Open Letter to Benjamin Netanyahu

25 May 2009

Mr. Binyamin Netanyahu, Prime Minister

Prime Minister's Office

3 Kaplan Street Qiriyat Ben-Gurion

PO Box 187

Jerusalem, ISRAEL 91919 pm_eng@pmo.gov.il

Mr. Prime Minister:

My purpose in writing to you and that of my colleague is to thank you for standing strong against the two state “solution” and to give you encouragement to stay the course.

President Obama has set forth, in the most brutal way that, in preference to the people of Israel continuing to live on its ancestral homeland, the United States will accept a nuclear Iran, with all the destabilization that would inevitably result. In effect, President Obama has said that the US might (might) save Israel from lynching but on condition that we drink strychnine. In fact, however, by the end of the two to three year period that his timetable sets for the drinking of strychnine, the lynching will have been completed, God forbid! But we are required to drink it anyway.In fact, I am sure I need not explain to you that every administration since the formulation of the Rogers Plan has followed the same policy. In fact, American policy toward the Zionist enterprise is unchanged since the Balfour Declaration: strong public declarations of support and even demonstrations of unstinting support, coupled with behind-the-scenes duplicity and even treachery. Shmuel Katz has detailed this, and it is neatly set forth in detail with copious citations by Prof. Francisco Gil-White at http://www.hirhome.com/israel/hirally.htm in Is the US an ally of Israel? A chronological look at the evidence.

Israel has danced around this issue, dealing with it as well as it could and has navigated though better and worse periods. This time, however, looks like “the crunch.” We are to be presented with a diktat backed up by the US, the EU, the UN, Russia and the Arab League together with an ultimatum.

Israel does not have to accede. Israel is not without alternatives or without recourse. Israel is able to go it alone, against the will of the USA, against the will of the “Quartet”, the UN and the Arab League. There are several powerful tools in Israel’s hands.

Israeli military technology. Not many people realize that Israel is the country of innovation in hi-tech munitions and in asymmetrical warfare. Israel is practically in a position to embargo hi-tech weaponry from any country in the world, including the US. The Popeye missile is hardly even the threshold.

Israel’s military technology is very advanced and many of Israel’s technologies and products are unique and superior. The world will not likely boycott them. As the worldwide jihad expands, Israel’s expertise and experience in combating Islamic terror will become a more and more marketable commodity. The non-Islamic world has reason to realize that Israel’s war against Islamic terror is their own war and not colonialist apartheid oppression as it is portrayed. If they do not come to realize it, then they will sink into Islamic domination. There is no reason for Israel to sink with them.

Israeli governments seem chronic in their underestimation of the value to the world of Israeli military technology. The Popeye missile and the unmanned drones are only two. Israeli electronics took apart the best Soviet made anti-aircraft systems in Syria as long ago as 1967, to the shock of the Soviets. Development of Israeli military technology has accelerated since then. Many of those technologies have been acquired in secret by the United States, in some cases via threats and intimidation. Israeli tank sights were acquired by the United States and installed on its Abrams tanks, which are now assembled in Egypt, with Israeli sights. Likewise, intelligence supplied to the United States by Israel has been invaluable. Yet, to Americans, seeing only billions of dollars of “aid” being given to Israel and not seeing that, in fact, the US gets more than its money’s worth, Israel looks like a beggar at the gate.

On the other side, Israel has come to see itself as a welfare dependent, feeling utterly dependent on the American dole. Israel has to insist that acquisition by foreign governments of Israeli arms technology, consultation and training (in urban warfare in Iraq, for example) and other strategic cooperation be done only in public and not secretly. Insisting on legitimacy means refusing to be treated like the “other woman” in order not to offend the Muslim states.

Regrettably, Israel scrapped the Kfir under US pressure and closed Beit Shemesh Engines. But Israel makes its own rocket engines, which function under more extreme conditions than jet aircraft engines. Israel certainly could also make engines for jet aircraft. Doing so in partnership with India alone would create a market large enough to enjoy economies of scale and India is eager for closer cooperation with Israel.

