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The case exposes very clearly Kiev’s anti-humanitarian practices.

Coalition lawmaker says the Biden administration is coordinating with Lapid, Barak to rile up demonstrators against judicial overhaul.

By Lauren Marcus, World Israel News

Diaspora Affairs Minister Amichai Chikli said the timing of the ongoing protests following the advancement of a bill ending the “reasonability clause” and a recent statement from President Joe Biden expressing concern over judicial reform was not a coincidence.

In recent months, Chikli has raised questions around NGOs organizing anti-government protests, noting that many of them receive generous funding from the U.S.

“Every time they want to stoke the fire, all of a sudden there’s a comment from the direction of the [U.S.] president,” Chikli told Radio Kol Barama on Tuesday morning.

“I think these comments are prompted and timed by [Yair] Lapid and [Ehud] Barak and their people who are friends with these officials [in the Biden administration]. There is a certain amount of coordination between Biden’s people and Lapid and Ehud Barak; there is a certain amount of synchronization.”

Chikli has repeatedly spoken out about the Biden administration’s interference regarding Israeli domestic policy, including the judicial overhaul, and said that Washington should “mind its own business.”

Last month, Chikli called out Barak, who once served as prime minister, for his vehement opposition to the judicial overhaul.

Referencing Barak’s ties to disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein, Chikli questioned why the former premier has not been forced by the media to “explain himself” regarding his relationship with the convicted sex offender.

Despite Barak’s connections to Epstein, and concerns over his separate dealings with another prominent businessman who was convicted of financial wrongdoing, the ex-prime minister has remained one of the leading voices of the Israeli Left.

Lapid, who briefly served as interim prime minister in 2022, has close ties with several major players in the Democratic party.

Hebrew-language media reports indicated that Lapid met with Histadrut head Arnon Bar-David in January 2023 to discuss calling a general strike, should judicial overhaul advance.

Two months later, in March 2023, the Histadrut did call an unprecedented – and likely illegal – strike that crippled the functioning of the country and forced a halt to the legislation.

The post ‘Coordination, stoking the fire’ – Biden in cahoots with left-wing lawmakers, says minister appeared first on World Israel News.

Asylum seekers are being imprisoned for entering the UK illegally – when there is no legal way of getting in

In a video that went viral, President Joe Biden seems distracted and confused as he stops to chat with a Welsh guard instead of moving along with King Charles III.

In a second video, when greeted at Windsor Castle on Monday, the octegenarian president appears to lean on the British monarch for physical support.

King Charles has trouble getting Biden to move on pic.twitter.com/wSA68xb6VA

— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) July 10, 2023

King Charles III greets Joe Biden at Windsor Castle

The British monarch and US president will have tea together, before a discussion on financing the fight against climate change https://t.co/7mY9cr5g4S pic.twitter.com/tnahtASUXG

— Bloomberg (@business) July 10, 2023

The post WATCH: King Charles urges confused US president to keep moving appeared first on World Israel News.

The Ten Commandments express eternal lessons for humanity, though we may never fully internalize them; every day on earth many will observe the commandments and many will break them.  And, while some religions do not empower the God-idea as in Buddhism or Jainism, they do reverentially exalt a Sacred notion while practicing many of the same sensible ethics.  These ethics can be defended in Kantian terms, to translate them to the non-religious.  We do not lie because we do not wish to be deprived of truth.  We do not steal, because we value that things are earned by honest labor.  We do not kill because we value our own life as much as we do our neighbors.  Yet, even so, we forget this simple equation of right and responsibility.  Christianity calls this the sinfulness of man, while Hindus label it avidya or “ignorance.”  Either way, the day we have nothing to observe or learn from the commandments is far off.

