From Peggy Shapiro to Rabbis
We are hours away from Rosh Hashana and before we begin our holiest prayers, I ask you to consider these thoughts as you put the final touches on the most important message you may deliver to your congregants this year.
It is the time of year for introspection and now when Israel is more isolated and vulnerable than it has been since the rebirth of the state, I ask you to ask your congregants to reflect on Eretz Yisrael, and if they have done all that they could do to keep it safe.
It is also a time of year for apologies, and I ask you to ask your congregants never to apologize for Israel’s right to exist.
It is a time of year for resolutions, and I ask you to speak up for the following resolutions which can protect both Israel’s future and the future of the Jewish people.
As Jews, we cannot except the outrage of a Judenrein state anywhere, especially in our ancient homeland, and in our eternal capital of Jerusalem.
Remind your congregants that Israel has been the Jewish homeland and Jerusalem our capital for over 3,000 years and our claims exceed those of the French to Paris, the English to London and certainly the Americans to Washington D.C.
Just as we must speak against efforts to deny a Jewish future to the land of Israel, so must we speak against efforts which deny Jewish history and our connection to Israel. (Both are part of the same assault.)
Exhort your congregants to fearlessly stand up and refuse to submit to the lies and slanders against Israel.
From Bad Rachel Blog
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 28, 2011
May It Be a Sweet Year
To the Jews of Jerusalem, Holy City, whose sovereignty over the eternal and undivided capital of the Jewish state of Israel is disputed and oppugned, though it is as ancient as King David’s: May it be a sweet year.
To the Jews of Judea and Samaria, whose every stud hammered and floor tile laid in that magnificent, empty lunar landscape summons the disapproving scrutiny of allies and the menacing outrage of foes, and who must contemplate the possibility of expulsion—or worse—every day for the sake of a “peace” with a people whose declared war against them has never abated: May it be a sweet year.
To the Jews of Ashkelon, Ashdod, Be’er Sheva, Sderot, Sde Boker, Mitzpeh Ramon, Eilat, Netanya, Tel Aviv, Haifa, Tsfat, Rosh Pina, Tiberias, Mahanayim, Kiryat Shmona, and all the kibbutzim and moshavim of the Negev and the Galil and the Golan—ha am im ha Golan!—who live every day under a death warrant issued by Israel-hating nations passing increasingly sophisticated weaponry into the hands of their proxies, Israel’s bloody, baleful neighbors to the south and west, north and east, for whom even the sacrifice of their own children is tolerable—worse, a cause for celebration—in the name of destroying Jews: May it be a sweet year.
To the Jew of Gaza, Gilad Shalit, whose Rosh Hashana this year will be spent, as have the last five, imprisoned in a Hamas hell-hole: May it be a sweet year.
To all the Jews of Israel, surrounded, admonished, maligned, despised, threatened, condemned, attacked, wounded, murdered: May it be a sweet year.
And to the Jews of the United States whose astoundingly self-negating souls are fixed as if by bolts to the chilling heart of a president and a party and a politics progressively ill-disposed toward Zion: Please, wake up, wrench out those bolts, free yourselves, and tell the truth, before the Jewish homeland is destroyed by the erosive thrust of its friends and the blazing bombs of its enemies. And may it be a sweet year.
Wednesday, September 28, 2011
France warns Iran
France warned Iran on Wednesday to halt its nuclear program or risk a "disastrous" military operation.
Speaking on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly in New York, where talks are underway to bring Iran back to the negotiating table, Ambassador Gerard Araud refused to say which country may strike but said such a blow would "have disastrous consequences in the region."
"If we don't succeed today to reach a negotiation with the Iranians, there is a strong risk of military action," he said. "All the Arab countries are extremely worried about what is happening."
An International Atomic Energy Agency report released earlier this month suggested that Tehran has enhanced its nuclear facilities to defend against cyber attacks similar to the Stuxnet virus that slowed its atomic development over the past several years.
Former Vice President Dick Cheney believes Israel may have the best reason to take military action against the Islamic Republic, whose leaders continue to drag their feet in resuming dialogue with world powers while threatening the Jewish state on a regular basis.
"Iran represents an existential threat and [the Israelis] will do whatever they have to do to guarantee their survival and their security," he said.
Email to a friend, Sh
Speaking on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly in New York, where talks are underway to bring Iran back to the negotiating table, Ambassador Gerard Araud refused to say which country may strike but said such a blow would "have disastrous consequences in the region."
"If we don't succeed today to reach a negotiation with the Iranians, there is a strong risk of military action," he said. "All the Arab countries are extremely worried about what is happening."
An International Atomic Energy Agency report released earlier this month suggested that Tehran has enhanced its nuclear facilities to defend against cyber attacks similar to the Stuxnet virus that slowed its atomic development over the past several years.
Former Vice President Dick Cheney believes Israel may have the best reason to take military action against the Islamic Republic, whose leaders continue to drag their feet in resuming dialogue with world powers while threatening the Jewish state on a regular basis.
"Iran represents an existential threat and [the Israelis] will do whatever they have to do to guarantee their survival and their security," he said.
Email to a friend, Sh
Friday, September 23, 2011
Primer on palestinian Statehood request
All you need to know about the Palestinian move for recognition by the United Nations.
by Leadership Action Network
(1) What Is UDI?
UDI stands for a Unilateral Declaration of Independence to recognize a Palestinian state via the United Nations. UDI would fundamentally violate all of the major bilateral and international agreements that require that disputes be resolved through direct negotiations, not third parties. This includes the Declaration of Principles from 1993 that formalized the direct Israeli-Palestinian peace process. The Oslo Interim Agreements of 1995 expressly prohibits (in Article 31), unilateral action by either side to change the status of the West Bank and Gaza prior to reaching a negotiated permanent status agreement.
(2) Does Israel oppose a Palestinian state?
Israel is dedicated to two states for two peoples, living side by side in peace and security. However, this must be achieved through direct, bi-lateral negotiations between the parties, not imposed from the outside or through a unilateral declaration. Especially in light of previous agreements including the Oslo Accords, this will only complicate the road to reaching an agreement for a sustainable, secure peace. None of the core issues including borders, Jerusalem, refugees and water, will be resolved by a UN resolution. It will only harm any efforts for peace by having the Palestinians lock into positions precluding any compromise in the future and possibly triggering violence on the ground due to unrealistic expectations. The United States and other countries have warned that recognition outside of direct negotiations could have implications for continued aid to the Palestinians.
(3) What does Israel want?
Israel wants to negotiate a settlement with the Palestinians and has made it clear that it is willing to discuss peace without preconditions. In meeting with members of Congress on August 15, 2011, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, “I am willing to immediately start direct negotiations with [President Abbas] without preconditions. I am willing to invite him to my house in Jerusalem and I am willing to go to Ramallah.” And on September 8, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak told PA President Mahmoud Abbas that it is critical that both sides “return to the negotiating table sans any preconditions. We must try and reach a breakthrough together. We must achieve this for our children and grandchildren.”
(4) What does the United States think about the PA pursuing UDI?
The United States believes that peace is only possible through a negotiated approach between the parties with mutual concessions and has made clear it will veto a UDI resolution in the Security Council if necessary. President Obama has said, “Symbolic actions to isolate Israel at the United Nations in September won’t create an independent state,” and later called it a distraction. Congress reaffirmed its commitment to a negotiated settlement of the conflict between the parties through direct Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. The Senate vote was unanimous and the House vote was an overwhelming 407-6. Many members of Congress have expressed their concern regarding UDI and indicated that they will reconsider the aid package to the Palestinians.
(5) What do the Palestinians think?
Many Palestinians have expressed concern over the United Nations declaration. In the “Palestine Papers” – confidential Palestinian Authority documents released earlier this year by Al Jazeera – lead Palestinian negotiators argued that announcing a Palestinian state without negotiating with Israel would be a mistake. Their major concern – as expressed in several memos – is that such a make-shift state would not satisfy the national hopes of the Palestinian people. Among those who have been adamantly against this approach is Prime Minister Salam Fayad. A recent study conducted for the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs also pointed out that 40 percent of Palestinians living in East Jerusalem would prefer to become citizens of Israel rather than become citizens of a new Palestinian state.
(6) What would be the borders of this new state?
It is understood that Abbas will ask for the new state to be based on the 1967 lines, which are the 1949 armistice lines. These are the fragile lines that Israel’s late Foreign Minister Abba Eban declared as the “Auschwitz” lines due to the existential threat this could pose to the security of Israel.
(7) Can the PA declare their state in this manner?
Under the principles of international law, which were codified under the Montevideo Convention, there are four prerequisites for statehood: a permanent population; a defined territory; effective government; and a capacity to enter into relations with other States. Currently, the Palestinian Authority does not satisfy these criteria. According to the UN Charter, membership is open to states only, not movements.
(8) Why would the Palestinian Authority proceed with UDI if they don’t meet the traditional prerequisites for statehood?
UDI would symbolically raise their international status without doing the work needed to establish a legitimate state.
(9) Is there a difference in jurisdiction between the Security Council and the General Assembly?
According to the UN charter, membership to the United Nations requires Security Council consent and an endorsement from two thirds of the General Assembly. In the event that a permanent member of the Security Council exercises a veto, membership could still be attained by utilizing the obscure “Uniting for Peace” resolution, a motion adopted during the Korean War that provides for an emergency session of the General Assembly in instances where the Security Council is believed to have failed. It is of note that there is considerable disagreement amongst UN officials over the applicability of “Uniting for Peace” on questions of UN membership. Alternatively, the Palestinians could opt for a simple General Assembly recognition of statehood based on the 1967 lines. Though legally non-binding, such a symbolic international gesture could enable the new state to join other specialized agencies and petition the International Criminal Court against Israel which Abbas has long asserted as a primary goal.
(10) If UDI succeeds, would the PA accept Israel as a Jewish state? What about Jewish citizens in the new state?
As recently as August 28, 2011, Mahmoud Abbas said that the Palestinian Authority would not recognize Israel as a Jewish state. He told the international community, “Don’t order us to recognize the Jewish state. We won’t accept it.” The Palestinian leadership has made clear that any Palestinian state will be cleansed of all Jews. Unlike Israel, a state in which people of all backgrounds and faiths live, a new Palestinian state will be off limits to all Jews.
(11) Would Hamas gain legitimacy if the UDI is successful?
Hamas and the Palestinian Authority signed a reconciliation agreement but the Hamas Charter still calls for the annihilation of Israel. In fact, Hamas rejects the three Quartet Principles - recognition of Israel’s right to exist, acceptance of existing agreements and an end to violence. Hamas is designated a terrorist group by many countries including Jordan, Japan, the EU, and the United States. Supporting UDI under these current conditions would result in Hamas being given de facto international legitimacy. President Obama said in May, “Hamas still hasn’t recognized Israel’s right to exist and renounce violence, and recognize that negotiations are the right path for solving this problem. And it’s very difficult for Israel in a realistic way to say we’re going to sit across the table from somebody who denies our right to exist. And so that’s an issue that the Palestinians are going to have to resolve…. I also believe that the notion that you can solve this problem in the United Nations is simply unrealistic.” The Senate’s unanimous resolution regarding direct negotiations between the parties reaffirmed opposition to inclusion of Hamas in a unity government unless it is willing to accept peace with Israel and renounce violence.
(12) What if the PA decides not to pursue statehood?
If the PA does not seek recognition of a Palestinian state, they will request to upgrade their diplomatic status at the United Nations General Assembly without compromise on any of their maximum demands on borders, refugees, Jerusalem and settlements.
(13) How does upgrading the PA’s diplomatic status to a “non-member observer state” compare with their current observer status?
This would give the Palestinians the same status in the UN as the Vatican. It is important to note that the Vatican is a sovereign state, while the Palestinian Authority is not. This change would enable the PA to become a member of other UN organizations including UNESCO and the WHO. This could enable the Palestinians to petition bodies such as the International Criminal Court (ICC) and the International Court of Justice (ICJ) with charges to try and delegitimize and isolate Israel, following the Apartheid South African model.
(14) When could this happen?
On Friday, September 23, President Abbas will address the United Nations General Assembly’s opening session. He may use this opportunity to present a letter to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, initiating the process at the Security Council. There could be an elongated process or steps could be taken to short circuit the required committee review and recommendation that precedes a vote. It is believed that as of now, there are not enough affirmative votes with a couple of countries still undecided. Should seven members vote against or abstain, the resolution is defeated. Should it pass, the United States has indicated it will veto. An option is delaying until the elections to the Security Council in October, in the hope they will receive more affirmative votes. Another option is for direct negotiations to be launched simultaneously with the Security Council process, perhaps beginning with a meeting on the UN sidelines. Much rests on the course to be chosen by the
by Leadership Action Network
(1) What Is UDI?
UDI stands for a Unilateral Declaration of Independence to recognize a Palestinian state via the United Nations. UDI would fundamentally violate all of the major bilateral and international agreements that require that disputes be resolved through direct negotiations, not third parties. This includes the Declaration of Principles from 1993 that formalized the direct Israeli-Palestinian peace process. The Oslo Interim Agreements of 1995 expressly prohibits (in Article 31), unilateral action by either side to change the status of the West Bank and Gaza prior to reaching a negotiated permanent status agreement.
(2) Does Israel oppose a Palestinian state?
Israel is dedicated to two states for two peoples, living side by side in peace and security. However, this must be achieved through direct, bi-lateral negotiations between the parties, not imposed from the outside or through a unilateral declaration. Especially in light of previous agreements including the Oslo Accords, this will only complicate the road to reaching an agreement for a sustainable, secure peace. None of the core issues including borders, Jerusalem, refugees and water, will be resolved by a UN resolution. It will only harm any efforts for peace by having the Palestinians lock into positions precluding any compromise in the future and possibly triggering violence on the ground due to unrealistic expectations. The United States and other countries have warned that recognition outside of direct negotiations could have implications for continued aid to the Palestinians.
(3) What does Israel want?
Israel wants to negotiate a settlement with the Palestinians and has made it clear that it is willing to discuss peace without preconditions. In meeting with members of Congress on August 15, 2011, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, “I am willing to immediately start direct negotiations with [President Abbas] without preconditions. I am willing to invite him to my house in Jerusalem and I am willing to go to Ramallah.” And on September 8, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak told PA President Mahmoud Abbas that it is critical that both sides “return to the negotiating table sans any preconditions. We must try and reach a breakthrough together. We must achieve this for our children and grandchildren.”
(4) What does the United States think about the PA pursuing UDI?
The United States believes that peace is only possible through a negotiated approach between the parties with mutual concessions and has made clear it will veto a UDI resolution in the Security Council if necessary. President Obama has said, “Symbolic actions to isolate Israel at the United Nations in September won’t create an independent state,” and later called it a distraction. Congress reaffirmed its commitment to a negotiated settlement of the conflict between the parties through direct Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. The Senate vote was unanimous and the House vote was an overwhelming 407-6. Many members of Congress have expressed their concern regarding UDI and indicated that they will reconsider the aid package to the Palestinians.
(5) What do the Palestinians think?
Many Palestinians have expressed concern over the United Nations declaration. In the “Palestine Papers” – confidential Palestinian Authority documents released earlier this year by Al Jazeera – lead Palestinian negotiators argued that announcing a Palestinian state without negotiating with Israel would be a mistake. Their major concern – as expressed in several memos – is that such a make-shift state would not satisfy the national hopes of the Palestinian people. Among those who have been adamantly against this approach is Prime Minister Salam Fayad. A recent study conducted for the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs also pointed out that 40 percent of Palestinians living in East Jerusalem would prefer to become citizens of Israel rather than become citizens of a new Palestinian state.
(6) What would be the borders of this new state?
It is understood that Abbas will ask for the new state to be based on the 1967 lines, which are the 1949 armistice lines. These are the fragile lines that Israel’s late Foreign Minister Abba Eban declared as the “Auschwitz” lines due to the existential threat this could pose to the security of Israel.
(7) Can the PA declare their state in this manner?
Under the principles of international law, which were codified under the Montevideo Convention, there are four prerequisites for statehood: a permanent population; a defined territory; effective government; and a capacity to enter into relations with other States. Currently, the Palestinian Authority does not satisfy these criteria. According to the UN Charter, membership is open to states only, not movements.
(8) Why would the Palestinian Authority proceed with UDI if they don’t meet the traditional prerequisites for statehood?
UDI would symbolically raise their international status without doing the work needed to establish a legitimate state.
(9) Is there a difference in jurisdiction between the Security Council and the General Assembly?
According to the UN charter, membership to the United Nations requires Security Council consent and an endorsement from two thirds of the General Assembly. In the event that a permanent member of the Security Council exercises a veto, membership could still be attained by utilizing the obscure “Uniting for Peace” resolution, a motion adopted during the Korean War that provides for an emergency session of the General Assembly in instances where the Security Council is believed to have failed. It is of note that there is considerable disagreement amongst UN officials over the applicability of “Uniting for Peace” on questions of UN membership. Alternatively, the Palestinians could opt for a simple General Assembly recognition of statehood based on the 1967 lines. Though legally non-binding, such a symbolic international gesture could enable the new state to join other specialized agencies and petition the International Criminal Court against Israel which Abbas has long asserted as a primary goal.
(10) If UDI succeeds, would the PA accept Israel as a Jewish state? What about Jewish citizens in the new state?
As recently as August 28, 2011, Mahmoud Abbas said that the Palestinian Authority would not recognize Israel as a Jewish state. He told the international community, “Don’t order us to recognize the Jewish state. We won’t accept it.” The Palestinian leadership has made clear that any Palestinian state will be cleansed of all Jews. Unlike Israel, a state in which people of all backgrounds and faiths live, a new Palestinian state will be off limits to all Jews.
(11) Would Hamas gain legitimacy if the UDI is successful?
Hamas and the Palestinian Authority signed a reconciliation agreement but the Hamas Charter still calls for the annihilation of Israel. In fact, Hamas rejects the three Quartet Principles - recognition of Israel’s right to exist, acceptance of existing agreements and an end to violence. Hamas is designated a terrorist group by many countries including Jordan, Japan, the EU, and the United States. Supporting UDI under these current conditions would result in Hamas being given de facto international legitimacy. President Obama said in May, “Hamas still hasn’t recognized Israel’s right to exist and renounce violence, and recognize that negotiations are the right path for solving this problem. And it’s very difficult for Israel in a realistic way to say we’re going to sit across the table from somebody who denies our right to exist. And so that’s an issue that the Palestinians are going to have to resolve…. I also believe that the notion that you can solve this problem in the United Nations is simply unrealistic.” The Senate’s unanimous resolution regarding direct negotiations between the parties reaffirmed opposition to inclusion of Hamas in a unity government unless it is willing to accept peace with Israel and renounce violence.
(12) What if the PA decides not to pursue statehood?
If the PA does not seek recognition of a Palestinian state, they will request to upgrade their diplomatic status at the United Nations General Assembly without compromise on any of their maximum demands on borders, refugees, Jerusalem and settlements.
