The Fox Movie Channel showed “Gentleman’s Agreement” last night, a preachy drama about anti-Semitism that won the Academy Award 60 years ago, and it brought into focus the realization that I may live to see a black man inaugurated as President of the United States.
What Barack Obama faces from now until November would be unimaginable to the people who made and saw that movie then, including a 23-year-old just back from World War II who had little audacity and even less hope of living in the rich, glossy world it portrayed.
Gregory Peck played a magazine writer who pretends to be Jewish. A decade later, I was an editor on one of those magazines, unknowingly hired by George W. Bush’s grandfather as the first Jew among thousands of employees, working with Laura Z. Hobson, who wrote the novel on which the picture was based.
April 28th, 2008 by JOE GANDELMAN, Editor-In-Chief
You’ve head about the rice shortage, when it comes to food supplies. And you’ve read about the wisdom shortage, when it comes to Presidential candidates…
But now — in an unprecedented development being experienced from coast-to-coast — Jewish Americans seeking those unleavened crackers (often oversized) so central to Passover and so delicious when you spread cream cheese on them (delicious enough to make you plotz..) have faced a horrific situation: The Great Matzah Shortage of 2008.
But unlike food shortages this can’t be blamed on economic trends or political ineptness.
Some of it’s due to a factory glitch and some of it’s due to big chains having decided to no longer to carry the stuff that my father always insisted “tastes like library paste.”
Shortages have been reported across Southern California, but the problem isn’t confined to the Southland. The Bay Area and Reno have also reported shortages, and supplies are limited in Portland, Ore.
Ralphs did not return calls seeking comment. A Vons and Pavilions representative said the chain hadn’t been affected, but calls to several area stores found no stock at press time Tuesday. Trader Joe’s and some Costco stores did not carry matzah this year, and representatives from Gelson’s and Whole Foods say their supplies are dwindling.
“Unfortunately, due to a manufacturer issue, there has been a shortage on matzah this year, which has impacted our stores,” Whole Foods spokesperson Shawn Glasser said.
Construction issues and problems with a new state-of-the-art oven at Manischewitz’s only plant in Newark led the company to announce it wouldn’t produce Tam Tams and other kosher-for-Passover products this year, including its flavored matzah lines. Instead, the company focused on unsalted, whole wheat and egg matzah. In late January, R.A.B. Foods Group, Manischewitz’s parent company, sent a memo out to distributors listing which products would not be available, adding that its plant would work around the clock to produce Passover products.
“The last few months have been difficult; we are now heading in the right direction. We appreciate your patience and support, look forward to serving all of our customers with our full line of quality products and will work very hard to win your confidence back with improved service in the future,” the memo stated.
And, indeed, a search for matzah proved fruitless at many stores in San Diego. Some carried big cases costing over $10 — but only one or two or those were left. Most didn’t have the standard unsalted kind (or even the more controversial egg kind) — only a few exotic varieties that would have given my grandfather Abraham Ravinsky cardiac arrest if he had seen it on our seder table.
The San Francisco Weekly blames part of the matzah famine on CostCo, but investigative reporting done by this writer (a telephone chat with my mother Helen Gandelman from her home in Connecticut) reveals the situation is the same in some parts of the East Coast:
The wholesale giant began stocking up on the Bread of Affliction by the container-full — and a container is 40 feet long, 10 feet wide and 12 feet high.
Of course, the consumers’ gain was the supermarket and shopkeepers’ loss. The matzah they bought at high cost and sold at astronomical costs suddenly lost 75 percent of its value. In many instances, merchants literally couldn’t give the stuff away.
Fast-forwarding to the present day, Costco deduced that, quite possibly, hawking matzah for a buck a pound was not a money-maker and abruptly opted not to stock any in the Bay Area. While the Chronicle’s Matthai Kuruvila creatively speculates that “a jubilee year in Israel when some fields lie fallow” or “increased Jewish observance” may explain the shortage — and let’s give him an Aleph for Effort — I think the explanation lies closer to home.
