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Monday, December 11, 2006
Some headlines and summaries from JTA
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U.N. mission canceled
The United Nations called off an investigative mission into a deadly Israeli shelling in the Gaza Strip.
The U.N. Human Rights Council announced Monday that the mission to Beit Hanoun, which was to have been headed by Nobel laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa, had been canceled after Israel withheld authorization.
Nineteen Palestinians died in an Israeli artillery barrage on the northern Gaza town last month, in what Israel called a sighting accident as it responded to Palestinian rocket fire.
Israeli officials confirmed the decision not to cooperate with the Tutu mission, saying it was not necessary and criticizing the United Nations for not coming out more forcefully against the persistent rocket fire from Gaza.
Pentagon brass promote Jesus
Top Pentagon brass appear in their offices and in uniform on a video promoting a group that evangelizes among Washington elites.
Maj. Gen. Jack Catton, a senior weapons acquisition official, says in the video that when people meet him in his professional capacity, “I share my faith because it describes who I am.”
Catton, who is among six uniformed officers appearing on the video, credits his inspiration to the evangelical group Christian Embassy.
“I think it’s a huge impact because you have many men and women who are seeking God’s counsel and wisdom as we advise the chairman and the secretary of defense. Hallelujah,” he says.
The Military Religious Freedom Foundation, a watchdog group headed by Mikey Weinstein, a former Air Force officer, called on the Pentagon’s inspector general Monday to investigate.
Weinstein released a report detailing the Christian Embassy episode and four other instances that he says breach the constitutional separation of church and state.
Christian Embassy also administers to lawmakers, administration officials and diplomats, according to the promotional video.
Jewish students gagged in U.K.
Student union authorities at Leeds University were ordered to ignore complaints lodged by the main Jewish student group about the campus’ growing pro-Palestinian lobby.
Following a campus-wide referendum last week, student union authorities were instructed to ignore complaints lodged by the Leeds branch of J-Soc, which represents Britain’s largest Jewish student community, “as long as Judaism as a faith is not offended.”
The motion, which passed by a vote of 1,421-895, was proposed by the Palestinian Solidarity Group, and says that considering every complaint lodged by J-Soc would constitute “an arbitrary use of authority.”
Members of the academic and Jewish student communities expressed shock and outrage.
The motion is “trying to tell us what we should and should not think about Judaism,” said Zach Esdaile, one of J-Soc’s campaign officers.
“This motion is supposedly about freedom of speech, but it delivers anything but that.”
http://www.jta.org/
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