Awesome: Congressional nitwit puts private ethics investigation data on public website. You have to love the internet age, because people being people, there are still just as many idiots as there were before everything was online. Only now when they make mistakes, we get to see what’s really going on behind the scenes in Congress.

Postcards from the IDF: Yossi Klein Halevi on Israeli citizens’ receipt of a postcard that details how much time they have to get to the nearest bomb shelter in the event of a missile attack. A sobering read.

No. Ya think? Best headline yet on the Iran cheat-and-retreat strategy: “Iran accused of playing games on nuclear deal.” The Telegraph wins the Keen Grasp of the Obvious award for that one.

But—but—this totally blows away the “European colonialism” argument! Genetic proof that Jews were from the land of Israel, and the man behind the science. (Of course, he’s a Jew.)

Israeli scientist Ada Yonath, 70, was awarded the Nobel Prize for chemistry for showing how ribosomes function, work that has important implications for antibiotics, the prize committee said on Wednesday.

She’s a native-born Israeli, just the type we keep being told are the usurpers in the land. Funny, she’s older than the modern state of Israel. How did she manage to usurp the land?

A renowned scientist, Yonath serves as the director of the Helen and Milton A. Kimmelman Center for Biomolecular Structure and Assembly at the Weizmann Institute of Science.

She was a co-recipient of the 2006 Wolf Prize in Chemistry, along George Feher, and in 2008, became the first Israeli to win a lifetime’s achievement award from L’Oréal and UNESCO for her vital work identifying how bacteria become resistant to antibiotics.

Now she has become the first Israeli woman to win a Nobel Prize.

The would-be head of UNESCO from Egypt threatened to burn any Israeli books he found in Egyptian libraries. Ada was so poor as a child, she couldn’t even afford books.

I’ll have to readjust the Jewish Nobel count, but I think I’ll wait until they’re all in.

Update: Linked by Yahoo! News again. A typical comment (that I’m not approving): “Such hate…” Get it? Pointing out that Israelis are contributing to the world is hate. I think it’s safe to respond: Such idiots….

I am pleased to let you know that the 237th edition of the carnival is now live.

As a point of information the carnival is a pluralistic exercise. It draws posts from all sides of the spectrum and thus offers readers a chance to read perspectives and postiions that they might not otherwise be exposed to.

Go read it and let us know what you think.

In one article the Times tells about how Barbara Ann Paster relives what it was like to observe Rosh Hashanah in 1919 in Portsmouth New Hamphsire.

As Mrs. Shapiro, the wife of a pawnbroker with a 9-year-old daughter, Mrs. Paster cooks dishes that follow the rhythm of the seasons, and the Jewish calendar.

She may make strawberry jam for her strudel in June, or pickle cucumbers with dill from her garden, or put up Reliance peaches with brandy in August.

For Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year, which begins on Friday evening, she excitedly pinched rolled-out strips of pasta dough into bowtie noodles to use with leftover kasha stuffing from her roast chicken, and made traditional honey and poppy seed cakes.

Mrs. Paster, 61, has been portraying Mrs. Shapiro since the Shapiro house opened in 1997. ?My entire life was made for this job,? Mrs. Paster said with a laugh. ?I married an Orthodox man. I?m Jewish from Russia, so I know the rules of kashrut and family purity. I am also a storyteller.?

The real Shapiro family arrived in the United States just a few years before my father’s grandfather did.

And A soldier’s voice recovered is the story of the first Rosh Hashanah service in Germany since the rise of Hitler – on Armed Services Radio with the sound of mortars in the backgound.

L’Shana Tova Tikatavu!

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

Labor to Israel: Netanyahu and Obama have their wires crossed, which is detrimental to U.S.-Israel relations. Meryl to Labor: Gee, ya think?

Swiss to Israel: Neutral on Hamas? Hey, they’re a major player. Hey, if the Swiss could stay neutral on the Nazis, why not with the Nazi’s heirs? It’s not like you have to take a stand anymore. Who’s going to invade Switzerland? And besides, there’s still the matter of all that Nazi-era Jewish wealth the Swiss have refused to investigate or give back, so it’s not like they’re doing anything unexpected here.

If the Palestinians fire on the IDF from Gaza, and Israel doesn’t invade, did it really happen? Of course, if the IDF goes into Gaza to kill Palestinian terrorists who are trying to kill them, the “cycle of violence” has been restarted and it is, of course, the fault of the defenders rather than the offenders. Just trying to give you the narrative before it’s even written.

Obama’s advisers: They’re as dumb as he is. Really. Read this:

President Barack Obama’s advisers are urging critics of their health care overhaul to wait for Congress to finish writing legislation before issuing verdicts.

