Yasher Koach to Janet Lehr! All the News That's Fit to Print!
From: Janet Lehr <janetlehr@veredart.com>
Date: Mon, Oct 18, 2010 at 12:26 AM
Subject: ISRAEL LIVES OCT 17, 2010--9TH OF CHESHVAN, 5771
To: faigerayzel@gmail.com
ISRAEL LIVES OCT 17, 2010 9TH OF CHESHVAN, 5771 WHAT ELECTIONS MEAN-USA and ISRAEL New Cancer Treatment, Obama, Lawfare, Pollard
As we approach Election Day in the US, don't say, "I didn't know", say, "Never will America be ruled by anyone tolerant of Sharia Law and Islam". Study your ballot in advance. Don't rely on your local-left leaning newspaper to indicate the better candidates. With our Constitutional Rights come Obligations and Responsibilities - for as long as we remain free and Democratic defend them. TO ELEVATE 'HOPE' INTO 'TRUTH' IS A VERY BAD THING. FOR THOSE OF US LIVING IN AMERICA, THE RESULTS ARE CLEAR.
ISRAELI MEDICAL C A N C E R BREAKTHRU ISRAELI MEDICAL TREATMENT TARGETS CANCEROUS TUMORS WITHOUT PAIN OF RADIATION Prof. Israel Gannot, whose method is soon to be published in the journal Nanomedicine, uses a special mixture of nano-particles - already approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) - and antibodies to locate individual tumors and bind directly to them. Nano-particles are made to bind to the tumor, we excite them with an external magnetic field, and they begin to heat very specifically and locally," Gannot explains. The magnetic field is manipulated to create a targeted rise in temperature, and it is this directed heat elevation that kills the tumors, he says.Aside from being minimally invasive, Gannot says that the treatment is also fast and efficient. The entire treatment lasts only six hours, and can be administered during an out-patient procedure, enabling patients to recuperate in the comfort of their own homes. http://www.israel21c.org/201010138444/health/targeting-tumors-without-the-pain-of-radiation
WARREN BUFFET: ISRAEL HAS A SURPLUS OF BRAINS THURSDAY, OCTOBER 14, 2010 | RYAN JONES Leading international businessman and philanthropist was in Israel this week to attend a major economic conference. When asked why he was bothering with the small Jewish state, Buffet explained that Israel has a surplus of humaningenuity that he just can't ignore.
"If you're going to the Middle East to look for oil, you can skip Israel," Buffet told the participants in the first annual Industry, Trade and Labor Ministry socioeconomic conference. However, he continued, "if you're looking for brains, look no further. Israel has shown that it has a disproportionate amount of brains and energy."
In 2006, Buffet made his largest ever purchase outside the US when he paid $4 billion for an 80 percent stake in Iscar Metalworking Co., an Israeli company specializing in metal-cutting machinery. It was the single largest investment every made in an Israeli company or industry. A week later, Buffet paid millions for 60 percent control of Agrologic, an Israeli company that designs and manufactures agricultural systems. The legendary investor has repeatedly stated that he remains on the lookout for attractive and innovative Israeli companies to pour his money into. Israeli brainpower, the disproportionate nature of which is clear evidence of God's continued blessing of this nation and this people, has manifest itself outside of the business world as well.
In 2003, Baroness Susan Greenfield, a global leader in brain research, blasted British academia for trying to impose an academic boycott on Israel. She noted that considering the "mind-boggling" abilities of Israel's researchers, such a boycott would inevitably cost the lives of patients suffering around the world.
Greenfield specifically cited groundbreaking Israeli research into the halting the degenerative effects of Alzheimer's Disease. In 2007, Scientific America listed three Israeli scientists among its list of the world's top 50 leading innovators. Just this year, the heads of scientific institutions from around the world arrived in Israel to mark the 50th anniversary of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities and to honor the Jewish state for its incredible contributions in all research fields. Israel is also leading the way in renewable energy, and has long been a global powerhouse in the field of agricultural technology.
