hz, Author at Netzach Yisrael

Christians Worry ‘Silent Night’ May Soon Refer to Their Community in Bethlehem

hzDecember 24, 2016December 24, 2016News

Times of Israel

Marking the place where Jesus was born, the Christmas tree in Bethlehem’s Manger Square stands 17 meters (55 feet) tall. During the holiday season, visitors swarm around the base, taking grinning selfies while snacking on paper cups of sweet corn. Christmas lights adorn the old stone alleyways and the falafel sellers keep their fryers working extra late.

More than a million foreign tourists visit the Church of the Nativity each year, especially during Christmas time. Few visitors will notice anything amiss during a quick visit to the birthplace of Jesus as they dash into the cathedral with their cameras held aloft and take a few minutes to browse the plethora of shops selling Christian trinkets, the same way visitors have done for decades. But behind the cheery Christmas lights, the demographics tell a different story.

hzDecember 24, 2016December 24, 2016Articles

Facebook

By Caroline Glick: As Ambassador Bolton said in the clip below from Fox News, Obama killed the peace process by pushing this anti-Semitic, evil resolution. He killed the peace process and all prospects for peace by destroying the foundation of the process. That foundation was “land for peace.”

Land for peace formed the basis of UN Security Council resolution 242 from the end of the 1967 Six Day War. It stipulated that in exchange for Arab recognition of Israel and peace with the Jewish state, Israel would cede some of the land that it took control over during the course of that war. But Friday’s resolution says that Israel has no right to any of the land, that the presence of Israelis in that land — yes, including the Western Wall — is illegal. So Israel has no land to give and the Arabs will give no peace. And that is that.

hzDecember 24, 2016December 24, 2016News

Fox News

Secretary of State John Kerry is defending the Obama administration’s decision to effectively allow the United Nations to condemn Israeli for attempting to build more settlements in the disputed West Bank, saying the “unprecedented” effort has spawned terrorism and violence that jeopardizes lasting peace in the region.

The United States on Friday abstained from a U.N. Security Council vote to adopt a resolution condemning Israel’s settlement expansion, which allowed for the measure’s passage and resulted in the disapproval of incoming Republican President Donald Trump.

hzDecember 24, 2016December 24, 2016News

Times of Israel

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday accused President Barack Obama of breaching a specific commitment to Israel by allowing through Friday’s UN Security Council anti-settlements resolution, and compared the outgoing president’s behavior to that of predecessor Jimmy Carter, “a president who was hostile to Israel.”

Vowing not to be forced by international pressure into withdrawing from disputed territory, he said the incoming administration of President-elect Donald Trump had indicated that it would join an all-out war against what he called a “shameful” and “scandalous” decision.

hzDecember 23, 2016December 24, 2016Articles

Commentary

By Jonathan S. Tobin: It turned out that nothing could prevent President Obama from firing one last shot at Israel. Despite the pleas of the Israeli government and the warning from his successor that failing to veto a biased UN resolution on the Middle East conflict would be deeply unfair and soon repudiated, the administration broke with decades of U.S. policy, abstained from voting on a resolution that condemns Israeli settlements, and abandoned the Jewish state to its enemies at the United Nations Security Council.

Today’s resolution brands the Jewish presence in any part of the West Bank or in parts of Jerusalem that were occupied by Jordan from 1949 to 1967 as illegal. And it makes the hundreds of thousands of Jews who live in those parts of the ancient Jewish homeland international outlaws. The excuse given by the U.S. was that increased building in the territories and Jerusalem is endangering the chances of a two-state solution. But, as I noted yesterday when the vote on the resolution was postponed, this is a canard.

hzDecember 23, 2016December 27, 2016News

CCAR

Rabbi Steven A. Fox, Chief Executive CCAR

The Central Conference of American Rabbis expresses strong disagreement with today’s Security Council Resolution targeting Israel, while also affirming its opposition to the Israeli settlement policy and its support for a two state solution.

The CCAR has frequently criticized the current Israeli settlement policy as an obstacle to peace. At the same time, the United Nations is not the arena in which to address these complex issues. Peace negotiations belong between the two parties involved. Further, the U.N.’s obsessive and relentless criticism of Israel, while ignoring the unspeakable repression committed by illegitimate regimes and terrorist organizations worldwide, falsely and maliciously labels Israel uniquely as a pariah state.

For almost eight years, the Obama Administration has recognized the U.N.’s unjust targeting of the Jewish State by routinely vetoing every anti-Israel resolution heretofore brought to the Security Council. Today’s abstention, therefore, leaves us dismayed, disappointed and angry.

hzDecember 23, 2016December 24, 2016Articles

MEMRI

By Alberto M. Fernandez: Asked recently about the absence of the United States from talks by Russia, Turkey and Iran on the future of Syria, the State Department spokesman dismissed its importance, saying: “The Secretary is perfectly fine not being in the room” if the result is “a cessation of hostilities that can actually matter over a period of time.”
The spokesman’s words sought to put the best spin possible in what was a singular event, part of a larger global trend, which is the marginalization of American influence in the region and the aggressive attempt by other powers to curtail the Americans further and expand their own spheres of influence. The spokesman’s words also glossed over a greater truth – that these talks are about more than recent events in Syria.

hzDecember 23, 2016December 24, 2016News

Reuters

Israel will re-assess its ties with the United Nations following the adoption by the Security Council of a resolution demanding an end to Israeli settlement building, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Saturday.

The vote was able to pass the 15-member council on Friday because the United States broke with a long-standing approach of diplomatically shielding Israel and did not wield its veto power as it had on many times before – a decision that Netanyahu called “shameful”.

hzDecember 23, 2016December 23, 2016News

Reuters

U.S. President-elect Donald Trump said in a tweet after the United States abstained in a U.N. Security Council vote condemning Israeli settlements that “things will be different after Jan. 20,” when he takes office.

Trump on Thursday urged the United States to veto the resolution.

Full Text of UNSC Resolution, Approved Dec. 23, Demanding Israel Stop All Settlement Activity

hzDecember 23, 2016December 23, 2016News

Times of Israel

The Security Council, Reaffirming its relevant resolutions, including resolutions 242 (1967), 338 (1973), 446 (1979), 452 (1979), 465 (1980), 476 (1980), 478 (1980), 1397 (2002), 1515 (2003), and 1850 (2008),

Guided by the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations, and reaffirming, inter alia, the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by force,

Christians Worry ‘Silent Night’ May Soon Refer to Their Community in Bethlehem

Obama Killed the Peace Process

After UN Veto[sic], Kerry Suggests Israel’s West Bank Foray Spawning ‘Terrorism’

Netanyahu says Obama ‘Ambushed’ Israel at UN, Likens Him to ‘Deeply Hostile’ Carter

Obama’s Betrayal

The Central Conference of American Rabbis Opposes Anti-Israel Resolution Approved by U.N. Security Council

While The Administration Slept, Others Plotted

Israel to Reassess U.N. Ties After Settlement Resolution, Says Netanyahu

Trump Says After U.N. Vote: ‘Things Will Be Different After Jan. 20th’

Full Text of UNSC Resolution, Approved Dec. 23, Demanding Israel Stop All Settlement Activity