Clinton to P.A.: talk with Israel
Clinton to P.A.: talk with Israel Read More »
April 16, 2010
黎巴嫩真主党放话导弹可以袭击以色列全境 Hizbullah Scuds
————真主党、叙利亚、以色列这三家又开始干嘴仗了。以色列说利亚向真主党运输了飞毛腿导弹。耳闻有家科威特的报纸Al -Rai说真主党方面已经承认了这种说法。
————昨天我也有耳闻。今天又有什么消息？
————今天呀，一位真主党政府部长(Hussein Haj Hassan)对此作了间接回应，他说真主党一直武装自己为战斗做准备。他既没有肯定从叙利亚那里接受了这批导弹，也没有否认。叙利亚的外交部长则极力否认向真主党输送了这批武器。
————以色列方面有没有公开什么证据？
————我没听说有证据。
————那谁说的是真的？
————我又不是情报界的内部人士，只能猜猜了。真主党和叙利亚都是以色列的死对头，打过仗，武器从哪里来的？当然不会天上掉下来，一定是有运输的。上次以色列和真主党开打的时候，真主党的武器射程就有所提高。如果有人说叙利亚想方设法向真主党提供武器，我觉得在意料之中。至于有没有把飞毛腿导弹运过去，我觉得有可能。因为真主党的领袖Sheik Hassan Nasrallah曾说他的追随者有3万枚火箭弹，有能力达到以色列境内任何地方。听起来，真主党已经有了足够射程的导弹。说他们获得了飞毛腿，说得过去。
————会不会是Nasrallah吹牛？
————你的问题太难回答了。我又不是情报部门内部要员，能说得清楚吗？以色列的敌人公开宣传鼓动消灭以色列也不是一天两天了，他们不仅这么说，也确实千方百计努力这么做。有动机，有行为。既然真主党已经放了狠话，我看最好不要掉以轻心。
————那伊朗呢？伊朗说要抹掉以色列也不是一回两回了。
————伊朗核问题确实很头疼。对于以色列来讲，伊朗的言论和这些年来的所作所为当然很值得担心。
————那除了以色列以外的其他国家呢？
————伊朗和以色列不接壤。伊朗是波斯族的国家，伊斯兰教什叶派。邻近的阿拉伯国家可能也有坐立不安的。
————那美国呢？
————美国不希望伊朗发展核武器，这是大家都知道的。但我觉得伊朗导弹的射程还够不着美国。伊朗得先有打击周边国家的能力，得先有能打到中国、俄国和欧洲的能力，才有可能进一步有打得着美洲大陆的能力。伊朗核问题的危险， 吓到许多人。
Aaron Wood
2010-04-16
黎巴嫩真主党放话导弹可以袭击以色列全境 Hizbullah Scuds Read More »
Chancellor Merkel, Heidi Klum, Seal and the Holocaust
It was a moment that spoke volumes.
On Wednesday, April 14, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa hosted a luncheon for German Chancellor Angela Merkel at the Getty Museum. The agenda of the event was no more than a eet and greet, a chance for the Chancellor, whom Forbes named as the world’s most powerful women, to interact with leaders of the entertainment community, promiment LA-based Germans, officials and benefactors.
The guests gathered for the noon luncheon right on time, mindful of the vaunted German punctuality. Among those in attendance: producers Arthur Cohn and Sid Ganis, businessman and philanthropists Haim and Cheryl Saban, Stewart Resnick and Eli Broad, CAA agent Chris Andrews, entrepreneur Jay Penske, film critic Kevin Thomas, attorney E. Randol Schoenberg, Fox studio’s Jim Gianopolous and German Consul General Wolfgang Drautz.
It was an hour before the Chancellor herself arrived. She swept in wearing a bright orange-red dress, setting off her ginger hair and deep blue eyes. The chancellor moved through the rather chaotic press of guests, stopping to chat for a moment with each one.