The above are but a few out of many thousands of possible examples of Israeli innovation and technical ability. But they are adequate to show that Buffet was not merely being polite when he praised the human resources Israel possesses, nor was he exaggerating when he said the brainpower available in the Jewish state is disproportionate. http://www.israeltoday.co.il/default.aspx?tabid=178&nid=22040
CHANCELLOR ARNOLD EISEN OF THE JEWISH THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY OF AMERICA (JTSA). IS PRESSING AHEAD WITH A PANEL DISCUSSION AT THE JTSA ON OCTOBER 25TH ON JUDAISM AND ISLAM WITH DR. INGRID MATTSON, PRESIDENT OF THE ISLAMIC SOCIETY OF NORTH AMERICA? Why? When Eisen became chancellor of the seminary a few years ago, he said that one of his priorities would be to make JTS a center of Jewish/Muslim dialogue. This would appear to be a step in that direction.
Thanks to Madeline Brooks of ACT! For Manhattan. On October 6th, an Oxford Union type debate was held at New York University sponsored by Intelligence Squared US headed by Robert Rosenstein. The question debated was "Is Islam a Religion of Peace.
This NPR report noted the interesting before and after results and the debaters for each side:
Before the Oxford-style debate at New York University's Skirball Center for the Performing Arts, the audience voted 41 percent in favor of the motion and 25 percent against. Thirty-four percent were undecided. After the debate, however, 55 percent disagreed that "Islam Is a Religion of Peace," 36 percent supported the motion and 9 percent were still unsure.
John Donvan, correspondent for ABC News' Nightline, moderated the Oct. 6 debate. Those debating were:
FOR THE MOTION
Maajid Nawaz is director of the Quilliam Foundation. Formerly, Nawaz served in the U.K. national leadership for the Islamist party Hizb ut-Tahrir and was involved in HT for almost 14 years. He was a founding member of HT in Denmark and Pakistan. He eventually served four years in an Egyptian prison and was adopted by Amnesty International as a "prisoner of conscience." In prison, Maajid gradually began changing his views until he finally renounced the Islamist ideology for traditional Islam and inclusive politics. He now engages in counter-Islamist thought-generating, writing and debating.
Zeba Khan is a writer and advocate for Muslim-American civic engagement. Born and raised in Ohio by devout Muslim parents, she attended Hebrew school for nine years while actively participating in her local Muslim community. In 2008, she launched Muslim-Americans for Obama, an online network to mobilize Muslim-American voters in support of the Obama presidential campaign. Since then, she continues to work on issues of Muslim-American civic engagement and was recognized for her work by the American Society for Muslim Advancement as a 2009 Muslim Leader of Tomorrow.
AGAINST THE MOTION
Ayaan Hirsi Ali was born in Somalia and raised a devout Muslim. She escaped an arranged marriage by immigrating to the Netherlands in 1992 and served as a member of the Dutch parliament for three years. She has since become an active critic of fundamentalist Islam, an advocate for women's rights and a leader in the campaign to reform Islam. She has also become a target of death threats by Islamic extremists. Hirsi Ali is a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and author of The Caged Virgin (2006), Infidel (2007) and Nomad (2010). She is the founder of the AHA Foundation, whose mission is to defend the rights of women in the West against militant Islam and tribal custom.
Douglas Murray is a best-selling author and award-winning journalist. He is also founder and director of the Centre for Social Cohesion, a nonpartisan think-tank in Westminster, London, that focuses on radicalization and has published work on both Islamist and far-right extremism. Murray is a columnist for Standpoint magazine and writes for many other publications. In 2005, he published the critically acclaimed Neoconservatism: Why We Need It, which Christopher Hitchens praised as "a very cool but devastating analysis." He is a co-author of the NATO strategy report, "Towards a Grand Strategy for an Uncertain World: Renewing Transatlantic Partnership."
A Centre For Social Cohesion report thought the NYU Debates was a "win" for Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Douglas Murray. The report noted:
Zeba Khan argued that the minority of Muslims who perform violent acts were motivated by politics, and not religion, and that Islamist terrorists did not speak for true Islam. Hirsi Ali responded by arguing that Islam's history of militarism and the legacy of empire were proof that Islam was not only a religion of peace. Nawaz called for a new 'paradigm', arguing that a handful of extremists should not be allowed to hijack an entire faith.
