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July 2, 2009

Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski: The hallmark of a person

Abe Novick: Up, up, and aliya

July 1, 2009

Rabbi Avi Shafran: The Road Taken

The Kosher Gourmet by Marialisa Calta: Get into the holiday spirit with these Star-Spangled desserts

June 30, 2009

Rabbi Binyomin Ginsberg: What makes a great parent?

Caroline B. Glick: Ideologue-in-Chief

June 29, 2009

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Beware of 'Caveat Emptor'

Steven Emerson: ACLU pushing for more money for Hamas

June 26, 2009

Rabbi Yoni Posnick: Learn the secret to a healthy marriage from a scriptural villain

Caroline B. Glick: Barack Obama vs. International Law

June 25, 2009

Rabbi Shimon Apisdorf: The Absurd Power of Truth

Jordan "Gorf" Gorfinkle's strip: Everything's Relative

June 24, 2009

Rabbi Yonason Goldson: Advancement of technology is a wake-up call for humanity

The Kosher Gourmet by Andrea Weigl: Summer on a stick: Making frozen treats can be easy, creative and fun

June 23, 2009

Martin M. Bodek: 'On Surnames': And so, We Begin

Caroline B. Glick: The Obama Effect

June 22, 2009

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Working for a corrupt firm

N. Richard Greenfield : Where are American Jews?

June 19, 2009

Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski: Emotion v. intellect

Caroline B. Glick: Israel's rare opportunity

June 18, 2009

Jonathan Rosenblum: Sometimes it is more essential to define the nature of evil than good

Jordan "Gorf" Gorfinkle's strip: Everything's Relative

June 17, 2009

Rabbi Yonason Goldson: The Language of Confusion

The Kosher Gourmet by Linda Gassenheimer: Nothing pleases Dad more than a thick, juicy onion-smothered steak. Add home-Baked Potato Chips and …

June 16, 2009

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Career v. Careersism

Caroline B. Glick: Obama's losing streak and Israel

Richard Z. Chesnoff: ‘Palestinians’: Never Missing an Opportunity …

June 15, 2009

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu: How Judea and Samaria can become 'Palestine'

Daniel Pipes: Where Netanyahu's speech failed

June 12, 2009

Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski: Some big thoughts about not acting so big

Caroline B. Glick: Obama's High Commissioner

June 11, 2009

Victor Davis Hanson: Our historically challenged President

Mitch Albom: Beware the True Believers

Lewis Grossberger: What we learn from the new Hitler photos

June 10, 2009

Mort Zuckerman: What Obama and his advisors won't -- or refuse to -- grasp about Israel and the Muslim world

The Kosher Gourmet by Steve Petusevsky Lotsa pasta: Tips, techniques and (amazing) taste

June 9, 2009

Anne Bayefsky: Obama's stunning offense to Israel and the Jewish people

Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.: America's first Muslim president?

June 8, 2009

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Merchant must take responsibility for careless shopper?

Mark Steyn: A superpower that feeds on mediocrity cannot survive for long on leftovers from the past

Richard Z. Chesnoff: How do you say 'kumbaya' in Arabic?

June 5, 2009

Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski: In quest of spirituality

Caroline B. Glick: Obama's Arabian dreams

Charles Krauthammer: The Settlements Myth

June 4, 2009

Paul Greenberg: The War Comes to Little Rock

The Kosher Gourmet by Judy Hevrdejs: Splash it on! Tap your inner jazz musician and improvise when stirring up a vinaigrette

June 3, 2009

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Q. Should terrible teacher be exposed?

Jonathan Rosenblum: The Israel Lobby: Missing in Action

June 2, 2009

Dennis Prager: The Speech President Obama Won't Dare Give in Egypt

Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.: Pressure on Israel raises war risk

Oct. 29, 2003
Mortimer B. Zuckerman: Graffiti On History's Walls (MUST-READ!)

Jewish World Review August 16, 2007 / 2 Elul, 5767

Shadow of genocide at New Year's Rose Bowl

By Nat Hentoff


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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | Next Jan. 1, millions worldwide will be watching the televised 94th Rose Bowl Game in Pasadena, and the 199th Rose Bowl Parade with its celebratory floats. One of those floats, saluting the 2008 Chinese Olympics, has already stirred worldwide protests because of China's many human rights violations against its own people as well as China's large-scale financial partnership with Sudan, perpetrator of the continuing genocide in Darfur.


