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TIME TO THINK ABOUT ANNEX AND TRANSFER!
Posted by Arlene Peck, July 31, 2006. |
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I'd rather not be able to say, "I told you so." Yet, it's difficult not to gloat when I see how the rest of the world is "reluctantly" beginning to realize that something must be done soon about the evil and crazy culture that is attempting to thrust itself upon the rest of us. If not, we're all going to be in deep doo-doo... For the past five or six years, I've been writing about "us" as a confused and myopic generation, that didn't have a clue about the enemy it was facing. Belatedly, I believe that we in the 21st century are finally recognizing some uncomfortable truths, which may save our lives yet; that the culture of militant Islam, rabidly foaming at the mouth from across a yawning abyss of cultural and ideological implacability, is rooted and cemented somewhere in the 7th century. We have woken too late, only to discover that our culture is still in the midst of a crusade, which these poor people are conditioned to undertake (to their own detriment) by truly evil "religious" leaders, those carrion-eaters who call themselves Imams and Mullahs, and by corrupt politicians. Gawd! A crusade! Perhaps Mel Gibson could make a movie addressing that! Come to think about it.. I told you about him too! One of our major problems in the West is that we have a leftist-fed "sound byte" mentality, which hasn't been able to grasp the importance of "tribalism," the basis of Arabic culture, still continuing to hold complete sway over primitive countries such as Iraq, Iran, Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia. This is the mentality that underpins everything there, complete loyalty to the clan. That, and submission to a God they say is no friend of the West! We Westerners have been living under a delusional cloud of stupidity. How else to explain the many nations and leaders who have been so blind to signs that have been glaringly clear and obvious, for so long? For the past six years I have been warning that anti-Semitism has been growing at a rapid rate among Arabs and Europeans, the latter in a sort of dj vu, totally reminiscent of pre-war Nazi Germany, and that this anti-Semitism is being actively acted out in the so-called Arab-Israeli conflict. The Islamic culture has never made a secret that it has targeted all Jews for extermination; after all, it is called for by their prophet and holy writings. Although pre-dating 9/11, since Americas attention was so barbarically drawn to Islamist demands, the world stage has been overflowing with Islamist leaders who declare this. The question remains: Why did we not heed their words? I can only say that, as expected, for far too long, it didn't seem to bother anyone too much. However, I now think many Western nations are beginning to take off the blinkers they've been wearing and are facing up to the fact that these ongoing Islamist actions are not about land issues but, religion. Their Koran tells the faithful 1.4 Billion Muslims that anyone who won't convert must die. And some are now mindful of another truth; that after the Jews, Christians and Hindus are next in their sights. They have been burning churches and killing Christians in the Horn of Africa for years now, with barely a word of protest from Western Nations. In light of these facts, how appalling that, due to world pressure, the Israeli Defense Force is forced to fight this, and all of its wars, like a prizefighter in the ring with one arm tied behind his back. Had the United Nations followed up on resolution 1559, agreed to by all parties, instead of sitting by watching for the past six years while Hezbollah armed themselves to the teeth, Israel would not have to be fighting this war. A war, which no one disputes, was started by Hezbollah. Incidentally, I was in many of those same "nests of vipers" cities such as Tyre and Sidon as a journalist, when I was in Lebanon reporting the conflict in June of 1982. These border towns aren't neighborhood communities. They are enemy territory used for the explicit purpose of launching rockets into Israel! Don't tell me about agreements! The Arabs only know to begin negotiations after the terms have been agreed. Anything else is considered "weakness" by this culture of war. Fortunately, many people are recognizing that the Middle East is littered with agreements that just did not work. Are they recalling our history, remembering that, if the United States and our allies in the Second World War not gone acted decisively and ruthlessly in places as far apart as Iwo Jima and Normandy, we'd all be speaking German today, or maybe, Japanese. No one back then spoke of disproportionate damage to the enemy. All that was important was that the west and our way of life were in immediate danger. Today, many are waking up to the fact that Israel and the West are in a fight for their lives with terrorists driven by fanatical adherence to the Koran, all around the world. Radical Islam started this latest outbreak of violence, and unfortunately, it has fallen, again, on Israel to finish it. The Jewish state must not be pressured to stop this offensive until the enemy is disarmed as they were supposed to be, under UN Resolution 1559, when Israel left Lebanon six years ago. Again, it was not the fight that Israel started. What Israel knows and the West has to acknowledge, is the absolutely vital necessity for Israel to win this war. A cease fire allows Hezbollah to declare itself the winner. Inside the Islamic world, it will be seen no other way. The United Nations and the European Union is "the enemy" and has always acted in a manner designed to bring about nothing less than the demise of the Jewish state. The Vatican, which incidentally has enough on its plate internally and internationally, never-the-less finds time to condemn Israel. All these paragons of virtue remain blinded to one incontrovertible fact; that Israel is in a fight for her life and is in a defensive position. There is no such thing as "proportionality" in a fight for survival. The recent shooting attack at the Jewish Federation in Seattle where one innocent person was killed and six wounded is a perfect example of what where facing. Carried out by the son of one of the founders of the Muslim Mosque in that city, I wonder to myself, how proportionate is that? Now that, once again, almost 5 years after 9/11, Islamist attacks are again being seen on our shores, will there be an outcry from my country? I doubt it. However, if churches and Christian Ministries are next, perhaps attitudes might change. Only then, might we begin to admit, to ourselves first, and then publicly, that Israel and its little strip of land has nothing to do with the Muslim craziness. Since when did the media wag the tail of the dog? Now that they on a cease-fire with Hezbolah with whom is Israel to negotiate? Is Israel to sit down with terrorists who represent no sovereign nation? Apart from the inanity of that idea, as Hezbolah is an internationally proscribed terrorist organization, Hezbollah would only use this time to re-group and re-arm. And how, exactly, is Israel fighting this war? I know of no other army that warns the enemy by megaphone, television, leaflet, radio and even calling people on the phone to tell them that they must leave specific areas because they were going to be attacked. Only Israel would do this to avoid large civilian casualties. Then the world condemns them for defending their country against this terrorist militancy/malignancy. Drastic times...drastic solutions. I feel now is the perfect time for Israel to annex Gaza and the West Bank, and expel all Arabs. Beginning soon, all Israelis must have the security of knowing that those in Gaza will no longer have the leisure of running into Israel and bombing or kidnapping hostages. The same pamphleting campaigns, which warn of Israeli retaliations, should now carry a new message. If they insist on continued campaigns of terrorism and warfare against any Israeli territory... anything, then ten percent of Gaza will be taken back by Israel. Be specific; which village, which well, which mosque, which street to which street... and then do it, the next time they 'test' Israeli resolve. Transfer "the Arab enemy within" to any of the surrounding Arab countries. Let us see how well they like living in a Muslim controlled country. And, like a mantra... Let us repeat that this is only one front in a global aimed at global Muslim domination! World War III has been going on for decades. We've just been so busy entering a new millennium that this monster facing us has only belatedly gotten our attention! Arlene Peck is an internationally syndicated columnist and television talk show hostess. She can be reached at: bestredhead@earthlink.net and www.arlenepeck.com |
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THE ETHICAL CODE OF THE IDF
Posted by Yuval Zaliouk, July 31, 2006. |
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Israel Defense Forces (IDF) is the most moral and scrupulous military in the world, bar none! No army will risk the lives of its soldiers in order to save enemy's lives in the midst of a raging war. The Geneva Convention clearly puts the blame on those who use civilians as human shields, as Hezballah is doing with the South Lebanese civilian population. This practice is defined as war crimes. Following, please find an anguished letter from my friend Linda Olmert. Now, is it not time to stop blaming Israel on a whim and begin to stand by her with full conviction? |
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Dear Friends I have not written in the last weeks. So many words were spilled onto the internet, most said it all. And although there are things that words can not possibly cover, I have come to the point that I need to try. * What words can possible convey the heartsick and pain of visiting Nahriya last Thursday and finding that the silence of those who had fled was so much more audible than the sounds of tourists flocking to the town in previous years. We invest in building, planting and growing, and in a moment, a few madmen, crazed with their lust for our blood and the ruin of our accomplishments, invest their all in destruction. I could fill a book with the words that I do not have for this latest instalment to our tragedy. Instead, I ask that you go to this address, where you can find the
Ethical Code of the Israel Defence Force --
Contact Zuval Zaliouk by email at yz@glasscity.net |
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WHAT IF LEBANON'S ARMY JOINS HIZBULLAH?
Posted by David Nathan, July 31, 2006. |
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This was written by Alan M. Dershowitz, who is a professor of law at Harvard and the author of "Preemption: A Knife that Cuts Both Ways." It appeared in The Jerusalem Post yesterday. |
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As Israeli ground forces cross over into Lebanon in an effort to destroy Hizbullah's capacity to fire rockets and missiles at Israeli civilians, the president of Lebanon Emile Lahoud is taking sides and flexing his nation's muscle for the first time. He told a German magazine that he "respects Hizbullah" and its terrorist leader Hassan Nasrallah, and he has threatened to turn the Lebanese army against Israel. This would cause a self-inflicted, and perhaps lethal, wound on Lebanon. Militias associated with several Lebanese political parties -including the party of the speaker of the parliament and of the Lebanese Communist Party - have already joined Hizbullah in attacking Israel. Up until now, the Lebanese government has claimed that it has no real army, not even one capable of controlling the Hizbullah terrorists who have "occupied" southern Lebanon. It has claimed an inability to enforce UN resolution 1559 which, adopted by the Security Council in 2004, "calls for the disbanding and disarmament of all Lebanese and non-Lebanese militias," meaning Hizbullah. And it has disclaimed any responsibility for Hizbullah atrocities against Israeli civilians and kidnapped soldiers. NOW, ALL of a sudden, its tune has changed. Suddenly its army is strong enough to take on Israel, and it is willing to collaborate with the terrorist organization from which it previously sought to disassociate itself. Nor can the Lebanese government plausibly argue that this about-face has been caused by the Israeli decision to have its ground troops cross over into Lebanon. Intelligence sources have confirmed that elements of the Lebanese army have been working with Hizbullah terrorists from the beginning of this conflict, providing the terrorists with electronic, radar and other logistical supports. The Lebanese government is not as innocent - not as much of a victim - as it has gotten the international community and the media to believe. It is playing a dangerous and two-faced game of both sides against the middle. Large segments of its Islamic population in Lebanon support Hizbullah, while much of its Christian population is terrified of the radical Islamic goals of Hizbullah but too intimidated to speak out. Israel and the United States do not want to turn Lebanese moderates into anti-Israel and anti-American zealots, but the tragic reality is that moderates have little influence in Lebanon these days. Israel made a serious blunder by worrying too much about the impact its military actions might have on Lebanese public opinion, and was consequently quite tentative in its initial response to Hizbullah rockets. If this decision was made for military reasons, I would have insufficient expertise to question it. But it appears that military considerations may have been compromised in order to influence Lebanese public opinion. If that was the reason, it was self-defeating. ISRAEL WILL be criticized regardless of what it does or refrains from doing. If it succeeds in destroying Hizbullah, it will be criticized for the civilian deaths it caused, even though the civilian deaths are the fault of Hizbullah for operating from civilian population centers. If Israel fails, it will be criticized for leaving the poor Lebanese in the grip of an emboldened Hizbullah. Israel was attacked from areas that it does not occupy. It gave up this land as part of what peace-lovers in Israel believed was a swap of "land for peace." But Hizbullah and Hamas turned it into "land for rocket launching and kidnapping." Israel is entitled to fight back and defend its citizens from aggression, as every other democracy would do. The media and international organizations are focused on the plight of the Lebanese who have had to leave their homes, paying little attention to the thousands of Israelis who have had to leave their homes in Haifa, Safed, Nazareth and other cities in range of Hizbullah rockets. They are obsessed with comparative body counts, as Hizbullah complains that more Lebanese than Israelis have been killed. Would they be satisfied if more Israelis had been killed? Would that render Israel's actions more proportional? Should Israel be blamed for having built bomb shelters for its civilians, while Hizbullah has built bunkers only for its leaders, leaving civilians exposed? Should Hizbullah be given credit for deliberately increasing the number of civilian deaths on both sides by firing its anti-personnel rockets into densely populated areas and from densely populated areas? Should Israel be blamed because many Israelis left their homes in dangerous areas while many Lebanese decided to remain in war zones in order to serve as human shields for the terrorists? HIZBULLAH IS on the wrong side of morality, international law and human rights. If the Lebanese army now joins it in fighting against Israel's efforts to stop terrorism, it will become complicit with terrorism and a legitimate military target. It will share responsibility for the deaths of its own civilians. It would be wise and moral for it to stay out of the fight and preserve its firepower to use against the real enemy of Lebanese democracy - Hizbullah. Contact David Nathan at davenathan@aol.com |
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THE PILLARS OF THE CURRENT WORLD CONFLICT -- THE UNDECLARED WW III
Posted by Nurit Greenger, July 31, 2006. |
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Today's riots in Lebanon, Gaza and other places take me back to Haim Harari's April 2002 speech on War on Terror. Here it is. MEMORIZE! MEMORIZE! MEMORIZE! |
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"It is also a fact that almost everybody in the [Middle East] region blames this situation on the United States, on Israel, on Western Civilization, on Judaism and Christianity, on anyone and anything, except themselves." Thus destroying the UN buildings, burning UN and USA flags and calling for the destruction of Israel. "The events of the last few years have amplified four issues, which have always existed, but have never been as rampant as in the present upheaval in the region. Though we are already well into it, few more years may pass before everybody acknowledges that it is a World War!" "The following are the four main pillars of the current World Conflict, or perhaps we should already refer to it as "the undeclared World War III": 1. The first element is the suicide murder "All of these happen daily in Iraq and in the Palestinian areas. What do you do? Well, you do not want to face the dilemma. But it cannot be avoided. " "The problem is that the civilized world is still having illusions about the rule of law in a totally lawless environment." "The good news is that all of this is temporary, because the evolution of international law has always adapted itself to reality. The punishment for suicide murder should be death or arrest before the murder, not during and not after. After every world war, the rules of international law have changed, and the same will happen after the present one. But during the twilight zone, a lot of harm can be done. " The picture I described here is not pretty. What can we do about it? In the short run, only fight and win. In the long run -- educate the next generation and open it to the world. The inner circles can and must be destroyed by force. "Above all, never surrender to terror. No one will ever know whether the recent elections in Spain would have yielded a different result, if not for the train bombings a few days earlier. But it really does not matter. What matters is that the terrorists believe that they caused the result and that they won by driving Spain out of Iraq. The Spanish story will surely end up being extremely costly to other European countries, including France, now expelling inciting preachers and forbidding veils and including others who sent troops to Iraq. In the long run, Spain itself will pay even more." I have no doubt that the civilized world will prevail. But the longer it takes us to understand the new landscape of this war, the more costly and painful the victory will be. Europe, more than any other region, is the key. Its understandable recoil from wars, following the horrors of World War II, may cost thousands of additional innocent lives, before the tide will turn. Contact Nurit Greenger at 4nuritg@gmail.com |
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THE WORLD IS ANGRY WITH ISRAEL
Posted by Ken Heller, July 31, 2006. |
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This was written by Barbara Ginsberg of Maale Adumim, Israel. Contact her at barhow@.netvision.net.i |
| The world is angry at Israel. And that is great! It means that we are slaughtering the enemy. We made Hizbullah choke on their words that "Hizbullah defeated the Goliath", defeated indestructible Israel. The world is angry at Israel for fighting a "war as a war" should be fought. Israel's strategy has thank G-d proved effective and the world screams "stop". Civilians were killed and some 50 Lebanese in Kana Well my friends, that is called war. Israel unlike any other nation, drops flyers, to warn the civilians to leave the area they are going to bomb. Whether the deaths were caused by Israeli bombs, or by Hizbullah to get the sympathy of the world, does not bother me. The world is angry at Israel, because Hizbullah in their abnormal, animalistic rage attacked the UN personal and their building, both in Lebanon and Gaza. The very people who help these terrorists and are always on their side. Great! Let the world be angry. Where was the anger of the world when Israel's innocent civilians were killed and hurt in our Northern towns? Where was the world's anger when Gush Katif, Sderot and Netivot had missiles and Katyushas raining down on them -- in so-called times of peace? Where was the world's anger when citizens were blown to pieces by suicide bombers? Where was Tony Blair? Why did he not appear on TV and shout, - Stop! Enough! There was a deafening quiet as Jews were being blown to pieces. Enough -- we must continue this war and win. Israel has no choice. I remember the U.S. using napalm fire against villages in Vietnam, killing innocent civilians. The French fought in Algeria and thousands of Muslim civilians lost their lives in French bombing raids, and vigilante reprisals. And the chutzpah of Tony Blair to angrily speak on TV that it is... "enough"? The Jewish people remember Britain's occupation of our country - keeping Auschwitz survivors from entering what was then called Palestine. Turning their backs and closing their eyes as the Arabs slaughtered Jews The moral Tony Blair's country used the noose to end the lives of Irgun and Stern fighters. The British were not for a goodwill gesture to set men free, as foolishly Israel is constantly doing today with her arch -enemies. Please G-d let the world be angry with us. It means that we are winning and how great it is to be a winner and hated by the world. Please G-d, help us and let this be. Ken Heller is a pro-Israel activist and a member of the Philadelphia Chapter of Americans For A Safe Israel. He can be reached at kayjayphilly@yahoo.com |
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PLENTY OF BLAME TO BE SHARED
Posted by Emanuel A. Winston, July 31, 2006. |
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The Hi-Tech war against Hezb'Allah has put the spotlight on the weakness of a Hi-Tech Army like the IDF (Israel Defense Force) vs. a relatively primitive terrorist army. We now see it in Israel and the U.S. sees it in Afghanistan as the Taliban re-surfaces. The U.S. faces it in Iraq where road-side munitions blow up U.S. tanks, trucks and APC (Armored Personnel Carriers). Israel once again trained for the wrong war. This is reminiscent of the dominant philosophy which led to the catastrophic surprise of the 1973 Yom Kippur War. That "philosophy" was called in Hebrew "Conceptzia" or the Concept. The IDF higher command fixed in their mind that Egypt and Syria wouldn't dare attack Israel but - they were wrong - dead wrong for some 6,000 young men who died too young because of the "Conceptzia". Even as Egypt was upscaling their training and pre-positioning ground-to-air missiles particularly, the "Conceptzia" blinded the Israelis. Intelligence reported their findings but failed to convince the Military Staff and the politicians so - Intelligence failed! Clearly, History repeats herself as Hamas and Hezb'Allah built defense and pre-positioned tonnage of munitions virtually under the noses of the Generals and pathetically ignorant politicians whose present day "Conceptzia" was to ignore the build-up of terror capability. The focus of attack against the Right to lead the nation, wholly ignoring the growing danger embodied in Syria, Iran, and their proxies of Hamas and Hezb'Allah. It was "Conceptzia" 2006. Presently, Barbara Opall-Rome in U.S. DEFENSE NEWS, July 17, 2006 wrote a scathing and correct analysis of Israel's misplaced confidence in her technology while ignoring "boots on the ground" training for their soldiers.(1) Claiming preparedness for war but allowing the enemies to build up for war and not touching them was a vital, death-dealing mistake as proven by the two front war begun in Gaza by Hamas on June 25th by an attack that killed two Israeli soldiers and kidnaped one, Corporal Gilad (ben Akiva) Shalit. Hezb'Allah began in Lebanon on July 12, 2006 by kidnaping two soldiers Ehud (ben Malka) Goldwasser and Guy (ben Rina) Hever. Remember that Lebanon still holds 3 Jewish prisoners from the Sultan Yaaqub battle on June 11, 1982: Zecharia Shlomo (ben Miriam) Baumel, Tzvi (ben Pninah) Feldman and Yekutiel Yehuda Nachman (ben Sarah) Katz. Remember also Ron (ben Batya) Arad captured when his plane was downed over Lebanon on October 1986. Unfortunately, the U.S. had over-ridding political priorities in the Middle East. Keeping the Arab Muslims pacified required holding Israel on a short leash. Every Israeli politicians and General knew that they were only allowed short bursts of retribution for hostile Muslim attacks, lest the "Arabs get angry". They acclimated to the schizophrenic role they were told to play. Israel ignored their own politicized military, reduced their military capability and purpose and were subservient to weak politicians who closed their eyes to the dangers of the mounting Terrorist build-up of forces and armaments. Once, years ago, the elite of the military undertook night missions to spy out what the enemies were doing but, then the politicians didn't want casualties that might weaken their hold on political office. The Oslo Accords and philosophy became their training ideology where the lessons taught were not to engage the enemy lest the media unleash a storm of Israel-bashing. Lessons were not learned from the U.S. Hi-Tech ariel assault on the Caves of Tora Bora in Afghanistan. The U.S. Generals even allowed the Taliban to escape Kabul in long lines of trucks with their weapons, heading for the cave networks in the mountains. America was certain that air attacks with big bunker-busting bombs would crush the caves and the Taliban inside. In the end, it was "boots on the ground" who had to explore every cave and blow them up virtually by hand - one by one. We were never told the casualty figures this low-tech fighting caused, but there was no other way to dig them out of their deep tunnels and hidey-holes. The U.S. faced the same tunnel problem in Vietnam but, the Israeli planners refused to learn the lesson. Where were Israel's brilliant generals when they observed the "war of the caves" in Afghanistan? Just across the border of Lebanon, Hezb'Allah took 6 undisturbed years to create a virtual tunnel city, with nary a word from Israelis or from the U.N.'s UNIFIL observers who were (supposedly) watching and reporting back to the U.N. about the ongoing preparations for war. I have little doubt that one day we will see a detailed book paralleling the U.N. "Oil-for-Food" scandal only this time it will cover 28 years of UNIFILS' (United Nations' Interim Forces in Lebanon) operational relationship with Hezb'allah via Iran and Syria. It should also describe UNRWA (United Nations Relief Works Agency) who were funding and assisting the Arab Muslim Palestinian terrorists from Yassir Arafat through Hamas. All that was needed for the better organized terrorists was a small spark. First, it was a demented Sharon who was advised by Ehud Olmert to abandon the 10,000 Jewish men, women and children in 21 communities of Gush Katif/Gaza and the 4 northern Samarian towns. Despite repeated warnings, these two self-serving dimwits, along with their Leftist generals, who decided to hand over what amounted to a firing positions for a base of Global Terrorists. Why this entire cabal is not now serving time in prison for betraying the Jewish nation, I will never understand. Because the vaunted Israeli military has shown weakness in the face of organized terror, why should the U.S. continue to consider Israel a vital ally. Giving up crucial land and armaments to hostile Muslim Arabs converted Israel from being a valued asset into a degraded liability. Ehud Olmert, Shimon Peres, Amir Peretz, Gen. Dan Halutz, et al thought the U.S. would appreciate their 'restraint' in NOT hitting those Arab Muslim neighbors who were openly preparing for war. What these shallow country bumpkins did NOT understand was that Israel was only valuable as a tough, dependable army that could be called upon by the U.S. when necessary. What the Israeli bumpkins did NOT understand was that Washington Arabists, like the "Foggy Bottom" State Department, did NOT want Israel moving to defend herself. Their only goal was to appease the Arab Muslim oil nations and multi-national oil companies. Part of that appeasement was to keep Israel on a short leash. This required recruiting Jewish Leftists such as Peres, Yossi Beilin, certain Leftist Generals and Media to maintain the mantra of Peace-Peace, Peace Uber Alles - Land-for-Peace - even as the Kassem Rockets and Katyusha Missiles were falling. Any sane nation would define such action as treason and a hanging offense in time of war. Israel (if you haven't noticed) has been in a state of Permanent War and low-level conflict (which is the definition of Terrorism) from her first days in 1948 until today. Israel, under control and command of useless Olmert, Peretz (now Defense Minister) and Gen. Halutz (now in Command of the IDF) has been wasting tons of ammunition by firing at empty fields in Gaza. Now, as in the Yom Kippur fiasco, Israel desperately needs re-supply. The noisy boom-booms may have kept the Arab Muslim Palestinian up at night but did not stop Hamas from launching Kassem rockets into southern Israel with more useless boom booms. (If possible, I would stuff Israel's current politicians and generals into those circus canons where the clowns are shot out into a net. In this case, I would unload those failures over Gaza and Lebanon - without the net!) Even as the entire North is being hit with saturation missile attacks from Hezb'Allah, there are Leftists like Shulamit Aloni, the Women in Black (of which the Prime Minister's wife Aliza, is a leading member) and other Leftists staging protests against Israeli soldiers fighting in Lebanon to stop the missiles falling on Israelis in the North and rockets hitting Israelis in the South. If Fidel Castro, with the help of Jimmy Carter, arranged the Mariella boat lift of criminals and crazies to be shipped to America, why cannot the sick and twisted Leftists be sent on a forever boat trip to Uganda or Saudi Arabia? Surely they deserve a rest from their arduous efforts to subvert the nation of Israel. Have you noticed that Jewish attempt at humor increase proportionately to the terror? I wonder what jokes will be employed when the Europeans, Americans, the U.N. and Russia bring in NATO to run the lives of the Israelis. Certainly, as with UNIFIL, we cannot expect them to actually fight Hezb'allah as missiles continue to come in from Lebanon. Imagine the blame game when these NATO forces start to come home in body bags. They will inevitably blame Israel. The Solution: Drive Olmert's government immediately out of power. Return to power those retired generals who proved their worth in past engagements. Do it now! Or prepare to weep bitter tears and name another day of national mourning. ### 1. "RAID REVEALS HOLE IN ISRAELI NET: Hezb'Allah Ambush Shows Flaws in Sensor Strategy - Analysts say Hizbollah attacks are aimed at boosting Iran's strategic position" by Barbara Opall-Rome Tel Aviv U.S. DEFENSE NEWS July 17, 2006 Emanuel Winston is a commentator and Middle East analyst. His articles appear often on Think-Israel and Gamla. He is a member of the Board of Directors and a research associate of the Freeman Center For Strategic Studies (http://www.freeman.org/online.htm). Contact him at gwinston@interaccess.com |
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ISRAEL WAS ATTACKED BY LEBANON
Posted by Lawrence Uniglicht, July 31, 2006. |
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Might the world be less inclined to skewer Israel for a perceived "disproportionate response" against Lebanon, as a consequence of Hizbullah's unprovoked attack on its soldiers, if indeed Israel declared war on sovereign Lebanon itself? In fact, that sovereignty did invade and attack Israel on its northern border! Never mind that the attackers are affiliated with fanatical Hizbullah. That Islamic cadre, obsessed with annihilating Israel, is represented in Lebanon's Parliament, and is supported by much of Lebanon's citizenry. Hizbullah is not in any way a rogue outside entity that infiltrates Lebanon for the express purpose of tormenting Israel. So what if the elected Lebanese President Lahoud and Prime Minister Siniora infer they have no control over such Jew despising fanatics. Why don't they expel Hizbullah representatives from Parliament? They certainly have the authority to do that, if they truly believe Hizbullah's behavior is contrary to Lebanon's best interests, perhaps even of a treasonable nature. When one nation attacks another, the aggrieved nation has every right and in fact obligation to retaliate aggressively in order to defend its own citizens. Period! There are no exceptions to this rule. Israel surely attempts to minimize civilian casualties within Lebanon, however, Hizbullah cowards intentionally hide themselves and their deadly weapons, including missiles, behind civilian human shields, including women and children, in order to gain sympathy from a nave world, thus what can IDF forces do? The ongoing tragedy could in fact be lessened if Hizbullah was justifiably excoriated instead of Israel by worldwide observers, indeed reversing any psychological gains from the Shiite fanatics' despicable strategy, perhaps pressuring Hizbullah to either cease launching missiles at Israel or move its launching pads to desolate areas away from civilians; implementation of the latter contingency, of course, would be as likely as pigs flying in the desert. The media blitz against Israel in many venues, especially but not exclusively in Europe (The New York Times, for one, in fact regularly displays graphic images of Lebanese corpses, no doubt intentionally portraying Israel as the devil incarnate) is repugnant, unabashedly exhibiting no sense of fairness whatsoever from editorial staffs that ought to know better. Might a sliver of true perspective every once in a while emerge, casting aspersions on manipulative subhuman Arabs willing to put presumed brethren in harms way for the sake of their wretched cause, strategically trading those human lives for misplaced sympathy and in many Muslim quarters even delusional hero worship, or is that too much to ask for? Let us hope Israel ignores the double standard it seemingly must always bear, perseveres in this true test of will, slays its enemies, and becomes a stronger nation for the daunting effort. That surely would be one rare but oh so important victory for justice and mankind. Lawrence Uniglicht is a career civil servant, working for the Social Security Administration. He advocates for the State of Israel with an American perspective. He writes, "Advocating for the disrespected underdog has been my passion, no doubt Israel falls into that category." Contact him by email at luniglicht@snip.net |
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LEBANON: MYTHS AND FACTS
Posted by Shaul Ceder, July 30, 2006. |
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This was written by Shraga Simmons and Pesach Benson. Shraga Simmons is the founding editor of HonestReporting.com. Pesach Benson is the editor of HonestReporting's daily blog, MediaBackspin.com. This article is archived at:
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Ammunition for how you can defend Israel. It happens every time. Israel is forced into a defensive war, and winds up defending itself against canards of aggression and excessive force. Around the water cooler and on talk radio, Israel's supporters are put on the spot: Why are so many Lebanese civilians being killed? Why the destruction of so much infrastructure? Can't Israel show some restraint? At times like this, every Jew becomes an ambassador for Israel. Even if you don't agree with everything Israel does, we must defend Israel's right to self-defense. So let's sort out fact from fiction -- for the sake of Israel, and for ourselves. Myth: Israel is attacking and killing hundreds of Lebanese civilians. Fact: The death of any innocent civilian is tragic and Israel regrets the loss of life. Why are civilians dying? Because Hezbollah is hiding among civilians, using villages, mosques and even private homes to store and manufacture weapons caches that include 12,000 missiles. This creates a conundrum for the Israeli military, where Hezbollah wins either way: If the IDF shies away from attacking because of the proximity of civilians, Hezbollah's terror infrastructure remains in place. And if the IDF attacks, no matter how carefully, there will be collateral damage -- triggering condemnation in the media, and emboldening Hezbollah to operate from civilian areas. Even the UN's humanitarian chief, Jan Egeland, said: "Hezbollah must stop this cowardly blending... among women and children. I heard they were proud because they lost very few fighters and that it was the civilians bearing the brunt of this." Ynet News reports that Hezbollah is trying to maximize Lebanese civilian deaths, presumably for its own propaganda purposes: Roadblocks have been set up outside some villages to prevent residents from leaving. Meanwhile, in order to minimize civilian casualties, Israel has dropped warning leaflets in Lebanon, advising residents to protect their own safety by "avoiding all places frequented by Hizbullah." When was the last time that Arab terrorists alerted Israeli civilians of an impending strike? So let's be clear who bears responsibility for the deaths of Lebanese civilians. As Alan Dershowitz writes: A bank robber who takes a teller hostage and fires at police from behind his human shield is guilty of murder if they, in an effort to stop the robber from shooting, accidentally kill the hostage. The same should be true of terrorists who use civilians as shields from behind whom they fire their rockets. Myth: Israel deliberately attacked a United Nations post, killing four UN personnel. Fact: That UN post, in the words of the Canadian peacekeeper who was killed there, was being used by Hezbollah as cover. As retired Canadian Major General Lewis Mackenzie, interviewed on CBC radio, explained: "We received emails from [the Canadian peacekeeper who was killed at the UN post] a few days ago, and he was describing the fact that he was taking fire within, in one case, three meters of his position for tactical necessity, not being targeted. Now that's veiled speech in the military. What he was telling us was Hezbollah soldiers were all over his position and the IDF were targeting them. And that's a favorite trick by people who don't have representation in the UN. They use the UN as shields knowing that they can't be punished for it." Furthermore, Hezbollah has attacked UNIFIL observers repeatedly this week. From the UN's own press releases: In the last 24 hours... Hezbollah fired from the vicinity of four UN positions at Marwahin, Alma Ash Shab, Brashit, and At Tiri. (27 July 2006) One unarmed UN military observer, a member of the Observer Group Lebanon (OGL), was seriously wounded by small arms fire in the patrol base in the Marun Al Ras area yesterday afternoon. According to preliminary reports, the fire originated from the Hezbollah side during an exchange with the IDF. He was evacuated by the UN to the Israeli side, from where he was taken by an IDF ambulance helicopter to a hospital in Haifa. He was operated on, and his condition is now reported as stable. (24 July 2006) Note that the UN observer was injured badly enough to be evacuated to an Israeli hospital -- where they saved his life. Kofi Annan's reaction? Not a word of condemnation against Hezbollah, and not a word of gratitude for Israel's rescue of the UN observer. Myth: Israel is needlessly targeting Lebanon's civilian infrastructure. Fact: Prior to the fighting, Lebanon was recovering from a long, destructive civil war. Last year's "Cedar Revolution" against Syrian occupation gave the world high hopes for the possibility of a new Lebanon. Tourism was on the rise, business was improving, and national infrastructure was being rebuilt. Hezbollah has now used this infrastructure to support its own violent agenda. For years, weapons shipments passed through the capitol's international airport, across the Beirut-Damascus highway, and through various coastal ports. That's why Israel has been forced to bomb the transportation network, to hinder the arrival of arms from Syria/Iran, and to stop Hezbollah from moving the kidnapped Israelis out of the country. Other Israeli strikes have targeted telephone links used by Hezbollah to communicate, Hezbollah offices, banks that handle their money, and TV transmitters from which Hezbollah's Al-Manar station is broadcast. In fact, Israel is carefully selecting targets, in order to minimize damage. Writes David Frum of the American Enterprise Institute : [Israel] has fought this war on its northern border as humanely as it can. Flip the switch in Beirut and the lights come on; open the taps, and the water flows. Essential services have been spared. The runways at Beirut Airport have been bombed to stop reinforcements to Hezbollah, but the control towers and the newly built terminal have been spared because Lebanon will need them later. Myth: Israel's military response is "disproportionate and excessive." Fact: We need to define our terms: Israel's response may be "disproportionate," but it is not "excessive." In war, you don't measure response by what the enemy has done in the past, but rather how to stop their threats to attack you in the future. Hezbollah is threatening to send missiles into Tel Aviv, and there is the looming threat of Iran supplying Hezbollah with nuclear weapons. This is a serious security threat that must be eliminated. Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen exploded the myth of "excessive force": For Israel, a small country within reach, as we are finding out, of a missile launched from any enemy's back yard, proportionality is not only inapplicable, it is suicide... It is not good enough to take out this or that missile battery. It is necessary to reestablish deterrence: You slap me, I will punch out your lights. Hezbollah boasts 12,000 missiles -- not for defense, but to destroy Israel. Why would the world not allow Israel to defend itself? Because it is more comfortable to live with the illusion of peace, to hope that this will pass and things will somehow work out. But Israel cannot afford to ignore the reality of the threat. It is true that the fighting has produced more Lebanese casualties than Israeli casualties. But if Israel were to tell its citizens not to hide in bomb shelters, so that the thousands of rockets launched from Lebanon would kill many more Israelis, would the world's journalists and government leaders then smugly agree that Israel's effort to stop Hezbollah is indeed "proportionate"? Myth: Hezbollah has a justified grievance and is being provoked by Israel. Fact: Charles Krauthammer said it best: What's the grievance here? Israel withdrew from Lebanon completely in 2000. It was so scrupulous in making sure that not one square inch of Lebanon was left inadvertently occupied that it asked the United Nations to verify the exact frontier defining Lebanon's southern border and retreated behind it. This "blue line" was approved by the Security Council, which declared that Israel had fully complied with resolutions demanding its withdrawal from Lebanon. In the meanwhile, Hezbollah has created a mini-state inside of Lebanon -- with territory, weapons and soldiers. Over the past six years, Hezbollah has launched dozens of attacks across the internationally-recognized border on both civilian and military targets within Israel. The current crisis began on July 12, when Hezbollah launched rockets at Israeli towns and cities in an unprovoked attack, and then crossed the border killing eight Israeli soldiers engaged in routine patrol and kidnapping two more. Hezbollah "claims" that it is fighting over Shebaa Farms, a small tract of land where the borders of Israel, Lebanon and Syria converge. The UN maintains that Shebaa Farms was captured from Syria in 1967, and is subject only to Israeli-Syrian agreement. Shebaa Farms is a thin smokescreen. Hizbullah's goal is the total destruction of Israel, plain and simple. (Read the Hizbullah charter, and Hezbollah's goals in their own words.) Even Arab states like Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan have now chastised Hezbollah for its "unexpected, inappropriate and irresponsible acts." Myth: Lebanon bears no responsibility for the actions of Hezbollah. Fact: According to UN Security Council Resolution 1559, it is the responsibility of the Lebanese government to disarm Hezbollah and to assert Lebanese sovereignty in southern Lebanon. The Lebanese government has completely failed in this regard, standing by while Hezbollah has assembled weapons stockpiles and entrenched itself in Lebanese towns. Further, Lebanon cannot claim disassociation: Hezbollah is actually part of the Lebanese coalition government, holding two seats in the cabinet! The irony of all this is that most of the world -- including the Lebanese population -- hopes that Israel will succeed in doing the job that the Lebanese army has not: liberating southern Lebanon from Hezbollah rule, and giving it back to the Lebanese. Let's all do our part to promote the facts, and to help Israel win its battles on all fronts. Contact Shaul Ceder at shaul.ceder@gmail.com |
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WHEN YOU SLEEP WITH A MISSILE
Posted by Paula Stern, July 30, 2006. |
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Israeli ambassador to the United Nations, Dan Gilerman was just quoted as saying, "When you sleep with a missile, you may not wake up." He then went on to ask when was the last time Hizbollah apologized for any injury to Israeli civilians. The answer is known to all of us, never. Perhaps these difficult battles against Hizbollah in the north, Hamas in the south, and preventing terror attacks in our cities is not so much about where we fight as what we fight against. This is especially hard after the tragedy in Kfar Qana, but even more important now than ever to remember. On Friday, Hizbollah fired katyusha rockets into Nahariya and hit a hospital. Only by the grace of God and the army's forward thinking had the hospital been evacuated previously and despite massive damage to the building, no loss of life occurred. But there was no miracle in Kfar Qana today in Lebanon. Five days ago, the Israeli army warned residents to leave these villages. Satellite images publicized by the Israeli army show clearly what every resident of Kfar Qana could not have avoided knowing, that Hizbollah was using their village as a launching ground for at least 150 rockets fired into northern Israel. When you sleep with a missile? Meanwhile, pictures continue to pour out of Lebanon that makes much of the world angry and at odds with Israel. What is missing, they claim is proportionality. It is wrong, says the world, to destroy a country for the lives of two or three soldiers. As always, the world is partially correct -- what is missing is proportionality. BBC continues to show the bombed out remnants of buildings in Beirut, but fails to make it clear that they are centering their broadcasts from an area that compromises about 1% of the total land area of Beirut. The other 99% remains untouched because there are no Hizbollah targets there. Our government and politicians are taking to the airwaves to explain to the world why we do what we do, and how we do it. Kofi Annan's insulting comment that we hit a UN base in Lebanon on purpose shows the extent that Annan has been corrupted by his personal politics. The media shows pictures from Lebanon and the tens of thousands of fleeing Lebanese with little regard to the fact that more than 300,000 Israelis have fled the battle areas as well and more than a million others have spent days and nights in bomb shelters. Pictures, the tool of the media, can be misleading, for all the thousand words they pretend to represent. Ultimately, perhaps the truth really lies in the words, the real words that leaders use to describe their goals. The General Secretary of Hizbollah, Hassan Nasrallah has summed up the battle we face on all fronts, "We have discovered how to hit the Jews where they are the most vulnerable. The Jews love life, so that is what we shall take away from them. We are going to win because they love life and we love death." Nasrallah is correct in that Jews love life, that we do all we can to preserve the lives of our people and of those we must battle. It is not our forces that hide weapons among civilians and shoot katyusha rockets at cities indiscriminately. It was Israel that warned the Lebanese civilians to leave Kfar Qana and the Hizbollah that prevented them from going. It was Israel that warned civilians to distance themselves from Hizbollah bases, and the UN that decided to leave their base so close to Hizbollah's training camp. And finally, it was Hizbollah that chose Kfar Qana as a launching pad for those rockets, Hizbollah that used the houses of Kfar Qana to hide the missile launchers, and finally, Hizbollah that needs to explain the strange time difference between when Israel launched missiles in the vicinity of a house that only collapsed some 7 or 8 hours later. But regardless of what happened in Kfar Qana, Nasrallah is right - we love live and they love death. But he is wrong in the conclusion he draws from this. Our loving life is not what makes us vulnerable, it is what makes us invincible. And finally, Dan Gilerman is correct. "When you sleep with a missile, you may not wake up." Contact Paula Stern at paula@writepoint.com |
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PHOTOS THAT GIVE INSIGHT INTO THE UPCOMING ANTI-ISRAEL RALLY IN DC
Posted by Carrie Devorah, July 30, 2006. | ||
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A rally is planned by the muslim community on August 12th at the White House. I learned about the rally while I was in Chicago. These are some of the photos of the event I covered. The rest of the photos, all 289, are posted on my website www.carriedevorah.com (look on the home page for the gallery Chicago anti Israel rally).
What disturbs me as a news photographer who covered similar protests in Europe, this is the first protest I covered here in DC where the protesting community was predominantly muslim and dressed in their traditional garb of bhurkas and such. 
On my website, look at the Protest Gallery for the Hyde Park protests, the Uzbekhistan protest at Marble Arch, the Bloody Sunday march in Northern Ireland and under Travel, look at the murals in Northern Ireland then back into the galleries for the image taken from the walls and made into a poster for the Chicago protest. And take a moment to look at the photos of Gerry Adams in the first ever presence of PLO flags in the Bloody Sunday March. Yes, I sent those pics out too. Sort of answers the question does a leopard lose its spots..... or.... in modern day language, can a terrorist ever really become a politician. The August 12th rally is on a Saturday I believe. How do we combat the hate seen on the faces of the protesters..... prayer.... maybe prayer in the park -- no speeches, no featured groups, just a minyan and more -- the old fashioned way of showing who we are and that we don't duck and run. If the soldiers in Israel can pray amidst tanks and rocket fire, then we can pray too, can't we.... Sincerest Regards
Carrie Devorah is an investigative photojournalist based in DC.
Former religion editor of "Lifestyles" Magazine, her areas of focus
are faith, homeland security and terrorism. Devorah is the sister of
Jewish Press columnist Yechezkel Chezi Scotty Goldberg, victim of
Egged Bus 19 bombing, 1-29-04. Goldberg was a noted psychologist with
expertise in at-risk youth.
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THE POWER OF PRAYER -- MARK YOUR CALENDARS
Posted by Nurit Greenger, July 30, 2006. |
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To: ALL Dear Friend, Israel's Chief Rabbi, Rabbi Yona Metzger, is calling all of us to join in a world-wide prayer to be held this coming Tuesday, August 1st, at 7PM Israel time (9AM Los Angeles time). We join hands, Jews and Gentiles alike, one people, under God, as praying becomes the force engulfing the world. At the time this e-mail is sent, almost 40,000 people have already joined. Let us see how this number grows and explodes as we reach Tuesday evening, Israel time. You may add your name to the world-wide chain of people who are joining this mission. The names of those who join will be printed and put in the Western Wall by Chief Rabbi Metzger, with his blessing. You may view the prayers for the IDF Soldiers and for the well being and safe and speedy return of the kidnapped soldiers (Gilad Shalit, Udi Goldwasser, Eldad Regev) using the following link: These days, when we are "between the straits", and in these desperate hours, our brothers Sons of Israel in the State of Israel face hard and murderous times from our enemies and those who are up to destroy us. While in the battle front our brave soldiers in the Israeli Defense Forces risk their lives in the air and sea to repel those who turn upon us, and defend our people and the cities in Israel. I call upon our Jewish brothers in the Diaspora, wherever they are, to pray for the well-being of our soldiers and their success this Tuesday at 19:00 (Israel time, for the recovery of the wounded, and the return of the captives to the loving arms of their families all safe and sound. Time is fixed on Tuesday, August 1, 2006 at 7:00 PM Tel Aviv time. Prayer for Gilad Shalit, to be read by all communities Shelomo Amar composed by the Rishon Le'Sion,
(Psalm readings: Chapters 70, 13, 142, 126) Prayer for the Deliverance of the Captured Israeli Soldiers MAY it be Your will, Lord our God and God of our fathers, that these Psalms which we have read before You today should come to You favorably, and be accepted before you as if King David Your anointed one -- peace be on him -- had said them himself. Please take action for the sake of Your Holy names which are written in them, and which are alluded to in them, and accept with mercy and favor our prayers and requests, so that our supplications reach You. Have pity, show concern and extend mercy to the captives, Ehud ben Malka Goldwasser; Eldad ben Tovah Regev; and Gilad ben Aviva Shalit, and save them, showing redemption and mercy, together with all captives and prisoners from Your nation Israel. MAY the One who can liberate captives release them from their detention, deliver them from captivity to liberty, from tyranny to redemption, and from gloom to brightness, and restore them to complete health -- a healing of the soul and of the body -- and revitalize their spirit, reinvigorate their strength, and help them in happiness and joy; then they will be strengthened and healed and will have eternal happiness. MAY the merit of the prayers, the cries, and the supplications of the multitudes who plead for them all over the world stand for them as a shield and a protection, freeing them from their captivity. Please tear asunder any negative judgments. May all their merits be presented before You, the Blessed One, and all that they have achieved and done for the sake of our nation and our heritage. Tear up their verdicts for the merit of the Holy Name that is alluded to in the initial Hebrew letters of the phrase "Accept the prayer of your nation; fortify us, purify us, You who are so awesome." MAY the words of this scriptural verse (Isaiah 53:10) be fulfilled for them: "God's captives will return and come to Zion in joy; eternal happiness will be on their heads, they will be invested with joy and happiness, and sorrow and anxiety will be banished." May this happen very soon! Translation by Rabbi Mayer Waxman, Director of Synagogue Services,
Orthodox Union Edited by David Olivestone, Director of Communications,
Orthodox Union
Contact Nurit Greenger at 4nuritg@gmail.com
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ISLAMIC TERRORIST ATTACKS JEWISH FEDERATION IN SEATTLE
Posted by Ezra HaLevi, July 30, 2006. |
 (From Cox and Forkum "Editorial Cartoons," http://www.coxandforkum.com/) Pam Waechter, 58, was shot dead, and five people are in serious condition after a Muslim man opened fire inside a Jewish Federation building in Seattle, Washington Friday. The Arab murderer entered the building Friday afternoon at 4 PM, following behind a woman who had just punched in her security code. He shot a receptionist and demanded that she call 911 and tell them he was holding everyone hostage. "He told the police that it was a hostage situation and he wanted us to get our weapons out of Israel," an employee told the Seattle Times. According to Jewish Federation official Amy Wasser-Simpson, the man had told staff members, "I'm a Muslim American; I'm angry at Israel," and then began shooting. Some reports said he held a gun to the head of a 13-year-old girl for a while while threatening the others in the room. Most of the employees were able to escape through a back door, and once police teams arrived, 31-year-old Naveed Afzal Haq soon surrendered. He was charged with one count of murder and five of attempted murder. He is reportedly a US citizen, from outside the Seattle region. All five of the wounded are women as well. None of the names of the victims have been released, but three of them with abdominal injuries underwent emergency surgery Friday. One victim is pregnant and was wounded only in her arm. Police SWAT teams and bomb squads combed the area for hours looking for additional threats. Robert Jacobs, the director of the local chapter of the Anti-Defamation League in Seattle, issued a recommendation to all Jewish institutions, including synagogues, to cancel services and evacuate the buildings until it is determined if the shooting is a lone incident. Despite this, he told the Times, "We're trying to keep the community as calm as possible." Most of the city's synagogues ignored the directive, saying it would be a surrender to terrorism. The Jewish Federation organized a large rally last week in support for Israel's Re-Engagement War. Seattle Police Chief Gil Kerlikowske told an evening news conference that in addition to providing an extra layer of protection to the city's synagogues, police would be guarding mosques as well, fearing retaliation for the shooting.
writes for Arutz-Sheva.
This is from today's Arutz-Sheva (www.IsraelNN.com).
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CNN HAS BECOME THE PROPAGANDA ARM OF HEZBOLLAH
Posted by Marlene Young, July 30, 2006. |
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CNN IS ALLOWING HEZBOLLAH TO SHOOT AND SHIELD THEMSELVES BEHIND "CIVILIANS" AND THEN BLAME ISRAEL Instead of condemning Hezbollah for firing rockets in and around Lebanese buildings full of children, in neighborhoods full of Rocket launchers, from which Israel WARNED REPEATEDLY to let the civilians leave, the UN, EU, USA and the MEDIA continue to blame Israel for defending itself from those rockets aimed at Israel's civilian areas. The Media is therefore being used as a PROPAGANDA TOOL to allow Hezbollah to shield itself behind "civilians" and attack Israel civilians from behind civilian children, AS THEY DID IN QANA, a Hezbollah stronghold, from where Hezbollah fired hundreds of rockets at Israel against International Law.. PLEASE ASK CNN WHY THEY NEVER ASK THEIR GUESTS WHY HEZBOLLAH IS ALLOWED TO FIRE ROCKETS FROM HOUSES FULL OF CHILDREN? PLEASE CONTACT CNN: Go to one of these Websites and fill in one of the forms: www.cnn.com/feedback/forms/form5.html?21 -Wolf Blitzer www.cnn.com/feedback/forms/form5.html?10 -Anderson Cooper www.cnn.com/feedback/forms/form9b.html www.cnn.com/feedback/forms/form5.html?11 -Paula Zahn www.cnn.com/feedback/forms/form4.html?19 Paula Zahn www.cnn.com/feedback/forms/form4.html?1 -Christiane Amanpour Send e-mails to: situationroom@cnn.com
HOW TO CONTACT CNN
As a former CNN employee ( I was the CNN Radio Correspondent during the Gulf War in 1991), my advice is to CALL CNN's Internet Desk and to ask for the staffer in charge. You present yourself as an avid viewer of CNN and then start asking questions in a very matter of fact manner. After the conversation, send a short, personal note to the person whom you have spoken to. This is the methodology used by Israel's adversaries, in a very effective manner. Send the letter both by e-mail and by hard copy, and always copy the CEO of CNN. The telephone number of the internet desk is 404-827-1519. Brachot David Bedein
Contact Marlene Young at malka613@gmail.com
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HIZBALLAH SAYS "WE'LL ATTACK INTERNATIONAL FORCE TOO"!