Murray said in his speech:
"I wish that Zeba and Maajid were the spokespeople of Islam. It would be lovely. But we are where we are.But you've got the largest Sunni state of Saudi Arabia, the most important Sunni state in the world, the most extraordinary closed prison of a society... The Shiite republic of Iran is what it is, led by the people it's led by. That is not an accident. It's not a detail. The thing that worries me is that although tonight we hear from the panelists here about how Islam is a religion of peace, the fact is that the people who are making the decisions in the religion, the people who are preaching the religion, the heads of that religion, people like Sheikh Qaradawi who broadcasts anti-Semitic -- the most appalling filth every week on the main network, that is the faith that is speaking for you guys. I wish that Zeba, you were on every week on Al Jazeera, but you are not. Qaradawi is.
Let's not have a debate about Islam and whether or not Islam is a religion of peace without talking about the facts to do with Islam.The fact is that Islam is many things, many, many things. But to say it's a religion of peace is nonsense. It's to ignore reality. It's to ignore very difficult but necessary facts, not paradigms, but facts.
To say that Islam is a religion of peace is to say something based entirely on hope. It's to elevate a hope into truth. And I hope, as you will note, history teaches us that's a very bad thing to do."
The debate can be watched online in full here. A transcript of the event is available here.
IAF THWARTS ROCKET LAUNCH ATTEMPT BY TERRORIST SQUAD Earlier this morning, the IAF targeted and identified hitting a squad of terror operatives who were preparing to fire rockets from the Northern Gaza strip into Israel. More than 165 rockets and mortars have been fired at Israeli territory since the beginning of 2010, and over 440 rockets were fired from the Gaza Strip into Israel since the end of Operation Cast Lead.
HOUSTON ASKED, 'WHERE'S THE BIRTH CERTIFICATE - The billboard campaign that helped change America's mind about Barack Obama's constitutional eligibility to serve as president is spreading through Texas this week, with a new sign in Houston, America's fourth-largest city. The message is viewed while traveling west on IH 10 toward Columbus, Texas, and it is being illuminated from dusk until midnight. It's less than a mile west of the Katy suburb.
It's part of the campaign launched by WND founder and Chief Executive Officer Joseph Farah to make Barack Obama prove his eligibility. When the signs, which by now have been posted in dozens of locations, first started appearing a WND poll revealed that roughly half of Americans were even aware of the questions over Obama's eligibility. Now polls in recent weeks have revealed that some 6 in 10 Americans doubt whether Obama constitutionally is eligible to occupy the Oval Office.
FOR THE INTENSE SPORTS FANS David Beckham referred to himself as "half Jewish and last year he registered his young son in a Jewish school in Los Angeles, his mother comes from a Jewish family. Although he is not being known practicing any religion.
SIGN THE PETITION TO MAKE THE TEMPLE MOUNT PART OF THE "HERITAGE PLAN". http://www.petitionspot.com/petitions/jrtm/ Petition: The Temple Mount is the holiest site in the world for the Jewish people, yet the Muslim authorities, aided by Israel Police, systematically deny the right of religious expression on the Mount to all non-Moslems. On numerous occasions the High Court of Justice has upheld the Jewish people's right to pray at the site, yet the police continue to prevent this. Furthermore, Jewish visitors are harassed and degraded. This discrimination is a grave trampling of civil rights . Israeli law is not recognized by the Wakf authorities; illegal digging has destroyed priceless historical remnants of Jerusalem's Jewish history. Please, end this travesty and allow Jewish freedom of expression at the Temple Mount. I urge you include the Temple Mount in your "Heritage Plan" of sites significant to the Jewish people. http://www.petitionspot.com/petitions/jrtm/
ISRAEL LAW CENTER Join With Us on this November's Ultimate Mission: http://www.israellawcenter.org/Missions-general-information.html For anyone interested in touring with the Israel Law Center, which represented the plaintiffs against the PLO (see article below) and many other SH
GILAD SHALIT - THE COLD IS COMING TO JERUSALEM, HIS PARENTS SIT IN THEIR FRAGILE 'SUCCOT' OUTSIDE BIBI'S OFFICE - Negotiations for Shalit's Release Resume Less than a week after a Hamas spokesman said negotiations through a German mediator had broken off, Israel and Hamas' Damascus bureau have both indicated talks have resumed over the fate of captive Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit. Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu told Army Radio on Sunday that talks are continuing and that the government is dealing with the issue "in a variety of ways." He cautioned that deliberations would "remain behind closed doors." In Damascus, a spokesman for the Hamas bureau-in-exile told an Arabic-language newspaper that talks had resumed. Shalit has been held by Hamas since his capture in a cross-border raid in June 2006. Talks have broken down over the number and composition of Palestinian prisoners being held by Israel whose release will be part of the deal. Israel fears the security implications of hundreds being returned to "active duty" within terrorist organizations.
