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ISRAEL THE BEAUTIFUL: MORNING DEW
Posted by Yehoshua HaLevi, May 31, 2008. |
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Yehoshua HaLevi writes:
"HOW I GOT THE SHOT: A macro or close-up lens is useful only if you first identify with your eyes the detail you want to photograph. The lens itself doesn't select the important content any more than a wide-angle lens keeps out unwanted scenery. I stumbled on this photo while en route to a reporting assignment in the Negev. I had left early to allow for a stop or two along the way and pulled onto the shoulder to admire a group of trees set amidst a vast, green wheat field. When I reached the edge of the field, I noticed this clump of stalks, my attention drawn to the light reflecting off the wet grass and the beads of dew clinging to the ears of wheat. I immediately shifted gears from a wide-angled landscape to a close-up. Monochromatic images like this sometimes lack punch, but in this instance I love the way the blades curve and spiral freely throughout the image. The extreme close-up accentuates the texture and more than makes up for any lack of color variety.
Dew is fleeting, and once the sun gets up, it melts away quickly. If
you like this look, however, you can easily recreate it any time by
grabbing the nearest water bottle and gently sprinkling the contents
onto your subject. Water has a natural tendency to bead and adhere to
the surface of flower petals, leaves, and even ripe fruit. In response
to a recent photo of the old city walls, I received a comment from a
reader in Italy, who wrote to thank me for vividly transporting him to
Jerusalem. "The picture made me see the bright, early-morning light,
feel the fresh air, and hear the morning noise of a city waking up."
Photography really succeeds, I think, when a two-dimensional image can
evoke this kind of deep, sensual response that doesn't exist in the
actual photo at all, which is just paper or pixels. Sometimes a tiny
drop of water or ray of sunshine is enough to set those feelings in
motion." Contact him at smile@goldenlightimages.com |
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AT 2000 AND 60: A PERSPECTIVE ON THE JEWS' REVIVAL IN THEIR LAND
Posted by Friends of Hatikva, May 31, 2008. |
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This was written by Arieh Eldad, a plastic surgeon, a member of the Israeli Knesset and an activist for a strong Jewish state. |
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If the Zionist revolution was intended to bring normality to the Jewish people, it was destined to fail. The Jewish people is not a normal people. There is no historical parallel to a people with four thousand years of continuous history. You may say that in Egypt there are antiquities that predate our Patriarchs, but there is no connection between the Egypt of the Pharaohs and the Egypt of today. It is not the same people, the same language, the same religion, or the same culture. You may say the Chinese culture is more ancient than ours. But the Chinese remained in their land and were not destroyed and exiled twice and did not return from far away exiles to re-establish themselves. The Jewish people is not a normal people. In the same way, Judaism is not a normal religion. There is no parallel to the unbreakable tie between the Jewish religion and nationality. And our movement of national liberation –– Zionism –– is unlike any other national liberation movement of the past centuries. African or European peoples who fought for their freedom had to eject foreign rulers and declare independence. The liberation movement of the Jewish people had a double task: to gather the exiles of Israel from around the world and to free its land from foreign rulers. So Zionism is not a normal liberation movement. Considering these three anomalies, is it any wonder the Jewish people's desire for normalization was not realized with the return to Zion? We did become "productive": no longer just middlemen, brokers, traders, and bankers; the Jews in the land of Israel are also soldiers and farmers and industrialists. But if Zionism hoped to take the Jews out of exile and raise a generation in the land free of oppression and the complexes of exile, we can say we have succeeded in taking the Jews out of exile but not in taking that exile out of the Jews. Apparently 2000 years of persecution, forced conversion, destruction, expulsion and exile created a new species of Jew who is a professional survivor. Most of those who carried the genes of Bar Kochba fell on the way. The genes of Josephus Flavius keep popping up on the stage of history in characters such as the leaders of the Judenrat, Kastner, those who turned Jewish underground fighters over the British in "The Season," those who sank the Irgun arms ship Altalena, and the most recent "heroes" who uprooted and exiled the residents of Gaza in what they called a "disengagement." A direct line leads from Josephus Flavius to Mordechai Vanunu and Ilan Pape. A direct line leads from Aristobulus, the Hasmonean king who opened the gates of Jerusalem to Pompeii of Rome in order to survive the war with his brother Horkynus the Hasmonean, to Ehud Olmert who is ready to open the gates of Jerusalem to the Arab enemy in order to survive politically and win support from the world's sole superpower. So Zionism has failed in its mission of normalization. But Zionism had set other goals, first among them saving the Jewish people from the impending disaster. Herzl, who heard the Parisian mob, students of "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity," yelling "Death to the Jews" during the Dreyfus trial, understood that the Emancipation was not the solution to the problem of the Jews in exile. And Herzl understood that if the existence of the Jews in exile could not be guaranteed and Jews were to be saved, the exile needed to end and they needed to have a state that would be a safe refuge from anti-Semitism. Zionism also failed in this mission. It came too late. The destruction of the Jews of Europe preceded the establishment of the state. And those who say that the destruction of the Jews contributed to international support for a Jewish state are right. Zionism had to fail in order for its goal to be achieved. But Zionism was too late for the six million who rose in smoke and whose ashes fertilize the fields of Europe. As much as the gentiles who refused to give Herzl a charter over the land of Israel are to blame, so are the Jews who refused to unite and redeem themselves. The Haredim waited for a messiah to come from heaven, the Bundists preferred Yiddish and exile, the socialists wanted to redeem to the world and thought that when economic classes would be abolished, the Jewish problem would also be solved. All of them vigorously fought Herzl. And the Zionism of those who followed in Herzl's path but were unable to free themselves from the chains of exile, who preferred "one more dunam and one more goat and one more rally against the White Paper" to taking up arms and expelling all foreign rulers from Israel –– they also bear responsibility for the failure to save the Jews of Europe and for the State of Israel coming too late and not being a safe haven when it was needed. But even now after the State of Israel has been established, it does not seem a safe haven for the Jews. Over 23,000 Jews have been killed in Eretz Israel since the modern return to Zion, solely because they were Jews. In no other country have so many Jews been killed solely because they were Jews. So perhaps our "safe haven" is not such a safe haven. Perhaps the Jews are safer living in the United States, France or Iran. Anyone attempting to tally such an "accounting" of deaths of course ignores the six million murdered in Europe. And the hundreds of thousands slaughtered in riots and pogroms and crusades, from Siberia to Arabia, Ethiopia to Spain. The State of Israel was established so Jews could determine their own fate, to fight and defeat their enemies, not to be human dust but to turn their enemies to dust. The State of Israel can fulfill this mission and therefore at least in this regard is the realization of generations of dreams. But as long as its leaders are of the race of Flavius, they may turn Israel over to the worst of its enemies and fail to prevent the destruction now threatened by Iran, and they may themselves bring the Arab enemy into the country and into Jerusalem. They are prepared for the first time in the history of the Jewish people to recognize the right of another people to establish a state in Eretz Israel. From this point of view, perhaps it would have been better if a Jewish state recognizing the right of another people to Eretz Israel had not been established? Perhaps it would be preferable if a state of six million Jews had not been established, if its leaders are incapable of facing the enemies who want to destroy it, and are Jews of exilic character who prefer that the world fight for us and stop Iran with sanctions and pressure, and they are blind and deaf and do not see what is clear to all: the leaders of Iran act as suicide bombers who are prepared to sacrifice their lives in order to destroy Israel? Perhaps it would be better if the largest concentration of Jews in the world had not been established if its leaders are incapable of preventing its destruction? No! The law of exile is a law of destruction or conversion. Exile ends either in gas chambers and crematoria, or a golden exile with intermarriage rates above 50 percent. In Eretz Israel, where a state of the Jews has been established, a Jewish State can be established. A state of Jews daring to rise as one and not a state of Flaviuses. A state prepared to deal with its enemies and wipe them out, and not look to the gentiles for salvation. Not even to the good gentiles known as "friends of Israel," who are ready to promise that if Israel is attacked with nuclear weapons, Iran will be destroyed. We do not want to be an excuse for the destruction of Iran. We want to and we can liberate Eretz Israel from any foreign ruler, whoever it may be. Not because the land is necessary for security. Eretz Israel is our homeland, not a safe haven. It is our only home even when it is under fire. We must and can return Zionism to its forgotten goal –– the liberation of the homeland. Zionism is not a mistake. It's just that those carrying the flag have wearied and have become post-Zionists, if not outright anti-Zionists. After 2000 years, our fate is once again in our hands. If our leaders have gone bad and are trying to push us into the abyss, we have no one to complain to but ourselves. It is in our hands to guarantee the existence of the State of Israel, and turn it from the state of the Jews into a Jewish State. To turn the State of Israel into the Kingdom of Israel. Friends of Hatikva write: "Hatikva is a new political party in Israel that proudly and forthrightly stands for Zionism. Hatikva vigorously believes that the entirety of the Land of Israel is the homeland of the Jewish people, and that we must never sacrifice even one inch of our birthright. Hatikva believes in a strong Israel that will not appease its enemies but instead will unapologetically exercise its military power to protect the Jewish people. The American Friends of Hatikva, although legally independent, shares the same principles as the Hatikva party in Israel and is devoted to educating the people about the need for a strong Zionism. We invite you to visit our website www.HatikvaUSA.org and to join and support the American Friends of Hatikva. Contact us at info@hatikvausa.org" |
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TZIPI, WE HARDLY KNOW YOU
Posted by Dawn Treader, May 31, 2008. |
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This was written by Herb Keinon and it appeared today on the
Jerusalem Post
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The paradox that is Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni was on abundant display late Wednesday afternoon at the Mt. Herzl military cemetery in Jerusalem. There, standing around the pine-tree shaded grave of David Raziel, the former IZL commander whose 67th yartzeit was being marked, Livni –– along with some 25 IZL old timers –– sang the Betar anthem, "Tagar" (defiance: "On all obstacles and hindrances/ Whether you succeed or fail/ In the flames of the revolt/ Carry the flame to kindle/ For silence is mire/ Sacrifice blood and soul/ For the sake of the hidden glory." "To die or to conquer the mountain," the song concluded, and Livni chimed in. "Yodefat, Massada, Betar." The paradox here is a double one. First the ideological paradox: Livni, chief negotiator of the Israeli delegation reportedly willing to cede 91 percent of the West Bank to the Palestinian Authority, singing the famous words of Ze'ev ("both-banks-of-the-Jordan") Jabotinsky. And then there was the more practical, political, paradox. Indeed, one couldn't help but wonder what was going through Livni's mind as she sang the words, "for silence is mire," and "to die or to conquer the mountain." Two of the most oft-voiced criticisms of Livni of late have been her silence in the face of the investigation of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, and a lack of "fire in the belly" needed to capture the mountain, in this case represented not as part of Eretz Yisrael, but rather the zenith of Israeli politics: the prime minister's chair. Unlike a year ago, Livni on Wednesday –– following the damning testimony of Morris Talansky –– left it to Defense Minister Ehud Barak to call for Olmert to step down, without then having the gumption to do so himself instead of serving another day under a man in whom he not longer had confidence. Livni, last May, made a similar call to Olmert after the publication of the Winograd Committee's interim report. "I told him that resigning would be the right thing for him to do," she said at the time, but then shied away from drawing her own conclusions and quitting the government if he did not. And, for really the first time in her very charmed political career,
Livni got clopped on the head in the media at the time for this
seeming hypocrisy.
