RichardPrins wrote: 
So this is the post with information so pressing that a new duplicate thread was needed in order to make sure that no one missed out on knowing this.

 Oy Poll-oi... indeed ...  

 haresfur wrote:  
Let's see how that might work ...

This is fun ...  it seems our own Mr Prins is not happy with one Israel thread, he has two ...

Which one would he pick to merge ?  

And then there is the Gaza thread ...

Happy Birthday (Yom Huledet Same'ach) Israel, the Land of Milk and Honey! 64 years old today!

Holocaust Remembrance Day: Israel Honors 6 Million Victims Of Nazi Holocaust
by Aron Heller
Huffington Post
April 19, 2012

JERUSALEM — Israelis flocked to the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial Thursday to read the names of loved ones who perished at the hands of the Nazis during World War II, a rite that has become a centerpiece of the country's annual commemoration for the 6 million Jews killed in the genocide.

The ceremony, known as "Every Person Has a Name," tries to go beyond the huge numbers to personalize the stories of individuals, families and communities destroyed during the war.

Zvi Shefet, an 87-year-old survivor, carried a list of 48 names, including those of his parents, his lone sister, his grandparents, uncles, aunts and cousins. Having fled to the countryside, he remained not only the lone survivor of his family but also one of the few Jews to escape from the village of Slonim – then part of Poland, today in Belarus – where Nazi troops massacred nearly 30,000 Jews and dumped their bodies into open pits.

"These people have no grave, no tombstone. Their names are written nowhere," said Shefet, who later migrated to Israel and now has three children and eight grandchildren. "When I go to Yad Vashem, it is like I am going to the cemetery, to remember my family but also my community – all those who died and have no one left behind to even remember them or commemorate them."

Israel came to a standstill Thursday morning to honor the victims when sirens wailed for two-minutes across the country. Pedestrians stood in place, buses stopped on busy streets and cars pulled over on major highways – their drivers standing on the roads with their heads bowed...
 

An Israeli October Surprise on Obama?
by Paul R. Pillar
Consortium News
March 7, 2012

The greatest danger the United States (and any peace-loving person in the Middle East) currently faces is that Barak and Prime Minister Netanyahu will spring an October surprise (or a surprise in any month between now and the first Tuesday of November) in the form of an armed attack on Iran.

A key consideration for them is the possibly different reactions of a U.S. president facing a fight for reelection (while also facing that political muscle represented at the convention center) and a newly reelected president who knows he never would be running for anything again.

Because Netanyahu and his government probably prefer that President Obama not be reelected, any of the aftereffects of their surprise — such as a big spike in gasoline prices and maybe even a slide of the U.S. economy back into recession — that would hurt Mr. Obama’s reelection chances would be a bonus for them. The welfare of American consumers and workers is not high on their list of decision-making criteria.

What is billed as an Iran problem is thus mainly an Israel problem...
 

 Monkeysdad wrote: 



There have been many reports of aggressive proselytizing at the Air Force Academy. Not sure I'd call that "the Air Force shoving Christianity on its members", but it's a real problem.

 hippiechick wrote: 
A military that now accepts the Wiccan faith is at the same time now shoving Christianity on it ranks?! What, are you a Reservist/National Guard?

 hippiechick wrote: 
Maybe slanted isn't the right word. I just don't know what the big deal is. The US Armed Forces, especially the Air Force, is increasing shoving Christianity on its members, and it wouldn't be any big shock that with all that is going on in the Middle East, more residents would want to support their country.

 hippiechick wrote: 
Interesting assertion. Which parts/aspects do you believe are slanted?

 RichardPrins wrote: 
IMO this article is slanted.

In Israeli military, a growing orthodoxy

Roni Daniel saw the writing on the wall in a toilet.

A former infantry commander who fought in three Middle East wars and now the dean of Israeli defense correspondents, Daniel recently visited military headquarters in Tel Aviv. There, a urinal that uses a motion detector to clean itself was signposted: “Forbidden on the Sabbath.” Troops, he realized, were being ordered to defer to Orthodox Jewish curbs on the use of electricity between Friday night and Saturday night.

For Daniel, and for millions of other Israeli citizens, the sign is symbolic of creeping change in an institution long cherished as a bastion of national unity. An increasing number of conscripts are Orthodox Jews — mirroring the growth of the minority in Israeli society at large. Some religious troops view military service through the prism of their own piety — either as the realization of a messianic vision that sees Jews conquering biblical lands or as an institution that should be subordinated to rabbinical writ.

For secular Israelis, already worried about the role of religion in the Jewish state, that threatens not just the military but the country itself.“In my time, the skullcap-wearers came to the military and served alongside me. They lived their lives as they pleased, we respected them, and they also respected our lifestyle,” said Daniel, who is 64 and secular. “Today’s generation, to a degree, joins up with the object of imposing its lifestyle on others — to dictate how to behave. It’s a crawling annexation.” (...)

Oy Poll-oi...

Gallup: Americans Continue to Tilt Pro-Israel