetzky, R Yitzchok Hutner, RMF and PM Menachem Begin.
I guarantee that there will be a Palestinian state if/when… | Paul Jeser | The Blogs | The Times of Israel
President Barack Hussein Obama is fixated on a two-State solution and believes that P.M. Netanyahu is not in favor of a two-State solution.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
I guarantee that P.M. Netanyahu, and almost every other Israeli citizen, would agree to a Palestinian State if/when….
- The Palestinian/Hamas leadership accepts the right of the Jewish State of Israel to exist.
- The Palestinian/Hamas leadership stops teaching hatred of Jews and of Israel.
- The Palestinian/Hamas leadership stops teaching how to stab and kill Jews.
- The Palestinian/Hamas leadership stops turning homicide bombers into heroes and stops paying stipends to terrorists and their families.
- The Palestinian/Hamas leadership publically accepts the fact there never was a Palestinian State – that the Palestinian People, for the most part, lived in either Egypt or Jordan, and that the areas they call ‘occupied territories’ are really land that Jordan and Egypt lost to Israel during wars Jordan and Egypt started.
- The Palestinian/Hamas leadership stops stealing funds and other aid earmarked for the Palestinian People and uses those funds and aid as designated (building, education, health).
The problem with the current two-State solution is that, if enacted, the current leadership of one of those two States will try to destroy the other State.
Friday, March 27, 2015
US Senator Lindsey Graham accused the Obama administration of being ‘completely delusional’ regarding Israel, speaking the same way as Hamas. “Your hate for Netanyahu has clouded your judgement,” he said.
The language used by White House Chief of Staff Dennis McDonough, claiming that “Israel’s 50 year occupation must end”, according to Graham, is the same used by terrorist group Hamas.
Graham questioned how anyone could be foolish enough to think that Israel should withdraw from territory at this time, turning Judea and Samaria into another Gaza. He warned that Congress will not allow the UN to define the peace process between Israel and the Palestinians.
Graham addressed US policy on Iran, noting that while America runs after a deal, Iran’s leader calls for ‘Death to America’. The Senator cautioned Obama to “Wake up and change your policy before you set the whole world on fire!”
Addressing the people of Israel, Graham said to “Do what you have to do the defend the Jewish State.” Israel needs more friends like Senator Lindsey Graham!
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Graham Speaks About Status of US-Israel Relationship
WASHINGTON - U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) spoke on the Senate floor last night about President Obama's White House Chief of Staff calling the Israeli presence in the West Bank an ‘occupation.'
On Saturday, Graham spoke by telephone with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and congratulated him on his recent electoral victory and discussed the ‘unbreakable bonds' between the United States and Israel.
LINDSEY GRAHAM QUOTES:
On the Security of Israel:
- "Today, Israel is surrounded by radical Islamists, unlike at any time I can remember." - https://youtu.be/2POx-fuuJCQ?t=1m36s
On Israel as an ‘Occupying' Power:
- "The language used by the Chief of Staff of the President of the United States is exactly what Hamas uses. So now our administration is taking up the language of a terrorist organization to describe our friends in Israel. Here is a question to the American people: Would you withdraw from the West Bank, given the situation that exists today on the ground between the Israelis and the rest of the region? Would you at this moment in Israel's history completely withdraw from the West Bank, given the experience in Gaza?" - https://youtu.be/2POx-fuuJCQ?t=1m44s
On Prospects for a Two-State Solution:
- "I talked with the Prime Minister [Netanyahu] Saturday and I congratulated him on a decisive victory and I look forward to working with him. He told me very clearly that he believes a two-state solution is not possible as long as the Palestinian Authority embraces Hamas, which controls the Gaza strip and is a terrorist organization by any reasonable definition. Who do you make peace with, Mr. President? What kind of deal can you make when almost half the Palestinian people are in the hands of a terrorist organization who vow to destroy you every day? What kind of deal is that?
