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San
Diego Jewish World
Anthony Weiner
Robert Wexler
According to published reports, President
Bush is planning to sell the Saudi Arabian government Joint Direct Attack
Munitions (JDAM’s), satellite guided bombs accurate enough to shoot through the
window of a building from jets in any weather. The |
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5/24/07
SDJW Report (click on headline below to jump to the story) International and National block sale of high-tech missiles to Saudi Arabia *U.N. Special Envoy to begin round of Middle East discussions in Israel today
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Congress may reject any large arms sale according to the Arms Control Export Act of 1976. The President is required to officially notify Congress of an impending arms deal, who then has 30 days to trigger a review and pass a Joint Resolution of Disapproval.
The Joint Resolution of Disapproval
has been used in the past by Congress to affect weapons sales, including in
1986 when Congress successfully convinced then President Reagan to cut back
an arms sale to
Despite assurances to
the contrary, |
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U.N. Special Envoy to begin round of Williams was expected to start holding meetings today with senior Israeli and Palestinian officials, UN spokesperson Michele Montas told journalists. Williams is then scheduled to travel to the Egyptian capital, Cairo, for further consultations. Last week Ban announced that Williams
had been appointed as the UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace
Process, as well as the Secretary-General’s Personal Representative to the
Palestine Liberation Organization and the Palestinian Authority and his Envoy to
the Quartet, the international diplomatic grouping on the Middle East. Between 1999 and 2005, Williams served
as a special adviser to successive Foreign Secretaries in the British
Government, and he has also worked for Amnesty and as a journalist with the BBC. The foregoing article combined several
releases issued by the United Nations News Centre. United Nations
Undersecretary Pascoe UNITED NATIONS, N.Y. (Publicity Release)—Recent events in the Middle East starkly illustrate just how sizeable the obstacles were in the way of progress towards peace, Lynn Pascoe, Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs, told the Security Council this morning, stressing that the immediate concern must be ending the violence in the Gaza Strip and southern Israel. In a briefing on the situation in the Middle East, including the Palestinian question, he said that the longer the violence continued, the greater the risk of escalation and the greater the threat to both the survival of the Palestinian National Unity Government and to the prospects for any fruitful Israeli-Palestinian dialogue.
He said the factional fighting that had erupted in Gaza soon after the
14 May resignation of Palestinian Interior Minister Hani Kawasameh had
pitted Hamas militants and Executive Force members against Palestinian
Authority security forces and Fatah armed gangs. Their brutal urban battles
in residential areas had left 68 Palestinians dead and more than 200 wounded
in the past month. Meanwhile, rocket fire against Israel had escalated
significantly, killing an Israeli woman and forcing the evacuation of many
residents.
(jump to
continuation) U.S. Senate should learn from Mexico's example ENCINITAS, Calif.—I see that Norm Coleman’s amendment to the Immigration Bill, requiring local law enforcement to cooperate with federal authorities and laws on illegal immigration, was defeated today 49 to 48. The amendment didn’t require local law to engage in raids or such, just report findings in their ordinary course of duties to federal enforcement. Two Republican Senators didn’t show up to vote, which may have shifted the balance. A reader sends me this excerpt from the Mexican immigration law: Check out Mexico’s Ley General de Población [“General Law of Population” – the body of law governing Mexican immigration], Capitulo III, Articulo 73: Ley General De Población Capítulo III Inmigración ARTÍCULO 73
Las
autoridades que por ley tengan a su mando fuerzas públicas federales,
locales o municipales, prestarán su colaboración a las autoridades de
migración cuando estas lo soliciten, para hacer cumplir las disposiciones de
esta ley. “The authorities who, by virtue of law, exercise a mandate for public enforcement [the police] at federal, local or municipal level, shall provide cooperation to immigration authorities when said immigration authorities request it, to comply with the provisions of this law [the General Law of Population].”