In the July 19 story "Roses Are Red," in the Pasadena Weekly, Joe Piasecki reported that both local and international human rights organizations are urging the Tournament of Roses Association and the Pasadena City Council to speak out about how the Olympics in China will be a chilling caricature of what Tournament President C.L. Keedy — justifying the inclusion of the float in the parade — said:


"The Olympics, which brings nations together, is the epitome of a global celebration — providing a worldwide spirit of cooperation, supporting athletes in peaceful competition." But there are no celebrations among the many victims of China's chronic cruelty.


The acutely controversial float is sponsored by the Pasadena-based Avery Dennison Corp., which, the Pasadena Weekly reports, "employs more than 10,000 people in factories it owns in China," making office and consumer products. Among the gathering critics of the Avery float are international human rights organizations Amnesty International, Reporters Without Borders and Human Rights Watch.


Sophie Richardson, deputy director of Human Rights Watch's Asian Division, accurately points out: "The people who are organizing the parade should be fully aware that the Chinese government uses this kind of opportunity not for just promoting the Olympics, but for real political propaganda purposes. The float will certainly be construed as not just support of the Olympics, but for the Chinese government's staging of it."


The supporters of this particular float are very likely to claim that protests about China's complicity in human rights violations — including the ongoing genocide in Darfur — have become irrelevant by citing China's support of the unanimous July 31 Resolution by the U.N. Security Council. The resolution will purportedly send 26,000 U.N. and African troops and police into Darfur to begin to end the genocide.


But before that Security Council vote, China greatly undermined the resolution by stripping from the original language a clause pledging sanctions against the government of Sudan if it prevented the implementation of the resolution. Sudan's president, Gen. Omar al-Bashir, has broken every agreement he has signed to end the horrors that have cost the lives of more than 450,000 black Africans in Darfur. On that record, the genocide will continue.


This acclaimed but deeply flawed July 31 U.N. resolution also prevents the disarming of the al-Bashir's militia, the Janjaweed, responsible for most of the mass murders of the people in Darfur, and the huge numbers of gang rapes of Darfur's black women.


Because of lethal holes in this U.N. resolution, the growing international campaign to shame China, Sudan's largest investor and supplier of arms, into pressuring its genocidal partner to really end the atrocities there is continuing. On Jan. 1, the world will see the shaming on television and in international newspapers if the Avery Dennision Corp. floral float remains as a focus of the Rose Bowl Parade, billed as "The Passport to the World's Celebrations."


However, it is not too late for the Tournament of Roses Association and Pasadena city officials to clearly disassociate themselves from the float's propaganda value for China's dictatorship. In a letter to Tournament of Roses President C.L. Keedy, Robert Menard, secretary-general of the invaluable champion of international press freedoms, Reporters Without Borders, showed how the Tournament of Roses can greatly add to the campaign to disgrace China into pressuring Sudan to end the mass murder.


Menard urged Keedy and Pasadena officials to "say clearly to the Chinese authorities that you will not allow the Rose Parade to be associated with the Chinese Olympics by hosting the Avery float until the Chinese (Olympic Committee) organizers, who are for the most part also senior (Chinese government) officials, release prisoners of conscience, reform repressive laws and end censorship."


A similar letter, reports the Pasadena Weekly, has been sent to Pasadena Mayor Bill Bogaard. This public focusing on China as one of the pariahs among civilized nations will also put increased pressure on China — even if its Olympics float is not removed from the Rose Parade — to compel Sudan to stop the Darfur genocide so that China will no longer be identified with these atrocities, which British Prime Minister Gordon Brown told The New York Times is "the greatest humanitarian disaster the world faces today."

Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.


Nat Hentoff is a nationally renowned authority on the First Amendment and the Bill of Rights and author of several books, including his current work, "The War on the Bill of Rights and the Gathering Resistance". Comment by clicking here.

Nat Hentoff Archives

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