With local retailers anticipating Costco selling boatloads of matzah at prices they could never hope to match, they stocked at normal low levels apropos for a smattering of kosher consumers. But with Costco out of the game, smaller stores sold out quickly and last-minute shoppers were up the creek (anecdotally, stories abounded of luckless Jews traipsing to a dozen or so stores in search of a box of matzah. And, believe you me, some gouging occurred: One lady told me that the five-pound box that was $11.99 when she called a San Francisco store on the phone was suddenly $14.99 when she got there).
For those who traditionally eat matzah in the place of bread during the Passover holiday (which ends Sunday, April 27), these are the times that try Jews’ souls. After all, how many potatoes and incredibly fatty kosher macaroons can you stand?
And, indeed, matzah is also great for weight control (put tuna fish on it instead of on bread).
The question: come Passover 2009 will matzah be on the list of foods such as rice and corn that are in short supply?
SPECIAL BONUS: Here’s my favorite joke about matzah.
A Jewish family decided to invite a gentile blind man over for Passover.
They handed the blind man a big piece of matzah. He ran his fingers over it and said:
“Bush sees the world in terms of good and evil, and he considers that only a united front encompassing all 2.2 billion Judeo-Christians will be able to resist Islam. Recent decades have seen increasing religious tension and the spread of theocracies, which now encompass almost all Arab countries.” Read the rest of this entry »
Credulous, likely-senile Jimmy Carter had tea with the terrorist group Hamas and now, according to MSNBC, Hamas is asking for a 10-year “truce” while refusing to recognize the State of Israel on the condition that said State of Israel return to the nearly-indefensible 1967 (read 1949) borders.
This is nothing new from Hamas, which would love to import offensive weaponry for the next 10 years while ruling both the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Hamas’ terrorist attacks will simply be farmed out to (or conveniently blamed upon) Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, Al-Qaeda, Al-Aksa Martyrs’ Brigades etc…while Hamas claims to be at peace and that Israeli self-defense violates this ‘hudna’ (an Islamic temporary truce until victory can be attained over an unwary enemy).
Hamas had its chance to give up violence and become a constructive political organization when it won that so-called election. Hamas could have suppressed violence and dismantled the other terrorist groups (see above list) while working with Israel and the world community to ease the plight of its subjects. Did Hamas choose to grow up? No way! Hamas chose to blow its big chance and continue to bring misery to the Palestinian Arabs.
Only an ignorant, politically-correct, self-righteous moralizing fool would buy-into this nonsense.
I don’t have a ton of faith in this effort, but I don’t imagine it could be any worse than having members of my own synagogue intimate that I’m an anti-Semite because I don’t unequivocally support Israel.
The [Israel] Foreign Affairs Ministry has long since been exerting considerable efforts to bring the prominent writers for an extensive tour of the country, in recognizing the influence many of the writers wield and the fact some of them represent websites that are less-than-friendly towards the Israel.
While Israel enjoys relatively balanced coverage in American mainstream media, there are numerous blogs identifying with the liberal left who are unwaveringly critical of Israeli policies, often referring to Israel as an apartheid state which, among other things, is responsible for Washington’s decision to go to war in Iraq.
The unique tour was organized by the Solomon Project, which was founded in 1996 to “educate the American Jewish community about its rich history of civic involvement.”
The bloggers, along with leaders from various progressive organizatios, will meet with Israeli bloggers, journalists and Knesset officials. They will also be briefed on the security situation in the region and Israel’s civil society.
The group will be taken to view Sderot and Israel’s ‘narrow waistline’ by helicopter in an effort to convey the true meaning of a return to the borders of June 4th 1967. The guests are also scheduled to visit with the top negotiator for the Palestinian Authority, Saeb Erekat and may also meet Prime Minister Ehud Olmert or Foreign Affairs Minister Tzipi Livni.
“We are looking forward to an informative and educational trip,” said National Jewish Democratic Council (NJDC) Executive Director Ira Forman, director of research for the Solomon Project Research.
“It is important that progressive bloggers and leaders of progressive organizations learn first-hand about the current situation in Israel. We also want to provide them with an eye-opening experience that will help them better understand the complexity of the Arab-Israeli conflict.
