Tennessee Lawmaker Stacey Campfield Compares Obamacare to Holocaust

Tea Party Loyalist Blasted for 'Repugnant' Blog Post

By Hody Nemes

Published May 05, 2014.

NOTE: Why the right has to tone down their rhetoric. Uneducated folks who listen to the talking heads on the right come up with statements like this and then just can't understand whay everyone is picking on them. Time for more (some?) introspection? 

A Republican Tennessee state senator is under fire for comparing Obamacare to the Holocaust.

Stacey Campfield

“Democrats bragging about the number of mandatory signups for Obamacare is like Germans bragging about the manditory [sic] signups for ‘train rides’ for Jews in the (1940s),” Sen. Stacey Campfield, wrote in a “Daily Musing” posted to his blog on May 5.

Campfield told WKRN-TV Nashville that he “is not minimizing loss of life” during the Holocaust, but said “it is not an accurate portrayal for the administration to brag and signups for Obamacare when it’s mandatory.”

“When you control people’s health, you control their lives and if they live or die,” he added.

Leaders of both parties were quick to criticize Campfield’s comments.

“Senator Campfield’s blog post this morning is just the latest example of Tea Party Republican extremism,” said Roy Herron, chairman of the Tennessee Democratic Party. “To compare attempts to save American lives through access to healthcare with Nazis killing European Jews is outrageous, pathetic, and hateful.”

Tennessee Republican Party Chairman Chris Devaney also condemned his fellow Republican’s remarks, which he called “ignorant and repugnant.”

“No political or policy disagreement should ever be compared to the suffering endured by an entire generation of people. Those comments have no place in our public discourse,” Devaney said. “He should offer an apology to members of the Jewish faith immediately.”  Please CLICK HERE to keep reading

Read more: http://forward.com/articles/197639/tennessee-lawmaker-stacey-campfield-compares-obama/#ixzz30spguHMS

Hamas's Abu Marzouk says recognizing Israel a 'red line'

NOTE: Okay, so noted. You don't recognize Israel, let alone the Jewish State. Thanks for sharing. Read on...

“This is a red line that cannot be crossed,” said the 63-year-old Hamas leader who played a pivotal role in achieving the reconciliation deal with Fatah on April 23.

Abu Marzouk’s remarks come as Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas meet in Qatar. The Hamas leader added that the Quartet’s requirement that Hamas recognize Israel “do not concern us one bit.”

“We would have spared ourselves seven years of misery under the siege and two wars in 2008 and 2012 had we wanted to recognize Israel,” he said.

Abbas said April 26 that a unity government would recognize Israel, but this was not agreed upon with Hamas, according to Abu Marzouk, who said that Abbas “alone is responsible for his words.” He also reiterated Hamas’ refusal to disarm the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, despite requests by Fatah to do so as part of the reconciliation.

“Hamas’ position in this regard is clear, and it will not allow any tampering with the brigades’ armament under any circumstances,” said the Hamas deputy leader. Please CLICK HERE to keep reading

Read more: http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2014/05/interview-abu-marzouk-hamas-israel-fatah-reconciliation.html##ixzz30skvjIJ6

Why it is hypocritical to boycott Israel

Jake Wallis Simons in the Telegraph May 5, 2014 

NOTE: This is a great, great article. A "keeper"! 

We're not normally called upon to justify a decision to travel abroad. Few people would challenge me if I were visiting China, despite that country’s appalling human rights record, repression of free speech, and colonisation of Tibet. If I was travelling to America, even though Predator drones kill thousands of innocent people each year, and even though Guantanamo Bay still holds 154 detainees, nobody would complain.

I would not be criticised for travelling to Egypt, which has become a police state that imprisons journalists, attacks protesters, and sentences political opponents to death. Nobody would suggest that I boycott India; or Pakistan; or Venezuela; or Saudi Arabia; or indeed Britain, which – I seem to recall – ignored the United Nations and attacked Iraq.

I could go on. But later this month, I am planning to travel to Israel to appear in the Jerusalem literary festival. As surely as night follows day, I have received an “open letter” from a group of 71 activists calling themselves the British Writers in Support of Palestine (BWIP), led by a poet and “professional Tarot card reader”. They were, I was informed, “extremely disappointed” by my decision, and “respectfully encouraged” me to boycott the event. But I am honoured to have been invited to Israel, and will be proud to attend. Here’s why.

