President Obama’s speech was presented before the U.N General Assembly on Wednesday September 21, 2011.
Posted in politics
Tagged Middle East, Palestinian state, peace, President Obama, speech, United Nations
by Morton Klein
The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) has pointed out that, in the op-ed space granted to Palestinian Authority (PA) president Mahmoud Abbas in the New York Times (May 16), Abbas has produced a collection of shameless falsehoods.
• “It is important to note that the last time the question of Palestinian statehood took center stage at the General Assembly, the question posed to the international community was whether our homeland should be partitioned into two states. In November 1947, the General Assembly made its recommendation and answered in the affirmative. Shortly thereafter, Zionist forces expelled Palestinian Arabs to ensure a decisive Jewish majority in the future state of Israel, and Arab armies intervened. War and further expulsions ensued” [ZOA: Abbas neglects to mention that the Palestinians and Arab states utterly rejected the offer the UN proposal of a state and instead went to war to prevent Israel’s emergence.
• “Zionist forces expelled Palestinian Arabs to ensure a decisive Jewish majority in the future state of Israel, and Arab armies intervened. War and further expulsions ensued” [ZOA: In fact, the Arab side launched attacks on Palestine’s Jews even before the end of the British Mandate and the proclamation of Israel’s establishment in May 1948. In anticipation of the impending invasion of Arab armies, which commenced the day Israel was declared, many Arabs started leaving while still under British rule. Often, Jewish appeals for Arabs to stay, as in Haifa and Tiberias, went unheeded. Most of those Palestinian Arabs who left did so in the chaos and fog of the war which they and the neighboring Arab states had initiated. In contrast, every Jew was expelled from the West Bank, illegally seized by Jordan. Had there been no Arab-initiated war, there would have been no refugees – on either side.]
• “Minutes after the State of Israel was established on May 14, 1948, the United States granted it recognition. Our Palestinian state, however, remains a promise unfulfilled … Only if the international community keeps the promise it made to us six decades ago, and ensures that a just resolution for Palestinian refugees is put into effect, can there be a future of hope and dignity for our people” [ZOA: The UN General Assembly in 1947 recommended the creation of an Arab state and a Jewish state in Palestine, which was an international offer of statehood – not a “promise” – and it was utterly rejected, as mentioned, the Palestinians and Arab states at the time. The Arab parties were explicit about their reasons – they rejected the legitimacy of a Jewish state alongside an Arab state. That rejection persists from Mr. Abbas to this day, who has said that, “I do not accept the Jewish State, call it what you will.” In 2000, then Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak offered a Palestinian state on almost all the territories mentioned by Abbas, but was turned down. During 1948-67, no Palestinian state was set up, despite Judea, Samaria and Gaza then being under Arab control, because the primary goal was and remains Israel’s elimination, not a Palestinian state].
• “Israel continues to send more settlers to the occupied West Bank and denies Palestinians access to most of our land and holy places, particularly in Jerusalem” [ZOA: All Muslim shrines, like the Al Aqsa mosque and the Dome of the Rock, have functioned continuously in Jerusalem under Israel rule. Jerusalem’s Arab population has increased, as has Arab construction. In fact, it is only under Israeli rule that there has been genuine freedom of religion in historic Jerusalem. Under its previous (and illegal) Jordanian occupiers, every synagogue was razed and Jews were barred from merely visiting the Western Wall, Judaism’s holiest site. Under Abbas’ PA, Jewish shrines, like Joseph’s Tomb, have been torched and violated. Last year, his government published an official “study” claiming that Jews have no rights or historical connection to the Jerusalem and the Temple Mount. In Gaza, under Hamas, with which Abbas has just signed a unity agreement, most Christians have fled for their lives.]
• “we have met all prerequisites to statehood listed in the Montevideo Convention, the 1933 treaty that sets out the rights and duties of states …” [ZOA: The PA does not meet all necessary international legal criteria for statehood. It does not exercise control in defined territory, as Israel shares in a range of responsibilities by agreement in at least some PA-controlled areas, while PA rule has not extended for years to Hamas-run Gaza and still does not at time of writing. Moreover, the PA is a signatory to the Oslo Agreements in which it committed itself to not altering the political status of the PA territories, except by a negotiated settlement with Israel.]
