Yeshiva guys supporting different Roshei Yeshiva, have resorted to violence again! One side beat up the Rosh Yeshivah Rabbi Shmuel Markovitz.
They also damaged Yeshivah property, all paid for by donors!
Police are now conteplating shutting down parts of the Yeshivah!
In the last few months, police were called in over 50 times to quell the violence.
Violent clashes broke out at the Ponevezh Yeshiva after the yeshiva's dean Rabbi Shmuel Markovich was assaulted by a member of an opposing haredi faction Sunday night.
The student was arrested Monday morning, following a report to police by yeshiva students who witnessed the incident, but denied the charges, claiming instead that he had been attacked by Rabbi Markovich's followers.
Following the arrest, several other students were wounded as violence flared up between the two opposing factions, with witnesses saying that tear gas was even used in the confrontation.
Hatzalah medical crews were called to the scene, giving treatment to the wounded students and bringing some of them to Maayanei Hayeshua Hospital in Bnei Brak. Police forces also streamed into the yeshiva to break apart the fight.
אלימות חסרת תקדים בישיבת פוניבז', תלמידי הישיבה מפלג ה'מחבלים', פרצו הערב (א'), לפנימיית ה'שונאים', לאחר שראש הישיבה, הגר"ש מרקוביץ הוכה. המשטרה הוזעקה להשליט סדר, אך המהומות חזרו.
בקטטה האלימה נפצעו עשרות תלמידים, 3 נזקקו לטיפול רפואי, אך לא נזקקו לפינוי לבית החולים.
כוחות משטרה גדולים הוזעקו למקום כדי להשליט סדר אך המהומות שבו ופרצו לקראת שעות הלילה המאוחרות.
כתבנו לענייני משטרה אלי שלזינגר, מדווח כי במשטרה בוחנים אפשרות להוצאת צו לסגירת ואיטום אחד מחמשת מבני הישיבה, לאור כך שהוא מייצר הכי הרבה עבירות אלימות.
במהלך החודשיים האחרונים, הוגשו בתחנת משטרה דן למעלה מ-50 תלונות ומאות קירות למוקד 100.
We know they sat on the banks of the Tigris and Euphrates, and that they wept. But a new exhibit at Jerusalem’s Bible Lands Museum puts faces and names to the Judean exiles in ancient Babylonia 2,500 years ago
The Al-Yahudu tablets are part of a private collection that has never before gone on public display. Their provenance is unknown; they likely turned up somewhere in southern Iraq, but no one knows when. After decades on the antiquities market they ended up in the hands of a private collector, David Sofer, who offered to loan them to the Bible Lands Museum. After two years of labor, the exhibit is opening to the public on Sunday.
“It puts a face on the real people who went through these fateful events,” Dr. Filip Vukosavović, curator of the exhibit, told The Times of Israel. The tablets preserve a wealth of Judean names — including the familiar Natanyahu — of the exilic community, and even include a handful of Aramaic inscriptions
The exhibit takes visitors through the final days of Jerusalem before its destruction by Nebuchadnezzar in 586 BCE, and transports them to Mesopotamia, where the deportees were resettled. At the center of the gallery is a model of a Mesopotamian village, animated to show light shimmering on the canals at night and farmers plowing the field at midday, similar to those in which Judeans made their home.
Before the Al-Yahudu texts were found and studied, scholars only had an outline of life for Judeans in Babylon, said Dr. Wayne Horowitz, Hebrew University’s professor of Assyriology, who helped prepare the exhibition and the corresponding academic literature.
“We had before this an outline, a tradition, but as historians we couldn’t prove it. And now we’re actually seeing the community living its life, really fleshed out.”
He compared the experience of the exiled Judeans to that of new immigrants to Israel in the early years of the state. They were settled in a region of southern Babylon that had been ravaged by years of war and forced to rebuilt infrastructure and dig canals — the rivers by which they wept when they remembered Zion.