But as transparent as the commandments may seem, there is the extended text of the second commandment which begins to defy rational sense.  We are commanded not to make idols, not to bow down to them, “for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of parents, to the third and fourth generation of those who reject me, but showering steadfast loved to the thousandth generation of those who love me and keep my commands.”  (Exodus 20:5-6) A puzzled atheist might ask why an exalted Cosmic Creator God would have the petty human characteristic of jealousy?   Why indeed should the progeny of an unjust man suffer at all, if they never knew their great-grandparents nor could control their actions?  Indeed, what is one to do with this commandment if their mother were just and their father unjust?  It defies rational application, says the atheist, who dismisses it as a human construct designed to empower the priesthood in the 7th century BC.  There is some sting to this critique, but also little imagination.

The punishment and application of the law cannot be literally carried out, but perhaps it was not meant to be.  Was it some kind of “divine bluff” from a God who commanded us vigilantly to observe what is good and diligently avoid what is bad?  A God who knew we would sin but had mercy to forgive us in the end?  That is a possibility, but it does not exhaust the full paradox of the passage nor address its application to human relations and politics.  The passage refers to idols, but idols may be more than just statues or possessions of this earth.  Idols may also be about concepts, such as justice and mercy, a theme also strongly involved in this passage.  Humans must recognize that we are caught also in a paradox of justice and mercy, that this subtext of the second command applies to our own political and personal relationships inasmuch as it may apply to a deity.  What, succinctly put, is this paradox?

It is that justice and mercy, in the application and remembrance of the law, is an art; there is no exact measure on how it needs to be applied.  Like any skill or trade, it must be learned by trying to be ethical ourselves and realizing our own failures and limitations in that regard.  Although social scientists produce elaborate T-statistics, and R-Squares, attempting to exactly account for human behavior and our variation in groups, no measure they produce will exactly be able to describe our need for the art of practicing justice and mercy.  The Biblical passage in question suggests this reading, if interpreted properly and poetically, for it would indeed be absurd to literally apply punishment to the 4th generation or forgiveness indefinitely to the thousandth, yet both must be done in proper measure.  Politics is an art of enforcing justice, but without a belief system to give vigor to that ethic and a capacity for forgiveness, the art breaks down and fails.

We cannot ask and simultaneously expect the victims of those who have suffered by gun violence to forgive murderers.  Yet, we know that some measure of forgiveness will cause the painful rancor of hatred in their hearts to abate.  Nor can we ask that gun murderers be set free without penalty, for that is irresponsible for protecting the peace and enforcing justice.  There are so many situations in which daily we fail at this art of ethics because we have not practiced it sincerely ourselves, or because we have forgotten that it truly is an art, not a science.  Religion, indeed, might be called the living art of observing ultimate values daily. 

In personal relationships, husband and wives often divorce because they forget the balance of love and forgiveness.  In political relationships, Republicans vilify Democrats, and vice versa, forgetting the art of justice and mercy, and the unity of our identity as Americans.  This happens in every country, where one sub-group (perhaps a party, an ethnicity, or some other cultural schism) exalts itself at the expense of the other, forgetting a common humanity, and the need to balance justice and mercy.  In Ukraine, at some point the war will end, and there will be need for reconciliation as well as justice.  In Sudan right now, decades of war and bad policy have again exalted one group against another at the price of suffering for all.  One also wonders if this thing we called the Cold War is over, for though Marxism may be denounced, freedom of religion and democracy still very much hang in the balance internationally.  Cannot we idolize a false ideology, and do we not routinely do so?

The Bible sometime speaks to us quite directly, and literally, as with the Ten Commandments.  There also, however, we have seen in the text of the second command a poetic and political paradox which reflects our own human predicament.  We must always foster a love that has a capacity for forgiveness with a vigilance to observe and enforce the law.  This is an art form learned, experienced, and daily lived, not an axiomatic or mathematical formula we can apply.  Indeed, the day that the sun rises, and we have nothing left to learn from the commandments is a long way off, for if we have not seen the limitation and merits in ourselves (Matthew 7:1-5), we have not also considered their larger ramification in society and politics.

The post <strong>The Ten Commandments and Political Paradox</strong> appeared first on Providence.

Police utilize water cannons to disperse protests blocking major intersections, extinguish fires lit by demonstrators; One participant calls morning disruptions “just a preview” of what’s to come.

