Ex-NY Mayor Koch: Obama Anti-Israel ‘In Order to Please Muslims'

by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu
(IsraelNN.com) U.S. President Barack Obama is anti-Israel and "is willing to throw Israel under the bus in order to please Muslim nations," former New York City Mayor Ed Koch charged.

Click here to read Ed Koch's op-ed article on INN, "The Trust is Gone."

Koch, a Jewish Democrat, has been gradually "falling out of love" with President Obama, a term he used in a commentary he published last August. The recent snub by the president of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, highlighted by a meeting without a press conference or even an official photograph, broke the proverbial camel's back for Koch.

After having opposed President Obama's health care reform plan and expressing disappointment over his failure to convince Russia and China to back harsh sanctions against Iran, the former mayor recently wrote, "President Obama's abysmal attitude toward the State of Israel and his humiliating treatment of Prime Minister Netanyahu is shocking."

He then went one step further with unprecedented public criticism of President Obama by a leading Democrat, telling Fox News that the country's leader is more interested in pacifying Muslim nations than helping Israel.

"What they did is they wanted to make Israel into a pariah," he said. "It's outrageous in my judgment," Koch commented.

"I have been a supporter of President Obama and went to Florida for him, urged Jews all over the country to vote for him, saying that he would be just as good as John McCain on the security of Israel. I don't think it's true anymore."

He also publicly questioned New York Senator Chuck Schumer, a Jew, for not protesting President Obama's treatment of Israel. "It's their silence," Koch told the New York Post's Michael Goodwin. "I can't figure out where they are."

The senator reportedly told Koch he will openly side with Israel if President Obama does not back off.

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Police to Temple Mount Activist: Psychiatrist Must OK Your Entry

by Hillel Fendel
(IsraelNN.com) Yehuda Glick, who has been waging for years a personal and public struggle to guarantee Jewish access to the site of the Holy Temple, was told by the site's police commander that he has decided that Glick must undergo psychiatric treatment before being allowed to enter the site.

Glick, chairman of the Organization for Human Rights on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, has sued the police in the past for their refusal to allow him to ascend to the Temple Mount. The Supreme Court ruled that the police must meet with him and formulate arrangements under which he would be permitted to do so.

However, on Sunday morning, on the eve of the final day of the Passover holiday, Glick arrived at the Mughrabi entrance to the Mount - and was informed by police there that he may not enter. They explained to him that this was the decision of the local police commander. Glick went to the office of the commander, Ofer Shumer, who defied the court ruling and told Glick that he-the commander- had reached the conclusion that "you are not a normal person" and that he could therefore not allow him to enter the Temple Mount until after he undergoes psychiatric treatment.

Asked how long this new decision was to be in force, Shumer said, "This is my decision, period." Shumer turned down Glick's repeated requests to have the decision put in writing.

Glick later expressed sorrow that the police had "descended to such a level," adding that "instead of enabling Jews to exercise their legal rights to enter the Temple Mount, and instead of investing their resources to fight against Muslim violence there, the police choose to fighting against those who observe the law, also engaging in petty vengeance against those who fight for Jewish rights to visit the holy site."

Glick said he plans to file civil suits against the policemen involved in harassing and insulting him.

Some 200 religious Jews, a relatively large number, ascended to the Temple Mount on Sunday, after having made the necessary religious preparations, such as immersing in a ritual bath. However, they were permitted to visit only in groups of ten at a time.

At the same time, the police provided security to a Christian march around the Temple Mount, as it is doing this entire month. Muslims, too, are planning Temple Mount activity: This coming Thursday, they will hold a children's song festival, with the participation of thousands of children, to cement their ties with the Temple Mount.

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Weekend violence in Jerusalem, Samaria

Palestinian Arabs and radical left-wing Israelis rioted in several locations in Jerusalem on Friday, and Jewish settlers protesting attacks against their own were stoned in Samaria, leading to a number of injuries and arrests.