"Do I want a two-state solution? Yes, I would like a two-state solution, where the Palestinians recognize the right of Israel to exist and they have the ability to chart their own destiny. They are not anywhere near there. The Palestinian community is broken into two parts. The Hamas terrorist organization controls the essential part of the Palestinian community. They will not recognize Israel's right to exist. They are using the territory they hold as a launching pad for attacks against Israel routinely. These are the people who launch rockets from schoolyards and apartment buildings trying to blame Israel for being the bad guy when they respond." - https://youtu.be/2POx-fuuJCQ?t=2m53s
On the Iranian People ‘Speaking Out' in Favor of a Nuclear Deal:
- "So, Mr. McDonough, President Obama, you are completely delusional about the world as it is. You are negotiating with an Iranian regime, and in the President's New Year's greeting he called on the Iranian people to speak out in support of a nuclear deal. Mr. President, don't you understand that in Iran you can't speak out; that if you do speak out and petition your government you can get shot or put in jail? You don't understand that? You are talking to people as if they have a voice. You are talking about the regime as if they are some kind of rational actor. In that same New Year's greeting, the President complimented the regime, headed up by the Ayatollahs, as being cooperative in terms of their nuclear negotiations with the P5+1. What the President didn't mention is that this very regime that is spreading terror, unlike at any time in recent memory, is involved in the toppling of four Arab capitals. They are wreaking havoc on the neighborhood. As we are negotiating on their nuclear deal, they are still the largest state sponsor of terrorism. They called for death to America 2 days ago." - https://youtu.be/2POx-fuuJCQ?t=4m37s
On the Current Status of US-Israel Relations:
- "So when I thought it couldn't get any worse, it has. Let me put the Obama administration on notice. You may not like the fact that Prime Minister Netanyahu won, but he did, and here is what you need to understand. If you are recalculating the administration's support for Israel in terms of how you handle resolutions in the United Nations, you need to understand that Congress will recalculate how we relate to the United Nations if you stand on the sidelines and let the U.N. take over the peace process. - https://youtu.be/2POx-fuuJCQ?t=6m19s
- "So I say to the Obama administration: Israel is not the problem. The Israeli people have not killed one American soldier. The Israeli people are in a dispute about their survival with the Palestinian people. The Israeli people gave land to the Palestinians, and in return they got 10,000 rockets, and you want them to do it again. Can't you understand why Israel may not want to withdraw from the West Bank given the history of Gaza? If you can't, you are completely blind to the world as it is, and your hatred and your disgust and your disdain for the Prime Minister has clouded your judgment." - https://youtu.be/2POx-fuuJCQ?t=7m53s
Op-Ed: On Obama: There are Only Five Hours Left to the Fast; We have him all figured out now and not that long to go. by Rabbi Dov Fisher
Besides being an attorney and law professor, I also have been a rav (rabbi) for more than thirty years. Almost every Yom Kippur and Tish’a B’Av, I see people looking at their watches or the clock (and, on Tisha B’Av, at their smart phones) as the fast day wanes on. They are the ones who are beginning to suffer headaches, perhaps nausea, or — worse — migraines. They come to me, 19 or 20 hours into the fast, and ask the ultimate sh’ailah (“rabbinic question”) that comes second on the “all-time-list of-sh’eilot” that are asked of a rav: “Rav, how many hours are left to the fast?” (By the way, Number One on the list: “Rav what time next week can we start eating chametz again?”)
We Jews may complain, but we are not wimps, despite our attorneys with briefcases, doctors with white smocks, and accountants with calculators. When we fast, man do we fast — no food and no water. None of this “I-am-fasting-so-I-only-drink-juice” baloney. When we fast, we do it full-court-press. And the result, for some, is that the head swoons a bit, and other discomforts hit as we pass the three-quarters mark.
But we always make it to the end of the fast day. With just a bit more mettle, we know we soon will be davening Maariv (the evening prayers) to mark the end of Tish’a B’Av or soon will be reciting “Hashem Hu Ha-Elokim” (Hashem is G-d) seven times, followed by the Shofar, to mark the end of Kippur.
Water and other beverages are just around the bend. And bagels and lox in their wake. Just five more hours left to the fast.
Historians will scratch their heads a century from now as they try determining how Obama got awarded the Nobel Peace Prize practically on the day he was elected.
That is how we all now should view Obama. Only five more hours left to the fast. He has wreaked more damage on America and on the world, often through incompetent interventionist bad policies and equally often through incredibly incompetent inaction, than has any American President before him.
He never was qualified to get the job, and — remarkably — he somehow never grew while in the job. He rose in American politics without any executive experience, lacked world affairs experience, and had served only very briefly in the United States Senate, doing limited legislative work and leveraging his very brief time there to focus primarily on running for President. He ran for President at a perfect time for him — facing the weakest of Republican Presidential candidates, John McCain, and an American economy that was in utter collapse amid his campaign.