(13) How does upgrading the PA’s diplomatic status to a “non-member observer state” compare with their current observer status?
This would give the Palestinians the same status in the UN as the Vatican. It is important to note that the Vatican is a sovereign state, while the Palestinian Authority is not. This change would enable the PA to become a member of other UN organizations including UNESCO and the WHO. This could enable the Palestinians to petition bodies such as the International Criminal Court (ICC) and the International Court of Justice (ICJ) with charges to try and delegitimize and isolate Israel, following the Apartheid South African model.
(14) When could this happen?
On Friday, September 23, President Abbas will address the United Nations General Assembly’s opening session. He may use this opportunity to present a letter to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, initiating the process at the Security Council. There could be an elongated process or steps could be taken to short circuit the required committee review and recommendation that precedes a vote. It is believed that as of now, there are not enough affirmative votes with a couple of countries still undecided. Should seven members vote against or abstain, the resolution is defeated. Should it pass, the United States has indicated it will veto. An option is delaying until the elections to the Security Council in October, in the hope they will receive more affirmative votes. Another option is for direct negotiations to be launched simultaneously with the Security Council process, perhaps beginning with a meeting on the UN sidelines. Much rests on the course to be chosen by the
Tuesday, September 20, 2011
Can you see Obama saying this? Annex West Bank!
In what is both a powerful display of political support for the Netanyahu government and a potentially game-changing maneuver, Republican congressman Joe Walsh of Illinois has introduced a bill into the U.S. House affirming Israel's right to annex the West Bank should it choose to do so.
Haaretz reports that the bill has 30 co-sponsors and was introduced because, as Walsh puts it “We’ve got what I consider to be a potential slap in the face coming up with the vote in the UN, which is absolutely outrageous."
It’s clear that the United States needs to make a very strong statement. I would argue that the president should make this statement, but he’s not capable of making it. So, the House needs to make this statement, if the [Palestinian Authority] continues down this road of trying to get recognition of statehood, the U.S. will not stand for it. And we will respect Israel’s right to annex Judea and Samaria.
The bill may or may not pass, but has a good chance given Republican dominance in the House and Speaker John Boehner's outspoken support for Israel. It will also be seen as a partisan rebuke of President Barack Obama during the runup to an election year.
Boehner himself delivered a harsh criticism of Obama's conduct toward Israel on Sunday, saying that the U.S, must be "not just as a broker or observerm" in regard to Israel, but "a strong partner and reliable ally.”
Israel is becoming a partisan issue in America for the first time in recent memory, with Republicans enthusiastically supporting the current rightwing government and Democrats towing a much more cautious and conciliatory line.
President Obama in particular has drawn a great deal of criticism in this regard, causing some prominent Democrats such as former New York mayor Ed Koch to attack the president publi
Haaretz reports that the bill has 30 co-sponsors and was introduced because, as Walsh puts it “We’ve got what I consider to be a potential slap in the face coming up with the vote in the UN, which is absolutely outrageous."
It’s clear that the United States needs to make a very strong statement. I would argue that the president should make this statement, but he’s not capable of making it. So, the House needs to make this statement, if the [Palestinian Authority] continues down this road of trying to get recognition of statehood, the U.S. will not stand for it. And we will respect Israel’s right to annex Judea and Samaria.
The bill may or may not pass, but has a good chance given Republican dominance in the House and Speaker John Boehner's outspoken support for Israel. It will also be seen as a partisan rebuke of President Barack Obama during the runup to an election year.
Boehner himself delivered a harsh criticism of Obama's conduct toward Israel on Sunday, saying that the U.S, must be "not just as a broker or observerm" in regard to Israel, but "a strong partner and reliable ally.”
Israel is becoming a partisan issue in America for the first time in recent memory, with Republicans enthusiastically supporting the current rightwing government and Democrats towing a much more cautious and conciliatory line.
President Obama in particular has drawn a great deal of criticism in this regard, causing some prominent Democrats such as former New York mayor Ed Koch to attack the president publi
I accuse President Barack Obama of Destroying Western Interests in the Middle East, Helping Destabilize the Region, and Putting Millions of Lives in J
http://pajamasmedia.com/barryrubin/
I accuse President Barack Obama of Destroying Western Interests in the Middle East, Helping Destabilize the Region, and Putting Millions of Lives in Jeopardy
September 19, 2011 - 6:03 pm - by Barry Rubin Page 1 of 2 Next -> View as Single Page
Think of how outrageous my headline is:
Destroying Western Interests in the Middle East, Helping Destabilize the Region, and Putting Millions of Lives in Jeopardy
Do you think that’s extremist, crazy, can’t be true because you’re not seeing that stuff in the New York Times? You must be a right-wing Republican, you say?
No, just a serious Middle East analyst.
The tenth anniversary of September 11, almost three years after Obama’s election, is a suitable time to confront this issue honestly and fully. So consider fairly and honestly the list of points below.
Egypt: Obama supported a revolution overthrowing a U.S. ally — rather than a smooth transition replacing the dictator and instituting some reform without dropping the entire regime — disregarding State Department advice and not even consulting with Jordan, Israel, or Saudi Arabia! He also unilaterally announced his readiness to see the Muslim Brotherhood in power. His analysts denied that the Brotherhood is a radical, anti-American Islamist organization that supports terrorism. The resulting dangerous crisis, including Egypt becoming a new type of Iran, is now clear to all.
Israel-Palestinian Peace Process: By distancing himself from Israel, removing all pressure from the Palestinians, unilaterally proposing a freeze of Israeli construction on settlements, and repeatedly messing up the effort to restart negotiations, Obama made the peace process situation worse. His failure to handle properly the Palestinian UN unilateral independence bid has put U.S. policy in a terrible mess, with an American veto leading to large-scale anti-Americanism and probable violence both by Palestinians against Israel and by Muslims against the United States.
Israel: The damage the Obama Administration did to Israel was not in bilateral relations or even in the “peace process” but by its role in the deterioration of the regional situation to a dangerous extent. As a result, the two most powerful regional powers that had decent relations with Israel — Egypt and Turkey — turned around 180 degrees; Hamas rule was entrenched in the Gaza Strip; Hizballah’s rule in Lebanon. That’s four of Israel’s “neighbors” that became effectively hostile while the Obama Administration didn’t even notice. As the level of threat rose, U.S. political-diplomatic support for Israel declined.
Turkey: As Turkey continued to move toward being a repressive Islamist state allied with revolutionary Islamism, the U.S. government didn’t notice. Farcically, it promoted the ”Turkish model” and made Turkey its mediator over Syria’s future!
Lebanon: As Lebanon fell under Syria-Iran-Hizballah control, the Obama Administration did nothing. It failed to support the moderates and so they surrendered.
Syria: The Administration pursued the factually ridiculous effort to pull Syria away from Iran and engaged it even as Damascus escalated its support for terrorism, aggression toward Lebanon, killing Americans in Iraq, and then repressing its own people.
Gaza: The Administration gave Hamas indirect aid, made no serious effort to overthrow a radical, anti-American, genocidal-oriented regime, and pressed Israel to reduce sanctions to a minimum. This ensured the survival and strengthening of a pro-terrorist revolutionary Islamist state on the Mediterranean.
Saudi Arabia: Repeated slaps in the face and failure to confront advances by revolutionary Islamists — especially Iran and Syria, as well as abandonment of Mubarak — disgusted this ally. Seeing U.S. weakness, it concluded it has to take care of itself
Iran: After wasting a long time in engagement, the administration finally (at the slowest possible speed) did push sanctions. Yet it still has no strategy for opposing Iran’s non-nuclear methods of subverting neighbors and expanding its influence.
Danger: Obama failed to realize it or to define properly friends and enemies.
Leadership: Despite being begged by different allies, the Obama Administration failed to demonstrate leadership.
Empowering Islamism: In his Cairo speech and thereafter, Obama emphasized the Muslim identity of Middle Easterners thus undermining Arab identity and nationalism.
Endangering the lives of American soldiers and civilians: By refusing to allow a proper analysis of Islamism and terrorism. Consider, for example, the Fort Hood attack in which Americans were killed because military officers feared to do their job lest it hurt their promotions.
Libya: Obama entered a war without any strategy for what would happen after Qadhafi fell or any knowledge of who he was helping to promote as the new leadership.
Rejection of basic diplomatic principles: Supporting friends and punishing enemies; credibility; deterrence; coherent strategy.
What’s important is the result, not whether you think this has been caused by incompetence; arrogance; a thirst for popularity over responsibility; ideology; a personal antipathy toward Israel (it shouldn’t be exaggerated but it’s there); lack of experience; choosing advisors badly; or ignorance among them. I don’t think it’s been deliberate but what’s shocking is to have a policy so bad that many do.
There is nothing inevitably Democratic or liberal about these failings. No previous president or administration — even that of Jimmy Carter — comes close to having so many dangerous failures. Nor is it inevitably a product of Washington, as the State and Defense departments gave him some good intelligence and advice which, if followed, would have greatly reduced the extent of the problems.
You can cheer Obama’s continued strategic cooperation with Israel, sanctions on Iran, and engagement in Libya. You can place blame on Obama’s predecessor or chant, “Obama killed Osama” and not tireless American intelligence operatives or courageous Navy SEALs. But after all the rationalizations won’t you admit that the situation is still truly shocking?
The American people, Middle East allies, US. interests, and the world generally cannot afford another four years of misjudgment and reckless endangerment. Can Obama be trusted to deal with a nuclear-armed Iran; a radical Egypt supporting Hamas; a Turkish regime screaming about fighting Israel, a Palestinian movement that has thrown away any diplomatic alternative?
I leave jobs and the economy, medical care, and such to others. On Middle East issues, however, Obama has failed dangerously and badly. He has ignored chances to learn from experience. American national interests require that he be defeated in the next election.
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I accuse President Barack Obama of Destroying Western Interests in the Middle East, Helping Destabilize the Region, and Putting Millions of Lives in Jeopardy
September 19, 2011 - 6:03 pm - by Barry Rubin Page 1 of 2 Next -> View as Single Page
Think of how outrageous my headline is:
Destroying Western Interests in the Middle East, Helping Destabilize the Region, and Putting Millions of Lives in Jeopardy
Do you think that’s extremist, crazy, can’t be true because you’re not seeing that stuff in the New York Times? You must be a right-wing Republican, you say?
No, just a serious Middle East analyst.
The tenth anniversary of September 11, almost three years after Obama’s election, is a suitable time to confront this issue honestly and fully. So consider fairly and honestly the list of points below.
Egypt: Obama supported a revolution overthrowing a U.S. ally — rather than a smooth transition replacing the dictator and instituting some reform without dropping the entire regime — disregarding State Department advice and not even consulting with Jordan, Israel, or Saudi Arabia! He also unilaterally announced his readiness to see the Muslim Brotherhood in power. His analysts denied that the Brotherhood is a radical, anti-American Islamist organization that supports terrorism. The resulting dangerous crisis, including Egypt becoming a new type of Iran, is now clear to all.
Israel-Palestinian Peace Process: By distancing himself from Israel, removing all pressure from the Palestinians, unilaterally proposing a freeze of Israeli construction on settlements, and repeatedly messing up the effort to restart negotiations, Obama made the peace process situation worse. His failure to handle properly the Palestinian UN unilateral independence bid has put U.S. policy in a terrible mess, with an American veto leading to large-scale anti-Americanism and probable violence both by Palestinians against Israel and by Muslims against the United States.
Israel: The damage the Obama Administration did to Israel was not in bilateral relations or even in the “peace process” but by its role in the deterioration of the regional situation to a dangerous extent. As a result, the two most powerful regional powers that had decent relations with Israel — Egypt and Turkey — turned around 180 degrees; Hamas rule was entrenched in the Gaza Strip; Hizballah’s rule in Lebanon. That’s four of Israel’s “neighbors” that became effectively hostile while the Obama Administration didn’t even notice. As the level of threat rose, U.S. political-diplomatic support for Israel declined.
Turkey: As Turkey continued to move toward being a repressive Islamist state allied with revolutionary Islamism, the U.S. government didn’t notice. Farcically, it promoted the ”Turkish model” and made Turkey its mediator over Syria’s future!
Lebanon: As Lebanon fell under Syria-Iran-Hizballah control, the Obama Administration did nothing. It failed to support the moderates and so they surrendered.
Syria: The Administration pursued the factually ridiculous effort to pull Syria away from Iran and engaged it even as Damascus escalated its support for terrorism, aggression toward Lebanon, killing Americans in Iraq, and then repressing its own people.
Gaza: The Administration gave Hamas indirect aid, made no serious effort to overthrow a radical, anti-American, genocidal-oriented regime, and pressed Israel to reduce sanctions to a minimum. This ensured the survival and strengthening of a pro-terrorist revolutionary Islamist state on the Mediterranean.
Saudi Arabia: Repeated slaps in the face and failure to confront advances by revolutionary Islamists — especially Iran and Syria, as well as abandonment of Mubarak — disgusted this ally. Seeing U.S. weakness, it concluded it has to take care of itself
Iran: After wasting a long time in engagement, the administration finally (at the slowest possible speed) did push sanctions. Yet it still has no strategy for opposing Iran’s non-nuclear methods of subverting neighbors and expanding its influence.
Danger: Obama failed to realize it or to define properly friends and enemies.
Leadership: Despite being begged by different allies, the Obama Administration failed to demonstrate leadership.
Empowering Islamism: In his Cairo speech and thereafter, Obama emphasized the Muslim identity of Middle Easterners thus undermining Arab identity and nationalism.
Endangering the lives of American soldiers and civilians: By refusing to allow a proper analysis of Islamism and terrorism. Consider, for example, the Fort Hood attack in which Americans were killed because military officers feared to do their job lest it hurt their promotions.
Libya: Obama entered a war without any strategy for what would happen after Qadhafi fell or any knowledge of who he was helping to promote as the new leadership.
Rejection of basic diplomatic principles: Supporting friends and punishing enemies; credibility; deterrence; coherent strategy.
What’s important is the result, not whether you think this has been caused by incompetence; arrogance; a thirst for popularity over responsibility; ideology; a personal antipathy toward Israel (it shouldn’t be exaggerated but it’s there); lack of experience; choosing advisors badly; or ignorance among them. I don’t think it’s been deliberate but what’s shocking is to have a policy so bad that many do.
There is nothing inevitably Democratic or liberal about these failings. No previous president or administration — even that of Jimmy Carter — comes close to having so many dangerous failures. Nor is it inevitably a product of Washington, as the State and Defense departments gave him some good intelligence and advice which, if followed, would have greatly reduced the extent of the problems.
You can cheer Obama’s continued strategic cooperation with Israel, sanctions on Iran, and engagement in Libya. You can place blame on Obama’s predecessor or chant, “Obama killed Osama” and not tireless American intelligence operatives or courageous Navy SEALs. But after all the rationalizations won’t you admit that the situation is still truly shocking?
The American people, Middle East allies, US. interests, and the world generally cannot afford another four years of misjudgment and reckless endangerment. Can Obama be trusted to deal with a nuclear-armed Iran; a radical Egypt supporting Hamas; a Turkish regime screaming about fighting Israel, a Palestinian movement that has thrown away any diplomatic alternative?
I leave jobs and the economy, medical care, and such to others. On Middle East issues, however, Obama has failed dangerously and badly. He has ignored chances to learn from experience. American national interests require that he be defeated in the next election.
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Monday, September 19, 2011
Israel light to the Nations
Albania- After severe flooding in December of last year, Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs delivered 307 family-sized tents for families made homeless by flooding there.
Congo- Israel sent 4 tons of humanitarian aid to the country in November 2008 to relieve the suffering of the population in rural areas.
Dominican Republic- Israel sent relief teams to assist in cleanup operations in the wake of Tropical Storm Noel in November 2007.
Greece- Israel sent 52 firefighters to assist in battling major conflagrations there in August 2007.
Haiti- In January 2010 Israel was the first country to successfully setup a fully equipped field hospital just 4 days after the devastating earthquake that struck the country.
India- Israel sent 150 emergency personnel to assist in relief efforts after the January 2001 earthquake in Western India.
Indonesia- In January 2005 Israel sent 75 tons of relief material for the benefit of those made homeless by the December 2004 Tsunami.
Kenya- Israel sent search and rescue teams to Kenya after the bombing of the US Embassy there in August 1998.
Macedonia- Israel sent firefighting equipment twice in 2007 to assist in battling major blazes there in July and August 2007.
Mauritania- Two medical missions sent to the country by Israel in 1999 to treat eye problems among the populace.
Mexico- Israel sent relief teams to assist in cleanup operations in the wake of Tropical Storm Noel in November 2007.
Myanmar- Israel sent relief workers to help local officials in the wake of the devastation caused by Cyclone Nargis
Nepal – Israel's non-profit organization Tevel b'Tzedek sends volunteers to help with Kathmandu street children's crises in ongoing programs.
Nicaragua- Israel sent relief teams to assist in cleanup operations in the wake of Hurricane Felix in September 2007.
Nigeria- Israel sent medical supplies to Nigeria in March 2006 to battle bird flu.
Philippines- In response to the damage caused by typhoon Ondoy, Israel sent planeloads of medicine to the beleaguered areas in October 2009.
Sri Lanka- After the December 2004 Tsunami Israel delivered emergency food kitchens to help feed those displaced by the devastating wave.
Turkey- Israel sent 250 relief workers to assist in cleanup operations after the August 199 earthquake that hit Turkey, followed by a complete field hospital. After the area was cleared, Israel then built a village of prefabricated houses for the survivors.
This list does not include Japan, China, Kashmir, Chad & Somalia
Our video about Israel’s efforts in Katmandu is available on our home page at > www.israelupclose.org
The curriculum “Israelis Help Katmandu Street Children” can be accessed by clicking onto> Education Guides on our home page.
Congo- Israel sent 4 tons of humanitarian aid to the country in November 2008 to relieve the suffering of the population in rural areas.
Dominican Republic- Israel sent relief teams to assist in cleanup operations in the wake of Tropical Storm Noel in November 2007.
Greece- Israel sent 52 firefighters to assist in battling major conflagrations there in August 2007.
Haiti- In January 2010 Israel was the first country to successfully setup a fully equipped field hospital just 4 days after the devastating earthquake that struck the country.
India- Israel sent 150 emergency personnel to assist in relief efforts after the January 2001 earthquake in Western India.
Indonesia- In January 2005 Israel sent 75 tons of relief material for the benefit of those made homeless by the December 2004 Tsunami.
Kenya- Israel sent search and rescue teams to Kenya after the bombing of the US Embassy there in August 1998.
Macedonia- Israel sent firefighting equipment twice in 2007 to assist in battling major blazes there in July and August 2007.
Mauritania- Two medical missions sent to the country by Israel in 1999 to treat eye problems among the populace.