Posted by David Nathan, July 30, 2006. |
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White House: Tragic Qana bombing shows critical need for Israel to show restraint. Condoleezza Rice returns to Washington Monday. The UN Security Council meets Sunday evening on the Lebanese crisis July 30, 2006, 5:38 PM (GMT+02:00) The Lebanese government refused to hold diplomatic discussions without an immediate unconditional ceasefire by Israel. Rice who cut her mission short said she was saddened by the tragedy in Lebanon. Prime minister Ehud Olmert and chief of staff Lt. Gen Dan Halutz voiced deep regret at the tragic loss of life at Qana after 57 reported dead including 37 children in collapse of buildings in Kafr Qana where the Israeli air force struck Hizballah rocket sites. Halutz said Israel did not know there were civilians and children in the building and blamed Hizballah for using them as human shields. Olmert: This war was not started by us and we did not want it, but we will finish our counter-offensive until northern Israel safe from Hizballah attack. He spoke of another 10 to 14 days. Hizballah religious leader Sheikh Nabulsi: If international troops come to South Lebanon, we will attack them in the same way as we fight Israelis. This next is called the Qana Trap and is a DEBKAfile Special Report The unfortunate South Lebanese village of Qana has been rigged time and again as a trap to snatch Israel and its international reputation in its jaws. In 1996, a stray Israel shell aimed at Hizballah inadvertently killed 100 civilians, bringing a former Israeli counter-terror operation "The Grapes of Wrath" to a dismal, foreshortened end. Hizballah knows from long experience that maximizing Lebanese civilian casualties is the most effective way to disarm Israel and its military, using international opprobrium as its instrument. Embedding its combat operations among helpless civilians is an old and proven method. The prime minister who first fell into that trap was Shimon Peres, deputy premier in the Olmert government in 1996. A world outcry forced him to bow to Hizballah's terms for a ceasefire. The Shiite terrorists agreed to discontinue its attacks on Israeli civilians (which they never upheld), but assaults on Israeli soldiers were not deemed violations. Ten years on, the Qana village tragedy confronts prime minister Ehud Olmert with the same kind of horrific weight to capitulate to an instant ceasefire, thereby granting Hassan Nasrallah and his rocket arsenal a free hand to continue to bludgeon two million Israeli civilians. When, Sunday morning, July 30, Olmert told the cabinet: "We are not in a hurry to reach a ceasefire before our goals are achieved," he did not know about the Israeli chopper which two hours earlier had sent ordnance flying over a three-story building in Qana village, which housed civilians as well as a Hizballah site for shooting rockets against the Israeli towns of Haifa and Nahariya. The death toll was appalling -- 57 civilians including 37 children, some of them disabled. The Qana disaster abruptly derailed the diplomatic initiatives to halt the hostilities put together in the last ten days through painstaking efforts in Washington, Paris, Jerusalem and Beirut, as well as the understandings the Israeli prime minister reached with US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice in their face to face conversation in Jerusalem the night before, Saturday, July 29. Olmert's statement to the cabinet will go down as a misplaced, mistimed assertion by an inexperienced leader. By failing to understand the tempo of war, he was overtaken by the Qana disaster. He also wasted precious time by relying on Israeli air might, its navy and artillery to defeat Hizballah. Even the ground forces sent in eventually were not correctly used. Instead of deploying small, rapid teams for lightening raids on Hizballah positions, bunkers and villages and moving on to the next, large contingents fought day after day against Hizballah strongholds in Maroun es Ras and Bint Jubeil supported by armored force and artillery fire. Hizballah made good use of the advantage it enjoyed of speed to regroup and return to the fray. A salutary shift in tactics was finally apparent Saturday night. This error was the outcome of two shortcomings: 1. The slow responses of the IDF's northern command and central military war room. DEBKAfile's military sources report that towards the end of the week, general staff headquarters took over the management of the campaign from the northern command. 2. A shortage of tactical intelligence on Hizballah's field operations and methods of warfare, which has turne out to be the Israeli military's Achilles heel in the Lebanon war. In these circumstances -- and in response to Hassan Nasrallah's pose as the victor, which is far from the case -- Olmert must start moving fast, else another unforeseen disaster like Qana will again catch him unawares and snatch the pace of events out of his hands. Contact David Nathan at davenathan@aol.com |
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JUDGMENT DAY
Posted by Hebron Community, July 30, 2006. |
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This was written by Yehudit Barsky and it appeared in the New York Sun July 28, 2006. Ms. Barsky is the director of the Division on Middle East and International Terrorism at the American Jewish Committee. |
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With the international community focused on Iran's quest to develop nuclear weapons, little attention has been paid to Tehran's preparations for a possible showdown with America and its allies. For more than a year, Iran has been preparing, together with terror organizations it controls and finances, for a confrontation code-named "Al-Qiyamah," which is Arabic for "Judgment Day." Hezbollah's unprovoked war against Israel may well be the first step in this Iranian-inspired conflict. Leading this war effort is Brigadier General, Qassam Sulaymani, who heads the Al-Quds "Jerusalem" Force of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards. Based in Tehran, the Al-Quds Force is considered responsible for having trained thousands of operatives from Hezbollah, Hamas, and Islamic Jihad. Now Sulaymani has been tasked with coordinating and providing logistical support to the terror organizations that will execute Iran's plans for a confrontation.The plan reportedly includes suicide bombing attacks on America and British targets in the Middle East as well as on Arab and Muslim countries allied with the West. Participants in Iran's "Judgment Day" plans include Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hezbollah cells in Europe, North America, the Persian Gulf region, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the leaders of Iraq's insurgency, and the Mahdi Army of Iraq's Muqtada Al-Sadr. Iran's Revolutionary Guards also have reportedly invited operatives from the Mahdi Army to be trained in Iran and have increased its funding to Al-Sadr to over $20 million. Although Hezbollah is identified as a Lebanese terrorist organization, it was originally created in Iran following the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Representatives of Iran's Revolutionary Guards were sent to create Hezbollah cells in Lebanon and other countries with large Shi'a populations, including Western countries. Mojtaba Bigdeli, a spokesman for Hezbollah in Iran, recently threatened to carry out attacks globally. "We have 2,000 volunteers who have registered since last year. They have been trained and they can become fully armed. We are ready to dispatch them to every corner of the world to jeopardize Israel and America's interests," said Bigdeli. "We are only waiting for the Supreme Leader's green light to take action. If America wants to ignite World War Three -- we welcome it." Meanwhile, Iran has accelerated its supply of arms to Hezbollah during the past few months, sending rockets, missiles, explosives, and guided missiles to the terror group's bases in Lebanon. Hezbollah's arsenal of artillery today ranges from the relatively small Katyusha rockets which carry an 18-pound warhead packed with high explosives, Arash rockets which carry 40 pounds of explosives, to the Fajr 3 "Dawn" missile which carries 100 pounds of explosives, the Fajr 5 missile, which carries 200 pounds of explosives, and the Zilzal 2 "Earthquake" missile, with a warhead of more than 1300 pounds. Hezbollah also has been equipped with four types of surface-to-surface missiles. More than 3,000 Hezbollah operatives went to Iran to be trained in military tactics, including guerrilla warfare, firing missiles, and artillery, the operation of unmanned aerial drones, conventional warfare, and marine warfare. Iran's outfitting of Hezbollah with military grade weapons over the past six years has transformed it into a militarized terror organization with offensive capabilities resembling that of a state. In tandem with its continued efforts to push for the legitimacy of its nuclear weapons program on the diplomatic front, Iran has been open about its support for Hezbollah. In a recent interview with the Arabic daily Al-Sharq Al-Awsat, an Iranian official stated: "Hezbollah is part of us and does not need guarantees to be certain the Islamic Republic is with it. We are standing with the Party, in spirit and physically, militarily and financially." Iran has bluntly expressed its intentions toward America and Israel. In a military parade held in September 2005, during "Sacred Defense Week," Iran flaunted the latest versions of ballistic missiles produced by its military including the Zilzal 1 and 2. The namesake of this missile is a verse in the Qur'an that tells of the final earthquake that precipitates Judgment Day. The missiles were emblazoned with the slogans: "We will trample America under our feet," "Israel should be wiped off the map," "Death to America," and "Death to Israel." Based on Iran's public statements and Hezbollah's opening salvo of rockets and missiles over Israel's northern border, this appears to be only the beginning of Iran's "Judgment Day" plans. We would be wise to take them at their word. You can contribute directly to The Jewish Community of Hebron, POB10, Kiryat Arba-Hebron 90100, hebron@hebron.org.il, 972-2-9965333 or write to The Hebron Fund, 1760 Ocean Ave., Brooklyn, NY 11230, hebronfund@aol.com |
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ISRAEL'S "GOERING DELUSION" AND THE FALLACY OF "SIGNALING"
Posted by Steven Plaut, July 30, 2006. |
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One theory of why Germany was defeated in World War II was that it placed too much reliance on air assaults in the Battle for Britain, as a substitute for a ground invasion. The decision to forego a ground assault was a political one, produced by maneuvering and competition among German leaders for prestige. Hermann Goering was the head of the Luftwaffe, the German air force. While other generals favored a quick naval and ground assault against Britain to force it out of the war, Goering wanted the glory of defeating Britain reserved for his own pilots and planes. He convinced Hitler to allow the Luftwaffe to conduct the battle of Britain on its own. It did not work. While suffering many losses, Britain won the battle. By then, it was also too late for Germany to attempt a ground and naval invasion of Britain. Germany was bogged down elsewhere. It lost the war. Let me first ask readers to forgive me for a seemingly obscene analogy. But I only mean this in the most restricted sense of analyzing the over-reliance on air power in war. I realize that it is de rigueur these days for anti-Semites to draw comparisons between Israel and Nazi Germany and I ordinarily consider such comparisons outrageous. But, in this one restricted sense of over-reliance on air power, Israel has been repeating the same strategic error as Goering. In 1967, Israel defeated the combined armies of the Arab world in six days. We will soon be approaching a month's worth of fighting between Israel and a ragtime militia of Shi'ite Islamist terrorists, without a clear Israeli victory even being in sight. And the main reason for this has been Israel's Goering Delusion, its belief that air strikes alone can decide a battle and a war. They cannot. Air strikes on targets largely consisting of empty buildings do almost nothing. Sure they are swift and clean and allow ground troops to stay safely out of the fighting. But had the Allies attempted to defeat Germany during World War II using the Goering Strategy of relying on air strikes, World War II might still be going on. Israel's Goering Delusion is due, in part, to the same political maneuvering and in-fighting that created the original one in Germany, namely, political pressure from the head of the Air Force, seeking to boost the prestige of his pet corps. Israel's current military commander-in-chief, Dan Halutz, got his job after serving for many years as head of the Air Force. In the early stages of the current war against the Hezbollah, he no doubt pressured the political leadership to let his Air Force have an exclusive crack at the Hezbollah, delaying any ground invasion. He got his way. The air force led the assault and accomplished nothing besides comforting but meaningless video tapes of explosions meant to comfort the population under the barrage of Hezbollah missiles. Meanwhile, the element of surprise was completely lost. Suppose - instead of the flamboyant air strikes - Israeli paratroopers had seized the bridges over the Litani on the first day of battle, followed by a rapid tank movement designed to cut off southern Lebanon. Suppose this had been followed by mopping-up operations of the Hezbollah bunkers and cells. It is certain that the katyusha rockets would have stopped falling on Haifa, Safed and Nahariya within the first few days of fighting. Moreover, there was no international pressure on Israel against conducting precisely such an operation. It was not carried out only because Israel's government was afraid to conduct it. Instead, the Halutz strategy was to let the air force blow up buildings that make nice sound bites for the evening news. Israeli audiences could watch the reassuring explosions, a bit like Americans did in the early days of the liberation of Iraq. Except that in Iraq, the tanks and marines entered almost at the same instant as the cruise missiles. Israelis huddling in their bomb shelters could watch the nice explosions in Beirut and Tyre. But katyushas were falling on them all the while because of the Goering Delusion. Ultimately, when Israel's leaders realized the bombings of the empty buildings were achieving nothing, they ordered ground troops in, but in a half-hearted, cowardly, hesitant manner. The ground fighting has resembled that old song from Bar Mitzvah parties, "Hokey Pokey." The Israeli version has gone something like this: "You put your ground troops in, you take your ground troops out, you put your ground troops in, and you move them all about. That's what it's all about." The ground troops were moved into Lebanon and out again, as more of Israel's long term strategy to defeat terrorism by means of useless empty "signaling". They were ordered to remain close to the Israeli border and in limited numbers, which is why they were completely ineffective against the katyushas. For many years Israel's leaders have attempted to defeat the enemy by "signaling". Under signaling, half-hearted warnings are issued in numerous forms, everything from sonic booms over terrorist encampments to brief incursions into the Gaza Strip, Nablus or Lebanon. The problem with "signaling" is that an empty signal not backed up by real force achieves nothing. Indeed, it does great damage, by conveying to the enemy that Israel does not have the stomach for a real battle and is afraid of using its military in a serious way. Israel destroyed its own deterrence by endless empty threats of "really, really serious retaliation" and its perpetual "signaling". Let us be clear. The Israeli army that defeated the Arab military machine in 1967 in Six Days could have cleared southern Lebanon of the Hezbollah in a very short time. But it was shackled by Israeli politicians, convinced that symbols and signals are all that are needed. Sending into Lebanon troops in small numbers and then ordering them to return to base is an empty threat. Declaring over and over that ground troops will not be sent deep into Lebanon is equivalent to declaring that the Hezbollah has nothing to fear from Israel. "Over-flying" Latakia in Syria without dropping a single bomb tells Syria that it has nothing to fear from Israel either, other than from more empty "signals". "Bombing" Lebanese cities with leaflets calling on the Lebanese to expel the Hezbollah shows that Israeli leaders still think they can destroy terrorism by making terrorists laugh themselves to death. Empty signaling is indeed effective, but not in the sense Israel's leaders believe. Reliance upon signaling rather than the serious use of the military merely convinces the enemy that Israel is on the run and is too frightened of international pressures or of suffering military casualties to do what is required. In other words, it is a shot of adrenaline in the arm of the Hezbollah. It proves to the terrorists that Israel is afraid of a real fight. It signals that the one strategy Israel will not attempt against terrorism is military victory. What better way to invigorate the Hezbollah militia men? Empty threats do indeed signal - but they signal weakness and defeatism. Steven Plaut is an American-trained economist, a professor of business administration at Haifa University and author of "The Scout." He frequently comments - both seriously and satirically - on Israeli politics and the left wing academic community. His website address is http://www.stevenplaut.blogspot.com. Contact him at splaut@econ.haifa.ac.il |
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THE ISRAELI-HIZBULLAH WAR
Posted by Gilbert Simons, July 30, 2006. |
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How to end this war successfully? Lots of words but no solution or permanent closure. Israel has been down this road many times before and should not do so again. This crisis offers a superb opportunity to bring Israel a major victory, resulting in Permanence, Security and Peace to this beleaguered nation. 1. Israel must conquer all of Southern Lebanon up to the Litani River. It has the international right to conquer any territory from which it is attacked, up to the point from which it will be more secure. It does so with minimal casualties by by-passing all pockets of resistance, to be annihilated at leisure. 2. Israel then dedicates this land as Palestine, offering stakes to all peaceful Arabs wanting to build homes and gardens or orchards thereon. This new nation will be a beacon to millions of Arabs living in hovels in refugee camps in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Israel. Many Arabs in Judea, Samaria and Coastal Israel may also wish to settle in this new Palestine, rather than being under Israeli rule. Lebanese homes will be off-limit What are the results of the above actions? - Hizbullah is all but destroyed. Contact Gilbert Simons by email at gsimons@adelphia.net |
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SOLANA AND THE SIGN
Posted by Women in Green, July 30, 2006. |
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This was written by Sarah Honig and it appeared in the Jerusalem Post July 28, 2006. |
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What connects European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana to a Jerusalem landmark inscription? Hypocrisy. Obfuscation of truth. Tampering with history, be it more distant or very recent. Far from the sound and fury of unabated fighting on Israel's South and North, both Solana and the sign set new standards for insincerity, duplicity and pretence. Both travesties - equally stomach-churning, mind-boggling and plainly exasperating - came to light on the same day last week. The marker was put up to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the King David Hotel blast in which the IZL (in the framework of an ad-hoc partnership with the other undergrounds - the actual operative order having come from Hagana commander Moshe Sneh) blew up the edifice that served as the British Mandate's nerve center. The IZL phoned warnings to the French Consulate, The Palestine Post (this newspaper's forerunner) and the hotel switchboard, requesting that the building be vacated forthwith to avoid casualties. The Brits haughtily pooh-poohed all three advance notices. This is the marker's original text: "The hotel housed the Mandate Secretariat as well as the Army Headquarters. On July 1946 Irgun fighters, at the orders of the Hebrew Resistance Movement, planted explosives in the basement. Warning phone calls had been made urging the hotel's occupants to leave immediately. For reasons known only to the British, the hotel was not evacuated, and after 25 minutes, the bombs exploded, and to the Irgun's regret and dismay, 91 persons were killed." IT'S ALL incontrovertibly true, but truth isn't everyone's cup of tea. And so Her Majesty's embassy demanded the sign be revised. To curry favor and avoid discord, Jerusalem's municipality dutifully promised to remove offensive references to the British refusal to clear the premises. It may seem paltry considering current bloody events, but it's symptomatic. We're always so eager to please and so hungry for foreigners' approval - even at the expense of the justice of our cause. The King David bombing is still cited today by Israel's maligners as an example of "Jewish terrorism," exploited particularly in order to set up synthetic moral equivalency between Arab suicide bombers who deliberately target civilians and the Jewish underground, which went out of its way to avoid casualties, civilian and otherwise. The King David lie remains too useful to too many. They can't let it be dented, not even via a forgettable memorial plaque. And in our alacrity to accommodate ourselves and bask in the warm glow of enlightened post-modernist bon ton, we all too often willingly sacrifice the ethical core of our case, that which sets us apart from those who would annihilate us. We even omit to stress the existential nature of Israel's struggle: how it was savagely attacked on the day of its birth by seven armies (some trained, equipped and led by the very same Brits who denied entry into this country to Jewish refugees from Hitler's hell, and later to hell's emaciated survivors). We compliantly submit to our characterization as somewhat unsavory. SOLANA, HABITUALLY disseminating these de-rigueur characterizations, showed up here on "a fact-finding mission" on behalf of the EU, which presumably couldn't figure out what triggered the latest regional fuss and didn't apparently realize that fanatic Islamo-fascists - in possession of territories unilaterally ceded to them by Israel - had violated Israeli sovereignty, killed Israeli soldiers, abducted others and shelled noncombatants deep inside the country. Both Hamas and Hizbullah owe allegiance to masters and manipulators in Damascus and Teheran, hardly the darlings of the world's progressive, liberal and tolerant democracies. Some of these democracies nevertheless dispatched Solana to discover what the uproar from troublesome Israel's vicinity was all about. While here, Solana saw fit to uphold the EU's refusal to classify Hizbullah as a terrorist organization, asserting that the EU "does not possess sufficient data to determine" whether Nasrallah's nasties belong on its baddie list. He insisted on this not being a moral lapse on Europe's part, but strictly "a legal issue." Solana's humbug isn't paint on metal. But it is, in essence, indistinguishable from the King David plaque modification. In both instances manifestly evident facts are denied and disingenuously covered up to serve vested interests and facilitate double standards. If the specter of Jewish terrorism can be artificially conjured and magnified, it may not-so-subtly excuse horrific unrelenting terrorism against Jews. Conversely, if that monstrously barbaric terror unleashed against the Jews can be diminished and deceptively passed off as something else, then Jewish self-defense is cast in a villainous light and tarnished with malicious tendentiousness as "disproportionate" and, indeed, inherently terrorist itself. BY PRETENDING that Hizbullah may possibly be on the up-and-up, Solana knowingly propagates falsehoods. He isn't a misguided visitor to Beirut - like the three young women whose tearful departure from that city was so heartrendingly documented by the BBC. Probably never lovers of Zion to begin with, they were allowed to ramble on - without interruption or critical interrogation - about how Israelis "torture" the undeserving Lebanese. Solana surely knows better. His realpolitik sanctimony notwithstanding, he knows that had Hamas and Hizbullah stayed inside their side of the demarcation line and not terrorized Israelis, no violence whatever would have broken out. No "humanitarian disaster" would be looming over either Gaza or Beirut. But worse yet - in his heart of hearts - Solana knows that had Israelis not resisted the aggression of the Hamas and Hizbullah objects of his compassion, had Israelis not taken up arms in their self-defense, they'd face another Holocaust, as Hamas's and Hizbullah's Iranian sponsor has already explicitly threatened, mincing no words. Unlike the British Mandatory high command, Israel cannot afford to superciliously dismiss serious forewarnings. Ruth and Nadia Matar established Women For Israel's Tomorrow (Women in Green), an activist group of women based in Jerusalem. Their website address is http://www.womeningreen.org |
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MUST SEE VIDEOS
Posted by Deb Kotz, July 30, 2006. |
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Video Of The Zahal Soldiers A new video that just came out.. Pass along if you like it... Obsession, What the war on terror is really about. This
comes from Little Green Footballs.
Deb Kotz is an active member of the Brandeis Chapter of the Zionist
Organization of America (ZOA) and maintains an email list to
distribute articles of interest to the local community. She can be
reached at DebKotz@aol.com
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RUN AND HIDE IN SEATTLE? THINK AGAIN!
Posted by Matthew S. Finberg, July 30, 2006. |
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I read with great disappointment that the director of the Seattle
chapter of the Anti-Defamation League "issued a recommendation to all
Jewish institutions, including synagogues, to cancel services and
evacuate the buildings" following the murderous attack on the Seattle
Federation building last Friday. This reaction is all too reminiscent
of the "run and hide" response of the Jewish People over the past
2,000 years when we have been attacked, and plays directly into the
hands of our enemies.
It reflects a fatal lack of bitachon [confidence in HaShem], rejecting His ways for the perception of safety one has with his head buried well in the sand. Instead, all Jews should be armed and/or otherwise ready to defend themselves to the full extent permitted by law, and go to prayer services, rallies, and ordinary day to day activities of normal Jewish life. We should be openly Jewish and attend our services in our synagogues in numbers larger than ever. Of course law enforcement should provide security to us as it would for any group targeted for hate crimes and terror. Nevertheless, we must be prepared to take care of ourselves as there are not enough law enforcement officials to cover every anti-Semite with a weapon. Get your heads out of the sand and stand up straight and proud, confident and strong. That is Yeshurun - Israel at our finest. HaShem doesn't want his Children to run from the class bullies. Never Again. Matthew Finberg is Chairman of B'nai Elim. Contact him at matt@finberglaw.com or go to the website: www.bnaielim.org |
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A CRY TO THOSE USING BABIES AS SHIELDS
Posted by Naomi Ragen, July 30, 2006. |
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My son is in the army. He is not the type at all, believe me. Quiet, studious, a writer, a lover of Jewish history, Talmud, ethics. He spent two years in a pre-army program in the Galilee called Karmei Chayil. He made many good friends there from all over the country, and now he and all his friends are in the army. One of them I know well. A bit chubby, with payot, and a great laugh. He and my son have become like brothers. While both of them tried out for the elite paratroopers unit, only he made it in. He and his unit are the ones in Lebanon. They were there over a week, fighting under horrific conditions, running out of food and water. Even though the Israeli airforce dropped tons of leaflets warning civilians to flee because they were in terrorist territory and likely to be injured, they still encountered civilians. My son spoke to his friend yesterday,and this is how he described it: "The village looked empty, and then we heard noises coming from one of the houses, so we opened fire. But when we went inside, we found two women and a child huddled in the corner of the room. We were so relieved we hadn't hurt them. We took up base in one of the empty houses. And then all of a sudden, we came under intense fire. Three rockets were fired at the house we were in. Only one managed to destroy a wall, which fell on one of us, covering him in white dust, but otherwise not hurting him. I spent the whole time feeding bullets to my friend who was shooting non-stop. We managed to killed 26 terrorists. Not one of us was hurt. Our commanding officer kept walking around, touching everybody on the shoulder, smiling and encouraging us: "We're are better than they are. Don't worry." It calmed us all down. And really, we were much better then them. They are a lousy army. They only win when they hide behind baby carriages." Please remember this when you hear about the "atrocity" of the Israeli bomb dropped on Kfar Cana, killing many civilians, a place from which Hezbollah has fired hundreds of rockets at Israel. Unlike previous administrations, Mr. Olmert has my respect when he says: "They were warned to leave. It is the responsibility of Hezbollah for firing rockets amidst civilians." Terrorists and their supporters have lost the right to complain about civilian casualties, since all they have done this entire war is target civilians. Every single one of the more than 2,500 rockets launched into Israel, is launched into populated towns filled with women and children. Just today, another suicide belt meant to kill civilians in Israel was detonated harmlessly by our forces in Nablus. So don't cry to me about civilian casualties. Cry to those using your babies and wives and mothers; cry to those who store weapons in mosques, ambulances, hospitals, and private homes. Cry to those launching deadly rockets from the backyards of your kindergartens and schools. Cry to the heartless men who love death, and however many of their troops or civilians die, consider themselves victorious as long as they can keep on firing rockets at our women and children. Save your sympathy for the mothers and sisters and girlfriends of our young soldiers who would rather be sitting in study halls learning Torah, but have no choice but to risk their precious lives full of hope, goodness and endless potential, to wipe out the cancerous terrorist cells that threaten their people and all mankind. Make your choice, and save your tears. That terrorists have been unsuccessful in killing more of our women and children is due to our army, God and prayers, not to any lack of motivation or intention on their part. If you hide behind your baby to shoot at my baby, you are responsible for getting children killed. You and you alone. Naomi Ragen is an American-born novelist and journalist who lives in Jerusalem. She can be contacted at www.naomiragen.com, where you can subscribe to her newsletter. |
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THE BEST MULTINATIONAL FORCE
Posted by Zalmi, July 30, 2006. |
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Israel should never have left Lebanon.
In a few weeks, we shall be back to square one.
 From that perspective, I would like to suggest the perfect multinational force to occupy this area. Russian Jews and French Jews. Jews from America and Britain. Argentinian and Brazilian Jews. Jews from Italy and Germany. A whole contingent of olim from all corners of the globe. Those are the only peacekeepers we can trust.
Contact Zalmi at zalmi@zalmi.net or go to his website:
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TISHA B'AV TEHILLIM FOR ERETZ YISRAEL (AUGUST 2 - EVENING)
Posted by Lee Caplan, July 29, 2006. |
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Tisha B'av commemorates the destruction of both Temples and the exile of the Jewish people. Although Jewish sovereignty has been reestablished in Eretz Yisrael, civil hatred threatens its survival and the realization of a country built on Jewish values. The "convergence" plan embodies this problem. The plan calls for 50-100,000 Jews to be expelled from Yehuda and Shomron (West Bank), 90-95% of the area to be given away, and for the division of Jerusalem. This will create a terror state, infringe on the Jewish right to settle the Land, create a large population of Jewish refugees, and leave the State of Israel with indefensible borders. Despite the current attacks, the Prime Minister Olmert still says he intends to push the plan. Please recite the following tehillim - Psalms 137, 3, 126 and 133 - with a prayer that the horrible plan will not be realized and that Hashem will bring a true day of redemption and unity of the Jewish people. Pay attention to the meaning of the words and you'll find each one is relevant to the current situation. Let him know we are in favor of his support for Israel. The Arabs are calling at twice the rate of American Jews, trying to get him to change his policy supporting Israel. The President needs to know that we recognize and appreciate U.S. leadership regarding Israel at this very perilous time. PLEASE SEND THIS TO EVERYONE YOU BELIEVE CARES. THANKS Use the phone: Call 1 202 456-1111 Memo to: Young Israel branches and friends
We are all aware of the current situation in Israel. Our brethren need our prayers and action. 1. We share with you an idea and suggestion from Rabbi Elazar Grunberger of St. Louis, Missouri. Dear Rabbi Lerner As per our discussion this morning I am writing to you about the practical idea I have for all Congregations throughout North America. Our constituents, Jews who care about the matzav in E"Y, want to do something that contributes to the well being, safety, and security of Jews in E"Y. This past Sunday morning in my Shul, Sha'arei Chesed (formerly Chesed Shel Emeth), I passed out slips of paper to the 25 mispalelim and after the Shir shel Yom, I announced that each one of us can make a significant difference and contribution to the well being, safety, and security of our brothers and sister, our mispocha in Israel. It's all about zechuyos. The more zechus that's built up, the more hatzlacha and bracha there will be. I asked everyone to write down ONE addition commitment, any mitzvah, any small effort, to be added to their daily routine, in the merit of the matzav in E"Y. I qualified that the starting place is saying Tehilim 83, 130, & 142 which is the suggestion of our Gedolim. After discussing this with Rav Aharon Feldman, Roshe HaYeshiva of Yeshiva Ner Israel in Baltimore, MD, he further qualified that the commitments should be within the context of Limud haTorah and Chesed, and for sure in Tefillah. Everyone in my minyan responded and each person felt like they are making a difference. The following were some of the commitments I received:
I believe that if this is a national effort where Rabbonim will participate and ask their congregants to each make a commitment along these lines of extra limud haTorah, Tefillah, and acts of Chesed, we can immediately build up tremendous zechuyos for Klal Yisroel which is desperately needed, particularly at this time. Please also request that the Rabbonim encourage their constituents to each share (anonymously) what their commitment is. This will be helpful as suggested ideas for others and this also solidifies their personal commitment when they write it down and forward it to their Rabbonim. Thank you for assisting in this important effort. May we all be zocheh to see yeshuos and nechamos, b'karov. Elazar Grunberger
2. Please continue to make emergency appeals. All funds will be coordinated through Yisrael HaTzair, Young Israel in Israel. Funds are needed to supply the bunkers with sleeping bags, food supplies, first aid kits, toys and games; to transport children to day camps further south; to assist those individuals who are currently not able to work (because their place of employment closed, their children are home, etc.) and can not even afford to pay for basic necessities; to assist effected families to relocate to host families in the center of the country, etc. Please have all checks made out to Young Israel Charities, and mark it Northern Israel Campaign. Funds should be sent to National Council of Young Israel, 111 John Street, Suite #450, New York, NY 10038. Please call us with the result of those appeals. We have an individual who will advance those funds so we can send the monies as soon as possible. 3. We encourage all shuls to add the tefillos for the State of Israel, Missing Israeli Soldiers, and for the Israel Defense Forces in their daily and Shabbat davening. Those tefillos can be found at www.youngisrael.org and printed for distribution to your congregants. 10 things to see or do 1. Many of us recognize the importance of the Internet as the new battleground for Israel's image. It's time to do it better, and coordinate our on-line efforts on behalf of Israel. An Israeli software company has developed a free, safe and useful tool for us - the Internet Megaphone. Please go to: < http://www.giyus.org/> http://www.giyus.org download the Megaphone, and you will receive daily updates with instant links to important Internet polls, problematic articles that require a talk back, etc. We need 100,000 Megaphone users to make a difference. So, please distribute his mail to all Israel's supporters. Do it now. For Israel. Please distribute to your friends. Amir Gissin - Director
2. Radical Islam 3. Thank some people: Friends,
As I sit here in Jerusalem writing, a fierce battle rages in Lebanon as our dear sons fight for the life and safety of the Jewish people in their homeland.
Because Israel doesn't broadcast news all day, I sometimes turn to the foreign networks. As I sat and watched Fox News reporters describe the war we fight, my heart was warmed in a way that it has not been for a very long time. I want to thank Shepard Smith and their excellent Jerusalem-based correspondent, Jennifer Griffin, for the thorough, fair, and informative reporting. I want to thank Sean Hannity for his forthright and stirring defense of Israel in this current crisis. I want to thank Greta Van Sustern for her excellent, sympathetic and fair coverage. For the first time since the intifada started, I felt that I was hearing the truth come from the news media. I am grateful to them for leading the way out of the darkness
sown in the world by CNN and BBC and the New York Times, who have let us all down time and time again, foisting off liberal editorializing as news reporting, and ignoring the inconvenient facts. We are where we are because of their brainwashing propaganda. All of Israel's friends should be watching Fox. And we should all be sending our thanks to them.
foxreport@foxnews.com (Shepard Smith)
Naomi Ragen.
4. This is a must watch from Arab TV. Watch this Arab - American Psychologist tell it like it is.
5. Send a letter to the brave IDF soldiers fighting for all our
freedom.
6. Must see videos and more: 7. Very moving pictures from the IDF
8. "IMPORTANT BREAK THROUGH WITH "Video - OBSESSION"
Last week, "Obsession: Radical Islam's War against the West" was
prominently featured for two consecutive days on the Rush Limbaugh
show, a radio show heard by millions across the United States. On the
second day, Wayne Kopping, the film's director, had an unprecedented
13-minute interview with Rush live on the show. (hear it now ...
Baruch Hashem, this generated a tremendous amount of publicity for
the film.
The Hannity and Colmes Show on FOX TV has now booked us for this
Thursday, July 27. The show airs from 9-10 PM EST. In our segment,
live interviewees representing Obsession will be Nonie Darwish,
daughter of a Gaza shahid, and Wayne Kopping.
9. ISRAEL DEFENSE FORCES-SECRET WEAPONS - WAR PICS
10. please let me know if any links don't work and please send this
to all your friends...
Thank You
From: Manhigut-Yehudit@jewishisrael.org
What is Going Wrong?
Two weeks have now passed since the beginning of the war with no
name. Two weeks fighting a war that we deny. "Refugee camps" and "tent
cities" are springing up in the "safe" parts of Israel, housing the
residents of the north who were forced to flee their homes. All
available spots are immediately taken, and yet there are not enough
accommodations for the steady stream of refugees from the north. But
State Attorney Mazuz explains that this is not a war.
A heartless judge sends a 15 year old girl back to jail for an additional four months without trial. "Let's finish the trial quickly," the surprised prosecutor requested. "After all, even if the girl is convicted, she will get less time in jail than the time she has already spent there." But the judge refuses. Until she recognizes my authority and signs on the dotted line, she is not getting out. For the bullies in the judge's cloaks the Disengagement diskette has replaced the hard disk. (For more on 15 year old Oryah Shirel who continues to sit in jail, see Moshe Feiglin's article Bullies in Judges' Cloaks).
And what about Pollard? Who remembers him today? Bush wanted to release him last Passover, but Israel preferred not to let that happen. Who is interested in Pollard today, we have other prisoners to take care of and how is Pollard connected to the fighting in the north, anyway?
Businesses in the north are caving in. But never fear -- the government has a "solution for every settler." According to the media, we are winning and it is really the Hizbollah who have become refugees. It reminds me a bit of Cairo Radio at the start of the Six Day War reporting that the Egyptian soldiers are already celebrating on the beaches of Tel Aviv.
It is possible -- and vital -- to win this war. But in the meantime, without a clear strategic goal -- in other words -- a vision -- confusion reigns. The most that we can expect under the current circumstances is a cease fire, or, in other words, an honorable defeat. Olmert's spin doctors are surely already working on the new marketing formula that will transform his defeat into a momentous achievement.
Then the real war will start. Against the settlers, of course.
Although it may seem surrealistic, Olmert is still determined to carry
out the convergence. Need some convincing?
"Olmert has another, unspoken, consideration in this war. He wants to set a precedent for convergence on the West Bank." (Ha'aretz July 14th, '06)
"The Prime Minister must convince the public that he has a security answer for the post-withdrawal dangers. His leadership skills are now being tested." (Ha'aretz July 14th '06)
"This must be the strategic goal of the fighting -- restoring the Convergence Plan. "(Reserve General Uzi Dayan, former head of Israel's National Security Council)
How can we prepare for the war that Olmert plans to wage against
the settlers? Manhigut Yehudit has prepared a special pamphlet (in
Hebrew) with the conclusion and lessons to be learned on the first
anniversary of the expulsion from Gush Katif and North Shomron. (If
you are interested in helping us publish the pamphlet, please contact
shmuel@manhigut.org or call: 516-295-3222 [USA]). With G-d's help, we
will publicize translated excerpts from the pamphlet in the near
future.
G-d works in mysterious ways. At this point, the safest place for
an Israeli to be is in Judea or Samaria. Nasrallah's "surprises" are
not necessarily limited only to the wide range of his missiles. He may
surprise us in other ways, as well. Our advice to the local councils
is to start to prepare the infrastructure for huge refugee camps in
Judea and Samaria (Yesha). Why be taken by surprise? It's time to
prepare food, water, sewage pipes and all the basics that the refugees
from Israel's cities will need. The Jewish settlements in the
mountains of Judea and Samaria might well be the elixir of life for
millions of Israelis.
With prayers for the safety of the nation of Israel in all places,
How To Win the War - 3 Steps
In order to really win this war, a number of logical -- albeit challenging -- steps must be taken:
Stage 1. Restore our Sense of Justice:
The ammunition of justice is always in the hands of the side fighting for eternal truth. The sense of justice is the ultimate weapon. Whoever surrenders his own justice -- gets defeated.
Where is our sense of justice?
"Last week." reports Moshe Feiglin, "I paid my monthly visit to the Temple Mount -- the most sanctified Jewish site, the cornerstone of our justice.
As we ascended toward the checkpoint at the entrance to the Temple
Mount, we saw how people from all over the world pass through with
just a perfunctory check. But the Jewish-looking Jews? The ones with
the kippot (skull caps) and the side locks? As usual, they must stand
to the side, where they are examined as if they were ticking time
bombs. After the examination come the threats: "Whoever dares to pray
on the Mount will be arrested and will be banned from coming again."
Arab wakf personnel wait on the mount, bursting with pleasure at the
opportunity to keep watch over the Jews and make sure that nobody
dares move his lips -- lest they Heaven forbid pray to their G-d."
You can easily visit the Temple Mount as a tourist. But not as a Jew. It is important for the Israeli government to nurture the Moslem lie lest we, G-d forbid, reconnect to our own sense of justice.
What does all of this have to do with the war in the north? It's simple. As renowned poet Uri Tzvi Greenberg wrote over 60 years ago, "He who rules the Mount rules the Land." We lost the war over Israel's borders on the Temple Mount. The Mount is also our key to victory.
If we truly desire to win, we must re-conquer the Temple Mount. Torah
scholars must delineate the places permissible to tread on the Mount
according to Jewish law (for Jews and for Non-Jews as well). Entrance
to areas not permissible by Jewish law must be strictly prohibited.
Stages 2 and 3 are impossible from within our current stage of
consciousness. Only after we have restored our sense of justice and
rely on Jewish legitimacy as opposed to legitimacy from the Moslems
and Christians will we be able to begin to fight.
Stage 2. Eliminating the Real Danger First
Declare war on Iran and eliminate its nuclear capabilities -- even if this requires attacking nuclear installations in the heart of civilian areas. Those who shirked responsibility in the past got rockets on Haifa in the present. Those who shirk responsibility now will get a nuclear mushroom over Tel Aviv in the future. We are experiencing the preview of the "Mother of all Wars" and Israel's leadership -- to put it favorably -- just doesn't get it.
Stage 3. Expulsion of Enemy Civilians From South Lebanon
In the Six Day War all the Syrian residents of the Golan Heights
(approximately 60,000) were pushed back into Syria, and the Golan
Heights were annexed to Israel. Since 1973, the Golan Heights have
been quiet. Israel must immediately enact the Territorial Law of
Return. Any Biblical territory conquered by Israel will automatically
be annexed to the State.
You can turn the State of Jews into the Jewish State.
Press Release: State of Emergency
In its hard-hearted behavior toward the residents of Israel's north,
the Olmert government is re-enacting its cruel and impervious attitude
toward the refugees from Gush Katif. Manhigut Yehudit, under the
leadership of Moshe Feiglin, demands to immediately enact the State of
Emergency laws and to compensate the citizens of the north for the
disaster that the governments of expulsion and abandonment have
brought upon Israel.
The American Rope
The commentators explain that America is giving us a long rope. That is not precise. The truth is that America is urging us to fight. Although it counters his political interests, George Bush courageously decided to fight the enemies of freedom. Bush doesn't understand the dimension in which the war is being fought and mistakenly attempts to identify a national enemy instead of a religious one. That is why he is losing. But what he does understand is that the Hizbollah's attack on Israel is the front line of the same war that he is fighting. Bush understands that an Israeli victory in this war is like the victory of the allies on the German front. The problem is that Israel lacks vision and cannot win. Instead of being a strategic asset -- Israel is turning into a burden.
An Israeli defeat will force the US to find a more serious
strategic ally. Possibly Syria. Does that sound unrealistic? After
Israel withdrew from the Sinai, Egypt became a US strategic partner.
Until then, nobody would have dreamed of that scenario. America may
like Israel more than it likes the Moslems (or at least it hates
Israel less). But, as we know, business is business and international
relations are determined according to a country's interests. In the
Middle East jungle, a country that cannot defend itself does not
justify its existence.
A number of US allies that became burdens have already measured the
resilience of the American rope. Just ask the Vietnamese that the US
abandoned in Saigon. The truth is that we are no better. Remember the
Southern Lebanon Forces that Israel abandoned 6 years ago and
Pollard...
Olmert: 'West Bank withdrawal still on'
By Aaron Klein
JERUSALEM -- Even with a war in Lebanon after withdrawal from the country's border six years ago and with ground troops forced to return to Gaza following evacuation from the territory 11 months ago, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said yesterday Israel will forge ahead with his plan to pull out of Judea and Samaria.
"We will yet evacuate communities and it is important to me to complete this chapter as soon as possible so that we will be able to continue as a strong and united nation for the challenges that await us," Olmert told a group of Israelis evacuated last summer from the Gaza Strip.
Judea and Samaria, territories also c! ommonly called the West Bank, are within rocket-firing range of Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and Israel's international airport.
The prime minister, whose Kadima Party was formed specifically to carry out a withdrawal from Judea and Samaria, told the Gaza evacuees he is "convinced that we made the right decision to carry out the disengagement plan [from Gaza], and it is better for Israel that you are not living in the Gaza Strip at this time."
Since Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip last August, rockets have been fired almost daily into nearby Jewish communities, Hamas has been elected to power and both Israeli and Palestinian officials have stated al-Qaida has infiltrated the territory. Egypt recently announced the terrorists who carried out April's deadly triple-bomb blasts in the Sinai resort town of Dahab trained for the operation in the Gaza Strip with local Palestinians. They said Gaza-based terrorists helped finance the attack.
Israel last month mounted its ongoing ground invasion of Gaza after Hamas carried out a raid against a military installation in which Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit was abducted.
Israel withdrew from Lebanon in 2000. It had occupied a small section of Lebanon's border with Israel following repeated attacks by Palestinian terrorists in the area. Since the withdrawal, Hezbollah has staged numerous attacks against Israel, including rocket bombardments of civilian population centers, raids against military outposts and ambushings and kidnappings of Israeli troops. Israel says Hezbollah built an arsenal of more than 13,000 short- and medium-range rockets capable of hitting central sections of the Jewish state.
Israel is in its 14th day of a military campaign against Hezbollah guerillas in Lebanon following a Hezbollah raid earlier this month in which eight Israeli soldiers were killed and two were abducted. The past two weeks, Hezbollah has fired more than 2,000 Katyusha rockets at northern Israel, killing 15 and placing one third of the Israeli population under the threat of rocket attack.
Olmert's plan seeks to evacuate more than 95 percent of Judea and Samaria, which borders Israel's main population centers.
Several recent public opinion polls showed the majority of Israelis now oppose a Judea and Samaria withdrawal. The leaders of Egypt and Jordan have expressed reservations about the plan, fearing terrorism can spill over into their respective countries. (link:
Housing and Construction Minister Meir Sheetrit, a senior member of Olmert's Kadima Party, told reporters this month he thought it was unlikely any Judea and Samaria withdrawal could be implemented in the near future and that others in Kadima have been quietly expressing reservations about the Judea and Samaria evacuation plan.
Meanwhile, Olmert yesterday assured the Jewish Gaza evacuees Israel still cares about them.
"I know that you are angry," he said. "I know that you think that you need to be in Gush Katif. We think differently. The government will invest so that each evacuee feels that the state cares about him and so that your children love the country like your grandfathers did. It is important to me that you know that we are acting out of the same love for Israel that you have."
As WND reported, the vast majority of Jewish residents of the G! aza Strip evacuated by Israel are unemployed, have yet to find permanent housing and have not received full compensation promised to them by the Israeli government.
"The situation is extremely grave," said Dror Vanunu, a former Gaza resident and the international coordinator for the Gush Katif Committee, a major charity organization representing the Gaza Jewish refugees. "It is at emergency status in many cases."
Olmert's Deception - It Has Never Been] All Quiet On The
Northern Front
On February 18th, 2005, during a public presentation f! or the
annual Jerusalem meeting of the Conference of Presidents of Major
American Jewish Organizations, Israel's Deputy Prime Minister Ehud
Olmert faced a challenge from a questioner. The questioner asked
Olmert how he could trust the intentions of Abu Mazen, since Abu Mazen
has been allowing terrorists under his jurisdiction to arm themselves
to the teeth.
Olmert's reaction was passionate. He pounded on the podium and exhorted people to examine "Israel's withdrawal from Lebanon as a model which Israel would apply to Gaza and Samaria." Olmert explained that Hizbullah terrorists now stationed in former Israeli army positions throughout Southern Lebanon had accumulated 15,000 missiles and mortars in Lebanon. Continuing to pound on the podium, Olmert that "they have never, never, never used missiles against Israel on the northern border since Israel's withdrawal from Lebanon in May, 2000."
I found Olmert's comments to be incredible. My son Noam served on
the northern border in an IDF combat unit for almost three years and
was under fire the entire time This was not at some kind of summer
camp.
Our news agency dispatched a reporter to a press reception on February 23rd, at Jerusalem's Beit Agron International Press Center in Jerusalem, to ask Olmert if he stood behind his statement that the Hizbullah had not fired any missiles into Israel since Israel's withdrawal in May, 2000. The reporter showed Olmert a declassified IDF situation report from June 8th, 2004, the day that Noam completed his IDF service.
The IDF document shown to Olmert spoke for itself:
Olmert glanced at the IDF report, stood his ground, and reiterated his stand that "I meant to say that they have not fired into Israel in the last five years." When the reporter showed Olmert that the IDF report demonstrated that the Arab terrorists had continued firing missiles into Israel, killing 28 people, Olmert walked away, saying that he did not want to discuss it..
It is now abundantly clear that Ehud Olmert, the number two man in
the Israeli cabinet and Prime Minister Sharon's point man in
selling his political program to the Israeli public, will now be
using the "example" of a unilateral withdrawal that "worked".
Well, it worked in one essential way: less news reports come from
the north because hardly any reporters are stationed there, so the
mainstream media is bereft of news reports from the northern
border. Hence, all "seems" quiet on the northern frontier, at
least in the media
Indeed, during my son's tenure in the north, I, as a father and a journalist, received the reports about daily bombardments on the northern border from Noam - reports that were never reported anywhere in the Israeli media. But they often made it into my weekly news column in the Israeli weekly newspaper Makor Rishon.
The bottom line: Hardly anyone in Israel or abroad is aware of the arms buildup in southern Lebanon, and they are even more unaware of the attacks from the north, and how Israel's hasty withdrawal from southern Lebanon has left Israel vulnerable to attacks from the north.
What is clear from Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's public statements is that the Israeli government, seeking new ways to promote the Sharon Plan, which! will allow the PLO free reign in Gaza and northern Samaria - placing all of Israel in rocket range of Arab terrorists - will now try to sell the notion that 'all's quiet on the northern front.'