It is my strong belief that Israel is, relatively speaking, a force for good in the world. I’m not saying that it is free from controversy, and I’m not saying that I have no sympathy with Palestinians. But every country that abides by the democratic process, enshrines in law the rights of women and minorities, and conducts itself with compassion both in war and in peace – or at least aspires to do so – deserves our support and respect. Please CLICK HERE to keep reading

RELATED: CLICK HERE

Massacre that marred birth of Israel

On the morning Israeli statehood was declared, 127 who had survived the Holocaust and fought for independence were killed at Kfar Etzion. Their deaths inspired today's settlements

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• Peter Beaumont in Gush Etzion
• theguardian.com, Friday 2 May 2014 13.15 EDT

Gush Etzion today. The massacre at Kfar Etzion, as it was called in 1948, moulded the Israeli psyche, spawning the Israeli settlement project. Photograph: Alamy

In his diary on 14 May 1948, David Ben-Gurion, later to be first prime minister of Israel, recorded the events leading to Israel's declaration of statehood.

It is marked in a handful of words: "At four o'clock in the afternoon, we declared independence. The nation was jubilant – and, again, I mourn in the midst of the rejoicing."

The cause for grief had been relayed to him at two o'clock that morning – the first entry in his journal. "General Staff Meeting. At 2am a telegram from Fritz [Eshet]: waving a white flag at Kfar Etzion resulted in a massacre of the defenders by the Arabs."

Sitting in a cafe in West Jerusalem, Yossi Ron describes what he knows about that day. Now 67, Ron was one year old the day Ben-Gurion wrote those words and already an orphan, the only child to lose both his parents, Holocaust survivors and Haganah fighters, in the worst military disaster for Jewish forces during the war for independence. They were among 127 killed..  Please CLICK HERE to keep reading

Louis Armstrong's Secret Lessons From Judaism

Satchmo Nibbled on Matzo and Wore a Star of David

GETTY IMAGES

Horn of Plenty: Armstrong expressed disappointment that African-Americans failed to take up Jewish

By Benjamin Ivry

Published May 05, 2014, issue of May 09, 2014. the FORWARD 

A massive, and massively detailed new biography, reminds music mavens that jazz pioneer Louis Armstrong assimilated lessons from Judaism and expressed them through music and writing during his long career.

“Louis Armstrong, Master of Modernism” by Thomas Brothers is a tribute to an unsurpassed jazz trumpeter and singer who relished Yiddishkeit. Born in 1901, Armstrong performed and recorded nearly until his death in 1971. Grateful early on for the respect, encouragement and affection he received as a boy from the Karnofskys, a Lithuanian Jewish family in his hometown of New Orleans, he later became dependent for decades on his manager Joe Glaser, a Jew with mob ties. Toward the end of his life, he repeatedly jotted down thanks to Jewish doctors who prolonged his career. At home, Armstrong snacked on matzoh as a preferred treat and wore a Star of David (accounts differ over whether it was given to him by the Karnofskys or by Glaser). The jazz photographer Herb Snitzer, who captured an image of Armstrong on a bus in 1960 with the Star of David clearly visible, commented: “[Armstrong] wore the Star his entire life.”

“I had a long time admiration for the Jewish People. Especially with their long time of courage, taking So Much Abuse for so long. I was only Seven years old but I could easily see the ungodly treatment that the White Folks were handing the poor Jewish family whom I worked for. It dawned on me, how drastically. Even ‘my race’ the Negroes, the way that I saw it, they were having a little better Break than the Jewish people, with jobs a plenty around… to me we were better off than the Jewish people. But we didn’t do anything about it. We were lazy and still are.”  Please CLICK HERE to read

Read more: http://forward.com/articles/197338/louis-armstrongs-secret-lessons-from-judaism/?p=all#ixzz30qSTPn9r

Pres. Clinton: Arafat Turned Down Major Last-Minute Israeli Concessions in 2000

by TheTower.org Staff | 05.05.14 8:08 am

In a speech last week at Georgetown University, former President Bill Clinton said that Israel and the Palestinians were extremely close to an agreement at the Camp David summit in 2000, when Yasser Arafat refused to close the deal that was offered to him.

According to Clinton, Arafat insisted that a narrow strip of land on the Temple Mount be included in the deal, and walked away when Israel refused to add that to the other far-reaching concessions it was prepared to make.

