London church unveils temporary replica of Bethlehem’s “separation wall”

London church unveils temporary replica of Bethlehem’s “separation wall” [video]

Posted on December 27, 2013 by Tafline Laylin 

 

Too many people have an idealized picture in their head of what Bethlehem looks like today, but St. James Church in central London aims to change that with an 8 meter temporary tall wall that obscures the church’s façade.


A focal point of the Bethlehem Unwrapped Festival that officially kicks off on 29 December, 2013, the wall was built to create solidarity with the Palestinian people who live in Bethlehem and also to give Londoners a sense of what the traditional birthplace of Jesus is really like today.

“We’ve spend eight months planning to build this replica of the separation wall in Palestine and eight days,” said festival artistic director Justin Butcher in the following YouTube video. “It’s taken a lot of scaffolding and a lot of hard work… and today’s it’s gone up and we’ve done it.”

Constructed out of long, thin prefabricated concrete slabs, the wall blocks St. James Church from view, a reality organizers say people living in Bethlehem cope with on a daily basis.

But even as Palestinians face this massive obstruction and other difficulties in their lives, most people continue to think of the Bethlehem depicted in the bible – a myth perpetuated in churches and Christian schools throughout the globe.

“We’re unwrapping the traditional, Victorian, sentimental images of Christmas and showing this is what Bethlehem today looks like – an eight-meter high concrete separation wall surrounding it,” says Butcher.
“St. James’s Church Piccadilly is delighted to be hosting this festival…, says Lucy Winkett, the church’s Rector. “At Christmas, when will be singing ‘O Little Town of Bethlehem,’ we are glad to be in solidarity with the people of Bethlehem by celebrating the culture of the land that Jews, Muslims and Christians all call holy.”

Unveiled just two days before Christmas, the wall will be up until 5 January, 2014, and Winkett urges Londoners to come for a visit.

Rather than create further divisions with this controversial temporary construction however, the collaborators behind the project, including Amos Trust, Holy Land Trust in Bethlehem, Interpal, ICAHD UK, Jews for Justice for Palestinians, P21 Gallery,Tipping Point North South, War on Want and Zaytoun CIC, hope to create a warm and welcome space complete with good music, comedy, food and films.

“The most unhelpful thing you can do is be pro one side; it just adds to the conflict,” says Sami Awad, Director of Holy Land Trust. “We have to not only understand those people who are oppressing us, but try to walk in their shoes, and ultimately to really engage with what it means to love our enemies.”

People are encouraged to write personal messages of solidarity on the separation wall before it is disassembled.

Israel plans 1,400 more West Bank settlement homes, official says

JERUSALEM Fri Dec 27, 2013 3:21pm EST

(Reuters) - Israel plans to build 1,400 homes in its settlements in the occupied West Bank and will announce the projects next week after releasing a group of Palestinian prisoners, an Israeli official said on Friday.
The Palestinians have said any further expansion of Israeli settlements on land they seek for a state could derail U.S.-brokered peace talks that resumed in July after a three-year break and are set to last until April.
The United States said Israel had informed it of plans to release the group of prisoners on December 30, a day later than expected.

The release of about two dozen Palestinians, the third group to be freed since the peace talks resumed, is seen by the United States as a vital confidence-building measure.

"Although we had expected the release to occur on December 29, we have been informed that technical issues made it necessary to do the release a day later," State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said in a statement.

The Israeli government official said about 600 homes would be announced in Ramat Shlomo, a settlement of mainly Ultra-Orthodox Jews located in an area of the West Bank that Israel annexed to Jerusalem in a move unrecognized internationally.

Another 800 would be built in other West Bank settlements which Israel also plans to keep in any future peace deal, though the list was not yet finalized, the official - who spoke on condition of anonymity - said.
Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erekat said the move would "destroy the peace process" and could be met with retaliation.

"We in the Palestinian leadership would immediately present our application for membership in 63 international organizations, among them the International Criminal Court," the al-Quds newspaper quoted Erekat as saying on Friday.

An Israeli official had said on Wednesday that there were plans to announce more construction in Jewish settlements, but gave no figure for the number of new homes.

Palestinians see the settlements as an obstacle to achieving a viable state in East Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, territories Israel captured in the 1967 Middle East war. Most countries consider Israel's settlements there illegal.

The Palestinians won an upgrade to their U.N. status in 2012 from "entity" to "non-member state" in a vote perceived as a de facto recognition of statehood and have threatened to join the International Criminal Court to confront Israel there.

Earlier this year, however, the Palestinians agreed to suspend any actions at the United Nations in exchange for the release of scores of Palestinians in Israeli jails.

Israel agreed to release 104 long-serving Palestinian inmates convicted of killing Israelis at least 20 years ago as part of the package worked out by Washington to resume talks.

A previous round of negotiations broke down in 2010 in a dispute over settlement construction and since their revival this year, peace talks have shown little sign of progress.

(Additional reporting by Ali Sawafta and Noah Browning in Ramallah; Writing by Maayan Lubell; Editing by John Stonestreet/Ruth Pitchford, Chizu Nomiyama)

You see how they (Israelis) work it so that they give a token inch on one hand and take a mile on the other. Israelis Zionists have zero intention of letting Palestine remain in Palestinian hands. They are systematically taking every hectare they can, legally or illegally, it doesn't matter. The only thing that matters to Zionists is taking Palestine to create Greater Israel. Then Syria to create Greater Israel. Then Lebanon, then Iraq, all nations in the ancient fictitious Israel dreamland of Greater Israel. Look at their flag and remember what the blue lines symbolize. Nile to Euphrates.

More than 150 years after brutal slaughter, a small tribe returns home

Aljazeera

by Bill Donahue December 25, 2013 5:00AM ET

 

After losing much of their ancestry, the Wiyots are learning their traditions in preparation for a renewal

The Wiyot tribe is set to renew its place on Indian Island, which it called home until 1860.

Ben Margot/AP

EUREKA, Calif. — When a few canoes carrying a group of Wiyot tribal members to Indian Island cross the choppy waters of Humboldt Bay in March, it will not look as if anything particularly special is happening.
The nondescript, flat, marshy 275-acre island sits beneath a bridge upon which traffic whizzes by on busy Route 255. But what will take place will be remarkable: 153 years after Indian Island was the site of a brutal massacre of the Wiyot, it will bear witness to a ceremony of rebirth and testament of survival for a people brought to the brink of extinction.

For three days, beginning March 28, the Wiyot plan to perform a world renewal ceremony on the island. It will be the first time since the massacre that the ceremony — which once stood at the center of the tribe’s cultural life — has been performed, healing a gap of more than a century and a half.

For the tribe’s current members, it’s especially meaningful that the ceremony will take place on the very land where so many of their ancestors were killed.

“We need to complete the ceremony of 1860 for the ones who were lost,” said Ted Hernandez, chairman of the 645-member tribe.

The ceremony will act as a marker on a long and unlikely journey of survival. It is not easy to recover from a massacre, and that year the endured one of the worst ethnic slaughters in U.S. history as they danced and sang at a world renewal ceremony on Indian Island.