Contact Lee Caplan at leescaplan@yahoo.com
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A MULTINATIONAL FORCE IS DEADLY FOR ISRAEL
Posted by Sergio Tessa (HaDaR), July 29, 2006. |
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Jared Israel is the Editor of the Emperor's
New Clothes website (http://www.tenc.net/), which is dedicated to analyzing patterns of
lies by the media and political figures. This article appeared as an
Opinion piece on the Arutz-Sheva (www.IsraelNN.com) website
July 27, 2006. It is archived at
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We have been misinformed, to put it gently. While claiming to support Israel's right to defend itself from Hizbullah and Hamas attacks, President George Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair have, in fact, mis-described the current Middle East war in a way that sets Israel up for media demonization, while creating public support for a "robust" (Kofi Annan's word) international intervention in southern Lebanon. Such an intervention would constitute a serious and possibly deadly threat to Israel. In a defining press conference held 16 July, at the G8 meeting, President Bush said: One of the interesting things about this recent flare-up is that it helps clarify a root cause of instability in the Middle East -- and that's Hizbullah and Hizbullah's relationship with Syria, and Hizbullah's relationship to Iran, and Syria's relationship to Iran. Therefore, in order to solve this problem it's really important for the world to address the root cause. Blair also blamed "...extremists backed, I'm afraid, by Iran and by Syria, who want to disrupt the positions in Lebanon and who want to create a situation of tension and hostility there." Blair and Bush focus on Syria and Iran as the root cause of the fighting, and stress that the Lebanese government is not only not a guilty party, but is itself a victim of Iran and Syria, which "want to disrupt the positions in Lebanon" and "create a situation of tension and hostility there." In the press conference, Bush and Blair refer to Syria and Iran collectively more often than Lebanon. What is the sub-text here? That since Syria and Iran alone are guilty, Israel should not be punishing weak, innocent Lebanon. This idea is implicit in Condoleezza Rice's July 21 statement, as reported (and embellished) by the Associated Press. Rice portrays Hizbullah as Syria's attack dog: "'Syria knows what it needs to do and Hizbullah is the source of the problem,' Rice said at the State Department as she previewed her trip, which begins on Sunday with a first stop in Israel." And concerning the Lebanese government: Hizbullah "extremists are trying to strangle it in its crib," Rice said of the Lebanese government, which has been a less potent force in the fractured country than the politically savvy and well-armed Hizbullah guerrillas.... Hizbullah exerts political control over southern Lebanon, overshadowing the weak democratic central government in Beirut. Bush, Blair and Rice do say that Israel has the right to self-defense, but their stance - that the Lebanese government is blameless - has set Israel up for the massive demonization we have seen in the media, portraying Israel as a bully, overreacting to a fairly minor incident by Hizbullah by unleashing devastating attacks on an innocent, weak, struggling democracy. The reality is quite different. Hizbullah is not just "an Islamic militant group that operates in southern Lebanon" with Iranian sponsorship. Combining Islamic fanaticism with a modern anti-Semitic ideology derived from the Catholic Church and Nazism, with a media which spreads that ideology worldwide, and with a mass base and virtual state control of Lebanon, Hizbullah stands for the destruction of world Jewry and the creation of a world Islamic state, modeled on Iran. The Lebanese government is not innocent. Facilitated by the US, the European Union and the UN, Lebanon has developed close ties with Iran. Hizbullah has been incorporated into the basic fabric of state domestic and international relations, giving free reign to Hizbullah's Nazi-like army, which makes democracy impossible, and defending Hizbullah's right to broadcast violent anti-Semitism worldwide. Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Siniora now calls on the world to help him disarm Hizbullah, the better to justify a NATO-like intervention. Yet, when he formed the first Lebanese government after the withdrawal of Syrian forces, Siniora said, "It is [a] good thing to have Hizbullah in this cabinet." (Turkish Daily News) He told Agence France Presse that Hizbullah's cabinet role made him "proud." Officially, Hizbullah got control of the important water and energy ministry. But in reality, it got much more. Guided by a carefully worded statement from State Department spokesperson Adam Ereli, that "to the extent that there are active members of a foreign terrorist organization in a government, then our ability to interact and work with those individuals is circumscribed," Fuad Siniora arranged with Hizbullah to pick a foreign minister who was a) to their liking, but b) not an active or open member of Hizbullah. So, Hizbullah in fact, but not in name, took control of Lebanese foreign policy. This was no mystery - the media knew, and of course the US knew, too. (Obviously they knew; as is clear from reading Ereli's press briefings, that was the purpose of his tortuously worded statement.) When the US says "protect this poor, struggling, fledgling democratic government," they are talking about a government they worked with to put Hizbullah in a key position of power - the foreign ministry! - without openly violating US policy. And all the while, Hizbullah maintained its own terrorist army, attacking Israel. Despite prodding from the UN, the Lebanese government has refused to remove Hizbullah forces in southern Lebanon, allowing them to man the so-called Blue Line, where they attack and kidnap Israeli soldiers and civilians, and fire antiaircraft weapons at Israeli towns. This is clear from the UN's yearly report on southern Lebanon, which, though worded to equate Israel and Hizbullah, makes it clear that a) Hizbullah is the provocateur, and b) they play this role with Lebanese government support. Media reports focusing on civilian suffering - real, exaggerated and sometimes invented - and statements by Western leaders, all push for an armed multinational force for southern Lebanon. Such a force would likely be comprised of troops under the command of states that portray Israel's conflict with Palestinian Arabs as the cause of the Arab-Israeli conflict (rather than the other way around), and that do not consider Hizbullah a violently anti-Semitic political army. Such a multinational force would have much in common with William Walker's Kosovo Verification Mission. It too had the stated purpose of separating belligerents in Kosovo in 1998. And its member states were hostile to Yugoslavia. According to Kosovo historian Cedomir Prlincevic, that multinational force was used as a cover for upgrading and training the Kosovo Liberation Army (for which substitute "Hizbullah") terrorists. Once a powerful multinational force was ensconced in southern Lebanon, it would be in position to intervene directly in Israel and the disputed territories. That would be disastrous for Israel. Contact Sergio Tessa (HaDaR) at HaDaR-Israel@verizon.net |
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SEEING THE WAR IN ITS TRUE COLORS
Posted by Women in Green, July 29, 2006. |
| This was written by Caroline Glick and it appeared in the Jerusalem Post. |
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Today US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will meet with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. The press reports leading up to their meeting were full of details about how European armies wish to send their forces to Lebanon. The reports also noted that Israel will be expected to surrender the Shaba Farms on Mount Dov to Lebanon in exchange for promises of security. For their part, Israeli leaders from Olmert to Defense Minister Amir Peretz to Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni have been demonstrating a disturbing lack of resolve. Their statements expose a consistent watering down of the goal of the IDF's mission in Lebanon - from destroying Hizbullah as a fighting force to weakening it as a fighting force and "paving the way for a diplomatic settlement" that will apparently include Hizbullah. On the other hand, other voices make clear that despite the best wishes of the government and the Israeli left-wing intelligentsia, it is far from clear that the IDF will end its operations without victory achieved. For instance, writing in The Sunday Times, former Conservative MP Michael Portillo told his British countrymen that their hostility for Israel and the US aside, "The bloody truth is that Israel's war is our war." Portillo went on to argue that given the threat that Iran and Hizbullah pose to Britain itself, "for us to turn against Israel and America would be perverse and potentially suicidal." STRENGTHENING the view that opposition to war against Iran and its proxies is suicidal, it was reported Sunday that Bulgarian border guards along their border with Romania had intercepted a British truck filled with radioactive materials for building a so-called dirty bomb. The components, which included dangerous quantities of radioactive caesium 137 and americium-beryllium, were stored in 10 lead-lined boxes addressed to the Iranian Ministry of Defense. According to the Daily Mail, this was the second time in less than a year that a British shipment of nuclear materials had been stopped by Bulgarian border guards. Last August, Bulgaria stopped a shipment of zirconium silicate, which can be used as a component of a nuclear warhead, at its border with Turkey en route to Iran. THE CURRENT campaign in northern Israel and Lebanon has brought into sharp focus the major pathologies and strengths of the West in fighting the Iranian-led jihadist axis. The British government's push for a cease-fire, together with the enthusiasm of the UN and France for sending their own troops to Lebanon to protect the Lebanese from the "disproportionate" Israelis; the demand of Israel's radical Left that a deal be made with Syria; and the demands of leftist ideologues in the US that an artificial deadline be set for the conclusion of Israel's operations in Lebanon all point to a similar pathology. As a group, the ideological Left rejects the notion of victory in war for Western forces (although it is fine for jihadists); rejects the notion that there are enemies that are impossible to appease; and specifically rejects the idea that Israel has a right to defend itself against its enemies, let alone vanquish its foes. LET US BE clear. The European foreign ministers and UN envoys who are tripping over one another on their way to Jerusalem are the same European foreign ministers and UN officials who brought about the misguided American decision to throw out 27 years of US practice and officially engage the mullahs in Teheran. That is, the same European governments now jockeying for a place in an international force that will protect Hizbullah from destruction are the ones who have been stymieing American attempts to take concerted action against Iran's nuclear weapons programs for the past three years. This is the pathology of the West. For if one takes the ideology of appeasing unappeasable foes to its logical conclusion, appeasing states will eventually join forces with their enemies against themselves, or, as Portillo put it, they will become suicidal. AND SO, Britain's Department of Trade and Industry can give export licenses to dirty bomb components en route to Iran. And so American columnists named Cohen can tell the world that Israel's existence is a mistake. And so, Javier Solana, the EU's foreign policy chief, can refuse to acknowledge that Hizbullah is an Iranian-run terrorist organization dedicated to Islamic world domination even as its supporters throughout Europe hold mass demonstrations where they hold signs calling for Europe's destruction at the hands of Hizbullah and Iran in the name of Islam. And so Yossi Beilin can say that Israel doesn't need to worry about the repercussions of standing down while a fifth of its population sits in bomb shelters, because Hizbullah is just a measly terrorist organization that poses no real threat to the country. On the other hand, events of the past two weeks have also shown some of the West's greatest strengths in fighting the war so many of its powerful citizens and statesmen refuse to acknowledge. First of all, the IDF has discarded its dangerous delusions that it will be possible to win this war by remote control. Today it fights like an army that knows it is both at war, and at war with an enemy that needs to be destroyed, whatever the price may be. SEVERAL supporters of Israel were quick to write off the IDF in the wake of unsupported statements by Chief of General Staff Dan Halutz and his generals last week, in which they announced - based perhaps on the tonnage of ordnance IAF jets dropped on Lebanon - that Israel had destroyed up to fifty percent of Hizbullah's capacities. "Israel is losing this war," these commentators moaned, not recognizing that the IDF is capable of learning from its mistakes. "Israel's intelligence services fell asleep on their watch," it was said. But these eagerly defeatist voices do not recognize that the failure was not one of intelligence, but of politics. Mesmerized by the dovish ideologies propounded by three consecutive governments, it took the General Staff a week to understand that Israel was at war. BUT NOW they know. And now the IDF is fighting well, boldly and effectively on the ground. Halutz initiated a rolling mobilization of the reserves, and the IAF has pulled back to its proper supportive role. As well, it is impossible not to recognize the Bush administration's centrality in the current campaign. Not only is the US rearming the IAF with bunker buster bombs, it is making certain that its own public and the international community recognize that what is at stake here is far greater than the well-being of Israel's citizens. As President George W. Bush has made clear, this is not just Israel's war. This is a campaign of the Iranian-led axis of jihad that seeks to dominate the entire free world. And echoing Bush are voices like Portillo's that are heard from Beirut to Sydney. Moreover, by rising to the challenge Hizbullah, Syria and Iran have placed before it, the entire Israeli public is setting an example for its army, its government and the world to follow. Families in the North are stoically accepting the around-the-clock bombardments and standing strong in their demand for victory. Families in the rest of the country are opening their homes to thousands of refugees from Haifa and Nahariya and Tiberias. As a friend put it the other day, "Halutz has no choice but to win. Israel is a country with five million chiefs of staff and they are all breathing down his neck." FINALLY, the campaign in Lebanon is indeed the opening salvo of Iran's war against the free world. But this works both ways. Iran and Hizbullah believe that the ferocity of the attacks against Israel will deter us all from taking action against Iran's nuclear facilities. But by giving the West the opportunity to fight it first in Lebanon, Teheran is providing the US, Israel and others with critical intelligence about its own installations. The subterranean bunkers in south Lebanon that IDF ground forces are now conquering were built by Iranian Revolutionary Guards units and designed by Iranian engineers - the same forces that conceived and constructed Iran's nuclear installations. IN 1982, when Israel destroyed the Syrian Soviet-made and trained air force in Lebanon, it was able to provide the US with critical information about the Soviet Air Force and its air defense systems that enabled the US to outstrip both in a manner that all but sealed the fate of the evil empire. Today, by fighting Iran's proxy, Hizbullah, Israel is amassing information that will be critical for planning a successful strike against Iran's nuclear installations. It is impossible to know what will actually be discussed today as Olmert meets with Rice. But it must be hoped that now that the US, Israel and other Western states are acknowledging the true nature of the war against Israel, they will abandon their suicidal demons and use this campaign as a stepping stone for neutralizing its chief instigator: The Islamic Republic of Iran. Ruth and Nadia Matar established Women For Israel's Tomorrow (Women in Green), an activist group of women based in Jerusalem. Their website address is http://www.womeningreen.org |
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THE VOCABULARY OF UNTRUTH
Posted by Nurit Greenger, July 29, 2006. |
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Friends, If for a moment your thought you are well versed in the English language or you understand phrases expressed in the English language ... think again... The slimy, bias, dubious, and distorted and destructive language used by the international community that has lost all its morals. The FINAL solution for the future of Israel is the last 2 paragraphs. This article is by Victor David Hanson, a senior fellow at the
Hoover Institution. He is the author, most recently, of A War Like No
Other. How the Athenians and Spartans Fought the Peloponnesian War.
It appeared on National Review Online
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Words take on new meanings as Israel struggles to survive. A "ceasefire" would occur should Hezbollah give back kidnapped Israelis and stop launching missiles; it would never follow a unilateral cessation of Israeli bombing. In fact, we will hear international calls for one only when Hezbollah's rockets are about exhausted. "Civilians" in Lebanon have munitions in their basements and deliberately wish to draw fire; in Israel they are in bunkers to avoid it. Israel uses precision weapons to avoid hitting them; Hezbollah sends random missiles into Israel to ensure they are struck. "Collateral damage" refers mostly to casualties among Hezbollah's human shields; it can never be used to describe civilian deaths inside Israel, because everything there is by intent a target. "Cycle of Violence" is used to denigrate those who are attacked, but are not supposed to win. "Deliberate" reflects the accuracy of Israeli bombs hitting their targets; it never refers to Hezbollah rockets that are meant to destroy anything they can. "Deplore" is usually evoked against Israel by those who themselves have slaughtered noncombatants or allowed them to perish -- such as the Russians in Grozny, the Syrians in Hama, or the U.N. in Rwanda and Dafur. "Disproportionate" means that the Hezbollah aggressors whose primitive rockets can't kill very many Israeli civilians are losing, while the Israelis' sophisticated response is deadly against the combatants themselves. See " excessive." Anytime you hear the adjective "excessive," Hezbollah is losing. Anytime you don't, it isn't. "Eyewitnesses" usually aren't, and their testimony is cited only against Israel. "Grave concern" is used by Europeans and Arabs who privately concede there is no future for Lebanon unless Hezbollah is destroyed -- and it should preferably be done by the " Zionists" who can then be easily blamed for doing it. "Innocent" often refers to Lebanese who aid the stockpiling of rockets or live next to those who do. It rarely refers to Israelis under attack. The "militants" of Hezbollah don't wear uniforms, and their prime targets are not those Israelis who do. "Multinational," as in "multinational force," usually means "third-world mercenaries who sympathize with Hezbollah." See "peacekeepers." "Peacekeepers" keep no peace, but always side with the less Western of the belligerents. "Quarter-ton" is used to describe what in other, non-Israeli militaries are known as " 500-pound" bombs. "Shocked" is used, first, by diplomats who really are not; and, second, only evoked against the response of Israel, never the attack of Hezbollah. "United Nations Action" refers to an action that Russia or China would not veto. The organization's operatives usually watch terrorists arm before their eyes. They are almost always guilty of what they accuse others of. What explains this distortion of language? A lot. First there is the need for Middle Eastern oil. Take that away, and the war would receive the same scant attention as bloodletting in central Africa. Then there is the fear of Islamic terrorism. If the Middle East were Buddhist, the world would care about Lebanon as little as it does about occupied Tibet. And don't forget the old anti-Semitism. If Russia or France were shelled by neighbors, Putin and Chirac would be threatening nuclear retaliation. Israel is the symbol of the hated West. Were it a client of China, no one would dare say a word. Population and size count for a lot: When India threatened Pakistan with nukes for its support of terrorism a few years ago, no one uttered any serious rebuke. Finally, there is the worry that Israel might upset things in Iraq. If we were not in Afghanistan and Iraq trying to win hearts and minds, we wouldn't be pressuring Israel behind the scenes. But most of all, the world deplores the Jewish state because it is strong, and can strike back rather than suffer. In fact, global onlookers would prefer either one of two scenarios for the long-suffering Jews to learn their lesson. The first is absolute symmetry and moral equivalence: when Israel is attacked, it kills only as many as it loses. For each rocket that lands, it drops only one bomb in retaliation -- as if any aggressor in the history of warfare has ever ceased its attacks on such insane logic. The other desideratum is the destruction of Israel itself. Iran promised to wipe Israel off the map, and then gave Hezbollah thousands of missiles to fulfill that pledge. In response, the world snored. If tomorrow more powerful rockets hit Tel Aviv armed with Syrian chemicals or biological agents, or Iranian nukes, the "international" community would urge "restraint" -- and keep urging it until Israel disappeared altogether. And the day after its disappearance, the Europeans and Arabs would sigh relief, mumble a few pieties, and then smile, "Life goes on." And for them, it would very well. Contact Nurit Greenger at 4nuritg@gmail.com |
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OLMERT TOO WEAK
Posted by Aryeh Zelasko, July 29, 2006. |
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This comes from WorldNetDaily's Jerusalem Bureau. It was written by Aaron Sichel and appeared today at www.wnd.com |
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Israel's current strategy for countering Hezbollah activity in southern Lebanon is not working and should be immediately changed, warned intelligence officials, analysts and commentators, some charging domestic politics was holding back what they said was a much-needed massive ground assault. "I hope our strategy is going to change, [and] that our government will take the Hezbollah situation with the seriousness it demands," Moshe Marzook, a professor at the Interdisciplinary Center University near Tel Aviv and a reserve military intelligence officer, told WND. The officer's remarks echoed sentiments expressed by a growing number of military sources and analysts following a week that saw the loss in one battle of eight Israeli soldiers to a Hezbollah ambush and a record number of Hezbollah rockets -- 130 in a day -- slamming into the Jewish state from Lebanon. "Right now there are a lot of discussions about what to do. -- There's an endless debate about whether or not to use [Israel's military] power," said Marzook. In a cabinet meeting yesterday, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's government voted against expanding Israel's ground assault in Lebanon while approving the call-up of an additional 15,000 reserve soldiers in part to replace some of the current brigades fighting in Lebanon. Military officials had publicly petitioned for the approval of a massive ground assault, complaining the current troop levels fighting Hezbollah are not enough to overwhelm the well-trained Lebanese terror group. Top military leaders also complained they were being asked by politicians to send ground troops into certain villages when the air force can do the job. "Look, at this point we've already lost one opportunity to destroy Hezbollah, and that's because we didn't go in using all of our forces," said Marzook. "In [Hezbollah stronghold] Bint Jbail the army was using some artillery guns. But it's not enough. Instead, we needed to be using air power after we warned the Lebanese [civilians] to get out. "Only after a massive aerial bombing should we have sent ground troops in for mopping-up operations In Israel we're a democracy, and the army is totally subordinate to the political echelon, so we do the most we can with what the politicians give us." Politicians out of their league? Michael Widlanski, a professor and frequent adviser to Israeli security and foreign policy agencies, told WND Israel's current strategy is a non-starter for defeating Hezbollah. "The problem for the military is that they're not being allowed to do what the country knows they need to do -- and there are already a lot of rumblings both in and out of government about this war being mishandled by Olmert and [Defense Minister Amir] Peretz," said Widlanski. "Instead of attacking Hezbollah at, say, four points simultaneously, and forcing them to reveal their capabilities and intentions and throwing them off balance, the army now is striking Hezbollah at a single point, and then falling back, and then assessing that battle, and then they start discussing where to go next. "It's slow, it's disordered and it's not very effective," said the analyst. Marzook says Hezbollah strongholds "like Bint Jbail need to be demolished. They need to be hit without any ambiguity at all, so that Hezbollah clearly understands" that Israel will not permit them further shelter in Lebanon. "I think we need to do it, or there will be more and more casualties in this fight," said Marzook. In a biting analysis in Thursday's Jerusalem Post, Israel Air Force (IAF) Col. (res.) Dr. Shmuel Gordon describes the Olmert administration as "ignorant" about counterterrorism. Throughout military history, there have been gaps between doctrine and reality. In the current case, the gap is particularly large, created by the [Israeli] government's ignorance of the appropriate strategy. The cabinet is ignoring, or simply doesn't understand, the principles of modern counterterrorism, especially those relating to air power. Gordon claims the IAF's current operations "do not even come close to conforming" to proper strategy, and advises the IDF General Staff to "acquaint" Israeli politicians with the nature of air power. Even Israel's dovish Ha'aretz newspaper asserted Friday the "the IDF must act with greater force" in Lebanon, and complained that Israeli politicians and senior military commanders "look as if they have been frozen in a huge ice cube." "The political failures are continuing," asserts Marzook. "I hope the politicians will accept that this is a war we must win. That message is coming now from the media, from the society, and even from some politicians." Caught between PR and the people? "In reality," says Widlanski, "Olmert isn't yet able to admit that disengagement didn't work. That's why rockets flew into Israel from Gaza for 10 months without Olmert stopping them. In Lebanon, Hezbollah's been fortifying itself since the IDF withdrew six years ago. "In both cases, a strong military response would have been seen as a de facto admission that withdrawal is an unfruitful strategy. "Now Olmert's sent in the IDF, but only when Hezbollah forced him to -- and he hasn't gone in [with] full force, and the army isn't happy about that. "[Olmert's] Kadima Party was founded last year for a purpose: to further the withdrawal platform of Ariel Sharon. If that platform is no longer usable, then Kadima has no clear raison d'etre." David Bedein, an Israeli journalist, commented, "There is a general problem that has gotten worse since the late '90s and [former Prime Minister Ehud] Barak's tenure. There's a wider gap now between the citizenry and the leadership, and there's often a feeling that policy is driven by advertising professionals -- that some leaders base national security decisions on the advice of their PR team. In a crisis like this, those feelings will come home to roost." Agreeing with those sentiments is Jerusalem Post columnist Caroline Glick, who wrote yesterday: "The Olmert government insists that Israel can separate itself from terror and jihad and live a 'normal life' by [unilaterally withdrawing], building a big fence and hiding behind it. The government knows that nothing will prove to the public the emptiness of its political rhetoric better than a serious ground invasion of southern Lebanon. |
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YouTuBe -- BROADCAST YOURSELF
Posted by Boris Celser, July 29, 2006. |
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I want to share the following video with you:
Click here.
It is the Israelite answer to the leader of Hezbollah, Nasrallah - a song in Hebrew that let him know what we think about him. with the background clip of the combat engineering IDF corps (with an extraordinary girls unit) and a taste of the IAF. It has English subtitles. This video is awesome! Contact Boris Celser at celser@telusplanet.net |
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THE ELEVENTH COMMANDMENT MUST EMERGE FROM FACTS ON THE GROUND
Posted by Lawrence Uniglicht, July 29, 2006. |
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Much of the Arab and Persian street celebrates the fact that Hizbullah stands its ground against Israel, not at all acknowledging the Jewish democracy could easily level all enclaves infested by the fanatics thus totally obliterating that sworn enemy, however, choose a surgical course of restraint, morally bowing to Hizbullah's cowardly but effective strategy of hiding their bodies and weapons, including deadly missiles, behind Lebanese civilian human shields, including women and children. Much of the Arab and Persian street celebrates a misperception of strength exhibited by Hizbullah, extol the cadre's robed leader, yet fail to recognize the fact that a continuously besieged first world Israel, less than two tenths of one percent the size of the mostly Muslim Middle East, kicks third world Arab and Persian butt economically, at the planetary high tech vanguard of research and development, while most Middle East regimes rely on low tech raw material fossil fuel reserve economies for sustenance, not significantly embarrassed by this cerebrally challenged state of affairs when compared to the Israeli dynamo. Furthermore, much of the "non-Muslim world-street" spews venom at Israel for a presumed "disproportionate response" against those that would annihilate the Jewish State if they could. No doubt, it is tragic that hundreds of Israeli and Lebanese casualties result from a war that Israel did not start, yet it is more than presumptuous for others to so berate Jews for defending their nation, when most ancestors of such "outraged" world citizens literally turned their cowardly backs while Nazis slaughtered not hundreds but six million Jews during a Holocaust beyond human comprehension. How might they expect descendents of those Jews to react to an enemy that would only wish the same fate on them? Get real!!! Moralizing out of context is shameful. Hizbullah is totally responsible for putting Lebanese civilians in danger. Israel has a moral obligation to protect its own citizens thus must vanquish low life Hizbullah creeps, whether or not they hide behind skirts of Lebanese women and immature bodies of young Lebanese children, like vicious dogs without teeth, willing to put innocents at risk so they might live to see another day. Not so amazingly, much of the Arab and Persian street, perhaps suffering from ego-deflating humiliation caused by their own lack of progress in a modern world, morphs these acts of cowardice into victories, giving themselves the pathetic psychological boosts they yearn for, rather then face a reality that can only be overcome by introspection and a willingness to do the hard work that would allow them to thrive and compete with civil secular societies. For now, even erstwhile pie-in-the-sky Israelis must persevere with acumen, fully comprehending the fact that surrendering any land for peace is no longer an option. All remaining lands, indeed justifiably secured in Israel's 1967 war of survival, including the eastern sector of Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the Golan Heights, must immediately be taken off of any future negotiating tables, with or without the blessing of even formidable ally America. Nothing would be gained from any such concession, as Israel's sworn Muslim enemies will never accept the existence of any Jewish State whatsoever in their perceived neck of the planet. Surely, when a nation's area is already incredibly tiny compared to hostile surrounding neighbors, it is worse than ludicrous to contract it further. End of that conversation! Thus Israel must establish common ground and stronger ties between other enemies of its incorrigible fanatical fundamentalist Islamic enemies within the region i.e. presumably more moderate Muslim states such as Jordan, Egypt, and Turkey; mostly non-Muslim nations such as Russia, China, and India; all attuned to the anguish of jihadist violence. No doubt, fossil fuel related considerations, especially by the latter nations immersed in business partnerships with Iran, will convolute the possibilities of extreme friendships, but convoluted strengthened alliances are better than no alliances at all. The bottom line, however, must be let land for peace "rest in peace". In fact, let Israel make that the unofficial but most powerful Eleventh Commandment. Future generations of Israelis will ever celebrate such a momentous decision! Lawrence Uniglicht is a career civil servant, working for the Social Security Administration. He advocates for the State of Israel with an American perspective. He writes, "Advocating for the disrespected underdog has been my passion, no doubt Israel falls into that category." Contact him by email at luniglicht@snip.net |
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GEORGE W. BUSH IS GOOD FOR JEWS AND ISRAEL
Posted by Rachel Kapen, July 29, 2006. |
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He isn't perceived as much of an intellectual and although he learned a great deal since he became president he still didn't learn to say 'nuclear' properly. Also, if he doesn't have a written text in front of him he seems at a loss for words and tends to mumble, however, there one thing that couldn't take away from him and this is his steady and steadfast support for the State of Israel especially in these most difficult days when the U.S. support for Israel is invaluable for the Jewish state. And as a matter of fact, this unmitigated support isn't easy on the U.S., the traditional friendship between U.S and Israel notwithstanding, when day in and day out millions of people the world over are exposed to horror pictures of destruction and dying of innocent women and children Israel inflicts on a neighboring state. Still, President George W. Bush has the courage to declare to the world again and again, to those who perhaps don't know or those who don't want to know, that Israel is is not to blame for the human tragedy but the Hezbollah and all Israel is doing is defending her and her citizens; lives, something every nation would have done under the same circumstances including the United States if attacked the same way by its neighbors Canada or Mexico. Actually, at this very moment, it isn't known how long the United States will continue backing Israel and allowing it to go after the Hezbollah with the intensity it does. But no matter what happens, Israel couldn't have done what it did without U.S. unequivocal backing which came with a heavy price being that it is perceived more than ever as siding with the Jewish State and thus precluding it from any role in future peace negotiations - if ever this will happen - or securing the border between Israel and Lebanon. After the president first declared that Israel has right to live and thus to self-defence, I received an e-mail asking me to write the president a thank you message for his unwavering support of Israel. I wrote to him that I thank him from the bottom of my heart for proclaiming that Israel has a right to exist and defend herself, something that should have been a given but unfortunately is not. There are many who don't believe in Israel's right to exist and either call publicly or think that she should be wiped off the map. Throughout history our fellow Jews used to ask if it is good for the Jews. Now that there is an independent State of Israel we in the Diaspora and our brethren in Israel are asking if it is good for Israel and George W, is unquestionably good for Israel, So to him and his Administration as well as the U.S. Congress a resounding Kol Hakavod. Contact Rachel Kapen at skapen285466mi@comcast.net |
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STOP A FUTURE REARMED HIZBOLLAH!
Posted by Barry Shaw, July 29, 2006. |
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The Lebanese weep excuses of weakness. The international community has bought their sob story. They cry that they were unable to stop Hizbollah, even though they welcomed them as brothers into their Government. Then there is the issue of the Lebanese Government allowing Hizbollah to grow from a rag-tag terror group into a seven thousand strong, Iranian-trained, army with an estimated twelve thousand Katusha rockets plus far more sophisticated and deadly missiles. Where were the Lebanese Government six years ago, before Hizbollah owned such an awesome arsenal? Apologists for Lebanon would claim that the Government was hostage to Syria at that time. They were certainly either hostage, or partner, of Hizbollah leading up to the recent conflict. Which? We may accept that the Lebanese army would perform an awful job patrolling their southern border with Israel. We may also agree that they need the forceful arm of an international force with powers to disarm, arrest, or stop, in an way necessary, Hizbollah or others that would destabilize the area by launching further terror attacks against Israel. Israel will degrade Hizbollah's stockpile of lethal weaponry. There may be a force guarding the border, though this will bring no great confidence to Israel's northern citizens. The UN, NATO, or any other force imported into any of the world's trouble zones, have met with any great success. They have failed because there was always one side not committed to keep the peace. In fact, there is a bloody history of such imported forces being massacred by offending terror groups. Lebanon's soil is drenched with the blood of American servicemen who were there to keep the peace. They were killed by the very Hizbollah that is engaging Israel today. Does anyone think that they would give up on their radicalism because of an overseas force imposed on them? So where should the Lebanese Government display its responsibility for it's own security, if it cannot patrol its border with Israel? An excellent place to start would be to control its other borders, namely its airport, sea ports, and border crossing with Syria. Israel is paying a heavy and painful price not only protecting its own citizens but also reducing Hizbollah's hegemony and military capability. This must not be allowed to return. It is for certain that Hizbollah, with the eager assistance of its pay masters Syria and Iran, will eagerly begin to rearm. International soldiers and observers may be busy in the south, but Hizbollah will be restocked with the latest deadly missiles elsewhere in Lebanon. This must not be allowed to happen. Everything must be done to prevent this. Future weaponry can only be brought into Lebanon via air, land, or sea. Access points into Lebanon may bring in humanitarian aid. They can bring in whatever is needed to build up their country. They can bring in tourists and investors. They cannot bring in lethal Iranian and Syrian rockets, missiles, nuclear bombs, or any other type of weaponry. It must be the first and vital imperative that access to the tools of a future war, and the potential for a future destruction of Lebanon, be effectively blocked. Can such an essential task be safely entrusted to the Lebanese Government? Are they willing or capable of undertaking this important responsibility? If the Lebanese cannot be trusted in gurding their southern border, they cannot be trusted to prevent the rearming of Hizbollah through their own border crossings, and access points. Or, on this substantial issue, do we need an international force to observe, intercept, and confiscate, such dangerous imports? One final note. Much has been discussed, both in diplomatic and media circles, about the need of an international force to patrol and protect the Lebanese-Israeli border and southern Lebanon. It is glaringly scary that the issue of employing a force to oversee the ports and border crossings, and ensure that Hizbollah will not be resupplied by the malevolent provocateurs in Damascus and Teheran, has not been raised. Has no one considered this future threat? Has it not been discussed? Is the international community unaware of the future danger of leaving this loophole open? This is the time to ensure that this threat is blocked. Lebanon's borders should remain closed until assurance can be given, to Lebanese as well as to Israelis, that Hizbollah remains unarmed. Barry Shaw made aliyah from Manchester, England, 25 years ago with his family. He now runs a real estate office in Netanya. He writes the "View from Here" columns from Israel. To sign up to receive his emails, contact him at netre@matav.net.il |
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TERROR EXPERT: 'WE NEED TO CHOOSE WAR!'
Posted by Dave Eberhart, July 28, 2006. |
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WASHINGTON -- "An international peacekeeping force in Lebanon will change nothing, and we will have chosen shame. "We [not only Israel but the threatened West] need to choose war once and for all to eradicate that system," a former terrorist told NewsMax in an exclusive interview about the current Middle East crisis. His name is Walid Shoebat and he is a man with a tough message. He is also a former fundamentalist Islamic terrorist who, incredibly, reformed. He is now an author, lecturer, and unabashed friend of Israel. He travels the United States repeating, in a modern context, Winston Churchill's warning to those who would appease Hitler's evil: "We have a choice between shame and war!" Shoebat was born in Bethlehem. As a young man, he entered the belly of the beast and became a member of the Palestinian Liberation Organization, participating in acts of terror and violence against Israel. He was later imprisoned in the Russian Compound, Jerusalem's central prison, for incitement and violence against Israel. After his release, Shoebat continued his life of violence in Bethlehem and the Temple Mount. After entering the United States, he worked as a counselor for the Arab Student Organization at Loop College in Chicago, where he persisted with his extremist activities. But then in a life-changing event, his wife challenged him to study Israeli history and leave behind the Jew-hating indoctrination of his youth. He did and emerged from the "detoxification" experience with the fresh orientation that Israel is not a demon but simply perennially on the defensive against extremists. The Arabic speaker, who now makes a study of the fanaticism that once enveloped his life, told NewsMax that the West had better abandon its political correctness and worries about world opinion and get down-and-dirty in the war on terrorism. And the West should start with taming the roots of that terrorism, the "mosque clergy" that preaches the hate. "We have to treat the problem by going to the source of the problem, and that is what we are not doing," Shoebat said. "We are trying to destroy terrorist infrastructure - after it has been established. We have to look at the root causes of terrorism and the root causes spring from the mosque clergy." Shoebat explained that in his opinion there are thousands of hate-dispensing Islamic clergy, including hundreds in the United States: "We can't touch it because we don't want to invade another religion," he lamented. "We have to treat this dogma - not as a religion - but as a political dogma." All over the world, Shoebat wants laws enacted that just say - no more hate-mongering from so-called religious leaders: "Once a religion goes beyond its borders, it has to be treated differently. It has to be shut down. You have to arrest these clergy. You've got to throw them in jail." Shoebat explained that in his view the offending clergy has, for example, been "schooling out" from Saudi Arabia and from the University of Egypt. He derided the European Union's notion that if you can't beat them, then include them, and maybe they will learn from us - from our way of life - to change their ways. "This is a stupid thing," he unabashedly concluded. For sure, Shoebat doesn't mince words. Within the context of the crisis with Israel and Lebanon, Shoebat said that Israel needed to invade the whole of Lebanon and cleanse it of the Hezbollah - once and for all. "If you don't do that, it doesn't matter how much of a buffer zone that you establish, because you have to understand that we live in a world of technology and things get more sophisticated." He goes on to note that Iran, a sponsor of Hezbollah, has rockets that can reach Israel as well: "Terrorists are very creative, you know. As a terrorist we were very creative. We find a different way or different method." Shoebat said he was distressed that Israel was apparently not ready to occupy the whole of Lebanon because they are afraid of the condemnation of world community: "As long as we are worried about the feelings of the world community, we are never going to really eradicate the problem. "We either hit them now, or we have to hit them much harder later, and it is going to be much more expensive and much more deadly." No Room for Negotiation The negotiation thing is a raw spot with Shoebat, who routinely compares what Arabs say in English to what they say in Arabic. Basically, he is of the opinion that from the fanatics' deeply rooted and dogmatic point of view, there can be no treaties with an enemy. So if Israel gains the upper edge militarily, he opined, and even if Syria agreed to some kind of truce, any cease fire would only be temporary - until Syria's "puppets" in Lebanon, the Hezbollah, regroup and grow strong once again. "Condoleezza Rice is going to come back empty handed," he suggested about the U.S. secretary of state's current peace mission to the Middle East. "It is going to be worse," he added. "It is not time to move to send the State Department to do any negotiations. This is the wrong time to do any negotiations. You have to wait until Israel eradicates Hezbollah. We have to aide Israel - even if we stand with Israel by ourselves." Shoebat explained that, in his opinion, the Middle East is a very fragile society, where everybody is afraid of being painted as a pro-America, pro-Zionist. "Prime ministers and presidents in the Middle East can not get elected by being pro-America. This is what you have in Iraq. Iraq should be the lesson," he noted, referring to the Iraq president's recent overt and controversial sympathy with the Hezbollah. Shoebat added that the president of Iraq knows that some day the Americans will be gone and he is going to have to reckon with Hezbollah. "He supports Hezbollah because of the tie with Iran. They are afraid of Iran." "Yeah, we should negotiate Syria. It is not wrong to sit down at the table with Syria." "But," Shoebat emphasized, "the message must be, ?You dismantle Hezbollah, then we negotiate with you.'" "Look, this has nothing to do with jobs," Shoebat impatiently explained. "The issue of fundamentalist Islamic terrorism has nothing to do with land. Gaza was given back. Nothing changed, and it even became worse. It has nothing to do with poverty ... "It is the dogma of Islamic salvation that you must conquer the world for Islam ... They want to destroy the West. They want to establish Shia Islamic law all throughout the world. They have this crazy dogma - and somebody's got to take them seriously." Shoebat wants Americans to finally understand the true volatile nature of the beast they are up against: "Over 90 percent of Pakistanis want an Islamist state. They have nuclear weapons already, and the regime in Pakistan is so sensitive that it could be collapsing any moment as we speak ... "You have a country like Iran building nuclear and flexing its muscle on the whole Middle East region ... "You have Sudan where they killed 1.5 million Christian civilians ... "You have Jordan where the majority of Jordanians supported Osama Bin Laden and still do ..." Fanatical or not, wasn't it literally suicidal for Hezbollah to antagonize Israel with the kidnappings of its soldiers? "Hezbollah did not know the extent of Israel's retaliation," Shoebat opined. In his view, Hezbollah thought it would be more business-as-usual -- kidnap the soldiers and get Israel to exchange them for brethren being held by Israel. But Israel confounded the Hezbollah, drawing a line in the sand, saying basically that such kidnapping would only beget more of the same. "The bargaining chip didn't work their [Hezbollah's] way," he explained. ?We' Terrorists Are Very Patient Shoebat is known to start his lectures with, "I am not ashamed to stand in front of you and say I am Walid Shoebat and I used to be a Palestinian terrorist." Though now long separated from the murderous fundamentalist movement, the now middle-aged man who lives in northern California will occasionally slip and use the collective "we" in talking about the terrorists: "Hitler was about establishing his Nazi dogma throughout the whole word. Communism was the same thing. "This is the kind of system. They have no respect for borders, just like Communism and Nazis. The end justifies the means - it doesn't matter how you do it, or how long it takes, as long as we get what we want in the end." Yes, patience is the message, Shoebat preaches. The extremists outlasted the Russians in Afghanistan and they will eventually outlast the American occupiers as well, he says. The same sorry scenario is also potentially true with Iraq. And the patience thing extends all the way to the American homeland, Shoebat warned: "People ask me the question how come we haven't been hit [since 9/11]? Well, what they are looking for is a grand finale. They want to cripple America by one event. This is why you don't see small-time bombings in America... They are waiting to get a dirty bomb, a nuclear bomb of any sort and blow up a few cities. "Is that what it is going to take to wake America up?" "After an attempt to destroy trains in New York and after an attempt to destroy the Sears Tower and after an attempt of Canadian Muslims to blow up buildings, after Bali, and after all the evidence that we have - we not doing something about it. I think we are in deep trouble." Democracy-Building Is Not a Magic Bullet Shoebat derided the American insistence of including the Jerusalem Arabs in the Palestinian electorate. "You know, Israel warned America. Look, this is not an issue of democracy here because if you allow the Jerusalem Arabs to vote, they are going to elect Hamas." In Shoebat's view, there have never been any true democracies in the Middle East -- and most likely, there're never will be: "You show me in history, in 55 Muslim states, when was there ever a real democracy established? So for America to think that they can go and establish a democracy in the Middle East, I think is a very dangerous thing." Picking the Enemy and Choosing War All else said, returning to Shoebat's mantra of choosing war over shame, he wants the West to wake up to what he sees as the painful but only realistic course of action: "We can eradicate Iran. It is not a hard thing to stop Iran. But the will of the West is not there. They are not willing to understand, much less see, the writing on the wall." Shoebat sees the West as burying its collective head in the sand and not facing the grim reality -- or matching the enemy's fierce and rigid mindset: "Now we have to go fix Lebanon," he lamented, expelling a breath. "We have to send aide. We have to establish a peace force. We have to send money - and all of these things. Here we are sending all of this aide to Iraq. "We have to fix the whole world's problem. We can't do that. That is not what the American position should be. The American position should be that if any country in the Middle East wants to join us, welcome. Anyone who wants to support terrorism, then you are an enemy. End of story." Shoebat signs off -- there is yet another speaking engagement to go to -- another forum to preach the hard realities he learned from dwelling within the belly of the beast. He leaves some parting thoughts: "If the West wants to win, they must be even more stalwart and more intractable than the fierce, sly and ever-patient enemy." And, finally: "They must choose war over shame." This appeared in NewsMax.com and is archived at
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PETITION AGAINST WITHDRAWALS, EXPULSIONS, AND DIVIDING JERUSALEM
Posted by Committee Lmaan Tzion<, July 28, 2006. |
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http://www.lmaantzion.org/petition.html The Committee Lmaan Tzion has launched a petition campaign against the "convergence/realignment" plan. Our goal is to garner 10,000 signatures by January and distribute copies of the petition to important Jewish organizations and U.S. and Israeli politicians. Please sign for your name to be inserted on the petition. The text of the petition reads as follows: "We the undersigned declare that the policy of land withdrawal and expulsion of Jews from their homes in Yehuda and Shomron (the West Bank), as well as the policy of dividing Jerusalem, violates the Jewish right to and the integrity of the Land of Israel and our eternal Capital of Jerusalem, and constitutes an immediate and long-term threat to the safety and survival of the Jewish people everywhere."To sign, click here. |
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WAR HITS SAFED
Posted by Sandy Rosen-Hazen, July 28, 2006. |
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My grandson, Nissim, is being treated for injuries at the Safed hospital... Giving well-earned credit where it IS due.....nearly 100 people send me e-mails wishing us well & praying for our safety!!!! THANK YOU!!!! I'll now, G-d willing, set about marathon typing, to answer each and every one of those wonderful e-mails!!!! Love always,
P.S.....For anyone wishing to help Safed, directly: The organization "Lev Uneshama" is most helpful, in so many ways!!!! Donations to them are 100% used for aid to the individual people of Safed.....NO money is ever withheld for any reason (all work is done on a purely volunteer basis)!!!! On several occassions, we've approached them in order to help people who needed various things.....it is amazing that each and every time we approached this organization with a specific request, they never failed to reach out and help!!!! "Lev Uneshama" not only provides food for the needy, but they succeed in supplying many families with warm clothing in the winter, shoes, eye-glasses, dental care, etc.!!!! There are really not enough words to describe this marvelously generous organization!!!! Now, more than ever, as Israel finds itself in a difficult time, "Lev Uneshama" is succeeding in sending food packages, toys, clothing, etc., to as many people as possible in the city of Safed's bomb shelters!!!! Please share this information with all those generous people who you think may find it in their hearts to help this wonderful organization!!!! You can visit their Web Site to get an idea of what they are really all about.....at: www.levuneshama.org!!!! Checks (all tax deductable) can be sent to: "To save a life",
Sandy Rosen-Hazen lives in Safed. Contact her at Sandy@israel.net |
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HIZBULLAH USED CIVILIANS, MOSQUES IN ATTACK ON IDF
Posted by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu, July 28, 2006. |
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Hizbullah refused to allow civilians to leave their village and used mosques in their ambush on IDF soldiers at Bint Jbeil Wednesday. Names of the nine fallen soldiers were released. Morale is high. Hizbullah stored ammunition and weapons in mosques, knowing that the IDF does not attack religious sites. Civilians were not allowed to leave so that Hizbullah could use them as cover. IDF officers said they ordered pilots not to strafe Bint Jbeil in order to spare civilian casualties. A United Nations peace keeping officer from Canada told the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. that Hizbullah used the same tactic to draw fire on the UNIFIL post which resulted in the death of four U.N. observers. "This is their favorite trick," he said. "They use the U.N. as shields." Morale of the Golani soldiers was extremely high after the bitter battle, the fiercest in many years. One of the soldiers injured in Bint Jbeil said from his hospital bed Wednesday night, "I want to go back and fight with my comrades. Morale is totally high. [The battle] was complex, and there is fear, but we have to take the fear and turn it around." IDF officers are trying to cool down the soldiers' enthusiasm to take over Bint Jbeil. The troops marked the Hizbullah terrorists with an "x." "Tomorrow will see their death," they said. "Tomorrow they will pay the price." The names of the fallen soldiers who fell at Bint Jbeil are:
Lt. Yiftah Shrier, 21, of Haifa, was killed in a separate incident when Hizbullah terrorists fired an anti-tank missile between Bint Jbeil and Marun A-Ras late Wednesday. Three soldiers still are in serious condition, and 19 suffered light-to-moderate injuries in the ambush battle, which occurred around 5 a.m. (10 p.m. EDT). when dozens of Hizbullah terrorist guerilla fighters ambushed their hilltop position. The IDF had maintained that the army was in control of the village, which is considered the capital of Hizbullah in southern Lebanon. Hizbullah has been building tunnels and stockpiling weapons in the six years since the IDF withdrew from the area, which they know thoroughly. The Hizbullah terrorist guerillas were well-equipped with Iranian- and Syrian-made rocket propelled grenades, anti-tank and mortar shells, Lau missiles and rifles. Several troops were injured while trying to rescue others, in an evacuation that took more than six hours. Helicopter rescue pilots endured enemy fire, and several soldiers carried stretchers more than one mile. Northern Command Head Maj.-Gen. Udi Adam said that despite the heavy loss of soldiers, the army recovered valuable intelligence information, and that large amounts of communication equipment, weapons and ammunition also were taken by the IDF. "The soldiers displayed sangfroid, bravery and professionalism after they came under fire," he said. "We estimate that at least 15 Hizbullah guerrillas were killed in the village. There are also assessments that put the number of casualties on the Lebanese side at 40 to 50 dead fighters," he added. Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu writes for Arutz-Sheva (www.IsraelNN.com).
This article is archived at
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Posted by Sergio Tessa (HaDaR), July 28, 2006. |
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These are the people we should talk to and shake their hands?... Fatah, Hizbollah, FPLP .... 
Contact Sergio Tessa (HaDar) at HaDaR-Israel@verizon.net |
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ON THE 'OLMERT IS A NAZI' CARTOON CONTROVERSY
Posted by D.J. Teeboom, July 28, 2006. |
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I wanted to tell you that as Jew and a Zionist, as a person who served in the IDF and who supports the war against Hezbollah 100%, I believe you have the right to publish as many disgusting anti-Israeli cartoons as you like. The freedom of speech is very dear to me. But don't worry. One day, when radical Islam gets out of control in Europe, we will be having a laugh on your expense too. I must point out however, that the image of the Israeli-Nazi is getting a little bit boring. I hope this doesn't hurt your feelings, but we have been enjoying these kind of Israeli's-are-Nazi-cartoons for almost 60 years by now. And because of that, I feel I can tell you, as a friend of the Norwegian people, that after 60 years they're not really funny anymore. Oh, I'm so sorry, did that insult you? They were funny the first time, honest. Don't cry. I had a great laugh the second time, and the third, the fourth and the fifth. But after 60 years and thousands upon thousands of these kind of cartoons...I think you should at least consider to try something new. It's no use, I know you won't. We Jews are the only nation on earth that doesn't have to worry about what 'they will come up with next'. You are perfectly predictable. Maybe the Israeli ambassador should issue an official demand for original insults? I mean, as a serious nation and a regional superpower, don't we have the right to be insulted in some other way? I hope you are not disappointed that Jews are not burning down Norwegian embassies and issuing death threats. It's simply not our style. Maybe that's a pity, because if we did such things the editor of this newspaper would appear on TV and tell everybody how much Jews and Israel should be respected. Your government leaders would tell the Norwegian people they should learn more about Zionism. Your leftwing intellectuals would visit the most violent extremist Jews. They would offer them their sincere apologies and upon their return they would sing the praises of the forbidden Kach and Kahane parties who only want to deport all the Palestinians, not to kill them. Look how moderate! After further outbursts of violence and death threats, some bright Norwegian politicians would call for Kach and Kahane 'to be integrated in the Israeli political process'. Heaven forbid. You know that you have nothing to fear from Jews and that is why you allow yourself to stoop so low. It wouldn't be such a problem if only you (meaning Europe)showed a some spine regarding Islamic intimidation. But because you don't other people less civilized then Jews, are coming to the conclusion that in order to be 'respected', they have to burn down embassies and kill people. Is that really the future we want? Contact Daniel Teeboom at d.j.teeboom@orange.nl or go to his website: www.hetvrijevolk.com |
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HEZBOLLAH'S NAZI TACTICS
Posted by Sergio Tessa (HaDaR), July 28, 2006. |
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This was written by Steven Stalinsky, the executive director of the
Middle East Media Research Institute.