BUT NOW, she's obviously learned her lesson. Now, rather than calling a dramatic press conference and drumming up expectation, she summoned the press to the memorial service that was barely on the media's radar screen. And rather than speaking bluntly, she hinted broadly. And at the end of the day Wednesday, it was Barak, rather then Livni, who got clopped by the press. "The state is not just a technical matter of borders and citizens; it is not just symbols, a flag, and an anthem," Livni said. "The state has a vision and values that obligate its citizens and its leaders." And then, she added, giving a clear indication of what was on her mind, "Before we can be a light unto the nations, as we would want, it is fitting for us first to work inside our home to show the light." Livni, obviously, feels she is best suited to serve as the nation's candle-in-chief. And, if the polls are any indication, the public feels the same way –– another Livni paradox: The country loves her, if only because it knows so little about her. The one thing it does know is that she is clean and straight, and as the country emerges from the Omri Sharon-Moshe Katsav-Haim Ramon-Avraham Hirschson-Ehud Olmert era, it will be looking for one thing –– a clean and straight candidate. Israelis are now obsessed with corruption, and Livni is widely viewed as the one candidate who can regain the public's trust in the system, who can take corruption off the agenda. "Is she really Snow White?" one of her associates was asked. The reply: "She is definitely not corrupt." She is also not lavish, not cut in the same cigar-loving, living-the-good-life mold of Olmert, Barak or Likud head Binyamin Netanyahu. In one of the few in-depth profiles of her, a piece last year in The New York Times Magazine, Livni said, "I prefer jeans to a suit, sneakers to high heels, markets to malls ... In general, I don't like formality at all. It is just part of what I do. You know, when I was young, I went to the Sinai and worked as a waitress." That lack of excess is also bound to have an appeal to Israelis, rebounding from hotel suites costing thousands of dollars, be they for Olmert in Washington, or Netanyahu during the Second Lebanon War in London. It is no coincidence, by the way, that there are so few in-depth profiles of Livni. Over the last year she has carefully guarded her media image, speaking almost exclusively on the radio or television, where she has complete control of content. And, even then, she keeps those appearances to a minimum, seemingly a firm believer in the dictum "more is less." And, as a result, the public does not know much about her positions. What they do know they often hear in long, painfully convoluted sentences at press conferences that sound good at first blush, but then on second take don't really mean that much. As a result, if the public backlash against having leaders who could feature in that 1980s television show, "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous" sweeps Livni into office, the open question is where will she lead the country? And this is where she falls short. One associate, who said he would vote for Livni, added –– in the same breath –– that she lacked the "vision thing," is not a particularly good manger and is indecisive. Colleagues who have worked with her describe a micro-manager who has trust in very few people, and does not give those who work under her a sense that she has faith in their judgment. They describe a person who changes her mind a great deal, and who can take an inordinately long time making a mundane decision, such as filling a personnel vacancy. She has also been described as awkward in personal relations, but not arrogant as it sometimes appears; impatient and somewhat "testy." An indication of a rather mercurial managerial style is the fact that over the last year eight of her top staffers –– people filling positions such as chief of staff, chief political adviser and media adviser –– have stepped down. On the up-side, however, she is described as someone who listens and thinks things through.
Regarding diplomatic policy, those on the Right who harbor hopes about the woman who can sing the Betar anthem by heart and has an impeccable Revisionist pedigree (her father and mother were both IZL fighters), will be sorely disappointed if they think her policies toward the Palestinians would be fundamentally different from Olmert's. The Annapolis process, or better yet the idea of a shelf-agreement with the Palestinians, is an idea she hatched at the tail end of 2006, and then sold in 2007 to US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who has since taken the ball and run with it. Unlike Olmert, who diplomatic officials say is skeptical that the agreement can be worked out, Livni –– who is heading the negotiations glaring exception being that she is much more adamant than Olmert that actually believes it can. There are no major divisions between her and Olmert regarding borders, security and Jerusalem, with the only glaring exception being that she is much more adamant than Olmert that Israel must insist, before an agreement is signed, that the Palestinians completely reject any claim to a "right of return" for Palestinian refugees and their descendants. One diplomatic source said, however, that another difference between her and Olmert is that Livni –– ever the lawyer –– sees the drawing up of a peace agreement itself as an achievement, that the agreement, the piece of paper, is what is important. Olmert, the official said, places less importance on the document. As to the fledgling Syrian track, Livni's position is not clear. She sounded less than overly enthused last week by the announcement of indirect talks with the Syrians through the Turks, but this may be more because of a sense of pique at being left in the dark over the negotiations than anything else. She did, however, take what the international media would call a more "hard-line position," on the talks than Olmert, saying that in order for there to be an agreement, the Syrians would have to renounce support for Hizbullah and Hamas, and end its "problematic connections" with Iran. Olmert was less explicit in publicly broadcasting those positions. One area where there may be a more pronounced difference with Olmert's policies is in relations with Europe. While known to have a good and friendly relationship with Rice, Livni –– according to diplomatic officials –– would likely place more of an emphasis on Europe. As foreign minister, Livni has spent untold hours in conversation with the Europeans, and has grown to appreciate their importance. Livni would certainly not ignore the US, the officials said, but would likely spend more time than Olmert paying attention to the EU and dialoguing with it. According to one diplomatic official, in this regard, Livni would likely be more like Shimon Peres than Yitzhak Rabin. "Rabin was 100 percent oriented toward America," the official said. "Peres understood America, but his heart was in Europe. Livni would likely be more like him." Regarding how to deal with the rocket fire from the Gaza Strip, one official said that as a result of her lack of security experience, Livni would probably have more of an inclination to follow the IDF, which itself is currently split on the wisdom of a large-scale military incursion. But if she decided to go in, the official added, knowing her style, she would want to have an exit strategy clearly and carefully mapped out beforehand. An indication of a rather mercurial managerial style is the fact that over the last year eight of her top staffers –– people filling positions such as chief of staff, chief political adviser and media adviser –– have stepped down. On the up-side, however, she is described as someone who listens and thinks things through. Regarding diplomatic policy, those on the Right who harbor hopes about the woman who can sing the Betar anthem by heart and has an impeccable Revisionist pedigree (her father and mother were both IZL fighters), will be sorely disappointed if they think her policies toward the Palestinians would be fundamentally different from Olmert's. The Annapolis process, or better yet the idea of a shelf-agreement with the Palestinians, is an idea she hatched at the tail end of 2006, and then sold in 2007 to US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who has since taken the ball and run with it. Unlike Olmert, who diplomatic officials say is skeptical that the agreement can be worked out, Livni –– who is heading the negotiations –– actually believes it can. There are no major divisions between her and Olmert regarding borders, security and Jerusalem, with the only glaring exception being that she is much more adamant than Olmert that Israel must insist, before an agreement is signed, that the Palestinians completely reject any claim to a "right of return" for Palestinian refugees and their descendants. One diplomatic source said, however, that another difference between her and Olmert is that Livni –– ever the lawyer –– sees the drawing up of a peace agreement itself as an achievement, that the agreement, the piece of paper, is what is important. Olmert, the official said, places less importance on the document. As to the fledgling Syrian track, Livni's position is not clear. She sounded less than overly enthused last week by the announcement of indirect talks with the Syrians through the Turks, but this may be more because of a sense of pique at being left in the dark over the negotiations than anything else. She did, however, take what the international media would call a more "hard-line position," on the talks than Olmert, saying that in order for there to be an agreement, the Syrians would have to renounce support for Hizbullah and Hamas, and end its "problematic connections" with Iran. Olmert was less explicit in publicly broadcasting those positions. One area where there may be a more pronounced difference with Olmert's policies is in relations with Europe. While known to have a good and friendly relationship with Rice, Livni –– according to diplomatic officials –– would likely place more of an emphasis on Europe. As foreign minister, Livni has spent untold hours in conversation with the Europeans, and has grown to appreciate their importance. Livni would certainly not ignore the US, the officials said, but would likely spend more time than Olmert paying attention to the EU and dialoguing with it. According to one diplomatic official, in this regard, Livni would likely be more like Shimon Peres than Yitzhak Rabin. "Rabin was 100 percent oriented toward America," the official said. "Peres understood America, but his heart was in Europe. Livni would likely be more like him." Regarding how to deal with the rocket fire from the Gaza Strip, one
official said that as a result of her lack of security experience,
Livni would probably have more of an inclination to follow the IDF,
which itself is currently split on the wisdom of a large-scale
military incursion. But if she decided to go in, the official added,
knowing her style, she would want to have an exit strategy clearly and
carefully mapped out beforehand.
