Jewish Russian Telegraph

Dmitry and Vladimir: Shall We Dance?

Economist:

May 8th 2008 | MOSCOW
From The Economist print edition

A youthful Dmitry Medvedev is inaugurated Russian president, but a stern Vladimir Putin looms large behind him

AFP

THEY arrived separately but walked out together. Like a bridegroom in church, Vladimir Putin arrived for the ceremony first. In front of 2,400 guests, he entered through the Kremlin's oldest and grandest banqueting hall. Only after he had taken his place at the podium, with the patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church in sight, did the television cameras show the “bridal” motorcade arriving. The new president, Dmitry Medvedev, walked in through an ordinary entrance and stood next to Mr Putin. If there was any doubt about seniority in this tandem, Mr Putin then spoke first, about “passing the symbol of state power to Dmitry Medvedev.” 

  In his own speech, the 42-year-old Mr Medvedev promised to protect the freedoms and rights of Russian citizens. A few minutes later, the two men emerged from the Kremlin—Mr Putin in a long black coat, his protégé in a short black raincoat. “Comrade president”, the head of the presidential guard seemed to address both, as they stood shoulder to shoulder.

The inauguration took place at midday on May 7th. It marked the end of “operation successor”, devised in the depths of the Kremlin. But for all the pomp and theatre, it did not answer one simple question: who is now in charge of Russia? What is clear is that the transition of power has not taken place—or at least, not yet.

Mr Putin respected the letter of the constitution by stepping down from the job. But the red-bound document, carried by a goose-stepping soldier as part of the ceremony, has proved surprisingly accommodating for him. This may be the first time in Russian history that an incumbent president has left office in line with the constitution and at the peak of his popularity; but it is also the first time that he has stayed on as leader. As Dmitry Peskov, Mr Putin's spokesman, puts it, “Medvedev will be the head of state. But of course Putin is not going anywhere. As prime minister, he will be implementing the tasks he set out as president over the past eight years.”

Exactly 24 hours later Mr Putin was confirmed as prime minister. To gain extra legitimacy he turned last December's parliamentary election into a referendum on his own popularity; and has since become the leader (though not a member) of United Russia, the party that dominates parliament. In preparation for his move from the Kremlin, Mr Putin gave himself extra powers, including oversight of regional governors; and transferred more mundane tasks to some ministries, giving himself time to concentrate on strategic tasks.

According to Mr Peskov, as prime minister Mr Putin will use powers that were underused by his predecessors. What is less clear is what precisely Mr Medvedev's role will be—besides presenting a friendlier face to the West—and whether he will be allowed even to make significant appointments of his own.

“In the run-up to the inauguration, Medvedev was subjected to a series of humiliations, conscious or not, by the Kremlin, by Putin, and by part of the elite,” comments Lilia Shevtsova, of the Carnegie Moscow Centre. Two days beforehand, state-controlled television showed Mr Putin chairing his final cabinet meeting. His speech was like a headmaster's pep talk on the last day of term. At the end, in a matter of fact way, he wished Mr Medvedev well. “Thank you,” whispered Mr Medvedev, who occupied only third place in the news bulletin, as chairman of a meeting of trustees of an art museum.

Even Russian businessmen put their money on Mr Putin remaining in charge. Oleg Deripaska, Russia's richest man, told journalists that “his [Medvedev's] role is important. But you need to understand: it is a big challenge to take responsibility. As I understand it, Putin accepted this responsibility to develop his 2020 goals.” An opinion poll confirms that, although many Russians (47%) believe that Mr Medvedev should have real power, only 22% think that he will.

It is entirely possible that Mr Medvedev will remain a faithful minion and be smothered by the embrace of Mr Putin's appointees. But the Kremlin is a powerful fortress. So there is also a chance that Mr Medvedev will try to establish himself as an independent politician. If he is to do it, however, he will need to act fast.

The liberal, westward-looking part of the Russian elite wants to see Mr Medvedev as a beacon of the post-Putin thaw. They will try to exploit any cracks between Mr Putin and Mr Medvedev to steer the country in a more liberal direction. The new president's speeches are certainly encouraging. He talks of the supremacy of law. In his inaugural speech, he said that Russia's success was impossible without economic and civil liberties. Unlike most of the ruling elite, he did not serve in the KGB, which may make him less prone to paranoia and conspiracy theories. On the other hand, he owes everything he has, including the presidency, to Mr Putin.

Even if Mr Medvedev and Mr Putin stay loyal to each other, they may find it hard to contain the fierce rivalry among their apparatchiks. For the past eight years all power has been concentrated in the Kremlin. Any transfer to the government, even under Mr Putin, may seem like exile, not promotion. There is sure to be confusion on servile state television, which has long relied on the Kremlin's directions. “The Russian political system is based on the personification of absolute power and does not tolerate a division of formal and real power,” notes Ms Shevtsova. [read the rest]

posted by: jrtelegraph

Expected and undisturbed Hezbollah coup

Counterterrorism Blog:

By Olivier Guitta

 

Hezbollah has been rearming quite quickly- it has now close to 45,000 rockets, more than before the onset of the summer 2006 war with Israel- under the eyes of the helpless UNIFIL forces. For proof the March 30 incident when a missiles shipment coming from Syria was controlled at Jbal al Botm by an Italian battalion, part of the UNIFIL forces, and then authorized to continue to reach its final recipient: Hezbollah.

I just wrote on Hezbollah's coup for The Middle East Times. To read the whole article, please click here.

Here is an excerpt:

The Lebanese government last week tried to put a stop to Hezbollah's blatant takeover of the country. Authorities outlawed Hezbollah's illegal parallel telecom network and fired the airport's head of security, a Hezbollah ally who had authorized installations of spy cameras in order to monitor the movements of majority leaders.

Saying it amounted to a declaration of war, Hezbollah used its overpowering force to seize most of the Sunni areas of Beirut and shut down the airport and the majority-owned media.

Why is anyone surprised by these latest events?

The Arab league and Western diplomats seem to be speechless and several nations asked their citizens to leave the country. But the writing was on the wall. In December 2007 in an article entitled, "Hezbollah in Beirut's driver seat," published by the Middle East Times, I wrote that "unsurprisingly Hezbollah has been planning and implementing a secret coup for some time using a multi-pronged strategy."

What has been a surprise and a major disappointment for the Lebanese people is the decision of the army not to get involved in the fighting. While it is true that the army needs to remain neutral since it is composed of personnel from the various religious communities, it is no secret that Hezbollah has infiltrated it. The army was perceived as the only functioning part of the government, but the past few days have shown that this was just a bad assessment. Finally this should not have come as a major shocker since the chief of the army and only presidential candidate, Gen. Michel Suleiman, appears to be more and more taking orders from Damascus.

May 12, 2008 01:37 PM  [link]

posted by: jrtelegraph

Jewish Republicans And John McCain

Haaretz:

By Jennifer Siegel, The Forward

As the Republican Party coalesces behind presidential contender John McCain, Jewish bigwigs in the party are vying for influence in the campaign.

Currently leading the way is the House's only Jewish Republican, Rep. Eric Cantor of Virginia - a rising party star who currently serves as chief deputy whip - who is raising funds for McCain and the Republican National Committee as the chair of the GOP's 2008 Victory Jewish Coalition. The Jewish outreach effort is being co-chaired by Fred Zeidman, a Houston-based venture capitalist and perennial party heavyweight who chairs the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council and serves on the board of the Republican Jewish Coalition.

