Roadmap to HELL - One man caught on a barbed wire fence ....

[yolland]

Haaretz, March 6

The Iran issue was the focus of the talks. It permeated everything from the agenda of the one-on-one meeting to Netanyahu's gift to Obama: a decorated copy of the Book of Esther, which will be read tomorrow night and Thursday morning at Purim services around the world. It recounts the story of the evil Persian King Ahasuerus and his viceroy, Haman, who tried but failed to annihilate the Jewish people. "Then, too, they wanted to wipe us out," Netanyahu told the president.

[Pearl]

Did anyone see The Daily Show Thursday night? When they had that investigation (done in a comedic way of course) of the USA cutting off funding to UNESCO because the organization is including the Palestinian territories into its program?

I decided to do some research and found out - from only two articles - that it is true that the US did that. There's a 20 year old law where the US has the right to withdraw funding to any UN organization once it allows the Palestinian territories to be a member unless those territories have negotiated with Israel. For those who do not know, UNESCO promotes education (as in literacy) and tackles poverty in third world countries.

When the member states of the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization voted last October to confer membership on the Palestinian Authority, they knew their decision would trigger the withdrawal of U.S. funding, which in dues alone accounted for more than $78 million per year, or 22 percent of UNESCO’s core budget. Current American law requires the U.S. to pull funding from any U.N.-affiliated organization that tries to confer statehood on the Palestinians before they have qualified for it through negotiations with Israel. UNESCO did it anyway, the assembled delegates clapping and cheering as they voted. The tally was 107 to 14, with 52 abstaining.
Since then, UNESCO’s Bulgarian director general, Irina Bokova, has been campaigning — not to undo UNESCO’s admission of “Palestine,” but to persuade U.S. authorities to resume forking out money to UNESCO. Bokova’s efforts have included two [COLOR=#216221 !important][COLOR=#216221 !important]trips[/COLOR][/COLOR] to Washington these past four months, including a U.S. tour starting in Washington this week. UNESCO’s website features press releases with headlines such as “UNESCO Director General Presses Washington to Restore US Funding,” over a photo of Bokova meeting in December with a U.S. congressman.

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To this I can add the news that to supplement Bokova’s forays to the U.S., Paris-based UNESCO is now quietly planning to open an office in Washington, sometime in the next few months. Were the aim simply to represent UNESCO to the U.S., there would be no need for this. UNESCO already has a liaison office at the U.N.’s headquarters in New York. But this new office, in Washington, will be positioned to maximize access to U.S. policymakers, especially Congress. UNESCO’s current plan is that this office will be run by a former congressional aide, George Papagiannis, who has been working since 2007 for UNESCO. Papagiannis’s résumé includes a stint in the late 1990s as communications director for Representative Nancy Pelosi. Not that UNESCO has made any official announcement of plans to open a Washington office. Nor has UNESCO released any budget or job descriptions for setting up and staffing this new operation. The choice of Papagiannis has apparently been made already, by Bokova herself.
But a whiff of this plan turned up in a set of “Talking Points” that Papagiannis dispatched recently to various UNESCO advocates in the U.S., and that I obtained. In his talking points, Papagiannis lauds various UNESCO programs, such as literacy training in Iraq and Afghanistan, that he says will suffer unless the U.S. resumes bankrolling the organization. (There is no mention that UNESCO wastes millions, according to its own auditors, or that UNESCO could preserve its better programs by scrapping its worst.) At the bottom of these talking points, Papagiannis’s name and U.S. and French mobile-phone numbers appear, along with the label “UNESCO Washington Office.”
This was surprising to me, because currently, UNESCO has no “Washington Office.” I queried UNESCO’s liaison office in New York about whether they had any companion premises in Washington. They replied, by e-mail: “We don’t have an office yet, but one will be opening. You need to contact George Papagiannis.”
So, this past weekend I phoned Papagiannis, reaching him in Paris, where he is currently based with UNESCO. He confirmed that UNESCO is in the process of creating a full-time presence in Washington, that the organization has already begun seeking premises, and that “once we have an office, there will be a liaison in that office, and that liaison would be me.”