“Once they had built the infrastructure they were allowed to settle and build their lives,” Horowitz explained. Within a short while, the community became more prosperous and secure, a fact documented in the financial documents preserved in clay.
“It’s impossible to exaggerate when it comes to the importance and the amount” of information gleaned from the tablets, Vukosavović said. He called the Babylonian exile the “most important event in the history of the Jewish people.”
Each document catalogs when and where it was written and by whom, providing scholars with an unprecedented view into the day-to-day life of Judean exiles in Babylonia, as well as a geography of where the refugees were resettled. The earliest in the collection, from 572 BCE, mentions the town of Al-Yahudu — “Jerusalem” — a village of transplants from Judea.
“Finally through these tablets we get to meet these people, we get to know their names, where they lived and when they lived, what they did,” Vukosavović said.
The texts help dispel the misconception that the Judeans in Babylon were second-class citizens of the empire, living in ghettos and pressed into hard labor. While some toiled in base drudgery, others thrived, owned property, plantations and slaves, and became part of the Babylonian bureaucratic hierarchy.
“It teaches us that we weren’t slaves, like we were slaves to the Pharaoh,” Vukosavović said. “It teaches us that we were simply free people in Babylon, living not only in Al-Yahudu, but also in a dozen other cities where Jews either lived or did their business.”
Employing a variety of media — animated videos, antiquities from the destruction of Jerusalem, illuminated manuscripts, and illustrations to complement conventional text — the gallery culminates with the clay tablets accompanied by iPad tablets replete with information to better understand the cuneiform texts.
“One of the challenges of creating this show was to make it accessible [to the general public],” museum director Amanda Weiss said. “We had to create a way that would entice all ages to relate to this information.”
“This is an amazing collection. It is truly the world premiere of this archive on display,” said Weiss. “It’s never been published, it’s never been displayed until now.”
She said the museum admits thousands of schoolchildren each year, and she hopes that the exhibition will “supplement or inspire learning” of biblical history, “to take it away from the boring or the difficult.”
The exhibit opens Sunday, February 1, at the Bible Lands Museum, and will run for a year.
So that the readers understand what's going on, I will preface my remarks with some pertinent facts. Rav Auerbach's party is the "Bnei Torah" and his newspaper is "Hapeles" Now that we got that out of the way, let's get down to business. Rabbe Auerbach has decided that Achdus is not in his vocabulary and will not learn from the Arab Parties that united under one "flag". He wants to continue his policy of having everyone in Kollell and having Chilonim support them. He ignores the now proven facts that Kollel guys can no longer be supported forever... and that there is now a tremendous backlash against supporting people that refuse to work. There was an article in last week's Hebrew Mishpacha that poverty in the Chareidie Community is through the roof, and getting worse .... but nowhere in the article did anyone suggest that anyone ought to work for a living. I am all for learning, if they are supported, but to learn forever with no cheshbon is a road to catastrophe.. Blaming the Zionists that supported them, without questions, until last year, no longer gets any sympathy from anyone... Most people that I talk to...were in shock that the Zionists were supporting Torah all these years, without Kollell guys giving them the proverbial "thank you" but now that they withdrew most of the support, they scream "rashaim" Nobody is listening to that anymore... He is also adamantly against anyone reporting for the draft, which flies in the face of the Shteinman/ Kanievsky psak that everyone should report for the draft but not serve.. At present it appears Yahadut Hatorah will be losing the votes of the split-off Bnei Torah party in the upcoming elections. According to a column in the erev Shabbos Parshas Bo Bnei Torah-affiliated HaPeles newspaper, the decision has been made not to back Yahadut Hatorah. The newspaper cites a decision from 40 years ago when the litvish community did not back the only chareidi party at the time, Agudas Yisrael.
Persons affiliated with the party explain such a column would not have appeared in the newspaper without prior approval of HaGaon HaRav Shmuel Auerbach Shlita.
The newspaper explains the obligation to vote on Election Day is not automatic but subject to the decision of Gedolei Yisrael with each election being its own entity. “ככל אשר יורוהו, יעשה; וכלעוד לא יורוהו – אינו מצווה ואינו עושה”!
