U.S. Sent Cash to Iran as Americans Were Freed : Jay Solomon & Carol E. Lee, Wall Street Journal, Aug. 3, 2016— The Obama administration secretly organized an airlift of $400 million worth of cash to Iran that coincided with the January release of four Americans detained in Tehran, according to U.S. and European officials and congressional staff briefed on the operation afterward.
Anti-Zionist Historians Are Wrong About Israel: Rabbi David Wolpe, Time, Aug. 2, 2016— The late Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach used to say: “If I meet a person who tells me he is a Protestant, I know he is a Protestant. If I meet a person who tells me he is Catholic, I know he is Catholic. If I meet a person who tells me he is a human being, I know he is a Jew.”
It’s Time for the Jews to Proselytize: Shmuley Boteach, Jerusalem Post, Aug. 1, 2016— No matter how you look at the demographic studies, one thing is clear: the number of Jews is not increasing.
Ze'ev (Vladimir) Jabotinsky: Jewish Virtual Library, 2008— Ze'ev Jabotinsky was a Zionist activist, orator, and writer who founded the Betar Movement. He was also a soldier who founded the Jewish Legion during World War I.
The Mayor of Jerusalem’s Bold Response to President Obama (Video): Israel Video Network, Aug. 3, 2016
Israeli PM Netanyahu Explained the Palestinian Issue in 1978 (Video): Nathan Lichtman, PJ Media, Aug. 2, 2016
Gaza’s Head of World Vision Hired by Hamas to Infiltrate the Charity, Funnelled $9.5 Million a Year to Hamas: Ruth Eglash and Hazem Balousha, National Post, Aug. 3, 2016
The Media’s Lies and Double Standards Accelerate at Blinding Speed: Monica Crowley, Washington Times, Aug. 3, 2016
U.S. SENT CASH TO IRAN AS AMERICANS WERE FREED
Jay Solomon & Carol E. Lee
Wall Street Journal, Aug. 3, 2016
The Obama administration secretly organized an airlift of $400 million worth of cash to Iran that coincided with the January release of four Americans detained in Tehran, according to U.S. and European officials and congressional staff briefed on the operation afterward. Wooden pallets stacked with euros, Swiss francs and other currencies were flown into Iran on an unmarked cargo plane, according to these officials. The U.S. procured the money from the central banks of the Netherlands and Switzerland, they said.
The money represented the first installment of a $1.7 billion settlement the Obama administration reached with Iran to resolve a decades-old dispute over a failed arms deal signed just before the 1979 fall of Iran’s last monarch, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. The settlement, which resolved claims before an international tribunal in The Hague, also coincided with the formal implementation that same weekend of the landmark nuclear agreement reached between Tehran, the U.S. and other global powers the summer before. “With the nuclear deal done, prisoners released, the time was right to resolve this dispute as well,” President Barack Obama said at the White House on Jan. 17—without disclosing the $400 million cash payment.
Senior U.S. officials denied any link between the payment and the prisoner exchange. They say the way the various strands came together simultaneously was coincidental, not the result of any quid pro quo. “As we’ve made clear, the negotiations over the settlement of an outstanding claim…were completely separate from the discussions about returning our American citizens home,” State Department spokesman John Kirby said. “Not only were the two negotiations separate, they were conducted by different teams on each side, including, in the case of The Hague claims, by technical experts involved in these negotiations for many years.”
But U.S. officials also acknowledge that Iranian negotiators on the prisoner exchange said they wanted the cash to show they had gained something tangible. Sen. Tom Cotton, a Republican from Arkansas and a fierce foe of the Iran nuclear deal, accused President Barack Obama of paying “a $1.7 billion ransom to the ayatollahs for U.S. hostages.” “This break with longstanding U.S. policy put a price on the head of Americans, and has led Iran to continue its illegal seizures” of Americans, he said. Since the cash shipment, the intelligence arm of the Revolutionary Guard has arrested two more Iranian-Americans. Tehran has also detained dual-nationals from France, Canada and the U.K. in recent months.
