Candidates Views on Israel-Palestinian Question

Our Sunday Oregonian newspaper has come out with the following views of our two candidates.

McCain

1. Supports two-state solution.

2.Encourages talks between Israel and Palestinian leaders.

3. Would provide military aid and aid to build schools, hospitals, road and power generation for moderates in Lebanon to counter Hezbollah.

4. Cut off weapons and equipment to Hezbollah in Gaza and Lebanon to isolate Hamas.

5. Press Saudi Arabia and other Arabs to help Palestinian Authority.

Record:

1. Backed US military aid to Israel

2. Israel's right to defend itself against attacks by Hezbollah in Lebanon in 2006 affirmed.

3. With 3/4 of US Senate signing June letter to Bush criticizing Saudi Arabia for small $62 million in 2007 for Palestinians. (This is part of UN plan to support Palestinians-I have an article about it already. Arabs pay less or nothing compared to USA.)

Obama:

1. Supports two-state solution: that results in secure Israel and Palestinians are a sovereign, democratic, economically viable state recognizing Israel's right to exist and in agreement not to strike with military and terrorism against Israel. (I like this very much. We might see it happen at the time of the Messiah. It's not going to be overnight. I agree with him in that there's no way it should happen until they can give and carry out these guarantees.)

2. White House would encourage peace talks with effort.

3. Would isolate Hamas until it agrees to recognize Israel's right to exist and renounces violence against Israel. (I think this is happening right now. They have said they refuse to do this.) I imagine that Obama means he would continue this goal, which is the same as Israel's.

4. Would press Arab nations to normalize relations with Israel. (That will be the day. So far, we just aren't fighting with Jordan and Egypt. We have tourists go to Egypt. We're not allowed in other Arab nations. Iran is preaching just the opposite. They want us all butchered.)

5. He would increase economic and humanitarian aid to Palestinians Authority which would be under Abbas.

Record:

1. Backed military aid to Israel.

2. Israel's defending self against attacks by Hezbollah from Lebanon in 2006 affirmed. (Same as McCain.)

3. Co-sponsored legislation now before Senate for USA states and cities wishing to divest themselves of interests in energy companies doing business with Iran. (This is very wishy-washy in my opinion. It's not coming down hard on Iran in a diplomatic way at all. To me it's a "fearful I'll put my big toe in the water to test it" way. He spoke earlier of having divestment against Iran. This is lukewarm, and no one will do it.)

4. Among 1/4 of Senators who did not sign the letter to Bush about the paltry sum given by Saudi Arabia to the Palestinians that others did. He wrote a letter of his own.

I like Obama's first goal very much. I'm happy to see that he realizes that until the Palestinians are willing neighbors, it shouldn't happen that they be rewarded with a state. He needs to get tougher about showing Iran that we think their goals to wipe out Israel are detestible. He's not even thinking of slapping their hands. It's more like a tch tch.

McCain is so specific in what he's plannning. Until Lebanon realizes that they could easily be peaceful neighbors with Israel, bribing them with material things may not do the trick. They'll take them with a wink, and then fire away. Palestinians in Gaza depend on Israel's power plant. They shoot the plant, then cry that they have no power. It's an upside down world. I'd hate to see us throw away money. McCain might be right. I'd feel better if he took a crash course in the mindset of the Middle-East.

As for giving more money to the Palestinians, yes, Saudi Arabia, the richest country, is doing the least. They may have a reason. The Palestinian Authority would possibly just turn around and buy weapons to use against Israel with the money. We see this happening a lot with what they have. I have an article about this in my blog, also. When are the Palestinians going to learn to take care of themselves? Are they developing other skills besides killing us or each other? When we left Gaza, we left greenhouses where we had business going. They destroyed them. Did they not want a business? A job? Nothing has replaced them. They're on the dole and that seems to suit them.

How about this? For everytime a rocket lands in Israel, money is deleted from the Palestinian check that the USA donates to them. Let's make it a goodly amount. Every time they do something positive, showing friendship, they'll receive a monetary reward, like stop using schoolbooks that are hateful towards Jews. You could get any elementary teacher from the states to keep tabs on this behavior. It works in schools.

Resource: Sunday Oregonian Newspaper, September 28, 2008 A10.

Obama Speaks Out Against Ahmadinejad's Anti-Semitic Statements

Nadene Goldfoot
Ahmadinejad of Iran spoke to the U.N. today, condemning Israel with the "Protocals of the Elders of Zion" type accusations heard in the early 1900's spread in Germany. He called Israel the "Zionist murderers" and said he would defend Iran's right to nuclear power.

