Stanford University-

  

Death of a yid, Downfall of a nation?

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mC_ODpxMA10&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Eguardian%2Eco%2Euk%2Fworld%2F2009%2Fmay%2F17%2Fguatemala%2Drosenberg%2Dyoutube%2Dmurder%2Dde%2Dcolom&feature=player_embedded

(the Guardian, UK)

Rodrigo Rosenberg, a middle-aged Guatemalan lawyer, has become an unlikely YouTube star in macabre circumstances. In a video recorded last Friday at the offices of a friend, he sits behind a desk and talks at the camera for 15 minutes.

"If you are hearing this message," Rosenberg begins, "unfortunately, it is because I have been murdered by the president's private secretary, Gustavo Alejos, and his partner, Gregorio Valdez, with the approval of Álvaro Colom and Sandra de Colom [Guatemala's president and first lady]."

Two days later, on Sunday, Rosenberg was shot while riding his bicycle in Guatemala City. He died on the street.

"I do not want to be a hero," Rosenberg says at one point during the sensational video that was distributed at his funeral on Monday, but he has now become a martyr in a nation weary of drug running, money laundering and corruption, and with one of the highest murder rates in the world.

 

A difference in philosophy, not in goal.

"Vice President Joe Biden called Tuesday for Israel to work toward a two-state solution with the Palestinians and to consider taking steps like freezing settlement activity to improve the climate for negotiations. " (Politico)

Both Obama and Netanyahu have the distinct goal of preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons, they just differ in their respective philosophies concerning how that goal should be reached. However, despite their differing philosophies, both have 'real world' roots to their philosophies; from President Obama's perspective, it is impractical and possibly dangerous (due to fears of retaliation against Israel or US troops in the Mid-east) for the US or its allies to attack Iran’s nuclear installations, and for Netanyahu, the existence of the Nation of Israel hangs in the balance against a rogue state whose race to obtain nuclear weapons while denying the Holocaust seem to be attempting to prepare the world for another Holocaust. Both of these philosophies seem to be fairly reasonable (to me).

In a very similar vein, Obama and Netanyahu also both want a two-state solution between Israel and the Palestinians, but both once again have very different philosophies concerning how this solution is to be brought about, and under what circumstances it should be brought about.

However, it appears as if Biden, Gates and company (‘realists’) are adamant about living in a fantasy-land where once territory is returned to the Arabs, the Arabs will subsequently drop their weapons, renounce terror and their support of terror.

Let's be 'realists'-

-In 2000, then Prime Minister Ehud Barak pulled the remaining IDF units out of a small part of Southern Lebanon, effectively ending an occupation that spanned nearly two decades, following a campaign promise by Barak to do so a year earlier. Six years later, an ambush that resulted in the killings of eight IDF soldiers and the kidnappings of two IDF reservists took place, along with a massive Katyusha rocket barrage on Israel's northern border cities. Hezbollah claimed responsibility for these attacks. These attacks led to the 33-day long Second Lebanon War (2006).

It is interesting to note that since that 33-day long bloody conflict in Lebanon in 2006, no rockets have been fired by Hezbollah into Israel's northern territory. In this instance, it seems as if a bloody war made more of a lasting impression on the terrorists' and the nations' collective psyche than the unilateral Israeli pullout from occupied Arab territory did.

 

-In 2005, Ariel Sharone and his political party, Kadima, pulled the remaining IDF units and Jewish settlers out of occupied Gaza. Many Jewish Gazans had to be removed by force by the IDF. Since then, thousands of crude rockets filled with ball bearings and broken glass have been fired from Gaza at the southern border cities of Sderot, Beersheva, and Ashkelon. Hamas and other, smaller, terror groups operating in Gaza such as Islamic Jihad claimed and continue to claim responsibility for these unprovoked attacks on Israel's border cities in the Negev. There is a 15 second warning alarm that alerts these towns of rocket fire, which means that everyone, from toddler to senior citizen, must be within 15 seconds of a bomb shelter at all times. Sometimes, the alarm fails to go off. Even after the ceasefire following the recent IDF operation in Gaza dubbed 'Cast Lead,' Israel's southern border cities have continued to come under rocket fire, although in a somewhat sporadic fashion compared to before.

 May the US and Israel work together in the realm of reality to find a comprehensive peace that will be everlasting, not a temporary ceasefire that buys the terror groups' time to reload.

Freak Flag Grey

THE ARTICLE: PUERTO RICANS HAVE MOVED ON. WHY NOT JEWS?

 

ONCE upon a time most American Jews were underprivileged, and most of them voted Democrat. Then their circumstances changed, but their political allegiances remained unaltered. Around 30 or 40 years ago there was a joke which said that American Jews live like Episcopalians (i.e. relatively rich, privileged people) but vote like Puerto Ricans.

The remark was a bit racist, perhaps, but it was essentially true. Everyone knew what it meant. Only it is not true anymore. Puerto Ricans, like other Hispanics, have moved on. They now vote in a pluralistic way in accordance with their developing economic interests, ethnic concerns and what they think is good for America. In 2000 the Hispanic vote for George W Bush was more than 50 percent greater than the Jewish vote.

WORST PLACES TO BE A BLOGGER (by the Committee to Protect Journalists)

 (http://edition.cnn.com/2009/TECH/05/04/world.bloggers/)

1. BURMA

2. IRAN

Lowlight: Blogger Omidreza Mirsayafi, jailed for insulting the country’s religious leaders, died in Evin Prison in March under circumstances that have not been fully explained.

3. SYRIA

Lowlight: Waed al-Mhana, an advocate for endangered archaeological sites, is on trial for a posting that criticized the demolition of a market in Old Damascus.

4. CUBA

5. SAUDI ARABIA

6. VIETNAM

7. TUNISIA

8. CHINA

9. TURKMENISTAN

10. EGYPT