At the time of the prisoner release, Secretary of State John Kerry and the White House portrayed it as a diplomatic breakthrough. Mr. Kerry cited the importance of “the relationships forged and the diplomatic channels unlocked over the course of the nuclear talks.” Meanwhile, U.S. officials have said they were certain Washington was going to lose the arbitration in The Hague, where Iran was seeking more than $10 billion, and described the settlement as a bargain for taxpayers.
Iranian press reports have quoted senior Iranian defense officials describing the cash as a ransom payment. The Iranian foreign ministry didn’t respond to a request for comment. The $400 million was paid in foreign currency because any transaction with Iran in U.S. dollars is illegal under U.S. law. Sanctions also complicate Tehran’s access to global banks. “Sometimes the Iranians want cash because it’s so hard for them to access things in the international financial system,” said a senior U.S. official briefed on the January cash delivery. “They know it can take months just to figure out how to wire money from one place to another.”
The Obama administration has refused to disclose how it paid any of the $1.7 billion, despite congressional queries, outside of saying that it wasn’t paid in dollars. Lawmakers have expressed concern that the cash would be used by Iran to fund regional allies, including the Assad regime in Syria and the Lebanese militia Hezbollah, which the U.S. designates as a terrorist organization. The U.S. and United Nations believe Tehran is subsidizing the Assad regime’s war in Syria through cash and energy shipments. Iran has acknowledged providing both financial and military aid to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and deploying Iranian soldiers there…
[To Read the Full Article Click the Following Link—Ed.]
ANTI-ZIONIST HISTORIANS ARE WRONG ABOUT ISRAEL
Rabbi David Wolpe
Time, Aug. 2, 2016
The late Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach used to say: “If I meet a person who tells me he is a Protestant, I know he is a Protestant. If I meet a person who tells me he is Catholic, I know he is Catholic. If I meet a person who tells me he is a human being, I know he is a Jew.”
Jews have a tradition, born of a combination of persecution and self-scrutiny, that sometimes makes them uncomfortable with the particularity of being part of a people. These days you can see it in people who repudiate the state that actually saved millions of Jews, the State of Israel. The latest execrable entry in this sweepstakes to flee from yourself is an article in the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz by two historians, Hasia Diner and Marjorie Feld, on why they have “left Zionism behind.”
Diner writes that it is impossible to support a state that was “Jewish and Zionist.” Where to begin? With the fact that there have been scores of Muslim states, Christians states and one Jewish state? That because Israel is a Jewish state, millions of Russian, Yemeni, Syrian, Ethiopian, Iranian, Iraqi and other Jews were saved? Where across the Middle East does this enlightened historian think LGBTQ women and men run to save themselves from the draconian laws in their homelands?
Feld, who said she “reeducated herself”—astonishing how a historian does not hear the ominous tones in that phrase—follows up with her own brand of clotted vitriol. She says she refuses to enter any institution that has a “We Stand with Israel” banner. Well, I cannot say that the people in my synagogue would welcome her, although they might try to “reeducate” her. Perhaps the hundreds of Iranian Jews who fled, many of them with family in Israel, who were given support and aid from Israel to enable them to escape a tyrannical regime—they might reeducate this woman who refuses to be associated with the only state that has existed on that land since Israel was destroyed 2,000 years ago. Maybe they could teach this historian a little history.
We do not “silence” people who differ from the consensus. There is a robust debate in American Jewry, even within the walls of my own synagogue. But it does not include people who repudiate the right of Israel to exist. I suppose you might entertain the right of people to argue France should not exist. After all some people believe that, and prove it regularly with bombs and bullets. But I suspect that none of us would readily give credence to the argument or invite it into our homes. No, you cannot argue that France, or China, or Russia or any other country in the world, no matter it’s behavior, should not exist. It is unthinkable. Only Israel is accorded the argument for ideological or literal obliteration, and now it passes in polite company as a real discussion. So two Jewish historians take to an Israeli newspaper to argue against the continuation of the Jewish State of Israel. It is hard to know whether to be more offended by their arrogance or their idiocy.