Another one of many TOP AMERICAN ISLAMIC CLERIC SPEAKING IN EGYPT, SALAH SULTAN, THREATENS U.S Islamic cleric Salah Sultan appeared on Egypt's Al-Nas TV last week [MEMRI] and delivered a warning of death and destruction for America. Not only did he attack the U.S. for its military support of Israel in its fight against the Hamas terrorist organization, but he vowed retaliation such that more Americans would be killed than those Palestinians (and, presumably, Hamas terrorists) killed in the present conflict in Gaza, emphasizing that this would take place "soon" Now that Salah Sultan is publicly inciting violence against the U.S. and predicting the deaths of hundreds or even thousands of our citizens through foreign media outlets, on what basis can Homeland Security officials continue to ignore this very real and extensively documented terror threat, his connections to leading U.S. Islamic groups notwithstanding? Salah Sultan should be barred from entering the US where he holds U.S. permanent residency status and, is seeking US Citizenship. According to one federal law enforcement official, travels regularly on a U.S. passport. He spent most of the past month touring mosques in Central Ohio before jetting off to Egypt last weekend for his Al-Nas interview. Salah Sultan is not some obscure figure in the American Islamic world. He serves as a member of the Fiqh Council of North America. Touted as the top Islamic governing body in the U.S., the Fiqh Council is an arm of the Islamic Society of North America. Sultan founded and served as president of the Islamic American University in Southfield, Michigan; he was the national director of tarbiyah (Islamic instruction) for the Muslim American Society; and he continues to operate the American Council for Islamic Research, based in my hometown of Hilliard, Ohio.
Can Homeland Security officials continue to ignore him as a threat? That remains to be seen. http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/top-american-islamic-cleric-threatens-us-on-egyptian-tv/ http://doctorbulldog.wordpress.com/2009/01/07/founder-of-islamic-american-university-caught-on-video-threatening-destruction-for-america/; ACT for America. actforamerica@donationnet.net
| ISLAMIC FLAG OVER THE WHITE HOUSE: RADICAL MUSLIMS WANT AMERICA RULED BY SHARIAH [Excerpt: "As Mr. Choudary indicated, Islamist "engagement" with the United States is a holy obligation. Last week, the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), the leading proponent of global Shariah law, held a conference on "Islam and Muslims in America" in cooperation with the American Islamic College in Chicago. OIC Secretary General Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu called on Muslims in the United States to become involved in all aspects of American life, including local and national politics."] Editorial Washington Times Oct 4, 2010 http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/oct/4/islamic-flag-over-the-white-house/ The OIC has stated that any freedoms in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that conflict with Shariah do not apply to its members. If this is the type of cooperation the Obama administration is seeking to promote with Islam, then the "final hour" draws closer still. http://www.actforamerica.org/index.php/learn/recent-news/10-newsmaster/2113-islamic-flag-over-the-white-house-radical-muslims-want-america-ruled-by-shariah |
REPORTS
1>TED BELMAN'S PRESCRIPTION FOR OBAMA, 'STAND DOWN', REMOVE THE US FROM A NEGOTIATED ISRAEL-ARAB PEACE PROCESS. Yes, it is surely an Israel-Arab peace process. It never was a local 'tribe' attempting to secure nationhood on land that G-d granted Israel and that a full century ago was Internationally established under Israel sovereignty; it was always Israel v Arab, only in the present era, Muslim has replaced Arab in the wake of Muslim annihilation of most all Christian Arabs.
2>ISRAEL LAW CENTER SUCEEDS: SURVIVORS OF THE 1985 ACHILLE LAURO attack where though justice delayed frequently becomes justice denied, we are not going to allow the PLO to escape its liability for the 1985 hijacking. Fortunately, the Supreme Court has finally ruled that the civil action will now go to trial. It's important that no act of Palestinian terror ever be forgotten and the terror victims know they have a means, even many years later, of making the terrorists pay.