I haven’t written much about this, but I will be traveling to Israel for two weeks later this year. What saddens me is that the government of Israel thinks that a visit to Israel might be able to accomplish what none of us who have tried to be reasonable on sites such as Daily Kos about Israel have been able to accomplish.
On the other hand, I’ve often remarked to people who have never been there that you just cannot fully understand how gut-wrenching the conditions are there - throughout the country and the occupied territories, from a humanity level and from an anthropological level, unless you go there.
You also come away realizing why belief in and talk of refusal to recognize one’s existence has no place in a peace plan of any type for the Middle East.
Sigh. How many times do we have to pray that we get a president smarter than George Bush? No. Really. Talk about a God who works in mysterious ways.
What did Republican candidate for president and Arizona Senator John “I’m so experienced in foreign policy” McCain say this time? (You know I find something outrageous when I’m at this level of snark.)
Oh - just this little tidbit, covered by MSNBC, Huffington Post and JTA, among others. From JTA:
U.S. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said Purim is the Jewish version of Halloween during his Israel visit.
McCain was corrected by Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.), one of the Republican presidential nominee’s chief supporters who accompanied him on the trip, according to MSNBC.
In a news conference Wednesday with Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak following a tour of the besieged southern Israeli city of Sderot, McCain had noted the impact of continued rocket fire on the city’s children.
“As they celebrate their version of Halloween here, they are somewhere close to a 15-second warning, which is the amount of time they have from the time the rocket is launched to get to safety,” McCain said. “That’s not a way for people to live obviously.”
Lieberman at the news conference said the fault was his, as he had compared the two holidays in explaining its significance to McCain.
Lieberman reinforces just how little McCain’s foreign policy experiences matters with the fact that rather than describe the holiday as it actually is, he figured that McCain would only be able to absorb or “get it” if he (Lieberman) used the Halloween analogy.
As a Jew, I’ve mentioned how kids dress up for Purim like kids dress up at Halloween. But I have never told anyone that the holiday is the Jewish version of Halloween.
The only reason anyone would describe the holiday that way is because they don’t think the listener has the capacity to understand the holiday in any other terms.
Remember the British teacher in Sudan who was jailed for letting the kids name a teddy bear Mohammed? When it was obviously a simple cultural mistake? And thousands of the country’s citizens rioted and wanted her killed?
I’m really not wanting our next president to be neutralized that way.
PS - I want to add that if he or any of his staff or volunteers had been reading my blog posts about Purim, they would never have made such a mistake.
VSAS: 8 [For readers unfamiliar with Writes Like She Talks, VSAS is the Vessels Sarcasm Alert Scale, named in honor of blogger Eric Vessels of Plunderbund. Eric is an Ohio blogging buddy who once thought I was being serious when in fact I was being completely lowball in relation to what some very conservative Ohio GOP blog was trying to do. He suggested that I give a warning whenever I was using humor because most of my regular readers just don’t expect that kind of underhanded post from me. Thus was born the VSAS.]
Today starts the Purim cycle - I say “start” because the holiday doesn’t begin until Thursday after sunset but today - AH! Today is the Purim carnival at our synagogue. A parents’ craziness to behold. The kids - they have a great time or cry or both - it’s loud and bright and full of food and cheap prizes. And costumes - how can we forget the costumes!
But this year, as some of you may know, my youngest child has been sick for the last week and under no circumstances are we letting him enter the den of disease known as the Purim carnival - where there are literally hundreds of kids bouncing around in inflatable bouncy contraptions and playing with the same beanbags - over and over and over. You get the picture.
So my husband bribed my kids: Horton Hears a Who in exchange for the Purim carnival. Now, this really isn’t that bad a deal because on Thursday, we’ll go to our synagogue and celebrate for real - costumes and the telling of the Megillah and the story of Esther and the whole…well…Megillah as they say. (For anyone who remembers that I participated in a Latke v. Hamantashen debate at Chanuka time last December, I represented the Hamantash and won - it’s a triagular shaped pastry with different flavored fillings - chocolate, fruit, prune - yeah, prune - it’s got some significance - don’t ask me what. Anyway - this is the holiday it accompanies.)