IT’S TIME FOR THE JEWS TO PROSELYTIZE
Shmuley Boteach
Jerusalem Post, Aug. 1, 2016
No matter how you look at the demographic studies, one thing is clear: the number of Jews is not increasing. We continue to lose Jews and potential Jews every day through intermarriage, assimilation and alienation. Birthrates are also being influenced by economic forces; as the population becomes more affluent Jews have fewer children. Even the Orthodox, who are largely seen as the sole engine for population growth, are feeling constrained by the rising cost of a Jewish education. Tuition costs are serving as a natural contraceptive in our community.
Today, the world’s 15 million Jews are an infinitesimal percentage of the global population of more than 3 billion (more than 7 billion—Ed.). If Judaism is to survive, we must, at a minimum, double our numbers, and the only way to do that is to have more children and reverse our policy of not welcoming and seeking Halachic (Jewish law) converts to Judaism.
Though it is commonly associated with Christianity, Jews did engage in proselytizing. Sue Fishkoff noted in Try it You’ll like it! Should Jews Proselytize? that “Judaism has a long history of not only welcoming, but encouraging gentiles to become Jewish. From the day Abraham picked up a flint and performed his own circumcision, thus becoming Judaism’s first convert, ancient Israelites openly spread their teachings among the nations they encountered.” Fishkoff says Jewish proselytizing was so successful, it’s estimated that by the first century C.E. fully 10 percent of the Roman Empire was Jewish, close to eight million people. Jews stopped proselytizing, she said, “because of pressure from Christian and then Muslim rulers, beginning in 407 C.E. when the Roman Empire outlawed conversion to Judaism under penalty of death.”
Unlike this earlier time, I am not talking about proselytizing to people who are devoted to a particular faith. We Jews do not believe that non-Jews who are in a relationship with God are upgrading their existence by becoming Jewish. But there are countless millions of people who live outside a faith framework. They want a spiritual life and I see no reason not to offer them Judaism. Of course, my main target audience are people who are born Jews but don’t know it or do not identify as Jews. We must educate them in their faith. But I believe Judaism also has a great deal to offer people with no religion, those who find that religion does not speak to them. The three great personal challenges of our time are these: an inability to stay married or sustain a loving, passionate and intimate relationship; an inability to raise inspired children; and inability to be happy.
Judaism is uniquely attuned to catering to these needs because our faith is focused on the richness of everyday life, unlike other religions that seek empires or worry more about the world to come than the one we live in today. Unlike every other religion in the world, we Jews don’t claim a copyright on truth. We don’t believe that by becoming a Jew you come closer to God than you would as a Christian or Muslim. We respect the Godly qualities of other faiths that lead to a righteous life. But we also believe that Jewish light can illuminate the earth. Part of that entails spreading the light of Jewish values. But part of it also entails having more Jewish converts.
We also need a critical mass of people who love and support Israel. The current Jewish population is simply too small. How can Diaspora Jewry pressure and influence their respective governments to support the Jewish state when the Jewish population in most countries outside the US is paltry? Will governments choose to side with 14 million Jews over half a billion Arabs? In the United States, we have for too long relied on the super-patriotism of Jews and their disproportional involvement in electoral politics. Here, too, however, the numbers are shrinking as a percentage of the American population. As the percentage of other minorities increases, the proportion of Jews decline. Today, Jews are barely 2% of the population; how long can we count on elected officials to take our concerns into consideration? How will we convince future elected bodies comprised of Hispanics and Asians and other ethnic groups that have no history of engagement with the Jewish community or Israel? As we watch terrorism spreading in Europe and contemplate what that continent will look like as Christianity continues to subside, the answer just might be teaching Judaism to non-Jews.