So Mexican police are required by law to
cooperate with immigration authorities - and they do. The standard
procedure: when Mexican police capture illegal aliens, they turn them over
to immigration authorities, where they are processed and
deported to countries of origin.
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WASHINGTON DC (Publicity Release)—
U.S. Rep. Gary Ackerman (D-NY), Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs
Subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia, on Wednesday, May 23 made
the following opening statement during the panel’s hearing on U.S.
Assistance to the Palestinians. Witnesses are listed below. Washington, DC (Press Release)—On Wednesday (May 23), Reps. Adam Schiff (D-CA) and Artur Davis (D-AL) announced that a resolution they introduced Monday, expressing no confidence in the performance of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and urging the President to request his resignation, has quickly gained support, with over a hundred Members signing on as cosponsors in just two days. Reps. Schiff and Davis, both former federal prosecutors, drafted the resolution in response to the failures of Attorney General Gonzales to adequately and properly manage the Department of Justice.
“I am encouraged that a steadily rising number of our colleagues want the House to assert itself in this debate, and I am pleased that they recognize that the institutional crisis at the Department of Justice demands a no confidence resolution,” said Rep. Davis. At the close of Tuesday's (May 22) business, the measure had 108 cosponsors. (return to top)
CYBER-REFERRALS—Cantor Emeritus Sheldon Merel
of Congegation Beth Israel passes along this link to a
video essay by Aish.org
showing how war photos get faked by anti-Israel media in the Middle East....
CBI plans Balboa Park history walk The day will begin with a talk given by Kim Duclo, who has been a Park Ranger for the City of San Diego, stationed primarily in Balboa Park for the past 11 years. During the walking tour visitors will examine historical, architectural and botanical features in the heart of the park. Our guests will also be treated to some “hidden treasures” not often seen by the general public. Please RSVP by Monday, June 11 to Bonnie Graff, Program Director at bgraff@cbisd.org or (858) 535-1111, ext. 3800. Be sure to check Congregation Beth Israel’s web site at www.cbisd.org for information on this and all other Yasher Koach Programs. Yasher Koach (meaning from strength to strength) presents creative, dynamic programming for mature, active adults. Participants enjoy a variety of programming that includes musical entertainment, guest speakers, and chocolate tasting. The foregoing article was
provided by Congregation Beth Israel
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LA JOLLA, Calif
—Our three adult grandsons visited us recently at separate times at our
retirement community of White Sands. Having visited us yearly since
infancy—at first with their parents and now alone—they have “done” San
Diego. By this I mean that the zoo, SeaWorld, Wild Animal Park, the climbing
wall, Rubin H. Fleet Science Center, the Midway, the Star of India, as well
as the various museums, held little interest.
1. What is (was) your favorite place/book/movie/food? 2. What surprises you most about your life? 3. If you could change one thing in your life so far, what would it be? 4. What decision(s) are you currently wrestling with? 5. Is there one memory you would like to hold onto forever? 6. If you could choose any profession, without further study, what would it be? 7. In whose shoes would you like to walk for a day? 8. What topic gets you the most excited or most upset? 9. What is the one thing you are most proud of? and finally… 10.What are you most grateful for?
