RubinReports
Barry Rubin
The question readers most often ask me is an extremely basic, vitally important one.
So how can we explain the world's second biggest problem today. The first is the flourishing of radical, often violent forces, committing aggression, making gains, increasing repression. The second is the refusal of all too much of the Western leadership and intelligentsia to notice that reality, then try to do something about it. And so why does so much of the political and intellectual establishment in the United States and Europe fail to understand what's going on in the world? How do they not see that radical forces are enemies of their societies, not just misunderstood or mistreated potential friends? What prevents them from championing Western civilization's democratic, humanist, liberty-oriented, and free enterprise with reasonable government regulation system?
In short, why don’t they get it?
There are lots of answers, of course but even after one goes through the list the basic disconnect between reality, perception, and policy remains baffling. To see a society with such advantages and assets act as if it were intent on suicide, or at least with blind disregard for its survival, is a strange phenomenon. To view the stronger obsessed with making concessions, the more moral consumed with guilt, a blind inability to identify enemies who keep proclaiming their nature and intentions is just plain bizarre.
If I had to put it all in one sentence--admittedly a long, complex one--it would be this like this:
American and Western policymakers and intellectuals cannot believe or comprehend that so many would fight for bad causes out of ideological--nationalist, religious, traditionalist--worldviews, turning down material betterment in exchange for years of sacrifice, defeat, and suffering; engaging in a battle that a pragmatic assessment says they cannot win.
Much of the West has lost the ability to understand how a world view can be narrow and fantastical or, on the contrary, quite internally rational but merely designed to deal with a very different set of circumstances and society. You don't get to be the dictator of Venezuela or leader of al-Qaida or a powerful cleric in Iran by behaving and thinking like a Western democratic politician.
They don't understand what Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini tried to explain back in 1979: We didn't make the Iranian revolution to lower the price of watermelons. In other words, material deprivation doesn't motivate the revolution, and the goal is not higher living standards as the main priority. The goal is to manifest the divine will, to take over the world, to create a utopian society which invokes the absolute good against the absolute evil; to gain total victory because one is absolutely in the right.
In this political world, pragmatism is immoral compromise is treason. The situation is NOT one of business as usual.
Of course, one can find this kind of thing in Western history--including within living memory, fascism and Communism--but not today. What one does find today in Western society is insistence on an idea that renders people completely incapable of comprehension: the idea that everyone in the world thinks the same way and wants the same things.
How ironic: "multi-culturalism" denies the fact that some cultures are really very different. And Political Correctness fails to see that some politics see your well-intentioned humanitarianism and democratic values as so incorrect as to be punishable by death.
But if one shuts eyes to all of this, the remaining conclusion is that other people, groups, and countries only behave that way because they have been mistreated by the West. And the new situation—the West is very sorry and wants to make amends--hasn't been explained properly to them. There haven’t been enough apologies and self-criticism made; insufficient confidence built, not enough ingenious new plans laid and made; not enough concessions offered.
Since, too, this is the only right answer in a battle against imperialism, racism, and reactionary forces, it is the right--nay, the duty--for right-thinking journalists and professors, media and universities--to preach the good and censor plus censure the bad. Institutions thus stop doing their job of promoting debate, of questioning their own premises, as adjusting to facts or events, of ringing the alarm bell when the train is off the tracks.
Along with such an approach there is also one other indispensible element: to find a charismatic, sensitive, empathetic, Western leader (no prize for guessing who) capable of reaching out and persuading those who the “less astute” merely see as revolutionaries, terrorists, and dictators that there is no need for all of this strife. Conflicts can be settled amicably but only if we first repent and give, give, give.
Yet even when these efforts fail, as they have repeatedly, the cry goes up: Not enough! Throw in more concessions! Apologize more abjectly! Censor out the unpleasant facts as to the other side’s misdeeds and intransigence. Increase the confidence-building measures. Step up indoctrinating your people into believing that their country and system is the real problem. Down with us! Long live the other!
Is this too harsh an assessment? Well it must be, at least by its brevity and generalizations. But by how much is it excessive, and doesn’t it catch the real spirit of the problem?
Certainly, this isn’t just the result of bad ideas. Dealing with the dictators can bring good profits. It certain avoids confrontations, seems to eliminate the possibility of war, postpones crises, and makes people in the West feel good.
Then there are the punishments for those who point out these contradictions: name-calling, exclusion from powerful institutions and the glittering prizes, simply ignoring or censoring out the arguments.
And yet with each new stage, every rejection and act of aggression or intransigence from the enemies of democracy and freedom (it is revealing that merely to use a phrase like that would embarrass much of the West’s intelligentsia) it should be harder to conceal the reality that it is indeed the other side that's the problem.
Only a paradigm shift can suffice which is why specific events--the failure of the 1990s peace process, September 11 being two of the main ones--can shake people out of their cocoon of preconceptions and knee-jerk responses. The mere accumulation of failure, of cognitive dissidence will shake people up and wake people up. The pendulum will swing back.
Perhaps that is what’s happening step by step. Would that it would be happening faster!
Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan).
Tuesday, December 01, 2009
"The Battles to be Fought"
Arlene Kushner
Last week I attended the kick-off event of a new Anglo civic group in Israel called Hadar. Several persons of prominence were invited to address the question ask to whether the UN would accept Israel today. This question was posed with the anniversary of the UN vote to partition Palestine on November 29, 1947 in mind.
With all that has been going on, I have not had a chance to discuss this until now...The consensus, of course, was that the UN would not have us today, so thoroughly has that body changed in the intervening years. But I rather like the comment of Alan Baker, lawyer and former Israeli ambassador to Canada, who said that the real question was whether we would want to belong to such an organization. (The fact that we do already belong being treated as a separate issue.)
Baker pointed out that, as things stand, we are a second class nation at the UN, not included in any regional grouping. We can never be on the Security Council (there are rotating members) or serve on the International Court of Justice. The UN does not observe its own charter, but there is no international body to stop it from how it does conduct itself.
~~~~~~~~~~
Baker says that international law is anachronistic. The last protocols came from the time of the Vietnam war, and do not address today's international terror. Goldstone, he says, applied these outdated rules, such as no firing on churches, which don't account for such phenomena as terrorists who store weapons in mosques and use them as a base for firing.
What seems to be the case, however, is that revising those protocols would not be a simple matter. According to Baker, a new convention on terrorism was brought forth immediately after 9/11, but was tabled within two weeks because it didn't have a clause that pertains to actions against occupying powers. Translation: The Palestinian Arabs we refer to as terrorists aren't really terrorists at all, they are simply acting in a legal and justified manner against the occupier, Israel.
~~~~~~~~~~
Baker, as a lawyer concerned with legal process, spoke about those nations -- e.g., Britain, Switzerland, Spain --that have universal criminal jurisdiction, which permits individuals to initiate actions against Israeli leaders with regard to acts allegedly committed elsewhere. He says that if we carry out bone fide inquiries ourselves, with regard to presumed charges, then legally it neutralizes action against us in criminal jurisdiction cases.
~~~~~~~~~~
Dore Gold -- head of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs and former Israeli ambassador to the UN -- sees matters with regard to Israeli inquiries differently. We already have investigative mechanisms in place via the Judge Advocate General's office that offer very strong civilian oversight. The danger with launching inquiries in addition to this is that they may hamper the readiness of the IDF to act: if there is always fear that a legal mechanism in the country will second guess how a soldier acts, he will be afraid to act. This is a situation that would put us at risk.
Baker says we should launch an additional inquiry into the Goldstone Report charges. Gold advises fighting Goldstone in public opinion, not the courts. (My own inclination is to agree with Gold: a further inquiry will appear to be an admission of guilt.) He believes the problem with Goldstone is the mis-use of international law, not the lack of law.
As some of you may be aware, Ambassador Gold debated Goldstone recently at Brandeis University. Here's a link to his remarks from that event, compiled and expanded:
http://www.jcpa.org/text/GoldGoldstone-5nov09.pdf
~~~~~~~~~~
Danny Ayalon, Deputy Foreign Minister, speaking to this issue of public opinion, said that the foreign ministry is intensifying cooperation with the Dovrei Tzahal -- spokespersons for the IDF -- so that information can be disseminated quickly.
However, said Ayalon, the world tends to judge Israel only with regard to our military conflicts and not our merits. Thus the Ministries of Education, Science, etc. must cooperate in informing the world about who and what we are. (My "Good News Corner" is promoted by some of the same logic.)
~~~~~~~~~~
Gold addressed the ways in which the world is attempting to delegitimize us. They challenge our legal and historical rights, which we must assert with vigor.
We must, as well, expose radical networks and make it clear that they represent a risk to the entire West and not just Israel.
~~~~~~~~~~
Our work is cut out for us, and then some.
While November 29 was a focus for the forum, consider what today's news brings us:
Yesterday began "International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People" at the UN. Enough to turn your stomach in and of itself. There is no other solidarity day at the UN. Not with Kurds or Tibetans, or any other people. The Palestinian Arabs are very special indeed, it seems. So special that this "day"-- which has been observed since 1977 and is noted as "a time of mourning" -- actually lasts for two days. Scheduled for this year are speeches, an exhibit on the "refugees" and a film. To top this all off, yesterday UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon declared that a Palestinian state was a "vital" component necessary for regional peace.
Sigh... No, much too mild and tolerant. I take that back. Grrr!
~~~~~~~~~~
Meanwhile there is on-going debate about Israel at the UN General Assembly. (This, it should be noted, is what Anne Bayefsky is most frustrated at not being able to monitor because her credentials have been taken from her, pending a January or February hearing.) Six anti-Israel resolutions are expected.
And once again there is talk that the Palestinian Arabs are going to ask the UN Security Council to declare a Palestinian state with the '67 line as its border and eastern Jerusalem as its capital. I carefully researched the legality of this several days ago, and have already reported on it. What is being proposed, according to international law, should not be possible. The Security Council does not "declare" the existence of states. However, I note Alan Baker's words, above, that the UN does not observe its own charter and that there is no international agency to stop it from how it does conduct itself.
I still seriously doubt that matters will get that far out of hand, but I am clearly unable to say with genuine certainty that what the Palestinian Arabs are planning cannot happen because international law will not permit it. Not when the international community in many regards does as it damn pleases. Ultimately, it might -- in a worse case scenario -- fall to the US to veto a resolution.
~~~~~~~~~~
But let's take a closer look at statement by PA president Mahmoud Abbas that PLO representative to the UN, Riyad Mansour, read at the General Assembly: In the 61 years since the nakba ("catastrophe" in Arabic, meaning the creation the State of Israel), Palestinians "continue to suffer under colonial occupation."
He said more, of course, but this is for me the key statement, and, regretfully, not enough will be made of this -- even though it is the tip-off to the core of the issue.
The Palestinian Arab claim, certainly the purported claim of the Palestinian Authority, is that there should be two states, essentially divided by the Green Line ('67 line). The purported claim is that we are occupiers in Judea and Samaria, which should be theirs for a state. But we haven't been in possession of Judea and Samaria for 61 years; it's been ours again only since 1967, for 42 years.
What the Abbas statement makes clear is that, as we are considered "occupiers" for 61 years, there is no acceptance of us within the Green Line either. All of Israel, in its totality, is considered to be a "colonial occupation." There is no sincerity with regard to the "two state solution." We know that this is the genuine Arab position, but it becomes public in such a statement. And who will pay attention?
~~~~~~~~~~
It's unbearable. Intolerable. I know no other way of saying this. (And no, I'm not laughing now.) At a press conference today, spokesman for the Chinese foreign ministry, Qin Gang, said that what's needed to resolve the impasse with Iran is more dialogue, not sanctions. "All parties should step up diplomatic efforts."
So much for the cautiously hopeful observation that China may be growing weary of the Iranian stance.
And next....?
Reports from Washington and London indicate increasing Western anger with Iran, with "sanctions possible next month." We're waiting.
~~~~~~~~~~
see my website www.ArlenefromIsrael.info
Last week I attended the kick-off event of a new Anglo civic group in Israel called Hadar. Several persons of prominence were invited to address the question ask to whether the UN would accept Israel today. This question was posed with the anniversary of the UN vote to partition Palestine on November 29, 1947 in mind.
With all that has been going on, I have not had a chance to discuss this until now...The consensus, of course, was that the UN would not have us today, so thoroughly has that body changed in the intervening years. But I rather like the comment of Alan Baker, lawyer and former Israeli ambassador to Canada, who said that the real question was whether we would want to belong to such an organization. (The fact that we do already belong being treated as a separate issue.)
Baker pointed out that, as things stand, we are a second class nation at the UN, not included in any regional grouping. We can never be on the Security Council (there are rotating members) or serve on the International Court of Justice. The UN does not observe its own charter, but there is no international body to stop it from how it does conduct itself.
~~~~~~~~~~
Baker says that international law is anachronistic. The last protocols came from the time of the Vietnam war, and do not address today's international terror. Goldstone, he says, applied these outdated rules, such as no firing on churches, which don't account for such phenomena as terrorists who store weapons in mosques and use them as a base for firing.
What seems to be the case, however, is that revising those protocols would not be a simple matter. According to Baker, a new convention on terrorism was brought forth immediately after 9/11, but was tabled within two weeks because it didn't have a clause that pertains to actions against occupying powers. Translation: The Palestinian Arabs we refer to as terrorists aren't really terrorists at all, they are simply acting in a legal and justified manner against the occupier, Israel.
~~~~~~~~~~
Baker, as a lawyer concerned with legal process, spoke about those nations -- e.g., Britain, Switzerland, Spain --that have universal criminal jurisdiction, which permits individuals to initiate actions against Israeli leaders with regard to acts allegedly committed elsewhere. He says that if we carry out bone fide inquiries ourselves, with regard to presumed charges, then legally it neutralizes action against us in criminal jurisdiction cases.
~~~~~~~~~~
Dore Gold -- head of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs and former Israeli ambassador to the UN -- sees matters with regard to Israeli inquiries differently. We already have investigative mechanisms in place via the Judge Advocate General's office that offer very strong civilian oversight. The danger with launching inquiries in addition to this is that they may hamper the readiness of the IDF to act: if there is always fear that a legal mechanism in the country will second guess how a soldier acts, he will be afraid to act. This is a situation that would put us at risk.
Baker says we should launch an additional inquiry into the Goldstone Report charges. Gold advises fighting Goldstone in public opinion, not the courts. (My own inclination is to agree with Gold: a further inquiry will appear to be an admission of guilt.) He believes the problem with Goldstone is the mis-use of international law, not the lack of law.