It is often said that it is hard to be a Jew, and it is true that being a Jew comes with certain obligations to oneself, to our fellow human and to the one God. Jews also carry the heavy burden of history and, even today, remain targets of individual anti-Semites, religious zealots and countries such as Iran that seek our destruction. Still, during this period of violence, unhappiness and political division, the world needs the Jewish ideals of peace and harmony.
I believe that it is time for Jews to reach out and share the beauty, the morality and the spirituality of Judaism with those who are seeking answers to the difficult questions of modern life and want to find secrets for staying married, inspiring our children and finding contentment and happiness. For those seeking to become Jewish, it is critical that converts go through an Orthodox conversion with a respected Orthodox Beth Din.
Central to an Orthodox conversion is the requirement to observe Shabbat and Jewish holidays and refrain from their desecration. What better antidote is there than Shabbat to today’s high-stress, workaholic workweek than a day of rest for contemplation and time to devote to the family? My colleague Mitchell Bard suggested that Shabbat is a way to turn high-strung east-coasters who spend all weekend talking about what they do during the week into laid-back Californians who spend all week talking about what they did during the weekend.
Also vital is kosher food consumption and a kosher home as well as observing the laws of family purity, which heighten erotic desire and inject an element of erotic sinfulness into a relationship. Judaism can be a light unto the nations. Why not give more people an opportunity to not only bask in that light but to join us in projecting it to the world? As the future of the Jewish people continues to grow more precarious, it is a moral imperative that we do everything we can to strengthen our community spiritually, politically and demographically. The time to spread the virtues of Judaism is now.
Jewish Virtual Library, 2008
Ze'ev Jabotinsky was a Zionist activist, orator, and writer who founded the Betar Movement. He was also a soldier who founded the Jewish Legion during World War I.
Jabotinsky (born October 18, 1880; died August 4, 1940) was born as Vladimir into a middle-class Jewish family in the Russian city of Odessa. At the age of 18, he left Odessa to study law in Italy and Switzerland, where he also served as a foreign correspondent for several wellknown Russian newspapers. His reports and articles were widely read and soon became recognized as one of the brilliant exponents of Russian journalism. All his reports and articles were signed with his literary pseudonym “Altalena.”
Ze'ev returned to Odessa in 1901 where he worked on the editorial staff of Odesskiya Novosti, but the pogrom against the Jews of Kishinev in 1903 spurred Jabotinsky to undertake Zionist activity. Though he admitted that he "no inner contact with Judaism" and never "breathed the atmosphere of Jewish cultural tradition" during his youth, Jabotisnky took a leadership role in organizing selfdefense units and fought for Jewish minority rights in Russia. He then traveled the length and breadth of Russia urging self-defense on the Jewish communities.
Elected as a delegate to the 6th Zionist Congress, Jabotinsky became fascinated by Zionist leader Theodor Herzl and though he voted against Herzl's "Uganda Plan" for a Jewish national home, Ze'ev was totally taken by the fervor of Zionist activists. Over the next few years, Jabotinsky was active in spreading the Hebrew language and culture throughout Russia and soon became the foremost Zionist lecturer and journalist in the country.
Following the outbreak of World War I in 1914, Jabotinsky left for the war-front as a newspaper correspondent with the Moscow liberal daily Russkiya Vedomosti. While in Alexandria, where thousands of Jewish deportees from Palestine were concentrated, he met Joseph Trumpeldor and together they worked for the establishment of the Jewish Legion. Jabotinsky was not interested in the creation of an auxiliary unit, and, upon reaching London, took energetic steps until the final confirmation was received in August 1917 of the creation of the first Jewish Legion. Jabotinsky also served as a Lieutenant and participated in the assault of the Jordan River crossings and the conquest of Esalt in the campaign to free Eretz Israel (Palestine) from Turkish rule. During Passover in 1920, Jabotinsky stood at the head of the Haganah in Jerusalem against Arab riots and was condemned by the British Mandatory Government to 15 years hard labor. Following the public outcry against the verdict, he received amnesty and was released from Acre prison.
