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PHOTO: SONG OF ASCENT
Posted by Yehoshua Halevi, February 29, 2008. |
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 Yehoshua Halevi is a Jerusalem-based photojournalist, event photographer, teacher and trekking guide. Contact him at smiles@goldenlightimages.com and visit his website at www.goldenlightimages.com He writes: "I am currently back in Africa leading a group up the same mountain featured here." |
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ANNAPOLIS AND ANNIHILATION: AVOIDING A REQUIEM FOR ISRAEL
Posted by Louis Rene Beres, February 29, 2008. |
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The more things change, the more they remain the same. For anyone who can still think clearly, the Annapolis "Peace Conference" in November was merely the latest hallucinatory rendition of a very troubled sleep. It's not that this carefully scripted assembly actually confirmed a catastrophic outcome for Israel. Rather, it underscored America's perilous and persistent preoccupation with a determinably wrongheaded foreign policy. For Israel, the "Road Map to Peace in the Middle East" remains an unambiguously lethal cartography. Should it still be taken seriously, it could transport Israel from bad dream to nightmare. Nightmare. According to the etymologists, the root of the word is niht mare or niht maere, the demon of the night. Dr. Johnson's dictionary says this corresponds to Nordic mythology –– which saw nightmares as the product of demons. This would make it a play on, or translation of, the Greek ephialtes or the Latin incubus. In all interpretations of nightmare, the idea of demonic origin is central. Israel's demons are of a different form. Their mien is not directly frightful (one reason that they are so dangerous), but hidden and ordinary. If they are sinister, it is not because they are hideous but because they are commonplace. Their evil is not always readily identifiable, but the demons that stalk the Jewish State are unmistakably palpable and ultimately final. Israel's demons are those of a Jewish people who have become accustomed to strive and exist without any serious meanings. These demons prey easily upon a Jewish state without any real direction, an ingathered nation that has largely forgotten its essential and everlasting Jewish purpose in the world. Reducing itself to a "thing" at Annapolis, a tiny, banal and negotiable object in a vast sea of enemies, Israel effectively announced that it was now willing to become a corpse. This unfathomably cadaverous assessment would surely be disputed by the Prime Minister and by the U.S. Secretary of State, but the incontestable facts would certainly suggest otherwise. Irony of ironies. In matters of war and peace, Israel may take vital lessons in pathos from ancient Troy as well as from ancient Jerusalem. The Prime Minister should recall the solicitous visit of Trojan King Priam to the battle tent of Achilles. Even though Mr. Olmert stopped short of clasping George Bush's knees and kissing the U.S. President's hands, the Palestinians and their allies knew that Israel had already lost. If the 23rd Arab state is born sometime in the next year, virtually the entire world will hail its explosive appearance as a triumph of human rights and "national self-determination." Irony of ironies. Israeli novelist Aharon Megged once noted, "We have witnessed a phenomenon which probably has no parallel in history; an emotional and moral identification by the majority of Israel's intelligentsia with people openly committed to our annihilation." Whatever the psychiatric origins of such an unprecedented identification, it is a disgusting behavior, a behavior so completely vile and inexcusable that it easily blocks out several thousand years of Jewish wisdom and whole oceans of sacred poetry. Left uncorrected, this grotesque identification could even destroy Israel even before the wreckage generated by state and sub-state enemy attacks. But not every important lesson for Israel is laced with irony. Some are straightforward and readily apparent. To survive in its always-imperiled neighborhood, Israel cannot continue to treat international relations and diplomacy apart from the essential Jewish fabric of its national existence. From one administration to the next, from Rabin to Olmert, Israel's leaders have remained ordinary and without vision because Israel's people themselves have largely abandoned what is true and meaningful. The German philosopher Nietzsche understood that "When the throne sits on mud, mud sits on the throne." Israel cannot endure as "mud." Not a thousand Annapolis promises from Washington can ever compensate for a single act of Israeli auto-destruction. There will be no Arab quid pro quos for hundreds of Israeli concessions, none at all, and absolutely no rewards for millions of deliberately drifting Jewish souls. Recently, The New Jewish Congress was launched in Israel. Professor Hillel Weiss of Bar Ilan University chaired the plenary session. Dr. Gadi Eshel, an indefatigable and heroic fighter for Israel, read aloud from the Congress Charter: "The Eternal People in an Eternal Covenant in the Land of Israel." Said Dr. Eshel, "Every community that we plant throughout the land strengthens the roots of the Eternal Nation's Eternal Covenant here –– while at the same time preventing it from being bound by 'Auschwitz borders.' Let us not fool ourselves. 'Auschwitz borders' invite Auschwitz –– not only for the Jews in Israel, but for Jews everywhere, and for all of humanity." In The New Jewish Congress and such related movements as Moshe Feiglin's Manhigut Yehudit (The Jewish Leadership Movement) lies Israel's best hope. To champion the indissoluble integrity of the Land of Israel and the Nation of Israel is what Israel must pursue now, immediately, and at all costs. As regular readers of The Jewish Press will easily understand, it is time to finally heed Dr. Eshel's recollection of Joshua and Caleb, when Moses sent them out to reconnoiter: "Let us ascend and inherit the Land, for we can overcome it." The only probable alternative to such a purposeful final acknowledgment would be another final solution.
This was published January 12, 2008 in the Jewish Press |
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LESSONS FROM LEBANON
Posted by Mark Silverberg, February 29, 2008. |
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After the Lebanon War fiasco, The Winograd Commission was establiished to examine what went wrong. Everyone assumed the Winograd Commision would conclude the obvious –– that Olmert was derelict in his duty and should resign. Instead, surprisingly, the IDF received the brunt of the criticism. Yechezkel Dror, a member of the Winograd Commission, made an astounding admission: the Commission was soft on Winograd because he was involved in a "Peace Process" and if they recommended Olmert resign, Netanyahu would likely become Prime Minister! Either the most honest of men, or a political moron. The feeling that the Commission was as corrupt as the politicians it was to examine has taken away from some less salubrious parts of their conclusions. Mark Silverberg explains the lessons we should learn from an examinition of Israel's conduct in the Lebanon War. On February 1st, the Winograd Commission issued its long-awaited report in the Second Lebanon War. The Report Summary notes that "the unclassified Report does not include the many facts that cannot be revealed for reasons of protecting the state's security and foreign affairs", yet much analysis over the classified aspects of the Report have since leaked out over the past year and a half. While the Report attacked the mismanagement of the War from both the political and military perspectives, it does not detail the disclosures that could represent an embarrassment to both the Olmert administration and Bush administrations were they to be delineated. In the end, the Commission noted that "the 2nd Lebanon war as a serious missed opportunity" and that "this outcome was primarily caused by the fact that, from the very beginning, the war had not been conducted on the basis of deep understanding of the theatre of operations, of the IDF's readiness and preparedness, and of basic principles of using military power to achieve political and diplomatic goals." The only consolation is that significant military, political and scientific changes and advances have been undertaken in the time that has passed. Should another such confrontation take place in the near future, it can be fairly assumed that both Hezbollah and Hamas will be vanquished. Israel's war against the Middle East's first true terrorist army has now provided the West with some significant military, strategic and intelligence-gathering insights for future wars that will be waged in the post-modern era. For the first time since the birth of the State of Israel, the Israeli war machine had been challenged by a small, fanatic, well-funded, well-prepared and well-trained radical Islamic army that lived to tell the story when the final bell tolled. Hezbollah's survival, however, was due as much to mismanagement of the war effort (on the part of Israel and America) as to Hezbollah's cunning. At the beginning of the conflict, it appeared that all the cards were in Israel's corner. On July 12th, Hezbollah's cross-border raid and kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers were broadly condemned across much of the Sunni Arab and Western worlds as being both reckless and irresponsible. Israel's anticipated use of massive force enjoyed broad political support. Even the Bush administration seemed to be giving the Israeli government the time it needed to finish Hezbollah's "state-within-a-state" status once and for all, and there was every reason to expect that Israel would complete the job in short order and that Lebanon would soon be in a position to carry out its international obligation requiring it to assume control of the south of the country and disarm the Hezbollah militia. But it didn't quite work out that way. To the world's surprise and to the West's chagrin, Hezbollah (which had secretly been converted into the Special Forces unit of Iran –– unlike a ragtag gang like Hamas and the PLO) –– managed to snap victory from the jaws of defeat simply by surviving. Israel should have made these distinctions at the beginning of the war, but it failed to do so –– neither to the world, nor to itself. That failure may well haunt American efforts to "make the Middle East safe for democracy" for decades to come and Israel's hopes for Middle East stability. As Raanan Gissin of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs wrote recently: "The conflict with Hezbollah in Lebanon is a testing ground –– like Spain in 1936 –– for weapons, tactics, and doctrine of how Iran is going to fight the war against the West" in future. So what went wrong?