Mexico- Israel sent relief teams to assist in cleanup operations in the wake of Tropical Storm Noel in November 2007.
Myanmar- Israel sent relief workers to help local officials in the wake of the devastation caused by Cyclone Nargis
Nepal – Israel's non-profit organization Tevel b'Tzedek sends volunteers to help with Kathmandu street children's crises in ongoing programs.
Nicaragua- Israel sent relief teams to assist in cleanup operations in the wake of Hurricane Felix in September 2007.
Nigeria- Israel sent medical supplies to Nigeria in March 2006 to battle bird flu.
Philippines- In response to the damage caused by typhoon Ondoy, Israel sent planeloads of medicine to the beleaguered areas in October 2009.
Sri Lanka- After the December 2004 Tsunami Israel delivered emergency food kitchens to help feed those displaced by the devastating wave.
Turkey- Israel sent 250 relief workers to assist in cleanup operations after the August 199 earthquake that hit Turkey, followed by a complete field hospital. After the area was cleared, Israel then built a village of prefabricated houses for the survivors.
This list does not include Japan, China, Kashmir, Chad & Somalia
Our video about Israel’s efforts in Katmandu is available on our home page at > www.israelupclose.org
The curriculum “Israelis Help Katmandu Street Children” can be accessed by clicking onto> Education Guides on our home page.
Jews moving from Obama
Candidly Speaking: Jews defect from Obama in droves
By ISI LEIBLER
09/19/2011 22:54
There is a feeling of betrayal that Obama failed to fulfill his promise in 2008 to be a pro-Israel president.
Talkbacks (9)
In a column published two months ago, I commented on the findings of an opinion poll by Dick Morris which indicated that, contrary to the predictions of most political commentators, the Jewish community’s century-long nexus with the Democratic Party was dramatically eroding as Jews increasingly began to absorb Obama’s negative approach to Israel.
The stunning electoral upset in New York's Ninth District – the most Jewish-populated congressional district in the United States, which had not elected a Republican candidate since 1922 – indisputably confirmed this. The defeat of the Democratic candidate 54% – 46% was a massive display of non-confidence in the Obama administration and could represent a watershed in Jewish commitment to the Democratic Party. Even if a majority of Jews continue to back Obama, the level of defections from a record support of 78% at the last election represents a massive turnabout.
Yes, the economy was undoubtedly also a major factor. Yes, there were quite a few Orthodox Jews and Jews of Russian origin who are inclined to be more conservative than the broader Jewish community.
But the Democratic candidate was a respectable Orthodox Jew, a lifelong supporter of Israel, while his opponent, a gentile, was relatively unknown to Jewish voters. The Republicans’ success in elevating Obama’s Israel policies to a major issue in the platform was undoubtedly a significant contributing factor to their victory.
The effervescent 86-year-old former New York mayor Ed Koch (himself a Democrat) had called on Jews to vote Republican in order to send President Obama the message that Jews do not take kindly to their president “throwing Israel under a bus with impunity.”
It is now clear that the frequent assertion that the voting patterns of American Jews are only marginally influenced by attitudes towards Israel is unfounded. Indeed, a Public Policy poll taken days before the election found a plurality of voters saying that Israel policy was “very important” in determining their votes. Among those voters, Republican candidate Robert Turner was leading by a 71-22 margin. Only 22% of Jewish voters approved President Obama’s handling of Israel.
Needless to say, Obama has never “broken” with Israel. Indeed, some of his actions have been highly praiseworthy. In terms of defense support, he has behaved impeccably and the United States has made it clear that, if necessary, it will veto recognition of a Palestinian state at the UN Security Council. However, by falsely raising Palestinian expectations, nobody is more responsible for creating this diplomatic impasse than Obama himself. Moreover, his offers to induce the Palestinians to defer their request for recognition (for up to 6 months) do not bode well for Israel.
It is also clear that the disaffection over Obama’s Israel policies is not based on misconception or inadequate communication. It reflects anger with the identifiable hostility towards Israel which, despite even repeated statements to the contrary by the Israeli government, is now becoming abundantly clear. There is a feeling of betrayal; that Obama failed to fulfill his promise in 2008 to be a pro-Israel president.
Manifestations of hostility in recent months include Obama’s renewal of pressure on Israel to accept the indefensible 1949 armistice lines (with swaps agreed to by the Palestinians) as the opening basis for negotiations; his renewed condemnation of construction in Jewish Jerusalem; the recent State Department challenge of West Jerusalem’s legal status as being Israeli; efforts to bludgeon Israel into apologizing to the bullying Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan; the disastrous outcome of simplistic US support for the Arab Spring; Obama’s recent 9/11 speech, in which he notably omitted Israel when enumerating countries suffering terrorism; the leak from Richard Gates (retired secretary of defense) castigating Netanyahu for being “ungrateful” for America's largesse. These and other similar provocations have created a maelstrom within the Jewish community, convincing many that their president was excessively hostile and biased against Israel.
It is unclear whether these trends will be duplicated, or as pronounced, in the forthcoming 2012 election. But if they are, it could crucially impact on the outcome in the key states of Florida and Pennsylvania. It has already also resulted in a dramatic decline in the level of Jewish contributions towards Obama’s reelection campaign.
In the wake of the result of the New York Ninth District election, panic has set in and the Democratic National Committee has been desperately seeking to minimize the defeat or describe it as an aberration.
The Democratic machine has been drumming up Obama’s support for Israel with an outreach program, sending emails to influential Jewish donors and supporters. Ira Forman, recently appointed Democratic Jewish point man for the elections, has been working overtime, repeatedly highlighting the gratitude and appreciation conveyed to the president by Netanyahu for Obama’s intervention with Egyptians to prevent the lynching of Israelis in the Cairo Israeli embassy when the Egyptian police stood by and enabled rioters to storm the building. Needless to say, Israel had every reason to express its appreciation and applaud Obama’s intervention. On the other hand, one can just imagine the impact on Obama – not merely from Jews but from all Americans – if after having unceremoniously abandoned his long standing ally Mubarak, such a lynching had occurred.
The New York Times last week quoted Ed Koch as stating, “I’m hopeful the president will read the tea leaves, will get the message – he has to be deaf not to,” adding “I’m hopeful that he will change his position.” He warned that if he did not do so, he would campaign against him at a national level.
If Jews are no longer to be taken for granted by any political party, it will have major long-term repercussions.
Most important of all, it will represent a healthy sign of normalcy and maturity on the part of the Jewish community not to be considered an automatic supporter of any political party. Even though the Jewish community is not monolithic and incorporates a wide variety of different, even opposing viewpoints, the influence of Jews in relation to issues most of its adherents regard as vital to their interests would be strengthened. It would certainly encourage a more even-handed US policy towards Israel if no party could rely on the automatic support of the Jews. Ironically, in the long term, it would also strengthen bi-partisanship towards Israel, which for the first time is now being questioned.
In my next column, I will explore how - in stark contrast to the response at the Jewish grassroots level – the Jewish leadership establishment appears somewhat desperate not to be perceived as being in any way critical of the Obama administration.
ileibler@netvision.net.il
Download JPost's iPhone application
By ISI LEIBLER
09/19/2011 22:54
There is a feeling of betrayal that Obama failed to fulfill his promise in 2008 to be a pro-Israel president.
Talkbacks (9)
In a column published two months ago, I commented on the findings of an opinion poll by Dick Morris which indicated that, contrary to the predictions of most political commentators, the Jewish community’s century-long nexus with the Democratic Party was dramatically eroding as Jews increasingly began to absorb Obama’s negative approach to Israel.
The stunning electoral upset in New York's Ninth District – the most Jewish-populated congressional district in the United States, which had not elected a Republican candidate since 1922 – indisputably confirmed this. The defeat of the Democratic candidate 54% – 46% was a massive display of non-confidence in the Obama administration and could represent a watershed in Jewish commitment to the Democratic Party. Even if a majority of Jews continue to back Obama, the level of defections from a record support of 78% at the last election represents a massive turnabout.
Yes, the economy was undoubtedly also a major factor. Yes, there were quite a few Orthodox Jews and Jews of Russian origin who are inclined to be more conservative than the broader Jewish community.
But the Democratic candidate was a respectable Orthodox Jew, a lifelong supporter of Israel, while his opponent, a gentile, was relatively unknown to Jewish voters. The Republicans’ success in elevating Obama’s Israel policies to a major issue in the platform was undoubtedly a significant contributing factor to their victory.
The effervescent 86-year-old former New York mayor Ed Koch (himself a Democrat) had called on Jews to vote Republican in order to send President Obama the message that Jews do not take kindly to their president “throwing Israel under a bus with impunity.”
It is now clear that the frequent assertion that the voting patterns of American Jews are only marginally influenced by attitudes towards Israel is unfounded. Indeed, a Public Policy poll taken days before the election found a plurality of voters saying that Israel policy was “very important” in determining their votes. Among those voters, Republican candidate Robert Turner was leading by a 71-22 margin. Only 22% of Jewish voters approved President Obama’s handling of Israel.
Needless to say, Obama has never “broken” with Israel. Indeed, some of his actions have been highly praiseworthy. In terms of defense support, he has behaved impeccably and the United States has made it clear that, if necessary, it will veto recognition of a Palestinian state at the UN Security Council. However, by falsely raising Palestinian expectations, nobody is more responsible for creating this diplomatic impasse than Obama himself. Moreover, his offers to induce the Palestinians to defer their request for recognition (for up to 6 months) do not bode well for Israel.
It is also clear that the disaffection over Obama’s Israel policies is not based on misconception or inadequate communication. It reflects anger with the identifiable hostility towards Israel which, despite even repeated statements to the contrary by the Israeli government, is now becoming abundantly clear. There is a feeling of betrayal; that Obama failed to fulfill his promise in 2008 to be a pro-Israel president.
Manifestations of hostility in recent months include Obama’s renewal of pressure on Israel to accept the indefensible 1949 armistice lines (with swaps agreed to by the Palestinians) as the opening basis for negotiations; his renewed condemnation of construction in Jewish Jerusalem; the recent State Department challenge of West Jerusalem’s legal status as being Israeli; efforts to bludgeon Israel into apologizing to the bullying Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan; the disastrous outcome of simplistic US support for the Arab Spring; Obama’s recent 9/11 speech, in which he notably omitted Israel when enumerating countries suffering terrorism; the leak from Richard Gates (retired secretary of defense) castigating Netanyahu for being “ungrateful” for America's largesse. These and other similar provocations have created a maelstrom within the Jewish community, convincing many that their president was excessively hostile and biased against Israel.
It is unclear whether these trends will be duplicated, or as pronounced, in the forthcoming 2012 election. But if they are, it could crucially impact on the outcome in the key states of Florida and Pennsylvania. It has already also resulted in a dramatic decline in the level of Jewish contributions towards Obama’s reelection campaign.
In the wake of the result of the New York Ninth District election, panic has set in and the Democratic National Committee has been desperately seeking to minimize the defeat or describe it as an aberration.
The Democratic machine has been drumming up Obama’s support for Israel with an outreach program, sending emails to influential Jewish donors and supporters. Ira Forman, recently appointed Democratic Jewish point man for the elections, has been working overtime, repeatedly highlighting the gratitude and appreciation conveyed to the president by Netanyahu for Obama’s intervention with Egyptians to prevent the lynching of Israelis in the Cairo Israeli embassy when the Egyptian police stood by and enabled rioters to storm the building. Needless to say, Israel had every reason to express its appreciation and applaud Obama’s intervention. On the other hand, one can just imagine the impact on Obama – not merely from Jews but from all Americans – if after having unceremoniously abandoned his long standing ally Mubarak, such a lynching had occurred.
The New York Times last week quoted Ed Koch as stating, “I’m hopeful the president will read the tea leaves, will get the message – he has to be deaf not to,” adding “I’m hopeful that he will change his position.” He warned that if he did not do so, he would campaign against him at a national level.
If Jews are no longer to be taken for granted by any political party, it will have major long-term repercussions.
Most important of all, it will represent a healthy sign of normalcy and maturity on the part of the Jewish community not to be considered an automatic supporter of any political party. Even though the Jewish community is not monolithic and incorporates a wide variety of different, even opposing viewpoints, the influence of Jews in relation to issues most of its adherents regard as vital to their interests would be strengthened. It would certainly encourage a more even-handed US policy towards Israel if no party could rely on the automatic support of the Jews. Ironically, in the long term, it would also strengthen bi-partisanship towards Israel, which for the first time is now being questioned.
In my next column, I will explore how - in stark contrast to the response at the Jewish grassroots level – the Jewish leadership establishment appears somewhat desperate not to be perceived as being in any way critical of the Obama administration.
ileibler@netvision.net.il
Download JPost's iPhone application
whose fault
"While many American jews like to engage in a form of group think that if the Israelis were more magnanimous and offer more concessions then the Palestinians would come around. But since the advent of Oslo how has Palestinian leadership readied their people for the eventuality of having to live next to jewish neighbors? By using children's programing to portray jews in the most vulgar caricatures? By employing a curriculum that doesn't even have Israel on the map? By announcing that any future Palestinian state will be Judenrein?"
East Jerusalem Always was Jewish
September 16, 2011
Building Jerusalem
By Hadassah Levy
On the edge of Route 1 as that thoroughfare runs through eastern Jerusalem lies an Arab neighborhood by the name of Sheikh Jarrah. In one section of the neighborhood, an Israeli flag waves and Jews walk back and forth to the tomb of Simon the Just (Shimon Hatzadik), who served as high priest in the Second Temple. The synagogue surrounding the tomb is filled with men studying Torah and women reciting Psalms. Approximately ten young families live in a building adjacent to the tomb.
East Jerusalem Elliot Jager, Jewish Ideas Daily. What and where is it? SAVE
Cherry-Picking History Omri Ceren, Contentions. Taking the Palestinian position on Jerusalem, as the U.S. State Department has done, means installing an atypical 18-year historical blip as the baseline for negotiations. SAVE
The Future of Israel’s Capital Nadav Shragai, Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs. The unresolved issue of land ownership in eastern Jerusalem has led to illegality, chaos, and violence; the interests of all parties lie in rectifying the situation. (PDF) SAVE
Every Friday, protesters gather at the edge of the neighborhood to demonstrate against evictions of Arabs from their homes. The evictions are legal, as the Arabs in question are squatters, having been living rent-free for years in houses that don't belong to them. But the real complaint of the protesters, who comprise both Arabs and Jews, concerns the prospect of Jewish families taking over the houses and thus contributing to the changing character of the neighborhood.
Sheikh Jarrah is not the only Arab neighborhood in eastern Jerusalem undergoing demographic change. On the Mount of Olives, the Beit Orot yeshiva, situated between the Augusta Victoria church and the Mormon outpost of Brigham Young University, is in the process of constructing housing that could ultimately bring a total of 300 Jewish families to the area. This could help to create a continuous Jewish presence from the Mount of Olives cemetery down toward the Temple Mount.
Historically speaking, eastern Jerusalem was where most Jews always lived. In biblical times, the city as a whole was limited geographically to the area surrounding the Temple Mount (known today as the City of David). Even in the modern period, as settlement expanded in the 19th century, it was to the eastern parts of the city that Jews moved. Not until 1929, under the pressure of Arab riots, did officials of the British Mandate undertake to separate the populations and force most Jerusalem Jews to resettle in the west. Those who remained, in the Jewish Quarter and a few other neighborhoods of the Old City, were expelled in 1948 when these areas fell into the hands of the Jordanians.
In 1967, with the return of Jerusalem's eastern sectors to Israel, Jews quickly settled wherever property was available while Arabs remained in all-Arab enclaves like Sheikh Jarrah. Today, the Jewish population in all of eastern Jerusalem numbers about 200,000, of whom about 2,000 reside in Arab neighborhoods.
What now? Israeli politicians and activists who favor agreements with the Palestinians based on the concept of "land for peace" share the view of the British Mandate: peace can be achieved only by separating the Jewish and Arab populations. This was the logic behind the 2005 evacuation of the Jewish settlements in Gaza, and today it is the goal of those who wish to cede land in the West Bank to the Palestinian Authority. An expanded version of the same idea is the guiding principle of the international community. According to it, all land captured by Israel in 1967 should be ceded to the Arabs, thus returning the Jewish state to the armistice lines as they existed at the end of the 1948–49 war of independence.
In contrast to this, Jewish settlers seek an integration of the two populations. Those politicians and activists who regard land-for-peace as a bankrupt policy similarly see integration as a solution. Their strategy is to settle as many Jews as possible in an as many areas as possible in both the West Bank and eastern Jerusalem, thus making the segregation of the two populations a logistical nightmare, if not an impossibility. Many settlers now wish they had pursued this strategy—also known as creating "facts on the ground"—more energetically in the 1980's, when the settlement movement was focused more on homogeneity than on size, with the result that the Jewish population in the West Bank, now at about 330,000, is much lower than it might have been. Such thinking is in part behind the current rush to establish new settlements as well as to expand existing ones, which according to this logic will make it that much harder for any government to undertake a wholesale, Gaza-style evacuation in a future peace agreement.
"Facts on the ground" will undoubtedly influence public policy in Israel. Places with very small Jewish populations or that have been abandoned by Jews are almost always considered negotiable or by definition as belonging to the Arabs. Prime examples are the Temple Mount area in Jerusalem and most of the West Bank itself. By contrast, Jewish cities like Ariel and Maaleh Adumim, thanks to the size of their populations, are usually conceded to the Israelis in most peace proposals.
Past experience suggests that a genuine peace agreement with the Palestinians is unlikely to emerge for many more years, and during that time the demographics of eastern Jerusalem could change significantly. Moreover, Israel's last previous experiment with evacuating its citizens is almost universally considered a failure. Not only did the departure of the IDF from Gaza lead to serious security problems, including the still-unceasing rocket fire from the Hamas-ruled terrritory, but the evacuees themselves have yet to be settled properly in homes and communities. The action also caused large segments of the Israeli citizenry, especially those within the religious-Zionist camp, to lose faith in the willingness of the government to protect their interests.
Will a future Israeli government insist on drawing the country's borders so as to recognize new realities and avoid incurring a much larger trauma than the fiasco of 2005? On Jerusalem, at least, the Netanyahu government has so far declined to be clear, issuing unequivocal declarations against any future division of the city while at the same time permitting very little construction to take place in virtually any part of Jerusalem, east or west. Whether it allows continued settlement of Jews in Sheikh Jarrah and other areas of eastern Jerusalem will perhaps provide one barometer of its longer-term intentions.
Hadassah Levy is a website manager and marketer for Jewish Ideas Daily.
Building Jerusalem
By Hadassah Levy
On the edge of Route 1 as that thoroughfare runs through eastern Jerusalem lies an Arab neighborhood by the name of Sheikh Jarrah. In one section of the neighborhood, an Israeli flag waves and Jews walk back and forth to the tomb of Simon the Just (Shimon Hatzadik), who served as high priest in the Second Temple. The synagogue surrounding the tomb is filled with men studying Torah and women reciting Psalms. Approximately ten young families live in a building adjacent to the tomb.
