Free Republic

Palestinian Muslims war crimes and anti Israel bias & Jihadists-appeasement among "human rights" NGO groups Hamas war crimes? Obviously (b'tzelem). So blame the victim http://www.spectator.co.uk/melaniephillips/3327751/hamas-war-crimes-obviously-so-blame-the-victim.thtmlIt’s because the war crimes by Hamas are too obvious. 'No need to probe Hamas because its war crimes are so blatant' Jerusalem Post http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1233304687815&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFullNew Gaza study: Extreme NGO anti-Israel bias Ynetnews http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3667108,00.html

United Way of Dane County is moving forward on its mission to effect change in the community by announcing expanded programs and initiatives in its Agenda for Change for 2009. The United Way collected more than $17 million in contributions in its 2008 campaign, paving the way to continue investing in programs and initiatives aligned to respond to issues the community identified to have the greatest impact in crucial areas, including schools, early childhood development and safety. "The community responded in a very challenging economic climate, and we are excited to share details of how their investments will solve the...

Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) has become extremely powerful and influential, particularly with respect to "human rights" related issues and the Arab-Israeli conflict. Their Anti-Israel reports, protests and lobbying activities have a dominant impact, particularly in the United Nations as well as on the policies adopted by many governments. Their words are taken verbatim by the media and projected as the truth. A key strategy of the NGO community was introduced to the world in 2001 at the initial UN Conference on Racism in Durban. The tact they took was to delegitimize Israel by turning it into a demon state, warping its...

Since the beginning of the war with Hamas, human rights organizations have accused Israel of "genocide," "willful killings," "targeting civilians" and "grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions." Taken at face value, these statements appear to describe flagrant violations of international law and horrific abuses of human rights. Yet, upon closer inspection, these condemnations must be seen as part of a wider campaign to promote the Palestinian cause. The exploitation of international legal rhetoric has become a major weapon in the political war to delegitmize Israeli antiterror operations. Under this strategy, crystallized at the NGO Forum of the UN's 2001 Durban...

Left-of-center nonprofits are getting the bailout they wanted from the U.S. government, the Chronicle of Philanthropy reports. The news comes a month after Independent Sector president Diana Aviv demanded it. Our lawmakers are intent on pissing away billions of dollars on utterly useless giveaways to their supporters in the liberal nonprofit establishment. The money will have virtually no positive impact on the economy, except perhaps that it might bolster employment at nonprofit groups. One of the more egregious line items is the $1 billion allocation for community development block grants (CDBG). These are slush funds that liberal groups like La...

Nearly 800 advocates for California's "working families" gathered in downtown Sacramento on Tuesday, and they had plenty to talk about. Deep cuts to programs that fund food and health care and affordable housing for the state's most vulnerable people. Rising unemployment and demand for social services. Alarming school dropout rates. It was enough to tear Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg away from budget negotiations at the Capitol to rally the group of nonprofit staffers, policymakers and others at the Sacramento Convention Center. Steinberg, six weeks into his new job, admitted that he has not been getting out much lately....

Through the use of holiday and religious symbols, NGOs such as War on Want, Amos Trust, and Pax Christi have been manipulating Christmas to advance a political agenda, and in some cases, have been promoting antisemitic canards. NGOs organized an event entitled, "Bethlehem Now: Nine Alternative Lessons and Carols for Palestine," involving "traditional carols with untraditional lyrics, interspersed with poetry and prose readings, to highlight current reality in the Holy Land."

Talk about destroying the "Christmas Spirit!" British NGOs are using Christmas as a cover to distribute/sell anti Israel and Anti-Semitic materials. These NGOs include War on Want, Amos Trust, and Pax Christi For example they NGOs organized an event entitled, "Bethlehem Now: Nine Alternative Lessons and Carols for Palestine," involving "traditional carols with nontraditional lyrics, interspersed with poetry and prose readings, to highlight the current reality in the Holy Land." The biased lyrics and themes were so "way out there" they lead to strong condemnations from Christian and Jewish community leaders. Another group War on Want is promoting an "Alternative...

A new state commission says the Alaska governor ought to get a $25,000 a year raise. Asked to figure out how much Alaska should pay its top officials, the group recommends pay hikes for the lieutenant governor, department heads and legislators too. “We need the best people we can get to do some pretty tough jobs against some often incredibility well-financed, single-minded corporate and individual interests,” said Rick Halford, a former legislator and chairman of the new State Officers Compensation Commission. Deciding how much to pay themselves is always a thorny proposition for politicians who answer to an ever-skeptical public....

Obama Praised Daschle's Federal Health Board Idea By Philip Klein on 11.25.08 @ 10:52AM Barack Obama said earlier this year that Tom Daschle's idea of creating a Federal Health Board (modeled after the Federal Reserve) to manage the nation's medical system showed "great promise." "The American health care system is in crisis, and workable solutions have been blocked for years by deeply entrenched ideological divisions," Obama wrote in a blurb on the back of Daschle's book, Critical: What We Can Do About the Health-Care Crisis. "Sen. Daschle brings fresh thinking to this problem, and his Federal Reserve for Health concept...