• “The State of Palestine intends to be a peace-loving nation, committed to human rights, democracy, the rule of law and the principles of the United Nations Charter. Once admitted to the United Nations, our state stands ready to negotiate all core issues of the conflict with Israel” [ZOA: The PA is a terrorist-supporting entity run by Fatah, whose Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades is a deadly and proscribed terrorist organization which has murdered hundreds of Israeli civilians. Scores of streets, schools and sports teams have been named in honor of terrorists who murdered Jews. Fatah’s’ 43rd anniversary emblem shows all of Israel draped in a kffiyeh, with a picture of Arafat and a Kalashnikov rifle alongside it. It recently signed a unity government agreement with Hamas, which calls in its Charter for the destruction of Israel (Article 15) and the murder of Jews (Article 7). In seeking to circumvent negotiations and alter the political status, Abbas fails to mention that any such unilateral act violates the 1995 Oslo II agreement, which stipulates that “Neither side shall initiate or take any step that will change the status of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip pending the outcome of the permanent status negotiations.”]
• “A key focus of negotiations will be reaching a just solution for Palestinian refugees based on Resolution 194, which the General Assembly passed in 1948” [ZOA: UN General Assembly Resolution 194 is a non-binding resolution that all Arab states rejected at the time. Every refugee problem of the twentieth century has been resolved by resettlement, not repatriation, which the PA demands].
• “We go to the United Nations now to secure the right to live free in the remaining 22 percent of our historic homeland because we have been negotiating with the State of Israel for 20 years without coming any closer to realizing a state of our own” [ZOA: The land earmarked for the British Mandate and for settlement by Jews with a view to eventual Jewish statehood includes present-day Jordan, which constitutes 78% of the territory in question. It is Israel itself, plus Judea, Samaria and Gaza, which constitutes 22% of the territory earmarked for Jewish settlement, of which 12% was offered in 1947 for a Jewish state and 10% for another Arab state]
Read Mahmoud Abbas’ NYT article by clicking here.
ZOA National President Morton A. Klein said, “The Palestinian Authority’s Mahmoud Abbas has shown in his New York Times op-ed that his historical revisionism is not limited to the Holocaust, which he denied in a 1982 doctoral thesis at Moscow’s Oriental College and in 1983 book; it extends to the first Arab-Israeli war of 1948. It is a tragic commentary on our times that such a mendacious and error-ridden piece could be published in a leading newspaper.”
by Efraim Karsh
As the United Nations prepares to vote next week on the issue of Palestinian statehood, it might be worth bearing in mind that whatever the outcome, the result will certainly not be the creation of an actual Palestinian state, any more than the November 1947 partition resolution spelled the inevitable creation of a Jewish one.
In 1948, Israel came into being due to the extraordinary cohesion of Palestine’s Jewish community (the Yishuv). Armed with an unwavering sense of purpose and an extensive network of institutions, the Yishuv managed to surmount a bevy of international obstacles and fend off a pan-Arab attempt to destroy it. Likewise, it was the total lack of communal solidarity—the willingness to subordinate personal interest to the collective good—that accounted for the collapse and dispersion of Palestinian Arab society as its leaders tried to subvert partition.
Sixty-four years later, Palestinian society seems no better prepared for statehood. And the U.N. would be doing the Palestinians a great disservice by accepting the corrupt and dysfunctional Palestinian Authority as its newest member. While this would hardly be the first failed state to be delivered by the world organization, the unique circumstances of its possible birth make failure a foregone conclusion, and the consequences are too dire to contemplate.
The building of the Jewish state began in the Swiss town of Basel in 1889 at the First Zionist Congress, which defined Zionism’s goal as “the creation of a home for the Jewish people in Palestine to be secured by public law,” and established institutions to promote it. By the time the League of Nations appointed Britain as the mandatory for Palestine 23 years later, the Yishuv had been transformed into a cohesive and organized national community that provided most of Palestine’s Jewry with work, trade union protection as well as with education, health care, and defense.
