Tag Archives: Israel

national news

Awaiting a joyful reunion

I am in a reminiscing frame of mind this evening … so I believe I will share a memory with you.

Eight years ago this week, some friends and I embarked on a four-week journey through Israel. We were part of a Rotary International Group Study Exchange team. I had the honor of leading that team, which comprised myself and four young professionals who would get to share their work experiences with colleagues in Israel.

We all formed lasting friendships with each other, as well as with members of a Rotary team from The Netherlands that joined us on that Holy Land excursion.

We got to see that marvelous country while living in host families’ homes. They were part of a Rotary district that took part in the exchange with our West Texas Rotary district. The essence of the trip was to expose us to life in Israel as seen through those who call that country home.

Not only did we make lasting friendships among our team members, we made friendships with our hosts.

Here’s the really cool news: Very soon, my wife and I are going to hook up with one of those host families. A couple with whom I stayed in Israel is traveling to the United States to attend a Rotary International Conference in Atlanta. Before that, though, they’re going to Nashville, Tenn., for a little sightseeing before heading deeper into Dixie.

My wife hasn’t yet had the pleasure of meeting Alon and Sari, with whom I stayed in Lehavim, a town near Be’er Sheva, which is on the edge of the Judean Desert in Israel. I am absolutely certain she will fall in love with them as I did during our time together.

Indeed, we not too long ago reconnected with a couple of my fellow Dutch exchange members while on vacation in Europe. That, too, was a marvelous reunion.

Our plan this time is simple. We’ll load up our fifth wheel RV, hook it up to the rear of our pickup and get on down the road eastward toward Nashville. I’ll get to reconnect with people I met in their homeland and they in turn will get to get a taste of Americana.

Oh, how I love it when friendships become strong enough to last over lengthy distances and over spans of time.

medical news, national news, political news

Where have you gone, Ivanka and Jared?

It turns out that the president of the United States reportedly is angry that two of his “key advisers” were absent during the run-up to the historic non-vote on a bill to repeal the Affordable Care Act.

Donald J. Trump is none too happy about it at that!

The advisers? Ivanka Trump and her husband Jared Kushner.

Where were they? They were on a ski vacation. They were absent from the negotiation that took place between Daddy POTUS and his new best friend, House Speaker Paul Ryan, and those stubborn House of Representatives conservatives who torpedoed the legislation.

Here is the Big Question: What on Earth could either of these individuals have done to persuade balky congressmen and women to change their votes? Must anyone remind the president that Ivanka and Jared are political novices, as is the president of the United States himself?

There. I just did remind him. Not that he’ll even see this gentle rhetorical jab, let alone take it to heart.

Ivanka has just acquired a West Wing office, where she’ll work as a sort of unofficial adviser with no specific job description; nor will she draw a federal salary. Kushner already is the president’s point man on U.S.-Israel relations and reportedly plans to play a key role in searching for a comprehensive peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.

Are either of them skilled political operatives? Are they experts on health care, on the ACA or on the failed bill to replace it, the American Health Care Act? Do they even have any relationships with congressional naysayers? Umm. Nope.

What could they have done to affect the outcome? Maybe it’s just me, but my hunch is that it would have been not a damn thing!

So, they took a trip to the mountains to ski and enjoy each other’s company.

Dad didn’t need their “help” in scuttling this bill. He and the speaker did a fine job of it all by themselves.

Oh! And that’s a good thing.

International news, military news, national news, political news

Hey, what about Bannon and the NSC?

It’s almost impossible to keep up with all the stories that pass through the light of intense publicity only to disappear into the darkness … as it relates to Donald John Trump’s administration.

Remember the story about Steve Bannon, the former Breitbart.com executive, alleged white nationalist, political adviser becoming a member of the principals committee on the National Security Council?

Bannon is still on the NSC. He’s still getting the regular briefings, sitting in a chair that should be filled by the Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman and the director of national intelligence. Trump demoted those two military and intelligence leaders in favor of partisan political animals such as Bannon.

He’s a political hack who serves on one of the most ostensibly non-political bodies in our massive federal government.

Why is this guy still there? Why is the new national security adviser, Army Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster sitting or standing still for this travesty?

Bannon doesn’t belong on the principals committee. He now serves as chief political adviser for the president. He fulfills an entirely different role, vastly separate from anything that the National Security Council does. The NSC’s role is to provide the president with keen, sharp and non-political analysis of national security threats. The national security adviser essentially is the chief administrative official of the NSC. From all that I’ve read and heard about Lt. Gen. McMaster, he appears to be a scholar with a superb military mind.

Bannon status as political hack in chief ought to disqualify him from such his posting as a member of the principals committee.

Yet this story stays hidden in the background.

