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March 19, 2010
Rabbi Berel Wein: The Divine is in the details
JWisdom.com Stewards of sacrifice with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky (5 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick: Why Obama is waging war on Israel
March 18, 2010
Cal Thomas: Israel's New Enemy: America?
JWisdom.com Love me not? with Rabbi David Aaron (5 minutes)
Jonathan Rosenblum: Washington Throws a Tantrum
March 17, 2010
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: Orwell, Santayana, and Me
Jonathan Tobin: How Many Lives Is Biden's Pride Worth?
March 16, 2010
Steven Emerson: Combating Lawfare
JWisdom.com How to perform a miracle with Rabbi Yaakov Asher Sinclair (4 minutes)
Anne Bayefsky: Behind Obama's Dangerous Overreaction on Israel
March 15, 2010
The Jewish Ethicist By Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Father's obligations toward minor children
JWisdom.com Moody, Grumpy, Irritable Children with Sarah Chana Radcliffe (5 minutes)
Judith Graham: Get the whole picture before a CT
March 12, 2010
Rabbi David Aaron: You CAN have Heaven on Earth
JWisdom.com Manufacturing mediums with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky (4 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick: The march of the Red-Green brigades
March 11, 2010
Glenn Garvin: Conspiracy theories, why people believe them and how they spread
JWisdom.com For Yourself, Not By Yourself with Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff (8 minutes)
The Kosher Gourmet by Linda Gassenheimer : Turn leftovers into tasty New England hash
Paul Richter: Biden promises 'viable Palestine' is in the offing
March 10, 2010
Paul Greenberg: Death Checks In
JWisdom.com How To Get A (Real) Life with Rabbi Warren Goldstein ( EXTENDED EPISODE)
Paul Richter: Israel exerts soverign right to its capital as Biden looks on astounded
Richard A. Serrano: 'Jihad Jane' indictment alleges threat from within U.S.
March 9, 2010
Wesley Pruden: Joe's Israeli adventure
JWisdom.com Free To Be (Responsibly) You and Me! with Rabbi Naftali Brawer ( 8 MINUTES)
David G. Savage: Supreme Court to rule on free speech in case of soldier's funeral
March 8, 2010
The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Make a fuss about those who cuss?
JWisdom.com Finding or Losing Yourself? Here's How! with Rabbi David Aaron ( 5 MINUTES)
Steven Emerson: America must learn from the UK about the future of Islamist subversion
March 5, 2010
Rabbi Berel Wein: Golden Calf still with us --- except it has multiplied
JWisdom.com The Limits of Eternity with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 4 MINUTES)
Caroline B. Glick: Biden's lost cause
March 4, 2010
Alan M. Dershowitz: How About A Real Campaign Against Abuses?
JWisdom.com Using Things, Loving People with Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff ( 7 MINUTES)
Jordan "Gorf" Gorfinkel's Everything's Relative
March 3, 2010
JWisdom.com Grasping The Name of Your Life Game with Rabbi Warren Goldstein ( 8 MINUTES)
The Kosher Gourmet by Marialisa Calta : A cowboy's recipes for really good grub
March 2, 2010
Rabbi Avi Shafran: Someone's there
Diane Toroian Keaggy : Have we misunderstood Michelangelo?
March 1, 2010
JWisdom.com Whole in One with Rabbi David Aaron ( 5 MINUTES)
Michael Muskal: Hillary meets with Israeli official, discusses gefilte fish dispute
Feb. 26, 2010
Rabbi Francis Nataf: The Megilla of Spring
JWisdom.com A Biblical Secret for a More Powerful You with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 5 MINUTES)
Caroline B. Glick: When rhetoric rules the roost
Feb. 25, 2010
The Jewish Ethicist By Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: When walking away from your mortgage is both economically sound and makes ethical sense
JWisdom.com The Second Most Important Question in Your Life with Rabbi Yehoshua Karsh ( 5 MINUTES)
Seema Mehta : U.S.-Israel relations raised in California's Senate race --- by conservatives
Feb. 24, 2010
Rabbi Avi Shafran: The gift of the ‘prayer bomber’
Steven Emerson: Why Religious Freedom Commission is under attack
Feb. 23, 2010
Dennis Prager: Government, Yes! The Divine and Parents, No!
JWisdom.com The Last Laugh of Enlightenment with Rabbi Yaakov Asher Sinclair ( 5 MINUTES)
Anne Applebaum: Prepare for war with Iran --- in case Israel strikes
Feb. 22, 2010
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: Is it not refreshing Tiger Woods' career has crashed and burned so dramatically?
JWisdom.com Esther and the third Truth with Rabbi David Aaron ( 9 MINUTES)
Kelly Brewington: Going smoke-free may raise diabetes risk
Feb. 19, 2010
Rabbi David Aaron: Is the Divine beyond us or within us?
JWisdom.com Olympic Faith with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 5 MINUTES)
Caroline B. Glick: Israel and the West are perpetrators of a myth that endangers the Jewish State
Feb. 18, 2010
Cal Thomas: Who is Rashad Hussain?
JWisdom.com A Wedding Disaster to Remember with Rabbi Y.Y. Rubinstein ( 3 MINUTES)
Feb. 17, 2010
JWisdom.com Think your life is messed up? with Rabbi David Aaron ( 11 MINUTES)
Greg Logan: 'Greatest Jewish sporting event of all time since David versus Goliath' may be postponed because of bar mitzvah
Feb. 16, 2010
Anya Martin : Boy's 'cerebral palsy' fixed with diet
JWisdom.com Feet On The Street Spirituality with Gavriel Aryeh Sanders ( 8 MINUTES)
Marty Peretz: Let Europe Mind Its Own Business. It Brings Nothing To The Table Save For Mischief
Feb. 15, 2010
Herb Geduld: Lincoln and the Jews
JWisdom.com Are Our Children Really Ours? with Rabbi Mordechai Becher ( 5 MINUTES)
Susan King: 'Wolf Man' reflected writer's wartime Jewish experience