One alleged casualty of the Cantor-Zeidman leadership team is New York developer Mark Broxmeyer, national chairman of the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs. According to a person familiar with the campaign, Broxmeyer - a member of McCain's national finance committee who previously had headed up McCain's Jewish outreach - was 'pushed aside' to make way for Cantor and Zeidman; a press release put out by the McCain campaign late last month announced that Broxmeyer would chair a Jewish advisory committee to the campaign.

While some longtime McCain backers have seen their stars rise within the campaign, other Republican heavyweights who previously backed McCain's rivals have been making up for lost time with the Arizona senator, including St. Louis businessman Sam Fox, who was originally a supporter of Mitt Romney, and New York real estate developer George Klein, a major backer of Rudy Giuliani.

Much of the current jockeying underscores the typical competition for influence that occurs among deep-pocketed party insiders. At the same time, it reflects some long-simmering tensions between Jewish factions of the Republican Party, including the RJC - which was founded in 1985 and bills itself as "the sole voice of Jewish Republicans to Republican decision makers and the Jewish community" - and the Republican board members of various nonpartisan pro-Israel organizations and political action committees. During the 2004 campaign, several Washington insiders told the Forward, the RJC competed with board members from the nonpartisan American Israel Public Affairs Committee for influence within the Bush operation, with the campaign ultimately choosing Aipac activist Michael Lebovitz as its head of outreach to Jewish voters. While no official liaison has been named as of yet in the McCain campaign, one New York GOP operative not aligned with either camp said he believed that the same sense of competition has begun to tinge the 2008 race.

"There's a lot of elbowing going on right now to determine who's going to be in charge of McCain's Jewish campaign - the RJC or Aipac," the Republican operative said. [link]

posted by: jrtelegraph

The Morning After In Massachusetts: Deval Patrick Shows What To Expect From President Obama

Jon Keller in WSJ:

By JON KELLER
May 3, 2008; Page A9

"Sen. Obama and I are long-time friends and allies. We often share ideas about politics, policy and language."
-- Deval Patrick

There may not be two politicians on the national stage more alike than Barack Obama and Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick. Both went to Harvard Law, are African-American politicians with mass appeal, and use soaring rhetoric to promise a bold new postpartisan politics.

But the two men differ in one critical area: Mr. Patrick has an executive record. And, unfortunately for the senator from Illinois, it reveals that the Patrick-Obama brand of politics isn't really new. It is, in fact, something akin to the failed liberalism of old, in a new vessel.

AP

Deval Patrick and Barack Obama in Boston Nov. 3, 2006.

Mr. Patrick, 52, was swept into office in a landslide in 2006. He won because Democrats were energized to capture the governor's mansion and because he presented himself as an historic candidate. Having never held elective office before – though he was assistant attorney general for the civil rights division in the Clinton administration – it was easy for him to claim that he wouldn't be beholden to special interests or outmoded orthodoxies. Baby boomers, eager to make a permanent mark on the political landscape, also found the idea of electing the state's first black governor appealing.

What the Bay State got, however, is a pedestrian liberal governor who is remarkably quick to retreat in the face of pressure from the status quo.

Mr. Patrick's first cave-in came just weeks after he was elected, and before he was even sworn into office. On the campaign trail he promised to cut $735 million in wasteful spending from the state budget. But when the Democratic Senate president rebuked him for it, the governor-elect backpedalled. The Boston Globe summed it up this way: "Patrick backed off and said he didn't really mean it."

Another retreat came on a common sense issue that likely might have marked him as a true reformer had he made even a losing fight of it. Massachusetts is the only state that mandates that cops, not flagmen, direct traffic at road-construction sites. Earlier this spring, Mr. Patrick proposed loosening the requirement as a way to save taxpayers millions, but quickly recanted when the police union flooded the capitol with lobbyists. Within days, Mr. Patrick told listeners of his monthly radio show "the more I think about this, the less certain I am that we can fix this top down."

Education may be the one area where Mr. Patrick could have done the most to demonstrate that he is indeed a new man of the left. Fifteen years ago, the state enacted strict testing requirements for both teachers and students and passed reforms that encourage the creation of charter schools. The result: Massachusetts consistently places among the top performers on the National Assessment of Educational Progress. Sticking by these bipartisan reforms – or even expanding them to help minority children in poor areas – would seem to be an easy call.

But to the delight of education unions, Mr. Patrick instead appears to be laying the groundwork to dismantle these reforms. He appointed antitesting zealot Ruth Kaplan to the state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education, where she repaid his confidence recently by disparaging the college preparation emphasis of some charter schools. She said these schools set "some kids up for failure . . . Their families don't always know what's best for their children."

S. Paul Reville, chairman of the education board, has also drawn attention for his willingness to water down certification testing requirements for aspiring teachers. Under the guise of trying to overcome a teacher shortage, the administration wants to allow applicants who have failed the test three times to teach anyway. When pressed on the issue, Mr. Reville said publicly that the certification test "isn't necessarily the best venue for everybody to demonstrate their competency."

One characteristic of the Obama-Patrick brand of politics is the assertion that they can personally persuade disparate political leaders to reach a consensus. Mr. Patrick's biggest test of this claim came this year when he proposed bringing jobs to the state by allowing casino gambling in Massachusetts. The proposal angered an odd alliance of liberals and social conservatives because gambling is a highly regressive (if voluntary) tax. And it ended in defeat for the governor.

Rather than use the bully pulpit to create public pressure in favor of his proposal – Mr. Patrick told me in late March "I don't think that the way to advance most of our agenda is to do it through the media" – he lobbied lawmakers behind closed doors, using data that proved flimsy and skewed. In the end, his bill went down to a crushing defeat and, on the day of the legislature's vote, he skipped town to ink a $1.35 million book deal at a Manhattan publishing house.

What should trouble Mr. Obama the most is that the stirring rhetoric of Mr. Patrick's 2006 campaign, now being recycled by the Illinois senator (at times, word for word), is no longer connecting with Massachusetts voters. A mid-April poll found that 56% of the state's voters disapprove of the governor's performance. Even among left-leaning Democrats, more than four in 10 disapprove of Mr. Patrick.

Voters in Massachusetts had hoped Mr. Patrick's reformist promises and appealing style would mean a makeover for a tired political culture that has long since stopped producing satisfactory results. Instead, they, along with voters in southern New Hampshire and northern Rhode Island (which receive Boston news), now seem wary of the Obama-Patrick connection. These areas turned out heavily for Hillary Clinton in the presidential primaries and helped her carry all three states.

Mr. Obama has self-servingly said of himself and Mr. Patrick, "We are the change we've been waiting for." But what Mr. Patrick has demonstrated in office is that once the initial rush of making history has waned, these fresh faces seem to offer little change beyond the rhetoric.

Mr. Keller is political analyst for WBZ-TV in Boston and author of "The Bluest State" (St. Martins, 2007). [link]

posted by: jrtelegraph

What Happened to Raoul Wallenberg?

Below we publish an excerpt about investigation of the death of Raoul Wallenberg. Follow the link and read the whole story, it is fascinating.

San Francisco Chronicle:

Unraveling mystery of Raoul Wallenberg
How, when did man who saved thousands in Holocaust die?

