This is encouraging.
Shabbat Shalom.
Catholic scholars urge pope to slow Pius sainthoodHere's a good question.
Top Catholic scholars have written an unusual and impassioned private letter to Pope Benedict urging him to slow down the sainthood procedure for wartime Pope Pius XII, accused of turning a blind eye to the Holocaust.
The letter, which was made available to Reuters by a source familiar with the initiative, is extremely rare because in the past it has mostly been Jewish groups and not Catholic academics who have written to popes about the issue.
Who really funds the NIF?See also this piece last week in Ha'aretz (!), which has a different take on the donor angle, but not on the overall malevolence of the NIF.
MK Danny Danon says anti-Israel groups like New Israel Fund must not be tolerated
A recent report claimed that the well-known NGO the New Israel Fund and 16 of its grantees provided the bulk of the testimony that resulted in the anti-Israel Goldstone Report. In light of these accusations I formally requested a public inquiry into the funding of this organization. I did so, because I have sufficient suspicions of the dubious nature of its funders abroad.
This would not be the first time that hostile countries and groups, which yearn for Israel's destruction, have attempted to meddle in our internal politics. However this time it's worse than ever because the report has already done untold damage to Israel's standing in the international community.
Thus in funding organizations that work to deepen the rift between Jews and Arabs in Israel, the NIF has racked up noteworthy successes. Astonishingly, however, these successes are not proudly displayed to the fund's philanthropists.Finally, please join me in wishing a refua shleima to David Bogner's mom (Chana Bat Feigie), who is recovering from hip replacement surgery at Hadassah Hospital on Mt. Scopus.
These donors, most of them Jews who support Israel as a Jewish and democratic state, are asked to contribute to the fund's praiseworthy - but as it turns out, not primary - activities: improving welfare, education and human rights in Israel.
Many NIF donors do not know that their money is being used to fund dozens of organizations committed to inflaming the Arab street, intensifying its nationalist tendencies and deepening the rift between Jews and Arabs.
These philanthropists would almost certainly object to their money being used to undermine Israel's Jewish identity and to lay a theoretical, legal and political framework for establishing another Arab state, on top of the proposed Palestinian state, in place of the State of Israel.
Shabbat Shalom.