Jewish World Review March 31, 2008 / 24 Adar II 5768

The Torch and The Special City

By Debra J. Saunders

Debra J. Saunders
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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | Credit House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for her long-standing opposition to Chinese human-rights abuses. Earlier this month, Pelosi visited the Dalai Lama in Dharamsala, India, where she spoke out against Chinese oppression in Tibet. Pelosi showed herself at her finest when she pronounced, "If freedom-loving people throughout the world do not speak out against China's oppression in Tibet, we have lost all moral authority to speak on behalf of human rights anywhere in the world."


China's official Xinhua news agency shot back with this statement: "Human rights police like Pelosi are habitually bad-tempered and ungenerous when it comes to China, refusing to check their facts and find out the truth of the case. Her views are like so many other politicians and Western media. Beneath the double standards lies their intention to serve the interest groups behind them, who want to contain or smear China."


Boohoo for poor, misunderstood China. When the — all bow — international community argued that staging the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing would prompt China to improve its dismal human-rights record, China purred. Now that the same crowd wants the gargantuan People's Republic of China to ease up on feisty Tibet, the PRC is a victim of double standards and powerful interest groups.


So welcome to San Francisco — which on April 9 will be the only North American city to host an Olympic torch event for this Olympics.


For years, Ess Eff's self-righteous City Hall has made it its business to tell the rest of the world how to live. With the Chinese coming to town, the supes are in a difficult position. As the city is poised to play host to pre-Games festivities, they passed a richly deserved resolution bashing China's mistreatment of Tibet, its support of genocide in Darfur and association with North Korea's regime. It was a well-deserved slap at China, just as the giant seems within grasp of global respectability.


China deserves thousands of protesters lining the streets of San Francisco and rallying in public squares in peaceful protest against these abuses under the mantle of groups such as the San Francisco Bay Area Darfur Coalition, the Falun Gong, Burmese American Democratic Alliance (BADA) and Committee of 100 for Tibet. And that's for starters.


Mayor Gavin Newsom argues that the Olympic torch "transcends politics." On the phone Thursday, he recalled choking up as he watched an amputee with a prosthetic leg carrying the torch through city streets in 2002. "No one thought about politics," said Newsom.


And: the Olympic "torch is to celebrate human rights." Wrong. China was thinking politics as it wooed the Olympics, and suggested it would improve how it treats people in the Olympic spirit. Now, as China has been preparing for the Olympics, its preparations have left some 22 people dead (if you believe the PRC) or 140 dead (if you believe Tibetans), and the government is talking about "patriotic education" in Tibetan monasteries.


Team Newsom insists that hizzoner never planned on trying to censor activists protesting against China. For one thing, Newsom said, he agrees with the Free Tibet crowd.


Also, Newsom argued that as mayor, he has a responsibility to protect the rights of the Olympics Committee and those who want to celebrate the Games, as well as those who would protest Chinese policies.


Let me note that these activists, even with right on their side, do not have a right to stop Olympic ceremonies. They have a right to protest Olympic events, not to shut them down. Too bad The Special City does not have a solid record of going after law-breaking protesters — be they angry Critical Mass bicyclists or anti-globalization activists who crushed a cop's skull — when the cause is leftist. So the city has fed the belief that leftists are entitled to censure — even hurt — those with whom they disagree. Sadly, it can be no surprise that China's San Francisco Consulate was attacked by arsonists this month.


Newsom told me that some San Franciscans have urged him to refuse to allow the torch into the city. (His staff sent me Olympic rules that show, by the way, that the Beijing Olympics Committee never planned to present the torch to Newsom.) That's "abhorrent," Newsom told me. "They're telling me that they don't want the torch to be allowed into San Francisco."


I don't like that the Olympics Committee chose Beijing as a host city. That was wrong, but it's done. Now the best outcome would be if San Francisco can show the world a city that can harbor vigorous dissent — without turning into a lawless zoo.

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© 2007, Creators Syndicate

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