Russia Parades Its Military in an Echo of Soviet Days

NEW YORK TIMES [NYTimes Group/Sulzberger] - By C. J. Chivers - May 10, 2008 MOSCOW — Nuclear missile launchers and columns of tanks rolled through Red Square on Friday in a display of martial hardware not seen since the Soviet Union’s waning days. The parade, much smaller than similar commemorations in the Soviet period but laden with significance and mixed messages, marked the 63rd anniversary of the victory over Nazi Germany, which is observed in Russia as Victory Day, a solemn state holiday. It was intended both as a tribute to the dwindling ranks of surviving veterans and as a display of Russia’s efforts to revive armed forces made moribund by the Soviet Union’s collapse. It was also widely described as a sign that the Kremlin wanted to show the world that it had recovered from the embarrassments of the 1990s and that its foreign policy had not softened in a transfer of presidential power this week. But the goose-stepping footfalls, echoing in front of shop windows bearing products from Louis Vuitton and Christian Dior, captured as well the contrasts institutionalized during eight years of rule by Vladimir V. Putin, the former spymaster and president who left office on Wednesday and returned to power as prime minister the following day. Confident and flush with wealth, Mr. Putin’s Russia is led by men who embrace Soviet symbols and rituals while promising tax breaks and legislation to encourage a growing Russian investor class. The passing columns were reviewed by the new president, Dmitri A. Medvedev, a lawyer who has spoken of nurturing civil liberties and a climate more conducive to small business, but who ascended to office in an election stage-managed by the Kremlin. Many of the soldiers were in period dress, wearing uniforms reminiscent of those worn in celebrations that Mr. Putin led in the same place three years ago on the 60th anniversary of the end of World War II. This time there was a new president. Mr. Putin, his mentor, stood behind Mr. Medvedev as he addressed the crowd. When the troops began to march by while saluting the dignitaries, the former president stepped forward to receive the salutes at his protégé’s side. In a sign that suggested that the Kremlin had not yet settled how to interpret the seven decades of Soviet history, Lenin’s mausoleum was temporarily blocked from view by a huge mural of Russia’s tri-colored national flag. The mausoleum, where Lenin’s embalmed body lies in state, is normally a centerpiece of the square and perhaps the most potent Soviet symbol in the capital. The president and prime minister stood on a reviewing stand erected for the event, their backs to Lenin’s remains as they presided over a ritual created by Stalin. Mr. Medvedev thanked the aging veterans in the reviewing stands — white-haired men and women in their 80s and 90s, many wearing blazers heavy with medals. Then he spoke of readiness and restraint. “The history of world wars warns that armed conflicts do not erupt on their own,” he said. “They are fueled by those whose irresponsible ambitions overpower the interests of countries and whole continents, the interests of millions of people.” He added, “We need to remember the lessons of that war and work every day so that such tragedies never happen again.” The parade was the first display of armor and nuclear missile launchers on Red Square since 1990, and was followed by a flyover of 32 military planes, including strategic bombers. The Kremlin’s decision to parade its military hardware has been a subject of competing interpretations, viewed variously as symbolic confirmation of Russia’s pride, or aggressiveness, as a marketing show of Russian arms, and as a nationalistic festival ordered by Mr. Putin, for Mr. Putin. Mr. Putin insisted earlier in the week that the parade should not be viewed as “saber rattling.” “It is not a warlike gesture,” he said. “Russia is not threatening anyone.” But it followed a year during which the Kremlin asserted its case against what it regarded as reckless American foreign policies. Mr. Putin has strongly protested an American-led plan to install a missile-defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic. As tensions rose, Russia’s aging strategic bombers conducted international patrols, entered British airspace and approached American carrier groups on the high seas. Russian state-controlled television stations have featured extensive coverage of small-scale exercises of Russia’s navy, and of supposedly new weapons systems. Mr. Putin, who firmly opposed the American-led invasion of Iraq five years ago, also endorsed a doctrine of pre-emptive strikes against threats to Russian soil. As a tribute to veterans and to the irrefutable role and sacrifices of the Soviet Union’s people in defeating Hitler, the events on the square were high spectacle. But the parade, broadcast on television here as a national triumph, also offered sights of the mixed condition of the once vaunted armed forces under Kremlin command. Several of the infantry units, including marine and airborne units, were staffed with lean and fit young men who marched with bearing and precision. Others included troops who appeared to be in only fair condition, and several of the officers leading formations past the two Russian leaders were visibly overweight. The United States expressed no alarm over the parade. Russia has become a leading global arms exporter again, but its wares are almost all items designed decades ago. A Pentagon spokesman, echoing a view common among military analysts, had characterized the planned military review as a hollow show of dated gear bearing fresh coats of paint. “If they wish to take out their old equipment and take it for a spin and check it out,” said the spokesman, Geoff Morrell, “they’re more than welcome to do so.” http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/10/world/europe/10russia.html?ex=1368158400&en=1f19f228e4aa79dd&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink FAIR USE NOTICE: This blog contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of religious, environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