Not too long agao he said Israel should be wiped off the map. Today he continued with the remark that "The Zionist regime is on the definite slope to collapse, and there is no way for it to get out of the cesspool created by itself and its supporters." Then he commented at length about Zionist control over international "financial and monetary centers," which is right out of the Protocals that were fraudulent and described a Jewish and Masonic plot to take over the world.

He doubted Israel's possibility of military action against Iran and said that Iran was big and strong, and has different ways of defending its interests and it is so powerful, that it will be able to stop any activities before guns are pointed at us.

The comments were swiftly denounced as anti-Semitic by Barack Obama, the Anti-Defamation League, the Simon Wiesenthal Center, and others. Good for Obama for being quick and doing so. I would imagine that our Jewish organization would speak out, and am pleased to hear that Obama also joined them in protest.

Obama also urged McCain to join him in calling for the states and private companies to divest from doing business with Iran. I certainly hope he can get the ball rolling and do so quickly. Others waste no time in having divestments against Israel without any cause.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080924/wl_nm/us_un_assembly_iran_ahmadinejad_intern...
http://thepage.time.com/obama-statement-on-ahmadinejads-un-remarks/

Our Missed Opportunity: Ahmadinejad at UN

Nadene Goldfoot
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has arrived in the states to speak at the U.N., and our Jewish leaders were in the process of creating a protest rally, and everyone lost their focus on the importance of such a rally. The man has threatened the extinction of Israel, for Pete's sake.

Instead, our rally leaders invited Hillary Clinton to speak. Because she was a Democrat candidate for the presidency, a Republican must have asked Sarah Palin to speak. That did it. The issues focused on politics and Hillary pulled out, feeling the Palin invitation was a partisan move. Everyone forgot about a protest against Ahmadinejad!

Brave Ahmadinejad in the heart of "The Great Satan," gleefully will be speaking about the demise of Israel. Here's a man who denies that the Holocaust ever took place, and our ladies are only concerned about who's appearing at the rally. The Iranian government wants nuclear weapons. They'll help run their electricity plants, probably. Iran is responsible for attacks on Israel and other Jews, even in Argentina. Their ideology is anti-semitism and holocaust denial and murder is part of its official policy. We lost the moment to show a democratic way of not accepting their policy.

Sarah had a terrific speech to give. Someone who knew something must have written it. I'm sure that Hillary would have given an equally if not better speech, also. It's too bad that no one will ever hear their protests. After all, our politics are far more important than Israel's life.

Reference: http:www.haaretzx.com/hasen/spages/1023408.html The speech Palin never gave: Ahmadinejad dreams of Final Solution
http://wcbstv.com/campaign08/united.nations.general.2.823131.html

Jeff Goldberg's Obama Interview Asking the Kishke Question

Nadene Goldfoot
Today's Oregonian had an article about Philip Roth by Jeff Baker, and in it mentioned an interview by Goldberg where they talked about Israel. Barak mentioned that when a child in the 6th grade, his ideas about Zionism were shaped by a Jewish camp counselor who had spent some time in Israel. Their conversations about Israel made a big impression on Obama.

Obama admitted that his intellectual formation was through Jewish scholars and writers, though he wasn't aware of it at the time. Philip Roth and Leon Uris were mentioned. He said that when he thinks of the Middle East he has this enormous emotional attachment and sympathy for Israel, mindful of its history and hardship, pain and suffering that the Jewish people have undergone.

He mentioned the loss of the natual affinity between the African-American community and the Jewish community in the early civil-rights movement which has been estranged since then.

Obama thinks that the idea of a secure Jewish state is a just and necessary idea. However, he doesn't agree with every action of the state of Israel because he's a politician himself and understands the world of politicians. He's not alone. I haven't agreed with Olmert's decisions at all, though I'm sure I'm way to the right of Obama's thinking about Israel.

Jeff Goldberg asked the main question that I've been wondering so much about. He called it the Kishke question. Jews really don't know you. We don't know if you"love" us. You have Jim Baker, Zbigniew Brzezinski as advisors so we suspect you. I haven't been alone in this, then. There is a sense in some places that you don't feel Jewish worry the way a senator from New York would feel it.

Obama seemed surprised at this deduction, as he went on to say that Israel was important to him personally because of his own history of being uprooted. He said that he loved the way people were arguing about these issues and that we're asking ourselves moral questions. He went on to say that his deliberations over moral matters stems from Jewish thought, that your actions have consequences and that we have moral imperatives. He did mention that he had "ardent defenders" in his Jewish Chicago friends. When he started his community organizing, he had a few Jewish friends who also were organizers, and he was attacked for associating with them. I know that Reverend Wright felt like he was being taken away from his church group.

