Israel Rally in Nashville - Event Coverage

APRPEH reporting from Legislative Plaza - from Sunday 11 January 2009

On a blustery Sunday, January 11 with temperatures falling through the 30s, the Christian and Jewish communities of middle Tennessee came together to support Israel in her war with the Hamas Islamic terrorists. Proclaiming Justice to the Nations (PJTN) and the local Jewish community organized the rally held at Legislative Plaza adjacent to Capitol Hill which overlooks the plaza. With no barriers to prevent the wind from whipping through, a bone chilled but warm hearted crowd, most of which stayed for the entire program listened to speaker after speaker explain why Americans should support Israel and her Cast Lead operation to inflict maximum damage on Hamas and stop the rocket fire into Israel from Gaza.

The attendance, before the cold weather reduced the numbers is estimated (by me) to have been between 250 - 300 people (75% not Jewish). Supportive signs and waved Israeli flags were only eclipsed by an over sized flag of Israel draped over the steps to Legislative Plaza held by some of the children in attendance. Although invited and on the schedule to speak, none of the cities non-Orthodox Rabbis attended the second of the day’s pro-Israel gatherings. An earlier gathering at one of Nashville’s Reform congregations included the Conservative and Reform Rabbis both as speakers and attendees.

more pictures here
The rally began with an invocation and inspiring talk by PJTN President
Laurie Cardoza Moore
Laurie Cardoza Moore laid the groundwork for one of the main themes echoed throughout the day, challenging the institutionalized double standard and disproportional force arguments regularly targeted against Israel and the Jewish people (vis a vis the barbarians who try to harm them) and assumed by world leaders. This bias is strengthened by the international pro-Arabian media and serves to complicate understanding Israel's true situation.

“It is acceptable after all, because it is just the Jewish people” Ms. Moore stated as a hypothetical answer to the world’s lack of concern over “Hamas’s disproportionate response to Israel over the last three years as thousands of rockets rained down on innocent civilians daily including men, women and children”, “where were the protesters?” “where was the outcry for the Jewish people?”

Laurie Cardoza Moore's Remarks:

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After Ms. Moore completed her remarks, and following remarks by Steven Edelstein (see Newschannel 5 coverage at the bottom), Executive Director of the Jewish Federation of Nashville and Middle Tennessee, Rabbi Saul Strosberg of Congregation Sherith Israel spoke.

Comparing the Jewish people to Judah Ben Yaakov Avinu (the Biblical patriarch), Rabbi Strosberg said

“Judah stood up when he sensed injustice, Judah stood up for his family, Judah stood up and so do we stand up for Israel. As Jewish people each day we wake up with a mission. Our mission is to follow the ways of G-d and to do justice and mercy. And this is not an easy mission. Sometimes, we have to go against the stream. Sometimes we’re criticized. Sometimes, we realize that we will never be accepted. That certain people in the world don’t want us to be alive. And I know this is hard to accept, but that is the truth. So together with Laurie and Proclaiming Justice to the Nations, we gather to stand up for our brothers and sisters in Israel. Yes, we must stand up. And if we don’t stand up for Israel who will? Who stood up for us 60 years ago in Europe? Who stood up for us then? And as recently as this past Thursday night, who stood up for us and stood against the United Nations resolution calling on Israel to cease its operation of breaking down the terrorist infrastructure in Gaza? No one. No one stood up. Not even our own United States. And throughout history we have stood alone. And if we do not stand up for ourselves who else will? If we don’t stand up what will our children think?

Rabbi Saul Strosberg

Rabbi Strosberg charged the Jewish and Christian communities to counter the inaccuracies about Israel’s offensive and not to accept the “moral equivalency” arguments which claim Israel and Hamas are equal. Such beliefs, Rabbi Strosberg went on to say will not lead to peace.

Rabbi Strosberg's Remarks:

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Vatican Cardinal Invokes Holocaust Imagery to Criticize Israel

The Jew or Israeli being described in imagery designed to stir up visions of Nazi Germany or Gestapo soldiers is usually confined to the channels of antiJew publications or websites. The first time I recall seeing a Jew as Nazi image was in an editorial cartoon accompanying a Pat Buchanan column in 1988 which ran in a local newspaper. Arabian newspapers are filled with this antiJew propaganda. The pictures below are of arabian origin and are found on the Fraud Factor website.

