By contrast, it was the tragedy of the Palestinians that the two leaders who determined their national development during the 20th century—Hajj Amin Husseini and Yasser Arafat—were far more interested in destroying the Jewish national cause than leading their own people. As far back as 1978, Arafat told his close friend and collaborator, Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu, that the Palestinians lacked the traditions, unity, and discipline to have a successful state. Once given control of parts of the West Bank and Gaza, this prognosis became a self-fulfilling prophecy, as his regime quickly became oppressive and corrupt. Later it helped launch the second intifada, the bloodiest and most destructive confrontation between Israelis and Palestinians since the 1948 war. In the process, he destroyed the fragile civil society and relatively productive economy that had developed during the previous decade.
Paradoxically, it was Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip during the June 1967 war that laid the groundwork for Palestinian civil society. Not only did it bring the issue of Palestinian independence to the forefront of the international agenda, but it also produced dramatic improvements in the Palestinians’ quality of life. During the occupation, the territories became the fourth fastest-growing economy in the world—ahead of Singapore, Hong Kong, Korea, and substantially ahead of Israel itself. From 1967 to 2000, life expectancy rose from 48 to 72, while infant mortality fell from 60 per 1,000 live births in 1968 to 15 per 1,000 births in 2000. And while there was not a single university that existed in the West Bank or Gaza before Israeli rule, by the mid-1990s, there were seven such institutions, boasting more than 16,000 students.
All of these achievements were steadily undone after Oslo, as Arafat’s regime took control over parts of the territories. In September of 1993, conditions in the West Bank and Gaza were still better than those in most neighboring Arab states—and this despite the economic decline caused by the first intifada. Within six months of Arafat’s arrival in Gaza, the standard of living in the strip fell by 25 percent, and more than half of the area’s residents claimed to have been happier under Israeli rule. The launch of the second intifada six years later dealt the death blow to the economic and institutional gains that Israel bequeathed.
In an apparent departure from this destructive path, in the summer of 2007, PA Prime Minister Salam Fayyad embarked on the first true state-building effort in Palestinian history. And he has had some modest successes, most notably a sustained economic recovery that has nearly restored the West Bank’s pre-intifada levels of performance. Yet Fayyad has created no new institutions, and the PA remains a corrupt and wholly dysfunctional organization. The Palestinian prime minister may claim to have laid the groundwork for a democratic Palestine, but the presidency of Mahmoud Abbas, and by extension his own position, are totally unconstitutional. Not only did Abbas defy Hamas’s landslide victory in the January 2006 parliamentary election, but Abbas’s presidency expired more than two years ago.
No less important, the two factions dominating Palestinian life, the Hamas and Fatah, remain armed groups, and active practitioners of terrorism—an assured recipe for a failed state. The Oslo Accords charged the PA to dismantle all armed groups in the West Bank and Gaza, but Arafat never complied; David Ben-Gurion, by contrast, dissolved all Jewish underground movements within a fortnight from Israel’s independence, incorporating them into the newly established Israeli Defense Forces. Following statehood, even if Abbas were to make a genuine commitment to reform, Hamas would continue to defy his tenuous authority; not only does the group rule the Gaza Strip, which it has transformed into an Islamist micro-state, but it also wields considerable power in the West Bank.
Small wonder that recent surveys show that more Palestinians in east Jerusalem, who are entitled to Israeli social benefits and are free to travel across Israel’s pre-1967 borders, would rather become citizens of the Jewish state than citizens of a new Palestinian one. Two thirds of them believe that a unilateral declaration of Palestinian independence backed by the U.N. would have no positive effect. And they’re right. Unfortunately the ramifications—increased conflict with Israel and a deepening rift in an already divided Palestinian society—are manifold. Once again, the Palestinian leadership is leading its people astray.
This article was originally published in the The Daily Beast on September 16, 2011.
Efraim Karsh is research professor of Middle East and Mediterranean Studies at King’s College London, director of the Middle East Forum (Philadelphia) and author, most recently, of Palestine Betrayed.
By Bai Macfarlane
On September 12, an MSNBC story revealed that an estimated 10,000 parents were jailed each year for falling behind in child support payments. According to the story, nearly one quarter of the nation’s minors are in child support programs.
Mike Brunker, the Projects Team editor for msnbc.com says, “But in what might seem like an un-American plot twist from a Charles Dickens’ novel, advocates for the poor say some parents are wrongly being locked away without any regard for their ability to pay — sometimes without the benefit of legal representation.”
