Brian Schrauger www.BridgesforPeace.com
PO Box 1093, Jerusalem
91010, ISRAEL
Analyst Lawrence Solomon
notes that Western media "likes to describe Israel as increasingly
isolated in the world." But in fact, he writes, just the opposite is true:
"Israel has never been less isolated, never been more embraced."
Writing in the Financial Post, Solomon said that Western
aversion to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is causing it to falsely
portray Israel as increasingly isolated in the global community of nations.
As a result of Netanyahu's economic policies,
2014 set a record for "Israeli high-tech and biotech startups—52 Israeli
startups sold to the tune of some $15-billion plus 18 IPOs worth another $10
billion."
Solomon notes that Israel's economic and
technological boom under Netanyahu's tutelage has dramatically increased
Israel's standing in the Middle East and among non-Western nations on the continents
of Africa and Asia.
"In its neighborhood, Israel for the
first time has de facto allies in Egypt and Saudi Arabia, the leaders of the
Arab Sunni world," Solomon reports. As for Africa, "Israel now is
tight with countries such as Nigeria, Kenya and Rwanda. In Asia, Israel is
becoming tight with India, the world’s largest democracy, and with China, the
world’s second largest economy, both of which are establishing free trade deals
with Israel.
What's more, "Israel has been
expanding trade with Japan, the world’s third largest economy. And Israel has
close relations with countries of the former East Bloc, including Russia, once
a Cold War adversary, now a partner in countering Islamic terrorism."
According to Solomon, "the watchful
Arab press knows exactly why Israel has become so welcome around the world,
even if the blinkered Western press doesn't. As explained earlier this year in Al-Araby al-Jadid, a London-based Qatari daily, 'Israel’s
advanced technology developments have become its most prominent soft power tool
for boosting diplomatic ties and improving its position in the world, enhancing
its own security in the process.'
Solomon claims that "Israel’s technological
prowess, and thus the welcome mat it now enjoys in ever-growing regions of the
world, comes as a by-product of Netanyahu’s dismantling of the welfare
state." That dismantling may now accelerate because in this week’s
election another dismantler shone—Moshe Kahlon, the Kulanu [political] party leader [in Israel] who ran on an
unabashedly pro-business, pro-competition 'economic freedom' platform
predicated on downsizing government while breaking up Israel’s remaining public
monopolies and private oligopolies. The Western press may be surprised to learn
that Kahlon, who is widely expected to become
Netanyahu’s next finance minister, is considered centrist in Israeli politics.”
With an entirely different take on Israel's
standing in the world, Solomon says that Israel "is fast becoming the
darling of all but Socialist-leaning Europe, Iran and the ISIS wannabe set.
Australia is stalwartly in Israel’s corner; Canada’s commitment to Israel is at
an all-time high; America’s remains as strong as ever, President Obama and the
American left notwithstanding.
"Two years from now," says
Solomon, "Obama will be gone, to be remembered as the worst American
president in memory. Prime Minister Netanyahu will remain in power and on the
world stage, to be seen as one of Israel’s greatest prime ministers and one of
the world’s few true statesmen."
www.IsraelNationalNews.com
Obama revenge for
Netanyahu's Congress talk? 1987 report on Israel's top secret nuclear pro-gram
released in unprecedented move. In a development that has largely been missed by mainstream media, the
Pentagon early last month quietly declassified a Department of Defense
top-secret document detailing Israel's nuclear program, a highly covert topic
that Israel has never formally announced to avoid a regional nuclear arms race,
and which the US until now has respected by remaining silent.
But by
publishing the declassified document from 1987, the US
reportedly breached the silent agreement to keep quiet on Israel's nuclear powers
for the first time ever, detailing the nuclear program
in great depth.
The timing of the revelation is highly
suspect, given that it came as tensions spiraled out of control between
Prime Minister Binyamin Netan-yahu and US President
Barack Obama ahead of Netanyahu's March 3rd address in Congress, in
which he warned against the dangers of Iran's nuclear program and how the deal
being formed on that program leaves the Islamic regime with nuclear breakout
capabilities.