East Jerusalem Elliot Jager, Jewish Ideas Daily. What and where is it? SAVE
Cherry-Picking History Omri Ceren, Contentions. Taking the Palestinian position on Jerusalem, as the U.S. State Department has done, means installing an atypical 18-year historical blip as the baseline for negotiations. SAVE
The Future of Israel’s Capital Nadav Shragai, Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs. The unresolved issue of land ownership in eastern Jerusalem has led to illegality, chaos, and violence; the interests of all parties lie in rectifying the situation. (PDF) SAVE
Every Friday, protesters gather at the edge of the neighborhood to demonstrate against evictions of Arabs from their homes. The evictions are legal, as the Arabs in question are squatters, having been living rent-free for years in houses that don't belong to them. But the real complaint of the protesters, who comprise both Arabs and Jews, concerns the prospect of Jewish families taking over the houses and thus contributing to the changing character of the neighborhood.
Sheikh Jarrah is not the only Arab neighborhood in eastern Jerusalem undergoing demographic change. On the Mount of Olives, the Beit Orot yeshiva, situated between the Augusta Victoria church and the Mormon outpost of Brigham Young University, is in the process of constructing housing that could ultimately bring a total of 300 Jewish families to the area. This could help to create a continuous Jewish presence from the Mount of Olives cemetery down toward the Temple Mount.
Historically speaking, eastern Jerusalem was where most Jews always lived. In biblical times, the city as a whole was limited geographically to the area surrounding the Temple Mount (known today as the City of David). Even in the modern period, as settlement expanded in the 19th century, it was to the eastern parts of the city that Jews moved. Not until 1929, under the pressure of Arab riots, did officials of the British Mandate undertake to separate the populations and force most Jerusalem Jews to resettle in the west. Those who remained, in the Jewish Quarter and a few other neighborhoods of the Old City, were expelled in 1948 when these areas fell into the hands of the Jordanians.
In 1967, with the return of Jerusalem's eastern sectors to Israel, Jews quickly settled wherever property was available while Arabs remained in all-Arab enclaves like Sheikh Jarrah. Today, the Jewish population in all of eastern Jerusalem numbers about 200,000, of whom about 2,000 reside in Arab neighborhoods.
What now? Israeli politicians and activists who favor agreements with the Palestinians based on the concept of "land for peace" share the view of the British Mandate: peace can be achieved only by separating the Jewish and Arab populations. This was the logic behind the 2005 evacuation of the Jewish settlements in Gaza, and today it is the goal of those who wish to cede land in the West Bank to the Palestinian Authority. An expanded version of the same idea is the guiding principle of the international community. According to it, all land captured by Israel in 1967 should be ceded to the Arabs, thus returning the Jewish state to the armistice lines as they existed at the end of the 1948–49 war of independence.
In contrast to this, Jewish settlers seek an integration of the two populations. Those politicians and activists who regard land-for-peace as a bankrupt policy similarly see integration as a solution. Their strategy is to settle as many Jews as possible in an as many areas as possible in both the West Bank and eastern Jerusalem, thus making the segregation of the two populations a logistical nightmare, if not an impossibility. Many settlers now wish they had pursued this strategy—also known as creating "facts on the ground"—more energetically in the 1980's, when the settlement movement was focused more on homogeneity than on size, with the result that the Jewish population in the West Bank, now at about 330,000, is much lower than it might have been. Such thinking is in part behind the current rush to establish new settlements as well as to expand existing ones, which according to this logic will make it that much harder for any government to undertake a wholesale, Gaza-style evacuation in a future peace agreement.
"Facts on the ground" will undoubtedly influence public policy in Israel. Places with very small Jewish populations or that have been abandoned by Jews are almost always considered negotiable or by definition as belonging to the Arabs. Prime examples are the Temple Mount area in Jerusalem and most of the West Bank itself. By contrast, Jewish cities like Ariel and Maaleh Adumim, thanks to the size of their populations, are usually conceded to the Israelis in most peace proposals.
Past experience suggests that a genuine peace agreement with the Palestinians is unlikely to emerge for many more years, and during that time the demographics of eastern Jerusalem could change significantly. Moreover, Israel's last previous experiment with evacuating its citizens is almost universally considered a failure. Not only did the departure of the IDF from Gaza lead to serious security problems, including the still-unceasing rocket fire from the Hamas-ruled terrritory, but the evacuees themselves have yet to be settled properly in homes and communities. The action also caused large segments of the Israeli citizenry, especially those within the religious-Zionist camp, to lose faith in the willingness of the government to protect their interests.
Will a future Israeli government insist on drawing the country's borders so as to recognize new realities and avoid incurring a much larger trauma than the fiasco of 2005? On Jerusalem, at least, the Netanyahu government has so far declined to be clear, issuing unequivocal declarations against any future division of the city while at the same time permitting very little construction to take place in virtually any part of Jerusalem, east or west. Whether it allows continued settlement of Jews in Sheikh Jarrah and other areas of eastern Jerusalem will perhaps provide one barometer of its longer-term intentions.
Hadassah Levy is a website manager and marketer for Jewish Ideas Daily.
NYT Tom Friedman anti semite?
World Jewish Digest
New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman has long been suspected of harboring self-hating tendencies. Those suspicions now appear to have been confirmed by a recent column in which Friedman explicitly embraces an antisemitic conspiracy theory.
In a column published on Saturday, Friedman went on a lengthy rant that more or less blamed all the problems of the Middle East on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu while erasing any mention of Palestinian terrorism or their refusal of peace offers. This is par for the course for Friedman, and can be written off as the mere raving of a Likud-hating sympathizer with the Israeli far left.
His remarks on Jews in the United States, however, were much uglier. Friedman claimed that Netanyahu's policies have
Left the U.S. government fed up with Israel’s leadership but a hostage to its ineptitude, because the powerful pro-Israel lobby in an election season can force the administration to defend Israel at the U.N., even when it knows Israel is pursuing policies not in its own interest or America’s.
The idea that a powerful Israel lobby can "force" the president of the United States to act against American interests is a classic antisemitic conspiracy theory. While it is self-evidently absurd that any "lobby" has the power to "force" the most powerul man in the world to do anything, this particular theory has many adherents in the media and politics.
It has its basis in centuries old myths of omnipotent Jewish power, and takes its content from the recent antisemitic writings of John Mearsheimer and Steven Walt, with their theories of an avaricious "Israel lobby" that was responsible for, among other things, the Iraq War.
This latter theory was profusely praised by Osama Bin Laden. Now, the late Bin Laden's enthusiasm appears to be shared by Thomas Friedman.
Friedman has long been considered a problematic figure by pro-Israel Jews. While he is perhaps the New York Times's most famous columnist and a bestselling writer, his comments on Israel have been criticized as consistently unfair, hostile, and biased toward the Palestinians and the Arabs in general.
Indeed, Friedman first came to fame for his attacks on Israel, with his reporting during the first Lebanon War helping to cement the Palestinians' version of the war as the official version put out by the Western media. Over the years, he has been a consistent advocate of Israeli concessions to the Palestinians and was a fervent supporter of the Oslo Accords. When the Palestinians broke the Accords and launched a terrorist war against Israel, Friedman continued to criticize any anti-terror actions taken by Israel and to push for concessions.
As a result of this, many have come to consider Friedman a self-hating Jew. Nonetheless, Friedman has always confined himself to attacking, however unfairly, Israeli policy, and has not openly endorsed antisemitic theories or rhetoric.
Until now.
New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman has long been suspected of harboring self-hating tendencies. Those suspicions now appear to have been confirmed by a recent column in which Friedman explicitly embraces an antisemitic conspiracy theory.
In a column published on Saturday, Friedman went on a lengthy rant that more or less blamed all the problems of the Middle East on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu while erasing any mention of Palestinian terrorism or their refusal of peace offers. This is par for the course for Friedman, and can be written off as the mere raving of a Likud-hating sympathizer with the Israeli far left.
His remarks on Jews in the United States, however, were much uglier. Friedman claimed that Netanyahu's policies have
Left the U.S. government fed up with Israel’s leadership but a hostage to its ineptitude, because the powerful pro-Israel lobby in an election season can force the administration to defend Israel at the U.N., even when it knows Israel is pursuing policies not in its own interest or America’s.
The idea that a powerful Israel lobby can "force" the president of the United States to act against American interests is a classic antisemitic conspiracy theory. While it is self-evidently absurd that any "lobby" has the power to "force" the most powerul man in the world to do anything, this particular theory has many adherents in the media and politics.
It has its basis in centuries old myths of omnipotent Jewish power, and takes its content from the recent antisemitic writings of John Mearsheimer and Steven Walt, with their theories of an avaricious "Israel lobby" that was responsible for, among other things, the Iraq War.
This latter theory was profusely praised by Osama Bin Laden. Now, the late Bin Laden's enthusiasm appears to be shared by Thomas Friedman.
Friedman has long been considered a problematic figure by pro-Israel Jews. While he is perhaps the New York Times's most famous columnist and a bestselling writer, his comments on Israel have been criticized as consistently unfair, hostile, and biased toward the Palestinians and the Arabs in general.
Indeed, Friedman first came to fame for his attacks on Israel, with his reporting during the first Lebanon War helping to cement the Palestinians' version of the war as the official version put out by the Western media. Over the years, he has been a consistent advocate of Israeli concessions to the Palestinians and was a fervent supporter of the Oslo Accords. When the Palestinians broke the Accords and launched a terrorist war against Israel, Friedman continued to criticize any anti-terror actions taken by Israel and to push for concessions.
As a result of this, many have come to consider Friedman a self-hating Jew. Nonetheless, Friedman has always confined himself to attacking, however unfairly, Israeli policy, and has not openly endorsed antisemitic theories or rhetoric.
Until now.
Saturday, September 17, 2011
Foolish Arab Spring Optimists
Observations:
Optimists Were Wrong About the Arab Spring - Josef Joffe (Wall Street Journal Europe)
Like many, I thought that dawn was finally breaking over the Arab world when those nice, middle-class crowds thronged Cairo's Tahrir Square chanting "freedom" and "democracy." What a wondrous moment of transcendence! Free the people, and they will free themselves from the obsession of anti-Americanism and anti-Semitism their overlords had implanted to distract them from misery and oppression.
It was a false dawn - and not only because of the sacking of the Israeli embassy in Cairo last week. The demons of yore are back, and presumably, they have never left. The Friday demonstration on Tahrir Square was at first yet another protest against the military regime. But at the end, several thousands armed with Palestinian flags, crowbars and hammers marched off to the Israeli embassy.
But there is more. For six hours, desperate Israeli leaders tried to contact the junta; its leader Field Marshall Tantawi refused to speak with either the prime minister or his defense minister. It took another seven before Egyptian security forces rescued the last Israeli - perhaps only because Washington had interceded in the meantime.
The moral of this tale is simple. The revolution isn't going anywhere, and life is as miserable as always. So how about a little pogrom? It wasn't the junta that invented this stratagem, but our good friend Hosni Mubarak. How do despots stay in power amid poverty, hopelessness and repression? By feeding the people the heady brew of hatred against the "Other."
The writer is editor of Die Zeit in Hamburg, a senior fellow of the Freeman-Spogli Institute, and a fellow of the Hoover Institution.
Optimists Were Wrong About the Arab Spring - Josef Joffe (Wall Street Journal Europe)
Like many, I thought that dawn was finally breaking over the Arab world when those nice, middle-class crowds thronged Cairo's Tahrir Square chanting "freedom" and "democracy." What a wondrous moment of transcendence! Free the people, and they will free themselves from the obsession of anti-Americanism and anti-Semitism their overlords had implanted to distract them from misery and oppression.
It was a false dawn - and not only because of the sacking of the Israeli embassy in Cairo last week. The demons of yore are back, and presumably, they have never left. The Friday demonstration on Tahrir Square was at first yet another protest against the military regime. But at the end, several thousands armed with Palestinian flags, crowbars and hammers marched off to the Israeli embassy.
But there is more. For six hours, desperate Israeli leaders tried to contact the junta; its leader Field Marshall Tantawi refused to speak with either the prime minister or his defense minister. It took another seven before Egyptian security forces rescued the last Israeli - perhaps only because Washington had interceded in the meantime.
The moral of this tale is simple. The revolution isn't going anywhere, and life is as miserable as always. So how about a little pogrom? It wasn't the junta that invented this stratagem, but our good friend Hosni Mubarak. How do despots stay in power amid poverty, hopelessness and repression? By feeding the people the heady brew of hatred against the "Other."
The writer is editor of Die Zeit in Hamburg, a senior fellow of the Freeman-Spogli Institute, and a fellow of the Hoover Institution.
Thursday, September 15, 2011
The Yizkor sermon Every Rabbi in the World Should Give This Year Rabbi Jonathan Ginsburg
The Yizkor sermon Every Rabbi in the World Should Give This Year
Last month it was disclosed that Golda Meir, before the State of Israel existed, asked the allies to bomb Auschwitz. They did not and six million Jews died. Why do I mention that today, towards the end of the Holiest Day of the year?
There are several unique features of the Yom Kippur Service which will help explain why.
First is the Kol Nidre prayer we heard last night, which actually is not a prayer at all as you know, but a legal formula asking God to let us annul all vows to GOD we made last year, or will make this year depending on what version we use. The idea behind it is God not wanting us to make vows to God rashly, that we cannot keep. Our words and vows must be considered carefully and if we make one, we need to fulfill it. My question for 5772-is there ONE vow every Jew in the world should make this coming year, of which God would approve? Is there one issue so compelling that the fate of the world rests on it? One that cannot wait until 5773? The answer is yes. Stopping Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons. That threatens Israel very existence and 6 million Jews directly, and threatens us with dirty bombs smuggled in our borders by Hezbollah terrorists. Israel is now, or will shortly be totally surrounded by Islamic Jihadist states. Egypt soon will be, Libya will fall into Jihadist hands, Gaza is controlled by Iran backed Hamas, Hezbollah too in Lebanon in the north with 60,000 Iranian missiles, Syria will shift from Assad to something even worse, Jordan is staring to shake and that does not even count the worst of all IRAN,
There are three other special features of Yom Kippur day we note. First is the last biblical portion our Sages determined we read on this day-the book of Jonah. Jonah was ordered by God to take action to save a city. He tried to duck his responsibility until forced to see the error of his ways and do as God commanded. The Torah says do not stand idly by while the blood of your neighbor is spilt. Isaiah says God reflects "I looked down and saw injustice and wondered why no one would intervene?" When the two and a half tribes in the Torah wanted to avoid entering Israel, Moses and God finally allowed them to outside of Israel, if they first helped Israel insure its ability to live inside the Land. The Torah has Moses saying "will your brothers go to war and you remain not helping them." We can do no less.
Second, in the morning Musaf service, we find special unique features. One is the Avodah service, the magnificent depiction of the royal service of the High Priest, elegantly dressed, in great awe that one day a year entering the Holy of Holies and pleading for Israel. Throughout the two thousand years of Jewish powerlessness, hearing that Service each Yom Kippur uplifted the Jewish spirit and heart. It still moves us, plus we are blessed with Jewish power. Every Prime Minister of Israel sees it as their number one sacred task to stop another Holocaust and keep Israel safe. A very tough job, and they need our help.
Third, the second unique aspect of the Yom Kippur musaf, Eleh Ezkara,
This ancient poem depicts the brutal massacre of 10 great rabbinic Sages at the hands of the Romans, including the flaying of the flesh off the body of Rabbi Akiva, who helped lead the rebellion in 135 against the tyranny and yoke of Rome. Many sysnagogues insert readings about the Holocaust in this service.
If we don't stop Iran, their deaths were even more in vain, and the slogan "NEVER AGAIN" means nothing.
What must we do? What is the most important thing you can do in 5772 to insure world peace and the survival of the State of Israel?
Supporting Israel When she bombs Iran
The clock is ticking closer and closer towards the Iranian nuclear bomb capability. Rationale people realize one must take the Iranian leaders at their word when they state they plan to obliterate Israel in a "sudden storm." "Mutually Assured Destruction does not work with a suicide bomber mentality government, as DAVID HOROVITZ said. "Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, if he ever became the supreme decision maker in his country, would "sacrifice half of Iran for the sake of eliminating Israel," Giora Eiland, Israel's former national security adviser, told The Jerusalem Post. The Iranian president, he said, "has a religious conviction that Israel's demise is essential to the restoration of Muslim glory, that the Zionist thorn in the heart of the Islamic nations must be removed. And he will pay almost any price to right the perceived historic wrong. If he becomes the supreme leader and has a nuclear capability, that's a real threat."
The West's efforts to stop Iran, through Obama's misguided and absurd idea that diplomacy could stop them, followed by fruitless sanctions follow fruitless sanctions, has proved worthless. Aipac and Cufi are still talking about more sanctions. But a top terrorism expert, author of several key books on the subject of Iran, after a speech trotting out the idea of how more sanctions COULD work, told me when I pressed him privately asking "not if they COULD, but if there was any chance they WOULD stop Iran", he said "no."
There you have it. Former VP Chaney was quoted in Israel News saying "Israel is likely to attack Iran's nuclear facilities if it proves necessary in order to prevent it from acquiring Weapons of Mass Destruction...I think Iran represents an existential threat, and (Israel) will do whatever they have to do to guarantee their survival and their security," the former vice president told Newsmax's Chief Washington correspondent Ronald Kessler."
THE USA should and could do this. We should try and convince Washington but that may be a zochen vay-hopeless.
Israel is currently running training exercises over an island equidistant from Israel as Iran, and which has the same anti-aircraft Russian equipment as Iran.
Suppose Israel does decide to attack.
1. They have no bombers, just fighter bombers.
2. Each plane would need to be refueled twice to get back safely.
3. They would get one bomb run most likely
4. There are over 35 sites, many on the far east side of Iran, buried a mile down in hardened sites.
5. So how much damage can they really do vs. a several month long USA attack with our bombers?
6. Why is this Israel's responsibility anyway? Do you not believe Iran represents a nuclear threat to the USA? They'll have intercontinental ballistic missiles which can reach us within a few years, and dirty bomb fit-into-a-terrorists-backpack capability soon.
7. But Obama is reluctant, the military is tired after two wars in that part of the world. Some of the Republican candidates are discussing it. On Fox news Sept 13. Romney said Obama's biggest failure as President has been his failure to stop iarn and his seventh point of his seven point plan to stop them is the US having a "serious military option on the table." Of course then there is Ron Paul who says who cares if Iran gets nuclear weapons.