Clinton’s remarks revealed that a breakthrough in talks between Israel and the Palestinians, particularly on the controversial issue of the division of Jerusalem, was closer at hand in 2000, at the summit he called a “roaring success,” than previously thought. …

Arafat agreed to leave Israel with control over the Western Wall, as well as over the Jewish neighborhoods in East Jerusalem, but insisted on keeping 16 meters, or 50 feet, of land leading up to an entrance to the Western Wall tunnels under Palestinian control.

The former president expressed sympathy for the Israeli position, saying, ““if you got in, you could do mayhem to the ruins of the temples.” Arafat subsequently launched the secondintifada a few months later.

Clinton’s recollection of Arafat’s refusal to make peace is particularly timely in wake of  a report last week on Israeli television that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu agreed to make significant concessions in order to keep peace negotiations with the Palestinians going. However, instead of coming to an agreement with Israel, Fatah, the main constituent organization of the PA, came to a unity agreement with the terrorist organization Hamas. If the Israeli report is true, it would be another time that the Palestinians walked away from peace.

This wouldn’t be the first time that Mahmoud Abbas refused to come to an agreement with Israel. In 2008, then-Prime Minister Ehud Olmert made a peace offer to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and never heard back.

Clinton’s remarks are a reminder of the uncompromising positions of Palestinian leaders regardless of who is Prime Minister of Israel.  LINK

RELATED: 

Hamas reiterates that it will never recognize Israel and it will maintain Qassam Brigades

READ CLICK HERE

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'Anti-Semitic hatefest' with Dieudonné banned in Brussels

 
 
 
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Text by FRANCE 24 

Latest update : 2014-05-04

Citing security risks, a Brussels mayor banned a gathering of far-right figures – including controversial French comic Dieudonné (pictured) – planned for Sunday after some Jewish groups called the meeting an "anti-Semitic hatefest".

The mayor of the Brussels district of Anderlecht banned both the meeting and any street protests planned in connection with it, the Belga news agency reported.

Organisers of the so-called "European Dissidents' Congress" had kept its venue secret until the last moment to try to avoid a ban. The meeting aimed to bring together a string of controversial far-right figures that included comedian Dieudonné M'bala M'bala, who has faced repeated convictions for anti-Semitism, Holocaust denial and incitement to racial hatred in France.

The Belgian League against anti-Semitism, LBCA, on Friday filed a complaint before the Brussels prosecutor against what it warned would be "a day of hate, that would serve as a platform for the worst gathering of anti-Semite authors, theorists and propagandists that our country has seen since the end of World War II".

The Simon Wiesenthal Centre for Holocaust studies and human rights, rallied behind the calls for a ban.

"The fact that this hatefest is to be held in Brussels, the capital of Europe, the seat of its Parliament ... is a threat to democracy reminiscent of the 1920s Weimar Republic, which brought Europe to the Nazi abyss," the centre's director for international relations, Shimon Samuels, said in a statement.

The leader of the "Debout Les Belges!" (Rise up, Belgians!) group, far-right lawmaker Laurent Louis, said the event would go on despite the ban.

"Our guests have confirmed they will be coming, and in any event – ban or no ban – you can meet them and spend an unforgettable day," Louis wrote on his Facebook page.

"Do not give in to pressure and come with your families, in calm and good spirits," he wrote.

Please CLICK HERE for source article

(FRANCE 24 with AFP)

Son of Nazi Officer converts to Judaism - Amazing talk - Sit back and Watch!

Weekend Reads May 4, 2014

Here's some good reading for your Sunday afternoon! Enjoy!
(click the links to view articles)

The 1967 Lines are Rotten

Politics Trumps Peace - Abbas and Hamas

BDS Employs Guerilla Tactics and gets noticed

Another BDSFAIL success from our English Friends

The Danger of Denial for Israel

Islamic Jihad Gains Traction in Gaza

Professor Jacobson Head to Vassar (review his recent radio interview)

Ntanuahu pushes for resolution stating Israel is the JEWISH STATE

Yom Hazikaron

Islamic Jihad Gains New Traction in Gaza

By JODI RUDOREN  New York Times

May 3, 2014

GAZA — Shortly before midnight, seven black-masked young men in camouflage stood in a field of waist-high weeds, Kalashnikov rifles pointed toward the Mediterranean Sea a half-mile away.

No Israeli soldier has set foot in Gaza City in five years, but the 25-year-old commander of this band of Al-Quds Brigades — the armed wing of Islamic Jihad — said his troops stand vigil here nightly to “protect the Palestinian people” from any “incursion.” Every few minutes, in what may have been a nightly ritual or an effort to broadcast to the world their readiness to fight, the radio on the commander’s shoulder crackled with warnings: drones in the east, F-16s overhead, gunboat movement at sea.