The newspaper reminds readers of the elections that were held in Teves 5734 when HaGaon Maran Rav Shach ZT”L and the Steipler ZT”L who always favored voting refrained from doing so and would not sign a kol korei that year and bnei torah refrained from voting as a result.
HaPeles quotes the words of the Steipler saying “כמתן הכשר בדיעבד על כל תעלוליהם”, voting would be tantamount to a b’dieved approval of the party and this is unacceptable.
The column begins detailing the faults of the party in the outgoing Knesset, citing even Agudas Yisrael is no longer true to its own mission of “וייעשו כולם אגודה אחת”.
The newspaper then condemns the position taken on the chareidi draft, citing the approach that was adopted are “naive and conciliatory approach that reflects criminal negligence”.
The head of Israeli watchdog NGO Monitor has blasted the US State Department for funding an Israeli election campaign aimed at ousting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, pointing out that this is not the first time that US taxpayer funds have been used to finance organizations on the Israeli left.
“US State Department funding provided to this ostensibly non-governmental organization is another example of the lack of due diligence and accountability in the dispersion of taxpayer funding,” Professor Gerald Steinberg, whose organization tracks foreign funding of radical NGOs in Israel, told The Algemeiner. Steinberg was responding to reports that OneVoice International, which describes itself as an “international grassroots movement that amplifies the voice of mainstream Israelis and Palestinians,” and which has received two grants from State over the last year, is working with an Israeli group, V15, in an anti-Netanyahu campaign ahead of the Israeli elections in March.
According to the Washington Free Beacon, which broke the story, former Obama aides are also involved in the campaign. However, OneVoice development and grants officer Christina Taler told the paper that “no government funding has gone toward any of the activities we’re doing right now whatsoever” - though she added that her group had used the State Department grants to “build public campaign support for the [Israeli-Palestinian] negotiations” launched by Secretary of State John Kerry last spring.
Steinberg pointed out that American taxpayer funds have been used for similarly politically-charged projects in the recent past. In 2012, USAID, the US’s largest provider of foreign assistance, donated millions of dollars to Israeli NGOs through the “Peace and Reconciliation Program,” which included support for the so-called “Geneva Initiative” - another grassroots project pressuring the Israeli government to make concessions to the Palestinians.
“After public exposure, the funding was discontinued,” Steinberg said.
No difference between Chassidishe Hooligans and Yeshivesha Hooligans. Chassidim fight for who is the legitimate Rebbe, and the Litvishe fight for who is the legitimate Rosh Yeshivah. It's all about power, and they have their naive minions fighting for their cause. My solution to all this, is to send them all to the army!
Bnei Brak early Thursday morning to carry out dozens of arrests at one of the Haredi world’s flagship yeshivas, following a series of complaints about violence, vandalism, and arson among a small core group of offenders, Tel Aviv police said Thursday.
Thirty yeshiva students were arrested during the raid at the famous Ponovezh Yeshiva, as police went door to door with lists of students, looking for suspects involved in what has been described by police and reports in the Haredi press as a feud between two rival groups of students at Ponovezh.
One of the groups is described in various reports in the Haredi press as “the terrorists”, and the other as “the haters”. The two follow separate rabbis, according to a statement made by one of the suspect’s attorneys in court on Thursday.
Over the past several months, police said they have received dozens of police complaints about acts of violence and vandalism and carried out the arrests in order to try to calm the situation at the yeshiva, known as possibly the most renowned Litvak yeshiva in the world.
One of the incidents mentioned in several reports in the Haredi press on Thursday, was of an incident during the month of Elul, before the high holidays, when students from the “terrorists” group ransacked a library at the yeshiva associated with their rivals. The incident was described as a “pogrom” in reports on Haredi internet sites Thursday.
Police said the raids were meant to focus on a core group of instigators, and by Thursday afternoon, 26 of the 30 were released without conditions. Another four were released from custody and ordered banned from Bnei Brak for three days. During their hearing Thursday, the presiding judge said that because of the type of allegations and the young age of the defendants, there was no reason to keep them in custody.
