Palestinian corruption

How Can You Build a Legitimate, Peaceful Palestinian State Out of a Kleptocratic Regime? - Jonathan Schanzer (The Tower)

• The present efforts to create a Palestinian state are built entirely atop a Palestinian political system that has long suffered from endemic corruption, abuse of power, nepotism, and waste. This problem has dogged the Palestinians at least since the establishment of the Palestinian Authority in 1994, radically undermining the most basic elements required for successful governance. This hinders the ability to administer international assistance, encourage investment, or build effective institutions.
• The current Palestinian regime, led by President Mahmoud Abbas, is ossified, brittle, and distrusted by the Palestinian street. The failure to address this problem would most likely lead to the birth of a failed state that crushes Palestinian freedom and economic growth, threatens Israel, and fosters radicalism.
• Washington's failure to address Palestinian corruption has already had catastrophic consequences. It had a decisive influence on the Palestinian elections of January 2006, in which the terrorist group Hamas and its allies defeated their secular rival Fatah.
• Abbas pushed Salaam Fayyad out of his position as prime minister in early 2013, eliminating the West's trusted man and bringing Fayyad's efforts to build accountable institutions and the foundation of a future Palestinian state to an untimely end.
• Abbas has failed to reform the dysfunctional Palestinian Authority and does not show any signs of attempting to do so. The West, addicted to top-down peacemaking, shows little interest in genuinely helping the Palestinian people attain a government dedicated to coexistence with Israel, nor one built on the open, fair and transparent civil society and legal system required to build a successful state.
  
  The writer, a former counterterrorism analyst at the U.S. Department of the Treasury, is vice-president of research for the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

Americans alot smarter than the prez

Poll: Americans Deeply Distrust Iran(The Tower)
    Americans fear Iran more than they fear all the other Middle Eastern antagonists combined and are universally skeptical about Iranian intentions, according to a new poll by Luntz Global conducted Dec. 7-9.
    Americans overwhelmingly prefer upping sanctions on Iran and reject reducing pressure, with or without negotiations.
    49% picked Iran as the greatest threat to the U.S.

Parshat Veyehi Vayechi Jacob meets his grandsons 12/54 jewu 313

take that you anti circumcision folks

It's official: Circumcision DOESN'T affect sexual pleasure, according to biggest ever study of the issue 

• Australian scientists analysed nearly 40 studies and concluded that the procedure had 'no effect on sensitivity or satisfaction'
• They say studies which suggested the opposite tended to be lower quality

By ANNA HODGEKISS

PUBLISHED: 12:25 EST, 6 December 2013 | UPDATED: 12:44 EST, 6 December 2013

 
 
 

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Being circumcised does not affect a man's sex life, a landmark study has revealed.

Australian scientists analysed nearly 40 studies and concluded that the procedure had no effect on sensitivity or satisfaction. 

While some studies have previously reported a negative outcome, these were found to have flaws - and their reliability has been called into question by this latest research. 

Being circumcised does not affect a man's sex life, a landmark study has revealed. Australian scientists analysed nearly 40 studies and concluded that the procedure had no effect on sensitivity or satisfaction

The most scientifically rigorous studies, however, concluded the circumcision had little, if any, effect.

Lead author of the study, Professor Brian Morris of the University of Sydney, told MailOnline: 'This is a ground-breaking article.

'The health benefits of male circumcision have been well documented, including substantially lower risks of HIV and other viral and some bacterial sexually transmitted infections.

'It also lowers rates of penile cancer and possibly prostate cancer - and women whose partners are circumcised have lower rates of cervical cancer and infections such as HPV and chlamydia. 

 

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• 'Masturbation is good for your health': Experts say it can prevent conditions such as cystitis, diabetes and cancer

'However, there is continued concern that circumcision may reduce male sexual function and pleasure.

'Yet the highest-quality studies suggest that medical male circumcision has no adverse effect on sexual function, sensitivity, sexual sensation, or satisfaction.'

He and his co-researcher John Krieger looked at 36 studies totalling 40,473 men - half of were circumcised and half were not. Each of the studies was graded in terms of quality, according to official guidelines.