Contact Dawn Treader at dawntreader3@yahoo.com
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BELGIAN WOMAN WAGES WAR FOR AL QAEDA ON THE WEB
Posted by Gabrielle Goldwater, May 31, 2008. |
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This comes from the
International Herald Tribune and is archived at
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BRUSSELS: On the street, Malika El Aroud is anonymous in an Islamic black veil covering all but her eyes. In her living room, El Aroud, a 48-year-old Belgian, wears the ordinary look of middle age: a plain black T-shirt and pants and curly brown hair. The only adornment is a pair of powder-blue slippers monogrammed in gold with the letters SEXY. But it is on the Internet that El Aroud has distinguished herself. Writing in French under the name Oum Obeyda, she has transformed herself into one of the most prominent Internet jihadists in Europe. She calls herself a female holy warrior for Al Qaeda. She insists that she does not disseminate instructions on bomb-making and has no intention of taking up arms herself. Rather, she browbeats Muslim men to go and fight, and rallies women to join the cause. "It's not my role to set off bombs –– that's ridiculous," she said in a rare interview. "I have a weapon. It's to write. It's to speak out. That's my jihad. You can do many things with words. Writing is also a bomb." El Aroud has not only made a name for herself among devotees of radical forums where she broadcasts her message of hatred toward the West. She also is well known to intelligence officials throughout Europe as simply "Malika" –– an Islamist who is at the forefront of the movement by women to take a larger role in the male-dominated global jihad. The authorities have noted an increase in suicide bombings carried out by women –– the American military reports that 18 women have conducted suicide missions in Iraq so far this year, compared with 8 all of last year –– but they say there is also a less violent yet potentially more insidious army of women organizers, proselytizers, teachers, translators and fund-raisers, who either join their husbands in the fight or step into the breach as men are jailed or killed. "Women are coming of age in jihad and are entering a world once reserved for men," said Claude Moniquet, president of the Brussels-based European Strategic Intelligence and Security Center. "Malika is a role model, an icon who is bold enough to use her own name. She plays a very important strategic role as a source of inspiration. She's very clever –– and extremely dangerous." El Aroud began her rise to prominence because of a man in her life. Two days before the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, her husband carried out a bombing in Afghanistan that killed the anti-Taliban warlord Ahmed Shah Massoud at the behest of Osama bin Laden. Her husband was killed, and she took to the Internet as the widow of a martyr. She remarried, and she and her new husband were convicted in Switzerland for operating pro-Qaeda Web sites. Now, according to the Belgian authorities, she is a suspect in what the authorities say they believe is a plot to carry out an attack in Belgium. "Vietnam is nothing compared to what awaits you in our lands," she wrote to a supposed Western audience in March about wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. "Ask your mothers, your wives to order your coffins." To her followers she added: "Victory is appearing on the horizon, my brothers and sisters. Let's intensify our prayers." Her prolific writing and presence in chat rooms, coupled with her background, makes her a magnet for praise and sympathy. "Sister Oum Obeyda is virtuous among the virtuous; her life is dedicated to the good on this earth," a man named Juba wrote late last year. The rise of women comes against a backdrop of discrimination that has permeated radical Islam. Mohamed Atta, the Sept. 11 hijacker, wrote in his will that "women must not be present at my funeral or go to my grave at any later date." Last month, Ayman al-Zawahri, Al Qaeda's second in command, said in an online question-and-answer session that women could not join Al Qaeda. In response, a woman wrote on a password-protected radical Web site that "the answer that we heard was not what we had hoped," according to the SITE monitoring group, adding, "I swear to God I will never leave the path and will not give up this course." The changing role of women in the movement is particularly apparent in Western countries, where Muslim women have been educated to demand their rights and Muslim men are more accustomed to treating them as equals. El Aroud reflects that trend. "Normally in Islam the men are stronger than the women, but I prove that it is important to fear God –– and no one else," she said. "It is important that I am a woman. There are men who don't want to speak out because they are afraid of getting into trouble. Even when I get into trouble, I speak out." After all, she said, she knows the rules. "I write in a legal way," she said. "I know what I'm doing. I'm Belgian. I know the system." That system has often been lenient for her. She was detained last December with 13 others in a suspected plot to free a convicted terrorist from prison and to mount an attack in Brussels. But Belgian law required that they be released within 24 hours because no charges were brought and searches failed to turn up weapons, explosives or incriminating documents. Now, even as El Aroud remains under constant surveillance, she is back home rallying militants on her Web site –– and collecting more than $1,100 a month in government unemployment benefits. "Her jihad is not to lead an operation but to inspire other people to wage jihad," said Glenn Audenaert, the director of Belgium's federal police force. "She enjoys the protection that Belgium offers. At the same time, she is a potential threat." Born in Morocco, raised from a young age in Belgium, El Aroud did not seem destined for the jihad. Growing up, she rebelled against her Muslim upbringing, she wrote in a memoir. Her first marriage, at 18, was unhappy and brief; she later bore a daughter out of wedlock. She was unable to read Arabic, but her discovery of the Koran in French led her to embrace a strict version of Islam and eventually to marry Abdessatar Dahmane, a Tunisian loyal to Osama bin Laden. Eager to be a battlefield warrior, she hoped to fight alongside her husband in Chechnya. But the Chechens "wanted experienced men, super-well trained," she said. "They wanted women even less." In 2001, she followed her husband to Afghanistan. As he trained at a Qaeda camp, she was installed in a camp for foreign women in Jalalabad. For her, the Taliban were a model Islamic government; reports of their mistreatment of women were untrue. "Women didn't have problems under the Taliban," she insisted. "They had security." Her only rebellion was against the burka, the restrictive garment the Taliban forced on women, which she called "a plastic bag." As a foreigner, she was allowed to wear a long black veil instead. After her husband's mission, El Aroud was briefly detained by Massoud's followers. Frightened, she was put in contact with the Belgian authorities, who arranged for her safe passage home. "We got her out and thought she'd cooperate with us," said one senior Belgian intelligence official. "We were deceived." Judge Jean-Louis Bruguière, who was France's senior counterterrorism magistrate at the time, said he interviewed El Aroud because investigators suspected that she had shipped electronic equipment to her husband that was used in the killing. "She is very radical, very sly and very dangerous," he said. El Aroud was tried with 22 others in Belgium for complicity in the Massoud murder. A grieving widow in a black veil, she persuaded the court that she had been doing humanitarian work and knew nothing of her husband's plans. She was acquitted for lack of evidence. Her husband's death, though, propelled her into a new life. "The widow of a martyr is very important for Muslims," she said. She used her enhanced status to meet her new "brothers and sisters" on the Web. One of them was Moez Garsalloui, a Tunisian several years her junior who had political refugee status in Switzerland. They married and moved to a small Swiss village. There, they ran several pro-Qaeda Web sites and Internet forums that were monitored by Swiss authorities as part of the country's first Internet-related criminal case. After the police raided their home and arrested them at dawn in April 2005, El Aroud described extensively what she called their abuse. "See what this country that calls us neutral made us suffer," she wrote, claiming that the Swiss police beat and blindfolded her husband and manhandled her while she was sleeping unveiled. Convicted last June of promoting violence and supporting a criminal organization, she received a six-month suspended sentence; Garsalloui, who was convicted of more serious charges, was released after 23 days. Despite El Aroud's prominence, it is once again her husband whom authorities view as a bigger threat. They suspect he was recruiting for the feared Christmastime attacks last December and that he has connections to terror groups operating in the tribal areas of Pakistan. The authorities say that they lost track of him after he was released from jail last year in Switzerland. "He is on a trip," El Aroud says cryptically when asked about her husband's whereabouts. "On a trip." Meanwhile, her stature has risen with her claims of victimization by the Swiss. The Web site Voice of the Oppressed described her as "our female holy warrior of the 21st century." El Aroud's latest tangle with the law hints at a deeper involvement of women in terror activities. When she was detained last December in the suspected plot to free Nizar Trabelsi, a convicted terrorist and a one-time professional soccer player, El Aroud was one of three women taken in for questioning. Although the identities of those detained were not released, the Belgian authorities and others familiar with the case said that among those detained were Trabelsi's wife and Fatima Aberkan, a friend of El Aroud and a 47-year-old mother of seven. "Malika is a source of inspiration for women because she is telling women to stop sleeping and open their eyes," Aberkan said. El Aroud operates from her three-room apartment above a clothing shop in a working-class Brussels neighborhood where she spends her time communicating with supporters on her main forum, Minbar-SOS. Although she insists she is not breaking the law, she knows the police are watching. And if the authorities find way to put her in prison, she said: "That would be great. They would make me a living martyr." After all, she said, she knows the rules. "I write in a legal way," she said. "I know what I'm doing. I'm Belgian. I know the system." That system has often been lenient for her. She was detained last December with 13 others in a suspected plot to free a convicted terrorist from prison and to mount an attack in Brussels. But Belgian law required that they be released within 24 hours because no charges were brought and searches failed to turn up weapons, explosives or incriminating documents. Now, even as El Aroud remains under constant surveillance, she is back home rallying militants on her Web site –– and collecting more than $1,100 a month in government unemployment benefits. "Her jihad is not to lead an operation but to inspire other people to wage jihad," said Glenn Audenaert, the director of Belgium's federal police force. "She enjoys the protection that Belgium offers. At the same time, she is a potential threat." Born in Morocco, raised from a young age in Belgium, El Aroud did not seem destined for the jihad. Growing up, she rebelled against her Muslim upbringing, she wrote in a memoir. Her first marriage, at 18, was unhappy and brief; she later bore a daughter out of wedlock. She was unable to read Arabic, but her discovery of the Koran in French led her to embrace a strict version of Islam and eventually to marry Abdessatar Dahmane, a Tunisian loyal to Osama bin Laden. Eager to be a battlefield warrior, she hoped to fight alongside her husband in Chechnya. But the Chechens "wanted experienced men, super-well trained," she said. "They wanted women even less." In 2001, she followed her husband to Afghanistan. As he trained at a Qaeda camp, she was installed in a camp for foreign women in Jalalabad. For her, the Taliban were a model Islamic government; reports of their mistreatment of women were untrue. "Women didn't have problems under the Taliban," she insisted. "They had security." Her only rebellion was against the burka, the restrictive garment the Taliban forced on women, which she called "a plastic bag." As a foreigner, she was allowed to wear a long black veil instead. After her husband's mission, El Aroud was briefly detained by Massoud's followers. Frightened, she was put in contact with the Belgian authorities, who arranged for her safe passage home. "We got her out and thought she'd cooperate with us," said one senior Belgian intelligence official. "We were deceived." Judge Jean-Louis Bruguière, who was France's senior counterterrorism magistrate at the time, said he interviewed El Aroud because investigators suspected that she had shipped electronic equipment to her husband that was used in the killing. "She is very radical, very sly and very dangerous," he said. El Aroud was tried with 22 others in Belgium for complicity in the Massoud murder. A grieving widow in a black veil, she persuaded the court that she had been doing humanitarian work and knew nothing of her husband's plans. She was acquitted for lack of evidence. Her husband's death, though, propelled her into a new life. "The widow of a martyr is very important for Muslims," she said. She used her enhanced status to meet her new "brothers and sisters" on the Web. One of them was Moez Garsalloui, a Tunisian several years her junior who had political refugee status in Switzerland. They married and moved to a small Swiss village. There, they ran several pro-Qaeda Web sites and Internet forums that were monitored by Swiss authorities as part of the country's first Internet-related criminal case. After the police raided their home and arrested them at dawn in April 2005, El Aroud described extensively what she called their abuse. "See what this country that calls us neutral made us suffer," she wrote, claiming that the Swiss police beat and blindfolded her husband and manhandled her while she was sleeping unveiled. Convicted last June of promoting violence and supporting a criminal organization, she received a six-month suspended sentence; Garsalloui, who was convicted of more serious charges, was released after 23 days. Despite El Aroud's prominence, it is once again her husband whom authorities view as a bigger threat. They suspect he was recruiting for the feared Christmastime attacks last December and that he has connections to terror groups operating in the tribal areas of Pakistan. The authorities say that they lost track of him after he was released from jail last year in Switzerland. "He is on a trip," El Aroud says cryptically when asked about her husband's whereabouts. "On a trip." Meanwhile, her stature has risen with her claims of victimization by the Swiss. The Web site Voice of the Oppressed described her as "our female holy warrior of the 21st century." El Aroud's latest tangle with the law hints at a deeper involvement of women in terror activities. When she was detained last December in the suspected plot to free Nizar Trabelsi, a convicted terrorist and a one-time professional soccer player, El Aroud was one of three women taken in for questioning. Although the identities of those detained were not released, the Belgian authorities and others familiar with the case said that among those detained were Trabelsi's wife and Fatima Aberkan, a friend of El Aroud and a 47-year-old mother of seven. "Malika is a source of inspiration for women because she is telling women to stop sleeping and open their eyes," Aberkan said. El Aroud operates from her three-room apartment above a clothing shop in a working-class Brussels neighborhood where she spends her time communicating with supporters on her main forum, Minbar-SOS. Although she insists she is not breaking the law, she knows the police
are watching. And if the authorities find way to put her in prison,
she said: "That would be great. They would make me a living martyr."
Gabrielle Goldwater lives in Switzerland. Contact her at III44@aol.com
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IT'S ONLY A FEW BAD 'UNS .....THAT'S WHAT THEY KEEP TELLING US
Posted by Gabrielle Goldwater, May 31, 2008. |
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This comes from the Faith Freedom website
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Those that follow the worldwide problem of Islam, continually
hear the popular "it's only a few" excuse by the Islamic apologists.
Well, I beg to differ. Lets finally put that excuse to rest.
If it were only a "few", then how can these FACTS be explained?
TURKEY: Landslide win for Islamic party in Turkey
ANKARA, Turkey –– A party with deep Islamic roots has won a landslide victory in Turkey's elections –– a win that would allow it to rule without a coalition and amend the constitution if it receives enough seats in parliament.
Since they have taken control they are slowly moving Turkey away from being a secular nation.