Finally, the big question came after much discussion. He was asked is he would denounce settlements publicly if president. Goldberg was referring to the "West Bank", what I call Judea and Samaria. Obama said "What I will say is what I've said previously. Settlements at this juncture are not helpful. Look, my interest is in solving this problem not only for Israel but for the United States."

Reference: Oregonian page o10 Sept 21, 2008 Philip Roth gets straight to the point, still by Jeff Baker
http://jeffreygoldberg.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/05/obama_on_zionism_and_hamas.php
See blog: http://www.israel-nadene.blogspot.com/ article 3/17/07 West Bank: It's importance to Religious Jews.
Other West Bank articles in my blog:
What International Law says about Israeli settlement, No Peace in West Bank, Israel Builds West Bank Housing, and Israel's rights to build Settlements 4/28/08.

Sarah Palin and the Book Scandal

Nadene Goldfoot
Sarah Palin has been said to have wanted to ban books in her library. Today's Oregonian's article by Leonard Pitts Jr. talks about it. He says that in the past Sarah tried to pull books off the library shelves. His information came from the New York Times. At the time she was a member of the City Council of Wasilla, Alaska. She was concerned about a book there called "Daddy's Roommate." It was to be read by children of lesbian and gay parents, or read by people interested in children of these parents. Sarah's campaign manager for mayor said the book was harmless and told Sarah to read it.

Sarah didn't want to read it. Possibly she had read the promotional material about it and was concerned.

When Sarah became mayor, it is reported that she asked the town librarian to remove controversial books from the shelves. She asked three times. The librarian refused, and then was fired from her job. Public presssure caused Sarah to give the librarian back her job.

I haven't been concerned about Sarah because she has said nothing harmful about Israel. As a teacher, I'm really disappointed in anyone that would want to ban books. That's so reminiscent of Germany in the 30's. I tried to find a Palin website to see where she stands about Israel, but unlike Obama and Clinton, could find nothing. However, she doesn't sound open minded at all if she would do something like ban a book.

Sarah should know better She graduated from the U. of Idaho with a B.A. in journalism. I don't know how long she worked at this job, but she should have more respect for a person's right to write and know that banning books is simply un-American.


Oregonian Newspaper page B5, "Books and minds: both should be open"by Leonard Pitts Jr.
http://gawker.com/5044569/factsheet-sarah-palin
email about The educational background of your two options:

Saul Alinsky: Teacher of Community Organizers

Barack Obama’s Teacher, Saul David Alinsky

by Nadene Goldfoot

In either 1889 or 1895, Benjamin Alinsky immigrated from Vilna, Lithuania, now Russia, for the United States . He was a tailor. He was Jewish, 29 years old and headed for the Jewish community in Chicago, Illinois. He had met and married Hannah in 1896, a Jewish girl who was born in New York.

On June 8, 1900, I find Benjamin and Hannah Alinsky in Chicago in the 7th Ward. He was 30 years old and Hannah was 28. They had had two boys; Harry age 2, born July 1897 and Max 8 months was born in Sept 1899 or 15 Oct 1898. Benjamin was naturalized in 1910 and was then a citizen. Reading the records makes me realize how difficult it was for the immigrants to understand questions in English, as I keep getting some off-beat answers.

Later, I see that on Jan 7, 1920, Ben is still in Chicago, now 49 years old, and has his own tailor shop. However, Hannah must have died as he is now married to Sarah Rice who is twenty years younger than he is. She was also born in Russia. They have one son living with them; Saul D. Alinsky, born January 30, 1909. They were living on 12th Street or Roosevelt Road in the 13th ward. It makes me wonder if Hannah and her two boys hadn’t died in some accident or disease. This means that something had happened to them before 1908. Saul has spoken about how he was influenced by his mother, Sarah Rice, a great deal, so I imagine she was his birth mother. "She taught him that...individuals [must] be responsible for other individuals and that you can't just walk away when you see something that's not right."

"Then I found Max at age 19 registering for the WWI Draft on September 19, 1918. He was tall and slender, working as a timekeeper for the railroad.

Later, I find that Benjamin died on April 26, 1952 in Los Angeles, CA.