As some of you may be aware, Ambassador Gold debated Goldstone recently at Brandeis University. Here's a link to his remarks from that event, compiled and expanded:
http://www.jcpa.org/text/GoldGoldstone-5nov09.pdf
~~~~~~~~~~
Danny Ayalon, Deputy Foreign Minister, speaking to this issue of public opinion, said that the foreign ministry is intensifying cooperation with the Dovrei Tzahal -- spokespersons for the IDF -- so that information can be disseminated quickly.
However, said Ayalon, the world tends to judge Israel only with regard to our military conflicts and not our merits. Thus the Ministries of Education, Science, etc. must cooperate in informing the world about who and what we are. (My "Good News Corner" is promoted by some of the same logic.)
~~~~~~~~~~
Gold addressed the ways in which the world is attempting to delegitimize us. They challenge our legal and historical rights, which we must assert with vigor.
We must, as well, expose radical networks and make it clear that they represent a risk to the entire West and not just Israel.
~~~~~~~~~~
Our work is cut out for us, and then some.
While November 29 was a focus for the forum, consider what today's news brings us:
Yesterday began "International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People" at the UN. Enough to turn your stomach in and of itself. There is no other solidarity day at the UN. Not with Kurds or Tibetans, or any other people. The Palestinian Arabs are very special indeed, it seems. So special that this "day"-- which has been observed since 1977 and is noted as "a time of mourning" -- actually lasts for two days. Scheduled for this year are speeches, an exhibit on the "refugees" and a film. To top this all off, yesterday UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon declared that a Palestinian state was a "vital" component necessary for regional peace.
Sigh... No, much too mild and tolerant. I take that back. Grrr!
~~~~~~~~~~
Meanwhile there is on-going debate about Israel at the UN General Assembly. (This, it should be noted, is what Anne Bayefsky is most frustrated at not being able to monitor because her credentials have been taken from her, pending a January or February hearing.) Six anti-Israel resolutions are expected.
And once again there is talk that the Palestinian Arabs are going to ask the UN Security Council to declare a Palestinian state with the '67 line as its border and eastern Jerusalem as its capital. I carefully researched the legality of this several days ago, and have already reported on it. What is being proposed, according to international law, should not be possible. The Security Council does not "declare" the existence of states. However, I note Alan Baker's words, above, that the UN does not observe its own charter and that there is no international agency to stop it from how it does conduct itself.
I still seriously doubt that matters will get that far out of hand, but I am clearly unable to say with genuine certainty that what the Palestinian Arabs are planning cannot happen because international law will not permit it. Not when the international community in many regards does as it damn pleases. Ultimately, it might -- in a worse case scenario -- fall to the US to veto a resolution.
~~~~~~~~~~
But let's take a closer look at statement by PA president Mahmoud Abbas that PLO representative to the UN, Riyad Mansour, read at the General Assembly: In the 61 years since the nakba ("catastrophe" in Arabic, meaning the creation the State of Israel), Palestinians "continue to suffer under colonial occupation."
He said more, of course, but this is for me the key statement, and, regretfully, not enough will be made of this -- even though it is the tip-off to the core of the issue.
The Palestinian Arab claim, certainly the purported claim of the Palestinian Authority, is that there should be two states, essentially divided by the Green Line ('67 line). The purported claim is that we are occupiers in Judea and Samaria, which should be theirs for a state. But we haven't been in possession of Judea and Samaria for 61 years; it's been ours again only since 1967, for 42 years.
What the Abbas statement makes clear is that, as we are considered "occupiers" for 61 years, there is no acceptance of us within the Green Line either. All of Israel, in its totality, is considered to be a "colonial occupation." There is no sincerity with regard to the "two state solution." We know that this is the genuine Arab position, but it becomes public in such a statement. And who will pay attention?
~~~~~~~~~~
It's unbearable. Intolerable. I know no other way of saying this. (And no, I'm not laughing now.) At a press conference today, spokesman for the Chinese foreign ministry, Qin Gang, said that what's needed to resolve the impasse with Iran is more dialogue, not sanctions. "All parties should step up diplomatic efforts."
So much for the cautiously hopeful observation that China may be growing weary of the Iranian stance.
And next....?
Reports from Washington and London indicate increasing Western anger with Iran, with "sanctions possible next month." We're waiting.
~~~~~~~~~~
see my website www.ArlenefromIsrael.info
Ehud Olmert still dreams of peace
* Greg Sheridan, Foreign editor
* From: The Australian
EHUD Olmert is a giant of contemporary Middle East politics. As Israel's prime minister he made war - twice - in Lebanon in 2006, and in the Gaza Strip earlier this year. He's also tried to make peace, offering the Palestinian leader, Mahmoud Abbas, the most extensive concessions any Israeli leader has ever brought to the table in the search for a settlement Now Olmert's out of office, not because he lost an election but because he is fighting corruption charges in the courts. Previous such charges against him came to nothing and Olmert has always asserted his innocence.
In Sydney this week, I conducted, perhaps, the longest interview and discussion Olmert has undertaken with any media since leaving office in March after more than three years as prime minister.
Dressed in jeans and black T-shirt with a Red Bull logo, Olmert looked pretty chipper for a balding lawyer with a modest paunch in his early 60s who'd just flown 24 hours from Israel.
For 90 minutes in the boardroom of Sydney's Park Hyatt, and then over a relaxed lunch with his wife, Aliza, at Circular Quay, Olmert talked with remarkable frankness about the military campaigns in Gaza and Lebanon, the historic peace deal he offered the Palestinians, President Barack Obama's Middle East policy and the options for action against Iran..
Olmert's role in history is a big one. If he clears his name of the corruption charges he could come back to the centre of Israeli life, as previous prime ministers - like Likud's Benjamin Netanyahu, now PM for the second time - and Labour's Ehud Barak, who both staged comebacks.
Olmert is straightforward and direct, and sometimes surprising, in his assessments of the global leaders he dealt with. He believes, for example, that the President of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, is a genuine partner in the peace process.
Olmert says of Abbas: "I think he's genuine in his desire to achieve a Palestinian state, and he recognises the right of Israel to exist. And, while I can't speak for him, even if he can't say it publicly and formally, he recognises that Israel is the homeland of the Jewish people."
This judgment by Olmert is critical because it means he still believes the peace process has a chance, while Abbas remains the Palestinians' leader. And it's not as if Olmert, who spent most of his life in the centre-right Likud party and was once the hardest of hardliners, is unwilling to pass a harsh judgment on a Palestinian leader.
I ask Olmert to compare the failure of Abbas to conclude a peace agreement with him, with the opportunity Yasser Arafat passed up at Camp David in 2000. It is one of the few times Olmert cuts off a question with a declarative response: "The two are not alike. Yasser Arafat never wanted to make peace with Israel. Yasser Arafat was a murderer and a terrorist and remained so until the last day of his life. Abu Mazen (the name by which Israelis and others in the region commonly refer to Abbas) wants peace."
So, too, Olmert says, does Netanyahu. Olmert followed Ariel Sharon out of Likud to form the Kadima party, based on the idea that Israel would unilaterally withdraw from the Gaza Strip and later the West Bank. It withdrew from Gaza but withdrawal from the West Bank became untenable in light of the missile attacks on Israel from Gaza.
Sharon was felled by a stroke and Olmert took over as acting PM in January 2006, later won an election in his own right and remained PM until the end of March this year. Netanyahu became leader of Likud and consistently attacked Sharon and Olmert from the Right, for offering too many concessions to the Palestinians.
But Olmert says Netanyahu is not an obstacle to peace: "The Prime Minister (Netanyahu) is dedicated to peace, he is concerned with peace. Naturally - he is also worried about security."
Olmert is similarly positive about Obama, implicitly rebuking those Israelis who see Obama as hostile to Israel's security interests: "I'm entirely free of any suspicions or complaints about the Obama administration. I think the Obama administration is very friendly to Israel. I know a lot of the people in the administration and they are committed to Israel. Many people in this administration are intimately acquainted with all the facts of the Middle East - Hillary Clinton, Dennis Ross, Rahm Emmanuel, Jim Jones."
Olmert, like many Israelis, was critical of Obama's speech to the Muslim world in Cairo: "I was not happy with this speech. There should not even be a tacit comparison of the Holocaust with the Palestinian situation. This mistake was not corrected by Obama later visiting Buchenwald (the site of a Nazi extermination camp during World War II). However, this does not mean that Obama is an enemy of the Israeli people, just that he made a mistake. I hope he realises he made a mistake."
But he has some advice for Obama on the search for an Arab-Israeli peace: "I don't quite understand the American approach. Every new president believes they have to start from square one. If they're lucky they last for eight years, and by the end there is almost peace. But the new administration then starts anew, because they always know best."
Olmert believes Obama made a mistake by focusing initially on a demand for an Israeli building freeze in West Bank Jewish settlements: "I think the tactic of starting to argue about a building here or there is a tactical mistake and I expect the Americans to change their approach."
So what should the Americans do? "Instead of starting at the beginning, they should start at the end."
Here, Olmert approaches the most significant aspect of his prime ministership. He waged a war against Hezbollah in southern Lebanon in 2006, and since then Hezbollah has not fired rockets against Israel. He waged a brutal operation against Hamas in the Gaza Strip at the start of this year, and since then the Hamas rockets have mostly fallen silent. And the Israeli economy, despite everything, did well in the last few years.
But Olmert's term in office is best remembered for the extensive negotiations, and final peace offer that he undertook with Abbas.
Olmert explains this position to me in unprecedented detail. His offer to Abbas represents a historic watershed and poses a serious question. Can the Palestinian leadership ever accept any offer that an Israeli prime minister could ever reasonably make?
It is important to get Olmert's full account of this offer on the record: "From the end of 2006 until the end of 2008 I think I met with Abu Mazen more often than any Israeli leader has ever met any Arab leader. I met him more than 35 times. They were intense, serious negotiations."
These negotiations took place on two tracks, Olmert says. One was the meetings with the two leaders and their senior colleagues and aides (among them Kadima leader Tzipi Livni on Olmert's side). But Olmert would also have private, one-on-one meetings with Abbas.
"On the 16th of September, 2008, I presented him (Abbas) with a comprehensive plan. It was based on the following principles.
One, there would be a territorial solution to the conflict on the basis of the 1967 borders with minor modifications on both sides. Israel will claim part of the West Bank where there have been demographic changes over the last 40 years."
This approach by Olmert would have allowed Israel to keep the biggest Jewish settlement blocks which are mainly now suburbs of Jerusalem, but would certainly have entailed other settlers having to leave Palestinian territory and relocate to Israel.
In total, Olmert says, this would have involved Israel claiming about 6.4 per cent of Palestinian territory in the West Bank: "It might be a fraction more, it might be a fraction less, but in total it would be about 6.4 per cent. Israel would claim all the Jewish areas of Jerusalem. All the lands that before 1967 were buffer zones between the two populations would have been split in half. In return there would be a swap of land (to the Palestinians) from Israel as it existed before 1967.
"I showed Abu Mazen how this would work to maintain the contiguity of the Palestinian state. I also proposed a safe passage between the West Bank and Gaza. It would have been a tunnel fully controlled by the Palestinians but not under Palestinian sovereignty, otherwise it would have cut the state of Israel in two.
"No 2 was the issue of Jerusalem. This was a very sensitive, very painful, soul-searching process. While I firmly believed that historically, and emotionally, Jerusalem was always the capital of the Jewish people, I was ready that the city should be shared. Jewish neighbourhoods would be under Jewish sovereignty, Arab neighbourhoods would be under Palestinian sovereignty, so it could be the capital of a Palestinian state.
"Then there was the question of the holy basin within Jerusalem, the sites that are holy to Jews and Muslims, but not only to them, to Christians as well. I would never agree to an exclusive Muslim sovereignty over areas that are religiously important to Jews and Christians. So there would be an area of no sovereignty, which would be jointly administered by five nations, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, the Palestinian state, Israel and the United States.
"Third was the issue of Palestinian refugees." This issue has often been a seeming deal-breaker. The Palestinians insist that all Palestinians who left Israel - at or near the time of its founding - and all their spouses and descendants, should be able to return to live in Israel proper. This could be more than a million people. Olmert, like other Israeli prime ministers, could never agree to this: "I think Abu Mazen understood there was no chance Israel would become the homeland of the Palestinian people. The Palestinian state was to be the homeland of the Palestinian people. So the question was how the claimed attachment of the Palestinian refugees to their original places could be recognised without bringing them in. I told him I would never agree to a right of return. Instead, we would agree on a humanitarian basis to accept a certain number every year for five years, on the basis that this would be the end of conflict and the end of claims. I said to him 1000 per year. I think the Americans were entirely with me.
"In addition, we talked about creating an international fund that would compensate Palestinians for their suffering. I was the first Israeli prime minister to speak of Palestinian suffering and to say that we are not indifferent to that suffering.
"And four, there were security issues." Olmert says he showed Abbas a map, which embodied all these plans. Abbas wanted to take the map away. Olmert agreed, so long as they both signed the map. It was, from Olmert's point of view, a final offer, not a basis for future negotiation. But Abbas could not commit. Instead, he said he would come with experts the next day.
"He (Abbas) promised me the next day his adviser would come. But the next day Saeb Erekat rang my adviser and said we forgot we are going to Amman today, let's make it next week. I never saw him again."
Olmert believes that, like Camp David a decade earlier, this was an enormous opportunity lost: "I said `this is the offer. Sign it and we can immediately get support from America, from Europe, from all over the world'. I told him (Abbas) he'd never get anything like this again from an Israeli leader for 50 years. I said to him, `do you want to keep floating forever - like an astronaut in space - or do you want a state?'
"To this day we should ask Abu Mazen to respond to this plan. If they (the Palestinians) say no, there's no point negotiating."
Olmert is right to paint this offer as embodying the most extensive concessions, and the best deal, ever offered to the Palestinians by an Israeli leader. But his very experience with this offer raises several questions. Could he have delivered its terms if the Palestinians had accepted it? Perhaps international momentum would have enabled him to do so, and, in fact, Olmert's Kadima party did remarkably well in the election which followed his prime ministership. Could any Israeli government today realistically make such an offer? The answer would seem to be no.
And most important, if the Palestinian leadership cannot accept that offer, can they accept any realistic offer? Do they have the machinery to run a state? Is their society too dysfunctional and filled with anti-Semitic propaganda to live in peace next to the Jewish state? Could they ever deliver on any security guarantees?