When I pushed myself into the throng to introduce myself, I happened to be carrying that week’s Jewish Journal, which I had brought to give to a friend there. The chancellor took it from my hand—she assumed it was a gift for her. She looked down and unfolded it to see the gates of Auschwitz and the words “Arbeit Macht Frei” on the cover.
“It’s our Yom HaShoah issue,” I explained. I immediately doubted she knew the Hebrew, so I fumbled a quick translation. “It’s Holocaust Week.”
She looked up at me quizzically—a whole week?
(I know, Yom HaShoah means Holocaust Day, but… we’;re a weekly… never mind.)
Still, how remarkable: a chancellor that has no equal in Europe in reaching out to Israel and on behalf of Israel, 70 years after her father’s generation tried to kill every last Jew, and almost succeeded, now outspoken in recognizing Germany’s great crime, and in repairing relations with the Jews… an she was holding The Jewish Journal.
For a moment: then she passed it to an aid, and asked me questions about the Jewish community in LA. The mayor, who guided her, jumped in with answers—few politicians know more Jews than him.
After a bit, the singer Seal and his model wife Heidi Klum appeared, and sucked every bit of energy into a vortex of beauty and charisma.
At lunch (delicious, by the way), the mayor toasted the chancellor and the chancellor toasted the mayor and LA. Then it was on to Warner Bros., where a different kind of magic gets made.
A full report on her itinerary comes from the German consular web site:
Chancellor Merkel arrived in Los Angeles Tuesday evening on the second leg of her five-day trip to the United States. Prior to her arrival, Merkel had attended the 47-country Nuclear Security Summit hosted by US President Barack Obama in Washington, D.C. Obama had assembled the leaders and heads of state to secure that nuclear materials not get in the hands of terrorists.
Having long ago extended an invitation to Merkel to visit California, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger finally had a chance to welcome her to the state. The governor and his wife, Maria Shriver, greeted her at the airport upon her arrival in Los Angeles. The next morning, Schwarzenegger and Merkel met for breakfast to discuss economic affairs and mutual cooperation.
After the breakfast meeting, Merkel moderated and participated in a panel discussion with representatives from trade, industry and science as well as think tanks at the residence of Consul General Wolfgang Drautz.
The next stop on the whirlwind schedule was the Getty Center, where Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa hosted a luncheon in Merkel’s honor. At the obligatory photo-op, prior to the luncheon, Merkel and Villaraigosa encountered elementary students visiting the Center on a field trip. Asked by Merkel, if they knew where Germany was, one student spoke-up and said, “Europe.” The chancellor beamed with pleasure.
At the luncheon, she had the opportunity to meet with leading entertainment executives, business leaders and scientists as well as experience a bit of the Hollywood celebrity factor. In attendance were German top model Heidi Klum and her husband, singer, Seal, German talk show-meister Thomas Gottschalk, and Eric Braeden, the German-born actor starring in the daytime soap opera, “The Young and the Restless.”
A Touch of Hollywood: Warner Bros. Studios Tour
Merkel’s final stop in Hollywood was Warner Bros. Studios, where she met with Chairman and CEO Barry M. Meyer and other leading executives, before touring the studios. One of the highlights of the tour, was a visit on the set of “The Mentalist,” where she met star Simon Baker. Intrigued by the building facades, she was curious to find out if there really wasn’t anything behind one of the shop’s doors. “Let’s go see, “Baker said, as he lead Merkel over to the door to check it out for herself.
The chancellor was also fascinated watching foley artists at work in one of the sound studios. These artists create many of the natural, everyday sound effects in a film. The term foley artist is named after Jack Foley, one of the earliest and best-known Hollywood practitioners of the art.
With her visit to Los Angeles concluded, the chancellor departed for San Francisco, where she was scheduled to address students at Stanford University before returning home Friday.
Helmut Kohl was the last German chancellor to visit Los Angeles in September 15, 1991.