Air Power and the Media Debacle From the war's inception, Israeli planners placed overwhelming reliance on air power, firepower and hi-tech weaponry for combating terror. For reasons discussed below, Israel sought to fight a short, virtually casualty-free war on the cheap resulting in a clear failure to achieve its strategic objectives –– freeing its kidnapped soldiers, forcing the Lebanese army to take control of southern Lebanon, disarming Hezbollah and restoring the credibility of Israeli deterrence after the Lebanese withdrawal in 2000 and the Gaza withdrawal in 2005. This error in judgment eventually required a revision to the plan leading to a last minute ground invasion to the Litani River –– a decision that came too late. Israel's reliance on overwhelming air power should not have come as a surprise given that the Chief of Staff of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), Lt.-Gen Dan Halutz was the first air force general ever to command the Israeli Defense Forces. His strategy, based on his own extensive experience, promised that air power alone could destroy Hezbollah's terror infrastructures and command and control centers both north and south of the Litani, but in so doing, the need to prepare for a ground war and a major land offensive was neglected. Also neglected was the calculation that continual massive aerial bombardments might allow Hezbollah and the Lebanese government to score major propaganda victories. While it is true that superb intelligence allowed the Israeli Air Force to destroy an estimated 80% of Hezbollah's medium and long-range missile launchers in the first two days of the conflict, Hezbollah's use of the Lebanese civilian population as human shields provided a boon for the media –– Geneva Accords be damned. In the years to come, such flagrant exploitation of innocent civilians for propaganda purposes will have to be addressed by the West if it ever intends to defeat future enemies whose value system and culture differs widely from our own. In Lebanon, Israel wasted its initial ability to get moderate Arab government support against Hezbollah by over-escalating its air assault and, in the end it was unable to convince the world it was controlling collateral damage and civilian suffering. It appears that our enemies have learned the important relationship between the uses to which propaganda can be put and their long-term strategic war doctrine. We apparently have not. As Anthony Cordesman notes: "Civilians are the natural equivalent of armor in asymmetric warfare and the U.S. must get used to the fact that (future)opponents will steadily improve their ability to use them to hide to deter attack, exploit the political impact of air strikes and exaggerate damage and killings..." By forcing Israel to minimize civilian casualties or to avoid them entirely, our own laws governing warfare have now become a weapon being used against us. In post-modern warfare, civilians have become cultural, religious and ideological weapons that will be used against us if and when we find ourselves at war with different cultures. Israel should have learned from the experiences of Vietnam, Somalia and Iraq that massive air power alone cannot be a substitute for boots on the ground and human and real time tactical intelligence. Just as the U.S. military learned painful lessons about technology's limits in Iraq, so the IDF received an education in the Second Lebanon War –– that wars cannot be won nor terrorists defeated from the air. As Ralph Peters has written: "A policy of casualty aversion –– in Israel or in the United States –– results in more casualties in the end" and reduces our ability to wage existential conflicts. Because the IDF was not permitted to carry out a massive land invasion together with overwhelming air power in support of land operations from Day 1 (for reasons noted below), Hezbollah missiles continued to rain down on Israeli cities even as Hezbollah was winning the propaganda war. By relying at the outset almost exclusively on air power, the IDF ignored the most basic military principles of surprise and overwhelming force. Instead of aiming a death blow at Hezbollah by proceeding by land north to the Litani, cutting off Hezbollah's means of rearming and finishing it off, the IDF dissipated its power by engaging in "wack-a-mole" techniques –– striking targets scattered throughout Lebanon –– while failing to strike any of them decisively. In the struggle for a handful of border villages, it added troops gradually and allowed Hezbollah a degree of flexibility that permitted it to determine the manner, time and place of battle. As Bret Stephens wrote in the Wall Street Journal: "Israelis have compounded (their) mistakes with an airpower-based strategy that, whatever its virtues in keeping Israeli troops out of harm's way, was never going to evict Hezbollah from southern Lebanon, just as airpower alone did not evict Saddam from Kuwait in 1991". Olmert's reasoning, in many ways, stemmed from that of his predecessor and mentor Ariel Sharon whose eighteen year experience in Lebanon ended with a humiliating Israeli withdrawal in 2000. The Lebanon experience was a reminder to Olmert that occupying another country to conduct "counter-insurgency operations" was both unbearable (in terms of casualties) and unnecessary (since a separation wall –– so he thought –– could accomplish the same ends over the long run), even in the absence of a political settlement. In his mind, as well as that of Sharon, Israelis were prepared to accept a high level of casualties in a "war of national survival", but they would not accept low-level casualties in extended "insurgency operations" that did not directly involve Israel's survival. In effect, Olmert failed to recognize that what was evolving in southern Lebanon was not simply an insurgency, but a conventional post-modern guerilla war with existential implications. To Olmert, defeating Hezbollah by an invasion and occupying southern Lebanon was not worth the casualties –– even if Israel was required to endure the occasional missile attack on its northern communities. Therefore, his solution was to empower his air force to accomplish what he believed a ground invasion could also accomplish but without the casualties. However, a lack of tactical intelligence taken together with Hezbollah's massive, sophisticated bunker network effectively blunted the Israeli air attack. As Israeli troops marched forward across the Lebanese border, they encountered a well-prepared enemy that was weakened but not destroyed by the air campaign. Even though Olmert realized that Hezbollah had to be destroyed, he was simply not prepared to commit his forces and accept the casualties such a war would involve. What he failed to consider were the political and psychological consequences of leaving Hezbollah intact on the battlefield.
Command and Control Problems In the wake of the conflict, charges have now arisen against the top military and political echelons of the IDF concerning the delay in starting the ground offensive, mobilizing the reserves, the absence of a clear plan for victory, and the general lack of logistical preparedness including the absence of emergency evacuation procedures from the north of Israel. Israeli commanders have complained that the armored forces did not have a clearly defined mission and were shuffled in and out of Lebanon to the point that they could not explain to their own officers what was happening. Reservists in the elite Alexandroni Brigade complained about the lack of food, water and basic support equipment just a few miles inside Lebanon. One reservist Special Forces unit had been provided with guns they had never trained on and were rushed through training under conditions unlike those they faced in Lebanon. In some cases, evacuation forces never came and soldiers were required to carry the dead and wounded large distances in order to return to Israeli lines. Unachievable missions were given with impossible time lines. Daytime missions were often ordered when darkness missions would have been far safer and more effective....all of which suggests a major crisis in the leadership of the IDF. According to DEBKA intelligence sources, both Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Defense Minister Amir Peretz lacked the necessary military and foreign policy experience and skills required to manage such a war. It appears that Olmert followed the same failed policies of his predecessor Ariel Sharon. During his six and-a-half years as Prime Minister, Sharon shook up the top levels of the IDF's General Command, Military Intelligence and the Mossad (Israel's international spy network) and appointed officials who subscribed to his political philosophy. As a consequence, Israel's top military and security echelons were chosen based upon their political outlook. Sharon "created a monolithic establishment lacking...the motivation...for developing brilliantly innovative methods of warfare". The result was that in six years of counter-terror warfare against the Palestinians (whose war capability was no where near that of Hezbollah), the IDF focused on perfecting narrowly-defined tactics for controlling local terrorist activities (and did so successfully), but failed to produce a strategy capable of fighting a war against terrorists who operated like Special Forces. This led to predictable results. The Chief of Staff, although advised in the third week of the war by many senior officers including reserve generals to change the Northern Command in order to restore the IDF's offensive momentum, seemed reluctant to do so in mid-war even though such staff and strategic changes had been made during the worst hours of the 1973 Yom Kippur War. He refused these proposed changes fearing perhaps that the Yom Kippur War analogy might prompt questions about the preparedness of his general staff for the Lebanon war (which subsequently occurred). In fact, the appointments he approved in the last year and his repeated assertion that he saw no danger of "conventional war" in the IDF's foreseeable future seem to have led to a false security paradigm that ultimately dominated the consciousness of political and military decision-makers and colored his selection of Israel's senior military commanders. This played itself out in the first weeks of the war. Maj.-Gen. Udi Adam, who was head of Israel's Northern Command and was a trained and talented tank commander in classical tank warfare had never before encountered tank warfare in Lebanon's unique, hilly terrain against a post-modern guerilla army backed to the hilt by Iranian and Syrian sponsors, trainers and weapons.
American Interference Another major failure in the conduct of the War arose as a result of circumstances that were beyond the knowledge of the Israeli field commanders. According to DEBKA intelligence reports (and supported by George Friedman's analysis in the Geopolitical Intelligence Report): "The lack of clear decisions was manifested...in the failure to act, the non-implementation of operational plans, and the cancellation (in the midst of combat) of missions assigned to the unit. The result was that the unit was deployed too long in hostile country without any operational purpose...and (was) held back from making contact with the enemy." The effect of this has now created a perception of weakness and vulnerability in the minds of Arab nations that had long since sharpened their knives waiting for an opportunity to pounce. Much of this operational confusion seems to have stemmed from the inordinately large role played in the war by the U.S. Administration. Washington had been looking for an excuse to bring down Hezbollah since the 1983 Beirut barracks bombing and the kidnapping of the Israeli soldiers and the initial missile attacks on northern Israel presented the opportunity for which it was waiting. Both President Bush and Secretary of State Rice agreed to back Olmert's air campaign plan provided that Olmert received prior American approval for a ground offensive –– which came only after weeks had passed and only after the air war had proven to be ineffective (and, some would argue) even counter-productive. This explains why Israel's land invasion was delayed for three weeks and why the IDF was required to remain on their bases instead of engaging in battle. When that decision finally came, it was with another stipulation that Israeli forces were not to advance to the Litani River. Again, Washington demanded a halt to the advance. By the time the final decision was made to carry out the Litani operation and to vanquish Hezbollah, it was too late. The ceasefire was effectively a foregone conclusion. DEBKA sources note: "This last disastrous order released the welter of conflicting, incomprehensible orders which stirred up the entire chain of command –– from the heads of the IDF's Northern Command down to the officers in the field. Operational orders designed to meet tactical combat situations were scrapped in mid-execution and new directives tumbled down the chute from above. Soldiers later complained that in one day, they were jerked into unreasoned actions by four to six contrary instructions." The problem with these contradictory directives was that none of the commanders at any level (including the Chief of Staff) could explain what was happening since they had not been privy to any of the "backroom decision-making" in the Prime Minister's office. But it didn't end there. Olmert had also promised Bush and Rice to spare Lebanon's civilian infrastructure and direct his air campaign to Hezbollah's positions and installations. As a result, Israeli forces were not initially allowed to destroy buildings known to be occupied by Hezbollah teams firing anti-tank missiles because it would have meant destroying Lebanese infrastructure. This decision resulted in a dramatic increase in Israeli casualties as the IDF was required to return again and again to cleanse terrorist bases in Maroun a-Ras, Bint Jubeil and Atia a-Chaab. Taking all this into account, Olmert's absolute compliance with
Rice's directives threw Israel's entire war campaign into disorder.
Supply trucks could not locate various units that were left without
food and water, the subject of one of the bitterest complaints.