I put these questions to Olmert and his response to them is perhaps the most lukewarm part of our interview: "It's certainly a legitimate concern, since I never received a positive response from them. I think it's up to them (the Palestinians) to prove the point. I hope they will rise to this."
Olmert still believes the Palestinians should respond to the deal he offered them. If they did so, this would open the way to peace, but only if Palestinian society is reconciled to living in peace next to Israel as it really exists.
Olmert is robust in defence of other parts of his legacy. The war he led in 2006 against Hezbollah in southern Lebanon was widely criticised within Israel itself as being poorly executed. Not surprisingly, this is a view Olmert rejects: "The war in Lebanon ended with a unanimous UN resolution which allowed Israel to stay in the south of Lebanon until an international force took over from us. Since then, there has been not one military attack on Israel from Hezbollah. For more than three years now the northern border has been totally quiet and the northern part of Israel is flourishing as never before.
"The military operation in Lebanon was the most successful military operation in recent Israeli history. Many in Israel don't recognise that."
He claims a similar success in the military operation in the Gaza Strip, which has also resulted in a vast decline of rocket attacks on Israel. He sees a grotesque double standard in the world's criticism of what he portrays as Israel's efforts at self-defence: "When they were firing rockets at us from the north or the south, their purpose was only one thing, to kill Israeli civilians. Nobody (at the UN) was so devastated by this that they set up a special commission to investigate it. Everyone comes to us and says non-involved people (innocent civilians) were killed in Gaza. I regret it very much. But I had to protect a million people who were under attack. Every prime minister . . . has the responsibility to provide security for his people."
Not surprisingly, Olmert rejects the Goldstone report accusing Israel of war crimes in Gaza root and branch: "To write a report that focuses only on Israel's response to terror against innocent civilians was a moral indignity by Goldstone."
Olmert went quite a long way towards achieving a peace deal with Syria, but could not conclude it before he left office: "If Bashir Assad (Syria's President) wants the Golan Heights, I made it clear what the requirements would be for Israel."
Part of those requirements, Olmert says, would be "breaking off military co-operation with Iran that is harmful to Israel's security. Breaking off that military co-operation is important, but I don't expect Syria to break diplomatic relations with any country."
Olmert believes that the Syria track is perhaps the only peace process open to Israel in the immediate future, and that the time has come for direct Israel-Syria negotiations.
But if Syria is willing to make peace, I ask Olmert, how come it was building, with North Korean help, a nuclear reactor which Israel, under Olmert, bombed to obliteration? "I am saying nothing about that."
One matter where Olmert is a little critical of Obama is the ever present issue for all Israelis, Iran: "There is no doubt that Iran is planning to have a non-conventional capacity. Why would any country fight with the whole world over a civilian nuclear program if they have no plan of developing a nuclear bomb?
"They (the Iranians) are enriching uranium and hope to have enough fissile material for a few bombs. At the same time they are developing delivery systems with a range of 3000km. Once they have enough fissile material it will be impossible to stop them.
"When the President of Iran talks about removing Israel from the face of the Earth and is building nuclear bombs with a range of 3000km, you have to be worried.
"Israel is very active about this, but we feel the leadership on this issue should be taken by the Americans, and also by the Russians, Chinese, Germans and French.
"I was not happy with Obama's decision to have a dialogue with Iran. This dialogue will be used for only one purpose, to buy time for Iran.
" My advice would be to set a rigid timetable for this dialogue. This will not be easy as the Iranians are not dumb. Secondly, prepare your fallback position now. Don't start to prepare it when the talks fail.
"My view is that the Chinese and Russians are not in favour of a nuclear Iran. The problem is how to co-ordinate action. This is the responsibility of President Obama. The Americans want to lead the world, they must lead the world. Europe certainly now wants tough action.
"It is not a simple choice between acquiescence in the face of Iranian nuclear weapons or a comprehensive military attack on Iran. There are a lot of other effective options."
And what are some of these options? "I'm not prepared to discuss them publicly."
Olmert's life and political persona have seen radical transformations, from ultra-hawk to offering historical compromise. He was mayor of Jerusalem for 10 years, was finance minister, has been at the heart of intense political and military struggles.
He is visiting Australia in connection with the Australia-Israel Leadership Forum, which has its second session next week. Olmert has been a frequent visitor to Australia, and compares Sydney to Tel Aviv.
"Growing up in Israel, how can I not be an optimist? When you remember what Israel was 50 years ago and you see Israel now, one of the most successful countries in the world, stable, democratic, with an enormously stable economy despite everything that has happened in the global economy in the last few years, how can I not be an optimist?"
His final injunction seems simple enough in theory, but is immeasurably difficult in practice: "We need to be powerful enough to defeat all our enemies, and generous enough so that they will understand that peace is more attractive than any alternative their extremists can offer."
Israel, December 1, 2009
Ari Bussel
Israel’s Prime Minister has a viral flu, prompting his doctor to order cessation of activities for a second day in a row. The prevalent attitude is expressed in the following remark: “What type of flu does PM Netanyahu have? The Shalit Flu (about to exchange close to a thousand terrorists to bring a soldier back home to his family and country), the Swine Flu (to which several high-risk patients with other illnesses succumbed in recent days) or the Iranian Flu?” Shalit, Swine Flu, Iran – and Israel’s Prime Minister is busy, so it seems, in a move to freeze all settlement construction for the next ten months. This move, hailed as historic of unlike proportions by both the Foreign Minister and Deputy Foreign Minister (both from the same party, both appointees to their positions as a payment for joining the coalition government).
The ten-month “postponement” decision is so important that it was ordered by a small cabinet of ministers rather than being decided in a vote following a discussion by the Government at large. A lawsuit is pending before the Israeli Supreme Court challenging the validity of any subsequent action based on this decree.
Immediately following the decision, the Defense Minister ordered the addition of several dozens construction supervisors, essentially tripling their number, and the issuance of decrees to stop construction. I find it most encouraging that every top minister, from the PM to his group of closest ministerial advisors, saw fit to target only one type of construction: Jewish.
In the meantime, the Palestinian Authority has embarked on a grand new project – surrounding the existing Jewish habitats in Judea and Samaria with new Arab construction, illegal settlements of their own, to the tune of more than 50,000 “state-sponsored” units.
Unless PM Netanyahu’s move is designed to deflect attention from other actions, one must conclude that today’s European Union resolution introduced by Sweden to be considered next week in Brussels to recognize eastern Jerusalem as the capital of a future independent Palestinian state is both warranted and justified. Priorities are set, action is put in motion and consequences are therefore logical.
Following the Goldstone Report, there is clearly a need to take corrective action. Since the only party responsible is incapable of doing anything, others take an active role. The EU will pave the way to the establishment of a state for the eternal refugees, currently without leadership, facilitating in its wake the demolition of the Jewish State. Israel has yet to internalize these ever-increasing attacks on her.
Israel will have to make tough choices, top officials keep reminding the Israeli citizenry. At least two are the fate of approximately 25,000 Iranian Jews still in Iran and how to fight multiple fronts when priorities must be established. Why talk about a looming war and Armageddon when December 1st is a beautiful, sunny warm day in Israel, and what one hears are the voices of children in kindergartens and schools and witnesses the amazing strength of the Israeli economy?
Things are good in Israel, very good indeed. There is a construction boom, with cranes seen atop the urban landscape everywhere. In recent years there have been massive infrastructure construction projects, primarily new and improved roads, overpasses and highways. Since the economic meltdown of a year ago, people moved huge amounts of cash, earning zero interest, parked at financial institutions of murky future, into real estate.
Liquidity was turned into tangible assets, all aiming high, into the skies. Massive new buildings, 15, 20 and more stories high, are springing to life everywhere. These will necessitate additional infrastructure to accommodate all the families that are going to move in – from kindergartens to schools, roads leading to and from these new communities to new bus routes, and water and sewage, at time that water is becoming more and more precious.
Most noticeable, probably, is that with added height, mass and density, Israel’s cities are becoming more vulnerable. Hamas had a capability display, launching an Iranian medium- to long-range missile into the sea. This arms flexing was immediately followed by a statement – for those who might have intended to ignore the obvious – that Tel Aviv is now in range.
Has Israel forgotten what it meant to be in the line of fire of Saddam Hussein’s Skad Missiles in 1991 or Hizbollah’s missiles in 2006 or Hamas rockets in 2009? It is better to bask at the warmth of the sun, at the beginning of December, and look at all that is flourishing here in Israel. The alternative? Get ready. The attacks will undoubtedly begin. The past would seem so distant, the future grim. Practice, train, evaluate and try to improve readiness now. This should be the recipe followed; it is not.
The scenario:
Hizbollah in the North;
Hamas in Gaza with very active offshoots in Judea and Samaria;
Syria still with her claim the Golan Heights, annexed by Israel in 1981 are rightfully hers (not to mention parts further in the body of Israel);
the Israeli Arabs and their recent “national aspirations” amounting to nothing short than an uprising; and
Iran whose president vowed to wipe Israel off the map.
The scenario of all the above acting in unison, with some seasoning from Turkey, Russia or others getting involved, is what frightens some in Israel.
One interpretation of “touch choices” was to indicate to the populace that Israel may be unable to fight in all fronts simultaneously.
I contend that Israel will fight and succeed, once she is dealt such a blow that she returns to her most basic animalistic instinct – the need to survive and prevail. Israel in recent decades has not been fighting to win. She has become entangled too much in wonder and criticism, in thinking about everyone else before her own self-being. She has become so distracted and unfocused that the image of a victor became separate from the grim reality. She has become weak.
Once Israel decides she fights to win, tough choices will be made, but win she will. The country will be covered with rockets, the 80,000 now in ready-bunkers in Lebanon with an additional continuous stream of weaponry arriving from Iran via Syria, by air, land and sea, and those that are in Gaza with replenishment via the Sinai Peninsula.
Israel may be hit with both chemical and biological agents – Iran has used chemical weapons before and the introduction of biological weapons has been studied and perfected by many. Wave after wave of homicide bombers will be unleashed on Israel, though the consequences to the perpetrators and their cohorts be horrendous. Unlike the years of the bloody Intifada, Israel will not civilly tolerate these barbaric acts any more.
Israel may even be subdivided into impassable parts, if an atomic or a dirty bomb is set to go off in the center of Tel Aviv, toppling down the Azrieli Center (Tel Aviv’s “Triplets Towers”) and the adjacent military Headquarters. Israel is a tiny country, but it will find ways to survive and rebuild.
The nuclear and other threats are topics of discussion in Israel, although it seems that the discussion does not percolate deep enough for people to change their daily routines, stop the continuous bickering and get ready. At present, no one is willing to make any “tough choices.” The anger is directed internally, toward the new celeb-cause nicknamed the “Settlements.”
For the next two weeks, I will be reporting from the ground in Israel, providing observations and impressions, highlights and perspectives of a country in one of the most dangerous turns of its existence. Join me on this tour, as I witness the growth of a country alive and well, as the clouds are gathering with The Storm of the Century.
Israel’s Prime Minister has a viral flu, prompting his doctor to order cessation of activities for a second day in a row. The prevalent attitude is expressed in the following remark: “What type of flu does PM Netanyahu have? The Shalit Flu (about to exchange close to a thousand terrorists to bring a soldier back home to his family and country), the Swine Flu (to which several high-risk patients with other illnesses succumbed in recent days) or the Iranian Flu?” Shalit, Swine Flu, Iran – and Israel’s Prime Minister is busy, so it seems, in a move to freeze all settlement construction for the next ten months. This move, hailed as historic of unlike proportions by both the Foreign Minister and Deputy Foreign Minister (both from the same party, both appointees to their positions as a payment for joining the coalition government).
The ten-month “postponement” decision is so important that it was ordered by a small cabinet of ministers rather than being decided in a vote following a discussion by the Government at large. A lawsuit is pending before the Israeli Supreme Court challenging the validity of any subsequent action based on this decree.
Immediately following the decision, the Defense Minister ordered the addition of several dozens construction supervisors, essentially tripling their number, and the issuance of decrees to stop construction. I find it most encouraging that every top minister, from the PM to his group of closest ministerial advisors, saw fit to target only one type of construction: Jewish.
In the meantime, the Palestinian Authority has embarked on a grand new project – surrounding the existing Jewish habitats in Judea and Samaria with new Arab construction, illegal settlements of their own, to the tune of more than 50,000 “state-sponsored” units.
Unless PM Netanyahu’s move is designed to deflect attention from other actions, one must conclude that today’s European Union resolution introduced by Sweden to be considered next week in Brussels to recognize eastern Jerusalem as the capital of a future independent Palestinian state is both warranted and justified. Priorities are set, action is put in motion and consequences are therefore logical.
Following the Goldstone Report, there is clearly a need to take corrective action. Since the only party responsible is incapable of doing anything, others take an active role. The EU will pave the way to the establishment of a state for the eternal refugees, currently without leadership, facilitating in its wake the demolition of the Jewish State. Israel has yet to internalize these ever-increasing attacks on her.
Israel will have to make tough choices, top officials keep reminding the Israeli citizenry. At least two are the fate of approximately 25,000 Iranian Jews still in Iran and how to fight multiple fronts when priorities must be established. Why talk about a looming war and Armageddon when December 1st is a beautiful, sunny warm day in Israel, and what one hears are the voices of children in kindergartens and schools and witnesses the amazing strength of the Israeli economy?
Things are good in Israel, very good indeed. There is a construction boom, with cranes seen atop the urban landscape everywhere. In recent years there have been massive infrastructure construction projects, primarily new and improved roads, overpasses and highways. Since the economic meltdown of a year ago, people moved huge amounts of cash, earning zero interest, parked at financial institutions of murky future, into real estate.
Liquidity was turned into tangible assets, all aiming high, into the skies. Massive new buildings, 15, 20 and more stories high, are springing to life everywhere. These will necessitate additional infrastructure to accommodate all the families that are going to move in – from kindergartens to schools, roads leading to and from these new communities to new bus routes, and water and sewage, at time that water is becoming more and more precious.
Most noticeable, probably, is that with added height, mass and density, Israel’s cities are becoming more vulnerable. Hamas had a capability display, launching an Iranian medium- to long-range missile into the sea. This arms flexing was immediately followed by a statement – for those who might have intended to ignore the obvious – that Tel Aviv is now in range.