Withstanding international pressures. Israel needs not fear international pressure, even boycotts and sanctions. There are too many other countries in positions similar to Israel’s with regard to Moslem minorities and external defense to isolate Israel for long. India, for one, has growing and developing ties with Israel owing in part to the fact that its history of appeasement of its Moslem minority has not bought it peace and security. It has need of technology sharing and joint projects with Israel and that would likely continue despite international sanctions. China and Japan have also found collaboration with Israel very productive.

An Israel-India Axis. President Obama, in his arrogance, has hectored not only Israel to surrender to Islamic demands, but also India, whom he told that the reason they do not have peace with Pakistan is because India has not surrendered Kashmir. This he could actually say when Pakistan is in grave danger of being taken over by the Taliban and Al Qaeda.

In fact, Israel and India are natural allies in many ways and complementary to each other in many ways. The combined resources, brain power, technology and manufacturing capacity would be formidable from the outset. I propose that ties with India be pursued with utmost urgency and that Israeli foreign policy be reoriented immediately to make India the central point, immediately replacing the US and Europe.

Additional states. There are other states that President Obama has already alienated which could be brought into such a grouping. Colombia, with the assistance of Israeli military advisors, is near to victory against Marxist rebels. They have found, even before Obama was sworn into office that his emissaries have been in contact with the rebels with a view to actually taking their side. Colombia has fresh reason to reduce its dependence on the US.

Almost the same story is taking place in Sri Lanka. The complication for Israel is long standing bad blood between Sri Lanka and India. It is conceivable, however, that Israel could be instrumental in mediating that problem to the extent that they could cooperate in formulating and pursuing a new foreign policy orientation . If not, there seems to be no impediment to continuation of good and close bilateral relations.

Taiwan is another pariah state with which Israel might develop important relations. Israel has a choice between Taiwan and China, of course, but China is not averse to doing deals that are inimical to Israel’s vital interests and, if pushed to decide, Israel might consider whether a permanent relationship with Taiwan might not be more advantageous.

Strategic cooperation with India. Within the immediate horizons, Israel and India might do something of utmost importance together. I refer to the twin threats of Iranian nuclear weapons and Pakistani nuclear weapons. The former directly threatens Israel. The latter directly threatens India. If Israel and India help each other, it might be possible to eliminate both. To fly from India might not bring Israel closer to the Iranian nuclear plants but it would have the advantage of not having to cross airspace under American control. I do not have sufficient knowledge to say but I question whether it is necessary at all to use manned aircraft for the purpose when Israel has both ballistic missiles and cruise missiles to do the job.

Nor is it necessary to destroy the nuclear facilities themselves. The suggestion comes from a colleague, formerly a very high level engineer prominent in the F-16 project, that the nuclear facilities cannot function if the infrastructure is knocked out. They are useless without electricity and water and raw materials. I do not know enough to say whether Israel has a good possibility of destroying or disrupting the nuclear facilities but Israel can certainly cripple Iran’s infrastructure, bomb the Majlis and the mullas and the Presidential Palace and even hunt down the scientists involved in the nuclear project.

Of course, the world would be outraged and might even apply serious sanctions against Israel and India. We could withstand those, both Israel and India. It would require considerable economic reorientation and restructuring but it is high time that took place anyway. Both countries would emerge stronger, more independent and more democratic for having done so.

It would involve getting off the global corporate “grid” and developing the local economy independent of the multinational mega-corporations and the corporate “solutions” that only a very few such giant corporations can deliver. They are frequently not the best solutions for the market or for anyone else, but only for the global mega-corporations.

New Zealand’s recent history in agriculture provides an important point of reference. In 1986, the government of New Zealand decided to eliminate all agricultural subsidies over a period of only three years. They did that in the face of dire warnings of economic collapse of the agricultural sector. In the end, only about one percent of New Zealand farms went bankrupt and within only six years, agriculture had become the strongest sector of the New Zealand economy, whereas it had been an economic basket case before 1986. What happened is instructive on many levels.

