December 31, 2010
December 30, 2010
Special prayer for Jonathan Pollard - Joseph's Tomb
Special Prayer for Jonathan Pollard at Joseph's Tomb
On the evening of 21 Tevet (Monday, December 27), the monthly visit to
Joseph's Tomb was held. Hundreds of people from all parts of Israel
made their way to Shechem, to the tomb of the righteous Joseph,
including a large group of Women in Green from Jerusalem, Gush Etzion,
Kiryat Arba Hevron.
A special prayer for the release of Jonathan Pollard was passed among
the members of the group. There is no place like Joseph's Tomb to feel
for Jonathan, who like Joseph was cast into the pit by his brothers.
Now the brothers repent, and ask to release him and return him to his
land, on whose behalf he acted with tremendous self-sacrifice.
It was a pleasant surprise to see the renovated Joseph's Tomb, the
organization and order there. Our compliments to Gershon Mesika, the
head of the Samaria Council, who acted, and is still active, for the
Jewish return to Joseph's Tomb.
Women in Green, in their previous tour of the area, could only look
upon Joseph's Tomb from the peak of Mitzpeh Yosef (Joseph's Lookout
Point), while now it is possible to return and cling to the tomb of
the righteous Joseph.
There was also a frustrating feeling - of a nocturnal entrance, like
thieves in the night, but simultaneously it was uplifting -
remembering that progress, "the redemption of Israel comes little by
little." When people exert themselves and act - the Holy One, blessed
be He, helps.
May it be His will that the prayers for Jonathan Pollard will be
received by merit of the righteous Joseph and he be speedily released,
unconditionally, healthy and whole, to his family, his people, and his
land.
For the photographs by Gemma Blech:
http://picasaweb.google.com/gemmablech/WIGToJosephSTombSchem#
Yehudit Katsover - 050-7161818, Nadia Matar - 050-5500834
Women for Israel's Tomorrow (Women in Green)
http://www.womeningreen.org
December 29, 2010
EX-PRESIDENT CARTER FOR SALE - Alan M. Dershowitz
Author Biography: Alan M. Dershowitz is the Felix Frankfurter professor of law at Harvard Law School and author of The Case for Israel .
Carter is making more money selling integrity than peanuts. I have known Jimmy Carter for more than 30 years. I first met him in the spring of 1976 when, as a relatively unknown candidate for president,he sent me a handwritten letter asking for my help in his campaign on issues of crime and justice. I had just published an article in The New York Times Magazine on sentencing reform, and he expressed interest in my ideas and asked me to come up with additional ones for his campaign.
Shortly thereafter, my former student Stuart Eisenstadt, brought Carter to Harvard to meet with some faculty members, me among them. I immediately liked Jimmy Carter and saw him as a man of integrity and principle. I signed on to his campaign and worked very hard for his election. When Newsweek magazine asked his campaign for the names of people on whom Carter relied for advice, my name was among those given out. I continued to work for Carter over the years, most recently I met him in Jerusalem a year ago, and we briefly discussed the Mid-East.
Though I disagreed with some of his points, I continued to believe that he was making them out of a deep commitment to principle and to human rights.
Recent disclosures of Carter's extensive financial connections to Arab oil money, particularly from Saudi Arabia , had deeply shaken my belief in his integrity. When I was first told that he received a monetary reward in the name of Shiekh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahayan, and kept the money, even after Harvard returned money from the same source because of its anti-Semitic history, I simply did not believe it. How could a man of such apparent integrity enrich himself with dirty money from so dirty a source?
And let there be no mistake about how dirty the Zayed Foundation is. I know because I was involved, in a small way, in helping to persuade Harvard University to return more than $2 million that the financially strappedDivinity School received from this source. Initially I was reluctant to put pressure on Harvard to turn back money for the DivinitySchool, but then a student at the DivinitySchool -- Rachael Lea Fish -- showed me the facts.
They were staggering. I was amazed that in the 21st century there were still foundations that espoused these views. The Zayed Centre for Coordination and Follow-up - a think-tank funded by the Shiekh and run by his son - hosted speakers who called Jews "the enemies of all nations," attributed the assassination of John Kennedy to Israel and the Mossad and the 9/11 attacks to the United States'own military, and stated that the Holocaust was a "fable." (They also hosted a speech by Jimmy Carter.) To its credit, Harvard turned the money back. To his discredit, Carter did not. Jimmy Carter was, of course, aware of Harvard's decision, since it was highly publicized.
Yet he kept the money. Indeed, this is what he said in accepting the funds: "This award has special significance for me because it is named for my personal friend, Sheik Zayed bin Sultan al-Nahyan." Carter's personal friend, it turns out, was an unredeemable anti-Semite and all-around bigot. In reading Carter's statements, I was reminded of the bad old Harvard of the 1930s, which continued to honor Nazi academics after the anti-Semitic policies of Hitler's government became clear. Harvard of the 1930s was complicit in evil. I sadly concluded that Jimmy Carter of the 21st century has become complicit in evil. The extent of Carter's financial support from, and even dependence on, dirty money is still not fully known.
What we do know is deeply troubling. Carter and his Center have accepted millions of dollars from suspect sources, beginning with the bail-out of the Carter family peanut business in the late 1970s by BCCI, a now-defunct and virulently anti-Israeli bank indirectly controlled by the Saudi Royal family, and among whose principal investors is Carter's friend, Sheikh Zayed. Agha Hasan Abedi, the founder of the bank, gave Carter "$500,000 to help the former president establish his center...[and] more than $10 million to Mr. Carter's different projects." Carter gladly accepted the money, though Abedi had called his bank-ostensibly the source of his funding- "the best way to fight the evil influence of the Zionists." BCC isn't the only source: Saudi King Fahd contributed millions to the Carter Center- "in 1993 alone...$7.6 million" as have other members of the Saudi Royal Family.
Carter also received a million dollar pledge from the Saudi-based bin Laden family, as well as a personal $500,000 environmental award named for Sheikh Zayed, and paid for by the Prime Minister of the United Arab Emirates. It's worth noting that, despite the influx of Saudi money funding the Carter Center, and despite the Saudi Arabian government's myriad human rights abuses, the Carter Center's Human Rights program has no activity whatever in Saudi Arabia .
The Saudis have apparently bought his silence for a steep price. The bought quality of the Center's activities becomes even more clear, however, when reviewing the Center's human rights activities in other countries: essentially no human rights activities in China or in North Korea , or in Iran , Iraq , the Sudan , or Syria , but activity regarding Israel and its alleged abuses, according to the Center's website.
The Carter Center 's mission statement claims that "The Center is nonpartisan and acts as a neutral party in dispute resolution activities." How can that be, given that its coffers are full of Arab money, and that its focus is away from significant Arab abuses and on Israel's far less serious ones?
No reasonable person can dispute therefore that Jimmy Carter has been and remains dependent on Arab oil money, particularly from Saudi Arabia . Does this mean that Carter has necessarily been influenced in his thinking about the Middle East by receipt of such enormous amounts of money? Ask Carter.
The entire premise of his criticism of Jewish influence on American foreign policy is that money talks. It is Carter-not me-who has made the point that if politicians receive money from Jewish sources, then they are not free to decide issues regarding the Middle East for themselves. It is Carter, not me, who has argued that distinguished reporters cannot honestly report on the Middle East because they are being paid by Jewish money. So, by Carter's own standards, it would be almost economically "suicidal" for Carter "to espouse a balanced position between Israel and Palestine ."
By Carter's own standards, therefore, his views on the Middle East must be discounted. It is certainly possible that he now believes them. Money, particularly large amounts of money, has a way of persuading people to a particular position. It would not surprise me if Carter, having received so much Arab money, is now honestly committed to their cause. But his failure to disclose the extent of his financial dependence on Arab money, and the absence of any self reflection on whether the receipt of this money has unduly influenced his views, is a form of deception bordering on corruption.
I have met cigarette lobbyists, who are supported by the cigarette industry, and who have come to believe honestly that cigarettes are merely a safe form of adult recreation, that cigarettes are not addicting and that the cigarette industry is really trying to persuade children not to smoke. These people are fooling themselves (or fooling us into believing that they are fooling themselves) just as Jimmy Carter is fooling himself (or persuading us to believe that he is fooling himself).
If money determines political and public views-as Carter insists "Jewish money" does-then Carter's views on the Middle Eastmust be deemed to have been influenced by the vast sums of Arab money he has received. If he who pays the piper calls the tune, then Carter's off-key tunes have been called by his Saudi Arabian paymasters. It pains me to say this, but I now believe that there is no person in American public life today who has a lower ratio of real [integrity] to apparent integrity than Jimmy Carter.
The public perception of his integrity is extraordinarily high. His real integrity, it now turns out, is extraordinarily low. He is no better than so many former American politicians who, after leaving public life, sell themselves to the highest bidder and become lobbyists for despicable causes.
That is now Jimmy Carter's sad legacy.
Carter is making more money selling integrity than peanuts. I have known Jimmy Carter for more than 30 years. I first met him in the spring of 1976 when, as a relatively unknown candidate for president,he sent me a handwritten letter asking for my help in his campaign on issues of crime and justice. I had just published an article in The New York Times Magazine on sentencing reform, and he expressed interest in my ideas and asked me to come up with additional ones for his campaign.
Shortly thereafter, my former student Stuart Eisenstadt, brought Carter to Harvard to meet with some faculty members, me among them. I immediately liked Jimmy Carter and saw him as a man of integrity and principle. I signed on to his campaign and worked very hard for his election. When Newsweek magazine asked his campaign for the names of people on whom Carter relied for advice, my name was among those given out. I continued to work for Carter over the years, most recently I met him in Jerusalem a year ago, and we briefly discussed the Mid-East.
Though I disagreed with some of his points, I continued to believe that he was making them out of a deep commitment to principle and to human rights.
Recent disclosures of Carter's extensive financial connections to Arab oil money, particularly from Saudi Arabia , had deeply shaken my belief in his integrity. When I was first told that he received a monetary reward in the name of Shiekh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahayan, and kept the money, even after Harvard returned money from the same source because of its anti-Semitic history, I simply did not believe it. How could a man of such apparent integrity enrich himself with dirty money from so dirty a source?
And let there be no mistake about how dirty the Zayed Foundation is. I know because I was involved, in a small way, in helping to persuade Harvard University to return more than $2 million that the financially strappedDivinity School received from this source. Initially I was reluctant to put pressure on Harvard to turn back money for the DivinitySchool, but then a student at the DivinitySchool -- Rachael Lea Fish -- showed me the facts.
They were staggering. I was amazed that in the 21st century there were still foundations that espoused these views. The Zayed Centre for Coordination and Follow-up - a think-tank funded by the Shiekh and run by his son - hosted speakers who called Jews "the enemies of all nations," attributed the assassination of John Kennedy to Israel and the Mossad and the 9/11 attacks to the United States'own military, and stated that the Holocaust was a "fable." (They also hosted a speech by Jimmy Carter.) To its credit, Harvard turned the money back. To his discredit, Carter did not. Jimmy Carter was, of course, aware of Harvard's decision, since it was highly publicized.
Yet he kept the money. Indeed, this is what he said in accepting the funds: "This award has special significance for me because it is named for my personal friend, Sheik Zayed bin Sultan al-Nahyan." Carter's personal friend, it turns out, was an unredeemable anti-Semite and all-around bigot. In reading Carter's statements, I was reminded of the bad old Harvard of the 1930s, which continued to honor Nazi academics after the anti-Semitic policies of Hitler's government became clear. Harvard of the 1930s was complicit in evil. I sadly concluded that Jimmy Carter of the 21st century has become complicit in evil. The extent of Carter's financial support from, and even dependence on, dirty money is still not fully known.
What we do know is deeply troubling. Carter and his Center have accepted millions of dollars from suspect sources, beginning with the bail-out of the Carter family peanut business in the late 1970s by BCCI, a now-defunct and virulently anti-Israeli bank indirectly controlled by the Saudi Royal family, and among whose principal investors is Carter's friend, Sheikh Zayed. Agha Hasan Abedi, the founder of the bank, gave Carter "$500,000 to help the former president establish his center...[and] more than $10 million to Mr. Carter's different projects." Carter gladly accepted the money, though Abedi had called his bank-ostensibly the source of his funding- "the best way to fight the evil influence of the Zionists." BCC isn't the only source: Saudi King Fahd contributed millions to the Carter Center- "in 1993 alone...$7.6 million" as have other members of the Saudi Royal Family.
Carter also received a million dollar pledge from the Saudi-based bin Laden family, as well as a personal $500,000 environmental award named for Sheikh Zayed, and paid for by the Prime Minister of the United Arab Emirates. It's worth noting that, despite the influx of Saudi money funding the Carter Center, and despite the Saudi Arabian government's myriad human rights abuses, the Carter Center's Human Rights program has no activity whatever in Saudi Arabia .
The Saudis have apparently bought his silence for a steep price. The bought quality of the Center's activities becomes even more clear, however, when reviewing the Center's human rights activities in other countries: essentially no human rights activities in China or in North Korea , or in Iran , Iraq , the Sudan , or Syria , but activity regarding Israel and its alleged abuses, according to the Center's website.
The Carter Center 's mission statement claims that "The Center is nonpartisan and acts as a neutral party in dispute resolution activities." How can that be, given that its coffers are full of Arab money, and that its focus is away from significant Arab abuses and on Israel's far less serious ones?
No reasonable person can dispute therefore that Jimmy Carter has been and remains dependent on Arab oil money, particularly from Saudi Arabia . Does this mean that Carter has necessarily been influenced in his thinking about the Middle East by receipt of such enormous amounts of money? Ask Carter.
The entire premise of his criticism of Jewish influence on American foreign policy is that money talks. It is Carter-not me-who has made the point that if politicians receive money from Jewish sources, then they are not free to decide issues regarding the Middle East for themselves. It is Carter, not me, who has argued that distinguished reporters cannot honestly report on the Middle East because they are being paid by Jewish money. So, by Carter's own standards, it would be almost economically "suicidal" for Carter "to espouse a balanced position between Israel and Palestine ."
By Carter's own standards, therefore, his views on the Middle East must be discounted. It is certainly possible that he now believes them. Money, particularly large amounts of money, has a way of persuading people to a particular position. It would not surprise me if Carter, having received so much Arab money, is now honestly committed to their cause. But his failure to disclose the extent of his financial dependence on Arab money, and the absence of any self reflection on whether the receipt of this money has unduly influenced his views, is a form of deception bordering on corruption.
I have met cigarette lobbyists, who are supported by the cigarette industry, and who have come to believe honestly that cigarettes are merely a safe form of adult recreation, that cigarettes are not addicting and that the cigarette industry is really trying to persuade children not to smoke. These people are fooling themselves (or fooling us into believing that they are fooling themselves) just as Jimmy Carter is fooling himself (or persuading us to believe that he is fooling himself).
If money determines political and public views-as Carter insists "Jewish money" does-then Carter's views on the Middle Eastmust be deemed to have been influenced by the vast sums of Arab money he has received. If he who pays the piper calls the tune, then Carter's off-key tunes have been called by his Saudi Arabian paymasters. It pains me to say this, but I now believe that there is no person in American public life today who has a lower ratio of real [integrity] to apparent integrity than Jimmy Carter.
The public perception of his integrity is extraordinarily high. His real integrity, it now turns out, is extraordinarily low. He is no better than so many former American politicians who, after leaving public life, sell themselves to the highest bidder and become lobbyists for despicable causes.
That is now Jimmy Carter's sad legacy.
December 28, 2010
LOOK WHAT OBAMA EXPECTS ISRAEL TO GIVE UP NOW
LOOK WHAT OBAMA EXPECTS ISRAEL TO GIVE UP NOW -
Negotiators push surrender of territory twice used to invade Jewish state
WND - Dec 26, 2010 - Aaron Klein
TEL AVIV - The Obama administration is pressing Israel to enter into negotiations with Syria aimed at compelling an Israeli retreat from the strategic Golan Heights, WND has learned.
Syria is in a military alliance with Iran. The country twice used the Golan, which looks down on Israeli population centers, to mount grounds invasions into the Jewish state.
Informed Middle East security officials tell WND that Dennis Ross, an envoy for the White House in the Middle East, visited both Israel and Syria last week to discuss specifics of a deal in which Syria would eventually take most of the Golan.
According to the security officials, Ross is slated to become Obama's main envoy to the Israeli-Palestinian affairs issue, with the current envoy, George Mitchell, expected to step down.
With Israel, Ross discussed specifics of a deal with Syria, including which territory Israel would be expected to evacuate in both the Golan and the Jordan Valley, the security officials said.
The officials said that Ross told Syria it needs to scale back its relationship with Iran and stop facilitating the re-armament of Hezbollah. The Iranian-backed Hezbollah reportedly now has over 10,000 missiles and rockets, including a large number that can reach Tel Aviv and beyond.
During the 2008 Second Lebanon War, Hezbollah's rocket attacks against the Israeli north in 2006 killed 43 Israeli civilians and wounded more than 4,000. The Middle Eastern security officials, meanwhile, told WND there were some signs U.S.-led economic sanctions against Iran are having an effect on the regime in Tehran. The officials said that in recent months, Iran decreased its funding to Hezbollah as well as to the Palestinian terrorist organizations Hamas and Islamic Jihad.