So everyone wanted a change, and he slipped in, with the famous proclamation that this would be the day that the oceans stopped rising and the earth healed.
Suddenly we had a narcissistic incompetent, a vindictive and petty megalomaniac who surrounded himself at one famous public speech with Greek or Roman columns on either side, like an emperor addressing his empire. And the world’s liberals and bleeding hearts lapped it up. Historians will scratch their heads a century from now as they try determining how Obama got awarded the Nobel Peace Prize practically on the day he was elected. Americans will remember the President who left his post to shower the International Olympic Committee with his awe, expecting them to respond by awarding the Olympic Games to Chicago. He lost that one, as he has lost every single negotiation in which he has engaged with foreign sources.
He does not know how to negotiate. He opened America’s relations with Cuba — a thoroughly defensible political decision half a century after tensions with Havana reached a boiling point during the Cuban Missile Crisis — but he got nothing in return for it. He pulled back Poland’s and Czechoslovakia’s ability to defend themselves from Russian aerial aggression without gaining a re-set with Vladimir Putin.
He announced to the Taliban that we would be withdrawing soon unilaterally from Afghanistan, and he announced that all the gains America had achieved in quieting Iraq, after the “Surge” urged by Sen. McCain and overseen by Gen. David Petraeus had succeeded, would be abandoned by a complete American withdrawal. As ISIS emerged to fill the void in Iraq, he joked of them, calling them a mere “J.V.” — a junior varsity team of first- and second-year students, nothing serious, nothing to lose one’s head over.
On his watch, Putin has seized the Crimea and now makes territorial inroads in Ukraine, while opponents either get assassinated in front of the Kremlin or get imprisoned for decades. On Obama’s watch, Egypt went from Mubarak to Morsi and the Moslem Brotherhood — in which Obama strangely rejoiced — until Gen. Al-Sisi miraculously rose to put down the Moslem Brotherhood, a development that initially saw Obama restrict American support for Egypt.
On Obama’s watch, America remained silent as Iranians risked their lives in the streets to protest fraudulent elections and demand freedom. On Obama’s watch, Libya went from a crazy and deranged dictator who had slowed somewhat with age, to new crazy and deranged terrorists running wild, tearing up the country, murdering Westerners and assassinating an American Ambassador in Benghazi. On Obama’s watch, Yemen now is in flames while China has gained control of 90 percent of militarily strategic rare-earth elements.
When our American ambassador in Benghazi was murdered, Obama and Hillary Clinton — the latter another blight, though far less appealing to American voters — tried a ploy to shift blame for their own incompetence and mismanagement to a schlemazel (guy with bad luck) who had posted a dopey 10-minute film on Youtube that was disrespectful to the Mohammed of the Koran. It was a pathetically bad film, with maybe 300 views and maybe four “likes,” and virtually no one had seen it. So Obama, Clinton, and their staff put out the word that the murder of the American ambassador in Benghazi, actually timed to coincide with the eleventh anniversary of the September 11 World Trade Center tragedy, was the result of the insignificant Youtube video.
They sent out Susan Rice, a remarkably unqualified political amateur whom they had elevated to America’s United Nations Ambassador and who now fittingly is Obama’s National Security Advisor, to go on one television talk show after another, blaming the massacre in Benghazi on the ten-minute Youtube video. They even arrested Nakoula Nakoula (aka Sam Bacile), the maker of the video — as they now are moving to arrestUnited States Sen. Robert Menendez of New Jersey, who has opposed Obama on both his Cuba give-away and on Obama’s now trying to give away Israel.
Even with America’s friends, Obama is an embarrassment. In South Africa at the somber memorial for Nelson Mandela, Obama was taking selfies with Angela Merkel. When he visited England, he gave Queen Elizabeth an iPod and Prime Minister Gordon Brown a box of 25 movies DVDs, a gift the London Telegraph described as “exciting as a pair of socks.” After notably missing the mass march in Paris after the Charlie Hebdo massacre, he sent John Kerry to France with folksinger James Taylor to sing “You’ve Got a Friend.”
And then, of course, Israel.
It is important to remember that 6 years and two months have passed since Obama’s first inauguration. More than three-quarters of his maximum eight-year term are done. Only 22 months to go. Only five hours left to the fast. These will be a painful 22 months, as the last five hours of the fast always are. He has done so much damage already, and there is so much more to be done.