In Jerusalem, dozens of Arabs and left-wing Israelis marched on the Shepherd Hotel in the capital's Shiekh Jarrah neighborhood to protest its soon transformation into a new residential complex for Jews.

The building today is used by Israel's Border Police. The decision to turn it into a Jewish housing project has been harshly condemned by the US and Europe, despite the fact it is owned by Jews.

Also in Sheikh Jarrah, Arabs and left-wing Israelis tried to forcibly prevent a Jewish family from moving into another Jewish housing project in the area.

In Samaria, the residents of the Jewish village of Yitzhar marched peacefully through the nearby Palestinian town of Hawara to protest a recent roadside stoning attack that left one of their neighbors badly wounded. As the protestors neared the center of town, they were attacked by dozens of Arab stone throwers. Israeli security forces extracted the settlers from the town, but failed to deal with the assailants.

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Freedom and identity
By DAVID BRINN
04/04/2010 17:53

An exclusive interview with JA head and former Soviet dissident Natan Sharansky.

Opposite the office of Jewish Agency chairman Natan Sharansky, at the entrance to the organization's conference room in its cavernous Jerusalem headquarters, are two oversized portraits - one featuring the father of modern Zionism, Theodor Herzl, and the other the first president of Israel, Chaim Weizmann. But the photo Sharansky sees from the chair behind his tidy desk, which he's inhabited since taking over the chairmanship of the agency last June from Zeev Bielski, is one of Andrei Sakharov, the late founder of the human rights and dissident movement in the Soviet Union.

All three figures played prominent roles in molding Sharansky's character and spiraling the young Russian computer scientist into the poster child of the struggle for Soviet Jewry and its ultimate victory over the dark powers of the Soviet authorities, with Herzl and Weizmann representing the quest for Jewish statehood - the ultimate realization of Jewish identity - and Sharansky's mentor Sakharov representing the struggle for freedom.

And it's the same solid foundation that the 62-year-old Sharansky has brought with him to the Jewish Agency, the latest stop for the celebrated immigrant who arrived in Israel an instant folk hero in 1986, and who went on to establish his own political party, Yisrael Ba'aliya, and serve as minister in three governments.

But it's here, as the one responsible for Israel's relationship with the Jewish world, that Sharansky finally feels most at ease - and most focused.

"I made a choice to leave government, and I chose to come here," said the affable Sharansky, in a conversation with The Jerusalem Post ahead of Pessah.

"I feel that here is a very logical continuation of the subjects I've been dealing with all my life - Jewish identity, and the connection between struggles for our own interests and making the world a better place. I feel that from here, I can better influence the course of Jewish history."

At a Jewish Agency Board of Governors meeting in Jerusalem in February, Sharansky ruffled some feathers when he said, "It can't be our goal to bring more Jewish people ." Before aliya must come a strong Jewish identity, and with steely resolve, Sharansky set out to determine how to best invoke and strengthen a sense of Jewish identity where it's been dormant.

It is a daunting task, but Sharansky has faced worse obstacles. Sitting across from the him, it's easy to forget that the mild-mannered, plainly dressed, stocky figure endured severe hardships in a Soviet prison on trumped-up charges of treason and espionage for eight years, until an international campaign waged by his wife, Avital, culminated in his 1986 release. He arrived in Israel that same night.

In his final statement to the court in 1978 before his imprisonment, Sharansky concluded his appeal with the words: "For more that two thousand years the Jewish people, my people, have been dispersed. But wherever they are, wherever Jews are found, every year they have repeated, ‘Next year in Jerusalem.' Now, when I am farther than ever from my people, from Avital, facing many arduous years of imprisonment, I say, turning to my people, my Avital, ‘Next year in Jerusalem.'"

Who better - on this holiday of freedom - to put into perspective the concepts of peoplehood and identity than the person who, in our generation, was able to say "This year we are slaves, next year may we be free men" and have it come true?

A hundred years ago there was a commonly acknowledged unified Jewish community worldwide. Do you think that's still true today?