Underestimating the Enemy The history of the 20th century is replete with military blunders caused by faulty intelligence and incorrect threat assessments. Israel, it seems was no exception in the Second Lebanon War. Despite tracking the activities of Hezbollah for almost a quarter of a century, the recent war began with a string of intelligence failures that included the cardinal error of underestimating Hezbollah's preparedness, armaments, training –– and their fanatical determination to fight to the death. To put it in the words of Assistant Israeli Chief of Staff Moshe Kaplinsky: "The IDF was not prepared for the war in Lebanon." Even Israel's eye-in-the-sky –– its Ofek satellite –– was out of position during most of the Second Lebanon War suggesting a lack of coordination between the military and political echelons. As it happens, Hezbollah's tacticians and their Iranian Revolutionary Guards mentors had learned the lessons of Israel's Defensive Wall Operation against the Palestinian terrorist stronghold of Jenin in 2002. That operation ended with total Israeli military supremacy over the West Bank. Hezbollah studied the strengths and weaknesses of the Israeli operation with meticulous accuracy and using Israel's experience as their own master plan, Hezbollah invented a unique form of guerilla warfare against an army that had not revised its own war protocols in the intervening four years. Not only had Hezbollah devolved its command structure to the unit level (making it impossible for Israel to conduct a decapitation strike), but Israel was caught off-guard by the entrenched and sophisticated tunnel and bunker network it encountered across Lebanon's southern border –– a network so extensive that did not require Hezbollah fighters to expose themselves to Israeli air power and extended their ability to continue combat without the need to re-supply their stocks of food. Israeli intelligence also failed to detect the nature and extent of the new weapons systems Iran and Syria had provided to Hezbollah over the preceding six years –– from Silkworm anti-ship missiles to longer-range Fajr and Zelzal missiles capable of striking Tel Aviv. Nor was the IDF prepared for Hezbollah's advanced Syrian-supplied and Soviet-built Sagger, Cornet and Fagot anti-tank missiles that were able to penetrate Israel's state-of-the-art Mercava tanks taking a terrible toll on the IDF Armored Corps. Having learned the lessons from each of its previous conflicts, Israel was about to learn one more –– that its modern Mercava tank could not withstand the explosive force of these new anti-tank missiles and, in some cases, lacked sufficient underbelly armor to protect it from Hezbollah land mines. Worse, Hezbollah had come to understand very quickly that these anti-tank missiles could be used in other, more lethal ways. Aware that in close-range combat the IDF had an advantage, Hezbollah set up positions far from Israeli forces and used the missiles against the Israeli infantry. More than seventy IDF infantry soldiers were killed in anti-tank missile attacks on homes they had commandeered in Lebanese villages and as they moved throughout the Lebanese countryside. As the IDF began moving its troops by foot, its infantry became easy prey for this newest generation of anti-tank rocket. In short, these new tactics forced the Israelis to fight Hezbollah's type of war, rather than the war Israel intended to fight when it entered southern Lebanon. Under the guidance of Iranian Revolutionary Guards, Hezbollah sent up drones on reconnaissance missions, implanted listening devices along the southern Lebanese border and set ambushes using state-of-the-art night-vision goggles. With the financial assistance of their Iranian and overseas benefactors, Hezbollah used global positioning devices to identify IDF movements, thermal protectors to camouflage themselves from Israel's heat sensor equipment, advanced software for aircraft design, gas masks, cutting-edge radio equipment, dozens of rifles, various types of handguns, silencers, helmets, and protective vests. This was no rag-tag guerilla force like those encountered in Gaza and the West Bank. Israel found itself facing the Arab equivalent of the Waffen SS –– a Special Forces army that had been indoctrinated for "martyrdom operations" and were trained in the use of the most technologically advanced equipment in the world. The IDF found computer parts attesting to the fact Hezbollah was acting in an orderly manner and was documenting its operations. It also uncovered a sophisticated command structure that allowed Hezbollah to observe developments outside their bunkers while still hiding inside. The electronic system had been installed inside the bunker, while a special camera had been installed outside. Newsweek noted that Hezbollah had even managed to eavesdrop successfully on Israel's military communications as its Lebanese incursion began and its command and control systems were state of the art, all of which heightened its advantage as a hi-tech, well-trained guerilla force fighting on its own turf. Many of the unanswered questions relate to the success of Iran and
Hezbollah in neutralizing Israeli wire-tapping and electronic jamming
capabilities. How was Iran able to block Israel's Barak anti-missile
system resulting in the successful Silkworm missile attack on one of
its naval gunboats or was it simple negligence on Israel's part? Why
was Israel unable to jam Hassan Nasrallah's electronic communications
emanating from his underground bunker in the Iranian embassy in
Beirut? Why was Israel unable to block Hezbollah's command and
communications links between the Lebanese command and the Syrian-based
Iranian headquarters? It appears that both U.S. and Israeli
intelligence grossly underestimated the tremendous effort Iran
invested in state of the art electronic warfare gadgetry designed to
disable American military operations in Iraq and IDF functions in
Israel and Lebanon. Israel's electronic warfare units were taken by
surprise by the sophisticated protective mechanisms attached to
Hezbollah's communications networks, which were discovered to be
connected by optical fibers which are not susceptible to electronic
jamming. Quite simply, Hezbollah was prepared for war. Israel was not.
Implications There is no escaping the fact that casualties are a necessary and tragic part of war and Israel must recognize that it has just fought the world's first post-modern war against a new type of enemy...and failed to vanquish that enemy. The implications are enormous. On Tuesday, August 22, thousands of supporters of the radical Islamic group Hizb al-Tahrir (Liberation Party) called for an Islamic caliphate in the Gaza Strip as the first stage towards establishing a larger Islamic caliphate throughout the world to challenge the global domination of the infidels, led by the U.S. and Israel. The Party, considered more extreme than Hamas, has increased its popularity following what is perceived as Hezbollah's "strategic divine victory" over Israel. And Gaza is not alone. Jordanian security forces recently foiled a similar attempt by the Party's followers in the Kingdom and arrested most of their leaders. And speaking on the religious satellite network Al-Nas, Cairo imam Safwat al-Higazi issued an edict calling on worshippers to kill "any Zionist anywhere in wartime." As George Friedman wrote recently: "Hezbollah has demonstrated that
total Arab defeat is not inevitable –– and with this
demonstration, Israel has lost its tremendous psychological
advantage." Thus, the greatest danger posed to Israel as a result of
this war has been an end to its aura of invincibility. In the past,
there were always certain boundaries that could not be crossed unless
an enemy was prepared to accept a crushing Israeli response. It has
been this perception of invincibility that has forced the nations of
the Arab world to refrain from direct confrontation with Israel since
the 1973 Yom Kippur War. That premise, however, has now been
challenged and Israel, at some point in the near future, will be
forced to restore that "perception of invincibility" lest it find
itself attacked on all fronts by specially equipped, trained and
indoctrinated radical Islamic guerilla armies funded by Iran and
certain of their own invincibility....and in that war, the Israelis
had best come better prepared to vanquish the enemy. As the Winograd
Report states: "Israel cannot survive in this region, and cannot live
in it in peace or at least non-war, unless people in Israel itself and
in its surroundings believe that Israel has the political and military
leadership, military capabilities, and social robustness that will
allow her to deter those of its neighbors who wish to harm her, and to
prevent them –– if necessary through the use of military
force –– from achieving their goal." The world of
jihad is real and it is here and, and for Israel's sake (not to
mention the West in general), the lessons of post-modern warfare waged
by a post-modern enemy had best be learned quickly.
Mark Silverberg's areas of expertise are U.S. foreign policy in the
Middle East, Counterterrorism, Post-modern warfare, Islamic Jihadism &
Ideology, and Intelligence. He is an authority on American foreign
policy in the Middle East, and published on Middle East affairs both
in Hebrew and English in the NATIV Journal of the Ariel Center
for Policy Research in Israel, Israel Insider, the Israel Unity
Coalition, Midstream and Outpost magazines as well as on
Arutz Sheva (Israel National News). He is a featured writer
with the New Media Journal (Chicago).