It appeared July 26, 2006 in the New York Sun
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"Just like Hitler fought the Jews, we are a great Islamic nation of jihad, and we too should fight the Jews and burn them." -- Hisham Shamas, political science student, at a symposium hosted by Hezbollah's Al-Manar TV at Lebanon's largest and only government-run university, Universit Libanaise, November 29, 2005 In June 1944, a Red Cross delegation was invited by Nazi Germany to Theresienstadt, a "spa town" where elderly German Jews could "retire" in safety, according to Nazi propaganda. However, it was really a transit camp for Jews on their way to Auschwitz. In preparation for the delegation's visit, the camp underwent a beautification program, with gardens planted and barracks renovated. The Nazis produced a film using Jewish prisoners to show the world how well they were being treated (the entire "cast" would later be sent to Auschwitz). Theresienstadt served an important propaganda function for the Germans, and it is known by historians as an "an elaborate hoax." Taking a page directly from the Nazis' propaganda playbook some 62 years later, the terror organization Hezbollah is manipulating the press in the same way. Hezbollah's press officer, Hussein Nabulsi, has been giving Western press and broadcast outlets, including CNN, the Boston Globe, and the Chicago Tribune, daily tours of bombed-out Hezbollah-controlled southern Beirut. During the July 18 broadcast of Wolf Blitzer's "Situation Room" on CNN, Mr. Nabulsi took a CNN correspondent, Nic Robertson, to a bombed-out area he said was "only inhabited by innocent civilians." Mr. Robertson was overtly sympathetic to Hezbollah's claims, telling viewers, "We didn't see any evidence of military infrastructure." Mr. Roberston's sympathy for Hezbollah later was criticized on multiple blogs; even the host of CNN's "Reliable Sources," Howard Kurtz, asked his colleague, "To what extent do you feel like you're being used to put up the pictures they [Hezbollah] want?" In a report for the July 21 Boston Globe, Thanassis Cambanis wrote about his tour of the same area with Mr. Nabulsi, who admitted that his office -- Hezbollah's press office -- which he said was located in a "civilian area," was bombed. The Globe reporter wrote that the area "is full of obvious Hezbollah targets, including the organization's headquarters, its media office ... nestled among thousands of civilian homes." Just as the Nazis had their weekly newspaper, Der Strmer -- which was a significant part of their propaganda apparatus, spreading venomous anti-Semitic caricatures and themes, including the blood libel and the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" -- Hezbollah has its own radio station and TV channel, Al-Manar. Al-Manar is similarly a vehicle for spreading classic anti-Semitic subject matter, from Nazi forgeries to the blood libel and attacks on Judaism. The channel also frequently airs programs devoted to the killing of Jews and destruction of Israel. (See www.memritv.org to view examples.) Hezbollah celebrates Holocaust denial, as well. "Jews invented the legend of the Holocaust," the leader of Hezbollah, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, said on April 9, 2000. During an appearance on Al-Manar on February 3, Sheik Nasrallah called Europe's leading Holocaust denier, Roger Garaudy, "a great French philosopher." On February 23, Sheik Nasrallah appeared on Al-Manar and praised another leading European Holocaust denier, David Irving, for having "denied the existence of gas chambers." While Hezbollah has embraced much of Nazi Germany's anti-Semitism, it is not the heir apparent of the Third Reich. That distinction belongs to the Islamic Republic of Iran, which today has set out to launch World War III. Just as Nazi Germany used its cohorts in France and Italy to carry out its killing, Hezbollah is following orders from its master Iran, which created it on February 16, 1985. Hezbollah's official manifesto includes a picture of "our leader," Ayatollah Khomeini, on its back cover. A Washington Post article from that year reported that Iranian Revolutionary Guards were "carrying out their missionary work, indoctrinating the Lebanese Shiites in the spiritual and political teachings of Khomeini." As the Iranian parliament speaker, Gholam-Ali Haddad Adel, told the Iranian News Channel on July 18, "To Nasrallah we say -- the blood of Imam Khomeini rages in his veins." Sheik Nasrallah's deputy, Sheik Naim Qasem, quoted the Iranian regime in explaining his organization's position on Israel and jihad in a June 2, 2002, interview on Al-Manar: "Muslims should annihilate Israel. ... Imam Khomeini said, 'The goal of this virus [Israel] that was planted in the heart of the Islamic world ... The solution is in annihilating the virus.'" Anyone who has witnessed Iranian crowds chanting "Death to America" and "Death to Israel" during religious rallies led by the country's ayatollahs, or at Lebanese rallies led by Sheik Nasrallah, can see how similar they are to the rallies Nazi Germany held -- only then, the chants were "Heil Hitler." Contact Sergio Tessa at Hadar-Israel@verizon.net |
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OFFICIAL: HEZBOLLAH USED U.N. AS 'SHIELD'
Posted by May Leiner, July 28, 2006. |
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Observer killed in strike wrote e-mail contradicting accusation against Israel United Nations flag flies with Hezbollah banner at U.N. post (photo: Canadian Jewish News) The United Nations post in Lebanon at the center of controversy over a deadly Israeli attack likely was being used as a "shield" by Hezbollah to fire rockets into the Jewish state, according to a former U.N. commander in Bosnia. U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan has accused Israel of deliberately targeting the post where four officials of the world body were killed in an Israeli airstrike on the southern Lebanese village of El Khiam Tuesday night. But retired Maj.-Gen. Lewis MacKenzie points to an e-mail by one of the observers killed in the attack that backs Israel's claim that it was targeting Hezbollah, reported the CanWest News Service of Canada. The dead observer, Maj. Paeta Hess-von Kruedener, wrote an e-mail last week to the Canadian television network CTV that alluded to Hezbollah's tactics. "What I can tell you is this, we have on a daily basis had numerous occasions where our position has come under direct or indirect fire from both (Israeli) artillery and aerial bombing. "The closest artillery has landed within 2 meters (sic) of our position and the closest 1000 lb aerial bomb has landed 100 meters (sic) from our patrol base. This has not been deliberate targeting, but rather due to tactical necessity." MacKenzie said Hess-von Kruedener was indicating Israeli strikes were aimed at Hezbollah targets near the post, the Canadian news service reported. "What that means is, in plain English, 'We've got Hezbollah fighters running around in our positions, taking our positions here and then using us for shields and then engaging the (Israeli Defence Forces)," he said. McKenzie said this indicates Hezbollah purposely set itself up near the U.N. post, a tactic he observed in previous international missions. McKenzie was the first U.N. commander in Sarajevo during the Bosnia civil war, CanWest reported. The U.N. has claimed there was no Hezbollah activity in the area of the strike. From his U.N. post, however, Hess-von Kruedener wrote he had a view of the "Hezbollah static positions in and around our patrol Base." "It appears that the lion's share of fighting between the IDF and Hezbollah has taken place in our area," he wrote, noting later it was too dangerous to venture out on patrols. A senior U.N. official asked by CanWest about the e-mail denied the world body had been caught in a contradiction. "At the time, there had been no Hezbollah activity reported in the area," he said. "So it was quite clear they were not going after other targets; that, for whatever reason, our position was being fired upon. "Whether or not they thought they were going after something else, we don't know. The fact was, we told them where we were. They knew where we were. The position was clearly marked, and they pounded the hell out of us." Contact May Leiner by email at MayLeiner@cs.com |
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AL-QAEDA CHIEF DECLARES JIHAD AGAINST JEWISH STATE
Posted by Bryna Berch, July 28, 2006. |
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Seems like only yesterday that bin Ladin was ranting against foreigners polluting the sacred land of Saudi Arabia (SA). The ugliness of 9/11 was partial revenge for the nerve of the uppity Americans who dared to set foot in SA -- even if it was to protect the Saudis. This was his only concern. And now, his second-in-command is casting his evil eye on Israel -- which is preventing the Muslims from taking over all of the Middle East and Spain. So now Al-Qaeda is gungho to eliminate Israel -- mind you, not for the "noble" reason of aiding his fellow Arabs, the "Palestinians." No, it's because he wants all the Middle East (and control of the rest of the world) to be Muslim. He should get together with Peace Now. Don't care what Peace Now say they want -- they've done nothing but screw Israel for years. This was written by Ezra HaLevi for Arutz-Sheva (www.IsraelNN.com) . |
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Al-Qaeda second-in-command Ayman al-Zawahiri issued a call for Jihadists around the globe to attack Israel and make the entire region "from Spain to Iraq" into an Islamic kingdom. The speech by the terrorist network's co-founder was broadcast on the Al-Jazeera Arabic satellite channel. Al-Zawahiri declared a Jihad (holy war) against Israel on behalf of the global Jihadist movement. "All the world is a battlefield open in front of us," he said, rejecting the concept of an eventual cease-fire. "O Muslims everywhere, I call on you to fight and become martyrs in the war against the Zionists and the Crusaders... War with Israel does not depend on ceasefires. It is Jihad for sake of Allah and will last until our religion prevails from Spain to Iraq." Islamists believe that since Spain was once controlled by Muslims, it must be wrested from the hands of "the infidels" in the same manner as Israel. "The shells and rockets ripping apart Muslim bodies in Gaza and Lebanon are not only Israeli, but are supplied by all the countries of the crusader coalition. Therefore, every participant in the crime will pay the price," Al-Zawahiri threatened. The Egyptian doctor was filmed in front of a photo of the World Trade Center and two top Al-Qaeda terrorists killed in recent years. This is Al-Zawahiri's tenth message released to the public this year. It is unclear whether his declaration has a theological effect on his followers' desire to strike Israel. Already on February 23, 1998, he issued a joint fatwa (Islamic ruling), with Osama bin Laden, entitled "World Islamic Front Against Jews and Crusaders," which called upon Muslims to destroy Israel. The Al-Qaeda number-two seemed to express a sense of admiration for Israel in his critique of the Muslim world. He also suggested that the world cared more about Israelis than Palestinians. "The 10,000 Palestinian prisoners in Israel's prisons do not move anything, while three Israeli prisoners have shaken the world," he said. |
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THE LATEST ISRAELI GROWTH INDUSTRY
Posted by Yossi Shomron, July 28, 2006. |
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Today I visited a refugee camp in the modern state of Israel. Actually, I live in the "internal refugee" camp of Nitzan; 480 prefab, upgraded caravans built for the expellees of Gush Katif. Four kilometers to the east, along the beach of Nitzan, is a new refugee "town", a tent city divided into two clearly designated areas: "Welcome from the northern areas" and "Welcome from the southern areas". Each area contains some 20 to 30 huge tents (approximately 25 by 40 meters each), with guards, fencing, bathroom facilities, and shuttle buses transporting people back and forth from highway 4. The new beach "town" contains thousands of Jews - refugees from missile attacks launched from Lebanon and the Gaza strip into Israeli towns and cities. The government of Israel seems to be in the business of creating Jewish refugees. Either the government expels thousands of Jews from their homes in towns considered to be a liability to the state or the government allows its citizens to be bombed for more than 5 years (southern area refugees), or 2 weeks (northern area refugees). Okay, to be fair, the Arabs are the perpetrators of the missile attacks causing tens of thousands of Jews to flee their homes. But for 5 years S'derot, Gush Katif, and surrounding moshavim and kibbutzim have been bombed from distances of 1 to 8 kilometers and the IDF has been restrained by the government from responding effectively. Of course the IDF bombed the "usual suspects": empty fields, roads, bridges, bomb factories, terror headquarters, empty PA buildings and even live terrorists when caught in the act. By and large, the Gaza "civilian" population of Hamas, Fatah, PFLP, Islamic Jihad supporters as well as thousands of terrorist fighters (who don't wear a uniform or carry a weapon) remain off limits to the IDF. And in the North? Again the usual list of targets has been bombed: bridges, roads, broadcast stations, Hezbalah bunkers and camps, and missile launchers and rockets when seen. The government of Lebanon, with a strong Hezbalah component, as well as Shiite southern Lebanon remain off limits to the IDF. To ensure that terror supporters in Lebanon don't pay a price, the inner cabinet of the Israeli govt. review all major IDF targets before bombing. Expect that as long as the Lebanese "civilians" and the thousands of Hezbalah supporters, terror operatives among them, remain untouched, the North of Israel will suffer the years of bombing that the South of Israel continues to endure. And the latest Israeli growth industry, internal Jewish refugees, will continue to grow. Yossi Shomron and his family were among the 8-9,000 Jews who were expelled from their homes and farms and orchards by the Sharon-Olmert government. |
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PICTURES FROM THE LEBANESE FRONT
Posted by Menachem Kovacs, July 27, 2006. |
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You'll find the other pictures from this series at
masoret.hevre.co.il/hydepark/topic.asp?topic_id=1990937 |
Contact Menachem Kovacs at takovacs@comcast.net |
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WANT TO SUPPORT ISRAEL ONLINE? DOWNLOAD MEGAPHONE FROM WUJS
Posted by Avodah 15, July 27, 2006. |
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This article was written by Linda Harel and it appeared on today on YNet
(www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3281619,00.html) |
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GIYUS calls Jews of world to web duty Want to support Israel online? Just download Megaphone from WUJS website and get all needed updates When Giyus.org (http://giyus.org) noticed a poll on Albabawa.com, a popular Arabic website, asking whether the current violence in Lebanon is an Israeli provocation, they decided to help balance the results. A message with a link to the poll popped up on the desktops of GIYUS' Israel-loving members and soon, the poll results jumped from an overwhelming yes to an over 80 percent no. GIYUS (Give Israel Your United Support) is a new project that has recently been released by the World Union of Jewish Students (WUJS) in order to balance anti-Israel sentiment expressed on the web and influence public opinion. To accomplish this, they created Megaphone, a free tool that can be downloaded from their website. Megaphone allows alerts to pop up on users' desktops every time it finds an attention-worthy article, poll or forum on the internet. Students and members of pro-Israel organizations are encouraged to visit the sites and express their opinions. In addition to making users aware of problematic biased articles and anti-Semitism, GIYUS encourages them to write letters of approval to the editors of sites that publish positive articles to help increase their popularity. The project is designed to be interactive. Megaphone users can contribute to its growth by reporting both biased and commendable websites and polls for consideration. To attract users from around the world, GIYUS translates polls into English, French and Hebrew, and soon Spanish.
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NOW IS THE TIME FOR A BETTER USE OF AIR POWER
Posted by Sergio Tessa (HaDaR), July 27, 2006. |
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This article was written by Shmuel Gordon and it appeared yesterday
in the Jerusalem Post
Dr. Shmuel L. Gordon, a colonel (res.) in the IAF, is head of the Technology and National Security program at the Holon Institute of Technology, and an expert in national security, air warfare and counterterrorism. He is also the author of The Vulture and the Snake: Counter-Guerrilla Air Warfare: The War in Southern Lebanon. |
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A hard and fast rule of war is that the use of ground forces in urban combat is directly related to loss of life. In Gaza, the IDF has somehow learned to go in and get out with few casualties. Hizbullah is a different enemy, with different equipment, a different surrounding population and, perhaps, a greater motivation to fight. Wednesday's casualties in Bint Jbail may indicate that Hizbullah has managed, yet again, to neutralize the IAF's technological advantages. The proper use of air power against a terrorist or guerrilla formation takes time, and herein lies Israel's problem. Last week in Maroun a-Ras, several soldiers died fighting Hizbullah around their fortified bunkers. The correct use of military power in that situation would have been to use small special forces teams equipped with nothing more than GPS trackers, laser pointers and Uzi submachine guns. The elite forces, instead of going into the bunkers, could have laser-painted the bunkers' positions to the IAF, which would have destroyed them. That would be the correct way to leverage Israel's technological advantage. The massive bombings - the IAF's use of brute force - has its limitations with respect to high-value targets, and the deployment of ground troops neutralizes our advantages. When a soldier meets a soldier, when a Kalashnikov meets an M-16, when the fight is eye to eye, there are no technological advantages. It will always be like this. Hizbullah has no qualms about losing 50 fighters, whereas we Israelis do, and the Islamists know it. Wednesday's battle will give Hizbullah a huge morale boost - regardless of how many fighters they have lost. During the Lebanon War, I was in charge of the air force's underground command bunker. Every time the infantrymen got themselves into trouble, they would call on the IAF to "open the roads." This usually entailed civilian casualties. The air force chief at the time, Maj.-Gen. David Ivri, demanded that the ground forces provide quality intelligence to ensure that civilians were not being accidentally targeted. That is still the key now. Counterterror air warfare strategy has developed a great deal in recent years. It is now based on new intelligence technologies that have enabled airborne systems to locate small mobile vehicles such as rocket launchers, and even a pair of terrorists trying to launch a Kassam rocket, and precision-guided munitions, which have made it possible to hit such targets quickly and accurately. The most important characteristic of these systems is their ability to preserve the lives of innocent people located near the targeted terrorist. To find, designate (by laser-painter, for example) and hit terrorists in a limited time frame, teams of special forces should join the battle. The new strategy integrates intelligence, air power and special forces into a combined force that plans its missions as surgical operations. Intelligence officers search for the highest-value targets, including leaders of the terrorist organization, its training infrastructure, professionals who produce dangerous bombs, and those who recruit suicide bombers. The strategy is based on the assumption that it is almost impossible to demolish terror organizations in a short, intense war. On the contrary, the preferred scenario is a war of attrition. Step by step, operation by operation, the light at the end of the tunnel becomes brighter. Counterterror air warfare doctrine emphasizes using air power in a different way than in large-scale conventional warfare. The new doctrine prefers a longer but lower-intensity conflict. The Israel Air Force's operations in the current campaign do not even come close to conforming to this concept. The government is attempting to use the air force's brute force to crush Hizbullah and to compel the powerless Lebanese government to control southern Lebanon with its own toothless army. Throughout military history, there have been gaps between doctrine and reality. In the current case, the gap is particularly large, created by the government's ignorance of the appropriate strategy. The cabinet is ignoring, or simply doesn't understand, the principles of modern counterterrorism, especially those relating to air power. The cabinet needs to take into consideration the strengths and weaknesses of the intelligence/air power/special forces mixture. It is the duty of the IDF General Staff to acquaint the civilian leadership with the limitations and capabilities of air power. The government need to have the information to set the goals, which will then dictate the military means and strategy. There is no alternative. Contact Sergio Tessa at Hadar-Israel@verizon.net |
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KRAUTHAMMER'S USUAL COMMENTARY ON FOX NEWS THURSDAY
Posted by Jerome S. Kaufman, July 27, 2006. |
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Charles Krauthammer in his usual brilliant, trenchant manner made a statement on Fox News tonight that we can only hope the Israeli government heard (and I will do my best to see that they do.) Krauthammer said words to the effect that: "The current Israeli leadership including the Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Defense Minister Amir Peretz and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni are without genuin experience in their politically appointed tasks." No thought was, in fact, given to their ability to fulfill their appointed attacks. Appointments were made according to political expediency and political pay back. JSK Mr. Krauthammer registered genuine concern as to the Israeli government's understanding as to what is expected from them by the United States. For the very first time, the United States and Israel are fighting an unequivocally common enemy - Hezbollah. Israel is assisting immeasurably in this work and President Bush is giving them free rein to defeat this common enemy. Israel, unfortunately and certainly understandably, has been extremely cautious in their attack - unwilling to commit large ground troops and obtain severe casualties, unwilling to take up large swaths of territory in what may well become a long term occupation in order to be truly effective in wiping out Hezbollah and terminating Syrian domination of Lebanon. Israel has been there, done that. JSK Mr. Krauthammer went on to advise that the United States is watching closely. How effective are the Israelis? How much is their action helping the cause of the United States of America? Is Israel worthy of American trust and intimate association and of President G W Bush sticking his neck way out on a limb both internationally and domestically? Can Israel be depended upon as a successful ally or a worrisome dependent? Obviously the United States has given Israel full rein placing the ball squarely in Israel's court. And, in no way, unfortunately, are the decisions to be made by Israel easy. What is certain is that if Israel is not successful, the Arab world will be tremendously empowered, the Islamists further inflamed and emboldened and Israel will not have made any real progress in certifying its own very existence. All they will have done is live long enough to fight another day. That day will be undoubtedly under another American administration and most likely nowhere near as supportive as President G.W. Bush. At that very near point, Israel will have had its military and political power advantages diminished exponentially as is occurring, at this moment, before our very eyes. Of note, by the way, is what are America's options? Have we another ally who truly understands that the whole Western world is in the very same boat? How can the United States discard the only genuine ally they have in the entire Middle East? Maybe it's like a marriage - a whole lot of compromises have to be made. Jerome S. Kaufman is National Secretary of the Zionist Organization of America. and host the Israel Commentary website (http://www.israel-commentary.org). |
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AN IDF SOLDIER AND HIS COMMANDER
Posted by Jeremy Gimpel and Ari Abramowitz, July 27, 2006. |
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Shalom from Jerusalem. These days in Israel are some of the darkest we remember. Eight of our fellow soldiers were killed and countless more were maimed and wounded. That means eight funerals and eight families who would most likely prefer death to the nightmare that is now their lives. We are being barraged by missiles from Hamas and Hezbollah and by lies from the UN and the EU. It feels as if the world is against us and the country is losing morale. ! Personally, we have been told to remain accessible by phone at all times to join the war if need be. Over the last few days, we have received many e-mails inquiring about our feelings, thoughts, and welfare and we have therefore decided to share them with all of you in this email. Maimonides, one of our greatest philosopher sages, explained "At the time of war a man should not think of his wife, nor of his children, nor of his possessions, but he must free his heart of everything and set himself to battle. And more - he should think that the entire existence of Israel depends on him." There isn't one combat reservist in this country who has not thought that this war could be his end. When confronted with the possibility of losing ones life, introspection is inevitable. What am I losing my life for? Is it worth it? Firstly, one must come to grips with what he believes is the purpose of life. Reflexively, most people insist that happiness is what it is all about, and proceed to dedicate their lives to achieving that end. Whichever route one takes however, sooner or later the conclusion is always the same - real happiness comes from real meaning. A life spent pursuing meaning is a life well lived. The attainment of true love, all would attest, is among the most meaningful experiences one could ever achieve. Pirkei Avot, "Ethics of our fathers", provides valuable insight "Any love that is dependent on something - when the thing ceases, the love also ceases. But a love that is not dependent on anything never ceases." True Love means transcending the physical world of materialism and self-concern and giving of oneself without wanting, or expecting, anything in return. For thousands of years the Jewish people have been praying three times a day "to Jerusalem, Your city, return us with mercy." In our happiest personal moments every Jew recites the poetry of King David at his wedding "If I forget thee, Oh Jerusalem, may my right arm lost its cunning. Let my tongue stick to my palate if I do not remember you, if I do not set Jerusalem above my greatest joy (Psalm 137)." It is for Jerusalem that we have prayed and for Israel that we have wept. The reason for this undying love for Israel is because the only place that the Jewish people, as a nation, can transcend the physical and bring true peace and spirituality into the world is in this Land. Our Rabbi and greatest prophet, Moses, tells the Jews "Behold, I have taught you statutes and judgments... that you should do in the midst of The Land which you go to possess." Our Torah and its commandments were given to us as the tools with which we are to use to fix the world, and only in the "midst" of the Land are we truly able to actualize their purpose. Over five thousand Kassam Rockets have been fired from Gaza into Israel in the past year. The residents have been living in fear and fleeing for their lives. Along with the Jews of Gush Katif, we have turned the Jews of southern Israel into refugees and ignored their plight. Now the Jews of the north are refugees as well. Fleeing their homes and hiding underground, they now feel the pain that their brothers have endured for the past year. The message to Israel is that we, The Jewish People, are immediate family. Deuteronomy 14:13, "It will be that if you hearken to My commandments that I command you today, to love Hashem, your G-d, and to serve Him with all your heart and with all your soul, then I shall provide rain, that you may gather in your grain, your wine, and your oil." When the Nation of Israel is deserving, Hashem will bless us, as a people, with rain. When we are not deserving, the drought will affect us all. There is no distinction between the righteous in the Land and the wicked. If we are not worthy as a nation we will all suffer as a nation. Our Rabbi's explained "We are similar to a group of people in a boat. One suddenly began to knock a hole in the boat. Said the others to him: What are you doing? He answered: What concern is it of yours; am I not knocking the hole under my side? They replied: but the water will rise and sink the entire boat." Maimonides writes "It is a commandment to love each and every one of Israel as himself." The more we resist the reality of our unity and fight to keep standing the synthetic barriers that separate us, the more trials and tribulations G-d will place for us to help us grasp this truth. We stand in Jerusalem and hear tonight that three reserve battalions are to be called up and we do not yet know if we are among them. If our phones do ring and we are summoned, we will not be afraid but grateful. Grateful for the opportunity to show our love for the Jews of the north and the south, of America and the world. Fighting for The Land of Israel, the homeland of the Jewish People, is the ultimate testament of love and is therefore the highest level of meaning and happiness we could ever desire. To all of our brothers and sisters in Israel and around the world, it is time to unite. We must stand for what is right with courage and moral clarity. We must understand that true peace is not acquired by ignoring evil but rather by overcoming it. We must recognize that our fates are intertwined and our pain is shared. When we stand united no enemy can touch us. Or chadash al tzion tair, v'nizke culanu bimhera l'oro. Baruch ata Hashem yotzer Ha'meorot. May You shine a new light on Zion, and may we all speedily merit it's Light. Blessed are You, Hashem, Creator of all Light. TUNE IN TO FOX NEWS THIS FRIDAY (JUNE 28) AT 2:15PM ISRAEL TIME (7:15AM NY TIME) TO HEAR JEREMY GIMPEL, AN AMERICAN BORN RESERVE COMMANDER IN THE ISRAELI ARMY, SHARE A REFRESHING AND ENLIGHTENING PERSPECTIVE ON THE WAR IN ISRAEL. To contact Ari and Jeremy please visit www.thelandofisrael.com |
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ELON MOREH NEEDS FUNDS TO HELP ISRAELIS FROM THE NORTH
Posted by Lee Caplan, July 27, 2006. |
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p>Pinchas Fuchs visited our community several months ago and gave a
wonderful presentation on his beautiful community of Elon Moreh, and
he is also a good friend of mine. Tizku lemitzvos.
Lee |
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Pinchas Fuchs Together with many other communities
Cost: $20 (100 ns) per person per day We are asking friends and supporters
TAX-DEDUCTIBLE DONATIONS
Contact Lee Caplan by email at leescaplan@yahoo.com |
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CHOCOLATE
Posted by Linda Sog, July 27, 2006. |
To send a Hug,
Click here.
Contact Linda Sog at linda@lindasog.com
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HAZBALLAH ATTACKED UNIFIL TWICE THIS WEEK
Posted by Avodah 15, July 27, 2006. |
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Notice: in this instance, the UN observer was injured badly enough to be evacuated to an Israeli hospital. Where they saved his life. |
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Hizballah Attacked UNIFIL Twice This Week
Neither the mainstream media nor Kofi Annan have mentioned it, but Hizballah has attacked UNIFIL observers twice this week. (Hat tip: Larry.) From the UN's own press releases: 24 July 2006: One unarmed UN military observer, a member of the Observer Group Lebanon (OGL), was seriously wounded by small arms fire in the patrol base in the Marun Al Ras area yesterday afternoon. According to preliminary reports, the fire originated from the Hezbollah side during an exchange with the IDF. He was evacuated by the UN to the Israeli side, from where he was taken by an IDF ambulance helicopter to a hospital in Haifa. He was operated on, and his condition is now reported as stable. Notice: in this instance, the UN observer was injured badly enough to be evacuated to an Israeli hospital. Where they saved his life. Not a word of condemnation from Kofi Annan for Hizballah. And not a word of gratitude for Israel, for saving a UN peacekeeper?s life. 25 July 2006: This morning, Hezbollah opened small arms fire at a UNIFIL convoy consisting of two armored personnel carriers (APC) on the road between Kunin and Bint Jubayl. There was some damage to the APCs, but no casualties, and the convoy was obliged to return to Kunin. Contact Avodah 15 by email at avodah15@aol.com |
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SOMETHING HAS TO BE DONE
Posted by Buddy Macy, July 27, 2006. |
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This was written by Richard A. Berg, Ph.D., whose area of expertise is in Military and Investigative Psychology. He lives in Moshav Neve Yamin, Israel. Contact him at Choil15@aol.com |
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SOMETHING HAS TO BE DONE. THE POLITICIANS ARE KILLING ISRAELI TROOPS The civilian politicians running our government here in Israel know nothing about warfare, strategy, tactics, realities. Olmert served in the IDF as a damn journalist. Peretz was a nothing. We are losing a lot of Israeli troops because the politicians want to avoid "innocent civilian casualties" among the Lebanese. The army dropped thousands, no -- millions of leaflets on southern Lebanon telling the "innocent civilians" to get out -- there was going to be an attack. The army broadcast that same message, over and over again on Lebanese radio and television. They set up phone banks and called the "innocent civilians" on the phone and warned them to leave. They flew over with loud speakers and warned them to leave. They warned them with loudspeakers on trucks. They warned them again and again and again: LEAVE -- YOU ARE IN A DANGEROUS WAR ZONE! Besides that, how much intelligence does it take to figure out that if you have a Hezbullah rocket launcher in your backyard, or your roof top has a Hezbullah sniper on it, or if your neighbor is storing a dozen missiles in his garage -- you are a target!! And, you should leave, NOW!! But the politicians will not allow the IDF to properly prepare the battlespace with artillery and airpower before sending in our troops. And, they will not allow the IDF to call up the reserves that are needed to attack Hezbullah with adequate force and tactics. And, they will not allow troops under fire to be given adequate air and artillery support. THEY ARE GETING OUR BOYS KILLED AND MAIMED. We need to tell the Israeli government: If it is in southern Lebanon now, it is the enemy. If it moves, kill it. If it is stationary, flatten it. If it shoots at IDF forces with a rifle, return fire with a battery of 155mm guns. If it is dug in, napalm it. THERE ARE NO INNOCENT CIVILIANS IN SOUTHERN LEBANON NOW. ONLY HEZBULLAH TERRORISTS AND THEIR SUPPORTERS. DO NOT PUT OUR BOYS AT GREATER RISK TO APPEASE THE EUROPEAN APPEASERS, AND LEFT WING NUT CASES IN THE U.S. FORGET WORLD OPINION UNTIL WE HAVE CRUSHED HEZBULLAH AND MADE THEM AN EXAMPLE FOR ANYONE ELSE WHO THINKS ABOUT HARMING ISRAEL. (Then we can "appologize for being bad." I, for one, have no intention of being the world's most highly moral corpse.) Rule of warfare number one (since the dawn of human time): The enemy must be attacked suddenly, mercilessly, unremittingly; with overwhelmingly dispropportionate force and violence; and, prosecuted until they and their supporters' ability and will to fight are completely crushed, and they surrender unconditionally. Compromise this rule -- restrain the military -- and there will be no peace -- ever. And, in the end, we will perish. Call, write, e-mail your U.S. government representatives, and Israeli government representatives -- tell them to unleash the IDF, to allow them to demolish Hezbullah for the sake of peace in the future If you are not part of the solution; you are part of the problem. Contact Buddy Macy at vegibud@aol.com |
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ON MATTHIAS KUNTZEL'S ARTICLE
Posted by N.F. Karkowsky, July 27, 2006. |
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[Editor's note: You can read Matthias Kuntzel's article below. |
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To: Matthias Kuntzel, Spiegel Online. Thank you for your article, "Why Israel's Reaction is Right," at http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/0,1518,428245,00.html. As the adult child of a mother who lost most of her family but somehow survived the Nazi concentration camps, I truly believe that, as a British historian said, the only thing necessary for evil for triumph in the world is for enough "good" people to do nothing. I also regret that most Europeans, even Germans, have forgotten Pastor Niebuhr's compelling warning that if the civilized world does not rally to the support of Israel in this initial terrible battle against terror, there will be no one to save them when the murderers come after them. You have made a cogent and compelling argument against the misplaced sympathies of your countrymen. I hope, for the sake of the civilized world, they read and understand your words. Thank you.
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A 2006 EDITION OF "GIVE ME LIBERTY OR GIVE ME DEATH!"
Posted by Yoram Ettinger, July 27, 2006. |
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Enclosed you'll find the lucid words of Captain Uri Lavie, a company commander of the Golani Brigade, which is fighting Hizballah terrorists along Israeli's northern border. May his words constitute the Pillar of Fire for Israel's leaders, and for western democracies, in their Third World War against Islamic terrorism. Yoram |
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Captain Uri Lavie, a company commander in the Golani Brigade briefing his soldiers -- nine months into their military service -- a few minutes before joining the battle against Hizballah terrorists in southern Lebanon (Ha'aretz, July 27, 2006): "This is our time to rise to the challenge, put on the helmets and the bullet proof vests and make sure that the northern border is secure. We shall fulfill any mission in a most effective manner, in face of any challenge. If we shall not fulfill our mission we shall forfeit the right to exist. We shall not lose this war, which we did not start. Our duty is to serve as a defense force of the Jewish People, and to secure the peace of mind of the civilians in northern Israel. If we shall not do it, no one will do it in our place. For two thousand years we waited for the establishment of the Jewish State, and we are not going to roll back because a bunch of terrorists assume that they can scare us. He who cannot defend Liberty does not deserve Liberty. If we will not be able to fight until our last drop of blood, in order to secure the Liberty of our People on its own soil, our People will not enjoy Liberty. There is time to talk and there is time to act. At this time, when missiles and Katyushas afflict the North all the way to Haifa, in addition to the two kidnapped soldiers, the ten soldiers killed and the dozens injured, it is time to fight and not to talk. We are the force, which has been chosen to fight, and we shall perform in the most effective manner. I will be the first one to enter the battle and the last one to come out, and will do everything in my power to get you out alive and well. On Friday, with G-D's help, we will rejoin with our families. However, I cannot do it alone. Once we cross the northern border, you should exercise full alert and full responsibility toward your fellow soldier." Ambassador Yoram Ettinger is a consultant on US-Israel relations as well as the Chairman of Special Projects at the Ariel Center for Policy Research. Formerly the Minister for Congressional Affairs to Israel's Embassy in Washington, DC, Ettinger also served as Consul General of Israel to the Southwestern US. He is a former editor of Contemporary Mideast Backgrounder, and is the author of the Jerusalem Cloakroom series of reports. Contact him at yoramtex@netvision.net.il |
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HAS ANYONE NOTICED?
Posted by Sergio Tessa (HaDaR), July 27, 2006. |
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We keep on hearing by the propaganda lying masters of the left saying that "we sacrifice our soldiers to defend you settlers" and other baloney like this. Has anyone noticed that 3 of the 9 soldiers killed in combat yesterday, fighting with the special units of Golani in Lebanon, were RELIGIOUS SETTLERS, 2 from the Jewish village of Eli, in the Shomron - on Olmert's chop-block - and one from Bet Horon, near Jerusalem?... Contact Sergio Tessa (HaDaR) at HaDaR-Israel@verizon.net |
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OPEN LETTER TO NICHOLAS KRISTOF
Posted by David Meir-Levi, July 27, 2006. |
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Dear Mr. Kristof, I became a fan of yours when you began speaking out against the Arab Moslem Sudanese genocide of black African Christians and Animists in south Sudan, and against the Arab Janjaweed genocide against the Black African Moslems of Darfur. You were perspecatious enough to see the evil, and courageous enough to call that evil by its name. You seem to have lost that perspicacity when it comes to the Arab-Israel conflict. In your essays of 7/24/06 (Palo Alto Daily News, "Israel could learn restraint from Spain") and 7/26/06 (ibid, "Israel repeats our mistake"), you fall in to errors of fact, and you misunderstand the nature of the Israel-Arab conflict and its combatants. A.) You discuss Hezbollah and Hamas as though these were your typical run-of-the-mill off-the-shelf belligerents, akin to those that Europe and the USA have experienced for centuries. They are not! They are religiously motivated genocidal terrorists. Few recognize that this conflict is sui generis, in terms of its belligerents, its dynamics, its geo-political parameters, and its amenability to resolution. Let's review these three misunderstandings. A.) The nature of Hezbollah and Hamas Unlike the belligerents in other wars, who fought over borders or resources, Hezbollah and Hamas are fighting Israel because they want to destroy the Jewish state and genocide its Jews. They are not fighting for land, or for independence, or for freedom or civil rights. They are fighting in order to destroy a sovereign state and genocide its inhabitants. As Abbas Massawi (former Hezbollah leader) said: "We are not fighting you (Israel) because we want something from you. We are fighting you because we want to destroy you." Similarly, Hassan Nasrallah (current Hezbollah leader) has been quoted in Arab newspapers: "It is good that most Jews are in Israel. That will make it easier for us to destroy them." And Hamas leaders expressed no less of a commitment to the genocide of Jews. Sheikh Akhmed Yassin (former Hamas leader) spoke openly of his intent to destroy Israel "before the end of the first quarter of the 21st century." And his late successor, Dr. Abdul Aziz Rantisi, raged that "...there is no place for a Jewish state in Moslem Lands. We will destroy Israel even if we must do it one Jew at a time." And their deeds substantiate their words. Hezbollah and Hamas are both religious Islamic Jihadist genocidal terrorist paramilitary armies. They are terrorists in the fullest sense of the word. They target Israeli civilians for random killing, and rejoice in those murders even though such destruction offers no tactical or strategic advance. They are indifferent even to their own people's lives, as they intentionally and routinely use Arab civilian sites for their weapons and camps and ammunition storage. They are "teflon terrorists" in the sense that there is no institution or regimen by which they can be called to account: thus, for example, they can and do use UN camps and personnel as human shields. B.) The Nature of the Conflict 1.) The dynamics of the conflict This is an existential conflict. Victory for Hezbollah or Hamas means the destruction of Israel. Nothing less. Theirs is a war of genocide, to be waged eternally "...until victory or martyrdom." As such, theirs is a war that is not amenable to compromise or concessions made in the name of "advancing the peace process." In fact, there can be no peace process, because ultimately there can be no peace with Israel. In this war, a cease-fire is not a first step toward armistice, negotiations, reconciliation, and peace. Quite the opposite, a cease-fire is an opportunity to re-group, re-arm, re-load and re-deploy to be better prepared for the next round. Similarly, Israeli concessions have brought no movement toward cessation of hostilities, negotiations, or peace. When Israel has made concessions, the terrorists have simply pocketed the concessions and continued their terror war. One can deduce this quite readily from the 70-year history of the Arab war against Israel. Since 1937 the UK, UN, USA and /or Israel have offered peaceful resolution no less than 15 times. But each offer has been met with rejection, violence, murder, terrorism and war. Israel has successfully traded land for peace with Egypt and Jordan, and offered to do the same with Syria and the Palestinian Authority. But concessions and offers of more concessions have not quelled Hamas or Hezbollah in their lust for Israel's destruction. For the most recent examples, note Israel's withdrawals from Lebanon and the Gaza Strip. Israel withdrew unilaterally and unconditionally from Lebanon in May, 2000. The UN declared that withdrawal to be complete, and thus Israel no longer occupied any Lebanese territory. That should have ended Hezbollah's 15-year terrorist war against Israel: a war which Hezbollah spokespersons averred was a sacred war to liberate Moslem territory from Israeli occupation. But Hezbollah continued its terror offensive. Using Israel's retention of the Sheba'a farms area as an excuse [despite the fact that the UN had officially declared that area to be a part of Syria which Israel conquered in 1967, and therefore in no way a part of Lebanese sovereignty], Hezbollah kidnapped, tortured and killed Israeli soldiers just a few months after the withdrawal. It then went on to randomly fire a variety of rockets in to Israeli civilian territory, periodically deploy armed gunmen to attack Israeli military and civilian emplacements, and attempted several more kidnappings -- unsuccessfully until July 12. The same is true of the Gaza Strip. Israel withdrew unilaterally and unconditionally from the Gaza Strip in August, 2005. Instead of a cessation of hostilities, Hamas declared a victory for terrorism, promised more terror, and initiated a series of intense Qassam and mortar bombardments into Israeli civilian communities, firing more than 1,250 rockets in the months since the Israeli withdrawal, killing nearly a dozen Israelis and injuring hundreds. And during that time Hamas (or any of its dozen or so kindred terror gangs operating with its approval) launched dozens of drive-by shootings, road-side bombs, car bombs, sniper attacks, attempted kidnappings, and almost a dozen suicide bombers (only one of whom was successful). 2. The Scope of the Conflict a.) Time There is no time constraint for this conflict. The conflict began in earnest in 1922. As leaders of both terror armies have said, the conflict may go on for decades or even centuries. Preparations for a decades-long conflict are already in place, as Hezbollah and Hamas and the Palestinian Authority teach children from pre-school onward that they must hate Jews, hate Israelis, hate Israel, and hate the West. Arab children are taught that suicide bombers are roll models, and death guarantees an eternity of sexual bliss as long as you take a Jew with you when you go. "We buy paradise with Jewish blood" is a kindergarten song. "We knock on heaven's door with the skulls of Jews" is an oft-heard chant. And Hamas' covenant incorporates into the terrorists' long-range plan the ancient post-Qur'anic apocalyptic teaching that the world will enjoy redemption, and the dead will resurrect, only when Moslems have killed all the world's Jews. Only by finishing what Hitler began can the Moslem world enjoy its end-of-days scenario when all the world will worship only Allah. Hezbollah and Hamas have, literally, all the time in the world. b.) Geo-Political Space Israel is at war with far more than just Hezbollah and Hamas. And more countries than Israel are at war with these terrorist forces. The involvement of Iran and el-Qaeda raise this to the level of a truly global conflict. The Middle Eastern theatre of operations is merely a starting point. Both Hezbollah and Hamas are allied with Iran; and Iran manages Hezbollah through its proxy, Syria. As such, Israel is merely one of a number of Western targets. As Iran's president has unabashedly declared, Israel is to be obliterated in a nuclear holocaust, and the USA is to be destroyed as well (although he did not specify the mechanism). Iran is allied with el-Qaeda; and as Osama has said often in his television speeches, his enemy, first and foremost, is "global non-belief." Global non-belief means us: you and me and all the non-Moslems of the world, and even those Moslems who are not quite Moslem enough, per Osama's definition. As Iran's terror army in Lebanon, Hezbollah is carrying out Iranian terrorist intentions. And, indeed, hundreds of Iranian Revolutionary Guard agents are in Lebanon working with Hezbollah. Very suspiciously, approximately 60,000 Iranian "tourists" have made their way to Lebanon over the past few years, and have disappeared into the variegated fabric of Lebanese society. Iran's growing military force in Lebanon is waging war against Israel by supporting and re-enforcing Hezbollah, and Iranian Revolutionary Guard members have been killed in fire fights with the Israeli army. Iran is also "testing the waters" to see how the West, and especially the USA, will react to what is essentially a de facto declaration of war. Iranian troops in Lebanon, warring against an ally of the USA, is tantamount to Iran warring against the USA. That, combined with President Mahmoud Akhmedi-Nejad's openly avowed intent to use WMDs against an American ally and to wage war against the USA, is as clear a declaration of war as ever there was. And just in case someone thinks that Iran is only kidding (you know, just Moslem rhetoric about WMDs ), note the recent article in The Sunday Times (UK), by former Conservative MP Michael Portillo, who told his British countrymen that, their hostility for Israel and the USA aside, "The bloody truth is that Israel's war is our war." Portillo went on to argue that given the threat that Iran and Hezbollah pose to Britain itself, "for us to turn against Israel and America would be perverse and potentially suicidal." Strengthening the view that opposition to war against Iran and its proxies is suicidal, it was reported Sunday (UK Daily Mail) that Bulgarian border guards along their border with Romania had intercepted a British truck filled with radioactive materials for building a so-called dirty bomb. The components, which included dangerous quantities of radioactive caesium 137 and americium-beryllium, were stored in 10 lead-lined boxes addressed to the Iranian Ministry of Defense. According to the Daily Mail, this was the second time in less than a year that a British shipment of nuclear materials had been stopped by Bulgarian border guards. Last August, Bulgaria stopped a shipment of zirconium silicate, which can be used as a component of a nuclear warhead, at its border with Turkey en route to Iran. Moreover, Akhmedi-Nejad made clear his intentions to his Moslem allies as well. The opening paragraph of his recent letter to President Bush invites the President to lead the western world in to mass conversion to Islam. To western minds, this is a drole Moslem fantasy. In Islamic history, this is the religiously required offer prior to invasion: "Convert, or we make war upon you until you are Moslem or dead." That was the way that Mohammed did it with the Byzantine and Sassanian empires. The offer of conversion must precede hostilities. If that offer is rejected, then Jihad is justified. Akhmedi-Nejad has made the requisite offer. Bush's disregard for the offer now legitimizes, in Islamic religious tradition, a Moslem invasion of the USA or against USA forces or allies. El-Qaeda has set up terror cells in the Gaza Strip, and with Israel's pullout in 2005, these cells operate openly and unimpeded. Gaza's open border with Egypt (for which we must thank Condoleeza Rice) gives those el-Qaeda operatives easy contact with the four el-Qaeda bases recently established in the southern Sinai (much to the consternation of Egypt, which lacks the military ability to attack and shut down these bases). Hamas' allegiance with el-Qaeda brings it into the circle of enmity that predicates Osama's attacks against the USA and other Western targets. In a message broadcast by al-Jazeera recently, Ayman az-Zawahiri said that al-Qaeda views "all the world as a battlefield ... and that the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah will ... not be ended with cease-fires or agreements...It is a Jihad for the sake of Allah and will last until our religion prevails from Spain to Iraq." It is important to recall, at this point, that both Hezbollah and Hamas are the USA's avowed enemies in their own right.
In sum, this is not a regional war between Israel and some terrorists. This is a new front in the Islamofascist war against Western Civilization's "non-belief" that Iran and much of the Arab world have been waging since November 4, 1979. C. Inappropriate recommendations It is obvious from the above, that this conflict is sui generis. Israel, the UK, the UN, and the USA have tried every imaginable approach to a negotiated resolution. Peace offers, offers of statehood and independence, invitations to negotiations, negotiations with terrorist leaders even as they launch terror attacks, accepting partition, ceding territory, good will gestures, releases of prisoners, third party super power intervention, aid to Moslem states, repeated concessions, even Israel's acquiescence to the Arab demand that the Arabs' desired end of the negotiation process must be guaranteed at the beginning (a very non-western concept of negotiation), and even unilateral concessions with no strings attached... all these western ways of resolving conflict have drawn only derision from the Arab terrorists, and more terrorism. Nusrallah has no need, nor desire, for negotiations, concessions, or good will gestures. Hezbollah does not seek a cease-fire, and has no interest in diplomacy except where it can use that diplomacy to counter Israel's military victories. Their goal is destruction and genocide. Tthe terrorists have plenty of time; and thanks to Iran and Saudi Arabia, plenty of money. So what works? The nature of the conflict, and the fanatic religious genocidal commitments of its terrorist belligerents to a vision of apocalyptic world domination, all demonstrate that the only way that this conflict can end with western civilization intact is for Israel's terrorist enemies to be brought to their knees, reduced to acquiescing to unconditional surrender -- just as were Germany and Japan in World War 2. Victory must not be anything less than the destruction of Hezbollah and Hamas, the death or incarceration of their leaders, total disarmament, dispersal of all rank-and-file, and rendering both groups illegal as institutions, with laws against their hate-speech and hate-teach -- just as was done to the Nazis. Anything less is defeat... defeat for Israel and for Western Civilization in our defensive war against el-Qaeda and the forces of Islamic terrorist triumphalism. Victory for Hezbollah in the current Lebanon war is tantamount to a victory for Iran and el-Qaeda over the forces of western "non-belief"; a giant step forward in the Islamofascist supremacist triumphalist terror war for Islam uber alles. David Meir-Levi is an American-born Israeli, currently living in Palo Alto. His expertise is in Near Eastern studies and the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict. He is Director of Peace and Education at Israel Peace Initiative (www.ipi-usa.org). Contact him at david_meirlevi@hotmail.com |
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WHY DISPROPORTIONATE RETRIBUTION IS RIGHT
Posted by Jock L. Falkson, July 27, 2006. |
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Ben Gurion In his article "The causes of war: Hizbullah's and Hamas's grievances" (Jerusalem Post 25 July 2006) Alexander Wright quotes Ben-Gurion as having said that "any attack against Israel will be met with disproportionate retribution." Wright* adds that "While the casualties of this war are heart-wrenching, since when is war supposed to be proportionate? When a state is attacked, would it make sense to strike back with an equal amount of force, and give your enemy space and time to fight back? What war has not produced innocent casualties?" (*Research Associate with the Centre for International Political Studies.) Eisenhower Germany's initial successes in WW2 were undoubtedly produced by disproportionate attacks. Montgomery's attack on Rommel at Alamein fell into this category. So did Eisenhower's "Operation Overlord". Israel conquered Egypt, Syria and Jordan by its surprise attack in 1967. Sadat almost won the Yom Kippur War this way -- he misunderstood Israel's resilience and was taken by surprise by Sharon's unexpected maneuver. Kofi Annan Kofi Annan and the other armchair proponents of proportionality never commanded a victorious army. All they are doing is repeating the most recent slogan of the Palestinians who are at their PR best when portraying themselves as victims. Shock And Awe Based on the result of wars in the last 50 years one thing is plain: if you want to win a war you should attack by surprise (if possible) but certainly with overwhelming force. That the US still believes this is manifest from its attack on Iraq in the "Shock and Awe" operation. Krauthammer In a criticism of the Powell Doctrine (April 20, 2001) eminent columnist Charles Krauthammer writes: "If you respond proportionately, you allow the enemy to set the parameters and level of the fighting. You grant him the initiative. In Vietnam, proportionality brought us endless losses and painful retreat." Simpson In an internet letter July 24, one Peter Simpson admonishes Sky News for accepting Hezbollah's figures of civilian casualties. He writes: "It is pure conjecture to assume that virtually all are real civilians caught up in this conflict or whether most are not in reality Hizbollah fighters/ supporters including those who allow their homes and thus their wives and children's lives to be put at risk through housing/hiding rockets and the like." Friendly Fire In fact Hezbollah have not published their casualty figures unlike Israel which does so daily. Moreover Israel makes military mistakes too as does any army engaged in a vicious war. Why the world does not accept Israel's mistakes is puzzling. Haven't we, sadly and unfortunately, killed enough of our own soldiers by friendly fire? Where's The Benefit? Especially tragic and unfortunate are the deaths of the four UN personnel. I have previously made the point that military actions are taken to produce benefits. Kofi Annan's hasty judgment in this light is certainly wrong - unless he believes Israel deliberately courted the world's displeasure. For there was neither any military nor PR benefit. If Israel did not make a mistake as Annan prefers to believe, would he kindly explain the nature of Israel's benefit? Well of course he can't. Neither can anyone else. Not even the Palestinians can seriously suggest that Israel is so stupid. That we would go to so much trouble just to shoot ourselves in the foot every now and again. (Indeed both feet.) Because apparently, we have an unexplained need to motivate the majority in the United Nations to hate us all the more. Missiles And Civilians Civilian casualties are indeed deplorable. So let us then remember that Hamas and Hezbollah have already shot over 2,000 rockets plus uncounted numbers of mortars into Israel's towns and cities specifically intended to kill and wound Israel's civilians. We do not complain that they have not given us prior notice to save ourselves, as Israel has done. We don't expect decent conduct from terrorists. To be put on Jock Falkson's email list, contact him at falkson@barak-online.net |
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THE ONE THING THAT MAKES US VULNERABLE TO OUR ENEMIES
Posted by Rabbi Yaakov Palatnik, July 27, 2006. |
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The worst thing the Jewish People could do, the one thing that would make us vulnerable to our enemies was ... Twice in our history, our enemies have destroyed Jerusalem and the holy Temple that stood near where the Western Wall is today. Ancient Babylonia and, later, the Roman Empire came and brought their destruction upon the Jewish Nation. "Was there a spiritual blemish, a lack of greatness in the Jewish Nation, that could have led to these events"? asked the sages of long ago. They answered that the Jewish People indeed did have a spiritual blemish that allowed those events to happen. What was it? Shabbat? Kosher laws? Not going to shul or praying? No, they said, it wasn't any of that. Senseless hatred among the Jewish People was the source of those events, said the sages. Senseless hatred between members of the Jewish people. Senseless hatred means hating someone because they are not perfect, make mistakes or show lack of character. They never did anything particularly to us, but we see their mistakes with all the power of an electron microscope. Those of you who have older children love them to pieces for sure. Do you also see their mistakes? You probably do, in Technicolor. But you love them anyway. It's harder to do that with other family members, people we work with, members of our community. We can see another's mistakes. We can't give up our faculty of judgement on moral matters. But we can judge the action, not the person. The action may be wrong, but it doesn't in any way mean we are better people than those making the mistake. We should try to love others in spite of their mistakes, as people often do for their children. This love is part of the "spiritual armour" of our people. For more on Tisha B'Va (the Ninth of Av) and the Nine Days, visit www.aish.com. A Viewing Suggestion I know we are all focused on events in Israel. I recommend Hannity and Colmes on Fox News Channel at 9 tonight (Thursday, July 27). I make no comment on the politics of the show, but the hosts will be examining the new movie Obsession on the Islamic battle to fight Western and Jewish values. I personally know the movie maker and 100 percent recommend that you learn for yourself about this remarkable film. Shabbat Shalom. Good Shabbos. Contact Rabbi Palatnik by email at ypalatnik@aish.com |
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WW III, THE WAR OF LIES TARGETING JEWS, PARTS II, III
Posted by Professor Eugene Narrett, July 26, 2006. |
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The entirety of this essay will be posted on www.israelendtimes.com on July 26; please visit and consider the breadth of the threat to the Jewish people. |
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The Global State & Islam, Synergy of Interests, Means and Goals
The battles in Lebanon between the Islamic "army of Allah" (Hizbollah) and the armed forces of Israel (IDF) reveal distinctive historical, geopolitical, and ideological features about the drive toward a global state. For one, the latest in a series of mostly secular -- socialist governments of Israel is fighting a proxy war against the interests of the Jewish people, the people for whom the state was meant to serve as a sovereign source of identity and protection. It imperils rather than protects their interests because it is not a war but a bloody and utterly inadequate police action, part of an ongoing war of attrition that the ruling echelons, civilian and military, do not intend to win. Unless there is a fundamental change in the ruling cadres of their state, the people of Israel will have to get used to living in or near bomb shelters, and with the imminent threat of extinction via nuclear, biological or chemical weapons attack based in Lebanon, Syria or Iran. Israel is fighting this proxy war against Hizbollah, part of the government of Lebanon which has become, with its Shiite Muslim majority a de facto part of Iran in its drive to dominate not only the Middle East but the Islamic world. But Israel is fighting not only on behalf of the United States and Europe, the Europe that never tires of harming Israel via its media, economic boycotts and military aid to jihadist states; Israel also is fighting on behalf of the Anglo-American protectorates of Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and now Iraq, assuming America can pull Iraq from the Shiite into the Sunni Muslim and pseudo-western camp. It is a bitter irony for the Jewish people .... the Global State and Islam, Synergies The powers of the world have awakened jihad to facilitate their imposition of the Age of Aquarius, a world of forgetting, sensory rapture, chronic terror and promises of security in order to create "a world that is free... free of Jews" (Hannah Newman, the Rainbow Swastika). Israel and the Jews are to be crippled, not utterly destroyed if the powers play their hands perfectly. Why do they not want to utterly destroy Israel yet? Because both power-blocks need Israel as a catalyst of Islamic rage and the crises that ensue (and must be managed by various diplomatic and economic processes); they need Israeli medical, communications, military and security technologies and skills. And they need superbly trained and brave Israeli soldiers to bleed for them in the eternal end game... Israel will continue to sacrifice its people to serve the interests of the power-blocks that war on it so long as it has client regimes and dominant classes that dislike or reject Judaism. The support of the Olmert administration by most power-blocks (even by fiercely anti-Israel Islamic states like the House of Saud) indicates how sure they are of its commitment to the further expulsion of Jews and constriction of Israel. Indeed, on July 26 Olmert announced his intention to continue expelling Jews from their land. The interlocking parts of the competing blocks, their divergent self-interests, their intense and irrational hatred of Jews, and also the spark of self-respect and self-preservation in the Jews of Israel all are wildcards that may overturn this intrinsically unstable game of crisis creation and management. The overturning may be apocalyptic in scope. It will come -- the only question is how soon. Professor Eugene Narrett teaches writing and Literature at Boston University. He is the author of hundreds of articles, columns and reviews on politics, American culture and the arts. He is completing a study on Romanticism and the longterm decline of Western Culture. He writes often on subjects relating to Israel and Judaism and is a weekly columnist for the MetroWest Daily News in Framingham, Massachusetts. His new book is "Israel and the Endtimes". Contact him at Culturtalk@aol.com |
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HAARETZ GOT IT -- FINALLY
Posted by Yuval Zaliouk, July 26, 2006. |
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Dear friends, Even the liberal-left Haaretz newspaper sees the light on
the subject. The editorial is entitled
"Only after a clear success." It is archived at
Bravo, Haaretz! This time you got it! Took some time, but finally you got it... |
| The number of Israelis who have died thus far in the fighting in Lebanon and on the home front rose yesterday, following a bitter battle at Bint Jbail, and now stands at over 50. This harsh fact sharpens doubts about the wisdom with which this campaign is being run -- a different issue than its purpose and justice. It is joined by an incident in which four United Nations observers in southern Lebanon were killed by an accidental Israel Defense Forces strike. Most of the peacekeeping burden in southern Lebanon is carried by UNIFIL. The very real danger to UN Blue Helmets may reduce countries' willingness to contribute units to a force that the United States is trying to set up in Lebanon as part of a new security arrangement. In the 28 years since its establishment, UNIFIL failed to achieve its mission of implementing Security Council Resolution 425 and contributing to the restoration of security and order along the border. Instead of serving as a buffer between the PLO, and later Hezbollah, and Israel, it was a loose sieve that offered immunity to the planners of attacks. Therefore, the American effort to establish a new multinational force instead of the weak UNIFIL is justified, as is the approach of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who is working toward a stable cease-fire -- in other words, a cease-fire after Hezbollah is weakened. A premature cease-fire means a cessation of fire between salvos, and not an end to it. Hezbollah's leadership will be able to claim victory, arguing that it issued a call for a cease-fire immediately after it abducted two IDF soldiers, but that after two weeks of exchanging blows, their demand for negotiations were finally accepted. They will recoup their losses, with the generous support of their financiers in Tehran, and at a convenient moment, renew the fire. A serious blow to Hezbollah -- in order to bolster the political establishment in Lebanon, which objects to being held hostage by agents of Iran and Syria -- is essential in order to fashion a security arrangement, which will also be based on the multinational force. In order to deliver such a blow, the IDF must act faster, with greater force, in order to significantly lower -- to as close to zero as possible -- the number of Katyushas fired against Israel. The exclusive focus on the nearest ridge, with Bint Jbail at its center, will not bring about the desired results. If the rocket launchers that strike Haifa are further to the north, in the area of Tyre, control of Bint Jbail will not contribute to their destruction. The army's fighting ranks are characterized by determination and even enthusiasm, but the higher command ranks and the politicians look as if they have been frozen in a huge ice cube -- the trauma of the Lebanon War. The concern that they may be repeating that unfortunate adventure is paralyzing their steps to such an extent that they are themselves creating a new trauma, that of a home front helplessly being hit by Katyushas. Israel cannot allow itself to be drawn into a war of attrition, with mounting casualties both on the front and in the rear, that will end in a weak whisper of a draw -- which is effectively a victory for Hezbollah. The public in Israel understands very well what Rice also understands: a hasty end to the military operations, without any gains, will result in a renewal of the fighting in a few weeks. Yuval Zaliouk writes the Truth Provider columns. To subscribe, send an email to ynz@netvision.net.il |
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A RIDICULOUS PHONE CALL FROM AVENTIS
Posted by Salah Choudhury, July 26, 2006. |
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I received a phone call on 25th July 2006 from Mr. Mamun, Administrative manager of AVENTIS Pharmaceuticals in Bangladesh. Our Commercial Section had been sending copies of Blitz on complimentary basis to hundreds of potential advertisers since the launching of this newspaper. For the first time, this gentleman from AVENTIS called our office and looked for me. He told me that their company is not willing to receive copies of Blitz on complimentary basis as "this is a Zionist newspaper promoting ideas against Islam". I was completely surprised to see such reaction from a person, who works with a multi-national company. I told him, if they are affraid of the copies of Weekly Blitz, they should know for sure, most of the technology and formulas used by Aventis had also been invented by Jewish researchers. In this case, if they hate to read Blitz, why don't they close down their business, which runs with the formulas of our Jewish brothers and sisters. He replied, Blitz promotes some ideas, which he feels would seriously hamper the religious beliefs of the people in his company. So, anyway, this is one example where the companies are not only refraining from advertising in Blitz, they even do not wish to see the copies of this newspaper. To them, Blitz itself is a 'horror'. But, we have great news too. Every day, number of our readers are increasing. People are sending write ups from different countries for publication. Above all, Blitz is gradually becoming one of the most influential newspapers in Bangladesh. The writer is a journalist, columnist, author, and editor of "Weekly Blitz" in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Email him at salahuddinshoaibchoudhury@yahoo.com |
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DOES ISRAEL HAVE A RIGHT TO EXIST? DOES THE U.S.