Read more here: UNESCO Goes to Washington - Claudia Rosett - National Review Online


Here's the other article, if it counts as one:

Here is the story. The United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization, better known as UNESCO, helps develop Holocaust education curriculum and runs training seminars for teachers around the world to impart the lessons of the Shoah to school children.
There is nothing terribly controversial about this work, yet it has been dramatically scaled back in recent months because the USA has cut off all funding to UNESCO. This action has nothing to do with UNESCO’s work around the world, and everything to do with a decades-old law that prohibits American funds for any UN entities that accepts Palestine as a member.
Last fall, UNESCO’s membership voted overwhelmingly to admit Palestine as a member of the organization. This triggered early 1990s-vintage legislation forcing the USA to immediately stop paying its UNESCO membership dues. Holocaust education is among the many programs that has been affected by the cuts. ”We cannot organize some of our training courses that otherwise we would have organized,” Says UNESCO Director General Irina Bokova. “Thank God that Israel continues to support these programs.”
I sat down with Director General Bokova yesterday, who detailed the many ways that the cuts to UNESCO is impacting the daily work of her organization–work, she stressed that helps advance American interests and promote American and universal values.
So far, the USA has held back $78 million, which includes past funds it owed the organization and its current membership dues. This accounts for about 20% of UNESCO’s general funding. The across-the-board cut has hurt several UNESCO program areas–including literacy programs, girls eduction, projects that help develop access to freshwater and sanitation in poor communities, and even its flagship world heritage program. “The cuts effect practically all of our programs,” says Bokova.

Funds for Global Holocaust Education Cut Off Over US Congress Fight With Palestine | UN Dispatch


I don't understand this and I find it to be despicable. Because UNESCO is accepting Palestine, millions can suffer because the US is refusing to fund the programs that help them. How is that a form of human rights?

[Moonlit_Angel]

I just saw that on TV a little while ago and was wondering if anyone here would be talking about it. I thought they discussed it brilliantly (on a side note, can I just say I really like John Oliver ?)

And I wholeheartedly agree that the pulling of funding for this is insane. As "The Daily Show" put the basic thought process: who cares if people are struggling? We've got our own interests at stake!

[yolland]

Haaretz, Mar. 30

For years Israel’s Civil Administration has been covertly locating and mapping available land in the West Bank and naming the parcels after existing Jewish settlements, presumably with an eye toward expanding these communities. The Civil Administration, part of the Defense Ministry, released its maps only in response to a request from anti-settlement activist Dror Etkes under the Freedom of Information Law.

In some places the boundaries of the parcels outlined in the maps coincide with the route of the West Bank separation barrier. The state has argued before the Supreme Court and the International Court of Justice in The Hague that the route of the separation barrier was based on Israel’s security needs. But Civil Administration’s maps and figures, disclosed here for the first time, suggest the barrier route was planned in accordance with the available land in the West Bank, intended to increase the area and population of the settlements. A total of 569 parcels of land were marked out, encompassing around 620,000 dunams ‏(around 155,000 acres‏)--about 10% of the total area of the West Bank. Since the late 1990s, 23 of the unauthorized outposts were built on land included in the map. The Civil Administration is endeavoring to legalize some of these outposts, including Shvut Rahel, Rehelim and Hayovel. Etkes believes this indicates the settlers who built the outposts had access to the administration’s research on available land--more proof of the government’s deep involvement in the systematic violation of the law in order to expand settlements, he says.

The maps name numerous communities that do not exist...The names of several sites suggest they are earmarked for the expansion of existing settlements, although some of the parcels are several kilometers distant from their namesakes...The maps also mark 81 sites on 114,000 dunams in areas A and B, which are under Palestinian civil control, indicating the Civil Administration began identifying available land before the Oslo Accords. But these parcels have not been updated in several years because Israel cannot build settlements on them. All the other areas--506,000 dunams in Area C, have been updated in the past decade. This implies the administration earmarked the sites as reserves for future use, says Etkes. More than 90% of this land is east of the separation barrier, beyond the main settlement blocs.

[Caleb8844]

"Israelis Suspect Obama Media Leaks to Prevent Strike on Iran"

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headline...trike-on-iran/

[INDY500]

Ahmadinejad: World forces must a... JPost - Iranian Threat - News

Ahmadinejad: World forces must annihilate Israel

In a speech published on his website Thursday, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said the ultimate goal of world forces must be the annihilation of Israel.

