A Voice Amidst the Storm

In yet another unabashedly supportive editorial in the Wall Street Journal, Bret Stephens defends Israel’s position and explains it’s current predicament.  As once allies abandon Israel left and right, the small “island” nation reels to find some balance and hold strong in this storm that has erupted from the Arab Spring.   

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111904265504576566431045060822.html

An Inspirational Show of Determination

Seven months after she was shot in the head by a gunman in Tucson, Ariz., Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) made a surprise and emotional return to the House floor on Monday, casting a vote in favor of a bill to raise the nation’s debt ceiling.

Gabrielle Giffords, AZ Representative, receives warm welcome from colleagues

Giffords entered the chamber to sustained, standing applause, shaking hands with colleagues whom she had not seen since that January day. Her vote, a sideshow to the far more important and compelling personal drama, was in favor of the bill, which passed through the chamber by a margin of 269 to 161.

“I have closely followed the debate over our debt ceiling and have been deeply disappointed at what’s going on in Washington,” Giffords said, in a statement from her office. “After weeks of failed debate in Washington, I was pleased to see a solution to this crisis emerge. I strongly believe that crossing the aisle for the good of the American people is more important than party politics. I had to be here for this vote. I could not take the chance that my absence could crash our economy.”

For the rest of the article:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/01/gabrielle-giffords-debt-ceiling-vote_n_915569.html?icid=maing-grid7%7Caim%7Cdl1%7Csec1_lnk1%7C82716

UN Security Council’s Political Meddling

The UN Security Council is currently attempting to pass a resolution condemning all Israeli settlement activity as “illegal.”  This non-binding, Chapter VI resolution is contradictory to its previous resolution 242, which the peace process has been based on, and will only serve to complicate the already complicated political negotiations.  The only chance to defeat this resolution is for the US to exercise its veto. 

In his editorial in the Wall Street Journal, Alan Dershowitz gives his position condemning the resolution:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704698004576104043350034886.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEFTTopOpinion

Egypt’s True Colors

“When the only diagnosis Egyptians can offer for their various predicaments—ranging from sectarian terrorism to a recent spate of freak shark attacks at a Sinai beach resort—is that it’s all a Zionist plot, you know that the country is in very deep trouble.”

A good Wall Street Journal editorial by Bret Stephens

For the whole editorial:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704735304576058382591955692.html#articleTabs%3Darticle

A Warrior is Held up to the American People as an Example to his Fellows

The Newest Medal of Honor

The man who has earned it is the first from this war to live to see it.

• By WILLIAM MCGURN

Army Staff Sgt. Salvatore Giunta Receives the Medal of Honor Today at the White House

At one o’clock today in the East Room of the White House, an Iowa-born soldier will receive the nation’s highest decoration for valor in combat. In our nine-year war in Afghanistan and Iraq, this is only the eighth Medal of Honor. Even more rare, the man who has earned it is the first from this war to live to see the president place it around his neck.

The soldier is Army Staff Sgt. Salvatore Giunta. On Oct. 25, 2007, then-Specialist Giunta and his team were on a mountain ridge in Afghanistan’s violent Korengal Valley when they were ambushed by the Taliban. He took a bullet stopped by a protective vest as he helped pull one soldier to safety.

Then he went forward to help the sergeant, Joshua Brennan, who had been walking point. Two Taliban were carrying Sgt. Brennan away. Spec. Giunta shot the Taliban and brought Sgt. Brennan back.

For the rest of the article in the Wall Street Journal: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703326204575616572168606014.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_carousel_2

Inspiration from a Jewish Astronaut

Where (almost) no Jew has gone before

 

By GIL SHEFLER 
11/08/2010 11:00

Astronaut Garret Reiseman charms audience at Jewish Federation of North America’s General Assembly with stories of space mezuzahs.

NEW ORLEANS – Garret Reiseman is a Jewish pioneer. No, he doesn’t grow cucumbers on a kibbutz in the Negev. His frontier is space and his mission is to boldly go where no Jew has gone before, or at least relatively few.

“I’m the first Jew to have been on the international space station,” Reiseman said at the Jewish Federation of North America’s General Assembly on Monday where he was a guest of Limmud FSU, an organization dedicated to promoting Jewish education among Russian-speakers. “It’s very hard to break records in space today. Yuri Gagarin first man in space, it’s been done. First man on the moon Neil Armstrong, been done. The first Jew in space, that’s been done long ago. So all I have is this: the first Jewish crew member on the international space station, and I brought with me a mezuzah.” 

For the rest of the article: http://www.jpost.com/JewishWorld/JewishNews/Article.aspx?id=194447

Blatant Anti-Semitism, Not Connected to Middle-East Politics

Islamic terrorists usually try to justify attacks on Jews as anti-Israeli or because of Israeli-Palestinian issues… targeting US synagogues once again reveals the Arab cause for what it is: Modern Anti-Semitism.

This is just one of countless examples of cowardly acts displayed by the modern Jihad terrorist movement.  They target the softest targets in the world and then pour into the streets to claim that Israel is the perpetrator of “war crimes.” If the Jews played by the Arab Jihadis’ rules there would be no mosques left.  One must assume that they attempt to perpetrate such attacks knowing that the Jews would never stoop to tactics as low as their own. 