On October 7, 1985, four men representing the Palestine Liberation Front (PLF) took control of the liner off Egypt as she was sailing from Alexandria to Port Said.
The hijackers had been surprised by a crew member and acted prematurely. Holding the passengers and crew hostage, they directed the vessel to sail to Tartus, Syria, and demanded the release of 50 Palestinians then in Israeli prisons. After being refused permission to dock at Tartus, the hijackers killed disabled Jewish-American passenger Leon Klinghoffer and then threw his body overboard.[2] The ship headed back towards Port Said, and after two days of negotiations, the hijackers agreed to abandon the liner in exchange for safe conduct and were flown towards Tunisia aboard an Egyptian commercial airliner.
United States President Ronald Reagan ordered that the plane be intercepted by F-14 Tomcats from the VF-74 "BeDevilers" and the VF-103 "Sluggers" of Carrier Air Wing 17, based on the aircraft carrier USS Saratoga[3], on October 10 and directed to land at Naval Air Station Sigonella, a N.A.T.O. base in Sicily, where the hijackers were arrested by the Italians[4] after a disagreement between American and Italian authorities. The other passengers on the plane (including the hijackers' leader, Abu Abbas (no relation to Mahmoud Abbas, present PA leader) were allowed to continue on to their destination,[5] despite protests by the United States. Egypt demanded an apology from the U.S. for forcing the airplane off course. Reagan was a strong American President, President Obama agreed to the release of the release of the Lockerbie bomber.
3> Pollard himself has said that he is unequivocally opposed to being released as part of a deal that would jeopardize Israeli lives via the release of Palestinian murderers or would uproot Jews from their land. Of course he would oppose any swap of jailed terrorists to the State of Israel for his release, Pollard is a true hero of Israel.
Eitan, who was Pollard's handler, revealed on Thursday after press time that the US had violated an oral agreement with Israel to release Pollard after 10 years. In an interview with Israel Radio, Eitan also accused the US of deliberately perpetrating a travesty of justice by violating Pollard's plea agreement and slapping him with what he called a grossly disproportionate life sentence.
He pointed out that at the time of Pollard's sentencing in 1987, secret charges were laid against Pollard blaming him for the crimes of a Russian mole within American intelligence, Aldrich Ames. Pollard was neither informed of these charges nor given a chance to challenge them in a court of law. Eitan said the US steadfastly refused to release Pollard even after Ames was exposed and arrested in 1994, "for their own reasons."
'Cap' Weinberger once called Pollard one of the most dangerous American spies, although he was convicted for passing on classified information and not for "spying." In his autobiography, Weinberger did not mention the Pollard case, and later said that the case was a "minor matter... made much more important than it was." Weinberger should be sitting in Hell for eternity.
1>PRESCRIPTION FOR OBAMA-STAND DOWN
Ted Belman
Israpundit
No doubt PM Netanyahu would have rather spent the last 18 months in hell than to have spent it participating in the peace process under brutal pressure by the Obama administration. Come to think of it, it must have been hell.
Keep in mind that Netanyahu was voted into office on a platform which denied the two-state solution. The Obama administration succeeded in forcing a dramatic change in that policy. Or did it? On June 14/09 Netanyahu delivered a speech at Bar Ilan University in which he appeared to accept a two state solution with these words, [This link to Bibi's Bar Ilan speech includes a video of the speech http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/Government/Speeches+by+Israeli+leaders/2009/Address_PM_Netanyahu_Bar-Ilan_University_14-Jun-2009.htm ]
"In my vision of peace, two peoples live freely, side-by-side, in amity and mutual respect. Each will have its own flag, its own national anthem, its own government."
Although the world spun it as an acceptance, of a Palestinian state, I submit that the same words would apply to an autonomous entity. Notice that the all important word "state" was not employed.
Then he placed the blame for sixty years of war where it rightly belonged,
"And the simple truth is that the root of the conflict was, and remains, the refusal to recognize the right of the Jewish people to a state of their own, in their historic homeland."
And he knew what to expect.