Do you have Purim memories, or nightmares to share?! Please do.
All the announcements and tributes mention Congressman Tom Lantos’ distinction as being the only Holocaust survivor ever elected to Congress. I don’t know how many Holocaust survivors have ever run for congress, but regardless, the fact that he will no longer bring the ideas and experience of that distinction to the legislative branch of our American government is unfortunate.
As the only Holocaust survivor ever elected to Congress, Tom Lantos devoted his life to shining a bright light on dark corners of oppression. He used his chairmanship of the Foreign Affairs Committee to empower the powerless and give voice to the voiceless throughout the world.
Though a party-line Democrat on most issues, Lantos was known for teaming up with conservatives on the panel like Rep. Christopher Smith (R-N.J.) to bring scrutiny to the suppression of free speech in China and other issues. He also teamed up with many Republicans to back the Iraq war and advocate staunch support for Israel.
“Chairman Lantos will be remembered as a man of uncommon integrity and sincere moral conviction — and a public servant who never wavered in his pursuit of a better, freer and more religiously tolerant world,” House Republican Whip Roy Blunt of Missouri said in a statement.
Lantos was not afraid to take on his allies. On the foreign affairs committee, he blasted Silicon Valley giants like Google and Yahho for colluding with China’s government in censorship. He authored tough Iran sanctions legislation but broke with pro-Israel orthodoxy by offering to meet with the Islamic Republic’s leaders. Pro-Israel groups also opposed a non-binding resolution that recognized the Ottoman era massacres of Armenians as a genocide, worried that it would cause a rift between Israel and Turkey — Lantos pushed it through the committee, unwilling to countenance what he saw as genocide revisionism.
His appeal crossed political aisles: Both the National Jewish Democratic Council and the Republican Jewish Coalition issued statements mourning his passing. Top Republicans on his committee also chimed in: “An unfailingly gracious and courageous man, Tom was recognized by friends and colleagues alike as a leader who left an enviable legacy of service to his country,” said U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros Lehtinen (R-Fla.), the committee’s ranking member.
Our nation has lost a great public servant with the passing of Representative Tom Lantos. In serving his constituents and his country, Tom never forgot the Democratic Party’s ideals of freedom, fairness, and opportunity for all. As Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, he was an authority on foreign policy issues and a voice for the oppressed. The only Holocaust survivor in Congress, he was a forceful and passionate advocate for civil liberties and human rights. Today, I join with countless others across the country in offering my thoughts and prayers to Rep. Lantos’ family and friends as we honor his life and legacy.
Among his first major legislative accomplishments was legislation to give honorary citizenship to Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg, a hero, who protected Lantos and many others from the Nazis. He went on to sponsor U.S. aid for Eastern European countries that had broken the shackles of communism, and became a strong voice of conscience against human rights abuses in China He was one of the leading voices in the House for sanctioning Myanmar’s regime due to human rights abuses. Among his other accomplishments, Rep. Lantos teamed with the late GOP Rep. Henry Hyde to secure $1.3 billion to fight AIDS around the world and to incentivize India to cooperate with international weapons inspectors.
In October, when Dutch parliament members came to Washington to complain to congress about Guantanamo Bay, Lantos reminded them that if not for the United States, they would be a province of Nazi Germany. He also added that “Europe was not as outraged by Auschwitz as by Guantanamo Bay.”
Lantos himself was an opponent of the Bush administration on the prosecution of the war, on Guantanamo, and on most other issues. But he never balked at an opportunity to defend the United States against those that would denigrate it. He recognized that politics stops at the waters edge. He was a great man, and he will be missed in Washington.
Rep. Tom Lantos, 80, a California Democrat whose experience during the Holocaust shaped his concern for human rights and his staunch view in favor of U.S. military intervention abroad, died early this morning, a spokeswoman told the Associated Press. He had esophageal cancer and died at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda.
