Throughout his years in the House of Representatives, Mr. Kirk has supported congressional efforts to affirm the Armenian genocide and provide adequate levels of U.S. aid to Armenia.
Source: Yandunts: Mark Kirk becomes Armenian caucus co-chair

Maybe some people also think their should only be ONE…Holocaust.

The Republican Jewish Coalition called foul Monday on the National Jewish Democratic Council after the group criticized GOP leaders and an Illinois Republican Senate candidate for failing, in its estimation, to repudiate anti-Semitic rhetoric.

The NJDC wrapped its’ criticism of the GOP in a statement declaring that it had “launched a ‘pledge campaign’ to demand that federal candidates condemn and refrain from ‘abusive Holocaust rhetoric and anti-Semitic language.’”

The NJDC offered specific praise for the candidates seeking the Illinois Democratic Senate nomination, while at the same time disparaging Rep. Mark Kirk, R-Illinois, for not embracing their language. Kirk is running for the Republican Senate nomination.

Source/Full Story: CNN.com

…
Kirk, a social moderate who’s recast himself as a fiscal conservative, has been largely unchallenged in the GOP primary set for Feb. 2 and is now viewed as a threat by Democrats.

Even Obama has been asking questions about the race.

“Naturally I won’t share the details, but he is following this race closely and talking about November,” said Illinois Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin.
…
On top of that, Democrats nationwide appear to be facing a backlash from voters, witnessed most recently in the Massachusetts special election, in which Republican Scott Brown beat Democrat Martha Coakley for the seat formerly held by the late Sen. Ted Kennedy.

“We’re seeing a collapse of support for the organized Democratic Party … in places that we never thought would happen,” Kirk said, citing the Massachusetts election. “I think that will happen in Illinois as well.”

Democrats surely don’t want to see a Bay State election repeat.

Source/Full Story: FOXNews.com

Daniel Uziel, the historical adviser to the exhibition, said the blueprints did not add much to what is already known about the camps but they provide “a great illustration of the process of turning Auschwitz from a small Polish concentration camp to the center of the Holocaust.”

An old World War I barrack for the Austro-Hungarian army, Auschwitz opened as a concentration camp in the summer of 1940. It was originally designed as a Soviet POW camp and its first prisoners were Polish. But because of its central location and its close access to natural resources, Himmler deemed it the perfect spot to implement the “Final Solution.” In late 1941, it swiftly evolved into a highly efficient death camp.

Source/Full Story: FOXNews.com

What particularly concerns the authors is the total contempt which Jewish fundamentalists show toward non-Jews. Rabbi Kook the Elder, the revered father of the messianic tendency of Jewish fundamentalism, said, “The
difference between a Jewish soul and souls of non-Jews—all of them in
all different levels—is greater and deeper than the difference between
a human soul and the souls of cattle.”

Isn’t this the same attitude that everyone condemns the Nazis for?

The
Vatican said Tuesday that moving Pope Pius XII closer to sainthood is
not a hostile act against Jews, even though the wartime pontiff has
been criticized for not speaking out enough against the Holocaust.

A
Vatican statement said Tuesday that the move should not be an obstacle
to dialogue between Jews and the Catholic Church, and insisted Pope
Benedict XVI has sentiments of “great friendship and respect” for the
Jews.

The statement sought to quell the outrage sparked among
many Jewish groups after Benedict signed a decree on Pius’s virtues.
The decree means that Pius can be beatified — the first major step
toward sainthood — once a miracle attributed to his intercession has
been recognized.

Source/Full Story: msnbc.com

Polish police found the infamous “Arbeit Macht Frei” sign that was stolen from the gate of the former Nazi death camp of Auschwitz after an intensive three-day hunt and arrested five suspects, police said early Monday. The sign was found cut into three pieces.

Police spokeswoman Katarzyna Padlo told The Associated Press that the sign was found Sunday night in northern Poland, the other end of the country from the southern Polish town where the Auschwitz memorial museum is located and where it disappeared before dawn Friday.

Padlo said police detained five men between the ages of 25 and 39 and took them for questioning to Krakow, which is the regional command of the area that includes the Auschwitz museum.
…
More than 1 million people, mostly Jews, but also Gypsies, Poles and others, died in the gas chambers or from starvation and disease while performing forced labor at Auschwitz, which Nazi Germany built in occupied Poland during World War II. The camp was liberated by the Soviet army on Jan. 27, 1945.

Earlier on Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called on Poland to act to find “these twisted criminals that desecrated the place where over a million Jews were murdered.”

“The sign is of the deepest historical importance to the Jewish people and the whole world, and is a tombstone for more than a million Jews,” Netanyahu said.

Source/Full Story: FOXNews.com

Four American Jewish groups are urging the US Supreme Court to reverse a lower court decision that could lead to Israeli officials being slammed with civil lawsuits in the United States.

Coinciding with a British judge’s decision to sign an arrest warrant for Kadima leader Tzipi Livni for alleged “war crimes” during Operation Cast Lead, the brief seeks to overturn a Fourth Circuit decision to strip foreign government officials from immunity in American civil lawsuits.

Written by Washington attorney Nathan Lewin on behalf of the Zionist Organization of America, the American Association of Jewish Lawyers and Jurists, Agudath Israel of America and the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America, the “friend of court” brief warns against a “torrent of unfounded lawsuits against Israeli government officials” in the absence of absolute immunity.