Arthur Max,Randy Herschaft, Associated Press

Sunday, May 4, 2008

(05-04) 04:00 PDT Stockholm, Sweden --
Budapest, November 1944: Another German train has loaded its cargo of Jews bound for Auschwitz. A young Swedish diplomat pushes past the SS guard and scrambles onto the roof of a cattle car.
Ignoring shots fired over his head, he reaches through the open door to outstretched hands, passing out dozens of bogus "passports" that extended Sweden's protection to the bearers. He orders everyone with a document off the train and into his caravan of vehicles. The guards look on, dumbfounded.
Raoul Wallenberg was a minor official of a neutral country, with an unimposing appearance and gentle manner. Recruited and financed by the United States, he was sent into Hungary to save Jews. He bullied, bluffed and bribed powerful Nazis to prevent the deportation of 20,000 Hungarian Jews to concentration camps and averted the massacre of 70,000 more people in Budapest's ghetto by threatening to have the Nazi commander hanged as a war criminal.

Then, on Jan. 17, 1945, days after the Soviets moved into Budapest, the 32-year-old Wallenberg and his Hungarian driver, Vilmos Langfelder, drove off under a Russian security escort and vanished forever.
And because he was a rare flicker of humanity in the man-made hell of the Holocaust, the world has celebrated him ever since. Streets have been named after him and his face has been on postage stamps. And researchers have wrestled with two enduring mysteries: Why was Wallenberg arrested, and did he really die in Soviet custody in 1947?

Researchers have sifted through hundreds of purported sightings of Wallenberg into the 1980s, right down to plotting his movements from cell to cell while in custody. And fresh documents are to become public that might cast light on another puzzle: Whether Wallenberg was connected, directly or indirectly, to a supersecret wartime U.S. intelligence agency known as "the Pond," operating as World War II was drawing to a close and the Soviets were growing increasingly suspicious of Western intentions in Eastern Europe.
Speculation that Wallenberg was engaged in espionage has been rife since the Central Intelligence Agency acknowledged in the 1990s that he had been recruited for his rescue mission by an agent of the Office of Strategic Services, the OSS, which later became the CIA.
About the Pond, little is known. But later this year, the CIA is to release a stash of Pond-related papers accidentally discovered in a Virginia barn in 2001. These are the papers of John Grombach, who headed the Pond from its creation in 1942. CIA officials say they should be turned over to the National Archives in College Park, Md.
In February, the Swedish government posted an online database of 1,000 documents and testimonies related to Wallenberg's disappearance. In a few months, independent investigators plan to launch a Web site with their nearly 20-year research into Russian archives and prison records.
Russia is building a Museum of Tolerance that will feature once-classified documents on Wallenberg. And the CIA last year relaxed its guidelines to reveal details of its sources and intelligence-gathering methods in the case.
Despite dozens of books and hundreds of papers on Wallenberg, much remains hidden. The Kremlin has failed to find or deliver dozens of files, Sweden has declined requests to open all its books, and as many as 100,000 pages of declassified OSS documents await processing by the National Archives.
The Russians say Wallenberg died in prison in 1947, but never produced a proper death certificate or his remains.
But independent research suggests he may have lived many years - perhaps until the late 1980s. If true, he likely was held in isolation, stripped of his identity, known only by a number or a false name and moving like a phantom among Soviet prisons, labor camps and psychiatric institutions.
In 1991, the Russian government assigned Vyacheslav Nikonov, deputy head of the KGB intelligence service, to spend months searching classified archives about Wallenberg.
"I think I found all the existing documents," Nikonov e-mailed the Associated Press last month. The Soviets believed Wallenberg had been a spy, he said, but unlike many political detainees he never had a trial.
Nikonov's conclusion: "Shot in 1947."
Later in 1991, Russia and Sweden launched a joint investigation that lasted 10 years but failed to reach a joint conclusion.
The 2001 Swedish report said: "There is no fully reliable proof of what happened to Raoul Wallenberg," and listed 17 unanswered questions.
The Russian report bluntly said, "Wallenberg died, or most likely was killed, on July 17, 1947." It named Viktor Abakumov, the head of the "Smersh" counterintelligence agency, as responsible for the execution and cover-up. It said the Russians consider the Wallenberg case "resolved."
Unsatisfied, independent consultants and academics have kept digging, analyzing, reassessing old information and pressing for the Kremlin to release missing files.
Wallenberg arrived in Budapest in July 1944. With the knowledge of his government, his task as first secretary to the Swedish diplomatic legation was a cover for his true mission as secret emissary of the U.S. War Refugee Board, created by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in a belated attempt to stem the annihilation of Europe's Jews.
In the previous two months, 440,000 Hungarian Jews had been shipped to Auschwitz for extermination. They were among the last of six million Jews slaughtered in the Holocaust.
Of the 230,000 who remained in the Hungarian capital in mid-1944, 100,000 survived the war.
After the Red Army arrived in January, Wallenberg went to see the Russian military commander to discuss postwar reconstruction and restitution of Jewish property. Two days later, he returned under Russian escort to collect some personal effects, then was never seen in public again.
And what did his country - or his influential cousins - do about it?
Looking back a half century later, the Swedish government acknowledged that its own passive response to the detention of one of its diplomats was astounding and that it had missed several chances to win his freedom.
"The worst mistakes were done in the first two years," said Hans Magnusson, the Swedish co-chairman of the 10-year investigation with the Russians. Sweden felt intimidated by the mighty Soviets and unwilling to challenge them, he said.
In the mid-1950s, the Swedes pursued the case more aggressively, prompting a memorandum from Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko in 1957 that Wallenberg had died of heart failure in detention 10 years earlier - at age 34.
As more testimony came in that Wallenberg was still alive, Stockholm periodically raised the issue with Moscow - but without results, said Magnusson, interviewed in the Netherlands, where he is now ambassador.
Sweden could have pushed harder, he said, "but I doubt it would have achieved more."
"It is inconceivable," says Wallenberg's half-sister, Nina Lagergren. "Here is a man sent out by the Swedish government to risk his life. He saved thousands of people - and he was left to rot."
Some time around 1994, Susan Mesinai, who had by then been researching the Wallenberg case for five years, visited Lucette Colvin Kelsey, Wallenberg's cousin, at her home in Connecticut. After lunch, Kelsey caught up with Mesinai as she got into the car and told her: "Raoul was working for the highest levels of government."
"So I said to her, 'How high? Do you mean the president?' And she nodded her head," Mesinai said, disclosing to Associated Press a conversation she had kept confidential for 14 years. [read the rest]

posted by: jrtelegraph

Panel Discussion at Harvard University: The Threat of Totalitarian Islam

JRT Public Service Announcement:

PRESS ADVISORY
AYN RAND INSTITUTE

The Threat of Totalitarian Islam
A panel discussion at Harvard University

What: A panel discussion on the nature and threat of totalitarian Islam, followed by a Q&A

Who: Yaron Brook, executive director of the Ayn Rand Institute; Daniel Pipes, director of the Middle East Forum; and Robert Spencer, director of Jihad Watch

Where: Harvard University, Emerson Hall, Room 105, Cambridge, MA

When: Tuesday, May 6, 2008, at 7:30 pm

Admission is FREE and open to the public.

Description: What is the nature of totalitarian Islam--is it limited to terrorism or is it a broader movement? Are non-Muslims its only victims? Who precisely is the enemy? Does the West bear responsibility for creating this movement? What policies can defeat it? 

Defenders of Islam around the world have striven to silence critics with threats, protests and acts of violence. How should the West respond to demands for censorship, as in the Danish cartoon controversy? 

Panelists will address these critical issues in a lively discussion.