"The closer we get to an agreement with them, the further they retreat and raise demands that are inconsistent with a true desire to end the conflict."
With Pres Obama's concurrence, he called for "immediate negotiations without preconditions". He also laid out principles that he would insist on.
"Therefore, a fundamental prerequisite for ending the conflict is a public, binding and unequivocal Palestinian recognition of Israel as the nation state of the Jewish people. To vest this declaration with practical meaning, there must also be a clear understanding that the Palestinian refugee problem will be resolved outside Israel's borders. For it is clear that any demand for resettling Palestinian refugees within Israel undermines Israel's continued existence as the state of the Jewish people."
"Clear commitments that in a future peace agreement, the territory controlled by the Palestinians will be demilitarized: namely, without an army, without control of its airspace, and with effective security measures to prevent weapons smuggling into the territory - real monitoring, and not what occurs in Gaza today. And obviously, the Palestinians will not be able to forge military pacts. "
And finally he said "Israel needs defensible borders, and Jerusalem must remain the united capital of Israel"
Any student of the conflict would have known that all these prerequisites would never be agreed to and so, in effect, were non-starters. Obama nevertheless ran with it because it was the best he could get.
Throughout the following six months Obama stumbled and fell in his attempt to get Arab cooperation. He was left with no option other than to apply pressure on Netanyahu for a complete building freeze. Netanyahu succumbed and agreed to a ten month partial freeze to the great chagrin of his supporters.
Now that the freeze has ended, Obama is pressing for a two month extension. On Monday, Netanyahu addressed the Knesset and laid out his conditions for the continuation of the freeze. "If the Palestinian leadership will unequivocally say to its people that it recognizes Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people, I will be ready to convene my government and ask for another suspension of construction for a fixed period." This was carefully worded. First the Palestinians must say so then he will ask for a continuance. Of course it was rejected as Netanyahu knew it would be.
Dr Yitzhak Klein argued that this response was Netanyahu's declaration of independence. By it, he was throwing down the gauntlet to four groups. To Obama, he said that recognition of Israel as a Jewish sate was a precondition to negotiations knowing that the American people in general and the Jews in particular would support his demand. To the Arab League, he was saying let's move on to dealing with what really matters to you, namely, stopping Iran. To Barak and the Labor Party he was saying go ahead and leave the coalition. I will be happy to fight the next election on the centrality of the recognition issue. To Mahmud Abbas, he said "get lost".
At this juncture, it doesn't look like the negotiations will get started again. But the real issue is that the parties to the conflict will not compromise their positions and therefore no agreement is possible.. The Arabs will look to have the UN impose a solution but so far both the US and the EU have not encouraged such option. With the death of the peace process, perhaps they may change their minds.
Israel, on the other hand, must govern the territories as if there is no possibility of arriving at an end-of-conflict agreement. She cannot sit in limbo. Population growth on both sides must be accommodated. Infrastructure must be provided and security maintained. Arab construction has been without planning or oversight. Over 100,000 Arab homes have been built without permits. This must change. There must be a Master Plan for Arab communities and no construction must be permitted other than in accordance with the Plan and the law. There is a Master Plan for Jerusalem as an undivided city. It must be implemented.
For the last thirty or so years, Israel has honored an agreement with the US, not build new settlements. This agreement has restricted her building to the settlement blocs and to infilling in smaller settlements. She was also prevented from building in an area called E1 which connects Maaleh Adumin to Jerusalem. Obama's insistence that there be a complete construction freeze is a fundamental breach in this agreement and has thus rendered it null and void. Israel is no longer bound by it. No doubt, Obama will try to resurrect it but Israel will resist and rightly so. Israel should return to building in the territories to accommodate its growing population there unfettered by the past agreement with the US.
To date, the law of occupation has been applied in these settlements. I expect that Israel will change this and vote to apply Israel law to at least the settlement blocs if not all settlements. She owes her citizens living in these settlements, no less. Such an act is tantamount to annexation. The settlements would thus become part of Israel.
Israel will continue to remove roadblocks and checkpoints and will continue to support the growth in the Palestinian economy. She will seek to normalize life as much as possible. The Palestinians can either reject such attempts or can cooperate with them for their own betterment. The US could also help by ending the peace process and leaving it to the parties to the conflict to work out a living arrangement.