A posse of white settlers sneaked through the darkness one night in 1860 and murdered more than 50 Native American women and children, mostly with axes and hatchets.

“Amidst the wailing of mutilated infants,” The San Francisco Bulletin wrote at the time, “the savage blows are given, cutting through bone and brain.”

Nearby settlers carried out two more massacres that night, killing an additional 90 Indians, most of them Wiyot, and for more than a century it seemed the Wiyot were a destroyed people.

The tribe was at first shunted into a local Army fort known to the Wiyot as “jouwuchguri,” which translates as “lying down with your knees drawn up.” The Wiyot were forbidden to use their own language. The last fluent speakers eventually died off, and in 1958 the U.S. government, intent on mainstreaming Native Americans, stripped the Wiyot of their tribal status. Despair set in, along with alcoholism and drug abuse.
But slowly, the Wiyot began to recover. The Wiyot Nation, which finally regained tribal status in 1990, began the slow process of returning to Indian Island.

It never looked as though it would be an easy task.

Environmental injustice

The isle was diked shortly after the massacre, and the world renewal ceremony site, in a Wiyot village called Tuluwat, was turned into a shipyard in 1870. The yard’s owners eventually built a retaining wall out of toxic boat batteries and filled a decrepit paint shed with barrels of chemicals. In the early 1900s, amateur archaeologists descended on Tuluwat with shovels to dig for Wiyot bones. The graveyard there became a series of plundered swales.
 
Despite all that, around 1970, Wiyot tribal chair Albert James began talking about taking the 1.5-acre Tuluwat site back.

“It’s the center of our world,” said his niece Cheryl Seidner, a Wiyot elder. “Our ancestors have always lived there, and Albert was envisioning a cultural center and a museum.”

The dream was of a piece with other, contemporaneous native campaigns. From 1969 to 1971, American Indians occupied Alcatraz Island, off San Francisco, aiming to take it back from the federal government. Likewise, in 1973, armed Lakota activists occupied the town of Wounded Knee, S.D., for 71 days, intent on wresting control from the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Neither effort ended with a land transfer, and the Wiyot’s hopes for Indian Island also sank under the weight of hard realities.

“The Tuluwat site was owned by one family, and we couldn’t even get to it without permission,” Seidner said.

In 1990, though, the Tuluwat site came up for sale. Seidner, then an administrative assistant at Humboldt State University, approached the Wiyot tribal council, proposing that it buy the property.

“They told me, ‘You don't have a right to propose that,’” she recalled. “And I was a good kid. I stepped back.”

The world has changed, and the Wiyot have changed with it … but we still need our traditions. We need something to hold on to.

 Cheryl Seidner

Wiyot elder

But then in the late 1990s, Seidner became the Wiyot’s tribal chair, and the Tuluwat site went up for sale again. The asking price was $106,000. In 1999, at a meeting of the National Congress of American Indians, in Palm Springs, Calif., a friend of hers — a Pauma Indian, Juana Majel-Dixon — stood on a table beseeching the 1,400 attendees to help Seidner with a down payment before passing around a paper bag.
“When I got back to my hotel room and counted the money,” Seidner said, “we had raised $40,000. I was dumbfounded.”

The Wiyot bought the Tuluwat site in 2000. Six years later, Seidner convinced the city of Eureka to return an additional 60-acre swath of Indian Island to the Wiyot.

Still, a nightmare lingered: The Tuluwat site remained a toxic waste dump.

“It was a classic case of environmental injustice,” said Stephen Kullman, who works as the Wiyot’s director of natural resources. “The land was stolen from the Wiyot and then polluted. Then after they purchased it back, they were responsible for the cleanup. Luckily, it’s a compelling story for a grant proposal.”

‘We’ve lost that memory’

Over the past 13 years, the Wiyot have raised $2.8 million in cleanup aid from myriad agencies, including the Environmental Protection Agency and the National Park Service Historic Preservation Fund. The wall of leaking boat batteries has come down. Archaeologists trained in handling hazardous waste removed the topmost three feet of soil in one toxic patch of Tuluwat, searching each spadeful for artifacts. A Eureka oyster company donated crushed shells, and the Wiyot sprinkled them around Tuluwat so the soil there is speckled white and resembles the shell midden on which their ancestors lived.

And the island will once again host the world renewal ceremony. There will be about four hours of prayer-like jump dances each of the three days — some of them performed by the Wiyot, others by the Yurok and the Hupa, two neighboring California tribes. After fasting for up to seven days, the Wiyot dancers, both men and women, lined up in rows, dressed in traditional beads and shell necklaces, will bear handmade willow baskets as they sway and leap skyward.

Near the dancers, a fragile and ancient Wiyot dress will hang on display. About a century old, apron-like and adorned with local seeds and glass and shell beads, the Grandmother Dress is one of the only surviving Wiyot ceremonial dresses. It is currently showcased at the Museum of the American Indian in Washington, and several Wiyot have made pilgrimages there to view the dress.

The dancers will endeavor, as Hernandez put it, “to heal the world of all the wars we’re having now, all the atrocities — to make everything fall into place.”

The dances won’t be based strictly on Wiyot tradition.

“No one knows what the Wiyot dances were like,” Hernandez said. “We’ve lost that memory. So we are learning from a Yurok dancer. We’re figuring out how to do it.”

None of this will ruin the ceremony for Seidner, however.

“The world has changed,” Seidner said, “and the Wiyot have changed with it. We don’t live in redwood slab houses anymore, but we still need our traditions. We need something to hold on to. And when we gather on Indian Island, we’ll be saying, ‘We’re here, and we’re trying to put the pieces of our culture together.’”


I noticed Aljazeera picked up the Indian Island Massacre story in my Aljazeera news email and thought it's a good thing this story is getting around finally. 

Edward Snowden Christmas message: End mass surveillance

25 December 2013 Last updated at 11:58 ET

Edward Snowden: ''Asking is cheaper than spying''

Ex-National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden has delivered an "alternative" UK Christmas message, urging an end to mass surveillance.

The broadcast was carried on Channel 4 as an alternative to the Queen's traditional Christmas message.
Mr Snowden focused on privacy, saying: "A child born today will grow up with no conception of privacy at all."

The 30-year-old has temporary asylum in Russia after leaking details of US electronic surveillance programmes.

'Mission accomplished'

  Mr Snowden opened his two-minute message, recorded in Russia, with a reference to novelist George Orwell, author of 1984, saying the surveillance technology described in his works was "nothing compared to what we have today".

He said: "A child born today will grow up with no conception of privacy at all. They'll never know what it means to have a private moment to themselves, an unrecorded, unanalysed thought.

"The conversation occurring today will determine the amount of trust we can place both in the technology that surrounds us and the government that regulates it.

"Together we can find a better balance, end mass surveillance and remind the government that if it really wants to know how we feel, asking is always cheaper than spying."

Channel 4's alternative Christmas message has in the past featured Iran's then-President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad and fictional characters Ali G and Marge Simpson.

Earlier this week, Mr Snowden told the Washington Post: "In terms of personal satisfaction, the mission's already accomplished. I already won."

