Haaretz: Will Netanyahu Save Israel's foreign service

By Barak Ravid

Save Israel's Foreign Service

In an unprecedented step, some twenty senior Israeli ambassadors sent a letter to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. the ambassadors asking the Prime Minister  to intervene in the Foreign Ministry workers' strike "in order to save Israel's foreign service."

The ambassadors reminded Netanyahu that he is familiar with the work of the Foreign Ministry and the hardships of Israeli diplomats and their families abroad from the period that he served as an Israeli diplomat in Washington and as the Israeli ambassador to the United Nations . . . The ambassadors wrote to Netanyahu:

Just as the state needs its best men in senior positions in the defense system, it needs them in the diplomatic battlefield as well, which is becoming more important and relevant to national strength every day.

The ambassadors wrote that the Finance Ministry is ignoring their dire financial situation, and called their salaries "humiliating" . . .

As opposed to the defense system in which thousands of people are employed, the political struggle is carried out by several hundred diplomats in the Foreign Ministry headquarters and in a hundred embassies in the world. Unfortunately, the state who knows how to adequately reward those thousands in the defense system, is not acting fairly toward us – the soldiers in suits in Israel and in the world – and systematically erodes our salaries and our status."

The ambassadors who signed the letter are all veteran diplomats who have been in service for over 25 years and are considered the Foreign Ministry's '"elders".

Among them are former Foreign Ministry director-general and Israeli ambassador to Britain Ron Prosor, Israeli ambassador to the UN Meron Reuven, Israeli ambassador to the EU Ran Curiel, and Israeli ambassador to Spain Rafael Shutz.

The US foreign Service also has problems. it is far too small. Even Defense Secretary Robert Gates pointed that a US Navy task force has more people in it than the entire US Foreign Service. This probably relates to US policy that prefers solutions from the Armed Forces rather than diplomacy.


A typical right wing military mantra is:

Kill them all and let God sort them out.

source: http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/senior-ambassadors-to-netanyahu-save-israel-s-foreign-service-1.337179

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Haaretz: Israel's 'chief scientist' is a wing nut

By Or Kashti

Israeli Education Minister Gideon Sa'ar found statements dismissing evolution and global warming made by the ministry's chief scientist over the weekend to be unacceptable.

Ahead of a request to discuss the matter in the Knesset, one of the senior sources at the Education Ministry said that chief scientist Dr. Gavriel Avital had been asked to clarify his position.

Also Tuesday, the National Academy of Sciences agreed to adhere to an Education Ministry request to delay any special statement criticizing Avital. Sources at the ministry said that the statements of the chief scientist were "unacceptable for the minister, and that is an understatement."

Three days ago, one of Sa'ar's aides sent a letter to Eyal Morag, whose blog, the Black Butterfly Effect, publicized Avital's statements.

"The statements of the chief scientist of the Education Ministry reflect only his personal views and do not reflect the policy of the ministry, those heading it and the professionals in charge [of the said] subjects," the aide wrote.

A source at the ministry said that the letter was in essence a vote of no confidence in Avital.

Avital was appointed to the post three months ago and he is the first chief scientist at the Education Ministry to be selected from a field other than education. A specialist in aerodynamics, Avital is a member of Likud and was on the party's list of candidates during the 2006 Knesset elections.

Earlier this week Haaretz reported on Avital's statements on evolution and the role of humans in global warming.

"If textbooks state explicitly that human beings' origins are to be found with monkeys, I would want students to pursue and grapple with other opinions. There are many people who don't believe the evolutionary account is correct," Avital said over the weekend.

Commenting on global warming Avital said in the past that "all the signs of a fanatic faith are there [among green groups], radicalism and a great deal of hatred."

In response to a question on whether he recycles he said: "I try to put plastics in the regular trash. The earth is not being destroyed. God has promised us ... and the influence of humans is minor."

Rightardia comment: This is the kind of scientists that get appointed when a conservative government wins the election. This is embarrassing for a country that prides itself in intellectual achievement. Is Israel graduating their scientists from divinity school?

source: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1152228.html

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Haaretz: Pope defends Nazi-era Vatican

Last update - 20:33 17/01/2010
By Sivan Kotler de Benedetti and News Agencies

Pope Benedict XVI used his first visit to Rome's synagogue on Sunday to defend the oft-criticized actions of the Vatican during the Holocaust, saying the Church had "acted in a discreet and hidden way."

The pope made the comments after a Jewish leader bluntly told the pontiff that his wartime predecessor Pius XII was "silent" in the face of the genocide of the Jewish people in Europe, and should have spoken out more forcefully against the Holocaust.

"The silence of Pius XII before the Shoah still hurts because something should have been done," Riccardo Pacifici, president of Rome's Jewish community told the pope, using the Hebrew word for the Holocaust.