 

U.S. Jews on alert after parcel bomb addressed to synagogue

Rabbi of Or Chadash, congregation that was apparently targeted, says his community is ‘unduly frightened’; N.Y. Assemblyman Hikind: Synagogues will have to find ways to protect themselves.

For the rest of the story:

http://www.haaretz.com/jewish-world/u-s-jews-on-alert-after-parcel-bomb-addressed-to-synagogue-1.322189

An Important Initiative as Illegal-Drug-Trade Related Crime Soars Out of Control

• OPINION
• OCTOBER 26, 2010

Why I Support Legal Marijuana

We should invest in effective education rather than ineffective arrest and incarceration.

• By GEORGE SOROS

Our marijuana laws are clearly doing more harm than good. The criminalization of marijuana did not prevent marijuana from becoming the most widely used illegal substance in the United States and many other countries. But it did result in extensive costs and negative consequences.

Law enforcement agencies today spend many billions of taxpayer dollars annually trying to enforce this unenforceable prohibition. The roughly 750,000 arrests they make each year for possession of small amounts of marijuana represent more than 40% of all drug arrests.

Regulating and taxing marijuana would simultaneously save taxpayers billions of dollars in enforcement and incarceration costs, while providing many billions of dollars in revenue annually. It also would reduce the crime, violence and corruption associated with drug markets, and the violations of civil liberties and human rights that occur when large numbers of otherwise law-abiding citizens are subject to arrest. Police could focus on serious crime instead.

The racial inequities that are part and parcel of marijuana enforcement policies cannot be ignored. African-Americans are no more likely than other Americans to use marijuana but they are three, five or even 10 times more likely—depending on the city—to be arrested for possessing marijuana. I agree with Alice Huffman, president of the California NAACP, when she says that being caught up in the criminal justice system does more harm to young people than marijuana itself. Giving millions of young Americans a permanent drug arrest record that may follow them for life serves no one’s interests.

Racial prejudice also helps explain the origins of marijuana prohibition. When California and other U.S. states first decided (between 1915 and 1933) to criminalize marijuana, the principal motivations were not grounded in science or public health but rather in prejudice and discrimination against immigrants from Mexico who reputedly smoked the “killer weed.”

Who most benefits from keeping marijuana illegal? The greatest beneficiaries are the major criminal organizations in Mexico and elsewhere that earn billions of dollars annually from this illicit trade—and who would rapidly lose their competitive advantage if marijuana were a legal commodity. Some claim that they would only move into other illicit enterprises, but they are more likely to be weakened by being deprived of the easy profits they can earn with marijuana.

This was just one reason the Latin American Commission on Drugs and Democracy—chaired by three distinguished former presidents, Fernando Henrique Cardoso of Brazil, César Gaviria of Colombia and Ernesto Zedillo of Mexico—included marijuana decriminalization among their recommendations for reforming drug policies in the Americas.

Like many parents and grandparents, I am worried about young people getting into trouble with marijuana and other drugs. The best solution, however, is honest and effective drug education. One survey after another indicates that teenagers have better access than most adults to marijuana—and often other drugs as well—and find it easier to buy marijuana than alcohol. Legalizing marijuana may make it easier for adults to buy marijuana, but it can hardly make it any more accessible to young people. I’d much rather invest in effective education than ineffective arrest and incarceration.

California’s Proposition 19, which would legalize the recreational use and small-scale cultivation of marijuana, wouldn’t solve all the problems connected with the drug. But it would represent a major step forward, and its deficiencies can be corrected on the basis of experience. Just as the process of repealing national alcohol prohibition began with individual states repealing their own prohibition laws, so individual states must now take the initiative with respect to repealing marijuana prohibition laws. And just as California provided national leadership in 1996 by becoming the first state to legalize the medical use of marijuana, so it has an opportunity once again to lead the nation.

In many respects, of course, Proposition 19 already is a winner no matter what happens on Election Day. The mere fact of its being on the ballot has elevated and legitimized public discourse about marijuana and marijuana policy in ways I could not have imagined a year ago.

These are the reasons I have decided to support Proposition 19 and invite others to do so.

Mr. Soros is chairman of Soros Fund Management and founder of the Open Society Foundations.

Our Ambassador to the US Responds to Time Magazine’s Ludicrous Cover

Michael Oren wrote this response to Time, which as usual, says it best.  He is one of our greatest orators and pro-advocates.  Seen in one of my recent posts here, Time ran a damaging cover story about Israelis’ desire for peace. 

This was published in the LA Times last week. 

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-oren-israelpeace-20100915,0,6374377.story

An Inexplicable Example of Injustice

A true tragedy.  Jonathan Pollard, a former civilian intelligence analyst for the US Navy, was convicted of spying for Israel 25 years ago and received a life sentence for passing classified information to an ally.
The information was about the Soviet Union and their dealings with the Arabs.  He has now been in US prison for over 9000 days…

And just last week a deep spy ring of Russians was uncovered and arrested.  These spies were directly spying on the US, and were handed back to Russia, along with their freedom, within a week, for an exchange for the US’s spies.  Is Israel’s folly not locking up Americans as bargaining chips for Pollard??

http://www.jpost.com/Israel/Article.aspx?id=181356

http://www.jonathanpollard.org/