Turkey's parliament has approved a constitutional amendment that would ease the ban on women wearing Islamic headscarves in universities. The ban has been strictly enforced on campus since 1997 when the staunchly secularist military ousted a government seen as too Islamist.
Most recently they are getting stricter and stricter. Just like the rest of the Islamic world.
TURKEY: Law Banning Alcohol, Cigarettes Comes Into Effect
(ANSAmed) –– ANKARA, MAY 13 –– A new law to overhaul tobacco and alcoholic beverages usage drew fierce criticism from sector representatives, and is seen as another negative factor in Islamist-rooted AKP's record of conservative arrangements. Law No. 5752, which will take effect tomorrow, bans the sale of alcoholic beverages and cigarettes "by breaking its packaging or dividing them." Sector representatives say if implemented, it would mean that the sale of alcoholic beverages by the glass at establishments like restaurants and bars would not be allowed.
PALESTINE: Hamas wins Palestinian election
This morning, Hamas leaders announced that they had an "outright majority" in the 132-seat Palestinian Legislative Council. "Hamas has won more than 70 seats in Gaza and the West Bank, which gives it more than 50 percent of the vote," said Ismail Haniyeh, a leader of Hamas.
EGYPT: Islamic Terrorist Group Muslim Brotherhood Increases it's Seats in Parliament Five Fold
Egypt is supposed to be our Allie, who we actually give $3 billion a year to.
By Michael Slackman
CAIRO, Nov. 27 –– The Muslim Brotherhood may be banned, but it has demonstrated in the latest parliamentary elections that it is by far the strongest Egyptian opposition group, trouncing the secular political opposition and weakening the governing party's power monopoly.
Results made public today by the government showed the Brotherhood winning 29 more seats in Saturday's runoff in the second round of parliamentary voting. The group won 47 seats in the first round this month, meaning that with just one more round of elections to go, the Brotherhood already has 76 seats –– more than five times its total in the departing Parliament. Because of the group's outlaw status, its candidates run as independents.
Lebanon: Islamic Terrorist Group Hezbollah Gains Seats in Lebanese Government
After the 2005 elections, Hezbollah won fourteen seats in the 128-member Lebanese Parliament. In addition, Hezbollah has two ministers in the government, and a third is endorsed by the group.
Hezbollah did not disarm when it entered Lebanese politics, and experts say the group's new political involvement is not an indication that the group is becoming more moderate.
The facts show us that we are talking about MILLIONS of
Muslims who support Islamic terrorists and are voting them into their
governments. Not just a handful or a few as Islamic apologists try to
portray. Let's not kid ourselves, the Islamic world is getting
stricter and stricter and they are not our Ally. Feel free to use
this article in your debates. (Please include my link).
Islamic apologists and excuse makers: Do you care to explain? I will be waiting....
Gabrielle Goldwater lives in Switzerland. Contact her at III44@aol.com
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LOOKING OVER SHARON'S WALL
Posted by Emanuel A. Shulman, May 31, 2008. |
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In January 2004 I wrote the following, entitled: "Looking Over Sharon' wall". It was intended as a forecast of things to come. I have always believed that, if you are willing to predict future events, stick your neck out and put it in print. You are then either proven right or wrong in public. Please read the following and determine how close I was in 2004 –– now looking back from 2008. |
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Few of Israel's planners, including Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, Deputy Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Shimon Peres (perpetual loser) former Justice Minister Yossi Beilin (voted out of his own Party), America's President George W. Bush, etc. have contemplated the full long-term impact of another Arab Palestinian State on the 'other side of Sharon's security wall'. Allow me to suggest a few things that are likely to happen (not necessarily in order of their happening): 1. Each of the nations who have Arab Palestinians on their territory and have refused them citizenship will eject their 'Palestinians' toward the new Arab State of Palestine. Those nations include Syria, Lebanon, Iran, Egypt, Jordan, Libya –– not inclusive of those Arab Palestinians living now in Europe, America and elsewhere. Kuwait and Saudi Arabia already ejected 700,000 Arab/Muslim Palestinians into Jordan after the PLO betrayed their brethren in Kuwait during 1990. 2. The estimated number of Arab/Muslim Palestinians to be ejected from their current residences in Arab and non-Arab countries ranges from 3 to 5 million –– depending upon whose figures you believe. (Note! The neo-State of Palestine would be overcrowded if only 500,000 were allowed to enter.) 3. It would be highly probably that most new Arab/Muslim Palestinians migrating into this volatile area of the Middle East would be located in tents or shack slums, pressed up close to the Jewish State of Israel against Sharon's Security Wall. There they will need water, sewage, food, employment which the U.N. and E.U. will demand that Israel provide. Piling up against the Security Wall will provide a Gaza-like condition which will have intended political and practical consequences not yet understood by Sharon and his cronies. There they will squat in misery and squalor as they have in refugee camps now going on 50 years. They will howl and scream, not against Yassir Arafat (or whomever takes his place) but against the Israelis who will not allow them past the Security Wall to join their Israeli-Arab brethren. That's what they'll say, appealing to the World to pressure Israel into opening the gates. 4. The virtual "Palestine" CITY OF THE WALL will grow to a typical festering refugee camp of squalor, filth and disease. As in other refugee camps, It will be an incubator for discontented youth who will join other Terrorists who will freely operate close to Sharon's Security Wall/Border. As in Gaza, the Terrorists of many nations will become operating gangs, recruiting new members, manufacturing missiles, mortars, rockets, explosive devices –– with no Israeli troops to interfere or disturb their planning. The removal of Jewish residents and Israeli troops will allow Terrorists to form well-organized and efficient armies of conquest through Terror. 5. Local Arab/Muslim Palestinians manufacturing weapons will now be free to produce mortars, Kassem Rockets, 'et al' but, once it's no longer necessary to use the Egyptian tunnels in Rafah to smuggle in weapons, then larger weapons can be trucked, shipped or flown in. That means that larger missile launchers and artillery can be imported into the Terrorist Center of the World –– much the same as the 10,000 missile launchers set up by Hezb'Allah in the area of Lebanon after the IDF retreated when ordered by then Prime Minister Ehud Barak. Launching mortars, missiles over the Wall into the densely populated near-by Israeli cities will be too easy. Any documents promising peace and de-militarization to Israel which are drafted by the Europeans, the Arabist State Department, the non-Jewish Leftist Jews mandating a "Weapons-Free Zone" will, as always, be unenforceable –– if not comical. 6. WMD, Weapons of Mass Destruction. Since the territory abandoned by Sharon will now be free of Israelis patrols or the IDF's snap raids, the Arab Palestinians can import WMD –– including NBC (Nuclear, Biological and Chemical). Hezb'Allah, Al Qaeda, PFLP, PLO, Tanzim, Al Aksa Brigades, Hamas, 'et al' will have no problem in acquiring NBC –– WMD (Weapons of Mass Death) from Iran and Syria which would easily pass into Arab Palestinian hands –– and may already have. Israeli intelligence definitely knows that of the 10,000 missiles on the Lebanese border in the zone abandoned by Barak, a substantial number have chemical warheads. 7. It is highly probable that the U.N. and the E.U. will be invited by the Palestinian Authority into the new territory to interfere with any reprisal raids against Terrorists by Israel. Hot pursuit of Terrorists, targeting Terrorist leaders, destroying weapons' depots will be difficult, if not impossible IF the U.N./E.U. troops are interspersed among the 'supposedly' civilian population. That could get worse if American troops are added to the so-called "Peace-Keeping Forces" planned by E.U. through NATO. Be assured that none of these troops would act as Americans are presently doing in Iraq or as Israelis have done to intercept and thwart Terrorist plans. Recall that U.N. troops stationed in Lebanon to stop Terrorists from attacking Israel became a porous line, often assisting Terrorists up and back after their violent missions. 8. I would imagine that Sharon will provoke a civil war when he tries to remove what some of the Media and world governments pejoratively called "settlements" but are really Jewish communities –– villages, towns and cities. It has long been the plan of the Arabist State Department, in collaboration with the Labor Left of Israel and now even Arik Sharon, to turn over to incoming Arab Palestinians all the farms, homes, factories, wineries, water, sewage systems and electrical grids all built by the Jews. This will be claimed compensation for the 400,000 Arabs who fled at the behest of the seven Arab armies so they could sweep the Jews from the land into the sea without being impeded by Arab villagers jamming the roads. (As an aside, there is to be no compensation to the some 850,000 Jews who were ejected from the Arab countries where they had lived for centuries, nor will they be recompensed for the properties they were forced to abandoned after the seven Arab countries ignominiously lost the first war of 1948.) 9. Israel (under Sharon) will have also given up the water aquifers under the Judean and Samarian hills that provides Israel with 33% of her fresh water resources. Given the Arab custom of not treating their sewage and allowing it to run down, raw, into the valleys and from there down into the aquifers so that water flowing from it will be heavily polluted. The aquifer will be contaminated and any water coming from there would have to be heavily chlorinated and even boiled in order to drink safely. This situation is already occurring in those areas given over to the Arab Palestinian Authority now under Yassir Arafat's control under the Oslo Accords. Imagine the ground and air pollution when 3 or more million Arabs are packed up against Sharon's Security Wall/Border. Note! The aquifer in Gaza under the control of the PA is now drained so low from excessive pumping that it has been infiltrated with salt sea water. The Arabs call it their "salt tea". Having over-pumped their wells after Israel's Water Authority turned over water control to the P.A., the Arabs then demanded to be connected to Israel's main water carrier. 10. Sharon will have given up the Jordan Valley which was always considered a natural barrier to invasion from Jordan by Arab armies and a natural tank trap. This was confirmed on 6/29/67 by a once secret advisory by the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff study of what Israel must keep in order for America NOT to have to rescue her from an attack by any coalition of Arab Armies. Sharon will also be forced to give up their water rights to the Jordan River. Sharon will have given up the natural barrier of the Judean and Samarian Hills with their steep incline along with their high positions for artillery and the narrow roads that enemy armies would have to navigate to get to the heart of the Jewish country and Jerusalem. 