Monday, September 25, 2006

Senator John Kerry's Voting Record on Israel

Senator Kerry’s Voting Record on Israel
by Nadene Goldfoot
Information fromJohn Kerry On Israel: Second To Several (Kerry’s voting record) Jewish Press: June 16, 2004, by Rick Richman, from Fair Opinion


It has been said that Kerry’s voting record of positive voting in favor of Israel was second to none. Here are the facts after being researched by a reporter for the Jewish Press.

There were 60 Senate bills, resolutions and other matters. The reporter disregarded the 17 measures that passed with 90 or more votes out of a possible 100. Everyone voted that way.

He discounted 18 measures that garnered between 82-89 votes. Then he looked at the pro-Israel positions that got 60 votes or less, the most controversial situations, where his vote would have mattered.
There were 10 of those votes in the list, and Kerry’s record was 6 pro-Israel votes out of 10. Kerry was basically, the reporter stated, a "60-40 guy."

On the Foreign aid Conference Report, Kerry was against the pro-Israel position. In 2000 he failed to join 60 co-sponsors of the "Middle East Peace Process Support Act" which called on the president not to recognize a unilaterally declared Palestinian state.

He failed to co-sponsor the pro-Israel "Peace Through Negotiations Act," which had 60 co-sponsors.

Kerry failed to join 55 senators signing the Grassley/Lautenberg letter in 1993. This was to the State Department and demanded that it included Hamas in the report on terrorism. It was inexcusable not to sign this if he was a big supporter of Israel. When Israel assassinated Hamas leader Sheikh Yassin, Kerry would not comment when repeatedly asked. A whole month after the assassination in 2004, he was again asked about his position. He did not directly answer the question. He went around the question saying that he believed Israel had every right to respond to any act of terror against it, and that Hamas was a terrorist organization. He suggested that Hamas only had to say it has given up violence and prepare to negotiate and Israel would pick up where things were left off at Taba. That was not saying that he supported their assassinating him, and this is exactly what the USA is willing to do to Osama bin Ladin.

He has been telling people that he has a 100% record of sustaining the special relationship with Israel. It’s actually been about 60%.

Lebanon, July 2006 Being Tested


Nadene Goldfoot
God has tested the hearts of the Arab people by placing Israel in their midst. What has been their reaction? They want to drive Israel into the sea.

Because of their hatred for their cousins, the Jews, they are now suffering because they helped to cause suffering to Israel by not caring that terrorists were shelling innocent Israelis.


Israel does not want their land. For too many years the Lebanese terrorists have been shooting rockets at Israel. Lebanese allowed their government to be taken over by these Hezbollahs because they probably were sympathetic with their cause. Israel hopes that the Lebanese army will take over Southern Lebanon and protect the border as they should. However, today they are of the same mind as the terrorists. There is no hope for these people as long as they sympathize with them.


The Lebanese Hezbollah and the Lebanese people have no reason to hate Israel. The occupation of Lebanon by Israel was done in response to the constant attack on Israel by them. Their actions cause their own problems.


They are reaping what they had sowed. Destruction of Israel is bringing about the destruction of Lebanon. Once they decide to be good neighbors and not be overcome by the terrorists, their country will once again be the Paris of the Middle East and be prosperous.

Iran and Jews: History Repeats Purim

                                                                                      Nadene Goldfoot
Haman and King Ahasueros (Xerxes)  of Persia 
History from 485-465 BCE called the King of Persia Xerxes. Jews called him Ahasuerus.
So at least before 330 BCE, in Persia when King Ahasuerus was ruler, there arose a man named Hamen who had a solution for the "Jewish problem". He devised a plan to kill all Jewish men, women and chldren in a single day. This was before the Muslim religion which was only born in about 700 AD.                                                                          
Queen Esther (Hadassah) and her son, Darius 
The king had been angry with hist first wife, Vashti. She had not come and danced for his friends when he had called her, so she was banished. To replace her, King Ahasuerus had a beauty pagent held, and who won but the Jewish girl, Esther "Hadassah". Her uncle Mordechai happened to be the king’s advisor, and he advised Esther not to say anything about being Jewish. Already the Jews were having popularity problems.

