As a guy who keeps promoting dialogue amongst Palestinians and Israeli Jews (and their very vocal supporters in this country), I’m baffled by how the United Nations keeps allowing the Palestinians to make so many pro-Israel advocates despise them. Consider the latest:

The U.N. Relief Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNWRA) – the world’s only permanent refugee agency (meaning they are not trying to resettle people under their care) is hosting a youth soccer tournament. The Shahid (Martyr) Abu Jihad tournament is being held in Ramallah. For those keeping score, that’s the seat of the “moderate Palestinians,” the ones who are not Hamas and say that they want to negotiate a two-state solution with Israel.

Let’s get real: If a German right-wing nationalist group named its U.N.-sponsored swimming tournament for Holocaust architect Adolf Eichmann, how would the world respond? What if a Cambodian political party named its U.N.-funded baseball tournament for Pol Pot, the country’s genocidal dictator of the late 1970s? How about if Israel named a film festival backed with U.N. money after Baruch Goldstein, perpetuator of the 1994 massacre of Muslims worshipping in Hebron?

No doubt the outrage would be loud, sustained and legitimate. Am I being hypersensitive – even paranoid—in wondering where the outrage is on this soccer tournament? 

Who was Abu Jihad? He’s the once feared Palestinian terrorist assassinated, likely by Israeli commandoes, in Tunis in 1988. Prior to that, this founder of the Fatah group of the Palestine Liberation Organization had planned numerous attacks inside Israel. They were indiscriminant in their aim at both civilian and military targets. When the first intifadah was raging in 1988, he was busy organizing the youth committees that in addition to attacking Israeli soldiers, targeted “collaborators,” or Palestinians cooperating with the Israelis.

No one is claiming that the Palestinians need to become Zionists. And we can never forget that there is real misery in the lives of many, many Palestinians. Yet one wonders how basic distancing from a terrorist past can be ignored, and how a world body supposedly devoted to advancing peace allows itself to be hijacked by extremists.

Some lessons, it seems, need to be learned over and over again – particularly by UNWRA administrators.

To say that President Barack Obama has a lot on his plate is akin to saying that Baltimore saw a little snow in recent days. But the president did have the time on Thursday, Feb. 4, to take his plate to the 58th annual National Prayer Breakfast. The audience, comprised of numerous political and religious leaders, presented a strong opportunity to share thoughts on the role of religion in public life. As expected, the president praised diverse groups, including the evangelical World Relief, the American Jewish World Service, “Hindu temples, and mainline Protestants, Catholic Relief Services, African American churches, the United Sikhs…” Unfortunately, other than such expected generalities, he did little to advance the conversation about government’s critical role in working with such religious operations and their often successful social service programs.

After all, it was candidate Obama who agreed that the Bush administration’s loose guidelines in the area needed tightening. In the past year, Mr. Obama did make a strong start by charging a distinguished group of faith-based, secular and academic leaders to make recommendations. Among the suggestions offered by the Advisory Council on Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships: have distinct bodies to run the programs (similar to how Jewish Community Services operates); ban discriminatory hiring practices and proselytizing; and ensuring that the operations provide beneficiaries with information about secular alternatives.

Sadly, to date those guidelines exist on paper only.

Recognizing this, last week 25 national organizations – including the American Jewish Committee, the Anti-Defamation League, B’nai B’rith International, the Jewish Council for Public Affairs (to which the Baltimore Jewish Council belongs), the Union for Reform Judaism and the Women of Reform Judaism –wrote to the president on the eve of the National Prayer Breakfast. They asked him to prevent religious discrimination and proselytizing amongst groups receiving tax payers’ money. It’s time for Mr. Obama to do just that.

Everyone recognizes these to be difficult issues to deal with, legally and emotionally. However, faith-based operations deserve to know the rules, and the public needs such protection. Indeed, the plan is already sitting on Mr. Obama’s plate. One awaits his desire to have a nibble.

Sorry to break it to major Zionist organizations – who have transformed themselves into defenders of Israel’s every sneeze – but Zionism is a hackneyed, well-traveled ideology that long ago achieved its central goal of creating a Jewish state.

Fortunately, something has come in its stead, something American Jews need to pay more attention to. Once you get beyond the headlines of political, military and cultural strife, Israelis and Jews around the world are teaming up to change the world for the better – just like we always said we were supposed to.

In fact, if the early Zionist dream in the first decades of the 20th century was to make the dessert bloom, in the second decade of the 21st century the emerging vision is one of making the air cleaner – in the process setting a remarkable example for the entire planet.

That’s because it’s not in place such as California’s Silicon Valley, but those such as Israel’s Jezreel Valley where the world’s focus is turning for green news these days. As such, the State of Israel is helping boost a nascent industry that President Barack Obama has said is much-needed across the globe to create an economic engine of future jobs and revenues.

The latest chapter in this evolving story came with this week’s announcement by Israeli-American entrepreneur Shai Agassi’s that the latest financing round for his electric car company, Better Place (http://www.betterplace.com/), brought in another $350 million. That brings the total investment to $1.25 billion. As the 41-year-old entrepreneur told the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, “This is the largest investment since the [global economic] crash in 2008 and the largest investment ever in clean-tech.” Frankly, that’s breathtaking.

Mr. Agassi’s plan goes like this: Drivers will recharge their car batteries every 100 miles or so at one of 70 special stations placed throughout Israel’s road systems. When pulling in, a robotic device will remove the empty battery and insert a full one. Total time: two minutes. Meanwhile, customers will not spend their day hunting for “10 cents off on Tuesdays” specials at various stations. That’s because they will pay a flat fee for electricity cost.

The project should be fully operation by the second half of next year. The infrastructure is estimated to cost the company about $150 million, meaning the company hopes to return the investment within 18 months.

Most of all, it is another example of how the Jewish state’s know how can combine with American investors to lead the world in safe and environmentally sound technologies. That’s worth bragging about.