What kind of advice does Bannon give the president when, say, a Middle East nation moves on another one? What kind of advice does he offer when North Korea lobs a missile into Seoul, South Korea? Or when Hamas starts firing ordnance from Gaza into neighborhoods in southern Israel?

Bannon offers no national security credibility. There he is, though. He’s perched among the other “principals” offering advice to the president of the United States.

This guy frightens the crap out of me.

International news

Trump: Who needs a ‘two-state solution’?

Donald J. Trump has performed yet another amazing diplomatic deed.

While visiting today with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Trump managed to pull back from the United States’ traditional support for a “two-state solution” in the search for peace between Israel and the Palestinians.

Trump now all but indicated he’d support a “one-state solution” that doesn’t allow a Palestinian state that could live peacefully with Israel.

Ugghhh!

I’ve long sought to give Netanyahu support in his fight against terrorists who keep bringing violence to Israel. I believe the Israelis deserve to protect themselves using any means necessary to defeat the forces of evil that seek to destroy their nation.

However, U.S. presidents of both political parties have been correct for decades in seeking a peace agreement that sets up an independent Palestinian state that would function alongside Israel.

I understand fully the difficulty facing Israel and the Palestinians in achieving a full-fledged peace. Terrorist groups operating in Gaza, which is run by the Palestinians, keep launching rockets and other ordnance against Israel. West Bank operatives keep bringing havoc as well.

However, to deny the Palestinians an opportunity to have their own state is an utterly insane strategy. It is counterproductive in the extreme. It would inflame the terrorists and it would result in continued violence, death, mayhem and heartache.

How do the two sides reach a “two-state accord”? I have no idea. Neither do the principals. However, they must continue the effort.

For the president of the United States — as the premier broker in seeking a lasting peace agreement — to forgo the search for such an agreement is irresponsible to a maximum degree.

International news

Barack-Bibi feud ratchets up seriously

Barack Obama and Benjamin Netanhayu have been anything but BFFs ever since they became leaders of the United States and Israel, respectively.

President Obama and Prime Minister Netanyahu have had a final falling out that seems a bit difficult to understand. I want to share my own perspective on what I believe lies at the core of antipathy.

Obama reportedly instructed the U.S. United Nations delegation to abstain from a resolution condemning Israel over its construction of settlements in what often is called “occupied territory” that Israel took from Palestinians who call that land their own.

The abstention has enraged Netanyahu, who I believe has a point.

It is this: During the entire existence of the Israeli state, the nation has gone to war against its neighbors. None of the conflicts has been of Israel’s choosing. It has responded to attacks from its Arab neighboring nations: in 1956, 1967 and 1973. While the Israeli armed forces weren’t being mobilized for battlefield combat, they have been summoned time and again to put down insurrections in places like Gaza and the Golan Heights.

The Israelis feel a direct threat from their neighbors every day. Yes, they have peace treaties with Jordan and Egypt; Syria, of course, presents an existential threat with the presence of Islamic State fighters doing battle with government forces that answer to a dictator who’s also a sworn enemy of Israel.

The Islamic Republic of Iran has vowed to exterminate Israel; the Hamas terrorists who run the government in Gaza also have vowed to destroy Israel. Hezbollah runs wild in Lebanon along the northern border of Israel.

Is there any reason to doubt why the Israelis view their situation with a great deal more alarm than any other state leader can fully appreciate? I’ve been able to peer into Gaza from just outside its border; I’ve been allowed to see damage in Israeli cities such as Sderot by rockets launched from Gaza; I’ve seen the heavily secured border fences along the Israel-Lebanon border; I’ve had the pleasure of obtaining passage through the heavily guarded wall separating Jerusalem and Bethlehem.

Thus, in my view the Israelis have ample reason to feel a sense of betrayal by their allies in Washington who over many years have used their U.N. Security Council veto power to quash these resolutions.

The Israelis have never provoked armed conflict with their neighbors, but they certainly have finished it.

Thus, our most reliable Middle East ally is asking itself: Will the United States of America stand with us if the shooting ever starts again? The question, if it’s being asked, is not an unreasonable one.

International news

Obama, Netanyahu part company with bitterness

President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu occasionally used to say kind things about each other, despite their differences over how to find peace with the Palestinians.

I am guessing the niceties are finished.

The United States has broken with decades of diplomatic tradition by declining to veto a United Nations resolution condemning Israel over the settlements it is building in occupied territory that once belonged to Palestinians.

Netanyahu is furious and has said so openly and has condemned the U.N. and the United States over what he perceives is a slap at Israel.

This is tough for me to say, given my longstanding support of our president, but Netanyahu has reason to be angry.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/netanyahu-blasts-un-obama-over-west-bank-settlements-resolution/ar-BBxvBpL?li=BBmkt5R&ocid=spartandhp

The settlements are part of Israel’s effort to strengthen the buffer between its territory and that which it took during the Six-Day War of 1967, a brief conflict that was started by its Arab neighbors. Israel managed to finish it quickly by dispatching forces from Jordan, Egypt and Syria. In the process, it took over land known as the West Bank, which cuts through Jerusalem.