I'm not sure if there was ever a common unified Jewish people. It may just look that way looking back on it. One hundred years ago, Theodor Herzl was discovering for himself the idea of Jewish community. Just as he discovered the need for Zionism and the need for saving Jews, he discovered the idea of Jewish community. He was an assimilated Jew; he didn't feel himself belonging to any Jewish community.

I think the idea of Jewish community has meant different things to different Jews. At that point in time, in Russia, there were big struggles between the early Zionists and Bundists (secular Jewish socialists), and they all had a different understanding of what Jewish community was.

The American Jewish community felt that Palestine had nothing to do with them and nothing to do with their Jewish identity. In my last book, Defending Identity: Its Indispensable Role in Protecting Democracy, I included text from the Pittsburgh Platform [the pivotal 19th-century document on the history of the American Reform Movement adopted in 1885], and how the Reform Movement terminology changed over the years. You can see how the very principles of Jewish identity were changing - from American citizens of Jewish faith not interested in emphasizing Zionist ideals, to Jews true to American principles of democracy for whom Israel is the base of their identity.

Two things happened with the Exodus of the Jews from Egypt - people who were slaves became free, and they became a people.

This connection between identity and freedom - which of course is my special interest over the last 20 years - was expressed so deeply and meaningfully in the Exodus from Egypt.

In fact, until this day, if you look historically on what basis people were coming back to the Jewish community or leaving the Jewish community, it was all about the debate over whether there is a connection between freedom and identity - whether one could live by the great Jewish universal ideals of equality, justice, tikkun olam.

I think, exactly as it was at the time of the biblical Exodus, those same conflicts were evident in the Soviet Union in the 1970s - the deep connection between the struggle for freedom and identity. And it remains true today.

Doesn't teaching about Jewish identity differ depending on the country you're talking to - whether it be the US, France, Russia, or even Israel?

Yes. In different countries, the way in which Jews got to the point they are at is very different. In Russia, it was absolute, total forced assimilation. As a result, the way to come back is to reconnect them to a basic knowledge of Judaism.

On the other hand, in America, the best way to fuel their Jewish identity is programs like Birthright or Masa or Lapid (the university and high-school study-in-Israel programs), or any other type of Israel experience.

In France, it's strengthening the system of Zionist Jewish education, and so on.

But what is important that runs through every community is that strengthening Jewish identity is practically impossible without putting Israel in the center.

And no doubt, there is a big need to strengthen
Jewish identity in Israel. It's interesting that Israelis who are involved in Partnership 2000 - the programs led by the Jewish Agency in which communities from abroad, mostly America, partner with Israeli communities - discover for themselves, for the first time, their Jewish dimensions which had been dormant for a long time. They didn't even suspect that it was there; and these include the leaders of the programs.

They thought that to be Israeli is to be above being Jewish. A Jew was something that we were for thousands of years; now we are Israelis. We built the Jewish state, we defended the Jewish state, we are speaking Hebrew, we are living here - you can't be more Jewish than that. But they've discovered what Jewish community means.

It's one of the challenges and part of the new strategic plan of the Jewish Agency to develop courses for Israeli schools in the Jewish Diaspora. It's a very high priority, and we currently have very good partners in the Education Ministry, with minister Gideon Sa'ar and director-general Shimshon Shoshani.

We're also discussing the next steps, after programs like Masa and Birthright, in bringing together mutual groups of Israeli and Diaspora Jews, who through common experience will strengthen their mutual identity.

What are the changing priorities of the Jewish Agency - is it shifting away from aliya? At the same time, there have been some major changes in staffing with key positions being filled by people you've handpicked. Where does the Agency go now?

We're in the process of holding strategic meetings to discuss what the priorities of the Jewish Agency should be - involving all 120 members of the board of governors.

In June, at the assembly, proposals will be brought to the table and hopefully approved, and in October, at our next meeting, the budget will be approved; and by 2011, we will be operating under the new priorities.