By World Israel News Staff

Anti-judicial reform demonstrators began their “Day of Resistance” on Tuesday morning after the Knesset passed the first reading of a bill ending the reasonability clause overnight, blocking central highways, thoroughfares, and junctions throughout the Jewish State.

“The struggle against the regime coup is escalating. Everyone is coming out to the streets to fight for democracy,” the Brothers in Arms protest group said in a statement.

By 9 a.m. on Tuesday morning, hundreds of demonstrators had completely blocked the southbound lanes of Ayalon Highway in north Tel Aviv, as well as both sides of the Road 1 highway, which connects Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, bringing traffic to a grinding halt.

המחאה נגד הרפורמה: המשטרה הפעילה מכת”זית לפינוי המפגינים בכביש 1 | עדכונים שוטפים >> https://t.co/lSZGCi0jSY@HGoldich pic.twitter.com/haV4evdKr1

— כאן חדשות (@kann_news) July 11, 2023

Police said that they had successfully cleared a tent encampment established in the middle of the HaSira junction, outside of the Tel Aviv suburb Herzliya, which is a major hub for high-tech offices in the country.

Footage circulating on social media showed police dispersing demonstrators with water cannons, as well as extinguishing fires set by protesters in the area.

ההפגנות נגד הרפורמה החלו: מוחים חוסמים את מחלף הסירה בכביש 20 באמצעות אוהלים הבערת צמיגים ואבוקות@yonatanraveh11 pic.twitter.com/bRyTUz0SfI

— כאן חדשות (@kann_news) July 11, 2023

Route 443, another central highway near Jerusalem, was also blocked near the Maccabim checkpoint. At least five demonstrators were arrested at the scene, according to protest groups.

Although a large protest is scheduled to take place at 4:30 p.m. at Ben-Gurion Airport, some demonstrators began protesting there in the morning, rallying inside of the international terminal.

The protesters were dispersed by police after approximately one hour.

Coastal Road 4 outside of Binyamina, south of Haifa, was cleared by police after being blocked by demonstrators for several hours.

However, after a surge of protesters regrouped and returned to the road, the thoroughfare was once again blocked to traffic.

“The whole country is in one big traffic jam right now, but this is just a preview for the big protest that will [occur] this evening in Kaplan [Street in Tel Avivv,]” one of the 2,000 protesters blocking Road 4, Aharon Levy, told Ynet.

“Our dear Israel will not be a dictatorial state, we will not give up.”

The post ‘Day of Resistance’ begins: Tel Aviv-Jerusalem highway blocked, protest at Ben-Gurion airport appeared first on World Israel News.

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Video: Nuclear War Between Russia and the US. “Nuclear Winter”

By Future of Life Institute and Prof Michel Chossudovsky, July 10, 2023

All the safeguards of the Cold War era, which categorized the nuclear bomb as “a weapon of …

The post Selected Articles: Video: Nuclear War Between Russia and the US. “Nuclear Winter” appeared first on Global Research.

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Naomi Kahn of Regavim is pushing back: “We’re more necessary as a lobbying organization now than ever.”

By JNS

Naomi Kahn’s job with American audiences got tougher, even when it seemed like it might be easier.

Kahn serves as the director of the international division of Regavim, an Israeli NGO dedicated to rooting out illegal Arab construction in Israeli-controlled territory.

The current Israeli government includes a number of former Regavim officials in influential roles. But that’s been a double-edged sword for her in the United States.

As Kahn met with donors and with members of the American Jewish establishment last month, two things came into focus.

First, some Regavim supporters now feel the organization is redundant with some of its biggest Israeli proponents now seated within the halls of power.

Regavim founder Bezalel Smotrich holds increasing sway over settlement policy from his perch as a minister within the Israeli Ministry of Defense. Regavim co-founder Yehuda Eliahu heads up the settlement administration within the Defense Ministry. Former Regavim operations director Yakhin Zik is the chief of staff to Negev and Galilee Development Minister Yitzhak Wasserlauf. Meanwhile, former Regavim board member Sraya Demski is Smotrich’s chief of staff.

