On the latest edition of Radio JAI, Eduardo Kohn, B'nai B'rith director of Latin American Affairs, discusses several important issues facing the continent's Jewish population. 

Topics include: a criticism of the UNHRC special report on Israel, a condemnation of the outrageous decision by Brazil to call the Brazilian ambassador to Israel, which shows contempt for Israeli civilians under Hamas bombings in the last decade.

Listen to the full podcast below:

“Hamas encontró aliados en nuestra América, que sin duda creen que es más fácil atacar a una democracia que condenar a quien usa el terror como sistema, de lo contrario no se entendería ni el lenguaje que usan ni mucho menos las acciones que toman”, analizó. 

La alta comisionada de la ONU para los Derechos Humanos, Navi Pillay, dijo ayer durante una reunión del Consejo que “hay una alta posibilidad de que algunas acciones militares de Israel en Gaza puedan constituir “crímenes de guerra” para condenar las acciones militares del Ejército de Defensa Israelí en Gaza.

“Sra Pillay, usted y toda la ONU saben que los 3.000 misiles que ha recibido Israel en estos últimos 30 días son lanzados desde casas, edificios, mezquitas, hospitales donde lógicamente viven civiles, el que los retiene y los hace morir como mártires es Hamas. Entonces no se confunda sobre quienes comenten crímenes de guerra y quien está matando a su propia gente”, arremetió Eduardo Kohn, quien además acusó a los países latinoamericanos ante el conflicto.

“Brasil ha usado la retórica del uso desproporcionado de la fuerza y ha acusado a Israel de poner en peligro la estabilidad del Medio Oriente. Ha llamado a su embajador de Israel en consultas, una expresión que en estos casos significa una sola palabra: vergüenza”, enfatizó Kohn.

B'nai B'rith International made headlines in the financial world this week, signing off on an encouraging annual Social Security and Medicare Trustees Report.

The statement was picked up by InsuranceNewsNet.com, "the leading, Web-based trade publication for insurance agents, home office personnel, and other professionals in the life, health and property/casualty industries."

Read an excerpt, below:

B'nai B'rith International issued the following news release:

B'nai B'rith International is encouraged by the relative stability outlined in the 2014 Social Security and Medicare Trustees Report, but concerned about the immediate need to address the funding challenges facing the Social Security Disability Insurance program (DI).

The big news out of the trustees report was the overall health of Social Security with a surplus of about $2.8 trillion, and income to the program set to exceed expenditures in 2014. These numbers are in line with last year's projections and this year's report expects Social Security's surplus to grow to $2.9 trillion by 2020.

The other important but unsurprising "news" out of the report is that the DI trust fund is at risk of being depleted by 2016. B'nai B'rith International urges Congress to increase the DI's allocation from the payroll tax--a measure which has been routinely carried out 11 times over the life of the program--or many vulnerable or impoverished people face dire consequences in their everyday lives.

"We've actually been aware that this would happen in or around 2016 since the DI's tax allocation was last adjusted in 1994. But in the current political environment, adjusting the split between the two funds for the 12th time in Social Security's history may be harder to do than it should be," B'nai B'rith International President Allan J. Jacobs said.

Both organisations sharply criticised the total lack of balance and disregard for facts in the statement that paints a simplistic and one-sided picture of what is an extremely complex situation. The ADC and JCCV also denounced the AJDS’ analysis of cause and effect that bears no relationship to the facts on the ground.

[...]

Chairman of the ADC Dr. Dvir Abramovich and President of the JCCV Nina Bassat issued the following statement:

“All people of goodwill are deeply saddened by the loss of life on both sides of the current conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, but the progress towards peace can only be hindered by statements which totally lack balance, such as that of the AJDS. 

"Sadly, the now common reckless and eager rush to condemn Israel is represented by the skewed and outrageous statement of the AJDS, which zealously attacks and accuses the IDF of a massacre without any facts or evidence. It is a pity that the ADJS keeps choosing to engage in a relentless campaign of propaganda in their continuous bashing of Israel."

What is as disturbing as the absence of substantiated data is the inflammatory and pejorative language used in the statement. 

Given the world-wide conflation between anti-Israel feelings and anti- Semitism, highly emotive words such as perpetrated and massacre are calculated to arouse anger against not only Israel, but the Jewish community in Australia and are a willful disregard that language such as this destroys the harmonious nature of our multicultural society.

The Israel-Gaza conflict has dominated international headlines, inspiring civil unrest and prompting discussions of terrorism vs. national sovereignty. 

Eduardo Kohn, B'nai B'rith director of Latin American Affairs, penned an op-ed offering background on these discussions for El Observador, the second largest daily newspaper in Uruguay. 

Kohn places the responsibility for Operation Protective Edge squarely on the Hamas terror network, explaining the organization's charter, philosophies and ultimate goal of Jewish annihilation.