Bios:

Yaron Brook is executive director of the Ayn Rand Institute and a recognized Middle East expert who has written and lectured on a variety of Middle East issues. Dr. Brook has discussed the Israeli-Arab conflict and the war on Islamic totalitarianism on hundreds of radio and TV programs, including FOX News's The O'Reilly Factor, Your World with Neil Cavuto, At Large with Geraldo Rivera; CNN's Talkback Live; CNBC's Closing Bell and On the Money; and a C-SPAN panel of experts on terrorism.

Daniel Pipes is director of the Middle East Forum and a columnist for the New York Times Syndicate. Abroad, he appears weekly in Israel's Jerusalem Post, Italy's l'Opinione, Spain's La Razón, and monthly in Australia's and Canada's Globe and Mail. His Web site, DanielPipes.org, is the single most accessed Internet source of specialized information on the Middle East and Islam. Mr. Pipes has appeared on ABC World News, CBS Reports, Crossfire, Good Morning America, NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, Nightline, O'Reilly Factor, The Today Show, the BBC and Al-Jazeera.

Robert Spencer is the director of Jihad Watch and the author of seven books on Islam and jihad, including the New York Times bestsellers The Truth about Muhammad and The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades). Spencer is a weekly columnist for Human Events and FrontPage magazine, and also writes a weekly Qur'an commentary for HotAir.com. He has led seminars on Islam and jihad for the United States Central Command, United States Army Command and General Staff College, the Joint Terrorism Task Force and the

U.S.

intelligence community.

For more information: e-mail media@aynrand.org

 

Dr. Yaron Brook is available for interviews now and after this event.
Contact: Larry Benson
E-mail: larryb@aynrand.org
Phone: (949) 222-6550 ext. 213

posted by: jrtelegraph

Letter of American Antifascist Association Concerning Jewish Refugees From Arab Countries

JRT Public Service Announcement:

American Antifascist Association
of Immigrants from the Former USSR (AAAI)
30 Washington St., Suite 6A, Brighton, MA 02135
Tel. (617) 739-2354; e-mail iosifll@comcast.net

An Appeal to the General Secretary of the United Nations
and to Heads of State concerning Jewish refugees from Arab countries

The American Antifascist Association of Immigrants from the Former U.S.S.R. (AAAI) asks you for your recognition of an important historical injustice – that of 700,000 Jews forcibly evicted from their homes in Arab lands.
On the eve of the 1947 United Nations Resolution to establish a Jewish state in Palestine, discrimination against Jews in Arab countries became much harsher. Properties of Jews were seized, Jews were dismissed from their jobs, their synagogues and cemeteries were desecrated, and there were outright murders of Jewish citizens.
As a result, hundreds of thousands of Jews were forced to leave their homes and immigrate mostly to Israel. 120,000 Jewish Iraqis, whose forebears had lived in that land for 2,000 years, were allowed the following when they left for Israel: $16 if they were over age 20; $10 if they were between 12 and 20, and $6 if they were under 12. 46,000 Yemenite Jews had to trek several hundred miles on foot to the Yemenite capital, Aden, many falling ill on the arduous journey before being met by Jewish-sponsored planes that transported them to Israel. The property they had left in Yemen was confiscated and plundered.
These scenarios were typical of the experience of Jews fleeing other Arab countries.
Meanwhile, Arab propaganda in Palestine convinced the half million Arabs there to leave their homes for a few days while Arab armies destroyed the small Jewish country and drowned all of the Jews in the sea.
As is well known, on the day of Israel’s Independence, May 14, 1948, armies of six Arab countries attacked the Jewish state. Tel Aviv was bombarded by Egyptian planes. However, despite the hardships of the early days of the Jewish state, Israel absorbed all the Jewish refugees forced from Arab lands.
Quite to the contrary, Arab countries, with territories hundreds of times greater than Israel’s did nothing to help Arab refugees. Even today these refugees and their descendants live in camps supported by billions of United Nations dollars. Instead of helping the refugees establish normal lives and infrastructure, the Arab leaders, supported by the United Nations, relentlessly demand that Israel absorb millions of Arab refugees.
Yet the 700,000 Jewish refugees and their multi-billion dollars worth property forcibly left behind have been forgotten.
The United States House of Representatives adopted a Resolution on April 1, 2008 that recognized the rights of Jewish refugees from Arab lands forced to leave their homes after the state of Israel was established. The Resolution directs official representatives of the United States to include the matter of Jewish refugees from Arab countries in all Middle East negotiations.
We hope that you, too, will support this very important American resolution to restore the rights and property of Jewish refugees from Arab countries.

Sincerely,

AAAI President

Doctor Iosif Lakhman

posted by: jrtelegraph

 

Pro-Israel Activist Arrested in Boston

Solomonia:

Mark Nystedt (beard, left) at an event last October.

Mark Nystedt, Christian, indefatigable pro-Israel, pro-Jewish activist, was arrested last Wenesday the 30th. He is circulating his story, here in full:

As many of you know, I am an avid advocate for Israel. I have targeted liberal Christian denominations and individual churches that blame Israel and Jews for the hostilities in the Middle East (the so-called Arab-Israeli conflict) and who make excuses for those who wish exterminate Israel and kill Jews (Yesha Arabs, aka Palestinians, Arabs, and Persian/Iranians). This blaming of Israel and making excuses for Israel's enemies fits the classic definition of anti-Semitism. It is often expressed with phases such as "Israel occupied Palestinian territory" and "Israel Apartheid." The West Bank is Israeli territory occupied by Palestinians, the consequence of Jordan attempting to exterminate Israel in 1967; and Israel is the most respectful nation in the Middle East of human/civil rights of its minority citizens while the misery that Yesha Arabs find themselves is the consequence of their ongoing 60-year struggle to kill Jews and exterminate Israel. Targeted anti-Semitic denominations include the Unitarian Universalists Association, the United Church of Christ, and the Episcopal Church.

My usual advocacy method is to sit on a folding chair in front of an offending church with signage, fliers, and booklets. I listen to the radio with earphones and have a pamphlet in hand offering it silently and seated to those who passby. Last year, 5000 people took fliers. [Occasionally, I will pro-actively hand fliers to pedestrians. Last year, in this mode, 4000 people took fliers.] Targeted offending anti-Semitic churches include: - the Cathedral Church of Saint Paul (138 Tremont Street, Boston, across Tremont Street from the Park Street subway station and where the Episcopal Bishop of Massachusetts has his offices), - Old South Church (Copley Square, Boston, UCC, which hosted the Sabeel "Apartheid Paradigm in Israel-Palestine" conference in October 2007 and where Massachusetts Governor and Sen Barak Obama's northeast campaign manager Deval Patrick attends, Sen Obama is a STILL member of Chicago's infamous Trinity UCC) - the Unitarian First Parish in Cambridge (Harvard Square across from Harvard Yard), and - suburban Episcopal churches.

On April 30 2008, I was in front of the Cathedral Church of Saint Paul. Obviously, someone in Bishop Shaw's office called the Boston Police with a complaint about me. An Episcopal Diocese NAG (National Association of Gals) employee was hovering to observe the anticipated events. A Boston Police paddy wagon arrived about 2:30. The officer warned me that protesters had to be mobile/walking and not seated and that if I remained seated that I would be arrested. There is no city ordinance that requires protesters to be mobile and this arbitrary requirement by the Boston Police Department denies me constitutional right to free speech.

On June 11 2007, I was in a similar situation. Then I chose to leave. See my on-line unpublished letter to the Jewish Advocate about the ACLU declining to help resolve this matter (google 'ACLU anti-Semitism Nystedt'). The ADL also declined to help as they have programming with the Episcopal Church.