It appears Israel will have to do it if their Air Force generals believe they can. There will be horrible results most likely. Gas prices may go through the roof because Iran will shut down the Gulf with mines or sunk ships, maybe the 60,000 Iranian missiles in Lebanonon under Hezbollah control and the 15,000 in Gaza will be shot at Israel, maybe the Hezbollah terrorists who have snuck into the USA illegally will be unleashed etc. Israel will be blamed, maybe Egypt, Syria etc will decide it's a good time to pour it on. Who knows what would be unleashed. The PR against the attack will be ferocious. Two term US Senator Ruby Boschwitz R-Minnesota who served when when Israel bombed the Iraq nuclear site in 1981, told me he was accosted by a fellow Republican Senator the next day and was asked "what did you people do?" To which Sen. Boschwitz retorted a. They are not my people. I am a USA Senator and that was the sovereign state of Israel and b. You'll thank me in a week". Sure enough, that happened.
I attended a dinner a few years ago where Pat Robertson was the keynoter. Even then he said that when Israel bombs Iran's nuclear sites, we need to be prepared to defend her because the pr blast vs Israel will be atrocious. Now we need to be prepared. The evidence is overwhelming that
1. Iran wants to develop nuclear bombs and is getting close. No one knows exactly how close..
2. It has stated it wants to destroy Israel. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad "The pretext (Holocaust) for the creation of the Zionist regime (Israel) is false "Confronting the Zionist regime is a national and religious duty." "This regime (Israel) will not last long. Do not tie your fate to it ... This regime has no future. Its life has come to an end," he said in a speech broadcast live on state radio.Will Obama allow this man to control nuclear bombs and missiles? Looks like he will. "History will judge this [Obama] administration when it comes to the end of its term whether Iran has nuclear weapons or not," Defense Minister Ehud Barak told Fox News in an interview. He also said sanctions are not enough to stop Iran from reaching nuclear capability.
3. Diplomacy and sanction have not and cannot stop them.
4. Even if our Navy destroyer off Iran's coat can shoot down 95% of Iran's missiles, and Israel in a few years could shoot down most of the rest, are you SO sure of technology and no human error that 0 nuclear bombs will get through? And how do we know that the US would shoot them down?
5. The USA has given no sense it feels a military campaign is urgent and Washington is now settling on "containment."
6. Many other Arab nations have said they want nuclear bombs if Iran gets them. Is that something the USA can live with?
7. Wikiliks has shown the Saudis are begging the USA to stop Iran.
8. Again, Golda asked the allies to bomb Auschwitz. They did not. 6 million Jews died.
Jewish and general war ethics demand that in such a scenario, a preemptive strike to forestall genocide is a mitzvah-a commandment. The Torah does not expect us to submit to armed aggression, to stand silently and passively when others seek to conquer and dominate us. The people of Israel have the right to defend themselves from attack. Indeed, we are commanded to do so: the obligation to defend and preserve our lives overrides virtually every other religious duty. Every nation must possess the right to take up arms if necessary to protect itself and its citizens against military attack.
When diplomacy fails, when our foes spurn the offer of peace that our tradition bids us to make them, when they are clearly bent upon their aggressive course, then the time to initiate preemptive action is sooner rather than later.
And if and when they do, we must make defense of that action our top priority. Save one life, you save a universe.
On Rosh Hashanah we read that Abraham thought God wanted him to kill his beloved son Isaac, but found out no, it was a test. God does not want Isaac to be sacrificed. This is our holy test. To Save Isaac and his descendants. Iran can be saved only by destroying its nuclear program until there is regime change.
If Am Yisrael chai means something
Then today, VOW
I will be the Jonah who did God's bidding to make the world better, not flee from my responsibility
I will not let the death of the martyred sages of Israel be in vain.
I will not be like the 2 ½ tribes originally wanted to be, let those in Israel carry all the burden.
I will remember the 2000 years of powerless Jews listening to the Avbodah service of the High priest and remind myself that today, thank God, Jews are not powerless.
Stop Iran at all costs. Save Israel. Save the Middle East. Save the USA. Save the world.
Rabbi Jonathan Ginsburg
Rabbi Rodfei kodesh Congregation Chicago
Last month it was disclosed that Golda Meir, before the State of Israel existed, asked the allies to bomb Auschwitz. They did not and six million Jews died. Why do I mention that today, towards the end of the Holiest Day of the year?
There are several unique features of the Yom Kippur Service which will help explain why.
First is the Kol Nidre prayer we heard last night, which actually is not a prayer at all as you know, but a legal formula asking God to let us annul all vows to GOD we made last year, or will make this year depending on what version we use. The idea behind it is God not wanting us to make vows to God rashly, that we cannot keep. Our words and vows must be considered carefully and if we make one, we need to fulfill it. My question for 5772-is there ONE vow every Jew in the world should make this coming year, of which God would approve? Is there one issue so compelling that the fate of the world rests on it? One that cannot wait until 5773? The answer is yes. Stopping Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons. That threatens Israel very existence and 6 million Jews directly, and threatens us with dirty bombs smuggled in our borders by Hezbollah terrorists. Israel is now, or will shortly be totally surrounded by Islamic Jihadist states. Egypt soon will be, Libya will fall into Jihadist hands, Gaza is controlled by Iran backed Hamas, Hezbollah too in Lebanon in the north with 60,000 Iranian missiles, Syria will shift from Assad to something even worse, Jordan is staring to shake and that does not even count the worst of all IRAN,
There are three other special features of Yom Kippur day we note. First is the last biblical portion our Sages determined we read on this day-the book of Jonah. Jonah was ordered by God to take action to save a city. He tried to duck his responsibility until forced to see the error of his ways and do as God commanded. The Torah says do not stand idly by while the blood of your neighbor is spilt. Isaiah says God reflects "I looked down and saw injustice and wondered why no one would intervene?" When the two and a half tribes in the Torah wanted to avoid entering Israel, Moses and God finally allowed them to outside of Israel, if they first helped Israel insure its ability to live inside the Land. The Torah has Moses saying "will your brothers go to war and you remain not helping them." We can do no less.
Second, in the morning Musaf service, we find special unique features. One is the Avodah service, the magnificent depiction of the royal service of the High Priest, elegantly dressed, in great awe that one day a year entering the Holy of Holies and pleading for Israel. Throughout the two thousand years of Jewish powerlessness, hearing that Service each Yom Kippur uplifted the Jewish spirit and heart. It still moves us, plus we are blessed with Jewish power. Every Prime Minister of Israel sees it as their number one sacred task to stop another Holocaust and keep Israel safe. A very tough job, and they need our help.
Third, the second unique aspect of the Yom Kippur musaf, Eleh Ezkara,
This ancient poem depicts the brutal massacre of 10 great rabbinic Sages at the hands of the Romans, including the flaying of the flesh off the body of Rabbi Akiva, who helped lead the rebellion in 135 against the tyranny and yoke of Rome. Many sysnagogues insert readings about the Holocaust in this service.
If we don't stop Iran, their deaths were even more in vain, and the slogan "NEVER AGAIN" means nothing.
What must we do? What is the most important thing you can do in 5772 to insure world peace and the survival of the State of Israel?
Supporting Israel When she bombs Iran
The clock is ticking closer and closer towards the Iranian nuclear bomb capability. Rationale people realize one must take the Iranian leaders at their word when they state they plan to obliterate Israel in a "sudden storm." "Mutually Assured Destruction does not work with a suicide bomber mentality government, as DAVID HOROVITZ said. "Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, if he ever became the supreme decision maker in his country, would "sacrifice half of Iran for the sake of eliminating Israel," Giora Eiland, Israel's former national security adviser, told The Jerusalem Post. The Iranian president, he said, "has a religious conviction that Israel's demise is essential to the restoration of Muslim glory, that the Zionist thorn in the heart of the Islamic nations must be removed. And he will pay almost any price to right the perceived historic wrong. If he becomes the supreme leader and has a nuclear capability, that's a real threat."
The West's efforts to stop Iran, through Obama's misguided and absurd idea that diplomacy could stop them, followed by fruitless sanctions follow fruitless sanctions, has proved worthless. Aipac and Cufi are still talking about more sanctions. But a top terrorism expert, author of several key books on the subject of Iran, after a speech trotting out the idea of how more sanctions COULD work, told me when I pressed him privately asking "not if they COULD, but if there was any chance they WOULD stop Iran", he said "no."
There you have it. Former VP Chaney was quoted in Israel News saying "Israel is likely to attack Iran's nuclear facilities if it proves necessary in order to prevent it from acquiring Weapons of Mass Destruction...I think Iran represents an existential threat, and (Israel) will do whatever they have to do to guarantee their survival and their security," the former vice president told Newsmax's Chief Washington correspondent Ronald Kessler."
THE USA should and could do this. We should try and convince Washington but that may be a zochen vay-hopeless.
Israel is currently running training exercises over an island equidistant from Israel as Iran, and which has the same anti-aircraft Russian equipment as Iran.
Suppose Israel does decide to attack.
1. They have no bombers, just fighter bombers.
2. Each plane would need to be refueled twice to get back safely.
3. They would get one bomb run most likely
4. There are over 35 sites, many on the far east side of Iran, buried a mile down in hardened sites.
5. So how much damage can they really do vs. a several month long USA attack with our bombers?
6. Why is this Israel's responsibility anyway? Do you not believe Iran represents a nuclear threat to the USA? They'll have intercontinental ballistic missiles which can reach us within a few years, and dirty bomb fit-into-a-terrorists-backpack capability soon.
7. But Obama is reluctant, the military is tired after two wars in that part of the world. Some of the Republican candidates are discussing it. On Fox news Sept 13. Romney said Obama's biggest failure as President has been his failure to stop iarn and his seventh point of his seven point plan to stop them is the US having a "serious military option on the table." Of course then there is Ron Paul who says who cares if Iran gets nuclear weapons.
It appears Israel will have to do it if their Air Force generals believe they can. There will be horrible results most likely. Gas prices may go through the roof because Iran will shut down the Gulf with mines or sunk ships, maybe the 60,000 Iranian missiles in Lebanonon under Hezbollah control and the 15,000 in Gaza will be shot at Israel, maybe the Hezbollah terrorists who have snuck into the USA illegally will be unleashed etc. Israel will be blamed, maybe Egypt, Syria etc will decide it's a good time to pour it on. Who knows what would be unleashed. The PR against the attack will be ferocious. Two term US Senator Ruby Boschwitz R-Minnesota who served when when Israel bombed the Iraq nuclear site in 1981, told me he was accosted by a fellow Republican Senator the next day and was asked "what did you people do?" To which Sen. Boschwitz retorted a. They are not my people. I am a USA Senator and that was the sovereign state of Israel and b. You'll thank me in a week". Sure enough, that happened.
I attended a dinner a few years ago where Pat Robertson was the keynoter. Even then he said that when Israel bombs Iran's nuclear sites, we need to be prepared to defend her because the pr blast vs Israel will be atrocious. Now we need to be prepared. The evidence is overwhelming that
1. Iran wants to develop nuclear bombs and is getting close. No one knows exactly how close..
2. It has stated it wants to destroy Israel. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad "The pretext (Holocaust) for the creation of the Zionist regime (Israel) is false "Confronting the Zionist regime is a national and religious duty." "This regime (Israel) will not last long. Do not tie your fate to it ... This regime has no future. Its life has come to an end," he said in a speech broadcast live on state radio.Will Obama allow this man to control nuclear bombs and missiles? Looks like he will. "History will judge this [Obama] administration when it comes to the end of its term whether Iran has nuclear weapons or not," Defense Minister Ehud Barak told Fox News in an interview. He also said sanctions are not enough to stop Iran from reaching nuclear capability.
3. Diplomacy and sanction have not and cannot stop them.
4. Even if our Navy destroyer off Iran's coat can shoot down 95% of Iran's missiles, and Israel in a few years could shoot down most of the rest, are you SO sure of technology and no human error that 0 nuclear bombs will get through? And how do we know that the US would shoot them down?
5. The USA has given no sense it feels a military campaign is urgent and Washington is now settling on "containment."
6. Many other Arab nations have said they want nuclear bombs if Iran gets them. Is that something the USA can live with?
7. Wikiliks has shown the Saudis are begging the USA to stop Iran.
8. Again, Golda asked the allies to bomb Auschwitz. They did not. 6 million Jews died.
Jewish and general war ethics demand that in such a scenario, a preemptive strike to forestall genocide is a mitzvah-a commandment. The Torah does not expect us to submit to armed aggression, to stand silently and passively when others seek to conquer and dominate us. The people of Israel have the right to defend themselves from attack. Indeed, we are commanded to do so: the obligation to defend and preserve our lives overrides virtually every other religious duty. Every nation must possess the right to take up arms if necessary to protect itself and its citizens against military attack.
When diplomacy fails, when our foes spurn the offer of peace that our tradition bids us to make them, when they are clearly bent upon their aggressive course, then the time to initiate preemptive action is sooner rather than later.
And if and when they do, we must make defense of that action our top priority. Save one life, you save a universe.
On Rosh Hashanah we read that Abraham thought God wanted him to kill his beloved son Isaac, but found out no, it was a test. God does not want Isaac to be sacrificed. This is our holy test. To Save Isaac and his descendants. Iran can be saved only by destroying its nuclear program until there is regime change.
If Am Yisrael chai means something
Then today, VOW
I will be the Jonah who did God's bidding to make the world better, not flee from my responsibility
I will not let the death of the martyred sages of Israel be in vain.
I will not be like the 2 ½ tribes originally wanted to be, let those in Israel carry all the burden.
I will remember the 2000 years of powerless Jews listening to the Avbodah service of the High priest and remind myself that today, thank God, Jews are not powerless.
Stop Iran at all costs. Save Israel. Save the Middle East. Save the USA. Save the world.
Rabbi Jonathan Ginsburg
Rabbi Rodfei kodesh Congregation Chicago
Wednesday, September 14, 2011
Why Obama Is Losing the Jewish Vote Rabbi Jonathan Ginsburg
Why Obama Is Losing the Jewish Vote
He doesn't have a 'messaging' problem. He has a record of bad policies and anti-Israel rhetoric.
By DAN SENOR
New York's special congressional election on Tuesday was the first electoral outcome directly affected by President Obama's Israel policy. Democrats were forced to expend enormous resources in a losing effort to defend this safe Democratic district, covering Queens and Brooklyn, that Anthony Weiner won last year by a comfortable margin.
A Public Policy Poll taken days before the election found a plurality of voters saying that Israel was "very important" in determining their votes. Among those voters, Republican candidate Robert Turner was winning by a 71-22 margin. Only 22% of Jewish voters approved of President Obama's handling of Israel. Ed Koch, the Democrat and former New York mayor, endorsed Mr. Turner because he said he wanted to send a message to the president about his anti-Israel policies.
This is a preview of what President Obama might face in his re-election campaign with a demographic group that voted overwhelmingly for him in 2008. And it could affect the electoral map, given the battleground states—such as Florida and Pennsylvania—with significant Jewish populations. In another ominous barometer for the Obama campaign, its Jewish fund-raising has deeply eroded: One poll by McLaughlin & Associates found that of Jewish donors who donated to Mr. Obama in 2008, only 64% have already donated or plan to donate to his re-election campaign.
The Obama campaign has launched a counteroffensive, including hiring a high-level Jewish outreach director and sending former White House aide David Axelrod and Democratic National Committee Chair Debbie Wasserman-Schultz to reassure Jewish donors. The Obama team told the Washington Post that its Israel problem is a messaging problem, and that with enough explanation of its record the Jewish community will return to the fold in 2012. Here is an inventory of what Mr. Obama's aides will have to address:
• February 2008: When running for president, then-Sen. Obama told an audience in Cleveland: "There is a strain within the pro-Israel community that says unless you adopt an unwavering pro-Likud approach to Israel that you're anti-Israel." Likud had been out of power for two years when Mr. Obama made this statement. At the time the country was being led by the centrist Kadima government of Ehud Olmert, Tzipi Livni and Shimon Peres, and Prime Minister Olmert had been pursuing an unprecedented territorial compromise. As for Likud governments, it was under Likud that Israel made its largest territorial compromises—withdrawals from Sinai and Gaza.
• July 2009: Mr. Obama hosted American Jewish leaders at the White House, reportedly telling them that he sought to put "daylight" between America and Israel. "For eight years"—during the Bush administration—"there was no light between the United States and Israel, and nothing got accomplished," he declared.
Nothing? Prime Minister Ariel Sharon uprooted thousands of settlers from their homes in Gaza and the northern West Bank and deployed the Israeli army to forcibly relocate their fellow citizens. Mr. Sharon then resigned from the Likud Party to build a majority party based on a two-state consensus.
In the same meeting with Jewish leaders, Mr. Obama told the group that Israel would need "to engage in serious self-reflection." This statement stunned the Americans in attendance: Israeli society is many things, but lacking in self-reflection isn't one of them. It's impossible to envision the president delivering a similar lecture to Muslim leaders.
Enlarge Image
Roll Call/Getty Images
Stuart Balberg of Brooklyn, New York, calls voters on behalf of Bob Turner, Republican candidate for the congressional seat vacated by Democrat Anthony Weiner.
• September 2009: In his first address to the U.N. General Assembly, President Obama devoted five paragraphs to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, during which he declared (to loud applause) that "America does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements." He went on to draw a connection between rocket attacks on Israeli civilians with living conditions in Gaza. There was not a single unconditional criticism of Palestinian terrorism.
• March 2010: During Vice President Joe Biden's visit to Israel, a Jerusalem municipal office announced plans for new construction in a part of Jerusalem. The president launched an unprecedented weeks-long offensive against Israel. Mr. Biden very publicly departed Israel.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton berated Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on a now-infamous 45-minute phone call, telling him that Israel had "harmed the bilateral relationship." (The State Department triumphantly shared details of the call with the press.) The Israeli ambassador was dressed-down at the State Department, Mr. Obama's Middle East envoy canceled his trip to Israel, and the U.S. joined the European condemnation of Israel.
Moments after Mr. Biden concluded his visit to the West Bank, the Palestinian Authority held a ceremony to honor Dalal Mughrabi, who led one of the deadliest Palestinian terror attacks in history: the so-called Coastal Road Massacre that killed 38, including 13 children and an American. The Obama administration was silent. But that same day, on ABC, Mr. Axelrod called Israel's planned construction of apartments in its own capital an "insult" and an "affront" to the United States. Press Secretary Robert Gibbs went on Fox News to accuse Mr. Netanyahu of "weakening trust" between the two countries.
Ten days later, Mr. Netanyahu traveled to Washington to mend fences but was snubbed at a White House meeting with President Obama—no photo op, no joint statement, and he was sent out through a side door.
• April 2010: Mr. Netanyahu pulled out of the Obama-sponsored Washington summit on nuclear proliferation after it became clear that Turkey and Egypt intended to use the occasion to condemn the Israeli nuclear program, and Mr. Obama would not intervene.
• March 2011: Mr. Obama returned to his habit of urging Israelis to engage in self-reflection, inviting Jewish community leaders to the White House and instructing them to "search your souls" about Israel's dedication to peace.