Israeli soldiers carry the flag-draped coffin of Captain Yochai Kalangel during his funeral at Mount Herzl military cemetery in Jerusalem
A family member mourns during the funeral for Captain Yochai Kalangel at Mount Herzl military cemetery in Jerusalem January 29, 2015. Reuters
Relatives and friends of Major Yochai Kalangel mourning during his funeral at the military cemetery in Mount Herzl Military Cemetery in Jerusalem on January 29, 2015, Major Yochai Kalangel was killed a yesterday in a Hezbollah attack on his vehicle on Israel’s border with Lebanon.
Relatives and friends of Major Yochai Kalangel mourning during his funeral at the military cemetery in Mount Herzl Military Cemetery in Jerusalem on January 29, 2015, Major Yochai Kalangel was killed a yesterday in a Hezbollah attack on his vehicle on Israel’s border with Lebanon. (Credit: Flash90)
An Israeli soldier from the Givati brigade cries during the funeral for Captain Yochai Kalangel at Mount Herzl military cemetery in Jerusalem January 29, 2015. Israel and Hezbollah signalled on Thursday their rare flare-up in fighting across the Israel-Lebanon border was over, after the Lebanese guerrillas killed two Israeli troops, one of them Kalangel, in retaliation for a deadly air strike in Syria last week. (Credit: Reuters)
The names of the two IDF soldiers killed in the Hezbollah strike this morning have been released: Staff-Sergeant Dor Chaim Nini, 20, from Shtulim, and Major Yochai Kalangel, 25, from Har Gilo.
Kalangel was a company commander in the Tzabar Battalion of the Givati Brigade.
Today, January 28, 2015, anti-tank missiles were fired at military vehicles near Mt. Dov in northern Israel. Two IDF soldiers were killed and an additional seven were wounded in the attack.Dor Nini, 20, will be laid to rest tomorrow in Moshav Shtulim, where he grew up.
Additionally, mortars hit a military position on Mt. Hermon. IDF forces closed the tourist site nearby and evacuated civilians from the area.
The IDF said in a statement that they hold Hezbollah responsible for today’s attacks and responded with combined aerial and ground strikes at Hezbollah operational positions.
Ok...now I heard everything! Are these guys insane?
A Week After the Tel Aviv Stabbing, A Jew Smuggles Arabs Into Israel!
Arab illegals have committed numerous high profile terror attacks - still, Jews from Charedi city try to smuggle three in a car trunk.
Read this shocking story!
There have been two high-profile stabbings in Tel Aviv in recent months committed by Arab residents of Judea and Samaria who illegally crossed the 1949 Armistice line - and yet a Jewish resident of a Charedi suburb of the city on Tuesday was arrested bringing Arab illegals into the Tel Aviv area in his car trunk.
A 32-year-old Jewish resident of Bnei Brak, a Charedi suburb of Tel Aviv, was arrested on Tuesday evening at a security point in Samaria on Highway 5.
After stopping at the checkpoint, a female security checker opened his car's trunk, where she discovered three Arab men trying to enter Israel illegally, lying in the compartment one next to the other.
The driver admitted under initial investigation that he received 250 shekels (just over $60) from each of the three illegal Arab entrants, and in exchange agreed to help them sneak into Israel, possibly to find illegal work - or else commit terrorist attacks.
All four men were brought in for investigation by the police.
As shocking as the incident is, it is the second such attempt that was foiled this week alone.
There has in fact been a long history of similar attempts to smuggle in Arab illegals.
Just last October an Israeli woman was arrested while trying to smuggle three Arab illegals past the 1949 Armistice line in her car, along with a stash of drugs. At a checkpoint one of the three was found hiding under a blanket in the backseat, and the other two hiding in the trunk.
Another Tel Aviv woman last May was arrested trying to smuggle in two Arab men, while riding in a car with her three daughters.