Israel wants citizens abroad back home

ASSOCIATED PRESS - By Ian Deitch - December 9, 2007 JERUSALEM - Israel is trying to persuade hundreds of thousands of its citizens living overseas to return home in a project to coincide with the state's 60th anniversary next year, the Immigrant Absorption Ministry said Sunday. The project, dubbed "Coming Home," will try to lure Israelis living abroad to come back with tax breaks, employment and small business loans. About 650,000 Israelis live abroad, 450,000 of them in North America, the ministry said. The ministry began contacting them last month with direct phone calls, an Internet site and a "hot line" phone connection. "What surprised us most is the amount of positive feedback we received from countries where the standard of living is very high," said Erez Halfon, director of the Immigrant Absorption Ministry. "We received 285 calls from Israelis living in Switzerland, and of them, 15 families have committed to coming home." Prime Minister Ehud Olmert expressed support for the project at a Cabinet meeting Sunday. "Every Israeli, even if they live abroad, is Israeli at heart and knows that their home is here. I call on all Israelis to return home," Olmert said. The project aims to bring 10,000 expatriates back to Israel in the first year and double that number over the next few years. Between 18,000 and 21,000 Israelis emigrate each year, Halfon told reporters. The estimated cost of the campaign is $36 million a year, an amount the ministry believes will be paid back by the returning Israelis themselves. "Within half a year of their being reintroduced into society as consumers, the government will get all their money back," Halfon said. Halfon said the project aims to remove the social stigma faced by those who leave Israel, so they will have a softer landing upon their return. Traditionally, Israelis who left the Jewish state were widely looked down on by Israeli society and viewed as letting the country down or selling out. Linguistically, immigration to Israel is called "aliya," the Hebrew word for ascent, while emigrating is dubbed "yerida," or descent. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071210/ap_on_re_mi_ea/israel_immigration_1 FAIR USE NOTICE: This blog contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of religious, environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

Aliya to Israel drops to 20-year low

THE JERUSALEM POST [Mirkaei Tikshoret/CanWest] - By JPost.com Staff - December 24, 2007 Jewish immigration into Israel dropped 6% in 2007, reaching a 20-year low of just under 19,700 immigrants, the Ministry of Immigrant Absorption announced Monday. The best years for aliya were just after the fall of the Iron Curtain. Over 400,000 Jews arrived in Israel between 1989 and 1991. Since then the immigration rates have been dropping steadily, a trend aggravated by the outburst of the Second Intifada: 60,000 immigrants arrived into Israel in 2000, but only 35,000 arrived in 2002. The most significant drop this year was in immigration from the former Soviet Union, with 15% fewer arriving in Israel than in 2006. Jerusalem was hailed by the ministry as the leader in immigrant absorption, with over 14% of immigrants deciding to settle there. This year Israel also boasts its eldest immigrant since 2005 - a 99-year-old woman who immigrated from England in May. Another famed elderly newcomer is Mimi Reinhardt, formerly a secretary to Oskar Schindler, who arrived in Israel at the age of 92. Minister of Immigration Absorption Ya'acov Edri said that the decline in Jewish immigration "should be a wakeup call." "We should do everything we can to increase the rate of aliya," Edri said. "The ministry intends to invest great resources to that end in the coming years. Aliya is the single greatest Zionist enterprise in our sixty years of statehood." http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1196847419023&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull FAIR USE NOTICE: This blog contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of religious, environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