Israel has been forced to devote a high percentage of its time to the peace process. She needs the respite to focus on domestic matters and Iran. Obama should take note. It is time that he too focused on solving his domestic problems and his Iran problem..
With the two-state solution in tatters, not likely to be restored, Israel should focus or providing the Palestinians with autonomy. In Netanyahu's Bar Ilan speech he said
"We do not want to rule over them, we do not want to govern their lives, we do not want to impose either our flag or our culture on them."
He also laid out a vision.
"I call on the talented entrepreneurs of the Arab world to come and invest here and to assist the Palestinians - and us - in spurring the economy. Together, we can develop industrial areas that will generate thousands of jobs and create tourist sites that will attract millions of visitors eager to walk in the footsteps of history - in Nazareth and in Bethlehem, around the walls of Jericho and the walls of Jerusalem, on the banks of the Sea of Galilee and the baptismal site of the Jordan. There is an enormous potential for archeological tourism, if we can only learn to cooperate and to develop it."
Obama should let Israel get on with the job. He should help rather than hinder.
2>ACHILLE LAURO SURVIVORS WIN AN APPEAL AGAINST THE PLO IN THE ISRAELI SUPREME COURT
Sent: Fri, Oct 15, 2010 9:04 am
Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, Esq. <nitsanad@zahav.net.il>
It took them over five years but the Israeli Supreme Court has finally issued a landmark decision allowing the case brought against the PLO by two American survivors of the infamous 1985 Achille Lauro cruise liner hijacking to go forward. Attorneys for the Palestinian terrorist organization had argued to the Court that the plaintiffs had only brought their case in the District Court in 2000, 15 years after the terrorist attack, and that the 7 year statute of limitations on the case had ran out long ago.
In response, I argued on behalf of the victims' families that the statute of limitations should be tolled as it was not possible for the plaintiffs to bring the case in any reasonable jurisdiction any earlier. I noted to the Court that before 1994, when Israel signed the misguided Oslo Accords with Arafat, the PLO was a pariah in the West and only operated from countries in the Arab and Third World. These Jewish-American families could hardly have been expected to bring their case and win any justice in the "courts" in places like Sudan or Cuba or the then USSR.
As such, I alleged, the opportunity to sue the PLO only became available to the victims in 1994 when the PLO formally returned to Ramalla. Pursuant to the Oslo Accords Israel initiated diplomatic ties with the Palestinian terrorist group and there was a means of securing jurisdiction over them in Israel. The 7 year period should only start to be counted from this point.
Because of the reluctance of the District Court to move the case forward this proceeding has dragged on over a decade. Although I filed this civil action, which seeks compensation from the PLO for damages inflicted on the two women in the course of the three-day attack, in 2000, the matter of the statute of limitations challenge was only heard by the Supreme Court in 2005. Then to make matters worse the justices took another five years to finally hand down their ruling upholding our arguments and allowing the case to go forward.
Our complaint alleges that the Palestinian gunmen who seized the ship in the Mediterranean Sea as it was traveling from Italy to Israel, separated the American and Jewish passengers from the others and threatened to kill them if Israel did not agree to their demands to release Palestinian security prisoners being held in Israeli jails. The two women were held at gunpoint by the terrorists on the ship's outdoor deck throughout the 3-day ordeal. Increasingly desperate, the hijackers announced they were going to execute one hostage immediately, and then the rest at 1-hour intervals if the PLO's demands were not met. The terrorists then took an elderly, wheelchair-bound New Yorker, Leon Klinghoffer, fired several bullets into him, and threw his body and wheelchair overboard. The murder was carried out in full view of Klinghoffer's wife. Eventually, the other hostages, including the plaintiffs, were freed by the terrorists.
Although justice delayed frequently becomes justice denied, we are not going to allow the PLO to escape its liability for the 1985 hijacking. Fortunately, the Supreme Court has finally ruled that the civil action will now go to trial. It's important that no act of Palestinian terror ever be forgotten and the terror victims know they have a means, even many years later, of making the terrorists pay.
Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, Esq.
