Interesting op-ed in the NYT about Christian references in music and Justin Bieber. ” title=”didn’t call up Pastor Steven Anderson” target=”_blank”>didn’t call up Pastor Steven Anderson.
I’ve written a bit about Christians and music and Christian music before (start ” title=”here” target=”_blank”>here). Bieber is obviously a pop culture phenomenon, and not just a Bieber and Christian rockstars Read More »
Read more on this story here.
Investigators from the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department have identified three students at Calabasas High School as the alleged vandals behind extensive anti-Semitic graffiti found on school property on Saturday morning, April 23, a spokesperson from the Sheriff’s Department said Tuesday afternoon. The students have not yet been charged, and the case will be presented to a district attorney on Friday, according to Sgt. Mike Holland of the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department.
Names of the students to be charged will be released mid-day on Wed. April 27, Holland said.
The graffiti, which was removed before the start of school on Monday, included numerous swastikas on lockers, walls and pavement, and a spray-painted portrait of Hitler. News reports said that the graffiti also targeted groups other than Jews, including blacks and Latinos.
The scrawlings included the names of seven Calabasas High School students and two teachers at the school. All of the students targeted by the vandals are members of the school’s 11th grade class, and most, though not all, are Jewish.
This is not the first such incident at the school; in January 2010 a student who is Jewish found a swastika carved into the hood of his car. No one was charged for the incident. At that time, the school’s principal, C.J. Foss, suggested that it was a personal attack by one student against another.
Police did not release the names of the three students alleged to be behind the graffiti, but said they are also members of the 11th grade class at the high school.
“They’re all 4.0 students, on both sides,” Holland said.
Since the incident, the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department has interviewed more than 100 students, including those named in the graffiti and the suspects. Holland said that the three alleged vandals told investigators that they had been mistreated by their fellow students at the school, and specifically by the seven students whose names were found spray-painted on the school’s walls.
Holland said the three students told investigators that they believed the students named in the markings are Jewish.
Calabasas High School is a California Distinguished School and a National Blue Ribbon School. The student body has a large Jewish population.
Holland said the Sheriff’s Department will search the home of one of the three students on April 27. When the case is presented on Fri. April 29, the district attorney will decide whether to charge the students with criminal vandalism or a hate crime. All of them are minors, and none have prior criminal records.
Holland said that there is evidence suggesting that the suspects have indeed been “picked on” by other students over the course of the school year.
“It’s not as black and white as people think,” he said.
“These kids will be prosecuted for it, because their actions were illegal,” Holland said.
Students at the school have begun to receive tolerance training by a sherriff’s department program in the aftermath of the incident.
Police say Calabasas High students were behind anti-Semitic graffiti Read More »
Syrian President Bashar Assad is not a partner for a peace deal with Israel, a U.S. State Department official said.
Jake Sullivan, director of Policy Planning for the department, said during a special State Department briefing Tuesday in answer to a reporter’s question that it is difficult to consider pursuing diplomatic initiatives with Assad when he is attacking anti-government demonstrators in his own country.
Since the early days of the Obama administration, the United States had been urging Israel to seek a comprehensive peace with its neighbors, including Syria and Lebanon.
“On the peace process side, it is, of course, the case that over the course of the past two years, there have been a number of challenges that have arisen and obstacles that have arisen with respect to Israeli-Palestinian peace and with respect to peace on other tracks as well,” Sullivan said. “And the current situation in Syria is one that – certainly, it is hard for us to see – it’s hard for us to stand by and see Assad and his government engaged in this kind of campaign against their own people and to then think easily about how to pursue the other diplomatic initiatives with him.”
Sullivan said the administration still had not decided whether or not and in what way to impose targeted sanctions on Syria.
At least 120 anti-government protesters were reported killed over the weekend, and 400 since the start of grassroots protests against the Syrian regime in mid-March. Hundreds have also been arrested, according to reports.
News outlets reported Wednesday that the Syrian army deployed dozens of tanks around the coastal city of Banias and Douma, a suburb of Damascus, where demonstrations have been large and vocal.
Meanwhile, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon condemned the Syrian army’s violence against the protestors and called for an independent investigation into the violence.
The U.N. Security Council was scheduled to meet Wednesday to discuss the violence and draft a statement condemning the crackdown on anti-government protestors.
US: Assad no longer potential peace partner for Israel Read More »