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Wednesday, September 14, 2005
Some headlines and summaries from JTA
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Bush condemns Gaza synagogue looting
President Bush condemned the destruction of synagogues in the Gaza Strip.
“We condemn the desecration of synagogues in Gaza that followed Israel´s withdrawal,” Bush said to loud applause Wednesday at a massive dinner hosted in Washington by the American Jewish Historical Society to commemorate 350 years of Jewish settlement in America.
The Palestinian Authority wanted Israel to dismantle the synagogues as it had done other buildings, but the Israeli Cabinet – at the urging of rabbis – refrained from doing so before leaving Gaza this week. Palestinian looters subsequently tore apart the synagogues.
Before addressing the dinner, Bush paid his first visit to a U.S. synagogue as president, touring the historic Sixth and I synagogue in downtown Washington and examining a Torah scroll that survived the Holocaust.
Bush blasts U.N. Human Rights Commission
President Bush said the U.N. Human Rights Commission lacks credibility.
In his keynote speech on U.N. reform Wednesday to the opening session of the 2005-2006 U.N. General Assembly, Bush said the commission — which criticizes Israel more than any other nation, while including tyrannical regimes among its members — symbolizes what’s wrong with the institution.
“When this great institution’s member states choose notorious abusers of human rights to sit on the U.N. Human Rights Commission, they discredit a noble effort and undermine the credibility of the whole organization,” Bush said. “If member countries want the United Nations to be respected — respected and effective — they should begin by making sure it is worthy of respect.”
Calling on nations to sign the International Convention for the Suppression of Acts of Nuclear Terrorism, Bush cited Israel on a long list of nations afflicted by terrorism.
Annan: Hezbollah disarmament discussed
U.N. officials are discussing the disarming of Hezbollah with Lebanese leaders.
“This is something that we are discussing with the Lebanese; it is the Lebanese government that will have to do it,” U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said Wednesday at the launch of the current U.N. General Assembly. But Annan also said that Security Council Resolution 1559, which calls for disarming the terrorist group, largely had been fulfilled when Syria pulled its troops out of Lebanon. “The key elements of the mandate were to ensure that Syrian military redeployed out of Lebanon; that has been done,” he said.
Israel and the United States believe it’s critical that Hezbollah disarm before the resolution is affirmed.
Rice: Iran, Syria still back terrorists
Support for Palestinian terrorism remains an element in the U.S.-led isolation of Iran and Syria, Condoleezza Rice said.
“Iran remains the principal supporter, along with Syria, but Iran even more so, of terrorist activity, including Hezbollah, and the Palestinian rejectionists at a time when Mahmoud Abbas is trying to build a Palestinian apparatus that is free of terror,” the U.S. secretary of state said in an interview with CBS before the opening of the U.N. General Assembly. “And so whether it’s on the nuclear front or the human-rights front or the terrorism front, Iran is a problem for the international system and it is a problem for the Middle East.”
Of Syria, Rice said, “If they really are in favor of a comprehensive peace in the Middle East and a Palestinian state, then why are they supporting Palestinian Islamic Jihad in Damascus and Hezbollah and getting money to Palestinian rejectionists at the time that Mahmoud Abbas is trying to cut off terrorist activity and make peace with the Israelis?”
Liberal churches meet Bush official
Representatives of U.S. liberal churches met a White House official and advised them to urge Palestinians and Israelis to share Jerusalem.
A delegation from Churches for Middle East Peace met Tuesday with Michael Doran, the National Security Council’s senior director for Near East and North Africa affairs, according to a statement from the coalition of Protestant, Christian Orthodox and Catholic churches. “The delegation urged the Bush administration to publicly put forward a vision of a shared Jerusalem that could serve as the capital of both Israel and a future State of Palestine,” it said.
The delegation also discussed the “damage being done by Israel’s building of a separation barrier and expanding settlements near Jerusalem.”
The NSC does not usually comment on its meetings.
http://jta.org/
Our country is truly an arm of Israel. Rarely are our interests put first.
"I've never seen a president - I don't care who he is - stand up to them [the Israelis]. It just boggles your mind. They always get what they want....If the American people understood what grip those people have on our government, they would rise up in arms. Our citizens don't have any idea what goes on."
- the late Admiral Thomas Moorer of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
posted by Somebody @ 10:14 PM Permanent Link
 
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