Chancellor Merkel, Heidi Klum, Seal and the Holocaust Read More »
Your Food Is Pretty Safe, But it’s Not Getting Safer
In a world where journalism was free of hype the above headline would have been atop the many stories this week relating to a press release by the CDC about food-borne illness. The numbers are far less sensational than the headlines.
The CDC report reviewed statistics about food-borne illnesses in 2009. Overall there were 17,468 laboratory-confirmed food-borne infections in 2009. What the CDC press release doesn’t mention is that this number has stayed about the same for several years. (It was 17,883 in 2007.) But rather than putting out a press release that declares “We’re Doing About the Same!” they focused on the bacteria that seem to have caused fewer infections this year, like a toxic strain of E. coli. (See the link below.)
The bottom line is that you’re about twice as likely to die in a car accident in the US than to get sick from contaminated food. (There were 39,800 fatalities related to motor vehicles in 2008.) The CDC may in fact deserve some credit for that.
But the last several years suggest that the easy improvements have already been made and that further progress will be more difficult and incremental. The bacteria, after all, will continue doing their best to contaminate our food.
Learn more:
CDC Press Release: ” target=”_blank”>E. Coli Infections Dropped Last Year
Reuters article: ” target=”_blank”>Early signs of progress against E. coli and shigella, but listeria, salmonella …?
Important legal mumbo jumbo:
Anything you read on the web should be used to supplement, not replace, your doctor’s advice. Anything that I write is no exception. I’m a doctor, but I’m not your doctor despite the fact that you read or comment on my posts. Leaving a comment on a post is a wonderful way to enter into a discussion with other readers, but I will not respond to comments (just because of time constraints).
Your Food Is Pretty Safe, But it’s Not Getting Safer Read More »
What’s The Strategy?
Delegations from 47 countries were at a nuclear summit in Washington this past week among them were 37 heads of state. Noticeably absent was Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The formal reason for his absence as repeated in the Israeli press was that Israel was fearful that the Arab and Muslim States would gang up on it for its refusal to sign the nuclear non-proliferation treaty and for the ambiguity of its own policy on nuclear weapons. While everyone assumes that Israel has Atomic Bombs and even knows what’s in Dimona, Israel has been deliberately ambiguous. Time and again it has stated that Israel will not be the first to introduce nuclear weapons to the Middle East. No one seems to believe this formal denial, repeated ad nauseum; perhaps no one should.
If the explanation offered in the press is accurate, then we have witnessed what political scientists would term anticipatory compliance. Fearful of isolation from the family of nations, fearful of the current campaign of delegitimization, Israel’s Prime Minister absented himself, isolated himself from his fellow heads of state and was not at the table when the safety of nuclear weapons was being discussed; when cooperation in the effort to thwart Iran’s nuclear ambitions was being raised. He did to himself what others could not have achieved. No matter that Israel was ably represented by Dan Meridor, the Prime Minister was self isolated. The fact that no attack on Israel materialized made his absence sadder still.
It is widely suspected that there was a second reason to duck the conference. Netanyahu would be returning to Washington empty-handed with nothing to say to President Obama who convened the conference and who had asked for some symbolic Israeli concessions in their private Oval Office meetings in March. With nothing to offer, he must have felt that he was better off not attending.
It was a high price to pay for defending what everybody concedes was a stupid move of announcing the building of Israeli housing in East Jerusalem just as Vice President Joseph Biden arrived to proclaim his love for Israel and the depth of the American commitment to Israel. The Prime Minister seemed to be unable to show his face in Washington. Stupidity has led to self isolation.
But much more important issues are at stake in this self isolation. We understand the tactics, but what is Israel’s strategy?
There seems to be none except to maintain the status quo.