Of course, we are devoted to aliya, as we are devoted to education and to democracy. What you might call "aliya by choice" all depends on strengthening Jewish identity.

It's a challenge for the Jews of the Diaspora who are facing assimilation, and Israelis who are embroiled in a struggle for legitimacy over the existence of the Jewish state, but the key to everything is developing, broadening, strengthening and defending this feeling of belonging to the Jewish family. That's the moat around which we have all our discussions - what it means in terms of practical progress; how to translate these general ideas into programs and into budgets.

I reject the notion of the Agency shifting away from aliya. Aliya is the highest expression of strengthening Jewish identity. The aim of aliya and ingathering of exiles is still there. But what I'm saying is that the focus is shifting from escaping enemy countries or attempts to save hundreds of thousands of Jews to an aliya of choice.

I was speaking just a few days ago to a group of Americans, all religious, who made aliya in the last year. They asked me, how is it that you, who made such a difficult aliya and fought to come for so many years, are now shifting from a focus on aliya to Jewish identity.

I told them, "You know what, you know that the Kadosh baruch hu gave the order - ‘lech lecha .'" If there are Jews who don't want to hear the voice of God, do you think that they will hear a shaliah from the Jewish Agency telling them to make aliya?

It's impossible to force our emissaries to compete with God and try to shout even louder than Him to make the message heard. You can't be louder than God.

So what we have to do is help the Jews hear the voice of God. And how do we do that? By strengthening their feeling of Jewish connection, of Jewish pride and tradition, and their connection to Israel. That's our function. Our function is not to impose on them what God doesn't succeed in imposing, but to make them hear the voice.

What can you tell us about Jews in distress from countries around the world?

Each Jew who's brought from Yemen is due to great cooperation with world Jewry. I don't want to close any gates by mentioning some other countries. We have to be very careful. We're watching the situations and we're trying to think in advance about every Jew who can potentially find themselves in danger. We're making a lot of effort to make sure we won't be late.

Iranian Jews might be in the toughest spot right now. If I was one, I would think very seriously about why I'm still there. I don't want to mention other countries because it makes it more difficult to help these Jews.

An essential part of the Jewish Agency's work is like the army's - to be ready, even if there is no war. We have to be ready to save Jews, even though these Jews aren't even thinking yet about saving themselves. There's spending for saving and spending for being ready for saving. There are many efforts that are far from public attention.

What kind of message would you like to give to the readers of the ‘Post' on Pessah?

We're increasing in a dramatic way our role in American camps and universities. People might say, "Why are we spending so much effort and money there?" I discovered a number of years ago that that's a major battlefield of where the Jewish people is defined. And it goes back to what I started with.

The challenge for Jews for thousands of years was how to connect your desire to be free and those universal ideas of justice with your Jewishness and loyalty to your tribe. Usually, when Jews are convinced that they have to choose this or that, they always choose universal ways.

When I was spokesman of the Moscow Helsinki Watch Group in the Soviet Union, with Sakharov, there were people that said you can't be both - you have to choose.

I felt very strongly that I don't want to choose; I cannot choose. Because all the strength to fight for freedom comes from my Jewish identity. Without it, it makes no sense to fight for those other things.

Today the battle which takes place on the campuses is one in which our enemies try to convince Jewish students that in order to be part of the world of justice and freedom, you have to disengage yourself from Israel and from your own identity. These attacks and double standards and slander result in the fact that many young Jews don't want to have anything to do with their Jewish identity.

Our history, whether talking about 2,000 years ago, or the struggle of Soviet Jewry, or where it is today, you find this again and again. It's something that we have to bring to every young Jew. If you want to be part of the world of freedom and justice and tikkun olam, your identity is your source of strength to fight for those things - your identity, which is based on your history, on your traditions and of course on your connection to Israel.

Was there something from the Pessah Seder that helped sustain you in prison?

I remember my first Seder in my life, when I was 25. It was in Moscow with Avital, who in a few months became my wife.