So, when I returned to this location on April 30th, I was fully prepared to suffer the consequence of sitting. I sat and I was arrested for disturbing the peace.

Handcuffed, paddy wagon, booked, and overnight in Precinct 1 cell 7. 5x7 with a metal shelf for a bed. It reminded me of Christ's tomb except that it had a combo toilet/sink an its walls were made of steal. Fortunately, I wore work boots, one of which doubled as a pillow. Didn't some ancient Israel prophet sleep with a rock as a pillow? Being in this drum amplified my snoring which great annoyed the lockup's other guests. I woke up at 2:30AM with the sound of the other lockup guests pounding on their walls. I told the arresting officer that I suffer from sleep apnea and need a CPAP machine. No allowance was made for that medical need. Obviously, I considered guilty upon arrest in violation of the the US Constitution. I was released at 3AM, now May 1st, with a summons to appear at the Boston Municipal Court (Edward Brooke Building, 24 New Chardon Street, West End) at 8:30AM, which I did.

The court got started about 9AM with 200+ cases to be heard. About one-third, with non-Anglo names, were no shows and issued warrants for arrest. A few were continued until lawyers could sort things out. The rest were either bailed or held without bail. My lockup buddies showed up wearing hand and ankle cuffs. About 1PM, my case was called. After 30 seconds of reading my file, the (Assistant?) District Attorney recommended that my case be dismissed. The Judge said "Case dismissed," I said "Thank you," and I left. The few dozen defendants still in court were taken aback.

Now, I am looking for a lawyer to sue the City of Boston, the Massachusetts Episcopal Diocese, and the individuals involved for denying me my constitutional right to free speech, harassment, etc, whatever. Any suggestions, except the ACLU and ADL, would be appreciated.

Thank you for listening/reading. Its been therapeutic writing this.

Mark Nystedt. Haverhill Massachusetts. [link]

posted by: jrtelegraph

Barak Obama's Muslim Childhood

Daniel Pipes:

As Barack Obama's candidacy comes under increasing scrutiny, his account of his religious upbringing deserves careful attention for what it tells us about the candidate's integrity.

Obama asserted in December, "I've always been a Christian," and he has adamantly denied ever having been a Muslim. "The only connection I've had to Islam is that my grandfather on my father's side came from that country [Kenya]. But I've never practiced Islam." In February, he claimed: "I have never been a Muslim. … other than my name and the fact that I lived in a populous Muslim country for 4 years when I was a child [Indonesia, 1967-71] I have very little connection to the Islamic religion."

"Always" and "never" leave little room for equivocation. But many biographical facts, culled mainly from the American press, suggest that, when growing up, the Democratic candidate for president both saw himself and was seen as a Muslim.

Obama's Kenyan birth father: In Islam, religion passes from the father to the child. Barack Hussein Obama, Sr. (1936–1982) was a Muslim who named his boy Barack Hussein Obama, Jr. Only Muslim children are named "Hussein".

Obama's Indonesian family: His stepfather, Lolo Soetoro, was also a Muslim. In fact, as Obama's half-sister, Maya Soetoro-Ng explained to Jodi Kantor of the New York Times: "My whole family was Muslim, and most of the people I knew were Muslim." An Indonesian publication, the Banjarmasin Post reports a former classmate, Rony Amir, recalling that "All the relatives of Barry's father were very devout Muslims."

                                    

Barack Obama's Catholic school in Jakarta.

The Catholic school: Nedra Pickler of the Associated Press reports that "documents showed he enrolled as a Muslim" while at a Catholic school during first through third grades. Kim Barker of the Chicago Tribune confirms that Obama was "listed as a Muslim on the registration form for the Catholic school." A blogger who goes by "An American Expat in Southeast Asia" found that "Barack Hussein Obama was registered under the name ‘Barry Soetoro' serial number 203 and entered the Franciscan Asisi Primary School on 1 January 1968 and sat in class 1B. … Barry's religion was listed as Islam."

The public school: Paul Watson of the Los Angeles Times learned from Indonesians familiar with Obama when he lived in Jakarta that he "was registered by his family as a Muslim at both schools he attended." Haroon Siddiqui of the Toronto Star visited the Jakarta public school Obama attended and found that "Three of his teachers have said he was enrolled as a Muslim." Although Siddiqui cautions that "With the school records missing, eaten by bugs, one has to rely on people's shifting memories," he cites only one retired teacher, Tine Hahiyari, retracting her earlier certainty about Obama's being registered as a Muslim.

                                    

Barack Obama's public school in Jakarta.

Koran class: In his autobiography, Dreams of My Father, Obama relates how he got into trouble for making faces during Koranic studies, thereby revealing he was a Muslim, for Indonesian students in his day attended religious classes according to their faith. Indeed, Obama still retains knowledge from that class: Nicholas D. Kristof of the New York Times, reports that Obama "recalled the opening lines of the Arabic call to prayer, reciting them [to Kristof] with a first-rate accent."

Mosque attendance: Obama's half-sister recalled that the family attended the mosque "for big communal events." Watson learned from childhood friends that "Obama sometimes went to Friday prayers at the local mosque." Barker found that "Obama occasionally followed his stepfather to the mosque for Friday prayers." One Indonesia friend, Zulfin Adi, states that Obama "was Muslim. He went to the mosque. I remember him wearing a sarong" (a garment associated with Muslims).

Piety: Obama himself says that while living in Indonesia, a Muslim country, he "didn't practice [Islam]," implicitly acknowledging a Muslim identity. Indonesians differ in their memories of him. One, Rony Amir, describes Obama as "previously quite religious in Islam."

Obama's having been born and raised a Muslim and having left the faith to become a Christian make him neither more nor less qualified to become president of the United States. But if he was born and raised a Muslim and is now hiding that fact, this points to a major deceit, a fundamental misrepresentation about himself that has profound implications about his character and his suitability as president. [link]

posted by: jrtelegraph

New Israeli Lobby's Goal: To Rape Israel

Jerusalem Post:

Candidly speaking: With friends like these...
Isi Leibler , THE JERUSALEM POST     Apr. 28, 2008

It's disconcerting and sad to see American Jewish "progressives" frenziedly lobbying the American administration to pressure Israel for further unilateral concessions to the Palestinians.

To make matters worse, they understate - even obfuscate - their real game plan. They describe themselves as "pro-Israel," "Zionist" and "moderate." They lay claim to being the true custodians of peace, portraying other Jewish leaders and AIPAC as neoconservatives and extremists. While tempting to dismiss their behavior and Orwellian doublespeak as naïve and inconsequential, recall that the sham Soviet peace fronts succeeded in duping many gullible well-meaning liberals into endorsing campaigns promoting totalitarianism.