Has Israel forgotten what it meant to be in the line of fire of Saddam Hussein’s Skad Missiles in 1991 or Hizbollah’s missiles in 2006 or Hamas rockets in 2009? It is better to bask at the warmth of the sun, at the beginning of December, and look at all that is flourishing here in Israel. The alternative? Get ready. The attacks will undoubtedly begin. The past would seem so distant, the future grim. Practice, train, evaluate and try to improve readiness now. This should be the recipe followed; it is not.
The scenario:
Hizbollah in the North;
Hamas in Gaza with very active offshoots in Judea and Samaria;
Syria still with her claim the Golan Heights, annexed by Israel in 1981 are rightfully hers (not to mention parts further in the body of Israel);
the Israeli Arabs and their recent “national aspirations” amounting to nothing short than an uprising; and
Iran whose president vowed to wipe Israel off the map.
The scenario of all the above acting in unison, with some seasoning from Turkey, Russia or others getting involved, is what frightens some in Israel.
One interpretation of “touch choices” was to indicate to the populace that Israel may be unable to fight in all fronts simultaneously.
I contend that Israel will fight and succeed, once she is dealt such a blow that she returns to her most basic animalistic instinct – the need to survive and prevail. Israel in recent decades has not been fighting to win. She has become entangled too much in wonder and criticism, in thinking about everyone else before her own self-being. She has become so distracted and unfocused that the image of a victor became separate from the grim reality. She has become weak.
Once Israel decides she fights to win, tough choices will be made, but win she will. The country will be covered with rockets, the 80,000 now in ready-bunkers in Lebanon with an additional continuous stream of weaponry arriving from Iran via Syria, by air, land and sea, and those that are in Gaza with replenishment via the Sinai Peninsula.
Israel may be hit with both chemical and biological agents – Iran has used chemical weapons before and the introduction of biological weapons has been studied and perfected by many. Wave after wave of homicide bombers will be unleashed on Israel, though the consequences to the perpetrators and their cohorts be horrendous. Unlike the years of the bloody Intifada, Israel will not civilly tolerate these barbaric acts any more.
Israel may even be subdivided into impassable parts, if an atomic or a dirty bomb is set to go off in the center of Tel Aviv, toppling down the Azrieli Center (Tel Aviv’s “Triplets Towers”) and the adjacent military Headquarters. Israel is a tiny country, but it will find ways to survive and rebuild.
The nuclear and other threats are topics of discussion in Israel, although it seems that the discussion does not percolate deep enough for people to change their daily routines, stop the continuous bickering and get ready. At present, no one is willing to make any “tough choices.” The anger is directed internally, toward the new celeb-cause nicknamed the “Settlements.”
For the next two weeks, I will be reporting from the ground in Israel, providing observations and impressions, highlights and perspectives of a country in one of the most dangerous turns of its existence. Join me on this tour, as I witness the growth of a country alive and well, as the clouds are gathering with The Storm of the Century.
Anti-Semitism Like the Old is the Modern - Rules of Engagement for Modern Anti-Semitism
Modern anti-Semitism has developed a seductive and deceptive newspeak etiquette to mask its linkages to discredited precursors and to disreputable objectives. To penetrate the smokescreens put up by modern anti-Semitism, it is necessary to blow away the semantic clouds it hides behind.
A fair-minded person, especially if not well-informed, may get tangled up in a web of confusing definitions when trying to identify some speech, someone or some organization as anti-Semitic.
It is easy to refer to actual Nazis, a settled matter. However, there is a carefully sown confusion today when deliberating distinctions about hard to sift through criticisms made of Israel or of Jews in the US or elsewhere in the world. This blurring of the lines owes itself to the detachment of most, Jew and non-Jew, from the actual scenes of anti-Semitic behaviors and from actually feeling oneself at risk. This detachment from harsh realities is eased by the moral relativism that pervades much of Western intellectual culture, where the existence of right and wrong is a increasingly a mere notion to be dismissed in almost all cases. Common-sense morality is replaced with a casualness toward insult and attack when perpetrated by some group favored due to its purported grievances. Minor factoids are blown into generalizations, while more important information is ignored, in order to fabricate misleading and erroneous condemnations.
In effect, modern anti-Semitism is a construct built upon and a part of modern moral effeteness. Those with ulterior ambitions exploit Westerners’ moral relativism by creating etiquette to deceive them and shield themselves from exposure. Perhaps most dangerously, modern anti-Semitism is a primary front and tool of today’s dedicated left, to weaken and isolate the US via Israel.
Those of firmer minds and character, although sympathetic to the left or antagonistic toward fascism, avoided or exited from the communist fronts of the 1930’s. So should those today with actual empathy for transcendent justice be careful not to be drawn into the gingerbread house built by current enemies of the West. It is unnecessary to allow ones ideals to be contaminated, manipulated or perverted, particularly when that serves the ends of those most dangerous to those ideals.
Here are the Rules of Etiquette for Modern Anti-Semitism:
1. Generalize: Treat Jews as a race engaged in racial behavior. Treat the behavior of all Jews as innate, common and similarly driven. The behaviors exhibited by any or attributed to any (whether the specific instance is true or not) can then be ascribed to all Jews. It ignores that Jews come from many differing bloodstock heritages, nations and cultures, exhibiting all the variations of most others in the world (except for a few isolated small tribes in jungles). The purpose anti-Semitic etiquette is to clothe the critic in anti-racism while, indeed, being a racist in practice or trying to hide it.
2. Empathize: Claim universalist empathy for purported victims of Jews. Credit with credence all the claims of those deemed downtrodden (again regardless of facts). Those deemed downtrodden are, inevitably, hostile to the West and to modernity. Others, for example, like the Montagnards or Hmong who are persecuted worse, are virtually ignored, because they are contaminated by their history of alignment with the US. Just assert, despite evidence, that one cares about all equally. The hypocrisy is ignored that similar criticisms are not levied against others’ far worse actions. The hypocrisy is evident in the feeble defense, if any, that is mounted of those suffering ethnic cleansing by states or ideologies that are part of the alliance against the West.
3. Hyperbolize: Use rhetorical exaggerations to cloud actual meaning and facts. By repetition and osmosis, flaming misrepresentations transit into common discourse. One can, then, feel better about the rightness of claims and delegitimize the target. Take words, like “apartheid”, “fascism”, “racism”, “atrocity”, and such, entirely out of context and reality to manufacture a new reality in the minds of the gullible or ignorant. One needn’t even use the old libels and gross lies (e.g., “Christ-killer,” “Shylock,” “Kike,” “Devil race,” "Jews haven't been in Jerusalem for milleniums and are alien colonizers," "the Holocaust is a fiction") to accomplish the same characterizations of heartless, manipulative, invasive evils by Jews. It is too easily recognized for what it is.
4. Patriotize: Claim to have the national interests of the US at heart. Use the natural isolationism of some, or old-fashioned religious anti-Semitism of some (raised on Christ-killer theology), to cause loyal Americans, or Europeans, to ally with those on the radical fringes and left in denying aid to Israel and to undermining it.
5. Camouflage: Use some Jews to front for the anti-Semitism. Among any people, there are a few who will seek notoriety, position or payment to provide cover for others with more malignant ambitions. The miniscule but vocal “peace” movement within Israel is largely funded from European leftists and from speaking tours and book sales among Western leftists. The Arab financed Middle East centers in US universities provide plump stipends to those who criticize Israel. Secular Jews who haven’t been affiliated in decades clothe their religion of extreme liberalism by trotting out their parents or grandparents’ affiliation.
6. Idolize: Treat all heads of states with respect. No matter how outrageous their statements or actions, or how hostile toward Israel their appointments to high positions, give deference to high government leaders and give credence and respectable platforms to their excuses and mendacious rationales. Their associates, who would be ordinarily be ostracized as extremists, are also given protective coloration. Excuses usually take the approaches of “he really couldn’t mean that,” “it’s too outrageous to take seriously,” “there’s really a secret plan for nirvana hidden somewhere that no one else can find, it’s so clever,” or “…but there’s another appointee or action that somehow counterbalances or restrains the sheer nuttery or malevolence” although there’s no real evidence of that. When such a state leader excuses himself by saying “I wasn’t listening closely although I chose his church and sat there for 20-years,” he is playing that same duplicitous card.
7. Enoble: Claim that the focus is expanding justice. The fruits of the labor, education and courage of those who accomplish are seen as proper targets for redistribution or expropriation to feed the demands of those whose own failures to advance themselves is really at fault. Leveling in this way is presented as justice. Rather, it is another front of anti-capitalism/anti-Western civilization, focusing on gaps in possession of life’s comforts instead of focusing on who creates them and how they earned them, or focusing on how some lack due to their own choices. It eliminates the talents that create wealth for more, and holds down those whose efforts would lift themselves. It entrenches the despot, while suppressing popular challenges and aspirations for freedoms.
The modern anti-Semitism is as pernicious and widespread as the older varieties, the older varieties finding comfort within its fuzzier facades. Due to its purposely confusing “newspeak” of demonization and excuses, it is even more dangerous. It wraps up old canards in purposely cute circumlocutions, to deceive and forward its deadly goal, the death of the civilized West so that backwardness, tyranny and barbarities can continue or prevail in greater safety from exposure, comparison or challenge.
Bruce Kesler
http://maggiesfarm.anotherdotcom.com/archives/13013-Rules-of-Etiquette-for-Modern-Anti-Semitism.html
Rules of Etiquette for Modern Anti-Semitism
A fair-minded person, especially if not well-informed, may get tangled up in a web of confusing definitions when trying to identify some speech, someone or some organization as anti-Semitic.
It is easy to refer to actual Nazis, a settled matter. However, there is a carefully sown confusion today when deliberating distinctions about hard to sift through criticisms made of Israel or of Jews in the US or elsewhere in the world. This blurring of the lines owes itself to the detachment of most, Jew and non-Jew, from the actual scenes of anti-Semitic behaviors and from actually feeling oneself at risk. This detachment from harsh realities is eased by the moral relativism that pervades much of Western intellectual culture, where the existence of right and wrong is a increasingly a mere notion to be dismissed in almost all cases. Common-sense morality is replaced with a casualness toward insult and attack when perpetrated by some group favored due to its purported grievances. Minor factoids are blown into generalizations, while more important information is ignored, in order to fabricate misleading and erroneous condemnations.
In effect, modern anti-Semitism is a construct built upon and a part of modern moral effeteness. Those with ulterior ambitions exploit Westerners’ moral relativism by creating etiquette to deceive them and shield themselves from exposure. Perhaps most dangerously, modern anti-Semitism is a primary front and tool of today’s dedicated left, to weaken and isolate the US via Israel.
Those of firmer minds and character, although sympathetic to the left or antagonistic toward fascism, avoided or exited from the communist fronts of the 1930’s. So should those today with actual empathy for transcendent justice be careful not to be drawn into the gingerbread house built by current enemies of the West. It is unnecessary to allow ones ideals to be contaminated, manipulated or perverted, particularly when that serves the ends of those most dangerous to those ideals.
Here are the Rules of Etiquette for Modern Anti-Semitism:
1. Generalize: Treat Jews as a race engaged in racial behavior. Treat the behavior of all Jews as innate, common and similarly driven. The behaviors exhibited by any or attributed to any (whether the specific instance is true or not) can then be ascribed to all Jews. It ignores that Jews come from many differing bloodstock heritages, nations and cultures, exhibiting all the variations of most others in the world (except for a few isolated small tribes in jungles). The purpose anti-Semitic etiquette is to clothe the critic in anti-racism while, indeed, being a racist in practice or trying to hide it.
2. Empathize: Claim universalist empathy for purported victims of Jews. Credit with credence all the claims of those deemed downtrodden (again regardless of facts). Those deemed downtrodden are, inevitably, hostile to the West and to modernity. Others, for example, like the Montagnards or Hmong who are persecuted worse, are virtually ignored, because they are contaminated by their history of alignment with the US. Just assert, despite evidence, that one cares about all equally. The hypocrisy is ignored that similar criticisms are not levied against others’ far worse actions. The hypocrisy is evident in the feeble defense, if any, that is mounted of those suffering ethnic cleansing by states or ideologies that are part of the alliance against the West.
3. Hyperbolize: Use rhetorical exaggerations to cloud actual meaning and facts. By repetition and osmosis, flaming misrepresentations transit into common discourse. One can, then, feel better about the rightness of claims and delegitimize the target. Take words, like “apartheid”, “fascism”, “racism”, “atrocity”, and such, entirely out of context and reality to manufacture a new reality in the minds of the gullible or ignorant. One needn’t even use the old libels and gross lies (e.g., “Christ-killer,” “Shylock,” “Kike,” “Devil race,” "Jews haven't been in Jerusalem for milleniums and are alien colonizers," "the Holocaust is a fiction") to accomplish the same characterizations of heartless, manipulative, invasive evils by Jews. It is too easily recognized for what it is.
4. Patriotize: Claim to have the national interests of the US at heart. Use the natural isolationism of some, or old-fashioned religious anti-Semitism of some (raised on Christ-killer theology), to cause loyal Americans, or Europeans, to ally with those on the radical fringes and left in denying aid to Israel and to undermining it.
5. Camouflage: Use some Jews to front for the anti-Semitism. Among any people, there are a few who will seek notoriety, position or payment to provide cover for others with more malignant ambitions. The miniscule but vocal “peace” movement within Israel is largely funded from European leftists and from speaking tours and book sales among Western leftists. The Arab financed Middle East centers in US universities provide plump stipends to those who criticize Israel. Secular Jews who haven’t been affiliated in decades clothe their religion of extreme liberalism by trotting out their parents or grandparents’ affiliation.
6. Idolize: Treat all heads of states with respect. No matter how outrageous their statements or actions, or how hostile toward Israel their appointments to high positions, give deference to high government leaders and give credence and respectable platforms to their excuses and mendacious rationales. Their associates, who would be ordinarily be ostracized as extremists, are also given protective coloration. Excuses usually take the approaches of “he really couldn’t mean that,” “it’s too outrageous to take seriously,” “there’s really a secret plan for nirvana hidden somewhere that no one else can find, it’s so clever,” or “…but there’s another appointee or action that somehow counterbalances or restrains the sheer nuttery or malevolence” although there’s no real evidence of that. When such a state leader excuses himself by saying “I wasn’t listening closely although I chose his church and sat there for 20-years,” he is playing that same duplicitous card.
7. Enoble: Claim that the focus is expanding justice. The fruits of the labor, education and courage of those who accomplish are seen as proper targets for redistribution or expropriation to feed the demands of those whose own failures to advance themselves is really at fault. Leveling in this way is presented as justice. Rather, it is another front of anti-capitalism/anti-Western civilization, focusing on gaps in possession of life’s comforts instead of focusing on who creates them and how they earned them, or focusing on how some lack due to their own choices. It eliminates the talents that create wealth for more, and holds down those whose efforts would lift themselves. It entrenches the despot, while suppressing popular challenges and aspirations for freedoms.