Lantos, born in Budapest to Hungarian Jews, served 14 terms in the House of Representatives. He is the only Holocaust survivor elected to Congress. His district included southwest San Francisco and much of San Mateo County, where he was known for supporting the socially liberal agenda of his constituents. Last year, he announced he would not seek reelection because of his cancer treatment.
Lantos was a powerful figure on the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, where he had been the senior Democratic member since 2001 and its chairman since 2007.
For years, he sided with Republican neoconservatives who believe the United States should assert democracy abroad and use the military to intervene when a moral imperative or national interest is at stake.
In 2002, he supported the congressional resolution that authorized President Bush to invade Iraq and played a decisive role to gain Democratic support for the measure.
On the House floor at the time, he noted his own past as a Nazi-resistance fighter. “Had the United States and its allies confronted Hitler earlier, had we acted sooner to stymie his evil designs, the 51 million lives needlessly lost during that war could have been saved,” he said. “Just as leaders and diplomats who appeased Hitler at Munich in 1938 stand humiliated before history, so will we if we appease Saddam Hussein today.”
But after the Democrats gained control of Congress in 2006, Lantos became increasingly critical about the direction of the war and called for large withdrawals of American troops. He also held more than a dozen hearings on the situation.
Capitol Hill veterans describe Lantos - courtly, loquacious but tough - as a throwback to an earlier generation of lawmakers who were able to work across party and ideological lines.
The reaction from Jewish groups to the news was swift.
“For years people have looked to Congressman Tom Lantos as the conscience of the United States Congress,” said Rabbi Steve Gutow, executive director of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs (JCPA). “Chairman Lantos was a leader on so many issues of concern to the Jewish community such as anti-Semitism, the Holocaust and Israel.”
William Daroff, vice president for public policy of the United Jewish Communities (UJC), said Lantos “was a great friend of the Jewish community and the Jewish Federation system. As Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, Rep. Lantos steered a steady ship during a particularly tumultuous time in American foreign policy.”
“We mourn the loss of Congressman Lantos,” said Nathan Diament, Washington director for the Orthodox Union. “He was a proud supporter of Israel and a proud Jew. His presence will be sorely missed.”
In announcing his expected retirement last month, Lantos said “It is only in the United States that a penniless survivor of the Holocaust and a fighter in the anti-Nazi underground could have received an education, raised a family, and had the privilege of serving the last three decades of his life as a Member of Congress. I will never be able to express fully my profoundly felt gratitude to this great country.”
Obama listed falsehoods that appeared in an e-mail campaign aimed at Jewish voters.
“I never practiced Islam. I was raised by my secular mother. I have been a member of the Christian religion and an active member of a church,” he said. “I was sworn in with my hand on my family Bible and have said the Pledge of Allegiance since I was 3 years old.”
Obama, who also answered questions about his Iran and Israel-Palestinian policies, as well as noting that he had rebuked his church’s past association with Louis Farrakhan, concluded: “My strong and deep commitment and connection to the Jewish community should not be questioned.”
You can read more from the JTA and listen to the conference call here.This Washington Post column by Richard Cohen does a good job of detailing Obama’s church’s recent identification with Louis Farrakhan, whom the church said, “epitomized greatness” and why it feels problematic to some people.
As I’ve been trying to choose between the Democratic primary choices, I’ve spent more time looking at their statements and positions on Jews, Israel and the Middle East. Here’s Obama in today’s call on his church’s connection to Farrakhan:
Asked why it was sufficient for him to denounce his church’s recent praise for Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan but not resign from the church itself, Obama repeated his condemnation of Farrakhan’s “reprehensible” anti-Semitic views. Then he added what sounds like a promise: “My church has never issued anti-Semitic statements, nor have I heard my pastor utter anything anti-Semitic. If I have, I would have left the church.”
Are we okay with this stance? Would not resigning from a group led by individuals who laud someone like Farrakhan be good enough for other politicians or civic leaders, or have we, in the past, demanded that such people more firmly condemn a person who is considered by some to be homophobic, anti-Semitic and racist? Is there more Obama should be doing vis a vis ensuring his church’s “clean hands” or should we just not impute any uncleanliness to Obama?