11. Sadly Sharon, along with willing Leftist Jews, seems determined to divide Jerusalem and quit claim on Jewish Rights to the Holy Temple Mount. According to maps and plans developed long ago by Yassir Arafat, Jews, will be allowed to approach the Western Wall –– only –– with the permission from the Arab Muslim Waqf. The Waqf are the Muslim trustees to whom Moshe Dayan (a non-Jewish Jew) gifted the Holy Temple Mount of King Solomon after Israel liberated the eastern half of Jerusalem in the 1967 Six Days War. Like most Leftists he didn't want observant Jews to have a focal point for their rightful historical and religious claims on Jerusalem. The Left started the Oslo process then, although the real planning and conspiracy by Peres, Beilin and Rabin to evict all Jews from the territories began in earnest in the early 1980s. In effect, under the Sharon/Bush planning, the Eternal Jewish Capital City of Jerusalem will return to the same division when Jordan illegally occupied it for 19 years. King Hussein destroyed 58 Jewish synagogues, drove out the Jewish residents, and turned the ancient Jewish graveyard on the Mt. Of Olives into truck routes with its headstones used as urinal splash plates for Jordanian soldiers. Yes, indeed, Arik, you will surely leave a legacy that no one will forget. Having free unimpeded access to Sharon's Wall on their side, there will be little problem for the Arabs to dig down 20 or 30 meters (approximately 60 to 90 feet) as they have done successfully in the tunnels from Egypt to go under the Security Wall into Israel's heartland. They can dig –– not dozens but hundreds of such tunnels which could only be filled on the Israeli side if and when found. I would imagine that Terrorist operations would ramp up far more viciously than we have seen even in these past 3 years. In addition, they will have assistance from Arab Muslim Palestinians living inside of Israel as citizens (with full civil rights). Once Sharon has shown the yellow feather of fear and retreat as did Ehud Barak, Israeli Arab citizens will quickly cross over to assist what they consider the likely winner, namely Arafat or his replacement. Think of Judea and Samaria in terms of a replica of Arafat's mini Terrorist state which he created inside Lebanon. No law except Terror, a free retreat for every Muslim Terrorist to ply his wicked trade –– something like the Muslim Jihadists pouring into Iraq through Syria from Egypt, Iran, Syria, Sudan, Chechnya, Yemen, Algeria and even non-Muslim Arabs from France and England. They only will stay long enough to beat or kill enough Americans –– if they can and many will move into the new Arab State of Palestine. But, Arafat's new State will be a permanent base of Terror operations against Israel, the Arab nations such as Jordan, Saudi Arabia and then, globally, to America and Europe. It will be a more than a safe haven for Terrorists –– it will be their new Terror Mecca created by Sharon and Bush. Should Israel now feel that she needs to engage in hot pursuit of Terrorists or to try to take out missile launchers, be assured the U.N. would vote sanctions as would the E.U. who has been pouring money into Arafat's pockets and the P.A. –– most of it embezzled. As one looks over Sharon's Wall to a land once brought back to civilization by the Jews, your will soon see a backward conglomeration of a compressed howling mob of Arab Muslim Palestinians made into useful refugees by Arafat or his replacement. It will be one gigantic pest house of disease and sewage running down the middle of the street with hostile Terrorists always pushing, bombing, sniping, suicide bombing and pressing against or under Sharon's Wall. They will always be in contact with the Arabs living in the heart of Israel, breeding in extraordinary numbers and subsidized by Arab nations for birthing new Arab Muslim Palestinians –– much as they were paid by Iran, Syria, Saddam and Saudi Arabia to martyr themselves while killing Jews. The end will be intended to be the same either way –– that is, kill Jews with bombs or with babies who are later taught –– from the age of 3 and up –– to hate the Jews, kill them when able and advancing toward being a 'Shaheed' (martyr for Islam). Look over your War Wall, Arik, and see what you have done. You once had forward vision when you were a General and you were one of the truest and best warriors for the Jewish State of Israel. Now you are old, and as happens to old men, you dream of the past when you could think ahead and plan well. Now, you will try to evacuate Jews and give their life's dreams to the millions of incoming Arabs who will be packed tightly against your Wall. So, now your legacy is to squeeze Israel behind a Walled Ghetto, 9 miles wide from the sea to its very center. As the millions of Arab Muslim Palestinians are packed into the impossibly small area of Arafat's State, they will begin to do what the Arabs promised in 1947, namely, to push the Jews into the sea. This will be your legacy Arik Sharon IF you continue to assist the creation of another Arab State of Palestine. You will join Haman, Herod or Hitler in the eyes of the Jewish people. Be assured you will have a place in history as a betrayer of the Jewish people and hated for eternity. 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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YOU CAN'T APPEASE EVERYBODY
Posted by Fred Reifenberg, May 31, 2008. |
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This is by Ann Coulter. Visit her website at www.anncoulter.com |
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After decades of comparing Nixon to Hitler, Reagan to Hitler and Bush to Hitler, liberals have finally decided it is wrong to make comparisons to Hitler. But the only leader to whom they have applied their newfound rule of thumb is: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. While Ahmadinejad has not done anything as starkly evil as cut the capital gains tax, he does deny the Holocaust, call for the destruction of Israel, deny the existence of gays in Iran and refuses to abandon his nuclear program despite protests from the United Nations. That's the only world leader we're not allowed to compare to Hitler. President Bush's speech at the Knesset two weeks ago was somewhat more nuanced than liberals' Hitler arguments. He did not simply jump up and down chanting: "Ahmadinejad is Hitler!" Instead, Bush condemned a policy of appeasement toward madmen, citing Neville Chamberlain's ill-fated talks with Adolf Hitler. Suspiciously, Bush's speech was interpreted as a direct hit on B. Hussein Obama's foreign policy –– and that's according to Obama's supporters. So to defend Obama, who –– according to his supporters –– favors appeasing madmen, liberals expanded the rule against ad Hitlerum arguments to cover any mention of the events leading to World War II. A ban on "You're like Hitler" arguments has become liberals' latest excuse to ignore history. Unless, of course, it is liberals using historical examples to support Obama's admitted policy of appeasing dangerous lunatics. It's a strange one-sided argument when they can cite Nixon going to China and Reagan meeting with Gorbachev, but we can't cite Chamberlain meeting with Hitler. There are reasons to meet with a tyrant, but none apply to Ahmadinejad. We're not looking for an imperfect ally against some other dictatorship, as Nixon was with China. And we aren't in a Mexican stand-off with a nuclear power, as Reagan was with the USSR. At least not yet. Mutually Assured Destruction was bad enough with the Evil Empire, but something you definitely want to avoid with lunatics who are willing to commit suicide in order to destroy the enemies of Islam. As with the H-word, our sole objective with Ahmadinejad is to prevent him from becoming a military power. What possible reason is there to meet with Ahmadinejad? To win a $20 bar bet as to whether or not the man actually owns a necktie? We know his position and he knows ours. He wants nuclear arms, American troops out of the Middle East and the destruction of Israel. We don't want that. (This is assuming Mike Gravel doesn't pull off a major upset this November.) We don't need him as an ally against some other more dangerous dictator because ... well, there aren't any. Does Obama imagine he will make demands of Ahmadinejad? Using what stick as leverage, pray tell? A U.S. boycott of the next Holocaust-denial conference in Tehran? The U.N. has already demanded that Iran give up its nuclear program. Ahmadinejad has ignored the U.N. and that's the end of it. We always have the ability to "talk" to Ahmadinejad if we have something to say. Bush has a telephone. If Iranian crop dusters were headed toward one of our nuclear power plants, I am quite certain that Bush would be able to reach Ahmadinejad to tell him that Iran will be flattened unless the planes retreat. If his cell phone died, Bush could just post a quick warning on the Huffington Post. Liberals view talk as an end in itself. They never think through how these talks will proceed, which is why Chamberlain ended up giving away Czechoslovakia. He didn't leave for Munich planning to do that. It is simply the inevitable result of talking with madmen without a clear and obtainable goal. Without a stick, there's only a carrot. The only explanation for liberals' hysterical zealotry in favor of Obama's proposed open-ended talks with Ahmadinejad is that they seriously imagine crazy foreign dictators will be as charmed by Obama as cable TV hosts whose legs tingle when they listen to Obama (a condition that used to be known as "sciatica"). Because, really, who better to face down a Holocaust denier with a messianic complex than the guy who is afraid of a debate moderated by Brit Hume? There is no possible result of such a meeting apart from appeasement and humiliation of the U.S. If we are prepared to talk, then we're looking for a deal. What kind of deal do you make with a madman until he is ready to surrender? Will President Obama listen respectfully as Ahmadinejad says he plans to build nuclear weapons? Will he say he'll get back to Ahmadinejad on removing all U.S. troops from the region? Will he nod his head as Ahmadinejad demands the removal of the Jewish population from the Middle East? Obama says he's prepared to have an open-ended chat with Ahmadinejad, so I guess everything is on the table. Perhaps in the spirit of compromise, Obama could agree to let Iran push only half of Israel into the sea. That would certainly constitute "change"! Obama could give one of those upbeat speeches of his, saying: As a result of my recent talks with President Ahmadinejad, some see the state of Israel as being half empty. I prefer to see it as half full. And then Obama can return and tell Americans he could no more repudiate Ahmadinejad than he could repudiate his own white grandmother. It will make Chris Matthews' leg tingle. There is a third reason to talk to dictators, in addition to seeking an ally or as part of a policy of Mutually Assured Destruction. Gen. Douglas C. MacArthur talked with Japanese imperial forces on Sept. 2, 1945. There was a long ceremony aboard the USS Missouri with full press coverage and a lot of talk. It was a regular international confab! It also took place after we had dropped two nukes on Japan and MacArthur was officially accepting Japan's surrender. If Obama plans to drop nukes on Ahmadinejad prior to their little chat-fest, I'm all for it. But I don't think that's what liberals have in mind. Contact Fred Reifenberg by email at freify@netvision.net.il |
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ISRAEL'S WATER PROBLEMS –– 2008
Posted by Emanuel A. Winston, May 30, 2008. |
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Binyamin Ben Eliezer, a not terribly bright politician, has offered various solutions for what is likely to be a water crisis for all of Israel –– for a long time to come. Ben Eliezer wants to build more water desalination plants, apparently to offset his Party's famous plans to abandon the Golan Heights which is one of Israel's principal water sources. But, Eliezer may not have taken into account the raw sewage sabotage that the Palestinians are implementing by letting untreated sewage run into the sea from Gaza. The prevailing currents push the sewage North, contaminating Israel's coastal areas where more than 70% of Israel's population and Israel's main industrial base in centered. Once the contamination levels of human feces and chemicals reach a certain level of density (PPM = Parts Per Million), any desalination plant will be closed down. Their filter membranes would clog and the disease-laden water would simply flow through. One doesn't expect Israel's Prime Minister Ehud Olmert or his Leftist Party Coalition (Kadima, Labor and Meretz) to do anything to stop the sewage flow. Then there is the matter of gifting Jordan with the Millions of Cubic Meters of water as Israel's singularly most famous gesture of good will. Israeli leadership is full of such "gestures" –– among other foul-smelling substances. Israel's so-called "Leadership" is gesturing away the Jewish nation into a permanent, ever worsening state of drought. Have you ever spoken to Israel's so-called "Leadership"? Outside of dirty politics, where they are superb, in practical things they are dumb as a stump. Water futures? "not to worry". Pollution? "not to worry". Terrorist growth? "not to worry". Loss of the water protected from Israel's Golan Heights? –– "not to worry". Loss of the aquifers under the Israeli mountains of Judea and Samaria? –– "not to worry". Sewage contamination? –– "not to worry". Why worry when the Members of the Knesset have plenty