Really? They’re voting on legislation without even reading it, and they’re telling us to wait until they’ve finalized a multi-thousand page bill? Oh, that’s not hypocritical at all, is it?

Obama’s approval ratings drop below 50%: Looks like you can’t fool most of the people most of the time. By the way, if you read the article, check the polling data. The Obamedia tends to skew the figures to say what they want them to say.

Hillary: I broke my elbow, not my larynx. See, I toldja there was no rift between Hillary and Obama. She’s not positioning herself away. She’s just as eager to bash Israel as her boss.

UNIFIL covering for Hezbollah, again: This is no surprise. The UN knew about the arms cache that exploded—months ago. I know you’re just as shocked as I am.

The source said UNIFIL had precise information about the cache and a number of other installations where Hezbollah is storing rockets, but that UNIFIL had done nothing.

And what’s the UN going to do about it? Why, what the UN does best.

A discussion is scheduled in the UN Security Council for late August on renewing UNIFIL’s mandate in southern Lebanon.

And that’s it for today. Time to go to work.

There is going to be some kind of showdown, methinks.

Israeli officials said the country’s ambassador to Washington, Michael Oren, was summoned to the State Department over the weekend and told that a project being developed by an American millionaire in the disputed section of the holy city should not go ahead.

[...] According to Army Radio, the U.S. has demanded that planning approval for the project be revoked.

Amazingly, the AP understands that some territories recaptured in the Six Day War are “disputed” territories—but apparently only when the dispute is whether Jews may live there.

The current narrative utterly ignores the Jewish history of the city, including the fact that there were 100,000 Jews in Jerusalem in 1948, many of whom lived in the Jewish Quarter in the eastern half of the city:

East Jerusalem is an especially volatile issue because it is the site of key Jewish, Christian and Muslim holy sites. The Palestinians want the traditionally Arab sector of the city to be the capital of their future state.

“The traditionally Arab sector” is a lie. The Jewish quarter was in eastern Jerusalem, which makes it, let’s think—a traditionally Jewish sector as well—but the news services can never seem to mention this.

And here, buried in the very bottom of the story, is something that is absolutely pertinent to why the Obama administration has no right to tell Israel to stop this project:

The east Jerusalem project is being developed by Irving Moskowitz, an influential supporter of Israeli settlement in east Jerusalem who purchased the Shepherd Hotel in 1985 and plans to tear it down and build apartments in its place.

The Jerusalem municipality issued a statement saying the purchase was legal and it had acted with “full transparency” in granting building permits.

The Obama administration is telling Israel to ignore its own laws. Why? Because the Obama administration is going with the narrative that there can be no Jews in “traditionally Arab” Jerusalem.

And how did the Prime Minister of Israel react to this demand?

On Sunday, Netanyahu told his Cabinet there would be no limits on Jewish construction anywhere in “unified Jerusalem.”

“We cannot accept the fact that Jews wouldn’t be entitled to live and buy anywhere in Jerusalem,” Netanyahu declared, calling Israeli sovereignty over the entire city “indisputable.”

The Israeli public is solidly behind Netanyahu on this. Just as Obama is trying to ignore American public opinion on any legislation he wants to push through (cf: ObamaCare’s sinking poll numbers).

Once again, we have an example of the Obama administration dictating only to Israel, and giving the Palestinians a pass.

This man is no friend of Israel. The 78% of Jews who voted for him were fooling themselves.

Medication that can protect humans against nuclear radiation has been developed by Jewish-American scientists in cooperation with a researcher and investors from Israel. The full story behind the dramatic discovery will be published in Yedioth Ahronoth’s weekend edition.

The ground-breaking medication, developed by Professor Andrei Gudkov – Chief Scientific Officer at Cleveland BioLabs – may have far-reaching implications on the balance of power in the world, as states capable of providing their citizens with protection against radiation will enjoy a significant strategic advantage vis-à-vis their rivals.

You know, I really don’t know enough about the process to make a judgment, other than the facts that Jews found a vaccination for polio, developed the Intel microchip, firewalls, cellphones, instant messaging, drip-irrigation technology, the camera pill, the—well, you get the picture. And if you don’t, it’s right here.

Oh. And Jews were the driving force behind the Manhattan Project, which gave America nuclear weapons. And then there’s the whole Albert Einstein thing.

I sure hope this turns out to be true, because it will utterly change the rules of the game in the current drive by rogue states for nuclear weapons. Granted, it won’t stop them from being able to kill many thousands with one missile—but if radiation is no longer an issue, nuclear blackmail is over.

Mr. Obama is Arab, Jack Stern’s friends told him in Aventura. (He’s not.)

He is a part of Chicago’s large Palestinian community, suspects Mindy Chotiner of Delray. (Wrong again.)