The Jewish Golan
News media accounts routinely billed the Golan as "undisputed Syrian territory" until Israel "captured the region" in 1967. The Golan, however, has been out of Damascus' control for far longer than the 19 years it was within its rule, from 1948 to 1967.
Even when Syria shortly held the Golan, some of it was stolen from Jews. Tens of thousands of acres of farmland on the Golan were purchased by Jews as far back as the late 19th century. The Turks of the Ottoman Empire kicked out some Jews around the turn of the century.
But some of the Golan was still farmed by Jews until 1947, when Syria first became an independent state. Just before that, the territory was transferred back and forth between France, Britain and even Turkey, before it became a part of the French Mandate of Syria.
When the French Mandate ended in 1944, the Golan Heights became part of the newly independent state of Syria, which quickly seized land that was being worked by the Palestine Colonization Association and the Jewish Colonization Association. A year later, in 1948, Syria, along with other Arab countries, used the Golan to attack Israel in a war to destroy the newly formed Jewish state.
The Golan, steeped in Jewish history, is connected to the Torah and to the periods of the First and Second Jewish Temples. The Golan Heights was referred to in the Torah as "Bashan." The word "Golan" apparently was derived from the biblical city of "Golan in Bashan."
The book of Joshua relates how the Golan was assigned to the tribe of Manasseh. Later, during the time of the First Temple, King Solomon appointed three ministers in the region, and the area became contested between the northern Jewish kingdom of Israel and the Aramean kingdom based in Damascus.
The book of Kings relates how King Ahab of Israel defeated Ben-Hadad I of Damascus near the present-day site of Kibbutz Afik in the southern Golan, and the prophet Elisha foretold that King Jehoash of Israel would defeat Ben-Hadad III of Damascus, also near Kibbutz Afik.
The online Jewish Virtual Library has an account of how in the late 6th and 5th centuries B.C., the Golan was settled by Jewish exiles returning from Babylonia, or modern day Iraq. In the mid-2nd century B.C., Judah Maccabee's grandnephew, the Hasmonean King Alexander Jannai, added the Golan Heights to his kingdom.
The Golan hosted some of the most important houses of Torah study in the years following the Second Temple's destruction and subsequent Jewish exile; some of Judaism's most revered ancient rabbis are buried in the territory. The remains of some 25 synagogues from the period between the Jewish revolt and the Islamic conquest in 636 have been excavated. The Golan is also dotted with ancient Jewish villages.
2>LEST WE FORGET - THE PALESTINEANS VOW A JUDENREIN STATE
Jan Willem van der Hoeven, Director
International Christian Zionist Center
How in the world can you be so foolish and self defeating, dear Mr. Abbas (Mr. Abu Mazen), to go on record stating that, once you succeed - as you are ceaselessly striving to do - to have the land you are after turned into a Muslim dominated Palestinian state, you will not permit one Israeli man, woman or child to remain living in what once was the very biblical heartland of the Jewish people?
Don't you realize that, by making such a stupid remark, you have let all Israelis know - if they didn't already -that you are not really interested in living in true peace with them; that you are only using the so-called peace process to arrive at your "Judenrein" State of Palestine - a state which, by its very anti-Zionist nature, will become a well-placed stepping stone for the entire fanaticized Muslim World from Iran to the Sudan to use to achieve the ultimate goal of most Muslims and Palestinians: the final eradication of the sovereign Jewish democratic state from your midst?
What if Israel's prime minister were to announce to the world that the price for a two state solution is that all Arabs now living under the sovereignty of the State of Israel need to leave and be made citizens of your to-be-formed Palestinian state? How would you react, and how would the world react to such an announcement, which would mirror completely the one you just dared make concerning the Jews who now live in their own historic land?
With your reprehensible declaration you have foolishly (for you) proclaimed the end of all peace negotiations, even with many among the Israelis who were duped into believing your intentions! Now we know. All you want to use the Europeans (and I am a European) and Americans for is to pressure little Israel into undoing what your Arab friends themselves brought about by their announced wish, as voiced by Abdul Nasser, to drive the Jewish people into the sea. Remember, it was in this war of Israeli self-defense that Jordan lost the so-called 'West Bank'.
For many Israelis this land - illegally occupied by Jordan from 1949 to 1967 - was part of their ancestral land. By joining Egypt at the outbreak of the Six Day War (against the appeal of the Israeli government, "please do not do so") Jordan lost the territory to the people who, by divine decree, once owned it.
And now you, Mr. Abu Mazan, dare to say that, while the Arabs can live in Jaffa, in Haifa and all over Israel, Israelis who live in their Hebron, in their Shiloh, in their Beth El, in their Samaria cannot live among you - not even one - when it becomes a Palestinian state?
Negotiators push surrender of territory twice used to invade Jewish state
WND - Dec 26, 2010 - Aaron Klein
TEL AVIV - The Obama administration is pressing Israel to enter into negotiations with Syria aimed at compelling an Israeli retreat from the strategic Golan Heights, WND has learned.
Syria is in a military alliance with Iran. The country twice used the Golan, which looks down on Israeli population centers, to mount grounds invasions into the Jewish state.
Informed Middle East security officials tell WND that Dennis Ross, an envoy for the White House in the Middle East, visited both Israel and Syria last week to discuss specifics of a deal in which Syria would eventually take most of the Golan.
According to the security officials, Ross is slated to become Obama's main envoy to the Israeli-Palestinian affairs issue, with the current envoy, George Mitchell, expected to step down.
With Israel, Ross discussed specifics of a deal with Syria, including which territory Israel would be expected to evacuate in both the Golan and the Jordan Valley, the security officials said.
The officials said that Ross told Syria it needs to scale back its relationship with Iran and stop facilitating the re-armament of Hezbollah. The Iranian-backed Hezbollah reportedly now has over 10,000 missiles and rockets, including a large number that can reach Tel Aviv and beyond.
During the 2008 Second Lebanon War, Hezbollah's rocket attacks against the Israeli north in 2006 killed 43 Israeli civilians and wounded more than 4,000. The Middle Eastern security officials, meanwhile, told WND there were some signs U.S.-led economic sanctions against Iran are having an effect on the regime in Tehran. The officials said that in recent months, Iran decreased its funding to Hezbollah as well as to the Palestinian terrorist organizations Hamas and Islamic Jihad.
The Jewish Golan
News media accounts routinely billed the Golan as "undisputed Syrian territory" until Israel "captured the region" in 1967. The Golan, however, has been out of Damascus' control for far longer than the 19 years it was within its rule, from 1948 to 1967.
Even when Syria shortly held the Golan, some of it was stolen from Jews. Tens of thousands of acres of farmland on the Golan were purchased by Jews as far back as the late 19th century. The Turks of the Ottoman Empire kicked out some Jews around the turn of the century.
But some of the Golan was still farmed by Jews until 1947, when Syria first became an independent state. Just before that, the territory was transferred back and forth between France, Britain and even Turkey, before it became a part of the French Mandate of Syria.
When the French Mandate ended in 1944, the Golan Heights became part of the newly independent state of Syria, which quickly seized land that was being worked by the Palestine Colonization Association and the Jewish Colonization Association. A year later, in 1948, Syria, along with other Arab countries, used the Golan to attack Israel in a war to destroy the newly formed Jewish state.
The Golan, steeped in Jewish history, is connected to the Torah and to the periods of the First and Second Jewish Temples. The Golan Heights was referred to in the Torah as "Bashan." The word "Golan" apparently was derived from the biblical city of "Golan in Bashan."
The book of Joshua relates how the Golan was assigned to the tribe of Manasseh. Later, during the time of the First Temple, King Solomon appointed three ministers in the region, and the area became contested between the northern Jewish kingdom of Israel and the Aramean kingdom based in Damascus.
The book of Kings relates how King Ahab of Israel defeated Ben-Hadad I of Damascus near the present-day site of Kibbutz Afik in the southern Golan, and the prophet Elisha foretold that King Jehoash of Israel would defeat Ben-Hadad III of Damascus, also near Kibbutz Afik.
The online Jewish Virtual Library has an account of how in the late 6th and 5th centuries B.C., the Golan was settled by Jewish exiles returning from Babylonia, or modern day Iraq. In the mid-2nd century B.C., Judah Maccabee's grandnephew, the Hasmonean King Alexander Jannai, added the Golan Heights to his kingdom.
The Golan hosted some of the most important houses of Torah study in the years following the Second Temple's destruction and subsequent Jewish exile; some of Judaism's most revered ancient rabbis are buried in the territory. The remains of some 25 synagogues from the period between the Jewish revolt and the Islamic conquest in 636 have been excavated. The Golan is also dotted with ancient Jewish villages.
2>LEST WE FORGET - THE PALESTINEANS VOW A JUDENREIN STATE
Jan Willem van der Hoeven, Director
International Christian Zionist Center
How in the world can you be so foolish and self defeating, dear Mr. Abbas (Mr. Abu Mazen), to go on record stating that, once you succeed - as you are ceaselessly striving to do - to have the land you are after turned into a Muslim dominated Palestinian state, you will not permit one Israeli man, woman or child to remain living in what once was the very biblical heartland of the Jewish people?
Don't you realize that, by making such a stupid remark, you have let all Israelis know - if they didn't already -that you are not really interested in living in true peace with them; that you are only using the so-called peace process to arrive at your "Judenrein" State of Palestine - a state which, by its very anti-Zionist nature, will become a well-placed stepping stone for the entire fanaticized Muslim World from Iran to the Sudan to use to achieve the ultimate goal of most Muslims and Palestinians: the final eradication of the sovereign Jewish democratic state from your midst?
What if Israel's prime minister were to announce to the world that the price for a two state solution is that all Arabs now living under the sovereignty of the State of Israel need to leave and be made citizens of your to-be-formed Palestinian state? How would you react, and how would the world react to such an announcement, which would mirror completely the one you just dared make concerning the Jews who now live in their own historic land?
With your reprehensible declaration you have foolishly (for you) proclaimed the end of all peace negotiations, even with many among the Israelis who were duped into believing your intentions! Now we know. All you want to use the Europeans (and I am a European) and Americans for is to pressure little Israel into undoing what your Arab friends themselves brought about by their announced wish, as voiced by Abdul Nasser, to drive the Jewish people into the sea. Remember, it was in this war of Israeli self-defense that Jordan lost the so-called 'West Bank'.
For many Israelis this land - illegally occupied by Jordan from 1949 to 1967 - was part of their ancestral land. By joining Egypt at the outbreak of the Six Day War (against the appeal of the Israeli government, "please do not do so") Jordan lost the territory to the people who, by divine decree, once owned it.
And now you, Mr. Abu Mazan, dare to say that, while the Arabs can live in Jaffa, in Haifa and all over Israel, Israelis who live in their Hebron, in their Shiloh, in their Beth El, in their Samaria cannot live among you - not even one - when it becomes a Palestinian state?
December 27, 2010
No Two State Solution Even Possible
There is no such thing as a Two State Solution. But you already knew that or you know Zip and are most likely Anti-Semitic or just desperate. All the leftists I have ever met have no answers...they just try to follow some mythical humanitarian mantra.
The only way this conflict will end is if one side wins and one side loses. That is simply fact. The Israelis have control and the weapons, money etc. The displaced Jordanians have played the victim card very well for many years. But the fact remains that Israel has complete and overwhelming control.
Meir Kahane had the answer so many years ago. The Arabs should be expelled from Israel and have their "citizenship" revoked. The displaced Jordanians need to be taken back to Jordan.
Then Israel will able to annex the land and continue to be the most productive Country in the world. This is simply based the many contributions etc.
The time is now and Israel needs to get the ball rolling by retaking the Temple Mount and clearing the Arabs from Jerusalem one block at a time if needed.
This should push the issue sufficiantly.
Kahane Tzadak!
The only way this conflict will end is if one side wins and one side loses. That is simply fact. The Israelis have control and the weapons, money etc. The displaced Jordanians have played the victim card very well for many years. But the fact remains that Israel has complete and overwhelming control.
Meir Kahane had the answer so many years ago. The Arabs should be expelled from Israel and have their "citizenship" revoked. The displaced Jordanians need to be taken back to Jordan.
Then Israel will able to annex the land and continue to be the most productive Country in the world. This is simply based the many contributions etc.
The time is now and Israel needs to get the ball rolling by retaking the Temple Mount and clearing the Arabs from Jerusalem one block at a time if needed.
This should push the issue sufficiantly.
Kahane Tzadak!
FROM THE HOLOCAUST TO THE 'HUMMUS WAR': A LESSON FOR JEWISH COLLEGE STUDENTS
The battle against Israeli hummus on American college campuses may have suffered a temporary setback, but will Jewish students be ready for the next round of assaults by the rapidly growing anti-Israel boycott movement?
At Princeton University the Princeton Committee on Palestine rounded up enough signatures to force a student vote, earlier this month, on whether the campus cafeteria should offer an alternative to Sabra hummus, whose manufacturer is partly owned by an Israeli company. The proposal was rejected by a vote of 1,014 to 699.
Meanwhile, at DePaul University, in Chicago, a group called 'Students for Justice in Palestine' last month asked the administration to halt the sale of Sabra hummus. The administration quickly agreed to do so, but then a few days later it announced reinstatement of the hummus until a committee reviews the matter.
If Jewish students think they can rest easy as a result of the Princeton victory and the DePaul reversal, they likely will be disappointed. Anti-Israel activists on American college campuses are energetic, creative and determined. Surely they will find new targets and new methods of attack.
Perhaps today's Jewish students can derive some inspiration from the efforts undertaken by a group of students at Jewish and Christian theological seminaries in 1942-1943 to press for the rescue of Jewish refugees from the Holocaust.
In December 1942, the US and its allies confirmed that the Nazis were carrying out the mass murder of Europe's Jews. Most American Jews, including most Jewish college students, were undoubtedly horrified by the news but did not believe there was anything they could do about it. Three rabbinical students at the Jewish Theological Seminary (JTS), in New York City, responded differently.
Noah Golinkin, Jerry Lipnick and Moshe (Buddy) Sachs established the European Committee of the JTS Student Body, the first and only college student movement for the rescue of Jews from Hitler. Rejecting the Roosevelt administration's claim that rescue was impossible, the students presented American Jewish leaders with a list of practical steps that could be taken to facilitate rescue, including sheltering Jews in US territories such as the Virgin Islands; pressuring the British to open Mandatory Palestine to refugees; Allied negotiations with Nazi satellite countries to secure Jewish emigration; and food shipments to starving Jews in the ghettoes.
When Jewish leaders failed to take an interest in these proposals, the JTS students reached out to their neighbours across Broadway, the Union Theological Seminary, the leading institution for the training of Protestant clergy. In February 1943, JTS and UTS students held a remarkable ecumenical conference that publicized the need for US rescue action.
The indefatigable JTS students eventually persuaded the Synagogue Council of America to undertake a six-week campaign of prayer rallies, partial fast days, petitions, and letter-writing by synagogues around the country. This nationwide educational effort played an important role in raising American Jewish awareness of the plight of European Jewry and the need for rescue action.
The JTS students had no budget, staff, or office. They faced a Jewish leadership that was afraid to defy President Franklin Roosevelt, and a Jewish community that seemed largely apathetic. But passion and persistence enabled this little group of rabbinical students to accomplish more than many of the long-established Jewish professionals and bureaucrats.
Carl Alpert, the editor of a leading American Zionist magazine, wrote to the JTS students in April 1943: "When I note the progressiveness, the imagination and the energetic spirit displayed in your memorandum, I feel that perhaps it would not be such a bad idea if all leaders of American Jewry were to abdicate and a committee of students from the respective Rabbinical seminaries were to take over for a period of six months. It's quite an idea, isn't it?"
Jewish students at American universities today likewise will need to muster all their imagination and energetic spirit to counter the campus war against Israel. One hopes they will not lose heart when confronted by boisterous opponents or indifferent university officials. For as the JTS actvists demonstrated in 1943, it really is possible for even a handful of students with an old typewriter - or laptop! - to make a real difference.
Dr. Rafael Medoff is director of The David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies and coauthor, with Rabbi Prof. David Golinkin, of The Student Struggle Against the Holocaust (Schechter Institute & Wyman Institute, Jerusalem, 2010).
At Princeton University the Princeton Committee on Palestine rounded up enough signatures to force a student vote, earlier this month, on whether the campus cafeteria should offer an alternative to Sabra hummus, whose manufacturer is partly owned by an Israeli company. The proposal was rejected by a vote of 1,014 to 699.
Meanwhile, at DePaul University, in Chicago, a group called 'Students for Justice in Palestine' last month asked the administration to halt the sale of Sabra hummus. The administration quickly agreed to do so, but then a few days later it announced reinstatement of the hummus until a committee reviews the matter.
If Jewish students think they can rest easy as a result of the Princeton victory and the DePaul reversal, they likely will be disappointed. Anti-Israel activists on American college campuses are energetic, creative and determined. Surely they will find new targets and new methods of attack.
Perhaps today's Jewish students can derive some inspiration from the efforts undertaken by a group of students at Jewish and Christian theological seminaries in 1942-1943 to press for the rescue of Jewish refugees from the Holocaust.
In December 1942, the US and its allies confirmed that the Nazis were carrying out the mass murder of Europe's Jews. Most American Jews, including most Jewish college students, were undoubtedly horrified by the news but did not believe there was anything they could do about it. Three rabbinical students at the Jewish Theological Seminary (JTS), in New York City, responded differently.
