max-admin's blog
Here Are 5 Amazing Ways You Can Say
Happy New Year to Israeli Soldiers.
1. Send a soldier a Rosh HaShanah care package and personal blessing for the New Year at www.thankisraelisoldiers.org.
2. Find young people who served in the IDF and invite them for a holiday meal. (Wondering where to find young Israelis? They are waiting tables at your local kosher restaurant, selling dead sea products in the mall, shlepping furniture, running the
school's security or working out in the gym at the JCC. Give them the care and love
that we all crave this time of year and bring a soldier home for the New Year.)
3. When Israeli soldiers are maligned, stand up and defend them. Educate people about the morality and ethics of Israeli soldiers.
(To read the IDF Code of Ethics, visit IDF English Doctrine of Ethics.)
4. Say a prayer when you go to Temple or Synagogue for the
safety and success of Israeli soldiers.
5. Email your appreciation and support to the parents of an IDF soldier and send it to info@thankisraelisoldiers.org. They are so proud of their children yet, like any parent, they often spend sleepless nights and stressful days when their children's safety is at risk. We will make sure that they receive your notes of blessings, appreciation and solidarity.
Click here to Send your New Years Blessings and Packages to Israeli Soldiers.
Shana Tova to you and your family. May you be blessed with a sweet New Year
filled with great joy, wisdom and true peace.
Thank you for showing your gratitude & support to Israeli soldiers
with Thank Israeli Soldiers.
thank israeli soldiers
Despite the disappointing outcome of the DRC, Israel expresses its satisfaction that accusations and incitement directed against it in the original drafts were omitted from the Concluding Statement. (Communicated by the Foreign Ministry Spokesman)
The State of Israel regrets that the Durban Review Conference, whose declared purpose was to address prejudice, a scourge afflicting millions around the world, was exploited to focus instead on a specific conflict that is exclusively political in nature. Not surprisingly, the only national leader who chose to participate in the Conference was Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad, who stands out among Holocaust deniers in the world, and who delivered a vitriol and hate speech at the Conference. Already in the planning stages of the Durban Review Conference, statements were made by Iranian and Syrian representatives belittling the Holocaust. Iran, Syria, and Libya were the countries that played a prominent role during the preparations for the Durban Review Conference and during the deliberations at the Conference itself. In the preparatory documents for the Durban Review Conference, systematic attacks were made against Israel, libeling it with absurd charges of racism, apartheid, and genocide. No other country was singled out. This gross injustice was due to the preparatory committee's politicization and hijacking by the worst human rights offenders in the world.
During the deliberations at the Durban Review Conference itself, the Iranian delegate rudely and repeatedly interrupted the representatives of the Jewish organizations, attacked the Conference President for his moderation in conducting the deliberations, and demanded time and again that the Jewish organizations be punished when they spoke out against the massive human rights violations of the Iranian regime. This attitude at the Conference sadly reflected the Iranian regime's brutal silencing of its critics at home. Despite the disappointing outcome of the DRC, Israel expresses its satisfaction that accusations and incitement directed against it in the original drafts were omitted from the Concluding Statement. However, the Statement most regrettably reaffirms the flawed DDPA of 2001, which Israel and other countries firmly oppose. Not surprisingly, Iran, Syria, and Libya were the countries that insisted on including in the first paragraph of the DRC's Concluding Statement the reaffirmation of the 2001 DDPA, which had mentioned the Middle East conflict, twisting its political nature into an allegedly "racist" one by describing the Palestinians as victims of "foreign and racist occupation."