We were a big group of students studying Hebrew. We had three teachers who brought their pupils there. None of the teachers could read the whole Haggada, so each of them read a third.

There were a few songs that we learned, like "Dayenu." And I remember that the phrase in the Seder, "This year we are slaves, next year may we be free men" was very moving to us.

Some years later, I was in a punishment cell on Seder night, and I was lonely. I decided that with bread, salt and hot water, I would have my own Seder. There was nothing else - salt was my maror and hot water was my haroset.

I tried to repeat the Haggada, but I couldn't remember most of it. But that one phrase - "This year we are slaves, next year may we be free men" - was enough for me.

And I recalled the line, "In every generation, each individual should feel as if he or she had actually gone out from Egypt." It was so easy to feel that's true - that I am one of those in this generation that is keeping this torch of freedom. It was easy to feel yourself as part of this great, historical struggle, and that gave me a lot of strength.

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'We await Hamas answer on Schalit'
By GREER FAY CASHMAN
04/04/2010 12:16

Peres meets rabbis Yosef, Amar, says Barzilai "media sensation" regrettable.
Talkbacks (9)

Israel must do everything possible to facilitate the release of Gilad Schalit, President Shimon Peres told reporters on Sunday after emerging from a meeting with Shas spiritual mentor Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, Shas political leader Eli Yishai and Haim Cohen, one of the executive members of the World Federation of Moroccan Jews.

Having said that, Peres emphasized that Israel had gone way beyond expectations in what it is prepared to offer Hamas in exchange for Schalit's freedom. "We're still waiting for a formal response," he said.

Asked what he had discussed with Yosef, Peres listed the closing of the social gap, the preservation of national unity and the strengthening of relations with the United States.

Peres, who makes a point of visiting Yosef and the chief rabbis of Israel just before Rosh Hashana and during Pessah and Succot, also did so before he became president.

At his meeting with Sephardi Chief Rabbi Shlomo Amar, Peres expressed outrage at the imbroglio that had evolved with regards to the construction of an fortified emergency wing at the Barzilai Medical Center in Ashkelon, especially in view of the fact that both Amar and Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi Yona Metzger had given a joint halachic ruling that the area, which is in dispute because it may contain Jewish graves, could be built on in order to save lives.

Peres said that medical personnel at Barzilai had raised the issue with him more than a year ago when he was visiting soldiers who had been wounded during Operation Cast Lead.

Peres had regarded the matter as urgent at the time and had telephoned Amar immediately to explain the situation. He had been gratified by Amar's instant comprehension of the need, and of his subsequent official response, and complimented him on his wisdom and integrity, saying that Amar understood the vital work being done at Barzilai and had been more than willing to help enhance the medical services which the hospital provides.

Peres was at a loss to explain why the construction of an emergency room had to become such a sensational subject, especially when Barzilai is the only hospital providing essential medical services to soldiers and the general population in the western Negev.

Amar, for his part, lauded Peres for his efforts in trying to bridge gaps between various sectors of Israeli society, especially between the secular and the haredi communities.

He termed Peres's recent visit to Bnei Brak "a refreshing change" that may lead to a much improved social environment.
The differences are minimal he said, "but the commonalities are great."

Amar also noted that there had not been an Israeli leader in a long time who could match Peres's ability to bridge differences.

At Metzger's home, Peres met Chief Rabbi of Georgia Yaacov Gelashvili, who was equally impressed by the president's ability to act as a calming force in the most difficult and tense of situations.

Peres, Metzger and Gelashvili discussed the security of the Jews of Georgia. Metzger is a frequent visitor in the various capitals of the former Soviet Union, and as such is familiar with what is happening in the different Jewish communities.

Although the major post-Pessah Mimouna celebration hosted by the World Federation of Sephardi Jews is scheduled to take place on Tuesday at Jerusalem's International Convention Center, Peres was the guest of honor on Monday night at a somewhat smaller Mimouna gathering at the Pavilion banquet halls in Jerusalem's Talpiot neighborhood.