Mark Silverberg writes: Special thanks to DEBKAfile for its stream
of intelligence reports and critiques relating to the second Lebanon
war; Anthony Cordesman, "Preliminary Lessons of the Israeli Hezbollah
War," Center for Strategic and International Studies (Working Draft
for Outside Comment), August 17, 2006; George Friedman, "Cease-Fire:
Shaking Core Beliefs in the Middle East," Geopolitical Intelligence
Report," August 15, 2006; Kevin Peraino, Babak Dehghanpisheh and
Christopher Dickey, "Eye for an Eye," Newsweek, August 14,
2006; and Hanan Greenberg, "Hizbullah equipment surprises IDF
––
Troops discover cutting-edge cameras, gas masks in Lebanon; IDF
official: There's no doubt Hizbullah was prepared," Ynet
(8/11/06)
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IT'S NOT TOO LATE TO BOMB AUSCHWITZ
Posted by Bryna Berch, February 29, 2008. |
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This was written by Nidra Poller and it was published on January 18th by Makor Rishon (in Hebrew translation). |
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President George W. Bush at Yad Vashem, his eyes flooded with tears, turned to ask Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice why the Americans did not bomb Auschwitz. The day before, in Ramallah, he fired hopes for what has come to be known as peace between Israel and a Palestinian state living side by side along slightly modified –– or mollified –– 1967 borders...elsewhere known as "Auschwitz" borders. The irony is clanging, but not everyone hears the same bells. Jerusalem Post readers engaged in Talmudic disputation. The American president is tooling up for a new Shoah by helping the Palestinians get a state that will be a toehold for the destruction of Israel. Versus: How dare we –– you –– deny Palestinian aspirations and flout international law; Israel must end the occupation, whatever the risk. Just do the right thing. Readers of the French daily Libération, consumed by Bush-hatred, slap the American President up 'side the head. Hmph! Tears for the long ago victims of the Nazis but what about the hundreds of thousands of victims in Afghanistan and Iraq? What about the Palestinians? Bush is the world's worst criminal. We're tired of hearing about the Shoah. (A little more than a year ago, then MFA Philippe Douste-Blazy, on an official visit in Great Britain, expressed surprise that so few British Jews died in the Nazi death camps. Apparently he had forgotten –– or never knew –– that England, unlike France, had not collaborated and was not occupied.) Condoleeza Rice, the historian, has switched into I Have a Dream mode for Palestinian statehood. I was present at the American Task Force for Palestine gala dinner in Washington D.C. in 2006 when she made her first "I have a dream" speech. ATFP president Dr. Ziad Asali is a very close friend of Rice. His task force is the picture of moderation. Palestinian-Americans in suits and ties working for dialogue, peaceful coexistence and, of course –– it's understandable –– an end to the occupation. Why didn't we bomb Auschwitz? It's not too late. And it will do a world of good. The problem is... the landscape has changed. The old landmarks are gone. The railroad tracks have been replaced by a road map. Yesterday's brown shirts are today's moderates, sitting around a table on which the Jewish state is spread-eagled, tortured, and invited to make (more) painful concessions. The Munich famous for appeasement has spread: it's the UN. Its heart beats in Durban where the knives are sharpened. The Nuremberg laws have morphed into international opinion. The Nazis begged for a crumb of lebensraum? The jihadis are sobbing in anguish over the Israel-Palestine conflict. A Palestinian state is not the solution, it's the final solution. "Palestinian state" is the code word for "kill the Jews." No one is antisemitic; they just hold international opinions. Auschwitz/Oswiecim isn't confined to Poland. It's everywhere. We are alive and well in Auschwitz. The problem is how to bomb Auschwitz without inflicting massive collateral damage. I will be described as an extremist if not a whacko for stating these simple truths that can be backed up with heaps of evidence, concrete details, stone hard facts. Reasonable people say "We all know what the solution will look like: a Palestinian state living side by side with Israel, Jerusalem as its capital, right of return and/or compensation to refugees ..." There is not one shred of rational argument to support that assertion. It does not describe a compromise let alone a viable arrangement; it is a bowdlerized version of maximalist "Palestinian" demands. Why invent an imaginary bargaining position for a disguised movement when reality stands clearly before our eyes? Real people have been revealing genuine goals by concrete acts...for decades (if not centuries). The Auschwitz we didn't bomb was partially hidden from view. The Einsatzgruppen killing sprees were not broadcast on prime time news; blurry snapshots circulated in confidential circles, the rare escapees were too zonked to be believable. Today's Auschwitz is hidden behind measured phrases, catchy slogans, international conferences. Back then our wealth was wrenched from our hands, extracted from our teeth, pulled out from under us. Today it is collected in taxes and self-righteously donated to shore up the "moderates" who are stocking the weapons to exterminate us. And the mass murders, visible for all to see, are disguised as isolated incidents committed by a minority of extremists inspired nonetheless by legitimate national aspirations. We shouldn't fight back, we mustn't fence them out...it's not good for the peace process. Why? Because "peace process" is another code word for "kill the Jews." How did we get from Auschwitz to Auschwitz in one easy go? The lesson of the Shoah was not "never again" it was "never again count on others to save us from the evil Jew-killers." Not because others are wimps or closet antisemites. The tears of President Bush are sincere, and so is his question. He asked Condoleeza Rice why we didn't bomb Auschwitz. We have to push in front of her and reply. She thinks Palestinians are a replay of blacks in Birmingham Alabama. Allevai! But they aren't. And they aren't a replay of Nazis. They are something new to be dealt with. Those who stood by and allowed the Shoah to run its course –– they didn't bomb Auschwitz –– abrogated for themselves the right to prescribe for the future. And the Shoah begot the United Nations Organization, and the UN... After mass murder, mass appeasement. Monumentalized appeasement. Crowned in the olive branch. Draped in sanctimonious white paint. Feeding the hand that feeds it, feeding the sword and staying the outstretched hand by which we try to defend ourselves. It's not called appeasement it's called peace. "I am against the war in Iraq" is the badge of honor, and millions of those badges make the barbed wire enclosure of the new Auschwitz. This week, the French president and the American president are traveling, separately but not coincidentally, to a variety of "moderate" and immoderately wealthy Arab-Muslim nations The presidents are selling warplanes, fried chicken, or nuclear power plants; begging for cheaper oil; promising to protect the sheikdoms against a nuclear-crazed Iran. (France will have a military base in Abu Dabi.) Or asking them to protect us? In Israel the leaders of the free world vow they'll never let us down. Then they shake hands with duplicitous sheiks, thanking them in advance for their cooperation. Did they look under the keffieh head-covering to see what kind of jihad-ideas are brewing? Or did they bow their heads and pay the jizya with utter humility? The shock of watching our leaders kowtow and make absurd declarations about peaceful relations between three great religions. Is Jerusalem being led like a lamb to the slaughter, hacked to pieces and sacrificed on the heathen altar of peace? Who would dare declare, by the light of those glinting swords, that there will be no Palestinian state in any foreseeable future? Why didn't we bomb Auschwitz? We weren't wimps or closet antisemites, it's just that at the time, under the circumstances, all things considered it didn't seem reasonable. That's the point. |
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U.S. AID FOR TERROR
Posted by Dr. Rachel Ehrenfeld and Alyssa A. Lappen, February 29, 2008. |
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The Bush Administration's search for partners to promote "peace" and "democracy" within the Palestinian Authority (PA) resembles Lord Charles Bowen's "blind man in a dark room looking for a black hat –– which isn't there." For the first time, the Bush Administration plans to give $150 million in cash directly to the Palestinian Authority (PA) Treasury, as part of a $496.5 million "aid" package, including $410 million for development programs. This added to the $86.5 million for CIA "security training," which Congress authorized in April 2007. The CIA has apparently assumed the Palestinian terrorist-training role previously held by the former Soviet Union. Since 1994, the CIA armed and trained thousands of Palestinian "security forces," who subsequently joined every Palestinian terrorist organization. CIA Palestinian training success is best described by a member of the PA's Chairman own security unit, –– Force 17, officer Abu Yusef: "The operations of the Palestinian resistance would [not] have been so successful and "would not have killed more than 1,000 Israelis since 2000, and defeated the Israelis in Gaza without [American military] trainings," he boasted in August 2007. Since the Oslo Accords, the PA received some $14 billion to $20 billion in international aid, according to a 2007 Funding for Peace Coalition (FPC) report to the British Parliament. Each Palestinian received $4,000 to $8,000 per year. In comparison, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), provided $1 billion in humanitarian aid for 2.5 million Darfur refugees from 2003 to 2006 --only $100 per person annually. Moreover, of the $7 billion pledged international aid, only $5 billion were spent to assist more than 5 million Tsunami victims in more than 15 countries on two continents. The PA received "the highest per capita aid transfer in the history of foreign aid anywhere," according to former World Bank country director for Gaza and the West Bank, Nigel Roberts. Not surprisingly, hundreds of thousands of Gazans spent more than $300 million in less than two week shopping spree, after Hamas blew up the border with Egypt. Yet, the Palestinian economy is in ruins, Why? In March 2007, PA Prime Minister and former World Bank official Salam Fayyad, told London's Daily Telegraph: "No one can give donors that assurance" that funds reach their designated destinations. "Where is all of the transparency in all of this? It's gone." Controlling Palestinian finances, Fayyad concluded, is "virtually impossible." Palestinian violence has escalated since the 1994 PA establishment and PA officials have produced an unbroken record of unfulfilled promises and outright deception. Yet President George W. Bush in his January 28 State of the Union Address, reassured the Palestinians that "America will do, and I will do, everything we can to help them achieve...a Palestinian state by the end of this year." Nevertheless, U.S.-favored PA President Mahmoud Abbas, who in 1957 with Yasser Arafat co-founded the al Fattah terrorist group, assumed the role of his predecessor. Like Muslim Brotherhood, Marxist-trained Jihadist Arafat, neither does Abbas "recognize that confronting terror is essential to achieving a state where his people can live in dignity and at peace with Israel," as President Bush declared. Abbas remains committed to the organization's reason d'etre -- destroying Israel and expelling the Jewish people from the region. Despite public Fattah-Hamas leadership disagreements, branding one another "murderers and thieves," Abbas arranged on Jan. 30 to give Hamas $3.1 billion of $7.7 billion that international donor community pledged last December in Paris. Abbas' support for Hamas is not new. In Feb. 2007, He announced, "We must unite the Hamas and Fattah blood in the struggle against Israel as we did at the beginning of the intifada." He stated this en route to Mecca to meet with the Saudi King, and Hamas terror chiefs Khaled Mashaal and Ismail Haniyeh. The Saudis pledged hundreds of millions of dollars in "humanitarian aid " –– which, like previous pledges, they failed to deliver. Rather than $660 million in annual aid the Saudis promised in 2002, the kingdom donated only $84 million since then, according to World Bank reports. Other Arab League members, who in 2002 promised $55 million monthly to foster PA economic development, gave even less. Meanwhile, however, the Saudis and the Gulf states funneled hundreds of millions of petrodollars--some raised in government-sponsored telethons –– to reward Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, Hamas and Palestinian Jihad suicide bombers and fuel the anti-Israel Jihad. Indeed, "Saudi Arabia remains a source of recruits and finances for ...Levant-based militants," said National Intelligence Director J. Michael McConnell, before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, on 5 February 2008. McConnell should have included USAID on his terror-funding list. A Dec. 2007 USAID audit reported that the mission administering its funds gave money to groups and institutions affiliated with U.S. designated terrorist organizations, including Hamas and Islamic Jihad. It warned: "Without additional controls, the mission could inadvertently provide support to entities or individuals associated with terrorism." USAID "failure" to prevent funds from reaching Palestinian terrorist is not surprising given U.S. previous Administrations support for Arafat, and now for Abbas, who repeatedly claims: "We have a legitimate right to direct our guns against Israeli occupation," while reiterating his desire for "a political partnership with Hamas." It is time for President Bush to remove his blinders and stop donating U.S.-taxpayer funds to this murderous partnership. It is also time for Congress to demand a proper monitoring program to oversee the legitimate use of U.S. aid to the Palestinians. Dr. Rachel Ehrenfeld is author of Funding Evil; How Terrorism is Financed and How to Stop It. She is director of the American Center for Democracy and member of the Committee on the Present Danger. Alyssa A. Lappen, Senior Fellow at the ACD, is a former editor for Forbes, Corporate Finance, Working Woman and Institutional Investor. This appeared February 08, 2008 in FrontPageMagazine.com
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WHAT IS QATAR UP TO?