I know that the Jewish establishment is deeply upset, at least formally – what is being said in private is quite a different matter—that the American administration is seeking to raise the issue of Jerusalem, to challenge Israel’s eternal, undivided capital. But even if we score points in the debate, the advantage is merely tactical and very short-term at best. If Israel is to have peace with the Palestinians – and that is a big if – then the status of Jerusalem will be determined by negotiations. In 2000, 2001 and in the last year in discussions between then Prime Minister Olmert and Palestinian Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, each side has a very clear understanding of what the other side needs regarding Jerusalem.
Let me be clear what I mean by strategy.
Israel, Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and several other countries now have shared de facto strategic interests in containing Iran and thwarting its nuclear ambitions. If one were to look at the larger picture and quit squabbling over stupidity and coalition politics, shared strategic interests, perhaps even existential interests should offer important political opportunities and we should be furious at Israeli leadership for getting itself bogged down in peripheral issues, no matter how symbolically important they may seem to be for them, while failing to avail themselves of the opportunities presented in the current political climate. The Prime Minister came to Washington in March to rally American Jews for a fight with the Administration. He went from his enthusiastic reception at AIPAC to meet with the President and brought with him a chart that detailed for the President and the Secretary of State that he and his office were not responsible for zoning issues in East Jerusalem. But he and his office are responsible for Israel’s place in the family of nations and for its relationship with Egypt and Jordan, countries with which it has signed a peace agreement, and with Saudi Arabia, which is central to Arab politics.
Self isolation is a lamentable. The failure to develop a real strategy, engage the United States and the anti-Iran Arab world is potentially tragic.
I wonder what Obama must have thought of the chart and the man who brought it. He had just had his greatest accomplishment as President, the historical passage of Health Care, he had told the American people: “We did it not because it was easy, but because it was right.” Netanyahu came to discuss zoning. When Obama raised the large issue of nuclear non-proliferation and containing Iran, Israel’s Prime Minister had diminished himself by thinking small and pathetically unimaginatively.
Michael Berenbaum is professor of Jewish Studies and director of the Sigi Ziering Center for the Study of the Holocaust and Ethics at American Jewish University.
What’s The Strategy? Read More »
Who gets religious custody in an interfaith divorce?
The case of little Ela Reyes raises many thorny issues about church/state entanglement, parenting in a multicultural world, and the challenge of religious pluralism. Ela’s parents, Rebecca Reyes (born Jewish) and her now ex-husband Joseph Reyes (raised Catholic, converted to Judaism, and now returning to the Church) found themselves in court over the issue of his right to bring Ela to church. Cook County (Illinois) Judge Renee Goldfarb ruled that Mr. Reyes has the right to do so.
While not a simple matter, Judge Goldfarb has done the right thing. It may sound odd for a rabbi to defend such a ruling, but that’s the way it is. First, the only basis upon which the judge can rule is what is in the best interest of the child—psychologically, emotionally, and educationally. A civil court judge cannot consider the theological or religious rules which could be invoked in this dispute (i.e., Ela’s mother is Jewish, therefore Ela is Jewish).
Second, there is no evidence which shows that kids are harmed by exposure to multiple faith traditions. While such multiple exposures certainly diminish the likelihood of affiliating with one faith in particular, the argument that such exposure creates moral or psychic confusion is simply untrue.
Third, unless one claims that Judaism or Catholicism is inherently superior to the other, or that one of these faiths will harm Ela Reyes, there is no basis upon which to deny her participation in either church or synagogue. And even if one believes that there is such a difference, it is not up to the court to weigh in on that.
So Ela Reyes will do what more and more people, including the children of multi-faith families, are learning to do—appreciate that they are part of multiple religious communities and figure out how to honor that reality. Some will “choose a side,” but one hopes without rancor toward the ones not picked. The ability to affiliate with one tradition while genuinely respecting those who follow others is one of the central issues in contemporary public culture. We must learn to marry our passions—spiritual, political or otherwise—to a capacity for civility, or we really will destroy our world.