• May 2011: The State Department issued a press release declaring that the department's No. 2 official, James Steinberg, would be visiting "Israel, Jerusalem, and the West Bank." In other words, Jerusalem is not part of Israel. Later in the month, only hours before Mr. Netanyahu departed from Israel to Washington, Mr. Obama delivered his Arab Spring speech, which focused on a demand that Israel return to its indefensible pre-1967 borders with land swaps.
Mr. Obama has made some meaningful exceptions, particularly having to do with security partnership, but overall he has built the most consistently one-sided diplomatic record against Israel of any American president in generations. His problem with Jewish voters is one of substance, not messaging.
Mr. Senor is co-author with Saul Singer of "Start-up Nation: The Story of Israel's Economic Miracle" (Twelve, 2011). He served as a senior adviser to the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq in 2003 and 2004.
He doesn't have a 'messaging' problem. He has a record of bad policies and anti-Israel rhetoric.
By DAN SENOR
New York's special congressional election on Tuesday was the first electoral outcome directly affected by President Obama's Israel policy. Democrats were forced to expend enormous resources in a losing effort to defend this safe Democratic district, covering Queens and Brooklyn, that Anthony Weiner won last year by a comfortable margin.
A Public Policy Poll taken days before the election found a plurality of voters saying that Israel was "very important" in determining their votes. Among those voters, Republican candidate Robert Turner was winning by a 71-22 margin. Only 22% of Jewish voters approved of President Obama's handling of Israel. Ed Koch, the Democrat and former New York mayor, endorsed Mr. Turner because he said he wanted to send a message to the president about his anti-Israel policies.
This is a preview of what President Obama might face in his re-election campaign with a demographic group that voted overwhelmingly for him in 2008. And it could affect the electoral map, given the battleground states—such as Florida and Pennsylvania—with significant Jewish populations. In another ominous barometer for the Obama campaign, its Jewish fund-raising has deeply eroded: One poll by McLaughlin & Associates found that of Jewish donors who donated to Mr. Obama in 2008, only 64% have already donated or plan to donate to his re-election campaign.
The Obama campaign has launched a counteroffensive, including hiring a high-level Jewish outreach director and sending former White House aide David Axelrod and Democratic National Committee Chair Debbie Wasserman-Schultz to reassure Jewish donors. The Obama team told the Washington Post that its Israel problem is a messaging problem, and that with enough explanation of its record the Jewish community will return to the fold in 2012. Here is an inventory of what Mr. Obama's aides will have to address:
• February 2008: When running for president, then-Sen. Obama told an audience in Cleveland: "There is a strain within the pro-Israel community that says unless you adopt an unwavering pro-Likud approach to Israel that you're anti-Israel." Likud had been out of power for two years when Mr. Obama made this statement. At the time the country was being led by the centrist Kadima government of Ehud Olmert, Tzipi Livni and Shimon Peres, and Prime Minister Olmert had been pursuing an unprecedented territorial compromise. As for Likud governments, it was under Likud that Israel made its largest territorial compromises—withdrawals from Sinai and Gaza.
• July 2009: Mr. Obama hosted American Jewish leaders at the White House, reportedly telling them that he sought to put "daylight" between America and Israel. "For eight years"—during the Bush administration—"there was no light between the United States and Israel, and nothing got accomplished," he declared.
Nothing? Prime Minister Ariel Sharon uprooted thousands of settlers from their homes in Gaza and the northern West Bank and deployed the Israeli army to forcibly relocate their fellow citizens. Mr. Sharon then resigned from the Likud Party to build a majority party based on a two-state consensus.
In the same meeting with Jewish leaders, Mr. Obama told the group that Israel would need "to engage in serious self-reflection." This statement stunned the Americans in attendance: Israeli society is many things, but lacking in self-reflection isn't one of them. It's impossible to envision the president delivering a similar lecture to Muslim leaders.
Enlarge Image
Roll Call/Getty Images
Stuart Balberg of Brooklyn, New York, calls voters on behalf of Bob Turner, Republican candidate for the congressional seat vacated by Democrat Anthony Weiner.
• September 2009: In his first address to the U.N. General Assembly, President Obama devoted five paragraphs to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, during which he declared (to loud applause) that "America does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements." He went on to draw a connection between rocket attacks on Israeli civilians with living conditions in Gaza. There was not a single unconditional criticism of Palestinian terrorism.
• March 2010: During Vice President Joe Biden's visit to Israel, a Jerusalem municipal office announced plans for new construction in a part of Jerusalem. The president launched an unprecedented weeks-long offensive against Israel. Mr. Biden very publicly departed Israel.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton berated Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on a now-infamous 45-minute phone call, telling him that Israel had "harmed the bilateral relationship." (The State Department triumphantly shared details of the call with the press.) The Israeli ambassador was dressed-down at the State Department, Mr. Obama's Middle East envoy canceled his trip to Israel, and the U.S. joined the European condemnation of Israel.
Moments after Mr. Biden concluded his visit to the West Bank, the Palestinian Authority held a ceremony to honor Dalal Mughrabi, who led one of the deadliest Palestinian terror attacks in history: the so-called Coastal Road Massacre that killed 38, including 13 children and an American. The Obama administration was silent. But that same day, on ABC, Mr. Axelrod called Israel's planned construction of apartments in its own capital an "insult" and an "affront" to the United States. Press Secretary Robert Gibbs went on Fox News to accuse Mr. Netanyahu of "weakening trust" between the two countries.
Ten days later, Mr. Netanyahu traveled to Washington to mend fences but was snubbed at a White House meeting with President Obama—no photo op, no joint statement, and he was sent out through a side door.
• April 2010: Mr. Netanyahu pulled out of the Obama-sponsored Washington summit on nuclear proliferation after it became clear that Turkey and Egypt intended to use the occasion to condemn the Israeli nuclear program, and Mr. Obama would not intervene.
• March 2011: Mr. Obama returned to his habit of urging Israelis to engage in self-reflection, inviting Jewish community leaders to the White House and instructing them to "search your souls" about Israel's dedication to peace.
• May 2011: The State Department issued a press release declaring that the department's No. 2 official, James Steinberg, would be visiting "Israel, Jerusalem, and the West Bank." In other words, Jerusalem is not part of Israel. Later in the month, only hours before Mr. Netanyahu departed from Israel to Washington, Mr. Obama delivered his Arab Spring speech, which focused on a demand that Israel return to its indefensible pre-1967 borders with land swaps.
Mr. Obama has made some meaningful exceptions, particularly having to do with security partnership, but overall he has built the most consistently one-sided diplomatic record against Israel of any American president in generations. His problem with Jewish voters is one of substance, not messaging.
Mr. Senor is co-author with Saul Singer of "Start-up Nation: The Story of Israel's Economic Miracle" (Twelve, 2011). He served as a senior adviser to the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq in 2003 and 2004.
Supporting Israel When she bombs Iran Rabbi Jonathan Ginsburg
Supporting Israel When she bombs Iran Rabbi Jonathan Ginsburg
Supporting Israel When she bombs Iran
The clock is ticking closer and closer towards the Iranian nuclear bomb capability. Rationale people realize one must take the Iranian leaders at their word when they state they plan to obliterate Israel in a “sudden storm.” "Mutually Assured Destruction does not work with a suicide bomber mentality government, as DAVID HOROVITZ said. "Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, if he ever became the supreme decision maker in his country, would "sacrifice half of Iran for the sake of eliminating Israel," Giora Eiland, Israel's former national security adviser, told The Jerusalem Post. The Iranian president, he said, "has a religious conviction that Israel's demise is essential to the restoration of Muslim glory, that the Zionist thorn in the heart of the Islamic nations must be removed. And he will pay almost any price to right the perceived historic wrong. If he becomes the supreme leader and has a nuclear capability, that's a real threat."
The West’s efforts to stop Iran, through Obama’s misguided and absurd idea that diplomacy couild stop them, followed by fruitless sanctions follow fruitless sanctions, has proved worthless. Aipac and Cufi are still talking about more sanctions. But a top terrorism expert, author of several key books on the subject of Iran, after a speech trotting out the idea of how more sanctions COULD work, told me when I pressed him privately asking "not if they COULD, but if there was any chance they WOULD stop Iran", he said “no.”
There you have it. Former VP Chaney was quoted in Israel News saying “Israel is likely to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities if it proves necessary in order to prevent it from acquiring Weapons of Mass Destruction...I think Iran represents an existential threat, and (Israel) will do whatever they have to do to guarantee their survival and their security,” the former vice president told Newsmax's Chief Washington correspondent Ronald Kessler.”
Israel is currently running training exercises over an island equidistant from Israel as Iran, and which has the same anti-aircraft Russian equipment as Iran.
Suppose Israel does decide to attack.
1. They have no bombers, just fighter bombers.
2. Each plane would need to be refueled twice to get back safely.
3. They would get one bomb run most likely
4. There are over 35 sites, many on the far east side of Iran, buried a mile down in hardened sites.
5. So how much damage can they really do vs. a several month long USA attack with our bombers?
6. Why is this Israel’s responsibility anyway? Do you not believe Iran represents a nuclear threat to the USA? They’ll have intercontinental ballistic missiles which can reach us within a few years, and dirty bomb fit-into-a-terrorists-backpack capability soon.
7. But Obama is reluctant, the military is tired after two wars in that part of the world. Some of the Republican candidates are discussing it. On Fox news Sept 13. Romney said Obama's biggest failure as President has been his failure to stop iarn and his seventh point of his seven point plan to stop them is the US having a "serious military option on the table." Of course then there is Ron Paul who says who cares if Iran gets nuclear weapons.
It appears Israel will have to do it if their Air Force generals believe they can. There will be horrible results most likely. Gas prices may go through the roof because Iran will shut down the Gulf with mines or sunk ships, maybe the 60,000 Iranian missiles in Lebanonon under Hezbollah control and the 15,000 in Gaza will be shot at Israel, maybe the Hezbollah terrorists who have snuck into the USA illegally will be unleashed etc. Israel will be blamed, maybe Egypt, Syria etc will decide it’s a good time to pour it on. Who knows what would be unleashed. The PR against the attack will be ferocious. Two term US Senator Ruby Boschwitz R-Minnesota who served when when Israel bombed the Iraq nuclear site in 1981, told me he was accosted by a fellow Republican Senator the next day and was asked “what did you people do?” To which Sen. Boschwitz retorted a. They are not my people. I am a USA Senator and that was the sovereign state of Israel and b. You’ll thank me in a week”. Sure enough, that happened.
I attended a dinner a few years ago where Pat Robertson was the keynoter. Even then he said that when Israel bombs Iran’s nuclear sites, we need to be prepared to defend her because the pr blast vs Israel will be atrocious. Now we need to be prepared. The evidence is overwhelming that
1. Iran wants to develop nuclear bombs and is getting close. No one knows exactly how close..
2. It has stated it wants to destroy Israel. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad "The pretext (Holocaust) for the creation of the Zionist regime (Israel) is false "Confronting the Zionist regime is a national and religious duty." "This regime (Israel) will not last long. Do not tie your fate to it ... This regime has no future. Its life has come to an end," he said in a speech broadcast live on state radio.Will Obama allow this man to control nuclear bombs and missiles? Looks like he will. “History will judge this [Obama] administration when it comes to the end of its term whether Iran has nuclear weapons or not,” Defense Minister Ehud Barak told Fox News in an interview. He also said sanctions are not enough to stop Iran from reaching nuclear capability.
3. Diplomacy and sanction have not and cannot stop them.
4. Even if our Navy destroyer off Iran's coat can shoot down 95% of Iran's missiles, and Israel in a few years could shoot down most of the rest, are you SO sure of technology and no human error that 0 nuclear bombs will get through? And how do we know that the US would shoot them down?
5. The USA has given no sense it feels a military campaign is urgent and Washington is now settling on “containment.”
6. Many other Arab nations have said they want nuclear bombs if Iran gets them. Is that something the USA can live with?
7. Wikiliks has shown the Saudis are begging the USA to stop Iran.
8. Golda asked the allies to bomb Auschwitz. They did not. 6 million Jews died.
Jewish and general war ethics demand that in such a scenario, a preemptive strike to forestall genocide is a mitzvah-a commandment. The Torah does not expect us to submit to armed aggression, to stand silently and passively when others seek to conquer and dominate us. The people of Israel have the right to defend themselves from attack. Indeed, we are commanded to do so: the obligation to defend and preserve our lives overrides virtually every other religious duty. Every nation must possess the right to take up arms if necessary to protect itself and its citizens against military attack.
When diplomacy fails, when our foes spurn the offer of peace that our tradition bids us to make them, when they are clearly bent upon their aggressive course, then the time to initiate preemptive action is sooner rather than later.
And if and when they do, we must make defense of that action our top priority. Save one life, you save a universe.
Rabbi Jonathan Ginsburg
Rabbi Rodfei kodesh Congregation Chicago
President ZOA Chapter Chicago (identification purposes onbly)
Blogger www.israelgreatest.blogspot.com
Supporting Israel When she bombs Iran
The clock is ticking closer and closer towards the Iranian nuclear bomb capability. Rationale people realize one must take the Iranian leaders at their word when they state they plan to obliterate Israel in a “sudden storm.” "Mutually Assured Destruction does not work with a suicide bomber mentality government, as DAVID HOROVITZ said. "Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, if he ever became the supreme decision maker in his country, would "sacrifice half of Iran for the sake of eliminating Israel," Giora Eiland, Israel's former national security adviser, told The Jerusalem Post. The Iranian president, he said, "has a religious conviction that Israel's demise is essential to the restoration of Muslim glory, that the Zionist thorn in the heart of the Islamic nations must be removed. And he will pay almost any price to right the perceived historic wrong. If he becomes the supreme leader and has a nuclear capability, that's a real threat."
The West’s efforts to stop Iran, through Obama’s misguided and absurd idea that diplomacy couild stop them, followed by fruitless sanctions follow fruitless sanctions, has proved worthless. Aipac and Cufi are still talking about more sanctions. But a top terrorism expert, author of several key books on the subject of Iran, after a speech trotting out the idea of how more sanctions COULD work, told me when I pressed him privately asking "not if they COULD, but if there was any chance they WOULD stop Iran", he said “no.”
There you have it. Former VP Chaney was quoted in Israel News saying “Israel is likely to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities if it proves necessary in order to prevent it from acquiring Weapons of Mass Destruction...I think Iran represents an existential threat, and (Israel) will do whatever they have to do to guarantee their survival and their security,” the former vice president told Newsmax's Chief Washington correspondent Ronald Kessler.”
Israel is currently running training exercises over an island equidistant from Israel as Iran, and which has the same anti-aircraft Russian equipment as Iran.
Suppose Israel does decide to attack.
1. They have no bombers, just fighter bombers.
2. Each plane would need to be refueled twice to get back safely.
3. They would get one bomb run most likely
4. There are over 35 sites, many on the far east side of Iran, buried a mile down in hardened sites.
5. So how much damage can they really do vs. a several month long USA attack with our bombers?
6. Why is this Israel’s responsibility anyway? Do you not believe Iran represents a nuclear threat to the USA? They’ll have intercontinental ballistic missiles which can reach us within a few years, and dirty bomb fit-into-a-terrorists-backpack capability soon.
7. But Obama is reluctant, the military is tired after two wars in that part of the world. Some of the Republican candidates are discussing it. On Fox news Sept 13. Romney said Obama's biggest failure as President has been his failure to stop iarn and his seventh point of his seven point plan to stop them is the US having a "serious military option on the table." Of course then there is Ron Paul who says who cares if Iran gets nuclear weapons.
It appears Israel will have to do it if their Air Force generals believe they can. There will be horrible results most likely. Gas prices may go through the roof because Iran will shut down the Gulf with mines or sunk ships, maybe the 60,000 Iranian missiles in Lebanonon under Hezbollah control and the 15,000 in Gaza will be shot at Israel, maybe the Hezbollah terrorists who have snuck into the USA illegally will be unleashed etc. Israel will be blamed, maybe Egypt, Syria etc will decide it’s a good time to pour it on. Who knows what would be unleashed. The PR against the attack will be ferocious. Two term US Senator Ruby Boschwitz R-Minnesota who served when when Israel bombed the Iraq nuclear site in 1981, told me he was accosted by a fellow Republican Senator the next day and was asked “what did you people do?” To which Sen. Boschwitz retorted a. They are not my people. I am a USA Senator and that was the sovereign state of Israel and b. You’ll thank me in a week”. Sure enough, that happened.
I attended a dinner a few years ago where Pat Robertson was the keynoter. Even then he said that when Israel bombs Iran’s nuclear sites, we need to be prepared to defend her because the pr blast vs Israel will be atrocious. Now we need to be prepared. The evidence is overwhelming that
1. Iran wants to develop nuclear bombs and is getting close. No one knows exactly how close..
2. It has stated it wants to destroy Israel. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad "The pretext (Holocaust) for the creation of the Zionist regime (Israel) is false "Confronting the Zionist regime is a national and religious duty." "This regime (Israel) will not last long. Do not tie your fate to it ... This regime has no future. Its life has come to an end," he said in a speech broadcast live on state radio.Will Obama allow this man to control nuclear bombs and missiles? Looks like he will. “History will judge this [Obama] administration when it comes to the end of its term whether Iran has nuclear weapons or not,” Defense Minister Ehud Barak told Fox News in an interview. He also said sanctions are not enough to stop Iran from reaching nuclear capability.
3. Diplomacy and sanction have not and cannot stop them.
4. Even if our Navy destroyer off Iran's coat can shoot down 95% of Iran's missiles, and Israel in a few years could shoot down most of the rest, are you SO sure of technology and no human error that 0 nuclear bombs will get through? And how do we know that the US would shoot them down?
5. The USA has given no sense it feels a military campaign is urgent and Washington is now settling on “containment.”
6. Many other Arab nations have said they want nuclear bombs if Iran gets them. Is that something the USA can live with?
7. Wikiliks has shown the Saudis are begging the USA to stop Iran.
8. Golda asked the allies to bomb Auschwitz. They did not. 6 million Jews died.
Jewish and general war ethics demand that in such a scenario, a preemptive strike to forestall genocide is a mitzvah-a commandment. The Torah does not expect us to submit to armed aggression, to stand silently and passively when others seek to conquer and dominate us. The people of Israel have the right to defend themselves from attack. Indeed, we are commanded to do so: the obligation to defend and preserve our lives overrides virtually every other religious duty. Every nation must possess the right to take up arms if necessary to protect itself and its citizens against military attack.
When diplomacy fails, when our foes spurn the offer of peace that our tradition bids us to make them, when they are clearly bent upon their aggressive course, then the time to initiate preemptive action is sooner rather than later.
And if and when they do, we must make defense of that action our top priority. Save one life, you save a universe.