It's all the more bizarre because no one would suggest that the current Israeli government is "hawkish." On the contrary, the Olmert government has lost the confidence of its people precisely because of unilateral concessions which undermine Israel's security and embolden terrorists. His government is an amen chorus which capitulates to every demand imposed on it by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. It has provided weapons to the Palestinians which will almost certainly once again be redirected against Israel; it has released and granted amnesty to terrorists; and despite bitter opposition from the IDF, it has closed checkpoints and acceded to demands compromising security which have already resulted in Israeli casualties.
Yet like a replay of the odious behavior of Haaretz editor David Landau, who told Rice that it would be his "wet dream" for the US "to rape Israel" for its own good, American "progressives" are urging their government to exert pressure on Israel for further unilateral concessions.
THIS IS not a new phenomenon. For years the Israel Policy Forum (IPF) has been lobbying the White House to get tougher with Israel. They claim that in 1993, prime minister Yitzhak Rabin appreciated their support for his efforts to reach a peace settlement with Arafat. They fail to mention that in contrast to Olmert, Rabin did stand up to US pressure. Rabin would have exploded had he encountered Jewish organizations exploiting his name as a means to justify lobbying the US administration to exert pressure on Israel.
As far back as 2005, IPF president Seymour Reich boasted how his organization had successfully persuaded Rice to force Israel to make concessions on the Gaza border crossing - concession that have since resulted in the loss of Israeli lives.
More recently the IPF shamelessly lobbied the White House to press Israel to negotiate directly with Hamas. Reich wrote to Rice on March 21 that "no progress can be made if Hamas - the governing body in Gaza - is totally excluded from the process." M.J. Rosenberg, IPF's policy director, urged the U.S. to "be extending carrots and not just slapping them [Hamas] with sticks".
The Progressive Jewish Alliance, another self-styled "pro-Israel" body, promotes exhibitions on US campuses of photo montages alleging the dehumanization of Palestinians by the Israeli army. They insist that their demonization of the IDF represent an expression of their love for Zion.
NOW WITH great fanfare and endorsement by much of the US liberal media, we have a new "progressive" initiative: an amalgam of various far-left organizations and individuals spearheaded by "Americans for Peace Now" and "Brit Tzedek V'Shalom" to establish "J.Street," a political action committee. Although proclaiming their intention to espouse "moderation" and bring "balance" into American Jewish leadership, their actual intent is to further US pressure on Israel and to undermine AIPAC, the highly effective pro-Israel lobby.
Such behavior is especially unconscionable since - aside from permits for extra housing to cope with natural growth in the densely Jewish populated settlement blocs implicitly endorsed by President Bush - the Olmert government has conceded to all US government demands. It has even discouraged AIPAC and American Jewish leaders from trying to neutralize State Department pressures on itself for fear of antagonizing the administration.
J Street also publicly opposes the use of force to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear capabilities, which undermines Israel's campaign to pressure Iran from going nuclear. In addition, J Street supports a swift withdrawal of US forces from Iraq, calls for direct dealings with Hamas and urges Jews to boycott Christian Zionists - Israel's strongest allies. J Street intends to raise funds to provide $50,000 for selected Congressional candidates supporting these aims.
Aside from a number of respectable personalities under the illusion that they have associated themselves with a "moderate" body seeking to promote peace between Israelis and Palestinians, J Street is mainly supported by prominent far-left Americans and Israelis like Ron Pundak, architect of the Oslo Accord. One of its principal theorists is Daniel Levy, a former adviser to Yossi Beilin who trivializes Palestinian incitement to murder Israelis.
Former Jewish Agency chairman Avrum Burg, who has compared Israelis to Nazis and has urged the former to follow his lead and obtain European passports, is another notable J Street supporter. Burg's ranting against his country is so vile that even most of his Israeli associates distanced themselves from him. Writing this week in Haaretz, Burg pushed the envelope further and provided a gift to anti-Semites everywhere by accusing AIPAC of imposing "dual loyalties" on American Jews and of "institutionalizing near-treason and turning it into an enormous octopus of a political mechanism with enormous dimensions and numerous victims."
Another key Israeli supporter is David Kimche, a leading figure in Israel Policy Forum. Kimche was director general of the Foreign Ministry under Yitzhak Shamir, where I had regular dealings with him. In those days, not only was he a hawk, but he even had the reputation of savagely roasting any Jewish leader who dared question Israeli government policies. "We live and die by our decisions, while you sit and pontificate from your armchair," he would say. Today he identifies with the extreme left. The Israel Council of Foreign Relations, which he heads, recently hosted a meeting in Jerusalem for ex-president Jimmy Carter, obliging the sponsor, the World Jewish Congress, to formally dissociate itself from the event.
The "progressives" will also try to capitalize on the fact that the Barack Obama campaign has embraced former ambassador to Israel Daniel Kurtzer and appointed him Obama's adviser on Middle East affairs. Kurtzer, a Jewish dove, previously urged the Administration to take a tougher line with Israel. In his just-released book - Negotiating Arab Israel Peace - Kurtzer refers to the withholding of loan guarantees from the Shamir government by the first President Bush as an example of how an American government can effectively bring Israel into line. He accused Dennis Ross - the Clinton-designated Middle East representative - of having been biased in favor of Israel. He even castigates the Clinton and Bush Administrations for not employing sufficient Arabists in the State Department.
THE US is the only country capable of withstanding pressure from Arabs and their allies to isolate and delegitimize Israel. Thankfully, US public opinion and Congress has never been more favorably disposed towards Israel than today.
Yet over the past year, the Bush Administration has tilted from its former policy. Nor can we exclude the possibility of a future US administration distancing itself further from Israel.
It is therefore imperative that American Jewish leaders not underestimate the damage "progressive pro-Israel" groups can inflict, especially in light of the mainstream liberal media support J Street has enjoyed at its launch.
In the face of existential threats, Israel needs the support of America Jewry more than ever. While all are free to express their opinions, "peaceniks" who have the gall to call on the US to put the heat on Israel to act as they believe best, rather than what the citizens of that democracy have decided is, must be exposed as fringe groups outside the Jewish mainstream. [link]

Jewish Establishment is playing with fire. Boston's very own Alan Solomont -- who is treated by the community as an exhilarch and a royalty --  is an active backer and promoter of this despicable project to rape Israel. Boston's JCRC did its best to treat extremist leftist fringe like Brit Tzedek V'Shalom as bona fide mainstream organizations. Did you ever wonder where did Evsektzia go? Their spiritual sons are starting J Street project in America. They are to Jews as Vichy and Petain are to Frenchmen.
Mareshal Petain and Vichy government did not go down well in history. Neither will J Street project. Shame, Shame, Shame.
Oh, yeah, Alan Solomont is Obama's super-delegate and a key fundraiser.

posted by: jrtelegraph

Ma'aleh Adumim Mayor: They Are Dividing Jerusalem

Haaretz:

Ma'aleh Adumim mayor: I got impression that gov't plans to divide J'lem
By Nadav Shragai, Haaretz Correspondent

Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni on Wednesday secretly toured the E-1 area between the settlement of Ma'aleh Adumim and Jerusalem, where a plan for the construction of large Jewish neighborhood has been frozen for several years, at the behest of the United States.