The phenomenon is made all the more sinister given that just last Wednesday Hamza Mohammad Hassan Matrouk, a 23-year-old Arab terrorist from Tulkarem in Samaria who was in Israel illegally, stabbed 12 people in an attack on a bus in Tel Aviv, leaving three of them critically wounded.
Likewise last November an Arab terrorist who had entered Israel illegally repeatedly stabbed 20-year-old IDF soldier Almog Shiloni hy''d at Tel Aviv's Hahagana train station - Shiloni later died of his wounds.
There have in fact been numerous other cases of Arab illegals attacking, with yet another occurring in November 2013, when a 16-year-old Arab terrorist who had breached the security border stabbed IDF soldier Eden Atias hy''d of Afula to death as he slept on a bus.
I’m confused. I thought Obama had called PM Netanyahu “Chicken**” But now Obama says “Netanyahu spat in his face” because Netanyahu accepted a Joint-Session ofCongress speaking-gig despite Obama’s threats. Obama can’t have it both ways. Either, Bibi is a fraidy-cat, or he has courage and nerve .
The real answer is Netanyahu has courage.
Obama will do everything he can do to get rid of Netanyahu in Israel’s March 2015 election, install a 'West Bank' terror-state, and keep the truth about Iran’s nukes from Congress, and the American people. That is why it is vital Netanyahu come to the US Congress, and tell the truth about Iran.
For the past six years, PM Netanyahu has displayed undaunted courage facing up to Obama’s incessant Two-State-Solution extortion of pushing Israel into 1967 ‘Auschwitz borders', and his crowning of Iran as a nuclear weapons state.
Why exactly did Obama call Bibi “Chicken**” and a “coward”? Well the exact quote from the Jeffrey Goldberg article goes like this: “This official agreed that Netanyahu is a “chicken**” on matters related to the comatose peace process, but added that he’s also a “coward” on the issue of Iran’s nuclear threat. The official said the Obama administration no longer believes that Netanyahu would launch a preemptive strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities in order to keep the regime in Tehran from building an atomic arsenal.”
Now, let’s break down Obama’s breach of protocol in calling the leader of America’s greatest democratic ally in the Middle East expletive-laced names.
To Obama, Bibi was unwilling to take “risks for peace,” so he’s “chicken**”? Is putting Tel Aviv in range of a Palestinian-Hamastan-katyusha rocket state brave? No, it’s suicidal. Is Obama calling Bibi “chicken**” because Netanyahu doesn’t want to commit national suicide? Bibi is upsetting Obama’s plans to stand by while Israel is destroyed.
To Obama, Netanyahu is a “coward” on the Iranian nuclear issue because Israel didn’t unilaterally bomb Iran. Iran’s multiple nuclear facilities are spread all over the place and in deep-bomb resistant bunkers over a 1000 miles from Israel. Then, there’s the 4500 meter high Zagros mountains that Israeli pilots would have to fly east over to get to the hardened nuke facilities.
Was Bibi a “coward” for not unilaterally attacking Iran?
No, he was a wise Israeli Prime Minister.
In fact, it is Obama who is the coward for letting Iran continue to enrich uranium, and to build up approximately 8 uranium nuclear bombs-worth of enriched uranium. Based on 2008 legally-mandated unclassifiedAmerican intelligence reports to Congress, virtually all of Iran’s enriched uranium has been enriched on Obama’s watch.
But, what if Obama is actually not merely just appeasing Iran?
What if Obama is actually lying to the US Congress, and the world, and de facto arming Iran with nukes. In fact, the real reason Obama doesn’t want Netanyahu to come US Congress is that he will tell the truth about Iran.
And, that is why every American must demand Netanyahu come to Congress, and give the true “State of the World” speech. For, if Roosevelt had been capitulating to Hitler like Obama is to Iran, and lying about Hitler like Obama is lying about Iran, Churchill would have also accepted a Joint-session of Congress invitation to tell the truth. Hence, it is principally in the supreme interest of the United States, not just of Israel, that PM Netanyahu come to Congress, and speak truth to the power of Obama’s Iranian policy.