Mr. Wright is the godfather of Mr. Obama’s children, asserted Violet Darling in Boca Raton. (No, he’s not.)

Al Qaeda is backing him, said Helena Lefkowicz of Fort Lauderdale (Incorrect.)

Michelle Obama has proven so hostile and argumentative that the campaign is keeping her silent, said Joyce Rozen of Pompano Beach. (Mrs. Obama campaigns frequently, drawing crowds in her own right.)

Mr. Obama might fill his administration with followers of Louis Farrakhan, worried Sherry Ziegler. (Extremely unlikely, given his denunciation of Mr. Farrakhan.)

No substantive reason for doubting the candidate’s concern for Jewish issues was raised. After all candidate Obama sat in church where the pastor expressed antisemitic sentiments for twenty years. Instead the Times manufactured a false “factoid” that it could dismiss. A politician who was praised by Rolling Stone for being a radical is not one who is going to be sympathetic to Israel.

Since the election we’ve been subjected to slightly more honest reporting. Glenn Kessler of the Washington Post has written admiringly of the President’s Jewish influences. One of them was Rabbi Arnold Wolf who advocated for a Palestinian state back in 1973, which was way out of the Jewish mainstream.

When he prepared for his speech to the Muslim world, the President seemed to gather a pretty wide range of Muslims in order to ensure that he didn’t offend his target audience. But yesterday when the President gathered Jewish leaders, giving offense wasn’t really a concern. The President convened a mostly receptive audience. While there were certainly mainstream Jewish organizations represented, the President made sure that partisan organizations such as the NJDC, J-Street and APN – all headed by Democratic Party activists – were there. Even AIPAC is now headed by individuals who are allied with the President..

So yesterday’s gathering was less a matter of assuaging Jewish leaders as the blog entry at the New York Times is headlined, but rather to declare to American Jews that he knows best how to bring peace to the Middle East. And his mostly worshipful audience complied.

The only reported sour note was that Malcolm Honlein questioned the President’s commitment to put Israel on the spot.

Participants said some of the toughest questioning of Mr. Obama came from Malcolm Hoenlein, executive vice chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations. Two said that Mr. Hoenlein told the president that diplomatic progress in the Middle East has traditionally occurred when there is “no light” between the positions of the United States and Israel. But Mr. Obama pushed back, citing the administration of his predecessor, George W. Bush.

“He said, ‘I disagree,’ ” said Marla Gilson, director of the Washington action office of Hadassah, the women’s Zionist organization. “He said, ‘For eight years, there was no light between the United States and Israel, and nothing got accomplished.’

The proper response to such glib obfuscation is that during the Clinton administration, when there were clear disagreements between Israel and the United States ended up in the violence of the so-called “Aqsa intifada.” Even if President Obama denies that Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza even happened during President Bush’s term in office – given the President’s commitment to end all settlements, one wonders why he ignored this – is open warfare really a better result than nothing?

Additionally Yaacov Lozowick points out:

Nothing got accomplished? Let’s see. The Palestinians launched the worst wave of suicide murders anyone had ever seen (the various factions in Iraq later outdid them). Israel figured out how to beat them, in spite of the 100% of contemporary observers worldwide who said this couldn’t be done and Israel must cave in. Later on, Israel unilaterally left Gaza, disbanding all its settlements on the way out. The Palestinians responded by democratically electing Hamas to govern them, and cheered as Hamas and it allies (including some Fatah elements) escalated the rocket attacks on Israel.

Of course that would confirm something the President would never acknowledge: that there is a military solution to terrorism.

While Ira Forman of the NJDC and Jeremy Ben Ami of J-Street both described the President’s performance as “masterful,” Jennifer Rubin points out that his commitment to engagement with Iran was hardly reassuring.

On that front, representatives of two groups in attendance related to me that there was little resistance to the plan of the president looking for positive signals by September from Iran before looking at sanctions. One explained that “if the Iranians will demonstrate seriousness on the nuclear issue, we have a package for engagement.” (Does a single one of the sixteen not understand that the mullahs are expert at giving positive and entirely meaningless signals, thereby indefinitely stringing us all along?)

While the President complained that it’s a “misperception” that he’s unduly pressuring Israel, the fact that he stacked his meeting with organizations that are sympathetic to his policies and excluded two organizations that were likely to be critical shows that the President’s idea of outreach to Jews is to dictate to them. That’s what happens when the President knows he can take your support for granted.

The question those American Jewish organizations who uncritically support President Obama’s Middle East policy now have to answer is this: given that the President has decided to reset America’s relationship with Israel in a way that a vast majority of Israelis – including leftists – object to, how can still describe yourself as pro-Israel?