of food and filtered water in the Knesset dining room? Reality simply doesn't enter those rooms the lazy, craven Leftist Knesset Members think are hallowed. As for Prime Ministers, the words "dumb" or "stupid" doesn't even approach describing their incompetence and corrupt nature. The most recent Prime Ministers are killing the country and, after they have succeeded in despoiling the nation, they will try to escape and live on the loot they scavenged from the Peoples' Treasury. First: Cut off water and fuel supplies to Gaza until they build sewage treatment plants sufficiently large enough to treat sewage to the highest level technology allows. Get rid of incompetent leaders and make them take educational tests to determine if they are fit to hold any post in government (like the psychometric tests Israeli students must take to attend university). Start building more desalination plants –– which should have started 20 years ago. Cut the water being delivered free to Jordan. Dig a channel from the Haifa area down to the Jordan Valley. This channel is to parallel the Jordan River and NOT mix salt water with fresh water. (Note! I offered such a water plan to Israel more than 25 years ago –– which contemplated hydroelectric power, desalination plants, modification of the moisture content in the Jordan Valley for improved crops' production and sea water lakes for recreation and fishing. But, there were people then in power –– like Ben Eliezer, who simply had zero vision and an inability to process information. As they say, those chickens have come home to roost. Drought is endemic in the Middle East. Biblical records speak of 7 year droughts –– as in Egypt –– but, in fact, droughts of 50 to 100 years have been recorded in core borings of land. However, when you are a politician and reasonably stupid, you talk about solutions (to raise your public image) but do nothing to implement them or something too little to be effective. Experts in hydrology, water conservation and recycling of waste water have been alerting successive governments about serious water shortages, pollution and contamination for years but they have been ignored. How can you expect politicians who have never worked a day in their lives (other than to hustle the Peoples' money into their own pockets) be expected to deal with down-to-earth critical issues like water, national security, resettling 10,000 Jewish men, women and children they uprooted, etc. when they could not even run a small vegetable stand in Machane Yehuda (the local outdoor market)? This is not a trivial matter, given that droughts can last 50 or more years across the Africa/Asian Middle East, much of which is in an advanced stage of desertification. This is before the forecast effects of climate change due to measurable global warming. Martin Sherman, for example, has written in great detail about Israel's water shortages [see here. ] for years –– to no avail. Israel desperately needs a highly intelligent government of problem solvers. She cannot survive on government planning shown to be dedicated to graft, corruption by crooks whose first morning thought is how to stay in power and fill their own pockets. Appropo –– the international space station's single toilet has malfunctioned and the U.S. will now pay Russia $30 million dollars to send up a space craft with a new Russian toilet. Can you imagine what will happen in Israel when, because of a water shortage, your household will be allowed to flush only once a day (or once a week)? Those are simple practical matters which inept government like the current one run by the Kadima/Labor Parties cannot grasp or deal with. ### Following is a deeper analysis from a paper I published in 1992:
Israel has been given a brief reprieve from a critical water shortage. The unlikely once in a century snow and rain cannot be depended upon in future winters. Let us suggest that this one year be used as breathing space to develop alternate water sources on an emergency basis. There are a few available sources that can be developed. For example: While waiting to build the necessary but very expensive salt water desalination plants, let us capture more of the run-off that flows into the Mediterranean and is lost. More valleys can be dammed up in lakes and their bottoms sealed to stem seepage and catch surface runoff. There is another perhaps greater run-off of lost fresh water. Irreplacable aquifers deep under the earth's surface also stretch out under the Mediterranean. Some aquifers are close to the sea floor surface near the point where the continental land mass meets the sea. Although much of the flow continues to remain trapped in the rock formations beneath the sea basin, a great deal escapes into the salt water of the Mediterranean. Those off-shore fresh water springs can be drilled, capped and piped. We will only be taking the fresh water which has already escaped the aquifers directly under the land mass of Israel. As many know, we have been depleting those land-based aquifers by excessive pumping. This creates negative pressure, allowing salt water to invade the aquifer, making the aquifer itself and the wells it feeds unusable and often unrecoverable. Taking fresh water from off-shore points will increase available supplies and allow us to possibly decrease our on-shore pumpage. Locating fresh water undersea springs is no problem for the senisitive instruments of today which can distinguish levels of comparitive salinity. Where the fresh water does not come to the surface of the sea floor, we can drill, again using techniques developed for drilling shallow oil wells. There are other methods: The plan suggested by Laudermilk, the founder of Israel's present water system, suggested a pipe from the Haifa area to carry Mediterranean Sea water through the Jezreel Valley directly into the Jordan River and on to the Dead Sea. (No doubt, he intended to separate sea water from fresh water.) Topographic maps show a drop between the Mediterranean in the Haifa area and the Dead Sea. There is a slight earth bridge of several meters which can be easily breached. I believe that a diversion of Meditteranean water with its relatively low salt content can be extremely beneficial in a new water system. It would entail building a concrete tunnel through the Jezreel valley between the sea and the Jordan valley. The salt water would be contained except where it was diverted for special uses. The following outlines the general plan. It is intended to provoke the scientific reader into adding his own components, both technical and conceptual. 1. The basic inlet would extend into the sea sufficently far to ensure an uncomtaminated supply of sea water. ### Regarding the current water crisis, I reprint another article I
published in December 1998,
ISRAEL'S LOOMING WATER CRISIS By Emanuel A. Winston –– December 1998 Be prepared for the Israel government and American Administration to throw a smoke screen over Israel's soon-to-be-lost water. As part of the Wye "River" fiasco, Israel's leaders have finalized her commitment to give away her irreplaceable underground rivers. Arik Sharon, now Foreign Minister, will soon be visiting Washington, there to discuss, among other things, some of the bribes Israel is to receive for caving in on the Wye Agreement. One of those bribes is to be the construction of a desalination plant, presumably to relieve Israel's coming water shortage. This shortfall will become acute as she transfers control of the aquifers under the Judean/Samarian hills –– representing approximately 30% of Israel's fresh water resource. Since ONE desalination plant cannot possibly produce even a fraction of the lost water, it can now only serve as a political curtain to hide the consummate stupidity of Israel's three successive Governments, namely: Labor/Meretz under Rabin and secondly Peres and now Likud under Netanyahu. I mention these names so the readers may forever mark those responsible for the drying up of Israel. So, what is wrong with turning sea water into drinking water? Absolutely nothing, IF like Saudi Arabia, you have unlimited billions of dollars to build the "many" plants needed and free fuel to power the high energy needs of such plants. Even California couldn't do it with money and fuel from their own pumped oil. Saudi Arabia had the money and the excess natural gas to literally burn from its vast oil deposits but Israel is not blessed with such reserves. So, what's the problem? A really big plant can range in cost from $3-5 Billion dollars and that's only to build. Then it needs a huge amount of electrical power. In Israel's case, that would likely require either a vast expansion of present power plants –– more coal and/or nuclear –– or construction of new electrical plants. Here one has the problem of additional Billions in cost to construct, the continuous maintenance costs to produce the power, the polluting fuel (coal or nuclear) and finally the cost per cubic meter of water which will be so high that it will require government subsidies which then comes back in increased taxes. So, whether it's paid with the water bill or paid from other tax revenues...the people still pay the enormous increase. And that, dear readers, does not solve the problem of losing 30% of Israel's water. I have the feeling that one could line the shores of the Mediterranean with such plants in order to make up the shortfall of 30%. But, that's not all. Presently, our erstwhile leaders are under pressure from our good friends Madame Albright in cahoots with the EU to give up the Golan Heights to Syria. So, what's wrong that? Besides having primitive leaders in Syria who are armed to the teeth with chemical weapons and the missiles to deliver them, we again have the problem of water. Israel water resources from the Golan represents 40% of its total water supply. If you couple the 30% being given to Arafat with the 40% to be given to Syria that makes a nice round figure of 70%. But wait...Israeli or American politicians can be expected to jump in to tell you that they will arrange an agreement where, at a fixed price, the Palestinians will sell Israel this water with various guarantees. Certainly our erstwhile Jewish leaders will jump at the chance of accepting more guarantees because Oslo I and II, Hebron and Wye worked out so well. Today, with the water from the Judean/Samarian aquifers and the waters from the Golan and a rapidly diminishing central aquifer Israel is pushing the envelope of its growing water needs. If Israel lost even 5% of current water resources, certain industries would be closed or rationed. If it went beyond that, civilian rationing would begin with a vengeance. Some may recall a brief drought several years back where the level of the Kinneret (Israel's northern reservoir) fell 5 meters. The government and the people were beginning to panic as the seculars began to urge to Rabbis to pray for rain. Well, finally the rains came and just in time. Mostly due to a volcanic eruption in the Philippines which spewed forth particulate matter in a plume which drifted over Israel causing a weather change resulting in what was called "Century Rains". However, just as an unexpected quirk of nature (HaShem) caused the rains, other such quirks caused drought. The African continent is undergoing such a drought and a process called desertification is ongoing and expanding rapidly. Israel is part of the African continent. Droughts of Biblical proportions lasting years are not unknown in this region of the world. Therefore, if one factors in drought; giving away of 70% of her water resources; increased population along with increased water consumption, the inadequate but costly desalination solution –– Israel would dry up to a small, burnt out cinder in the next decade. One can hardly wait for Bibi and Arik to drink a water toast with Clinton/Albright/Arafat and Assad over the new miracle of creating water where there is very little. And then there is the sewage. We are giving the Palestinians clean water and getting their sewage back, just as is presently happening in Gaza. They pour untreated sewage into the wadis and streams, polluting the shrinking water table. The Palestinians ruined the Gaza aquifer in 2 short years as they sunk 2000 wells. This over-pumping lowered the water table, allowing the sea water to seep in. In Gaza they now drink what they call "salt tea". The Gaza aquifer is unrecoverable. If Israel gives up control of the Judean/Samarian water resources (30%) and possible the 40% under the Golan Heights to Syria, the foreseeable over-pumping will lower the water-table of Israel's only remaining aquifer on the coast and the Mediterranean will invade the sweet water. Everything that Israel made bloom will wither and die –– along with the State of Israel herself.