Certainly, Cardinal Renato Raffaele Martino knows that this new mythology exists? He must be aware that these false comparisons have been around for many years?

For the record Cardinal, the 'concentration camp' of Gaza is made that way by the arabians who have complete control of it. It is they who force civilian women and children to stay in the line of fire and use buildings in which those women and children reside as locations to launch rockets and shoot at soldiers.

If conditions were bad in Gaza before, it is because the ruling Hamas thugs did nothing to improve those conditions. Jews in Europe, by comparison had everything taken away from them, were forced into their living quarters by the Nazis not because other Jews thought they would make good pawns and provide good photo ops. Real concentration camps are run by ruthless single minded barbarians. Wait, that's Gaza too! But it is the arabians, not the Jews who are the barbarians who have brought Gaza to warfare.

Additional coverage of this story is below. Note the lame, not very informative version presented by the New York Times in comparison to the UPI, JPOST and Reuters coverage. The NYT doesn't seem to want anything but the mildest criticism of the Cardinal.

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Vatican official: Gaza resembles ‘concentration camp’ - JTA
January 7, 2009

ROME (JTA) -- A senior Vatican official said the conditions in Gaza "resembled ever more a big concentration camp."

Cardinal Renato Raffaele Martino, the president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, called for dialogue to end the conflict between Israel and Hamas in an interview with an online Italian daily. Martino said "violence does not resolve problems, and history is full of confirmations of this."

At the root of the conflict, he said, is the fact that "no one sees the interests of the other but only its own." The consequences of such egoism, the cardinal said, were "hatred for the other, poverty and injustice. The ones who pay the price are always innocent populations."

ADL blasts Holocaust imagery in anti-Israel protests - JPOST
Jan. 6, 2009
Etgar Lefkovits , THE JERUSALEM POST
The comparisons of Israel to Nazi Germany being made at protests worldwide against the IDF's Gaza operation are a "cynical perversion" of history that has no place in civil societies, the New York-based Anti Defamation League said Tuesday.

"Comparisons of Israel to the Nazis are a deeply cynical perversion of history, an attempt to turn the tragedy that befell the Jewish people into a bludgeon against Israel," said Abraham H. Foxman, ADL national director and a Holocaust survivor.

Foxman particularly deplored the fact that this comparison was being heard at demonstrations in the United States.

"While we have come to expect to see such and hear this type of inflammatory rhetoric in Arab and Muslim capitals overseas, it is deeply disturbing that it is appearing in anti-Israel demonstrations at home," Foxman said.

"Offensive Holocaust comparisons and the use of Nazi imagery are deeply offensive and have no place in a civil society such as ours."

The anti-Israel demonstrations in major American cities have included expressions of support for Hamas, which is designated by the State Department as a foreign terror organization, as well as inflammatory anti-Israel and anti-Semitic rhetoric, the ADL said.

A January 3 mass rally in New York's Times Square, which was endorsed by Al-Awda, the Muslim American Society, and the Islamic Circle of North America, included signs that read "Israel: The Fourth Reich;" "Holocaust by Holocaust Survivors;" "Stop Israel's Holocaust;" "Holocaust in Gaza;" and "Stop the Zionist Genocide in Gaza.

One sign juxtaposed gruesome images of Holocaust victims and Gazans and read, "Nazi Genocide, Israeli Genocide."

Similar anti-Israel protests using Nazi imagery were held in Chicago, Los Angeles, Tampa and San Diego.

Israel Condemns Vatican’s ‘Concentration Camp’ Remarks - NYT
January 9, 2009

By RACHEL DONADIO
ROME — Tensions rose between the Vatican and Israel on Thursday after Israel condemned a high-ranking Vatican official for comparing the Gaza Strip to “a concentration camp.”

"Look at the conditions in Gaza: more and more, it resembles a big concentration camp,” Cardinal Renato Martino, the president of the Council for Justice and Peace, said in an interview published Wednesday in an online publication.

He defended his comments in the center-left daily newspaper La Repubblica on Thursday. While noting that Hamas rockets into Israel were “certainly not sugared almonds,” he called the situation in Gaza “horrific” and said conditions there went “against human dignity.”

Israel on Thursday harshly condemned the cardinal’s use of World War Two imagery. “We are astounded that a spiritual dignitary would have such words, that are so far removed from truth and dignity,” said Yigal Palmor, a spokesman for the Israeli Foreign Ministry.