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

German prosecutors on Monday charged suspected Nazi death camp guard John Demjanjuk with helping to kill about 28,000 Jews in World War II, in what will be one of Germany’s last big Nazi-era war crimes cases.

“State prosecutors in Munich have today charged the 89-year-old John Demjanjuk as an accessory to murder in a total of 27,900 cases,” prosecutors said in a statement.

And expect the Buchananites to show up in the woodwork here. They do crawl around a lot, doing their master’s bidding on the web.

This is precisely the situation American supporters of Israel want to avoid. We do not want to replicate the horrible situation that currently exists in Phillips’ Great Britain. We want Israel to remain a bipartisan issue and an issue that does not divide generations. During the Bush administration, Republican support for Israel – which they linked to their failed Iraq policy – alienated many younger and more liberal voters who despised Bush, Cheney and their policies.

Among the reasons that I supported Obama, having first supported Hillary Clinton, is because I believed, and continue to believe, that a young, extremely popular African American President who supports Israel, even if he disagrees with its policies regarding settlement expansion, would be far more influential with mainstream Americans and with people throughout the world than an old conservative republican, who also supported Israel. That is why I gave, and continued to give, President Barack Obama the benefit of the doubt in his dealings with Israel. I take him at his word that he seeks to bring about peace, by means of a two state solution pursuant to which all the Arab states recognize Israel’s right to thrive as a Jewish democracy, while agreeing that any Palestinian state must be demilitarized and incapable of waging war or terrorist attacks against Israel.

I also take him at his word when he says that the United States will not accept a nuclear-armed Iran, and I believe that he has a better chance of achieving that goal through diplomacy – including sanctions if necessary – than would a tough talking and non-negotiating Republican administration.

Dershowitz deserves credit for defending Israel when Israel is unfairly condemned, but his commitment to the Democratic Party blinds him to what is going on. Prominent left wing blogger, Matthew Yglesias sees what’s going on though. (h/t the Provocateur)

It now seems that while Obama was alarming some of his fans, he was also lulling his opponents into a false sense of complacency. In the past couple of months, he has adopted a tough stance against Binyamin Netanyahu’s government and his approach has flummoxed the pro-Israel lobby.The first major sign of change came at a meeting of the lobby’s flagship organisation, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac), on 5 May. The annual gathering attracts big-name politicians from across the political spectrum and this year’s session was no exception. But the message from some of the most influential Democrats did more than attempt even-handedness.

“Israel must work toward a two-state solution,” said Vice-President Joe Biden, “not build settlements, dismantle outposts, and allow Palestinians freedom of movement, access to economic opportunity and increased security responsibilities.” Senator John Kerry went further, hailing the Arab Peace Initiative of 2002 as an important step and arguing that “nothing will do more to show Israel’s commitment to making peace than freezing new settlement activity”.

As the Provocateur explains Yglesias’s position:

He supports Obama’s Israeli policy because he sees it as sufficiently anti Israel.

Yglesias calls it “evenhanded,” but for people like him that means objectively anti-Israel. But this shouldn’t be surprising as recent polls show that Republicans are more supportive of Israel than are Democrats. The bipartisanship that Dershowitz seeks in support of Israel isn’t being compromised by Republican Jews criticizing President Obama; the bipartisanship has been eroding for some time. In other words, it is up to Israel’s defenders – especially those like the passionate and articulate Dershowitz – to look at the Obama administration’s policies critically and not give it a free pass.

Jonathan Tobin concludes:

But when faced with a Cairo speech troubling even for Dershowitz, a ginned-up dispute about settlements that ignores the reality of there being no Palestinian peace partner, Obama’s repudiation of past commitments to Israel made by previous administrations, and a presidential commitment to “engagement” on Iran that has all the earmarks of appeasement, Democrats like Dershowitz are still unwilling to hold Obama’s feet to the fire. This isn’t a matter of asking Democrats to become Republicans. If, as Dershowitz avows, pro-Israel Democrats have influence on the administration, then let them use it in the same way conservative evangelicals did in 2002 when statements by Secretary of State Colin Powell made it appear as if a Republican administration was taking a similarly “even-handed” approach to Israel’s attempts to defend itself against a Palestinian campaign of suicide attacks. They deluged the White House with calls for strong support for Israel and got results.

If the current trend towards a de-emphasis on the alliance with Israel continues without a strong negative reaction from Jewish Democrats, then we are entitled to ask why they are either silent or rationalizing a policy that they know is wrong. Rather than fending off critiques from those who want him to put his influence to work on behalf of Israel’s interests, what Dershowitz ought to do is use his considerable influence to lead his fellow Democrats in demanding that Obama keep his promises of solidarity with Israel.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.