Brunker raises concerns about the practice of civil court judges jailing people without the person even having a lawyer. The Fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution specifies that no person shall be be deprived of liberty or property, without due process of law.
The Coalition for Divorce Reform raises other concerns. In and e-mail interview, Beverly Willett, the Vice Chair for the Coalition says the no-fault divorce system is gravely unjust.
“The fact that poor parents can land behind bars for failure to pay child support when they have no ability to do so is just one more example of the injustice endemic to our no-fault divorce system.
“Sued for divorce against their will, compelled to split their property and their children and dishonor their marriage vows, and now finally thrown into jail like criminals. Our on-demand divorce culture has so multiplied the number of divorces and clogged our courts that in many cases litigants are herded in and out like animals with little or no opportunity to defend themselves. In essence, they are silenced. Their voice is taken away in much the same way that they are silenced the moment they become an unwilling defendant in a divorce action.”
No-fault divorce occurs when divorce is granted to the person filing for divorce, even though the other spouse has committed no offense against marriage such as adultery, extreme cruelty, or gross neglect of duty.
Timothy B. Nolan, a Gulf War Veteran was a defendant in a no-fault divorce in GeaugaCounty, Ohio. His wife was awarded with their son and he was ordered to pay child support. Even though he was later diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis, and medically determined unable to continue in his profession, the Geauga County Court and Child Support Enforcement Agency jailed him twice for being behind in child support.
“When I married my wife, I took my vows seriously and I lived up to my promises,” says Nolan. “My wife, on the other hand chose to quit fulfilling her vows. Though marriage is a contract, the courts don’t care whether a husband upheld his obligations while the wife quit. On the contrary, my wife, who breached the contract was rewarded by the Court and I was penalized.”
Willett, from The Coalition for Divorce Reform, says “Some parents do improperly withhold child support, and that’s wrong, but I’m not surprised to learn that the presumption of innocence does not apply in these child support contempt proceedings. With no-fault divorce, innocence is irrelevant too.”
In the MSNBC piece, Brunker writes that the person owing child support is not entitled constitutional protections that criminal defendants receive, including the presumption of innocence. “And in five states — Florida, Georgia, Maine, South Carolina and Ohio — one of the omitted protections is the right to an attorney.”
These same five states that don’t ensure the accused person’s right to an attorney refer to marriage as a contract in their laws. In typical contract law, the party who breaches the contract is held responsible to make good to the party who has been wronged. In Ohio Law “Husband and wife contract towards each other obligations of mutual respect, fidelity, and support” (3103.01). Florida specifies that ordained ministers in communion with some church “may solemnize the rights of matrimonial contract” (741.07(1)). In Georgia, marriage is a contract and written marriage contracts “shall be liberally construed to carry into effect the intention of the parties” (§ 19-3-1, 19-3-63). Maine’s domestic relations law has as its goal “to nurture, sustain and protect the traditional monogamous family unit in Maine society, its moral imperatives, its economic function and its unique contribution to the rearing of healthy children” (§650-1-B).
Other states laws refer to the contractual element of marriage or the value of marriage in rearing healthy children. But, in no-fault divorce practice, the party upholding the contract frequently has reason to complain.
Gregory Lynne, who lost his children in a no-force divorce in Caroline County Virginia, says, “After divorce, the non-custodial parents are robbed of their identities as persons. Hanging-on, teetering between a jail cell and sub-standard wages (after paying child support,) and limited by child visitation orders, discarded parents live a tenuous existence. Many are discouraged and lose hope of ever raising their children to their full potential. Instead, they are treated like indentured servants, pimped by the state to ‘turn economic tricks’ as-if they deserved to be objects of underworld exploitation for the benefit of their absentee families.”
Bai Macfarlane writes at MarysAdvocates.org
Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44376665/ns/us_news-crime_and_courts/
(COLUMBIA, SC) When faced with a question of protecting human life, on the issue of the personhood of the child in the womb, Presidential hopeful Mitt Romney was the only candidate to back down. This question, as part of a presidential discussion held on Monday in South Carolina, saw the first contrast between Republicans vying for the nation’s highest office on the issue of abortion and the federal government’s role in protecting innocent human life.
A question from Princeton professor Robert George noted that Congress retains the authority to recognize the personhood rights of the preborn. George queried former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney on this assertion.