But, on the other hand, as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has demonstrated, we all “have his number” now. He no longer fools us with sweet promises he will not keep. We know he wants to destroy America’s oil industry, so that industry now is conducting hydraulic fracking on private lands that he cannot control. The Congress knows how his Internal Revenue Service targeted political conservatives for harassment, how his Justice Department under Eric Holder became a tool of politics that has fanned racial tensions, that he has no intention of securing America’ southern border.
We all have him figured out now. The voters know him well enough to surround him on both sides with both a Republican Senate and a Republican House of Representaives, augmented with an overwhelming array of Republican governors.
Little by little, his power and authority is being reined in, a lame duck from whom many in his own Democrat Party are shirking and withdrawing, even as he quacks ever louder as his oceans recede and ponds recede.
We just need to be strong a bit longer. To issue permits to build in Judea and Samaria. To insist that Abu Mazen recognize Israel as a Jewish State. Not to give in to the temptation to buckle, not to snack and not to drink. Just five more hours left to the fast. The tea and coffee, bagels and lox, are just around the corner. We can do it.
We always have.
Rabbi Dov Fischer is author of General Sharon’s War Against Time Magazine (Steimatzky: 1985). His political commentaries have appeared on the op-ed pages of the Wall Street Journal, The Weekly Standard, National Review, Los Angeles Times, and in other major American publications. He formerly was Chief Articles Editor of UCLA Law Review, is an adjunct professor of law at two prominent American law schools, and is Rav of Young Israel of Orange County, California. He is author of Jews for Nothing (Feldheim: 1983) and is in his fifth year as a member of the National Executive Committee of the Rabbinical Council of America. His writings can be found at RabbiDov.com As with all of Rabbi Prof. Fischer’s writings, this commentary expresses his own views.
Ahead of Pesach, Kotel employees clean out the Western Wall from all the notes, or “Kvitlach”, placed there by visiting worshipers.
There is a tradition that when visiting the Kotel, you can write a prayer or request and then place it in the wall.
Twice a year the notes are gathered up, and then buried in a Jewish cemetery.
The J Street Challenge - Full Film in HD
The J Street Challenge exposes the biggest 'pro-Israel' fraud ever perpetrated. It's available online for a limited time only.
Let's go to the videotape.
J Street is a fraud created by and for the Obama administration. This video shows why.
Let's go to the videotape.
J Street is a fraud created by and for the Obama administration. This video shows why.
Israel Matzav: Gee, do you think this is relevant? Germanwings co-pilot reported to be a 'recent convert to Islam'
Questions about the religious background of Andreas Lubitz, the Germanwings pilot who investigators said deliberately crashed a plane in the French Alps this week, killing all on board, have sparked outrage and debate about whether such information is relevant to the investigation. When a reporter asked French Prosecutor Brice Robin of Marseille, during a news conference Thursday, whether he knew Lubitz’s religion, Robin said he did not know and added, “I don’t think that’s where the answer to this lies.”
The question suggested that Lubitz’s religious background was relevant to the investigation behind the pilot’s alleged deliberate downing of Germanwings Flight 9525 on Tuesday. Robin said the crash did not show any signs of terrorism. Some were appalled by the reporter’s inquiry.
“This line of questioning makes no sense to me whatsoever,” said Elizabeth Shakman Hurd, an associate professor of political science with a courtesy appointment in religious studies at Northwestern University in Illinois. “I find it disturbing and depressing that at a time like this some people feel compelled to search desperately for explanations that presume religious causation.”Really, Professor Hurd? NO SENSE? It's all just a coincidence?
In 1999, the pilot of a Boeing 767 intentionally plunged the fully loaded plane into the Atlantic Ocean 30 minutes after takeoff from New York City on a nonstop flight to Cairo. An investigation found the pilot, Gamal al-Batouti, had said several times in Arabic, “I rely on God,” as the plane's autopilot function was disconnected and Egypt Air 999 plunged. The phrase is often associated with the moments before death.
The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board concluded that no mechanical event could have caused the plane to dive. But Egyptian officials never accepted the conclusion that al-Batouti had intentionally crashed, and conspiracy theories spread.And another one that this article does not mention: Malaysia Airlines 370.
