Millions of Israelis paused for two minutes Monday in solemn silence as air raid sirens wailed across the country to mark Holocaust Remembrance Day.
The annual commemoration for the 6 million Jews killed in Europe during the Holocaust brought the country to a standstill at 10 a.m., with drivers standing alongside their cars on highways and normally bustling city centers freezing for the funereal event.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned at the ceremony that the world was ignoring the lessons of the Shoah by allowing Iran to continue its nuclear program.
“I hope that the lessons of the past will be learned and that the desire to avoid confrontation at any cost will not lead to a deal that will exact a much heavier price in the future,” he said, referring to negotiations between Tehran and six world powers over uranium enrichment levels. “I call on the leaders of the world powers to insist on a full dismantling of Iran’s capability to manufacture nuclear weapons, and to persist until this goal is achieved.”
President Shimon Peres, speaking at the same ceremony, called on the world to pay attention to the threat of rising anti-Semitism in Europe.
“We must not ignore any occurrence of anti-Semitism, any desecration of a synagogue, any tombstone smashed in a cemetery in which our families are buried,” he said. “We must not ignore the rise of extreme right-wing parties with neo-Nazi tendencies who are a danger to each of us and a threat to every nation.”
[This video is absolutely worth watching]
That runner up was Bob Simon for his 2012 report on 60 Minutes — “Christians of the Holy Land” — that blamed Israel for the plight of the dwindling Palestinian Christian community in Bethlehem.
Now one of those Palestinian Christians whose family actually appearedin the 60 Minutes segment — a young woman named Christy Anastas currently living in the UK where she was granted political asylum in only three days — has made a video of her own that contradicts virtually everything Simon said. Christy — who has received death threats from her own family members if she continued to defend Israel (they were that afraid) — tells her story in a compelling speech she gave at Upsala University.
The U.S. and European Union will impose new sanctions as early as today on Russian companies and individuals close to President Vladimir Putin over the escalating crisis in Ukraine, officials said.
“We will be looking to designate people who are in his inner circle, who have a significant impact on the Russian economy,” Deputy White House National Security Adviser Tony Blinken said on CBS’s “Face the Nation” program yesterday. “We’ll be looking to designate companies that they and other inner-circle people control. We’ll be looking at taking steps as well with regard to high-technology exports to their defense industry. All of this together is going to have an impact.”
For years, the suspicion that Mr. Putin has a secret fortune has intrigued scholars, industry analysts, opposition figures, journalists and intelligence agencies but defied their efforts to uncover it. Numbers are thrown around suggesting that Mr. Putin may control $40 billion or even $70 billion, in theory making him the richest head of state in world history.
Now, as the Obama administration prepares to announce another round of sanctions as early as Monday targeting Russians it considers part of Mr. Putin's financial circle, it is sending a not-very-subtle message that it thinks it knows where the Russian leader has his money, and that he could ultimately be targeted directly or indirectly.
So far, the American government has not imposed sanctions on Mr. Putin himself, and officials said they would not in the short term, reasoning that personally targeting a head of state would amount to a "nuclear" escalation, as several put it.
But officials said they hoped to get Mr. Putin's attention by targeting figures close to him like Mr. Timchenko, and other business magnates like Yuri V. Kovalchuk, Vladimir I. Yakunin and Arkady and Boris Rotenberg.
Among those likely to be on Monday's list, officials said, are Igor Sechin, president of the Rosneft state oil company, and Aleksei Miller, head of the Gazprom state energy giant.
"It's like standing in a circle and all of a sudden everyone in the circle is getting a bomb thrown on them, and you get the message that it's getting close," said Senator Robert Menendez, Democrat of New Jersey, the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, describing at a recent hearing the way the sanctions are getting closer to Mr. Putin.
The Jewish mayor of the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv, Gennady Kernes, has been shot in the back by unidentified gunmen, the city council’s pressservice reports.
RT reported that at about 11:30 am local time, Kernes was taken to the local hospital. The City Hall's website says that doctorsare fighting to save his life.
RT reported that at about 11:30 am local time, Kernes was taken to the local hospital. The City Hall's website says that doctorsare fighting to save his life.
"This is a very dear Jew, with a warm and loving connection to the community, and we are shocked by the assassination,” said the rabbi. “We are praying for his health – Moshe son of Hana.”
