Watching from afar the politicking surrounding the upcoming election, one sees many politicians whose political interests concern only themselves.
Watching the ugly scenes of the brawl last week when Shas supporters attacked the hall where Eli Yishai announced his new political party, and seeing them wrestle over the photo of the late Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, one wonders how those who stormed the hall wearing kippas and tzitzit deem themselves "religious."
Going to brawl with another political party and threatening Yishai's safety while Shas itself is bereft of ideology is far from religious.
Rabbi Ovadiah Yosef was a great Jew. On the other hand, Aryeh Deri, who leads Shas, is a felon - who was convicted for bribery, fraud and breach of trust, and was prohibited for seven years after the end of his prison sentence from being elected to the Knesset. Nevertheless, the Shas “Council of Torah Sages” deems Deri as fit to lead the party.
Shas is unsurpassed in the number of leaders in their political party who are convicted criminals -
for example, Rafael Pinhasi, Yair Levy, Ofer Hugi, and Yair Peretz and Shlomo Benizri -
hence, Deri is the leader of quite a crew.
This gang is most concerned with power for themselves; witness their partnering with the left on numerous and critical occasions, including being a part of the coalition with Meretz and Labor when the Oslo Accords were approved in 1993.
Lest one forget, a member of Shas’s Council of Torah Sages just last year called the national-religious party Habayit Hayehudi (Jewish Home) party a “home of non-Jews.”
Indeed, he asked a laughing crowd “Are these people even Jews? We would be unfortunate to end up with a [chief] rabbi who wears a knit kippa.” He said “The [heavenly] throne is not complete when Amalek exists,” and “As long as there’s a knit kippa, the throne is not complete (reference to a well-known midrash based on the word for throne that in the biblical story of Amalek, is written missing a letter, ed.).
That’s Amalek … When will the throne be complete? When there’s no knitted kippa.”
Describing knitted-kippa wearers as Amalek speaks for itself.
There’s more to being religious than davening – ethics, honesty, and love of our fellow Jew are also necessities.
Truly religious people have values and beliefs – a core value system which stands for something.
Leaders - from all political parties - should be concerned about the State and people of Israel.
by Alan Dershowitz The Harvard University Dining Service has been rebuffed in its efforts to join the Boycott Movement against Israel. A group of radical anti-Israel Harvard students and faculty had persuaded the dining service to boycott SodaStream, an Israeli company that manufactures soda machines that produce a product that is both healthy and economical. But Harvard President Drew Faust rebuffed this boycott and decided to investigate the unilateral action of the Harvard University Dining Services.
I have visited the SodaStream factory and spoken to many of its Palestinian-Arab employees, who love working for a company that pays them high wages and manufactures excellent working conditions. I saw Jews and Muslims, Israeli and Palestinians, working together and producing this excellent product. The SodaStream factory I visited was in Ma’ale Adumim—a suburb of Jerusalem that Palestinian Authority leaders acknowledge will remain part of Israel in any negotiated resolution of the conflict. I was told this directly by Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas and by former Prime Minister Salam Fayyad. Moreover, in all the negotiations about borders and land swaps, the Palestinians have acknowledged that Ma’ale Adumim will remain within Israel’s borders.
Accordingly, although the factory is in an area beyond the Armistice lines of 1949, it is not really disputed territory. Nor does it pose any barrier to a two-state solution. Moreover, Israel offered to resolve its conflict with the Palestinians in 2000-2001 and in 2008, but the Palestinian Authority did not accept either offer. Had these generous offers been accepted, the dispute would have ended and Ma’ale Adumim would have been recognized as part of Israel. So the Palestinian leadership shares responsibility for the continuation of the conflict and the unresolved status of the area in which SodaStream operates. Punishing only Israel—and Israeli companies—for not resolving the conflict serves only to disincentivize the Palestinian Authority from accepting compromise solutions. The students and faculty who sought the boycott of SodaStream invoked human rights. But it is they who are causing the firing of more than 500 Palestinian workers who would like to continue to earn a living at SodaStream. As a result of misguided boycotts, such as the one unilaterally adopted by the Harvard University Dining Services, SodaStream has been forced to move its factory to an area in Israel where few, if any, Arabs can be employed. This is not a victory for human rights. It is a victory for human wrongs.