A
special Shavuot study session: Poring SAN DIEGO—What better night to study the Dead Sea Scrolls, than on the first night of Shavuot, the holiday that commemorates our receiving the Torah on Mt. Sinai thousands years ago, and also celebrates our tradition of study? That being the motivation, after a brief service in the Ohr Shalom Synagogue, approximately 50 people gathered around a horseshoe-shaped table in the synagogue’s social hall, to listen and learn from the expert responsible for bringing this once-in-a-lifetime exhibit to San Diego, one of Ohr Shalom’s own members, Dr. Risa Levitt Kohn. Kohn, director of the Jewish Studies Program at San Diego State University, is an Associate Professor of Hebrew Bible and Judaism in SDSU’s Religious Studies Department, and a Dead Sea Scrolls scholar. As curator for this extraordinary exhibit, which will be on display at San Diego’s Natural History Museum for six months, from June 29 through December 31, Dr. Kohn personally selected all the scrolls which will be displayed, scrolls which are different from those which have been displayed at other museums. In fact, ten of the scrolls will be displayed for the very first time. The professor pointed out that more than 100,000 fragments of text, both biblical and non-biblical, were discovered in the Qumran caves, and scholars have now pieced them together into over 900 separate documents. In order to better explain and describe one of the texts, Kohn first distributed copies of a non-biblical text, known as “Songs of the Sage”, to participants. This text, which dated back to the first century B.C.E., had been found in one of the caves in 1952, and was one of those which had been written in Hebrew. The Professor also displayed large photographic copies of the original text, which showed clearly the fragmentation of this text. She then asked participants to read aloud sections of the texts in both the English and the Hebrew, noting the brackets which had been inserted, to show where missing words must have once been. As the study session continued, she engaged participants and Ohr Shalom’s Rabbi Scott Meltzer in a discussion of the meaning of the texts read. What did the text really mean? In what context had this document been written? What kind of people had written it? How had they lived? Because of the missing letters and words, participants could not be certain of the complete meaning of the text. Various interpretations of the document were discussed, in order to gain a better understanding of the writers of the text. The depth of study and interpretations rendered reminded this writer of the generations of scholars who have, and still are, interpreting our biblical texts—still another aspect of what made this Shavuot study session particularly fascinating. (return to top)
by
Carol Davis If you were surprised when you heard that the Bush White House called former President Jimmy Carter irrelevant, imaging how Bunbury, felt when he found out he wasn’t even a real person. Oh! But I’m getting ahead of myself.Diversionary Theatre in Hillcrest on Park Blvd. is currently mounting Tom Jacobson’s Bunbury, a serious play for trivial people. It’s so much fun that it defies reality and almost makes you wonder what you would do if you could travel through time. It’s clever enough to test anyone’s literary recall and not so trivial as to make one think aloud, “What if?” Bunbury is the final show of the 2006-‘07 season through June 17 (with an added Mon. June 4 performance) and it‘s a fantastically fun way to spend two hours of your time.
After they finally accept that they are who they are, they conspire to travel back and forth through the looking glass of literature to change the outcome of many of the classics that end in tragedy. It’s a romp that takes us to the death scene in Romeo and Juliet and imagines that the lovers both live; to Beckett’s Godot;( yes we get to see Godot, the waiting is over) to the young gay, alcoholic husband, Allan (Aaron Marcotte) of Blanche DuBois in Streetcar (Interestingly enough they save Blanche from the likes of Stanley Kowalski when Blanche finally sees the light and forgives her husband for all he’s done); to Albee’s Virginia Woolf and the talked about son we never see but who is always at the center of their hate, to Faust being a saint? to Edgar Allan Poe sans the Raven and oh, so many more that it’s fun to not only see the resulting changes and what they bring, but to guess the plays from whence they come. Alas, however, reality sets in for the two and even though they are now more than discarded characters and they know they can influence the world of literature, they also appreciate that by changing the outcome of the stories, or life for that matter, where would the drama, the tragedy, the reality, the fear, the disappointment be? “Fiction would become so damned boring." And so they go back to the literary drawing boards and correct what they have done realizing that they can, as we all can, make a difference. Jacobson’s play poses so many questions for us, the audience (up to and