I have had the high honor to see that part of the world up close and I totally understand the Israelis’ concern about future violent outbreaks.

Netanyahu took particular umbrage at the language within the resolution. As the Washington Post reported: “’The resolution is distorted. It states that the Jewish quarter and the Western Wall are occupied, which is absurd,’ said Netanyahu, referring to holy Jewish sites that sit within the Old City in East Jerusalem.”

The Jewish quarter sits within the walled city inside Jerusalem. To suggest that it, along with the Western Wall, are “occupied” is ridiculous on its face.

As an aside, I sought for weeks to obtain an interview with Netanyahu before embarking on a month-long tour of Israel in May-June 2009. I wasn’t able to get one with the prime minister. Had I been able to sit down with him, I would have asked him about the settlements and sought to get a deeper look at the Israeli perspective into why they feel the need to build them in the first place.

Netanyahu now looks forward to working with Donald J. Trump, who will succeed Obama as president in January. My hope is that Trump can find a way to persuade Netanyahu that there must be a pathway toward a permanent peace with the Palestinians, even with the settlements.

I continue to support the so-called “two-state solution,” which would allow a sovereign Palestinian state to exist alongside Israel. The Palestinians, though, need to do a lot more to put down the militant objections within their own ranks to Israel’s own existence.

Perhaps the most ironic aspect of this serious breach between the United States and Israel is that it is happening as Christians prepare to celebrate Christmas. Think of it: Bethlehem, the birthplace of Jesus Christ, is walled off from the rest of Jerusalem and the prospects for that wall ever coming down appear dimmer than ever.

It is my belief that President Obama has made the bigger mistake in declining to object to this U.N. resolution. In doing so, he has alienated our nation’s most trusted ally in a region where we need all the alliances we can muster.

International news

Praying for Israeli friends

aakiuts

I know I’m not the only person on Earth to whom this happens.

You hear of disaster striking a far-off land — and it happens to be somewhere you’ve visited, where you have developed a lot of friends; you have a certain familiarity with this place and you worry yourself to near sickness about your friends’ well-being.

Fires have exploded in Israel. Flames are torching communities where I was able to spend a good bit of time in the late spring of 2009.

Haifa, Zichron Ya’achov, Karmiel, Modi’in. I know all those places. I now am in an official state of worry over friends who opened their homes to me and to my traveling companions.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/weather/topstories/israel-evacuates-thousands-as-fire-spreads-in-northern-city/ar-AAkHye5

I was there in May-June 2009 as part of a Rotary International Group Study Exchange team. We toured the country from stem to stern; from Nahariyah in the north to Eilat in the south. From the Med to the Golan Heights. We peered into Gaza and saw bomb damage in places like Sderot and Ashkelon.

And, oh yes, we saw the holy sites in Jerusalem, Nazareth, Galilee, Caesarea, Masada and Tel Aviv.

Now I am worrying about Miri, Lennie and Selma, Oded … you name them. They all became part of my life for four weeks. They well might be in danger now as fire whips through these communities.

The Israelis are good at a lot of things. I am hoping they know how to fight these wildfires. Rest assured, they’re getting help from Russia, Greece, Italy, Turkey and Cyprus.

All I can do from this place far away is to wish them Godspeed and pray that my friends remain safe.

environmental news, International news

How do you bring Dead Sea back to life?

dead-sea-sinkholes-1024x576

This story caught my eye, not because it surprised me, but because it portends potential tragedy for one of the world’s great treasures.

And I’ve had the high honor and pleasure of seeing it up close.

I refer to the Dead Sea, a small inland lake at the mouth of the Jordan River between Israel and Jordan.

I got to swim in the Dead Sea in May and June 2009. Take it from me: You haven’t lived until you’ve taken a dip in water that is 10 times saltier than the ocean, and which contains natural oil that prevents your skin from wrinkling up the way it does in normal salt or fresh water.

Public TV’s NOVA documentary series is going to look at the future of the Dead Sea, which according to the producers of the program isn’t looking too great … at the moment!

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/next/earth/dead-sea-dying/

According to NOVA: “The lake has a storied place in history. The biblical Sodom and Gomorrah reportedly overlooked its shores, while King David allegedly sought relaxation there in 1000 BCE. A few paces away, on the mountain top of Masada, Herod the Great built palaces, and in 73 CE, a thousand Jewish zealots chose death in their fortress over surrender to the Romans. Centuries later, Byzantine monks lived in monasteries overlooking its shores, and Crusaders built their castles.”

That was then. The future looks bleak.

The lake levels are receding. We were told that while we swam in the Israeli side of the water.