January 25th, 2008 by DAVID SCHRAUB, Assistant Editor
No immediate link to anything currently in the news, though it does remind me of my Dartmouth L.J. paper. I just wanted to save it for later:
The question of how Jews would fit in when cultural and linguistic identity became the basis of citizenship, and the Volksgeist was embodied in a Volksstaat, could be answered in only one of two ways. Either the Jews had to surrender their Jewishness and become good Germans or there would be no place for them. At the end of the eighteenth century and the beginning of the nineteenth, a liberal assimilationist perspective was ascendant in German thought, but beneath it lurked a deep intolerance of the Jew who remained distinctive. In 1793, the philosopher Johann Gottlieb Fichte, who professed to be advocating that Jews be given “human rights,” put the choice before them in starkly brutal terms: “As for giving them [the Jews] civil rights, I see no remedy [*72] but that their heads should be cut off in one night and replaced with others not containing a single Jewish idea.”
George M. Fredrickson, Racism: An Introduction (Princeton: Princeton UP, 2002), 71-72.
Similar sentiments were expressed in France during this time period. And, of course, this theory of enlightenment universalism is the guiding force behind much of modern Western philosophy in America and Europe — including the “color-blind” theory of race relations and the doctrine of strict separation between Church and State.
Notice how obliterating Jewish distinctiveness was cast as being in accordance with securing human rights — Jews literally had to be destroyed in order to be saved. The evident Christian overtones accentuate the fact that this “liberal” revolution was hardly the break from the past that it used to be — it merely found new language to express its fear of Jewish difference and its desire for Jews to disappear. Given that the “universal” personhood Jews were expected to assimilate into was based on a Christian norm, even the desire for conversion is barely affected. All that changed was the removal of the few protections Jews had when their oppression was strictly theological: at least some Christians theologians had some need for some living Jews — the model expressed here explicitly wanted all Jews to disappear and pointedly chose a very violent metaphor to bring across its point.
It’s no wonder that many post-Holocaust theorists consider the Shoah to be the bastard child of the Enlightenment.
University of Virginia political scientist Larry Sabato said it is important to examine the Obama rumors in the broader context of today’s bitter, unrestrained political environment.
“I’ve said consistently that this campaign will turn out to be one of the dirtiest campaigns in American history, and the first few weeks prove it,” Sabato told The Jewish Week. “Obama has borne a disgusting burden so far — attacks on his race that are worthy of the 1950s, and complete lies about his supposed ‘Muslim religion.’”
Sabato put part of the blame on the “mainstream media [which] has not done nearly enough to root out the perpetrators.”
He said suspicions about Obama’s religion may compound a racial divide in the campaign in which many white Democrats are simply reluctant to vote for a black presidential candidate.
Here are some more-valid reasons to be concerned about Obama:
Daniel Pipes shows (HERE and HERE) that because Obama’s father and step-father were Muslim and Obama did attend mosque as a child, the Muslim world may see Obama as a Muslim apostate although he is clearly a Christian today. If the Muslim world sees Obama as an apostate, his election may antagonize some elements thereof who may wish to kill him.
UPDATE: Just noticed this Editorial, also in The Jewish Week.
There are legitimate reasons to question Obama’s candidacy on the issues — the same can be said for all his competitors, Democrats and Republicans alike — but outrageous charges about how his childhood years in Indonesia indelibly taint him as a Muslim sympathizer go far beyond the pale.
AND
Part of this reflects the corrosive victory-at-any-cost mentality that has turned “swift boating” into a verb. That is the motive behind “pollsters” who call voters, ostensibly to ask questions about issues but in reality to keep repeating Obama’s middle name — Hussein — as if that alone disqualifies him from the presidency. And in part, the fact these rumors are believed reflects a destructive, seemingly bottomless skepticism about our political leadership, fear and outright bigotry.
The insidious thing about such charges, as political scientist Gilbert Kahn noted in a recent Jewish Week blog, is that once spoken, “it is like you plant the seed in the mind of the jury even if the judge sustains the objection — it’s out there. The suspicion persists and has legs of its own.”