including the present condition) to ponder, that just the exercise alone will conjure many pictures. Director Esther Emery has surrounded herself with a talented (overall) cast who under her deft direction, are a pleasure to watch and try to match wits with. David McBean, long remembered for his outstanding one man show at Cygnet’s Fully Committed, is no less committed to being the quintessential character straight out of Oscar Wilde’s wicked imagination. Dressed the perfect dandy in a butterscotch checkered, vested suit (Jennifer Brawn Gittings costumes were a mixed bag) he prances, paces, cajoles and is in just about every scene. Catch his body language, it’s classic David McBean. In other words, this is Bunbury/McBean’s shining hour. Melissa Fernandes, back after giving birth to her beautiful Isabella, is right on track and sharp as a tack as Rosaline, Romeo’s spurned love. Tom Zohar, who not only plays the piano (He composed the original music for Subject to Change, a play in which he appeared) while playing the butler to McBean’s Bunbury, he never misses a beat in his multiple roles. As a side bar, he is also fluent in Hebrew. I happened to overhear him chatting away with friends in that ancient language one afternoon while waiting to see a play in Carlsbad. It took me by surprise because it was so out of context. In his credits, he does claim to be proficient in many accents and speak Hebrew fluently. I can attest to both. One never knows when one will happen upon a find like this. John Rosen, last seen in Paula Vogel’s The Long Christmas Ride Home at Diversionary recently, plays several characters including the Friar in Romeo and Juliet, George in Virginia Woolf and an older, more disillusioned Algernon. Rosen is a versatile actor who is most convincing. Wendy Waddell who also plays multiple roles along with Aaron Marcotte and Chris Buess and Diane Addis add to the overall taste of the production. Nick Fouch’s simple set design with curtains separating scenes and places makes it easy for the characters to move about. His lily lamps set on either end of the wide stage are a curiosity only until we see McBean carrying a lily around as a prop, and Christian DeAngelis’ takes credit for the lighting design which works well. All in all, this final production of Diversionary Theatre’s season is surely going to leave patrons with a willingness to see what they have to offer in the coming seasons. For information about it’s season; tickets and prices call 619-220-0097 or log on to www.diversionary.org See you at the theatre.
The foregoing article was obtained from
the website of Congressman Anthony Weiner
In response, Israeli tanks had entered the Gaza Strip for the first time since
last November’s ceasefire, he said. Israeli air strikes aimed at militants and
facilities had resulted in civilian casualties, including six family members of
a Hamas Legislative Council member killed in a single strike on their home. All
told, militant rocket fire had killed one Israeli and injured 16, while Israeli
air strikes and ground incursions had killed 57 Palestinians, including six
children, and injured at least 175.
As for efforts to promote the Arab Peace Initiative, he said a dialogue had taken place between Foreign Minister Livni and her Jordanian and Egyptian counterparts, and Prime Minister Olmert and King Abdullah of Jordan on 15 May. A ministerial-level meeting was anticipated in the coming weeks. Quartet members, for their part, had held an informal exchange of views at Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, with members of the Committee of the Arab League tasked with implementing the Initiative. The Secretary-General planned to convey to his fellow Quartet members, in Berlin next week, the importance of using the Initiative as a framework to establish a comprehensive settlement. On Israeli political developments, he said the Winograd Report criticizing the conduct of last year’s conflict with Hizbullah had dominated the country’s politics during the reporting period. It noted that inadequate efforts had been made to reach peace agreements with Israel’s neighbours. As for efforts to advance political dialogue, there had been no further bilateral meetings between Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and President Abbas since 15 April. Their next meeting was tentatively scheduled for 11 June.
He said at least 27 civilians had been killed and approximately 70 wounded, since the fighting had erupted, though those reports had not been independently confirmed. Initially, thousands had fled their homes to shelter inside the Nahr el-Bared camp, but during a truce on Tuesday and Wednesday, 15,000 refugees had then fled the camp. Homes had been destroyed, and the camp’s medicine, water and electricity supplies had reportedly been interrupted. Major Palestinian factions in Lebanon had disassociated themselves from Fatah al-Islam, and the Lebanese Government had expressed its determination to confront the group. However, there were “real concerns” that the instability might spread to other camps.
