web analytics
May 23, 2013 /14 Sivan, 5773
At a Glance
InDepth
Sponsored Post
The Tosfos Yomtov was convinced that the death of 300,000 –600,000 Jews during the Chmielnicki massacres of 1648-49 were because of improper Tefila. Communicated: Tefilla

Chillul Tefila Bifarhesia, as well as halachicly challenged verbiage and dress, are external manifestations of a critical lack of personal yiras shomayim which has lethal consequences.



The UNESCO Paradigm

tell a friend

We always bristle at the preachments of even Israel’s few friends that it should rely on agreements and international good will as significant elements in its national security planning as it negotiates its final borders. In the final analysis, realistic borders based on a serious evaluation of probable military threats must be primary.

That principle was only reinforced by the recent goings-on at the UN and UNESCO.

UNESCO’s granting of full membership status to the Palestinian Authority in clear and direct contradiction of the standards for membership shows quite clearly that majority politics, rather than the legitimate interests of individual states, will always be the deciding factor.

And the PA’s failure by one vote to garner sufficient support in the Security Council for full membership – meaning that eight members were prepared to approve the laughable notion that the Palestinians meet the established criteria for membership – also makes the point.

Imagine – the PA came so close without a viable economy, without borders, without an army, and with Israel in control of most of the PA’s claimed territory and Hamas in control of most of the rest. And it is a foregone conclusion that, given the chance, the General Assembly would overwhelmingly vote for full membership for the Palestinians.

The recent UNESCO flap over a Haaretz cartoon, while comical, makes the point as well. Two weeks ago Haaretz ran a cartoon depicting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak sending off an air force squadron to attack Iran, with Netanyahu saying  “And on your way back, you’re gonna hit the UNESCO office in Ramallah.”

Coming soon after the UNESCO vote on Palestinian membership, the satirical point was unmistakable. Remarkably, though, a senior official at UNESCO called Israel’s ambassador to UNESCO in for a tongue-lashing. He was read a formal protest and told the cartoon constituted incitement: “A cartoon like this endangers the lives of unarmed diplomats, and you have an obligation to protect them. We understand that there is freedom of the press in Israel, but the government must prevent attacks on UNESCO.”

Given the venom, incitement and threats Arab UNESCO members routinely hurl Israel’s way without any protest from UNESCO, it’s plain the rules don’t apply where Israel is concerned. That a major organ of the UN would engage in such a stretch and accord seriousness to such an obvious political joke is proof positive that Israel, as always, must rely on its own devices.

We are not suggesting that Israel can go it alone. What we are saying is that Israel must rely chiefly on boundaries that provide for its optimum defense – and never on promises and commitments that depend on unreliable international bodies for implementation.

tell a friend

About the Author:


You might also be interested in:


no comments

You must log in to post a comment.

SocialTwist Tell-a-Friend

Current Top Story
Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas has said he will never recognize a Jewish state and there will be no Jews allowed in a Palestinian State.
J Street: Demand Israel’s Peace Process Goal be Palestinian State
Latest Indepth Stories
Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas has said he will never recognize a Jewish state and there will be no Jews allowed in a Palestinian State.

parently an affront to J Street’s worldview, the focus of which appears to be the creation of a Palestinian State, whether or not that will bring peace.

Moshe-Feiglin-022213

The importance of the caucus on organ harvesting in China, sponsored recently by the Liberal Lobby in the Knesset, cannot be exaggerated. On the surface, the caucus’s topic seems odd. Knesset members and other VIPs were called together to discuss horrors being perpetrated by the Communist regime in China against what the government there calls “regime opponents.”

Shurin-Dov

My mother, the eldest daughter of Reb Yaakov Kamenetsky, zt”l, was niftar last month at the age of 92. She took her last breath in her home in Efrat, Israel, next door to the shul that was my father’s for 24 years before his passing in 2007.

Following the Boston Marathon bombing, one crucial point will likely remain overlooked. The most loathsome aspect of this or any other terror bombing attack on civilians will always lie in the inexpressibility of physical pain. While all decent people will abhor the idea of bombs expressly directed at the innocent, whether here or in other countries, none will ever be able to process the very deepest horrors of what has been inflicted.

It’s only natural to see increasing evidence of Jerusalem’s glorious Jewish past being unearthed, quite literally, under modern Israeli sovereignty. The new archaeological finds are also very timely – as the Arab onslaught attempting to detach Jerusalem from its Jewish roots gains steam, the facts on the ground, or “under” the ground, show quite otherwise.