Emanuel Winston is a commentator and Middle
East analyst. His articles appear often on Think-Israel and Gamla. He
is a member of the Board of Directors and a research associate of the
Freeman Center For Strategic Studies |
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TEXAS CHILDREN ROPED INTO ISLAMIC TRAINING
Posted by Gabrielle Goldwater, May 30, 2008. |
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This was written by Bob Unruh and it appeared today in World Net Daily Bob Unruh is a news editor for www.WorldNetDaily.com. |
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Class by CAIR teaches: 'There is one god, Allah' Public school students at Friendswood Junior High in the Houston area have been roped into Islamic training by representatives from the Council on American-Islamic Relations during class time, prompting religious leaders to protest over Principal Robin Lowe's actions. Pastor Dave Welch, spokesman for the Houston Area Pastor Council, confirmed the indoctrination had taken place and called it "unacceptable." "The failure of the principal of Friendswood Junior High to respect simple procedures requiring parental notification for such a potentially controversial subject, to not only approve but participate personally in a religious indoctrination session led by representatives of a group with well-known links to terrorist organizations and her cavalier response when confronted, raises serious questions about her fitness to serve in that role," the pastors' organization said. According to a parent, whose name was withheld, the children were given the Islamic indoctrination during time that was supposed to be used for a physical education class. "I am simply trying to get the word out to those whose kids may not have told them about an Islamic presentation that all kids were required to attend," wrote the parent, who was working to assemble protests to the school board. WND previously has reported how public school textbooks used across
the nation have begun promoting Islam, teaching
WND also has reported on several other schools that have taught Islam as a required subject. In the Texas case, a school e-mail to parents provided only a half-hearted acknowledgement that such mandatory religious indoctrination might not have been the best decision. "In hindsight, a note should have been sent home to parents indicating the purpose and content of the presentation in time for parents to contact me with questions or concerns or requests to exempt their child," the school note from Lowe said. "This will be our practice in the future, should we ever have another presentation of a similar nature." School officials also said the "Islamic Awareness" presentation was "to increase understanding of the Islamic culture in response to racially motivated comments that have been made to students on campus." The pastors said in a statement: "According to students who were forced to attend these sessions, these Islamic evangelists taught them: * Adam, Noah and Jesus are prophets The pastors noted that the principal's claim there were "comments" to students on campus was unverified. Nor does that excuse or justify "this infringement upon the religious beliefs of students and parents of the community nor the violation of school policy and possibly state and/or federal law," they said. "We do not believe that this unapproved action by Principal Robin Lowe represents the school district and certainly not the majority of students or parents in the Friendswood community. Our commitment is to support all appropriate administrative, legal and political remedies to assure that this will not happen again and these Islamic activist organizations are kept out of our schools," the pastors said. The parent reported the presentation was 30 to 40 minutes long and handled by two Muslim women from CAIR's Houston office. CAIR, as WND has reported, is spinoff of the defunct Islamic Association for Palestine, launched by Hamas leader Mousa Abu Marzook and former university professor Sami al-Arian, who pleaded guilty to conspiracy to provide services to Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Among the convicted CAIR staffers are former communications specialist Randall Todd "Ismail" Royer, who was sentenced to 20 years in prison on charges he trained in Virginia for holy war against the U.S. and sent several members to Pakistan to join a Kashmiri terrorist group with reported ties to al-Qaida; and Bassem Khafagi, who was arrested in January 2003 while serving as CAIR's director of community relations and convicted on fraud and terrorism charges in connection with a probe of the Islamic Assembly of North America, an organization suspected of aiding Saudi sheiks tied to Osama bin Laden. In October 2006, Ghassan Elashi, a member of the founding board of directors of the Texas branch of CAIR, was sentenced to nearly seven years in prison for financial ties to a high-ranking terrorist. The parent reported Lowe told students her sister, niece and nephew were Muslim. But the parent complained the Muslims "were given full attention of our kids, during academic school time, to present their religious beliefs. ... This was put right at the end of the school year ... which will most likely prevent a Christian response." There also was no parental notification, and students were required to attend. "The kids did not even know they were having an assembly or what topic it pertained to until they entered the gym," the parent wrote. "I send my kids to school for academics. ... I teach them religion at home." Gabrielle Goldwater lives in Switzerland. Contact her at III44@aol.com |
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STOP DONATING TO UNIVERSITIES THAT TOLERATE ANTI-SEMITIC HATRED
Posted by Marni Soupcoff, May 30, 2008. |
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This was written by Dave Gordon and appeared as a Full Comment in National Post http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2008/05/28/ dave-gordon-stop-donating-to-universities-that-tolerate-anti-semitic-hatred.aspx |
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When York University's call centre phoned me last week to solicit a donation, I thought it was auspicious that it occurred the week of Israel's sixtieth birthday. I not only declined a donation to my alma mater, but made it known that I would not offer money to an institution that sits on its hands as hatred is proliferated and even funded in its halls. I hope to encourage others to remove their financial support from that and other institutions. Tens of millions of dollars from Jewish donors and alumni are given to schools like York, University of Toronto and Ryerson. These donors, as well as Jewish students currently attending these schools, should know that these institutions have become enablers to events like Israeli Apartheid Week, and initiatives like Ryerson's proposed academic boycott of Israel. University donations are directly, or indirectly, furthering the cause of anti-Israel and anti-Semitic sentiment on campus. That these Jewish philanthropists stay quiet is remarkably troubling: It's as if they tacitly approve of these campus events. Their silence, and their donations, must be brought into the open. One donor in particular gave $10-million to York this year, while also giving $5-million to United Jewish Appeal. They have sufficiently demonstrated their love for the Jewish people and Jewish causes, but it seems as though their priorities are lopsided, and they do not know, or care, on what their money is spent. Would it not be more prudent for advocates of Israel, truth and the Jewish people, to direct their donations to organizations whose mandates are to combat anti-Israel and anti-Semitic activity on campus? These groups are operating on a veritable shoestring, at a time when the community ought to rally behind them, the way that so many anti- Zionists and anti-Semites are organizing many rallies on campus. Ben Feferman of Hasbara –– a pro-Israel campus advocacy group –– calls these hate-filled incidents "crimes against students." In November, 2007, York University saw several hate-filled incidents. Hasbara Fellowships organized an informational table campaign about Noam Chomsky. The table was swarmed by anti-Israel students, shouting that "Hizbullah is not a terrorist organization. The real terrorists are Zionists and the Americans." A faculty member shouted "Gestapo!" at Jewish students. That same month the Campus Coalition of Zionists put on an Iran Awareness Campaign. Anti-Israel students mobbed the table. They then began ripping materials down, shouting and pushing students. These mini-riots were posted on YouTube. Itamar Marcus, who runs Palestinian Media Watch, came to speak at York. Anti-Israel students stormed the event and would not let him speak. In March and April of this year, also at York University, Jewish students were called "Zionists Pigs." Also heard was, "You Jews should go back to Germany, where you belong." Pennies were thrown from a second story balcony at Jewish students. At York there was a "Naqba Rally" celebrating the extremist Palestinian narrative of Israel's founding. When Natan Sharansky came to York, anti-Israel students told one Jewish student: "Get off our campus you genocidal racist" and "you are bringing a second holocaust upon yourself." Jewish activist groups need more funding to respond to these and other incitements. In a York University course, "Introduction to Critical Concepts: An Introduction to Politics," the textbook says, "Israel continues to use state terrorism in an attempt to subvert the Palestinians' quest for nationhood." This is a small sample of what happens regularly on just one campus. At a Carleton University rally, a Jewish student held up a photo of the terrorist who gunned down eight yeshiva students. Another student responded with this gem: "Good, he's a hero. That's eight less Zionists in this world." Many Jewish students feel intimidated on campus and are afraid to show outwardly that they are Jews. While universities get millions of dollars in donations from alumni, Betar –– another Israel advocacy group on campus –– is operating on modest community donations, without UJA funding. They are the ones in the trenches, counter-protesting, leafletting, educating students, and bringing in those speakers who have the courage to speak about the Jewish homeland in favorable terms in an unfavorable environment. Hasbara and Betar's mandates are simple: the combat of anti-Semitism and anti-Israelism on campus with proactive programming. I call upon alumni to divest from any university whose administration says nothing about anti-Semitism on campus, and stop only giving money to large umbrella organizations that don't involve themselves directly in the battle. Instead, choose to help those organizations who have pledged to support students' Israel advocacy, and actually do so on a daily basis. I encourage big donors to meet with our Israel advocacy campus representatives, to hear the stories first hand. As for the call I received from York University –– I asked them to keep my number on file and continue to call whenever they have a funding drive. I'll be the one giving them an earful until things change for the better. Marni Soupcoff is a columnist and editorial board member at the National Post. She has a law degree from Stanford University. Contact her by email at msoupcoff@nationalpost.com |
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WHY THE CHURCH SHOULD SUPPORT ISRAEL
Posted by Michael Evans, May 30, 2008. |
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Many Christians ask me, "How do I know if my church is a Bible-believing church that doesn't teach replacement theology, progressive dispensationalism or supersessionism?" Ask yourself some questions: 1. Does my church pray for the Jewish people, the peace of Jerusalem, and Israel? If the answer to these questions is "No," then you may be a member of a church that refuses to believe the Bible, and rejects God's Eternal promises to the House of Israel. If your church seems powerless, and appears not to be blessed by God, perhaps this is the reason. Israel is a Miracle Nation because of its formation; and when we stand with Israel, we are standing with God's prophetic plan. We must be part of God's dream and His team and support Israel and the Jewish people. Their existence and the rebirth of Israel is a miracle. As Christians, we believe in miracles. The resurrection of our Lord was the greatest miracle. If He can live again, it is no problem at all of for Him to restore the Nation of Israel. Israel was not born in 1948. It was born in the heart of God and revealed to Abraham many years before the birth of Isaac. God made a blood covenant with Abraham that the land of Canaan would be given to Abraham's seed through Isaac. (Genesis 15:18) As part of that vision, God told Abraham that for 400 years his seed would be strangers in a land that did not belong to them. (Genesis 15:13) The seed of Abraham from Isaac spent 400 years in Egypt before Moses led them out, and Israel, the nation, was born. "Who had heard such a thing? Who had seen such things? Shall the earth be made to bring forth in one day? Or shall a nation be born at once? For as soon as Zion travailed, she brought forth her children." (Isaiah 66:8) Enduring Covenant People Unique as this religious centrality is, there is one reason above all others why committed Christians must stand with Israel: The God of the Universe, the God that we worship, has chosen to make an everlasting convent with the physical descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob-the Jewish people. The word "everlasting" has nothing temporary or confidential about it. It clearly means, "lasting forever." And although Jews are found today in North and South America, Australia, Russia, Europe, many parts of Africa, and virtually every other continent on earth their historic spiritual and physical center was, and always be, the Promised Land of Israel. God's Eternal covenant with the descendents of Abraham featured the promise to give them the land of Israel as an everlasting possession. This is recorded in the very first book of the Bible, Genesis, in chapter 17. Why the Church Should Support Israel? Because God Does! "Now the LORD had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto a land that I will shew thee: And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing: And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed" (Genesis 12:1-3) Israel is God's dream, and we are called to be a part of His team. The title deed belongs to God Almighty. When God made His eternal promises to Israel, there was no United Nations. There were only pagan nations to challenge this dream, to challenge God and His word. To be apathetic toward of God's Divine plan or Eternal purpose, and our role as Christians in it, means to reject Our Lord's Divine Assignment to the Church and heavenly opportunity. God's prophetic time clock has been set on Jerusalem time! And the spotlight of Heaven is still on the Jews. It all began with them, and it will all end with them. God's plan is an eternal one! If what we do as Christians does not matter in the light of eternity, then we had better stop doing it. As Christians, can no more neglect our responsibility to stand with the House of Israel then we can neglect believing in the promises of God. Jerusalem is the only city for which God