The modern anti-Semitism is as pernicious and widespread as the older varieties, the older varieties finding comfort within its fuzzier facades. Due to its purposely confusing “newspeak” of demonization and excuses, it is even more dangerous. It wraps up old canards in purposely cute circumlocutions, to deceive and forward its deadly goal, the death of the civilized West so that backwardness, tyranny and barbarities can continue or prevail in greater safety from exposure, comparison or challenge.
Bruce Kesler
http://maggiesfarm.anotherdotcom.com/archives/13013-Rules-of-Etiquette-for-Modern-Anti-Semitism.html
Rules of Etiquette for Modern Anti-Semitism
The Jew from Kuwait
My Muslim background left me unprepared for this shocking discovery.
Growing up in Kuwait, I had the best of everything. My father owned a successful construction company, and provided us five children with amenities like piano lessons, swimming, calligraphy and trips all over the world. Although we were Muslims like everyone else, we were totally secular and my father always aimed to shield us from religious people whom he described as crazies.
I grew up being told that Israelis and Jews were the lowest type of creature in existence, put on Earth only to kill us Arabs. In math class the teacher would say, “If one rocket killed X number of Jews, how many would six rockets kill?” My father was rabidly anti-Israel. He was a product of Nasser's school of thought: secular from a Muslim point of view, yet deeply dedicated to the idea of pan-Arab unity. Israel, he believed, was an American proxy in the post-colonial Middle East.
My father was a supporter of the PLO since the 1960s when Yasser Arafat (who founded the PLO while living in Kuwait) was raising money from wealthy Palestinians working in Gulf States. As an engineer, my father participated in a program where the engineering association in Kuwait would deduct money from his monthly salary to be sent directly to the PLO. He insisted that war and resistance was the only way to deal with Israel.
In the summer of 1990, when I was 12 years old, our lives changed completely. We were on vacation when Saddam Hussein invaded and annexed Kuwait. My father's business -- along with much of the country -- was ravaged. Our savings became worthless pieces of paper. We could not go back to Kuwait, so we immigrated to Canada. My father did manage to sneak back in for a few days to retrieve important business documents that would later be useful in recovering compensation from a United Nations fund.
Praying in the Dark
Of my family, I’m the only one who stayed in Canada. My father never really adjusted to life in the New World, and he had good business contacts back in Jordan, so my parents returned there. All my siblings also moved back to the Middle East. One brother runs a successful company in Jordan, two brothers are studying in Egypt (one dentistry and the other business), and my sister lives in Dubai where she works in the banking industry.
One evening in 2003, I was studying at the university library in London, Ontario, when I happened to notice an older man. From his chassidic garb, he looked like a religious Jew. My curiosity was aroused, so I approached him and asked, "Are you Jewish?"
With a gentle smile on his face, he said, "No, but I like to dress this way." I didn't know whether he was joking or not. All the religious people I had come across in the past were pretty scary. Are Jews supposed to be funny?
His name was Dr. Yitzhak Block, a retired professor of philosophy. We exchanged a few words and then he asked about my background. My family history is pretty complex, and I get a headache every time I have to explain it all. So I simply told him that I'm an Arab from Kuwait, and mentioned that my grandmother from my mother’s side is Jewish.
My mother’s parents met in Jerusalem when my grandfather, an Arab from the West Bank, was serving in the Jordanian army fighting the Zionists. He was 18 years old and my grandmother was 16. Her father ran a school in Jerusalem -- the same school where she would jump off the wall to meet my handsome, uniformed grandfather. They fell in love, got married, and lived for a number of years in Shechem (Nablus).
After my grandfather was discharged from the Jordanian army, the family moved to Kuwait, where oil profits were fueling huge business and construction projects. That’s where my mother met my father and got married.
Knowing about my grandmother’s Jewish background always made me curious about Jews. Whenever we were on vacation in Amman, Jordan, I used to constantly watch the Israeli channel -- when my parents weren't around. My favorite was the Israeli national anthem, and I would stay up late waiting to hear them play it at the end of the TV transmission.
Standing there in the university library, this religious Jew, Dr. Block, looked at me and said, “In Muslim law, you’re considered Muslim, since the religion goes by the father. But according to Jewish law, you’re Jewish, since Jewish identity is transmitted by the mother.”
My head started to spin and memories of my childhood in Kuwait began to surface. I recalled how my grandmother had a funny name on her documents, Mizrachi, which I never heard before. She also had a small prayer book with Hebrew letters, and she prayed in the dark crying. (I thought the Wailing Wall was so named because crying was a part of prayer.)
Aside from a vague family legend, my grandmother never mentioned anything about being Jewish -- but now the pieces were fitting into place. I thanked Dr. Block for the conversation, and ran home to tell my roommate what I heard. He smiled and said, “So you're a Mus-Jew!” I was not amused.
I went to my room and called my mother. She rebuffed the story, saying, "Don't listen to people like that. We are Muslims and that's that."
I decided to call my grandmother myself and bring up the subject.
I beat around the bush a bit -- after all, she’d been denying it for the past 50 years -- and then finally blurted out, “Grandma, are you Jewish?”
She didn’t answer the question directly, but she started crying and spoke about the years of Arab-Israeli conflict. She told me how her brother Zaki had been killed in Jerusalem before the rebirth of the State. To me that was sufficient confirmation of her Jewishness and I decided to leave it at that.
Over the next few months, I avoided the whole issue of Judaism, mainly for the sake of not upsetting my mother. Besides, I was just finishing university, and career was my main priority. I was content with telling myself that I belonged to a mixed-faith family.
Streaming Tears
About a year later, I was rollerblading one day in my neighborhood when I took a hard fall and badly sprained my wrist. The road was smooth so I couldn't figure out why I had fallen. I couldn’t stop thinking that it seemed like a push from Above. These thoughts caught me by surprise, since I wasn't into spirituality and I never had any religious connection. I was a bodybuilder, had tons of friends, and was on the heels of a successful career as a foreign exchange trader. So why had this happened?
Because my wrist was heavily bandaged, I was forced to take off work for a few days. Dr. Block had mentioned the name of his synagogue, so that Saturday morning, I decided to go check out the scene. I was hesitant at the thought of everyone being from European background and me the only Middle Easterner, but I decided to go anyway.
I called a cab and got dropped off at the synagogue. As I walked in, the first person I saw looked Indian. He shook my hand, said “Shabbat Shalom,” and handed me a kippah. Then I saw a black man which really surprised me. And Dr. Block was there, too.
I was handed a prayer book, shown the proper page, and before I knew it everyone was singing, V'Shamru:
"And the Children of Israel shall keep the Sabbath, to make the Sabbath an eternal covenant for their generations. Between Me and the Children of Israel, it is a sign forever that in six days God made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day He rested and was refreshed."
Something hit me and I felt as though I knew this song. I just stood there taking in the sounds, the smells and the sights. Everything felt whole and perfect. It was the opposite of everything I'd ever heard about Jews or Judaism. At this point my tears were streaming in freefall.
After the services finished, I met everyone over Kiddush. I spoke with an Egyptian couple and we shared our personal stories. Jews from all backgrounds were gathered together and I was another piece of this puzzle.
After Kiddush, I accepted Dr. Block’s invitation to join him for lunch. I told him: “I can’t believe I'm here, singing and praying in Hebrew. I could never have imagined it.”
He smiled and said, "It's not so hard to believe. Every Jew is born with a little Torah and a little Menorah inside.” He then pressed his shoulder up against mine and said, “All it takes is for another Jew to bump into him and light it up."
Dreams of Peace
My interest grew from there, and I began studying Torah and keeping Shabbat. Last year I spent a month in Israel touring and studying on Aish HaTorah’s Jerusalem Fellowships program. It was a great “homecoming.”
Istill keep in close contact with my family and old friends. They’re wonderful people and I love them very much. Yet it’s hard to relate to them on many levels. In the Arab world there are tons of misconceptions and misinformation regarding Israel. So I am working to develop a program to educate Arabs about Jews and Judaism, to dissolve the stereotypes propagated by the Muslim media and schools. I hope that my unique background can help bridge some of that divide.
Another way I hope to achieve this is to help establish economic relations between Israel and Arab countries. That would create trust and shared experience, which could be directed toward the goal of a genuine and lasting peace.
Another issue I’m trying to address is how the Arab world is filled with Holocaust denial. This past summer I went to Auschwitz, and I am working to produce the first-ever Arabic documentary about the Holocaust. I want to explain to Muslims in their own language exactly what happened.
It often seems like the Arab-Israeli conflict is intractable. Yet I believe in today’s world, there is a real opportunity for a breakthrough. Arabs today have a more universal education, which makes them more open and curious. Also they are meeting Israelis and Jews in their travels around the world, which breaks down misconceptions. And as we saw during the recent protests in Iran, many young people in the Muslim world are yearning for reform. On top of all this, they have high-speed Internet access which opens up all kinds of new avenues of communication, and the possibility of forming new friendships unrestricted by borders or political agendas. Perhaps this can be the basis of a grassroots movement to mend relations and hopefully one day achieve peace.
The other issue that needs urgent attention is intermarriage in Israel. Unfortunately, a story like my grandmother's is not so rare. Many young Jewish women are wooed by Arab men and brought back to live in their villages. The children and grandchildren are never told the truth, especially with political tensions and the emotional unrest this would cause a family. As a result, many Jews are lost to our people. My mother has five sisters, and from there I have a few dozen cousins who are all Jewish -- all living as Muslims in the Middle East. I recently met a seventh-generation Israeli, whose cousin married a Palestinian and went to live in Saudi Arabia; her descendents are Jews living in Saudi Arabia.
All my relatives know that I’m practicing Judaism, and for the most part they’re accepting. I can talk to them about Judaism and they’re politely interested. We love and respect each other. My father is resistant, however, given that secularism and war against Israel are the two ideological pillars of his life. When I first became interested in Judaism, I didn’t tell him straight out. We were having a political discussion and I mentioned that I support the State of Israel. That ignited a big clash and I’ve learned to only discuss these matters with him in an indirect way. I always know when I’ve crossed the line; he gets angry and calls me a “Zionist.”
The other big exception -- not surprisingly -- is my grandmother. I’ve asked her a number of times for more information about her family background, but she refuses to talk about it. Maybe one day I will find the key to opening her up.
Growing up, I was taught that Jews were the source of all evil, descended from monkeys and pigs. On the other hand, I had the image of my grandmother holding her small prayer book with the Hebrew letters, praying with tender devotion. She is the sweetest person I know and there's no way she came from a bloodthirsty gang of murderers. She gave me a Jewish soul, and in her own way, it was she who kept my Jewish spark alive.
Guest Comment:Every Jew is born with a little Torah and a little Menorah inside...all it takes is for another Jew to bump into him and light it up.
They lost Jews need to come back to the arms of their brethrens...
"My Jewish cousins are all living as Muslims in the Middle East...It was the opposite of everything I'd heard about Jews."
"I am working to produce the first-ever Arabic documentary about the Holocaust. I want to explain to Muslims in their own language exactly what happened"
“I always know when I’ve crossed the line; my father gets angry and calls me a ‘Zionist.’”
“Growing up, I was taught that Jews were the source of all evil, descended from monkeys and pigs. But my grandmother is the sweetest person I know and there's no way she came from a bloodthirsty gang of murderers. She gave me a Jewish soul, and in her own way, it was she who kept my Jewish spark alive.”
Go to the site and see how beautiful his grandmother Rowaida, nee Mizrachi was ... I am sure she was not a happy woman in a happy marriage...you cannot take away the Jewishness out of a Jew and plant him or her in Arab land...
------------
Shalom, Nurit
Divided we FALL! UNITED we stand and WIN!
------------
http://www.aish.com/sp/so/70138567.html
Growing up in Kuwait, I had the best of everything. My father owned a successful construction company, and provided us five children with amenities like piano lessons, swimming, calligraphy and trips all over the world. Although we were Muslims like everyone else, we were totally secular and my father always aimed to shield us from religious people whom he described as crazies.
I grew up being told that Israelis and Jews were the lowest type of creature in existence, put on Earth only to kill us Arabs. In math class the teacher would say, “If one rocket killed X number of Jews, how many would six rockets kill?” My father was rabidly anti-Israel. He was a product of Nasser's school of thought: secular from a Muslim point of view, yet deeply dedicated to the idea of pan-Arab unity. Israel, he believed, was an American proxy in the post-colonial Middle East.
My father was a supporter of the PLO since the 1960s when Yasser Arafat (who founded the PLO while living in Kuwait) was raising money from wealthy Palestinians working in Gulf States. As an engineer, my father participated in a program where the engineering association in Kuwait would deduct money from his monthly salary to be sent directly to the PLO. He insisted that war and resistance was the only way to deal with Israel.
In the summer of 1990, when I was 12 years old, our lives changed completely. We were on vacation when Saddam Hussein invaded and annexed Kuwait. My father's business -- along with much of the country -- was ravaged. Our savings became worthless pieces of paper. We could not go back to Kuwait, so we immigrated to Canada. My father did manage to sneak back in for a few days to retrieve important business documents that would later be useful in recovering compensation from a United Nations fund.
Praying in the Dark
Of my family, I’m the only one who stayed in Canada. My father never really adjusted to life in the New World, and he had good business contacts back in Jordan, so my parents returned there. All my siblings also moved back to the Middle East. One brother runs a successful company in Jordan, two brothers are studying in Egypt (one dentistry and the other business), and my sister lives in Dubai where she works in the banking industry.
One evening in 2003, I was studying at the university library in London, Ontario, when I happened to notice an older man. From his chassidic garb, he looked like a religious Jew. My curiosity was aroused, so I approached him and asked, "Are you Jewish?"
With a gentle smile on his face, he said, "No, but I like to dress this way." I didn't know whether he was joking or not. All the religious people I had come across in the past were pretty scary. Are Jews supposed to be funny?
His name was Dr. Yitzhak Block, a retired professor of philosophy. We exchanged a few words and then he asked about my background. My family history is pretty complex, and I get a headache every time I have to explain it all. So I simply told him that I'm an Arab from Kuwait, and mentioned that my grandmother from my mother’s side is Jewish.