Investigators are now telling the London Telegraph that Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 was taken on a suicide mission.While French authorities are refusing to discuss Lubitz's religion, Christian websites are reporting that Lubitz was a recent convert to Islam.The team investigating the Boeing 777’s disappearance believe no malfunction or fire was capable of causing the aircraft’s unusual flight or the disabling of its communications system before it veered wildly off course on a seven-hour silent flight into the sea. An analysis of the flight’s routing, signalling and communications shows that it was flown “in a rational way”.An official source told The Telegraph that investigators believe “this has been a deliberate act by someone on board who had to have had the detailed knowledge to do what was done ... Nothing is emerging that points to motive.”Asked about the possibility of a plane malfunction or an on-board fire, the source said: “It just does not hinge together... [The investigators] have gone through processes you do to get the plane where it flew to for eight hours. They point to it being flown in a rational way.”...The flight remains shrouded in mystery and misinformation. Malaysia Airlines revealed for the first time yesterday that Fariq Abdul Hamid, the 27-year-old co-pilot, was on his first flight aboard a Boeing 777 as a fully-approved pilot. Fariq joined the airline seven years ago and had flown 2,763 hours but was only on his sixth flight in the cockpit of a 777 – and his first without a check pilot overseeing him.
But analysts said the co-pilot’s inexperience in a 777 cockpit would probably not have posed a risk.Somewhat surprisingly, Malaysia Airlines said last night its “prayers go out to all the loved ones of the 226 passengers and of our 13 friends and colleagues” – even though the passenger manifest shows 227 passengers and 12 crew. The airline has not yet explained the discrepancy.Would not have posed a risk, but would have made it much more likely that it took him a while to figure out what was going on. And most of the passengers probably never knew what happened. Unless someone had a transponder (unlikely), most passengers on a flight like that would just go to sleep. The crew probably served dinner without realizing what their captain had done. From the families' perspective, they might take some solace in the fact that the passengers probably died peacefully - many of them in their sleep.
The captain - distraught over a divorce and over his political idol being jailed, and devout in his Muslim religion (that which must never be mentioned) - took them all down with him.
It was said that Lubitz had a Muslim girlfriend. It is unclear if she was still dating Lubitz at the time of the crash. It is unclear if he met the woman through his Muslims friends.And for those of you who - like me - have the choice of flying Israeli, European or American airlines, here is a sobering thought:
One said that Lubitz had broken off the relationship after he pledged to commit Jihad for Allah.
We do know that Lubitz trained at the Lufthansa Flight Training School in Bremen, Germany.
Bremen is home to the Mosque Masjidu-l-Furqan Mosque:
This Mosque was raided by the police in December 2014BERLIN, Dec 5 (KUNA) — German authorities have closed a mosque in the northern city of Bremen, after it was accused of encouraging youth to join the extremist Islamic State group (known as ISIL), which is carrying out violent killings across Syria and Iraq.Lubitz did his time in Bremen when the Mosque was under surveillance.
In unprecedented circumstances, more than 100 German police personnel carried out a search of Masjidu-l-Furqan and its accompanying cultural office, which had both been under police radar since 2007.
The decision comes amid the fight against ISIL ideology, Bremen Interior Secretary Ulrich Maurer said, accusing the mosque’s management of promoting ISIL values and encouraging young Muslims in the city to travel to Syria and Iraq, and join the ranks of the group, along with Al-Nusra Front – another extremist group in Syria.
The centre have so far succeeded in inspiring a total eight men, seven women and 11 juveniles to travel to Syria and join ISIL, according to the official.
...
Lubitz converted to Islam during his break.
Reason that pushed Lubitz over the edge? The raid on the Mosque in Breman this past December?
The Police say they found a significant discovery in his home - not a suicide note:Police investigating the Germanwings crash said they had made a 'significant discovery' at the home of co-pilot Andreas Lubitz, who deliberately ploughed the Airbus A320 into the French Alps. Officers refused to reveal details of the potential breakthrough but said it was not a suicide note. Speaking outside the flat on the outskirts of Dusseldorf, police said they had 'found something' that would now be taken for tests, adding it may be a 'clue' as to what happened to the doomed jet.Daily Mail Read More>>>Is the significant discovery something Islamic? Something on his computer? A Koran? A Muslim prayer rug?
The A320 is designed with safeguards to allow emergency entry if a pilot inside is unresponsive, but the override code known to the crew does not go into effect — and indeed goes into a lockdown — if the person inside the cockpit specifically denies entry, according to an Airbus training video and a pilot who has six years of experience with the jets.
Airlines in Europe are not required to have two people in the cockpit at all times, unlike the standard U.S. operating procedure after the 9/11 attacks changed to require a flight attendant to take the spot of a briefly departing pilot.
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