He added that it was “shocking to hear the vocabulary of Hamas propaganda coming from a member of the church.” But he denied that it would cause a diplomatic crisis. It “doesn’t change the nature of relations between Israel and the Holy See,” Mr. Palmor said.

The Vatican sought to downplay the cardinal’s remarks. The Vatican spokesman, Rev. Federico Lombardi, called Cardinal Martino’s choice of words “inopportune,” and said they created “irritation and confusion” more than illumination.

While calling the cardinal “an authoritative person,” Rev. Lombardi added that “The more authoritative voice and line would be that of the pope.”

Indeed, the cardinal’s remarks overshadowed an important discourse that Pope Benedict XVI delivered on Thursday, in which he called for a ceasefire in Gaza and decried “a renewed outbreak of violence provoking immense damage and suffering for the civilian population.”

“Once again I would repeat that military options are no solution and that violence, wherever it comes from and whatever form it takes, must be firmly condemned,” he told diplomats accredited to the Vatican.

In unusually direct remarks, the pope looked ahead to “crucial elections” coming up in the Middle East and called for dialogue between Israel and Syria, the “strengthening of institutions” in Lebanon and a “negotiated solution” to “the controversy surrounding” Iran’s nuclear program.

Israel’s ambassador to the Vatican, Mordechay Lewy, said events Gaza had “no connection” to plans underway for Benedict to visit Israel, the West Bank and Jordan this spring. The Vatican has not yet officially announced the trip.

In the past, some Jews have seen the Vatican’s approach as more sympathetic to Palestinian suffering than Israeli security. Mr. Lewy called the pope’s speech “equivocal.”

“The language and the expectations of the Holy Father and the scope of his interests are different from those of a politician,” Mr. Lewy said. “In practical politics, I’m sure Israel wouldn’t have existed if we would have acted without any force.”

Vatican-Israel ties tense over cardinal's camps comment - Reuters
Thu Jan 8, 2009 7:11pm GMT
By Philip Pullella

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Relations between the Vatican and Israel grew tense on Thursday when the Jewish state condemned an aide to Pope Benedict for calling Gaza "a big concentration camp."

Israel criticised Cardinal Renato Martino as the pope delivered a speech to diplomats in which he spoke out against the use of violence by both Israel and Hamas Islamists in Gaza.

On Wednesday, Martino, president of the Vatican's Council for Justice and Peace, delivered the Vatican's toughest criticism of Israel since its offensive in the Palestinian-ruled enclave, calling Gaza a "big concentration camp."

"We are astounded to hear from a spiritual dignitary words that are so far removed from truth and dignity," Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor told Reuters.

"The vocabulary of Hamas propaganda, coming from a member of the College of Cardinals, is a shocking and disappointing phenomenon," he said.

Jewish leaders around the world also condemned Martino.

"His comments are offensive and an insult to the memory of the Holocaust and survivors worldwide," said Elan Steinberg, vice president of the American Gathering of Jewish Holocaust Survivors and their Descendants.

"He is either trying to nefariously disseminate anti-Israeli propaganda or he doesn't have the faintest clue about the murderous conditions inside a concentration camp," Stephan Kramer, general secretary of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, told Handelsblatt newspaper.

"These remarks are untrue, distort the memory of the Holocaust and are only used against Israel by terrorist organisations and Holocaust deniers," said Rabbi Marvin Hier, dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Centre.

SHADOW OVER POPE'S HOLY LAND TRIP

The row over Martino's remark as well as Israel's bombing of Gaza have cast a shadow over negotiations for the pope to visit the Holy Land in May, a trip some diplomats say is now in doubt.

The exchange of accusations heated up as the pope delivered his yearly "state of the world" speech to diplomats in which he seemed at pains to be even-handed following the furore over Martino's remarks.

The pontiff lamented "a renewed outbreak of violence provoking immense damage and suffering for the civilian population" in Gaza and Israel and urged "the rejection of hatred, acts of provocation and the use of arms."

"Violence, wherever it comes from and whatever form it takes, must be firmly condemned."

More than 750 Palestinians have been killed since Israel started bombarding Gaza on December 27 with the aim of halting Hamas rocket attacks. At least eleven Israelis have been killed, eight of them soldiers, since the offensive began.