My mother’s parents met in Jerusalem when my grandfather, an Arab from the West Bank, was serving in the Jordanian army fighting the Zionists. He was 18 years old and my grandmother was 16. Her father ran a school in Jerusalem -- the same school where she would jump off the wall to meet my handsome, uniformed grandfather. They fell in love, got married, and lived for a number of years in Shechem (Nablus).
After my grandfather was discharged from the Jordanian army, the family moved to Kuwait, where oil profits were fueling huge business and construction projects. That’s where my mother met my father and got married.
Knowing about my grandmother’s Jewish background always made me curious about Jews. Whenever we were on vacation in Amman, Jordan, I used to constantly watch the Israeli channel -- when my parents weren't around. My favorite was the Israeli national anthem, and I would stay up late waiting to hear them play it at the end of the TV transmission.
Standing there in the university library, this religious Jew, Dr. Block, looked at me and said, “In Muslim law, you’re considered Muslim, since the religion goes by the father. But according to Jewish law, you’re Jewish, since Jewish identity is transmitted by the mother.”
My head started to spin and memories of my childhood in Kuwait began to surface. I recalled how my grandmother had a funny name on her documents, Mizrachi, which I never heard before. She also had a small prayer book with Hebrew letters, and she prayed in the dark crying. (I thought the Wailing Wall was so named because crying was a part of prayer.)
Aside from a vague family legend, my grandmother never mentioned anything about being Jewish -- but now the pieces were fitting into place. I thanked Dr. Block for the conversation, and ran home to tell my roommate what I heard. He smiled and said, “So you're a Mus-Jew!” I was not amused.
I went to my room and called my mother. She rebuffed the story, saying, "Don't listen to people like that. We are Muslims and that's that."
I decided to call my grandmother myself and bring up the subject.
I beat around the bush a bit -- after all, she’d been denying it for the past 50 years -- and then finally blurted out, “Grandma, are you Jewish?”
She didn’t answer the question directly, but she started crying and spoke about the years of Arab-Israeli conflict. She told me how her brother Zaki had been killed in Jerusalem before the rebirth of the State. To me that was sufficient confirmation of her Jewishness and I decided to leave it at that.
Over the next few months, I avoided the whole issue of Judaism, mainly for the sake of not upsetting my mother. Besides, I was just finishing university, and career was my main priority. I was content with telling myself that I belonged to a mixed-faith family.
Streaming Tears
About a year later, I was rollerblading one day in my neighborhood when I took a hard fall and badly sprained my wrist. The road was smooth so I couldn't figure out why I had fallen. I couldn’t stop thinking that it seemed like a push from Above. These thoughts caught me by surprise, since I wasn't into spirituality and I never had any religious connection. I was a bodybuilder, had tons of friends, and was on the heels of a successful career as a foreign exchange trader. So why had this happened?
Because my wrist was heavily bandaged, I was forced to take off work for a few days. Dr. Block had mentioned the name of his synagogue, so that Saturday morning, I decided to go check out the scene. I was hesitant at the thought of everyone being from European background and me the only Middle Easterner, but I decided to go anyway.
I called a cab and got dropped off at the synagogue. As I walked in, the first person I saw looked Indian. He shook my hand, said “Shabbat Shalom,” and handed me a kippah. Then I saw a black man which really surprised me. And Dr. Block was there, too.
I was handed a prayer book, shown the proper page, and before I knew it everyone was singing, V'Shamru:
"And the Children of Israel shall keep the Sabbath, to make the Sabbath an eternal covenant for their generations. Between Me and the Children of Israel, it is a sign forever that in six days God made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day He rested and was refreshed."
Something hit me and I felt as though I knew this song. I just stood there taking in the sounds, the smells and the sights. Everything felt whole and perfect. It was the opposite of everything I'd ever heard about Jews or Judaism. At this point my tears were streaming in freefall.
After the services finished, I met everyone over Kiddush. I spoke with an Egyptian couple and we shared our personal stories. Jews from all backgrounds were gathered together and I was another piece of this puzzle.
After Kiddush, I accepted Dr. Block’s invitation to join him for lunch. I told him: “I can’t believe I'm here, singing and praying in Hebrew. I could never have imagined it.”
He smiled and said, "It's not so hard to believe. Every Jew is born with a little Torah and a little Menorah inside.” He then pressed his shoulder up against mine and said, “All it takes is for another Jew to bump into him and light it up."
Dreams of Peace
My interest grew from there, and I began studying Torah and keeping Shabbat. Last year I spent a month in Israel touring and studying on Aish HaTorah’s Jerusalem Fellowships program. It was a great “homecoming.”
Istill keep in close contact with my family and old friends. They’re wonderful people and I love them very much. Yet it’s hard to relate to them on many levels. In the Arab world there are tons of misconceptions and misinformation regarding Israel. So I am working to develop a program to educate Arabs about Jews and Judaism, to dissolve the stereotypes propagated by the Muslim media and schools. I hope that my unique background can help bridge some of that divide.
Another way I hope to achieve this is to help establish economic relations between Israel and Arab countries. That would create trust and shared experience, which could be directed toward the goal of a genuine and lasting peace.
Another issue I’m trying to address is how the Arab world is filled with Holocaust denial. This past summer I went to Auschwitz, and I am working to produce the first-ever Arabic documentary about the Holocaust. I want to explain to Muslims in their own language exactly what happened.
It often seems like the Arab-Israeli conflict is intractable. Yet I believe in today’s world, there is a real opportunity for a breakthrough. Arabs today have a more universal education, which makes them more open and curious. Also they are meeting Israelis and Jews in their travels around the world, which breaks down misconceptions. And as we saw during the recent protests in Iran, many young people in the Muslim world are yearning for reform. On top of all this, they have high-speed Internet access which opens up all kinds of new avenues of communication, and the possibility of forming new friendships unrestricted by borders or political agendas. Perhaps this can be the basis of a grassroots movement to mend relations and hopefully one day achieve peace.
The other issue that needs urgent attention is intermarriage in Israel. Unfortunately, a story like my grandmother's is not so rare. Many young Jewish women are wooed by Arab men and brought back to live in their villages. The children and grandchildren are never told the truth, especially with political tensions and the emotional unrest this would cause a family. As a result, many Jews are lost to our people. My mother has five sisters, and from there I have a few dozen cousins who are all Jewish -- all living as Muslims in the Middle East. I recently met a seventh-generation Israeli, whose cousin married a Palestinian and went to live in Saudi Arabia; her descendents are Jews living in Saudi Arabia.
All my relatives know that I’m practicing Judaism, and for the most part they’re accepting. I can talk to them about Judaism and they’re politely interested. We love and respect each other. My father is resistant, however, given that secularism and war against Israel are the two ideological pillars of his life. When I first became interested in Judaism, I didn’t tell him straight out. We were having a political discussion and I mentioned that I support the State of Israel. That ignited a big clash and I’ve learned to only discuss these matters with him in an indirect way. I always know when I’ve crossed the line; he gets angry and calls me a “Zionist.”
The other big exception -- not surprisingly -- is my grandmother. I’ve asked her a number of times for more information about her family background, but she refuses to talk about it. Maybe one day I will find the key to opening her up.
Growing up, I was taught that Jews were the source of all evil, descended from monkeys and pigs. On the other hand, I had the image of my grandmother holding her small prayer book with the Hebrew letters, praying with tender devotion. She is the sweetest person I know and there's no way she came from a bloodthirsty gang of murderers. She gave me a Jewish soul, and in her own way, it was she who kept my Jewish spark alive.
Guest Comment:Every Jew is born with a little Torah and a little Menorah inside...all it takes is for another Jew to bump into him and light it up.
They lost Jews need to come back to the arms of their brethrens...
"My Jewish cousins are all living as Muslims in the Middle East...It was the opposite of everything I'd heard about Jews."
"I am working to produce the first-ever Arabic documentary about the Holocaust. I want to explain to Muslims in their own language exactly what happened"
“I always know when I’ve crossed the line; my father gets angry and calls me a ‘Zionist.’”
“Growing up, I was taught that Jews were the source of all evil, descended from monkeys and pigs. But my grandmother is the sweetest person I know and there's no way she came from a bloodthirsty gang of murderers. She gave me a Jewish soul, and in her own way, it was she who kept my Jewish spark alive.”
Go to the site and see how beautiful his grandmother Rowaida, nee Mizrachi was ... I am sure she was not a happy woman in a happy marriage...you cannot take away the Jewishness out of a Jew and plant him or her in Arab land...
------------
Shalom, Nurit
Divided we FALL! UNITED we stand and WIN!
------------
http://www.aish.com/sp/so/70138567.html
Random Thoughts
Thomas Sowell
Tuesday, December 01, 2009
Random thoughts on the passing scene:
Sometimes we seem like people on a pleasure boat drifting down the Niagara river, unaware that there are waterfalls up ahead. I don't know what people think is going to happen when a nation that already sponsors international terrorism has nuclear bombs to give to terrorists around the world.
Since this is an era when many people are concerned about "fairness" and "social justice," what is your "fair share" of what someone else has worked for?
Here is a math problem for you: Assume that the legislation establishing government control of medical care is passed and that it "brings down the cost of medical care." You pay $500 a year less for your medical care, but the new costs put on employers is passed on to consumers, so that you pay $300 a year more for groceries and $200 a year more for gasoline, while the new mandates put on insurance companies raise your premiums by $300 a year, how much money have you saved? I seldom read fiction-- and I tend to regard autobiographies as fiction.
Going Rogue by Sarah Palin FREE
In response to news of President Obama receiving the Nobel Prize for peace, an e-mail from a reader recalled a black classmate's comments upon graduating from high school many years ago. When asked to list the advantages and disadvantages of being black, the black student facetiously listed as an advantage "being praised for infinitesimal accomplishments."
Many colleges claim that they develop "leaders." All too often, that means turning out graduates who cannot feel fulfilled unless they are telling other people what to do. There are already too many people like that, and they are a menace to everyone else's freedom.
Some people are so busy being clever that they don't have time enough to be wise.
No one likes to admit having been played for a fool. So it will probably take a mushroom cloud over some American city before some Obama supporters wake up. Even so, the true believers among the survivors will probably say that this was all George Bush's fault.
Stepping beyond your competence can be like stepping off a cliff. Too many people with brilliance and talent within some field do not realize how ignorant-- or, worse yet, misinformed-- they are when talking like philosopher-kings about other things.
There has probably never before been as drastic a decline in the quality of vice presidents as there has been when Dick Cheney was replaced by Joe Biden. Yet the New York Times is lionizing Biden as a wise counselor to President Obama. When you support the liberal agenda, that makes you brilliant ex-officio in the media, whether or not you are vice president-- and whether or not you have even common sense.
Government pressures on mortgage lenders to accept less than the full amount they are owed may win votes for politicians, since there are far more borrowers than lenders. But how much future lending can be expected when the lenders know that politicians are ready to intervene at any time to prevent them from getting their money back?
Some people think that the Obama administration is going to get rid of Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner, making him the scapegoat for its economics failures. This would be consistent with the President's acting as if the people under him are not carrying out his policies. But if they get rid of Geithner too early, that will not help if things still do not get better after he is gone and before the 2010 elections.
People who are urging us to do things to win the approval of other countries seem to put an excessive value on other country's approval, as distinguished from their respect that we can lose by such bowing to "world opinion." Do the world champion New York Yankees try to curry favor with teams that are also-rans?
Copyright © 2009 Salem Web Network. All Rights Reserved.
Why Won't We Face Iran's Evil?
Mona Charen
Tuesday, December 01, 2009
When tens of thousands of Iranians took to the streets last spring and braved the most brutal repression the regime could inflict, Michael Ledeen was the least surprised man in Washington. In season and out, Ledeen has chronicled the profound weakness of the mullahocracy and its deep unpopularity with the Iranian people. Impatiently, year after year, he has identified opportunities for the United States to help the people of Iran replace their sinister and menacing rulers. After each new post on the subject, Ledeen signed off with "Faster please." In "Accomplice to Evil," Ledeen seems almost out of patience. The failure to grapple with the challenge of Iran is more than a strategic failure, he argues; it's a moral failure. Just as few in the democratic countries took Adolf Hitler at his word when he repeatedly promised to dominate the world and kill all the Jews, and few could squarely acknowledge the genocidal lengths to which the communists would go, so today the threat from the radical Islamists is minimized, whitewashed, or wished away.
Of the Carter administration, Ledeen writes, "The failure to comprehend what Khomeini was all about contributed mightily to the American debacle in Iran, and to subsequent failure of American policy, for the policy makers -- from Carter down -- did not take seriously the possibility that Khomeini might be worse than the shah." Incomparably worse as it turned out. During the war with Iraq, Iran sent tens of thousands of children to their deaths "clearing" minefields. Before departure, they were issued plastic keys -- to open the gates of paradise.
But Americans have doggedly refused to recognize the nature of the regime or the Islamist movement it spearheads. Ledeen writes of the Carter State Department: "In what was to become a great leitmotif of the next 30 years, American diplomats desperately worked for an agreement at all costs." When the Iranians presented brutal demands that the U.S. turn over all Iranian "criminals" who had taken refuge in America, an assistant secretary of state -- in words that could have been ghostwritten by the current occupant of the Oval Office -- explained "... the Iranian suspicions of us were only natural in the post-revolutionary situation ... but after a transition period common interests could provide a basis for future cooperation."
Even after the regime had held our diplomats hostage in Iran for more than a year, the Carter administration "approved a series of humiliating concessions" in the hope of securing their release. It was that way to the bitter end. On the day before he left office, Carter issued Executive Order 12283, which immunized the Iranian government from lawsuits arising from the seizure of the embassy.
President Obama deludes himself that "outreach" to the mullahs represents some sort of new departure in American policy. In fact, every administration since Carter's has repeatedly attempted to "engage" the mullahs. Even the Bush administration "pursued accommodation ... as vigorously as any of the others." From pages 155 to 159, Ledeen lists the scores of publicly reported meetings between top Iranian and U.S. officials in just the seven years between 2001 and 2008. One example gives the flavor: On Nov. 17, 2003, Secretary of State Colin Powell praised the efforts of "my three colleagues, the EU three, (who) played a very, very helpful role in going to Tehran ... and coming back with a very, very, positive and productive result."
It was nothing of the kind. But that didn't prevent the Bush administration from continuing to lower its bucket into this dry well. The Obama administration, seasoning its approach with fawning genuflections, is taking accommodation to a new level -- a fact that is not lost on the Iranian people who chant "Obama. Obama. Either you're with us or you're with them" as they dodge the batons and bullets of the Basij militia.