Mr Snowden was granted temporary asylum in Russia on 1 August.
He fled the US in late May, taking a huge cache of secret documents with him. He faces espionage charges in the US.

 

"I didn't want to change society. I wanted to give society a chance to determine if it should change itself," he told the Post.

"All I wanted was for the public to be able to have a say in how they are governed."

Last week, a federal judge declared the mass collection of telephone data unconstitutional and a presidential advisory panel suggested reforms.

Both the judge and the panel said there was little evidence that any terrorist plot had been thwarted by the programme.

A few days later, in his end-of-year news conference, US President Barack Obama suggested there might be a review of surveillance by the NSA.

In light of "disclosures that have taken place" and public concerns about the programmes, there might be "another way of skinning the cat", he said.

However, he accused Mr Snowden of causing "unnecessary damage" by leaking documents.
President Obama said he would make a "definitive statement" in January about recommendations by the White House panel.

Obama 0     Snowden 10

The Journey of EL and Asherah

The Journey of EL and Asherah

from ancient Canaan to modern times

Long ago in a land called Canaan the people there worshipped EL, God Most High, and His wife, Asherah, the Great Mother and Lady of the Sea. On earth they were said to have lived where two rivers met on the coastlands. They were happy on earth and the land EL had fashioned and Asherah had nurtured. They had many children who squabbled amongst themselves competing for EL and Asherah’s attention and benevolence. 

These children behaved themselves for the most part but these were also ancient times and the law of the jungle and desert was still fresh in everyone’s mind. That is everyone but Mom and Dad, or Asherah and EL who being the highest representatives of the invisible Holy One, knew better ways of dealing with the problems of life in Creation.

EL had watched how His wild and domesticated animals behaved in their herds, flocks and packs and noticed most human beings followed much the same patterns only human beings clothed their animal behavior patterns so it seemed at first something different. But it wasn’t different at all. EL watched male wolves battle for control of the pack and saw the same thing in the way aggressive human males conducted politics and war. 

EL watched but didn’t judge because that was what animal life was like without knowledge of good and evil. Tooth and claw and no mercy from the strong for the weak or meek. EL wisely understood that this animal way could not continue with humanity that He had created with Asherah of the waters for He and She wanted human beings to evolve to become one with them on earth as it is in heaven where They came from. 

EL decided to educate humanity on how to overcome their animal natures so that peace and not violence ruled in human society. He told them through the mouths of seers and prophets, "Here is what pleases US. This physical world We have fashioned for the education of your souls has a fatal flaw. Physical life is dependent on death to carry on. No new life is created without the death of life somewhere else. The physical requirements for maintaining the living require the death of other living beings. 

Given the true situation that death and suffering are inevitable in Creation, what can be done? EL responded and set in motion a set of guidelines for reducing unnecessary violence in the physical world. Later on He offered humanity what only a God can offer: eternal life after physical death, eternal life in heaven where the Holy One has Its spiritual and everlasting home.

EL began the spiritual education of His children in Canaan. He showed them that in order for there to be peace in the land society must be governed by the wise and compassionate just as He ruled the Divine Assembly of gods and goddesses with wisdom and compassion. An earthly king would become His son in spirit when that earthly king mirrored EL’s mercy and forgiveness and taught his subjects the truth about all things that effected human relationships with one another and with the community of life on earth. 

Because EL was God Most High yet did not act like a tyrant like gods did who lacked compassion and wisdom, the Canaanites loved EL, calling Him the Compassionate One, the Merciful One, the Kindly One as well as the Father of Humanity. And the Canaanites loved His wife, Asherah, just as much devoting much prayer at shrines dedicated to Her worship. To them She was the Tree of Life on which all life was dependent. 

She too held wisdom and when the time came that the memory of EL and Asherah were to be lost for many centuries after the fall of Canaan to the Hebrews, both EL and Asherah disguised Themselves and found a way into the new Hebrew religion with its own desert war god, Yahweh. EL became the generic word for "God" and some, not all, but some of EL’s compassion and wisdom was attached to Yahweh who originally was only one of the lower gods and spiritual sons of EL.

Having some of EL’s spiritual wisdom in him, Yahweh grew conceited and thought himself as the Creator and one and only God. Yahweh taught the Hebrews to bury the Canaanite memory of EL but that memory was too strong to forget and it resurfaced in the Hebrew religion as the Messianic prophesy of Immanuel, which means "EL is with us". 

Asherah was attacked as a Goddess and so She went into Her Canaanite icon disguise as the Tree of Life in the Hebrew religious epic. Perhaps as a tree the Hebrews would not recognize the Great Goddess. And they didn’t, passing the Tree of Life story through the whole Hebrew epic which became part of the later Christian epic as well. 

While the Hebrews would not allow Her presence as the Great Goddess they did not notice Her presence in two spiritual daughters, the Shekkinah and Sophia, both carriers of the wisdom of Asherah to the minds of human beings who listened with their hearts. 

A dramatic change happened 2000 years ago when a man named Jesus was born to become a new son of EL, a son so spiritually close to EL he became known as the Son of God. Jesus resurrected the wisdom and compassion of EL buried for centuries under the worship of Yahweh. This was the fulfillment of the prophesy of the Messiah as Immanuel, that EL would return to humanity to give it the spiritual comfort of knowing "EL is with us" as the Messiah, the anointed one who carries the Spirit of Christ which continued the kindness and wisdom of EL instead of the heavy judgment and demand for absolute obedience that the war-god Yahweh could not rise above. 

EL was always known as God Most High and for good reason. Only EL knew love is not love if it demands conditions. EL learned this wisdom by being married to the Great Mother for it is the unconditional love mothers have always been known for. Jesus as the good Son of God also gave the world this spiritual message of unconditional love the Holy One’s highest spiritual representatives, EL and Asherah, had shown the world in ancient Canaan. 

Humanity, however, at that time, 2000 years ago, was still too immature to accept this Son of God, Jesus as he himself taught the things his heavenly Father taught him. The Hebrews had him killed for claiming himself a son of God even though their own scriptures foretold this would happen. Jesus taught us to follow him ourselves to likewise becoming faithful sons and daughters of the Holy One but the Hebrews and their masters, the Romans did not want to hear it. 

Jesus was killed and later on lesser men intervened and changed the message of Jesus from EL, changed that message of compassion, wisdom and forgiveness, into a message from Yahweh, love only those who love Yahweh instead of loving all, even those who do not love you in return. 

Yahweh had never learned about unconditional love because he was never married to the Great Mother, the representative of the unconditional love of the Holy One for all humanity. EL taught Jesus to respect the wisdom of women, something the followers of Yahweh could not comprehend until history of societies proved the wisdom was true: it is women who hold the keys to peace for the vast majority of violence done by human beings is done by men.

But this knowledge was not known and even when known was not accepted. EL and Asherah still had to hide Themselves because the people could not accept them as They were--the spiritual models of humanity in the fullest sense of that word while the people were still in bondage to their animal behavioral patterns where the strong and ruthless ruled as lords over the weak. Even now, 2000 years later the Meek still await the time when they will inherit the earth from the grasp of violent men.

