AFA and CAMERA present: Who has the legal title to Jerusalem?

American Freedom Alliance

in association with

CAMERA (Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in
America) and the Iranian- American Jewish Federation, Women’s Division

present a lecture:

WHO HAS THE LEGAL TITLE TO JERUSALEM?

The Legitimacy of Competing Claims to Jerusalem and its Old City Under International Law

featuring

Dr. Jacques Gauthier Esq.

Thursday, January 27, 2011 at 7:30 pm

Location: The Iranian American Jewish Federation of Los Angeles
1317 N. Crescent Heights Blvd., West Hollywood, CA  90046

Admission: $20.00   For security reasons pre-registration is required
FREE to students upon presentation of current student I.D

Parking: Available on IAJF lots for $5; carpooling is strongly recommended

Registration: Online at www.camera.org/events# losangeles
or contact Talia Shulman Gold at 310-855-9606

Continuing Education Credit: CA LICENSED ATTORNEYS: This activity has been approved for Minimum Continuing Legal Education credit by the State Bar of California in the
amount of  1.5 hours and the sponsoring law firm certifies that this
activity conforms to the standards for approved education activities
prescribed by the rules and regulations of the State Bar of California
governing minimum continuing legal education.

 

Dr. Jacques P. Gauthier is the principal and founder of Gauthier & Associates, an international lawfirm  in  Toronto, Canada. He is amember of IGAL (Intercontinental Grouping of Accountants and Lawyers) and has  developed extensive experience in legal issues involving international human rights. He was the founder of the Canadian foundation known as Justice for Children and Youth.  His doctoral thesis, published  in 2007, focused on the competing claims to the city of Jerusalem under international law. Dr. Gauthier has acted as legal counsel to a number of nations including the Republic of France, by whom he was knighted in 2000 (Chevalier de l’Ordre du Mérite). He is also currently Vice-Chair of the International Centre for Human  Rights and Democratic Development and led a human rights mission to China in November, 2009 on behalf of this  organization. He also served as Acting President of Rights & Democracy for several months in 2010.

Contact AFA for further information at (310) 444 3085 or access AFA website www.americanfreedomalliance.org

Stuxnet the Invincible

Yesterday”s New York Times finally broke the story  of 2010.   The gravest threat to world peace since the fall of the Soviet Union has been temporarily vanquished by a….. wait for it…… computer virus.  The Stuxnet virus finally gained its rightful place in the pantheon of world peace activists when the Times spotlighted its extraordinary success in reversing the momentum of the Iranian nuclear program by rendering many of its main computers inoperable and likely obsolete.   As a related story in the The Telegraph details, Russian scientists  working in the Nantaz facility, have warned  the Kremlin that they could be facing “another Chernobyl” if they are forced to comply with Iran’s tight deadline to activate the complex this summer.

The real news broken by the Times story of course is that the Stuxnet virus, the most sophisticated cyber weapon ever witnessed on earth, was more than likely created in Israel’s Dimona nuclear facility.   That is not really news to those of us who have for years admired and appreciated Israel’s extraordinary technological prowess;  but it might be news to a stubbornly ungrateful world that has been spared, at least for the moment, the economic catastrophe that might have ensued if Israel had been forced to take military action against Iran.

So while world leaders may be breathing a bit easier tonight, perhaps they ought to be paying a little more attention to  some of these  basic realities:  The West’s  security interests are being safeguarded by a tiny country the size of New Jersey; that the small country is on the very front lines of a war that it still largely refuses to either name or recognize; that peace is unlikely to come to the Middle East  – or to the rest of the world for that matter – until the scourge of the West, based in Tehran, is completely defeated and the  worldwide religious movement it leads is forced into ignominious retreat.

While there are no guarantees of anything  in this world,  it is a safer bet than most that Israel’s powerful technological capabilities and the tremendous ingenuity of its scientists, offers a key weapon in determining who will  ultimately win the war of civilizations in which we are all presently engaged.

Hillary Clinton Slams the Arab World

It might a long way between Doha and Cairo but that distance seemed to grow even more extended yesterday when Hillary Clinton lashed into the Arab world at a conference in Qatar.  Cairo, lest we forget, was the place where, on June 4, 2009,  Barack Obama delivered what many regard as unparalleled gesture of appeasement to the Arab world, seeking  accommodation with the dictatorial, ideologically inflexible and hierarchically indissoluble regimes which govern the Middle East.