I have no doubt that some students and other members of the Harvard community may be offended by the presence of SodaStream machines. Let them show their displeasure by not using the machines instead of preventing others who are not offended from obtaining their health benefits. Many students are also offended by their removal. Why should the views of the former prevail over those of the latter? I’m sure that some students are offended by any products made in Israel, just as some are offended by products made in Arab or Muslim countries that oppress gays, Christians and women. Why should the Harvard University Dining Service — or a few handfuls of students and professors — get to decide whose feelings of being offended count and whose don’t?
In addition to the substantive error made by Harvard University Dining Services, there is also an important issue of process. What right does a single Harvard University entity have to join the boycott movement against Israel without full and open discussion by the entire university community, including students, faculty, alumni and administration? Even the president and provost were unaware of this divisive decision until they read about it in the Crimson. As Provost Garber wrote, “Harvard University’s procurement decisions should not and will not be driven by individuals’ views of highly contested matters of political controversy.” Were those who made the boycott decision even aware of the arguments on the other side, such as those listed above? The decision of the HUDS must be rescinded immediately and a process should be instituted for discussing this issue openly with all points of view and all members of the university community represented. The end result should be freedom of choice: those who disapprove of SodaStream should be free to drink Pepsi. But those who don’t disapprove should be free to drink SodaStream. Economic boycotts should be reserved for the most egregious violations of human rights. They should not be used to put pressure on only one side of a dispute that has rights and wrongs on both sides.
Alan Dershowitz is a Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law at Harvard Law School emeritus and author of Terror Tunnels: The Case for Israel’s Just War Against Hamas (Rosetta Books).
Remember when Sharpton's cronies were yelling at an anti-cop protest
‘WHAT DO WE WANT? DEAD COPS!’
Well, the chickens have come home to roost...
It is the sequence that every mayor dreads: the ominous report, the scramble to the hospital and the confirmation that, yes, an attack against the police has proved fatal.
But for MayorBill de Blasio, the tragedy on Saturday — when two police officers were shot and killed in an ambush in Brooklyn, according to the authorities — arrived at a particularly trying moment, amid an already fractious relationship with the police.
Police union leaders and officers could be seen turning their backs to the mayor and the police commissioner,William J. Bratton, as they walked past, in a video taken at the hospital where the two held a news conference on Saturday.
A written message from Edward Mullins, president of the Sergeants Benevolent Association, addressed the mayor directly. “Mayor de Blasio,” it read in part, “the blood of these two officers is clearly on your hands.”
Meanwhile, an eyewitness who spoke to The Daily Beast said that 'a lot of people were clapping and laughing' following the murder of the two police officers.
'Some were saying, "They deserved it," and another was shouting at the cops, "Serves them right because you mistreat people!”'said the man, identified as Carlos.
In the wake of the ambush, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani lashed out at New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, President Barack Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder. Speaking on Fox News, Giuliani said: “We’ve had four months of propaganda starting with the president that everybody should hate the police.”
“They have created an atmosphere of severe, strong, anti-police hatred in certain communities, and for that, they should be ashamed of themselves,” he said.
In a tweet, former New York Gov. George Pataki called the killings the “predictable outcome of divisive, anti-cop rhetoric of Attorney General Eric Holder and Bill De Blasio.”
The accusations stoked fears that any gains made in the protest movement would be lost.
“We’ve been denouncing violence in our community,” no matter who the target is, New York community activist Tony Herbert said. He said he worries that the shooting will be used to discredit the larger cause.
“It sullies the opportunity for us to make inroads to build the relationships we need to build to get the trust back,” he said. “This hurts.”
In a historic thaw of a relationship chilled since the early days of the Cold War, the United States announced plans Wednesday to restore diplomatic and economic ties with the communist island of Cuba.
The changes came with the abrupt release of a frail American government contractor, Alan Gross, who had been imprisoned in Cuba for five years. He stood when his plane cleared Cuban airspace and stepped off in the United States to hugs on the tarmac.
At the same time, the United States released three Cubans jailed for 15 years on spying charges, and Cuba released a U.S. spy held there for two decades.
President Barack Obama declared that the United States was ending an "outdated approach" that had failed to accomplish the goal of a democratic and prosperous Cuba. The United States and Cuba severed diplomatic relations in 1961, two years after forces led by Fidel Castro overthrew the Cuban government.