Another highly suspicious aspect of the document is that while the Pentagon saw fit to declassify
sections on Israel's sensitive nuclear program, it kept sections on Italy,
France, West Germany and other NATO countries classified...
The Rising Tide of Anti-Semitism Ronald S. Lauder (Jerusalem Post)
·
Seventy years after World War II, the age-old virus of anti-Semitism
has returned to the streets of Paris and Toulouse, Brussels and Copenhagen, and
even Berlin.
·
Jews make up less than 1% of the population of France, but they were
victims of more than half of all the racist/religious attacks in that
country last year. In Great Britain and in Austria, anti-Semitic attacks doubled
from the year before.
·
How could this happen in 2015? There are huge populations of Muslim immigrants
throughout Europe. Most are peaceful, but far too many have adopted radical Islam.
·
At the same time, we have seen the rise of smaller right-wing neo-Nazi
groups that have become political forces in Hungary and Greece and have been
seen on the streets in Germany and France.
·
And there is a third force, an educated, elitist class - from universities
to the media - that has a pathological hatred of Israel.
The writer is president of the World Jewish
Congress. This is based on his testimony this week to the U.S. House
Subcommittee on Global Human Rights.
Torah
Journey 2015 in Brazil
The Messianic conference
entitled “Torah Journey 2015” was held March 7th and 8th
in the City of Maceio, Brazil. The conference was sponsored by Petah Tikvah
International Yeshiva. The idea for the conference came from Rav Bonney Cassady, (rabbi.cassady@gmail.com), Chairman, and Rav Myron
Slobin, International Counselor, of the yeshiva. Over
100 people from all over northern Brazil were present during the two-day
program that offered a Messianic perspective on biblical subjects.
The
first day of the conference was attended by approximately 40 messianic pastors,
missionaries and leaders of Christian assemblies in Brazil. They came to hear
lectures on Yeshua and the Jewish Feasts as described in Chapter 23 of
Leviticus and “Spiritual Battle – The Invisible War.”
The
second and final day was given over to students of the yeshiva. Approximately
60 individuals were in attendance to hear about “Yeshua and the Jewish Feasts”
and “Spiritual Warfare.” Rabbi Slobin conducted the
lectures on the Jewish Feasts. Rav David Rose, leader of the Star of David
Messianic Community in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, USA, offered the teachings on
“Spiritual Battles” and “Spiritual Warfare.”
No Peace in Our Time
Charles Krauthammer washingtonpost.com
Of
all the idiocies uttered in reaction to Benjamin Netanyahu’s stunning election
victory, none is more ubiquitous than the idea that peace prospects are now
dead because Netanyahu has declared that there will be no Palestinian state
while he is Israel’s prime minister.
I have news for the lowing herds: There
would be no peace and no Palestinian state if Isaac Herzog were prime minister
either. Or Ehud Barak or Ehud Olmert for that matter. The latter two were
(non-Likud) prime ministers who offered the Palestinians their own state — with
its capital in Jerusalem and every Israeli settlement in the new Palestine
uprooted — only to be rudely rejected.
This is not ancient history. This is 2000,
2001 and 2008 — three astonishingly concessionary peace offers within the past
15 years. Every one rejected. The fundamental reality remains: This generation
of Palestinian leadership — from Yasser Arafat to Mahmoud Abbas — has never and
will never sign its name to a final peace settlement dividing the land with a
Jewish state. And without that, no Israeli government of any kind will agree to
a Palestinian state.
Today, however, there is a second reason a
peace agreement is impossible: the supreme instability of the entire Middle
East. For half a century, it was run by dictators no one liked but with whom
you could do business. For example, the 1974 Israel-Syria disengagement
agreement yielded more than four decades of near-total quiet on the border
because the Assad dictatorships so decreed.
That authoritarian order is gone, overthrown
by the Arab Spring. Syria is wracked by a multi-sided civil war that has killed
200,000 people and that has al-Qaeda allies, Hezbollah fighters, government
troops and even the occasional Iranian general prowling the Israeli border. Who
inherits? No one knows....
www.unitycoalitionforisrael.org
The Best Kept Secret of Abraham Lincoln
Rabbi Jeff
Kahn, Temple Har Shalom
On the twelfth of February,
1809, over 200 years ago, a young, poor illiterate woman from Virginia, Nancy
Hanks Lincoln, gave birth to a son, in a log cabin built along the banks of the
south fork of Nolin Creek, near what is now Hodgenville, Kentucky
.