Noah Golinkin, Jerry Lipnick and Moshe (Buddy) Sachs established the European Committee of the JTS Student Body, the first and only college student movement for the rescue of Jews from Hitler. Rejecting the Roosevelt administration's claim that rescue was impossible, the students presented American Jewish leaders with a list of practical steps that could be taken to facilitate rescue, including sheltering Jews in US territories such as the Virgin Islands; pressuring the British to open Mandatory Palestine to refugees; Allied negotiations with Nazi satellite countries to secure Jewish emigration; and food shipments to starving Jews in the ghettoes.
When Jewish leaders failed to take an interest in these proposals, the JTS students reached out to their neighbours across Broadway, the Union Theological Seminary, the leading institution for the training of Protestant clergy. In February 1943, JTS and UTS students held a remarkable ecumenical conference that publicized the need for US rescue action.
The indefatigable JTS students eventually persuaded the Synagogue Council of America to undertake a six-week campaign of prayer rallies, partial fast days, petitions, and letter-writing by synagogues around the country. This nationwide educational effort played an important role in raising American Jewish awareness of the plight of European Jewry and the need for rescue action.
The JTS students had no budget, staff, or office. They faced a Jewish leadership that was afraid to defy President Franklin Roosevelt, and a Jewish community that seemed largely apathetic. But passion and persistence enabled this little group of rabbinical students to accomplish more than many of the long-established Jewish professionals and bureaucrats.
Carl Alpert, the editor of a leading American Zionist magazine, wrote to the JTS students in April 1943: "When I note the progressiveness, the imagination and the energetic spirit displayed in your memorandum, I feel that perhaps it would not be such a bad idea if all leaders of American Jewry were to abdicate and a committee of students from the respective Rabbinical seminaries were to take over for a period of six months. It's quite an idea, isn't it?"
Jewish students at American universities today likewise will need to muster all their imagination and energetic spirit to counter the campus war against Israel. One hopes they will not lose heart when confronted by boisterous opponents or indifferent university officials. For as the JTS actvists demonstrated in 1943, it really is possible for even a handful of students with an old typewriter - or laptop! - to make a real difference.
Dr. Rafael Medoff is director of The David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies and coauthor, with Rabbi Prof. David Golinkin, of The Student Struggle Against the Holocaust (Schechter Institute & Wyman Institute, Jerusalem, 2010).
December 25, 2010
ICANN is the next frontier in the war between Islamo-fascism and Democracy
Critical ICANN IS A NEW INTERNATIONAL ISSUE WHICH WILL CERTAINLY IMPACT ISRAEL ICANN is the next frontier in the war between Islamo-fascism and Democracy
ICANN is responsible for the global coordination of the Internet's system of unique identifiers like domain names (like .org, .museum and country codes like .uk) and the addresses used in a variety of Internet protocols that help computers reach each other over the Internet. Careful management of these resources is vital to the Internet's operation, so ICANN's global stakeholders meet regularly to develop policies that ensure the Internet's ongoing security and stability. ICANN is an internationally organized, public benefit non-profit company which controls domain names. For more information please visit: www.icann.org. ALL THIS SOUNDS BENIGN AND VERY REASONABLE. B U T READ ON: a shift in the International geographical makeup of ICANN's Board of Directors to include Arab Nations, would mean a considerable shift in power towards the Arab League, which would presumably vote as a bloc far more than preexisting Geographic Regions as they have at the UN.
Should the League of Arab States gain bloc voting power at ICANN, there is every indication that it will seek to replicate its effective takeover of the United Nations General Assembly, likely in conjunction with the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC). THIS WILL EFFECTIVELY CONTROL FREE SPEECH ON THE INTERNET
Should the League of Arab States gain bloc voting power at ICANN, there is every indication that it will seek to replicate its effective takeover of the United Nations General Assembly, likely in conjunction with the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC). If this succeeds then 10 years from now, not only will sites like Jihad Watch or Religion of Peace lose their domain names, and most discussion of Islamic terrorism have to 'go on the run' in pop up social media groups that constantly get shut down (already the situation on sites such as Facebook) functioning like rats in the walls. But even the sites of mainstream politicians and newspapers will be targeted. Mandatory filtering by ISP's. The removal of Israel's Il domain, are all possibilities. And if anything I probably haven't gone far enough.
The two-pronged approach of silencing dissent and unleashing terror is underway. This is why the internationalization of ICANN poses the gravest of threats not just to the thing we call freedom of speech on the internet, but to the entire global organization of knowledge and debate that has come to run through its networks. If ICANN goes IslamCANN then they will have captured the consensus.
This is a situation that few are talking about, even though in retrospect it may come to be one of the 5 issues that dramatically changes the world as we know it.
Meanwhile the UN is working along its own track. At a meeting in New York on Wednesday, representatives from Brazil called for an international body made up of Government representatives that would attempt to create global standards for policing the internet - specifically in reaction to challenges such as WikiLeaks. The Brazilian delegate stressed, however, that this should not be seen as a call for a "takeover" of the internet.
But that's exactly what it is. A unified set of laws with regard to the internet is not about policing criminal activity. That is already policed under existing laws. It's about criminalizing dissent. Brazil's left wing regime, which just decided to recognize Palestinian Arab terrorists as a state, tried to help Iranian dictator Ahmadinejad get nuclear fuel, is acting as a stalking horse for the takeover of the internet. India, South Africa, China and Saudi Arabia appeared to favour a new possible over-arching inter-government body.
The appearance of China and Saudi Arabia on this list is not exactly shocking. China wants to tightly control all content that its citizens access. And Saudi Arabia representing the Muslim world wants to control the depiction of Islam worldwide. Between the Muslim world and China and left wing regimes like Brazil, there is a common agenda. Censorship. Control.
US politicians have responded to moves from within the United Nations to form an inter-Government panel to regulate the internet, putting forward a resolution demanding the UN maintain a "hands-off approach". Republican California Congresswoman Mary Bono Mack (Her district is based in Palm Springs and includes most of central and eastern Riverside County. Bono Mack sits on the powerful Energy and Commerce Committee, and was named on December 16, 2010 as the next Chairman for the Subcommittee on Commerce, Manufacturing and Trade. Bono Mack is singer Sonny Bono's widow) has put forward a resolution that the United Nations and other international governmental organizations take their hands off the Internet. Introducing House Resolution 1775 [see full text below], Mack argued that "the Internet has progressed and thrived precisely because it has not been subjected to the suffocating effect of a governmental organization's heavy hand.
"The attempt of the United Nations to overtake something that is so central to our economy-like the Internet-is offensive and completely out of line," she said. "We have a hard enough time keeping the Federal Communications Commission's hands off the Internet; imagine having to convince governments like Syria, Iran and Venezuela."
A Republican congress is better position to oppose this, but the Obama Administration is committed to few things more seriously, than to weakening American power and collaborating with the ascension of the Muslim world.
The only real obstacle is likely to come from tech companies such as Google who benefit from open policies and don't want to see the boot of dictatorships come down on them. Not just for ideological reasons, but for profit motives too. Vint Cerf, widely regarded as the father of the internet, also hit out at the United Nations plan. "Today, I have signed that petition on Google's behalf because we don't believe governments should be allowed to grant themselves a monopoly on Internet governance," Cerf said on Friday on behalf of Google where he works as its chief internet lobbyist.
ICANN is responsible for the global coordination of the Internet's system of unique identifiers like domain names (like .org, .museum and country codes like .uk) and the addresses used in a variety of Internet protocols that help computers reach each other over the Internet. Careful management of these resources is vital to the Internet's operation, so ICANN's global stakeholders meet regularly to develop policies that ensure the Internet's ongoing security and stability. ICANN is an internationally organized, public benefit non-profit company which controls domain names. For more information please visit: www.icann.org. ALL THIS SOUNDS BENIGN AND VERY REASONABLE. B U T READ ON: a shift in the International geographical makeup of ICANN's Board of Directors to include Arab Nations, would mean a considerable shift in power towards the Arab League, which would presumably vote as a bloc far more than preexisting Geographic Regions as they have at the UN.
Should the League of Arab States gain bloc voting power at ICANN, there is every indication that it will seek to replicate its effective takeover of the United Nations General Assembly, likely in conjunction with the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC). THIS WILL EFFECTIVELY CONTROL FREE SPEECH ON THE INTERNET
Should the League of Arab States gain bloc voting power at ICANN, there is every indication that it will seek to replicate its effective takeover of the United Nations General Assembly, likely in conjunction with the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC). If this succeeds then 10 years from now, not only will sites like Jihad Watch or Religion of Peace lose their domain names, and most discussion of Islamic terrorism have to 'go on the run' in pop up social media groups that constantly get shut down (already the situation on sites such as Facebook) functioning like rats in the walls. But even the sites of mainstream politicians and newspapers will be targeted. Mandatory filtering by ISP's. The removal of Israel's Il domain, are all possibilities. And if anything I probably haven't gone far enough.
The two-pronged approach of silencing dissent and unleashing terror is underway. This is why the internationalization of ICANN poses the gravest of threats not just to the thing we call freedom of speech on the internet, but to the entire global organization of knowledge and debate that has come to run through its networks. If ICANN goes IslamCANN then they will have captured the consensus.
This is a situation that few are talking about, even though in retrospect it may come to be one of the 5 issues that dramatically changes the world as we know it.
Meanwhile the UN is working along its own track. At a meeting in New York on Wednesday, representatives from Brazil called for an international body made up of Government representatives that would attempt to create global standards for policing the internet - specifically in reaction to challenges such as WikiLeaks. The Brazilian delegate stressed, however, that this should not be seen as a call for a "takeover" of the internet.
But that's exactly what it is. A unified set of laws with regard to the internet is not about policing criminal activity. That is already policed under existing laws. It's about criminalizing dissent. Brazil's left wing regime, which just decided to recognize Palestinian Arab terrorists as a state, tried to help Iranian dictator Ahmadinejad get nuclear fuel, is acting as a stalking horse for the takeover of the internet. India, South Africa, China and Saudi Arabia appeared to favour a new possible over-arching inter-government body.
The appearance of China and Saudi Arabia on this list is not exactly shocking. China wants to tightly control all content that its citizens access. And Saudi Arabia representing the Muslim world wants to control the depiction of Islam worldwide. Between the Muslim world and China and left wing regimes like Brazil, there is a common agenda. Censorship. Control.
US politicians have responded to moves from within the United Nations to form an inter-Government panel to regulate the internet, putting forward a resolution demanding the UN maintain a "hands-off approach". Republican California Congresswoman Mary Bono Mack (Her district is based in Palm Springs and includes most of central and eastern Riverside County. Bono Mack sits on the powerful Energy and Commerce Committee, and was named on December 16, 2010 as the next Chairman for the Subcommittee on Commerce, Manufacturing and Trade. Bono Mack is singer Sonny Bono's widow) has put forward a resolution that the United Nations and other international governmental organizations take their hands off the Internet. Introducing House Resolution 1775 [see full text below], Mack argued that "the Internet has progressed and thrived precisely because it has not been subjected to the suffocating effect of a governmental organization's heavy hand.
"The attempt of the United Nations to overtake something that is so central to our economy-like the Internet-is offensive and completely out of line," she said. "We have a hard enough time keeping the Federal Communications Commission's hands off the Internet; imagine having to convince governments like Syria, Iran and Venezuela."
A Republican congress is better position to oppose this, but the Obama Administration is committed to few things more seriously, than to weakening American power and collaborating with the ascension of the Muslim world.
The only real obstacle is likely to come from tech companies such as Google who benefit from open policies and don't want to see the boot of dictatorships come down on them. Not just for ideological reasons, but for profit motives too. Vint Cerf, widely regarded as the father of the internet, also hit out at the United Nations plan. "Today, I have signed that petition on Google's behalf because we don't believe governments should be allowed to grant themselves a monopoly on Internet governance," Cerf said on Friday on behalf of Google where he works as its chief internet lobbyist.
December 23, 2010
Plan to Use X-Mas, New Year to Bring the Messiah
This year, the two holidays fall out on the Sabbath (Shabbat) day. “That means that the Christian world takes a rest, the stores and banks are closed, and tens of thousands of Jews who don't always observe Sabbath can rest from their work,” she explained.
Jewish observance of the Sabbath day is a known way to bring the Messiah, she said. It is written in the Talmud that if the Jews were to observe two Sabbath days in a row, “they would be redeemed immediately,” she noted.
Each individual can make a difference, she said, “When I asked the rabbi, he always said that even just one extra person keeping the Sabbath day could tip the scales in favor of everyone.”
Jewish observance of the Sabbath day is a known way to bring the Messiah, she said. It is written in the Talmud that if the Jews were to observe two Sabbath days in a row, “they would be redeemed immediately,” she noted.
Each individual can make a difference, she said, “When I asked the rabbi, he always said that even just one extra person keeping the Sabbath day could tip the scales in favor of everyone.”
“Israel Now” by Tefilla Buxbaum
Is the future of American Jewry secure?
In 1939, my father, Joe Kupfer, was on his way back to college from Poland to Belgium. The Nazis caught him at the border and he spent the next six years in a series of labor camps, culminating in Auschwitz.
“I was as shocked when the Nazi’s grabbed me, as you’d be if it happened in America today,” my father always told me. “It happened overnight. One day, life was normal. Then suddenly everything changed.”
For Jews, it’s an unfortunate but familiar story. From Egypt to Babylon, from Spain to Germany, the pattern repeats: Jews establish themselves in a country, prosper, and then begin to assimilate. Never was this was more profoundly expressed than by the Jews of early 20th century Germany, who called Berlin “the New Jerusalem.”
We know the terrible end of this story. You would think that by now Jews would have gotten the message. And yet, we continue to repeat the mistake and miss the proverbial message on the wall.
What exactly is that message?
Berlin is not Jerusalem. Boro Park and Monsey are not the Garden of Eden. And America is not “the Golden Medina.”
God wants the Jewish people to be a light unto the nations, to teach, by example, what it means to live by the highest standards in all areas of life. That means being different, unique — in our customs, diet, and view of the world.
That explains, in part, why we were sent into exile. When we moved away from Torah, the light became too small. So we had to be dispersed throughout the world, as little flames to teach humanity the Torah’s values.
In some cases we succeeded, and in others we failed. In either case, the time has come to return to our destiny, united in the Land of Israel.
God will have compassion on you and will return and gather you from all the nations amongst whom God has scattered you. If you are outcast in the utmost parts of heaven, from there will God gather you and from there will he bring you back and God will bring you into the land that your father’s possessed. And you shall possess it, and He will do you good and multiply you more than your fathers. (Deut. 30:3-5)
WHY ISRAEL?
In the Torah, God tells Abraham to go to the Land of Israel — “Lech lecha.” The Midrash translates these words as “Go for yourself.” God was telling Abraham that to take upon himself the challenge of moving to Israel, would not only be best for the future of the Jewish people, but would also be the best thing for him and his family. Yes, on one hand Israel has its difficulties, but on the other hand, it is the greater source of personal fulfillment.
Anyone who visits Israel can attest to an intangible quality that touches the recesses of every Jewish heart, and brings out the latent spiritual potential of every Jew. In the holy land, everyone feels closer to God. No matter who you are, or what level of observance, Israel is the place where a Jew can feel his essence.
But it goes beyond the realm of fulfillment. For a Jew, living outside of Israel is by definition a temporary station. Things may prosper for a few decades, or even centuries, but it is never permanent.
The story is told of Rabbi Berel Wein who was building a new synagogue in Monsey. The contractor told him that he could order either American lumber — which was guaranteed to last 90 years, or special Finnish lumber — guaranteed for 150 years. Rabbi Wein told the builder, “We’ll take the American lumber.” Why? Because Jewish permanence in America is not the goal, Rabbi Wein explained, and historically, very few buildings have remained in Jewish hands for more than 90 years.
Unquestionably, America has been a remarkably kind and generous host to the Jews. Yet America is not our permanent home. Things may be bigger and fancier than in Israel, but they are indeed less permanent.
Rabbi Chaim Brovender tells the story of the famous Apollo Theater in New York. Originally, this building was a magnificent synagogue that held 600 people. Every Shabbos, it was teeming with children and adults coming to pray together as a vibrant Jewish community. But the neighborhood changed, Jews moved out, and the once-beautiful shul became an empty, dilapidated building… eventually sold and converted into the Apollo Theatre.
In Israel you don’t find such a phenomena, Rabbi Brovender said. The shul that you pray in will be the shul you show your grandchildren. It will never become the Apollo Theatre.
TURNING UP THE HEAT
If we trace the steps of previous exiles, we can see how the pattern has begun in our generation. The Durban circus kicked off a new wave of worldwide anti-Semitism. Syria now sits on the UN Security Council. And with Bin Laden saying that Israeli policy is responsible for terror in America, it could open a Pandora’s box of anti-Semitism.
When America’s interests and Israeli interests collide, as when President Bush told Israel, “America’s war comes first,” American Jews are in the most awkward position. Since the September 11 attacks, some American military officials have perceived a new sense of mistrust and antagonism, their Jewishness being the only apparent reason.
If America should decide, in conjunction with the U.N., to impose a military solution on the Palestinian question, every American Jew will be a target of the infamous dual-loyalty question: “Whose side are you on?”
As the heat turns up, we need to take a step back and look at the big picture of where this may be heading. If this was 1933 — some warning signs, but no concrete trouble yet — what would you do?