“Many people today say that we need to wait for Roe vs. Wade to be reversed before Congress can do anything about protecting life in the womb. However, Section 5 of the 14th Amendment expressly authorizes the Congress, by appropriate legislation, to enforce the guarantees of due process and equal protection contained in the amendment’s first section,” said George. “Would you, as President, propose to Congress appropriate legislation pursuant to the 14th Amendment to protect human life in all stages and conditions?”
Michelle Bachman, Newt Gingrich, and Herman Cain responded in the affirmative. Romney, on the other hand, suggested that a federal personhood measure “would create…a constitutional crisis.” He added, “That’s not something I would precipitate.”
Instead, Romney lobbied for a continuation of the strategy of altering the makeup of the Supreme Court. “I would like to see that Supreme Court return to the states the responsibility for determining laws related to abortion,” he said.
The week’s second presidential candidate forum is scheduled for Wednesday at the Reagan Library in Simi Valley, California where candidates will have a chance to further clarify their positions. Will Romney adapt to this question to reflect President Reagan’s position, and that of the Republican Party?
Reagan issued his Personhood Proclamation on January 14th, 1988 in which he said:
“The unalienable right to life is found not only in the Declaration of Independence but also in the Constitution that every President is sworn to preserve, protect, and defend. Both the 5th and 14th Amendments guarantee that no person shall be deprived of life without due process of law.”
Reagan continued, “This sacred legacy, and the well-being and the future of our country, demand that protection of the innocents must be guaranteed and that the personhood of the unborn be declared and defended throughout our land.”
The Republican Party Platform—which Reagan’s pro-personhood ideology has helped to shape—also reads, “We support a human life amendment to the Constitution, and we endorse legislation to make clear that the 14th Amendment protections apply to unborn children.”
“Far from a ‘crisis,’ personhood restores the protections for the preborn that were intended by our founding fathers and the drafters of the 14th Amendment,” said Keith Mason, President of Personhood USA. “Roe v. Wade has no basis in constitutional law. It was a tribunal of nine men in 1973 that unleashed the current ‘constitutional crisis’ upon our nation.”
Personhood USA is a grassroots Christian organization founded to establish personhood efforts across America to create protection for every child by love and by law. Personhood USA is committed to assisting and supporting Personhood Legislation and Constitutional Amendments and building local pro-life organizations through raising awareness of the personhood of the pre-born.
By John W. Whitehead
For all intents and purposes, the Constitution is on life support and has been for some time now.
Those responsible for its demise are none other than the schools, which have failed to educate students about its principles; the courts, which have failed to uphold the rights enshrined within it; the politicians, who long ago sold out to corporations and special interests; and “we the people” who, in our ignorance and greed, have valued materialism over freedom.
We can pretend that the Constitution, which was written to hold the government accountable, is still our governing document. However, in America today, the government does whatever it wants. And the few of us who actively fight to preserve the rights enshrined in the Constitution do so knowing that in the long run, we may be fighting a losing battle.
A quick review of the Bill of Rights shows how dismal things have become.
The First Amendment is supposed to protect the freedom to speak your mind and protest in peace without being bridled by the government. It also protects the freedom of the media, as well as the right to worship and pray without interference. Yet despite the clear protections found in the First Amendment, the freedoms described therein are under constant assault. Students are often stripped of their rights for such things as wearing a t-shirt that school officials find offensive. Likewise, local governments and police often oppose citizens who express unpopular views in public. Peace activists who speak out against the government are being arrested and subjected to investigation by the FBI, while members of the press are threatened with jail time for reporting on possible government wrongdoing and refusing to reveal their sources.
The Second Amendment was intended to guarantee “the right of the people to keep and bear arms.” Yet while gun ownership has been recognized by the U.S. Supreme Court as an individual citizen right, Americans remain powerless to defend themselves against the government. In fact, in 2011, the Indiana Supreme Court broadly ruled that citizens don’t have the right to resist police officers who enter their homes illegally, which is the law in most states.
The Third Amendment reinforces the principle that civilian-elected officials are superior to the military by prohibiting the military from entering any citizen’s home without “the consent of the owner.” Today’s military may not as of yet technically threaten private property. However, with the police increasingly posing as military forces—complete with weapons, uniforms, assault vehicles, etc.—a good case could be made for the fact that SWAT team raids, which break down the barrier between public and private property, have done away with this critical safeguard.