Because the policies pursued by the New Zealand government had been similar to those pursued by other Western countries, agriculture had come to be dominated by corporations, especially petro-chemical companies. Those companies produce the agricultural chemicals that have become endemic to Western farming and are a central element in what is touted as the “Green Revolution” that supposedly enables the world to increase food production via hybrid seeds, massive chemicalization and heavy mechanization. When subsidies were eliminated, small farmers responded by eliminating the use of agricultural chemicals. Productivity soared such that farm profits increased even as farm prices fell. Agricultural commodities across the board sell for half to two thirds their prices in Western Europe, where agriculture is heavily subsidized. Petrochemical companies sold their farms and the family farm has made a strong come-back in New Zealand.

The government had, in effect, been subsidizing the use of chemicals, which is the corporate solution that had monopolized the attention of the market, of governments, universities and the media for decades. It turned out that the corporate solution could not compete on a level playing field. The petro-chemical corporate “farmers” could not make a profit unless they sold their chemicals twice: once subsumed in the price of the produce and once in the form of governmental subsidies.

One would think that the world should have noticed that the much touted “Green Revolution” is a failure, if not a massive fraud altogether, but that has not happened. The universities, the media, the farmers’ own associations and the world’s governments have all ignored the New Zealand experience. Even New Zealand never mentions it. It does not fit the corporate image and is not what we are encouraged to notice. See, for example, http://www.iht.com/ihtsearch.php?id=62576&owner=(International%20Herald%20Tribune)&date=20020627153521 New Zealand's aid-free farm boom, By Andrew Johnston (International Herald Tribune), Wednesday, June 26, 2002.

A second case in point: How Cuba Survived the Collapse of the Grid

In 1989, at about the same time as the New Zealand experience was unfolding, Cuba was forced off the Grid by the collapse of the Soviet empire. The Soviet Union had been the supplier of 80% of Cuba’s imports, including energy, and the buyer of 80% of Cuba’s production. That consisted mainly of sugar, tobacco and citrus, all grown by plantation agriculture characterized by monoculture using massive amounts of chemical pesticides, synthetic nitrogen fertilizers and herbicides: the Green Revolution, in brief. Cuba exported almost all of its agricultural production and imported almost all of its food.

When the Soviet empire collapsed, Cuba suddenly had no supplier of petroleum and other imports, and no customers for its produce. That meant no money, which meant very little food and precious little petroleum and that in turn meant nearly no agricultural chemicals. Cuba today uses less than 5% of the amount of agricultural chemicals that it used before 1989.

With no market for its cash crops, the country’s agriculture had to turn from plantation agriculture to local farming and had to do so quickly. Cuba began to grow its own food. There was no gasoline for the tractors but there were a few oxen and there was manpower.

To the credit of the Cuban people, there were no food riots, no looting. Civil order did not break down. Pilfering from community gardens was not extensive enough to become a problem. People got together as communities and began planting food in any available patch of ground. Flat roofs are now vegetable gardens. Out of necessity, they used techniques from outside the “green revolution.” People came from Australia to teach the Cubans “permaculture,” which requires very little water, no chemicals and relatively very little labor. (More on that below.)

Havana, a densely populated city of more than two million, produces 80-85% of its own food. Less crowded cities produce an even higher percentage of theirs. Cuba today exports bio-pesticides and bio-fertilizers, which the Cubans have learned to produce. Still, the world adamantly refuses to notice that the green revolution is a failure at best, probably a fraud and possibly a crime.

Israeli agriculture is in dire need of restructuring. I came on aliyah in 1984 and economists already then were pointing out the irrationality of Israeli agriculture’s dependence on resources in very short supply in Israel: energy, water, labor and money. They pointed out, even then, that it was irrational for Israel to subsidize the export of water to Europe in the form of fruits and vegetables. It is even more irrational now and will be impossible should Europe join in sanctions against Israel.