Male circumcision prevalence in 2007: Yellow is lower than 20%, orange is 20-80% and red is higher than 80%

The professors found that the very high quality studies reported circumcision 'had no overall adverse effect on penile sensitivity, sexual arousal, sexual sensation, erectile function, premature ejaculation, duration of intercourse, orgasm difficulties, sexual satisfaction, pleasure, or pain during penetration.'

In contrast, the studies which find negative effects were poor quality, Dr Morris said.

He added: 'The methodology was impeccable - it searched all of the conventional publication databases to retrieve all research articles containing relevant data. It then ranked these by quality according to the conventional guidelines.'

The study, published in the Journal of Sexual Medicine, discusses large studies to back up the findings. 

One high-quality trial of nearly 3,000 sexually experienced men in Kenya involved them completing a questionnaire at six-monthly intervals up to 24 months after they were circumcised.

Circumcision lowers rates of penile cancer and possibly prostate cancer - and women whose partners are circumcised have lower rates of cervical cancer and infections such as HPV (pictured) and chlamydia

At each time point, there were no significant differences in sexual performance or satisfaction in men who were circumcised and those who weren't. 

At 24 months, 99.9 per cent of men were satisfied with their circumcisions. In fact, 72 per cent of men said sensitivity had increased and 19 per cent said it was the same.

Ease of reaching orgasm was greater in 63 per cent and the same in 22 per cent.

Another large trial, involving 2,250 Ugandan men, found no difference in sexual desire or difficulty in achieving or maintaining an erection.  A year after circumcision, 99 per cent reported being sexually satisfied. 

However the authors concede that circumcision for medical reasons may be linked with problems in the bedroom.

They mention an Australian study which found that men circumcised after infancy for medical reasons were less likely to want sex.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2515674/Its-official-Circumcision-DOESNT-affect-sexual-pleasure-according-biggest-study-issue.html#ixzz2mtm3doBE
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As Christians, we cannot consider Judaism as a foreign religion;

From the new Pope  http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/francesco/apost_exhortations/documents/papa-francesco_esortazione-ap_20131124_evangelii-gaudium_en.html#Relations_with_Judaism

247. We hold the Jewish people in special regard because their covenant with God has never been revoked, for “the gifts and the call of God are irrevocable” (Rom 11:29). The Church, which shares with Jews an important part of the sacred Scriptures, looks upon the people of the covenant and their faith as one of the sacred roots of her own Christian identity (cf. Rom 11:16-18). As Christians, we cannot consider Judaism as a foreign religion; nor do we include the Jews among those called to turn from idols and to serve the true God (cf. 1 Thes 1:9). With them, we believe in the one God who acts in history, and with them we accept his revealed word.

248. Dialogue and friendship with the children of Israel are part of the life of Jesus’ disciples. The friendship which has grown between us makes us bitterly and sincerely regret the terrible persecutions which they have endured, and continue to endure, especially those that have involved Christians.

249. God continues to work among the people of the Old Covenant and to bring forth treasures of wisdom which flow from their encounter with his word. For this reason, the Church also is enriched when she receives the values of Judaism. While it is true that certain Christian beliefs are unacceptable to Judaism, and that the Church cannot refrain from proclaiming Jesus as Lord and Messiah, there exists as well a rich complementarity which allows us to read the texts of the Hebrew Scriptures together and to help one another to mine the riches of God’s word. We can also share many ethical convictions and a common concern for justice and the development of peoples

More on Pew study

The Mourning After: Pew’s Unheralded Surprise

Tue, 12/03/2013

David Breakstone

 
 

David Breakstone

The irrelevance of Modern Orthodoxy to the American Jewish experience is one of the most intriguing revelations of the Pew report on the community’s condition — yet also one of its most overlooked. While commentators galore are busy reproaching the Conservative movement for being inauthentic, accusing Reform Judaism of being hollow, and wringing their hands over the 32 percent of Millennials categorized as “Jews of no religion,” nobody seems to be paying attention to the stark fact that only 10 percent of those identifying as Jews describe themselves as Orthodox — and just 3 percent as the Modern variety.

Further, of the entire population of Jewish Americans aged 18-29, a mere 1 percent define themselves as Modern Orthodox, itself an ambiguous term.