January 15th, 2008 by DAVID SCHRAUB, Assistant Editor
Co-blogger T-Steel already offered his take on this subject today, but I wanted to give my own musings on whether and what Obama needs to see regarding his pastor’s praise for Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan.
I do want to briefly digress to note that I think T-Steel’s example of his ex-murderer friend is somewhat in-apt. I certainly agree that T should not be forced to throw his friend under a bus if he ran for office. After all, his friend has rehabilitated, paid his debts, and has reintegrated into society as a full and productive member. But it would be different if his friend were still out killing people, and the problem with Rev. Wright is that he still apparently believes, right now, that Farrakhan is a figure worthy of praise and respect. If Wright had abandoned this belief years ago and it were being dredged up now as an attack ad, I’d totally be on board. But unlike T-Steel’s friend, there is no “ex” in Wright’s problem, and that changes the calculus significantly.
How degraded is American credibility - even amongst our staunchest Arab allies? According to this editorial from Al-Khaleej of the United Arab Emirates, which President Bush visited Sunday, there is little confidence in President Bush’s assurances of imminent peace between Israelis and Palestinians. The editorial asks, ‘Are there any promises being made here that Arabs can believe? Are there any solutions that President Bush could possibly propose? … Indeed, the promises Bush has made to Israelis in private are absolutely not the promises he has made to Arabs in public.’
EDITORIAL
Translated By James Jacobson
January 11, 2008
United Arab Emirates - Al-Khaleej - Original Article (Arabic)
Before the start of his visit to the region, Bush promised Arabs and Palestinians that by the end off his term a final solution would be announced between the Palestinians and Israel. However, the statements that he made in Israel concerning “the Jewishness of the Hebrew state and its legitimate right to its entire territory,” show his lack of seriousness and confirm that he came to the region only to make additional false promises and to extort additional concessions from Arabs and Palestinians for the benefit of the usurper entity [Israel].
Since taking office, Bush’s promises have proven to be nothing but a mirage. The only things Arabs have gleaned from his Middle East policies have been additional setbacks and a worsening of the situation. He announced and greatly depended upon the plan called “the road map,” raising the expectations and aspirations of Arabs and Palestinians, and which resulted in complete failure.
Then he announced the Annapolis Conference smack in the middle of the Arab peace initiative. Annapolis succeeded in raising doubts about the Arab plan and concluded without recording the least bit of progress for Bush’s policies in the region. Today, Bush comes carrying promises and raising Arab optimism about achieving the hoped-for progress on the Palestinian problem, while at the same time his statements give the green light for Israelis to carry out even more arbitrary acts against the Palestinians.
January 13th, 2008 by JOE GANDELMAN, Editor-In-Chief
There are charges that Hugo Chavez’s government in Venezuela is sponsoring blossoming antisemitism — concerns that are reflected in the gradual flight of Jews from Venezuela.
It fits with a long history of allegations that Chavez’s Venezuela is becoming a hotbed of antisemitism.
The latest comes via a Miami Herald article detailing the comments of journalist Sammy Eppel. It’s the latest in a piece of an ugly puzzle that has emerged regarding Chavez over the years.
Venezuelan Jews, long uneasy with the Chávez government’s alliances with Iran and other Middle Eastern countries that espouse anti-Israel views, are concerned that the government is sponsoring anti-Semitism in this hemisphere, a prominent journalist said Tuesday.
”The situation we have now in Venezuela is that for the first time in modern history we have government-sponsored anti-Semitism in a Western country,” said Sammy Eppel. “That is why this is very dangerous, not just for the Jewish community in Venezuela but for the Jewish community as a whole.”
Some examples he cites:
Venezuelan government intelligence services twice have raided the country’s most important Jewish center in a vague, ultimately unsuccessful search for weapons. [TMV Editor’s Note: One of these involved raiding a WEDDING.] Publications of the government’s cultural ministry run articles entitled ”the Jewish Question,” along with a Jewish star superimposed over a swastika.