One day Mordechai sensed danger for his people. He was a descendant of King Saul, and people talked freely with him. The morale of the Jews was very low. The Temple in Jerusalem had been destroyed and the nation of Judea had been conquered, and for the past 70 years the Jews were living in foreign lands, including Persia. Now there were more problems for the Jews.

A descendant of the Amaleks, an ancient tribe that fought the Jews while they followed Moses from Egypt named Hamen, lived in Persia and like his ancestors, hated the Jews. Hamen was the king’s chief minister. Actually, he resented and had a dislike for Mordechai because he felt he had an independent attitude. Because of this, he hated all the Jews. Hamen was called the Agagite, which meant that he was a descendant of Agag, king of the Amaleks. Mordechai heard of his plan to annhialate all the Jews, so he went to his niece Esther and begged her to help her people.
                                                                             
Queen Esther 
After fasting for three days except for eating seeds, Esther approached her husband, the king. All the Jewish people in Persia joined her in her fast to help her. She told him of Hamen’s plan and then told him that she too was Jewish. At the time she also was in disfavor and feared talking to him, but knew it was most important to do so. After listening to her, the king turned on Hamen.

He ordered that Hamen and also his ten  sons to be hung, and so they were. That ended the plan to exterminate the Jews then.

That was not the end of evil plotters who have tried to kill all the Jews in the world. Hitler was almost successful in that he killed six million Jews in Europe.

Strangely, the Persian Gulf War ended on Purim, in the year 5751 on the Jewish Calendar. Purim is the holiday that celebrates Esther's success in saving the Jews.                                                       
                                                                         
Ahmadinejad and the Iranian Shahab 3 missile
that they threaten to destroy Israel with by carrying atomic weapon 
Now we have Ahmadinejad, the modern day president of Iran, which used to be called Persia, stating that the solution to the Middle East problem is to destroy Israel. Perhaps he should remember what happened to Haman.

Reference: Chistopher Baysinger on "Xerxes and date" Hadassah was queen of the Sindh long before anyone ever hear of a Khazer!!!"
Your Purim Guide 1997, Chabad, Lubavitch world Headquarters, Rabbi Schneerson

Saturday, September 23, 2006

Israel, Born Out of the Ashes-And Its Arab Neighbors

                                                                         
 Nadene Goldfoot 2006-08-09
Born out of the ashes of the Holocaust, Israel has realized that the world really has not cared whether it exists or dies. She has quickly determined that she must fight for herself to live. Becoming a state and being accepted by the United Nations indeed seemed like a miracle after awaiting for 2000 years to be born again. It was not to be a slam dunk, however.

Her people, both men and women, have had to become warriors to protect their incredibly small nation. For a group hungering for peace, they have had to think of nothing but engaging in defensive wars. Their teenagers have had to grow up knowing their inherited obligation means going into the army as soon as high school is over, and facing the possibility of dying before their allotted time.
                                                                     
Her daughter religion, Christianity, has not had to send troops to help defend her. They saw in their mother religion aspects of their own morality, however, and helped supply her with much needed weapons. Without these, she would perish. Now, the United States alone stands with Israel, knowing that her fall will signal immense problems for itself.and the hope of peace in the world. Even Britain is on the fence, thinking of their needs before Israel’s. Alone, and for the very first time in history, the United States is taking the barbs and hatred of the world for standing with Israel and not relenting.