Posted by Shaul Ceder, July 26, 2006. |
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This was written by Michael Medved,
an American nationally syndicated conservative radio talk show host, film critic and author.
It appeared
on the TownHall website:
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It should come as no surprise that some of the same angry leftists who stridently deny Israel's "right to exist" similarly challenge the claims to nationhood of the United States of America. After all, the two allied and embattled democracies achieved independence in the same way -- the patient settlement of largely desolate and under-populated land, the building of a new civilization virtually from scratch, and a long, bloody fight against determined, sometimes implacable opposition. In fact, Israel boasts a far stronger "right to exist" than does its American counterpart (or many other nations) because of its ancient claim to the disputed land, and long-standing endorsement by international organizations. In order to place these realities in proper perspective, it's first necessary to reject some thirty years of wildly irresponsible anti-Israel propaganda. First of all, it's not true in any sense that the modern Jewish State ever supplanted or destroyed an existing nation of "Palestine." From the time of definitive destruction of the ancient Jewish commonwealth in 70 A.D., the land that comprises the current State of Israel never enjoyed independent existence but, rather, passed back and forth among competing world empires -- Roman, Byzantine, Arab, Crusader, Mamaluke, Ottoman and British. Over the course of more than 1,800 years, no nation with the name "Palestine" appeared on any maps, anywhere. The distinguished Arab-American historian Philip Hitti, professor at Princeton University, testified to the Anglo American Committee in 1946: 'There is no such thing as 'Palestine' in history, absolutely not." Mark Twain visited the Holy Land in 1867, shortly before the commencement of modern Jewish resettlement, and described it as "a desolate country whose soil is rich enough, but is given over wholly to weeds -- a silent, mournful expanse" A desolation is here that not even imagination can grace with the pomp of life and action." According to the careful population figures of the Ottoman Empire, in 1882 (at the very beginning of the modern, organized Jewish immigration back to the ancestral home), the total population of land between the Jordan and the Sea was less than 250,000 -- in an area that today supports ten million people, Israelis and Palestinians. The resettlement of the sparsely populated Holy Land by the descendants of its ancient inhabitants, however, did not take place solely in the modern era. Throughout Jewish history, waves of returnees came back to the sacred soil of their ancestors. In the 8th and 9th centuries, A.D., Jewish immigrants re-established major communities in Jerusalem and Tiberias; by the 11th Century, they had built new communities in Jaffa, Ashkelon, Caesarea and Rafah. In the 16th Century, more Jewish immigrants developed the famous center of mysticism in Safed and beginning in the 1700's religious scholars and pilgrims intensely repopulated Jerusalem. The Jewish connection to Israel, in other words, remained impassioned and unbroken for some three thousand years, while the British connection with North American began only in 1607 (with Jamestown) and 1620 (with the Pilgrims at Plymouth). No European settlers to the New World claimed an ancient connection to the land they discovered, developed, and gradually populated. Moreover, the Native Americans who preceded them came to the Western Hemisphere across the land bridge from Asia at the very latest some 13,000 years before the White Men arrived, while the Arabs appeared in Israel for the first time in the 7th Century. If opponents of the modern Jewish State argue that Israelis have no meaningful claim on the land they occupy then on what basis do today's Americans have a stake in the vast continent once inhabited by millions of members of hundreds of Indian tribes? Moreover, the Jewish title to the land of Israel received long-standing recognition from international organizations that didn't even exist at the time of American independence. On July 24, 1922, the 52 governments of the League of Nations formally recognized and endorsed the British Balfour Declaration calling for "reconstituting... a national home for the Jewish people" in the land with which that people enjoyed "historical connections." Twenty-five years later, the United Nations (successor body to the League of Nations) validated this title with the partition plan, dividing the British Mandate in the area into two states -- one Jewish, one Arab. The Arab leadership violently rejected that solution, but after Israel's bloody war for Independence the UN recognized Israel as a full member state in 1949. Unlike Israel, the United States won no international recognition prior to the commencement of our own war for Independence; we only won that acknowledgment after the courage and sacrifice of the patriots who waged our Revolutionary struggle. In the end, an estimated 25,000 Americans died in the war -- nearly 1% of the Colonial population at the time. In a haunting similarity, Israel lost 6,373 fighters in its War of Independence -- nearly 1% of the Jewish population of nation at the time. In the case of the American struggle, final victory only became possible through the direct intervention of France, and the participation (at the climactic battle of Yorktown) of a French fleet and army of some 20,000. In the case of Israel, foreign assistance remained strictly limited (the US imposed an arms embargo on Israel and the rest of the Middle East in 1947) and no foreign armies of any kind ever fought alongside the beleaguered Israelis. In other words, the founders of the modern Jewish State built their nation on the same basis as the founders of the United States -- with generations of building, toil, business development, land reclamation, settlement, and sacrifice in battle. Tel Aviv -- by far the largest city in today's Israel, and the nation's financial center -- was founded in 1909 and built from nothing, mostly on reclaimed sand dunes. In Jerusalem, Israel's capital and second largest city, some two-thirds of the population lives in new neighborhoods built on empty land after Jewish immigrants began moving outside the Old City walls in the nineteenth century. Apparently, those who make the idiotic (but occasionally well-meaning) suggestion that the Jews of Israel should save the world some trouble and relocate in Florida, or Australia, or the moon, remain unaware of this history. The idea that literally millions of people would uproot their homes -- along with their businesses, parks, universities, museums, freeways and so forth -- makes no more sense than expecting residents of New York or Los Angeles to dismantle and abandon the cities that they (and their ancestors) built. Of course, those who suggest that Israelis should simply move their country somewhere else don't always mean well -- as evidenced by Iran's demented president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. His mad obsession with transplanting all Jews from the Middle East to Europe (he recently wrote a public letter to the Chancellor of Germany with that plan in mind) reflects one of the most pernicious big lies of Islamist propaganda: the contention that Israel was an alien intrusion "imposed" on the Palestinian people to compensate Jews for the Holocaust (which may never have happened anyway). Of course, this argument ignores the fact that the League of Nations endorsed the idea of a Jewish State in 1922 -- 11 years before Hitler even came to power! It also provides no explanation for the fact that the British Empire, which supposedly sponsored Israel as a refuge for allegedly persecuted Jews, actually blocked and outlawed settlement in the Middle East of all Jewish refugees from Nazi persecution both during the Holocaust years, and in the period immediately following the war. Most important of all, more than 700,000 Jews arrived in Israel as refugees from Islamic countries of North Africa and the Middle East and outnumbered all immigrants fleeing Hitlerism by a ratio of more than two to one. Ironically, one of these "Oriental Jews" who fled to the Jewish State from the Near East is the current President of Israel, Moshe Katzav -- who was born in Ahmadinejad's Iran, not Germany or Poland. Just as the population of the United States is made up of people whose forebears came from every corner of the globe -- from Africa and Asia and Latin America as well as Europe -- so too Israel has been populated by immigrants of all imaginable shades of skin color, from more than 80 nations (including a major recent influx from Ethiopia) on six continents. In neither case does the slogan "Go Back to Europe Where You Came From" make even the most superficial sort of sense. For those who instinctively resist any comparison of Israel's "right to exist" with that of the United States, the crucial difference must be one of longevity: America has now enjoyed 230 years of prosperous independence, while Israel has yet to reach its sixtieth birthday. Yet other nations (Slovakia? Turkmenistan? Namibia?) have come into being far more recently than Israel, without endless public challenges to their legitimacy. Montenegro, for instance, just joined the family of nations a few months ago -- despite the fact that more that 45% of the citizens of the new country voted against its independence. So if the long-standing, successful functioning of the American Republic provides the main basis for greater acceptance of our national existence, it might be more useful to analogize Israel today and the United States some 60 years after our own beginnings -- say, in the year 1836, at the height of the Jacksonian Era, when the admiring French visitor Alexis de Tocqueville toured the young Republic in eloquent amazement. Had America earned a "right to exist" by 1836? Countless Indian wars to secure the lands of the Great Plains and the West still lay in our nation's future, as did a spectacularly successful war against Mexico which brought about a vast expansion of American territory (into Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, California and more)--- sort of the U.S. equivalent of Israel's Six Day War of 1967. Except for the fact that Israel has already given back most of the land it gained in that conflict -- returning all of Sinai and Gaza to Arab adversaries, with the current Israeli government committed to still further (and very significant) concessions in the West Bank. These compromises (and potential compromises) reflect a fact that nearly all Jews understand, but that most Americans want to deny: that history is frequently, even generally, unfair. Whatever Israel's claims to legitimacy -- no matter how ancient the connection with the land, or how definitive the recognition by international law and putative world governments -- the nation exists only because of the ability and willingness of its people (past, present and future) to defend it against ruthless enemies. By the same token, it might be pleasant to assume that America remains secure and safe because a grateful world appreciates what our nation has done to introduce the concept of liberty to peoples around the world, or to save humanity from Hitlerism, Stalinism and now, Islamo-Nazism. But with unreasoning, fanatical anti-Americanism on the rise nearly everywhere, more citizens have come to realize that we survive on the same basis Israel survives: through determination, through strength of character and (not least) through military power. Like Israel, the United States isn't a nation that grew up organically in one small corner of the earth, combining people who already spoke the same language and looked the same and shared common cultures. Both nations drew a dazzling array of dreamers and visionaries and crazies from around the world who made the choice to embrace the values and plans of the pioneers ("Halutzim," in Hebrew). Of course, these national origins (involving acts of will, rather than accidents of birth) mean that Israel and America can't ever be as perfect, and blameless, and pure in our turbulent histories as, say, our old world counterparts like France, say, or Spain, or Belgium. But as long as people in Tulsa and Tel Aviv, Jefferson City and Jerusalem, remain ready to sacrifice and even die for the still stirring visions of the founders, the two dynamic Republics will continue to exist -- regardless of the world's acceptance of their "right" to do so. Contact Shaul Ceder at shaul.ceder@gmail.com |
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ISRAEL, THE MODEL
Posted by Shaul Ceder, July 26, 2006. |
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This was written by William Bennett and Seth Leibsohn. William Bennett is the Washington fellow of the Claremont Institute, the author of America: The Last Best Hope, and the host of Bill Bennett's Morning in America. Seth Leibsohn is a fellow of the Claremont Institute and the producer of Bill Bennett's Morning in America. Originally this appeared at National Review Online. |
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From the precincts of the European Union to the United Nations to the editorial pages in the United States, it is being argued that Israel's response to Hezbollah's kidnapping of Israelis and firing of rockets into Israel is "disproportionate," a threat to the region, and could undo the U.S. democracy project in the Middle East. What is disproportion in the Middle East? How should one state respond to multi-state-sponsored terror? Begin with the fundamentals. Hezbollah, once described as "the A-team of terrorists" by former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, is a terrorist group with a record of killing hundreds of Americans and Israelis (from Beirut to Saudi Arabia to Argentina to inside Israel). Hezbollah is of global reach and extent. It began with the fundamental goals of creating an Islamist state in Lebanon and the total annihilation of Israel. It is armed and supported by Syria and Iran, and it has branches in some 20 countries. It occupies 20 percent of the Lebanese parliament but that percentage does not give it sufficient due. Here is Amir Taheri in the London Times: Hezbollah is a state within the Lebanese state. It controls some 25% of the national territory. Almost 400,000 of Lebanon's estimated 4 million inhabitants live under its control. It collects its own taxes with a 20% levy, known as "khoms", on all incomes. It runs its own schools, where a syllabus produced in Iran is taught at all levels. It also runs clinics, hospitals, social welfare networks and centres for orphans and widows. The party controls the elected municipal councils and appoints local officials, who in theory should be selected by the central government in Beirut. To complete its status as a virtual state, the party maintains a number of unofficial "embassies": the one in Tehran is bigger and has a larger number of staff than that of Lebanon itself. Hezbollah also has its own media including a satellite television channel, Al-Manar (the lighthouse), which is watched all over the Arab world, four radio stations, newspapers and magazines plus a book publishing venture. The party has its own system of justice based on sharia and operates its own police force, courts and prisons. Hezbollah runs youth clubs, several football teams and a number of matrimonial agencies. In sum, it may very well have the run of Lebanon more than non-Hezbollah factions and institutions. Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, brags about this today. As for Israel's disproportion, it is worth remembering that Israel is but one state -- with a majority of Jews but a substantial Arab population. The Arab states number 22. The land-mass comparison is some 10,000 square miles compared to over five million square miles. That does not include Iran. The Palestinian Authority, situated now in the southwest of Israel, is a Hamas entity -- it is more lethal and Islamist than Arafat's PLO. President Bush, in articulating the post-9/11 doctrine, stated: "Every nation, in every region, now has a decision to make. Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists. From this day forward, any nation that continues to harbor or support terrorism will be regarded by the United States as a hostile regime." In some respects it is unnecessary to ask whether Lebanon "harbors" or "harbored" Hezbollah; but one definition of "harbor" is "to provide refuge" and there is no question that at the bare minimum, Lebanon allowed Hezbollah to operate in its country -- gave it ministerial portfolios in the cabinet and allowed the seating of its elected officials in parliament. It may, as a fragile, burgeoning, democracy have had no choice but to do this. But the question remains: Was that fragile democracy slowly moving to eradicate Hezbollah from its midst or was Hezbollah growing stronger and stronger? We know this about terrorists groups: As nature abhors a vacuum, terrorists thrive in them -- that is where they grow and empower themselves. And at least since Israel left Lebanon six years ago, Hezbollah has not gotten weaker. Further, if Hezbollah had believed Lebanon was constricting it rather than allowing it to thrive, it would not have launched an incursion into Israel. Nonetheless, Israel has not deliberately targeted the Lebanese government. Still, the question arises, however, that if the U.S. sides alone with Israel, would that not be a terrible message to send to the broader Middle East democracy initiative. This is the question that is the most lopsided of them all. We have long believed that, paraphrasing former CIA director Jim Woolsey, democracy is not one vote, one time. Israel is in the Middle East and is a democracy that passes the Woolsey test and has done so for almost 60 years. Lebanon has had one election in recent times and it weaved Hezbollah into that democracy. The PA had an election and it put Hamas in charge. It seems to us that if one wants to further the Middle East democracy project -- and not be cynical about it -- the U.S. is doing precisely what it should: showing support for the established democracy, not the fragile and inept one that allows, tolerates or -- at a minimum -- turned a blind eye to Hezbollah in its midst. At the end of the day, if Middle Eastern democracies are desired, and they are, does one not want models to point to? What model should the U.S. be pointing to to the Iranian dissidents, the Egyptian dissidents, the Saudi dissidents? Would we be right to say, "Vote and behave like they did in Lebanon, and erect a government like that (where 400,000 people live under Hezbollah control)," or "Look at Israel: It comes to the aid of others around the world, it has a minority population with full democratic rights that even serve in government, and its economy, free of oil, works." It may be wishful thinking to assume Arab peoples will fully want Israel as their model, indeed it is probably naive. Nonetheless, if the U.S. is to be held accountable for initiating and supporting democracies, the one that is one year old and hosts Hezbollah is not the model we should be propagating. So the next time the question is asked about the Middle East democracy project in light of Israel, Lebanon, and the Middle East -- the reminder needs to be made: Israel is a democracy and it is in the Middle East. And one final point: If Hezbollah, Syria, and Iran were to be victorious in their military actions and ideology, two things would not exist: 1) Israel and 2) Lebanese democracy of any kind. Contact Shaul Ceder at shaul.ceder@gmail.com |
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NEW YORK POST: ISRAEL IS LOSING THE WAR
Posted by Zalmi, July 26, 2006. |
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Sobering editorial from the NEW YORK POST July 22, 2006 (since which the tide has turned somewhat, but most points are still very valid). |
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All Hezbollah has to do to achieve victory is not to lose completely. But for Israel to emerge the acknowledged winner, it has to shatter Hezbollah. Yet Israeli miscalculations have left Hezbollah alive and kicking. Israel has to pull itself together now, to send in ground troops in sufficient numbers, with fierce resolve to do what must be done: Root out Hezbollah fighters and kill them. This means Israel will suffer painful casualties - more today than if the Israeli Defense Force had gone in full blast at this fight's beginning. The situation is grave. A perceived Hezbollah win will be a massive victory for terror, as well as a triumph for Iran and Syria. And everybody loves a winner - especially in the Middle East, where Arabs and Persians have been losing so long. Israel can't afford a Hezbollah win. America can't afford it. Civilization can't afford it. Yet it just might happen. Israel tried to make war halfway, and only made a mess. Let's review where the situation stands: * By trying to spare Israeli lives through the use of airpower and long-range artillery fire instead of ground troops, the IDF played into Hezbollah's hands. The terrorists could claim that Israel feared them. Meanwhile, Israeli targeting proved shockingly sloppy, failing to ravage Hezbollah, while hitting civilians - to the international media's delight. This should set off global alarm bells: If Hezbollah can hide rockets, Iran can hide nukes. * The media sided heavily with Hezbollah (surprise, surprise). Rocket attacks on Israel were reported clinically, but IDF strikes on Lebanon have been milked for every last drop of emotion. We hear about broken glass in Haifa - and bleeding babies in Beirut. But the clock's ticking. Washington can only buy Israel so much time. * Every rocket that lands in Israel is a propaganda victory for Hezbollah. After 1,000-plus Israeli air-strikes, the rockets keep falling, and Israel looks impotent. The price of sparing Israeli infantrymen has been the elevation of Hezbollah to heroic status through the Muslim world. The situation is grim. Israel looks more desperate every day, while Hezbollah appears more defiant. This is ultimately about far more than a buffer zone in southern Lebanon. In the long run, it's about Israel's survival. And about preventing the rise of a nuclear Iran and the strengthening of the rogue regime in Syria. It's also about the future of Lebanon - everybody's victim. The mess Israel has made of its opportunity to smack down Hezbollah should be a wake-up call to the country's leadership. The IDF looks like a pathetic shadow of the bold military that Ariel Sharon led into Egypt three decades ago. The IDF's intelligence, targeting and planning were all deficient. Technology failed to vanquish flesh and blood. The myth of the IDF's invincibility just shattered. If Israel can't turn this situation around quickly, the failure will be a turning point in its history. And not for the better. Contact Zalmi at zalmi@zalmi.net or go to his website:
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ORWELL MEETS ALICE - THROUGH THE MID-EAST LOOKING GLASS
Posted by Bernard J. Shapiro, July 26, 2006. |
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Seeing through the fog of war Israel is at war and you need to know how to separate fantasy from reality. Understanding the meaning of words in such a situation is very difficult for even the best linguist or psychologist. We must go back and remember the classic book by George Orwell, 1984, in which a totalitarian government manipulates the meaning of words to confuse its citizens about reality. He called this new language "newspeak". While Orwell's book was an attempt to satirize the Soviet communist regime, its meaning extends much more broadly. A QUICK DECODER 1. Remember that Arabs lie and the figures given for civilian casualties are greatly exaggerated. Since most Hizbollah and Hamas terrorists wear civilian clothes and mix with the local population, it is very easy to distort the true toll on civilians. 2. Damage to Lebanese infrastructure is also greatly exaggerated. Photographers and reporters in Lebanon MUST repeat the Arab terrorist propaganda line or be tortured or executed. No such threat hangs over reporters in Israel. When the media reports from both sides, you can get a very distorted picture. We tend to think that the veracity of the two sides is equal. 3. It is a hoax that there is NO MILITARY solution to Hezbollah, Hamas, Iran and genocidal terrorism. Those that come to kill Jews must be destroyed. There is no other choice. No "Mr. Nice Guy". The most moral position for Israel is to protect its own citizens and soldiers. 4. It is a hoax that the UN can do anything good for Israel. That also goes for Europe, Egypt and Saudi Arabia. The usefulness of international forces separating Arab terrorists from Israeli defenders is nil, nada, zero. In fact, it is a negative, inhibiting Israel's defensive measures. All diplomacy is also a hoax. Only the power of the IDF allows Israel to survive. Right and justice are nice, but in the final analysis, a nation's ability to survive depends on raw military power. Treaties, cease fires and negotiations are useless. 5. It is a hoax that public opinion is of great significance to Israel's survival. A strong aggressive public relations campaign is quite important, but is NO substitute for unflinching resolve to protect Israel's security and guarantee its survival. Golda Meir once said: "I would rather have a thousand angry editorials directed at Israel, than one beautiful eulogy." I would have to use the words of Harry Truman to express my contempt for the world that has murdered, raped, pillaged, expelled, forcibly converted and finally exterminated us. As Truman once said: "They ain't worth a bucket of warm spit." 6. Another hoax is that Israel depends on American aid and must be willing to sacrifice its security to the interest of its ally. The reality is that Israel and America have a very useful symbiotic relationship. The many ways in which the U.S. benefits from the relationship hardly need enumeration -- intelligence, technology, counterterrorism techniques and much more. America gets its money's worth and more. BUT THIS IS NEVER MENTIONED IN POLITE CIRCLES. For that matter, much or most of the monetary foreign aid to Israel is spent in the U.S. and goes into the American economy. It is Israeli leaders, for their own political purposes, who fail to utilize Israeli power to alter its asymmetric relationship to America. 7. Another hoax of the Left and the Islamists, for the past 13 years, is that when Israel defends itself it hurts its cause. That is, it should try to "win the hearts and minds" of the enemy, and "harming civilians" is counterproductive. Of course, we know that Hamas and Hezbollah barbarically and illegally operate freely within civilian neighborhoods in S. Lebanon and the PA. A very wise Rabbi Schiff gives the analogy: "If you and I were neighbors, and I allowed a family to move into my house in my living room and shoot rockets at your house from my yard, and to store their rockets in my basement, and the police do nothing about it for years, and have "Peace Now" on my lawn telling you not to harm me standing in my kitchen - what would you do?" Orwell Meets Alice - Through The Mid-East Looking Glass We have been treated to the modern equivalent of Orwellian newspeak, not to mention a harrowing trip through Alice's looking glass. One could not help but notice the extent to which the Arabs were being portrayed as pure and innocent. A casual observer would certainly think that all violence in the Middle East was a product of bloodthirsty Jewish settlers roaming the Judean-Samarian hills looking for Arab prey. The PLO/PA leadership, its hands dripping with Jewish and Arab blood, demanded protection from the vicious Jewish residents of Judea, Samaria and Gaza (YESHA). It refused to return to negotiations until its demands were met. The gullible international media took this whole charade seriously. The United Nations began debating a resolution to give protection to the poor vulnerable Palestinians. The PLO demanded that all Jewish communities of YESHA be ethnically cleansed of those rotten murderous Jews. At the very least they needed to be disarmed, to make them easier targets for Arab terrorists. The high and the mighty beseeched Arafat to return to the talks with Israel. The late Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, obviously anxious to please his PLO friends, began a crackdown on Kach and Kahane Chai and other so-called Israeli extremists. Consider this "logic": Rabin determined that Baruch Goldstein acted alone in his reprisal act. He then decided to outlaw the organizations associated with him. Guilt by association is what made McCarthy big in the 50's. It was wrong then and it is wrong now. Reality Check: Now Kach and Kahane Chai have been labeled as terrorist organizations, although they never have committed a single act of terror as a body. The PLO, which is guilty of thousands of murders of Arabs and Jews, continuing still, is labeled a "partner for peace" and will be given arms to kill some more (as "policemen"). Reality Check: Are Arabs in danger from armed Israelis in YESHA? Some research reveals the following figures since the famous handshake on September 13, 1993: Israelis killed by Arabs = over 1600, plus 10,000 injured and maimed for life
It is clear that except for the attack by Goldstein, the Arabs have not been threatened by Jews and certainly need no special protection. If you travel to YESHA you will notice that every Jewish village needs a security fence, while every Arab village is open. Doesn't this tell you who is threatened and who isn't? All the talk about disarming the Jews is a cover for the Arab desire to murder them. And if you desire murder, wouldn't it be nice to disarm your victim first? The media has begun to adopt another tactic which we should protest. In the New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, The Houston Chronicle, CNN and most of the other media, opponents of the suicidal Oslo, Roadmap and Jewish Expulsion Plan are being referred to as rightwing extreme, Arab-hating and anti-peace groups. Do you ever remember the PLO, PA, Hezbollah or Hamas ever being referred to as Jew-hating groups, although their covenants and speeches are filled with hatred of Jews? Arafat and then Abbas often referred to Jews as "filthy, sons of monkeys and pigs", but are still rarely referred to in the media as Jew-haters. Reality Check: To the best of my knowledge there is a distinct difference between Jewish feelings about Arabs and Arab feelings about Jews. Arabs are taught from the earliest grades to despise Jews, and their clerics preach hatred (Itbach El Yahoud - slaughter the Jews) in many of their services. Jews, on the other hand do not preach hatred, but those who are not brain dead recognize, after 120 years of being attacked, that Arabs mean them harm. The media is totally obfuscating the truth about the conflict by the use of such clichd phrases as "Arab-hating Jews" or "cycle of violence." Another problem with media coverage of the Israel-PLO/PA so-called "peace negotiations", is the way their opponents are described. Arabs opposed to the deal because they want to kill or expel all Jews from "Palestine" immediately, are equated with Jews and Israelis who want Israel to survive in secure borders. Opponents of national suicide are called "anti-peace", as opposed to supporters of such suicide being "pro-peace". Reality Check: Most opponents of the deal with Arafat/Abbas oppose it because it is suicidal for many strategic, historical and objective reasons. None of us are anti-peace. We just recognize that the path chosen by the Rabin/ Peres/Barak/Olmert governments will lead not to the hoped for and advertised peace, but to Israel's destruction. In another bizarre twist of logic the Los Angeles Times reports that Israel's leading peace group, Shalom Achshav (Peace Now), had urged Sharon to remove 500,000 Jewish inhabitants of YESHA (including Jerusalem) to avert widespread bloodshed under Palestinian self-government, and to forcibly evict all Jews within five years. They said that their continued presence, "fostering violence and bloodshed, endangers peace prospects." Reality Check: The facts demonstrate that it is the Palestinians and not the Jews that are the cause of 99.9% of the violence. Why not remove the Palestinians? What Peace Now is really admitting is that there is NO PEACE nor any prospect of PEACE. The liberal Jewish establishment and most of the media were appalled when Rabbi Meir Kahane first began talking about transferring the Arabs from Eretz Yisrael. Most are still appalled at this idea. A new idea has come into fashion, though, among these same righteous Jews: transferring the Jews from YESHA (heartland of Eretz Yisrael). Former Secretary of State James Baker once said it would be a good idea to use the $10 Billion in US loan guarantees to buy out and transfer the Jews from YESHA. US President Bill Clinton seemed to like the idea and so did Rabin's coalition partner Meretz. Reality Check: There is no moral difference between transferring either Jews or Arabs from YESHA. What Kahane said years ago about the inability of Jews and Arabs to live together is being validated today by the same people who condemned him. The 120-year war of extermination launched by the Arabs against the Jews of Israel has had many twists and turns. Sadly, it seems headed for Alice's looking glass and the world of 1984, where black is white, war is peace and good is evil. Bernard J. Shapiro is the Executive Director of the Freeman Center For Strategic Studies. He is also the editor of its publications including THE MACCABEAN ONLINE URL:http://www.freeman.org/online.htm and its daily subscriber list of news and commentary, The Freemanlist and the Freeman Center blog. This is archived at
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ISRAEL: A KINGDOM OF PRIESTS, RULED BY DWARFS
Posted by Jack Engelhard, July 26, 2006. |
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Those of us who root for Israel are still waiting to exhale. Where's the headline that tells us that Israel has delivered a knockout punch? We search for it on Fox, MSNBC, even CNN, and certainly in our local and national newspapers, but it just won't give. The bad news keeps on coming. Israel is being scorched by rockets and missiles and the IDF is fighting gallantly but not as swiftly and as decisively as in the past. We got spoiled in 1948, 1967, 1973, wars with a beginning, middle and an end. Entebbe marked Israel as a nation of heroes. What happened? My guess is that the magic left Israel the moment Yitzhak Rabin shook the hand of Yasser Arafat. From there, Israel learned retreat and defeat. Or rather, Israel's leaders conditioned the people to accept passivity and humiliation, all for the illusion of a "peace process." Call it, rather, a softening up process, whereby Israel has been drowsed by the lullabies of its rulers. Ehud Barak pulled the IDF out of Lebanon in what the Arab world perceived as panic. Hezbollah moved in. The same panic motivated the regime of Ariel Sharon and Ehud Olmert to flee from Gaza, and Hamas moved in. These leaders (or their proxies), from Rabin onward, must answer for every Israeli life that's been lost as they, these leaders, went whoring after peace. Rabin, Barak, Netanyahu, Sharon, Olmert, Peres--all must explain how it has come to this, this day when Israel is vulnerable to thousands of rocket attacks. Where were they when those underground tunnels were being built? Most were busy slandering religious Israelis. Sharon and Olmert had no time for Hamas or Hezbollah, busy as they were bulldozing several thousand "nationalist" Israelis out of Gaza. Today, Olmert speaks heroically. Too late, Mr. Prime Minister. Also today, Israel's failed politicians continue to show up on our television screens as experts on this crisis, and that is disgusting. Mr. Barak, half of this is your fault. Please, stay out of our living rooms. Stay home and hide your shame. Sharon and Olmert kept talking about "painful concessions" and here it is, the pain. First came the concessions, and now, here's the pain. But who knew the pain would be this bad, so bad that as the rest of us weep, Tony Kushner and the Washington Post's Richard Cohen may have reason to laugh. They've been saying that Israel (not the 22 tyrannical and fanatical countries that surround Israel) is a "mistake." Incredibly, they are joined in Israel by journalists, writers, filmmakers, academics, jurists, and, as always, the political elite. They too must be held accountable for their treachery. I know the people of Israel first-hand, from my service in Haifa, yes, the same Haifa being bombed today. Israelis, 99 percent of them, are like Americans. They love peace, cherish liberty. They continue to advance all civilization in technology and science. They are, indeed, a kingdom of priests, a holy nation. They deserve better and if there is a God in heaven--well, if there is, he'd better hurry up. Jack Engelhard is the author of the bestseller "Indecent Proposal," the award-winning "Escape from Mount Moriah," and the novel "The Days of the Bitter End," which is being prepared for movie production. His latest novel, "The Bathsheba Deadline," is now available in serial form at Amazon.com. He receives e-mail at viewopinion@aol.com This article appeared in
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THE LEBANESE REALLY BLAME HEZBOLLAH
Posted by Daily Alert, July 26, 2006. |
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This article was written by Michael Young, who is opinion editor of
the Daily Star newspaper in Lebanon and a contributing editor
to Reason magazine in the United States. It appeared in the Spectator
in England |
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BEIRUT -- The smoke from the countless fires burning in Beirut's southern suburbs have turned the city's skies battleship grey. It makes mid-July seem almost autumnal and saps Beirut of what remains of its spirit. Even the busiest high streets are largely empty now, and most shops close quickly at midday, not wanting to release their employees too late. Outside central Beirut, the effect of Israel's attacks is more dramatic. Many of the country's roads are pocked with craters, the damage to the infrastructure could take years to repair, 235 are dead so far -- most of them civilians -- and buildings burn. On Wednesday morning, Israeli troops crossed into southern Lebanon to carry out what they call "pinpoint attacks". The Lebanese Prime Minister, Faoud Siniora, has said that "the gates of hell have been opened up in Lebanon" -- and it's difficult to disagree. But what has not been so widely reported is that while officials will blame Israel for the misery and chaos, a substantial number of Lebanese -- in some cases, ironically, the officials themselves -- have a more nuanced view. Of course the people here are angry and anxious about the possibility of a widening of the Israeli attacks, but their rage, as they see the country being taken apart, is often directed against Hezbollah. The Lebanese people have watched as Hezbollah has built up a heavily armed state-within-a-state that has now carried the country into a devastating conflict it cannot win and many are fed up. Sunni Muslims, Christians and the Druze have no desire to pay for the martial vanity of the Hezbollah leader, Hassan Nasrallah. Nor will they take kindly to his transforming the devastation into a political victory. Some even welcome Israel's intervention. As one Lebanese politician said to me in private (but would never dare say in public) Israel must not stop now. It sounds cynical, he said, but "for things to get better in Lebanon, Nasrallah must be weakened further". Even some Shiites are beginning to have doubts about Nasrallah. If interviewed on television they will praise Hezbollah, but when the cameras are off, there are those who will suddenly become more critical. Many have had to flee, leaving behind their homes and possessions with no hope of recovering anything of any worth. One evening this week I looked out of my apartment window in the Christian neighbourhood of Ashrafieh and saw an Israeli shell exploding on top of the grain silo at Beirut port. The colossal concrete silo got the better of that exchange, but in the Shia quarters of southern Beirut the bombs have won outright. Hezbollah's so-called "security perimeter" -- the party's sanctum sanctorum, where Nasrallah and his officials lived and worked -- has been reduced to a smouldering wasteland. Displaced Shia families have moved into Beirut proper, taking refuge in schools, public facilities and empty apartments. Here in Beirut, Nasrallah is also blamed for the suffering in southern Lebanon which, under heavy fire from Israeli cannons, has suffered in the same way as the southern half of the city. On Tuesday, a family of nine died after air strikes in Aitaroun; another family was killed in Tyre. It's difficult for journalists to gain access to the south since the Israelis have bombed all the roads and bridges, but local television crews on the ground record an exodus of refugees northwards. Now that Israel has started targeting transport trucks -- in the hope of preventing the movement of weapons to Hezbollah -- it is becoming increasingly difficult for even UN aid to get through. It is quite understandable, then, that those who can have fled or are fleeing the country. Nearly 400 people left on an Italian navy vessel on Monday night, and a ferry chartered by France took 1,200 Europeans to Cyprus. On Tuesday the first Royal Navy warship, HMS Gloucester, took 180 Britons to safety, with a further 4,750 waiting on the dock, hoping to follow by the end of the week. An American cruise ship is on its way to Lebanon to collect many of the reportedly 25,000 US citizens here, followed by planes and ships from countries as far away as Chile. Even the UN has let its non-essential staff go. For the rest of us, stuck here in Beirut, the real question is how long the electricity, the water and the telephone network will last. Israel has not yet resorted to its usual tactic of hitting the power grid, and the electricity remains on in most regions outside the south; however, it seems inevitable that if Hezbollah bombs Tel Aviv, Israel will retaliate with an attack on the power supply. Even without a direct hit, if Israel pursues its blockade shortages will become acute -- this could return us to the Israeli siege of Beirut in 1982, when we lived for three grinding months without electricity, water, fresh food or telephones. The difficulties of doing without food and fuel are obvious, but what people forget is that when the electricity goes, so does the television. All the main stations have special programmes on the conflict which means extended news broadcasts with reports from around the country and interviews with analysts -- dismally protracted to fill up a 24-hour schedule. It's exhausting but the coverage can also be life-saving. It provides an early warning system for us here, allowing us to gauge where the danger zones are. If the TV goes, so does Al-Manar, Hezbollah's television station which is still transmitting from a remote location (though the Israelis have demolished its headquarters in the southern suburbs). Al-Manar is all rousing propaganda, stock footage of successful raids on Israeli positions, of intimidating militiamen marching through the southern suburbs, of poor Shiites throwing rice on party members celebrating the Israeli withdrawal in May 2000 -- the party's moment of absolute triumph. Interminable interviews with guests praise "the brave resistance" -- a phrase which even to Shiite ears sounds increasingly hollow. The Daily Alert is published by the Jewish Center for Public Affairs for the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations. Contact them to subscribe at daily-alert@dailyalert.org |
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CNN REPORTER ADMITS BEING HEZBOLLAH TOOL
Posted by Likud-Herut, July 26, 2006. |
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[Editor's Note: Brigette Gabriel commenting on Robertson being
Hezbollah's Tool said in www.americancongressfortruth.com, "While
talking about media coverage today, I thought you would be interested
in this information. Gee? It was only like 2 years ago when CNN
admitted they shaded stories for Saddam to get access to Iraq....
Basically becoming Saddam's Propaganda Network...... So they could
gain a "competitive" advantage on Fox by having access to Iraq........
Now a CNN Reporter gains access from Hezbollah and turns in a
propaganda piece for them, later admitting he was their propaganda
tool... this after the CBC and BBC printed stories that the Israeli
Army is the one censoring the news!!!!
"CNN's senior international correspondent Nic Robertson admitted on Sunday that his anti-Israel report on civilian casualties in Lebanon was stage-managed from start to finish by Hizballah terrorists... CNN's Robertson Now Admits: Hezbollah 'Had Control' of His Anti-Israel Piece."] |
Back on July 18, Hezbollah took Robertson and his crew on a tour of a heavily damaged south Beirut neighborhood. The Hezbollah "press officer" even instructed the CNN camera: "Just look. Shoot. Look at this building. Is it a military base? Is it a military base, or just civilians living in this building?" In his original story, Robertson had no complaints about the journalistic limitations of a story put together under such tight controls, and Robertson himself at one point seemed to agree with the Hezbollah propaganda claim that Israeli jets had targeted a civilian area: "As we run past the rubble, we see much that points to civilian life, no evidence apparent of military equipment." Challenged by Reliable Sources host (and Washington Post media writer) Howard Kurtz on Sunday, Robertson suggested Hezbollah has "very, very sophisticated and slick media operations," that the terrorist group "had control of the situation. They designated the places that we went to, and we certainly didn't have time to go into the houses or lift up the rubble to see what was underneath," and he even contradicted Hezbollah's self-serving spin: "There's no doubt that the [Israeli] bombs there are hitting Hezbollah facilities." But the closest Robertson came to making any of these points in the taped package that aired last week was admitting that "we [he and his CNN crew] didn't go burrowing into all the houses," after pointing out (for the second time) that "we didn't see any military type of equipment" in the area Hezbollah chose to let them tour. Five days later, Robertson argued that "journalistic integrity" required skepticism: "When you hear their [Hezbollah's] claims, they have to come with more than a grain of salt, that you have to put in some journalistic integrity. That you have to point out to the audience and let them know that this was a guided tour by Hezbollah press officials along with their security, that it was a very rushed affair." While some viewers undoubtedly deduced out that it was "a guided tour" from the numerous sound bites from the Hezbollah press officer, it's not as if Robertson ever complained about his limitations or explicitly warned viewers that there was no way he could confirm any of the claims. Nic Robertson, of course, isn't the only correspondent going on these Hezbollah-arranged tours, as CNN's Reliable Sources noted yesterday. In a set-up to his interview with Robertson, Kurtz played clips of NBC's Richard Engel and CBS's Elizabeth Palmer relating their trips into the damaged areas, with Palmer providing the sort of disclaimer that Robertson failed to include last week: "This morning, Hezbollah showed journalists around the ruins of its former stronghold, but Hezbollah is also determined that outsiders will only see what it wants them to see." Now more of Robertson's live interview (10:15am EDT) on the July 23 Reliable Sources. This following is an excerpt from (transcript corrected against the actual broadcast): Howard Kurtz: "I want to go now to CNN's Nic Robertson, who joins us live from Beirut. Nic Robertson, we were speaking a moment ago about the way journalists cover Hezbollah and some of these tours that Hezbollah officials have arranged of the bomb damage in the areas of Southern Lebanon. You, I believe, got one of those tours. Isn't it difficult for you as a journalist to independently verify any claims made by Hezbollah, because you're not able to go into the buildings and see whether or not there is any military activity or any weapons being hidden there?" Nic Robertson: "Well, Howard, there's no doubt about it: Hezbollah has a very, very sophisticated and slick media operations. In fact, beyond that, it has very, very good control over its areas in the south of Beirut. They deny journalists access into those areas. They can turn on and off access to hospitals in those areas. They have a lot of power and influence. You don't get in there without their permission. And when I went in, we were given about 10 or 15 minutes, quite literally running through a number of neighborhoods that they directed and they took us to." "What I would say at that time was, it was very clear to me that the Hezbollah press official who took us on that guided tour - and there were Hezbollah security officials around us at the time with walkie-talkie radios - that he felt a great deal of anxiety about the situation....But there's no doubt about it. They had control of the situation. They designated the places that we went to, and we certainly didn't have time to go into the houses or lift up the rubble to see what was underneath." "So what we did see today in a similar excursion, and Hezbollah is now running a number of these every day, taking journalists into this area. They realize that this is a good way for them to get their message out, taking journalists on a regular basis. This particular press officer came across his press office today, what was left of it in the rubble. He pointed out business cards that he said were from his office that was a Hezbollah press office in that area." "So there's no doubt that the bombs there are hitting Hezbollah facilities. But from what we can see, there appear to be a lot of civilian damage, a lot of civilian properties. But again, as you say, we didn't have enough time to go in, root through those houses, see if perhaps there was somebody there who was, you know, a taxi driver by day, and a Hezbollah fighter by night...." Kurtz: "To what extent do you feel like you're being used to put up the pictures that they want - obviously, it's terrible that so many civilians have been killed - without any ability, as you just outlined, to verify, because - to verify Hezbollah's role, because this is a fighting force that is known to blend in among the civilian population and keep some of its weapons there?" Robertson: "Absolutely. And I think as we try and do our job, which is go out and see what's happened to the best of our ability, clearly, in that environment, in the southern suburbs of Beirut that Hezbollah controls, the only way we can get into those areas is with a Hezbollah escort. And absolutely, when you hear their claims they have to come with more than a grain of salt, that you have to put in some journalistic integrity. That you have to point out to the audience and let them know that this was a guided tour by Hezbollah press officials along with their security, that it was a very rushed affair, that there wasn't time to go and look through those buildings." "The audience has to know the conditions of that tour. But again, if
we didn't get all - or we could not get access to those areas without
Hezbollah compliance, they control those areas."