Leah Rabin, the wife of Yitzhak Rabin, recalled that after Hitler’s rise to power in 1933, her father said, “He is going to kill all of us.” So the family packed everything and moved to pre-state Israel. That decision saved their family. Her father’s friends thought he was crazy to give up the comforts of Europe for a barren desert. Yes, in 1933, he was crazy. But in 1943, he was a man of vision.
Stop and think for a moment. We cannot ignore the possibilities. Now is the time to look beyond our current comforts and lifestyles and see the reality changing before our eyes. If it really was 1933, what would you do? Sell all your things and pack? Buy real estate in Israel?
Perhaps it is not realistic to drop everything and start packing. What should we do?
Take a step in the right direction. If you’ve never visited Israel, plan a trip now. For 7, 10, 14 days. If you’ve been to Israel before, plan a longer trip: Spend the summer and send the kids to camp in Israel, or arrange for a year-long leave of absence or Sabbatical in Israel.
If you have ever contemplated Aliyah, set a target date.
At the very least, take one concrete step to shift your focus to Israel as the land of Jewish destiny.
We hope and pray for peace in America, in Israel, and in every corner of the world. But we must be realistic as well. The sands of history are shifting. God loves us and won’t let us disappear into the oblivion of assimilation.
My father, after surviving Auschwitz and weighing 76 pounds, used to say, “There are two ways to go to Israel. You can get in an airplane, or you can try to swim there.” One way or another, we all make it home.
In 1939, my father, Joe Kupfer, was on his way back to college from Poland to Belgium. The Nazis caught him at the border and he spent the next six years in a series of labor camps, culminating in Auschwitz.
“I was as shocked when the Nazi’s grabbed me, as you’d be if it happened in America today,” my father always told me. “It happened overnight. One day, life was normal. Then suddenly everything changed.”
For Jews, it’s an unfortunate but familiar story. From Egypt to Babylon, from Spain to Germany, the pattern repeats: Jews establish themselves in a country, prosper, and then begin to assimilate. Never was this was more profoundly expressed than by the Jews of early 20th century Germany, who called Berlin “the New Jerusalem.”
We know the terrible end of this story. You would think that by now Jews would have gotten the message. And yet, we continue to repeat the mistake and miss the proverbial message on the wall.
What exactly is that message?
Berlin is not Jerusalem. Boro Park and Monsey are not the Garden of Eden. And America is not “the Golden Medina.”
God wants the Jewish people to be a light unto the nations, to teach, by example, what it means to live by the highest standards in all areas of life. That means being different, unique — in our customs, diet, and view of the world.
That explains, in part, why we were sent into exile. When we moved away from Torah, the light became too small. So we had to be dispersed throughout the world, as little flames to teach humanity the Torah’s values.
In some cases we succeeded, and in others we failed. In either case, the time has come to return to our destiny, united in the Land of Israel.
God will have compassion on you and will return and gather you from all the nations amongst whom God has scattered you. If you are outcast in the utmost parts of heaven, from there will God gather you and from there will he bring you back and God will bring you into the land that your father’s possessed. And you shall possess it, and He will do you good and multiply you more than your fathers. (Deut. 30:3-5)
WHY ISRAEL?
In the Torah, God tells Abraham to go to the Land of Israel — “Lech lecha.” The Midrash translates these words as “Go for yourself.” God was telling Abraham that to take upon himself the challenge of moving to Israel, would not only be best for the future of the Jewish people, but would also be the best thing for him and his family. Yes, on one hand Israel has its difficulties, but on the other hand, it is the greater source of personal fulfillment.
Anyone who visits Israel can attest to an intangible quality that touches the recesses of every Jewish heart, and brings out the latent spiritual potential of every Jew. In the holy land, everyone feels closer to God. No matter who you are, or what level of observance, Israel is the place where a Jew can feel his essence.
But it goes beyond the realm of fulfillment. For a Jew, living outside of Israel is by definition a temporary station. Things may prosper for a few decades, or even centuries, but it is never permanent.
The story is told of Rabbi Berel Wein who was building a new synagogue in Monsey. The contractor told him that he could order either American lumber — which was guaranteed to last 90 years, or special Finnish lumber — guaranteed for 150 years. Rabbi Wein told the builder, “We’ll take the American lumber.” Why? Because Jewish permanence in America is not the goal, Rabbi Wein explained, and historically, very few buildings have remained in Jewish hands for more than 90 years.
Unquestionably, America has been a remarkably kind and generous host to the Jews. Yet America is not our permanent home. Things may be bigger and fancier than in Israel, but they are indeed less permanent.
Rabbi Chaim Brovender tells the story of the famous Apollo Theater in New York. Originally, this building was a magnificent synagogue that held 600 people. Every Shabbos, it was teeming with children and adults coming to pray together as a vibrant Jewish community. But the neighborhood changed, Jews moved out, and the once-beautiful shul became an empty, dilapidated building… eventually sold and converted into the Apollo Theatre.
In Israel you don’t find such a phenomena, Rabbi Brovender said. The shul that you pray in will be the shul you show your grandchildren. It will never become the Apollo Theatre.
TURNING UP THE HEAT
If we trace the steps of previous exiles, we can see how the pattern has begun in our generation. The Durban circus kicked off a new wave of worldwide anti-Semitism. Syria now sits on the UN Security Council. And with Bin Laden saying that Israeli policy is responsible for terror in America, it could open a Pandora’s box of anti-Semitism.
When America’s interests and Israeli interests collide, as when President Bush told Israel, “America’s war comes first,” American Jews are in the most awkward position. Since the September 11 attacks, some American military officials have perceived a new sense of mistrust and antagonism, their Jewishness being the only apparent reason.
If America should decide, in conjunction with the U.N., to impose a military solution on the Palestinian question, every American Jew will be a target of the infamous dual-loyalty question: “Whose side are you on?”
As the heat turns up, we need to take a step back and look at the big picture of where this may be heading. If this was 1933 — some warning signs, but no concrete trouble yet — what would you do?
Leah Rabin, the wife of Yitzhak Rabin, recalled that after Hitler’s rise to power in 1933, her father said, “He is going to kill all of us.” So the family packed everything and moved to pre-state Israel. That decision saved their family. Her father’s friends thought he was crazy to give up the comforts of Europe for a barren desert. Yes, in 1933, he was crazy. But in 1943, he was a man of vision.
Stop and think for a moment. We cannot ignore the possibilities. Now is the time to look beyond our current comforts and lifestyles and see the reality changing before our eyes. If it really was 1933, what would you do? Sell all your things and pack? Buy real estate in Israel?
Perhaps it is not realistic to drop everything and start packing. What should we do?
Take a step in the right direction. If you’ve never visited Israel, plan a trip now. For 7, 10, 14 days. If you’ve been to Israel before, plan a longer trip: Spend the summer and send the kids to camp in Israel, or arrange for a year-long leave of absence or Sabbatical in Israel.
If you have ever contemplated Aliyah, set a target date.
At the very least, take one concrete step to shift your focus to Israel as the land of Jewish destiny.
We hope and pray for peace in America, in Israel, and in every corner of the world. But we must be realistic as well. The sands of history are shifting. God loves us and won’t let us disappear into the oblivion of assimilation.
My father, after surviving Auschwitz and weighing 76 pounds, used to say, “There are two ways to go to Israel. You can get in an airplane, or you can try to swim there.” One way or another, we all make it home.
December 21, 2010
World To Jews: Drop Dead
First, there was the immutable Helen Thomas, legendary Hearst White House reporter, who pronounced in May that Jews in Israel (or “Palestine”) should “go home” to Poland, Germany, and “everywhere else” – a statement that resulted in her immediate dismissal from Hearst. Not satisfied yet, however, Thomas then added earlier this month that Zionists “control” Washington, Wall Street, and Hollywood.
Closely nipping at Thomas’ heels comes Dutch politician and former European Commissioner Frits Bolkestein, whose solution to the growing and often violent anti-Semitism among Dutch Muslims is for the Jews themselves to leave. With anti-Semitic incidents in 2009 up 55 percent over 2008, Bolkestein sees, he says, “no future” for Dutch Jews: but rather than invite Jew-haters to leave the country, he recommends the Jews themselves find somewhere else to live – namely, Israel or the USA.
So there you have it: In America, Thomas wants to send the Israeli Jews to Europe, and in Europe, Bolkestein wants to send the Jews to America and Israel. And Israel, as we all know, is the country most of the world wants “wiped off the map.” (There’s a “final solution” for you, plain as day.)
But before resolving that Jews can therefore settle safely in the USA, it might be worth noting that attacks on Jews are on the rise in America, as well, where (despite wails of “Islamophobia), of the 1575 victims of anti-religious crime recorded by the FBI in 2009, 1,132 were Jews. (Of the rest, 132 were Muslim, 131 “other religion,” 59 Catholic, and 42 were Protestant. To get a sense of proportion here, consider that 2008 census figures show the number of Jews at twice the number of Muslims – yet nearly ten times as many Jews as Muslims were attacked.)
The fact is that anti-Jewish attitudes no longer represent a fringe mentality of extremists – nor can they be simply brushed off as the ravings of little old ladies going batty. Rather, noted Rabbi Marvin Hier of the Simon Weisenthal Center, which last week released its “Top Ten Anti-Semitic Slurs of 2010” list (Helen Thomas’s remarks took first place, followed by comments by CNN anchor Rick Sanchez and director Oliver Stone), “Never before, in recent memory, has the Simon Wiesenthal Center seen such a proliferation of anti-Semitism going mainstream. Our list shows that anti-Semitic canards normally thought to belong to the lunatic fringe have in fact been bought into by major elements of Western society.”
And the problem is also not limited to a couple of outspoken characters here and there: Anti-Semitism has been rising or several years across all of Europe, mostly among the Muslim population; and a recent report from the UK shows that it’s destined to get worse. “Muslim religious schools operating in Britain are using poisonously anti-Semitic textbooks from Saudi Arabia to teach children as young as six that Jews are descended from “monkeys” and “pigs,” and that Zionists are plotting to take over the world,” reports the Hudson New York Journal, based on a BBC expose of the Muslim schools in Britain, most of which are run and overseen by Saudis. (The New York Times also covered the story here.)
Americans take notice: such schools exist as well in the US, funded by the very same sources, and teaching the very same material. And despite repeated efforts by New York Senator Charles Schumer (D) and others, no one seems to be doing much about it. One need look no further than the likes of Bolkestein and Thomas to begin understanding why.
Closely nipping at Thomas’ heels comes Dutch politician and former European Commissioner Frits Bolkestein, whose solution to the growing and often violent anti-Semitism among Dutch Muslims is for the Jews themselves to leave. With anti-Semitic incidents in 2009 up 55 percent over 2008, Bolkestein sees, he says, “no future” for Dutch Jews: but rather than invite Jew-haters to leave the country, he recommends the Jews themselves find somewhere else to live – namely, Israel or the USA.
So there you have it: In America, Thomas wants to send the Israeli Jews to Europe, and in Europe, Bolkestein wants to send the Jews to America and Israel. And Israel, as we all know, is the country most of the world wants “wiped off the map.” (There’s a “final solution” for you, plain as day.)
But before resolving that Jews can therefore settle safely in the USA, it might be worth noting that attacks on Jews are on the rise in America, as well, where (despite wails of “Islamophobia), of the 1575 victims of anti-religious crime recorded by the FBI in 2009, 1,132 were Jews. (Of the rest, 132 were Muslim, 131 “other religion,” 59 Catholic, and 42 were Protestant. To get a sense of proportion here, consider that 2008 census figures show the number of Jews at twice the number of Muslims – yet nearly ten times as many Jews as Muslims were attacked.)
The fact is that anti-Jewish attitudes no longer represent a fringe mentality of extremists – nor can they be simply brushed off as the ravings of little old ladies going batty. Rather, noted Rabbi Marvin Hier of the Simon Weisenthal Center, which last week released its “Top Ten Anti-Semitic Slurs of 2010” list (Helen Thomas’s remarks took first place, followed by comments by CNN anchor Rick Sanchez and director Oliver Stone), “Never before, in recent memory, has the Simon Wiesenthal Center seen such a proliferation of anti-Semitism going mainstream. Our list shows that anti-Semitic canards normally thought to belong to the lunatic fringe have in fact been bought into by major elements of Western society.”
And the problem is also not limited to a couple of outspoken characters here and there: Anti-Semitism has been rising or several years across all of Europe, mostly among the Muslim population; and a recent report from the UK shows that it’s destined to get worse. “Muslim religious schools operating in Britain are using poisonously anti-Semitic textbooks from Saudi Arabia to teach children as young as six that Jews are descended from “monkeys” and “pigs,” and that Zionists are plotting to take over the world,” reports the Hudson New York Journal, based on a BBC expose of the Muslim schools in Britain, most of which are run and overseen by Saudis. (The New York Times also covered the story here.)
Americans take notice: such schools exist as well in the US, funded by the very same sources, and teaching the very same material. And despite repeated efforts by New York Senator Charles Schumer (D) and others, no one seems to be doing much about it. One need look no further than the likes of Bolkestein and Thomas to begin understanding why.
Girl Hurt as Gaza Rocket Explodes Near Kibbutz Kindergarten
Gaza terror squads fired a short-range Kassam-type rocket at an Israeli kibbutz Tuesday morning, lightly injuring a 15-year-old girl. Shrapnel from the explosion struck the girl's leg. A Magen David Adom emergency crew evacuated her to Barzilai Hospital in Ashkelon.
Two people suffered emotional shock from the event. Several buildings in the kibbutz were damaged.
The head of the Hof Ashkelon local authority, Yair Farjun, said following the attack that "the continued fire endangers our lives and disrupts life's routine. I believe in the ability of the IDF to carry out the necessary actions in order to stop the fire. On our part, we will continue to take security precautions to the extent this is possible."
The IDF and Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) cooperated overnight in attacks by IAF aircraft on several targets in Gaza. Among the targets attacked were three terror tunnels in northern Gaza. In the southern part of the border, the IAF attacks struck a terror tunnel, a smuggling tunnel and a third site of unspecified terror activity.
Two people suffered emotional shock from the event. Several buildings in the kibbutz were damaged.
The head of the Hof Ashkelon local authority, Yair Farjun, said following the attack that "the continued fire endangers our lives and disrupts life's routine. I believe in the ability of the IDF to carry out the necessary actions in order to stop the fire. On our part, we will continue to take security precautions to the extent this is possible."
The IDF and Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) cooperated overnight in attacks by IAF aircraft on several targets in Gaza. Among the targets attacked were three terror tunnels in northern Gaza. In the southern part of the border, the IAF attacks struck a terror tunnel, a smuggling tunnel and a third site of unspecified terror activity.
December 20, 2010
Egypt and the 21st Century - Levi Avtzon
It is really hot outside. Hot like a desert.
Hundreds of people are out in the fields, wrapped in rags, ripped sandals on their aching feet. They walk haggardly, whiplash marks painted all over their broken bodies. To the side stands the guard, a dark-skinned man with an interesting-looking beard.
Stop for a moment and imagine the scene. Enter Egypt of 3,300 years ago.
Now make use of your mental Photoshop program, and insert yourself into the picture. You will be experiencing the drama along with the others; you will try to feel their pain and plight. Ready?
You notice one of your coworkers collapsing. He is blue.
You don't cry; you are already immune to pain, having lived this nightmare as long as you can remember. Life is painful. When the guard walks over to the dead man, you have a brief moment to think undisturbed. Your mind begins to wander…
You are already immune to pain, having lived this nightmare as long as you can remember. You remember the time your daddy sat you on his lap and related what had been told to him by his father, quoting the patriarch of the family: "A day will come when a man will arise and declare in the name of G‑d, 'I have surely remembered you!' All the suffering will then end…"
Whip! GET TO WORK! The guard is back. Back to reality!
Back to work you go, but with a flicker of hope. The future envisaged so vividly revives your shattered soul. It is all about to end, you tell yourself with pure faith...
Hey, what's the noise you suddenly hear? Why is everyone shouting?
You raise your eyes and behold a dream come true.
There stands a man with an angelic look, a long white beard and eyes so kind, and he is shouting for all to hear, "G‑d has said: 'I have remembered you!'"
Moses has arrived.
Close Photo shop. Go back to the exile of America circa 2010.
No whips, no guards, but an exile of a different sort—a prison of secularism. The Divine hand obscured almost completely.
People walk the streets fashionably dressed, fancy shoes on their feet. They walk proud, meaninglessness painted all over their face. All over are billboard and screens telling people how to live their lives.
No need to imagine the scene. Just turn on a TV or walk down the street.
You notice another neighbor who has fallen off the beaten path, his morals shattered.
You don't cry, you don't flinch; you are used to this, this is life.
When the radio, phone, and TV are all shut you have a few minutes to think undisturbed.
You raise your eyes and behold a dream come trueYou remember sitting on Daddy's lap, as he related how the one-liner Ani Maamin – which proclaims the faith that one day we will be free from evil and pain, and we'll live in a utopian world where G‑d is revealed and peace takes over the world – has been with us Jews wherever we went. It has given us hope even at the darkest moments...
Hey, what's that noise you hear? Why is everyone shouting?
You raise your eyes and behold a dream come true.
There stands a man with an angelic look, with a long white beard and eyes so kind you feel the truth penetrating your soul. And he is shouting for all to hear, "The time of your redemption has arrived!"
Moshiach has arrived.