In a follow-up interview in Italy's La Repubblica newspaper on Thursday, Martino defended his comments, saying the people of Gaza "are surrounded by a wall that is difficult to breach, in conditions that go against human dignity."

Martino said "certainly, the rockets of Hamas are not confetti. I condemn them" but forcefully criticised Israel for an attack on a U.N. school.

(Additional reporting by Erik Kirschbaum in Berlin)


ADL: Nazi imagery abound at anti-Israel rallies - YNET

Comparisons of Israel’s actions to those of Hitler, signs altering Jewish Star of David into swastika a recurring feature at many rallies across US
Ynetnews

Of all of the recriminations aimed at Israel at scores of demonstrations held across the country in response to its military operation against Hamas, none has been more consistently or emphatically employed than comparisons of Israel to the Nazis, or the situation in Gaza to a “Holocaust", the Anti-Defamation League said Tuesday.

According to a statement issued by ADL, in-your-face comparisons of Israel’s actions to those of Hitler, or signs altering the Jewish Star of David into a swastika, have been a recurring feature at many rallies across the country, including protests held over the past weekend in several major US cities.

Some demonstrations have included expressions of support for Hamas, a US-designated terrorist organization, or for terrorism against Israel in general, ADL said. And some protesters at rallies have spewed inflammatory anti-Israel and anti-Semitic rhetoric.

In New York City’s Times Square, six city blocks were filled Saturday with anti-Israel demonstrators holding signs that read “Israel: The Fourth Reich;” “Holocaust by Holocaust Survivors;” “Stop Israel’s Holocaust;” “Holocaust in Gaza;” and “Stop the Zionist Genocide in Gaza.”

One sign juxtaposed gruesome images of Holocaust victims and Gazans and read, “Nazi Genocide, Israeli Genocide.”

'A deeply cynical perversion of history'

On December 30, demonstrators gathered at the Israeli Consulate in Los Angeles waving Palestinian flags and holding signs, including ones that read, “Every Israeli committing the genocide in Gaza is a 'Hitler'.”

One sign depicted an image of the Israeli flag with the Star of David replaced by a swastika and above the flag, the words, “Upgrade to Holocaust Version 2.0.”

The same day, hundreds of demonstrators gathered in Tampa, Florida carrying signs that compared Israel to Nazi Germany and calling for the dissolution of Israel. One sign declared, “Zionism is Cancer; Radiate it,” and other signs featured the word “Nazi” written over an Israeli flag with a swastika.

“Freedom of speech is not just a right, it is also a responsibility,” said Abraham H. Foxman, ADL national director and a Holocaust survivor. “Comparisons of Israel to the Nazis are a deeply cynical perversion of history, an attempt to turn the tragedy that befell the Jewish people into a bludgeon against Israel.

“While we have come to expect to see such and hear this type of inflammatory rhetoric in Arab and Muslim capitals overseas, it is deeply disturbing that it is appearing in anti-Israel demonstrations at home,” said Foxman. “Offensive Holocaust comparisons and the use of Nazi imagery are deeply offensive and have no place in a civil society such as ours.”

Nazi Imagery, Anti-Semitism Rampant In Arab Media As Gaza Crisis Unfolds - ADL Press Release

Roseanne Barr: Israel is a 'Nazi state' - JPOST

Urban Dictionary definition of "Jewish Nazi"

UK Lib-Dems Offensive Against Israel

Lib Dems call for British arms embargo on Israel - Guardian
Once again, the most extreme left politicians in the UK have sided with the enemies of the Jews. Having read this Guardian article, I thought it would be constructive to take a look at the three leading political parties in the UK and the positions they are taking vis a vis Operation Cast Lead in Gaza. The Guardian article is a backgrounder covering the political dog fighting between the Liberal Democrats and majority Labour parties. Left out of the Guardian article is any opinion from the opposition Conservatives.