Posted by Olivier Guitta, February 29, 2008. |
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Last summer, after contributing to the liberation of the Bulgarian nurses from Libya, French President Nicolas Sarkozy profusely thanked Qatar for its help in solving this thorny matter. According to reports in the French media, Qatar allegedly offered to pay for the compensation of the Libyan children infected with HIV (estimated at about $460 million). The involvement of Qatar in this diplomatic matter is not an exception, but rather the rule. Qatar has been popping up all over the place on the diplomatic and economic stages in the past few years. What is the tiny Gulf emirate up to? This new strategy really started after the 1995 coup where Sheik Ahmad al-Thani unseated his father. The new ruler's main goal was to put Qatar on the map. One of his close advisers explained to the French daily Le Figaro: "When Sheik Ahmad was traveling to Europe during his youth, he was upset that customs officers asked him where Qatar was." With huge reserves of oil and gas, only 900,000 inhabitants (of which only 200,000 are Qataris) and a current GDP per capita of more than $120,000 (when accounting only for the Qataris), Doha has the means of its ambitions. Two major projects that were undertaken at the start of the reign of the new sheik were the TV channel al-Jazeera (launched in 1996) and Qatar Airways (really started in 1997). In just a few years, al-Jazeera has become a household name. Qatar Airways is now a huge multinational with 12,000 employees, 58 planes and 70 destinations and it just ordered 80 Airbus A350s and five A3BOs ? incidentally, a Qatari investment fund was just authorized by French authorities to invest in the European consortium EADS (European Aeronautic Defense and Space) that manufactures Airbus planes ? and 22 Boeing 777s. Doha has the goal of welcoming 50 million passengers by 2015. The emir's main ambition for his country is to become a diplomatic superpower. That is why for example Qatar has been heavily financing the reconstruction of southern Lebanon, mediating at one point between the Palestinian Hamas and Fatah, and also doing the same between the al-Huthi rebels (supported by Iran) and the Yemeni regime. Qatar is sometimes in a paradoxical situation, befriending enemies such as, for example, Israel and Hamas (its leader Khaled Meshaal is a regular in Doha), or Fatah and Hamas. Right after Hamas' coup in Gaza, Muhammad Dahlan, Fatah's ex-security chief accused: "Qatar also gave Hamas $400 million that was used to slaughter Palestinians." Also Qatar is at the same time home to many ex-Iraqi Baathists and Saddam Hussein's widow, Sajida, and the largest U.S. base in the Middle East. But this strategy has been hampered by Qatar's most famous creation ? al-Jazeera ? a fact that has created many enemies for Qatar in the Arab world, from Saudi Arabia (that actually broke diplomatic relations with it) to Jordan and Tunisia. These regimes are upset over the fact that al-Jazeera criticizes them and/or gives airtime to "dissidents." An Arab diplomat quoted by Le Figaro sums up quite well the feeling of Qatar's fellow Arabs: "Qatar loves to give us lessons, but it would be more credible if it cleaned up its own backyard." In fact, censorship in the Qatari press is high and Qatar does not have an elected parliament. To prevent the risk of an Islamist upheaval, Doha is hosting a who's who of Islamists from Abassi Madani, the leader of the ex-FIS (the Algerian Islamic Salvation Front) which fought a bloody civil war against the Algerian regime in the 1990s, to Sheik Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the prominent Muslim Brotherhood leader (incidentally one of al-Jazeera's superstars) who justified suicide bombings against Israeli children and U.S. soldiers in Iraq. The reason for this frenetic activity might be the emir's obsession with keeping its independence. According to a European diplomat quoted by Le Figaro: "The emir has long had the Kuwait syndrome vis-à-vis Iraq, he is scared to find himself one day with Saudi troops occupying his country and no one would say anything about it." In light of this fear and of Tehran's threats to attack Qatar in case of a U.S. attack on its nuclear facilities, one can easily understand why Qatar has been handling Iran carefully. For proof, Qatar was the only country to reject a U.N. Security Council resolution against Tehran. Another reason for this policy is that 30 percent of Qataris are of Iranian descent. But will this strategy of modernizing the country and trying to befriend everyone work? Nothing is less sure. First, Qatar is trying too hard: being friendly with everyone is impossible. For instance, back in March 2005 in Doha, a suicide bomber (most likely linked or inspired by al-Qaida) killed one Briton and wounded 12 people in an attack at a theater frequented by Westerners. Then in June 2006, the Kuwaiti daily al-Seyassah reported that Qatar had foiled a destabilization plot against the regime and that Qatari authorities had arrested about 100 Syrian workers and five Syrian intelligence officers. This while Qatar is the only country, besides Iran, heavily investing in Syria. Last but not least, the emir is changing his country while his people still remain very religious and conservative. Qatar is a devout Muslim country where most women wear the niqab (veil showing only the eyes) and where there is a prayer site every 150 meters (about 164 yards). The clash between modernity and tradition is bound to have unhappy consequences. Olivier Guitta, an adjunct fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies and a foreign affairs and counterterrorism consultant, is the founder of the newsletter, The Croissant (www.thecroissant.com). This appeared in Middle East Times February 25, 2008.
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SINAI OPTION –– THE ROAD TO PERMANENT PEACE!
Posted by Steven Shamrak, February 29, 2008. |
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Only 120 years ago, most parts of the Middle East, including Palestine and entire Sinai Peninsula, were a desolated, arid, land mass which did not belong to any country. It was a no man's land with which for 2000 years Jews had an unbroken spiritual and historical bond! The creation of a Mandate system after the defeat of the Ottoman Empire in the World War 1 and the grid of the new masters, Britain and France, laid the foundations of the current Arab-Israel conflict: Trans-Jordan was the part of the Palestinian mandate, which was allocated for creation of a Jewish state by the League of Nations in 1922, in accordance with the Balfour Declaration. Therefore, its separation from Palestinian mandated land was an illegal act. Unfortunately, the dominant imperial powers, Britain and France, controlled the League of Nations which they used to rubber stamp their shady deals at the time. As a result of the deal, in 1922, in order to secure Britain's financial interests in the Suez Canal, Sinai was illegally given to Egypt by the British with the permission of King Hussein of Hejaz and Nejd, now Saudi Arabia. In return, Britain transferred control of the land east of the river Jordan to Hussein's son, Abdullah. Control of the Golan Heights were transferred to the French-run Syrian Mandate in exchange the United Kingdom got control of newly discovered oil fields in Kirkuk. Since its independence, Israel has fought many wars with its implacable Arab neighbours, signed numerous cease-fires, so-called Hundas and even peace agreements. But all those efforts have not brought about any permanent solution to the endless terror Israeli society has been enduring daily. The solution that can bring permanent peace to Israel and let Arabs live with dignity in their own country was proposed over 100 years ago. It has been deliberately ignored and disallowed by the United Nations. It is the Sinai option –– the transfer of all of the Arab population from the land that used to be called the "Palestinian mandate" to the Sinai Peninsula, an area of contiguous land which is comparable by size with the entire Palestinian mandate: Israel, Gaza, Judea, Samaria, Golan Heights and Jordan! This plan presents the real opportunity for a permanent peace: 1. It will separate the two entirely incompatible communities and will create an environment conducive to the development of a new Arab entity totally independent from Israel. 2. It will provide Arabs with a contiguous landmass. Isn't that what the PA is demanding? 3. It will give Arabs full territorial, financial, military, political and religious control over the land, natural resources and population. There will be no dependency on Israel! 4. The new entity will be accountable for its actions in accordance with international law. 5. Israel will be able to securely control its border with the new Arab entity and keep it accountable for any terror activity. 6. All anti-Israel terror-inclined elements will be removed from the Jewish lands. And, this plan is relatively easy to implement because: 1. The new entity can be either part of Egypt or become another independent Arab state. 2. There are only around 250,000 people living in Sinai today, predominantly Bedouins. 3. The SINAI OPTION will resolve the so-called Palestinians refugee question as they can easily be settled in the Sinai. Note: Over 70% of Jordan's population are so-called Palestinians others are decedents of the refuges from Saudi Arabia. 4. Every year the International community has been wasting/spending billions of dollars merely on conflict maintenance in the region. The SINAI OPTION offers the opportunity for investment in the permanent resolution of the conflict and it will free up billions of dollars that can be used to alleviate the suffering of people the world over. 5. Population transfers were successfully implemented before and after the adoption of the fourth Geneva Convention resolution. In fact, Israel is the only country this resolution targeted in order to prevent the transfer of the Arab population from Israel after the war of Independence! 6. It will create investment opportunities and would be of great benefit to Egypt, as well a financial bonanza for the Arabs who are currently living in Judea-Samaria, Gaza and Jordan. 7. It will improve the lifestyle and living conditions of millions of Arabs and will bring peace, stability and prosperity to Jews in Israel. 8. The plan can be implemented humanely and gradually under supervision of the International community or it can be implemented by force, unilaterally by Israel, when the Arab enemies of the Jewish state start the next war or perpetrate the hideous act of terror against the Israeli population. Israel must be ready to implement the SINAI OPTION at any time! This is the only way toward permanent peace in the region and fulfillment of the 2000 year old commandment and inspiration of Jewish people –– the return to the G-d given land of our ancestors! The International community, Arab and Muslim countries insist that they want peace in the Middle East! Therefore, why don't they even want to hear about this alternative plan? And the fact that during the breakout through the Sinai border with Egypt, instigated and planned in advance by Hamas, half of Gaza's population were able to cross the border during the first two days is a proof that the Sinai Option easy to implement and the practical way to start the process of ending Arab occupation of Jewish land and establishing true and permanent peace in Israel, free of Arab terror. Footnote. Traditions and customs of all nations or indigenous people are greatly respected by a kind and politically correct international community. At the same time, any inconceivable excuse is used to negate, brush-off or dismiss a 3300 years old spiritual and historical connection of Jewish people with the Land of Israel. Eretz-Israel! Steven Shamrak lives in Melbourne, Australia. He publishes internet editorial letters on the Arab-Israeli conflict. He can be reached by email at StevenShamrak@gmail.com. |
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DON'T SUPPORT GROUPS ADVOCATING YET ANOTHER A PALESTINIAN STATE
Posted by Jake Levi, February 29, 2008. |
