"Israeli troops kill 2 Palestinians in clash" Associated Press May 16, 2014
RAMALLAH, West Bank — Israeli troops shot dead two Palestinian teens in a West Bank clash that erupted Thursday after Palestinians marked their uprooting during the Mideast war over Israel’s 1948 creation, a doctor said.
Three Palestinians were wounded, one seriously, when Israeli troops fired to disperse stone throwers near a military checkpoint in the West Bank, said Dr. Samir Saliba, head of the emergency department at Ramallah Hospital.
Saliba said those killed were 15 and 17 and were shot by live rounds in the chest.
Israeli police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said troops broke up a disturbance in the area, but did not use live fire.
Related: CNN airs evidence Israelis used live bullets on Palestinian protesters
Then Rosenfeld is a liar, isn't he?
The Israeli army, which also was present, said security forces tried to disperse about 150 protesters with ‘‘riot dispersal means and rubber bullets.’’ It said it was investigating.
The clash came just hours after Palestinians marched in the West Bank and Gaza Strip to commemorate their displacement in the Mideast war over Israel’s 1948 creation.
Sirens wailed at noon in Ramallah and elsewhere in the West Bank for 66 seconds to symbolize the number of years since the ‘‘Nakba,’’ or ‘‘catastrophe’’ in Arabic — the term Palestinians use to describe their displacement.
I'm surprised my Zionist media even mentioned it.
Yup, Palestinians wrecking the Zionist party.
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Seems like every time there is cause for unity -- the United States, apparently taken unaware, called the development disappointing, upending US-backed peace talks -- or reconciliation, Israel gets angry and lets loose the airstrikes -- as the news conference in Gaza City was taking place, the Israeli military said that its jets had targeted sites in the seaside enclave. Palestinian media reported that seven people were injured."
Not even Abbas's ass-kissing will help as Nuttyyahoo screams Nazis and Iran in the same sentence, although in some circles the whole hoax really is a big laugh.
Then John Kerry sparked an uproar in Israel after "warning in a closed forum that Israel could become an ‘‘apartheid state’’ if it doesn’t reach a peace deal with the Palestinians," even as Israeli land-stealing continue unabated (message to John Kerry: Israel already an apartheid state).
The latest developments are “deeply damaging to Kerry’s effort,” said Neri Zilber, a visiting scholar at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Hamas, the largest Palestinian militant group, was founded in 1987 during the so-called first Intifada, or uprising, against Israeli occupation.
Who were they founded by anyway, and what do you mean it is a secret?
As a side note, Hamas foiled a COUP ATTEMPT in Gaza.
They didn't seize power as I am so often told.
Related: Former Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert gets prison term
I don't really care about Israeli politics as presented by my Zionist pre$$, thanks. A Zionist is a Zionist is a Zionist.
Speaking of which:
"Man accused of extorting rabbi has criminal record" by David Abel | Globe staff May 23, 2014
MILTON — The man who allegedly extorted hundreds of thousands of dollars from a prominent Sharon rabbi has a lengthy criminal record, including arrests for threatening to kill a man and illegally possessing a stun gun and brass knuckles.
Nicholas Zemeitus, 29, who lives in a dilapidated house repeatedly cited for zoning violations, has also frequently failed to show up for court dates and has defaulted on court-ordered payments.
The father of a 4-year-old girl says he once worked as a roofer and painter. Now, he is at the center of a scandal that has stunned Sharon’s Jewish community and sparked a police investigation.
Court documents released this week assert that Rabbi Barry Starr of Temple Israel of Sharon allegedly paid Zemeitus as much as $480,000 in exchange for his silence.
Zemeitus had threatened to make public the rabbi’s alleged sexual relationship with a teenage boy whom Zemeitus said was his brother, a claim that, like others in the case, remains unsubstantiated.
Now the claim is unsubstantiated despite the pictures of the sex acts in the rabbi's bedroom and the hush money to keep him quiet?