"They shot him in the back from the forest,” Kernes’s friend Yury Sapronov told Vesti Ukrainy, a news outlet. “The injury is serious. His lung is pierced and his liver pierced all the way through.”
"They shot him in the back from the forest,” Kernes’s friend Yury Sapronov told Vesti Ukrainy, a news outlet. “The injury is serious. His lung is pierced and his liver pierced all the way through.”
Kernes was shot while jogging, cycling or taking a dip in a spring, according to conflicting media reports. The doctors are currently performing the surgery, Yury Sidorenko from mayor’s press service toldRT.
Sidorenko said he did not have any information about whether Kernes had regained consciousness.
He declined to comment about who was behind the shooting. He only said that Kernes “has been recently receiving a lot of threats from various people.”
Sidorenko said he did not have any information about whether Kernes had regained consciousness.
He declined to comment about who was behind the shooting. He only said that Kernes “has been recently receiving a lot of threats from various people.”
A mayor of Kharkiv since March 2010, Kernes had been a strong supporter of President Viktor Yanukovich right till his ouster in February. More recently he said he no longer backed the ousted president but supported a united Ukraine.
The shooting comes a day after ultranationalists clashed with anti-government protesters in the city, leaving 14 people injured.
The mayor can be seen calming down protesters in a video uploaded two weeks ago.
The shooting comes a day after ultranationalists clashed with anti-government protesters in the city, leaving 14 people injured.
The mayor can be seen calming down protesters in a video uploaded two weeks ago.
The tiny State of Israel, the only Jewish state in the world, faces enemies devoted to her destruction. The country is surrounded by Muslim nations – and despite it, Israel survives as a liberal, Western-style democracy. This week, on Wednesday, the, President of the Palestinian Authority, Abu Mazen (Mahmoud Abbas), signed a unity government agreement with Hamas. Peace talks have been suspended – and they will not resume with Hamas, an organization which is openly devoted to terror and to destroying and killing innocent people.
With Israel’s so-called “peace partners” now partners with Hamas, it’s important to remember what Hamas is — and that it remains ever clear that the Palestinian Arabs seek to destroy Israel piece by piece. Israel’s dream for peace once more cannot be realized.
Hamas is an organization that is anti-America and anti-Israel – that is illegal in the United States, Canada, the European Union and many other nations. In 2003, Hamas declared President Bush “Islam’s biggest enemy” and in 2004 Hamas noted that they consider the U.S. “an enemy and as an accomplice to the Israeli enemy aggression against the Palestinians. … The U.S will face responsibility for its position as an accomplice with Israel.” Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh (and the new partner of Abu Mazen) condemned America’s killing of Osama bin Laden, noting that “Osama bin Laden was a Muslim freedom fighter.”
And of course, while liberals often condemn Israel, they ignore Hamas. Hamas has said that homosexuality deserves the death penalty. Women are forbidden to dance or smoke in public – or get their hair done by male hairdressers. While this public relations executive complains about the coverage afforded Israel by the media, since 2006 there have been no official democratic elections in the Gaza Strip.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel is quite clear: “As long as I’m prime minister of Israel, I will never negotiate with a Palestinian government that is backed by Hamas terrorists that are calling for our liquidation.”
Also see:
Immigration Overhaul for 2014: Decidedly Not Dead ... A bipartisan overhaul of immigration, considered dead in the water just a few weeks ago, is not only alive, according to the House Republican leading efforts to broker a deal — it's gaining steam. Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, R-Fla., told CQ Roll Call that pro-rewrite calls earlier this week from two Illinois Republicans, Reps. Adam Kinzinger and Aaron Schock, recent comments from Speaker John A. Boehner, combined with a rash of immigration rallies and protests across the nation in recent days, are indications that momentum has shifted back to those hoping to implement an overhaul of the nation's immigration laws this year. – Roll Call
Dominant Social Theme: We need to solve this wretched immigration difficulty.
Free-Market Analysis: Directed history advances once again? Here's what the Washington Post concludes about moving ahead with immigration reform:
The takeaway? ... that would be a bad thing for Republicans.
What kind of politician directly advances programs inimical to his party's re-election chances? Boehner must know that Republican voters are not overwhelmingly clamoring for turning "illegal immigrants" into voting quasi-citizens. The Bush administration advocated a kind of guest worker program and the outcry was so great that the whole reform effort was scuttled for six years.
