Wednesday, November 4, 2009

House Condemns Goldstone Report on Gaza

WASHINGTON (JTA) -- The U.S. House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly to condemn the Goldstone report.

The vote Tuesday urging the Obama administration to keep the report accusing Israel and Hamas of war crimes in last winter's Gaza war from advancing through the United Nations system, passed 344 to 36 with 22 voting "present."

The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), which lobbied hard for the non-binding resolution, said it "strongy applauds" its passing.

"Congress is sending a strong message that the United States will not agree to turn the victim into the perpetrator," AIPAC said.

The vote comes on the eve of debate on the report in the U.N. General Assembly; the report has already been endorsed by the U.N. Human Rights Council.

The resolution "calls on the President and the Secretary of State to continue to strongly and unequivocally oppose any endorsement of the `Report of the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict' in multilateral fora, including through leading opposition to any United Nations General Assembly resolution and through vetoing, if necessary, any United Nations Security Council resolution that endorses the contents of this report."

The resolution was introduced by U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.), the senior Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and Rep. Howard Berman (D-Calif.), its chairman.

1 comment:

Trenton Jewish Historical Society said...

Commenting on:

It so happens that my Torah portion, Vayera, is one of the most musical parshas of the torah. Even thought it isn’t even mentioned once. As you might remember, during Rosh Hashanna, we read about Akaydat Yitzchak, the binding of Isaac. Abraham almost sacrifices Yitzchak, but instead, Hashem tells him that it was only a test of his loyalty and gives him a ram to sacrifice instead. This is where we get the idea of blowing the shofar and this is why we read it on Rash Hashanna. Music is the way we fill our lives with happiness and purpose. The Hebrew word for hollow, ‘halal’, also means wounded or hurt. In our lives, when we feel hurt, music heals us. One of the purposes of the shofar is that we all have to fill the hollow part of people’s lives and make them more whole.

For full explanation of the Shofar and its sacred uses and history, go to

Shofar Sounders WebPage

http://shofar221.com/