Western do-gooders are impoverishing Africa by promoting traditional farming at the expense of modern scientific agriculture, according to Britain's former chief scientist. Anti-science attitudes among aid agencies, poverty campaigners and green activists are denying the continent access to technology that could improve millions of lives, Professor Sir David King will say today. Non-governmental organisations (NGOs) from Europe and America are turning African countries against sophisticated farming methods, including GM crops, in favour of indigenous and organic approaches that cannot deliver the continent's much needed “green revolution”, he believes. Speaking before a keynote lecture tonight to the British Association for the...

Staff Sgt. Kristy Van Lanen, a native of West De Pere, Wisc., talks to directors of a non-governmental organization at the Iraqi Assistance Center in Baghdad July 19, 2008. NGOs are helping improve the economic stability and education levels of their Iraqi communities through education and training. Photo by Sgt. James Hunter. BAGHDAD — Iraqis continue to take more of a lead within their communities, helping improve the economic stability and education levels of their Iraqi communities. These Iraqis are a part of non-governmental organizations that gain funding through various agencies to fund facilities and training programs within their community.NGOs...

Toll road opponents today will ask the Sunset Advisory Committee of the Texas Legislature to abolish the Texas Department of Transportation, saying the agency has become too corrupt and too dysfunctional to fix, 1200 WOAI news reports. "We want to see elected leadership at the helm of Tex-DOT," says long time toll road opponent Terri Hall, the founder of the citizen action group Texans Uniting for Reform and Freedom. "We are done with this unelected beaurocracy that is just an arm of private road building companies and the lackeys of this governor." The idea of eliminating TexDOT and establishing a...

Anyone familiar with the threat posed by the advancing American Fifth Column understands all too clearly that our Constitution is under attack. Whether it is the insistence that the Constitution is a living document meant to conform to the will of the times or the institution of political correctness – a shadow set of laws effectively usurping the laws of our Constitutional Republic – the American Fifth Column is slowly, incrementally, systematically, chipping away at the wisdom as set forth by our Founders and Framers. With news that a non-governmentally charged commission is introducing a measure that would impose “group...

Islamic apartheid suppresses Jewish people Just another example of how Jewish people speaking the truth and reading the truth is called an "insult" and an excuse for Islamic apartheid. Why don't people protest the MIddle Eastern Islamic apartheid against the Jewish people? Why do Muslims claim to have the right to supress, humiliate and destroy everyone else? Why is apartheid, homophobia, sexism, racism, facism, religious coercion, expansionism, imperialism and mass murder of civilians ok as long as the Islamic empire chooses it? Why do they claim Islam and Arabism more important than all human beings and all human cultures? Mara...

Amidst the clangor of NGO criticisms that target Israel for its behavior it is difficult to know which ones to take seriously. Whether they allege "collective punishment" based on a simplistic calculus divorced from context, or claim that Israel is obligated to provide Gaza with the entirety of its fuel and foodstuffs, which has no basis in international law, various human rights NGOs discredit themselves with relative ease. Despite the "halo affect" these NGOs enjoy and the credibility they are afforded in international forums, many Israelis are beginning to take these claims less seriously. But there is still one community...

JAKARTA (Reuters) - A small group of Indonesians in their late 40s who attended the same elementary school in central Jakarta recently gathered for a reunion and to pledge their support for an absent former classmate -- Barack Obama. Obama's late mother came to Indonesia with her young son in the late 1960s to join her second husband knowing next to nothing about the huge, developing Southeast Asian nation. While her son left after four years to study in Hawaii, for the Kansas-born mother of the Democratic Party presidential hopeful the relationship with Indonesia was to grow into a lifetime...

I'm an elitist. Eighty percent of the critical decisions affecting Israel are shaped by maybe 100 or 200 people, 300. These are my clients. Thus spaketh Prof. Yehezkel Dror, the resident blabbermouth in the Winograd Commission, which Prime Minister Ehud Olmert appointed in the wake of the 2006 war with Hizbullah. Dror made this statement in his interview with the Jerusalem Post last week. In a separate op-ed in Haaretz, Dror expanded on his theme. He explained that of these 300 decision makers who make life and death decisions in Israel, "less than thirty" are elected officials. So as Dror...

Critics have long believed environmentalists were planning global domination. The problem with making a credible case against such an ambitious plan was simple: no environmental leader had published one. Yet conflicts over global warming, world trade, multinational corporations, population control, sustainable futures, and transnational government left little doubt that environmentalists in fact shared the unspoken aim of wielding supreme power over a green future. But there was no proof. For years, critics, lacking hard evidence, were reduced to piecing together a jigsaw puzzle of suspicious environmentalist actions - funding from huge charitable trusts, ties to the broader "progressive" community, and...

The USCCB Committee on Migration sent a delegation to the U.S./Mexico border region to study the plight of unaccompanied minors and human trafficking victims. The ever-growing problems with these populations are some of the gravest and many times most overlooked symptoms of the broken and out-dated immigration system currently employed by the United States. The delegation met with a broad cross-section of agencies and individuals involved with or knowledgeable of these populations to gain critical insights and to understand their needs. The delegation also met with Church officials, government officials, community-based organization, and other with important perspectives. Programs established to...