It's about time.
Hundreds of people are out in the fields, wrapped in rags, ripped sandals on their aching feet. They walk haggardly, whiplash marks painted all over their broken bodies. To the side stands the guard, a dark-skinned man with an interesting-looking beard.
Stop for a moment and imagine the scene. Enter Egypt of 3,300 years ago.
Now make use of your mental Photoshop program, and insert yourself into the picture. You will be experiencing the drama along with the others; you will try to feel their pain and plight. Ready?
You notice one of your coworkers collapsing. He is blue.
You don't cry; you are already immune to pain, having lived this nightmare as long as you can remember. Life is painful. When the guard walks over to the dead man, you have a brief moment to think undisturbed. Your mind begins to wander…
You are already immune to pain, having lived this nightmare as long as you can remember. You remember the time your daddy sat you on his lap and related what had been told to him by his father, quoting the patriarch of the family: "A day will come when a man will arise and declare in the name of G‑d, 'I have surely remembered you!' All the suffering will then end…"
Whip! GET TO WORK! The guard is back. Back to reality!
Back to work you go, but with a flicker of hope. The future envisaged so vividly revives your shattered soul. It is all about to end, you tell yourself with pure faith...
Hey, what's the noise you suddenly hear? Why is everyone shouting?
You raise your eyes and behold a dream come true.
There stands a man with an angelic look, a long white beard and eyes so kind, and he is shouting for all to hear, "G‑d has said: 'I have remembered you!'"
Moses has arrived.
Close Photo shop. Go back to the exile of America circa 2010.
No whips, no guards, but an exile of a different sort—a prison of secularism. The Divine hand obscured almost completely.
People walk the streets fashionably dressed, fancy shoes on their feet. They walk proud, meaninglessness painted all over their face. All over are billboard and screens telling people how to live their lives.
No need to imagine the scene. Just turn on a TV or walk down the street.
You notice another neighbor who has fallen off the beaten path, his morals shattered.
You don't cry, you don't flinch; you are used to this, this is life.
When the radio, phone, and TV are all shut you have a few minutes to think undisturbed.
You raise your eyes and behold a dream come trueYou remember sitting on Daddy's lap, as he related how the one-liner Ani Maamin – which proclaims the faith that one day we will be free from evil and pain, and we'll live in a utopian world where G‑d is revealed and peace takes over the world – has been with us Jews wherever we went. It has given us hope even at the darkest moments...
Hey, what's that noise you hear? Why is everyone shouting?
You raise your eyes and behold a dream come true.
There stands a man with an angelic look, with a long white beard and eyes so kind you feel the truth penetrating your soul. And he is shouting for all to hear, "The time of your redemption has arrived!"
Moshiach has arrived.
It's about time.
December 19, 2010
Israel's Emergency Response Ready?
After watching the problems from the Galut regarding the Carmel fire...I wonder what will happen when the Nazi/Arab/Muslims attack again?
We all know the weapons build up that is in progress.
We know the weapons being sold to Israel's enemies are being stepped up.
We know the US has decided to pull out of "Peace Talks" promotion for now...
We know that Iran is just waiting for the right moment to start the next major ME war...we know this.
We understand that the Nazi/Arab/Muslims don't want some land or concessions.
They want all of Eretz Yisrael and will be very happy to kill all of the Jews..starting in Israel and then moving on to the rest of us. This means we need to all be ready to fight and feel like the fight has already started...because it has.
When do we in the Galut understand the concept of tipping points....
Do we believe that only the Hand of Ha Shem will protect us? I can't believe that with so many secular or non Orthodox Jews in the Us that they don't think they will need to take an active hand in defending their own lives. Surely they understand that if they don't believe Ha Shem's Statutes are required, they won't think Ha Shem's Hand will save them and that after Israel the Nazi/Arab/Muslims won't be coming after them?
As usual ...you can't have it both ways. I know there are tired Jews...tired of the fights and persecution, tired of not really fitting in, tired of explaining to their children why they are different and why so many people hate us.....We need to think of the children!
This is our major responsibility!
It is now time for the Nazi/Arab/Muslims to be expelled from Eretz Yisrael and then completely defeated and eradicated! PC is dead!
Avigdor
We all know the weapons build up that is in progress.
We know the weapons being sold to Israel's enemies are being stepped up.
We know the US has decided to pull out of "Peace Talks" promotion for now...
We know that Iran is just waiting for the right moment to start the next major ME war...we know this.
We understand that the Nazi/Arab/Muslims don't want some land or concessions.
They want all of Eretz Yisrael and will be very happy to kill all of the Jews..starting in Israel and then moving on to the rest of us. This means we need to all be ready to fight and feel like the fight has already started...because it has.
When do we in the Galut understand the concept of tipping points....
Do we believe that only the Hand of Ha Shem will protect us? I can't believe that with so many secular or non Orthodox Jews in the Us that they don't think they will need to take an active hand in defending their own lives. Surely they understand that if they don't believe Ha Shem's Statutes are required, they won't think Ha Shem's Hand will save them and that after Israel the Nazi/Arab/Muslims won't be coming after them?
As usual ...you can't have it both ways. I know there are tired Jews...tired of the fights and persecution, tired of not really fitting in, tired of explaining to their children why they are different and why so many people hate us.....We need to think of the children!
This is our major responsibility!
It is now time for the Nazi/Arab/Muslims to be expelled from Eretz Yisrael and then completely defeated and eradicated! PC is dead!
Avigdor
US drops Palestinian-Israeli track, cultivates Turkey
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had the thankless task of writing finis on the Obama administration's intense two-year effort to persuade Israelis and Palestinians to discuss peace. Her speech to the Saban Forum early Saturday, Dec. 11 was much awaited as Washington's first comment on the deadlock caused by Israel's refusal to meet the Palestinian demand for a second freeze on new settlement construction as their precondition for direct talks.
The Secretary took care not to blame either side for the breakdown. "Palestinians must appreciate Israel's legitimate security concerns. And Israelis must accept the legitimate territorial aspirations of the Palestinians," she said, the closest she came to complaining about the obstacles which had defeated her government's efforts.
"We will not lose hope," she said. "Mr Obama has identified continued US engagement in peace talks as a key political goal." But she omitted the oft-repeated statement of the president's determination to achieve an accord within a year. Without setting out time tables or modes of action, she stressed it was time to "grapple with the core issues of this conflict" which she listed as borders, refugees, settlements, water and Jerusalem. "The land between the Jordan River and Mediterranean Sea was finite," she said "and the people who live there need a clear border to map out their futures."
Clinton did not wait for analysts to define the scale of Washington's setback. She admitted frankly: "Like many of you, I am frustrated that we have not gotten farther, faster."
Obama clearly appreciates that like the presidents before him - Bill Clinton, who failed dramatically, and George W. Bush, who soon dropped out of US Middle East peacemaking - he had bitten off more than he can chew. It was time to pack up and abandon his ambitious bid to crack the Palestinian-Israeli conflict by direct action.
But Hillary Clinton's most intriguing comments was this: "The status quo is untenable. We will redouble our regional diplomacy. When one way is blocked, we will seek another. "
debkafile's Washington sources disclose that what she had in mind was an alternative path which still remains to be marked out: It would move Middle East peacemaking out of the deadlocked US-Palestinian-Israeli track and introduce a new set of prime movers with the long-term goal of a regional peace settlement.
Washington has taken the first step of trying to resolve the Turkish-Israeli dispute over Ankara's maritime bid to bust the Gaza blockade in order to open the door to restoring the old dialogue and strategic relationship between Ankara and Jerusalem.
In a parallel step, the US has acted to bring Turkey into active mediation on the Iranian nuclear controversy. Washington will approve the talks with Iran the Six Powers (US, Russia, France, China, UK and Germany) embarked on this week ending in a deal for an enriched uranium swap to take place on Turkish soil under international supervision. Tehran has in the past demanded that this swap take place in Turkey. The Americans want to make sure that at no time, Iran holds enough enriched uranium for producing a nuclear bomb.
Once that accord goes through, the Erdogan government will be free to return to its interrupted role of 2007-2008 under the Olmert government as peace broker between Israel and Syria. An accommodation on that track, if achieved, would pave the way for Ankara taking over revived Israel-Palestinian negotiations.
The Secretary took care not to blame either side for the breakdown. "Palestinians must appreciate Israel's legitimate security concerns. And Israelis must accept the legitimate territorial aspirations of the Palestinians," she said, the closest she came to complaining about the obstacles which had defeated her government's efforts.
"We will not lose hope," she said. "Mr Obama has identified continued US engagement in peace talks as a key political goal." But she omitted the oft-repeated statement of the president's determination to achieve an accord within a year. Without setting out time tables or modes of action, she stressed it was time to "grapple with the core issues of this conflict" which she listed as borders, refugees, settlements, water and Jerusalem. "The land between the Jordan River and Mediterranean Sea was finite," she said "and the people who live there need a clear border to map out their futures."
Clinton did not wait for analysts to define the scale of Washington's setback. She admitted frankly: "Like many of you, I am frustrated that we have not gotten farther, faster."
Obama clearly appreciates that like the presidents before him - Bill Clinton, who failed dramatically, and George W. Bush, who soon dropped out of US Middle East peacemaking - he had bitten off more than he can chew. It was time to pack up and abandon his ambitious bid to crack the Palestinian-Israeli conflict by direct action.
But Hillary Clinton's most intriguing comments was this: "The status quo is untenable. We will redouble our regional diplomacy. When one way is blocked, we will seek another. "
debkafile's Washington sources disclose that what she had in mind was an alternative path which still remains to be marked out: It would move Middle East peacemaking out of the deadlocked US-Palestinian-Israeli track and introduce a new set of prime movers with the long-term goal of a regional peace settlement.
Washington has taken the first step of trying to resolve the Turkish-Israeli dispute over Ankara's maritime bid to bust the Gaza blockade in order to open the door to restoring the old dialogue and strategic relationship between Ankara and Jerusalem.
In a parallel step, the US has acted to bring Turkey into active mediation on the Iranian nuclear controversy. Washington will approve the talks with Iran the Six Powers (US, Russia, France, China, UK and Germany) embarked on this week ending in a deal for an enriched uranium swap to take place on Turkish soil under international supervision. Tehran has in the past demanded that this swap take place in Turkey. The Americans want to make sure that at no time, Iran holds enough enriched uranium for producing a nuclear bomb.
Once that accord goes through, the Erdogan government will be free to return to its interrupted role of 2007-2008 under the Olmert government as peace broker between Israel and Syria. An accommodation on that track, if achieved, would pave the way for Ankara taking over revived Israel-Palestinian negotiations.
Clinton a danger to Israel
Op-ed: Hillary Clinton’s disregard for Arab desire to eliminate Israel delusional, evil
Moshe Dann
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's address to the Saban Forum should leave little doubt that she is a danger to the State of Israel and, thereby, to the Jewish people. For those who care about Israel, her words, because she expresses the position of President Obama's administration, are alarming.
Clinton's speech was praised for not demanding a further settlement freeze; this was because US policy makers realized it would accomplish nothing, and PM Netanyahu had already agreed to stop, or severely limit building de facto. Instead, she emphasized state-building, "ending the occupation," and borders. Coupled with international recognition of Palestinian statehood, this side-steps Israeli resistance to a freeze and insistence on Palestinian acceptance of Israel, further isolating Israel. What she did not say is worse.
Not once did she mention official PA support, directly and indirectly, for incitement and terrorism. While passing on the usual gesture to America's "commitment to Israel's security," her focus was elsewhere.
Blindly obedient to the notion of building a Palestinian state, she ignored the recent statement of Fatah, the PA's ruling party in the West Bank: "No to Israel as a Jewish state, no to interim borders, no to land swaps." And that's only for openers.
She did mention how important it was to "ease the situation in Gaza," and "foster legitimate economic growth." Yet she forgot to mention the plight of Gilad Shalit.
Clinton's focus was "the core issues of the conflict on borders and security; settlements, water, refugees; and on Jerusalem itself." Her solution was "state-building work of the PA" and support for the Arab (Saudi) Peace Initiative – which grants the Palestinians a state based on the 1949 Armistice Lines, including Jerusalem's division, and returning the Golan Heights to Syria. Israel gets "normal relations," as long as that may last.
Clinton waves at "fundamental compromises," but given her pro-Palestinian agenda, and her "two-state" axiom, this means Israel's capitulation and surrender. Although she refers to "security arrangements" to prevent terrorism, she never spells out how that is possible; her vagueness is either lack of understanding, or ignorance. Even-handedly, she moves on to the issue of settlements: "we do not accept the legitimacy of continued settlement activity."
On borders: "the occupation will be over."
On Palestinian refugees: "a just and permanent solution."
On Jerusalem: "the religious interests of people and all faiths around the world must be respected."
"Palestinian state-building" inspires her: "The lack of peace and the occupation that began in 1967 continue to deprive the Palestinian people of dignity and self-determination. This is unacceptable, and ultimately, it too is unsustainable."
She missed the fact that Jordan is a Palestinian state, carved out of the Palestine Mandate by Britain in 1922, with a population that is two-thirds Palestinian.
This is not, however, what makes Ms. Clinton, and those who think like her, so dangerous; it's the notion of what the core issues really are.
If the dispute between Arabs and Israelis is territorial, it would have been resolved long ago. It's not about the "occupation in 1967;" it's about the Nakba (Catastrophe), as Arabs see it, the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948.
The problem is not the area that Israel occupies, but her existence. Enshrined in the charters of the PLO and Hamas, Palestinians don't want a state alongside Israel, but one that replaces Israel. Not understanding this is delusional; not including this as a core issue is evil.
Evil is a harsh word, so here's why I use it. Clinton, Obama's Administration, and everyone else know that Israel cannot accept her agenda, since that would mean exposure to significant risks. Rejecting her efforts will create more tension, and serve to isolate and vilify Israel, while strengthening the forces of de-legitimization.
She chose her words carefully: "We hope to see a significant curtailment of incursions by Israeli troops into Palestinian areas." What about the reasons for those incursions? What about the lives that will be saved by capturing terrorists before they attack? From her impressions, Israel is not only wrong, but wicked.
And Clinton knows – as experts have informed her – that the Palestinian security forces that "stood watchful guard" during her visits may easily turn into executioners. They have done little or nothing to protect Israelis, nor should that be expected.
PA "corruption and mismanagement," billions in US funds wasted? No problem; "I was pleased to announce the transfer of an additional $150 million in direct assistance to the PA" – and to Hamas. That should soothe American workers on unemployment lines.
Clinton's emphasis on "an independent, viable sovereign state," may be misguided; but in her insistence that there is no other alternative, linking such a state with vital American interests, condemning "provocative (Israeli) announcements on east Jerusalem," and blaming Israel for preventing peace, Madame Secretary has contributed to a global climate of anathema towards Israel.
She cannot say, "I was only following orders;" she gives them.
Moshe Dann
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's address to the Saban Forum should leave little doubt that she is a danger to the State of Israel and, thereby, to the Jewish people. For those who care about Israel, her words, because she expresses the position of President Obama's administration, are alarming.
Clinton's speech was praised for not demanding a further settlement freeze; this was because US policy makers realized it would accomplish nothing, and PM Netanyahu had already agreed to stop, or severely limit building de facto. Instead, she emphasized state-building, "ending the occupation," and borders. Coupled with international recognition of Palestinian statehood, this side-steps Israeli resistance to a freeze and insistence on Palestinian acceptance of Israel, further isolating Israel. What she did not say is worse.
Not once did she mention official PA support, directly and indirectly, for incitement and terrorism. While passing on the usual gesture to America's "commitment to Israel's security," her focus was elsewhere.
Blindly obedient to the notion of building a Palestinian state, she ignored the recent statement of Fatah, the PA's ruling party in the West Bank: "No to Israel as a Jewish state, no to interim borders, no to land swaps." And that's only for openers.
She did mention how important it was to "ease the situation in Gaza," and "foster legitimate economic growth." Yet she forgot to mention the plight of Gilad Shalit.
Clinton's focus was "the core issues of the conflict on borders and security; settlements, water, refugees; and on Jerusalem itself." Her solution was "state-building work of the PA" and support for the Arab (Saudi) Peace Initiative – which grants the Palestinians a state based on the 1949 Armistice Lines, including Jerusalem's division, and returning the Golan Heights to Syria. Israel gets "normal relations," as long as that may last.
Clinton waves at "fundamental compromises," but given her pro-Palestinian agenda, and her "two-state" axiom, this means Israel's capitulation and surrender. Although she refers to "security arrangements" to prevent terrorism, she never spells out how that is possible; her vagueness is either lack of understanding, or ignorance. Even-handedly, she moves on to the issue of settlements: "we do not accept the legitimacy of continued settlement activity."
On borders: "the occupation will be over."
On Palestinian refugees: "a just and permanent solution."
On Jerusalem: "the religious interests of people and all faiths around the world must be respected."
"Palestinian state-building" inspires her: "The lack of peace and the occupation that began in 1967 continue to deprive the Palestinian people of dignity and self-determination. This is unacceptable, and ultimately, it too is unsustainable."
She missed the fact that Jordan is a Palestinian state, carved out of the Palestine Mandate by Britain in 1922, with a population that is two-thirds Palestinian.
This is not, however, what makes Ms. Clinton, and those who think like her, so dangerous; it's the notion of what the core issues really are.