But, Kahn said, “we’re more necessary as a lobbying organization now than ever. We’re busier now than we’ve ever been.”

“Many of the things that we’ve been proposing are now on the government’s table,” she added. “Many of the things that we discussed in the last four rounds of elections were actually incorporated in the coalition agreement that formed this government.”

How theoretical constructs actually make it into legislation and how that policy gets implemented on the ground is very important, she said.

“If a government that has the complexion that this one does fails to achieve those things, the results will be much worse than if they had never been elected at all,” Kahn said. “You’ll end up with a situation where people will say that no matter what they vote for, they’re going to get the same results.”

The second thing that came into focus is that the U.S. Jewry hasn’t welcomed the current Israeli government with open arms.

On a U.S. visit this year, only two well-known Jewish organizations confirmed meeting with Smotrich at the time. Only much later was it reported that Smotrich met with Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations CEO William Daroff and Jewish Federations of North America CEO Eric Fingerhut.

Kahn told JNS that the plot can even get lost with mainstream, legacy organizations that have passionately Zionist reputations.

“It’s very hard to say what they’re getting right, because there isn’t much,” she said, speaking personally on this subject, and not for Regavim.

“It seems to me that the mainstream Jewish Zionist organizations and Jewish organizations in general are allowing very simply untruths and falsehoods—a rewriting of history—to take over the narrative about everything that has to do with Israel’s legal rights, certainly in terms of Judea and Samaria, but everywhere else, as well,” Kahn said.

“The American Jewish community should be speaking very, very clearly against the narrative of illegal occupation, rather than sitting timidly by and allowing this to become mainstream, accepted wisdom, because it simply is untrue,” she added. “That is a massive problem.”

Claiming that “Zionism seems to have lost its way,” Kahn is attempting to sell ideas and issues, based on factual analyses, that are important for the future of the State of Israel. “Everything that we do focuses on our most basic resource, and that is the land itself,” she told JNS.

Part of her mission is to inform American Zionists about Regavim and dispel what she calls misinformation about the issues on the Israeli government’s agenda, including those about which Regavim has actively pursued, analyzed and collected information for years, both in Judea and Samaria and in the Negev.

“We want to help explain those things, and to counter a lot of the fake or hysterical news that is being pushed, particularly in American Jewish media, which is very unfortunate,” she said.

‘Holes in Israel’s legal system’

She told JNS that American Jews are “quite shocked” by some of the evidence she presents, “such as environmental terrorism and massive environmental damage that’s happening in Israel.”

“So the Israel that some of the people who I speak to know and love and come and visit is really physically in danger because of these holes in Israel’s legal system that aren’t protecting the environment, some of the archaeological or historic sites that they love to go and visit,” she said.

That circles back to the proposed judicial reforms in Israel about which so many American Jewish organizations have expressed alarm.

Kahn cited a recent exchange on social media with a journalist and with a “head of an important Zionist, right-wing organization,” both of whom she declined to name.

In response to an item she posted about judicial reform, the journalist and organization leader responded that it was strange that Regavim should be involved in that topic, calling it “mission creep,” she said.

She told the two that Regavim’s work often brings it into confrontation with judicial bias at the Israeli Supreme Court.

The high court “has a completely different set of rules for court cases that were filed by Peace Now, Breaking the Silence and all of these leftist organizations funded by the New Israel Fund, as opposed to petitions for the exact same types of cases that were filed by right-wing organizations, mostly Regavim,” she told JNS.

She referred to Regavim’s documentation of objective parameters to prove bias, such as how long the state was given to respond to a petition and how often the high court ordered a temporary injunction or the chief justice empaneled a case.

“The bias was just so clear and so inescapable. We’re talking about dozens of percentage points that favored the left-wing in procedural matters, before the case even made it to adjudication,” Kahn said.

“There’s two completely different schedules of enforcement priorities for the Arab sector and the Jewish sector,” she said.” And it is clear to us that this is not mission creep.”

The post Point woman for NGO protecting Israeli land says American Jewry has it all wrong appeared first on World Israel News.