But yesterday Hillary Clinton brought this sycophancy to a screeching halt.  Here are just some of the many choice selections from her remarks, both to the conference and to the press:

” In too many places, in too many ways, the region’s foundations are sinking into the sand,” she said to a stone-faced audience of foreign ministers, businesspeople and rights groups. “The new and dynamic Middle East that I have seen needs firmer ground if it is to take root and grow everywhere.”

Speaking about business relations between the Arab world and the West she commented:

” Trying to get a permit, you have to pass money through so many different hands. Trying to open up, you have to pay people off. Trying to stay open, you have to pay people off. Trying to export your goods, you have to pay people off. So by the time you pay everybody off, it’s not a very profitable venture.”

And on Muslim extremism, she had this to say:

“Without respect for human rights, improved business climates and an end to pervasive corruption, young people and others will increasingly turn to radicalism and violence that will bleed outside the region, threatening not only Middle Eastern stability and security but the rest of the world.”

Clinton reserved perhaps her most pointed remarks for the Arab insistence that America had failed to apply sufficient pressure to Israel to reach a final peace accord with the Palestinians.

“Israel is a sovereign country and it makes its own decisions. You often make decisions based on your own experience and history,” she said. And when the Israelis pulled out of Lebanon they got Hezbollah and 40,000 rockets and when they pulled out of Gaza they got Hamas and 20,000 rockets.”

The transparent admission that American foreign policy in the Middle East has hit a brick wall built by Arab obduracy, irredentism and corruption is a welcome evidence of a reality check for the Obama Administration.  Barack Obama’s weak-kneed efforts in Cairo in 2009 demonstrated a Western leader completely out of touch with the dynamics of the Arab world and the true underpinnings of the seething contempt both its leaders and masses maintain for the United States.

For too long countries such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi and Qatar – seemingly moderate nations and allies of the United States – have proceeded to abuse their relationship with us through manipulation and deception.   Clinton’s remarks in Doha provide a springboard for hitting back.  Her statements should be followed by hard diplomatic pressure, not on Israel, the region’s sole democracy and a place where Western businesses have thrived, but on the corrupt, venal sheikhs who control their desert kingdoms with no regard for morality, human rights or the will of their citizenries.

Suddenly George W. Bush’s freedom agenda seems to have been ordered a new coat of paint.   Lets hope the starry eyed dreamer in the White House knows how to wield the brush.

An Acknowledgement of Evil

President Barack Obama made an eloquent appeal in Tucson yesterday for civility and communal healing following the horrific shooting in that city last Saturday. One of the more interesting things he said was the following:

” Scripture tells us that there is evil in the world and terrible things happen that defy human understanding”

It is notable that this is actually the second time, to my knowledge, that Obama during his presidency  has used the word evil.  The first was in the delivery of his Nobel acceptance speech in December, 2009.   There he said:

‘” I face the world as it is, and cannot stand idle in the face of threats to the American people. For make no mistake: evil does exist in the world. A non-violent movement could not have halted Hitler’s armies. Negotiations cannot convince Al Qaeda’s leaders to lay down their arms. To say that force is sometimes necessary is not a call to cynicism – it is a recognition of history; the imperfections of man and the limits of reason.”

At the time I saw it as a signal of his recognition of certain realities in life and his willingness to identify the existence of absolute moral standards.  Unfortunately the subsequent twelve months did little to buttress that belief.

His comments in Tuscon, which underscored an apparent belief that Jared Lee Loughner’s actions were the result of a manifest evil which had gripped the young man – and not only a consequence of mental illness, political extremism or social alienation, is evidence ( if thin) of  a  moral maturity that has noticeably lacking in this President.  Too many in his own party and on the left are willing to see gray areas where the evidence suggests stark black and white distinctions.  This is of course most relevant to the seething hatred poised against the United States from Islam and the Arabic world.  We should never ignore that the evil which drove 19 young men to fly planes into the Twin Towers 10 years ago is of the same character which made Jared  Loughner pull the trigger over and over again in Tucson on Saturday afternoon.