Shurat HaDin - Israel Law Center
10 Hata'as St. Ramat Gan, 52512 Israel
Tel: 972-3-7514175
Fax: 972-3-7514174
www.israellawcenter.org
3> POLLARD LAWYERS ASK OBAMA FOR HIS IMMEDIATE RELEASE
by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu
Arutz Sheva
The recent groundswell of Congressional support on behalf of Jonathan Pollard, coupled with new claims of an unfair trial and broken agreements, have prompted his lawyers to ask U.S. President Barack Obama for immediate clemency for their client.
Pollard was sentenced to life in prison 25 years ago for passing classified documents on to Israel when he worked for US Naval Intelligence as a civilian analyst. The offense generally carries a punishment of 2-4 years. Years of attempts by Pollard's wife and friends to win his release by presidential pardon or otherwise have fallen on deaf ears.
However, a recent coincidence of events have encouraged them, and his two American lawyers - Eliot Lauer and Jacques Semmelman - filed a request to President Obama on Friday for clemency. "Jonathan is not asking for his offense to be erased" in the form of a pardon, his wife Esther explained. "All he is asking is for President Obama to commute his life sentence to time served."
Last week, an unusual coalition of Orthodox and Reform Jewish leaders in the United States backed a letter initiated by several Congressmen for clemency for Pollard. Leading Congressman Anthony Weiner, along with Reps. Barney Frank of Massachusetts, Bill Pascrell of New Jersey and Edolphus Towns of New York - all of them Democrats - did not argue whether Pollard is guilty or not.
The letter stated, "There has been a great disparity from the standpoint of justice between the amount of time Mr. Pollard has served and the time that has been served - or not served at all - by many others who were found guilty of similar activity on behalf of nations adversarial to us, unlike Israel."
The National Council of Young Israel, the Orthodox Union, Agudath Israel and the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism backed the letter.
The Congressmen also linked clemency with President Obama's dilemma in his Middle East diplomatic effort, which has ground to a halt. They said granting clemency would improve ties with Israel and would be "useful at a time when those decisions are being made," meaning the impasse between the Palestinian Authority and Israel over the resumption of direct talks for recognizing the PA as a country within Israel's borders.
The Washington Post's Jeff Stein reported that the Obama administration is ignoring pleas to release Pollard in exchange for Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's renewal of the expired 10-month freeze on building new homes for Jews in Judea and Samaria. "It's not a new development," a senior administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Stein. "They deploy [it] all the time."
Nationalist groups have strongly objected to the idea, and Pollard himself previously has said that he is unequivocally opposed to being released as part of a deal that would jeopardize Israeli lives via the release of Palestinian murderers or would uproot Jews from their land.
Stein also wrote that "incremental progress on the settlements is not worth agitating CIA officials, who are still seething over the Justice Department's investigation into whether its interrogations of suspected terrorists were illegal."
The letter from the Congressmen is only one link in a chain of events that has recently unfolded on Pollard's behalf.
Lawrence J. Korb, a former U.S. Assistant Secretary of Defense in the Reagan administration, recently wrote to President Obama that Pollard's punishment was too harsh. "Despite Pollard's admission of guilt, cooperation with authorities, [and the fact that he] asked for a plea bargain, he received a disproportional punishment," he wrote. Korb also charged that one reason for the severity of the sentence was his boss, Secretary of Defense Casper Weinberger, who has since died.
Korb wrote, "Based on the knowledge that I have firsthand, I can confidently say that the punishment was so severe because of lack of sympathy for Israel by. Weinberger."
Weinberger once called Pollard one of the most dangerous American spies, although he was convicted for passing on classified information and not for "spying." In his autobiography, Weinberger did not mention the Pollard case, and later said that the case was a "minor matter... made much more important than it was."
Another recent development was a statement from Rafi Eitan, who was Pollard's handler at the time of his arrest, that an oral agreement between Israel and the United States called for Pollard to be sentenced to no more than 10 years in jail.
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Janet Lehr If I am not for myself, WHO WILL BE?
IsraelLives If I am only for myself, WHAT AM I?
janetlehr@veredart.com If not now, WHEN ?
Rabbi Hillel
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Sincerely,
Robin Ticker
This email is L'Ilui Nishmat Yisrael ben David Aryeh ob"m (Izzy - Kaplan) a great activist and lover of Eretz Yisroel, Am Yisroel and the Torah. Yehi Zichrono Baruch.
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