Contact the British Likud-Herut organization at likud-herut.org.uk
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THE WAR -- A SYNOPSIS
Posted by Mordechai Ben-Menachem, July 25, 2006. |
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Synopsis Let's take a moment to review where we are and what has occurred, and from this, perhaps we will have a better idea of what may occur. The war began when Hamas tunnelled under the fence, attacked an army post inside the internationally accepted, undisputed borders of the country, killed two and took a third prisoner (kidnapped). We began operation in Gaza, mostly because of Corporal Gilead Shalit. The government would, in my estimation, have continued its cowardice had they "just" murdered. Once these operation had begun, Hezbollah, the Barak-empowered organization sponsored by Iran and (mis)managed from Syria took a similar action. Crossed the international border, killed eight soldiers and kidnapped two into Lebanon. If the Gaza operation could have been waffled by the international apologists for terror, the Lebanese operation could not. It was clearly an act of war, over an international border, from a country with whom the entire civilized world had recognized that we had established an international border, with all that implies. Both incidents show interesting facts concerning the security value of fences -- a stupid waste of taxpayer's money and an asinine misplacement of expectations. This was followed by us beginning to bombard Hezbollah emplacements throughout Lebanon. Not just in the South, bombing gun emplacements, as had been done in the past, but real bombing, and massively. Clearly, the rules had changed with the kidnapping of two soldiers. By the way, the two taken to Lebanon are reservists, one is a father. After we began heavy bombing operations throughout Lebanon, they, Hezbollah, began shelling Israeli cities and towns throughout the North of the country, including both Holy Cities of Tzfat and Tiberius and also Haifa (our third largest city and a large industrial centre). In their first bombardment, they killed two citizens. It should be noted that while we constantly drop flyers all over Lebanon asking the civilians to please get out of the way (BTW, we also use Arabic-speakers to personally telephone Lebanese citizens to ask them to help themselves and please get out of the way). Hezbollah has done everything possible, including murder, to prevent them moving north as they try to use them as shields. One picture in the British Guardian showed a Lebanese family that had been decimated in their van. It later turned out that the van (and family) was destroyed by Hezbollah, not by us, though of course, the Guardian did not bother to retract. There have been very interesting economic phenomena. The price of oil on the international markets initially rose, but has remained steady. The price of the Sheqel initially dropped against the dollar and Euro, but has totally recovered and continues to rise. In other words, this war has not (yet) significantly impacted either the Israeli economy or the world's. Another interesting impact is on Aliyah. What is Zahal doing? IDF has been steadily advancing into Lebanon. We have declared that a new buffer zone will be implemented in South Lebanon. However, we have also declared that we have no interest in manning this buffer zone and we expect it to be manned by some international force -- this assumes that the Lebanese Army cannot and will not man it themselves as Hezbollah is significantly stronger than they are and they cannot stand before them. IDF has taken Bint j'Bail ("Daughter of the Mountain" -- a beautiful name for the place). This has always been considered the Hezbollah "capital" in Lebanon (as opposed to what many thought, that it was in the Bekaa). This town was heavily fortified. Heavily means, the entire town, almost every single home and building, had a bunker under it, some of them to fantastic depths and many reinforced with multiple meters of concrete. BTW, the Bekaa valley used to be one of the primary opium-growing areas of the world. One of the points of the 1982 war was to stop opium export (Assad's oil-equivalent). IDF has been bombing heavily with three objectives. A) Destruction of all Hezbollah infrastructures, particularly command and control. B) Interdiction of resupply of Hezbollah from Syria and Iran. C) Prevent them from spiriting away those two soldiers that they have to foreign parts as they did with Ron Arad 20 years ago (sold by Hezbollah to Iran for cash). In addition, of course, we have also been using airstrikes to take out rocket launchers in great quantity. (Katyusha rockets are generally launched from trucks with many tubes. While they can be set off to launch from a donkey, there is no way to aim without the truck.) One of the results of A has been that Hezbollah has had to resort to "Vietnam-era-like" warfare of using firebases. Once a firebase is destroyed, they entire ground structure is without of leadership. This has been very effective and has aided us in taking large quantities of captives -- it seems their motivation to die and get those 72 virgins is not quite as high as some thought. Nasrallah has been "apologising" to his people over the past day, they are not doing anywhere near as well as they expected. In the British parliament, it has been stated (this afternoon) that the constant shelling of northern Israel, with tens of dead civilians, has caused Israel "much discomfort" -- this goes well beyond so-called British understatement and can only be called gross stupidity. My assessment and opinion In principle, I think Zahal is doing a good job and that the government is doing a terrible job. The political function (to remind everyone, in a democracy, the army is under the control of the politicians and this is as it should and must be) began by being and has remained, much too slow to react and much too hesitant. Had they been decisive, the damage to Hezbollah could have been greater, in less time. For instance, there has been no serious damage, or at least not sufficiently serious, in the Bekaa. This provides Hezbollah, and particularly their leadership, with a fallback area. In the beginning, it was stated that Nasrallah was not a target. It seems that this was an honest statement, albeit a stupid idea. Today, it was announced that Nasrallah would be targeted and it was an objective to cause maximum damage to their leadership. Again, this should not, I feel be discussed, but simply done. Once significant leadership roles had been eliminated, then it could have been discussed. Our political leadership tends to try to play politics too much while at war -- talks too mach and does too little. I believe the war is going reasonably well, though there are points that I am not happy with. It must be remembered that Hezbollah has weapons that could strike us from being fired from North of Beirut. Making the South a buffer zone is helpful, very helpful. It takes the short-range rockets out of the reckoning and that is a large quantity (many thousands of their arsenal). However, a buffer zone by itself is not sufficient. It would, I think, be a mistake to talk about Hezbollah being 'smashed once and for all' -- no matter how much we mash them, it will not be 'once and for all'. The hydra will rear its ugly head again and again as long as their sponsors continue to facilitate this (Iran is the leader, Syria is the facilitator). Europe has, throughout this crisis period vacillated between stupidity and irrelevancy. As time marches on and they get closer to Arab control, they get weaker. Do not, in my estimation, expect them to play a relevant role on this stage. Will we "win" this war? I don't think there is a clear definition of win. And I think that that is the biggest problem of the war -- a lack of leadership has prevented such a definition from being determined. However, this war is not Israel-Hezbollah, or even Israel-Lebanon. This war is the first instalment of the war between the West -- US and Israel -- and Iran. Mordechai Ben-Menachem is at Ben-Gurion University. He can be reached by email at quality@computer.org |
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IN NEUTRAL SWITZERLAND, A RISING RADICALISM
Posted by Manuel Vider, July 25, 2006. |
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Dear Editor: Less than the expulsion of ALL Muslims living in the place that these conmotions happen, is there any other practical solution? This was written by Craig Whitlock, Washington Post Foreign Service, and it appeared July 20, 2006; A14. |
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Islamic Extremists Newly Seen as Threat BERN, Switzerland -- For centuries, this Alpine nation has successfully relied on a strict policy of political neutrality to insulate it from the wars, invasions and revolutions that have raged outside its borders. These days, a new threat has emerged: one from within. As they have elsewhere in Europe, Islamic radicals are making inroads in Switzerland. Last month, Swiss officials announced the arrests of a dozen suspects who allegedly conspired to shoot down an Israeli airliner flying from Geneva to Tel Aviv. In a related case, a North African man has been charged with organizing a plot from Swiss soil to blow up the Spanish supreme court in Madrid. For years, even after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the United States, Swiss officials assumed that their country was one of the last places Islamic radicals would look to attack. Long considered a slice of neutral territory in a world full of conflicts, Switzerland trades on its status as home to the International Committee of the Red Cross and other diplomatic institutions. As the global jihad movement becomes more decentralized and fragmented, however, Swiss security officials are warning that their country could become a target. In an intelligence report completed in May, the Swiss Federal Police reversed previous assessments that the domestic risk of terrorism was nearly nonexistent. The report concluded that Switzerland had become "a jihadi field of operation" and predicted that terrorist attacks were "an increasing possibility." "It would be dishonest to say that these groups are ready to act in Europe but that Switzerland is an island and that these groups could not be active in Switzerland, too," Jean-Luc Vez, director of the federal police, said in an interview here in the Swiss capital. "It is very, very important for us to say this to the Swiss politicians and the Swiss people." The changes in Switzerland mirror those in other smaller European nations that, until recently, didn't see themselves as likely targets for Islamic terrorists. In Sweden, another country with a long history of neutrality, prosecutors last month convened a top-secret closed trial of three terrorism suspects in the southern city of Malmo. Authorities have not identified the suspects or disclosed any evidence. But Swedish media have reported that the arrests were made at the request of British counterterrorism investigators. In Denmark, counterterrorism authorities say they remain on high alert after a Danish newspaper printed cartoons of the prophet Muhammad that spurred boycotts, death threats and violent protests in Islamic countries. And in the Netherlands, the Dutch government has classified the risk of a terrorist attack as "substantial," a threat level proportionally higher than in the United States, where homeland security officials judge the risk as "elevated." The Dutch government established its threat-ranking system in November 2004, when an Islamic radical killed the Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh. Like Denmark, the Netherlands has contributed troops and other support to U.S.-led military campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq. But until the van Gogh killing, Dutch officials had played down the threat of terrorism at home. Since then, the number of Islamic radicals in the country has increased, as has the number of fundamentalist imams who are seeking to recruit new followers, said Tjibbe Joustra, the Dutch national coordinator for counterterrorism. He said international conflicts such as the war in Iraq are fueling the problem, although the Netherlands has also been polarized over its difficulties in assimilating Muslim immigrants. "I'm afraid we are seeing an increase in radicalization in the Netherlands," Joustra said in a telephone interview. "In their search for motivation and their search for reasons to radicalize, they are no longer looking so much at national issues as international ones." Jacques Pitteloud, a former coordinator of the Swiss intelligence agencies, said that in the past Swiss officials were primarily concerned that outside radical networks might try to use the country as a logistical base to raise money or support operations elsewhere. Most terrorism suspects arrested or questioned after Sept. 11, 2001, were foreigners just passing through. That has changed recently, he said. Most of the suspects in the Israeli airliner case, for example, are immigrants who were granted Swiss residency. "We might be facing a new era in homegrown terrorism," said Pitteloud, now the director of the Center for International Security Policy, an arm of the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs. "We don't feel like we are a primary target, but in the end, Switzerland is a symbol of quite a lot of things that radical Islam hates." Officials worry about attacks on foreign embassies and institutions in the country. An estimated 350,000 Muslims live in Switzerland, constituting about 5 percent of the population. Swiss officials said they have done a better job integrating foreigners into the population than other European countries and have fewer radical mosques and organizations. But "we have seen early signs now of anti-Swiss propaganda on the Internet," Pitteloud said. "We have our fair share of radical Islamists, there is no doubt, many of whom we don't know what to do about because many of them are refugees and we can't just kick them out." Swiss lawmakers are considering a proposal that would allow police and the domestic intelligence service to tap the phones of suspected radicals or access their computers, even if there is no evidence of criminal wrongdoing. A similar measure was rejected last year in the Swiss parliament. Andreas Wenger, director of the Center for Security Studies at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, said the warnings from Swiss intelligence and security services have been slow to register. "Part of the political spectrum in Switzerland still has the feeling that because we are neutral and not associated with great power politics, that we are less likely to become a target," Wenger said. "The public perception is behind other European countries, most definitely." Vez, the federal police chief, said domestic spying restrictions have hurt Switzerland's ability to swap counterterrorism intelligence with its allies. "The biggest problem has been the sharing of information with our partners in Europe," he said. "Intelligence-sharing functions like a market. 'If you want something from me, you have to give me something.' " Switzerland effectively had to build a counterterrorism program from scratch after the Sept. 11 attacks. It keeps a national database of radical suspects, but the watch list is not easily accessible by many police agencies. In October 2004, Spanish authorities announced that they had broken up a plot by a cell of Moroccan radicals to drive a truck bomb into the National Court building in Madrid. They identified the leader of the cell as Mohammed Achraf, 31, who had sought asylum in Switzerland and been jailed two months earlier in Zurich on minor charges. Spanish authorities said that Achraf organized robberies in Switzerland and funneled cash to Madrid to finance the plot, and that he continued to plan the attack even while he was locked up in a Swiss jail. Swiss officials said they didn't realize at first that Achraf, who used several identities, was a suspected radical or that he was under investigation in Spain. Achraf has since been extradited to Madrid. He was indicted in March along with 31 other defendants. In June, Swiss prosecutors said Achraf had been in contact with a member of the cell that had "the serious intent" to shoot down the Israeli plane. Investigators have released few details about the alleged plot, and it is not known whether it had progressed beyond the planning stages. Swiss and Israeli news media have reported that the Israeli airline El Al canceled flights from Geneva to Tel Aviv for a week in December 2005 after it was warned by Swiss counterterrorism officials. Prosecutors said that the cell consisted of about a dozen members and that it committed robberies throughout the country and transferred money to other cells in Spain and France. Cell members in those countries were arrested about the same time as part of a coordinated international investigation. Seven suspects in Switzerland are being held in preventive detention, while four others have been released, said Hansjuerg Mark Wiedmer, spokesman for the Swiss Attorney General's Office. None of the suspects has been publicly identified. Under Swiss law, they can be held indefinitely without facing formal charges since they represent a flight risk, Wiedmer said. Hans Hofmann, chairman of the intelligence oversight committee in the Swiss parliament, said the arrests showed that the country was vulnerable. "Swiss intelligence is realizing that you can't just sit back and cross your arms and say, 'We're not a target because we're a small country,' " he said. "Switzerland is no longer able to exclude itself from the rest of the world in the face of a globalized threat." Special correspondents Shannon Smiley in Bern and Silke Lode in Berlin contributed to this report. Contact Manuel Vider at mardoqueo_morde@yahoo.com |
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ISRAEL AT WAR -- VISITS TO NORTHERN ISRAEL
Posted by Nurit Greenger, July 25, 2006. |
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This report called "Israel at War" comes from the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews (www.ifcj.org/site/PageServer?pagename=Israel_War_Blog). |
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When rockets began raining down on Israel last week, The Fellowship went into action. Staff from our Israel office has been traveling through northern Israel to provide emergency assistance to the cities under attack and express solidarity with the Israeli people. In each of the cities we've visited, the reaction and appreciation we've received has been extremely heartfelt and moving. Below we're posting regular updates from our Israel staff to give you a glimpse into every day life in Israel during a time of war and to let you know how your support has been helping Israel through this crisis.
Contact Nurit Greenger at 4nuritg@gmail.com |
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SEND SOLIDARITY MESSAGE TO SUPPORT TO ISRAEL
Posted by Nurit Greenger, July 25, 2006. |
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Friends, YNET, Israel's online newspaper, is making it possible for people all over the world to post a message of support for Israel. If you would like to send a message of support that will be read all over Israel, click here. Contact Nurit Greenger at 4nuritg@gmail.com |
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ISRAEL IN CRISIS. COLEL CHABAD IS HERE TO HELP
Posted by Arutz-Sheva, July 25, 2006. |
THE JEWS IN SAFED ARE HIDING IN THEIR BOMB SHELTERS, PRAYING FOR AN END TO THE RAIN OF ROCKETS. COLEL CHABAD VOLUNTEERS ARE GOING DOOR TO DOOR RIGHT NOW TO MAKE SURE THEY HAVE WHAT TO EAT ... ... AND EVACUATING CHILDREN TO SAFETY AT CHABAD SUMMER CAMPS IN THE SOUTH OF ISRAEL. YOUR EMERGENCY DOLLARS ARE TREMENDOUSLY PRECIOUS BECAUSE THEY MEAN... 
- THE SAFETY OF SUMMER CAMPS (SAFE PLACES WITH WHOLESOME FOOD, PLENTY OF ACTIVITIES AND COMPASSIONATE COUNSELORS) FOR HUNDREDS OF CHILDREN. THIS IS A HUMANITARIAN CRISIS PURE AND SIMPLE. ANYONE IN NEED IS BEING HELPED REGARDLESS OF BACKGROUND OR RELIGIOUS AFFILIATION. COLEL CHABAD VOLUNTEERS ARE LITERALLY RISKING THEIR OWN LIVES TO HELP THESE PEOPLE SURVIVE! BUT THEY NEED YOUR HELP. EVERY TAX-DEDUCTIBLE DOLLAR IS NEEDED. THANK YOU FOR YOU IMMEDIATE AND GENEROUS RESPONSE. To Donate:
Click here.
The Arutz-Sheva website address is www.IsraelNationalNews.com
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FAILURE TO SOLVE 'PALESTINIAN' QUESTION EMPOWERS IRAN
Posted by Sanda Abramovici, July 25, 2006. |
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This was written by Mark Steyn, a Canadian and US columnist. He is a regular contributor to The Australian's opinion page. He will address the Centre for Independent Studies in Sydney on August 14 and the Institute of Public Affairs in Melbourne on August 17. It appeared in Jewish World Review (jewishworldreview.com/0706/steyn072406.php3) July 24, 2006. If only they had refused to indulge Arafat The myth that the Muslim world's problems are directly linked to the Palestinian question has gone up in flames, argues Mark Steyn. |
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A FEW years back, when folks talked airily about "the Middle East peace process" and "a two-state solution", I used to say that the trouble was the Palestinians saw a two-state solution as an interim stage en route to a one-state solution. I underestimated Islamist depravity. As we now see in Gaza and southern Lebanon, any two-state solution would be an interim stage en route to a no-state solution. In one of the most admirably straightforward of Islamist declarations, Hussein Massawi, the Hezbollah leader behind the slaughter of US and French forces 20 years ago, put it this way: "We are not fighting so that you will offer us something. We are fighting to eliminate you." Swell. But suppose he got his way, what then? Suppose every last Jew in Israel were dead or fled, what would rise in place of the Zionist entity? It would be something like the Hamas-Hezbollah terror squats in Gaza and Lebanon writ large. Hamas won a landslide in the Palestinian elections, and Hezbollah similarly won formal control of key Lebanese cabinet ministries. But they're not Mussolini: they have no interest in making the trains run on time. And, to be honest, who can blame them? If you're a big-time terrorist mastermind, it's frankly a bit of a bore to find yourself deputy under-secretary at the ministry of pensions, particularly when you're no good at it, and no matter how lavishly the European Union throws money at you, there never seems to be any in the kitty when it comes to making the payroll. So, like a business that has over-diversified, Hamas and Hezbollah retreated to their core activity: Jew-killing. In Causeries du Lundi, Charles-Augustin Sainte-Beuve recalls a Parisian dramatist watching the revolutionary mob rampaging through the street below and beaming: "See my pageant passing!" That's how opportunist Arabs and indulgent Europeans looked on the intifada and the terrorists and the schoolgirl suicide bombers: as a kind of uber-authentic piece of performance art with which to torment the Jews and the Americans. They never paused to ask themselves: Hey, what if it doesn't stop there? Well, about 30 years too late, they're asking it now. For the first quarter-century of Israel's existence, the Arab states fought more or less conventional wars against the Zionists and kept losing. So then they figured it was easier to anoint a terrorist movement and in 1974 declared Yasser Arafat's Palestine Liberation Organisation to be the "sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people", which is quite a claim for an organisation then barely a decade old. Amazingly, the Arab League persuaded the UN, the EU, Bill Clinton and everyone else to go along with it and to treat the old monster as a head of state who lacked only a state to head. It's true that many nationalist movements have found it convenient to adopt the guise of terrorists. But, as the Palestinian movement descended from airline hijackings to the intifada to self-detonating in pizza parlours, it never occurred to its glamorous patrons to wonder if maybe this was, in fact, a terrorist movement conveniently adopting the guise of nationalism. In 1971, in the lobby of the Cairo Sheraton, Palestinian terrorists shot Wasfi al-Tal, the prime minister of Jordan, at point-blank range. As he fell to the floor dying, one of his killers began drinking the blood gushing from his wounds. Doesn't that strike you as a little, um, overwrought? Three decades later, when bombs went off in Bali, killing hundreds of tourists plus local waiters and barmen, Bruce Haigh, a former Aussie diplomat in Indonesia, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, had no doubt where to put the blame. As he told Australia's Nine Network: "The root cause of this issue has been America's backing of Israel on Palestine." Suppose this were true: that terrorists blew up Australian honeymooners and Scandinavian stoners in Balinese nightclubs because of "the Palestinian question". Doesn't this suggest that these people are, at a certain level, nuts? After all, there are plenty of Irish Republican Army sympathisers across the world (try making the Ulster Unionist case in a Boston bar), yet they never thought to protest against British rule in Northern Ireland by blowing up, say, German tourists in Thailand. Yet the more the thin skein of Palestinian grievance was stretched to justify atrocities halfway around the world, the more the Arab League big-shot emirs and EU foreign ministers looked down from their windows and cooed, "See my parade passing!" They've now belatedly realised they're at that stage in the creature feature where the monster has mutated into something bigger and crazier. Until the remarkably kinda-robust statement by the Group of Eight and the unprecedented denunciation of Hezbollah by the Arab League, the rule in any conflict in which Israel is involved - Israel v PLO, Israel v Lebanon, Israel v (Your Team Here) - is that the Jews are to blame. But Saudi-Egyptian-Jordanian opportunism on Palestine has caught up with them: it has finally dawned on them that a strategy of consciously avoiding resolution of the Palestinian question has helped deliver Gaza and Lebanon and Syria into the hands of a regime that's a far bigger threat to the Arab world than the Zionist entity. Cairo and co grew so accustomed to whining about the Palestinian pseudo-crisis decade in, decade out, that it never occurred to them that they might face a real crisis one day: a Middle East dominated by an apocalyptic Iran and its local enforcers, in which Arab self-rule turns out to have been a mere interlude between the Ottoman sultans and the eternal eclipse of a Persian nuclear umbrella. The Zionists got out of Gaza and it's now Talibanistan redux. The Zionists got out of Lebanon and the most powerful force in the country (with an ever-growing demographic advantage) are Iran's Shia enforcers. There haven't been any Zionists anywhere near Damascus in 60 years and Syria is in effect Iran's first Sunni Arab prison bitch. For the other regimes in the region, Gaza, Lebanon and Syria are dead states that have risen as vampires. Meanwhile, Kofi Annan in a remarkable display of urgency (at least when compared with Sudan, Rwanda, Congo and others) is proposing apropos Israel and Hezbollah that UN peacekeepers go in to keep the peace not between two sovereign states but between a sovereign state and a usurper terrorist gang. Contemptible as he is, the secretary-general shows a shrewd understanding of the way the world is heading: already, non-state actors have more sophisticated rocketry than many EU nations; and if Iran has its way, its proxies will be implied nuclear powers. Maybe we should put them on the UN Security Council. So, what is in reality Israel's first non-Arab war is a glimpse of the world the day after tomorrow: the EU and the Arab League won't quite spell it out but, to modify that Le Monde headline, they are all Jews now.
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DEFEATING THE BARBARIANS AT OUR GATE
Posted by Isi Leibler, July 25, 2006. |
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This war could have been avoided had we not continued to bury our heads in the sand as we watched the Katyusha missile infrastructures being built by Hizbullah on our northern border. For over a year, Kassam rockets rained over us and although we threatened reprisals ad nauseam, all we did was bomb empty fields and abandoned buildings. History will surely now condemn the unilateral Gaza disengagement and the precipitous withdrawal from Lebanon as unmitigated disasters, both from the military standpoint as well as from the vantage of psychological warfare. All we did was succeed admirably in convincing the jihadists that we lacked deterrent capabilities and were at the point of unraveling in terms of national morale. But this is not a time to indulge in recriminations. Today we must set aside our differences and unite behind our leaders, making them aware that if greater sacrifices are required in order to defeat the barbarians at our gate, they have our full support. PRIME MINISTER Ehud Olmert is a civilian without military experience. And "peacenik" Minister of Defense Amir hardly radiates the charisma of a warrior. But David Ben-Gurion, Levi Eshkol, and Menachem Begin also lacked military backgrounds but emerged as outstanding national leaders in war as in peace. Besides, most Israelis of all political persuasions would agree that since the outbreak of hostilities, both Olmert and Peretz have performed in an exemplary manner and emerged as true national leaders. The prime minister's recent Knesset speech to the nation was Churchillian, and will go down in history as one of the most stirring calls to the nation from any Israeli leader. Clearly the present campaign to root out Hizbullah has created a greater sense of Israeli unity than at any time since the Six Day War. Aside from a handful of fringe extremists and eccentric Ha'aretz op-ed writers, there is a genuine consensus that this is truly a classic case of a just war. Our adversaries no longer even bother to go through the pretence that the conflict is related to land for peace. Hizbullah and Hamas, backed by the Iranians and Syrians, seek the elimination of Jewish sovereignty - nothing less. WE ARE NOT attacking Lebanon. We are attacking Hizbullah, which has stuck itself like a leech on the Lebanese people. They are terrorists armed with lethal hi-tech weapons who believe they are sanctified to ravage our sovereign territory in order to kill and kidnap civilians and soldiers. No other country could remain passive in the face of such provocations, combined with the daily launching of missiles on civilian population centers. By any terms these are acts of war. As Olmert put it in the Knesset, "No more!" And whereas decent nations at war may seek to minimize casualties of innocent non-combatants, to relate to "proportionality" in this context can only be described as playing foul. Playing foul are those repeating the perennial mantras of "cycles of violence" and spouting generalizations based on moral equivalency which fail to distinguish between aggressors and victims. Playing foul was Kofi Annan scolding us, and the UN Security Council resolution condemning Israel for "disproportionate use of military force" - a resolution which was only averted by the US veto. Playing foul were the Russians, the French and other Europeans demanding a halt to the "inflicting of suffering on innocent Lebanese civilians." Playing foul was the EU President deploring the destruction of civilian infrastructure and condemning Israel's "unjustified air and sea blockade," even hinting at economic sanctions. TO HIS CREDIT, President Bush stood by Israel from the outset, adamantly reiterating our right to defend ourselves and refusing to support a cease-fire which would have enabled Hizbullah to retreat and regroup in order to confront us again at a time of its choosing. We should not be under any illusion that the hostile attitude displayed against us by much of the world will change overnight. But now, for the first time, even countries that until now displayed bias and applied double standards in judging us are following the American lead. Perhaps recent events may finally be making some of the Europeans aware of the stark reality that they and we Israelis are on the same side, on the front lines facing the authentic cut-throat jihadists, the advance guards of Islamic fundamentalism seeking to conquer the world and transform it into a caliphate. The first major breakthrough came with the statement of the G8. For the first time Russia and France endorsed a resolution which clearly distinguished between the aggressor and victim. Hopefully it may represent the turning point of a growing realization that the only real beneficiaries from this violent upheaval are the Iranians, who are orchestrating the conflict to promote their own objectives. THE PEOPLE of Israel are already displaying qualities of fortitude and determination that their enemies mistakenly believed had been eroded by soft living and consumerism. Now is the time for us to reinforce our unity and national consensus. So long as the government remains firm on its objectives - the dismantling of Hizbullah and the return of the hostages - we are entitled to expect our politicians to set aside their differences. Now is the time to demonstrate our united resolve, with leading opposition politicians, including Binyamin Netanyahu speaking to the world, with one voice in support of the efforts of our prime minister. Now is the time to promote the most talented and articulate Israelis to present our case to the world, even if that requires some of the currently ensconced bureaucrats to temporarily step aside. Now is also the time to repair our relationship with Diaspora Jewry and welcome their input into the war of ideas in which we have been losing ground over these past years by being falsely portrayed as brutal occupiers. This could represent the beginning of a campaign to reverse the global tide of media demonization and bias confronting us. HISTORY MAY make us grateful that the Hizbullah offensive took place now rather than in a few years' time, when the price in blood would undoubtedly be much higher. Our challenge is to guarantee that the bloodshed and the sacrifices our people are currently making will not be in vain and will result in a more secure Israel. That means finishing the job, as Prime Minister Olmert has promised to do The writer chairs the Diaspora-Israel Relations Committee of the Jerusalem Centre for Public Affairs and is a veteran international Jewish leader. Contact him at ileibler@netvision.net.il |
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THE THIRD FRONT
Posted by Fern Sidman, July 25, 2006. |
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While Israel is engaged in heavy fighting with Hezbollah terrorists on the northern front and Hamas terrorists on its southern front, it would appear that Israel's proverbial nemesis, better known as the media, has opened a third front with its incessant assaults on Israel. While the media may not be launching Katyusha or Kassam rockets aimed at Israeli cities, the rockets that the media launches are instrumental in degrading Israel in the war of public opinion. Case in point would be the drastic difference in the content and modality of reporting between the two major cable networks, CNN and Fox News. To the average viewer, it would appear that CNN and Fox are reporting the news from two different planets. While it is true that the Ted Turner owned CNN, has its own left wing agenda along with the perfunctory anti-Israel bias that goes with that territory, and Roger Ailes' Fox News has a more conservative, pro-Republican platform, the stark and extreme contrasts cannot be missed. To state that their coverage of the current war between Israel, Hezbollah and Hamas is diametrically opposed would be a gross understatement. One need only press the button on their television remotes for a period of an hour or so, to gain tremendous insight into the world of media propaganda, distortions and lies. For a truly mercurial experience, just spend an evening with Anderson Cooper and Larry King of CNN and then visit with Sean Hannity and Bill O'Reilly over at Fox. The story according to CNN is the following: Israel is murdering Lebanese children and civilians en masse, Israel is not making a dent in Hezbollah's power, Israel is not forthcoming in opening up a corridor for humanitarian assistance to Lebanon, Israel is causing a refugee crisis amongst the Lebanese population, Israel is using phosphorus in its weaponry, Israel refuses to agree to a cease fire, Israel's retaliation against Hezbollah has been "disproportionate", Israel refuses to engage in negotiations with Hezbollah over a prisoner exchange. CNN's conclusion is: World opinion will turn against Israel because of its actions. One can only scratch their heads and ask, is there a pattern developing here??? As we watch Anderson Cooper taking us for tours of hospitals in Lebanon showing the burnt and mangled faces of Lebanese children, while giving platforms to Hezbollah supporters who spew forth their party line which includes accusations against Israel for starting this conflict by occupying Palestine, to scared and trapped Americans who blame Israel for the destruction of Beirut. Repetitive images of Israeli tanks and gun ships shooting missiles into Lebanon fill our screens ad infinitum, while there is never a image of a Hezbollah terrorist shooting a Katyusha rocket into Israel. If this weren't enough one sided and biased journalism, we are also treated to an hour of Larry King, who gives more than ample time to Hezbollah journalists, Syrian ambassadors, and a whole host of other Israel bashers. King allows them to make hate filled speeches riddled with inaccuracies and grandiose distortions about Israel and her role in this current conflict, while never challenging them in any kind of meaningful and significant manner. In marked contrast to CNN's coverage of the war, there is a definitely a more "fair and balanced" coverage on Fox News. While far from being totally fair and balanced Fox News takes pains in researching new details from their reporters in the Middle East and presenting a more even handed account of the situation in Israel. From Sean Hannity to Bill O'Reilly to Greta Van Susteren to Sheppard Smith, one can see that these journalists are dedicated to digging out the truth by ask searing questions concerning the facts of the situation, which are so very often buried under the propaganda and lies of Hezbollah and other Arab spokesmen who are allowed lengthy platforms for their vituperative and vitriolic rhetoric against Israel. There is no question that Fox News is far from perfect and has on more than one occasion fallen prey to the CNN and New York Times syndrome of making Israel the scapegoat for the world's problems, but by in large, Fox has made a concerted effort, thus far, to reporting the news with a high degree of accuracy. That is all that we can ask from the media. In general, they always have been instrumental in generating negative feelings towards Israel and have been the biggest asset of the cause of Hamas and Hezbollah and other terrorist organizations in the region. Right now, they represent the third front that Israel must contend with. An enemy that is funded not by regimes predicated on terror but on corporate dollars. It is an enemy that never runs out of rockets or mortars or missiles, for their verbal missiles and subliminal messages are in infinite abundance and these fatal weapons shape a public image of Israel that is more deadly than rockets because they pervade the hearts and minds of their viewers. For the Jewish people, this is an old story. Since Guttenberg invented his first printing press in the 1600s, words and thoughts have always been published against Jews. The media of today bares little difference to its more in-your-face predecessors. While the facts may be different, today's media is just re-hashing the same kind of Israel hating messages that is has done for close to six decades. The media is a persistent and resilient foe, almost an implacable one, yet despite this most formidable enemy, we have borne witness to our continued existence as a nation. As with the Greeks, Romans, Crusaders, the Turks, the Nazis, the British, the Soviet Union, the PLO, Hamas and Hezbollah and all the other enemies that I may have forgotten to list, those who sought to vanquish and eradicate the Jewish nation and the Land of Israel, we tell them and the media that they have not succeeded in our destruction and with G-d's help they never will. Anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism are one in the same and they are a permanent part of and endemic to our society. With G-d's help, we will deal with the media as we have with our other enemies and may we take comfort in the fact that we are a people who fears and obeys only the Almighty G-d of Israel and does not fear the words of mortal enemies. World opinion will always be against the Jewish nation, and fearing it and cowering over the words and threats of world leaders is a futile exercise and a colossal waste of precious time. Let us utilize our precious time in appealing to the Holy One Blessed Be He, who girds His nation Israel with strength, crowns His nation Israel in glory and gives strength to His weary nation. For in the end, the media is just another enemy in a huge litany of enemies. Let us turn to Hashem Yisborach at this critical juncture in time, for it is He who marches into battle with us and it is He who will conquer our enemies, if we only recognize His dominion and His glory. And to the media, we say, just take your place on the back of a very long line. You're not our first enemy and you won't be our last. May we our prayers reach the Almighty G-d of Israel and may we be zoche to the see our redemption, speedily in our days. Contact Fern Sidman by email at ariellah@aol.com |
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HOW TO GUARANTEE A PRO-ARAB OPINION
Posted by Dr. Jerome S. Kaufman, July 25, 2006. |
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If one wants to be guaranteed a Pro-Arab opinion just have as your guest, Edward Djerian, former ambassador to Syria who spent his political career in the State Department favoring the Arab position against Israel. What prompted this discussion is Djerian's recent oft-repeated supposedly profound Arab propaganda statement - "There is no military solution in the Middle East." That is, of course, because thank G-d, Israel, given free rein, would conceivably win any military solution, resoundingly defeat their enemies and obtain some genuine peace in the region providing they were not once again, forced to return territory vital to their and the world's security. It also ignores the fact that this has never been American policy. In fact quite the opposite is used and found to be successful - defeat your enemies to the point of surrender and then dictate a peace that would be disrupted at the enemy's great peril. Not coincidentally Djerian, along with Martin Indyk, both examples of the classic State Department school favoring close ties to Arab states, are now part of the Baker Institute in Houston Texas, founded by James Baker, former Secretary of State who worked under President George Bush during the first Gulf War. You will remember it was he who pressured Israel to absorb over 30 missiles fired deliberately into Israel by Saddam Hussein. This faulty strategy of enablement set the groundwork allowing Hussein to remain in power and has directly resulted in the current Iraqi debacle that has fallen upon the shoulders of George Baker's son, President GW Bush. Other luminaries of the time and same political persuasion like Dennis Ross have also assumed the mantle of network Middle East experts but cleverly changed their chameleon-like political colors depending upon how much money they can make with public speeches and selling books while attempting to regain political power under any new administration. Hopefully the media will become more aware of who they are interviewing as "experts" and not hire these people, that is unless their political bias fits in with the that of the involved media. So, what else is new? Jerome S. Kaufman is National Secretary of the Zionist Organization of America. and host the Israel Commentary website (http://www.israel-commentary.org). |
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ISRAEL HAS NO MORE OPTIONS
Posted by Daniel J. Teeboom, July 25, 2006. |
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Through combination of Western appeasement of Islamic Fundamentalism and political pressure on the Jewish State, peace in the Middle East is no longer possible. A Dutch parliamentary commission decided in November 2004, right before Theo Van Gogh was murdered, to ban Hezbollah as a terrorist organisation. This would have far reaching results for Hezbollah in Europe, and its relationship with the EU. Bert Koenders, an expert for foreign affairs for the Dutch Labour party, made it known how unhappy[1] he was with this decision. According to him it would have been much better to involve[2] Hezbollah in Lebanese politics, instead of banning it. A rapport of the Dutch Scientific Council for Government Policy (WRR),[3] which was published about a year and a half later, reached a similar conclusion: Do not fight the Islamic terror organisations, but give them political power and money instead. As a result, the theory goes, they will become more moderate. The so called experts thought the same after the election victory of Hamas, which according to them would surely force Hamas to abandon its radical ideology. The reality was of course different, but most experts on the Middle East here in Europe, do not let their opinions be influenced by something as trivial as that. Nothing came of Hezbollah ban, the party of Allah is still recognized by the EU as a legitimate Lebanese party. Albeit a party with an army, 10.000 rockets and 100 million dollars of aid per year from Iran.[4] Obviously it was not Hezbollah that got involved in Lebanese politics, but Lebanon which got involved with the politics of Hezbollah. Many European leaders complain that Israel's response to the kidnappings is far from proportionate. They could well be right because Israel has no other option except to strike with full force. The Israeli's might have won many wars but through a combination of Western pressure and Islamic terrorism, those victories have lost their value. Israel appeared invincible after the Six Day War, and the Yom Kippur war more or less confirmed this notion. The largest and most powerful Arab country, did not decide to make peace because of its love for Israeli's. It agreed to make peace because it could not defeat Israel militarily, nor did it have any hope to force Israel's hand through a combination of diplomacy and terror. The Camp David accords were signed at a time when Israel was still supported by the entire Western world. This has now changed. A country which is not supported by what should have been its natural allies, appears weak and vulnerable. Would Egypt have agreed to a peace deal had it known that it could get the entire Sinai back through terrorism? The flow of condemnations from the UN and the constant pressure from the EU, give Muslims the hope that Israel can be defeated through a combination of political manipulation and violence. It is this knowledge that attracts recruits for Hamas and Hezbollah. Not despair but hope is the reason why the violence never ends. Nobody blows himself up for a compromise. Israel planned to trade most of the the occupied territories for peace. But terrorism combined with international pressure has forced Israel to abandon this plan and give up land unilaterally. As long as Israel keeps land occupied it is losing international support, and eventually will risk sanctions. The retreats from Gaza and South-Lebanon have demonstrated that giving up land leads to war, while the Oslo-peace accords have shown that negotiating with terrorists results in the same. Terrorists are not interested in peace - there would be no need for terrorism if they were - and therefore feel no need to keep their promises. Many people in Israel already knew this, which explains the furious opposition to negotiations with the PLO in the early 1990ies. It is very bitter that Israel lost so much European support after agreeing to negotiate with the PLO on the insistence of the EU. Israel is back where it started in 1948. Peace is impossible and negotiations lead to nowhere. What is left is only the use of force. But this is not without problems either. Israel is expected to fight without killing and this is clearly not possible. Muslim fundamentalists are simply not impressed by blowing up empty buildings. Neither do they care if their activities ruin the country from which they operate. Anyway they get their money from Iran. Basically Israel will need to kill a lot of Hezbollah terrorists in order to win this conflict, but the West will not allow this. Doing nothing would surely have been fatal, but this counter offensive in Lebanon could be very risky indeed. If Israel cannot, or is not allowed to, break Hezbollah then the North of Israel, including Haifa, might suffer missile attacks for a long time to come. I am sure that terrorists in the West-Bank are taking notice as well. Israel might very soon be confronted with a situation where missiles strike anywhere in the country at anytime. It is possible that the people who work on the Dutch Scientific Council for Government Policy and folks like Bert Koenders[5] are actually very stupid. It is possible, though very unlikely. But why else would they want to give a Taliban like organisation the chance to turn Lebanon into an Afghanistan clone? Why do they invest so much effort to legitimize extremely violent and anti-Semitic organisations? Are they anti-Semites themselves? I prefer to resist this conclusion. But I do think that these people and their views are telling us something about the mind of another schemer, a man who tried to neutralize the terrorists of his time by also giving in to their demands. This man was Franz Von Papen and his 'brilliant' plan to moderate the extremists, was to ask Hitler to become chancellor of Germany. We all know what happened as a result of that. Franz Von Papen surely never intended for his actions to lead to a Second World War. Nevertheless it did and he was forced to give accountability for his actions in front of a court of law. Bert Koenders and the people of the Scientific Council for Government Policy are partly responsible for this war. When will they be held accountable? 1. frontpage.fok.nl/nieuws.fok/47879 2. www.marijelaffeber.nl/verslag%20libanon%20bijeenkomst.htm 3. www.wrr.nl/english/content.jsp?objectid=3496 4. www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/04/18/60minutes/main550000.shtml 5. www.parlement.com/9291000/biof/02611 Contact Daniel Teeboom at d.j.teeboom@orange.nl or go to his website: www.hetvrijevolk.com |
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CONFESSIONS OF A HAIFA RESIDENT
Posted by Professor Eugene Narrett, July 24, 2006. |
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Dror Vanunu writes: "This is the translation of a letter I got today." |
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Friends and family members are being injured and killed
During 5 years you coped with bombs -- and I didn't care
People from Gush Katif and the Shomron!
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GOD BLESS ISRAEL
Posted by Mark A. Thomas, July 24, 2006. |
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I believe the people of Israel are honorable people. I pray for only
God's very best in this difficult time. Many of us in America are
behind Israel 100%.
Best Regards to you all and those that work on your web site. Mark Contact Mark Thomas at MAThomas@TampaBay.RR.com |
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URGENT: KEEP THE PRESSURE ON THE WHITE HOUSE TO SUPPORT ISRAEL
Posted by Nurit Greenger, July 24, 2006. | |
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Whether you are a Democrat or Republican, I ask you to do what is right-- defend Israel, who was attacked without provocation by a force dedicated to destroying it and annihialting all Jews--completing with Hitler did not do. Contact the White House and Secy Rice with messages of appreciation and continued support. Thank you. | |
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A quick note -- the following info from Britain is most instructive -- I am sure it says it all. On Monday, after fighting that has killed hundreds of civilians, Menzies Campbell, the leader of Britain's opposition Liberal Democrats asked Prime Minister Tony Blair to suspend arms exports to Israel. UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan has said, "attacks in Lebanon are inflicting collective punishment on the Lebanese people," and the UN Emergency Relief Coordinator has described attacks on Beirut as a violation of humanitarian law," Campbell wrote. What we must do? We must launch an immediate counter offensive. We remind Bush what happened to have caused the crisis and we thank President Bush and Sec. Rice for their stunning and courageous support for Israel under the growing international pressure. Your help is helping Israel. Copy of message below; write, send and forward to your list. President Bush Fax: 202-456-2461
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice
From:
Contact Nurit Greenger at 4nuritg@gmail.com |
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JEWISH-ISRAELI NEWS -- WAR HITS SAFED-4
Posted by Sandy Rosen-Hazen, July 24, 2006. |
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A few personal notes before the latest WAR news...... To Julie & others who've asked how I can support Pres. Bush: Even with the closest family members and the very dearest of friends, we often must "agree to disagree" about some things!!!! In the case of Pres. Bush, I respect and admire him, albeit there are 3 things about which I strongly disagree: 1) Same-sex marriage (which allows for equality for all and does NOT threaten heterosexual marriage); Note: These are all far out-weighed by my total agreement with his extremely great efforts in his fight to end world-wide terrorism!!!! Further answers to questions about my personal opinions on these matters can be viewed on my Web Site & I hope you'll go there to read them!!!! Despite whatever you are hearing/seeing in the Media, what I've written to many of you, seperately, is STILL true....so I repeat: It is amazingly hard to concentrate on anything right now, with the incessant sounds of jet fighter planes overhead and the constant BOOMS from tank fire and bombs falling along the northern border, SO close to home.....we can actually hear all the bombs landing in Beirut, not to mention ALL those which are landing here in Safed!!!! The situation here is a real MESS.....fighting on TWO ends of the country!!!! Meanwhile, I hope you are somewhere safe, ie: IF anyplace in the world is really "safe"!!!! Love always,
Below my comments are in square brackets -- [] Editor's Note: Sandy Hazen-Rosen's earlier "Jewish-Israel News WAR hits Safad" can be read below. |
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[If this guy was American, he'd probably be a Democrat.....just
my personal opinion, but he IS a "Liberal Democrat" in Eng!!!!]
British politician: Suspend arms exports to Israel:
Menzies Campbell, the leader of Britain's opposition Liberal Democrats on Monday asked Prime Minister Tony Blair to suspend arms exports to Israel after fighting that has killed hundreds of civilians. "[UN Secretary-General] Kofi Annan has said attacks in Lebanon are inflicting collective punishment on the Lebanese people [But, of course, Kofi Annan never bothers to consider Israel's casualties!!!!] and the UN Emergency Relief Coordinator has described attacks on Beirut as a violation of humanitarian law," Campbell wrote. [And, what does he call their terrorist attacks on our innocent civilians?!?!] "The Government must now comply with its own arms export rules and institute an immediate suspension of all UK arms exports to Israel," he added. There was no immediate response from Blair's office. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Katyushas can't stop a homey Safed Shabbat dinner:
The summer is usually the busiest season in Safed. But for the second Shabbat in a row, this ancient, spiritual city was nearly empty. The constant Hizbullah bombardment has scared away an estimated 75 percent of the population, with most apartments left unoccupied. There was a strange, eerie quiet in the streets which tend to be full of the chatter of tourists and locals. There were also mixed feelings among those who have stayed. Breslav Chassid Yonatan Lipshutz invited a number of his friends who had decided to remain in Safed to his apartment in the Old City for Friday night dinner. "I've thought about leaving here many times over the last week and a half," the 46-year-old father of eight said as he munched on a piece of roast chicken. "On Tuesday or Wednesday when I was walking home from shul with my youngest son, my seven-year-old, and we heard a Katyusha land near by, he shook - once, and then again. "Right there I said we have to get out of here. Am I a meshugana? Even my rabbi has left," Lipshutz explained. "But it's not so easy when you are a family of 12 Where would we go? "I was planning to leave today [Friday], at least for Shabbat, but something made me decide to stay," he explained. He was definitely not in the majority. There were clearly many spare seats during the Kabbalat Shabbat service in the town's opulent Breslav synagogue, which is usually so packed on Friday night that it is difficult to even find any standing room. Sitting round the dinner table were other local residents. Most have made aliya from the US or England, and have lived in the city for more than a decade. Avraham explained how he had been constantly receiving phone calls and e-mails from family and friends around the world asking how he was doing and why he hadn't left already. "We're holding the fort here, keeping the minyanim going," he said. Everyone at the table spoke of their respect for the few local shopkeepers who had braved the rocket attacks and stayed open during the last 10 days since the Katyushas began raining down. Apart from a couple of groceries, two supermarkets and two bakeries, few businesses have continued to serve their rapidly depleting customer base. But the apparent difficulty in obtaining regular groceries did not seem to have affected Lipshutz's wife Talya's ability to make a sumptuous Friday night meal. The guests enjoyed two different types of challah, gefilte fish, roast chicken and roast potatoes. One could have been mistaken for thinking this was a regular Shabbat, but for the conversation, which inevitably centered on the situation in the North and how each of the residents have coped with the sudden change in circumstances. "It's amazing how quickly everyone left," said Mordechai, a retired former taxi-driver who moved to Israel from London 40 years ago and has lived in Safed for more than a decade. "I'm not worried about the situation," he added. Each of the guests had their own story, and as the wine, whisky and beer flowed, so did the conversation. Shlomo told how he lived in Gush Katif in the Gaza Strip for four months before it was evacuated and moved to Safed from Jerusalem last week because he felt a strange pull to join Jews who were in danger. "It's funny how when we were in Gush Katif people always spoke of 'The North' as the area you went to get away from the rockets," he said. Early Saturday morning, the constant thud of Israeli shells being fired at Lebanon could be heard. Air raid sirens were sounded a number of times throughout the day. At around 1:20 p.m. there were shudders as two or three Katyushas landed somewhere in the city. But guest house owner Rina Kuby was undeterred. "I'm not scared any more," she said. "The first time, when one landed in the college round the corner it was a bit of a shock. But now I am used to it. "My cousins in Jerusalem keep asking me to come and stay with them, and my daughter has left with her children. But I'm going to stay here." Rina's is one of the only places where any brave visitors to Safed can find a spare room to rent. "Nearly all the hotels around here have closed. Their owners have gone away, - to Tel Aviv, Jerusalem," she said. "But I've lived here in Safed all my life. I don't want to leave." Rina explained how her neighbors left when the fighting started last Thursday but came back a few days ago, after hearing that thieves have been looting the empty houses and shops. "This is the worst it's been since the War of Independence in 1948," she said. "I just hope it stops soon because I want life to get back to normal." ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ From HonestReporting, July 24, 2006..... To our friends:Here in Israel, we've now entered our 13th day of this war. And contrary to most media reports, we are fighting on 3 fronts - a huge demand on a small country's army. The entire North is being bombarded by over 150 missiles on average every day. 1 million people are still confined to their shelters and secure rooms or have been dislocated from their homes and jobs. The South continues to sustain daily missile attacks. And the level of suicide bombing and terror attempts [the third front] has increased dramatically in the rest of the country. Everyone is on edge and wondering how long we can bear this pressure. The 4th front is you and us. As time goes on, Israel will experience more and more international pressure to give up on its efforts to destroy Hezbollah and Hamas' armed threat. Israel needs world support to finish the job it has begun. That is the consensus across the board here. We thank you for your support. Joe Hyams, International Director HonestReporting http://www.honestreporting.com/ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Israel Under Fire: A look at some of the myths and facts
following Hezbollah's attack on Israel
Israeli military operations in Lebanon are taking place in response to an unprovoked border attack which left 8 Israeli soldiers dead and two kidnapped by the Hezbollah. Since then many more Israelis have been wounded and killed by over 700 Katyusha missiles and mortars that have rained down on Israel's northern cities, including as far south as Haifa and Tiberias. Israel is exercising her legitimate right to self-defense. MYTHS AND FACTS SURROUNDING THE CRISIS: Fact - The definition of a "disproportionate" response is a subjective
one. The question that could be asked of any other country in the world
is simply: "What would you do in the same situation?" When protecting
its citizens, exercising the right to self-defense and responding to missile attacks over a recognized border, most countries would respond in a
similar manner. After all, how many Israelis need to die before the
world believes that Israeli responses are proportionate?
Any civilian casualties in a conflict are, of course, tragic and regrettable. Civilians on both sides are suffering. However, Israeli air strikes on
Lebanon are not intended to kill civilians, unlike the hundreds of Hezbollah missiles that are targeted specifically at Israeli civilians who have been forced into bomb shelters for their own safety. Israel has even dropped leaflets on Beirut suburbs calling on civilians to stay away from Hezbollah strongholds to avoid being caught up in the fighting.
Israel has also been criticized for targeting Lebanese infrastructure such
as the Beirut airport. However, it is also interesting to note what has not
been targeted. For example, while the airport runway was bombed, other vital installations such as the control tower were left untouched and Lebanese civilian airliners were allowed to fly to safety. Transport hubs
and bridges have been targeted in order to prevent Hezbollah moving
the kidnapped Israeli soldiers deeper into Lebanon and possibly even
as far as Iran, as well as to prevent the terrorist organization being
re-supplied with arms from Iran and elsewhere.
Many of Hezbollah's facilities and missile launch sites are located
near residential areas, such as the suburbs of southern Beirut.
Terrorists hide within the civilian population and use this population
as a shield. Israel's priority is to strike at the Hezbollah terrorist
infrastructure that has been allowed to develop in Lebanon.
Israel has, so far, avoided initiating a major ground offensive into
Lebanese territory and has barely used a fraction of the firepower
available to the IDF.
Myth - "Lebanon bears no responsibility for the actions
of Hezbollah."
Fact - UN Security Council Resolution 1559 of September 2004, which referred back to Resolution 425, called "upon all remaining foreign forces
to withdraw from Lebanon"; "for the disbanding and disarmament of all Lebanese and non-Lebanese militias"; and supported "the extension of
the control of the Government of Lebanon over all Lebanese territory".
Syria eventually complied with 1559 and removed its occupying forces. However, the Lebanese government has not disarmed Hezbollah nor
has it sent its armed forces to secure southern Lebanon and the
border with Israel.
In addition, Hezbollah is actually part of the Lebanese government,
which contains two Hezbollah members in the Cabinet. The Lebanese government, therefore, cannot abstain from responsibility for the
actions of a part of its own leadership.
Myth - "Hezbollah is an indigenous Lebanese 'resistance' organization."
Fact - According to the Council on Foreign Relations, the Hezbollah is
a Lebanese umbrella organization of radical Islamic Shiite groups and organizations. It opposes the West, seeks to create a Muslim
fundamentalist state modeled on Iran, and is a bitter foe of Israel.
Hezbollah, whose name means "party of God," is a terrorist group
believed responsible for nearly 200 attacks since 1982 that have killed
more than 800 people. Hezbollah and its affiliates have planned or been linked to a lengthy series of terrorist attacks against the United
States, Israel, and other Western targets. These attacks include:
In addition, Hezbollah is sponsored, funded and armed by Iran and Syria
who use the organization as a proxy to fight Israel and to destabilize the region. Hezbollah is designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organization by
the US State Department.
For more information on Hezbollah, see the following sources:
Anti-Defamation League
Myth - "Outside actors such as Iran are not fuelling the crisis."
Fact - A number of analysts have suggested that the timing of the
Hezbollah operation is no coincidence, occurring just prior to the G8
Summit in St. Petersburg. The G8 was expected to concentrate heavily
on Iran's refusal to comply with demands to curtail its nuclear program.
A wider Mideast crisis, provoked by Iran's Hezbollah proxies, has now moved to the top of the G8 agenda, thus relieving some of the
pressure on Iran.
In addition, Iranian fingerprints are to be found in the current conflict.
The Katyusha missiles that are currently raining down on the north of
Israel are supplied by Iran. An Israeli Naval vessel was also struck by
an Iranian-made C802 missile, killing four sailors.
Myth - "Israel continues to occupy Lebanese land, specifically
the Shebaa Farms area."
Fact - On May 24, 2000, Israel completed the unilateral withdrawal of all
IDF forces from southern Lebanon, in accordance with Israeli government decisions and UN Security Council Resolution 425, ending an 18-year presence there.
On June 18, 2000, the UN Security Council endorsed the Secretary-General's conclusion that, as of 16 June, Israel had withdrawn its
forces from Lebanon in accordance with Resolution 425.
As explained by Israel's Foreign Ministry, the Shebaa Farms area is
not, and should not be, considered disputed territory - its status was
clarified by a number of United Nations statements following the
withdrawal of Israel forces from Lebanon in May 2000.
The United Nations views the Shebaa Farms area as Syrian territory.
Therefore, UN Security Council Resolution 425 - which concerns Lebanon
- does not require Israel to withdraw from this area.
While Lebanon claims to be the owner of the Shebaa Farms area, the
UN has encouraged the Lebanese and Syrians to negotiate between themselves as to who is the rightful owner. If Syria were to cede
ownership of the area to Lebanon, then it is probable that Israel and
the UN would then reconsider the status of the territory. In the meantime,
the issue of the Shebaa Farms is used simply as an excuse for the Hezbollah to maintain itself as an armed force in the region.
Myth - "Arab prisoners held in Israeli jails were kidnapped from
Lebanese soil and should be released."
Fact - Some Lebanese and other Arab spokespeople have defended Hezbollah's actions as a legitimate form of "resistance" aimed at securing the release of Lebanese prisoners held in Israeli jails from the period of Israel's presence in its southern Lebanon security zone. The prisoner
whom Hezbollah is demanding, above all others, be released, is Samir Kuntar, jailed in Israel since a 1979 attack in the northern Israeli town of Nahariyah, in which he entered an apartment and murdered three family members and an Israeli police officer.
Kuntar is quite simply a terrorist and a murderer who committed a terrible atrocity on Israeli soil. Those prisoners held in Israeli jails captured during Israel's stay in southern Lebanon are, likewise, held for terrorist offences
and due to the inherent risk that they will return to their previous activities.
FURTHER READING AND ANALYSIS:
Israel's next war has begun, Yossi Klein Halevi, New Republic
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Sleeper Hizbullah cells activated:
Hizbullah "sleeper" terror cells set up outside Lebanon with Iranian assistance have been put on standby The Jerusalem Post learned
on Sunday, and are likely planning attacks against Jewish and Israeli
targets throughout the world.
The Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) confirmed to the Post Sunday
night that it had instructed embassies, consulates and Jewish institutions
it was responsible for abroad to raise their level of awareness in light of
the conflict in the North.
The assumption within Military Intelligence is that Hizbullah would only
attack targets abroad if it felt pushed into a corner. According to this
thinking, the Islamist group hesitates to carry out such attacks because
it does not want to be associated with Global Jihad and al-Qaida.
Hizbullah has attacked Jewish and Israeli targets abroad in the past.
The organization is believed to have been behind the attack on the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires in 1992 during which a suicide bomber drove
a pick-up truck filled with explosives into the building, killing 29 people and wounding 242, following Israel's assassination of the group's leader at the time, Sheikh Abbas Musawi.