Education is vitally important to Jewish families, so Sol went to the University of Chicago in the field of criminology. He studied and was around the Capone gang. He developed his ideology and concepts of mass organization and work in organizing the poor which are internationally recognized, and felt that crime was born from being so poor. If anyone has read The Jungle by Upton Sinclair, you know about the horrific working conditions in the Union Stock Yards of Chicago of that era. When I read the book, I was horrified by the condition of our meat supply from the Chicago Stockyards, as my father was also born in 1908 and was a meat packer.

In the 1930's, Alinsky organized the Back of the Yards neighborhood and went on to found the Industrial Area Foundation while organizing the Woodlawn neighborhood, which trained organizers and helped in the founding of community organization around the country.

In 1971 he published his final work, Rules for Radicals. Then he died the next year. In that book he addressed the 60's generation of radicals, relating his views on organizing for mass power. He wrote," What follows is for those who want to change the world from what it is to what they believe it should be." It is said that Alinsky championed new ways to organize the poor and powerless that created a backyard revolution in cities across America.

Cesar Chavez and Barack Obama were students of his labor organizing. Alinsky was the subject of Hillary Rodham’s senior honors thesis at Wellesley College. She commented on Alinsky’s charm, but said that one of the problems of his model is that the removal of Alinsky dramatically alters its composition. She agreed with some of his ideas, mainly the value of empowering people to help themselves. She disagreed with his saying that you could change the system only from the outside. Diane Alden in 2003 called Alinsky a Marxist grassroots organizer. Others said, "He was a compassionate social reformer of magnitude and wisdom and brought together community groups to work with the socially aware churches."

He published "Reveille for Radicals 1946, 1969 and Rules for Radicals, a Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Radicals.1971. He was explaining how to be an agitator.

"The agitator's job, according to Alinsky, is first to bring folks to the "realization" that they are indeed miserable, that their misery is the fault of unresponsive governments or greedy corporations, then help them to bond together to demand what they deserve, and to make such an almighty stink that the dastardly governments and corporations will see imminent "self-interest" in granting whatever it is that will cause the harassment to cease."

"It is a fact that activist-cum senator Barack Hussein Obama started off his career as an activist with a position as a community organizer for the Developing Communities Project (DCP) of the Calumet Community Religious conference (CCRC) in Chicago. Both the CCRC and the DCP were built on the Alinsky model of community agitation, wherein paid organizers learned, in Alinsky’s own words, how to "rub raw the sores of discontent" stated David Alinsky, his son.

Therefore, Barack Obama has learned some of his very persuasive skills as a community organizer from the son of a Jewish tailor. He was only 25 years old when he started this position. Though Alinsky called his book or materials "radical," Obama simply read them. That doesn't make him radical or untrustworthy.

When he has talked about being a "Community Organizer," I had a completely different idea about what he was doing. I thought he was more like a counselor, helping people to get jobs or skills. I had no idea that it involved such ideas. Obama might become president of the USA, and Cesar Chavez supporters have been pushing for a major street in Portland to be named for him.

http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/01/obamas_alinsky_jujitsu.html
http://www.canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/4784
Wikipedia

http://epaper.investors.com/Repository/ml.asp?Ref=SUJELzIwMDgvMDkvMTcjQXIwMTAwMQ==&Mode=HTML&Locale=english-skin-custom-ibd

http://www.ancestry.com/, 1900, 1920 census.

http://www.tysknews.com/Articles/dnc_corruption.htm

http://www.progress.org/2003/alinsky2.htm

http://latter-rain.com/ltrain/alinski.htm

http://www.itvs.org/democraticpromise/alinsky2.html

edited 9/21/08 8:42pm.

2/3/2009: http://epaper.investors.com/Repository/ml.asp?Ref=SUJELzIwMDkvMDIvMDMjQXIwMTEwMA==&Mode=HTML&Locale=english-skin-custom-ibd

http://www.progress.org/2003/alinsky4.htm read on 7/28/09 from Steve

Ashkelon's Desalination Plant

One of Portland's sister cities is Ashkelon, Israel. It happens to be the home of the world's largest desalination plant. In March of 2006 it was voted "Desalination Plant of the Year" in the Global Water Awards.

In October of 2006, which was a little more than a year after it started its first productions, it delivered its first 100 million m3 of water. It produces arund 13% of Israel's domestic consumer demand. It does this at a very low price for desalinated water.

Most all countries in the Middle East have chronic problems of having water resources. The Desalination Master Plan set out in 2000 to address these problems. By 2020, they hope to raise production to 750 million m3. Here, water is more precious than oil.

Resource: http://www.water-technology.net/projects/israel/