The Fourth Amendment prohibits the government from searching your home without a warrant approved by a judge. Unfortunately, the Fourth Amendment has been all but eviscerated by the passage of the USA Patriot Act, which opened the door to unwarranted electronic intrusions by government agents into your most personal and private transactions, including phone, mail, computer and medical records.
The Fifth Amendment is supposed to ensure that you are innocent until proven guilty, and government authorities cannot deprive you of your life, your liberty or your property without following strict legal codes of conduct. Unfortunately, those protections—especially as they apply to Muslim-Americans—have been largely extinguished in the wake of 9/11.
The Sixth Amendment was intended not only to ensure a “speedy and public trial,” but to prevent the government from keeping someone in jail for unspecified offenses. That too has been a casualty of the war on terror. Non-citizens suspected of connections to terrorists or terrorism can now be labeled as “enemy combatants” and be held indefinitely without charge, without a court hearing and without access to a lawyer. Not only have non-citizens been held in such a manner but so, too, were American citizens who were captured on American soil.
The Seventh Amendment guarantees citizens the right to a jury trial. However, when the populace has no idea of what’s in the Constitution, that inevitably translates to an ignorant jury incapable of distinguishing justice and the law from their own preconceived notions and fears.
The Eighth Amendment is supposed to protect the rights of the accused and forbid the use of cruel and unusual punishment. However, by sanctioning torture, including the use of waterboarding as a benign form of legalized torture, the Bush administration not only violated U.S. laws and virtually every international treaty against torture but raised the bar on what constitutes cruel and unusual punishment.
The Ninth Amendment provides that other rights not enumerated in the Constitution are nonetheless retained by the people. Popular sovereignty—the belief that the power to govern flows upward from the people rather than downward from the rulers—is clearly evident in this amendment. However, it has since been turned on its head by a centralized federal government that sees itself as supreme and which continues to pass more and more laws that restrict our freedoms under the pretext that it has an “important government interest” in doing so.
As for the Tenth Amendment’s reminder that the people and the states retain every authority that is not otherwise mentioned in the Constitution, that assurance of a system of government in which power is divided among local, state and national entities has long since been rendered moot by the centralized Washington, DC power elite—the president, Congress and the courts.
Thus, what little hope remains rests with what Pulitzer Prize-winning war correspondent Chris Hedges refers to as the modern rebel, “someone who is perpetually alienated from power, someone who is different from a revolutionary in the sense that you are always alienated from centers of power… I think that in order to maintain a democratic system you need large movements in society committed to issues of justice and truth. To put pressure on the power elite, to make sure that those issues are honored by institutions and by people who hold positions of power.”
Constitutional attorney and author John W. Whitehead is founder and president of The Rutherford Institute. He can be contacted at johnw@rutherford.org. Information about the Institute is available at www.rutherford.org
By Ambassador (ret.) Yoram Ettinger, “Second Thought”
President Obama joins the campaign against the Palestinian UN initiative in spite of his belief that the UN is the quarterback of international relations, in defiance of his closest advisors – UN Ambassador Susan Rice, Director of Multilateral Affairs Samantha Power and Senior Advisor Valerie Jarrett – and irrespective of his support of Palestinian claims and his assumption that the Palestinian issue is the root cause of Middle East turbulence and the crown jewel of Arab policy-making.
However, President Obama operates within the Federalist system which precludes an omnipotent president, and significantly constrains his maneuverability. It accords Congress – a bastion of support of the Jewish State – power equal to that of the President, domestically and internationally. The clout of Congress grows in direct correlation to the weakness of Obama, whose popularity plunged from 65% in January 2009 to 39% in August 2011. Obama is aware that House and Senate Democratic leaders, such as House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer, Ranking Democrat on the House Foreign Relations Committee Howard Berman, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and former Chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee Robert Menendez, would suspend foreign aid to the Palestinian Authority, should the Palestinians proceed with their UN initiative. The President is cognizant of the fact that their support is critical to his reelection aspirations in November 2012.
Moreover, the US Congress constitutes the most authentic representative of the American people, who – especially upon the tenth anniversary of 9/11 – consider Palestinians, Arabs and Muslims as part of the terrorist threat, view the UN as a role-model of ingratitude and treat Israel as a special, capable, democratic and unconditional ally.