“Public officials should have the same immunity as their governments have under federal law in order to enable them to act in accordance with their best judgment in their roles,” Lewin said.

Source/Full Story: Jerusalem Post

Vandals burned a mosque in the West Bank on Friday in an attack a Palestinian official said reflected Israeli settler rage over a government moratorium on settlement construction.

No one knows who set ablaze and vandalized the mosque — located in the West Bank village of Yasuf.

But the governor of Salfit district, Munir al-Abboushi, told CNN he believes Jewish settlers were responsible for the attack.

“The mosque was completely burned,” al-Abboushi said. “They burned the praying carpets and Quran holy books, and set the mosque completely on fire, they even burned the loudspeakers where the Imam preaches inside the mosque.”

Al-Abboushi said the culprits had scrawled Hebrew graffiti at the entrance of the mosque that read “price tag — with regards from Effi.”

“Price tag” is the expression radical Israeli settlers have used to denote reprisal attacks against Palestinians in response to moves by the Israeli government to evacuate illegal West Bank outposts.

Source/Full Story: CNN.com

President Shimon Peres warned of the evil represented by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at a graveside ceremony in Sde Boker on Monday honoring Israel’s first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, on the 36th anniversary of his passing.

Peres, as well as Israel’s fifth president, Yitzhak Navon, who also attended Sunday’s ceremony, were both close disciples of Ben-Gurion’s and continue to preach his legacy.

Trying to imagine how Ben-Gurion would have reacted to Ahmadinejad, Peres said Iranian threats must be taken seriously and that Israel must work with other nations to mitigate them.

“Ahmadinejad wants to destroy a nation and he denies the Holocaust. His ambition is to rule the Muslim world with unmitigated force and terror,” Peres said.

Source/Full Story: Jerusalem Post

Britain’s main academic union voted overwhelmingly to boycott Israeli universities and colleges.

The University and College Union passed the boycott resolution at its annual meeting last week. It is the fourth year in a row that the union has passed a resolution condemning Israel and supporting the boycott of Israeli academics and academic institutions.

The key resolution calls on UCU branches to discuss boycotting Israel, and commits the union to organize a pro-boycott conference for other trade unions to attend. 

The vote was then declared invalid after union attorneys said that a boycott of that kind could trigger legal action against the union.

Union General Secretary Sally Hunt said she "formally and personally commended" the union for holding the debate, the Guardian reported.

The Anti-Defamation League condemned the passage of the resolution. “The UCU continues to engage in the shameful exercise to demonize Israel and Israeli academics, violating all standards of academic freedom and non-discrimination upheld by institutions of higher education,” Abraham Foxman, the ADL’s national director, said in a news release. 

Source/Full Story: jta.org

Firearms manufacturers and sellers cannot be held liable for criminal misuse of their products, a federal appeals court panel ruled Monday in a case stemming from a white supremacist’s 1999 shooting rampage at a Jewish community summer camp in Granada Hills.

The suit brought by the mother of a man fatally shot by Buford O. Furrow Jr. and the families of five others wounded — including three preschool children — sought to hold Georgia-based Glock Inc., dealer RSR Wholesale Guns Seattle and a Chinese manufacturer liable for negligence.

In a 2-1 decision, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals panel upheld the constitutionality of a 2005 federal law that retroactively shielded gun makers and distributors from responsibility for criminal acts involving properly functioning weapons.

Furrow, a follower of the racist Aryan Nations, unleashed a barrage of semiautomatic weapons fire at the North Valley Jewish Community Center in Granada Hills on Aug. 10, 1999, wounding an adult, a teenager and three children ages 4 to 6. Later in the day, he shot and killed Chatsworth letter carrier Joseph S. Ileto.

Furrow pleaded guilty to avoid the death penalty and is serving five life terms in prison.

The victims’ suit against the gun providers was dismissed in 2002 for failure to state a claim under California law. A year later, a 9th Circuit panel reversed that District Court decision and the U.S. Supreme Court declined to review it, clearing the way for trial of the gun makers and sellers.

Meanwhile, Congress passed the 2005 Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, shielding suppliers from such suits and ordering dismissal of pending claims.

Monday’s ruling asserted that the law doesn’t violate constitutional protections of due process and separation of powers.

Source/Full Story:    Los Angeles Times

Pope Benedict XVI started his visit to Israel on Monday by acknowledging the millions killed in the Holocaust and endorsing a two-state solution to the Palestinian conflict.

"I pray… that both peoples may live in peace in a homeland of their own, within secure and internationally recognized borders," the pontiff said at Ben Gurion International Airport in Tel Aviv.

Benedict’s address marked the start of his trip to the troubled region. He is scheduled to pay courtesy visits to Jerusalem’s Muslim grand mufti and two chief rabbis.

The pope also addressed the Holocaust, an issue that sparked controversy for the Roman Catholic Church earlier this year.

"It is right and fitting that during my stay in Israel that I will have the opportunity to honor the memory of the 6 million Jewish victims of the Shoah," he said. "And to pray that humanity will never again witness a crime of such magnitude."

The pope said anti-Semitism is "totally unacceptable," reiterating remarks he made in February after a bishop disputed the death toll of Jews killed in concentration camps during World War II.

The Catholic Church is "profoundly and irrevocably committed to reject all anti-Semitism," he said at the time.

Source/Full Story:   CNN.com