"Maybe it would not have stopped the death trains, but it would have sent a signal, a word of extreme comfort, of human solidarity, towards those brothers of ours transported to the ovens of Auschwitz [death camp]," he said.

Meanwhile, Israel, via Deputy Prime Minister Silvan Shalom, asked the pope during his synagogue visit to open up the Vatican archives covering Pius' papacy.


"I asked the pope to find a way to make it possible to open the archives in the Vatican in order to give some details of the papacy of Pius XII in order to ease tensions between the Jewish people and Catholics," Silvan Shalom told Reuters at the end of the pope's visit.

In his speech in the synagogue, Benedict balked at the accusation that the pope turned a blind eye to the plight of Europe's Jews, saying: "The Apostolic See itself provided assistance, often in a hidden and discreet way."

Benedict was welcomed with applause Sunday upon his arrival at the synagogue, a visit he said would improve relations between Catholics and Jews.

He was greeted by Rome and international Jewish leaders as he arrived at the synagogue on the banks of the Tiber - a short distance from the Vatican - to begin the two-hour visit.

Several prominent Jews said they would boycott the visit, but applause greeted the pope as he arrived at the synagogue in the Old Jewish Ghetto, where for hundreds of years Jews were confined under the orders of a 16th century pope.

Benedict warmly shook hands with the synagogue's retired chief rabbi, Elio Toaff, who welcomed John Paul II when the late pontiff visited the synagogue in a ground-breaking event in 1986.

Rightardia comment: The Vatican needs to open its secret archives on the Nazi era. Benedict XVI proclaimed Pope Pius XII, sometimes referred to as the Nazi Pope, is eligible for beatification in a decree issued on December 19, 2009. Pope Benedict was a member of the Hitler Jugend and should clear the air on Catholic complicity with the Nazis. Let some Jewish scholars examine the archives and prepare a report

source: Hareetz

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Haaretz: Torah law is above the army

By Chaim Levinson, Haaretz Settlements Correspondent

Rabbis and teachers from Hesder yeshivas, which offer Torah studies alongside military service, released a letter to students in which they reiterated their assertion that soldiers must refuse orders if they are commanded to evacuate settlements. The Rabbis are arguing that Torah law is above the Israel Defense Forces.

The letter emphasizes the importance of enlisting to the military, but instructs soldiers to adhere to Jewish law when it conflicts with orders handed down from superiors.

This letter comes as yeshiva heads closed ranks around Rabbi Eliezer Melamed, whose declarations in support of soldier insubordination caused Defense Minister Ehud Barak to oust his Har Bracha yeshiva from its hesder arrangement with the IDF.
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"Unfortunately, the IDF has been used for purposes unrelated to Israel's defense and directly opposed to God's wishes for quite some time," the rabbis wrote in the letter. "This situation faces IDF soldiers with a contradiction between Jewish commandments and commanders' orders."


"We are committed to teach that loyalty to the lord comes before any other loyalty, whether to the army or to the government," the rabbis went on to say.

The document concluded with the rabbis' assertion that they are guiding their students to "be loyal soldiers through their commitment to the word of God."

Earlier Thursday, Knesset speaker Reuven Rivlin addressed the rift between the IDF and the hesder yeshivas, calling on Barak to devise a solution and to avoid political motives.

Rightardia comment: The Christians call it God's law, the Muslims call it Sharia and now we have Torah law. This is the sort of thing that happens when you mix church and state. Israel is a quasi-theocracy.

source: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1135864.html

source: http://rt.com/Top_News/2009-12-11/stalin-letter-sothebys-auction.html# Subscribe to the Rightardia feed: feeds.feedburner.com/blogspot/IGiu

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Haaretz: Why did Adolf Hitler hate the Jews?

By Haaretz Service

Adolf Hitler's hatred of Jews may stem from his errant belief that his mother was poisoned to death by a Jewish doctor, the author of a new book about the Nazi dictator claims.

In "November 9: How World War One Led To The Holocaust," author Joachim Riecker writes that the death of his mother, Klara, who was diagnosed with breast cancer, left an indelible mark on the then-18-year-old Adolf.

Klara's doctor, Eduard Bloch, had administered iodoform, which was the standard treatment for breast cancer at the time. She would die from the treatment in 1907, when she was just 47 years old.

"Hitler never forgave the Jewish doctor," Riecker told the British newspaper The Telegraph. "In conversations with aides such as Josef Goebbels he referred to the Jews as being like TB and himself as a 'healer' who had to stamp it, and consequently them, out."

Rightardia comment: This is the first time we have seen this information on Hitler. Hitler blamed the loss of World War 1 on the Jews because German law restricted Jews to the cities. Many Jews were involved in labor strikes during World War 1 and Hitler believed these strikes weakened the German War effort.

Most historians suggest the new tanks and aircraft technology of the Allies that were decisively used in 1918 broke the back of the German Army making trench warfare obsolete.

source: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1133398.html

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