But how did EL and Asherah disguise Themselves so well that They are with us today and have been for several hundred years? This is how: EL was imagined in ancient Canaan as an old man with long flowing hair and beard. EL dressed Himself up in the colors of Asherah, white, red and black which symbolized His connection to Her in Her three forms as virgin, mother and crone symbolizing birth, life and death. EL became the embodiment of the giving Spirit of Christ and eternal life with the Holy One, the greatest gift humankind could possibly receive. EL, the Kindly One, disguised Himself as kindly Santa Claus and the Spirit of Christmas cheer. 

Asherah, still in Her disguise as the Tree of Life became the nine-candlestick menorah of the Jews, nine commemorating the nine months of gestation. You will find Her in millions of Jewish homes again celebrating Passover. For the Christians, Asherah as the the Tree of Life, became the Paradise Tree celebrating the birth of Jesus who manifested his spiritual Parent’s wisdom and loving-kindness in little Nativity scenes in tens of millions of homes beneath Asherahs we call Christmas trees.

Noël, Noël. Know EL, the Heavenly Father and you might want to become one of His helping "elves"". Remember Asherah, the Tree of Life with Her baby Jesus tucked safely underneath Her fir branch skirt. The Holy One doesn’t want us to forget our heavenly parents.

AP News Update 12/23/02

In a room crowded with reporters Odin the God publicly announced his filing suit against EL for claiming to be the inspiration behind Santa Claus. Odin bases his case on two main points: 1) the resemblance he shows to Saint Nicholas, long beard and hair and all, but that argument applies also to EL's appearance and even Father Time alias the Ancient of Days and the Grime Reaper. But then Odin brought out his winning card he said smiling a huge grimace to the press: his flying eight-legged horse which he says "obviously inspired the flying eight reindeers that pulled Santa through the air. 

The logic of his argument would have had more impact, however, if he hadn't pulled out the spear he always carried and hurled it at a woman in the audience who claimed the poetry he sent her was derivative. Luckily Odin missed in his rage and was then seized by police and hauled off to jail. The turbulent scene would have quieted down after Odin's arrest except another woman identifying herself as Mrs. Santa Claus said she was filing divorce papers against Santa for two-timing her with Asherah..some people were heard muttering about the soap operas these gods get into..

Merry Christmas everyone

  

Richard Branson: Boycott Uganda over gay rights

BBC News

24 December 2013 Last updated at 06:38 ET

Richard Branson attended the funeral of Nelson Mandela last week

UK business tycoon Richard Branson has called on companies and tourists to boycott Uganda after its parliament approved a bill to toughen the punishment for homosexual acts. 

It was against his conscience to support a country which carried out a "dreadful witch hunt against the gay community", he said on his website.

The bill proposes a life sentence for certain homosexual acts.
It has been condemned by world leaders since it was mooted in 2009.
US President Barack Obama called it "odious".

Mr Branson said he had been seriously considering investing in Uganda after being "courted" by government officials.

“Governments must realise that people should be able to love whoever they want” Richard Branson UK businessman

However, he had decided not to "support" Uganda because of its "witch hunt" against gay people.

"I would urge other companies worldwide to follow suit. Uganda must reconsider or find it being ostracised by companies and tourists worldwide," Mr Branson said.

Mr Branson is the founder of Virgin Group, which has more than 400 companies worldwide, focusing mainly on travel, entertainment and telecommunications.

He is also a leading philanthropist who supported charities set up by South Africa's first black President, Nelson Mandela.

Mr Branson attended Mr Mandela's funeral last week.
"Governments must realise that people should be able to love whoever they want," he said.
He said it was not for any government "to ever make any judgements on people's sexuality".

"They should instead celebrate when people build loving relationships that strengthen society, no matter who they are," he added.

Uganda's President Yoweri Museveni has not yet signed the bill into law while Prime Minister Amama Mbabazi opposed the vote in parliament on the grounds that there was no quorum.

Some gay Ugandans have fled the country, saying they are being persecuted

However, MPs pushed ahead with the vote.

The bill's supporters say it protects traditional family values, which they allege are under attack from Western-inspired gay rights groups.

The private member's bill originally proposed the death penalty for some offences, such as if a minor was involved or the perpetrator was HIV-positive, but this has been replaced with life in prison.

The bill also makes it a crime punishable by a prison sentence not to report gay people to the police.

Pope Francis On Gays: Who Am I To Judge Them?

By Paul Brandeis Raushenbush Posted: 07/29/2013 8:01 am EDT  |  Updated: 07/29/2013 11:34 am EDT

Pope Francis has had a busy week at World Youth Day in Rio as he visited his slums and prisons, blessed the Olympic flag and brought three million people to Copacabana Beach for a final Mass on Sunday morning.

Now he has made another headline, this time when the pontiff said, "Who am I to judge a gay person?"
While taking questions from reporters on the plane back to Rome, Francis spoke about gays and the reported "gay lobby." According to the Wall Street Journal, the Pope's comments about homosexuality came in the context of a question about gay priests.

The pontiff broached the delicate question of how he would respond to learning that a cleric in his ranks was gay, though not sexually active. For decades, the Vatican has regarded homosexuality as a "disorder," and Pope Francis' predecessor Pope Benedict XVI formally barred men with what the Vatican deemed "deep-seated" homosexuality from entering the priesthood.

 "Who am I to judge a gay person of goodwill who seeks the Lord?" the pontiff said, speaking in Italian. "You can't marginalize these people."
John Allen of the National Catholic Reporter reported on the meeting as well and said the Pope also addressed the question of the Vatican's reported "gay lobby".

He hasn’t run into significant resistance to reform inside the Vatican, and joked that if there really is a “gay lobby” he hasn’t yet seen it stamped on anyone’s ID cards.

Father James Martin, S.J. who is an admirer of Francis, said that the pontiff's comment about gay people is consistent with the rest of his papacy.

"One of Francis's hallmarks is an emphasis on mercy, which you see in that response. That mercy, of course, comes from Jesus. And we can never have too much of it."

The pope did not offer much hope for those advocating for women Catholic priests, according to Allen at NCR, saying: Pope John Paul II “definitively … closed the door' to women priests.
More from the Associated Press:

ABOARD THE PAPAL AIRCRAFT — Pope Francis reached out to gays on Monday, saying he wouldn't judge priests for their sexual orientation in a remarkably open and wide-ranging news conference as he returned from his first foreign trip. 

"If someone is gay and he searches for the Lord and has good will, who am I to judge?" Francis asked.

His predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI, signed a document in 2005 that said men with deep-rooted homosexual tendencies should not be priests. Francis was much more conciliatory, saying gay clergymen should be forgiven and their sins forgotten.
Francis' remarks came Monday during a plane journey back to the Vatican from his first foreign trip in Brazil.
He was funny and candid during a news conference that lasted almost an hour and a half. He didn't dodge a single question, even thanking the journalist who raised allegations reported by an Italian newsmagazine that one of his trusted monsignors was involved in a scandalous gay tryst.
Francis said he investigated and found nothing to back up the allegations.
Francis was asked about Italian media reports suggesting that a group within the church tried to blackmail fellow church officials with evidence of their homosexual activities. Italian media reported this year that the allegations contributed to Benedict's decision to resign
While stressing Catholic social teaching that calls for homosexuals to be treated with dignity and not marginalized, Francis said it was something else entirely to conspire to use private information for blackmail or to exert pressure.
Francis was responding to reports that a trusted aide was involved in an alleged gay tryst a decade ago. He said he investigated the allegations according to canon law and found nothing to back them up. But he took journalists to task for reporting on the matter, saying the allegations concerned matters of sin, not crimes like sexually abusing children.
And when someone sins and confesses, he said, God not only forgives but forgets.
"We don't have the right to not forget," he said.

"Who Am I To Judge Them?"  

The guy's the Pope! I don't know about you but I'm getting to really like Francis! He gets it! 

He gets what Jesus and being a Christian is really all about.  

If Francis keeps it up I might just become some sort of Celestial Torah Catholic Christian. 

My grandma was one after all. A Jewish Converso we grandspawn now think. 

I do remember those bright shiny St. Christopher medallions I so very much wanted as a kid. 

Now he's in the doghouse I hear..  

Devyani Khobragade: New York maids protest at Indian consulate

21 December 2013 

Last updated at 03:12 GMT

Domestic workers who were exploited and abused in the US by foreign diplomats have held a rally outside the Indian consulate in New York.

It was the latest development in an international row sparked by last week's arrest of Indian diplomat Devyani Khobragade on suspicion of visa fraud and making false statements.

She was accused of underpaying her Indian maid Sangeeta Richard, but she has denied all the charges and was later released on bail. The Indian government has reacted angrily claiming Khobragade is a victim.

The protestors outside the Indian consulate said they wanted to highlight the plight of the maid in the case. They are calling for all countries to agree minimum legal standards of work.

UN welcomes Iran’s participation in Syria conference: Brahimi

Sunday 22 December 2013

TEHRAN – The United Nations welcomes Iran’s participation in peace talks on Syria in Switzerland next month but negotiators have failed to reach an agreement on whether Iran should be invited, UN and Arab League envoy on Syria Lakhdar Brahimi said on Friday, Al Arabiya reported.    Brahimi said the delegations to the Geneva 2 conference have been agreed upon except for Iran. He said some 26 nations had been asked to join the conference.    The UN Syria envoy said the conference in Montreux will include Saudi Arabia, but the United States remains unconvinced that Iran's participation “would be the right thing to do.”    “On Iran, we haven't agreed yet. It's no secret that we in the United Nations welcome the participation of Iran, but our partners in the United States are still not convinced that Iran's participation would be the right thing to do,” he said in remarks carried by AFP.    Tehran has said it would attend Geneva 2 if invited.   According to Reuters, Brahimi also said he would continue to work with Iranian officials if they were not officially invited. He said they had told UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon it would not be the end of the world if they were not present, and they would continue to work with him on the sidelines.   Brahimi’s statements to reporters came after a Friday meeting with U.S. and Russian delegations to try to agree which nations should be invited.   The veteran mediator’s intensive shuttle diplomacy between Geneva, the Middle East and the capitals of world powers last month helped finally set Jan. 22 as the start date for talks.   Iran has said that the only viable solution to the Syrian conflict is the holding of free elections with the participation of all political groups.   A senior U.S. official said on Friday it was “difficult to imagine” Iran attending Syrian peace talks next month as it had not endorsed the June 2012 communique calling for a transitional government and was providing support to Damascus.   The official said talks would continue with Brahimi and other states on Iran's participation in the peace talks, but there were many ways for Tehran to take part and this was only the beginning of the process.   State Department spokesman Jennifer Psaki said on Friday U.S. concerns about Iran participating in Syria talks are about “what the understanding is of participants, about what the goal of a Geneva conference would be. If they have a different goal, their participation does not seem particularly helpful,” according to Bloomberg Businessweek.    EP/PA

U.S. as Israel's puppet state, blocks Iran participation in U.N. peace talks

BBC news

Syria crisis: 'No deal' on Iran presence at peace talks

UN's Lakhdar Brahimi: "The United States are still not convinced that Iran's participation is the right thing to do"

International negotiators have failed to agree on whether to invite Iran to peace talks over the Syrian conflict, the UN-Arab League envoy on Syria said. 

Lakhdar Brahimi said the US remained unconvinced that Iran's participation "would be the right thing to do".
He said some 26 nations had been asked to join the conference, which is due to be held in Switzerland next month.

The US, UN and Russia have been struggling for months to get the talks, known as Geneva II, off the ground.

The conference aims to ensure the delivery of humanitarian aid, end the fighting and outline a political transition for Syria.

Obstacles remain Mr Brahimi met American and Russian delegations in the Swiss city of Geneva to finalise the list of nations partaking in the planned peace talks on 22 January.

"On Iran, we haven't agreed yet," he told reporters on Friday. "It's no secret that we in the United Nations welcome the participation of Iran, but our partners in the United States are still not convinced."

America opposes Iran's presence, because of Teheran's support for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
Mr Brahimi stressed he would continue to work with Iranian officials if they were not officially invited.

"The Iranian authorities have told us that they'd like to come to Geneva, but if it's not possible, it's not the end of the world - they support this process and they will work with us," he said.
 “There's deep frustration in the aid community that a world which came together to deal with Syria's chemical weapons arsenal cannot do the same when it comes to tackling a deepening humanitarian crisis”

Lyse Doucet Chief international correspondent

 

Mr Brahimi announced that Syria's neighbours Qatar, Saudi Arabia would join Geneva II.

Other nations attending include the so-called P-5 group, made up of Britain, China, France, Russia and the US.

Meanwhile, Russia said Syria would be represented by its Foreign Minister Walid Muallem.
The Syrian government previously said it would attend Geneva II in principle, but would accept no preconditions and refuses to negotiate with "terrorists", its term for almost all its political and military opponents.

The opposition has said any political solution to the crisis must include the removal of Mr Assad.
This latest delay in finalising the participants does not bode well for the peace talks themselves, the BBC's Imogen Foulkes, in Geneva, reports.

Our correspondent says many obstacles remain - chief among them continued disagreement among opposition forces, some of whom are already saying they will not recognise any agreement the talks may come to.

The UN estimates that more than two million people have fled Syria since the unrest began in March 2011 resulting in a humanitarian crisis.

Most have sought refuge in Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey, Iraq and Egypt.
More than 100,000 people are estimated to have been killed since the conflict began.

Donations to allow blind NY man who fell on subway tracks to keep guide dog

Published December 19, 2013

Associated Press

• 

NEW YORK –  Enough donations have been raised to allow a blind man to keep the aging guide dog that went onto the subway tracks with him when the man lost consciousness and fell from a station platform, officials say.

"The spirit of giving, Christmas ... exists in New York," a tearful Cecil Williams said Wednesday, calling the outpouring of money and good will a "miracle."

"It's a time to rejoice," Williams said.