The US campaign against the Palestinian initiative at the UN is driven by the American People’s and Congress’ identification with the Jewish State, and by their mistrust of the UN and the Palestinians. According to a May 26, 2011 CNN poll, 82% of Americans consider Israel an ally and a friend, compared with 72% in 2001. 67% support Israel, while only 16% support the Palestinians, who are as unpopular as Iran (15%) and North Korea (17%). According to a February, 2011 Gallup poll, 68% consider Israel an ally; the April 2011 Rasmussen Report shows that most Americans oppose foreign aid to Arab countries but support foreign aid to Israel; a September 2010 Rasmussen Report indicates that most Americans are willing to defend militarily only five other countries – Canada, Britain, Israel, Germany and Mexico; and the April 2010 Quinnipiac Polling Institute determines that 66% expect Obama to improve treatment of Israel.
According to a February, 2011 Gallup poll, 62% of Americans think that the UN is performing poorly, compared with 30% in 1953. A February, 2011 Rasmussen Report determined that only 27% of likely US voters regard the UN as an ally of the US, while 15% consider the UN an enemy and 54% are undecided.
Congressional attitudes toward the UN reflect public resentment of anti-American bias in the UN, a home court for anti-US countries in general and Islamic and rogue regimes in particular, even though the US funds 22% of the UN budget. Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, who chairs the House Foreign Affairs Committee, recently introduced the United Nations Transparency, Accountability and Reform Act, which would cut off US contributions to any UN entity that grants membership, or any other upgraded status, to the Palestinian Authority. According to Ros-Lehtinen, “UN obsession with castigating Israel — from the Human Rights Council and the Goldstone Report and the Durban conferences to the multitude of UN bodies created for the sole purpose of condemning Israel — has eliminated UN credibility…. The UN’s most infamous anti-Israel act came in 1975, when the General Assembly voted to declare that ‘Zionism is racism.’”
Will Israel leverage the US attitude toward the UN and the Palestinian Authority, or will it persist in the policy of indecisiveness and retreat, which was initiated by the 1993 Oslo Accord?
This article was originally published in “Israel Hayom” Newsletter on September 12, 2011. Yoram Ettinger also publishes The Ettinger Report.
Posted in politics
Tagged Jewish state, Palestinian state, President Obama, U.S. Congress, United Nations
(Washington, DC) A new analysis by the Institute for Women’s Policy Research (IWPR), finds that women employees lost 81 percent (473,000) of the 581,000 jobs lost in the public sector since December 2008. Many of these jobs were lost at the local and state level where women in the public sector are most likely to be employed as elementary and middle school teachers.
At the local level between December 2008 and July 2011, the number of women in public sector employment decreased by 4.7 percent while the number of men decreased by only 1.6 percent. At the federal level in the same period, women employees saw a decrease of 3.2 percent in their ranks while the number of men employed actually increased by 5.3 percent, possibly due to increased employment in areas such as homeland security and civilian employment in the Department of Defense.
Women employed at the local level in the public sector are most likely to be elementary and middle school teachers, teacher assistants, secondary school teachers, and secretaries and administrative assistants. Men employed at the local government level are more likely to be police and sheriff’s patrol officers, elementary and middle school teachers, secondary school teachers, janitors, and firefighters.
Due to the recession and the dwindling of economic stimulus funding, state and local government budgets have decreased, resulting in layoffs. While the private sector gained 17,000 jobs in August, the public sector lost an equal number resulting in a zero jobs gains last month.
“The American Jobs Act proposed by President Obama will ensure investment in the country’s infrastructure and education,” said Jeffrey Hayes, senior researcher at IWPR. “The boost in funding will help women employees in the public sector, in turn allowing them to invest in their families, their communities, and in the economy overall.”
The President’s proposal includes a $30 billion investment in education to prevent the layoffs of up to 280,000 teachers while keeping more law enforcement officials and firefighters on the job. By allowing districts to use the money for longer school days or years and to support after school activities, working parents might benefit from knowing their children are being cared for in a safe and instructive environment.
The Institute for Women’s Policy Research (IWPR) conducts rigorous research and disseminates its findings to address the needs of women and their families, promote public dialogue, and strengthen communities and societies. IWPR is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization that also works in affiliation with the women’s studies and public policy programs at The George Washington
University.