There is a new agricultural technology that eschews monoculture and the massive chemicalization and mechanization that are required for monoculture. It requires no chemicals, very little water, little mechanization and not much labor. It sounds too good to be true but it is true. It is called “permaculture” and I even have a permaculture expert whom I can recommend to give instruction. She in turn has her teachers and there are others. It is a system that is functioning in Israel and it can be seen in operation.

There are other technologies in existence that can free Israel and the world from the grip of Middle East petroleum. One is based on the work of Nikola Tesla which could provide essentially free power to everyone in the world, as Tesla proposed in the 1920’s. Financing for Tesla’s project, however, was thwarted by banking interests committed to petroleum. An American scientist believes he has discovered how Tesla could tap into the static charge of Planet Earth. Israel is the ideal location. He offered it to two different Israeli Ministers of National Infrastructure and both ignored it. I propose that Israel tests it and develops it.

Another is an Israeli project that can transform algae into crude oil, turning petroleum into an agricultural product, requiring only flat land with reliable sunlight (such as desert) near water or any degree of salinity. It is in Israel’s interest that projects such as this be developed and exploited everywhere in the world. With this technology, Australia, for example, could produce as much crude oil as Saudi Arabia. Israel should also give urgent consideration to a water tunnel from the Mediterranean to Dead Sea with hydro-electric and reverse osmosis desalination plants along the way. There are other clean energy sources, such as the energy tower proposed by Zoslowsky, solar ponds, and solar electricity fields. In addition, there is 40 million dollar’s worth of energy in sewage and other wastes that is being pumped out to sea even as you read these words.

Israel should reformulate defense policy and foreign policy doctrine to include aggressive alternative energy research and development, implementation and marketing. That should be a strategic goal. The more the world uses energy other than petroleum from OPEC countries, the more the power of international jihad is weakened and the less money there will be to finance terrorism against Israel.

Getting off the global mega-corporate grid and helping others to get off the grid will create a better society and a better world.

Independence: To the extent that Israel produces our own water, energy and food, we are beyond the reach of monopoly exploitation, foreign bullying, OPEC manipulation, price gouging and shortages.

Economic Benefit: There is cost involved in transport. No mystery. This is one reason for turning to local sources of food and energy. Even transmission of electricity costs energy. Less than 100% of the electricity that enters a transmission cable comes out the other end. The longer the transmission, the more energy is lost. Turbines and generators of all sizes are commercially available. Electric generation, from sewage, wind and solar and the technologies discussed above, can be decentralized to many locations, which would also reduce, by the way, the vulnerability of Israel’s electrical system to hostile action.

Similar benefits are to be had from producing more or even all of our food and other necessities locally.

Democracy and the future of the republic: Contemporary democracy was born in America, a place we both know well. The American Republic grew out of a society of independent farmers; the “peasant tradition.” A “peasant,” in the classic sense, is a small landowner who lives by subsistence agriculture. That is, a “peasant” produces mainly for his own family’s needs and sells the surplus in order to buy what he cannot produce.

The “Okies” were pretty much the end of the peasant tradition in America. It was finally wiped out by the Dust Bowl, farm foreclosures, employment in agribusiness in California and then assimilation into the general society. They were poor but very proud, accustomed to hard work and self-reliance and fiercely independent. They were ready to help one another with joy and alacrity but were always ready to go it alone if need be. Out of such stock and such a culture the Republic originally arose.

By the 1930’s, even before rural electrification, most family farms in America were already on the corporate grid. hey were given over to large scale cash crops and distant markets, which put them on the transport grid and dependence on motor vehicles and petroleum. No longer self-sufficient, they purchased everything from the system (the “grid”). Monoculture meant mechanization of agriculture which in turn meant borrowing large sums from the banks, another grid. Each step meant more acreage devoted to cash crops and less to their own needs. At the same time, government programs were implemented, such as rural electrification, which had the effect of centralizing the economy and making producers more and more dependent on large corporations. Eventually, most Americans came to work for mega-corporations, directly or indirectly. That was not entirely a function of market forces. It was due in greater or lesser part to government policy, which came to be dominated by those same corporations.