The Secretary-General had deplored an attack that had destroyed or damaged half
of a six-truck UNRWA humanitarian convoy, calling on all sides to protect
civilians, he said. The Secretary-General had been in close contact with Prime
Minister Siniora of Lebanon and had talked on the phone with King Abdullah of
Jordan; the Foreign Ministers of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Iran and Syria; and Amre
Moussa, Secretary-General of the League of Arab States.
Ongoing tensions were also reflected in provocative billboards erected by
Hizbollah, while Israeli aerial violations of the Blue Line continued on a
regular basis, he said. Meanwhile, an independent mission to assess the
monitoring of the Lebanese-Syrian border would be dispatched to Lebanon next
week, security circumstances permitting.
(return to top)
The Iran Sanctions Enabling Act of 2007 will:
The foregoing article was taken
from Congressman Barney Frank's website
"When the Palestinian people chose to empower Hamas, they implicitly, and perhaps unknowingly, sent a number of messages to the rest of the world: messages about the acceptability of terrorists and terrorism, about the durability of past commitments, and about their relationship with the world. Most Palestinians had more narrow objectives in their votes, but elections have consequences no less for Palestinians than for ourselves in the United States. A legitimate election doesn’t absolve candidates of their crimes, and there is more to democracy than a fair counting of ballots. Elected terrorists are still terrorists. "The consequences of the Palestinian elections have been dire. Israel stopped transferring tax revenues and the movement of goods in and out of Palestinians areas has slowed to a stagnant crawl. The United States acted to prevent bank transfers to the Hamas-led PA, and Congress has required that U.S. assistance be given only through non-governmental organizations, or to the Office of President Mahmoud Abbas. To provide humanitarian assistance to the Palestinian people, together with our Quartet partners, we have established a Temporary International Mechanism to deliver aid. The TIM, initially established in June 2006, allowed approximately $900 million in emergency assistance to be spent in the West Bank and Gaza by the end of last year. By comparison, in 2005, total PA revenue from taxes, transferred customs duties and foreign aid amounted to $1.3 billion, with another $700 million coming from commercial loans and proceeds from the Palestine Investment Fund. "So today, instead of an economy, the Palestinians have a TIM cup. Instead of a unity government, they have warlords and clan leaders. They’ve replaced negotiations with Israel with fighting amongst themselves. Palestinians who once rightfully boasted of their high-levels of education and cultural sophistication, are now commonly compared to the hapless residents of Afghanistan and Somalia. Instead of being schooled in co-existence and peace, Palestinian children now get instruction in genocide and the joy of suicide-bombing from Mickey Mouse’s evil cousin, 'Farfur,' the Hamas-T.V. Terror Mouse—another generation lost. "For the ordinary Palestinian, nothing is better and almost everything is worse. Yet who do they blame? The United States. Bush. Olmert. Abu Mazen. The PA. The Arabs. The Quartet. The weather. The N.Y. Yankees. Anyone and everyone except Hamas. "And how is Hamas responding to this crisis? The same way they always do. Hamas may have emerged as a political actor but they still have only one strategy: “Don’t just stand there! Kill some Jews!” Not surprisingly, scarcely a day has gone by during the so-called “cease-fire” when the 40,000 Israelis living in Sderot have not had to flee Palestinian rocket fire from Gaza. Instead of baiting the IDF to invade, Hamas has only cleared the way for the IDF to resume targeted killings–richly deserved, probably necessary, but ultimately sterile. "Into this maelstrom of chaos and bloodletting the Bush Administration has proposed a set of benchmarks to facilitate greater Palestinian freedom of movement. The plan is heavy on administrative details and light on political reality. Variously described as 'informal,' 'flexible,' and 'iterative,' the benchmarks overwhelmingly focus on specific and often risky action items for Israel, and on fuzzy, notional aspirations for the forces under the control of President Abbas. Yet again, I’m afraid we have slaughtered more trees for paper that will fill the graveyard of still-born American security