Related: Self-Centered Jewspaper
They sure do circle the wagons around their own tribe, don't they?
When police visited Zemeitus’s home last week as part of the extortion probe, they found the house had no running water and other health concerns. As a result, they decided to place his daughter in the custody of the state Department of Children and Families, Milton Police Chief Richard G. Wells Jr. said in a telephone interview Thursday.
I hope she is safe and not missing now.
“The house was on our radar, because we’ve been there so many times,” said Wells, noting numerous calls in the past five years for loud noises, code violations, slashed tires, and an arrest warrant.
After answering his door this week, Zemeitus declined to speak for more than a few minutes, saying there was a “misunderstanding” about his role in allegedly extorting the rabbi.
Thomas Hoopes, a Boston attorney representing Starr, has described his 64-year-old client as a victim, even though court records show the rabbi acknowledged to a temple official he had a sexual relationship with a young man and allegedly gave money from the rabbi’s discretionary fund to Zemeitus.
Yeah, THAT seems to be getting LOST in all this!
“The person who did this thinks he can prey like an animal on people and make anyone his victim, without consequence,” Hoopes said, referring to Zemeitus.
Since 2005, Zemeitus has amassed a 13-page history of driving violations that include having his right to drive suspended 25 times, according to the Registry of Motor Vehicles. His failure to appear in court has led to warrants for his arrest; of his 25 suspensions, at least five stemmed from the warrants, although his license is now active, records show.
A Quincy native, Zemeitus has a publicly available rap sheet that started at the age of 18, when he was found guilty of disorderly conduct for screaming at Quincy police officers on Bates Avenue. “Hey, you [expletive] cop,” he said, according to an arrest record. “What the [expletive] are you doing? Get the [expletive] out of here.”
Four years later, he was arrested on charges of making threatening calls to a young man in Braintree, whom he had accused of assaulting him. “I just want to let you know that you have 24 hours to live,” Zemeitus told the man, according to an arrest record.
When a police officer investigated the call, Zemeitus reportedly told him, “This [expletive] guy is dead. Tell [him] I’m going to [expletive] kill him.” Zemeitus was arrested for threatening to commit a crime, but it is unclear from the records how the case was resolved.
A year later, in 2008, Zemeitus was arrested in Allston after officers observed him attempting to snort cocaine. He admitted the facts of the case and was eventually released on probation and agreed to submit to random testing.
A few months later, Zemeitus was arrested on charges he used a stolen credit card to buy a 50-inch television worth nearly $800 from Best Buy in Dedham. The charges were eventually dismissed, part of a pattern over the years that has allowed Zemeitus to avoid serving time in prison.
He must be Jewish!
And is it not amazing how the Globe focus has turned from the rapist to accuser, so to speak?
In the summer 2010, Zemeitus was pulled over in South Boston by a state trooper who noticed that a dark plastic lens covered Zemeitus’s license plate and that the windows of his black Chrysler appeared to be tinted illegally. The trooper searched the car and found a set of brass knuckles, with a sharp edge, and a 1,500 kilovolt Cheetah Stun Gun, which Zemeitus was not licensed to carry. Those charges were eventually dismissed, after a judge ruled the search was done improperly and could not be used as evidence.
A few months later, police arrested Zemeitus for allegedly tailgating a 39-year-old woman in Quincy, weaving menacingly around her car, yelling profanities, spitting on her car, and threatening her, all while he had his newborn daughter in the back seat. Prosecutors recommended that the case be continued without a finding for six months, but it is unclear from the records how the case was resolved.
Looks like a simple case of road rage to me.
Over the next few years, there were other arrests. Records say police found Zemeitus and another man sitting in a car with hypodermic needles full of heroin in West Quincy; he was seen on video stealing a cellphone from a cashier at a Milton Shell gas station; and he was taken into custody for driving with a suspended license after an officer in South Boston had suspected him of buying cocaine, again with his young daughter in his car. He was required to serve a period of probation in each of those cases.