Michelle Brier, a spokeswoman for Guiding Eyes for the Blind, which provides working dogs for free but cannot cover retired dogs' expenses, said Thursday that "as of right now," Williams plans to keep Orlando as a pet after Orlando retires and Williams gets a new working dog early next year.

Brier added that "it's an emotional time" and the organization will support whatever path he ultimately takes. The family that raised Orlando has said it would be thrilled to take in Orlando if Williams is unable to care for two dogs.

"I'm not a crybaby or nothing. But my eyes are misty and I'm tearing right now because things like this here don't happen for everybody," Williams said at the hospital. "They should happen. We should care about one another. We should do for one another. But it's not always that way."

Williams expressed gratitude to all of the people involved in his rescue and those who donated money to help him keep his "best buddy."

"I'd like to say thank you but I'm trying to look for some more words to describe how I really feel," he said.
He urged the public to support other disabled people who need guide dogs. Guiding Eyes said any leftover donations would be used for that purpose.

Williams, 61, and Orlando both escaped serious injury Tuesday when they were bumped by a train passing over them — a miraculous end to a harrowing ordeal that began when Williams felt faint on his way to the dentist.

Witnesses said Orlando barked frantically and tried to stop Williams from tumbling off the platform. Matthew Martin told the New York Post that Orlando leaped onto the tracks as the train approached and licked Williams to entice him to move.

Williams doesn't remember much about the incident because he lost consciousness. He recalls that Orlando tried to brace him against the fall and thinks momentum may have propelled the harnessed dog onto the tracks with him.

"He stayed with me. He was licking my face," Williams said. "He's a very gentle gentleman."

Indian diplomat's arrest: Parties demand apology from US for 'barbaric' treatment to Khobragade

PTI : New Delhi, Tue Dec 17 2013, 20:50 hrs

Arrested Indian Deputy Consul General to US Devyani Khobragade

Political parties expressed outrage over the "shameful and barbaric" treatment meted out to Indian diplomat Devyani Khobragade in New York and asked the government to take every step matching US action till it gives an unconditional apology.

"The incidents should be condemned by all. More steps should be taken till the US gives an unconditional apology," Union Minister and Congress leader Kamal Nath said as India announced a slew of measures curtailing privileges of US diplomats here.

"India should take the lead in sending a message to the US authorities," he said.
Main opposition BJP asked the government to take up the matter strongly with the American establishment and even demanded arrest of American gay partners in India.

"The way she was arrested after being handcuffed, kept with drug addicts and strip-searched in the police station, that is condemnable, reprehensible and regrettable and in clear violation of conventions," BJP leader Ravi Shankar Prasad said.

Taking a dig at the UPA government, he said that the treatment given to the Indian diplomat by the US "does not accord to the level of friendship that the Indian government claims to have with the US".
"We would urge the Indian government, which tries to match each and every step of the US, to take serious action in this matter to establish the Indian sovereignty and prestige of its diplomatic community," he said.
Reacting sharply to the arrest of the diplomat, former External Affairs Minister Yashwant Sinha said the government should hit back by punishing same sex companions of US diplomats in India following the Supreme Court ruling on gay sex.

"Media has reported that we have issued visas to a number of US diplomats' companions. 'Companions' means that they are of the same sex. Now, after the Supreme Court ruling, it is completely illegal in our country, just as paying less wages was illegal in the US," the senior BJP leader said referring to visas issued to same sex 'companions' of US diplomats living in India.

WTF happened to my country? We do this stuff now too? On top of all the murdering of political opponents and subversion of foreign governments and economies, we attack utterly beautiful women too? This is North Korean style U.S. government. I don't know about you but I think it's time for a mass rental of the old Network movie, ya know what I mean?

NSA mass phone surveillance programme 'unconstitutional'

Carney: Snowden "should be returned to the United States as soon as possible"

A US judge has ruled the National Security Agency's mass collection of telephone data unconstitutional.

Federal District Judge Richard Leon said the electronic spy agency's practice was an "arbitrary invasion".
The agency's collection of "metadata" including telephone numbers and times and dates of calls was brought to light by ex-NSA contractor Edward Snowden.

The White House dismissed the suggestion Mr Snowden receive amnesty if he stopped leaking documents.
In his ruling in a Washington DC federal court on Monday, Mr Leon called the NSA's surveillance programme "indiscriminate" and an "almost Orwellian technology that enables the government to store and analyze the phone metadata of every telephone user in the United States".

'Irreparable harm'

A former NSA general counsel told the BBC the government would have a difficult time appealing the ruling

The ruling came in a lawsuit brought by conservative activist Larry Klayman, a user of a Verizon mobile telephone who challenged the NSA's collection of metadata on his behalf and that of a client.
The NSA had ordered Verizon - one of the largest phone companies in the US - to disclose metadata, including telephone numbers, calling card numbers and the serial numbers of phones, of all calls it processes in which at least one party is in the US.

Mr Leon ruled the plaintiffs had demonstrated "a substantial likelihood of success on the merits of their Fourth Amendment claim and that they will suffer irreparable harm absent… relief", referring to the clause in the US constitution that bars unreasonable search and seizure by the government.
He issued a preliminary injunction against the NSA surveillance programme but suspended the order to allow for an appeal by the justice department.

Through Glenn Greenwald, a journalist with whom he has close ties, Mr Snowden issued a statement hailing the ruling.

"I acted on my belief that the NSA's mass surveillance programs would not withstand a constitutional challenge, and that the American public deserved a chance to see these issues determined by open courts," he wrote, according to the New York Times.

"Today, a secret program authorized by a secret court was, when exposed to the light of day, found to violate Americans' rights," he added. "It is the first of many."

Former NSA general counsel Stewart Baker told the BBC's Katty Kay the ruling was "overcomeable" on appeal, but that Mr Leon's lengthy, detailed opinion would pose a "real burden" to the US government.
"This issue is going to get litigated and it's going to be difficult for the government for some months or even years to come," he said.

Earlier in the day, the White House rejected the suggestion that Mr Snowden be granted amnesty, a day after a top NSA official publicly suggested a deal could be reached to keep Mr Snowden from leaking more documents.

White House spokesman Jay Carney said the US government continues to press Russia - where Mr Snowden has been granted asylum - to return him to the US.

"There's been no change in our position," he told reporters.

"He faces felony charges here, he ought to be returned to the United States, again, where he will face full due process and protection under our system of justice, that we hope he will avail himself of."

On Sunday, Richard Ledgett, head of the NSA's task force investigating damage from Mr Snowden's leaks, discussed the possibility of an amnesty deal on the US television channel CBS.

"My personal view is, yes it's worth having a conversation about," he said.
"I would need assurances that the remainder of the data could be secured, and my bar for those assurances would be very high, would be more than just an assertion on his part."

'Personal opinion'

The NSA has been making efforts to be seen as more transparent

 

Mr Carney said on Monday that the proposal represented Mr Ledgett's "personal opinion" and such decisions were ultimately made by the Department of Justice.

Earlier, NSA Director Gen Keith Alexander also dismissed the idea.
"This is analogous to a hostage taker taking 50 people hostage, shooting 10, and then say, 'if you give me full amnesty, I'll let the other 40 go'. What do you do?"