Livni toured the area accompanied by Ma'aleh Adumim Mayor Benny Kashriel, who later said he got the impression that the government was planning to divide Jerusalem.
The tour took place as part of a process of ongoing negotiations over the borders of a future Palestinian state. Israel wants to keep the Adumim settlement bloc inside its territory in a final peace agreement with the Palestinians.
Livni refrained from promising Kashriel that the construction plan will be unfrozen, but stressed that the issue is up for discussion.
During their tour, Livni refused to answer Kashriel's inquiries regarding rumored government plans to divide Jerusalem within the framework of a future peace agreement with the Palestinians. She said "Israel is doing its best to achieve success in negotiations with the Palestinians." Kashriel said to Haaretz on Thursday that Livni's visit left him with the impression that Israel is planning to divide Jerusalem and compensate the Jewish public by annexing the Adumim settlement bloc and other similar blocs near Jerusalem, like Givat Ze'ev and western Gush Etzion.
"This is the terrible old plan originally devised by [Former Meretz Chairman Yossi] Beilin, to remove Arab neighborhoods from Jerusalem and instead add to it the large Jewish communities surrounding it, which are outside the city's jurisdiction," Kashriel said. He explained that Livni didn't say these things specifically during their tour, but "that is the impression I got, and I am known to be very perceptive."
Kashriel went on to say the "we will not serve as the government's fig leaf for negotiating over the fate of Jerusalem. We won't agree to be the reward for the division of Jerusalem and we will fight it with all our might."
The Ma'aleh Adumim mayor added that the frozen construction plan in the E-1 territory must immediately be unfrozen, citing the importance of a Jewish neighborhood connecting his city to Jerusalem.
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said several months ago in a closed meeting that Israel had made it clear to the U.S. that eventually, Israel will build in the E-1 territory and added that any construction would have to be "done with the U.S.'s consent." The E-1 territory is the subject of much contention between Israel and the Palestinians. Israel wants to use it to connect Jerusalem to Ma'aleh Adumim, where some 32,000 people currently reside. The Palestinians, on the other hand, want to use the territory to create a continuity of Palestinian land from north to south ? starting in Ramallah toward Bethlehem.
The Israeli construction plan in E-1 encompasses some 12,000 dunams and includes 3,500 apartment units in three sub-neighborhoods, as well as a police headquarters, tourist resort and an industrial and commerce center that would supply jobs to thousands of Israelis and Palestinians. [link]

Kleptocrats in action. Israeli government -- stupid, ignorant, and corrupt. Hang on People of Israel, you deserve better this this bunch of retards.

posted by: jrtelegraph

Saudi Arabia: Driving Ms. al-Oneizi

Breitbart.com:

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AP) - Roads in Saudi Arabia are among the world's most dangerous but one type of victim stands out: female teachers who are dying at alarming rates because of long commutes through the desert to reach remote schools.

The Saudi government appoints teachers to work in villages where local staff cannot fill all vacancies. But unlike their male counterparts, female teachers in this conservative Muslim country have difficulty living alone in the villages, forcing them to commute each day.

Nof al-Oneizi was so worried she would die that she wrote to education officials urging them to find her a school nearer to her home in the northern town of Jouf, rather than the one she was assigned to 108 miles away—a three-hour drive because of the bad roads. Since women are forbidden to drive, she carpooled in a van with a driver along with several other female teachers.

Her fears came true before a solution to her problem could be found: The 28-year-old English language teacher died in a horrific crash last November. Five other female teachers, their driver and four people in the car they hit also were killed.

"We were devastated," said Suad Amri, al-Oneizi's aunt. "I still have her school papers, all splattered with blood. Her mom can't look at them. She can't absorb what has happened to her daughter."

Nearly 6,000 people died in traffic accidents in 2007 in this country of 27.6 million, according to the Saudi Traffic Department. That is a rate of about 21 deaths per 100,000 people—one of the highest in the world. By comparison, around 14 per 100,000 people died in road accidents in the United States in 2006.

A study released in October by the King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology, a Riyadh-based government research institute, found that female teachers commuting to their jobs have about a 50 percent greater chance of getting into car accidents than average Saudis. Its findings were based on figures from the late 1990s.

"The issue has become a national concern," said the study, which warned that the problem is growing with the rising number of teachers graduating and being assigned to remote schools.

There are no current statistics on how many female teachers die every year. But 21 female teachers were reported killed and 38 others injured in 11 accidents reported by Saudi newspapers since the school year began in September.

Accidents involving teachers often occur in areas where there is no cell phone reception or nearby medical help, leaving them vulnerable to dying from their injuries. It took 2 1/2 hours for the first victim from a deadly crash to reach a hospital last week, according to Al- Riyadh newspaper.

"It breaks my heart to hear of those deaths," said Suad al-Khalaf, a home economics teacher whose commute from the Saudi capital of Riyadh to her school 30 miles away in Dilim is 75 minutes each way.

"Every day, I'm on edge until I reach the school," she said. "I love teaching. But how can we be comfortable doing our job when we have to worry about getting to school in one piece?"

Many roads leading to the remote schools are windy, unpaved and full of potholes. Even on back roads, speeding is common and is even worse on straightaways through the empty desert. Many vehicles—particularly buses and vans—are old and poorly maintained.

Women are not allowed to drive in Saudi Arabia, so the teachers must hire drivers—sometimes sharing rides in minivans, leaving home as early as 3 a.m.

"It's as if Saudi (female) teachers are doomed to bid farewell to their families every day and embark on a journey they may not return from," Hasan al-Harthi wrote in Al-Hayat newspaper.

The Saudi Education Ministry appoints thousands of teachers to fill vacancies every year at government-run schools in remote areas. Ministry officials say they stipulate teachers should live near their schools.

But female teachers find it difficult to move because they need permission from a male guardian to live alone and have to find a landlord willing to rent them an apartment. Many take positions anyway and suffer through long commutes because job opportunities are scarce for women in Saudi Arabia, mainly limited to teaching and health care.

Education Ministry spokesman Abdul-Aziz Jarallah said in December that a ministry effort to build housing for female teachers appointed to remote schools had failed. None of the teachers wanted to live in the buildings, so the ministry shut them down, he said in remarks published in Al-Riyadh newspaper.

In 2005, four women made headlines when they decided to put an end to their hazardous commute: They married their driver and settled in a village near their school. Islam allows a man to take up to four wives at the same time. [link]

posted by: jrtelegraph

 

Skinheads Have Killed 57 People In Russia In 2008

Komsomolskaya Pravda:

Why is Russia suffering from a bout of radical nationalism?
Galina Sapozhnikova — 29.04.2008

Skinheads have killed 57 people in Russia in 2008. Why are citizens of former Soviet republics afraid to walk Russia's streets?
Continuation. Read the first installment in KP's April 28 issue

Skinheads have already killed 57 people in Russia in 2008. Why are citizens of former Soviet republics afraid to roam Russia's streets?
I'm riding the same metro line in Saint Petersburg where Sayana Mongush was beaten in December 2007. I see Tajiks sitting in the corner of the car quietly with their caps pulled down over their eyes. I also see peoples from the North Caucasus staring ahead fearlessly, prepared for a confrontation. And I blush. This is xenophobia.
Everyone has these feelings – only the degree varies from person to person.You can learn to restrain yourself. You can turn your back on skinheads attacking a migrant, or scream "Hit me instead!" as did an elderly Russian woman in the same metro car as Mongush. But one thing is clear. If internal limitations aren't set, it's easy to get carried away on both a personal and national level. Deep down many people have the "fascist seed." It only needs to be fed. There's nothing simpler. An incident in the history of the Polish city Kielce is a model demonstration of how xenophobia works.
It was 1946. World War II was over and nearly all Europe's Jews had been killed. The world had learned the horrid truth of the Nazi deathcamps Auschwitz and Treblinka. But new pogroms began. And these were orchestrated by Poles – not Hitler's army. A young Pole went to visit his sister in secret in a neighboring town. He returned home three days later. Afraid his parents would reprimand him for his actions, he decided to lie. He told them he had been held captive in a cellar by a group of strangers who spoke a foreign tongue. The boy walked through Kielce with a group of local men, looking for the home where he had been held captive. He pointed to the first Jewish home he saw. His elders paid no mind that the house didn't have a cellar. Forty-six people died as a result.
Of course, similar tragedies have transpired in the newly independent states – specifically in Karabakh, Transnistria and Fergana. Russians are all too familiar with these stories.
Xenophobia isn't the biggest problem facing Russian society, says the Russian Public Opinion Research Center, but it's grave nonetheless. Forty-four percent of Russians disagree with the slogan, "Russia for Russians," while the remaining 56 percent went from Soviet internationalism to Russian nationalism in only 15 years. How did this happen?