The corporate solutions came to be the only ones considered by government or considered by universities, whose research is funded by corporations interested in the outcomes; think tanks, which are staffed by people from government, academe and the executive level of the mega-corporate world; and the media, which depend on corporate advertising for their survival.

This is a process of collectivization. What is a corporation, after all, but a collectivity which is, furthermore, authoritarian and hierarchic? It is not a democratic institution. This process of collectivization has been actively pursued by governments of Western countries for about eighty years and maybe longer. At the turn of the Twentieth Century, Sweden was a rather backward country in the north woods. The economic miracle that transformed Sweden was wrought by small business. Then, during the depression, people turned to the Socialists who made an alliance with big business to control the economy. Socialism is not about social justice and not about equality. Socialism is about power.

There are many ways that government has of promoting collectivization by protecting the large corporations from competition by small business. Many of those ways take the guise of protection of the public from the evils of the big corporations. The effect is to make it so expensive and burdensome to comply with the regulations that only the very large corporations can afford to do business. The labor unions also tend to become part of the “grid.” Unions are collectivities which become hierarchical and authoritarian through anti-democratic rules which government protects from the rank and file because that enables “sweetheart contracts” with the corporate employers by benefitting the labor bosses under the table. We note again that this is frequently not the result of market forces except in the sense that government policy is a marketable “service.”

The same process of promoting dependence on mega-corporations is now proceeding internationally t is called “globalization.” After the fall of Communism, Bulgaria fully privatized. Foreign companies invested in Bulgaria, bought up the most viable industries and moved them out of Bulgaria or simply closed them in order to eliminate the competition. They nearly bankrupted Bulgaria and set her back decades developmentally. What are Bulgarians to do then? The answer globalization gives is that Bulgarians should be free to move to follow the labor market. That is to say, they should be free to cease being Bulgarians in their own country. Likewise for Israelis, that means the solution is to cease being a free people in our own land and to go back into exile among the nations. For Jews, this is national suicide. The more Israel separates itself from the grid, the better. And the sooner the better.

I believe it is the goal of the international elite to control national policy everywhere by means of control of the companies that dominate the local economy. The elite in Israel are fully on board. This represents the globalization of the manner in which conglomerates have historically subordinated state and local governments in America.

One who believes, with Charles Wilson, that “What’s good for General Motors is good for America” will be comfortable with globalization: What’s good for General Motors and Siemens and British Petroleum and Mitsubishi, etc. is good for the whole world. Even if one is comfortable with that proposition, however, we know that what applies to “everyone” does not necessarily include the Jews. Jewish survival and Israeli independence cannot depend on the good will of the nations of the world.

I would also call your attention to the way the world’s response to the financial meltdown follows a Third World pattern. The pattern is always to privatize profits and socialize loss. The US government’s “recovery” plan so far follows the Third World pattern. President Obama’s program has even included the use of AIG to launder enormous amounts of money to foreign interests, forcing the US taxpayers to absorb the losses of the global elite. The ultimate goal is quite apparently world government, which will enable the global elite to use to the whole world in the same manner: to generate its profits and absorb its losses at taxpayers’ expense.

The world government is to be controlled by the global elite, of course. In short, this is an economic war which the ruling families of the world are waging. The goal is nothing less than total control of the world’s economic activity by a consortium of their mega-corporations under the auspices of an international government, consisting of officials who cannot be influenced or removed by democratic means and enshrining the supremacy of the super-state over the individual.

That, on a global scale, is the very essence of classic fascism and would be terrible for most people and especially terrible for the Jews. Fascistic world government can be defeated by getting people everywhere to start separating themselves from the mega-corporations’ grid and creating a grid, or grids, of their own.

Thus, getting off the global corporate grid has both a macro aspect and a micro aspect. The Grid’s financial system has been seen to be very fragile, a gigantic Ponzi scheme which cannot survive except by continually expanding. It would not take much in terms of percentage of commerce moving off the Grid to cause it to collapse.