Zemeitus has also been ticketed for speeding nine times, often in Milton, and has been cited for violating driving rules, such as failing to wear a seat belt, for which he has been ticketed 15 times, records show.
Police in Sharon and the Norfolk district attorney’s office are now investigating Zemeitus for his role in the alleged extortion, which has not produced any charges. He and the rabbi, who resigned from his post this month, exchanged hundreds of e-mails over the past two years, in which Zemeitus promised to destroy pictures he claimed to have of the rabbi engaging in sex acts with the teenager.
No evidence has emerged so far in court records that Zemeitus has a brother or that he ever had incriminating evidence against the rabbi.
He's innocent of all accusations!
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Related:
The Starr Rabbi of Sharon
Sharon Rabbi Was Set Up
Like I said, compare the coverage and tone:
"Second UN panel criticizes Vatican on sex abuse" by John L. Allen Jr. | Globe Staff May 23, 2014
ROME — For the second time, a United Nations panel has criticized the Vatican for its response to the child sexual abuse scandals in the Catholic Church, charging it with failing to mandate that abuse charges be reported to police, moving clergy to evade discipline, and failing to see that victims obtain adequate compensation....
The report follows a similar indictment from the Committee on the Rights of the Child that appeared in February, which asserted that the Vatican had fostered “impunity” for abusers.
The document from the Committee against Torture was to be released in a press conference in Geneva Friday. The Boston Globe obtained an advance copy Thursday.
Unlike the earlier UN assessment, the new report mixes criticism with praise for steps taken by the Catholic Church over the last decade to combat child abuse, including tougher legal sanctions for clergy and the creation of a new papal commission in December 2013 to press for reform....
The panel cited several specific cases, including Father Joseph Palanivel Jeyapaul, a priest who returned to his native India after being charged with molesting a 14-year-old girl in Minnesota in 2004 and is currently being pursued by American prosecutors, and Archbishop Josef Wesolowski of Poland, a former papal envoy in the Dominican Republic accused of sexual abuse both in that country and in Poland who has not been extradited from the Vatican to face charges.
The Committee against Torture also cited the so-called Magdalene laundries in Ireland, institutions for indigent women during the 19th and 20th centuries in which abuse was allegedly widespread. The panel asked the Vatican to ensure that victims “receive fair, adequate and enforceable compensation and as full rehabilitation as possible, regardless of whether perpetrators of such acts have been brought to justice.”
See: Ireland's Dirty Laundry
They got paid, so you can fold up that case.
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That recommendation echoes the complaints of critics that while the church now imposes discipline on clergy who abuse, it does not have equally strong accountability for bishops and other officials who don’t take appropriate steps when abuse reports surface....
Just skip the service instead.
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Related: Persecuted Catholics
Please be mindful during your trip, your Holiness.
"Obama aide irked by Nobel, envoy says" Associated Press May 16, 2014
STAVANGER, Norway — A senior Norwegian diplomat says his country’s former ambassador to the United States was given a verbal lashing by President Obama’s chief of staff when the president was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2009.
Morten Wetland said Thursday that the ambassador, Wegger Stroemmen, was approached by Rahm Emanuel, now Chicago’s mayor, who accused Norway of ‘‘fawning’’ to the newly elected US leader.
Wetland, the Norwegian ambassador to the United Nations at the time, said he did not witness the dressing down but said there was an air of embarrassment in Washington that Obama had been given the award so early in his presidency.
‘‘I think everyone wanted to know what motivated the [awarding] committee,’’ he said.
The decision to give Obama the prize was met with considerable derision and criticism.
Not at the time. That came only after more wars and drone strikes.
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Related:
Peace between unequal parties
Time for an Obama peace plan in Mideast
Time to go back to school and party!
That's the end of this party for the day, folks.