That baby, whom she named Abraham, grew to become one of our
greatest, and most tragic, national leaders. Lincoln was a man of great spiritual conviction.
Yet, and I find this fact fascinatingly instructive, Abraham Lincoln was the
only American president not to have declared himself a member of any particular
religious faith.
That fact has given rise to a great deal of interesting
speculation. In fact, there are those who believe that Honest Abe was Jewish...
After all, his name was Abraham. His great-grandfather was named
Mordechai. Lincoln was the only President not to have a formal religious affiliation.
He was neither raised in a church nor did he ever belong to a church.
And there's more... the town of Lincoln, in eastern England,
whence his ancestors came, has an interesting Jewish history. A Jewish
community was established there in 1159. During Crusader riots, the Sheriff of
Lincoln saved the Jews by giving them official protection. St. Hugh, the great
Bishop of Lincoln, taught love of Jews to his parishioners. His death was
marked by an official period of mourning among Lincoln's Jews. Rabbi Joseph of
Lincoln was a Talmud scholar; Aaron of Lincoln was a financier whose operations
extended all over the country.
In 1255, Lincoln's Jews were accused of ritual murder.[1] Ninety-one Lincoln Jews
were sent to London for trial and 18 were executed. Notwithstanding, the Lincoln Jewish community flourished until 1290,
when they were forcibly expelled by edict.[2] Most Jewish historians assume
that all the Jews of Lincoln left in 1290. But could it be possible that some remained,
practicing their Judaism in secret... passing the family secret on from generation
to generation? The more we learn of the secret life of Spanish Jewry following
the Expulsion of Jews from Spain in 1492, the more we must at least consider
the possibility of the same thing occurring elsewhere.
When Abraham Lincoln was assassinated, whole Jewish communities
sat shivah.[3] Rabbis all over the
country eulogized the fallen President. Rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise, the man who
created Reform Judaism in this country, began
his eulogy with the words...
"Brethren, the lamented Abraham Lincoln believed himself to be bone from
our bone and flesh from our flesh. He supposed himself to be a descendant of
Hebrew parentage. He said so in my presence."
Lincoln was often questioned about his religious beliefs. Time
and again, he told of a special passage from scripture that summed up his
theology. It was the twentieth the Book of Exodus he recommended that every
American
study, learn and follow. In English it is
usually referred to as the Ten Commandments.
P.S. Abraham Lincoln was Jewish. An extensive
research paper from a Professor in Rutgers who studied this topic extensively
and found, beyond any reasonable doubt, that Abe Lincoln was Jewish.... She has
absolute proof from checking out his ancestry and going back to his hometown
where she did years of work on this topic. Her research was complete and absolute.
Her name is Professor Elizabeth Hirschman, Rutgers University.
Editor's Note: I looked up
Professor Elizabeth Hirschman on the Internet, and yes: Abraham Lincoln was
indeed Jewish, according to the research done by Prof. Hirschman. RAC
Guess who is
the number one violator of women’s rights in the world today? Israel. Violating the rights of
Palestinian women.
Anne Bayefsky |
At
least that is the view of the UN’s top women’s rights body, the Commission on
the Status of Women (CSW). CSW ended its annual meeting on March 20,
2015, by condemning only one of the 193 UN member states for violating women’s
rights – Israel.
Not
Syria. Where government forces routinely employ rape and other sexual violence
and torture against women as a tactic of war. Where in 2014 the Assad regime
starved, tortured and killed at least 24,000 civilians, and three million
people – mostly women and children – are refugees.
Not
Saudi Arabia. Where women are physically punished if not wearing compulsory
clothing, are almost entirely excluded from political life, cannot drive, cannot
travel without a male relative, receive half the inheritance of their brothers,
and where their testimony counts for half that of a man’s.
Not
Sudan. Where domestic violence is not prohibited. There is no minimum
age for “consensual” sex. The legal age of marriage for girls is ten. 88%
of women under 50 have undergone female genital mutilation. And women are
denied equal rights in marriage, inheritance and divorce.