Rabbi Jonathan Ginsburg
Rabbi Rodfei kodesh Congregation Chicago
President ZOA Chapter Chicago (identification purposes onbly)
Blogger www.israelgreatest.blogspot.com
Monday, September 12, 2011
who cares what they think
Israel's international isolation and bullying are backfiring
By Edmund Sanders
Action and rhetoric by once friendly countries -- including the Obama White House -- are increasing resolve rather than engendering weakness
JewishWorldReview.com |
ERUSALEM — (MCT) Israel has always bet its survival on a few key friendships amid a world of enemies. But lately even its oldest alliances are looking frayed.
Egyptian mobs stormed Israel's Embassy in Cairo on Friday night, forcing the ambassador to flee a country that reached a landmark peace treaty with Israel in 1979. Turkey is threatening to dispatch warships off Israel's Mediterranean coast in the latest sign of deteriorating ties with the former Muslim ally.
Even American patience may be running thin, as seen in a comment leaked last week by former Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is an "ungrateful ally" whose policies are worsening Israel's international isolation.
Yet rather than spur anxiety or bolster public calls for Israel to change course, the external pressure appears to be only hardening many Israelis' resolve to do what they say they've always done: Go it alone.
"I'm not making light of the situation," said computer technician Dan Levine, sipping coffee at a cafe west of Jerusalem. "But we've been through this movie before and we'll probably go through it again. Israel's top priority is securing its interests, even if it makes other countries unhappy with us."
Despite critics' warnings that Israel is underestimating the growing threat created by the Arab Spring, Netanyahu has made clear that he, too, believes the country should stay the course in the face of growing regional uncertainty, rather than bend to outside pressure.
"In our region, peace is not made with the weak and obsequious," he said last week. "Peace is made with a strong and proud Israel."
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He has resisted U.S. and European pressure to make concessions that might draw Palestinians back to the negotiating table or persuade them to abandon a plan to seek U.N. membership this month. According to the Israeli group Peace Now, settlement construction in the West Bank grew twice as fast over the last year as construction in Israel overall.
And although Netanyahu has been careful not to alienate the interim government of Egypt, the prime minister has steadfastly refused to apologize to Turkey over the May 2010 killings of nine Turkish activists who were trying to break Israel's naval blockade of the Gaza Strip. Some in Netanyahu's coalition are even calling for retaliatory moves against Ankara, such as funding Kurdish rebels or blocking Turkey's bid for the 2020 Olympics.
For many Israelis, a sense of international isolation and even persecution is nothing new. In fact, many see it as embedded in the national identity, starting with the Holocaust and flaring most recently with the Goldstone Report, which infuriated Israelis with its allegations that Israel committed war crimes during the Gaza military offensive of 2009.
"Israelis maintain a general perception that the world is hostile towards them anyway and don't believe the world would embrace them if they only changed their ways," said pollster Tamar Hermann, a sociology professor at Israel's Open University. A July poll found that only one in 10 Israelis think improving their international standing is the nation's top concern.
Some insist that Israel's isolation is being overblown by left-leaning government critics who are trying to use the regional instability as an excuse to pressure Netanyahu's government into making concessions to Palestinians.
"Those who say Israel is isolated are greatly exaggerating the situation," said professor Efraim Inbar, director of the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies. He said Israel is in a stronger position today than it was a year ago.
"Our rivals in the Arab world are busy with domestic problems and are less capable of mobilizing force against us," he said. "We should sit and weather the crisis. Sometimes doing nothing is the best strategy."
The Israeli public, he added, is behind the government's approach.
"Israelis are conditioned to being isolated," he said. "So what if the world thinks we're not OK? This has been our lot for 2,000 years."
Critics, however, say that such sentiments may backfire on Israel.
Opposition leader Tzipi Livni said Netanyahu's inaction in the face of the regional unrest is leading Israel into an "abyss." Haaretz newspaper columnist Zvi Barel likened Israel to a straying ship surrounded by icebergs "whose captains are confident of their ability to thread their way through, until it can no longer move."
Rather than dig in to old positions, some say, Israel should adopt a more conciliatory approach to the Palestinian conflict in an attempt to forge better alliances with its Arab neighbors, including Egypt, which saw three people killed and more than 1,000 injured in clashes that followed the attack on the Israeli Embassy.
Instead, Israel is developing a "siege mentality" that is crippling its ability to respond, said Shlomo Brom, a Mideast analyst at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv.
"A sense of fatalism has developed," Brom said. "Everything is always someone else's fault. The U.S. policy is Obama's fault. The fallout with Turkey is because (Turkish President Recep Tayyip) Erdogan is an Islamist. Problems with Egypt are because of the Muslim Brotherhood. � It's a mentality that Israel is subject to greater powers and therefore it is responsible for nothing."
He said those who throw up their hands and say Israel has always been isolated internationally are forgetting the 1990s, when Israel's participation in the Oslo peace accords brought new levels of international acceptance.
The recent debate in Israel over Turkey illustrated the mood here. After Turkey expelled the Israeli ambassador and cut off military ties this month over Netanyahu's refusal to apologize over last year's flotilla incident, Netanyahu aides and many pundits insisted that an apology would not have mattered anyway because Turkey, they said, was determined to distance itself from Israel.
Defense Minister Ehud Barak warned against that growing sense of fatalism. "We are starting to get dragged onto a course of self-fulfilling prophesies," he said during an interview on Israel Radio.
By Edmund Sanders
Action and rhetoric by once friendly countries -- including the Obama White House -- are increasing resolve rather than engendering weakness
JewishWorldReview.com |
ERUSALEM — (MCT) Israel has always bet its survival on a few key friendships amid a world of enemies. But lately even its oldest alliances are looking frayed.
Egyptian mobs stormed Israel's Embassy in Cairo on Friday night, forcing the ambassador to flee a country that reached a landmark peace treaty with Israel in 1979. Turkey is threatening to dispatch warships off Israel's Mediterranean coast in the latest sign of deteriorating ties with the former Muslim ally.
Even American patience may be running thin, as seen in a comment leaked last week by former Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is an "ungrateful ally" whose policies are worsening Israel's international isolation.
Yet rather than spur anxiety or bolster public calls for Israel to change course, the external pressure appears to be only hardening many Israelis' resolve to do what they say they've always done: Go it alone.
"I'm not making light of the situation," said computer technician Dan Levine, sipping coffee at a cafe west of Jerusalem. "But we've been through this movie before and we'll probably go through it again. Israel's top priority is securing its interests, even if it makes other countries unhappy with us."
Despite critics' warnings that Israel is underestimating the growing threat created by the Arab Spring, Netanyahu has made clear that he, too, believes the country should stay the course in the face of growing regional uncertainty, rather than bend to outside pressure.
"In our region, peace is not made with the weak and obsequious," he said last week. "Peace is made with a strong and proud Israel."
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He has resisted U.S. and European pressure to make concessions that might draw Palestinians back to the negotiating table or persuade them to abandon a plan to seek U.N. membership this month. According to the Israeli group Peace Now, settlement construction in the West Bank grew twice as fast over the last year as construction in Israel overall.
And although Netanyahu has been careful not to alienate the interim government of Egypt, the prime minister has steadfastly refused to apologize to Turkey over the May 2010 killings of nine Turkish activists who were trying to break Israel's naval blockade of the Gaza Strip. Some in Netanyahu's coalition are even calling for retaliatory moves against Ankara, such as funding Kurdish rebels or blocking Turkey's bid for the 2020 Olympics.
For many Israelis, a sense of international isolation and even persecution is nothing new. In fact, many see it as embedded in the national identity, starting with the Holocaust and flaring most recently with the Goldstone Report, which infuriated Israelis with its allegations that Israel committed war crimes during the Gaza military offensive of 2009.
"Israelis maintain a general perception that the world is hostile towards them anyway and don't believe the world would embrace them if they only changed their ways," said pollster Tamar Hermann, a sociology professor at Israel's Open University. A July poll found that only one in 10 Israelis think improving their international standing is the nation's top concern.
Some insist that Israel's isolation is being overblown by left-leaning government critics who are trying to use the regional instability as an excuse to pressure Netanyahu's government into making concessions to Palestinians.
"Those who say Israel is isolated are greatly exaggerating the situation," said professor Efraim Inbar, director of the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies. He said Israel is in a stronger position today than it was a year ago.
"Our rivals in the Arab world are busy with domestic problems and are less capable of mobilizing force against us," he said. "We should sit and weather the crisis. Sometimes doing nothing is the best strategy."
The Israeli public, he added, is behind the government's approach.
"Israelis are conditioned to being isolated," he said. "So what if the world thinks we're not OK? This has been our lot for 2,000 years."
Critics, however, say that such sentiments may backfire on Israel.
Opposition leader Tzipi Livni said Netanyahu's inaction in the face of the regional unrest is leading Israel into an "abyss." Haaretz newspaper columnist Zvi Barel likened Israel to a straying ship surrounded by icebergs "whose captains are confident of their ability to thread their way through, until it can no longer move."
Rather than dig in to old positions, some say, Israel should adopt a more conciliatory approach to the Palestinian conflict in an attempt to forge better alliances with its Arab neighbors, including Egypt, which saw three people killed and more than 1,000 injured in clashes that followed the attack on the Israeli Embassy.
Instead, Israel is developing a "siege mentality" that is crippling its ability to respond, said Shlomo Brom, a Mideast analyst at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv.
"A sense of fatalism has developed," Brom said. "Everything is always someone else's fault. The U.S. policy is Obama's fault. The fallout with Turkey is because (Turkish President Recep Tayyip) Erdogan is an Islamist. Problems with Egypt are because of the Muslim Brotherhood. � It's a mentality that Israel is subject to greater powers and therefore it is responsible for nothing."
He said those who throw up their hands and say Israel has always been isolated internationally are forgetting the 1990s, when Israel's participation in the Oslo peace accords brought new levels of international acceptance.
The recent debate in Israel over Turkey illustrated the mood here. After Turkey expelled the Israeli ambassador and cut off military ties this month over Netanyahu's refusal to apologize over last year's flotilla incident, Netanyahu aides and many pundits insisted that an apology would not have mattered anyway because Turkey, they said, was determined to distance itself from Israel.
Defense Minister Ehud Barak warned against that growing sense of fatalism. "We are starting to get dragged onto a course of self-fulfilling prophesies," he said during an interview on Israel Radio.
from Chancellor Eisen
What does Conservative Judaism stand for?
JTS Chancellor Arnie Eisen
To me, that question is better phrased, "Where do we stand, and with whom?" The answer, to Conservative Judaism, has been clear. We are the heirs to the Jewish story that began, according to Torah, with Abraham and Sarah. We stand at Sinai, with every previous generation of the children of Israel, and reaffirm the promises made there to God, to one another, and to the world. I believe-humbly but firmly-that the Sinai Covenant continues in 2011/5771 through us. Participation in the set of relationships set forth in Covenant adds immeasurably to the meaning and purpose of our lives. The fact that the Covenant at Sinai established a people simultaneously with a relationship to the Holy One stands at the heart of Conservative Judaism today and in the future.
That double covenant means, first and most importantly, that life as a Jewish human being is given ultimate meaning. For reasons that mere mortals will never understand, but for which practicing Jews are profoundly grateful, the Creator of the universe seeks human assistance in completing the work of Creation. The world is not good enough as it is, the Torah insists, and you and I can make it better. All of us are needed for this task: Jews and non-Jews, men and women, old and young. Everything that each and every one of us brings to the task is required: the sum total of our diverse experiences and learning, our skills and our relationships, our intelligence and our passion, all the arts and all the sciences: all our hearts, all our souls, all our might.
Abraham Joshua Heschel, who spent much of his career teaching at The Jewish Theological Seminary, well captured the wonder and consequence of this divine-human partnership for the meaning of individual lives in the titles of two of his best-known books: Man is not alone. God [is] in search of man. Judaism provides a life-giving answer to what he called the "vital, personal question which every human being is called upon to answer, day in day out. What shall I do with my mind, my wealth, my power?"
There is no doubt that Jews continue to turn to Judaism in search of such meaning and purpose. I am a devoted Conservative Jew largely because, time and again, I have been vouchsafed the precious experience of meaning in Conservative auspices; I have long been shaped by the conviction, central to Conservative Judaism, that the Jewish part of my self need not be-indeed, should not be-separate from the rest of who I am. The Torah demands and offers wholeness; in our day it requires all that 21st-century men and women can bring to the task. Thanks in part to that conviction, imbued in me since childhood, my love of family and friends is inextricably intertwined with love of God and Torah.
A second continuing consequence of Covenant is that Judaism has always been more than religion, even as religion has always been an integral part of Judaism. Jews are not defined as a church or sect. Rather, the Torah establishes Israel as "a kingdom," "a nation," "a people." As important as religious belief is to Judaism, it is not everything, and, arguably, is not the main thing. The Torah aims to impact the entirety of life, individual and collective, not merely the aspect of it that other scriptures and traditions call "religion." It offers a way, called mitzvah, that-if we walk it diligently-guides and impacts all of life.
Mordecai M. Kaplan, another great figure in JTS's history, captured an important truth about Torah's insistence that Judaism is far more than "religion" when he famously defined Judaism as a civilization in his great book by that title (1934). He knew that Judaism had always included aspects of life that went beyond "religion" in the normal sense of the word: history, language, literature, folk-customs, communal organizations, and intimate connection to the Land of Israel. Kaplan wanted to assure Jews whose doubts about God barred the way to faith that Judaism held an honored place for them.
This point bears repeating today. Individuals enter Conservative auspices from differing backgrounds and bearing differing needs. All of our institutions should reflect this, even while offering Jews the pleasure and meaning that come from acting, worshipping, and talking together, as one caring community of Torah.
It follows that Conservative communities must be more than synagogues, and our synagogues must offer more than worship. Our form of Judaism is well-known for the quality of ritual observances and life-cycle celebrations; the tone set for family relations in Conservative homes; the leadership roles accorded to women as well as men both on and off the bimah; and for the distinctive tenor of Conservative conversation as it moves back and forth from ancient sources to contemporary politics, Hebrew to English, Shabbat zemirot to rock music and jazz. There is an intangible but notable warmth in our shuls and schools that comes from comfort with Judaism and one another. At our best, Conservative Jews exhibit a quiet confidence that living fully in this century and its culture at the same time as we immerse ourselves in Jewish tradition is what Torah wants us to do.
That confidence is crucial to our future; it is the key to successful Conservative communities (the topic of the next post in this series) and goes hand in hand with the sense that you and I-every bit as much as Jewish ancestors-are part of a Reality and Purpose far larger than ourselves, longer than our life-span, wider than our mind can reach. Heschel said it eloquently: The Torah poses a question to which our life here and now "can be the spelling of an answer." Conservative Judaism is the most compelling interpretation of Torah that I know, a precious word in the conversation begun at Sinai, guiding covenantal work that only our generation can perform.
JTS Chancellor Arnie Eisen
To me, that question is better phrased, "Where do we stand, and with whom?" The answer, to Conservative Judaism, has been clear. We are the heirs to the Jewish story that began, according to Torah, with Abraham and Sarah. We stand at Sinai, with every previous generation of the children of Israel, and reaffirm the promises made there to God, to one another, and to the world. I believe-humbly but firmly-that the Sinai Covenant continues in 2011/5771 through us. Participation in the set of relationships set forth in Covenant adds immeasurably to the meaning and purpose of our lives. The fact that the Covenant at Sinai established a people simultaneously with a relationship to the Holy One stands at the heart of Conservative Judaism today and in the future.
That double covenant means, first and most importantly, that life as a Jewish human being is given ultimate meaning. For reasons that mere mortals will never understand, but for which practicing Jews are profoundly grateful, the Creator of the universe seeks human assistance in completing the work of Creation. The world is not good enough as it is, the Torah insists, and you and I can make it better. All of us are needed for this task: Jews and non-Jews, men and women, old and young. Everything that each and every one of us brings to the task is required: the sum total of our diverse experiences and learning, our skills and our relationships, our intelligence and our passion, all the arts and all the sciences: all our hearts, all our souls, all our might.
Abraham Joshua Heschel, who spent much of his career teaching at The Jewish Theological Seminary, well captured the wonder and consequence of this divine-human partnership for the meaning of individual lives in the titles of two of his best-known books: Man is not alone. God [is] in search of man. Judaism provides a life-giving answer to what he called the "vital, personal question which every human being is called upon to answer, day in day out. What shall I do with my mind, my wealth, my power?"
There is no doubt that Jews continue to turn to Judaism in search of such meaning and purpose. I am a devoted Conservative Jew largely because, time and again, I have been vouchsafed the precious experience of meaning in Conservative auspices; I have long been shaped by the conviction, central to Conservative Judaism, that the Jewish part of my self need not be-indeed, should not be-separate from the rest of who I am. The Torah demands and offers wholeness; in our day it requires all that 21st-century men and women can bring to the task. Thanks in part to that conviction, imbued in me since childhood, my love of family and friends is inextricably intertwined with love of God and Torah.
A second continuing consequence of Covenant is that Judaism has always been more than religion, even as religion has always been an integral part of Judaism. Jews are not defined as a church or sect. Rather, the Torah establishes Israel as "a kingdom," "a nation," "a people." As important as religious belief is to Judaism, it is not everything, and, arguably, is not the main thing. The Torah aims to impact the entirety of life, individual and collective, not merely the aspect of it that other scriptures and traditions call "religion." It offers a way, called mitzvah, that-if we walk it diligently-guides and impacts all of life.
Mordecai M. Kaplan, another great figure in JTS's history, captured an important truth about Torah's insistence that Judaism is far more than "religion" when he famously defined Judaism as a civilization in his great book by that title (1934). He knew that Judaism had always included aspects of life that went beyond "religion" in the normal sense of the word: history, language, literature, folk-customs, communal organizations, and intimate connection to the Land of Israel. Kaplan wanted to assure Jews whose doubts about God barred the way to faith that Judaism held an honored place for them.
This point bears repeating today. Individuals enter Conservative auspices from differing backgrounds and bearing differing needs. All of our institutions should reflect this, even while offering Jews the pleasure and meaning that come from acting, worshipping, and talking together, as one caring community of Torah.
It follows that Conservative communities must be more than synagogues, and our synagogues must offer more than worship. Our form of Judaism is well-known for the quality of ritual observances and life-cycle celebrations; the tone set for family relations in Conservative homes; the leadership roles accorded to women as well as men both on and off the bimah; and for the distinctive tenor of Conservative conversation as it moves back and forth from ancient sources to contemporary politics, Hebrew to English, Shabbat zemirot to rock music and jazz. There is an intangible but notable warmth in our shuls and schools that comes from comfort with Judaism and one another. At our best, Conservative Jews exhibit a quiet confidence that living fully in this century and its culture at the same time as we immerse ourselves in Jewish tradition is what Torah wants us to do.