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Prof. Paul Eidelberg wrote: "Please do not support any of the organizations listed below. Urge organizations such as the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) and Americans for a Safe Israel (AFSI) to publicly denounce any so-called Jewish organization that endorses the perfidious two-state solution advocated by Saudi Arabia and every other genocidal Arab regime. The members of the organizations listed below should resign in protest, lest they aid and abet traitors to the Jewish people. To all those who advocate the establishment of an Arab state on Jewish soil, may they suffer ten-fold the miseries of Jews expelled from Gush Katif." The news item below is from the Jewish Telegraphic Agency
FYI: Members of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs American Jewish Committee http://www.ajc.org
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The Jewish Council for Public Affairs endorsed for the first time a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. At its annual plenum Tuesday in Atlanta, the body, an umbrella organization representing 14 national Jewish groups and 125 local Jewish community relations councils, resolved that "the organized American Jewish community should affirm its support for two independent, democratic and economically viable states –– the Jewish state of Israel and a state of Palestine s –– living side-by-side in peace and security." The resolution also included compromise language reflecting American Jewry's "diverse views about current and future policies of the Israeli government towards settlements," and blamed the standstill in the peace process on Palestinian intransigence. It appeared to pass unanimously, though the Orthodox Union, which has been outspoken in objecting to any deal to share or divide Jerusalem, had considered abstaining. According to one of its officers, David Luchins, the O.U. was satisfied with the final text, but still felt it represented an attempt to "micromanage" the peace process. The resolution came about in response to recent events like the seizure of Gaza, the "reconstitution" of the Palestinian Authority and the latest U.S.-backed peace initiative, said the JCPA's senior associate executive director, Martin Raffel. Contact Jake Levi at jlevi_us@yahoo.com |
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BEHIND THE WINDOWS
Posted by David Wilder, February 29, 2008. |
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There are times when you (I) think you've seen everything. And then something new pops up and you (I) pinch yourself, trying to discover if it's real or just a dream. I've been pinching myself a lot lately, and each time I'm shocked to discover that it's not a dream. Let me preface the forthcoming story with three short introductions. First, every once in a while I receive letters asking why I post such items. I can only go back to the first article I recall having written, following the murder of Nachum Hoss and Yehuda Partuche just outside Hebron in March, 1995. I remember writing then that it's important that people KNOW – that events shouldn't be the inheritance of the few – that they should be public knowledge, on the table for everyone to see, to judge, and to do something about. I still believe that, even more so today. Two: Despite what I am going to write, yes, I still believe in the sanctity of the State of Israel, in the Land of Israel. The State is, in my opinion, (and I know there are many who disagree for various reasons), a Divine gift for which we waited for over two thousand years. The State isn't at fault for all the problems we have, rather it's us, the people, who are screwing it up. (In short.) Three: I'm frequently asked, 'what can we do?' OK – we all know the standard answers: make phone calls, write letters, etc. etc. (Again, in my opinion) there are two major activities people can partake in today to make a difference, and I'm sure this isn't the first time you've ever heard this. First, you can give money, making contributions and donations to whatever interests you (like Hebron). The battles we are facing today are unbelievably expensive ($20,000 a month to heat Beit HaShalom and literally tens and more tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees). Very simply, we cannot afford do it without mucho dollars. And that means people like you, because we don't have a monopoly on money. However, if people REALLY want to make a difference, they have to come here to Israel – not for vacations, but to comeLIVE here, breath here, work here and 'change the way it is.' And it really can happen – it can be done. I know people don't like Aliyah speeches, but what can you do – sometimes the truth hurts. If you really believe in something, act upon it. Do it. After you read the next paragraphs you may ask (if you already haven't, at least a million time) why would anyone want to go live there? I relate to that as 'the Spy's question – the same thing asked by 10 of the 12 spies Moses sent to search out the land following the exodus from Egypt. They looked around and asked themselves, 'why would anyone want to live here?' We know what happened to them and the damage they caused us, up through today. We are here in Eretz Yisrael because G-d gave us this land, it is our homeland, He created to Jewish people in order that we should live here and fulfill here His commandments. Need more be said? OK – that was just an introduction. Now on to the good stuff. By this time you're probably familiar with the famous, or infamous Beit HaShalom windows. A couple of weeks ago, following a fierce snow storm, Minister Eli Yishai from Shas started banging on the cabinet-room table, demanding to know why Jews in Hebron had to live without windows. Barak finally gave his okay. Then, the fun started. One of my colleagues here received a call from the local Chief (named Taryk) of the Civil Administration, a branch of the defense ministry. This was a couple of days before another expected snow storm. He informed us that we could install, in Beit HaShalom, 'wooden frames with plastic' to protect its residents from the cold and rain. "Ha," my friend answered, "you think they're living there without any protection at all. That's what we already have there." So a couple of hours later Chief called back and said, "you can install aluminum window frames WITHOUT glass windows." My friend: "Do me a favor. I'm busy. In another day or so it's going to start snowing again. So either issue me the permits I need for windows, or leave me alone." A few hours later Chief called back and finally agreed to installation of windows – period. Wow, great – a real victory. The windows were ordered and arrived in record time. The simplest windows in Israel were ordered, in order not to upset Chief or any of his bosses. Installation began. And then the fun started. Again my friend received a call, an hysterical call, from Chief. "What are you doing there?" "Installing windows." "But you are also installing 'trisim' – plastic shades. You didn't get a permit to install anything made of plastic – only aluminum frames and glass windows." "OK, so we'll change them from plastic to aluminum." "But then they won't be the simplest windows, which you promised to install." ... – " Look, the standard for the simplest windows, set by the Ministry of Housing, demands that all windows come with shades. We are only following that." One of the reasons the Chief and his bosses allowed the windows was a result the community's agreement to post bond, guaranteeing not take advantage ofthe window installation in order to make other earth-shattering changes in the building. A creature named Ronit Levy, a left-wing activist dressed in military garb who works as a prosecutor for the IDF, wrote a letter to the court saying that they should consider demanding payment of our bond guarantee because we had violated the agreement and installed plastic shades. So, all the shades that had been installed were removed, and today the families live with glass windows in very sunlit rooms. Behind the scenes, or as we say in Hebron, behind the windows. David Wilder is spokesman of The Jewish Community of Hebron. You can contribute directly to The Jewish Community of Hebron, POB10, Kiryat Arba-Hebron 90100, hebron@hebron.org.il, 972-2-9965333 or write to The Hebron Fund, 1760 Ocean Ave., Brooklyn, NY 11230, hebronfund@aol.com |
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ASHKELON, ISRAELI CITY OF 120,000, UNDER PALESTINIAN ROCKET FIRE
Posted by Avodah, February 29, 2008. |
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The Israeli city of Ashkelon, located 17 kilometers (11 miles) from Gaza, was hit by several Iranian-made Grad (Katyusha) rockets on Thursday fired by Hamas militants in Gaza. One hit an apartment building, slicing through the roof and three floors below, and another landed near a school, wounding a 17-year-old girl. After Thursday's rocket attacks on Ashkelon, Israel activated its "Code Red" rocket warning system there. Israel hesitated to activate the system because officials didn't want to send 120,000 people running for shelter every time a rocket was launched in the direction of the city. The army is now considering installing more radars near Ashkelon so that the system will be able to better analyze the course of an incoming rocket and warn only the residents of the target neighborhood, rather than the whole city, defense officials said Thursday. Matan Vilnai, Israel's deputy defense mister, said Friday, "We're getting close to using our full strength. Until now, we've used a small percentage of the army's power because of the nature of the territory." Israel does not intend to launch a major ground offensive in the next week or two, partly because the military prefers to wait for better weather, defense officials said. But the army has now completed its preparations and informed the government it's ready to move immediately when the order is given. (AP/International Herald Tribune) Ten Palestinian Rockets Hit Ashkelon – Shmulik Hadad Ten Palestinian rockets hit Ashkelon on Thursday. Many parents said they will not be sending their children to school in the near future. Most educational institutions in Ashkelon are not fortified Contact Avodah by email at avodah15@aol.com |
| 1ST TEMPLE SEAL FOUND IN CITY
OF DAVID Posted by Gabrielle Goldwater, February 29, 2008. |
| This was written by Etgar Lefkovits and it
appeared in the Jerusalem Post |
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An ancient seal bearing an archaic Hebrew inscription dating back to the 8th century BCE has been uncovered in an archeological excavation in Jerusalem's City of David, the Israel Antiquities Authority announced Thursday.
 The seal excavated in the City of David bears the name of a public official from the 8th century BCE. The find reveals that by 2,700 years ago, clerks and merchants had already begun to add their names to the seals instead of the symbols that were used in earlier centuries. The state-run archeological body said the seal, which was discovered near the Gihon Spring in the City of David outside the walls of the Old City, bears the Hebrew name Rephaihu (ben) Shalem, a public official who lived in the Jerusalem neighborhood during this period. The excavation, which is being carried out by Haifa University Professor Ronny Reich and Eli Shukron of the Israel Antiquities Authority, also uncovered pottery shards that date back to the Iron Age 2 (8th century BCE), which they used to date the seal, as well as fragments of three bullae, or pieces of clay that were used to seal letters or goods. The discovery revealed an interesting development in the ancient world: whereas during the 9th century BCE letters and goods were dispatched on behalf of their senders without names, by the 8th century BCE the clerks and merchants had already begun to add their names to the seals, the archeologists said. "In contrast with the large cluster of bullae that was found two years ago, in which all of its items contain graphic symbols [such as a boat or different animals – fish, lizards and birds] but are of an earlier date [end of the 9th-beginning of the 8th century BCE], the new items indicate that during the 8th century BCE the practice had changed and the clerks who used the seals began to add their names to them," Reich said. The excavation, which is being conducted together with the Nature
and Parks Authority and the support of the City of David Foundation,
is one of several digs taking place in the City of David.
Gabrielle Goldwater lives in Switzerland.