Not
Iran. Where every woman who registered as a presidential candidate in the last
election was disqualified. “Adultery” is punishable by death by stoning.
Women who fight back against rapists and kill their attackers are executed. The
constitution bars female judges. And women must obtain the consent of their husbands
to work outside the home.
In
fact, not only is there no possibility that the UN Commission on the Status of
Women will criticize Iran, Iran is an elected member of CSW. Sudan –
whose president has been indicted for genocide and crimes against humanity – is
currently a CSW Vice-Chair.
The
2015 CSW resolution on Israel will repeat, as it does every year, that “the
Israeli occupation remains the major obstacle for Palestinian women with regard
to their advancement, self-reliance and integration in the development of their
society…”
Not
Palestinian men. Not religious edicts and traditions. Not a culture of
violence. Not an educational system steeped in rejection of peaceful coexistence
and of tolerance.
Instead,
the fault for a UN statistic like this one– an average of 17% of Palestinian
women are in the labor force as compared to 70% of Palestinian men– lies with
the Jewish scapegoat.
That
fact comes from one of only nine official documents produced by the UN for the
2015 annual CSW meeting. Eight were pro-cedural
or general in na-ture, and one was entitled: “Situation
of and assistance to Palestinian women.”
By comparison, there was no report on
Chinese women and girls, half a billion people without elementary civil and political
rights, who still face the prospect of forced abortion and sterilization.
There
was no report on women in Somalia, where female genital mutilation is ubiquitous,
sexual violence is rampant, and women are systematically subordinate to men.
There
was no report on women in Yemen, where the penal code goes easy on the killers
of women for “immodest” or “defiant” behavior, there is no minimum age for
“marriage,” and women have no equal rights to property, employment, credit,
pay, education, or housing.
And
the women’s rights scene is not the only liberal sham at the UN. The UN’s top
human rights body, the Human Rights Council (HRC), will wrap up a major session
next week by adopting a minimum of four times as many resolutions slamming
Israel than any other country on earth.
Condemnations
of Israel will include a resolution demanding Israel immediately give back the
Golan Heights to Syria – the place where Syrians run from their own government
for life-saving Israeli medical care.
Tallying
all the resolutions and decisions condemning a specific state over the history
of the Human Rights Council, one-third has been directed at Israel alone.
Remember
Ukraine? In the past year, there have been at least 5,500 confirmed killed –
with recent reports from Germany suggesting the total may be as high as 50,000
dead – in addition to a million people displaced. But the score is 67
Council resolutions and decisions attacking Israel and zero on Russia.
So
who is calling the shots at the Council? A closer look at its members reveals
human rights luminaries like Qatar – that bankrolls the terrorist organization
Hamas – along with China, Pakistan, Russia and Saudi Arabia.
It
is impossible to add this all up and conclude that the UN’s treatment of Israel
is anything but wildly discriminatory. In the twisted language of UN rights,
the means is the verbiage of equality, while the end game is prejudice.
The
Obama administration has an answer to this dilemma. Vote against the
resolutions, while paying the fees to run the bodies that adopt them. Join and
legitimize the institution, while consoling the de-legitimized that it feels
their pain...
[1] This is the infamous Blood
Libel, which happened in several different countries. Jews were falsely accused
of killing a Christian child, and then using the blood to make matzah. It
should be noted that Jews are more careful about not eating blood than
any other people. Consumption of blood is forbidden in Scripture. In addition,
Jews only eat creatures that are permitted in Lev. 11 and Deut. 14. Cannibalism
is absolutely forbidden in Scripture. However, anti-Semites have very little
regard for truth. If it results in Jews getting killed, they will promote any
libel. Over the centuries, many hundreds of Jews have been murdered after being
accused using this ridiculous libel. Thousands more were chased from their
homes. This libel is still being used against Jews in Islamic countries.
[2]
In 1290, all Jews were
forcibly expelled from England. Jews were once again allowed to return in 1656
during the time that Oliver Cromwell was Prime Minister of England. Cromwell
treated the Irish very badly. However, he was a friend of the Jewish people.
[3] A 7-day mourning period
observed when a loved one dies.