Lets hope this president indeed continues to face the world as it is and grasp that, as he states in his own words, ” evil really does exist in the world”  and that he, of all people, cannot stand idle in the face of it.

The Index of Economic Freedom

This week the Wall Street Journal and Heritage Foundation jointly released the 2010 Index of Economic Freedom which measures ten components of economic freedom – from business freedom to trade freedom to monetary and investment freedom, emerging with an index for each country.  As was expected, Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia and New Zealand  top  the chart with ratings in the mid to high 80s.    What is always sobering about the figures, however, are the countries that consistently wallow near the bottom:  Iran, Democratic Republic of Congo, Libya, Burma, Venezuela, Eritrea, Cuba, Zimbabwe and North Korea – all take up the last ten places.   It is no accident that the least politically free countries on earth are also the least economically advanced.

As the Wall Street Journal eloquently stated in an editorial yesterday, the dignity of a human being in our modern world is very much dependent on his ability to control his own destiny.  That is tied to the dominion he is able to exert over his property and his livelihood.  The 20th Century exampled disastrous experiments in controlled economies which did not allow for the kind of individualism which spurs economic growth.  The remnants of those failed experiments can now be viewed in the catastrophic economies of places such as Cuba, Burma and Zimbabawe.

And less you feel that the economic volcano that is  China offers a rebuttal to the argument, note that it sits in a middling 135th position on the list, with an index just over 50.  No one should be surprised that this burgeoning economy will eventually feel increasing pressure from its prosperous citizens who will demand more control over their private property and more say in how government regulates their lives.  It is an inevitable consequence of strong economic growth, reflected as long as ago as July,1789 when the French middle class demanded and took for themselves exactly the same power at the beginning of the French Revolution.

The Rise of Lawfare, the Politicization of International Law and the Challenges to U.S. Sovereignty

American Freedom Alliance

in cooperation with

Eye on the U.N.; The Legal Project of the Middle East Forum;
NGO Monitor; Shurat HaDin ( Israel Law Center)

presents

its second International Conference of the Air

The Rise of Lawfare, the Politicization of International Law and the Challenges to U.S. Sovereignty

featuring a panel of experts drawn from around the world

Harry Reicher (University of Pennsylvania Law School), Tung Yin (Lewis & Clark Law School),
Amos Guiora (Utah University School of Law), Anne Bayefsky (Eye on the U.N.),
Anne Herzberg (NGO Monitor),  Nitsana Darshan Leitner (Shurat Ha Din, Israel Law Center) ,
Jeremy Rabkin (George Mason School of Law), Daniel Huff (The Legal Project/ Middle East Forum),
Donald Kochan (Chapman University Law School), John Eastman (Chapman University).
Laurie Blank (Emory University), Eugene Kontorovich (Northwestern University School of Law)

Moderated by Avi Davis

Sunday, January 16, 2011
10:30 am – 1:30 pm (PDT); 1:30 pm – 4:30 pm (EDT)

Streamed live on the Internet and then archived.
Log in from anywhere in the world and listen at any time

at:

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/WesternWordRadio

Lawfare represents one of the key means used by groups and individuals hostile to the United States to undermine U.S. sovereignty and weaken its national security. This conference is designed to address the threats that lawfare represents to western democracies and offer means by which these threats can be confronted.

Click here for more information

Contact AFA for further information at (310) 444 3085 or access AFA website www.americanfreedomalliance.org

Jerusalem Won’t Be Divided

Jerusalem mayor Nir Barkat’s assertive stand on  the demolition of the Shepherd Hotel in East Jerusalem  underscores the growing defiance of many Israel’s leaders on the issue of the division of the Israeli capital.   Simply put,  more and more Israeli leaders , even those on the left are starting  to assert that they cannot forsee a time when Jerusalem will again be divided, as it was in the years 1948-1967.

This is a vital display of unity when international forces are being arrayed against the Jewish state and at a time in particular when the Palestinian Authority is seeking to affirm its right to Eastern Jerusalem through a Security Council resolution at the United Nations

AFA will be joining CAMERA and several other organizations on Thursday, January 27 to present international legal scholar Dr. Jacques Gauthier who will lecture on  the legal status of Jerusalem.   This presentation will offer fascinating and exhaustive insight into the historical underpinnings of the Jewish state’s  legal claims to Jerusalem in its entirety.  It is not to be missed.