"Neither the American nor the Cuban people are well-served by a rigid policy that's rooted in events that took place before most of us were born," President Barack Obama said from the White House. "It's time for a new approach."
Obama said that the United States would relax travel, banking and commerce restrictions, and he instructed Secretary of State John Kerry to start talks to re-establish diplomatic relations, including the eventual opening of an American embassy in Havana.
"Noboby represents American values better than the American people," Obama said, "and I believe this contact will ultimately do more to empower the Cuban people."
A ban on travel to Cuba by American tourists can only be lifted by Congress, but Obama promised to talk to lawmakers about lifting the full economic embargo. In the meantime, other licensed travelers will be allowed to bring home Cuban cigars.
Obama also told Kerry to review the U.S. designation of Cuba as a state sponsor of terrorism, which has been in place since 1982.
President Raul Castro of Cuba, the brother of Fidel, also planned to address his nation.
The policy shift was the culmination of 18 months of talks between the United States and Cuba in Canada, and a pivotal meeting in the fall at the Vatican, senior administration officials said. Pope Francis personally sent letters to Castro and Obama, the officials said.
Cuba agreed to release Gross, 65, on humanitarian grounds, a senior Obama administration official said. Gross went on a hunger strike earlier this year, and his wife said this month that he was "literally wasting away" in confinement.
In a dramatic flight to freedom, he was escorted by his wife, Judy, three members of Congress and the Secret Service. Gross stepped off the plane late Wednesday morning at Andrews Air Force Base outside Washington.
From the plane, Gross called his sister and daughters and told them he was free. On the plane were bowls of popcorn, a food he had missed during his captivity, and a corned beef sandwich with mustard on rye. Gross planned to speak in Washington at 1:30 p.m. ET.
Judy Gross said earlier this month that her husband had lost more than 100 pounds and gone mostly blind in one eye. She has been critical of the Obama administration's handling of the ordeal. Gross has refused most visitors, although he did meet with two U.S. senators in November.
Gross was working as a contractor for the U.S. Agency for International Development, which works to promote democracy in Cuba, when he was detained in 2009. His family has said he was working to expand Internet access for Cuba's small Jewish community.
Gross was sentenced in 2011 to 15 years in prison for undermining Cuba. Castro called him a spy.
Senior U.S. officials took pains to say that Gross was not being released as part of a direct swap. Separately, senior U.S. officials said that the three Cubans were being released in exchange for what U.S. officials described as an "intelligence asset."
Bureau of Prisons records showed that the three Cubans — Ramón Labanino, Antonio Guerrero and Gerardo Hernandez — were released on Wednesday.
A lawyer for the three, Richard Klugh, said he had not spoken to his clients before they boarded a plane to Cuba. He told NBC News that he was certain they were relieved to have "an arduous experience" behind them.
"After 16 years of imprisonment, two years of solitary confinement and so much time spent in dangerous prisons, this is not a slap on the wrist," he said.
Labanino and Guerrero have received visits from family while they were jailed, but Hernandez has only seen his wife once in 17 years because she was deported after his arrest, Klugh said.
"There is no words to express how he must feel," the lawyer said.
They were part of a group known as the Cuban Five. The two other members, Rene and Fernando Gonzalez, were released in 2012. The five were arrested in 1998 and accused of belonging to a spy cabal called the Wasp Network that had infiltrated anti-Castro exile groups in Florida.
As it announced the policy changes, the White House called on Cuba to relax the political, social and economic restrictions on its own 11 million people.
There have been signs in recent months of a warming between the two countries. Obama and Castro will attend a summit in Panama in April, the first to include both leaders, and Secretary of State John Kerry has praised Cuba's efforts to fight Ebola.
Obama has eased travel restrictions in recent years, but he has left in place a decades-old economic embargo.
The announcement was certain to have repercussions throughout American politics and the emerging 2016 presidential campaign. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla. and a potential candidate, said the policy change was "the latest in a long line of failed attempts by President Obama to appease rogue regimes at all cost."
MARY MURRAY / NBC NEWS
An unidentified plane sits at the end of a runway in Havana, Cuba on Dec. 17, 2014.
HIAS the famous Jewish organization that helps immigrants financially, actively lobbied to help the US government absorb these muslims! Sick ....sick
Call the HIAS offices and yell at those naive liberal Jews!