Earlier this month, Alan Rusbridger, editor of the Guardian newspaper, which has published many of the Snowden documents, told UK MPs that only 1% of files leaked by Mr Snowden had been published by the newspaper.

The US has charged Mr Snowden with theft of government property, unauthorised communication of national defence information, and wilful communication of classified communications intelligence.
Each of the charges carries a maximum 10-year prison sentence.

At the weekend, the NSA allowed a CBS television crew into its headquarters for the first time, in an effort to be more open about what the agency does with the data it collects.

Qatari-funded fuel enters Gaza to ease power crisis

Sun Dec 15, 2013 11:54am GMT

By Nidal al-Mughrabi

GAZA, Dec 15 (Reuters) - Israel allowed the entry of 450,000 litres of fuel, paid for by Qatar, into the Gaza Strip on Sunday to enable the Palestinian territory's sole power plant to resume operations.

Gaza's 1.8 million people have been enduring daily blackouts of around 12 hours since the power plant was switched off 43 days ago due to a fuel shortage caused by neighbouring Egypt's closure of smuggling tunnels.
"Hopefully, the power plant will gradually resume full operation during the day. The fuel we are receiving from Qatar will allow us only to return to the old schedule of eight hours of cuts followed by eight hours of power," said Ahmed Abu Al-Amrain of the Gaza energy authority.

Qatar answered an appeal by Gaza's government, led by the Islamist Hamas group, after four days of torrential rains that killed two people and forced the evacuation of more than 5,000 residents from flooded homes, some accessible only by boat.

The Gulf state, which is spending $450 million in construction projects in Gaza, will pay $10 million to Hamas's West Bank-based rival, President Mahmoud Abbas's Palestinian Authority, which ordered the fuel for the enclave from Israel.

Severe weather in the form of heavy snow also paralysed Palestinian cities such as Hebron in the occupied West Bank, as well as Jerusalem and parts of Israel's northern Galilee, but skies were largely clear on Sunday as crews worked to clear roads and restore electricity to thousands of homes.

Ismail Haniyeh, prime minister of the Hamas-run government, said Qatar was also sending a ship loaded with fuel to Israel's Mediterranean port of Ashdod for transfer to the Gaza Strip.

Those supplies, officials said, should keep the power plant partially running for at least 90 days.
Under years of Israeli sanctions, Gazan businesses cobbled together a smuggling-fuelled economy that sustained the territory. But the Egyptian military, which in July overthrew a Muslim Brotherhood government that had been sympathetic to Hamas, sees the Palestinian group as a security threat and has closed most of the 1,200 tunnels that ran under the frontier.

That may have choked off supplies of weapons as intended, but also of commercial goods including construction materials and cheap Egyptian petrol. Patchy alternative supplies of electricity from Israel's grid have meant 12-hour blackouts every day.

On Sunday, some Gazans were able to return to their houses after rescue teams pumped water from flooded streets. But many others were unable to leave their dwellings and government officials said at least 4,000 people were still in shelters.

The Hamas government said Qatar will also allocate $5 million to aid Gaza residents affected by the storm. An initial assessment issued by the government put damage caused to homes, businesses and infrastructure at $64 million.

(Reporting by Nidal Almughrabi, Editing by Jeffrey Heller and Janet Lawrence)

 This is a Reuter's news service report and it included this promotion of Israel's view of Hamas embedded within it that I have placed here: "Israel has no direct dealings with Hamas, a group that is dedicated to its destruction.", with a reminder that Reuter's has not balanced Israel's opinion with the reasons why Hamas exists in the first place as the primary Palestinian organized resistance to Israeli aggression and takeover of as much of Palestine as they can get their hands on. But more than this exposure of how Reuters and other news services embed biases in their stories that keep the public misinformed as to true social newsworthy I-P events and the reasons why they happen. Has it made the national American news that fellow Arab Muslims are giving humanitarian aid to Palestinians in dire straights caused by Israeli aggression against Palestinian society in Gaza? Again Israel shows its unable to be a good neighbor and overcome its aim to kill off all Palestine that resists Israeli fascism.

Abbas rejects US (as Israel's puppet state) security plan for future Palestinian state

 

December 14, 2013

AFP

 

 

JERUSALEM - The Palestinians rejected US proposals for Israel to keep a military presence in a future Palestinian state, as US Secretary of State John Kerry Friday wrapped up his latest peace push.
Kerry, on his way to Vietnam, made a stop in Jerusalem and the West Bank city of Ramallah in a bid to promote his security plans for a future Palestinian state in his second visit in less than a week. On Thursday night he met Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas and on Friday Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu before leaving snow-hit Jerusalem for Ben Gurion airport in Tel Aviv, media reported.
"I'm delighted to be here. I'm on my way to Asia, heading to Vietnam and the Philippines, which is a long-promised trip," Kerry told reporters as he went into his talks with Netanyahu. "But I wanted to come through here in an effort to try to continue our important discussions. "It's been constructive. It's always complicated," he said. "We have a lot to talk about, and we will continue this process."
Defence Minister Moshe Yaalon had also been due to attend the Kerry-Netanyahu talks, but his spokesman told AFP the weather prevented him from doing so.

After meeting Kerry in Ramallah, the Palestinian political capital, Abbas rejected US proposals for Israel to keep troops in a future Palestinian state along its strategic border with Jordan.
"President Abbas has rejected the ideas presented by the secretary of state," a Palestinian source said on Friday.

Abbas also handed Kerry a letter laying down "Palestinian red lines", the source added, singling out "the refusal to recognise Israel as a Jewish state". Abbas "rejected the ideas on security because there is not a third party".

This refers to a plan by former US national security adviser James Jones under which a third party would deploy along the Palestinian-Jordanian border. The Palestinian source said that "all disputed issues must be settled". Israeli and Arab media reports say the plan envisaged by Washington would see Israel maintain a military presence on the border after a peace agreement with the Palestinians.

According to pan-Arab daily Al-Quds al-Arabi, the plan also includes the deployment of early warning stations on the highest point in the West Bank, an Israeli right to deny entry to anyone through the Jordan Valley border crossing and joint Israeli-Palestinian patrols in the area.

An international force would be acceptable to the Palestinians, but Israel opposes such a solution.
Israel has always insisted that a continued military presence on the frontier would be vital for its security for some 10-15 years after Palestinian statehood.

Former Israeli national security adviser Giora Eiland wrote on Thursday in the Yediot Aharonot daily that Israel saw a potential threat as not coming necessarily from the Palestinians, but from "other enemies" in the region. "Israel insists on having contiguous control along the Jordan River, and it seems like the Americans accept this," he wrote, saying Israel needed "a strip five kilometres (three miles) wide" to ensure its safety. It was Kerry's ninth trip to Israel and the West Bank since March - and his second in less than a week. State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said this week the US was "focused on a final deal" rather than an interim agreement between Israel and the Palestinians.

Nine-month direct talks were launched between the sides by Kerry in July, and last week he said "we are closer than we have been in years" to reaching a deal.