Truth be told, what Obama is truly afraid of is the moment Netanyahu starts talking before the House and Senate and tells the truth about Iran.
The writer, who specializes in security issues, has created an original educational 3d Topographic Map System of Israel to facilitate clear understanding of the dangers facing Israel and its water supply. It has been studied by US lawmakers and can be seen at www.marklangfan.com.
"when your'e in the mud with alligators, you get very dirty"
Rav Sternbuch is a radical fanatic himself, but now he is getting a taste of his own medicine.
Rav Sternbach knows that the Asra Kedisha are a bunch of Mafia extortionists and ruled permitting building a much needed housing project in Beit Shemesh. The truth is that wherever you build anywhere in Israel it's going to be a problem, because the country is over 5,000 years old, and it's only natural that the people who died there, got buried there..... but most of the dead are goyim; Romans, Syrian greeks, Egyptians, Armenians, turks and even Canaanites... Read the following:
In their latest affront to Talmidei Chachamim, a group of sikrikim protested outside the home of Eida Chareidis Ravaad HaGaon HaRav Moshe Sternbuch Shlita. The protestors, 15 in number, spread fish oil near the entrance of the rav’s home and carried signs against him including one written in Hebrew saying “Reform Rabbi”.
The delinquents protested the rav’s psak halacha which permitted the continuation of a controversial housing project in Beit Shemesh. The Gadol Hatorah ruled that kevarim are not being compromised.
Eida Chareidis Gavaad HaGaon HaRav Yitzchok Tuvia Weiss Shlita is of an opposing opinion to the gavaad, which the sikrikim believe is license for them to deal as they wish with a Gadol BiYisroel.
The chareidi delinquents have targeted the gavaad and his family in the past with harassing phone calls, throwing trash and much worse at his home and even physically assaulting persons close to him
The former U.S. ambassador to Israel, Martin Indyk, has called on Israel’s leaders “to stay out of America’s politics” — just hours after he urged the United States to interfere in Israel’s politics, something he himself has been doing for years.
The latest events began with the invitation to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to address a joint session of the U.S. Congress. The New York Times quickly sought a comment from Indyk, who is constantly quoted by the news media since the conclusion of his singularly unsuccessful term as the Obama administration’s chief envoy for Israeli-Palestinian negotiations.
“Netanyahu is using the Republican Congress for a photo-op for his election campaign,” said Indyk, who apparently finds it inconceivable that the prime minister of Israel might want to speak to Congress about using Congressional sanctions to prevent Iran from nuking Israel. “And the Republicans are using Bibi for their campaign against Obama…It would be far wiser for us to stay out of their politics and for them to stay out of ours.”
That line about both sides staying out of the other’s business sounds reasonable and evenhanded. Until you realize that before he spoke to the Times, Indyk let loose his real feelings via Twitter: “Why should Netanyahu be able to speak and Herzog not,” he angrily tweeted, referring to Israeli Labor Party leader Isaac Herzog. “If Boehner is placing Congress into the midst of the Israeli elections, why don’t the Democrats invite Herzog too?”
The answer to Indyk’s petulant question is that Netanyahu is the prime minister. Israel’s prime minister is invited to speak in other countries, and the leader of the opposition is not, just as no Republican leader is invited to speak when President Obama is invited to deliver an address in another country.
Note, by the way, that Indyk served as ambassador in Israel in 1995, when Yitzhak Rabin was prime minister, and 2000, when Ehud Barak was prime minister. We don’t recall him ever demanding that Netanyahu, who was then the opposition leader, be invited along when Rabin or Barak came to the United States. For some reason, Indyk’s demand for “fairness” and “balance” applies only when it benefits the Israeli Labor Party.
The irony is that if there is one person in the diplomatic world who is well known for interfering in Israel’s politics, it’s Martin Indyk.