Contact her at III44@aol.com |
| ISRAELI COWARDICE FUELS THE
ARAB TERROR Posted by Steven Plaut, February 29, 2008. |
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Well, the Olmert Pussilocracy is all upset that Ashkelon was hit by Hamas rockets this week and is meowing that this really is intolerable and crosses all the red lines. Translation: firing thousands of rockets into Sderot is tolerable and was never crossing red lines because who the hell cares about those backward blue-collar workers in Sderot? Olmert's people are saying that if the blitz on Ashkelon does not end, then Israel will hit back really really hard. Of course Israel has been making empty threats to hit back really really hard for 25 years. For those who have forgotten, I reprint here an older piece on the RRH doctrine:
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(IsraelNN.com) I've long suspected that it is the Israeli grand strategy to defeat the Palestinians by forcing them to laugh themselves to death. That seems to be the only possible way to understand the latest resuscitation of the RRH Doctrine, which has dominated Israeli policy toward the Palestinians and the Arab states since the early 1990s. The RRH Doctrine was invented in the early days of Oslo and stands for Really, Really Hard. Israeli governments would make deals to hand over most of the West Bank and Gaza Strip to the PLO, while reassuring Israelis that there was no reason for worry – if the Palestinians misbehaved, Israel would hit back at them Really, Really Hard. The Boy Who Cried Wolf was a far more credible strategist. Even if, perchance, anyone ever took the RRH threats seriously, by the mid-1990s the RRH was little more than an overly-long-running joke. Yitzchak Rabin and Shimon Peres had threatened it during the early days of Oslo. Later, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, after each and every act of terrorism, would loudly invoke RRH, but then did little, if anything, to retaliate. After Netanyahu came Ehud Barak, who once again threatened RRH regularly. But his only implementation of it consisted of chopper attacks on empty Palestinian buildings – and only after the PLO was given advance notification, so that all humans and terrorists could be evacuated. RRH was also used by Barak (and other prime ministers) to threaten Hizbullah in Lebanon and their Syrian puppet masters. After each Hizbullah attack on Israeli towns and on Israeli forces inside southern Lebanon, Israel threatened the most serious RRH. But, in the end, the only manifestation of RRH implemented by Barak consisted of a panicked unilateral capitulation and withdrawal from southern Lebanon, which left Hizbullah sitting smack dab on Israel's border, with thousands of its rockets aimed at northern Israel, with Haifa in range. When Ariel Sharon first revealed his Gaza-Samaria Disengagement Plan, after winning the last Israeli election, it too was accompanied by empty threats of RRH. Israel could not get the PLO to make any concessions in exchange for surrender of the Gaza Strip and the eviction of the Jewish population there, Sharon nevertheless decided to implement the Mitzna Plan, against which he had campaigned, and withdraw without any quid pro quo. He would just go ahead with unilateral capitulation, whether the PLO liked it or not. And if the PLO failed to contain Hamas and prevent terror attacks against Israel after the withdrawal, why, then, Sharon's government would order the Israeli Defense Forces to respond with serious RRH. Yeah, sure. Hours after the Gaza capitulation was completed, and all Israeli troops and settlers had been removed, the rocket and mortar attacks on the Negev began. The PLO was calling Sharon's bluff. Almost as old as the RRH Doctrine is the Who-Could-Have-Ever-Predicted-That Syndrome. Since Oslo, every new Israeli concession resulted in escalated Palestinian violence. And the Israeli chattering classes would sigh and ask rhetorically, "Who could have possibly foreseen this?" Likewise, after each violation of the Oslo Accords by the PLO, the media and the left-wing politicians would pout, "Who could have predicted that?" After years of daily proof that the entire Oslo concept was unworkable, its advocates were still responding to each new failure as if it was total serendipity. The Israeli media could not foresee any failures of the Oslo capitulations and appeasements because the media are by and large the occupied territories of Israel's radical Left. The overseas media were even less capable of foreseeing the consequences of Oslo because they were far more interested in bashing Israel than understanding anything about the Middle East conflict. The answer to the rhetorical question of "Who could have foreseen the failures of Oslo?" is, "Anyone not blinded by ideology." A few weeks after the handshake on the White House lawn in 1993, I published my first article predicting the complete failure of the Rabin-Peres Oslo initiative; in fact, it was the first such article published in North America. I predicted that the PLO would simply use any territory turned over to it by Israel to build terror infrastructure and launch attacks on Israel. I wrote of future rocket attacks and sniper fire against Israeli towns from the PLO-controlled areas years before they actually began in earnest. And I was hardly alone in 20/20 foresight. It was not particularly difficult in 1993 to see why Oslo would fail. It is even easier now, with 12 years of disastrous "peace process" experience, to understand why Sharon's Gaza disengagement will result in an enormous escalation of violence, not in any relaxation of tensions. Let's give the Arabs some credit. Israel has been making so many threats of RRH ever since the Oslo "peace process" began that a Palestinian leader would have to be learning-disabled to take any of them seriously. If I consider them a joke, why should Abu Mazen believe them? The Oslo Accords produced the greatest escalation in Palestinian terrorism and atrocities in modern Israeli history. At their most severe, Israeli retaliations took the form of some targeted assassinations of Hamas and PLO terror leaders. More often than not, Israeli retaliations consisted of meaningless gestures like bombing the aforementioned empty buildings or making sonic booms over terrorist concentrations, and of course the ever louder empty threats of RRH. On Israel's northern border, virtually no retaliations against Hizbullah took place, even after Hizbullah kidnapped and murdered three Israeli army officers and fired rockets into Israel. All of this brings us to the latest rocket attacks by the PLO on Sderot a few days ago. The main effect of the Gaza capitulation is that the PLO can now import unlimited supplies of weaponry from Egypt, with no ability of Israel to interfere. Israeli troops are no longer on the ground inside the Gaza Strip. We already see the results and we can clearly foresee the "unexpected" consequences that will be taking place in the near future. The PLO and its affiliates now have all the freedom they need to upgrade their rockets. The new, improved Kassam rockets will be able to hit Ashkelon from Gaza. Sharon's Gaza capitulation will turn the Negev town of Sderot into Israel's Stalingrad. The PLO has already converted an abandoned synagogue building in Gush Katif into a weapons facility. When the latest rockets hit Sderot after Israel's withdrawal from Gaza, Sharon and his people responded mainly with a new round of RRH. The laughter from Ramallah was deafening. Let's note that back before 1993, when Israel held Gaza tightly with on-the-ground military rule, there were no Kassam rockets in Gaza. The Palestinian savages threw stones at Jews because real weapons were hard to procure. The PLO knows what we all know; namely, that Sharon is afraid to take the only action that, in the end, can end the shooting of Kassam rockets into Jewish homes . R&D, or Re-Occupation and DeNazification. Let's hope his successor will be less Steven Plaut is an American-trained economist, a professor of business administration at Haifa University and author of "The Scout." He frequently comments – both seriously and satirically – on Israeli politics and the left wing academic community. His website address is http://www.stevenplaut.blogspot.com. Or write him at splaut@econ.haifa.ac.il |
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THE FLOATING CAT THEORY
Posted by Boris Celser, February 29, 2008. |
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Part 1 Galileo Galilei paid a heavy price to the Catholic Church for his support of heliocentrism. He was forced to recant and spent the last years of his life under house arrest on orders of the Inquisition. How ironic that the future Arab Galilean nation will reap the benefits. My point is that some 3 or 4 years ago someone in Israel wrote an Op-Ed for the JP, suggesting the Galilee should be given away because it has many Arabs. Creating new nations out of little or no land is not just plain stupidity, but in Israel's case they would all want to annihilate the Jews. Part 2 If the nation of Palestine is Jordan the sequel, the Galilee would be Palestine the sequel and so on, but not ad infinitum, because the land is tiny. As Sarah pointed out, the Kosovo example shows how the world operates cynically. Milosevic annoyed so many that this is the price Serbia paid. But for the Palestinians, the more they kill the more they deserve a state. Serbia has no oil. Kurdistan does, but because the neighboring states have more and are more powerful they ain't going to be free. Don't count on the West. Part 3 Basques and Catalans won't fare much better, because EU countries would be shooting themselves in the foot. Transylvania would be Europe's Galilee, a would be nation run by descendants of Count Dracula. But the difference is that only in Israel we see so many Jews favoring the split of their own tiny country to people who have no right to one there and want to massacre those who do. The voluntary giveaway of Judea and Samaria and the division of Jerusalem is all the the proof the world needs that Israel has to go. The fools think that by acting first they will prevent the worst. Part 4 That's a good definition of suicide. The fantasies of Shimon Peres and his disciples lead to all Jews being blamed for anything bad that happens anywhere. The anti-semites smell Jewish blood. At least Dracula was not so particular about it. But Dracula doesn't run Israel, Olmert does. Here is how. The First Law states that if one tosses a live cat in the air, it always falls standing up on its feet, never on its back. The Second Law states that if one spreads butter on a piece of toast and drops it by accident, the buttered part always hits the floor. Part 5 No exceptions have ever been found to these two laws. Then comes Olmert. He combined the two laws. He got hold of a cat, spreaded a lot of butter on its back and tossed it in the air. First Law states it must fall standing. Second Law implies it must fall on its back, because that's where the butter is. The actual result? Well, to satisfy both Laws the cat can never fall, it must always float. Olmert is making Israel float...towards nonexistence. Boris Celser is a Canadian. Contact him at celser@telusplanet.net |
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REUTERS MISTAKE TRIGGERS ISRAEL "HOLOCAUST" LIBEL
Posted by Honestly Concerned, February 29, 2008. |
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This is by Tom Gross and it appeared today on Media Blog, National Review Online
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A Reuters mistranslation of remarks by Israeli Deputy Defense
Minister Matan Vilnai this morning has triggered an international news
libel against Israel.