Israelis have fought against Egypt, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Yemen and Transjordan, which is today’s Jordan and have won. This was at the time of it’s rebirth in 1948. That was the War of Independence. Then they had a war of 1956 and the war of 1967 which lasted for only 6 days and found they had conquered the Gaza Strip, the vast Sinai Peninsula, and the Golan Heights, and repossessed the provinces of Judea and Sumaria which the outer world calls the West Bank, and the eastern part of Jerusalem which had been occupied by the Jordanians 19 years earlier when they invaded Israel in 1948. Let’s not forget the war of 73 which occurred on the highest Jewish holy day, Yom Kippur, when all people were praying in the synogogues. After this attack on Israel, Egypt and Jordan begrudgingly accepted Israel’s presence, which aggravated their Arab brothers to the nth degree. Jordanians come back and forth into Israel to find work and many tourists have gone into Egypt from Israel since then. Then there was the war of 1982 when Israel went into Lebanon due to Katusha rockets that were continually being aimed at Kiriat Shimona, very near the border, as well as other northern targets. There, the lovely Hamishbeer Department Store was located that all the northern Israelis loved to shop in. Many American Jews resided there, becoming unnerved by the constant need to live in bomb shelters.

Israel has only fought defensively, having accepted the United Nations’ decisions as to size and shape of Israel. The Palestinians have never accepted their offered state, hoping instead to own all of the land of Israel as their given share. Since 1990, Israel has left the contested Lebanon strip they needed for defense, which has given the terrorsts time to arm themselves with highly sophisticated weapons supplied from Iran with the help of Syria.

Iran has never forgotten its loss in 1948 and has developed a religion that deems Israel a thorn in its side and has decided that Israel must be removed. The Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has stated to the world over mass communications that the solution to the Middle East problem is to destroy Israel. Israel took his words seriously. They know that Iran is seeking atomic energy and figures it’s not because they need better heating methods. They know it’s to make atomic weapons to use on the United States and Israel.

Israel’s Mossad, the Intelligence Agency, must have known that Lebanon’s terrorists were planning something. Katushas have continued to fall from Lebanon. They are not invitations to a party. They can kill and destroy. They’re not exactly a friendly action to their neighbors. The same thing has been happening on the Gaza Strip. When the soldiers in both areas were kidnapped, this alerted the IDF, Israel’s Defense Force, that something was brewing, and luckily, it alerted the country.

The IDF was made aware of the danger by the kidnappings. To find that 13,000 rockets of various sizes and capabilities were lined up in the northern country of Lebanon was more than Israel had imagined. They quickly realized that Iran was most serious in its declaration of destroying Israel.

This is Israel’s Pearl Harbor call. It is the most serious war Israel has ever faced. Israel may be highly trained, unfortunately, for survival reasons, and may have a wonderful arsonal in air power and land due to the United States, but finds that the Arabs have gifts of weapons even more deadly due to the Soviet Union’s sales to Iran.

We have only 5.4 million Jewish people inhabiting Israel. Being a democratic country, the only Jewish country in the world, it also is home to Christians and Muslims. Even at that, we have only 13 million Jews in the world. The Arab world has 1 1/2 billion Moslems and they all seem to be against us.

Our original forefathers who established Israel thought things would be a little different. They talked to Emir Faisal’s father, Hussein in 1918 who had then written and called upon the Arab population in Palestine to welcome the Jews as brothers and to cooperate with them for the common good. At that time, most Arab leaders were living in comfort in Europe and sold land to the Jewish pioneers at very high prices, but land was bought legally and the empty desert and swamp called Palestine was holy to the Jewish returnees.

Later Muslims like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad have decided that Israel, which is much less than 1/3 the size of Oregon, is too great a piece of real estate to house Jews. It’s about 260 miles long, 60 miles at the widest, and 3 to 9 miles at the narrowest. Israel consists of 8,000 sq. miles.  Compare that with the state of Oregon, population of 3,930,065 but having a width of 400 miles (640 km), and length of 360 miles (580 km), or 144,000 sq. miles,   where the top 3 people living there have the ancestry of Germany-22.5%, England-14% and Ireland -13.2%.

It is an affront to the Muslims to have a democratic Jewish state in their midst. Their people might get ideas of wanting democracy, also. That is a threat to their realm. The strange thing is that little Israel has no oil wells. Israel was given people who had to learn to use their minds to survive and not be dependant on oil, like their cousins. No people had ever developed the land. It lay in the sun, waiting for its people to return to bring it back to life.

Reference:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oregon