Evangelicals fund Jews departing Iran

THE WASHINGTON TIMES [News World Communications/Moon-Unification Church]By Joshua Mitnick - December 26, 2007 TEL AVIV - About 40 Jews who left Iran in secret arrived in Israel yesterday - one of the largest such defections - and got a Christmas present of $10,000 per person from U.S. evangelicals. The number of Iranian-Jewish emigrants to Israel more than tripled to 200 in 2007, according to officials from the Jewish Agency for Israel, the quasi-governmental organization that promotes immigration to Israel. A Jewish Agency spokesman credited the increase to a stipend program financed by donations to the Christian Zionist group International Fellowship of Christians and Jews (IFCJ). "The money is a major consideration" to come to Israel, said Michael Jankelowitz, a spokesman for the agency. "These people come with the clothes on their back and their suitcase. Iranian money has no value." Family members of the Iranian emigrants screamed in delight and threw candy at the newcomers as they emerged into the reception hall at Ben Gurion International Airport in Tel Aviv after a long bureaucratic procedure, the Associated Press reported. Officials from the Jewish Agency refused to divulge details of the immigrants' journey, such as the airline that brought them to Israel or stopover countries, and kept identities secret for fear of endangering Jews still in Iran. The $1.4 million donated in 2007 by IFCJ for Iranian-Jewish immigration is the latest example of the growing involvement of evangelicals in pro-Israel philanthropy that was once the exclusive turf of Diaspora Jewry. Numbering 28,000, the Jewish community in Iran is the largest in any Muslim country and enjoys a comfortable standard of living and generally good relations with fellow Iranians. But they are forbidden from visiting Israel, and the possessions left behind in Iran are subject to confiscation. Michael, 15 - one of the immigrants arriving yesterday - said he told all his friends where he was going, and they wanted to come along, the AP reported. "I was scared in Iran as a Jew," he said. No comment was available yesterday from the Iranian government. IFCJ President Yechiel Eckstein, an Orthodox rabbi who oversees philanthropic operations that have raised millions from Christian Zionists, said the Jewish Agency approached him earlier this year about the stipend program. The subsidies are intended to allay economic concerns among Iranian Jews mulling emigration to Israel. "The thing that is blocking them from coming is the fear that they won't have enough money to even rent an apartment," said Mr. Eckstein, who compared the situation for Jews in contemporary Iran with Jews who remained in Germany in the 1930s despite the rise of Nazism. "My feeling is that they're sitting on a time bomb. All it takes is an Israeli or American strike on Iran, and I am reasonably sure that if that happens in the next few years, the repercussions would come down on the Jewish community." Just last week, the Jewish Agency announced a deal that allows Mr. Eckstein to join its leadership in return for $45 million in evangelical money over three years - giving Christian Zionists an unprecedented toehold in an organization envisioned as a parliament of world Jewry. Evangelical backers of Israel say they are following a biblical prophecy that creation of a Jewish state here is a step toward the Messianic Age. Some Israeli critics say their ultimate goal is to convert Jews to Christianity, which the evangelicals deny. Meanwhile, one Israel-based Iran analyst, Meir Javedanfar, said the publicity given to the defection operation will ultimately hurt the Jews who remain in Iran. Publicizing the number of Jewish emigrants from Iran could place the community in the middle of a "tug of war" between Israel and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, he said. While Mr. Ahmadinejad can hold up the Jewish community as proof his regime is not anti-Semitic, emigration to Israel suggests the community faces hardship. "The more high-profile it is, the more it endangers the Jewish community," said Mr. Javedanfar. "It's a positive development for Israel, but let's not throw it in Iran's face. It could have a negative impact on the relationship between the Iranian government and the Jewish community." http://washingtontimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071226/FOREIGN/553402321/1001&template=printart FAIR USE NOTICE: This blog contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of religious, environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

'Lost Tribe of Israel' couples marry in Jerusalem

Isaiah 43:5-6 "Do not fear, for I am with you; I will bring your offspring from the east, And gather you from the west."I will say to the north, 'Give them up!' And to the south, 'Do not hold them back.' Bring My sons from afar And My daughters from the ends of the earth,.. Group 'descended from Joseph' struggled to 'return home' WORLDNETDAILY - By Aaron Klein - March 11, 2008 JERUSALEM - Eighteen couples from a group of hundreds who recently moved here from India believing they are one of the "lost tribes" of Israel have been married in a massive, emotional ceremony, fulfilling for many a lifelong dream of starting a life in what they consider their homeland. "For the first time, 18 B'nei Menashe couples - equal to chai ['life' in Hebrew numerical equivalent] - married in a joint ceremony under the wedding canopy in Jerusalem. This symbolizes their successful absorption into Jewish and Israeli society, and we wish the couples a lot of joy and success," said Michael Freund, chairman of Shavei Israel, a Jerusalem-based immigrant organization working with the "lost" Jews. Shavei hopes to bring to the Jewish state the remaining 7,000 Indian citizens who believe they are the Bnei Menashe, the descendants of Manasseh, one of biblical patriarch Joseph's two sons and a grandson of Jacob, the man whose name was changed to Israel. The tribe lives in the two Indian states of Mizoram and Manipur, to which they claim to have been exiled from Israel more than 2,700 years ago by the Assyrian empire. This past August, WND reported Freund's group brought 230 Bnei Menashe to Israel; the new arrivals made their way to a Shavei Israel absorption center in northern Israel where they studied Hebrew and Torah. The batch of arrivals followed about 1,200 other Bnei Menashe brought here the past 10 years, largely with the help of Shavei Israel. Freund, who previously served as deputy communications director under former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, stressed the Bnei Menashe have been keeping Jewish customs for at least the past four decades and were well-off in India but came due to Zionist ideology. According to Bnei Menashe oral tradition, the tribe was exiled from Israel and pushed to the east, eventually settling in the border regions of China and India, where most remain today. Most kept customs similar to Jewish tradition, including observing Shabbat, keeping the laws of Kosher, practicing circumcision on the eighth day of a baby boy's life and observing laws of family purity. In the 1950s, several thousand Bnei Menashe say they set out on foot to Israel but were quickly halted by Indian authorities. Undeterred, many began practicing Orthodox Judaism and pledged to make it to Israel. They now attend community centers established by Shavei Israel to teach the Bnei Menashe Jewish tradition and modern Hebrew. - - - - http://www.worldnetdaily.com/?pageId=58667 FAIR USE NOTICE: This blog contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of religious, environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.