But the Palestinians said Kerry's ideas on future security arrangements, which were presented to their leadership last week, had provoked a "real crisis".

More on the Who Owns America--Israel story: Stanley Fischer tapped to be next Fed vice chairman

Former Bank of Israel governor Stanley Fischer, a dual U.S.-Israeli citizen, has reportedly been asked by the White House to become deputy head of the Federal Reserve Bank when Janet Yellen takes over as chief.

Reuters and Israel Hayom Staff

Former Bank of Israel Governor Stanley Fischer | Photo credit: Reuters

Stanley Fischer, who led the Bank of Israel for eight years until he stepped down in June, has been asked to become the Federal Reserve Bank's next deputy head once the current vice chairwoman, Janet Yellen, takes over as chief of the U.S. central bank, a source familiar with the issue said on Wednesday.

Fischer, 70, is widely respected as one of the world's top monetary economists. He is seen as a pragmatic policymaker and has praised the Fed's extraordinary steps to boost the U.S. economy. He once taught current Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke and European Central Bank President Mario Draghi at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 

Yellen is expected to win approval from the U.S. Senate next week to take the reins from Bernanke, whose term ends in January. Fischer, who was born in Zambia and has dual Israeli and U.S. citizenship, would also need Senate approval if he accepts the White House's offer. 

"He has been offered the job," said the source, who declined to be named.

The White House declined to comment. A Fed spokeswoman said the White House was responsible for nominations.

Fischer, who could not immediately be reached, has held top-level posts at the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, and is credited with guiding Israel through the global economic crisis with minimal damage. For the Fed, he would bring the fresh perspective of an outsider, especially on communications, yet offer some continuity too.

He is "difficult to characterize with a term as obtuse as 'hawk' or 'dove' because he takes a balanced, academic approach to various topics of debate," said Thomas Simons, an economist at brokerage firm Jefferies.

"However, given that he played an instrumental role in helping Ben Bernanke form his views on monetary economics, his presence at the Fed would represent some consistency in this time of transition."

Fischer would arrive as the U.S. central bank starts to navigate a return to normalcy after taking dramatic and unprecedented steps to emerge from the Great Recession of 2007-2009.

The Fed is now wrestling with the decision of when to scale back its huge bond-buying program that sought to drive down long-term borrowing costs and swelled its balance sheet to some $4 trillion. It buys $85 billion a month in Treasury and mortgage bonds in its current, third round of "quantitative easing," or QE3.

At an IMF economic forum on Nov. 8, held in Fischer's honor, he suggested that he believed in the effectiveness of the Fed's unconventional policies.

"It's very hard to reach the conclusion that the unorthodox measures are ineffective," Fischer, who was seated next to Bernanke on a panel, said of the bond buying. "They appear to be effective and they essentially do that by working off either the provision of liquidity in markets where liquidity has effectively dried up, or by changing interest rates other than the central bank interest rate." 

As the Fed's vice chairman, Fischer would have a strong hand in shaping policy. Yellen, who has held the post since 2010, was a driving force behind the Fed's adoption last year of an inflation target, an important policy milestone for the bank.

One possible source of tension may be how to telegraph the Fed's policy intentions. While Yellen and Bernanke have tied a rate rise to future levels of unemployment and inflation, Fischer has publicly warned about central banks giving so-called forward guidance that is too precise.

"He's going to think outside of the box, he's going to push the Fed a little bit, and that's not a bad thing," said Diane Swonk, chief economist at Mesirow Financial in Chicago. She said Fischer "is very cognizant of what you can and can't communicate, and I'm not sure the Fed is always so sensitive about that."

Bloomberg News and Israel's Channel 2 earlier reported Fischer as the front runner for Fed vice chairman.

If he takes the job, it would be the second time this year a major central bank makes a high-profile hire from abroad. The Bank of Canada's chief Mark Carney earlier this year became the first foreigner to lead the Bank of England. 

The Fed's seven-member board is currently depleted and risks thinning out further. Elizabeth Duke stepped down in August, Sarah Raskin is set to leave for a job at the U.S. Treasury, and Bernanke is expected to depart when his term as head expires Jan. 31.

With Yellen set to become the first woman to take the helm, some economists and investors had speculated that Jeremy Stein, a well-respected Fed governor and former Harvard professor, would be tapped to replace her. Some observers expect that he too could leave and return to Harvard if Fischer steps in.

Next week, the Fed holds a highly anticipated policy meeting at which officials could announce the beginning of the end of QE3, given the improvement in the U.S. labor market. It will be Bernanke's second-last meeting as chairman.

Fischer "is a very qualified and very solid vice chair candidate, and I don't see on what grounds his nomination would fail," said Roberto Perli, a partner at economic research firm Cornerstone Macro and a former senior Fed official.

"He seems to complement and balance Yellen pretty well ... and he is probably more sensitive than Yellen to financial stability issues, and that is a good thing."

Fischer, a naturalized American citizen, quit his job as head of Israel's central bank on June 30, three years into his second five-year term.

Asked about his next job at a conference in Tel Aviv on Monday, he said: "The advice I received was not to accept a position until I had waited at least six months, which is in three weeks, so it seems that I am nearing a decision."

Once chief economist at the World Bank and then first deputy managing director of the International Monetary Fund from 1994 to 2001, Fischer was a key figure in the IMF's Mexican bailout after the peso crashed in the mid-1990s, and was the fund's main firefighter as it sought to douse the flames of the Asian financial crisis.

At the time, he negotiated repeatedly with troubled countries, jetting from one to the next as a financial storm swept through the world's emerging markets. Robert Rubin, the influential former U.S. Treasury secretary, once described Fischer as the "unsung hero" of the crisis.

During his tenure in Israel, the country's economy performed better than most. Despite a focus on fighting inflation, Fischer slashed rates and went against his own policy of staying out of financial markets by buying up tens of billions of dollars to weaken the shekel and help prop up local exporters.

While he began cutting rates in 2008 before other major central banks in a bid to head off the worst of the recession, he also was among the first to raise them, a year later.

He "was very proactive with a dovish bias when necessary," said Benoit Anne, head of emerging-market strategy at Societe Generale. 

"Fischer will bring a valuable awareness of the impact of Fed policies on the outside word, including emerging markets. The process of Fed policy exit may be better managed from a collateral damage perspective."

Fischer was a vice chairman of Citigroup prior to joining the Bank of Israel. He had sought the top job at the IMF in 2011 but was disqualified due to his age.

If Fischer is nominated and approved by the U.S. Senate in time to take the reins from Yellen, it would be the first time in Fed history that the two top posts at the central bank are filled at the same time.

The closest to that the Fed has ever come was in 1979, when Paul Volcker took over as Fed chairman less than two weeks after Vice Chairman Frederick H. Schultz started his job.

What more evidence do Americans need to see that the world's richest ethnic minority group and their religious state being established by American taxpayer monies owns and controls America's government than to see ONLY Jews put into America's top financial institutions and offices. It's sickening to see this religious prejudice in our highest office. It is sick to see the 5th Columnist work being done openly in America's highest governmental offices. What happened to Separation of Church and State when it comes to America establishing the religious state of Israel?