Fashion? Ideology? Technology?
It wouldn't be fair to say Western winds swept this xenophobic tendency into Russia like a belated fashion trend. Figures show that British skinheads are louder than they are dangerous. This simply isn't the case in Russia. We also can't claim xenophobia is related to state ideology. It would be hard-going for the government to influence Russian skinheads with a median age of 16-18.
Look at what's happening around the world. European politicians ended SS parades in the Baltics, yet youth attended a meeting en masse commemorating soldiers who fought on the Nazi front in Hungary – not old men. Anti-Semites attempted to organize a march in the Jewish district on the anniversary of the Night of Broken Glass in the Czech Republic. And Germany reports over 500 attacks against foreigners each year despite its heavy conscience after WWII.The strategy of attacking foreigners where assailants pinpoint a target, lie in wait, commit the crime and then disperse was developed in Russia – not the West. Experts say Dmitriy Bobrov of Saint Petersburg's Shultz-88 gang devised the tactic.
Russia's skinhead leaders certainly aren't dumb. They know their attacks have nothing to do with fighting migrant workers who are stealing jobs. First and foremost they are engaging in propaganda and terror. Skinhead ideologists used to say that financing was an integral key to the skinhead revolution. But today they have stopped telling their followers to search victims for money and valuables. They no longer tell them to commit greater crimes as adults with the use of firearms. It seems these groups have found a number of financial backers to support their cause.
It's hard to believe that this is happening in Russia. The country's benevolent relations with minority peoples is a historical fact. Russia did not assimilate 85 minority peoples who freely exist on Russian territory today. What happened?

Experts blame the collapse of the Soviet Union and sparks of nationalism in adjacent republics where Russians were blamed for a range of historical crimes. Even in the early 1990s, social psychologists warned that demanding daily penance from Russians would result in a nationalist backlash. And the parents of today's skinheads have been dealt the hardest blow as a result. How did the younger generations get caught up in the rhetoric? It's often thought that these young boys are simply acting out on conversations they heard at home as children. But it's unlikely so many children heard their parents blaming Kyrgyz yard-keepers for Russia's woes.

Motive for revenge
Who awakened the beast in these small boys? Two Chechen wars and numerous terrorist acts? It's true that nearly all Russia's police force toured the country's hot spots and shared their impressions on national TV. But Africans, Latin Americans and Chinese didn't commit terrorist acts and are still murdered each year in Russia.
Are migrants at fault for misbehaving on Russian soil? Partially. But as far as I can tell this has only happened once – in the case of Artur Ryno who studied icon painting in Moscow. He later confessed to numerous ethnic-related murders. Ryno says he was beaten by Chechens in Yekaterinburg and ended up in the hospital with a serious head trauma. The result was a vicious hatred for non-Russian peoples. This may be true. But his roommate Misha Sagnadji-Goryachev, a Kalmyk, said he never felt that Ryno discriminated against him. "If we ever argued, it was only about who would do the dishes," Misha said nervously.
[read the rest]

posted by: jrtelegraph

Roman Abramovich Builds $298 Million House

Haaretz:

Russian-Jewish billionaire to build U.K.'s priciest mansion
By TheMarker

Russian-Jewish billionaire Roman Abramovich is planning on building a mansion worth an estimated 150 million pounds ($298 million), British media reported on Monday.
Abramovich reportedly presented a building permit request to the Kensington and Chelsea council Monday for approval for the house, which will be the most value private residence ever in the United Kingdom when finished.
The house will reportedly include eight bedrooms and will include the renovation of two buildings in the Lowndes Square area of Knightsbridge in London. The two buildings are currently split into nine separate apartment residences that Abramovich bought individually.
Abramowitz, the second richest person in Britain and the owner of the Chelsea football club, is worth an estimated 11.7 billion pounds.
The mansion will join Abramovich already impressive collection of houses, including his other homes in London and Moscow and his summer homes in southern France, Tuscany, and Montenegro.
Russian media outlets have speculated that Abramovich real estate plans show he is planning to make London his permanent base of operations.
The mansion will also reportedly conclude a private movie theater, an indoor pool, a sauna and an entertainment room. It is expected to be eight floors, three of them underground. [link]

posted by: jrtelegraph

 

Pesach Message From The Lubavitcher Rebbe

Passover starts in the evening of April 19th. Chag Kosher ve Sameach to all our readers.

www.sichosineglish.com:

    The festival of Pesach calls for early and elaborate preparations to make the Jewish home fitting for the great festival. It is not physical preparedness alone that is required of us, but also spiritual preparedness --for in the life of the Jew the physical and spiritual are closely linked together, especially in the celebration of our Sabbath and festivals.
    On Pesach we celebrate the liberation of the Jewish people from Egyptian slavery and, together with it, the liberation from, and negation of the ancient Egyptian system and way of life, the "abominations of Egypt." Thus we celebrate our physical liberation together with our spiritual freedom.  Indeed, there cannot be one without the other: There can be no real freedom without accepting the precepts of our Torah guiding our daily life; pure and holy life eventually leads to real freedom.  It is said, "In every generation each Jew should see himself as though he personally had been liberated from Egypt." This is to say, that the lesson of Pesach has always a timely message for the individual Jew.
    The story of Pesach is the story of the special Divine Providence which alone determines the fate of our people.  What is happening in the outside world need not affect us; we might be singled out for suffering, G-d forbid, amid general prosperity, and likewise for safety amid a general plague or catastrophe. The story of our enslavement and liberation of which Pesach tells us gives ample illustration of this. For the fate of our people is determined by its adherence to G-d and His Prophets.  This lesson is emphasized by the three principal symbols of the Seder, concerning which our Sages said that unless the Jew explains their significance he has not observed the Seder fittingly: Pesach, Matzah and Morror.
    Using these symbols in their chronological order and in accordance with their Haggadah explanation we may say: the Jew can avoid Morror (bitterness of life) only through Pesach (G-d's special care "passing over" and saving the Jewish homes even in the midst of the greatest plague), and Matzah -- then the very catastrophe and the enemies of the Jews will work for the benefit of the Jews, driving them in great haste out of "Mitzrayim," the place of perversion and darkness, and placing them under the beam of light and holiness.
    One other important thing we must remember: the celebration of the festival of freedom must be connected with the commandment "You shall relate it to your son."
    The formation and existence of the Jewish home, as of the Jewish people as a whole, is dependent upon the upbringing of the young generation, both boys and girls: the wise and the wicked (temporarily), the simple and the one who knows not what to ask.
    Just as we cannot shirk our responsibility towards our child by the excuse that "my child is a wise one; he will find his own way in life; therefore no education is necessary for him," so we must not despair by thinking "the child is a wicked one; no education will help him."
    For, all Jewish children, boys and girls, are "G-d's children," and it is our sacred duty to see to it that they all live up to their above-mentioned title; and this we can achieve only through a proper Jewish education, in full adherence to G-d's Torah. Then we all will merit the realization of our ardent hopes: "In the next year may we be free; in the next year may we be in Jerusalem!"

    Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson [link]

posted by: jrtelegraph