After 1921, Jabotinsky served as a member of the Zionist Executive and was one of the founders of “Keren Hayesod.” After a series of policy disagreement on the direction of the Zionist Movement, he seceded and, in 1925, established the Union of ZionistsRevisionists (Hatzohar) which called for the immediate establishment of a Jewish State.
In 1923, the youth movement Betar (Brith Joseph Trumpeldor) was created. The new youth movement aimed at educating its members with a military and nationalistic spirit and Jabotinsky stood at its head. During the years 19281929, he resided in Palestine and edited the Hebrew daily Doar Hayom while, at the same time, undertaking increased political activity. In 1929, he left the country on a lecture tour after which the British administration denied him reentry into the country. From then onwards he lived in the Diaspora until his death.
In 1935, after the Zionist Executive rejected his political program and refused to clearly define that “the aim of Zionism was the establishment of a Jewish state,” Jabotinsky decided to resign from the Zionist Movement. He founded the New Zionist Organization (N.Z.O) to conduct independent political activity for free immigration and the establishment of a Jewish State.
In 1937, the Irgun Tzvai Leumi (I.Z.L) became the military arm of the Jabotinsky movement and he became its commander. The three bodies headed by Jabotinsky, The New Zionist Organization (N.Z.O), the Betar youth movement and the Irgun Tzvai Leumi (I.Z.L) were three extensions of the same movement. The New Zionist Organization was the political arm that maintained contacts with governments and other political factors, Betar educated the youth of the Diaspora for the liberation and building of Eretz Israel and the Irgun Tzvai Leumi (I.Z.L) was the military arm that fought against the enemies of the Zionist enterprise. These bodies cooperated in the organization of Af Al Pi illegal immigration. Within this framework, more than 40 ships sailed from European ports bringing to Eretz Israel tens of thousands of illegal immigrants.
Throughout this period of intense political activity, Jabotinsky continued to write poetry, novels, short stories and articles on politics, social and economic problems. From among his literary creations, The Jewish Legion, Prelude to Delilah (Samson) and The Five, served as an inspiration for Jews of the Diaspora. Jabotinsky was fluent in many languages and translated into Hebrew some of the best-known classics of world literature.
From 1939 to 1940, Jabotinsky was active in Britain and the United States in the hope of establishing a Jewish army to fight side by side with the Allies against Nazi Germany. On August 4, 1940, while visiting the Betar camp in New York, he suffered a massive heartattack. In his will he requested that his remains may only be interred in Eretz Israel at the express order of the Hebrew Government of the Jewish State that shall arise. His will was fulfilled by Levi Eshkol, Israel's third Prime Minister. In 1964, Jabotinsky's remains and those of his wife Jeanne were reinterred on Mount Herzl in Jerusalem.
CIJR Wishes All Our Friends & Supporters: Shabbat Shalom!
The Mayor of Jerusalem’s Bold Response to President Obama (Video): Israel Video Network, Aug. 3, 2016
Israeli PM Netanyahu Explained the Palestinian Issue in 1978 (Video): Nathan Lichtman, PJ Media, Aug. 2, 2016—A young Benjamin Netanyahu explains that "Jordan is a Palestinian state." He got it as early as 1978, and he still gets it.
Gaza’s Head of World Vision Hired by Hamas to Infiltrate the Charity, Funnelled $9.5 Million a Year to Hamas: Ruth Eglash and Hazem Balousha, National Post, Aug. 3, 2016—The Gaza head of the U.S.-based humanitarian aid organization World Vision funnelled as much as $9.5 million (US$7.2 million) a year over the past 10 years to Hamas’ terror activities, Israel’s domestic security agency said Thursday.
The Media’s Lies and Double Standards Accelerate at Blinding Speed: Monica Crowley, Washington Times, Aug. 3, 2016—According to the media, not all grieving parents of fallen servicemen are created equal. Whether those parents are protected, defended and respected or ignored, dismissed and smeared depends on their political affiliation — and how useful they are to the “right” side.