(Underlined emphasis above was added by the editor.)
On 6 September, the Ohio Right to Life Society official announced its strong support for Issue 3. By voting yes on Issue 3, Ohioans will preserve their freedom to choose healthcare coverage free of abortion funding and healthcare rationing. The Ohio Right to Life Board of Trustees voted unanimously to endorse the effort against mandated healthcare under Obamacare.
When successful, Issue 3 will enact the Ohio Healthcare Freedom Amendment, which provides that in Ohio no law will compel any person, employer or healthcare provider to participate in a healthcare system and that no law should prohibit the purchase or sale of healthcare insurance.
Recent reports indicate that Obamacare would mandate $50 million each year to be devoted to school-based health centers, which may offer contraception and abortion services. Obamacare also demands that $250,000 per state be devoted to “Personal Responsibility Education”, a program required to teach contraception.
Passage of the Ohio Healthcare Freedom Amendment will protect Ohioans from such requirements of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and further defend innocent human life.
Ohio Right to Life supports any effort to stop Obamacare as it currently exists and views Issue 3 and the enactment of the Ohio Healthcare Freedom Amendment as an opportunity to do just that. The organization looks forward to engaging their statewide membership and 50 affiliated chapters in a united grassroots effort across the state to vote YES on Issue 3 this November.
Posted in health care, Ohio, politics
Tagged Ohio Healthcare Freedom Amendment, Ohio Right to Life Society
By Mary Taylor
Ohio Lt. Gov. and Insurance Director
Obamacare is so complex that only a few of its impacts have been widely publicized. In fact, many of the law’s far reaching mandates and requirements are still being defined by Washington bureaucrats. But as you look closer at some of its lesser known provisions, one thing becomes clear: the authors of Obamacare are more concerned with a government takeover of health care and less worried about you the consumer and the increasing cost of health insurance because of this law’s mandates. Here are just three of the major market changes – among many – that all Ohioans should understand.
First, the law’s heavy-handed mandates force insurance companies to include coverage for many benefits and services you may not want. Say for example, you do not have any children. Under Obamacare, you would still have to carry insurance that covers pediatric, maternity and newborn care even though you do not need it. Such mandates remove consumerism from the process and replace it with a one-size-fits-all approach. By requiring consumers to buy services they do not want or need, costs will rise significantly.
Second, Obamacare limits the deductible amount a consumer can choose to pay each year. Today, similar to car or home insurance, health insurance can be purchased with high deductibles or low deductibles impacting the monthly premium you pay. Obamacare limits high deductible plans leaving consumers with fewer choices. These restrictions, however, have not yet been clearly defined by Washington bureaucrats who could make them even worse.
Third, Obamacare squeezes the rating rules for insurance carriers in Ohio forcing some to pay higher premiums. This means you will no longer pay premiums for health insurance based on your choices and lifestyle as much as you do today. For example, insurance companies can currently rate an individual on a wide array of factors such as health status, occupation, and tobacco use. Because there are so many factors, there is more competition among insurance companies resulting in more options and lower costs for consumers.
But when Obamacare is fully implemented there will be only four rating factors permitted under law. Those are age, family status, geographic location and tobacco use. By narrowing the playing field, consumers will have less control over their health care costs based on the decisions they make compared to today’s laws. And because choices are no longer rewarded, insurance companies will be forced to treat everyone the same resulting in skyrocketing premiums for many low-risk, health conscious consumers.
Simply put, these changes all have one theme in common – government knows best. In other words you the consumer do not know how to buy insurance for yourself; you need the government to tell you what you must purchase. There is no consumer-driven, market-based approach when Obamacare is fully implemented. Choices will be limited, mandates will be increased and costs will continue to rise but at a much faster pace. The intent behind the law seems clear. Obamacare is government telling you what you must have – it is not a solution that provides you with the health care options that you want and need.
Mary Taylor is Ohio’s 65th Lieutenant Governor. She was sworn into office on January 10, 2011, the same day Governor John R. Kasich named her to serve as the director of the Ohio Department of Insurance and to lead CSI Ohio: The Common Sense Initiative to reform Ohio’s regulatory policies.