Read the entire op-ed in Spanish, below:

El Debate De Medio Oriente Llegó A Uruguay
El director de B´nai B´rith para América Latina, Eduardo Kohn, responde sobre el carácter terrorista del grupo Hamas


Un análisis de la especialista Susana Mangana, publicado en El Observador el viernes 25 de julio, sobre diferencias y similitudes entre el grupo palestino Hamas y otros que operan en la región, provocó diferentes reacciones (principalmente en redes sociales) de integrantes de la colectividad judía del Uruguay.

El Dr. en Diplomacia Eduardo Kohn, director de B´nai B´rith Internacional para América Latina, escribió un texto, reproducido a continuación, en el que da su visión sobre Hamas.

La realidad no es teoría, son los hechos

¿Quién es Hamas?

De acuerdo con la Carta Fundacional del Movimiento de Resistencia Islámica (Hamas es un acrónimo), publicada el 18 de agosto de 1988, la misma es una organización islámica que tiene objetivos precisos.

En su preámbulo señala:”Israel existirá hasta que el Islam lo destruya, de la misma manera que destruyó a otros en el pasado”. 

En su artículo 13 establece que “Palestina es una tierra islámica. La liberación de Palestina constituye una obligación individual para cada musulmán dondequiera se encuentre. No existe ninguna solución al problema palestino que no sea por medio de la Yihad”.

Hamas no es un movimiento de resistencia como se ha podido leer en estos días, sino que es un grupo que tiene como objetivo buscar los medios posibles para exterminar a los judíos. Y en ese contexto, su primera etapa es destruir al Estado de Israel. 

¿Pueden hacerlo? Hoy, gracias a Irán tienen armas como para intentar sus objetivos. Cuentan con 10 mil misiles que llegan a cualquier parte de Israel y  les da la capacidad de asesinar a casi 4 millones de personas. 
¿Por qué no lo han logrado si lanzaron más de mil misiles? Porque Israel está decidido a defenderse, grave pecado para quienes desean su desaparición.

Hamas no basa su legitimidad en la búsqueda de un Estado Palestino, como también se ha escuchado y leído. Eso trata de hacer la Autoridad Palestina. Hamas no puede querer construir un Estado cuando el preámbulo de su carta constitutiva ya señala que el gran objetivo es matar a todos los judíos:

“El Día del Juicio no llegará hasta que todos los musulmanes luchen contra los judíos y les den muerte. Entonces, los judíos se esconderán detrás de las rocas y los árboles, y éstos últimos gritarán: ¡Oh musulmán!, un judío se esconde detrás de mí, ven a matarlo”(Artículo 7).   

Bajo esas premisas, para Hamas los civiles muertos no cuentan. Son mártires y escudos humanos; sus escuelas y hospitales son refugios para sus misiles. Porque los verdaderos refugios construidos por Hamas en Gaza son para sus  armas y sus líderes, no para sus civiles.

Los ciudadanos israelíes tienen refugios para ocultarse, el ejército tiene armas para enfrentar misiles, y esa parecería ser su culpa mayor. Se califica de desproporcionado cuando  un Estado defiende a sus ciudadanos, cuando reacciona frente a una amenaza constante. Pero así funcionan las democracias: los ciudadanos exigen seguridad a sus gobernantes, y los gobiernos deben actuar en consecuencia.

Mezclar a Hamas con procesos de paz y diálogo político es falsear los hechos que están a la vista. Para Hamas, Israel debe ser borrado del mapa; allí debe existir un estado islámico. Así lo expresó,una vez más, públicamente, hace dos días en Irán el Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, líder máximo en Irán y mentor ideológico y material de Hamas.
Bajo los objetivos de Hamas, es muy cínico hablar de paz en Gaza. Hay allí 2 millones de palestinos que son  rehenes de una idea de exterminio del vecino.

La Autoridad Palestina debería reconocer públicamente los hechos. Mientras ambos, Autoridad Palestina por debilidad, y  Hamas , por sus ataques y su  violencia, sigan alentando la confrontación, la hipocresía intelectual y política que también ronda por estos lares , que acusa de uso desproporcionado de la fuerza a quien se defiende, y legitima el terror defendiéndolo sin pudor, los palestinos seguirán siendo víctimas de un marco de vida insostenible. 

Si la ONU actuara de acuerdo a lo que escribieron y soñaron sus fundadores, no habría 200 mil muertos en Siria, ni 4 millones de israelíes amenazados por misiles, ni palestinos sin esperanzas. Pero mirando sesgadamente y acusando automáticamente, se logra que  Assad siga siendo Presidente, que Hamas reciba de Estados miembros de ONU  miles de misiles, y que Mahmoud Abbas sienta que habla a la pared cuando pasea por las capitales de países árabes muy ricos y sordos.