If the dispute between Arabs and Israelis is territorial, it would have been resolved long ago. It's not about the "occupation in 1967;" it's about the Nakba (Catastrophe), as Arabs see it, the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948.
The problem is not the area that Israel occupies, but her existence. Enshrined in the charters of the PLO and Hamas, Palestinians don't want a state alongside Israel, but one that replaces Israel. Not understanding this is delusional; not including this as a core issue is evil.
Evil is a harsh word, so here's why I use it. Clinton, Obama's Administration, and everyone else know that Israel cannot accept her agenda, since that would mean exposure to significant risks. Rejecting her efforts will create more tension, and serve to isolate and vilify Israel, while strengthening the forces of de-legitimization.
She chose her words carefully: "We hope to see a significant curtailment of incursions by Israeli troops into Palestinian areas." What about the reasons for those incursions? What about the lives that will be saved by capturing terrorists before they attack? From her impressions, Israel is not only wrong, but wicked.
And Clinton knows – as experts have informed her – that the Palestinian security forces that "stood watchful guard" during her visits may easily turn into executioners. They have done little or nothing to protect Israelis, nor should that be expected.
Clinton's emphasis on "an independent, viable sovereign state," may be misguided; but in her insistence that there is no other alternative, linking such a state with vital American interests, condemning "provocative (Israeli) announcements on east Jerusalem," and blaming Israel for preventing peace, Madame Secretary has contributed to a global climate of anathema towards Israel.
She cannot say, "I was only following orders;" she gives them.
December 18, 2010
Israel, US and the Stinking Fish - Rabbi Meir Kahane
(Written many years ago and look what little has changed!)
Many times I have spoken of the Talmudic parable of the king, his servant, and the fish. Never was it more apt.
Once there was a king who sent his servant to buy a fish. The servant returned with a fish that stank. In fury the king gave the servant a choice of three punishments: “Eat the fish, get whipped for the fish, or pay for the fish.” In common with most people, the servant chose not to reach into his pocket and he decided to eat the stinking fish but after two bites the stench made him give up and he decided to get whipped for it. The pain of the lashes, however, made him stop that, too, and he cried out, “I will pay for the fish!”
And so the fool ate the fish, got whipped for the fish and, in the end, had to pay for it, anyhow. Those in Israel and without, who refuse to understand that nothing will deter America from demanding that Israel make the maximum concessions, play the same fool. Those who do not understand that there is nothing that Israel can possible do, that there are no compromises it can make, that there is nothing short of full retreat to the 1967 borders that will satisfy the United States-are the same fools as the servant who ate, got whipped and in the end had to pay anyhow,
Their refusal to make the difficult choice of telling the Americans “no”, now, at this moment, will see them making the retreats they hope will avert American anger; it will see this effort fail even as the frontier moves from its present lines within the Arab heartland to new ones close to the Jewish cities; and most important, the Americans will make the same demands they always have envisioned since the days of the Roger Plan-total Israeli withdrawal. And since this is a thing that not even the most dovish of Israelis will agree to, the result will be an ultimate Israeli firm “no”, an ultimate American anger of the kind all men of “new initiative” propose to avert today by compromise, and exactly the same conditions of confrontation that would come anyhow if the Israelis said their “no” today. There would be one great difference, however, a “no” today will bring the crisis while Israel stands poised near the Arab capitols. A “no” tomorrow, after all the hapless and confused compromises and “initiatives,” will bring the same crisis near Tel Aviv, Beersheva and Netanya.
This is what happens when foolish and confused Israelis, by refusing to pay the price of saying “no” to the stinking fish of pressure, attempt to eat it, submit to getting beaten over it and then learn to their dismay that there is no escape from the difficult decision that they should have made in the first place.
Let the Israeli government, its men of “new initiative” and the Jewish leaders in America understand several basic axioms:
1) America is committed to the Roger Plan and the world’s interpretation
of Security Council Resolution 242, i.e. Israeli withdrawal from all (but insignificant) parts of the lands of 1967. This includes the Golan Heights, Gaza, the entire West bank and the entire Sinai as well as changing Jerusalem’s present Jewish sovereignty status.
2) American interests lie, in the minds of most officials in Washington, with
Arab oil, the huge potential Arab market and with supplanting Soviet influence with American. This means, at best, an “even-handed” policy rather than a pro-Israeli one.
3) America is moving steadily to recognition of the “Palestinians” as a people
and of whomever they decide to have as their leaders. Those leaders are clearly the PLO and already the move to “moderate” the PLO, “public-relations-wise” is underway so that Washington can more easily pressure Israel into recognizing them.
4) The Ford-Kissinger administration is determined to prevent stagnation and
will pressure Israel into concession after concession.
5) No administration will go to war for Israel and no administration will continue
the present aid level no matter what Israel does or concedes. The frantic search for human allies will end as unsuccessfully as those Jews in the past who forgot what faith in the Jewish G-d was and who turned to Egypt or Assyria or other “allies” for help, only to learn to their dismay that the allies betrayed them.
Stinking fish are not made to be eaten or to get whipped or. One must have the courage to look at the truth and pay the bitter price of honesty. America is tired of the Israeli nuisance and wishes it would ea t the fish already. The time to loudly proclaim “no” is now.
(From Barbara Ginsberg's Desktop)
December 17, 2010
Foreign Policy for the Future: By Moshe Feiglin
2 Tevet, 5771
Dec. 9, '10
Translated from the Makor Rishon newspaper
The request to lecture this week before a delegation of rightist European parliament members visiting Israel took me by surprise. I do not even buy German products, the very sound of spoken German gives me the chills, I have never set foot and never will set foot on German soil, and I oppose the Israeli high-school Holocaust tours. What possible connection can there be between me and this delegation?
Not only that. This was a nationalist, rightist parliament delegation - politicians that the media like to portray as Nazis. My natural instincts dovetailed with political expedience and my logical conclusion was to keep my distance. What do I need this for? Wouldn't it be wiser for me to follow the example of all the other politicians in Israel and evade any dialogue with this delegation?
But there is a rule that I always follow: When a hot potato comes your way, it is always worthwhile to see how the Left relates to the issue. Then, after a thorough investigation, do the opposite of what the Left does. So if the Left is demonstrating against this delegation - the same Left that trumpets every legal or illegal meeting with the most diabolical murderers of Jews in our generation - if it is so important to the Left to distance this delegation from here, then there must be something important and positive about them that deserves my attention. Boycotting everybody and everything is a childish privilege affordable only to those who are not interested in taking responsibility and leading.
A thorough investigation showed that these parliamentarians are not Nazis. On the contrary, they are the best friends that Israel and the Jewish Nation have today in Europe. But this fact alone would not convince me to meet with Germans. There is another, more significant reason.
The world-wide public that is loyal to its identity is buried deep in the dungeons of the world - the world that was once called "the free world." Officialdom is completely controlled by the despots of disintegration: the Left. It is an all-out post-modern war against anything of substance; nationality, family, G-d - everything.
There is no nationality. The Arabs did not set our forests on fire. The hookah did.
Pass the hookah, filter out all the incriminating news and stuff the entire arson war that raged through Israel's forests on Chanukah into its hollow pipe.
Pass the hookah, and let us hide the national war that is searing Israel deep inside, where it cannot be seen. Let us cram the Jewish Nation into there for good measure, as well.
Just put out the fire, get the Ministry of Truth back into control and make sure that all the doors to the dungeons in which we are buried are locked shut.
But above dungeon-level, everything is collapsing. Here in Israel, in Europe and in America. In all these places there are forces that strive to return to their essence. Amalek is not the only player in Europe. There are also noble values there. Our role as Jews who are entrusted with perfecting the world is to filter out the good, guard it, nurture it and yes - with proper care - even find values worth adopting. We do not endeavor to destroy the world in the name of Allah, but to perfect the world in the Name of G-d.
When everything collapses both here and there - and it will collapse, for a fire cannot be doused without water - we will have to emerge from the dungeon and build a new world.
This is already happening. It is hard for me to describe in words the distress signals that these parliament members were communicating. They are all strong and successful. But to me, they seemed as if they were reaching out from amidst the flames. They understand that their children - not their grandchildren, their children! - will either have to become Moslem or die. No exaggeration.
What should we do? Should we ignore all the forces that, parallel to us, are emerging from the dungeons of the world? Or should we begin now, with caution and true national pride, to weave the bonds of the future and plant them on the proper values system? After all, that is exactly why the Left defames all those who meet with them - so that it can continue to divide and conquer.
The delegation did not have an easy time with me. As opposed to other voices that they heard, I was careful not to ask for anything and not to try to convince them of anything. Our status is that of the giver - not of the potential receiver.
"You are the last true obstacle in the face of Islam," I told them. "Jerusalem belongs only to the Jews - including the Temple Mount, where we will ultimately build our Holy Temple."
When one of the representatives asked how there could be peace without negotiations on Jerusalem, I responded with such shock that he immediately apologized for even thinking to ask such a question.
I explained my feelings toward them honestly - including the need to express our stinging historical memories of Europe in political and practical terms. They did not have an easy time with me. But nevertheless, they heard the real truth, which is what they sought. My words starkly contrasted what they heard from others: empty overviews and pathetic attempts to convince them that we are really the pitiful underdogs of the world.
I do not think that Europe and America have much of a chance. Most likely, these healthy forces have woken up after the horses have fled the stables. But nobody knows how the history of the once-free world will develop. If rising leaders in Europe and America who share common values and a common enemy will be willing to come en masse to Israel and declare that Jerusalem and the Temple Mount belong and are holy exclusively to the Jewish Nation, we must stretch out our hand to them in friendship.
Dec. 9, '10
Translated from the Makor Rishon newspaper
The request to lecture this week before a delegation of rightist European parliament members visiting Israel took me by surprise. I do not even buy German products, the very sound of spoken German gives me the chills, I have never set foot and never will set foot on German soil, and I oppose the Israeli high-school Holocaust tours. What possible connection can there be between me and this delegation?
Not only that. This was a nationalist, rightist parliament delegation - politicians that the media like to portray as Nazis. My natural instincts dovetailed with political expedience and my logical conclusion was to keep my distance. What do I need this for? Wouldn't it be wiser for me to follow the example of all the other politicians in Israel and evade any dialogue with this delegation?
But there is a rule that I always follow: When a hot potato comes your way, it is always worthwhile to see how the Left relates to the issue. Then, after a thorough investigation, do the opposite of what the Left does. So if the Left is demonstrating against this delegation - the same Left that trumpets every legal or illegal meeting with the most diabolical murderers of Jews in our generation - if it is so important to the Left to distance this delegation from here, then there must be something important and positive about them that deserves my attention. Boycotting everybody and everything is a childish privilege affordable only to those who are not interested in taking responsibility and leading.
A thorough investigation showed that these parliamentarians are not Nazis. On the contrary, they are the best friends that Israel and the Jewish Nation have today in Europe. But this fact alone would not convince me to meet with Germans. There is another, more significant reason.
The world-wide public that is loyal to its identity is buried deep in the dungeons of the world - the world that was once called "the free world." Officialdom is completely controlled by the despots of disintegration: the Left. It is an all-out post-modern war against anything of substance; nationality, family, G-d - everything.
There is no nationality. The Arabs did not set our forests on fire. The hookah did.
Pass the hookah, filter out all the incriminating news and stuff the entire arson war that raged through Israel's forests on Chanukah into its hollow pipe.
Pass the hookah, and let us hide the national war that is searing Israel deep inside, where it cannot be seen. Let us cram the Jewish Nation into there for good measure, as well.
Just put out the fire, get the Ministry of Truth back into control and make sure that all the doors to the dungeons in which we are buried are locked shut.
But above dungeon-level, everything is collapsing. Here in Israel, in Europe and in America. In all these places there are forces that strive to return to their essence. Amalek is not the only player in Europe. There are also noble values there. Our role as Jews who are entrusted with perfecting the world is to filter out the good, guard it, nurture it and yes - with proper care - even find values worth adopting. We do not endeavor to destroy the world in the name of Allah, but to perfect the world in the Name of G-d.
When everything collapses both here and there - and it will collapse, for a fire cannot be doused without water - we will have to emerge from the dungeon and build a new world.
This is already happening. It is hard for me to describe in words the distress signals that these parliament members were communicating. They are all strong and successful. But to me, they seemed as if they were reaching out from amidst the flames. They understand that their children - not their grandchildren, their children! - will either have to become Moslem or die. No exaggeration.
What should we do? Should we ignore all the forces that, parallel to us, are emerging from the dungeons of the world? Or should we begin now, with caution and true national pride, to weave the bonds of the future and plant them on the proper values system? After all, that is exactly why the Left defames all those who meet with them - so that it can continue to divide and conquer.
The delegation did not have an easy time with me. As opposed to other voices that they heard, I was careful not to ask for anything and not to try to convince them of anything. Our status is that of the giver - not of the potential receiver.
"You are the last true obstacle in the face of Islam," I told them. "Jerusalem belongs only to the Jews - including the Temple Mount, where we will ultimately build our Holy Temple."
When one of the representatives asked how there could be peace without negotiations on Jerusalem, I responded with such shock that he immediately apologized for even thinking to ask such a question.
I explained my feelings toward them honestly - including the need to express our stinging historical memories of Europe in political and practical terms. They did not have an easy time with me. But nevertheless, they heard the real truth, which is what they sought. My words starkly contrasted what they heard from others: empty overviews and pathetic attempts to convince them that we are really the pitiful underdogs of the world.
I do not think that Europe and America have much of a chance. Most likely, these healthy forces have woken up after the horses have fled the stables. But nobody knows how the history of the once-free world will develop. If rising leaders in Europe and America who share common values and a common enemy will be willing to come en masse to Israel and declare that Jerusalem and the Temple Mount belong and are holy exclusively to the Jewish Nation, we must stretch out our hand to them in friendship.
December 16, 2010
Temple Institute Needs to Control The Temple Mount
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The Waqf needs to be deported and the control of the TM given over to The Temple Mount.
The surrounding neighborhoods need to have their Arabs deported to the lcoation of their passports.
When the Muslim/Arabs start their ruckus...announce the removal of all minarets.
Deportation will become easier and easier...either from houses or jails...
For all of those murdered by the Muslim./Nazi/Thugs HY"D !!
Avigdor
Queen Esther Takes up the Battle for Israel and the Holy Temple - Tevet 9, 5771
The 2,500 year old scroll of Esther is alive and well, and still being written. It has been reported that "A group of Islamists staged a rally at the tomb of Biblical Queen Esther, one of the most revered sites for Jews in Iran, and threatened to destroy it if Israel damages the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem. " (World Jewish Congress)
Iranian political commentator Banafsheh Zand Bonazzi reports:
"On Sunday, December 12th, the Iranian firebrand basij militia demonstrated in the city of Hamadan, and threatened to destroy the tomb of Queen Esther which is located in the city of Hamadan or Ekbatana, if Israel damages the al-Aksa mosque in Jerusalem. The western world sat by as the Taliban destroyed the Buddhas of Bamian, after murdering hundreds of thousands, if not millions in Afghanistan. Now these backward savages are threatening to do the very same."
"The students, who rallied at Bu-Ali Sina University in Hamadan, said in a statement, 'We, the student basijis [a hardline Islamist militia]… warn Zionist regime leaders if they assault the Al-Aqsa mosque in any way we will destroy the tomb of these lowly murderers.'" (ynetnews.com)
The Al-Aqsa mosque occupies the southern section of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem where the Holy Temple once stood. The government of Israel does not perform or authorize the performance of any construction atop the Temple Mount. Archaeological excavation is likewise forbidden. On the other hand the Moslem Wakf regularly oversees construction and enlargement of the mosque on the Mount as well as wholesale destruction of existing remains of the Holy Temple. It is the Wakf's explicit intention to destroy all archaeological evidence of the Holy Temple, while at the same time publicly stating that the Holy Temple never existed.
When Israel does engage in archaeological excavation, construction or renovation along the base of the Temple Mount, Moslems , local and abroad use this as a pretext for incitement to violence against Israel, claiming that Israel is attempting to harm the Al-Aqsa mosque. Although no Israel construction or excavation is currently taking place near the Temple Mount, the radical Islamic student organization is nevertheless threatening retaliatory violence.
Hamadan is the site of the tombs of Esther and Mordechai, renowned for their roles in rescuing the exiled Jews of Persia from the evil Haman's planned genocide. The subtext of the well known history, which is recorded in the scroll of Esther, (one of the twenty four books of the Hebrew canon which is read aloud every Purim), is the struggle of the returning Jews of that generation to rebuild the Holy Temple that was destroyed by Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar.
The statement by the student basijis suggests that they are very aware of the role Esther played not only in foiling the attempt to annihilate the Jews of Persia, but in successfully bringing about the rebuilding of the Holy Temple.
Esther has also been active in another front in the contemporary battle to foil Iran's overt and bellicose commitment to physically destroy the state of Israel, and murder its six million Jews. A malicious computer worm of unknown origin, dubbed Stuxnet, has infiltrated and crippled the computer systems responsible for Iran’s nuclear weapons programs. Appearing within the worm itself is the word "myrtus." This is the Latin name of the aromatic Myrtle plant, known in Hebrew as Haddas. Hadassah was also a second name attributed to Esther in the scriptural scroll. Some suggest that this "signature" points to Israel's involvement behind the Stuxnet worm.