Some will claim multiple memberships, not unlike those who hold dual citizenship in two countries. Others will create new traditions by fusing the multiple faith traditions which inform their life. While these options may cause some discomfort, it’s worth remembering that they reflect genuinely positive realities that benefit us all, and which virtually none of us would give up.
The possibility of multiple memberships, like the reality of dual citizenship, exists only because of fundamentally positive relations between the different groups. Were that not the case, it would not be possible to imagine being affiliated with the two entities simultaneously.
Moreover, the process of creating new traditions that integrate the ideas and practices of many faiths is not so different from the process which gave rise to all the religions which we now think of as independent and discreet faiths. And while I am not suggesting that all syncretism (the concept of blending multiple faiths) is equal, it is simply a fact that each of today’s great faiths was built, at least in part, by borrowing motifs, practices, ideas, and language from the larger cultures in which they were situated.
The only shadow cast by the story of Ela Reyes is that of her father having her baptized without her mother’s knowledge and then taunting Ela’s mom with pictures from the event. That is both lousy parenting, sadly typical in divorces, and a real abuse of faith, which raises questions about the priest who did the baptism. Why did he perform a baptism without any sense of the family struggle? Was he simply so eager to “save” this child that he didn’t care? If so, he was perpetuated an ancient practice of forcibly converting Jews and he should be ashamed.
What about the Church itself? Now that this story is public, I wonder if the Catholic Church, presumably through the Chicago Diocese, will comment on this or discipline the priest. If not, then while I would still support the appropriateness of taking Ela to church, I would say that she is attending one that has no regard for the very ethics which form the basis of my support and that of Judge Goldfarb’s. And about that we should be concerned.
Rabbi Brad Hirschfield is the author of You Don’t Have to Be Wrong for Me to Be Right: Finding Faith Without Fanaticism, and is the President of Clal-The National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership.
Who gets religious custody in an interfaith divorce? Read More »
Destroyed New Orleans synagogue to break ground
A New Orleans synagogue destroyed by Hurricane Katrina will break ground on a new building.
Congregation Beth Israel, a century-old congregation destroyed by the 2005 storm, will mark the occasion on Sunday at a new location five miles from its former home.
“Since Katrina, our job has been to rebuild a sense of community within our congregation,” said Rabbi Uri Topolosky in a news release. “Now we have to build a building and give our family a home.”
Beth Israel’s old building absorbed ten feet of water during the 2005 hurricane which destroyed vast swaths of New Orleans. Its contents, including thousands of prayer books and seven Torah scrolls, were also lost.
The land for the new synagogue was purchased from a nearby Reform congregation, Gates of Prayer.
Destroyed New Orleans synagogue to break ground Read More »
THREE WHO SURVIVED TO TELL THEIR TALES
Adventure has always provided the raw material for great books, ranging from “Robinson Crusoe” to “Alive” and much in between. That’s why I was thrilled to be asked to moderate a panel on “Stories of Survival” at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books at UCLA on the weekend of April 24-25, 2010.
The panelists are all authors of recently published books about how the danger they endured and how they lived to tell about it. A couple of them confront us with the human face of terrorism in exotic locales, and the third one shows us that life-and-death ordeals can take place very close to home. From the comfort and safety of a UCLA lecture hall, we will witness three sagas of survival.
Daniele Mastrogiacomo’s “Days of Fear: A Firsthand Account of Captivity Under the New Taliban” (Europa Editions: $15.00) (Translated by Michael Reynolds) is the story of the Italian reporter’s ordeal at the hands of the Taliban in Afghanistan in 2007. At the worst moment of his captivity, the author was forced to witness the decapitation of his Afghan driver by their captors. “Many consider this episode merely a terrible and bloody story,” writes Mastrogiacomo about his long confinement and ultimate liberation. “I prefer to remember it as an experience that cast me down into the depths of my soul, made me stronger, more convinced of the vital importance of many things: my relationships with loved ones, life’s small everyday moments, basic human values, my profession.”