Speaking to ambassadors from Islamic countries ahead of 'Qods Day' ('Jerusalem Day'), an annual Iranian anti-Zionist event established in 1979 by Ayatollah Khomeini and which falls this year on August 17, Ahmadinejad said that a "horrible Zionist current" had been managing world affairs for "about 400 years."

It was Zionists, he said, who were “behind the scene of the world’s main powers, media, monetary and banking centers.”

"They are the decision makers, to the extent that the presidential election hopefuls [of the USA] must go and kiss the feet of the Zionists to ensure their election victory,” he added.

Ahmadinejad added that "liberating Palestine" would solve all the world's problems, although he did not elaborate on exactly how that might work.

“Qods Day is not merely a strategic solution for the Palestinian problem, as it is to be viewed as a key for solving the world problems," he said.

He added: "Anyone who loves freedom and justice must strive for the annihilation of the Zionist regime in order to pave the way for world justice and freedom.”

Let me guess, he's being mistranslated again.

[INDY500]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2xPVK...eature=related

[BVS]

What adult falls for that shit?

[AchtungBono]

It totally does not matter whether they say it or don't say it........the fact remains that united Jerusalem IS the capital of the State of Israel and will STAY that way.....

As for Ahmad-in-a-jar.....HAHHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!


I'm always glad when he makes speeches cos the guy cracks me up every time!!

[Canadiens1131]

Originally Posted by INDY500

I love every election cycle when the RNC rolls out the Florida Jew material.

[INDY500]

Originally Posted by Canadiens1131

I love every election cycle when the RNC rolls out the Florida Jew material.

I don't live in Florida or am I Jewish.

[INDY500]

Iran: Israel's Existence 'Insult to All Humanity' - ABC News

Iran: Israel's Existence 'Insult to All Humanity'

Israel's existence is an "insult to all humanity," Iran's president said Friday in one of his sharpest attacks yet against the Jewish state, as Israel openly debates whether to attack Iran over its nuclear program.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said confronting Israel is an effort to "protect the dignity of all human beings."

"The existence of the Zionist regime is an insult to all humanity," Ahmadinejad said. He was addressing worshippers at Tehran University after nationwide pro-Palestinian rallies, an annual event marking Quds (Jerusalem) Day on the last Friday of the holy month of Ramadan.

"Today, confronting the existence of the fabricated Zionist regime is in fact protecting the rights and dignity of all human beings," said Ahmadinejad, with a black and white scarf many Palestinians wear around his neck.

Demonstrators in Tehran set U.S. and Israeli flags on fire and chanted "Death to the U.S." and "Death to Israel" during their pro-Palestinian rally

Dang, this guy just doesn't translate into English well does he? Is it me or are these Iranian colloquialisms coming more and more frequently?

[maycocksean]

Originally Posted by INDY500

Iran: Israel's Existence 'Insult to All Humanity' - ABC News



Dang, this guy just doesn't translate into English well does he? Is it me or are these Iranian colloquialisms coming more and more frequently?

Is there anyone here who doesn't think Ahmadinejad is an idiot?

[financeguy]

Originally Posted by maycocksean

Is there anyone here who doesn't think Ahmadinejad is an idiot?

Have the population of Iran been consulted?

[maycocksean]

I know a number of Iranian people.

They are nothing like him.

[Irvine511]

Sounds like a US election is coming up.

[Moonlit_Angel]

Originally Posted by maycocksean

Is there anyone here who doesn't think Ahmadinejad is an idiot?

I was going to say the same thing. The guy's clearly a nutjob.

[AchtungBono]

Originally Posted by Moonlit_Angel

I was going to say the same thing. The guy's clearly a nutjob.

He is a nutjob....about to get his hands on nuclear weapons that will pose a threat not only to Israel but to the entire region.....

I assure you that will NEVER happen.....one way or another he WILL be stopped.

[Diemen]

Originally Posted by Irvine511

Sounds like a US election is coming up.

Yup.

[INDY500]

Originally Posted by Irvine511

Sounds like a US election is coming up.

I wonder if Israel looks around at President Bashar al-Assad in Syria, Hamas in Palestine, Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and the Atomic Mullahs in Iran and thinks, "Gee, must be a U.S. election coming up"?