Chavez, he noted, also has a strong alliance with Iran’s president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a leader who is considered one of the most antisemitic on the world stage today.
One 2006 article in [the government-liked] El Diario de Caracas debates whether it will be necessary to ”expel [the Jews] from the country.” Another article in the [government-linked] Diario VEA accuses Jews of being involved in the murder of a government prosecutor.
January 8th, 2008 by SWARAAJ CHAUHAN, International Columnist
England, especially London, continues to beckon the rich and the famous as well as foreign rebels, politicians, and celebrities. When Karl Marx was thrown out of Paris in May 1849, he sought shelter in London and stayed on there for the rest of his life. The late Benazir Bhutto’s father had suggested to her that London was a safe place to stay when in exile.
I spent a longish time in London in the seventies and found it to be one of the best cosmopolitan cities in the world. When I went to Wimbledon, America’s great tennis player Arthur Ashe told me that if there was one place in the world he would like to settle down, and feel comfortable in, it would be London.
Now comes the news that the richest Israeli businessmen are increasingly moving their riches, and setting up their homes, in London. Probably they would have as their neighbours rich Arabs!!! Maybe this would help pave the way for peace in the troubled West Asia, that is if they start loving their neighbours!!!
Lev Leviev, who until a week ago was classified as the richest man in Israel, has joined the growing list of Israeli billionaires who have made their homes in London, where wealthy foreigners are not asked to pay tax on income earned overseas, reports The Independent.
Mr Leviev is famous in international circles as the man who broke the cartel controlled by the multinational diamond company, De Beers, by buying up diamond mines in Russia, Angola and Namibia. It is said that one third of all the diamonds sold anywhere in the world are cut and polished by his company.
(Photo of Lev Leviev: courtesy Alexander Saverkin/Itar-Tass/Newscom)
Are the Israelis intentionally trying to derail progress on President Bush’s trip to the Palestinian territories and Israel - his first visit to the country? According to this op-ed article from the largest newspaper on Palestinian territory, Alhayat Aljadeeda, the Israelis are introducing issues of dispute and causing turmoil that have never been part of the peace talks, so that President Bush will be too busy putting out fires to make any real progress.
“Israel is preparing for President Bush’s visit by reshuffling the cards and by demonstrating that there are problems that were not included in any discussions before, such as the verbal escalation over political and security relations with Egypt!!!”
By Yehia Rbah, Translated By Jenny Oliver, Palestine - Alhayat Aljadeeda - Original Article (Arabic)
It appears that the Israeli ruling coalition led by Ehud Olmert isn’t satisfied with the bloody military escalation in the Gaza Strip that amounted to eight air-raids in one day. The air-raids target civilians, such as the Fayyad family [photo, right], as well as resistance fighters and homes. Additionally, dozens have been injured and abducted and the vicious encroachment of Jewish settlements continues. Meanwhile, statements by Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and Defense Minister Ehud Barak have roiled relations with Egypt, which shows the real trend of Israeli policy.
[Editor’s Note: Israel has complained to Egypt that it isn’t doing enough to stop weapons smuggling into the Hamas-cntrolled Gaza strip. Foreign Minister Livni said on Monday, “What they [the Egyptians] are doing at Philadelphi is deplorable and problematic.” Egypt has promised to end the smuggling and says it is doing all it can].
This all shows quite clearly that the Israeli government is intent on putting huge obstacles in the path of George W. Bush’s visit to the region on the 9th of this month. His visit will not be confined to Israel and Palestine, as he will also tour the region in general. But the focus for this visit is to promote the opportunities for peace opened up after Annapolis conference and the donor’s conference held in Paris. However, Read the rest of this entry »
The book is about the shifting relationships Jews had with Whiteness, race, and Blacks. My review is in the classic law review sense of the term — I use the book as an excuse to talk about what I want to talk about — in this case, how the “Whitening” of Jews paradoxically made them more likely to support civil rights than when their racial status was ambiguous.
![[NZZ am Sonntag, Switzerland]](http://worldmeets.us/images/bushpope_nzzamsonntag.gif)