In the meantime, while there is no denying that the challenges confronting the Reform and Conservative movements are immense, the non-Orthodox still account for 86 percent of Jews in the United States identifying with one denomination or another, which means they continue to nurture a vastly larger segment of our people than do their more traditional cousins. Concerned, then, as I am about the Jewish future, it’s of little comfort to me to know that upwards of 90 percent of the Orthodox will marry within the faith, given that they constitute such a meager slice of the Jewish demographic.

Don’t get me wrong. I am in awe of the remarkable triumphs of Orthodoxy in so many areas: day school education, gap year programs in Israel, synagogue attendance, Shabbat observance, and so on. But with all the brouhaha surrounding the phenomenon of Orthodox resurgence, Pew has soberly sized things down to their proper proportions.

It is against this background that I find eulogies of Conservative Judaism not only to be premature but disingenuous as well, particularly when composed by those identified with the camp of Modern Orthodoxy. Daniel Gordis’ “Requiem for a Movement,” recently circulated by the Jewish Review of Books, is a particularly grating example.

“What really doomed the movement,” Gordis contends, “is that Conservative Judaism ignored the deep existential human questions that religion is meant to address.” Personally, I can testify that such an allegation is completely incongruous with my own experience. Raised in the Reform movement, I was an outsider looking in when I first embraced Conservative Judaism some 40 years ago, precisely because it raised the “deep existential human questions” I was ready to grapple with. I’ve never looked back, though I continue to look within. Ramah camps, United Synagogue’s Conservative Yeshiva in Jerusalem, the Solomon Schechter Day Schools, the Chavurot that have sprung up in and enriched so many Conservative synagogues, and the vast literature that has been penned by the movement’s spiritual leadership all continually raise anew — and with fresh intonation — the eternal questions of faith.

Gordis also diagnoses the Conservative movement as being infected by an incurable virus of hypocrisy. It has always insisted that the halacha is binding, he observes, but has just as consistently found infinite ways to wriggle free of its strictures. He then goes on to fault its leaders for not demanding of their constituents that they uphold even the adulterated standards of Jewish law they profess to endorse.

I won’t deny the gap between what the movement preaches and what its adherents practice. That is something I have often expressed concern about myself. But I have also come to the conclusion that the “rank and file” has not been hoodwinked by this pretense as much as it has gladly played the role of willing accomplice. By maintaining the authority of halacha in theory even if not in deed, we are proclaiming the measure to which we aspire, rooting us firmly in the history of our tradition and binding us inextricably to our people across time and space

Gordis also seems to hold the Conservative movement accountable for not stemming the tide of our congregants’ abandonment of ritual. It didn’t offer “an argument for tradition and distinctiveness without a theological foundation that is for most modern Jews simply implausible; instead of theology, it could have spoken of traditional Judaism and its spiritual discipline as our unique answer to the human need for meaning.” I actually believe it did, but I won’t disagree that it might have done so more forcefully. But neither do I think that such a stance, however eloquently championed, would have made very much of a difference in what Pew actually discovered.

Conservative Jews were not waiting for their movement to sanction their behaviors before drifting away from the tenets of traditional Judaism. The Conservative movement has stood for decades as a bulwark against assimilation. Had it not provided a home for its wayward congregants, they would have abandoned the community far more quickly and in far greater numbers than has been the case.

If there is one thing that the Pew report makes evident, it is that we all live in glass houses. I agree with Gordis that this is not a time for throwing stones, but for self-scrutiny. Perhaps together we can begin to reconstruct a body politic of the Jewish nation that will be more appealing to those who have drifted away than what any one of us has to boast at the moment.

Personally, I am proud to be part of a movement that has begun to do just that. Most notably at the recent United Synagogue for Conservative Judaism convention in Baltimore celebrating the centenary of the movement’s founding. More than 1,200 attendees engaged in honest reflection and frank discourse regarding the challenges we are facing in an atmosphere that was at one and the same time candid and upbeat. No one pretended that the problems Pew highlighted weren’t real, but the emphasis throughout was on opportunity. To everyone present, it was abundantly clear that the rumors of our demise have been highly exaggerated.

David Breakstone is vice chairman of the World Zionist Organization, a member of the executive of The Jewish Agency, and a past chairman of the Masorti/(Conservative) Movement in Israel. The opinions expressed here are his own. 

Parashat Vayigash Joseph meets his jewu 303