“You are the men; you, the Al-Quds Brigades, are the real men,” the voice said after reciting verses from the Quran praising jihadist militants and martyrs. “God protect you in the field.”

Smaller and less known internationally than the militant Islamic Hamas faction that has ruled since 2007, Islamic Jihad and its Al-Quds Brigades are having something of a renaissance. Last month the group captured global headlines by firing a barrage of 100 rockets toward Israel in less than an hour. Polls show that support for Islamic Jihad among residents of Gaza remains far below that of the leading political factions but has seen an uptick as the group has lately built health clinics, opened schools, and expanded its family-mediation services.  Please CLICK HERE to keep reading

Calling out the anti Israel anti-semitic Vassar College Professors

NOTE:!! William Jacobson will appear at VASSAR COLLEGE tomorrow, Monday May 5, 2014. He had offered to debate any or all of the 39 VASSAR Professors who signed a letter to the VASSAR COLLEGE newspaper, the MISCELLANY NEWS who were dismayed with the VASSAR PRESIDENT when she opposed the ASA Boycott. 

NOT ONE of the professors would come forward to accept the challenge. Not one! Meanwhile these professors continue to sponsor JEW HATING anti-Israel speakers on a near daily basis. 

If you are anywhere near VASSAR COLLEGE on Monday please go and show your support. 

Netanyahu: The State of Israel is the Nation-State of One People Only – the Jewish People

Netanyahu: The State of Israel provides full equal rights, individual rights, to all its citizens, but it is the nation-state of one people only – the Jewish People.

By: Jewish Press News Briefs

Published: May 4th, 2014

PM Netanyahu’s statement at Sunday’s cabinet meeting:

“The State of Israel is a Jewish and democratic state. Our basic laws give full expression to the democratic side of the state. We do this by providing full equal rights to every citizen in Israel. The basic laws do this via two main laws – Basic Law: Human Dignity and Liberty and Basic Law: Freedom of Occupation.

On the other hand, that the State of Israel is the nation-state of the Jewish People is not sufficiently expressed in our basic laws, and this is what the draft basic law is meant to provide. It will define the national right of the Jewish People over the State of Israel, without infringing on the individual rights of any Israeli citizen in the State of Israel. It will reinforce the status of the Law of Return as a basic law. It will anchor in a basic law the status of the national symbols – flag, anthem, language and other aspects of our national experience. These aspects are under a constant and increasing assault from abroad and at home. But the foundation of the existence of the State of Israel stems from its being the national home of the Jewish People and from the Jewish People’s deep links to the Land of Israel.

Of course, there are those who do not want the State of Israel to be defined as the nation-state of the Jewish People. They want a Palestinian nation-state to be established alongside us and that Israel should gradually become a binational, Arab-Jewish state inside shrunken borders.

But I simply say that one cannot hold the national stick at both of its national ends. They cannot say that they want to separate from the Palestinians in order to prevent a binational state, which has a certain logic, and also sanctify a binational, Jewish-Arab state within the permanent borders of the State of Israel.

The State of Israel provides full equal rights, individual rights, to all its citizens, but it is the nation-state of one people only – the Jewish People – and of no other people. And therefore, in order to bolster the status of the State of Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish People, I intend to submit a basic law that will anchor this status. The new law will be formulated in dialogue with all components of the coalition so that the values of the State of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state are preserved.

I would like to make it clear that this is not a political matter. When the opposition, during the previous government’s term, proposed a draft law on this issue, I announced immediately that I would support it. And today, on the eve of Remembrance Day for the Fallen of Israel’s Wars, I would like to cite ‘The Silver Platter’ by Natan Alterman , which was originally published in the newspaper Davar in 1947: ‘We are the silver platter on which the Jewish State has been given you.’ This is clear; the time has come for us to legislate it.”  LINK HERE

Am Yisrael Chai!

Israel Observes Yom Hazikaron in Memory of Fallen Soldiers and Terror Victims

A unique aspect to the Jewish State is the observance of a somber Yom Hazikaron, Israeli Memorial Day, followed by joyous Independence Day festivities.

Yom Hazikaron – Israel’s Memorial Day – begins on Sunday evening. It is a somber annual event that Israelis observe seriously.

Yom Hazikaron began with the founding of the State of Israel in 1948 and was enacted into law in 1963. The annual date is the fourth of the Hebrew month of Iyar, which this year falls on the evening of May 4.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his wife Sara visit the grave of the Israeli leader’s heroic brother, who fell defending the Jewish State.