The culprits are dams, as NOVA reports: “But since the 1960s, the sea has had a more troubled history. That’s when Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and Israel started building dams and diverting the rivers for drinking, irrigation, and industrial use, the same waters that have been feeding the Dead Sea for millennia.”

The lake has lost about 112 feet in depth; its volume has dropped about 30 percent.

What to do? It’s interesting to me, as NOVA points out, that a joint Israeli-Palestinian environmental group is seeking to call serious attention to the danger of continued depletion of the Dead Sea.

Does the world allow this treasure to disappear? Does it continue to stand by while its water evaporates?

Perish the thought. Perish even the hint of a thought that the world could allow such an international tragedy to occur.

john

OK, I’m biased. I’m one of those who has enjoyed the water. I’ve slathered myself in that mystery mud the Israelis and Jordanians tell you has restorative qualities. You smear it all over your body, let it dry and then wash it off with fresh water.

I can’t say it made me look younger, but I felt great just being able to say I did it.

Check out the story attached to this blog post. It provides tremendous detail about the ancient history associated with the Dead Sea and the myriad problems that threaten this holy body of water.

The Dead Sea must not die!

local news, Uncategorized

Accelerating the transition … just a bit

retirement_road

This is the latest in an occasional series of blog posts commenting on upcoming retirement.

People essentially have two ways to move from their working lives to retirement.

They can jump into full retirement immediately, all at once. They walk away from the job, put their wristwatch into the drawer and never worry again about missing a deadline or an appointment.

Or, they can do it slowly.

My wife and I have chosen the latter approach to retirement.

We’ve decided to stay busy with part-time work. However, the time is approaching for us to make the transition fully into retirement.

So, we have decided to accelerate the pace of that transition … just a bit.

How is that acceleration taking place? I won’t go into too many details. Suffice to say, though, that we’re making more definitive travel plans. We also have begun some serious rehab on the yard, which — because we didn’t install an irrigation system when we had the house built in 1996 — suffered quite a bit during the drought of 2013-14.

We own a recreational vehicle that we enjoy taking on the road. Our plans involve more extensive travel in it across this fabulous continent of ours.

Just this week, for example, we penciled in a date next June to travel to the southeastern United States to visit some friends who are coming here from Israel. I met this lovely couple seven years ago while on a journey through the Holy Land; I stayed in their home in Lehavim, a city on the edge of the Judean Desert.

They’re coming to Atlanta to attend the 2017 Rotary International convention and plan to tour New Orleans and Nashville while they’re on this side of The Pond. We, too, are hoping to find them in either place and get caught up with them.

I’m going to stay busy with my part-time work. Two of the jobs involve the media. Eventually, I’ll have to part company with those jobs, which I enjoy beyond measure. They continue to challenge me and they keep me alert.

The time is fast approaching, though, to complete this transition.

We are looking forward with hope and with great joy at encountering what lies ahead.

Bring on the future!

national news, political news, religious news

Profiling Muslims a possibility … seriously?

don trump

The presumptive Republican presidential nominee, Donald J. Trump, thinks profiling Muslims is something that U.S. law enforcement should consider.

Yes, that’s right. The nation that proclaims itself to be the champion of religious freedom, where the government doesn’t care which faith you worship … or even whether you worship at all, should consider singling out Muslims, according to Trump.

But wait a second! Hasn’t Trump proposed banning Muslims from entering the United States? Who, then, is he suggesting we profile?

Oh, I get it. That would be Americans!

I’ll set aside the obvious — in my view — un-American aspect of such a proposal.

How does one identify a Muslim? Would it be the scarves that women often wear? Would it be the names of the individuals being profiled? How does law enforcement discern who deserves profiling and who doesn’t?

I ask these questions because Muslims come from all ethnic backgrounds. What about the red-headed and freckle-faced Irish man or woman who converts to Islam? Or the blue-eyed blond from Scandinavia?

Oh, and then you have, say, the Palestinian who happens to be Christian. I have a bit of experience with meeting someone of that ilk. In 2009, my wife and I toured Bethlehem on the West Bank. Our tour guide? A young Palestinian who proclaimed his love of Jesus Christ as “our Lord and Savior.”

Trump told CBS’s “Face the Nation” host John Dickerson this morning that we ought to follow the model set by Israel, which he said profiles Muslims.

I’ll just add one more bit of personal privilege here. Having traveled to Israel and endured the grilling by security officers at David Ben-Gurion International Airport, I can state without reservation that the Israelis profile everyone who leaves the country through the Tel Aviv airport.

Take my word for it, you haven’t lived until you’ve been interrogated by an Israeli airport security guard.

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/06/donald-trump-muslims-profiling-224529

Trump told Dickerson he hates “the concept of profiling.”

Fine. So do I. So should all Americans.