plans. "To be clear, I am not opposed to benchmarks, or security plans, and I certainly agree that both Israelis and Palestinians have to take responsibility for improving their shared misfortune. Reciprocity is the only way out of this mire. If the past year has shown nothing else, it has demonstrated clearly the perils of unilateralism. Given the level of the PA’s disfunctionality, unilateralism was an experiment worth trying. But the results are now clear, and they are overwhelmingly negative. "Politically, diplomatically, and militarily, unilateralism has strengthened radicals, weakened moderates, undercut Israeli deterrence, and contributed little to Israeli security. Getting out of Gaza was worth doing, but in the long term, I see little prospect for Israel to achieve durable improvements in security without the cooperation of an effective Palestinian partner, and here we come to the heart of the matter. "There is no such effective Palestinian partner. By virtue of the decisions and missed chances of the past years–American, Israeli, Arab and Palestinian–the Palestinian Authority is in danger of complete collapse. It may be just a shell today, but even that shell is now in danger of disintegration. It is this fact more than any other that gives an air of unreality to the so-called 'access and movement benchmarks. "In their totality, whether they are 'informal,' 'flexible,' or 'iterative,' they are built on a flawed premise, they confuse symptoms with causes. The lack of access and movement is a problem, but it’s not the problem. The problem is a Palestinian Authority without a singular and exclusive authority. The problem is a political void that is being relentlessly expanded and filled by Hamas. "Unless and until we can propose a plan that will address the problem, I fear our waste-paper graveyard is going to keep pace with real ones.”
Witnesses for the hearing included The Honorable C. David Welch, Assistant
Secretary, Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, U.S. Department of State; Lieutenant
General Keith W. Dayton, United States Security Coordinator and Mr. Mark Ward,
Senior Deputy Assistant Administrator, Bureau for Asia and the Near East, U.S.
Agency for International Development.
The prescription
was clear - and expensive: rent industrial strength fans to dry the water from
the floor and the surviving wood, replace the 2 by 4s and the plywood, buy new
flooring, and have it installed. All this, of course is, as they say, easier
said than done, particularly because the original flooring is no longer
manufactured, so we cannot get a good color match (and, even if we could, the
sun has faded the color on the remaining floor), and the material that comes
closest is a quarter of an inch thicker than the old material, this,
necessitating a delicate sloping of the floor so that old and new can co-exist.
God is always
watching; God always hears - even underneath the kitchen floor. |
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WASHINGTON
DC (Publicity Release)—
Freedom
at Issue
U.S.
Capitol Roundup
“Where
do U.S. interests lie in the current chaos afflicting the Palestinians? It’s
a difficult question. Each answer comes with political dilemmas and moral
hazards. Although we are not responsible for the choices made by others,
there is no avoiding the fact that a good deal of responsibility for the
status quo lies at our feet. 
The
bill was introduced by Reps. Barney Frank (D-MA), Chairman of the House
Financial Services Committee, and Tom Lantos (D-CA), Chairman of the House
Foreign Affairs Committee. Senator Barack Obama has introduced a similar
bill in the U.S. Senate. “Time and again in recent history, divestment
has been used to
“The
extraordinary support for this House resolution so soon after introduction
reflects an emerging consensus in Congress and across the country: Mr.
Gonzales should step down,” said Rep. Schiff. “The Justice Department needs
a strong and independent voice, and someone of unimpeachable credibility. We
must reluctantly conclude that the current Attorney General does not fit the
bill.”
Jews
in the
News
Doing
It Better
Jacobson’s
story takes off right at the starting gate when a proper Bunbury (a perfect fit
for David McBean), is reading Romeo and Juliet and commenting aloud to
his rather snooty butler, Hartley, (a talented Tom Zohar) about how Romeo’s life
would have turned out differently had he kept with his Rosaline and never met
Juliet at the ball. He insists she is simply a fictional character, or less than
fiction and