Colonialism Regains Its Credibility

Since the 1960s the term ” colonialism” has been treated in the West with a level of contempt that has had it compared with genocide and mass slaughter.   Critics of  the European powers’ land grabs in Africa and Asia have consistently leveled their vitriol at European rapacity on this score and declared colonialism one of the greatest evils to ever befall mankind.

But as columnist Bret Stephens points out in today’s Wall Street Journal, the failed  states of Africa and many other former colonial nations around the world, may need a new form of intervention from  the civilized world to save them from barbarism.

What Stephens points out is that many of the African kingdoms were actually failed states before Western intervention, given over to constant warfare, cannibalism and self immolation.   Western rule, as admittedly exploitative as they might have been, at the very least brought Western concepts of order to Africa – building roads, introducing electricity, providing massively improved health care and involving Western concepts of administration unknown in these areas.

One now only needs to look at the majority of the crumbling nations of Africa – from the Ivory Cost ( once lauded as the model of what an African state should look like)  to the shining pearl of Rhodesia ( now reduced to the rotting corpse of Zimbabwe) to genocide plagued Sudan and  the manifestly corrupt South Africa, to recognize how horribly wrong the post colonial world has gone since independence.

Those celebrities and pundits in the West who regularly decry Western exploitation of these lands ought pay a little more attention to the meager progress that has been made  in former Western colonies since independence.  Perhaps there is indeed a need, as Stephens argues,  for a renewed form of stewardship for many of these countries which  will restore  a level of order and civilized conduct beyond anything they could achieve for themselves.

Death in Tucson

As six people lay dead and dying – and 13 others wounded – in a Walmart  Supermarket parking lot in Tuscon on Sunday, the knives were already being sharpened by both liberals and conservatives decrying the social environment that could have produced such senseless murders.

Liberals have attempted to implicate the Tea Party movement, pointing to Sarah Palin’s mid-term election campaign which targeted certain Democratic law makers with the image of a bulls eye – among them  Rep. Gabrielle Giffords.  The New York Times’  Paul Krugman amplified this and  was the first out of the gate:

” We don’t have proof yet that this was political, but the odds are that it was. She’s been the target of violence before. And for those wondering why a Blue Dog Democrat, the kind Republicans might be able to work with, might be a target, the answer is that she’s a Democrat who survived what was otherwise a GOP sweep in Arizona, precisely because the Republicans nominated a Tea Party activist.

The above paragraph was written by a Nobel Laureate,  an economist whose exactitude in presenting data to buttress his arguments is legion.

Why, then, wouldn’t he be just as concerned with verifying facts before making wild guesses about such a pointless tragedy?  The truth is that neither Krugman nor the New York Times may be as concerned with ascertaining the facts as with obtaining mileage for an anti- conservative cause.  For no matter who Jared Lee Loughner eventually turns out to be, the dead in Tuscon deserve much more than being transformed into martyrs for a cause, which they certainly are not.

Nobel Peace Prize for the Stuxnet Virus

In a few weeks times, the Nobel Committee in Oslo, Norway will be convening to determine the 2011  Nobel Laureate for Peace.  The committee has regularly shamed and embarrassed itself with choices such as Yasser Arafat – who went on after his peace prize to repudiate peace; Al Gore and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, both of whom are revealed to have incompetently presented data which had not been properly vetted and Barack Obama who had actually done thing to advance peace since he had only been in office two weeks at the time the Award was announced.

But now the Nobel Committee has the most qualified candidate of any in recent memory to whom to present the award.  The Stuxnet virus, according to Meir Dagan, outgoing head of Israel’s intelligence agency  the Mossad, was one of the prime reasons Iran’s nuclear program has been retarded several years and, according to Israel’s vice premier Moshe Ya’alon, has prevented the  Iranians from getting their hands upon operative nuclear weapons until 2015 at the earliest.

So fancy that!  Without firing a shot, the Iranian regime has suffered a reversal that should have figured on every government’s radar screen.  The worm may have saved more lives than any other Nobel Laureate in history.  Can’t give an award to a virus?   Then think of how much easier it would be to reconfigure the award to become  an emblem as the Savior of Mankind – a symbol of how human ingenuity can effectively avoid armed conflict through the application of determination and foresight.