Once again, over two millennia later, Esther stands in the center of the historical struggle being played out between Jerusalem and Persia, (Iran), over the Holy Temple and the fate of humanity. The students of Bu-Ali Sina University will surely live to regret their empty threats aimed at Esther, a great savior of Israel.
109 MKs Sign Pleading Letter to US on Behalf of Pollard
Knesset Speaker Ruby Rivlin has sent a letter from the Knesset to U.S. President Barack Obama, Congress, and the U.S. District Attorney, pleading for the release of Jonathan Pollard.
The letter was signed by a leader in every party except for those known as Arab parties, representing a total of 109 out of the 120 Knesset Members.
In dispatching the letter, Rivlin stated that it represents the opinion of the overwhelming majority of the Israeli public in supporting Pollard’s urgent release. “As Speaker of the Knesset,” he wrote in an introductory note, “I see it as my obligation to bring this letter to your attention.”
The letter was signed by a leader in every party except for those known as Arab parties, representing a total of 109 out of the 120 Knesset Members.
In dispatching the letter, Rivlin stated that it represents the opinion of the overwhelming majority of the Israeli public in supporting Pollard’s urgent release. “As Speaker of the Knesset,” he wrote in an introductory note, “I see it as my obligation to bring this letter to your attention.”
Interview: Jewish Monetary Law Should be Israeli Law
“If Israel wants to call itself a Jewish state, it has to be about more than just physically housing Jews,” says Rabbi Dr. Ratzon Arusi, the Chief Rabbi of Israel's Yemenit Jewish community and head of an organization that promotes the case for Jewish civil law in the Jewish state. “There has to be Jewish content in the daily life of the state. Otherwise, we have no answer to those who call us racists, giving rights to one group of people over another.”
This past week, the Netzach Yisrael organization, under Rabbi Arusi's leadership, held its 20th Annual World Conference on Monetary Law, discussing and promoting various aspects of Jewish (Halakhic) law on monetary issues. But the conference is more than about just halakhic minutiae, as Rabbi Arusi told Israel National News; it's about promoting Jewish monetary law to be the law of the land.
Each year, the conference focuses on a specific issue in the Jewish legal canon, and how the laws pertaining to that issue could be integrated into modern Israeli law. This year's conference, held December 13-15 in Jerusalem, discussed the laws of wills and inheritances, and their implementation in modern Israeli life. The conference is organized annually by Rabbi Arusi, a renowned expert on Jewish law, and is attended by social, political, and religious leaders, including Knesset Members and rabbis.
Monetary Law in the Consensus
“Monetary law is something everyone can agree on,” Rabbi Arusi said. “In the absence of the Sanhedrin, implementation of halakhic laws pertaining to criminal law or personal behavior is irrelevant at this time. But there is no reason not to draw from the rich body of Jewish law when it comes to civil matters, to disputes between individuals that need to be resolved. For Jews, it should be natural to turn to our own tradition.”
There is an expert on Mishpat Ivri, the term for Jewish civil law, in the Attorney General's office, a position held by former Deputy Attorney General Professor Nachum Rakover. Former Supreme Court Judge Prof. Menachem Elon made a point of using and referring to Jewish law when applicable to his rulings.
This past week, the Netzach Yisrael organization, under Rabbi Arusi's leadership, held its 20th Annual World Conference on Monetary Law, discussing and promoting various aspects of Jewish (Halakhic) law on monetary issues. But the conference is more than about just halakhic minutiae, as Rabbi Arusi told Israel National News; it's about promoting Jewish monetary law to be the law of the land.
Each year, the conference focuses on a specific issue in the Jewish legal canon, and how the laws pertaining to that issue could be integrated into modern Israeli law. This year's conference, held December 13-15 in Jerusalem, discussed the laws of wills and inheritances, and their implementation in modern Israeli life. The conference is organized annually by Rabbi Arusi, a renowned expert on Jewish law, and is attended by social, political, and religious leaders, including Knesset Members and rabbis.
Monetary Law in the Consensus
“Monetary law is something everyone can agree on,” Rabbi Arusi said. “In the absence of the Sanhedrin, implementation of halakhic laws pertaining to criminal law or personal behavior is irrelevant at this time. But there is no reason not to draw from the rich body of Jewish law when it comes to civil matters, to disputes between individuals that need to be resolved. For Jews, it should be natural to turn to our own tradition.”
There is an expert on Mishpat Ivri, the term for Jewish civil law, in the Attorney General's office, a position held by former Deputy Attorney General Professor Nachum Rakover. Former Supreme Court Judge Prof. Menachem Elon made a point of using and referring to Jewish law when applicable to his rulings.
From The Galut - Kislev 11 - 5771 (TIMA)*
It remains to far for me to walk to the nearest Shul. I can't imagine I will move
before I make Aliyah...but it really cold and icy!
We are so disjointed and have so many Galut splinter groups from Federation to Z Street, that
I still can't figure out how we become one community.
From here it appears there are two players in Israel I want to root for
:Manhigut Yehudit and Moshe Feiglin and MK Michael Ben-Ari.
There remains no alternative to making Israel the State of Jews....except for Rabbi Meir Kahane's plan
to relocate the Arabs out of Israel.
This should start with the Temple Mount. Israel needs to bring in the police and IDF to forcibly remove the Arabs on the TM. Israel then needs to set the rules for only Jews to be allowed or however they see fit.
If this is what triggers the clash that will inspire Israel to carry out the rest of the Arab removal...so be it!
I believe I was at Sinai and that Eretz Yisrael belongs to me. I only came to this conclusion fairly recently after I began the road of Teshuva.
I welcome your thoughts.
Avigdor
*Til I make aliyah.
December 15, 2010
Secular Jews Tour a Foreign Culture: Hareidi Jews - Gil Ronen
A new internal tourism initiative brings groups of secular Jews to hareidi-religious neighborhoods and homes, smashing stereotypes and creating new bonds among Jewish groups that drifted apart over centuries.
The tours are conducted as part of a project called "Yerushalyim Shel Ma'ala" - a Talmudic term that means "the Higher Jerusalem" and refers to the reflection of Jerusalem in the spiritual world. In a time of extreme anti-hareidi incitement by the Israeli press, it allows secular Jews to see hareidi life from up close, on the personal level. The tours are largely a Chabad initiative and focus on hassidic communities in Jerusalem.
Tourists expect to see a closed society that disrespects its women, but see something altogether different, as they meet with and get to know both men and women whom they would otherwise never have spoken to.
The secular tourists get to experience a "tisch" - a festive gathering of a hassidic rebbe and his disciples - go to synagogues, enter bakeries, and are guests at hassidic homes. Project manager Ayelet Oren told Arutz Sheva's Hebrew-language news service that there was a "very meaningful" wave of tours during the Chanukah holiday.
Most of the tourists are secular, but not all. Some groups are private, while others are organized: high schools, kibbutzim, Haifa University employees and the governmental firm in charge of Culture, Youth and Sports Clubs (matnasim) have also taken the tours.
How do families react to their homes being turned into virtual museums? Oren said that many families see welcoming the visitors as a true calling. "There are some families that receive groups every evening." In order to overcome resistance from their children, she added, the hareidi parents "explain the purpose of the visits to the children, and tell them these are our brothers, and things work out."
Secular resistance is overcome by touting the visits as a unique opportunity to meet people, and by saying that "some Jewish treasures belong to everyone."
"When the approach is one of love for Israel, that we are all one, when one approaches it humbly, things are accepted," Oren explained.
December 13, 2010
Kahane was Right? Most Jews Think It's OK to Prod Arabs to Go - Gil Ronen
Was Rabbi Meir Kahane right?
A poll by the Israeli Democracy Institute suggests most Israelis might agree with the late rabbi and political leader, who favored encouraging the emigration of Arabs from Israel.
The annual Democracy Survey found that 53% of Jewish people in Israel maintain that the state is entitled to encourage Arabs to emigrate from Israel. Eighty six percent believe that critical decisions for the state should be taken by a Jewish majority.
Jewish forces expelled Arab residents by force in Israel's War of Independence in 1948, while others fled of their own accord. That conflict began with a naked attempt by several Arab armies and Arabs living on the Land of Israel to slaughter all of Israel's Jews, just three years after the Holocaust.
Since that time, the idea of expelling Israel's Arab population, either by force or through compensation and voluntary emigration, has gradually become taboo. The expulsion of Arabs is referred to by the World War Two term 'transfer' and regarded as unconscionable. However, the IDI poll appears to show most Israeli Jews see as legitimate unspecified steps for “encouraging” Arabs to leave.
As in previous years the Democracy Survey indicates “an unwavering optimism in the public’s attitude toward Israel’s future.” The majority of Israelis “continue to want to live in Israel, are proud of their state, and feel that they belong to the Israeli collective.”
Trust in the Supreme Court is at an apparent all-time low: only slightly more than half the general Israeli public—54%—state that they trust the Supreme Court fully or to some extent, while 44% state openly that they do not trust it. Only 41% of the respondents have full or partial trust in the police.
The IDI survey shows that the sector of the Israeli public with the most nationalistic views on Arabs living in Israel is arguably the hareidi-religious one. While just 33.5% of secular Jews are opposed to granting such Arabs equal rights, 51% of traditional Jews, 65% of religious Jews, and 72% of hareidis are oppose to the idea.
Sixty-two percent of the Jewish sample feel that as long as Israel is in a state of conflict with the 'Palestinians,' the views of Arab citizens of Israel on foreign affairs and security issues "should not be taken into account."
As for equality in the allocation of resources, 55% of respondents think that greater resources should be allocated to Jewish communities than to Arab ones. Among right-wingers, a clear majority (71%) agree with it.
A poll by the Israeli Democracy Institute suggests most Israelis might agree with the late rabbi and political leader, who favored encouraging the emigration of Arabs from Israel.
The annual Democracy Survey found that 53% of Jewish people in Israel maintain that the state is entitled to encourage Arabs to emigrate from Israel. Eighty six percent believe that critical decisions for the state should be taken by a Jewish majority.
Jewish forces expelled Arab residents by force in Israel's War of Independence in 1948, while others fled of their own accord. That conflict began with a naked attempt by several Arab armies and Arabs living on the Land of Israel to slaughter all of Israel's Jews, just three years after the Holocaust.
Since that time, the idea of expelling Israel's Arab population, either by force or through compensation and voluntary emigration, has gradually become taboo. The expulsion of Arabs is referred to by the World War Two term 'transfer' and regarded as unconscionable. However, the IDI poll appears to show most Israeli Jews see as legitimate unspecified steps for “encouraging” Arabs to leave.
As in previous years the Democracy Survey indicates “an unwavering optimism in the public’s attitude toward Israel’s future.” The majority of Israelis “continue to want to live in Israel, are proud of their state, and feel that they belong to the Israeli collective.”
Trust in the Supreme Court is at an apparent all-time low: only slightly more than half the general Israeli public—54%—state that they trust the Supreme Court fully or to some extent, while 44% state openly that they do not trust it. Only 41% of the respondents have full or partial trust in the police.
The IDI survey shows that the sector of the Israeli public with the most nationalistic views on Arabs living in Israel is arguably the hareidi-religious one. While just 33.5% of secular Jews are opposed to granting such Arabs equal rights, 51% of traditional Jews, 65% of religious Jews, and 72% of hareidis are oppose to the idea.
Sixty-two percent of the Jewish sample feel that as long as Israel is in a state of conflict with the 'Palestinians,' the views of Arab citizens of Israel on foreign affairs and security issues "should not be taken into account."
As for equality in the allocation of resources, 55% of respondents think that greater resources should be allocated to Jewish communities than to Arab ones. Among right-wingers, a clear majority (71%) agree with it.
10 Years Later: Kahane Couple to be Remembered
(Israelnationalnews.com) Ten years after their tragic death by Arab terrorists, a memorial will be held in Jerusalem on Monday for Rabbi Binyamin Ze'ev Kahane and his wife Talya.
The couple was killed in December of 2000 when Arab terrorists fired at their vehicle south of the Samarian community of Ofra, as they were driving from Jerusalem to their home in Kfar Tapuach. Just minutes before the attack the couple dropped off their 9-year-old son in Beit El where he attended school. Rabbi Kahane was fatally shot and lost control of the car which overturned. Talya was critically wounded and died in the ambulance en route to Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem. The couple's five daughters, who were also in the car, were wounded by the terrorists.
One of the murderers was Khaled Shawish, a senior commander in the Al-Aksa Martyrs Brigades terrorist organization, sponsored by PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah faction. He was caught more than three years ago by Israeli forces in Ramallah.
Rabbi Binyamin Ze'ev Kahane was born in New York and immigrated to Israel with his family in 1971. He was the son of Rabbi Meir Kahane, who founded the Kach movement and who was himself murdered by an Arab gunman in New York in November 1990. After his father’s death, Binyamin Ze'ev Kahane headed the “Kahane Chai” (Kahane Lives) movement which he established to continue his father's legacy.
Binyamin and Talia Kahane were buried in Jerusalem. Their six children are being raised by Talya's younger sister and her husband in Kfar Tapuach.
The couple was killed in December of 2000 when Arab terrorists fired at their vehicle south of the Samarian community of Ofra, as they were driving from Jerusalem to their home in Kfar Tapuach. Just minutes before the attack the couple dropped off their 9-year-old son in Beit El where he attended school. Rabbi Kahane was fatally shot and lost control of the car which overturned. Talya was critically wounded and died in the ambulance en route to Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem. The couple's five daughters, who were also in the car, were wounded by the terrorists.
One of the murderers was Khaled Shawish, a senior commander in the Al-Aksa Martyrs Brigades terrorist organization, sponsored by PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah faction. He was caught more than three years ago by Israeli forces in Ramallah.
Rabbi Binyamin Ze'ev Kahane was born in New York and immigrated to Israel with his family in 1971. He was the son of Rabbi Meir Kahane, who founded the Kach movement and who was himself murdered by an Arab gunman in New York in November 1990. After his father’s death, Binyamin Ze'ev Kahane headed the “Kahane Chai” (Kahane Lives) movement which he established to continue his father's legacy.
Binyamin and Talia Kahane were buried in Jerusalem. Their six children are being raised by Talya's younger sister and her husband in Kfar Tapuach.
Same Old, Same Old
South American Nations Recognize Palestinian State
December 12, 2012"South America is proving to be a wellspring for support for Palestinian sovereignty after Argentina and Uruguay announced they would join Brazil in recognizing an independent Palestinian state. Moving at a faster pace than the Palestinians themselves, Brazil stated its recognition of the state of Palestine on Friday, and on Monday, Argentine President Cristina Kirchner said in a letter to Palestinian Authority head Mahmoud ‘Abbas that, “The Argentine government recognizes Palestine as a free and independent state within the borders defined in 1967.” Uruguay followed, saying it would begin its recognition of the Palestinian state in 2011." -more
"Ratlines were systems of escape routes for Nazis and other fascists fleeing Europe at the end of World War II. These escape routes mainly led toward havens in South America, particularly Argentina, Paraguay, Brazil, and Chile." -more
December 11, 2010
Glick explains how Obama is ruining the US & Israel.
Caroline explains how Obama's policy towards Israel and lack of real policy direction has alienated all of South America.....He is bringing the entire world down on the US & Israel.... Replacing Biden with Bill Clinton for Veep will not help.... Avi
---------------------------------------------------------------
Column One: Why Latin America turned
By CAROLINE B. GLICK, The Jerusalem Post - December 10, 2010
Given the US policy trajectory, it is again obvious that the only one
Israel can rely on to defend its interests is Israel.
Israelis can be excused for wondering why Brazil and Argentina
unexpectedly announced they recognize an independent Palestinian state
with its capital city in Israel’s capital city. Israelis can be
forgiven for being taken by surprise by their move and by the prospect
that Uruguay, and perhaps Paraguay, Chile, Peru, Ecuador and El
Salvador, will be following in their footsteps because the Israeli
media have failed to report on developing trends in Latin America.
And this is not surprising. The media fail to report on almost all the
developing trends impacting the world. For instance, when the Turkish
government sent Hamas supporters to challenge the IDF’s maritime
blockade of the Hamas-controlled Gaza coastline, the media were
surprised that Israel’s ally Turkey had suddenly become Hamas’s ally
and Israel’s enemy.
Their failure to report on Turkey’s gradual transformation into an
Islamic supremacist state caused the media to treat what was a
culmination of a trend as a shocking new development.
The same is now happening with Latin America.
Whereas in Turkey, the media failed only to report on the significance
of the singular trend of Islamization of Turkish society, the media
have consistently ignored the importance for Israel of three trends
that made Latin America’s embrace of the Palestinians against Israel
eminently predictable.
Those trends are the rise of Hugo Chavez, the regional influence of
the Venezuela-Iran alliance, and the cravenness of US foreign policy
towards Latin America and the Middle East. When viewed as a whole they
explain why Latin American states are lining up to support the
Palestinians.
More importantly, they tell us something about how Israel should be acting.
OVER THE past decade Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez has inherited
Fidel Castro’s mantel as the head of the Latin American anti-American
club. He has used Venezuela’s oil wealth, drug money and other illicit
fortunes to draw neighboring states into his orbit and away from the
US. Chavez’s circle of influence now includes Cuba and Nicaragua,
Bolivia, Uruguay and Ecuador as well as Brazil, Paraguay, Argentina
and Peru. Democracies like Colombia and Chile are also taking steps in
Chavez’s anti-American direction.
