Kesher Talk

Un-Kesher notes: The Blog will be infrequent over the long weekend. I may not celebrate Christmas, but I see no need to work during that time.

Go see Lord of the Rings. Saw it last night with the fiancee, and I was blown away.

Moving the embassy: Seth Lipsky notes that the Jerusalem Embassy Act of 1995, passed passed overwhelmingly by Congress (93-5 in the Senate and 374-37 in the House) "declared that as a matter of American law the embassy should be in Jerusalem, and it gave the president until the end of May 1999, to move it there. When Congress passed the law, it provided a certain amount of wiggle room. It did not allow the president to avoid moving the embassy, it did allow him to dodge the penalty for noncompliance--a curb on funding for the State Department. The president can continue to get that funding if he says that a national-security interest is involved. President Clinton invoked that waiver, and several powerful senators, including members of his own party, reckoned Mr. Clinton was in violation of the law... That's why Mr. Bush drew so much interest when he went before the Jewish community in the middle of his campaign and promised to pursue a different course... Mr. Bush was less than a year into his term when he abrogated his campaign promise by invoking his first waiver of the penalties for failing to move the embassy."


The hate that will not die: Millions believe 4,000 Jews stayed away from the World Trade Centre on September 11. Harmless conspiracy theory? Or sign of a virulent new anti-semitism? Linda Grant writes in the Guardian on how the Arab world is exporting an old hatred to the west. For example, she quotes Dr Ali Aqleh Ursan, chairman of the Arab Writers Association, who wrote in the Syrian publication Al-Usbu' Al-Adabi, February 5, 2000 that "The covetous, racist, and hated Jew Shylock, who cut the [pound of] flesh from Antonio's chest with the knife of hatred, invades you with his money, his modern airplanes, his missiles, and his nuclear bombs. You must face a hard question: Do you, Christians and Muslims, wish to live, survive and fulfill your convictions? Or are you Abraham's bleating lambs on the threshold of the Jewish altar, who are led to be sent to the Hereafter?"

posted by Howard @ 12/21/2001 02:23:16 PM