NY-HIAS-06: Jewish Family Service Of Buffalo And Erie County Address:70 Barker Street
Buffalo, NY 14209 Phone:716-883-1914
The federal government is preparing for another “surge” in refugees and this time they won’t be coming illegally from Central America.
The U.S. State Department announced this week that the first major contingent of Syrian refugees, 9,000 of them, have been hand-selected by the United Nations for resettlement into communities across the United States.
WND reported in September that Syrians would make up the next big wave of Muslim refugees coming to the U.S., as resettlement agencies were lobbying for the U.S. to accept at least 75,000 Syrian refugees over the next five years.
Until now, the U.S. had accepted only 300 of the more than 3.2 million refugees created by the Syrian civil war in which ISIS, El Nusra and other Sunni Muslim jihadist rebels are locked in a protracted battle with the Shiite regime of Bashar al-Assad.
But the U.S. government has been the most active of all nations in accepting Islamic refugees from other war-torn countries, such as Iraq, Somalia and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Now, the Syrians will be added to the mix. They are cleared for refugee status by the U.N. high commissioner on refugees (UNHCR), who assigns them to various countries. Once granted refugee status by the U.N. they are screened by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security for any ties to terrorist organizations.
The State Department announcement makes it clear that the 9,000 refugees represent just the beginning of an extended program to accept more Syrians.
“The United States accepts the majority of all UNHCR referrals from around the world. Last year, we reached our goal of resettling nearly 70,000 refugees from nearly 70 countries. And we plan to lead in resettling Syrians as well,” the statement reads. “We are reviewing some 9,000 recent UNHCR referrals from Syria. We are receiving roughly a thousand new ones each month, and we expect admissions from Syria to surge in 2015 and beyond.”
The United States, with its commitment to accepting 70,000 displaced people a year, absorbs more refugees than all other countries combined. This number is understated, however, as once refugees get to the United States they are placed on a fast track to citizenship and are able to get their extended families to join them in the states under the government’s Refuge Family Reunification program.
The State Department works to place refugees in 180 cities across 49 states.
Despite the large numbers, the U.S. has come under criticism from aid groups for its pace in taking in refugees from the Syrian war, which is by far the largest refugee crisis of recent years, reported Ann Corcoran of Refugee Resettlement Watch.
U.S. officials say the resettlement program has moved slowly because the United Nations refugee agency, which they look to for referrals, didn’t begin making recommendations until late last year. And the United States takes 18 to 24 months on average to carefully vet each applicant to make sure he or she poses no security risk.
Muslim countries in the Middle East have so far not stepped up to permanently take in their Islamic brothers and sisters although the temporary refugee camps to which the Syrians have fled are in Jordan, Turkey and Lebanon.
Syrian refugee camps like this one have popped up in Jordan and Lebanon.
The State Department announcement was careful to explain that the U.S. will take in only those Syrians who are “persecuted by their government.” Christians in Syria are being killed by ISIS and other Muslim rebels, not by “their government,” but the Sunni Muslims are being killed by the Shiite-led government.
It also would not take 18 to 24 months to “vet” Christian refugees for security purposes.
“There is no doubt the majority of Syrians to be admitted to the U.S. will be Muslims because it would be unlikely there would be a ‘security risk’ with the Christians,” according to Corcoran.
She said screening has become more rigorous since 2009, when authorities were alarmed to discover that two members of al-Qaeda had entered the country posing as Iraqi refugees. That concern has been sharpened by worries that fighters from the Islamic State militant group may try to enter the United States.
The United States has accepted nearly 2 million refugees from Muslim countries since 1992, WND previously reported. The authority for the resettlement program is the Refugee Act of 1980, signed into law by President Jimmy Carter.
On Tuesday, Anne C. Richard, assistant secretary of state for population, refugees and migration, said at a U.N. meeting in Geneva that the Obama administration was going to step up its efforts because the refugee outflow had swelled “to a mass exodus.”
At the Geneva meeting, 28 countries agreed to take in 66,000 refugees. But that was far short of the 300,000 Syrians that officials at the U.N. refugee agency believe need to be permanently resettled.