Among the news outlets jumping on the bandwagon are those that have previously been accused of deliberately attempting to stir up anti-Semitism through false and inflammatory coverage of Israel. They include several British-owned or British-based media. For example, at the present time the following headlines can be found on these websites: Reuters: Israel minister warns Palestinians of "shoah" In fact Vilnai said this morning in off-the-cuff remarks made on Israel Radio that: "The more the Qassam rocket fire [on Israeli civilians] intensifies and increases its range, the Palestinians are bringing upon themselves a bigger disaster because we will use all our might to defend ourselves." Vilnai used the word "shoah" (meaning disaster), which Reuters mistranslated as "Holocaust," which is "HaShoah" in Hebrew. It is like confusing a "white house" with "The White House." Given the virulently anti-Israel (and many would say anti-Semitic) track record of some of the news organizations who have jumped to prominently headline these mistranslated comments on their home pages, one wonders if they are making this mistake in innocence? Contact Honestly Concerned at post@honestly-concerned.org |
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THE REAL PROBLEM WITH LEBANON WAR; ARMEGEDDON APPROACHING?; BLIND ANTISEMITES
Posted by Richard H. Shulman, February 29, 2008. |
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SYRIA MORE FORMIDABLE Russia shipped Syria extensive weaponry. Iran has upgraded Syrian missiles. "The problem is that their missiles are being transformed from less-effective weapons into precision weapons that will enable their use against military bases, airports and military depots, which is a very worrying development." Having thousands of missiles, Syria can strike every part of Israel (IMRA, 2/8). The Muslims can blanket Israel with missiles, thanks to Israel's governments. Instead of spreading its people out, Israel has been shedding strategic depth and letting the enemy come nearer. The IDF left Lebanon and let Hizbullah build up an army there. Israel fought another war against Hizbullah, but let Hizbullah rebuilt its forces and get into a position to take over Lebanon. Israel supposed that Syria, whose planes were inferior and whose tanks were rusting, would remain backward militarily. Wasn't the Soviet Union gone? Israel has been slow to catch on that the Soviets are back and Iran has become another sponsor of Syria's military. Israel never should have made its partial withdrawal from the Golan and certainly should not have let Hizbullah survive and Syria be unpunished for having helped Hizbullah. Israel lets Iran build nuclear facilities. So does the U.S.. Thus Israel, whose government talks about more withdrawals, and which failed to crack down on its enemies, has lost its deterrent and earned the contempt of the Muslims. The Muslims are eager to arm more. They must be intending to make the final war soon. That is the real failure of the Olmert-Livni war in Lebanon. It also is a failure of the US, Democrats as well as Republicans. They have let the evil axis grow and are letting or making an ally shrink. The victors over Israel would rally the faithful against the US. The State Dept. may not like the Jews, but the Jews don't want to kill them. The Muslim axis does. I don't see how a weakened Israel can survive a blitz by a strengthened Arab-Iranian axis, unless it exercised its nuclear option. Not a likely prospect. ISRAEL'S NARROW VIEW OF HAMAS Israel plans to exert economic, diplomatic, and military pressure on Hamas (IMRA, 2/8). Israel talks big, but doesn't take into account outside factors and actors, which put such pressures on it. It backs down from its economic and military threats and has no diplomatic clout (partly because it always backs down). It doesn't see past a possible ceasefire that it must eradicate Hamas. P.A. PRISONERS ESCAPE Two of the terrorists wanted by Israel, and who had turned themselves over to the P.A. for protective custody, have escaped (IMRA, 2/8). The appeasement-minded government of Israel never made the P.A. adhere to its signed obligation to extradite wanted criminals. It let Arafat defy that agreement so as to uphold terrorism as a legitimate form of warfare. This is one of the consequences. Arafat used to let prisoners out, after getting credit with the West for arresting them. NOW IRAN CLAIMS IT IS READY TO PRODUCE AVIATION FUEL (IMRA, 2/8.) Iran seems to have learned how to make all sorts of weapons and support materials. Sometimes its claims are exaggerated but not denied. I think it is an advanced country militarily. The industrialized countries made a great mistake in educating certain other countries' citizens and in selling them dangerous technology just to make some money immediately. In the long run, those countries menace their former tutors and suppliers. Just as Lenin said, the capitalists sell enemies the rope with which to hang them. By "capitalists" we now should include Russia and China. Israel, like the US, has let its enemies build up a menacing force. For Israel, the danger is more immediate and, even without nuclear weapons, dire. An acquaintance, who objected to the Iraq war, because he (mistakenly) thought it unprovoked and pre-emptive, misunderstands modern warfare. Fanatical enemies build up forces that can be launched at a moment's non-notice. There is little defense against it, only retaliation. They are too fanatical to care much about it. The insane must be stopped before they get the arms to destroy the sane. The longer action is put off, the harder it becomes and the greater the risk of under-estimating enemy readiness for Armageddon. Let's have Hillary-Obama placards reading, "Democrats For Armageddon." It isn't just future strife that allowing an enemy build-up permits. It also permits a war by attrition. Thus we find an increasing volume of rockets being launched at Israel, which fails to send sufficient force into Gaza to capture the terrorists staffing the launchers. When or if Israel does, the enemy might launch so many rockets as to inflict high casualties. That may deter an expeditionary force. HOPE FOR ISRAEL? On vacation, I met an American who was hired by Israelis to teach them other ways of thinking about their situation. I told him that what they most need to learn is how the enemy thinks, and that appeasement doesn't work. He agreed. BLIND ANTISEMITES If anybody who reads what antisemites write knew anything about history, or would, or could, think about what they read, they'd be amused at how nonsensical it is. The antisemites have a different story for almost every aspect of history and current events. To them, it's always being manipulated by "the Jews" for "the Jews." We Jews get expelled from one country after another, persecuted in one country after another, but the antisemites say we are running the world. Not that I ever noticed, especially not when all the great powers arm the Muslims. What do they mean, "the Jews?" They make it seem as if we are monolithic, loyal only to ourselves and disloyal to others. Not at all. For that to happen, there would have to be a uniform, stern, widely disseminated ideology and little of the soaring intermarriage. Jews are divided into various degrees of religious observance. Some sects are not nationalistic. Many Jews are non-observers, non-believers, and antisemites. Many are not Zionistic, and the Jewish Establishment long opposed Zionism, just as the State Dept., which antisemites claim is a tool of Zionism, long opposed Zionism and still does. How do antisemites account for the State Dept. record of opposing the Israel's formation and demanding territorial concessions by Israel? They don't. They don't account for anything that would disprove their prejudice. Sec. of State Baker employed "Baker's Jews," who assisted State Dept. machinations against Israel. American Jews, including my liberal friends, who quarrel more with the US government than I do, are grateful to live in a country that now tolerates them and in which people can live well. It would be crazy to do anything to harm this country. A few fellow Jews are warped, as are some gentiles. Antisemites claim that the Israel lobby controls Congress. That lobby, among others, has some influence, but not enough to stop aid to the Arabs, get Israel's debt to the US forgiven as was Egypt's, stop arms sales to the Arabs, or change US policy against many Israeli measures of self-defense. Other lobbies have bigger budgets than does AIPAC, now being persecuted by the FBI. Occasionally, I review what antisemites are writing on Internet. Their venting of Ignorant, or is it propagandistic spleen, is more distorted than a blind person's view. At least their computer reduces the taxes spent on lunatic asylums. Richard Shulman is a veteran defender of Israel on several web-based forums. His comments and analyses appear often on Think-Israel. He provides cool information and right-on-target overviews. He distributes his essays by email. To subscribe, write him at richardshulman5@aol.com |
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OUR MEETING WITH THE CEO OF JNF
Posted by Buddy Macy, February 28, 2008. |
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On February 12, 2008 I met with Russell Robinson, CEO of the Jewish National Fund (JNF), at the JNF offices in Manhattan. Joining me at the meeting were Tsafrir Ronen, a founder of the Coalition for the Land of Israel (an Israeli grassroots protest organization), and a free-lance writer/pro-Israel activist from New York. Joining Russell were Jodi Bodner, JNF's Director of Communications, and Rabbi Eric Lankin, JNF's Chief of Institutional Advancement and Education. The agenda of our meeting was "everything Israel." Although issues specific to the JNF were discussed, we focused on the perilous state in which Israel finds herself and our demands to Russell that he speak out against the tragedy in Sderot, and publicly oppose Prime Minister Olmert's suicidal plans to give away Judea and Samaria and to divide Jerusalem. At the beginning of the meeting Russell quoted from the Bible (Parshat Lekh-lekha) and affirmed that the Jews' claim to the Land of Israel goes back to Biblical times when G-d promised the Land to our forefather Abraham and his children. It was most encouraging to hear Mr. Robinson make such a strong, Bible-based declaration. However, this statement directly contradicts the policies of Olmert and his cohorts, who advocate "peace" strategies that call for the giveaway of the very land we were promised by G-d. Unfortunately, Russell refused to question or even discuss this or related issues. Throughout our discussion, Russell's tone and words were extremely positive. He predicted that the best days lie ahead for the Jewish People in Israel and spoke glowingly of JNF's plans to develop the Negev. He stressed the importance of building, which he claimed was the most effective deterrent against Israel's enemies. Building and development are certainly important. However, one must not lose sight of Israel's reality, which includes a daily barrage of missiles striking into the western Negev, and existential threats surrounding the Jewish State. It became apparent that Russell's positive, optimistic posturing was little more than a tool in his salesmanship arsenal when he said that he does not mention the current dangerous situation in Israel because it would dissuade potential visitors from traveling there. Doesn't he think that these potential visitors are owed the truth…that they should have sufficient information to determine for themselves the possible risks of traveling to Israel, and to various locations within the Jewish State? Even more importantly, he is ignoring the horrific plight of the Jews of Sderot and throughout the western Negev for the sake of a banner year of Israeli tourism! Finally, who is going to want to move to the Negev, as more and more of it falls within range of Israel's enemies' rockets and missiles? At least twice during our meeting Russell mentioned the pressure he receives from those who believe the JNF is not doing enough for the Arabs. He uses his experiences with those groups (no matter how delusional their views may be) to justify making decisions that fall 'safely' somewhere in the middle. However, it is the test of a true leader to use one's knowledge, sound judgment and strength to make tough, correct, reality-based decisions. Russell, what are you waiting for??? During the meeting, Russell made it clear to us on several occasions that he would not say anything controversial because he knew that I write mass emails, and that I would probably share the details of our meeting with those on my vast email list. After Mr. Robinson refused to answer a question about Sderot, I attempted to force any sort of comment out of him. I asked: "Russell, can you at least say that you would like Hamas destroyed?" He replied, "You may quote me on this: In the uniform I am wearing, I cannot answer that question." Despite this self-censoring, the JNF CEO did offer two other unsolicited, telling comments. Towards the end of the meeting, Russell said to us: "I respect you; keep doing what you are doing." Would he have made this statement if he were opposed to our activities? Hopefully not. Would he have said the same thing to members of Americans for Peace Now, after they explained to him that they had prevented the IDF from carrying out a critical security operation? Again, hopefully not. At the conclusion of our 90-plus minute meeting, when I was literally halfway out the door, Russell said to me: "You're in a good position." (By that he meant, I may say or write whatever I'd like without facing any consequences, because I am unaffiliated with any Jewish organization.) I responded, "Join me; I'll give you half my desk." Thinking more deeply about his off-the-cuff remark, I realize that he views this as some sort of political game. How about the bigger issue, Russell? Am I "in a good position" as I helplessly watch you and most other mainstream American Jewish "leaders" do nothing to steer Israel away from her path towards suicide, and the Jewish People away from a second Holocaust? Russell's statement – "You're in a good position" – may imply that he is not in a good position. I hope he finds the moral courage expected of him in his role as one of the top Jewish leaders in America, so that he may speak out loudly and clearly for Israel's best interest. Then, he, too, will be in a good position, and he will help save Israel in the process. Russell: Be a hero to the Jewish People – SPEAK OUT! I promise that if you do, you will have the passionate, dedicated support of throngs of us who truly love Israel! Most sincerely, with much hope,
Contact Buddy Macy by email at vegibud@gmail.com |