Chavez’s choice of Iran is no fluke although it seemed like one to
some when the alliance first arose around 2004. Iran’s footprint in
Latin America has grown gradually. Beginning in the 1980s, Iran
started using Latin America as a forward base of operations against
the US and the West. It deployed Hizbullah and Revolutionary Guards
operatives and other intelligence and terror assets along the largely
ungoverned tri-border area between Argentina, Paraguay and Brazil.
That staging ground in turn enabled Iran to bomb Israeli and Jewish
targets in Buenos Aires in the early 1990s.
Iran’s presence on the continent allowed it to take advantage of
Chavez’s consolidation of power. Since taking office in 2005, Iranian
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has developed strategic alliances with
Venezuela and Nicaragua.
With Chavez’s assistance, Teheran is expanding its web of alliances
throughout Latin America at the expense of the US and Israel.
On the face of it, Chavez and Ahmadinejad seem like an odd couple. One
is a Marxist and the other is a messianic jihadist. But on closer
inspection it makes perfect sense. They share the same obsessions with
hating the US and loving power.
Chavez has demonstrated his commitment to maintaining power by
crushing his opponents, taking control over the judiciary and media,
amending the constitution and repeatedly stealing elections.
Meanwhile, the WikiLeaks sabotage campaign against the US gave us a
first person account of the magnitude of Ahmadinejad’s electoral
fraud.
In a cable from the US Embassy in Turkmenistan dated 15 June 2009, or
three days after Ahmadinejad stole the Iranian presidential elections,
the embassy reported a conversation with an Iranian source regarding
the true election results. The Iranian source referred to the poll as
a “coup d’etat.”
The regime declared Ahmadinejad the winner with 63% of the vote.
According to the Iranian source, he received less than a tenth of that
amount. As the cable put it, “based on calculations from [opponent Mir
Hossain] Mousavi’s campaign observers who were present at polling
stations around the country and who witnessed the vote counts, Mousavi
received approximately 26 million (or 61%) of the 42 million votes
cast in Friday’s election, followed by Mehdi Karroubi (10-12
million)…. Ahmadinejad received ‘a maximum of 4-5 million votes,’ with
the remainder going to Mohsen Rezai.”
There is no fence-sitting along the Iran-Israel divide. Latin American
countries that embrace Iran always do so to the detriment of their
ties with Israel. Bolivia and Venezuela cut their diplomatic ties with
Israel in January 2009 after siding with Hamas in Operation Cast Lead.
In comments reported on the Hudson New York website, Ricardo Udler,
the president of the small Bolivian Jewish community, said there is a
direct correlation between Bolivia’s growing ties with Iran and its
animosity towards Israel. In his words, “Each time an Iranian official
arrives in Bolivia there are negative comments against the State of
Israel and soon after, the Bolivian authorities issue a communiqué
against the Jewish state.”
Udler also warned that, as he put it, “there is information from
international agencies that indicate that uranium from Bolivia and
Venezuela is being shipped to Iran.”
That was in October. With Iran it appears that if you’re in for an
inch you’re in for a mile. This month we learned that Venezuela and
Iran are jointly deploying intermediate range ballistic missiles in
Venezuela that will be capable of targeting US cities.
THERE IS no doubt that the Venezuelan-Iranian alliance and its growing
force in Latin America go a long way towards explaining South
America’s sudden urge to recognize “Palestine.” But there is more to
the story.
The final trend that the media in Israel have failed to notice is the
impact of US foreign policy in South America and the Middle East alike
has had on the positions of nations like Brazil and Argentina towards
Israel. During the Bush administration, US Latin America policy was an
incoherent bundle of contradictions. On the one hand, the US failed to
assist Chavez’s opponents overthrow him when they had a chance in
2004. The US similarly failed to support Nicaraguan democrats in their
electoral fight against Sandinista leader Daniel Ortega in the 2007
elections. On the other hand, the US did foster strong alliances with
Colombia and Chile.
Under the Obama administration, US Latin American policy has become
more straightforward.
The US has turned its back on its allies and is willing to humiliate
itself in pursuit of its adversaries.
In April 2009 US President Barack Obama sat through a 50-minute
anti-American rant by Ortega at the Summit of the Americas. He then
sought out Chavez for a photo-op. In his own address Obama distanced
himself from US history, saying, “We have at times been disengaged,
and at times we sought to dictate our terms. But I pledge to you that
we seek an equal partnership.
There is no senior partner and junior partner in our relations.”
Unfortunately, Obama’s attempted appeasement hasn’t done any good.
Nicaragua invaded neighboring Costa Rica last month along the San Juan
River. Ortega’s forces are dredging the river as part of an
Iranian-sponsored project to build a canal along the Isthmus of
Nicaragua that will rival the Panama Canal.
Even Obama’s ambassador in Managua admits that Ortega remains deeply
hostile to the US. In a cable from February illicitly published by
WikiLeaks, Ambassador Robert Callahan argued that Ortega’s charm
offensive towards the US was “unlikely to portend a new, friendly
Ortega with whom we can work in the long-term.”
It is not simply the US’s refusal to defend itself against the likes
of Chavez that provokes the likes of Brazil’s President Luiz Ignacio
Lula da Silva and Argentina’s President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner
to embrace Chavez and Iran.
They are also responding the US’s signals towards Iran and Israel.
Obama’s policy of engaging and sanctioning Iran has no chance of
preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. And just like the
Arabs and the Europeans, the South Americans know it. There is no
doubt that at least part of Lula’s reason for signing onto a nuclear
deal with Ahmadinejad and Turkey’s Reccip Erdogan last spring was his
certainty that the US has no intention of preventing Iran from
acquiring nuclear arms.
From Lula’s perspective, there is no reason to participate in the US
charade of preventing Iran from becoming a nuclear power. He might as
well be on the winning side. And since Obama doesn’t mind Iran
winning, Iran will win.
THE SAME rules apply for Israel. Like the Europeans, the Arabs, the
Asians and everyone else, the Latin Americans have clearly noted that
Obama’s only consistent foreign policy goal is his aim of forcing
Israel to accept a hostile Palestinian state and surrender all the
land it took control over in 1967 to the likes of PLO chief Mahmoud
Abbas and Syrian dictator Bashar Assad. They see that Obama has
refused to rule out the possibility of recognizing a Palestinian state
even if that state is declared without a peace treaty with Israel.
That is, Obama is unwilling to commit himself to not recognizing a
Palestinian state that will be in a de facto state of war with Israel.
The impression that Obama is completely committed to the Palestinian
cause was reinforced this week rather than weakened with the
cancellation of the Netanyahu-Clinton deal regarding the banning of
Jewish construction in Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem. The deal was to
see Israel banning Jewish construction for an additional 90 days, in
exchange for a US pledge not to ask for any further bans; to support
Israel at the UN Security Council for a limited time against a
Palestinian push to declare independence without peace; and to sell
Israel an additional 20 F-35 fighter jets sometime in the future.
It came apart because Obama was unwilling to put Clinton’s commitments
meager as they are in writing. That is, the deal fell through
because Obama wouldn’t make even a minimal pledge to maintain the US’s
alliance with Israel.
This policy signals to the likes of Brazil and Argentina and Uruguay
that they might as well go with Chavez and Iran and turn their backs
on Israel. No one will thank them if they lag behind the US in their
pro-Iran, anti-Israel policies. And by moving ahead of the US, they
get the credit due to those who stick their fingers in Washington’s
eye.
When we understand the trends that led to Latin America’s hostile act
against Israel, we realize two things. First, while Israel might have
come up with a way to delay the action, it probably couldn’t have
prevented it. And second, given the US policy trajectory, it is again
obvious that the only one Israel can rely on to defend its interests
against Iran and the Palestinians alike is Israel.
---------------------------------------------------------------
Column One: Why Latin America turned
By CAROLINE B. GLICK, The Jerusalem Post - December 10, 2010
Given the US policy trajectory, it is again obvious that the only one
Israel can rely on to defend its interests is Israel.
Israelis can be excused for wondering why Brazil and Argentina
unexpectedly announced they recognize an independent Palestinian state
with its capital city in Israel’s capital city. Israelis can be
forgiven for being taken by surprise by their move and by the prospect
that Uruguay, and perhaps Paraguay, Chile, Peru, Ecuador and El
Salvador, will be following in their footsteps because the Israeli
media have failed to report on developing trends in Latin America.
And this is not surprising. The media fail to report on almost all the
developing trends impacting the world. For instance, when the Turkish
government sent Hamas supporters to challenge the IDF’s maritime
blockade of the Hamas-controlled Gaza coastline, the media were
surprised that Israel’s ally Turkey had suddenly become Hamas’s ally
and Israel’s enemy.
Their failure to report on Turkey’s gradual transformation into an
Islamic supremacist state caused the media to treat what was a
culmination of a trend as a shocking new development.
The same is now happening with Latin America.
Whereas in Turkey, the media failed only to report on the significance
of the singular trend of Islamization of Turkish society, the media
have consistently ignored the importance for Israel of three trends
that made Latin America’s embrace of the Palestinians against Israel
eminently predictable.
Those trends are the rise of Hugo Chavez, the regional influence of
the Venezuela-Iran alliance, and the cravenness of US foreign policy
towards Latin America and the Middle East. When viewed as a whole they
explain why Latin American states are lining up to support the
Palestinians.
More importantly, they tell us something about how Israel should be acting.
OVER THE past decade Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez has inherited
Fidel Castro’s mantel as the head of the Latin American anti-American
club. He has used Venezuela’s oil wealth, drug money and other illicit
fortunes to draw neighboring states into his orbit and away from the
US. Chavez’s circle of influence now includes Cuba and Nicaragua,
Bolivia, Uruguay and Ecuador as well as Brazil, Paraguay, Argentina
and Peru. Democracies like Colombia and Chile are also taking steps in
Chavez’s anti-American direction.
Chavez’s choice of Iran is no fluke although it seemed like one to
some when the alliance first arose around 2004. Iran’s footprint in
Latin America has grown gradually. Beginning in the 1980s, Iran
started using Latin America as a forward base of operations against
the US and the West. It deployed Hizbullah and Revolutionary Guards
operatives and other intelligence and terror assets along the largely
ungoverned tri-border area between Argentina, Paraguay and Brazil.
That staging ground in turn enabled Iran to bomb Israeli and Jewish
targets in Buenos Aires in the early 1990s.
Iran’s presence on the continent allowed it to take advantage of
Chavez’s consolidation of power. Since taking office in 2005, Iranian
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has developed strategic alliances with
Venezuela and Nicaragua.
With Chavez’s assistance, Teheran is expanding its web of alliances
throughout Latin America at the expense of the US and Israel.
On the face of it, Chavez and Ahmadinejad seem like an odd couple. One
is a Marxist and the other is a messianic jihadist. But on closer
inspection it makes perfect sense. They share the same obsessions with
hating the US and loving power.
Chavez has demonstrated his commitment to maintaining power by
crushing his opponents, taking control over the judiciary and media,
amending the constitution and repeatedly stealing elections.
Meanwhile, the WikiLeaks sabotage campaign against the US gave us a
first person account of the magnitude of Ahmadinejad’s electoral
fraud.
In a cable from the US Embassy in Turkmenistan dated 15 June 2009, or
three days after Ahmadinejad stole the Iranian presidential elections,
the embassy reported a conversation with an Iranian source regarding
the true election results. The Iranian source referred to the poll as
a “coup d’etat.”
The regime declared Ahmadinejad the winner with 63% of the vote.
According to the Iranian source, he received less than a tenth of that
amount. As the cable put it, “based on calculations from [opponent Mir
Hossain] Mousavi’s campaign observers who were present at polling
stations around the country and who witnessed the vote counts, Mousavi
received approximately 26 million (or 61%) of the 42 million votes
cast in Friday’s election, followed by Mehdi Karroubi (10-12
million)…. Ahmadinejad received ‘a maximum of 4-5 million votes,’ with
the remainder going to Mohsen Rezai.”
There is no fence-sitting along the Iran-Israel divide. Latin American
countries that embrace Iran always do so to the detriment of their
ties with Israel. Bolivia and Venezuela cut their diplomatic ties with
Israel in January 2009 after siding with Hamas in Operation Cast Lead.
In comments reported on the Hudson New York website, Ricardo Udler,
the president of the small Bolivian Jewish community, said there is a
direct correlation between Bolivia’s growing ties with Iran and its
animosity towards Israel. In his words, “Each time an Iranian official
arrives in Bolivia there are negative comments against the State of
Israel and soon after, the Bolivian authorities issue a communiqué
against the Jewish state.”
Udler also warned that, as he put it, “there is information from
international agencies that indicate that uranium from Bolivia and
Venezuela is being shipped to Iran.”
That was in October. With Iran it appears that if you’re in for an
inch you’re in for a mile. This month we learned that Venezuela and
Iran are jointly deploying intermediate range ballistic missiles in
Venezuela that will be capable of targeting US cities.
THERE IS no doubt that the Venezuelan-Iranian alliance and its growing
force in Latin America go a long way towards explaining South
America’s sudden urge to recognize “Palestine.” But there is more to
the story.
The final trend that the media in Israel have failed to notice is the
impact of US foreign policy in South America and the Middle East alike
has had on the positions of nations like Brazil and Argentina towards
Israel. During the Bush administration, US Latin America policy was an
incoherent bundle of contradictions. On the one hand, the US failed to
assist Chavez’s opponents overthrow him when they had a chance in
2004. The US similarly failed to support Nicaraguan democrats in their
electoral fight against Sandinista leader Daniel Ortega in the 2007
elections. On the other hand, the US did foster strong alliances with
Colombia and Chile.
Under the Obama administration, US Latin American policy has become
more straightforward.
The US has turned its back on its allies and is willing to humiliate
itself in pursuit of its adversaries.
In April 2009 US President Barack Obama sat through a 50-minute
anti-American rant by Ortega at the Summit of the Americas. He then
sought out Chavez for a photo-op. In his own address Obama distanced
himself from US history, saying, “We have at times been disengaged,
and at times we sought to dictate our terms. But I pledge to you that
we seek an equal partnership.
There is no senior partner and junior partner in our relations.”
Unfortunately, Obama’s attempted appeasement hasn’t done any good.
Nicaragua invaded neighboring Costa Rica last month along the San Juan
River. Ortega’s forces are dredging the river as part of an
Iranian-sponsored project to build a canal along the Isthmus of
Nicaragua that will rival the Panama Canal.
Even Obama’s ambassador in Managua admits that Ortega remains deeply
hostile to the US. In a cable from February illicitly published by
WikiLeaks, Ambassador Robert Callahan argued that Ortega’s charm
offensive towards the US was “unlikely to portend a new, friendly
Ortega with whom we can work in the long-term.”
It is not simply the US’s refusal to defend itself against the likes
of Chavez that provokes the likes of Brazil’s President Luiz Ignacio
Lula da Silva and Argentina’s President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner
to embrace Chavez and Iran.
They are also responding the US’s signals towards Iran and Israel.
Obama’s policy of engaging and sanctioning Iran has no chance of
preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. And just like the
Arabs and the Europeans, the South Americans know it. There is no
doubt that at least part of Lula’s reason for signing onto a nuclear
deal with Ahmadinejad and Turkey’s Reccip Erdogan last spring was his
certainty that the US has no intention of preventing Iran from
acquiring nuclear arms.
From Lula’s perspective, there is no reason to participate in the US
charade of preventing Iran from becoming a nuclear power. He might as
well be on the winning side. And since Obama doesn’t mind Iran
winning, Iran will win.
THE SAME rules apply for Israel. Like the Europeans, the Arabs, the
Asians and everyone else, the Latin Americans have clearly noted that
Obama’s only consistent foreign policy goal is his aim of forcing
Israel to accept a hostile Palestinian state and surrender all the
land it took control over in 1967 to the likes of PLO chief Mahmoud
Abbas and Syrian dictator Bashar Assad. They see that Obama has
refused to rule out the possibility of recognizing a Palestinian state
even if that state is declared without a peace treaty with Israel.
That is, Obama is unwilling to commit himself to not recognizing a
Palestinian state that will be in a de facto state of war with Israel.
The impression that Obama is completely committed to the Palestinian
cause was reinforced this week rather than weakened with the
cancellation of the Netanyahu-Clinton deal regarding the banning of
Jewish construction in Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem. The deal was to
see Israel banning Jewish construction for an additional 90 days, in
exchange for a US pledge not to ask for any further bans; to support
Israel at the UN Security Council for a limited time against a
Palestinian push to declare independence without peace; and to sell
Israel an additional 20 F-35 fighter jets sometime in the future.
It came apart because Obama was unwilling to put Clinton’s commitments
meager as they are in writing. That is, the deal fell through
because Obama wouldn’t make even a minimal pledge to maintain the US’s
alliance with Israel.
This policy signals to the likes of Brazil and Argentina and Uruguay
that they might as well go with Chavez and Iran and turn their backs
on Israel. No one will thank them if they lag behind the US in their
pro-Iran, anti-Israel policies. And by moving ahead of the US, they
get the credit due to those who stick their fingers in Washington’s
eye.
When we understand the trends that led to Latin America’s hostile act
against Israel, we realize two things. First, while Israel might have
come up with a way to delay the action, it probably couldn’t have
prevented it. And second, given the US policy trajectory, it is again
obvious that the only one Israel can rely on to defend its interests
against Iran and the Palestinians alike is Israel.
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