Consider:
– Knesset Members David Levy and Aryeh Deri revealed on July 26, 1995 that Ambassador Indyk personally lobbied them, and other MKs, to oppose a Knesset bill that would have made it harder for Israel to give the Golan Heights to Syria. (Agence France Presse, July 26, 1995)
– Israel Television reported on December 18, 1996, that Ambassador Indyk visited former Chief Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, spiritual leader of the Shas party, and asked Yosef to order Interior Minister Eli Suissa (a Shas representative) to block a housing project in a part of Jerusalem that was beyond the 1967 line.
– The chairman of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, MK Uzi Landau, revealed in March 1997 that Ambassador Indyk had been “pressuring members of the government” and “interfering in Israel’s internal political affairs.” (Haaretz, March 16, 1997)
– The Israeli daily Yediot Ahronot reported on July 8, 1997, that Ambassador Indyk “took part in the effort” to block Prime Minister Netanyahu’s choice for finance minister.
It’s worth recalling that when Indyk was nominated, in 1997, to serve as Assistant Secretary of State, The New Republic opposed the nomination–on the grounds that as ambassador in Israel, Indyk “distinguished himself by exhorting [President Clinton] to campaign for [Labor Party leader] Shimon Peres” in the 1996 Israeli elections. (Editorial, August 11-18, 1997)
That’s right, the same Indyk who tweeted about inviting the head of Israel’s Labor Party to address Congress, and then turned around a few hours later and piously told the New York Times that neither side should interfere in the other’s politics–he himself sought American presidential intervention to help a previous Labor Party leader in an Israeli election.
Hypocrisy? Two-facedness? Political bias? Sure, all of those terms describe Martin Indyk. But most of all, his behavior appears to be guided by a desperate hope that nobody will bother to take a look at his own record.
(The authors are president and chairman, respectively, of the Religious Zionists of America, Philadelphia, and candidates on the Religious Zionist slate (www.VoteTorah.org) in the World Zionist Congress elections.)
With their gutter sniping failing to stop Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s planned March speech before Congress, White House aides are unloading their full arsenal of bile.
“He spat in our face publicly, and that’s no way to behave,” one Obama aide told an Israeli newspaper. “Netanyahu ought to remember that President Obama has a year and a half left to his presidency, and that there will be a price.”
It is pointless to say petty threats do not become the Oval Office. Trying to instruct this White House on manners recalls what Mark Twain said about trying to teach a pig to sing: It wastes your time and annoys the pig.
Still, the fury is telling. It reminds, as if we could forget, that everything is always about Obama.
How dare Israel be more concerned with the existential threat of Iranian nukes than with Obama’s feelings? And what do members of Congress think they are, a separate branch of government or something?
Yes, the presidency deserves respect, even when the president doesn’t. Although Obama routinely ignores lawmakers and their role in our constitutional system of checks and balances, there is an argument afoot that Congress should have taken the high road and consulted him before inviting Netanyahu.
The argument has a point — but not a compelling one. To give Obama veto power over the visit would be to put protocol and his pride before the most important issue in the world.
That is Iran’s march to nuclear weapons, and Obama’s foolish complicity. His claim at the State of the Union that “we’ve halted the progress of its nuclear program and reduced its stockpile of nuclear material” would be laughable if it weren’t so dangerous. The claim earned him three Pinocchios, with four being an outright whopper, by The Washington Post.
Outside the president’s yes-men circle, nobody believes the mad mullahs will voluntarily give up their quest for the bomb. International sanctions made life difficult for the regime, especially with oil prices cratering, but Obama relaxed restrictions with nothing to show for it except negotiations where he keeps bidding against himself.
He is desperate for a deal, and the Iranians know it, so they want to keep talking. They are gaining concessions and buying time, which means a reversal of their weapons program becomes much harder to achieve.
The ticking doomsday clock is what led to the remarkable comments by Democrat Robert Menendez. After Obama warned that more sanctions, even if they would not take effect unless the talks collapsed, could scare off the Iranians, the New Jersey senator said Obama was repeating talking points that “come straight out of Tehran.”