The Talmud (Berachot 26b) says, “tefillot avot tiknum” – “prayer was established by the avot.” The Talmud then uses the following verse (Bereshit 19:27) to prove how Avraham established prayer: “Vayaskem Avraham baboker el hamakom asher amad sham et pnei Hashem” – “And Avraham got up early in the morning to the place where he had stood before God.”

Nearly 13 years ago, then-Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak journeyed to Camp David to end the conflict with the Palestinians. With the approval of President Clinton, he offered Yasir Arafat an independent Palestinian state in almost all of the West Bank, Gaza and in part of Jerusalem. Arafat said no.

The news that the Internal Revenue Service unfairly targeted conservative groups has brought renewed spotlight on a 2010 lawsuit filed by the pro-Israel group Z Street, which alleges it was also singled out by the IRS when applying for tax-exempt status.

In an editorial last week (“Circling the Wagons”) we noted the efforts by the administration and its supporters to dismiss allegations that the government’s spin on the Benghazi attack was designed to shield the president and that the IRS was improperly used to stifle opposition to Mr. Obama’s reelection.

As the controversies besetting the Obama administration continue to grow in number and intensity, the prospect that President Obama would seriously consider military action against Iran, should that country continue its drive to become a nuclear power, becomes more and more remote. So we welcome the current enhancement of sanctions against Iran on the federal and New York State levels.

To his parents’ friends, he was “Mrs. Greenberg’s disgrace,” but to sports fans he is one of the greatest – if not the greatest – Jewish baseball players of all time. Long before Sandy Koufax, Hank Greenberg excited Jewish sports fans with his prowess on the baseball diamond.

To eat is to live – to keep our physical bodies alive. For without the body, there is nothing. No experience. No memory. No joy and no hardship. But man, unlike animals, eats to live and to enjoy. So how should a Jew respond when he is challenged as to why he imposes upon himself not just ceremonies dedicated to the enjoyment of eating but even more to the limiting of what he can eat?

Neither Secretary of State Kerry nor the president he serves seem to understand Russia’s goals in the Middle East.

More Articles from Editorial Board

In an editorial last week (“Circling the Wagons”) we noted the efforts by the administration and its supporters to dismiss allegations that the government’s spin on the Benghazi attack was designed to shield the president and that the IRS was improperly used to stifle opposition to Mr. Obama’s reelection.

As the controversies besetting the Obama administration continue to grow in number and intensity, the prospect that President Obama would seriously consider military action against Iran, should that country continue its drive to become a nuclear power, becomes more and more remote. So we welcome the current enhancement of sanctions against Iran on the federal and New York State levels.

Two recent revelations have raised serious questions about the kind of government President Obama is running.

We were dismayed by the announcement last week from Google that it was changing the name “Palestinian Territories” to “Palestine” across its products. In explaining the action, a Google spokesman said that “We consult a number of sources and authorities when naming countries…. In this case, we are following the lead of the UN, ICANN (the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers), ISO (International Organization for Standardization) and other international organizations.”

It seems clear that there is a lot more to the current developments regarding Syria than Israel’s bombing some sites there, though staunching the flow of Iranian weapons to Hizbullah through Syria is plainly a significant objective.

Secretary of State John Kerry’s recent embrace of the Arab Peace Initiative is, to say the least, unnerving. Certainly the response of Arab leaders to his action reflects the dangers for Israel inherent in the plan. President Obama seems to be preoccupied these days with Syria and Iran as well as serious domestic issues and is largely leaving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to Mr. Kerry. But the secretary of state seems poised to roil things up without any prospect of real progress.

Syria’s civil war is fast becoming one of the Obama administration’s greatest foreign policy challenges, for the moment even surpassing Iran’s march toward nuclear weaponry in its urgency. Together, both issues have effectively derailed the president’s long-range intention to focus on Asia and the emerging economic and military developments in China and other nations in the so-called Asian Pivot.

The investigation into the Boston bombings is still in its early stages but what seems to be emerging is that the presumed perpetrators were not directly linked to any foreign terrorist infrastructure. Rather, they were individual Americans radicalized by jihadist teachings and guided in their weapons-making by jihadist websites.

    Latest Poll

    Which is the most beautiful location in Jerusalem?









    View Results

    Loading ... Loading ...

Printed from: http://www.jewishpress.com/indepth/editorial/the-unesco-paradigm/2011/11/23/

Scan this QR code to visit this page online:

Close