I have assembled annotated statements and links to the most recent statements made by each of the three leading parties in the UK, although I am hesitant to refer to the Liberal Democrats as leading - in seats, ideas or morals. The current breakdown of the UK House of Commons is:

Member Constituency
Conservative (193)
Democratic Unionist (9)
Independent (5)
Independent Conservative (1)
Independent Labour (1)
Labour (350)
Liberal Democrat (63)
Plaid Cymru (3)
Respect (1)
Scottish National (7)
Sinn Fein (5)
Social Democratic & Labour Party (3)
Ulster Unionist (1)
Speaker and Deputies (4)
Parliament.uk

Based upon the statements below, it appears to be necessary in the UK to throw a bone to the antiJews. Even the favorable, er..make that favourable statements from the Conservative party include flashes of 'both sides' faux fairness. It is also telling that the Conservatives statement does not come from the party leader Mr. Cameron but from an MP, who based upon his bio online does not have any foreign affairs assignments or responsibilities. Maybe, Mr. Cameron wants deniability? Maybe it is the political reality in the UK given the level of anti-semitism and growing radical arabian population? This is troubling to me. I suppose friends are always welcome, even ones who are embarrassed of being friends.

PM Brown's statements seem to be right in line with US Secretary of State Condi Rice echoing the obvious, that Israel has a security interest in stopping rocket fire. This is in contrast to the Liberal-Democrat pressure tactics of ending arms sales to Israel and blocking Israeli trade with the EU, actions which are nothing short of taking the side of Hamas. I find it interesting how the most liberal party with any standing in the UK is in favor of the right to free fire rockets into democratic and liberal Israel.

For readers from the UK, please feel free to correct, amend, reprove, etc. the details of this post.

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Labour Party - Majority


PM Gordon Brown (Labour)
Gaza is a humanitarian crisis - PM
Speaking to journalists in 10 Downing Street, Mr Brown said he was hopeful that the basis for a ceasefire, providing assurances to Israel over security and securing an open border under international supervision for Palestinians in Gaza, could be found.

Gaza needs “immediate ceasefire” - PM
“We need an immediate ceasefire, and that includes a stopping of the rockets into Israel. Secondly, we need some resolution of the problem over arms trafficking into Gaza and, thirdly, we need the borders and the crossings open and that will need some international solution.”

PM “deeply concerned” by Gaza violence
In a Downing Street statement, the PM said that only “peaceful means” could secure a lasting solution to the dispute between Israel and Palestine. He called upon Gazan militants to end their rocket attacks and asked Israel to “meet its humanitarian obligations”.

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Conservative Party Opposition


Opposition Leader MP David Cameron


MP Stephen Crabb

The conflict in Gaza has caused yet more distress and suffering
Stephen Crabb MP, Wednesday, January 7 2009
There is nothing about the current military conflict in Gaza which is not tragic and disturbing. The immediate consequences for the people of Gaza of the fighting between Hamas and Israel are yet more distress and suffering, compounding the humanitarian disaster in which they have been living for years.

But this is not a conflict made in Israel. We may criticise Israel for settlements on the West Bank; for the ugly and imposing security barrier which it has constructed; for the roadblocks and checkpoints which cause so much disruption to the economy and daily lives of Palestinians on the West Bank. But the blame for the current misery of Gaza lies squarely with its own leaders.

Just as NATO would not allow Afghanistan, under the Taliban, to provide a platform for international terrorists like Al Quadea, so Israel cannot be expected to allow Hamas to construct a terrorist statelet in Gaza and use it as a base for continous attacks on its people. No government which takes seriously its responsibility to protect its citizens would do otherwise.

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Liberal-Democrats


Nick Clegg
Leader of the Liberal Democrats

Clegg: We must stop arming Israel

Of course, Israel has every right to defend itself. It is difficult to imagine what it must be like to live with the constant threat of rocket attacks from a movement which espouses terrorist violence and denies Israel's right to exist. But Israel's approach is self-defeating: the overwhelming use of force, the unacceptable loss of civilian lives, is radicalising moderate opinion among Palestinians and throughout the Arab world. Anger in the West Bank will make it virtually impossible for Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian Authority president, to continue to talk to Israeli ministers.

Brown must stop sitting on his hands. He must condemn unambiguously Israel's tactics, just as he has rightly condemned Hamas's rocket attacks. Then he must lead the EU into using its economic and diplomatic leverage in the region to broker peace. The EU is by far Israel's biggest export market, and by far the biggest donor to the Palestinians. It must immediately suspend the proposed new cooperation agreement with Israel until things change in Gaza, and apply tough conditions on any long-term assistance to the Palestinian community.

Brown must also halt Britain's arms exports to Israel, and persuade our EU counterparts to do the same. The government's own figures show Britain is selling more and more weapons to Israel, despite the questions about the country's use of force. In 2007, our government approved £6m of arms exports. In 2008, it licensed sales 12 times as fast: £20m in the first three months alone.