Ledeen's advice is to offer strong moral support to the Iranian people. Reagan's open advocacy for the dissidents in the Soviet empire gave them courage and hope. He would also supply reliable news about what is happening in Iran through every available outlet. The Iranians are huge consumers of Internet news (Farsi is the fourth most common language online), but they need cell phones, satellite phones, laptops, servers, and BlackBerrys. Every successful revolution, Ledeen reminds us, "including ours," required outside assistance. Third, he would destroy the assembly sites for the weapons Iran is providing to the Taliban, Mahdi Army, and al-Qaida.
Defeating those he has elsewhere called the "terror masters" in Tehran would drive a stake through the heart of radical Islam. "The defeat of the principal sponsor sends shock waves through the movement and discredits the ideology." But only if we can overcome our self-delusions about the enemy first. Faster please.
Copyright © 2009 Salem Web Network. All Rights Reserved. .
OC: Five More Amateur Mistakes By the Obama Administration
John Hawkins
Tuesday, December 01, 2009
"My fellow citizens, the American presidency is not supposed to be a journey of personal discovery." -- Sarah Palin
Since he has been elected, Barack Obama has been like a four year old wearing water wings and desperately trying to reach the edge of the pool. In other words, he has been completely out of his depth. Who could have known that giving soaring speeches about "hope" and "change" while voting "present" on the tough issues wouldn't be enough preparation for the most important job on Planet Earth -- oh wait, millions of Americans knew that and pointed it out at every opportunity. Unfortunately, the media was too busy obsessing over Sarah Palin's wardrobe and parody songs on the Rush Limbaugh show to actually consider whether or not a man whose biggest accomplishment was winning a Democratic primary against Hillary Clinton was qualified to be President. Of course, we can debate Obama's ideological decisions all day. Does the country need socialized medicine? Should he have pursued that staggeringly expensive stimulus program? Has he been applying enough pressure on Iran? The answers to those questions are no, no, and no -- but, there's a more important question we need to consider: does Barack Obama know what he's doing?
Early on, the Obama Administration made a lot of foolish mistakes. Obama selected numerous tax cheats for his Cabinet. They gave the Russians a button that was supposed to say "reset"-- but that actually said "overcharge." They gave our best allies, the Brits, 25 DVDs of American movie classics -- that were not only wildly inappropriate, but wouldn't even play in their DVD players. Unfortunately, those early gaffes have not only continued; they've begun to have more serious policy implications.
1) What are we trying to do in Honduras? After Fidel Castro wannabe, Manuel Zelaya, started trying to engineer a rigged vote to overthrow democracy in Honduras, the rest of the government there sprang into action and bounced him right out of the country. Bizarrely, the Obama Administration sided with Zelaya and against democracy in that nation. Eventually, by making it known that they wouldn't recognize the results of a new election, the Obama Administration seemed to have Honduras right where they wanted them: they appeared to be on the brink of putting Zelaya back in power. Puzzlingly, the Obama Administration then switched course on a dime and made it known that they'd accept the results of the election whether Zelaya was back in charge or not. In light of the change in American policy, Honduras went ahead with their elections without giving power back to Zelaya. There was no explanation for the Obama Administration's original position, beyond catering to leftist thugs like Hugo Chavez, and no explanation of their radical shift at the last minute. If you can figure out what they were trying to accomplish, you should tell Obama. He's probably still trying to figure it out.
2) Russia's missile defense date dupe: It's bad enough that Barack Obama, in a display of cowardice that would make Neville Chamberlain wretch, unhesitatingly tossed the Poles and Czechs over-the-side on missile defense in an effort to appease Russia. Keep in mind that when we first went into Iraq, Poland was one of only three other nations to actually put their troops in harm's way to help us. Their repayment for that act of friendship and loyalty? We pulled back from building missile defense in their nation and made the announcement on the 70th anniversary of Poland's invasion by Russia in return for...well, nobody seems to know. There was an unmistakable message that Russia wanted to send to the small Western European nations on its borders by making the announcement on that date: It was, "America can't help you now. Russia owns you." Their message was sent with Obama's help as once again, he was played for a fool. Since then, Obama has backpeddled in an effort to fix the damage his bungling caused in the first place. It's almost as if Obama has no coherent strategy, no idea what he's doing, and is so far over his head that he doesn't know which way is up. But, it couldn't be that because if it were, Chris Matthews and the New York Times would be talking about it on a daily basis -- right?
3) Putting Khalid Sheikh Mohammed on trial in New York: No one seems to be able to give a coherent explanation for the decision making process behind this. Other terrorists are being put on trial at military tribunals, so why not Khalid Sheikh Mohammed? Why put someone through the American system of justice when both the President and Attorney General are publicly assuring everyone that no matter what happens, he can't be found innocent and released? You think putting KSM in front of a military tribunal, where at least, theoretically he could be found innocent looks bad? Well now, we're risking intelligence secrets getting out, increasing the risk of a terrorist attack on New York, and making it possible KSM might be acquitted on a technicality for a hearing that makes the greatest system of justice in the world look like a show trial cooked up by North Korea.
4) Cash for Clunkers: In a nutshell, the Cash for Clunkers program involved borrowing billions from the Chinese to incentivize Americans to destroy their working cars in order to buy brand new foreign cars. Although it's debatable how accurate their data is, according to the Department of Transportation, 4 out of the top 5 models bought in the program were made by foreign car companies. Moreover, after the program ended, predictably, the sales of new cars dropped considerably because the program didn't create new demand so much as cause people to buy a few months earlier than they would have anyway. In other words, not only did the program fritter away 3 billion dollars in borrowed money, it led to the destruction of more than a quarter-of-a-million functional cars that were bought and paid for by the government and could have been given to the poor or charity. The Obama Administration's reaction to this debacle? They want to create a cash for appliances program. Will they ever, ever, ever learn anything?
5) Why all the bowing? Most Americans find the idea that they should bow to another person offensive and they find it even more galling when their President does it. It's almost an insult by proxy. If even your leader is willing to admit he's inferior, what does it say about you? Obama seemed to realize this mistake, albeit after the fact, when he bowed to the Saudi King. Weirdly, even though many Americans actually saw Obama bow on video, the White House simply denied that it happened. How much audacity do you need to lie about something that tens of millions of Americans have seen with their own eyes? Even after that experience, Obama went on, in a grotesque, servile fashion to bow to both the Emperor of Japan and the Chinese Prime Minister. It was a pointless, humiliating display that quite frankly, made many Americans embarrassed for him as a man and slightly ashamed that we have such a weakling in the White House.
They Call It Fiscal Responsibility; We Call It Socialism
David Limbaugh
Tuesday, December 01, 2009
As President Barack Obama and his party conspire to destroy -- not reform -- the greatest health care system in the world in their quest to remake America into a full-blown Eurosocialist state, it is instructive to remember the premise upon which Obama launched this disaster. In July, Obama said that if we do not control our health care costs, "we will not be able to control our deficit." He continued: "I've also pledged that health insurance reform will not add to our deficit over the next decade, and I mean it. ... In addition ... the bill I sign must also slow the growth of health care costs in the long run." Just to be sure there was no misunderstanding, Obama said, "The entire cost of that has to be paid for, and it has got to be deficit-neutral."
Going Rogue by Sarah Palin FREE
Those who didn't know this was hogwash in the first place have no excuse not to see it now. There's nothing deficit-neutral about the plans currently under consideration. There's nothing fiscally prudent about them. Indeed, they would greatly exacerbate our existing fiscal crisis -- not to mention usher in the largest socialistic transformation we've yet seen in this nation.
With the information that has now come to light about the costs of "reform," there is no other rational explanation for Obama's obsession to enact Obamacare than his desire to increase government control over every aspect of our lives.
As others have noted, Obama and company have employed multiple gimmicks to conceal and misrepresent the true costs of Obamacare. Like other groups wanting to destroy America from the outside, liberals are patient. By backloading their spending, they hope to deceive Americans into thinking their plan is budget-neutral.
Thus, their bills disguise their true net costs by deferring most new spending for five years (while increasing taxes and cutting Medicare almost immediately). This trick is so transparently deceitful that if attempted by a Republican administration, we'd have already heard rumblings for impeachment.
Specifically, Democrats have said their proposal would cost $848 billion over 10 years, but the true cost would be some multiple of that. Using Congressional Budget Office figures, Investor's Business Daily reports that only 1 percent of the spending would come in the first four years of the 10 years the Democrats are counting (2010-13). If you begin the 10-year calculation in the year appreciable spending would begin -- 2014 -- the cost would be $1.8 trillion. (Sen. Judd Gregg, it should be noted, estimates the costs for that 10-year period -- 2014-23 -- would be much greater, at $2.5 trillion.) Over the next five years (2024-28), the costs would escalate even faster, totaling $1.7 trillion.
In addition, the Cato Institute's Michael Cannon reveals another gimmick Democrats are using to understate the actual costs for the first true 10-year period. Obama, despite his campaign promises to the contrary, would force the voluntarily uninsured to purchase health insurance. Those mandated costs should be counted as a tax just as surely as if they were first paid to the government for distribution to the insurance companies. In fact, the CBO did score similar mandates as taxes under Hillary Clinton's reform plan in the '90s. But by treating these mandated costs as "off-budget," Obama hides 60 percent of the bill's total costs, according to Cannon. When all these gimmicks are correctly accounted for, says Cannon, "the total cost of ObamaCare reaches ... $6.25 trillion."
If all this weren't bad enough, be advised that Democrats have employed chicanery on the tax side, as well as the spending side. Dick Morris and Eileen McGann recently disclosed the Democratic trick -- contained in both the House and Senate bills -- to require states to cover a greater percentage of Medicaid costs, which would hit taxpayers just as hard but would come down technically as tax increases at the state level. The Heritage Foundation's blog, "The Foundry," also details a slew of new taxes decreed by Sen. Harry Reid's health care legislation, totaling some $370 billion over the next 10 years.
If you still don't believe Obamacare is about increased federal control rather than about cutting costs, you should review provisions in the proposed legislation that would result in federal micromanagement of all private health insurance. As "The Foundry" reports, "Like the others, the Reid bill would subject all private health insurance ... to detailed Federal regulation. These so-called 'insurance reform' provisions amount to a de facto nationalization of health insurance and they would produce that effect regardless of whether or not Congress creates another, new government-run health insurance plan."
But as depressing as Obama's relentless socialist assault on America is, I am continually lifted up by the fighting spirit of those who will never abandon the fight to preserve liberty.
Copyright © 2009 Salem Web Network. All Rights Reserved.
Tuesday, December 01, 2009
As President Barack Obama and his party conspire to destroy -- not reform -- the greatest health care system in the world in their quest to remake America into a full-blown Eurosocialist state, it is instructive to remember the premise upon which Obama launched this disaster. In July, Obama said that if we do not control our health care costs, "we will not be able to control our deficit." He continued: "I've also pledged that health insurance reform will not add to our deficit over the next decade, and I mean it. ... In addition ... the bill I sign must also slow the growth of health care costs in the long run." Just to be sure there was no misunderstanding, Obama said, "The entire cost of that has to be paid for, and it has got to be deficit-neutral."
Going Rogue by Sarah Palin FREE
Those who didn't know this was hogwash in the first place have no excuse not to see it now. There's nothing deficit-neutral about the plans currently under consideration. There's nothing fiscally prudent about them. Indeed, they would greatly exacerbate our existing fiscal crisis -- not to mention usher in the largest socialistic transformation we've yet seen in this nation.
With the information that has now come to light about the costs of "reform," there is no other rational explanation for Obama's obsession to enact Obamacare than his desire to increase government control over every aspect of our lives.
As others have noted, Obama and company have employed multiple gimmicks to conceal and misrepresent the true costs of Obamacare. Like other groups wanting to destroy America from the outside, liberals are patient. By backloading their spending, they hope to deceive Americans into thinking their plan is budget-neutral.
Thus, their bills disguise their true net costs by deferring most new spending for five years (while increasing taxes and cutting Medicare almost immediately). This trick is so transparently deceitful that if attempted by a Republican administration, we'd have already heard rumblings for impeachment.
Specifically, Democrats have said their proposal would cost $848 billion over 10 years, but the true cost would be some multiple of that. Using Congressional Budget Office figures, Investor's Business Daily reports that only 1 percent of the spending would come in the first four years of the 10 years the Democrats are counting (2010-13). If you begin the 10-year calculation in the year appreciable spending would begin -- 2014 -- the cost would be $1.8 trillion. (Sen. Judd Gregg, it should be noted, estimates the costs for that 10-year period -- 2014-23 -- would be much greater, at $2.5 trillion.) Over the next five years (2024-28), the costs would escalate even faster, totaling $1.7 trillion.
In addition, the Cato Institute's Michael Cannon reveals another gimmick Democrats are using to understate the actual costs for the first true 10-year period. Obama, despite his campaign promises to the contrary, would force the voluntarily uninsured to purchase health insurance. Those mandated costs should be counted as a tax just as surely as if they were first paid to the government for distribution to the insurance companies. In fact, the CBO did score similar mandates as taxes under Hillary Clinton's reform plan in the '90s. But by treating these mandated costs as "off-budget," Obama hides 60 percent of the bill's total costs, according to Cannon. When all these gimmicks are correctly accounted for, says Cannon, "the total cost of ObamaCare reaches ... $6.25 trillion."
If all this weren't bad enough, be advised that Democrats have employed chicanery on the tax side, as well as the spending side. Dick Morris and Eileen McGann recently disclosed the Democratic trick -- contained in both the House and Senate bills -- to require states to cover a greater percentage of Medicaid costs, which would hit taxpayers just as hard but would come down technically as tax increases at the state level. The Heritage Foundation's blog, "The Foundry," also details a slew of new taxes decreed by Sen. Harry Reid's health care legislation, totaling some $370 billion over the next 10 years.
If you still don't believe Obamacare is about increased federal control rather than about cutting costs, you should review provisions in the proposed legislation that would result in federal micromanagement of all private health insurance. As "The Foundry" reports, "Like the others, the Reid bill would subject all private health insurance ... to detailed Federal regulation. These so-called 'insurance reform' provisions amount to a de facto nationalization of health insurance and they would produce that effect regardless of whether or not Congress creates another, new government-run health insurance plan."
But as depressing as Obama's relentless socialist assault on America is, I am continually lifted up by the fighting spirit of those who will never abandon the fight to preserve liberty.
Copyright © 2009 Salem Web Network. All Rights Reserved.
Freeze of Jewish Construction in Judea and Samaria: Peace or Appeasement Enhancer?