Sirens will be heard throughout the country at 8 p.m. Citizens will stand for two minutes of silence in memory of the 23,169 soldiers and security personnel who died protecting the Jewish state.

Shops, restaurants and places of entertainment will be closed. Radio and television programming will be geared to the observance of Yom Hazikaron.

The main Yom Hazikaron ceremony will take place at the Western Wall, where President Shimon Peres will light the traditional memorial candle together with IDF Chief of Staff Benny Gantz. Several other, smaller programs will happen throughout the country, such as prayer services, poetry readings.

On Monday morning, sirens will sound at 11 am.

There is hardly an Israeli who has not lost a close relative or friend in Israel’s wars or in a terror attack, and hundreds of thousands traditionally attend memorial events at military ceremonies.

A major service will be held at Mount Herzl in Jerusalem on Monday evening, ending at 8 p.m. and immediately followed by intense Yom Haatzmaut – Independence Day – festivities.

This ability to both remember and grieve for the fallen and to rejoice in the miracle of the Jewish State is unique to the People of Israel, who value life and do not give up. Such is the success of the State of Israel.  LINK

In Memoriam IDF http://www.idfblog.com/in-memoriam/#

The Danger of Denial for Israel

Editorial forward.com May 2, 2014 

NOTE: Interesting piece, and as always, interesing discussion in the comments section. 

We are not, of course, John Kerry. We have not, in the past nine months, met 34 times with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and reportedly twice that many times with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, staking so much personal energy to achieve the two-state solution that these men say they want but are unwilling to grasp.

Since we are journalists and not diplomats, we won’t get into trouble for speaking the truth, which is that Israel does risk becoming an anti-democratic state where a minority rules the majority unless the occupation ends. We won’t utter the A-word — Israeli politicians are allowed to, but it’s unwise and inflammatory for anyone else, especially if you are secretary of state, even if you thought you were speaking in a private, off-the-record conversation.

We are, instead, Americans who care deeply about ensuring a secure, Jewish and democratic Israel, and about finding a way to satisfy the legitimate national aspirations of the Palestinians. From this perspective, half a world away, it looks like Netanyahu and Abbas are in a dangerous state of denial.
Politics in America, in Washington especially, hardly provides a model for finding common ground, but it is far enough from Jerusalem and Ramallah to see what those leaders cannot or will not acknowledge. We may be wrong on this. We rather hope so. But the view from here is that the situation there is not likely to get better, or easier, or more advantageous to one side or another anytime soon.
Israel’s continued occupation of roughly 2.5 million Palestinians in the West Bank will corrode its soul and destroy its democracy, diminish its international standing and hasten the alienation that too many American Jews already feel. Palestinians’ continued refusal to accept the reality of Israel as a predominantly Jewish state will prevent them from establishing their own independent nation. Israel is in the neighborhood for good. Boundaries can be adjusted, compensation for lost property arranged, but the central fact of Israel’s existence is by now immovable. Get used to it.

That’s what it looks like from here, anyhow.

We recognize that, thanks to the separation barrier, a thriving economy and security cooperation with the Palestinian Authority (though who knows how long that will last), most Israelis outside the military don’t have to deal with Palestinians. Even those Jews living among them in the West Bank can travel on separate roads to gated communities. The occupation is largely invisible. It can be easily denied.
Denial is pervasive on the Palestinian side of the Green Line as well. Did Abbas really think he was helping his people by lobbing a grenade into Kerry’s gasping negotiations to try — again — to reach a rapprochement with Hamas? All he did was give Netanyahu the escape route he was waiting for and further postpone an end to his people’s suffering.

The refusal to come to grips with the dangerous, slow-burning reality in the Middle East reminds us of how Americans deny the stark effects of climate change and the human role in furthering environmental degradation. We shrug off dramatic shifts in temperature and the destruction caused by extreme storms, and lull ourselves into thinking that a hybrid car here, a bit of recycling there, is all we need.
The scientists who are trained to see and understand the larger landscape, however, are ringing alarm bells so loud that we have to be deaf to ignore them. In much the same way, John Kerry was calling upon Israeli and Palestinian leaders to see past the denial of convenience and the denial of desperation to a path that could change history. We are not him, of course.

Which is why we can be grateful that he tried. LINK


Read more: http://forward.com/articles/197478/the-danger-of-denial-for-israel/#ixzz30ftDzLFe