commands us to pray. He also commands a blessing on those who pray for Jerusalem! When you pray for Jerusalem, Psalm 122:6, you are not praying for stones or dirt, you are praying for revival (2 Chronicles 7:14), and for the Lord's Return. Also, you are joining our Lord, the Good Samaritan, in His ministry of love and comfort to the suffering. "If you've done it unto the least of these, my brethren (the Jews) you've done it unto me." It is our divine commission. King David explained precisely why God Almighty has commanded us to pray for the peace of Jerusalem, and has commanded a blessing upon us for doing so. The revelation is found in Psalm 122:8: "For my brethren and companions' sakes, I will now say, Peace be within thee." God is telling us to pray for the souls of Jerusalem. David felt that prayer needed to be offered up for all of his brothers, and friends who lived there. Prayer needs to be offered today for the House of Israel, for those who live there from over 120 nations of the Earth. It is the city most targeted by terrorists, simply because it is Jerusalem. It has drawn the Jewish people of the world like a prophetic magnet...those who have prayed, "New Year in Jerusalem." In Psalm 122:9, David's revelation says, "May there be peace as a protection for the Temple of the Lord." Ultimately, we are praying for Satan to be bound. In Isaiah 14, Satan said he would battle God from the Temple of the Lord, on the sides of the north. When we pray for the peace of Jerusalem, we are praying for the souls of the City of Jerusalem; we are praying for the Temple of the Lord; and, we are praying for the Messiah to come. The prophecies of the Bible point to the Temple of the Lord as the key flashpoint that will bring the nation of the world to Jerusalem, and ultimately result in the battle that will end Satan's reign over the earth for all eternity. It will spell his final death. In 691 A.D., Islamic adherents in Jerusalem built the Dome of the Rock over the Foundation Stone, which was the spot of the Holy of Holies in the Bible. Islam later attributed another event to the Foundation Stone: the binding of the son of Abraham the "Hanif," the first Monotheist. As the Koran does not explicitly mention the name Isaac, commentators on the Koran have identified the son bound by Abraham as Ishmael. Thus Islam teaches that the title deed to Jerusalem and the Temple Site and all of Israel belong to the Arabs –– not the Jews. If fact, Mohammed never set foot in Jerusalem, nor is the city mentioned by name in the Koran. His only connection to Jerusalem is through his dream or vision where he found himself in a "temple that is most remote." (Koran, Sura) It was not until the Seventh Century that Moslem adherents identified the "temple most remote" as a mosque in Jerusalem (perhaps for political reasons.) The truth remains that this site which now stands the Dome of the Rock, as is sacred to Jews as the Temple site, will be the basis for the battle of ages that will be fought. There is a divine reason the Church was born in Zion! All roads lead to Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria. The world is hopeless, not knowing what to do. Heaven and Earth met in Jerusalem, and will meet there again. The destiny of America and the world is linked to Jerusalem. It is epicenter of spiritual warfare and affects the entire world. Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria are the battle zones. It is no accident that the Great Commission is directed toward these prophetic areas. If Christians are not salt and light then the Great Commission will become the Great Omission! "But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth." (Acts 1:8) If Our Lord and Savior reached out in compassion to Israel, and made prayer for her His highest priority, do we dare make it our lowest? There is a direct correlation between the power that Heaven promises for the Church and its birth in Jerusalem, and the Church's obedience to be a witness In Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria. The church cannot, and must not, ignore Christ's Eternal mission for her, and at the same time, expect power from on high. If His disciples' obedience was directly related to a power surge from Heaven and the birth of the Church, can disobedience empower the church and lift her heavenward to fulfill her final mission? "Arise, shine; for thy light is come, and the glory of the LORD is risen upon thee. For, behold, the darkness shall cover the earth, and gross darkness the people: but the LORD shall arise upon thee, and his glory shall be seen upon thee. And the Gentiles shall come to thy light, and kings to the brightness of thy rising." (Isaiah 60:1-3) (The above is an excerpt from Dr. Evans' book Why Christians Should Support Israel.) Michael Evans is the author of "Beyond Iraq: The Next Move," and founder of Jerusalem Prayer Team, America's largest Christian coalition praying for the peace of Jerusalem. Contact them at www.JerusalemPrayerTeam.org and ddress email inquiries to jpteam@sbcglobal.net |
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STRATEGIC ANALYSIS ON SYRIA; HOW ISRAEL CAN REMAIN JEWISH & DEMOCRATIC; HEZBULLAH'S TAKEOVER
Posted by Richard H. Shulman, May 30, 2008. |
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ARABS PLAN MASS CIVILIAN INVASION OF ISRAEL They plan to mass the descendants of Palestinian Arab refugees at the borders of Israel and then cross them. Hamas tried to do the same, recently. The government of Israel issued clear and publicly known orders to its troops to shoot all who attempt to cross into Israel. An Arab admitted that knowing of Israel's intent to use whatever force is necessary to stop the invasion, the Arabs would not take the chance of trying to invade. That's deterrence! Time to issue the order, again (IMRA, 5/2). If Israeli troops did shoot down mobs trying to storm the country and take it over, the world would condemn Israeli "brutality," as if the Muslims didn't deserve it and is if the world didn't bear some responsibility for letting the Arabs assume, from constant examples, that the world does not mind Arab attacks on Israel, only Israeli self-defense. The Western moralizers against Israel are immoral. OLMERT GIVES PARTS OF JERUSALEM TO RUSSIA There was almost no news about this in English and little in Hebrew. The Olmert regime acquiesced to Russian demands for Jerusalem land Russia once owned. Olmert's regime is very agreeable –– agreeable to foreigners. Residents and businesses in the 17-acre "Russian Compound" area are upset, but had no say. That's Israeli democracy. Residents of 40 years standing in certain other parts of Jerusalem found themselves served with eviction notices (Barry Chamish, 5/19). KUWAIT'S ELECTION The Islamists won half the seats in the parliament. Women won none. For now, the balance still tips against the Islamists, because Cabinet members are ex-officio members of the legislature (IMRA, 5/19). What happens next election? STRATEGIC ANALYSIS ON SYRIA A former Israeli intelligence officer assessed relations with Syria. After stating Syria's goal –– to get the Golan and to improve relations with the US –– he failed to carry his analysis further. Upon signing a treaty with Israel, Syria, like Egypt, might get advanced US weapons. That would tempt Assad or (which the strategist failed to consider) his successor to war (IMRA, 5/19). His analysis suffered from a belief in a "peace process" and not seeing jihad as religious. HOW ISRAEL CAN REMAIN JEWISH & DEMOCRATIC A professor from Hebrew U. spoke on the subject with erudition about Judaism and, I thought, naivete about Israeli politics. He made a thoughtful point that the state should not try to define Jewish matters, it should just see to it that the country has a law of Jewish return, Jewish symbols of the state, and Jewish education. He favors allowing civil marriage and divorce. He finds that young people are interested in Judaism on their own, but don't know much about it and are alienated when they feel authorities compel them to adhere to it. The Israeli was asked how his country should react to criticism that its return policy does not allow for multi-culturalism. He replied that many countries have such a return policy, though the Jewish people needs it whereas others do not. An example is the 20,000 Russians of Finnish origin who were admitted into Finland without have to meet the usual naturalization criteria. Let the critics stop singling out Israel, he said, it makes their view suspect. Besides, it is not their business. He finds that Israel has changed a lot in the past decade. The Ultra-Orthodox are much more involved in the State. The Arabs now strive to undo the Jewish state, not just demand what they consider equality. He contends that calling the Arabs a fifth column is self-fulfilling and thinks they should be given more. Perhaps, but they have been largely radicalized already. I think that giving them more strengthens their drive to take over. They don't belong in a Jewish state. Regarding the Arabs, he said that the political Center has dissolved. He considers Olmert and Sharon in the Center, and Netanyahu and Lieberman on the Right. I consider them all on the Left, when in office or when describing their main views. Sharon may have been a tough general, but he formed a leftist party, then brought it into Likud, where it diluted the party's nationalism. Clever, eh? They all favor territorial concessions to the enemy. The professor sounded unaware that the Palestinian Arabs already have a state, the one called Jordan. If people would acknowledge that fact, they would stop feeling any urgency for a Palestinian Arab state in the Territories. They also might realize that statehood is not the long-term goal of Arafat's Arabs but conquest of Israel. The deduction from that realization would be to fight and oust the Arabs, not to empower them. He admits that land-for-peace and unilateral withdrawal failed, and warns that holding on to the Territories forever, except for settlement blocs, would swamp Israel demographically. Guess he isn't aware of the changed demographics favoring the Jews. He failed to consider taking steps that cause the Arabs to leave the Territories and Israel, and annexing vacated areas as well as settlement blocs. Absent the Arabs (and the hundred thousand Russian antisemitic gentile immigrants that he seems unaware of), and Israel can remain a Jewish state. The notion that Arabs may swamp the Jewish state if those Arabs are not in a defined state but just Territories, doesn't seem logical. On the other hand, he seems unconcerned how many Palestinian Arabs could enter an Arab state set up in the Territories, and dry up Israel by siphoning off its mountain aquifer. Neither does he consider the effect of so many Arabs on the Israeli side of the mountain, no natural barrier. I think it makes more sense for Israel to keep all the water and put the Arabs on the other side of the mountains. Much safer that way and fairer, since the Territories traditionally are Jewish territory and as chief and intended heir to the Mandate, Israel has the right to annex the Territories. But it should not annex the Arabs with the land. The notion that Israel should be the steward of the Territories for the Arabs until the Arabs can be trusted to make peace seems less realistic than Israel taking over the Territories because the Muslims cannot be trusted to make peace. It is not a matter of finding a new regime in the P.A. but of Islam fundamentally being imperialistic. Since Israel has the better claim to the land, it should start taking it over, without taking in Arabs. The professor thought he was reminding us that the present Israeli regime was elected on a platform of withdrawal. He was not reminding us but misleading us. The parties that opposed withdrawal won a minority of seats. However, some of them joined Sharon's coalition, asserting their condition that he not withdraw. He did, and their greed for patronage kept them from voting down his government. They do not follow the will of the people, in Israel. As for the state being democratic, that is yet to come, if the state can survive the existing leftist authoritarian state that is appeasement-minded. The professor thinks Israel is democratic. Hence he favors getting a written constitution. He did not take into account that the ruling elite, which took Zionism largely out of the curriculum, and oppresses dissent, might write a constitution that entrenches the Muslims, further weakens Jewish content of education, and does not pry the Left away from its police state tactics. I realized a shortcoming of American education. Americans are not taught how to ask concise and pertinent questions. Instead, member of the audience give speeches, remarking about themselves and rambling on, until my bladder is near bursting. HOW ISRAELI "DEMOCRACY" WORKS Israel's Prime and Foreign Ministers brief foreign leaders, such as (enemy) Mubarak of Egypt, on negotiations with the P.A.. The Olmert regime does not brief its coalition partners on those negotiations (IMRA, 5/17). Authoritarian. MUSLIM HATE-SPEECH France banned a TV station's broadcasts for urging Muslim children to murder Jews. Egyptian and Saudi satellite broadcasters transmit messages of hatred and violence to German Muslims. Bigotry has increased significantly there. A hard core of about 10% take it utterly seriously, and about a third are inculcated with hatred of the Jews and of the West. The small percentage of German Muslims belonging to Islamist organizations may increase, since so many have adopted their bigotry. They call their German teachers "Jews," as an epithet, when they think their instruction does not follow Islamic law. Anti-Christian sentiments are less common. Islamic antisemitism started with Muhammad. He is quoted by the Islamists on that. The Nazis financed some of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood's antisemitic campaign. One of the Nazi themes was that of an international Jewish conspiracy to take over the world (which the Nazis tried doing. The current antisemitic campaign piggybacks onto popular culture. For example, bigoted slogans are put into rap music and onto t-shirts. Germany and Germans do not react much against Islamic antisemitism. The Interior Ministry makes some effort, but the Foreign Ministry allows the satellite propaganda to persist (IMRA, 5/17). WHY HIZBULLAH WITHDREW AFTER COWING LEBANON Hizbullah defeated and cowed the other militias and the Lebanese Army. Then it removed its troops. It could have taken over Lebanon. That was not its objective. It wants to be free to continue jihad, not be tied down with daily governmental responsibilities. By demonstrating its military superiority, it will not be interfered with. It now can organize the Shiites, control the border, and import heavier weapons for war. It also may command the Lebanese Army. Israel misunderstood how terrorists work. Its "peace movement" sympathized with the enemy. It thought that withdrawal would leave responsibility for governing to the terrorists, who would mellow and develop the economy. Instead, they just get more territory and people to work with. Thus Abbas and Hamas demand that Israel feed their people while they make war (IMRA, 5/17). Less than a week later, Hizbullah arranged with the powerless government of Lebanon to let it have a majority of votes in the legislature. 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 |