Hizbullah is also thought to have been responsible for the attack on the Argentine Israelite Mutual Association building in Buenos Aires in 1994,
when an explosives-laden van rammed into the structure and killed 85 people.
Another attack attributed to the group was the 1985 hijacking of TWA
flight 847. One passenger was murdered; the remainder of the
hostages were released over a two-week period.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The predictable condemners:
The Hizbullah and Hamas provocations against Israel once again demonstrate how terrorists exploit human rights and the media in
their attacks on democracies.
By hiding behind their own civilians the Islamic radicals issue a challenge
to democracies: Either violate your own morality by coming after us and inevitably killing some innocent civilians, or maintain your morality and
leave us with a free hand to target your innocent civilians.
This challenge presents democracies such as Israel with a lose-lose
option, and the terrorists with a win-win option.
There is one variable that could change this dynamic and present democracies with a viable option that could make terrorism less attractive
as a tactic: The international community, the anti-Israel segment of the media and the so called "human rights" organizations could stop falling
for this terrorist gambit and acknowledge that they are being used to promote the terrorist agenda.
Whenever a democracy is presented with the lose-lose option and
chooses to defend its citizens by going after the terrorists who are
hiding among civilians, this trio of predictable condemners can be
counted on by the terrorists to accuse the democracy of "overreaction," "disproportionality" and "violations of human rights."
In doing so they play right into the hands of the terrorists, causing more terrorism and more civilian casualties on both sides. If instead this trio could, for once, be counted on to blame the terrorists for the civilian
deaths on both sides, this tactic would no longer be a win-win
situation for the terrorists.
IT SHOULD BE obvious by now that Hizbullah and Hamas actually want
the Israeli military to kill as many Lebanese and Palestinian
civilians as possible. That is why they store their rockets underneath
the beds of civilians; why they launch their missiles from crowded
civilian neighborhoods and hide among civilians. They are seeking to
induce Israel to defend its civilians by going after them among their
civilian "shields." They know that every civilian they induce Israel
to kill hurts Israel in the media and the international and human
rights communities.
They regard these human shields as shahids - martyrs - even
if they did not volunteer for this lethal job. Under the law,
criminals who use human shields are responsible for the deaths of the
shields, even if the bullet that kills them came from the gun of a
policeman.
Israel has every self-interest in minimizing civilian casualties, whereas
the terrorists have every self-interest in maximizing them - on both sides. Israel should not be condemned for doing what every democracy would
and should do: taking every reasonable military step to stop the terrorists from killing their innocent civilians.
NOW THAT some of those who are launching rockets at Israeli cities
have announced they have new surprises in store for Israel that may
include chemical and biological weapons, the stakes have gotten even higher.
What would Israeli critics regard as "proportioned" to a chemical or
biological attack? What would they say if Israel tried to preempt such
an attack and, in the process, killed some civilians? Must a democracy absorb a first strike from a weapon of mass destruction before it fights back? Would any other democracy be expected to do that?
The world must come to recognize the cynical way in which terrorists
exploit civilian casualties. They launch anti-personnel rockets designed to maximize enemy civilian casualties, then they cry "human rights" when their own civilians - behind whom they are deliberately hiding - are killed by the democracies in the process of trying to prevent further acts of terrorism.
The very idea that terrorists who use women and children as suicide
bombers against other women and children shed crocodile tears over the
deaths of civilians they deliberately put in harm's way gives new
meaning to the word "hypocrisy." We all know that hypocrisy is a
tactic of the terrorists, but it is shocking that others fall for it
and become complicit with the terrorists.
Let the blame fall where it belongs: on the terrorists who deliberately
seek to kill enemy civilians and give their democratic enemies little
choice but to kill some civilians behind whom the terrorists are hiding.
Those who condemn Israel for killing civilians - who are used as
human shields and swords for the terrorists - actually cause more
civilian deaths and make it harder for Israel to withdraw from the
West Bank.
HOW THE WORLD reacts to Israel's current military efforts to protect
its citizens will have a considerable impact on future Israeli steps toward peace. Prior to the recent kidnappings and rocket attacks the Israeli government had announced its intention to engage in further
withdrawals from large portions of the West Bank.
But how can Israel be expected to move forward with any plan for
withdrawal if all it can expect in return is more terrorism - what the
terrorists regard as "land for rocket launchings" - and more
condemnation when it seeks to protect its civilians?
The writer is a Professor of Law at Harvard and the author of
Preemption: A Knife that Cuts Both Ways
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
What Part of 'War' Don't We Understand?
Political debates tend to be moved forward by new facts generated
"on the ground." At these moments, it is far easier to convince people
of the truth, because that truth is tied directly to facts people can
see out in the world. Hezbollah's initiation of a war with Israel is
one of those moments.
A few of us have been saying for years that the War on Terrorism is
not just about Israel by itself or Iraq by itself that it is a
"regional war," as Michael Ledeen has put it, in which the U.S. and
its allies are being attacked by an "Islamist Axis" connecting Iran to
its network of terrorist proxies across the Middle East.
Now this is everybody's headline.
Last week, for example, a headline in the New York Times admitted
"Crisis Is Regional, Not Just Israel vs. Palestinians." This week,
Newsweek devoted its cover story to Iran's role as the instigator
"feeding the fire" of the conflict between Hezbollah and Israel.
Condoleezza Rice summed it up when she concluded that the
terrorists "have showed their hand. And they've showed that their
sponsors are in Tehran and in Damascus. Things are clarified right
now." And the real news about President Bush's open mic night at the
G-8 summit is not his use of a common vulgarity, but an exchange
between Bush and Tony Blair regarding Syrian dictator Bashar Assad.
BLAIR: What does he think? He thinks that if Lebanon turns out fine,
if you get a solution in Israel-Palestine, if Iraq ends in the right way
There's been a lot of talk about the cleverness of the Iranians and
about what master chess players they are to outmaneuver the Bush administration. But their strategy turns out to be utterly transparent.
So why is no one prepared to do anything to stop it?
Bush followed his exchange with Blair by adding, "I felt like telling Kofi [Annan] to get on the phone with Assad and make something happen."
As we all know, the most fearsome response to an act of war is a
phone call from a U.N. bureaucrat.
A similar paralysis is even holding back some of the most seemingly belligerent commentators. The Wall Street Journal, for example, characterizes the Hezbollah provocation as "Iran's First Strike"
against the U.S. then counsels that we should let Israel do
our fighting for us while we seek sanctions against Iran at the UN
Security Council. Similarly, Michael Oren advocates an Israeli strike
against the Syrian military but only to force the Syrian regime to make
a bargain, keeping itself in power by withdrawing support for Hezbollah.
None of these actions matches the problem. If the problem is that the
Syrian and Iranian regimes seek to preserve themselves and extend
their influence by supporting terrorists across the Middle East, then
the solution is to end those regimes and we should devise a military response directed at that goal.
Syria and Iran cannot be pressured, deterred, or contained, because
supporting terrorists is their means of survival. This has been the
Iranian and Syrian strategy since 2003: support the insurgency in
Iraq, support Hezbollah and Hamas in the Palestinian territories and
keep everything in such turmoil that America will be afraid to take
further action, for fear that things will get even worse. But past
military action has led to chaos only because we have always left
intact the terror-sponsoring regimes in Syria and Iran.
Consider the incentives we have created for these two regimes: the
more trouble they cause for us the less likely we are to attack
them. The more they attack us, the more secure they are from our
retaliation. This is the opposite of a rational strategy. What makes
this possible is the crippling effect of two fundamental errors in our
thinking: myopic short-range Pragmatism and crippling altruistic
self-doubt.
Pragmatism doesn't just mean being practical; it's a philosophy
which holds that there are no over-arching ideas and principles that
can guide our action. The best expression I have ever read of the
fractured thinking method of Pragmatism is in the current
Newsweek cover story. After showing that Iran is the force
behind every major conflict in the Middle East, the authors admonish
us: "The Iranian challenge is not a Gordian knot that can be sliced
through in one bold stroke. It's a bag full of knots, each of which
has to be untied and, if possible, untangled from the rest."
Part of the reason America hesitates to act is because generations of Pragmatists have tried to turn our brains into bags full of knots making
it harder for us to see the big picture and the bold strokes that are
actually necessary to defeat our enemies.
Just as powerful is the warped logic of the "suicide bomb morality"
of altruism, which identifies self-sacrifice as the essence of virtue.
In any conflict, the good guys are expected to prove that they are
good by backing down and sacrificing their interests while nothing
is expected of the bad guys, precisely because they are evil. That's
why a Los Angeles Times op-ed demanded that Israel "has to be
the most responsible party" by declaring an immediate ceasefire. Why
should Israel be the first to back down from the fight? The author
answers: "What, after all, can we expect from Hamas or Hezbollah?"
Notice the warped psychology this fosters: the onus is always on
the good guys to turn the other check and submit to evil. This is a
moral outlook that empowers the evil because they are evil and
restrains the good because they are good. Should we then be
surprised to see the evil emboldened to greater acts of
destruction?
There is no longer any doubt what is driving the conflict in the
Middle East: it is the Syrian-Iranian strategy of using proxies to
strike at the U.S. and extend Iran's fanatical influence over the
region. The only question is whether we can stop tying our brains
into knots and stop turning the other cheek long enough to strike back and topple these two regimes. [These last paragraphs in
bold print to emphasize, what I agree is, the crux of the matter!!!!]
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Why they love to hate us:
One hundred years of conflict, 6.5 years of war, billions of wasted dollars, tens of thousands of people killed, not including the boy lying next to me
on a rocky beach at Lake Karon in '82, with his guts spilling out of his
body. Both of us staring the wound until he was evacuated by helicopter. Until this day I do not know if he is alive or dead. All this, and it is still impossible to understand.
It's not only what has happened. It is also what did not occur -- the
hospitals that were never built, the universities that never opened, the
roads that were never paved, three years stolen from the lives of millions
of young people in uniform. Despite everything, we are still clueless as
to the core of the riddle.
Why do they hate us so much?
I am not talking about the Palestinians this time. The conflict with them
is intimate, focused, and has a direct impact on their day to day living. Without getting into who is right or wrong, it is clear their reasons for not wanting us here are very personal. We all know that in the end it will be resolved: Between us, in blood, sweat and tears that will soak the pages
of the agreement that is signed. Until then, this is a war we can understand, even if no sane person can understand the way in which it is being waged.
But the others.
They are impossible to understand. Why does Hassan Nasrallah -
together with his tens of thousands of minions - dedicate his life and his considerable talent as well as the fate of his country in order to wage a
war against a country that he has never seen, people he has never
met and an army he has no reason to fight?
Why do children in Iran who cannot even point to Israel on a map (mostly because it is so small) burn its flag in the city square and volunteer to commit suicide in order to destroy it? Why do Egyptian and Jordanian intellectuals incite the naive and helpless against the peace treaties,
knowing full well that revoking them will set their countries back 20 years.
'So many ways to love your brother'
Why are the Syrians willing to stay a pathetic and oppressive third
world country in exchange for the questionable privilege of serving as
patron to terror organizations that in the end will threaten them too?
Why do they hate us in Saudi Arabia? In Iraq? In the Sudan? What have
we done to them? How are we even relevant to their lives? What do they even know about us? And why do they hate us so much in Afghanistan where they are starving. Where do they even have the strength to hate?
So many answers to this question and yet it is an enigma. There's the religious issue but religious people make their own choices. The Koran (together with the Shariya -- like the Halacha or Jewish code of laws)
has thousands of laws. Why do we preoccupy them so much?
There are after all a number of other countries that have given them more
of a reason to be angry. We didn't start the Crusades, and we didn't rule over them during the Colonial era, and we never forced them to convert.
The Mongols, the Seliceans, the Greeks, the Romans, the Crusaders, the Ottomans and the English, all occupied them, destroying and pillaging the entire region. We did not even try so how is it that we are the enemy?
Is it about solidarity with their Palestinian brothers and sisters? If so
then where are the tractors from Saudi Arabia for rebuilding Gush Katif?
Where is the Indonesian team that is supposed to come and build a
school in Gaza? Where are the doctors from Kuwait with the latest in surgical equipment? There are so many ways to love your brother,
why do they prefer to help him to hate?
Is it something that we have done? 1,500 years of anti-Semitism have
taught us an excruciatingly painful lesson -- there is something about
us that annoys the world. So we did the thing that everyone wanted --
we left. We established our own tiny country where we could annoy
each other without bothering anyone else. We did not ask for much
to do this. Israel sits on an area comparable to maybe one percent
of the total area of Saudi Arabia. We have no oil, no natural resources.
We did not occupy the territory of another sovereign country.
'The Iranians are responsible'
Most of the towns and cities bombed this week were not stolen from
anyone. Nahariya, Afula and Carmiel never existed until we founded them. Other Katyushas fell in places that no one ever doubted our rightful ownership on them. Haifa has history of Jewish presence since the
third century before the Common Era. Tiberias played host to the last Sanhedria so no one can claim we stole these places from someone else.
Nevertheless the hatred continues as if we do not share a common
fate. The hate is operative, toxic, and insatiable. Last week the
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinijad called for the State of Israel
"to be eliminated" as if we were some kind of bacteria. We've become
so accustomed to his declarations that we don't even argue.
Israel never wanted to see Iran disappear. There were even diplomatic relations for as long as Iran wanted them. We don't have a common
border or even bad memories. But they are still ready and willing to
confront the entire western work, to face international sanctions, put
their standard of living at risk, destroy what is left of their economy
all for the privilege of rabidly hating us.
I am trying but cannot remember: What did we do to them? When?
How? Why is the Iranian president saying that "The Moslem world's
main problem is Israel"?
There are more than a billion Moslems in the world. Most live in
substandard conditions. They suffer from hunger, poverty, ignorance;
blood soaked conflicts that extend from Kashmir to Kurdistan and from
Darfur to Bangladesh. And we are their main problem? How exactly are
we bothering them?
I refuse to accept the argument that "that is the way they are." "They"
used to say that about us and we've grown to suspect the statement.
There has to be another reason, a dark secret that convinced residents
of southern Lebanon to escalate things along a quiet border, to kidnap soldiers of an army that had withdrawn from their territory, and to turn
their country into islands of rubble precisely at a time that they had
finally extricated themselves from 20 years of rack and ruin.
We have become accustomed to telling ourselves things like: "The
Iranians are responsible," or "Syria is stirring things up behind the
scenes.: But that is really too simplistic.
What about the people? What do they think? What about their hopes,
their loves, their aspirations and dreams? What about their children?
Do they really believe that hating us is enough of a reason to send
their children off to die?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Day of carnage: 93 rockets, 93 casualties:
Several rocket barrages directed all day Sunday at northern Israel;
two people lose their lives in attacks: Ninety-three rockets land on
north and two people killed -- this is the price of another day of
fighting in the north: Habib Awad, 48, of Aabalin, was killed in a
carpentry shop in Kiryat Ata and 60-year-old Shimon Glikblich was
killed in Haifa while driving. 91 people were hurt in barrages.
Since Sunday morning, Magen David Adom paramedics have been
called to 39 incidents and have treated 93 casualties, including two
dead, three seriously injured people, 28 lightly injured people, and
60 people suffering from shock.
Many rocket barrages landed all over northern communities:
The last barrage landed in Haifa shortly after 5 p.m. One rocket struck
a rocket, splitting a gas tank and causing a blaze -- six people were
lightly injured. Firefighters controlled the blaze after a short time.
Haifa Police District Chief Superintendent Ahuva Tomer said: "The
rocket struck a gas tank and penetrated the building. There was no
siren -- we will check this later."
Earlier, a man was seriously injured in Akko while nine others
suffered shock. In Tiberias two car passengers were injured after
a rocket landed nearby. One is moderately injured and the other
is lightly wounded. Rockets also landed in Kiryat Shmona --
where two people were lightly injured.
The lethal barrage was fired at Haifa and the Krayot at around
11 a.m., killing two and injuring 17. Since the start of fighting
12 days ago, 37 people have been killed.
Neighbors, relatives, and friends assembled at the home of Shimon
Gliklich in the Nave David neighborhood in southern Haifa. The
neighborhood houses many poor people and new immigrants
from the former Soviet Union and Ethiopia. Gliklich left behind
a woman and a 22 year-old daughter.
Yardena Michael-Weisler, 41, lives in the same apartment building,
and said: "They were quiet neighbors. We never heard them having an argument with anyone. He always cleaned the car and looked after it as
if it was his whole world, and he was killed in it. They were thought to be relatively new neighbors and didn't manage to get to know them from up close. Neighbors are met either in times of happiness or sorrow. Now this
is the situation, we are getting to know each other in depth in the bomb shelter and we all identify with the morning, because he's one of us."
Aablin [An Arab Village!!!!] residents: Take out Nasrallah:
A heavy atmosphere of mourning is hanging over the home of Habib
Awad, in Aablin, near Kiryat Ata. Awad was killed this afternoon by a Katyusha rocket strike. His wife, Hifa, and other women sat under the
family home near the community's entrance. Almost everyone agrees
that Hassan Nasrallah must be taken out.
Brother in law Haj said: "When a person is sick, he is given medicine
to get better. What they did here is allow the cancer to spread. He (Nasrallah) should have been taken out before this damage
occurred." Another resident added: "He destroyed Lebanon
and now he is trying to destroy Israel."
Habib's brother, Philip, said that during the attack he was with his
father, Isa, at the Kiryot medical center. "When the siren sounded we
went down to the stairwell with everyone else, and one of the doctors
told us that the rocket landed in Krayot. I didn't attach much importance
to that yet. But when I came home, I turned on the television and began
to shake. They said there were two people killed, one in Nesher (which
later turned out to be Haifa) and one in Kiryat Ata. I started to panic. My
heart prophesied bad things. I called his wife; I heard her and the children crying. She told me he wasn't answering the phone. I spoke with her wife,
he is a police officer, and he told me to call again in 15 minutes. When
I called again he told me he was on his way to me. Then I understood
that my worst fears came true. That my brother was killed."
Haj said he called his friend to clarify the identity of the casualty. "They
didn't know I was from Aablin. They told it me it was someone from my community. When they gave me the name I realized it was my brother
in law. I asked them only to call me when they come to notify the family.
When my sister saw me arrive with the police officers, she immediately understood what happened and burst out in shouts."
Family members say Habib was a quiet person and loved by all family members. "All the people in the village knew him, loved him, and
esteemed him. He everyone."
Habib's brother said he loved his work at the carpentry shop, in which he worked for close to 20 years. "A few days ago, when there was tension,
I called Habib's wife and asked him where he was. She told me he was at work, and I told her to call him immediately and tell him to go back home."
Philip said: "There is no benefit in war. No leader and no agreement in
the world will bring my brother back. There are no winners in war, but the simple person is the one who suffers." Half of the residents of Aablin are Orthodox Christians and the other half are Muslims.
Habib left behind his wife -- Hifa, and four children, a 15 year-old daughter, two sons aged 13 and 11, and a 5-year-old daughter. His funeral will be
held Monday at 5 p.m. in Aablin.
Keren Natanzon contributed to the report
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
U.S. Ambassador John Bolton says that Israel has a right to defend
itself against Hezbollah:
WASHINGTON -- Against growing international criticism that Israel's response to Hezbollah's July 12 attack has been disproportionate, the
U.S. ambassador to the United Nations on Sunday defended Israel's
use of force. "I think it's important that we not fall into the trap of moral equivalency here," Ambassador John Bolton told CNN's "Late Edition
with Wolf Blitzer."
"What Hezbollah has done is kidnap Israeli soldiers and rain rockets and mortar shells on innocent Israeli civilians. What Israel has done in response is act in self-defense. And I don't quite know what the argument about proportionate force means here. Is Israel entitled only to kidnap two Hezbollah operatives and fire a couple of rockets aimlessly into Lebanon?
"The situation is that Israel has lived under the terrorist threat of Hezbollah for years, and these most recent attacks have given it the legitimate right, the same right America would have if we were attacked, to deal with the problem. And that's what they're doing."
The fighting began July 12, when Hezbollah fighters killed three Israeli soldiers and abducted two others in northern Israel. Since then, Israeli warplanes have bombed Lebanese towns and villages deemed Hezbollah strongholds and its forces have moved into Lebanese territory in what
Israel has called temporary incursions intended to push Hezbollah
fighters far enough from the border so they cannot threaten Israel.
In doing so, Israeli forces have killed at least 271 people and wounded
at least 711, according to officials with the Lebanese security forces.
The United States has taken note and responded accordingly, Bolton said. "We have urged the government of Israel to exercise the utmost care in the conduct of its military operations, to avoid innocent Lebanese civilians, and to avoid damage to the democratic government of Lebanon, and I think Israel, being a responsible democratic state itself, is trying to carry that out."
Hezbollah attacks have killed seven Israeli civilians and 20 soldiers and wounded more than 300 civilians and more than 60 soldiers, according
to the Israel Defense Forces.
Bolton bristled at last week's suggestion from Louise Arbour, the United Nations high commissioner for human rights, that Israeli leaders could
be charged with war crimes.
"You know, in America, prosecutors are not supposed to threaten people
in public based on press reports," said Bolton, a graduate of Yale Law School. "I would just say as one lawyer to another, that -- to Mrs. Arbour,
that she should consider her professional ethics and responsibilities
very carefully here before threatening criminal charges based on
press accounts." And Bolton gave little weight to Saturday's comment
from the British minister of state, Kim Howells, critical of Israel's attacks
on Lebanon.
"These have not been surgical strikes, and it's very, very difficult, I think,
to understand the kind of military tactics that have been used," Howells
said. "You know, if they're chasing Hezbollah, you go for Hezbollah. You don't go for the entire Lebanese nation, and that's the difference." Asked whether the remark represents a rift between the Bush administration and the government of Prime Minister Tony Blair, Bolton said, "I don't think so."
Bolton said Bush has spoken several times with Blair about the matter,
and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has been in touch with her
British counterpart.
"So, there may be individual comments here and there. That even
happens in the American government from time to time. But I think
we're working very closely with the United Kingdom on this matter."
Rice is preparing to travel to the region for talks with Israeli Prime
Minister Ehud Olmert in Israel and Palestinian President Mahmoud
Abbas in the West Bank. She also plans to attend an international conference in Rome, Italy, on crafting a peace agreement and
shoring up Lebanon's government. She did not plan to meet
with Hezbollah or with Syrian leaders.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
[On a much brighter note.....]
As residents in the North are packed into bomb shelters, Jerusalem
thrives. Rehov Ben-Yehuda remains packed, the crowd is shoulder to shoulder at Mahaneh Yehuda and hundreds of people wait at bus stops throughout Jerusalem. In a city that was plagued by suicide bombings
during the second intifada, the calm is striking.
Though a potential suicide bomber was thwarted by police on Jaffa Road Monday morning, so far residents have enjoyed relative safety from the escalating conflict in other areas of the country.
"I feel very good and safe," says Jerusalemite Eti Bracha, standing in the shade at Mahaneh Yehuda. As people push past her, their arms loaded
with food parcels, the only imminent threat appears to be aggressive shoppers. "Well," she considers, "I feel a little afraid. But I must buy
my food."
Among the Jerusalem residents and tourists interviewed by In
Jerusalem at popular sites, the general consensus is one of hopeful
safety. Overwhelmingly, citizens trust the Jerusalem Police and the IDF.
Jerusalem Police spokesman Shmuel Ben-Ruby speaks confidently of
the security situation in Jerusalem, despite a raised level of
alert across the country. Members from police forces from districts
across the country, Ben-Ruby told IJ, have increased patrols
throughout the city, though not in response to any specific threats.
"We increased our activity in Jerusalem in many ways," he says.
"There are more checkpoints, and more people in the streets.
Citizens are more vigilant as well, based on the number of phone
calls received at the police emergency room downstairs here.
"Now, except for the incident at Jaffa Gate, we have managed to stop
the suicide bombers in Jerusalem. Now, we don't have a specific alert focused on Jerusalem. We are on high alert throughout the country.
We have no specific information about other events so far."
He denies that there was any danger riding buses or gathering in
crowded places, though Ben-Ruby asks that citizens help the police
by being aware of their surroundings and calling if they see "anything
at all" suspicious.
Meanwhile, on Rehov Ben-Yehuda, crowds of teens, tourists and
residents go about their lives as usual. Though Kikar Zion appears less crowded than usual, the cool early-evening wind calls to many people,
who are presumably tired of watching the war in the North on television.
Members of a large extended family from North America, speaking and laughing loudly as they walked through Kikar Zion up Ben-Yehuda to buy souvenirs and enjoy the sights, appeared to be enjoying themselves.
They arrived in the country to dedicate a wellness center to soldiers.
The dedication was supposed to take place on a base in the North.
Following the dedication, the family had planned to attend a bar mitzva
on a missile ship off the coast of Haifa. Needless to say, their plans
have changed. The bar mitzva was moved to Jerusalem and took
place on Monday. The bar mitzva boy's aunt, Nancy Pilcher of
Washington, DC, is cautiously optimistic.
"I feel pretty safe here [in Jerusalem]. This is my first trip to Israel in
35 years. I don't go on vacation often. It usually rains," she says with
a wry smile and a hint of irony, noting that Katyushas are now falling
in Haifa where the family had planned to stay. A few minutes later,
the crowd beginning to swell in the square, Pilcher speaks a little
less confidently. "Well, I'm not going to say I'm carefree," she says.
"We are keeping plans as usual, though."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Peretz: 2,200 rockets fired at northern Israel, so far:
Israel Defense Forces officials admitted Sunday that efforts at
reducing or preventing Hezbollah rocket fire have yet to bear fruit.
The IDF believes that unless the pace of the army's anti-Hezbollah operations in Lebanon is quickened, the Shi'ite group will maintain
the capability to lob Katyushas into northern Israel continuously
for one month.
Earlier Sunday, Defense Minister Amir Peretz told the Knesset's
Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee that Hezbollah operatives
have launched close to 2,200 rockets, half of which have struck
Israeli towns in the north.
The IDF's chief of military intelligence, Amos Yadlin, told reporters that
a similar number of rockets have been destroyed as a result of IDF raids.
Prior to the outbreak of hostilities, Israeli estimates placed the number of rockets and missiles in Hezbollah's arsenal at between 10,000 and 12,000.
Nahariya, Haifa, Afula, Nazareth, Carmiel, Acre, Tiberias, Safed,
Rosh Pina, Ma'alot, Hatzor, the Golan Heights, Kiryat Shmona,
Carmiel, Mt. Meron, Avivim were hit by more than 160 rockets
on Sunday, July 23.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
[Here is an article, to which I can easily relate.....since two of
my daughters have also become "refugees", staying now in
Tel Aviv.....Stacey with her family from Carmiel and Heidi
with her family from Safed!!!! We pray they'll be able to
return to their respective homes, very soon!!!!]
Among family, but still refugees:
The host family: Ilanit and Avi Gadash, both 34. Avi works for El Al,
Ilanit works for the Union of Local Governments. Married four months,
they live in a three-room apartment in Ramat Gan.
The guest family: Keren, Marjorie and Nimrod Buhbut. Keren, the wife,
was planning to open a pharmacy in Ma'alot in a few weeks, but that
has been postponed. Shlomo remained in Ma'alot (Keren: "He won't
desert his post"), together with the older children, Yonatan, 23, and
Leroy, 20. Marjorie, 16, and Nimrod, 9, joined their mother.
What is the connection between the families? Shlomo, Keren's
husband, is Ilanit's uncle. How long have the families been living
together? Keren, Marjorie and Nimrod arrived a week ago. How
are they getting along? Ilanit: "We're not in the house all day so
they have the place to themselves. In the evening, we visit other
relatives who are refugees from the north."
Keren: "In Ma'alot we didn't leave the house for four days, it was
absolutely impossible. So first we have to get used to being able to
go out. Otherwise we wander around, it's an uncomfortable feeling
but they are treating us with tons of love and warmth, and our relatives
come and visit, too. We all feel like refugees here. I meet people from
Ma'alot in the street, we're all spread out and you feel like a refugee.
My older children are there and I'm stressing out down here. When
you take a planned vacation, it's fun, but to suddenly leave because
you have no choice, even if it's family, it's really not a nice feeling.
When I talk to my female friends, even if they're in a hotel by the
beach, no one is having fun and they all want to go home."
Where does everyone sleep? One room in the apartment was
allocated to the guests. Ilanit: "Luckily we don't have any children
yet." Keren and Marjorie sleep on the bed, Nimrod sleeps on a
mattress on the floor.
How long will they stay? Ilanit: "We don't yet know how long it will
continue, for now they are with us."
Keren: I'd like to go back home as soon as possible, but today I spoke
with a friend who returned to Ma'alot and she said, 'Don't you dare
come back to Ma'alot because there are booms all the time and
you can't go out, stay in the center.' "I pray all the time for it to be
over already." [Ditto!!!! Exactly for what we are all praying!!!!]
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Our very strange day with Hezbollah:
Hezbollah invited us to come see them again; it's the second time in
as many days. Yesterday, Anderson, photographer Neil Hallsworth and
I drove to the southern suburbs of Beirut and waited at a predetermined meeting spot.
A few minutes passed, then an old, American-made sedan pulled up
behind us. Two men jumped out of the car. Our fixer approached them
and after an animated conversation, one of the Hezbollah men stuck his head in our car window and said in passable English, "We're very sorry
to inconvenience you but there will be no tour today. There are Israeli
drones overhead and it's not safe to be here. Please leave now."
Those were easy orders to follow.
Today, we were told Hezbollah was again willing to take our team into
their neighborhood. Meet them at the same spot, they said, at 11 a.m.
and don't be late. We weren't. We waited. Then waited some more,
and what follows is a log of a very strange day with Hezbollah.
10:40 a.m.: Our team of Anderson, Neil, producer Tommy Evans and
I arrive at the site of a bridge that's been blown to pieces by Israeli
bombs. It's the same spot we met our Hezbollah men yesterday.
Next to the bridge there are two high-rise apartment buildings under construction. This is a poor neighborhood and new construction
clearly doesn't come here often. The buildings are heavily damaged,
though, and it seems unlikely they'll ever be completed.
10:50 a.m.: Our translator, Mira, is making a call to Hezbollah's office, making sure they know we've arrived. You don't have to spend much
time in these neighborhoods to realize that you're an outsider ... and
you're being watched. They tell us they know we're here.
11:05 a.m.: Hezbollah is late for our meeting. We're sitting still for
25 minutes in an area recently hit hard by Israeli jets, so it's no surprise
the mood is tense. We're not talking much. A young couple passes by --
the boy is wearing jeans and short sleeves, the girl a head-scarf and a
dress covering her body ankle to wrist. They nod politely and continue
past us. They're holding hands. We're still waiting.
11:22 a.m.: A crowd of journalists is passing 200 yards behind us and we quickly realize we've been given bad information and that Hezbollah's tour has started without us. We turn our car around and try to catch up.
11:26 a.m.: It's not hard to spot 40 western journalists walking through a bombed-out area, and we've just now found the group. We also find out
we missed some ground rules. We're pulling into a side street and two
men dressed in black step out of a doorway with AK-47s. Neil has the camera on his shoulder and they immediately assume he's rolling. He's
not, but they want to check the tape anyway. We show it to them and they
let us pass. Hezbollah tour ground rule #1: Don't show the faces of anyone we don't want you to see or pictures of places you're not supposed to be. Now we know. We catch up to the group.
11:35 a.m.: We're standing on what used to be a residential street. It's
now a mess of wires and rubble. Smoke is still rising off the debris.
Bombs have smashed nearly a quarter mile of this area and there's
virtually nothing left. There's a twisted tire from a children's bike here,
some compact disks from someone's collection there. Anderson is
doing a few stand-ups, but the Hezbollah representative leading the
tour is telling us it's time to move on. We tell him we want to talk to
some people who lived here, who witnessed what happened.
"Not here," he says. "Maybe at our next stop."
12:05 p.m.: Our car is being led through back streets to a broken-down building with five ambulances parked in front. "These are the emergency workers who respond to casualty calls when Israel drops their bombs,"
the Hezbollah man says. "Take your pictures and talk to some of them if you'd like." We're growing tired of what is now obviously a dog-and-pony show, but we decide to play along, and approach one driver with a few questions. Anderson asks him what kind of casualties he's seeing, but before he can answer, the ambulance beside us turns on his siren and screeches out, followed by the next ambulance, then the next. It's a well coordinated and not-so-subtle piece of propaganda that might as well
come with a soundtrack titled "Hezbollah Cares."
12:16 p.m.: We again ask the Hezbollah guy (he won't give us his name) when we can talk to some residents, but he brushes us off and tells us maybe at our next stop. He's now on his cell phone and it's not hard to imagine he's making sure all the props are in place before we move on.
I wish I spoke Arabic. He opens our car door, slides in, and says he's riding with us. We're fine with it and offer him a bottle of water. "No thank you," he says in English. While we have his attention, Anderson asks him if we can talk to someone in Hezbollah's leadership. His answer is short: "Not while we're at war." He gets out of our car and onto the back of someone's
motor scooter.
12:30 p.m.: We're now driving through a neighborhood that hasn't seen
any bombing, but it's here we're told we can talk to some residents. Hezbollah guy takes us down to what amounts to a crude bomb shelter
and tells us the people here live on this street but are afraid to sleep in
their apartment. The concrete room is dimly lit and dank. Two people on plastic chairs are watching an Arabic news channel. One sits in the corner yelling angry epithets about Israel for the reporters. We wait for the media gaggle to leave, then introduce ourselves. They tell us they're a mother,
her son and his wife. There's no way to know if it's true. The conversation follows a familiar pattern:
"Are you scared?" "No!"
We thank them for their insights and move back up to the street.
12:44 p.m.: We're back on the street and on cue, a Hezbollah
resistance song is now blaring from an apartment. A young man on
the porch dressed in black is giving us the victory sign. I look behind
me and there's our Hezbollah guide encouraging the young man to
lift his hands higher so our camera can see.
12:50 p.m.: Anderson is doing a few more stand-ups about our story
that's quickly become less about Hezbollah and more about their crude propaganda machine when the "family" emerges from the bunker behind
us and joins their friends in the street. They're laughing, talking loudly, and gesturing with their hands, mocking anger. I really should learn Arabic. Anderson does another stand-up about the group now standing behind us.
12:55 p.m.: We pile into our van and are now driving out of the Hezbollah-controlled neighborhood. It feels like we've just left a haunted house:
Slightly frightening at first, but ridiculous by the end.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
[From England, here are brief notes on the 9 key players here.....]
Who's Who in Middle East conflict:
SkyNews -- 11:05, Mon Jul 24
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is relatively new to his job. He
took over from Ariel Sharon following his stroke earlier this year and
the conflict with Hizbollah is his first real test. With no major
military experience, the Israeli army and Israeli people are watching
his every move. Mr Olmert is one of the main players in the conflict.
At the opposite end of the table is Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, the
Secretary General of Hizbollah - an Islamic fundamentalist organisation.
He has led the resistance party since 1992 and is responsible for its repositioning as a major player in Lebanese politics.
Tzipi Livni is the Israeli Foreign Minister. She was appointed in January
and is one of only two women to have held the post. In the conflict, she
is acting as Israel's conscience and has to deal with the international pressure for a diplomatic solution.
Bashar al Assad is Syria's President. He studied in London and would
have been an optician if his older brother had not been killed in a car accident in 1994. Syria is accused of backing Hizbollah and supplying
the group with weapons.
Fouad Siniora is the Lebanese leader. He has pleaded with the UN to demand a ceasefire and has described his country as "a disaster zone".
Israel says Mr Siniora must take Hizbollah in hand - but few analysts
believe he has the power to do so.
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is the Iranian President. His government is
a major backer of Hizbollah and is the country's first non-cleric leader
for 24 years. He made headlines last year by saying Israel should be
"wiped off the map".
US President George Bush is a self-described "war president". He
has committed the US to working towards peace in the Middle East
and from his point of view, the crisis is actually an opportunity to
broker a lasting peace deal. The US has historically backed Israel
and Mr Bush has been overheard laying much of the blame firmly
at Syria's door. [Thank G-d for President Bush!!!!]
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has been deployed on a
peace mission to the Middle East. She is the first African-American
woman to hold the post and last year she was ranked the most
powerful woman in the world by Forbes magazine.
The fact that Britain has refused to back a ceasefire in the Middle
East has left Prime Minister Tony Blair open to much national and
international criticism. He told Parliament: "If it is to stop it has to stop
by undoing how it started." A informal discussion Mr Blair had with
President Bush revealed his position to be a supporting role to the
US standpoint. [Good for him!!!!]
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
IDF targets car carrying fleeing Hizbullah members:
The IAF targeted a car carrying Hizbullah members who were fleeing
a rocket launching site on Monday afternoon, east of Tyre in southern Lebanon. The IDF also struck a structure in the area being used by
the guerillas.
Earlier Monday, Golani Brigade troops, tanks and combat engineers engaged in heavy fighting after pushing their way deeper into Lebanon towards the village of Bint Jbail, branded Hizbullah's "terror capital" in southern Lebanon, located northeast of Maroun al-Ras. The troops
came under attack from anti-tank missiles and sniper fire.
Thirteen IDF soldiers - including a Lt.-Col. who was moderately
wounded - were evacuated to Rambam Hospital in Haifa and to
Ziv Hospital in Safed, with wounds ranging from light to moderate.
The IDF reported at least 15 Hizbullah gunmen had been killed in
the battle.
Two IAF pilots were injured Monday afternoon as their Apache
helicopter crash landed and burst into flames north of Safed
near the Lebanese border. Several other soldiers were
wounded in the incident. Firefighters at the scene worked to
extinguish a fire that began to spread as a result of the crash.
A high ranking IAF officer told The Jerusalem Post that an initial report
that the helicopter got entangled in an electrical wire was false, saying
that the helicopter was flying at an altitude that was much higher than
the electric cable. The officer said that the IDF was looking into the possibility that the Apache helicopter was shot down by Hizbullah
anti-aircraft fire. He said that the helicopter was in the midst of a
mission to assist ground troops while hovering near the northern
border.
The officer told The Post that there was no decision to
ground IAF aircraft following the incident. He said that there did not
appear to be a connection between Monday's crash and last Thursday's
incident when two other Apache gun ships collided over northern
Israel. Maj. Ran Yehoshua Kochava, 37, was killed and three other
pilots were injured - one critically - in the collision.
A high-ranking IAF officer said earlier Monday that the air force felt
that it was picking up on the Hizbullah's method of hiding Katyusha launchers, and that a quick combination of real-time intelligence and
attacks by aircraft allowed for such success. [Thank G-d!!!!]
The officer said that alongside attacks on Katyusha rocket launchers,
the IAF was investing a great deal in trying to hit Hizbullah leaders.
The main focus of the IAF operation, the officer said, was to provide
cover for IDF troops operating on the ground in southern Lebanon.
He said that IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Dan Halutz had given an
order that for every strike on Haifa, 10 Hizbullah targets in the
Dahiya neighborhood should be targeted. [Yes, AT LEAST 10!!!!]
However, the IDF Spokesman's Office released a statement on Monday morning denying that such an order had been given and saying that the
IAF officer was mistaken. [Even if he didn't "say" it.....let's hope
he is thinking, and planning to do, it!!!!]
IDF ground forces and Hizbullah guerrillas were already engaged Monday morning in a heavy exchange of fire north of the village of Maroun al-Ras,
a strongly-contested Hizbullah stronghold.
Despite sporadic gunbattles throughout the day in Maroun al-Ras -
the scene of heavy fighting last week - the IDF on Sunday dispatched
troops to take up positions on the outskirts of Bint Jbail. Troops were surrounding the town's casbah in the late afternoon.
IDF sources estimated that Hizbullah had accumulated large quantities
of weapons and missiles in the village, which they said would be raided
as part of Operation Change of Direction launched July 12, following the abduction of two soldiers in a cross-border Hizbullah attack.
Bint Jbail, the sources said, had become Hizbullah's main base of terror operations since Israel's withdrawal from Lebanon in 2000. The Shi'ite
village served as a comfortable and sympathetic breeding ground, they
said, for the Hizbullah, harboring some 100 guerillas.
Over the weekend however the IDF noticed that a large percentage of
the village had begun to move to the north after IAF fighter jets distributed flyers warning residents there of the looming IDF raid. Sources said that
only 20 percent of the 20,000 residents in the village remained alongside
the Hizbullah fighters.
The army could not confirm a Channel 2 report that the Hizbullah fire
came from a number of terror cells that had hidden in tunnels after the
IDF gained control of the village on Saturday.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
UN observer seriously wounded by Hizbullah gunfire in Lebanon
A United Nations observer was seriously wounded Sunday in the
crossfire during fighting between Hizbullah and Israeli troops in south Lebanon, and flown to an Israeli hospital for treatment, officials said.
The observer, identified as Italian army Capt. Roberto Punzo, was
wounded by "fragments," the office of the Italian chiefs of staff said,
adding that the source of the fragments was not immediately clear.
Earlier a UN official said he had been wounded by a bullet, apparently
fired by Hizbullah. Punzo was evacuated by an Israeli military helicopter
to Rambam Hospital in Haifa and admitted for emergency care, said
hospital spokesman David Ratner. Ratner said he was undergoing
surgery for a stomach wound and was in serious but stable condition.
Punzo is the second member of the UN monitoring team injured in
12 days of fighting. Several UN positions on the border have taken hits
from Israeli shells, and Israel said earlier this week that a UN post on its
side was hit by a Hizbullah missile - though the observer team said it was
a stray Israeli shell. [Hey, why not blame us?!?! Everyone does!!!!]
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
'Missile strike on TA still real threat'
IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Dan Halutz said on Monday that a Hizbullah missile attack on Tel Aviv still remained a real threat. [G-d forbid!!!!]
Halutz said that the destruction of the Iranian long-range Zelzal missile
last week proved that Hizbullah possessed this capability, adding, "what
we don't have answers for are when and how the rocket could be fired."
Halutz estimated that in the southern Lebanese town of Bint Jbail, where
the IDF are currently operating, there were 500 terrorists remaining alongside residents who had not evacuated the area in spite of repeated warnings from the IDF. There were 20,000 people in the town that Halutz called a "symbol of Hizbullah," before the IDF incursion.
Halutz issued a scathing warning to the Hizbullah leader saying,
"Nasrallah recently spoke from there and in his next speech, if he
returns to the same location, he should choose his words more
carefully." "If he (Nasrallah) arrived as the head of a political party,
that would be one thing, but if he came as a head of a terror group,
we would not accept that," added Halutz.
On Operation Change of Direction, Halutz said that the aim was for the military operation to provide the top echelons with a good starting point before engaging in the diplomatic process.
Meanwhile, Deputy Chief of Staff Maj.-Gen. Moshe Kaplinski said that
the ability Hizbullah was demonstrating in the current conflict had not surprised the IDF. "It is the same Hizbullah with different weaponry,
that has now been forced into a defensive war. We are the attackers,
and in some ways this gives us an advantage," said Kaplinski. He
stressed that Hizbullah had not exposed all its means of warfare
and still had "a few surprises," as had the IDF.
Kaplinski said that Operation Change of Direction would last a few
more weeks, adding that Hizbullah was sustaining long-lasting damage
to its military capability and was being exposed as nothing more than a terrorist movement. The deputy chief of staff said that he did not expect there to be an additional drafting of reservist soldiers.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
After Maroun al-Ras battle, Bint-Jbail looms as next challenge:
The commander of the Engineering Corps battalion was very clear
over the wireless. "When you're operating north of Maroun Al-Ras," he
ordered the commander of one of his advance units Sunday afternoon,
"if you see a terrorist, don't risk yourselves to get him, call up the
artillery and stay behind. I don't want any soldiers endangered."
Most of Sunday around Maroun Al-Ras was relatively quiet. In the
morning there was an artillery barrage launched against Bint-Jbail, the
main Hizbullah stronghold to the north of the village, and occasionally
there were sirens warning of another Katyusha attack.
The main signs of the fiercest ground battle in this conflict were the
roads that had been plowed up by tank tracks and fields burned by
falling shells.
The battle for Maroun Al-Ras might have already been over, and the underground complex of Hizbullah destroyed by the IDF, at the cost
of seven soldiers, but the officers in command of the various forces
there were still worried about additional losses. The battle for the village
and the extensive Hizbullah bunkers had raged for almost four days, and
it was possible to hear varying judgments of its success from officers
and soldiers.
The first clash had been Tuesday night, when soldiers of the elite Maglan unit entered the village to clear it of Hizbullah fighters and destroy the positions used to shell villages and towns in Upper Galilee. The
opposition was fierce and two Maglan soldiers were killed in the
exchange of fire on Wednesday morning.
The IDF began pouring in more forces, tanks from three different
brigades - 7, 188 and 401 - the elite "Egoz" of the Golani Brigade,
an Engineering Corps battalion and the reconnaissance unit and
Battalion 101 of the Paratrooper Brigade.
On Thursday five Egoz soldiers were killed by an anti-tank missile
in the village. The fighting was fierce, often at very short-range with
the soldiers advancing from bunker to bunker. Some of these were
blown up with the Hizbullah fighters inside.
A sign of the difficulty of the battle was the fact that one soldier's body disappeared for two days, a fact that the IDF, concerned that Hizbullah would try and capture it, forbid the media to report. It was recovered
only on Saturday by his comrades.
Meanwhile, over the weekend the paratroopers and Engineering Corps
units destroyed houses used by Hizbullah in the village and finished
off the remaining fighters.
Criticism has been heard in the army on the hurried way that some
of the forces were sent into the village. The Egoz force was sent in
daylight by a route that exposed them to Hizbullah, and some of the
tanks operating in the area weren't properly protected.
On Sunday a makeshift workshop had been set up on the old border
road next to Moshav Avivim [Just a few miles north of Safed], where
technical teams were attaching huge steel plates underneath Merkava
tanks to protect them from explosive devices like the one that had
killed four soldiers during the first hours of the kidnapping that
began the conflict 12 days ago.
"That's the way it works, you learn from mistakes" said the chief of one
of the technical crews. Not only ground devices worried the tank crews.
A tank driver from Brigade 7 resting at the side of the road after his tank
had left Lebanon said that "many of our tanks took hits, mainly from
Sagger rockets; none of the tanks were destroyed but quite a few
of our friends were wounded."
OC Northern Command Maj.-Gen. Udi Adam said at a briefing at
Northern Command on Sunday that "the force in Maroun Al-Ras
came across opposition that necessitated additional back-up and
a paratrooper force professionally took control of the village."
Adam deflected the criticism of the operation and said that "each commander in the field uses his own consideration on how to
move his force."
The official account of the battle numbered 13 dead Hizbullah fighters,
but Adam said that there more. However he had ordered his soldiers
not to endanger themselves to bring back dead enemy bodies. One
of the officers involved in the fighting estimated the Hizbullah dead
at at least 30.
IDF commanders seemed torn between respect and disdain for their adversary. "We weren't surprised that they hadn't run away," said Adam, "they are fighters like we are, only we're better and they still act like a
terror organization because they hide behind women and children."
"Our soldiers showed bravery, and when contact was made, we
were victorious," he added.
An officer who participated in the battle reacted angrily to the criticism
in the media from high-ranking officers. "We fought like lions," he said.
"This isn't the PLO or Hamas; Hizbullah is a fighting military organization
and they don't run away. We fought a war and in a war you have to be
prepared for every eventuality. We were prepared and we won."
But Maroun Al-Ras might just be a foretaste of things to come. Bint-Jbail,
the Shi'ite town down the road, is a major Hizbullah stronghold. Adam
wasn't willing to say when and if the IDF would advance on the town,
but a paratrooper resting from the weekend's fighting said: "We've
been shown UAV footage from Bint-Jbail and it's full of them."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Volunteers rescue pets wounded in Katyusha attacks
While northerners pour into the southern part of the country or
into neighborhood bomb shelters, dogs and cats, some wounded by
shrapnel from Katyusha rockets, are being left to fend for themselves.
Consequently, volunteer organizations have come to the rescue, trying
to gather the abandoned pets and bring them to safer surroundings. Two such associations are AHAVA, an organization created to better the lives
of animals in Israel and the Middle East, and Tenu L'Haiot L'Hiot
(Let Animals Live).
AHAVA has collected 168 dogs and cats and brought them into shelters, kennels and private homes. Its volunteers have found so many that the organization lacks the room to house more. Additionally, AHAVA volunteers are bringing food to the North to feed the hundreds of cats that roam the streets and are accustomed to being fed by local residents.
Tenu L'Haiot L'Hiot has gathered close to 300 animals and has housed
them in various shelters. On Saturday, the organization ran a drive in
Ramle for people to come and adopt these pets, but few people came
to the event.
"These dogs and cats are being left outside and they are getting
wounded from the shrapnel," said Tamara More, a spokesperson for
AHAVA. More, who has found eight wounded animals and believes there
"are hundreds if not thousands of more animals that have been injured."
In addition to physical injury, pets have been emotionally traumatized by
the effects of the last few weeks.
"Imagine how you would feel if you had been accustomed to living in a
loving, comfortable environment, then abandoned, living on the street,
and then have rockets fall all around you? It's not hard to imagine how
they feel," said Etti Altman, spokeswoman for Tenu L'Haiot L'Hiot.
Nonetheless, More said that the animals in the shelters were getting
along well and were "just happy to be back in a home and off the scary streets. They are so grateful." However, she added, "they still tremble
at every sound."
Not all owners have abandoned their pets. In fact, some animals
factor greatly in their owners' decisions regarding leaving the north.
Gavriel Rubinstein did not originally leave his home in Safed because
he did not want to leave his dog, Simba. [My granddaughter, Irene
Debbie, brought her pet rabbit from Carmiel, to Tel Aviv, with her!!!!
My daughter Felicia and her three children are staying in their home,
refusing to go into a bomb shelter here in Safed, because their
neighbors will NOT allow dogs in there.....and they refuse to leave
Snoopy and Brownie at home, alone!!!!]
"When you have a pet, you take in a responsibility. You become attached
to your animals and they become one of the family. You can't just leave
them behind. They have feelings and are traumatized by the noise," explained Gavriel's mother, Sarah. [In fact, the dogs hear the
rockets coming in, before we do.....we, humans, hear them
only after they have hit!!!!]
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Nowhere to go, no way to get there:
The public bomb shelter in Kiryat Shmona is in a basement that,
during normal times, serves as the Golden Gloves boxing club. There
are posters on the walls, boxing gloves scattered here and there, and
equipment lying about in the corners. The club, which has already
groomed a few local stars, is run by a Russiam immigrant on a
volunteer basis.
But lately the shelter is being used for another purpose: Elderly
immigrants from the Commonwealth of Independent States have found refuge there, huddling on the narrow cots, which they hardly ever leave - even during a lulls in the rocket barrages. When there are no Katyushas,
the city shudders from incessant mortar fire from Israel Defense Forces positions on the outskirts of town. The local military commander has suggested to Kiryat Shmona Mayor Haim Barbibai that he ask the government to distribute ear plugs to the town's residents.
It would be difficult to find a starker contrast than the power that radiates from the aggressive posters on the walls of the subterranean boxing club, and the weakness of the elderly immigrants crouching beneath them.
The immigrants from the CIS, normally some 23 percent of Kiryat
Shmona's population, are at present the overwhelming majority there.
The veteran Israelis left long ago for points south. Mostly retired, and with
a high proportion of single mothers, the immigrants have nowhere to go
and no way of getting there. They do not own cars and are completely dependent on public transportation, which has stopped.