Richard Phillips is the author (with Stephan Talty) of “A Captain’s Duty: Somali Pirates, Navy SEALs, and Dangerous Days at Sea” ( Hyperion: $25.99). Readers will remember his heroic exploits as the captain of a U.S. cargo ship that came under attack by Somali pirates and his rescue on the high seas by Navy commandoes. “When someone has a loaded AK-47 pointed at your face, you get to know his mood really well, believe me,” recalls Philips about one moment of peril in the waters of the Indian Ocean. “They wanted me to stretch out. No goddamn way, I said to myself. I’m not going to be your fatted calf.”
The third panelist is Norman Ollestad, author of “Crazy for the Storm: A Memoir of Survival” (Ecco: $25.99), an adventure story that takes place no farther away than the San Gabriel Mountains. As a young surfer and skier, Ollestad was flying to a championship ceremony with his father in 1979 when their chartered Cessna crashed into a mountaintop during a sudden blizzard. His father was killed in the crash, and the 11-year-old boy was forced to make his own way to safety from the ice-bound peak. “As much a thriller as a memoir,” wrote Carolyn See in praise of Ollestad’s book.
The panel on “Stories of Survival” will take place in Broad Hall 2160 on the UCLA campus at 2:00 p.m. on Saturday, April 24, 2010. Tickets and information are available at the THREE WHO SURVIVED TO TELL THEIR TALES Read More »
Israel Sells More Drone Technology to UK
While the UK may have drastically downsized its arms sales to Israel, this hasn’t prevented Israeli firms from selling advanced weapons technology to Britain.
Elbit, the Israeli aerospace giant, announced that it has just signed a $70 million deal to provide maintenance and logistical support for the lucrative Watchkeeper project. The project is the largest unmanned aircraft system in the world and is being designed to provide UK armed forces with essential intelligence, surveillance, target acquisition and reconnaissance capabilities.
The announcement came the very day the Watchkeeper drone made its maiden test flight, logging 20 minutes in the air in Wales. The Watchkeeper is a derivative of the highly-successful Israeli-designed and built Hermes 450 and is a sign of how the two countries’ defense industries are collaborating on new weapons systems.
The deal was being worked out through U-TacS, a joint venture formed by Elbit Systems and the British Thales. It follows on to a $500 million order to produce about 100 Watchkeeper drones for the British Army, which it expects to deploy heavily in its regiments in the future.
But until they are ready, U-TacS has been providing the British Army with the Israeli Hermes 450s, where they have been deployed in ongoing operations in Afghanistan.
They have flown more than 30,000 operational hours there so far, according to a press release from Elbit.
The Watchkeeper UAV is expected to stay airborne for more than 16 hours and provide surveillance in all-weather conditions, day and night. It is also reportedly to be equipped with target designator lasers and radar imagery.
British arms and weapons technology sales to Israel, however, have been kept quiet, particularly since last year’s public refusal to supply replacement parts and other equipment for the Israeli navy since its ships had participated in the offensive against the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
British policy forbids the use of its exports in the land acquired by Israel in the 1967 war. London does not call see this as a “partial embargo,” yet sales reportedly amounted to just $30 million last year.
Furthermore, the UAV maintenance deal comes amid tensions in Anglo-Israel relations over the alleged use by the Mossad of British passports in the assassination of a Hamas member in Dubai.
The British Embassy in Tel Aviv declined to comment on defense sales policy to Israel.
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Can the Jewish Deli Be Reformed?
From NYTimes.com:
WHEN a Jewish deli decides to stop serving salami, something is wrong in the cosmos
At Saul’s Restaurant and Deli in Berkeley, Calif., the eggs are organic and cage free, and the ground beef in the stuffed cabbage is grass fed. Its owners, Karen Adelman and Peter Levitt, yanked salami from the menu in November, saying that they could no longer in good conscience serve commercial kosher salami.
Read the full article at NYTimes.com.
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