The flaws of the Durban Review Conference brought about the active opposition and the principled withdrawal of many countries. Prominent in safeguarding human rights in their territory, these countries understood that the DRC would become a platform for incitement, and they, therefore, chose not to be a part of it. Thus, they rejected the attempts of a number of extremist states to manipulate the conference and pervert its aims by dedicating it to the denigration of Israel. The withdrawal of many countries and the fear of additional withdrawals led the organizers of the Conference to close the Concluding Statement already at the beginning of the DRC. Israel's consistent and principled position that it would not participate in the Durban Review Conference, together with the withdrawal of many other democratic countries, contributed to the improvements that were made in the Concluding Statement. It has also made the UN consider downscaling Durban-related events in the future, and keeping inflammatory discourse away from the concrete work that needs to be done in genuinely fighting racism. It became clear, both at "Durban 1" and "Durban 2" that many of the issues that came to dominate the debate had essentially nothing to do with a bona fide discussion on racism.
While the DRC was a failure, Israel is hopeful that, by exposing its strident flaws, a drastic improvement of the Durban process will take place. The Jewish people has suffered for centuries from racism and xenophobia, persecution and genocide. Israel, as the state of the Jewish people, remains fully committed to the values of tolerance, democracy, and human rights. The necessary struggle against racism and xenophobia will always find in Israel a willing and ready partner.
3 May, 2009
Israel Opens a Special Website for the Pope's Visit
(Communicated by the Foreign Ministry Spokesman)
The Government of Israel has just inaugurated a special website dedicated to the upcoming pilgimage of His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI to Israel, set to take place between the 11th and 15th of May, 2009.
The website, presented in eight languages (English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Polish, Italian, German and Hebrew), contains textual and audio-visual information on the Papal pilgrimage, Israel-Vatican relations, Christian communities in Israel and Christian holy sites throughout the country.
The website will provide regular updates throughout the course of the visit.
The website will also provide live broadcasts of events during the Pope's pilgrimage, including a visit to Yad Vashem Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Memorial (11 May), masses at the Garden of Gethsemane (Jerusalem, 12 May) and at the Mount of the Precipice (Nazereth, 14 May), as well as visits to the site of the Last Supper (12 May), and the Church of the Holy Sepulcher (15 May).
The site may be accessed at the following address:
http://PopeinIsrael.org.il
Finally something that should have been done long ago. Please sign and forward to as many people as possible, Jews and non-Jews alike.
If you go to the web site you'll find a very moderate, rational, non-inflammatory condemnation of the way Hamas has waged its war against Israel.
Ending the West's Proxy War Against Israel
Stop funding a Palestinian youth bulge, and the fighting will stop too.
By GUNNAR HEINSOHN | From today's Wall Street Journal Europe
As the world decries Israel's attempt to defend itself from the rocket attacks coming from Gaza, consider this: When Hamas routed Fatah in Gaza in 2007, it cost nearly 350 lives and 1,000 wounded. Fatah's surrender brought only a temporary stop to the type of violence and bloodshed that are commonly seen in lands where at least 30% of the male population is in the 15-to-29 age bracket.
[Commentary] Barbara Kelley
In such "youth bulge" countries, young men tend to eliminate each other or get killed in aggressive wars until a balance is reached between their ambitions and the number of acceptable positions available in their society. In Arab nations such as Lebanon (150,000 dead in the civil war between 1975 and 1990) or Algeria (200,000 dead in the Islamists' war against their own people between 1999 and 2006), the slaughter abated only when the fertility rates in these countries fell from seven children per woman to fewer than two. The warring stopped because no more warriors were being born.
In Gaza, however, there has been no demographic disarmament. The average woman still bears six babies. For every 1,000 men aged 40-44, there are 4,300 boys aged 0-4 years. In the U.S. the latter figure is 1,000, and in the U.K. it's only 670.
And so the killing continues. In 2005, when Israel was still an occupying force, Gaza lost more young men to gang fights and crime than in its war against the "Zionist enemy." Despite the media's obsession with the Mideast conflict, it has cost many fewer lives than the youth bulges in West Africa, Lebanon or Algeria. In the six decades since Israel's founding, "only" some 62,000 people (40,000 Arabs, 22,000 Jews) have been killed in all the Israeli-Arab wars and Palestinian terror attacks. During that same time, some 11 million Muslims have been killed in wars and terror attacks -- mostly at the hands of other Muslims.