That’s a zinger for the ages — and has the added advantage of being true.
Any deal that leaves Iran with a capacity to make a nuke in weeks or months will ignite a regional arms race. As I have noted, American military and intelligence officials believe a nuclear-armed Iran will lead to a nuclear exchange with Israel or Arab countries within five years.
Israel has the most to lose from an Iranian nuke, and Netanyahu can be expected to articulate a forceful argument against Obama’s disastrous course. That’s why House Speaker John Boehner invited him, and it’s why the president is so bent out of shape and refuses to meet with Netanyahu. He doesn’t want Americans to hear the other side.
But we must. And Congress must not shirk from its duty to demand a meaningful agreement with Iran, or none at all.
An extra layer of sanctions waiting in the wings is good backup, but another pending bill is more important. It would demand that any agreement come before the Senate for a vote.
Naturally, Obama opposes it, but that’s all the more reason why it is needed. As Ronald Reagan famously said about Soviet promises, “Trust but verify.”
So must it be with Iran and, sadly, our own president.
Tipping off the enemy
A front-page story in The Wall Street Journal is a stunner — for all the wrong reasons. Under the headline, “US, Iraq Set Sights on Mosul Offensive,” it lays out plans for a summer attack against Islamic State, including the locations and numbers of allied Kurdish fighters and which Iraqi units will lead the charge.
Most shocking, the source is Gen. Lloyd Austin, the top American commander in the Middle East. He told the Journal US ground troops might be involved and that the military “would do what it takes.”
What the hell is going on? Since when does the military give the public, and the enemy, advance notice of battle plans? Has Gen. Austin lost his mind?
Kathy Beitz, 29, from Guelph, Ontario, who is blind was able to use a device that allowed her to see her baby just hours after he was born.
In a YouTube video, that is quickly going viral, she gasps and says 'Oh my god!' as she holds baby Aksel in her hospital bed for the first time.
'Look at his long toes,' she says. 'I think he looks like us.'
Ms. Beitz was diagnosed with Stargardt disease, a genetic condition that causes macular degeneration, when she was 11.
While she now has some peripheral vision, she developed a blind spot in the centre of her field of vision and is legally blind.
The special glasses developed by the firm eSight is equipped with a video camera from which the images are enhanced and projected onto high definition screens in front of the eyes.
About 140 people have eSight glasses in North America,
The wearer can then adjust the contrast, brightness and shadow to make things easier to see.
'Their eyes actually perceive more when they look at the screen than they can with their natural eyesight,' said Taylor West, a spokesman for eSight to CBC.
'For the first baby that I get to actually look at being my own is very overwhelming,' she told the camera.
'The moment I got the glasses, I was very ready to put them on,' said Ms Beitz. 'I got to see that he had my husband's feet and toes, and I got to see that he had my lips.
'My husband and I got to have the family experience of looking at our brand new baby, and bonding with him and falling in love with him.'
The glasses have changed her life profoundly. She said they make it much easier for her to care for the infant, go to the grocery store and complete other tasks that would otherwise be difficult.
At a cost of $15,000, the device doesn't come cheap, however, the company has a fundraising department that helps people purchase the glasses.
The company is even trying to persuade insurers to make a contribution through healthcare plans.
Ms. Beitz sister also suffers from Stargardt disease and now works for the company that developed the spectacles.
She says she is forever grateful that her sister decided to purchase the glasses for her, although over time she will pay her back.
A number of efforts are underway to help raise money for the device and include using crowdfunding. and a campaign based around Ms Beitz's story using the hash tag #MakeBlindnessHistory.
'Being a person with a disability who has two children of her own, she knew the struggles of being a legally blind or blind parent. So she was very adamant about getting the glasses for me and work with me to use them, so when I did have him, I got to experience everything that she didn't,' said Beitz.
'When I knew I was getting the glasses, I got very excited. I knew then I would be able to read books to the baby and be a part of that experience ... it gave a huge independence to my parenting skills.'