Los que insisten en legitimar a Hamas desde sus cómodos sillones de tecnócratas, desde sus atalayas más o menos intelectuales, o desde sus odios políticos, respaldan la sinrazón de la confrontación y avivan las hogueras. 

Ambos pueblos merecen algo bien distinto para empezar, al menos, para comenzar a superar la triste realidad de los hechos.

European Union Shows Lack of Will to Defend Israel at UNHRC

Yet again, the European Union has demonstrated a lack of will in defending a sister democracy under attack from an organization that it has included on its own terrorism list.

One day after the EU’s foreign ministers adopted a statement which called for both the disarming of Hamas and endorsed Israel’s “legitimate right to defend itself,” nine European countries abstained on a one-sided United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) resolution harshly critical of Israel.

On July 22nd, the European Union foreign ministers, in a move uncharacteristic of their traditional voting patterns on issues relating to Israel and the Palestinians, adopted language that seemed to express a real understanding of the immense challenges Israel faces in fighting the terrorist organization in Gaza. It went so far as to call out Hamas’ use of civilians as human shields, a point Israel makes several times daily, to the mostly-closed ears of  international media and a large portion of the diplomatic world.

Sunrise on July 23rd brought an immediate reversion to form for the EU.

A resolution brought to the UNHRC by such human rights luminaries as Pakistan and Venezuela, filled with hackneyed anti-Israel diatribes for which the council is well known, took off after Israel for a laundry list of human rights violations, including Israel’s pursuit of Hamas terrorists in the West Bank in June and “the most recent military assault on the occupied Gaza Strip, the latest in a series of military aggressions…” The document decries Israel’s “targeting of civilians…including medical and humanitarian personnel…that may amount to international crimes…”

The resolution supports the now discredited “national consensus government” forged by the Palestinian Authority and Hamas in April, expresses deep concern over Palestinian prisoners, decries “collective punishment,” demands opening of the crossings for the flow of humanitarian “and commercial goods,” (concrete for more tunnels?) and, well, you get the picture.

Then it gets worse. It calls for Switzerland to convene the contracting parties to the Fourth Geneva convention “to enforce the Convention in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.”

The coup de grace was to call a new “independent commission of inquiry” to investigate “all violations…of human rights law in the ‘occupied Palestinian Territory’…particularly in the Gaza Strip.”

We recall the last time an “independent” commission was set in place by the UNHRC. It was headed by Judge Richard Goldstone, who, after wrestling with his conscience over the biased anti-Israel report filed in his name, publicly renounced its findings in a celebrated New York Times op-ed.

In the entire four page, double-spaced resolution, there is not one mention of Hamas by name.

The resolution was overwhelmingly adopted, with 17 abstentions, 11 of them European and nine of those European Union countries: Austria, the Czech Republic,  Estonia, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Romania and the United Kingdom. Most of them consider themselves to be good friends of Israel. But in this vote, they have incredibly and hypocritically enabled an organization that they themselves consider to be a terrorist organization.

Where is the stand-alone resolution condemning the indiscriminate rocket attacks on Israel’s cities? Has the United Kingdom forgotten its own history, when thousands of V-1 and V-2 rockets were fired from Germany into London and South East England during WWII?

In post-mortems, some Europeans tried to defend their lack of principle by saying they had salvaged the resolution from harsher language. Harsher?  This document is a “greatest hits” of the UNHRC against Israel. All but the kitchen sink has been included in its fulminating, accusatory tone.

If the EU countries had been true to their resolution of July 22nd, they’d have not only voted against the resolution, but walked out of the hall when it came up for debate. In each capitol, policy makers know they have pointed the finger not against the perpetrator of human rights violations, but the victim. The statements of “support for Israel’s right to defend itself,” ring more hollow than ever in light of the adoption of this measure.”Defend yourself,” they are saying, but only up to a point.

Compromise on principle is not new in Europe. This abandonment of Israel at such a crucial moment is unacceptable. History will surely have some condemnatory judgments when the books about this conflict are written.

A six-member group from B’nai B’rith Europe is visiting on a solidarity mission.

The group was briefed by government officials on the ongoing conflict with Hamas, learned first hand about the realities faced by Israelis in the most heavily shelled areas, and conveyed a message of unity with the people of Israel.

It visited Ashkelon, Sderot, areas in the Merhavim and Hof Ashkelon regional councils, and an Iron Dome battery.

For more than 22 years, the B'nai B'rith Bagel Brigade has been hard at work in southern California, making sure underserved children start the day with breakfast. 

Every day, more than 160 volunteers collect bakery and pastry products, driving them to low-income school districts during the school year, and homeless shelters on the weekends and during the summer. In a given month, the group distributes approximately 84,000 loaves of bread and 54,000 bagels.

The program accounts for more than 65,000 donated hours each year, and was recently featured by NBC-4 in Los Angeles, both online and on-air. The program was one of a handful highlighted as part of the I Am A Volunteer campaign.