What accounts for the Mideast conflict's relatively low body count? Hamas and their ilk certainly aim to kill as many Israelis as possible. To their indignation, the Israelis are quite good at protecting themselves. On the other hand, Israel, despite all the talk about its "disproportionate" use of force, is doing its utmost to spare civilian deaths. Even Hamas acknowledges that most of the Palestinians killed by Israeli air raids are from their own ranks. But about 10%-15% of Gaza's casualties are women and minors -- a tragedy impossible to prevent in a densely settled area in which nearly half the people are under 15 and the terrorists hide among them.
The reason for Gaza's endless youth bulge is that a large majority of its population does not have to provide for its offspring. Most babies are fed, clothed, vaccinated and educated by UNRWA, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East. Unlike the U.N. High Commission for Refugees, which deals with the rest of the world's refugees and aims to settle them in their respective host countries, UNRWA perpetuates the Palestinian problem by classifying as refugees not only those who originally fled their homes, but all of their descendents as well.
UNRWA is benevolently funded by the U.S. (31%) and the European Union (nearly 50%) -- only 7% of the funds come from Muslim sources. Thanks to the West's largesse, nearly the entire population of Gaza lives in a kind of lowly but regularly paid dependence. One result of this unlimited welfare is an endless population boom. Between 1950 and 2008, Gaza's population has grown from 240,000 to 1.5 million. The West basically created a new Near Eastern people in Gaza that at current trends will reach three million in 2040. Within that period, Gazans may alter the justifications and directions of their aggression but are unlikely to stop the aggression itself.
The Hamas-Fatah truce of June 2007 allowed the Islamists again to direct all their energy on attacking Israel. The West pays for food, schools, medicine and housing, while Muslim nations help out with the military hardware. Unrestrained by such necessities as having to earn a living, the young have plenty of time on their hands for digging tunnels, smuggling, assembling missiles and firing 4,500 of them at Israel since 2006. While this gruesome activity has slowed the Palestinian internecine slaughter, it forced some 250,000 Israelis into bomb shelters.
The current situation can only get worse. Israel is being pushed into a corner. Gazan teenagers have no future other than war. One rocket master killed is immediately replaced by three young men for whom a martyr's death is no less honorable than victory. Some 230,000 Gazan males, aged 15 to 29, who are available for the battlefield now, will be succeeded by 360,000 boys under 15 (45% of all Gazan males) who could be taking up arms within the coming 15 years.
As long as we continue to subsidize Gaza's extreme demographic armament, young Palestinians will likely continue killing their brothers or neighbors. And yet, despite claiming that it wants to bring peace to the region, the West continues to make the population explosion in Gaza worse every year. By generously supporting UNRWA's budget, the West assists a rate of population increase that is 10 times higher than in their own countries. Much is being said about Iran waging a proxy war against Israel by supporting Hezbollah and Hamas. One may argue that by fueling Gaza's untenable population explosion, the West unintentionally finances a war by proxy against the Jews of Israel.
If we seriously want to avoid another generation of war in Gaza, we must have the courage to tell the Gazans that they will have to start looking after their children themselves, without UNRWA's help. This would force Palestinians to focus on building an economy instead of freeing them up to wage war. Of course, every baby lured into the world by our money up to now would still have our assistance.
If we make this urgently needed reform, then by at least 2025 many boys in Gaza -- like in Algeria -- would enter puberty as only sons. They would be able to look forward to a more secure future in a less violent society.
If the West prefers calm around Gaza even before 2025, it may consider offering immigration to those young Palestinians only born because of the West's well-meant but cruelly misguided aid. In the decades to come, North America and Europe will have to take in tens of millions of immigrants anyway to slow the aging of their populations. If, say, 200,000 of them are taken from the 360,000 boys coming of age in Gaza in the next 15 years, that would be a negligible move for the big democracies but a quantum leap for peace in the Near East.
Many of Gaza's young -- like in much of the Muslim world -- dream of leaving anyway. Who would not want to get out of that strip of land but the international NGOs and social workers whose careers depend on perpetuating Gaza's misery?