But now, like a bad meal, it's back ...
Diaz-Balart, a major player in ongoing efforts to produce a bill that could balance Republican demands for border security with Democratic calls for legal status for the undocumented, said a solution is closer than ever. "I think we finally have the policy right," he said in a phone interview.
Boehner has resurrected immigration reform despite pushback from his colleagues, his party, even the general populace. He's decided that now is the time to make "hard choices." He believes voters have sent him to the Hill to make such choices. Others have pointed out that voters elected him to represent THEIR views, not to make "choices."
It really doesn't make any sense for Boehner to be ratcheting up the rhetoric regarding immigration reform to the point where he said recently that he was "hell-bent" on getting something done. He also admitted that, "The appetite among my colleagues for doing this is not real good."
Perhaps there are other issues involved.
Perhaps Boehner is addressing immigration reform – as we have mentioned before – within the larger context of something called the "North American Union."
This is the idea – much pooh-poohed by the mainstream media – that Canada, Mexico and the US are to be merged, much as the European states were merged into the European Union. The EU was a subterfuge, presented as a trade union when its supporters actually had in mind creating an empire.
President Bush and now President Obama spent a good deal of time generating various hush-hush security and trade agreements with both Mexico and Canada that make a union a good deal easier to accomplish.
A few years ago, without much notice in the mainstream media, Mexico declared universal health care. Obamacare is aimed apparently at bringing a similar system to the US. Canada already has it. Thus, national policies are likely being homogenized piecemeal.
More recently, this bad idea was resurrected as the Keystone pipeline. We had the idea that the Keystone pipeline was going to run roughly along the same route as the NAFTA highway. We went looking for confirmation and, sure enough, we found it in an article posted at the Huffington Post a year ago.
... To those worried about a North American Union, the super-highway represented a dangerous new phase of ... a project to create a super-state from Canada, Mexico and the U.S. Enter the Keystone pipeline. As some observers have pointed out, the Keystone's route is fairly similar to the route "proposed" for the NAFTA Super-Highway.
Thousands of Christians are donning the full armor of God – and the military stands with them – as they unite in one voice to fight a spiritual battle for America and her sovereignty.
Ann Graham Lotz, the National Day of Prayer honorary chairman, composed a prayer especially for the event, which will be broadcast live May 1 from 9 a.m. Eastern to 12 noon.
It reads, “In times of uncertainty, You are the rock on which we stand. In our weakness, You are our Strength. In our grief, You are our Comfort. In our despair, You are our Hope. In our confusion, You are our Wisdom. In time of terrorism, You are our Shield. In time of war, You are our Peace.”
The National Day of Prayer activities include speeches and gatherings of many faiths every year, but the 2014 event is already facing opposition.
Mikey Weinstein, president of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, recently sent a letter to Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel asking that the Department of Defense distance itself from next month’s observance in Washington. Weinstein said military participation in the event would suggest government endorsement of Christianity.
“The planned participation by uniformed U.S. military personnel in this private fundamentalist Christian religious event, run by a non-federal entity, is an unequivocally clear violation of [a] plethora of DoD regulations and instructions,” the letter stated. “The U.S. military absolutely cannot endorse these searingly sectarian events by its public participation in them.”
Dr. James Dobson of Dobson Family Talk told Fox News Thursday that Weinstein “gets a very big salary to do this.”
“The truth of the matter is that the National Days of Prayer are an American tradition in history,” he said. “There have been 44 presidents in the U.S. and 34 have called for National Days of Prayer, including George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. It is something people appreciate. There were over 40,000 prayer gatherings last year, and it’s going to be a big success again.”
Weinstein said he has received more than two dozen complaints from Pentagon workers who object to military participation in the prayer gathering. He also expressed disappointment in his correspondence that the only Jewish representation at the event will be a messianic leader, since Weinstein himself is a Jew.
Weinstein is referring to Jonathan Cahn, author of “The Harbinger,” who will open the prayer event.
Cahn didn’t allow Weinstein to deter his message.
“If ever America were in need of prayer, it is now,” Cahn told WND. “God calls His people to pray and intercede.
He cited 2 Corinthians 7:14, which speaks of repentance: “If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.”
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