Why, why are there so few on Israel's Left and among the Elite who can use their supposed intellect the way Yoram Ettinger can? - JAN WILLEM VAN DER HOEVEN
Freeze of Jewish construction in Judea & Samaria is based on a series of erroneous assumptions:
1. A Freeze will not soften - but will intensify - President Obama's criticism of "settlements" in particular and Israeli policy in general. For instance, Prime Minister Netanyahu's June 14, 2009 Two-State-Solution-speech triggered exacerbated pressure by Obama. Moreover, Netanyahu's willingness to exchange hundreds of Palestinian terrorists for Gilad Shalit was followed by US pressure to release more terrorists. 2. A Freeze will not moderate - but will whet the appetite of - the PLO (Abu Mazen) or Hamas (Haniye'); it will radicalize their demands and fuel their terrorism. Former Prime Minister Barak's sweeping concessions, offered to Arafat and Abu Mazen in October 2000, were greeted by the PLO-engineered Second Intifada'. Furthermore, Prime Minister Olmert's unprecedented offer of concessions (including the return of some 1948 refugees) was rebuffed by Abu Mazen.
3. A Freeze re-entrenches the misperception of Jewish presence in Judea & Samaria as a/the obstacle to peace. It diverts attention and resources from the crucial threat to peace: Abu Mazen-engineered hate education - the manufacturing line of terrorists - and Arab rejection of the existence - and not just the size - of the Jewish State.
4. A Freeze and the adherence to Presidential dictate will not transform the White House position on Iran-related matters. Besides, a Freeze and the adherence to Presidential dictate do not constitute a prerequisite to maintaining constructive strategic relations with the USA (e.g. supply of critical military systems and crucial strategic cooperation). In fact, a Freeze and a serial submission to Presidential pressure - just like any other form of retreat - erode Israel's strategic posture in Washington and in the Middle East. Such an attitude ignores the role and power of Congress - especially when it comes to the Jewish State - at the dire expense of Israel's national security.
Is Jewish construction in Judea & Samaria an/the obstacle to peace?
1. In September 2005, Israel uprooted 25 Jewish communities from Gaza and Samaria. Gaza became Judenrein. It paved the road to the meteoric rise of Hamas, and induced more smuggling, manufacturing and launching of missiles at Jewish communities in Southern Israel.
2. President Obama defines Jewish presence in Judea & Samaria as a root cause of Arab hostility toward the Israel. However, Jewish communities were established in Judea and Samaria after the wars of 1967, 1956 and 1948, after the 1949-1967 campaign of Arab terrorism, after the 1964 establishment of the PLO, after the 1929 slaughter of the Hebron Jewish community and the 1929 expulsion of the Gaza Jewish community, after the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s slaughter of the Jewish community of Gush Etzion, etc.
3. President Obama considers the 300,000 Jews (17%), who reside among Judea and Samaria's 1.5 million Arabs, an obstacle to peace. Why would he, then, view the 1.4 million Arabs (20%), who reside among pre-1967 Israel's 6 million Jews, as an example of peaceful coexistence?!
4. Obama urges the uprooting of Jewish communities from Judea and Samaria, in order to supposedly advance peace and human rights. Would he, therefore, urge the uprooting of Arab communities from pre-1967 Israel?!
5. Since Obama tolerates Arab opposition to Jewish presence in Judea and Samaria would he tolerate Jewish opposition to Arab presence in pre-1967 Israel?! While any attempt by Jews to reside in Palestinian Authority-controlled areas would trigger a lynching attempt, Arabs have peacefully resided within pre-1967 Israel. Doesn't such a reality highlight the nature of Arab intentions and the real obstacle to peace?!
6. Obama pressures Israel to freeze Jewish construction in Judea and Samaria, in order to avoid unilateral creation of facts on the ground. Shouldn't Obama demand a similar freeze of Arab construction in Judea and Samaria, which is 30 times larger than Jewish construction?! Doesn't the absence of a balanced approach, by Obama, prejudge of the outcome of negotiation?!
7. The 1950-67 Jordanian occupation of Judea and Samaria was recognized only by Britain and Pakistan. The most recent internationally-recognized sovereign over Judea and Samaria was the League of Nations-authorized 1922 British Mandate, which defined Judea and Samaria as part of the Jewish National Home, the cradle of Jewish history. Article 6 of the Mandate indicates the right of Jews to settle in Judea and Samaria. Judge Stephen M. Schwebel, former President of the International Court of Justice, determined that Israel's presence in Judea and Samaria was rooted in self-defense and therefore did not constitute "occupation." Eugene Rostow, former Dean of Yale Law School and former Undersecretary of State and co-author of UN Security Council Resolution 242, asserted that 242 entitled Jews to settle in Judea and Samaria. The Oslo Accord and its derivatives do not prohibit "settlements." Moreover, Israel has constrained construction to state-owned - and not private - land, avoiding expulsion of Arabs landowners.
Freeze of Jewish construction in Judea and Samaria is not a peace-enhancer; it is an appeasement-enhancer.
Freeze of Jewish construction in Judea & Samaria is based on a series of erroneous assumptions:
1. A Freeze will not soften - but will intensify - President Obama's criticism of "settlements" in particular and Israeli policy in general. For instance, Prime Minister Netanyahu's June 14, 2009 Two-State-Solution-speech triggered exacerbated pressure by Obama. Moreover, Netanyahu's willingness to exchange hundreds of Palestinian terrorists for Gilad Shalit was followed by US pressure to release more terrorists. 2. A Freeze will not moderate - but will whet the appetite of - the PLO (Abu Mazen) or Hamas (Haniye'); it will radicalize their demands and fuel their terrorism. Former Prime Minister Barak's sweeping concessions, offered to Arafat and Abu Mazen in October 2000, were greeted by the PLO-engineered Second Intifada'. Furthermore, Prime Minister Olmert's unprecedented offer of concessions (including the return of some 1948 refugees) was rebuffed by Abu Mazen.
3. A Freeze re-entrenches the misperception of Jewish presence in Judea & Samaria as a/the obstacle to peace. It diverts attention and resources from the crucial threat to peace: Abu Mazen-engineered hate education - the manufacturing line of terrorists - and Arab rejection of the existence - and not just the size - of the Jewish State.
4. A Freeze and the adherence to Presidential dictate will not transform the White House position on Iran-related matters. Besides, a Freeze and the adherence to Presidential dictate do not constitute a prerequisite to maintaining constructive strategic relations with the USA (e.g. supply of critical military systems and crucial strategic cooperation). In fact, a Freeze and a serial submission to Presidential pressure - just like any other form of retreat - erode Israel's strategic posture in Washington and in the Middle East. Such an attitude ignores the role and power of Congress - especially when it comes to the Jewish State - at the dire expense of Israel's national security.
Is Jewish construction in Judea & Samaria an/the obstacle to peace?
1. In September 2005, Israel uprooted 25 Jewish communities from Gaza and Samaria. Gaza became Judenrein. It paved the road to the meteoric rise of Hamas, and induced more smuggling, manufacturing and launching of missiles at Jewish communities in Southern Israel.
2. President Obama defines Jewish presence in Judea & Samaria as a root cause of Arab hostility toward the Israel. However, Jewish communities were established in Judea and Samaria after the wars of 1967, 1956 and 1948, after the 1949-1967 campaign of Arab terrorism, after the 1964 establishment of the PLO, after the 1929 slaughter of the Hebron Jewish community and the 1929 expulsion of the Gaza Jewish community, after the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s slaughter of the Jewish community of Gush Etzion, etc.
3. President Obama considers the 300,000 Jews (17%), who reside among Judea and Samaria's 1.5 million Arabs, an obstacle to peace. Why would he, then, view the 1.4 million Arabs (20%), who reside among pre-1967 Israel's 6 million Jews, as an example of peaceful coexistence?!
4. Obama urges the uprooting of Jewish communities from Judea and Samaria, in order to supposedly advance peace and human rights. Would he, therefore, urge the uprooting of Arab communities from pre-1967 Israel?!
5. Since Obama tolerates Arab opposition to Jewish presence in Judea and Samaria would he tolerate Jewish opposition to Arab presence in pre-1967 Israel?! While any attempt by Jews to reside in Palestinian Authority-controlled areas would trigger a lynching attempt, Arabs have peacefully resided within pre-1967 Israel. Doesn't such a reality highlight the nature of Arab intentions and the real obstacle to peace?!
6. Obama pressures Israel to freeze Jewish construction in Judea and Samaria, in order to avoid unilateral creation of facts on the ground. Shouldn't Obama demand a similar freeze of Arab construction in Judea and Samaria, which is 30 times larger than Jewish construction?! Doesn't the absence of a balanced approach, by Obama, prejudge of the outcome of negotiation?!
7. The 1950-67 Jordanian occupation of Judea and Samaria was recognized only by Britain and Pakistan. The most recent internationally-recognized sovereign over Judea and Samaria was the League of Nations-authorized 1922 British Mandate, which defined Judea and Samaria as part of the Jewish National Home, the cradle of Jewish history. Article 6 of the Mandate indicates the right of Jews to settle in Judea and Samaria. Judge Stephen M. Schwebel, former President of the International Court of Justice, determined that Israel's presence in Judea and Samaria was rooted in self-defense and therefore did not constitute "occupation." Eugene Rostow, former Dean of Yale Law School and former Undersecretary of State and co-author of UN Security Council Resolution 242, asserted that 242 entitled Jews to settle in Judea and Samaria. The Oslo Accord and its derivatives do not prohibit "settlements." Moreover, Israel has constrained construction to state-owned - and not private - land, avoiding expulsion of Arabs landowners.
Freeze of Jewish construction in Judea and Samaria is not a peace-enhancer; it is an appeasement-enhancer.
Iran’s Defiance – by Stephen Brown
The decade-long attempt to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons may have entered the final round on Sunday when Iran announced to the world it intended to build ten new uranium enrichment sites.“This is really a statement of defiance,” a former senior Israeli atomic official told The Wall Street Journal, “telling the world we are going to go ahead with our nuclear program.”
The Iranian government’s statement came only two days after the world’s major powers condemned Iran’s nuclear program, which, despite Iranian denials, is believed to be producing nuclear weapons. China and Russia joined the United States, France, Britain and Germany to support an International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) resolution ordering Iran to stop construction on the uranium enrichment plant near Qom, a secret facility whose existence President Obama revealed last September.
Due to the international criticism, Iranians are now threatening to pull out of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and reduce cooperation with the IAEA, the U.N.’s nuclear watchdog. North Korea is the only other country ever to have pulled out of the treaty.
According to news reports, the Iranian decision to thumb their nose at the U.N. and world opinion and construct new nuclear fuel refinement facilities was made Sunday evening at a cabinet meeting chaired by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinijad. The Iranians will start work on five of the new sites within two months and at an unspecified future time on the remaining five.
It is believed the reason for the extra facilities is to allow Iran to build more nuclear bombs. One military analyst says U.N. weapons inspectors and the U.S. Department of Defense are of the opinion Iran currently has enough enriched fuel for one nuclear weapon. Iran would like to have several more in order to present itself as a “credible threat.”
The Iranian announcement signals a defeat for President Obama’s ‘soft’ approach towards the Islamic Republic’s leadership. In an interview with Dubai-based Al-Arabiya satellite television network last January, Obama said Iran’s leaders would find the extended hand of diplomacy if they “unclenched” their fists.
“As I said in my inauguration speech, if countries like Iran are willing to unclench their fist, they will find an extended hand from us,” Obama said.
But as early as March there were already signs that Iran was in no mood to unclench and drop the rock it was holding in the form of its nuclear weapons program. That month, President Obama released a video, wishing the Iranians a happy New Year, which, in Iran, falls on the first day of spring. In return for his friendly overture, the American president received from the Iranian government nothing but a demand for apologies for America’s past transgressions, real or imagined, against Iran.
Sunday’s statement simply proves what most have suspected all along: One cannot talk to the Iranian leaders and that they are simply stringing out negotiations to complete their nuclear arms program. And the fact the Iranians still celebrate the 1979 American embassy seizure every November, a flagrant and criminal breach of international law, shows they do not want to talk to the United States in particular and are still willing to flout international norms.
Essentially, Iran’s leaders are religious fanatics who believe they have been chosen by God to establish a Shiite hegemony over the majority Sunni Islamic world and then, hopefully, over the whole planet. Of the world’s one billion Muslims, about 220 million are minority Shiites, of whom the largest number, about 62 million, live in Iran. Pakistan contains the next largest community of Shiites at 33 million, while India is third with 30 million and Iraq fourth with 18 million.
Iran’s mullah regime sees possessing nuclear weapons as instrumental to its plans for world domination. Nuclear arms would also add significant muscle to Iran’s security in a part of the world where any sign of weakness or vulnerability could be dangerous. Iranians have not forgotten how Iraq took advantage of Iran’s revolutionary turmoil to launch a devastating eight-year war against it in 1980. And like Russia with its former Eastern European satellites, Iran would also use nuclear weapons to intimidate weaker neighbors.
The Asia Times columnist, Spengler (a literary pseudonym), gives another reason why Iran is not afraid to seek confrontation over its nuclear weapons program. Iranian demographics have sunk to West German levels of about 1.6 children per woman, which would make waging a war in 20 years impossible. Iran currently has enough young men to embark on a military adventure, whether internally for nuclear weapons acquisition or externally against the Sunni world, while in twenty years it won’t.
Iran’s heavily-subsidized economy is also imploding. Like Argentina with its 1982 Falkland Islands’ invasion and Germany in 1939, economically it is now or never for Iran to make a grab for the ring. In a year’s time it may be too late, especially if oil prices drop dramatically again. Besides, again like Argentina, a military adventure would probably cause those Iranian people actively opposed to the regime to put aside their economic and political grievances and rally around the country’s leadership in nationalistic pride.
But if Iran wants a fight, it will most likely get one. The Islamic regime’s Holocaust-denying leadership has openly stated it wants to erase Israel from the map. Facing such a naked threat to their country’s existence, one military publication states the Israelis are now openly discussing using a missile attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities. While Israel’s Jericho missiles can carry nuclear warheads, they also can be equipped with a conventional warhead. An attack by Israeli warplanes is also a possibility.
The Israelis already have American backing for such a strike if negotiations fail, as they appear to have. American Vice-President Joe Biden said in an ABC interview last July America would not prevent an Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities. And since the only other option would be a nuclear-armed Iran, the Israelis will now likely ensure this last round ends in a knockout.
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