Mr. Heinsohn heads the Raphael Lemkin Institute at the University of Bremen, Europe's first institute devoted to comparative genocide research.
Original Article Link: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123171179743471961.html
Israeli goverment decided to stop the operation against Hamas in Gaza, while missiles are still landing in the south regions of Israel.
Sign the Petition against stopping the Gaza operation!
Scholars for Peace in the Middle East is pleased to announce that members of our SPME Network are exclusively invited to sign up for a Special Conference Call Academic Briefing on January 19, 2009 at 3:oo PM Eastern Time, with Prof. Michael Oren, currently serving in the IDF in Gaza.
Participation for the conference call will be limited to the first 125 of our SPME Network members who RSVP by emailing your name and home institution or town directly to Dr. Ed Beck at ScholarsforPeace@aol.com and asking for a spot on the conference call by January 19, 2009 at 12:o0 PM Eastern Time and are contributing network subscribers during the current academic year from July 1, 2008 through Present. Participants selected will be returned email with conference call call-in instructions. Participation will be on a first come, first served, space available basis to those who RSVP in time.
Michael Oren
There is still time to contribute to reserve a place. To contribute, click here . To see if your contributions are current for this academic year click here to check the SPME Honor Roll of Donors. If you don't see your name and thing you are current click here to make an inquiry.
Michael B. Oren is a Senior Fellow at the Shalem Center, a Jerusalem-based research facility, where he specializes in the diplomatic and military history of the Middle East. He is the author of the New York Time's Best Seller List and both academically and critically acclaimed book Power, Faith, and Fantasy:America in the Middle East: 1776 to the Present (Norton 2007)
He has written extensively for The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The New Republic, of which he is a contributing editor, and has been interviewed on CNN, Fox, The Charlie Rose Show, The Daily Show, and Today. He is the CBS Middle East expert.
A graduate of Princeton and Columbia, Dr. Oren has received fellowships from the U.S. Departments of State and Defense, and from the British and Canadian governments. He was a Lady Davis Fellow of Hebrew University and a Moshe Dayan Fellow at Tel-Aviv University. In 2006, he was a visiting professor at Harvard and Yale, returning to Yale in 2007. He has testified before Congress on Middle Eastern affairs and briefed the White House.
Dr. Oren is the author of Six Days of War: June 1967 and the Making of the Modern Middle East , published in 2002 by Oxford University Press. The book was a New York Times bestseller, and won the Los Angeles Times' History Book of the Year prize and the National Jewish Book Award. His most recent book, Power, Faith, and Fantasy: America in the Middle East, 1776 to the Present , was eight weeks on the New York Times bestseller list and won a Council for the Humanities Book Award.
Raised in New Jersey, where he was an activist in Zionist youth movements and a gold medal winning athlete in the Maccabia Games, Michael Oren moved to Israel in the 1970s. He served as an officer in the Israel Defense Forces, in the paratroopers in the first Lebanon War, and as a liaison with the U.S. Sixth Fleet during the Gulf War, and an army spokesman in the second Lebanon War. He acted as a representative of the Prime Minister's Office to Jewish refuseniks in the Soviet Union, and as an advisor to Israel's delegation to the United Nations. He was the director of Inter-Religious Affairs in the government of Yitzhak Rabin. Michael Oren lives in Jerusalem with his wife and three children.
• Visit Scholars For Peace in the Middle East website http://www.spme.net
Please give your voice against proposed Boycott of Israeli Academics in Ontario, Canada!
Please sign this petition from "Scholars For peace in the Middle East" - They need 5000 signatures.
You can sign the petition here: http://www.spme.net/cgi-bin/display_petitions.cgi?ID=15&Action=View
For more information: On January 6 Canadian newspaper National Post published an article - CUPE calls for ban on Israeli professors.
Uploaded a new video - Open letter to the world
Welcome to "We Love Israel" website!
We just launched this new community website "We Love Israel".