The essential thing is that people not wait for the government to save them. The people have to save themselves. Democracy is do-it-yourself government or it is not democracy. It involves creating networks for doing business with small businesses, creating consumer and credit cooperatives or גמ"חים and doing less and less business through establishment banks, creating labor unions that the members really control and otherwise avoiding dealings with the businesses controlled by the ruling elite as much as possible, and especially getting one’s news from sources they do not control.

Israel can fight back by taking a page from the book of President Obama’s mentor, Saul Alinsky: empower the people. Israel’s goal should be to empower them to take control of their own destinies and their own countries, to create their own system or systems and let the present system collapse. That decentralizes power, both internationally and within each country and each community, and disperses it to the people. It truly would empower the people. It should be a strategic goal for Israel.

America is also ripe for such a movement and I am connected to two organizations, one quite massive, which might be actually eager to take it up and do the work of community organization. Many Israelis are US citizens and we can legitimately take the battle to their home turf. Americans can help Israel by renewing and strengthening democracy in America. The American foreign policy establishment is Israel’s bitter enemy. The American people are not.

What should Israeli policy be? The Alternative, in Brief:

I submit that the alternative policy for Israel boils down to the following:

1. Eliminate the Palestinian Authority because it will never produce the peace that was intended. Its democratic election of Hamas negates the Roadmap. Hamas, in fact, negated the Roadmap and it is a dead letter;
2. Actively destroy all the terrorist organizations, specifically including the PLO and all its constituent groups;
3. Kill all the terrorists, including individual terrorists unaffiliated with a terrorist group;
4. Prosecute everyone who has aided and abetted the enemy, following such foreign precedents as the Post World War II prosecutions of “Tokyo Rose” and “Lord Haw-Haw”; everyone who obstructed justice by cover-up or partiality in the application of law or abused power to pervert state policy; everyone who made decisions based on bribery or other corruption or in service of foreign interest;
5. Redefine citizenship (full for those who serve in the IDF, and only local participation for those who do not) and enforce the law banning parties that deny the nature of Israel as a Jewish state;
6. Annex Judea and Samaria and make it clear that there will never be any authority there other than the State of Israel;
7. Equal enforcement of planning and building laws;
8. Restructure the government to provide for winner-take-all district elections to Knesset and executive appointment of judges with the consent of a special majority of the Knesset;
9. Reformulate defense policy and foreign policy to include aggressive alternative energy research, implementation and marketing;
10. Establish the centrality of Torah to Israeli education, law, policy and strategic planning. Being a Jewish state means embracing Jewish destiny. There is no other source by which to define such purpose and destiny and there is no other purpose for the state that cannot be satisfied in California, Italy, Canada, Australia or many other places. In brief, instill Torah and Jewish self-respect into Israeli education, foreign relations and defense policy.

Israel can expect to meet concerted opposition from the world to these measures. Israel can be expected to be condemned, vilified and loathed. Israel can even expect that there might be sanctions imposed. On the other hand, submission and obsequiousness and “goodwill gestures,” “confidence building measures,” territorial concessions and unconditional unilateral withdrawal from Southern Lebanon and Gaza and restraint have gotten us nothing but condemnation, vilification and loathing, deligitimation and calls for our destruction when we defended ourselves. As long as we are still alive, more concessions will be demanded of us. In contrast, Israeli and Jewish prestige and acceptance were never higher than following the Six-Day War when the nations feared and respected Israel.

Israel does not have to grovel before the Powers That Be, nor does Israel have to take it in the neck. If we only make our best efforts and have faith in Hashem, we will be shown what we need to know and we will be given the right tools to win.

Not for nothing are we known as עברים. We have the ability, inherited from our father, Avraham, לעמוד מעבר לכל העלום, עם כל העולם בצד אחד ואנחנו בצד השני. Stand firm.

Very truly yours,

Jack Golbert, Attorney at Law and Advocate

97 Jaffa Road No. 821

Jerusalem, Israel 91280




Professor of Law (Emer.)

Cc: Mr. Uzi Arad

Mr. Daniel Seaman

MK Benny Begin

MK Moshe Ya’alon

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