Corcoran alerted readers of her blog who live in cities already stocked with large numbers of refugees that they should contact their members of Congress if they have concerns about getting new shipments of displaced persons. The added burden that refugees put on social services has prompted several mayors in Massachusetts and New Hampshire to request that the federal government shut off the refugee spigot, as reported recently by WND. The mayor of Athens, Georgia, Nancy Denson, has requested that her city not be added to the list of cities accepting refugees until a full accounting of the costs can be tabulated.
Richard, in her announcement, said resettlement agencies and “charities” are already mobilizing to help the soon arrival of new Syrian refugees.
“Like most other refugees resettled in the United States, they will get help from the International Organization for Migration with medical exams and transportation to the United States. Once they arrive, networks of resettlement agencies, charities, churches, civic organizations and local volunteers will welcome them. These groups work in 180 communities across the country and make sure refugees have homes, furniture, clothes, English classes, job training, health care and help enrolling their children in school. They are now preparing key contacts in American communities to welcome Syrians.”
What Richard fails to mention is that most of the resettlement work done by the above network of agencies is taxpayer funded through various grants distributed by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Refugee Resettlement Program.
The cost of resettling 70,000 refugees comes to just over $1 billion per year to the U.S. government, according to a State Department report for fiscal 2015. This includes running the program and issuing federal grants to the nine resettlement agencies. The $1 billion figure does not include the cost of the unaccompanied alien children program, supplying food stamps, subsidized housing, interpreters, Medicaid, WIC, temporary assistance to needy families (TANF) and educating the children, much of which falls to states and localities.
Corcoran estimates that, taken in total, the cost of the U.S. refugee resettlement program could run as high as $10 billion per year.
“Those numbers are just not obtainable,” she said.
That also does not include the potential cost of security risks. WND reported in September that 22 Somali-Americans brought in through the refugee program have been documented by the FBI to have left the country to fight for Al-Shabab, a terrorist organization in Somalia, while several others have gone to fight for the Islamic State, also called ISIS, in Syria. Dozens of others have been prosecuted for sending money or other material support to terrorist organizations.
Several of the resettlement agencies, such as the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, have posted statements on their websites welcoming President Obama’s recent executive action granting amnesty to up to 5 million illegal aliens. The religious “charities” conduct their refugee resettlement work with government grants accounting for 90 to 98 percent of their budgets, as previously reported by WND.
I guess Satmar no longer has the license for violence and hooliganism against people that don't agree with you. Horrible scenes were broadcast across Israel tonight, as supporters of Aryeh Deri stormed the Ramada Hotel where Eli Yishai was announcing his departure from Shas.
Riot police were called to secure the building and had to forcefully remove the protesters from the premises.
Protesters grabbed a large framed photo of Maran Hagon HaRav Ovadia Yosef ZATZAL, which was set up to be as a backdrop behind Yishai.
Reporters told the man he was stealing, to which he replied on TV “from Eli Yishai one is allowed to steal”. The Yishai campaign slogan signs were also torn off the wall.
Shouting matches broke out between the two sides, until police arrived to remove the Deri supporters from the building.
There were no arrests made.
Deri released a statement shortly after the incident saying “I am against such behavior which has no connection to Shas and its ways. I call on everyone to continue in the ways of Maran and act B’darchei Noam”.
Police stormed the cafe in central Sydney where a gunman held hostages for more than 16 hours
Police moved in firing automatic weapons and throwing grenades as hostages were seen fleeing in terror from the cafe
Live TV footage showed hostages running frantically from the cafe at shortly after 2am in small groups
It came hours after Man Haron Monis was named as the gunman holding people hostage in a Sydney café
The 49-year-old man lives in southwest Sydney, but is originally from Iran and a self-proclaimed sheik
He was charged with accessory in the murder of his ex-wife - who was allegedly stabbed and set on fire on a flight of stairs in her western Sydney apartment block
He was also arrested for the sexual assault of a 27-year-old woman in 2002 in April this year after luring her to his clinic following claims he was as 'spiritual healer'
Monis was slapped with an additional 40 charges in October after more victims to come forward
Monis received 300 community service hours for sending hate mail to the families of Australian dead soldiers
The seige follows an unsuccessful attempt to have these charges overturned in the High Court on Friday
He stormed the Lindt cafe in Martin Place during the morning rush hour on Monday stopped anyone fro
He forced hostages to hold up black flag with white writing in Arabic, an emblem linked to terror groups
MARY MURRAY / NBC NEWS