That confidence is crucial to our future; it is the key to successful Conservative communities (the topic of the next post in this series) and goes hand in hand with the sense that you and I-every bit as much as Jewish ancestors-are part of a Reality and Purpose far larger than ourselves, longer than our life-span, wider than our mind can reach. Heschel said it eloquently: The Torah poses a question to which our life here and now "can be the spelling of an answer." Conservative Judaism is the most compelling interpretation of Torah that I know, a precious word in the conversation begun at Sinai, guiding covenantal work that only our generation can perform.
Successful rabbis joke
Joke: Circuit riding Rabbi Cohen travels long distances in old West to serve Jews. Always stopped at the Jorgenson farm overnight because too long a distance to the next Jew. Each mornig he would go to a corner, don his tfillin and daven. Mrs Jorgenson was always too shy to ask what that was. On his last trip before retirement, after he told them this was it, she finally asked. He did not know how to explain tfillin so he said "its for my arthritis".
She said "Rabbi, I have bad arthritis. Can I have a pair and can you show me how to use them?" He did not know what to say and he so wanted to thank them for their many years of hosting him so he gave her his pair and taught her. When the new young circuit riding Rabbi was hired, Rabbi Cohen told him the route snd told him to stay with the Jorgensons, they would be expecting him.
He did and when he got up in the morning and went to the kitchen, there was Mrs. Jorgenson sitting at the table, plucking chickens, wearing tfilin. The new rabbi promptly resigned, sending a message to Rabbi Cohen that he had done his job so well, even the gentile women were wearing tfillin!
She said "Rabbi, I have bad arthritis. Can I have a pair and can you show me how to use them?" He did not know what to say and he so wanted to thank them for their many years of hosting him so he gave her his pair and taught her. When the new young circuit riding Rabbi was hired, Rabbi Cohen told him the route snd told him to stay with the Jorgensons, they would be expecting him.
He did and when he got up in the morning and went to the kitchen, there was Mrs. Jorgenson sitting at the table, plucking chickens, wearing tfilin. The new rabbi promptly resigned, sending a message to Rabbi Cohen that he had done his job so well, even the gentile women were wearing tfillin!
Egypt is going Islamic and anti Israel
Egypt: Even Worse Than We Thought
Posted: 11 Sep 2011 04:45 PM PDT
(John Hinderaker) Powerline Blob
We wrote on Friday about the shameful attack on the Israeli embassy in Cairo by Egyptian rioters, who tore down the fence that the authorities had erected to protect the embassy, ransacked the building and burned the Israeli flag (along with a number of vehicles that happened to be close at hand). It turns out that the incident was even more frightening than we had realized: not only did the Israeli ambassador and others have to flee the country, but the rioters came close to murdering the embassy’s guards, who were saved only by the intervention of Egyptian special forces:
The Israeli guards drew their handguns, convinced it was their final moments as they hid in a barricaded safe room from Egyptian rioters just outside the door, ransacking rooms of the embassy.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israeli officials depicted a tense stretch of hours as they watched on security cameras and listened in on conference calls with six Israeli embassy guards caught in the facility as protesters rioted on the streets outside—and broke in.
In the end, Egyptian commandos made their way in and rescued the six after flurried phone calls between Israeli, American and Egyptian officials to try to resolve the unrest. …
The Israeli ambassador, staffers and their families were forced to flee on military planes back to the Jewish state before dawn Saturday. Israel kept one diplomat in Cairo—albeit in hiding. …
Israeli television stations, citing Israeli officials, said the protesters eventually gained access to two floors of the three-floor embassy, as Netanyahu and other officials in Jerusalem watched the events on surveillance cameras. On one of the floors, the six Israeli embassy guards huddled behind the steel door of a safe room, drawing their handguns when they heard the protesters outside fearing they would break in. …
Several hours later, Egyptian commandos reached the Israeli guards, the aide said.
An Egyptian security official said the commandos were sent after the Israeli ambassador, Yitzhak Levanon, spoke by phone with a member of Egypt’s ruling military council and asked for help in evacuating the personnel.
So, is this the coming of spring, or the descent of the dark night of fascism?
www.rabbijonathanginsburg.com
www.rabbijonathanginsburg.blogspot.com
www.rabbijonathanginsburg.net
www.rabbijonathanginsburg.info
www.rabbijonathanginsburg.org
Posted: 11 Sep 2011 04:45 PM PDT
(John Hinderaker) Powerline Blob
We wrote on Friday about the shameful attack on the Israeli embassy in Cairo by Egyptian rioters, who tore down the fence that the authorities had erected to protect the embassy, ransacked the building and burned the Israeli flag (along with a number of vehicles that happened to be close at hand). It turns out that the incident was even more frightening than we had realized: not only did the Israeli ambassador and others have to flee the country, but the rioters came close to murdering the embassy’s guards, who were saved only by the intervention of Egyptian special forces:
The Israeli guards drew their handguns, convinced it was their final moments as they hid in a barricaded safe room from Egyptian rioters just outside the door, ransacking rooms of the embassy.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israeli officials depicted a tense stretch of hours as they watched on security cameras and listened in on conference calls with six Israeli embassy guards caught in the facility as protesters rioted on the streets outside—and broke in.
In the end, Egyptian commandos made their way in and rescued the six after flurried phone calls between Israeli, American and Egyptian officials to try to resolve the unrest. …
The Israeli ambassador, staffers and their families were forced to flee on military planes back to the Jewish state before dawn Saturday. Israel kept one diplomat in Cairo—albeit in hiding. …
Israeli television stations, citing Israeli officials, said the protesters eventually gained access to two floors of the three-floor embassy, as Netanyahu and other officials in Jerusalem watched the events on surveillance cameras. On one of the floors, the six Israeli embassy guards huddled behind the steel door of a safe room, drawing their handguns when they heard the protesters outside fearing they would break in. …
Several hours later, Egyptian commandos reached the Israeli guards, the aide said.
An Egyptian security official said the commandos were sent after the Israeli ambassador, Yitzhak Levanon, spoke by phone with a member of Egypt’s ruling military council and asked for help in evacuating the personnel.
So, is this the coming of spring, or the descent of the dark night of fascism?
www.rabbijonathanginsburg.com
www.rabbijonathanginsburg.blogspot.com
www.rabbijonathanginsburg.net
www.rabbijonathanginsburg.info
www.rabbijonathanginsburg.org
Sunday, September 11, 2011
What Palestine?
Is the world just plain stupid?
An interesting questionnaire for Palestinian Advocates
By Yashiko Sagamori
If you are so sure that "Palestine, the country, goes back through most of recorded history," I expect you to be able to answer a few basic questions about that country of Palestine:
1. When was it founded and by whom?
2. What were its borders?
3. What was its capital?
4. What were its major cities?
5. What constituted the basis of its economy?
6. What was its form of government?
7. Can you name at least one Palestinian leader before Arafat?
8.. Was Palestine ever recognized by a country whose existence, at that time or now, leaves no room for interpretation?
9. What was the language of the country of Palestine?
10. What was the prevalent religion of the country of Palestine?
11. What was the name of its currency? Choose any date in history and tell what was the approximate exchange rate of the Palestinian monetary unit against the US dollar, German mark, GB pound, Japanese yen, or Chinese Yuan on that date.
12. And, finally, since there is no such country today, what caused its demise and when did it occur?
You are lamenting the "low sinking" of a "once proud" nation.. Please tell me, when exactly was that "nation" proud and what was it so proud of?
And here is the least sarcastic question of all: If the people you mistakenly call "Palestinians" are anything but generic Arabs collected from all over -- or thrown out of -- the Arab world, if they really have a genuine ethnic id! entity that gives them right for self-determination, why did they never try to become independent until Arabs suffered their devastating defeat in the Six Day War?
I hope you avoid the temptation to trace the modern day "Palestinians" to the Biblical Philistines: Substituting etymology for history won't work here.
The truth should be obvious to everyone who wants to know it. Arab countries have never abandoned the dream of destroying Israel; they still cherish it today. Having time and again failed to achieve their evil goal with military means, they decided to fight Israel by proxy. For that purpose, they created a terrorist organization, cynically called it "the Palestinian people" and installed it in Gaza, Judea, and Samaria. How else can you explain the refusal by Jordan and Egypt to unconditionally accept back the "West Bank" and Gaza, respectively?
The fact is, Arabs populating Gaza, Judea, and Samaria have much less claim to nationhood than that Indian tribe that successfully emerged in Connecticut with the purpose of starting a tax-exempt casino: At least that tribe had a constructive goal that motivated them. The so-called "Palestinians" have only one motivation: the destruction of Israel, and in my book that is not sufficient to consider them a nation" -- or anything else except what they really are: A terrorist organization that will one day be dismantled.
In fact, there is only one way to achieve peace in the Middle East. Arab countries must acknowledge and accept their defeat in their war against Israel and, as the losing side should, pay Israel reparations for the more than 50 years of devastation they have visited on it. The most appropriate form of such reparations would be the removal of their terrorist organization from the land of Israel and accepting Israel's ancient sovereignty over Gaza, Judea, and Samaria.
That will mark the end of the Palestinian people. What are you saying again was its beginning?
Can this story be presented any more clearly or simply?
www.rabbijonathanginsburg.com
www.rabbijonathanginsburg.info
www.rabbijonathanginsburg.org
www.rabbijonathanginsburg.net
An interesting questionnaire for Palestinian Advocates
By Yashiko Sagamori
If you are so sure that "Palestine, the country, goes back through most of recorded history," I expect you to be able to answer a few basic questions about that country of Palestine:
1. When was it founded and by whom?
2. What were its borders?
3. What was its capital?
4. What were its major cities?
5. What constituted the basis of its economy?
6. What was its form of government?
7. Can you name at least one Palestinian leader before Arafat?
8.. Was Palestine ever recognized by a country whose existence, at that time or now, leaves no room for interpretation?
9. What was the language of the country of Palestine?
10. What was the prevalent religion of the country of Palestine?
11. What was the name of its currency? Choose any date in history and tell what was the approximate exchange rate of the Palestinian monetary unit against the US dollar, German mark, GB pound, Japanese yen, or Chinese Yuan on that date.
12. And, finally, since there is no such country today, what caused its demise and when did it occur?
You are lamenting the "low sinking" of a "once proud" nation.. Please tell me, when exactly was that "nation" proud and what was it so proud of?
And here is the least sarcastic question of all: If the people you mistakenly call "Palestinians" are anything but generic Arabs collected from all over -- or thrown out of -- the Arab world, if they really have a genuine ethnic id! entity that gives them right for self-determination, why did they never try to become independent until Arabs suffered their devastating defeat in the Six Day War?
I hope you avoid the temptation to trace the modern day "Palestinians" to the Biblical Philistines: Substituting etymology for history won't work here.
The truth should be obvious to everyone who wants to know it. Arab countries have never abandoned the dream of destroying Israel; they still cherish it today. Having time and again failed to achieve their evil goal with military means, they decided to fight Israel by proxy. For that purpose, they created a terrorist organization, cynically called it "the Palestinian people" and installed it in Gaza, Judea, and Samaria. How else can you explain the refusal by Jordan and Egypt to unconditionally accept back the "West Bank" and Gaza, respectively?
The fact is, Arabs populating Gaza, Judea, and Samaria have much less claim to nationhood than that Indian tribe that successfully emerged in Connecticut with the purpose of starting a tax-exempt casino: At least that tribe had a constructive goal that motivated them. The so-called "Palestinians" have only one motivation: the destruction of Israel, and in my book that is not sufficient to consider them a nation" -- or anything else except what they really are: A terrorist organization that will one day be dismantled.
In fact, there is only one way to achieve peace in the Middle East. Arab countries must acknowledge and accept their defeat in their war against Israel and, as the losing side should, pay Israel reparations for the more than 50 years of devastation they have visited on it. The most appropriate form of such reparations would be the removal of their terrorist organization from the land of Israel and accepting Israel's ancient sovereignty over Gaza, Judea, and Samaria.
That will mark the end of the Palestinian people. What are you saying again was its beginning?
Can this story be presented any more clearly or simply?
www.rabbijonathanginsburg.com
www.rabbijonathanginsburg.info
www.rabbijonathanginsburg.org
www.rabbijonathanginsburg.net
Saturday, September 10, 2011
Friday, September 9, 2011
Congr Walsh bill on UN vote
http://walsh.house.gov/index.cfm?sectionid=49§iontree=6,49&itemid=323
Rep. Walsh Introduces Legislation to Defend Israel in Face of Upcoming U.N. Vote on Palestinian State
09/08/11
WASHINGTON– Today, Congressman Joe Walsh introduced a resolution supporting Israel’s right to annex Judea and Samaria in the event that the Palestinian Authority continues to press for unilateral U.N. recognition of Palestinian statehood. It anticipates the General Assembly vote on recognition of Palestinian statehood scheduled for September 20. The resolution coincides with a bill being introduced in the Israeli Knesset to terminate all obligations and agreements made between Israel and the Palestinian Authority and implement full Israeli sovereignty over the land in which Jewish communities of Judea and Samaria currently reside.
“The Palestinian Authority has repeatedly violated peace agreements and has even joined forces with the terrorist group Hamas. But the United States has continued to give aid to the Palestinians on the one condition that they continue to negotiate with Israel for peace. Now the Palestinians can’t even do that and have cut Israel completely out of the process by pushing for unilateral recognition of Palestinian statehood at the United Nations. This is the last straw. It is clear that the Palestinian Authority no longer has any interest in peace.”
“We must stand firmly by Israel because a strong and secure democracy in the Middle East is absolutely vital to American security. The Palestinian Authority has to negotiate directly with Israel. If it is going to continue to cut Israel out and violate its peace agreements, then the United States must support Israel’s efforts to defend its sovereignty and the security of its citizens.”
“A U.N. recognized Palestinian state would potentially put Israelis directly under the sovereignty of a group of people that have sworn the destruction of Israel and its people. This is unacceptable, and, in the absence of a negotiated peace agreement, Israel has the right to protect its citizens living in Judea and Samaria by annexing those territories.”
Congressman Walsh has introduced two other bills in defense of Israel during the 112th Congress. H.R. 1501 will withhold funding from the United Nations until it retracts the Goldstone Report, a 2009 report that accused Israel of war crimes. H.R. 2457, the Palestinian Accountability Act, will withhold funding from the Palestinian Authority until it stops inciting violence against Israel and recognizes Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish State; it will also withhold US funding to the United Nations if that body or any of its entities unilaterally recognize Palestinian statehood.
Rep. Walsh Introduces Legislation to Defend Israel in Face of Upcoming U.N. Vote on Palestinian State
09/08/11
WASHINGTON– Today, Congressman Joe Walsh introduced a resolution supporting Israel’s right to annex Judea and Samaria in the event that the Palestinian Authority continues to press for unilateral U.N. recognition of Palestinian statehood. It anticipates the General Assembly vote on recognition of Palestinian statehood scheduled for September 20. The resolution coincides with a bill being introduced in the Israeli Knesset to terminate all obligations and agreements made between Israel and the Palestinian Authority and implement full Israeli sovereignty over the land in which Jewish communities of Judea and Samaria currently reside.
“The Palestinian Authority has repeatedly violated peace agreements and has even joined forces with the terrorist group Hamas. But the United States has continued to give aid to the Palestinians on the one condition that they continue to negotiate with Israel for peace. Now the Palestinians can’t even do that and have cut Israel completely out of the process by pushing for unilateral recognition of Palestinian statehood at the United Nations. This is the last straw. It is clear that the Palestinian Authority no longer has any interest in peace.”
“We must stand firmly by Israel because a strong and secure democracy in the Middle East is absolutely vital to American security. The Palestinian Authority has to negotiate directly with Israel. If it is going to continue to cut Israel out and violate its peace agreements, then the United States must support Israel’s efforts to defend its sovereignty and the security of its citizens.”
“A U.N. recognized Palestinian state would potentially put Israelis directly under the sovereignty of a group of people that have sworn the destruction of Israel and its people. This is unacceptable, and, in the absence of a negotiated peace agreement, Israel has the right to protect its citizens living in Judea and Samaria by annexing those territories.”
Congressman Walsh has introduced two other bills in defense of Israel during the 112th Congress. H.R. 1501 will withhold funding from the United Nations until it retracts the Goldstone Report, a 2009 report that accused Israel of war crimes. H.R. 2457, the Palestinian Accountability Act, will withhold funding from the Palestinian Authority until it stops inciting violence against Israel and recognizes Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish State; it will also withhold US funding to the United Nations if that body or any of its entities unilaterally recognize Palestinian statehood.
Israel too violent?
Even those who aren't particularly sympathetic to Israel's Benjamin
Netanyahu, could get a good measure of satisfaction from this
interview with British Television during the retaliation against
Hamas' shelling of Israel.
The interviewer asked him:
"How come so many more Palestinians have been killed in this conflict than
Israelis?"
(A nasty question if there ever was one!)
Netanyahu: "Are you sure that you want to start asking in that direction?"
Interviewer: (Falling into the trap) Why not?
Netanyahu: "Because in World War II more Germans were killed than
British and Americans combined, but there is no doubt in anyone's mind
that the war was caused by Germany's aggression. And in response to
the German blitz on London, the British wiped out the entire city of
Dresden, burning to death more German civilians than the number of
people killed in Hiroshima.
Moreover, I could remind you that in 1944, when the R.A.F. tried to
bomb the Gestapo Headquarters in Copenhagen, some of the bombs missed
their target and fell on a Danish children's hospital, killing 83
little children. Perhaps you have another question?"
Apparently, Benjamin Netanyahu gave an interview and was asked about
Israel's occupation of Arab lands.
His response was, "It's our land". The reporter (CNN or the like) was
stunned - read below "It's our land..." It's important information
since we don't get fair and accurate reporting from the media and
facts tend to get lost in the jumble of daily events.
Netanyahu, could get a good measure of satisfaction from this
interview with British Television during the retaliation against
Hamas' shelling of Israel.
The interviewer asked him:
"How come so many more Palestinians have been killed in this conflict than
Israelis?"
(A nasty question if there ever was one!)
Netanyahu: "Are you sure that you want to start asking in that direction?"
Interviewer: (Falling into the trap) Why not?
Netanyahu: "Because in World War II more Germans were killed than
British and Americans combined, but there is no doubt in anyone's mind
that the war was caused by Germany's aggression. And in response to
the German blitz on London, the British wiped out the entire city of
Dresden, burning to death more German civilians than the number of
people killed in Hiroshima.
Moreover, I could remind you that in 1944, when the R.A.F. tried to
bomb the Gestapo Headquarters in Copenhagen, some of the bombs missed
their target and fell on a Danish children's hospital, killing 83
little children. Perhaps you have another question?"
Apparently, Benjamin Netanyahu gave an interview and was asked about
Israel's occupation of Arab lands.
His response was, "It's our land". The reporter (CNN or the like) was
stunned - read below "It's our land..." It's important information
since we don't get fair and accurate reporting from the media and
facts tend to get lost in the jumble of daily events.
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