This, however, is not the end of their story: Even with the wave of warm hospitality emanating from families in the center of the country, there is
little interest in inviting older folks who do not speak Hebrew into the
home. There is also little willingness to absorb single-parent families
from "outside the fold."
"The situation stinks," says Anna Vernik, the immigration coordinator
at a community center in Kiryat Shmona. "The war sharpens the socioeconomic differences and our structural weakness."
If things are hard for all residents of the north, it's particularly difficult
for the immigrants. Their foreignness, their limited command of Hebrew,
the lack of a social and family network for them around the country - all
these are now additional obstacles, which are not faced by veteran residents. It is not easy being old and sick these days, all the more so if someone is elderly, ailing and an immigrant. It is particularly difficult to
be a single parent mother with no "safety net," no aunt in Petah Tikva or nephew who has not been in touch for years, but has now offered to help.
Immigrants have none of these. They are newcomers. Everything is
difficult for them. That is why a group of then are stuck in this boxing
club-shelter, day and night, preferring it over staying at home, where
they have to decide alone whether the horrible "boom" was one of "their" Katyushas or "our" mortars. Even on Friday, in the short lull between attacks, they preferred to stay in the shelter.
Maria Zhitomirsky sits crying. Her husband, a disabled World War II
veteran, shuffles around, angry. Rivka Yudin is reading a Sherlock
Holmes book, and only her husband, Grigory, says that everything is all
right, all we have to do is win the war. He is also certain this is possible.
Abandoned in Tiberias:
The situation is similar in Tiberias, Mayor Zohar Oved told
Absorption Minister director general Mirale Gal at a meeting last
Friday. His report was interrupted by a siren, followed by the tense
wait for the landing. Only afterward could the mayor continue
explaining the unique situation facing the immigrants in his city, who
are sequestered most of the time in shelters, not realizing that
others have abandoned them, and the city.
Even without such awareness, which will eventually hit them, a deep
feeling of being refugees permeates the shelter in the absorption
center for Ethiopian immigrants in Tiberias. The shelter, part of
which is a converted storage room, now holds some 270 people, half of
them children, in a surrealistic atmosphere.
A strange dimness hangs everywhere; the fans scarcely alleviate the
stifling heat and the oppressive crowdedness. The shelter's single
television blares the latest news in Hebrew. Gadi, a veteran immigrant, translates for those whose sense of isolation increases their anxiety.
One group in the shelter only arrived in Israel on July 6, barely a week
before the war erupted on their new doorstep. Theresa Mutoko and her
two daughters spent seven years in the transit camp in Addis Ababa. "It
was harder there," she says. "There was no war, but we wanted to come here so much. Here they are taking care of us. God is taking care of us."
Perhaps there is something in her words. While we were conversing in
the cramped shelter, a Katyusha landed in the empty soccer field at an absorption center for Ethiopian immigrants in Haifa. The building was damaged, but no one was hurt.
Apart from divine providence, there are some individuals and
organizations that are helping the newcomers. Indeed, immigrants
who live in concentrated groupings in apartments or absorption centers
are in better shape than others. Here there are support systems close at hand. The others, tens of thousands of residents of the north, are all alone. One elderly couple from Carmiel, for example, were alone in a building
that was hit until they were discovered by Deputy Mayor Rina Greenberg, who moved them in with another local family.
"The immigrants have a special problem," she explains, drawing on her
own rich experience. "The Soviet regime taught them not to trust and
not to rely on anyone. So they don't trust anyone here either.
Sometimes it is hard to overcome that lack of trust."
Refuge in the Gush:
Some 200 immigrants from Carmiel are currently staying in Gush
Etzion. Some are being housed in the dormitories of hesder yeshivas
(which combine army service and religious studies), while others are
being hosted by families. Suddenly "the territories" are a safe haven.
Svetlana and Maxim Packard, along with their three-year-old son Igor,
arrived in Israel to settle in Carmiel just a week before the fighting
began. "Everything happens in life," they say philosophically, thankful
to their hosts in Gush Etzion, who are enveloping them with love.
[Thank G-d, my wonderful grandson, Noam, lives in Tel Aviv
and has welcomed Staey, Heidi & their children into his home,
albeit he, himself, is not able to stay with them, since he is one
of the 8,000 Israeli reserve soldiers who was called up to
serve in the north, this week!!!!]
As time goes by, some problems worsen, while others disappear.
A week into the fighting, the Home Front Command appointed a
Russian-speaking spokesman to relay information to Reka, the radio
station broadcasts in Russian. The Absorption Ministry has also found
a way to transfer payments to new immigrants, even though its offices
in the north are closed.
But what about the elderly cardiac patient recently released from hospital after an operation, alone now in Kiryat Shmona without his medication?
Or the fact that the Russian-language newspapers are not reaching their readership, adding further to their feelings of isolation. Where will the
money be found for some fun outing for children who have not had a
break from the furor and noise, and are too shell-shocked to go
anywhere without their parents?
While traveling from one Katyusha-damaged town to another, Gal
searches for immediate solutions to these problems. Every time she
solves one, another crops up in its place. The municipalities, which
are actually functioning very impressively, are now beginning to
collapse under the burden, and sometimes from the complaints.
There are some towns in which the veteran residents are envious of
the aid being extended to the immigrants. In mixed Jewish and Arab
towns, the help given to the immigrants bothers the Arabs. [And yet,
the exact same help is being given to all of Israeli Arabs!!!!]
Even the feeling of a shared fate and the impressive wave of
volunteerism cannot dispel the constant social tensions that still
exist, and which may actually be the only remnants of normalcy left.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Diaspora solidarity missions say 'Israel is safe':
American Jews seem to be more united in their backing for Israel than
at any time since the Six Day War, according to Jewish leader Malcolm Hoenlein.
Hoenlein, executive vice chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, was speaking at a press conference in Jerusalem Sunday at the start of a three-day solidarity tour. But even as
he and other Jewish groups come on solidarity missions, donate funds
and rally in support of Israel, North American Jews are cancelling plans
to visit Israel.
"You always have people who postpone trips because of a [violent] situation. It's not just true in Israel. It's true anywhere where a conflict situation arises. It's understandable, but it's containable and I hope that we can reverse the current trend," he said. "The goal of solidarity missions [is to] get others to follow and understand that it's safe to come to Israel."
He has brought 50 people, including conference chairman Harold Tanner, along with him on one of several missions of international Jewish leadership coming to bolster Israel while it's under attack from Hizbullah.
Some two dozen representatives from the European Jewish Congress
and EU countries also arrived Sunday, along with a 70-member group
from the United Jewish Communities.
The UJC is just one of many Diaspora Jewish organizations to raise money for beleaguered Israelis in northern Israel. The umbrella group has already allocated $10 million to the cause and expects to commit more, in addition
to having started a $1.5 million campaign with American synagogues to cover the cost of air conditioners and televisions for bomb shelters up
north. The American Jewish Committee has, to date, raised $200,000 in
an emergency fund-raising drive, and the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, The American Joint Distribution Committee,
the Jewish Agency and others have set up special programs to
help residents up north, particularly children.
On Sunday, Hoenlein announced an initiative to help sustain the tourism sector in the north, which has been shut down since the violence broke
out. The "virtual tourism" plan, being run in cooperation with the Prime Minister's Office, Galilee Development Corporation and Israel Hotel Association, encourages foreigners to pay for nights in hotels and bed
and breakfasts throughout northern Israel. Instead of reserving specific dates, however, customers simply receive a voucher which they will be
able to use any time in the next year. The concept is to allow hotels and B&Bs to continue to receive income to avoid closing even if their guests won't arrive until much later on.
Raphael Farber, vice president of the Israel Hotels Association, said the initiative was a "great idea" - so long as hoteliers received adequate
rates for their rooms. He accused American solidarity missions of
often demanding rock bottom prices at the hotels they stay at.
[And, to think that just two weeks ago, tourists were complaining about Israeli hotels giving Israelis, who can't afford expensive vacations, cheaper rates than they were giving to tourists!!!!]
"Solidarity missions are a nice wording for 'taking advantage,'" he said.
"This is not solidarity. This is just going to Israel cheaply." He also said
that, "To our sorrow, the Jews are the first to cancel. [We need] major research to understand why Jews are afraid to come to Israel. I don't understand. This is the time to show their empathy to the State of Israel
and the people of Israel. And really there is no reason to be afraid."
But Mark Feldman, managing director of Zion Tours, which has a large
North American clientele, rejected the notion that American Jews cancel first. "It's not that true a stereotype because in the last intifada, so much was pushed onto Americans that they have to come support us," he said. "The cancellations run across the board." [Mark is a friend of mine,
but I must disagree with him on this!!!! When working at a tourist Gallery in Safed, I noticed that, in times of crisis, lots of tourists
continued to come here.....from every other country, but NO Americans would come!!!!]
But cancelling they are. Feldman said 60 to 65 percent of his North American customers have cancelled, while he gave the number of
new reservations as: "Zero." He explained that tourists planning
vacations don't want to feel confined to just the parts of the country
where rockets haven't fallen. "Honestly, most of us in this country understand it at this stage," he said.
He added that he had been contacted by American Jews looking to
help Israel rather than exploit the situation. "There's already an outcry
of individuals [asking], 'What do you need? How can we help?'
Nobody's trying to take advantage," he said.
The support isn't limited to financial measures. The Jewish community
in Britain held a thousands-strong rally in London Sunday to show
support for Israel. Israeli Ambassador Zvi Haifetz and Chief Rabbi
Jonathan Sacks were among those on the list of speakers. The
event followed a large anti-Israel protest held earlier Sunday.
Demonstrations have already been held in cities through the United
States and more are scheduled, according to Hoenlein.
"We're seeing broad-based support for Israel among young and old,
perhaps more than at any time since 1967," he said. "There's a broad mobilization of support." [For this we all thank YOU!!!!]
Sandy Rosen-Hazen lives in Safed. Contact her at Sandy@israel.net |
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WHAT IS HAPPENING TO ORIYA IS OUTRAGEOUS!
Posted by Lee Caplan, July 24, 2006. |
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This is absolutely unacceptable. Please fax a letter to the court manager as directed below, and please also let the Israeli consulate know how you feel about this outrage. These two girls had been present at the protest in Hevron when the IDF was building a wall around the house of a terrorist which had been used for unleashing terrorist activities. Lee This letter was sent today from mattotarim@eretz.org. |
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Help Oriya: she's about to go to jail for FOUR MONTHS for doing... nothing! Remember our ninth grader friend, Oriya? She was charged of being present at a demonstration at which other people (not her) purportedly behaved in an unruly manner. Unlike Dana Olmert (daughter of PM Olmert), who did exactly the same thing, Oriya has been in jail ever since this demonstration. Unlike Dana Olmert, she is not an adult -- she just graduated 9th grade. What's the news? Judge Ben-Dor found a way, today, to keep her in jail for four more months. The method is, to set the date of her trial for 4 long months from now -- which allows him to keep her in prison until that time. The prosecutor (who is supposed to be the bad guy -- the judge is supposed to be neutral...) was flabbergasted and urged the judge to please make the trial much sooner so Oriyah can get out of jail already. But the judge refused to allow this. Worse: A friend of Oriya's who was at the same demonstration, is about to go through the same procedure tomorrow, with the same judge. Therefore, we ask that you IMMEDIATELY fax your protest to the courthouse where Judge Ben-Dor presides. The fax number of the court manager ("menahel") is 02-6706572. Your fax should say something like: To the "menahel" (manager) of the courthouse. It is my understanding that Judge Ben-Dor of this courthouse sent a ninth grader to jail for four months yesterday, for demonstrating. This is totally unjust. I am extremely concerned because a judge who makes irrational decisions cannot command respect from any reasonable person. I believe that it is your duty to immediately take whatever steps are necessary to extricate this girl from the bizarre Kafkaesque situation in which she finds herself in light of this mysterious ruling on the part of Judge Ben-Dor. It is better to write in your own words than to exactly copy the above text. Your assistance is MUCH appreciated. Contact Lee Caplan at lesscaplan@yahoo.com |
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THE REAL ISRAEL, PART III
Posted by Naomi Ragen, July 24, 2006. |
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[Editor's Note: Naomi Ragen's "Notes I" can be read below.] |
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This is what we see on our evening news: reserve units massing at the front, waiting to go in tomorrow morning. "I was sitting at my kitchen table Saturday morning when I got the call-up. I was on my way an hour later." Another soldier: "I wasn't called up. But my commanding officer asked me to come. He wanted the best men in the unit to come. We are all here. We've been doing this for twenty years. I thought we'd finished with them. But I guess not." On a small hill, another reserve soldier, who is getting married in two months, speaks on a cell phone to his fiance. His face is troubled as he tries to comfort her:"Nothing will happen to me. I'll be back soon. You'll see. It will be all right." Nearby, young soldiers put their arms around each other and sing. "We are ready to go! We will take care of them, don't worry," they smile at the cameras. Elsewhere, in Netanya, a soldier's rest and recreation hotel has been hosting families from the North. They crowd into the small rooms, the bunkbeds. They dry the families laundry on chairs. On the top bunk, a young woman from Shlomi, pregnant with her first baby, wipes tears from her eyes. Unlike the others, she is here alone. "My husband is back in Shlomi. I don't know when I'll give birth, or where. I don't know anything." A delegation of Christians from around the world check into an empty Haifa hotel, dafka. "The people of Israel are very wise. They are very brave. I'm glad to be here among them," a woman from India says. People from the Netherlands, and the Cameroons have come, staying in places Israelis won't. In Acre, forty strangers have prepared a communal bomb shelter to house them each night. Wall to wall mattresses. Children all over the place. "We've become like a family." A soldier sent an SMS message to his father: "I've been wounded, but I'm all right." The father headed up to the front, and found his son injured, but not too badly. Naomi Ragen is an American-born novelist and journalist who lives in Jerusalem. She can be contacted at www.naomiragen.com, where you can subscribe to her newsletter. |
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WE DO NOT NEED THE WORLD'S "FEEL SORRY FOR THE JEW" PHONY SUPPORT!
Posted by Nurit Greenger, July 24, 2006. |
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This article was written by Suzanne Fields and it appeared in
Jewish World Review |
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A powerful wake-up call and reminder They're caricatured with hooknoses and humpbacks, as sucking up a sow's excrement, murdering children for their blood in a recipe for matzoh. They're scorned for being weak and sneered at for being strong, for passivity and aggression, for segregating themselves and for assimilating to disappear among their secular neighbors. They're too studious or merely stupid, obsessed with cleanliness or living in filth, hated for their industry and reviled for their sloth. They're condemned as greedy capitalists and naive communists, as reactionaries and radicals, patriotic nationalists and secular internationalists, for being stateless and for building a thriving state. Jews are persecuted when they don't convert and persecuted when they do. The converted are accused of hating themselves, and the unconverted are accused of hating everybody else. Seneca, the Roman tragedian, expressed annoyance at Roman Jews for their observance of a ritual Sabbath: "This meant that Jews were wasting one-seventh of their lives doing nothing." Now the Jews of Israel, doing what they have to do to survive, are accused of "acting out of proportion" to the daily assault of Iranian rockets fired by Hezbollah to kill Jews in their homes. The Jews should show restraint. Restraint was what the Jews in Germany showed when the Nazis were organizing the Holocaust and the world wouldn't believe that what was happening was happening. Restraint is what the rest of the world showed when they dismissed a crazy Austrian paperhanger and his nutty book, "Mein Kampf." If the rest of the world was willing to ignore Hitler and his boasting and bloviating, why couldn't the Jews? Restraint is what you show in disputes with rational people who are willing to compromise, who will give up something in return for something. But restraint can buy time for your uncompromising enemies to enable them to plot the ambush to kill you later. During the Holocaust, certain Jewish leaders, eager to show restraint by trusting their enemies, gave up lists of Jews, a few at a time, to save others a little while longer. Ariel Sharon, showing restraint, organized the withdrawal from Gaza as a way to achieve peace through strength, a controversial idea but nevertheless credible. You could call it aggressive restraint. All that was wrong with it was that it didn't work and was perceived as weakness by the enemies of Israel. The only thing Israel got was more rockets on its cities, the elevation of Hamas to power and the kidnapping of its soldiers standing duty in Israeli territory. " When you keep pinching a lion," Jeffrey Gedmin, director of the Aspen Institute in Berlin, writes in Die Welt, the German daily, "sooner or later he'll clobber you with his paw." Throughout history, others have had a lot of advice for the Jews, cheap at the price. America aside, there was not much else. Anti-Semitism is often personal, and always political. The anti-Semites get away with acting on their prejudice because there's a political environment where spin is appreciated. Anti-Zionism, the legitimate criticism of Israel politics and policy, is not always anti-Semitism. But it usually is. Once upon a time, the world's sympathy rested with the Jews. The United Nations approved the creation of Israel; the Jews had suffered so much in the early decades of the 20th century. Israel gave the Jews a new identity, an opportunity to create a country by working the land, bringing it to flower and training men (and women) to fight back when attacked. They succeeded beyond their dreams, beyond the nightmares of their critics. When Israelis survived in the wars of 1948, 1964 and 1967, no thanks to restraint, their global supporters began to fall away. Jews were easier to feel sorry for when they couldn't fight back. "Nathan the Wise," an 18th-century German play by Gotthold Lessing, depicts a flattering portrait of Moses Mendelssohn, the playwright's famous Jewish friend. When the Sultan Saladin asks Nathan, the Moses figure, to explain his identity, Nathan replies simply: Ich bin ein Mensch -- "I am a man." This line infuriated Hannah Arendt, writing about it after the Holocaust. It characterized the Jew in a private, personal way, she said, ignoring his specific identity subject to political vulnerability. She knew what the Israelis have had to learn the hard way. For a Jew, being a man is not good enough unless it's backed up by the power to survive. Contact Nurit Greenger at 4nuritg@gmail.com |
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EMERGENCY IN NORTHERN ISRAEL
Posted by B'Ahavat Yisrael, July 24, 2006. |
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For almost two weeks, residents of Northern Israel have been showered with hundreds of katyusha missiles fired at them by Hizbullah terrorists. Some have already lost their lives and many have been injured. As a result, Northern residents find themselves holed up in bomb shelters for inordinate lengths of time, stores are shut down and activity outside is severely limited. Acquiring needed goods is practically impossible. B'Ahavat Yisrael representatives are going out to these areas and providing the residents with badly needed supplies that they find almost impossible to get themselves while under an almost constant barrage of missiles - from games to occupy their children while sitting in the bomb shelters to diapers for their babies. Our next delivery is scheduled for this coming Thursday. How much we can give these residents depends on how much funds we can accumulate. Please join B'Ahavat Yisrael and stretch out your hand to these beleaguered residents of Northern Israel in their time of need. United we shall overcome. FOR DONATIONS - In US (tax deductible), send to:
In Israel, send to:
For donations by Credit Card:
Contact B'Ahavat Israel by email at admin@bahavatyisrael.org or go their website http://www.bahavatyisrael.org |
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SOLIDARITY FOR ISRAEL AND REMEMBRANCE FOR GUSH KATIF
Posted by AFSI, July 24, 2006. |
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Dear Friends and supporters, This is the detailed program of the major event in NYC, of the event that will be held simultaneously in Jerusalem and the list of the congregations organizing similar programs of support to Israel and remembrance of Gush Katif around the U.S.A and few countries around the world. Almost one year ago, August 2005, 10,000 Jews from the 21 communities of Gush Katif/Gaza were expelled from their homes and sent out to find new homes, new jobs, new farms, new schools, new youth centers, new synagogues, and new lives. The majority are still trying to rebuild their destroyed lives. One year later, July and August, 2006, there are now hundreds of thousands of refugees forced to flee their homes in the northern cities because of the daily bombardment from Hezbollah rockets and missiles. They are streaming into central and southern Israel, filling homes and schools in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the Negev. Dror Vanunu reports that "Many families from the north are being hosted in the crowded caravans of the Gush Katif evacuees. Understanding the trauma of losing one's home, many Gush Katif adults and youth have traveled north to help prepare bomb shelters and deliver aid to the adults. The Gush youth of the caravan community of Nitzan, near Ashkelon, organized activities for hundreds of children from the north to give them a feeling of warmth and security, fully understanding their feelings of displacement, homelessness and fear." Be there for us. Be there for Israel. IN NEW YORK: The Fifth Ave., Synagogue, 5 E. 62nd Street in New York City, will
be the scene on Tuesday, August 1, 8 P.M., of an evening of:
The speakers will include the Chairman of Americans For a Safe Israel/AFSI HERBERT ZWEIBON, former AFSI Director HELEN FREEDMAN, ZOA President MORT KLEIN, resident of Shilo BATYA MEDAD, International Coordinator for Gush Katif DROR VANUNU, and more. Music and an important new video will round out the program. At this critical juncture in Israel's history, it is vital that Jews of every persuasion come together in support of Israel's valiant battle against the forces that would destroy it. Diaspora Jews are not on the front lines fighting the enemy. We must therefore respond to the humanitarian needs of our brothers and sisters in Israel by providing moral and financial support. Information about funding will be distributed at the Aug. 1 event. Contact Americans For a Safe Israel/AFSI,
The following is a list of commemorative events that will be held in congregations and communities. We wish to thank all of the Rabbis and heads of the congregations for taking part in the commemoration of the destruction of Gush Katif and hosting these events. Your concern is precious for all of the evacuated families of Gush Katif. To: Rabbi Peretz Dinovitz, Rabbi Herzl Kranz and Rabbi Yaacov Benamou for hosting their respective events and to Rabbi Moshe Hauer, Rabbi Elan Adler and Rabbi Ira Hisler for their continuing support. Many thanks also to Rebecca Chesner, Ruth Goetz, Helaine Bonder, Ron Logee and David Stein for their help in making these events a reality. IN SILVER SPRING, MARYLAND,
IN BALTIMORE, MARYLAND,
IN BALTIMORE, MARYLAND
IN ROCKVILLE, MARYLAND
TO BE ANNOUNCED: -- http://www.JewishROC.org CALL: FOR Future events In Washington, DC, Potomac and Baltimore, Maryland In Baltimore: Rebecca Chesner 410 484-3568 or Ruth Goetz 410 484-0538 In Silver Spring or Rockville: Fran Hisler: 301 424-1234 or Tova Abady 917 301 0997 IN LOS ANGELES.
IN FRANCE The commemorative event in Paris will take place after the summer vacation. Further details about the date and the place will follow. IN NORWAY A Few private meetings will be held throughout the country. For further information: gro-wen@online.no We ask all our supporters and friends to take part in one of these commemorative events or visit us at www.katifund.org for updated information and our latest film: Even miles away, show your support and care, IN ISRAEL: tens of thousands are expected to participate in a series of events throughout the day Hundreds of thousands are expected to attend the
PROGRAM: Yearning: At 8:00 Gathering at the Kissufim(Yearnings) border Message from the youth of Gush Katif Departure for Jerusalem with the Gush Katif Sefer Torah
Remembering...
Featuring:
Gathering together...
The public is invited to an exhibit of Gush Katif and North Shomron, depicting 35 years in the life of the pioneers and their accomplishments. The exhibit will focus on the development of Gush Katif in agriculture, education, community and Torah life together with the traumatic moments of the struggle and the expulsion throughout the plight of the expellees during this past year. We wish to express the beauty of Gush Katif as well as the strong spirit that leads us to rebuild and dream again. We will complete the writing of the Gush Katif Sefer Torah Procession to the Kotel (Western Wall) We Pledge... At 19:00 at the Western Wall. Prayer for the welfare of our soldiers and the residents of Northern Israel The Gush Katif Sefer Torah will be kept at the Kotel until B'H, Am Israel returns to Gush Katif and to all parts of Eretz Israel. We ask you to join us and participate in the writing of the Sefer Torah One letter: $18
Or please send checks to: Friends of Gush Katif
OR Dror Vanunu
Americans For a Safe Israel/AFSI is a pro-active pro-Israel
advocacy group. AFSI may be contacted by mail at 1623 Third Ave.,
Suite 205, New York, N.Y. 10128 (Tel: 212-828-2424; Fax:
212-828-1717); by email at afsi@rcn.com; or by accessing its website:
www.afsi.org. Barry Freedman is Executive Director.
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THE INFERNO FROM HELL IS YET TO BE IGNITED
Posted by Lawrence Uniglicht, July 24, 2006. |
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Israel's Defense Minister Amir Peretz says his nation is interested in the deployment of a NATO-led military force along the Israel Lebanon border. Hmmm! How thick is this aforementioned border? Will such a border patrol insure that no long-range missiles be fired into a seemingly vulnerable Jewish State from within Lebanon, outside of the force's jurisdiction? Will such a border patrol monitor the transport of such deadly rockets, as well as other weaponry, into Lebanon from terror promoting regimes such as Iran and Syria? No doubt, international troops will act as a deterrent against belligerent Hizbullah jihadist troops along a volatile land border, but how might Israel be shielded from incoming missiles of perhaps mass destruction? No lasting peaceful solution can be maintained between tiny Israel and its hostile neighbors unless and until all jihad obsessed terrorist organizations are outlawed, disarmed, its rabid leaders incarcerated or put to sleep. Period! A human body is not cancer free unless and until all metastasized tumors and cells are extracted or destroyed; planet Earth will not be terrorist free unless and until all jihad junkies are incarcerated or facilitated in a delusional quest to meet their war-monger prophet in Allahland paradise, choc full of compliant virginal females. Indeed, it is presciently prudent to preempt any anticipated martyr-driven homicidal/suicidal attempts, current or future, nipping such criminally insane mind-sets in the bud by whatever means necessary. Surely, a border patrol, acting as a temporary palliative, would not be up to such a task. Civilized secular planetary movers and shakers, perhaps quivering at prospects of the extortion-laced pronouncement "No fossil fuel for you" by turban adorned oil-nazis, alas always attempt to cover gaping wounds with band-aids. Indeed, short-term corporate bottom-lines always trump long-term sensible bottom-lines predicated on cleaning out the filth. Surely, merely tinkering with a frame cannot repair an evolving cerebrally painted second millennium masterpiece, if streaked with jihadist graffiti. If an international coalition of "honorable" nations seriously strives to stop the bleeding between Israel and Lebanon, it will initially deploy troops throughout the Hizbullah infected nation, confiscating or destroying every weapon, including all missiles, the terrorist network possesses. Furthermore, every influential person associated with that jihadist cadre must be neutralized i.e. jailed or put to sleep. Such a strategy can serve as a paradigm for dealing with terrorist organizations worldwide. Regimes that support such organizations must be substantially sanctioned as well. Okay, stop dreaming, the likelihood of civil secular nations today truly taking the fundamentalist intolerant Islamic jihadist bull by the horns, is equivalent to the likelihood of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Ehud Olmert dancing a Hora in Tehran or Jerusalem anytime soon. It will not happen unless such civil secular nations both experience and recognize the consequences of uncontested jihad. The horrific toppling of mighty World Trade Towers bludgeoned the soul of America with jihad's evil club, but a strategically inept preemptive invasion of Iraq dilutes former resolve to fight the good but costly fight. Bizarrely, devastating bombings in Madrid and London have not fully awakened those victimized civil nations enough to fight the good but costly fight as well. Apparently, such "wake up calls" are not recognized as such. Thus temporary fixes such as international border patrols are discussed, perhaps enough to douse one raging fire, but surely not sufficient to prevent the "inferno from hell" yet to be ignited. Lawrence Uniglicht is a career civil servant, working for the Social Security Administration. He advocates for the State of Israel with an American perspective. He writes, "Advocating for the disrespected underdog has been my passion, no doubt Israel falls into that category." Contact him by email at luniglicht@snip.net |
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HIZBALLAH BRINGS IWO JIMA TACTICS TO BAFFLE ISRAELI FORCES IN SOUTH LEBANON
Posted by Dave Nathan, July 24, 2006. |
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Israeli forces have pushed forward from the mountaintop village of Maroun er Ras captured Sunday to the fringes of Bint Jubeil, Hizballah's south Lebanese capital. Monday they suffered nine wounded in face to face combat. Whereas TV cameras showed much footage of the Maroun er Ras engagement, the IDF's other battle pockets are kept under wraps. Hizballah chief Hassan Nasrallah, who has an overall view, warned Israel in an interview to the Lebanese A Safir Monday, July 24, that its ground incursions in Lebanon would not stop Hizballah rocket fire against its cities. He certainly meant this as a morale-depressant for Israel troops. At the same time, DEBKAfile's military experts say that what he says is correct and must be taken into account in any diplomatic formula sought to end the warfare. 1. He could go on firing his rockets even when a multinational force is posted on the Lebanese-Israeli border. The force currently contemplated by Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert at this early stage of international diplomacy would consist of German, French and Czech units. 2. And even if multinational troops were deployed additionally on the Lebanese-Syrian border, they would not hamper Hizballah's rocket offensive. Therefore a buffer zone would offer no solution to a cessation of cross-border hostilities. DEBKAfile's military analysts say that the way the Israel-Hizballah war has been prosecuted up until Monday, July 24, is more likely to bring Nassrallah closer to his war objectives than Olmert. Notwithstanding the IDF's important battle gains at a number of focal South Lebanese points in the last 24 hours -- including the latest raids on the outskirts of Bint Jubeil on the heels of the capture of Maroun er Ras -- only one multiple firing rocket launcher (picture) and 6 single-barrel launchers have been destroyed. This figure will certainly multiply substantially in the coming days. Yet it will not change the essential strategic picture or stop the rocket fire from holding northern Israel and more than a million inhabitants to siege. Last week, Israel's army chiefs believed they had encountered Hizballah's primary war tactic -- Viet Cong-style guerrilla warfare out of hundreds of small bunkers scattered across the country. This week had scarcely begun when a still more formidable impediment was discovered: Hizballah camouflage techniques borrowed from the Japanese in the 1945 Iwo Jima battle. To stop the rockets coming, Israeli special forces must continue to blow up the tunnels and also adopt the methods the US Army's methods for overcoming the Japanese dug in at Iwo Jima and other Pacific islands at the end of World War II. Without regard to losses, they stormed Japanese dug-in positions and camouflaged units. using flame throwers and gasoline to burn the foliage concealing the enemy. DEBKAfile's military sources report that Israeli military chiefs have just begun studying Hizballah's arts of camouflage. A senior officer told DEBKAfile grimly: "Now we know that when a stand of five or six trees suddenly starts walking, we are seeing a 14-barreled Fajr 3 rocket launcher on the move; one or two trees in motion may conceal a couple of Hizballah fighters." But the situation is more difficult when the trees or bushes stand still and blend in with the surrounding dense foliage. By the time IDF spotters report five suspicious trees or bushes to overhead aircraft, helicopters or the nearest ground units, the Hizballah launchers or the fighters have moved on and changed their camouflage outfits. The small Israeli special operations units called in to hunt and destroy the last-seen mobile vegetation face a mystifying task. "This is a high-precision operation," said the officer. "It is time-consuming -- could take weeks if not months - dangerous and calls for larger numbers of troops than we have available." In the first ten days of the war, therefore, the Israeli air force bombed out empty Hizballah premises in South Beirut and Baalbek, but missed the moving woods and vegetation which concealed the rocket launchers -- which explains why the blitz continued notwithstanding heavy Israeli air force assaults on Hizballah's centers and strongholds. But Israel military strategists have got a handle on Hizballah's rocket-launching methods. Each rocket crew, carefully camouflaged, advances independently to its firing position and fires a volley, never a single rocket. If one crew chances on another, they all loose their rockets simultaneously. DEBKAfile's military analysts assert that the rocket offensive against Israel will go on for the following reasons: 1. While the IDF has begun to understand Hizballah's tactics and methods of warfare, the Olmert government has decided to deny the operation sufficient ground troops to come to grips with the small knots of moving rocket crewmen. Some of DEBKAfile's military experts fear the Israeli government may be falling into the Bush administration's disastrous error of allocating too few troops to the Iraq war for attaining its goals. 2. Iran is constantly pumping through Syria fresh rocket teams to replace those wiped out by Israeli forces. 3. Hizballah's leader wants no part in the diplomatic initiatives led by US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice in conjunction with the Europeans, Olmert, the Lebanese government and moderate Sunni Arab rulers. Nasrallah is playing his own game and will not be a party to a ceasefire at this point or stop firing his rockets -- except on his terms. 4. He will show the same contempt for a multinational force, however effective, deployed on Lebanon's borders with Israel and Syria, and simply keep on shooting. He knows as well as anyone that German or French troops will never go chasing through Lebanon's woods and hay stacks to tackle his fighters in face-to-face combat. He may not stick to as many as 100 rockets a day -- as at present, but he will keep his hand on the button and push it whenever it suits him. Nasrallah will only end the war when he can claim victory -- or is finally eliminated. Most Israeli generals agree that going for a multinational force, which appears to be the direction seriously contemplated by Ehud Olmert, would constitute a repeat of the blunder Ariel Sharon and Olmert himself perpetrated when, in their haste to evacuate the Gaza Strip last summer, they handed security over the Gazan-Egyptian Philadelphi border to Egyptian forces and the crossing to European monitors. Nasrallah has already struck the pose of victor and is dictating terms. Monday, July 24, he handed the Lebanese government a list of the prisoners in Israeli jails whom he wants released as the price for returning the kidnapped Israeli soldiers, Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev. He has not budged an inch from his initial demand for their release: indirect negotiations for a prisoner swap. The Israeli prime minister, who has switched his war objectives several times, is heading for a course that may at best restore the three abducted Israeli solders, Gilead Shalit in Hamas' hands, as well as Goldwasser and Regev. But this course will not rescue northern Israel and a third of the country from the nightmare of rockets falling night and day and destroying their lives or the Palestinian Qassam missiles from Gaza making life intolerable for Israel's south. Contact Dave Nathan at davenathan@aol.com |
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UN-HERALDED: BRAZEN BIAS IN MIAMI NEWSPAPER
Posted by Sanda Abramovici, July 24, 2006. |
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Keep this story in mind when you watch television and read newspapers reporting on the Middle East. This appeared on the PowerLine blogsite.
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Joel Mowbray (email: jdmowbra@erols.com) has returned to the United States from his trip to Israel. We filed seven dispatches by Joel from Israel. Today Joel reports on his return: Before arriving in South Florida this weekend, I had heard from several friends in the area that the Miami Herald was providing slanted coverage of the war in the Middle East. I had visited the web site, but that was largely a collection of wire stories. 
Notice a few things:
It's more than a tad disconcerting that I even needed to write all of the above. Simply showing the scan of the front page should be enough, but it's not. We've become so inured to relentless bias that heavy-handed contrivances often escape serious scrutiny. Though more flagrant than most, the Herald's gross distortions are not a dramatic outlier in mainstream media coverage. The photo of grieving Lebanese women was distributed by Agence France Press, and in fact, it received wide circulation. The Miami Herald merely made matters worse with the page layout and captions. Palestinians have for years masterfully manipulated the media coverage, most powerfully through choreographed imagery. With this photo, Hezbollah has ripped a page from the Palestinian playbook. Could one imagine a more staged performance? Why are the caskets lined up like that, side-by-side? Why are numbers spray-painted on the wall? And why are the women in the very narrow gap between the caskets and the wall, as opposed to being in the far more natural position of standing facing both the caskets and the wall directly behind them? Though anyone with even a passing familiarity with the Palestinian propaganda machine would have a gut sense that the photo was staged, anyone with a basic knowledge of Arabic would know so. Why? Look at the numbers. Those are not Arabic numerals. According to Brigitte Gabriel of American Congress for the Truth, who was born and raised in Lebanon, numbers written in Lebanese shops or newspapers would be Arabic numerals. 
Those numbers, in other words, were written purely for Western consumption. There's no question that ordinary Lebanese are suffering because
of the serious damage done to their civilian infrastructure. But were
there no scenes of actual suffering that the photographer could have
captured? Or was the real thing just not as gripping?
Contact Sanda Abramovici at sab@telefonica.net.pe
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FINDING REFUGE FROM KATYUSHA
Posted by Sergio Tessa (HaDaR), July 24, 2006. |
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To be added to this the HUNDREDS in Efrat, Qiryat Arba and all the area of the South Hebron Hills Settlements. This article was written by Hillel Fendel, senior news editor at Arutz Sheva (www.IsraelNN.com). It was published today. |
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800 refugees from northern Israel - they hope to return to their homes soon but cannot be sure - have moved into Gush Etzion. Despite initial fears, they now feel, as one of them said, "100% safe." Shani Simkovitz, Director of the Gush Etzion Foundation, told IsraelNationalRadio's Yishai Fleisher and Alex Traiman today that the Foundation - and the residents of Gush Etzion - are overseeing the large and difficult undertaking with happiness and idealism. Most of the refugee newcomers are relatively new immigrants from Russia who now live in Carmiel and environs - areas that have been plagued with dozens or more Katyusha missiles over the past two weeks. Living cooped-up in small, poorly-ventilated and ill-equipped shelters was not a realistic option, at least not for days at a time - and the people of Gush Etzion came through with the alternative: "Come live with us!" Many of the refugees appeared bewildered as they disembarked from the buses, carrying their most necessary belongings in one suitcase or less. Slowly but surely, however, they began to feel at home - despite what they had heard about "the territories" beforehand. One woman, filmed on Channel Two television news, said, "We were told that Efrat was just ten minutes from Jerusalem - but here we were on these curved roads, traveling, traveling, traveling - and all of a sudden, my goodness! Tunnels! It was the Tunnels Road! It suddenly hit me that we were in the shtachim - the territories! What have we come to, that in order to escape the Katyushas, we had to come to the shtachim!" In the tongue-in-cheek words of one of the many volunteers, the woman then "totally redeemed herself" by saying, "And here we feel 100% safe!" The refugees have been put up in yeshiva dormitories in Efrat and other Gush Etzion locations, while the many volunteers help out with cooking, laundry, children's activities, friendship, and more. Recreation and trips have also been arranged. "There are many aspects of Kiddush Hashem [Sanctification of G-d] involved in this venture," Shani said, "such as their being exposed to religious people, Torah learning and to Yesha [Judea and Samaria] for the first time." But, of course, nothing comes for free. The Gush Etzion Foundation estimates that the costs - utilities, food, trips, etc. - have reached $6,500 each day. To help, Contact The Gush Etzion Foundation. In the U.S:
In Israel:
Contact Sergio Tessa (HaDaR) at HaDaR-Israel@verizon.net |
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WHY ISRAEL'S REACTION IS RIGHT
Posted by Matthias Küntzel, July 24, 2006. |
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The natural reaction to the current violence in the Middle East is one of horror. It's time for a cease-fire, right? Not necessarily. Pacifism would only help the radicals. When it comes to Israel, public opinion in Europe walks a fine line. Israel's overreaction and use of overwhelming force, say most, is to be condemned and criticized. But in the same breath, Hezbollah's provocation is likewise reviled and rejected as the militant group's unceasing attacks on Israeli civilians are cited. Both sides are judged using the same criteria and both sides come out stained with some blame for the current conflagration. But this seemingly nuanced point of view is misleading. In reality, German and European public opinion does take sides -- and it tends to side with the apparent underdog and against Israel. It has almost become a reflex on the Continent. In 2003, 59 percent of all Europeans pointed to Israel as the country presenting the greatest risk to world peace. On the third day of the current crisis, fully three quarters of all Germans polled were convinced that Israel was overreacting and using too much force in its response to Hezbollah. And since then, the images coming from the war zone have set the tenor: A cease-fire, most believe, should begin as soon as possible. I disagree -- and have four reasons for doing so. First, Israel is fighting a just war. Germany and the European Union should unequivocally back Israel. 
Islamism has attacked Israel from both the south and the north and Israel has no choice but to react. But there is more to it than that. Israel's military operation is important for the entire Western world. Until 2005, Islamism was able to successfully mislead the West into thinking that the "occupation" of Gaza and southern Lebanon was the cause of the terror attacks carried out against Israel. Now we know better: Islamism isn't out to change Israeli policy in the region, Islamism is out to completely eradicate the country of Israel. The same strategy is being used on a larger scale: The Middle East conflict is not the cause of Tehran's conflict with Western secularism. It is merely a convenient alibi. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad himself has pointed to Islam's larger conflict with the Western world. When, in October of 2005, he called for the elimination of Israel, he added: "We are in the middle of a historical war that has been going on for hundreds of years." This war, Ahmadinejad's war, has nothing to do with the most recent flare up of the Middle East conflict. "The current war taking place in Palestine," Ahmadinejad has said, is nothing more than "the frontline between the Islamic world and the world of arrogance. We have to recognize the baseness of our enemy so that our holy hatred expands continuously and strikes like a wave." This "holy hatred" comes with no conditions attached. It doesn't depend on whether one is Jewish or not -- the single measuring stick is whether one blindly obeys the Sharia and dedicates one's life to the Koran. And this "hate" wouldn't disappear were Israel to cease to exist -- the Islamist creed calls for the "World of Arrogance" to also submit to the Sharia, meaning this genocidal wave of hate should ultimately spread across the globe. In order to expedite this goal, the Iranian leadership indicated that thousands of suicide bombers would be sent out to targets across the world. The men and women of the Israeli military are currently fighting on the front lines against this apocalyptic program -- should we not at least consider offering our solidarity? Second, Israel wants peace. So far, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's government has succeeded in coupling its military operation with transparent political goals. Every step can be justified. On the one hand, Israel recognizes Lebanon as a sovereign state, thus making it responsible for the Hezbollah attack on June 12 in which the group abducted two Israeli soldiers. On the other hand, Israel's war aims have been clearly stated. In a speech to the country's parliament, the Knesset, on July 17, Olmert said Israel is practicing "basic self defense." "We have the right to our freedom," he said. "When we have to, we know how to fight for and defend that freedom." The fighting serves to achieve the following aims: a. The implementation of United Nations resolution 1559, which calls for the disarmament of Hezbollah; b. The implementation of UN resolution 5241, which calls for south Lebanon to be solely under the control of the Lebanese army, and c. The unconditional return of the kidnapped Israeli soldiers. These are the goals being pursued by the Israeli military operation. The infrastructure in Lebanon is being attacked, but only insofar as it is relevant to the arming and operations of Hezbollah. The Lebanese civilian population has been warned with leaflets and radio messages prior to attacks in residential areas. Hezbollah, on the other hand, is marching to a different drummer. Their motto is: "You love life, we love death." There is nothing, gushes Hezbollah's patron Ahmadinejad, "more beautiful, holier or more eternal than the death of a martyr." Thus, Hezbollah is not only happy to kill as many Jews as possible, it is not bothered by the deaths of Shiite Muslims as well and has thus strategically based many of their rockets directly in the middle of Shiite residential districts. 
While Hezbollah, with their inaccurate missiles, tries to kill as many Israeli civilians as possible, Israel -- even if not always successful -- tries to limit the number of Lebanese civilian casualties. Third, there is no alternative to Israel's current military operation. 
Will Hezbollah ever willingly give up their weapons? Not a chance! The Jihad against Israel is the foundation of the militant group's very existence. For Hezbollah members, the destruction of Israel is not only non-negotiable, it is a religious duty. Hezbollah only understands the language of violence and Israel's military is the only force that is in a position to effectively confront Hezbollah. A United Nations force would never be able to achieve what Israel could. In 1983, two suicide attacks carried out by Hezbollah were enough to force the US and France from the region. A UN force, which wouldn't be nearly as strong, would have no chance. Only if Israel were able to weaken the terrorist group in the long term would the stationing of a UN force even become an option. Never before have the conditions been better for Israel to complete the mission of weakening Hezbollah. The longer the Israeli military can focus on the job at hand, the better the chances are that Lebanon can be freed from the influence of Hezbollah and that the conditions for a lasting peace in the region can be created. With this in mind, the demand for an immediate cease-fire is the equivalent of a plea for saving Hezbollah. The group's leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah would be able to come out of his hiding place and tell his fighters that, while they may have suffered some casualties, they successfully defended Hezbollah's existence and dignity. He would also be able to rely on Iran to finance the rebuilding of the destroyed Shiite areas and make the claim that Hezbollah was the most important representative of Arab interests. In the case of an immediate cease-fire, a continuation and intensification of the war would be guaranteed. Fourth, Israel's military operation has already resulted in positive effects. One can already see some positive results from the Israeli operation -- the strength of which clearly took Hezbollah and its supporters by surprise. Whereas the process of "critical dialogue" -- supported especially by Germany -- with the Mullah dictatorship in Iran and with anti-Semitic terror groups tended to strengthen those groups, the Israeli offensive seems to have started a paradigm shift in the Middle East: For the first time in the history of the Middle East conflict, an overwhelming majority of the Arab League distanced itself from Hezbollah's "dangerous adventurism." Never before have Hezbollah and Iran -- and indirectly Hamas -- been disavowed so directly. 
The reaction from the "Arab Street" has likewise thus far indicated that Israel has chosen the right time and the correct method. Whereas some 2 million people between Rabat and Bahrain took to the streets in the spring of 2002 to demonstrate solidarity with Hamas during the peak of the Second Intifada, things have been relatively quiet this time around -- and this despite the largest Israeli military operation in 24 years. "Rarely have I seen such an uprising, indeed an Intifada, against those little turbaned, bearded men across the Muslim landscape as the one that took place last week," wrote Youssef Ibrahim in the New York Post. "The leader of Hezbollah, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, received a resounding 'no' to pulling 350 million Arabs into a war with Israel on his clerical coattails." 
Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora has likewise seen fit to distance himself from Hezbollah and the terrorism the group represents -- clearly the result of the weakening of an organization that has until now been able to keep the Lebanese government in line. 
Last but not least, Hezbollah's patron Iran has only produced a feeble response. Whereas Ahmadinejad on July 12 pronounced the eve of Israel's destruction, the country's counterattack left him speechless for a full 48 hours. When he found his tongue again, he said merely that an Israeli attack against Syria would result in a fierce Iranian response. He said nothing about the ongoing attack against his close allies in Lebanon. Promptly, the bellicose language coming out of Tehran and Damascus was exposed as empty rhetoric: Neither of these two countries has sought to actively defend Hezbollah. Israel's offensive has thus managed to deflate Ahmadinejad's regional image. Of course the political successes that can be seen today do not eliminate the possibility of nasty surprises tomorrow. Islamists are desperately denouncing the Arabian League's "treachery" and trying to mobilize radicals in Jordan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Whether they will be successful remains an open question. The Iranian leadership has likewise sought to strengthen the resolve of Hezbollah: "Well done Nasrallah," said Gholam-Ali Haddad Adel, speaker of the Iranian parliament, on July 18. "Today we are seeing the liberation of Palestine. The war has just begun." It's difficult to predict Iran's reaction: Will they accept the defeat of their Islamist allies or will they escalate the conflict by sending suicide bombers to Lebanon and Europe? 
Either way, Israel could do no better than it has to this point -- part of the reason that the US House of Representatives recently declared its unconditional solidarity with Israel by a vote of 410 to eight. It is terrible to look on while southern Beirut is turned into piles of rubble and to know that civilians on both sides -- as well as Israeli soldiers -- are being injured and killed. Even worse, though, is the realization that Iran could very well emerge as the victor in this war and use the current conflict to justify future attacks. The pacifist reaction that the Israeli defensive war has triggered in Germany and Europe is not well thought out and is disingenuous. It is also counter-productive. An immediate cease-fire would merely result in a worse conflict in the future. The consequences drawn from Adolf Hitler's World War II -- "Never again fascism! Never again war!" -- were intended to prevent an anti-Semitic war from ever again taking place. Today, that lesson has been forgotten. "Never again war against fascism" is all that remains.
Israel must not be forced to abandon its war against Hezbollah, rather it must win the conflict. Just as Hezbollah is fighting the war as Iran's proxy, Israel is fighting genocidal Islamism as the proxy for the rest of the Western world. The least Israel should be able to expect from the West is that it not be betrayed.
Matthias Kntzel is a political scientist and a publicist in Hamburg.
He is the author of "Djihad und Judenhass. ber den neuen
antijdischen Krieg" ("Jihad and Hatred against Jews: On the New War
against Jews" published by Verlag Ca Ira. Contact him at MatKuentzel@aol.com
This article is from Spiegel Online
(service.spiegel.de/cache/international/0,1518,428245,00.html) July
24, 2006. The accompanying pictures are all from Der Spiegel Online.
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GO ALL THE WAY
Posted by Bryna Berch, July 24, 2006. |
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This was written by Ephraim Sneh, and it appeared yesterday in Ynet
Efraim Sneh is theformer is the leader of the Labor Party Knesset faction and was the commander of IDF forces in south Lebanon during Operation Peace for Galilee in 1982. There's more to know about him. It is no secret that Charlie Rose of Public TV promotes the formation of a Palestinian State and has done so for years and years. And over the years, Efraim Sneh has been a welcome guest because he says all the things Rose wants to hear. Sneh urgently promoted the crazy idea of giving the Golan to Syria. Sneh ignored that Arafat was socking away billions and that the Palestinian Arabs were murdering Jews; instead he devoted his TV time to promoting Arafat and talking about how wonderful it would be to have another Arab state carved out of Biblical Israel. Never once did he mention that Israel legally owned the land. Never once did he show concern for the Jews. No, the only thing he did was talk about was how great it would be to have a Palestinian state. He didn't oppose disengagement and he wasn't worried about Hamas taking over Gaza. Notice, he links the Hizbullah to Iran but says nothing about Syria. Nevertheless, when Sneh says Israel needs to finish off a bunch of Arab terrorists, I begin to wonder if the Moshiach is on the way. |
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If the IDF doesn't finish the job now, residents of the north will have suffered in vain Hizbullah was created by Iran as part of the ayatollahs' overall strategy. The organization has two principle purposes: One, to take control of Lebanon in order to turn it into an Islamic republic supported by Iran. And two: To right Israel and to present a strategic threat to this country and to Israeli society. Iran wants to "blanket" Israel with missiles and rockets, from Gaza in the south the West Bank in the center of the country, and from Lebanon in the south. When Iranian President Ahmadinejad speaks about destroying Israel, he means exactly that. And before he obtains nuclear weapons, he is trying to hammer and weaken Israeli society with various types of rockets and missiles. Therefore, the war against Hizbullah is part of the wider war between Israel and the evil, hate-filled regime in Tehran that openly aspires to destroy Israel. Complete the mission It is clear why Israel cannot cease its fire in Lebanon before its mission is complete. The mission is to destroy Hizbullah's infrastructure in Lebanon and to push the organization away from the Galilee once-and-for-all. If we complete this mission, it will be our first victory over Iran and will constitute an unmistakable message that we have no intention to shy away from Iran's nuclear and terrorist threat. It will also be a lesson to other Western democracies, who are afraid to take on Tehran, about what needs to be done vis-a-vis Iran. For six years Iran has stockpiled rockets and missiles in south Lebanon and managed to create a balance of fear with Israel. The threat of hundreds of rockets on Israeli settlements has forced Israel to restrain itself in the face of repeated provocations along the Lebanese border. I believe the high price a ground war with Hizbullah would surely exact from IDF soldiers deterred previous Israeli governments from taking such action. Strong home front The decision not to hold back after the kidnapping of two soldiers and the killing of their comrades was the correct decision. There is no way to root out Hizbullah by stopping the operation with some political agreement that could restore the status quo in south Lebanon. Were that to happen, the suffering of residents in northern Israel would have been in vain. In recent days I have visited embittered residents of the north, and the message I have been hearing has been unilateral: We are prepared to withstand these difficult times, provided the government carries out the destruction of Hizbullah to the very end. Told you so And on a personal note: In 2000 I warned against a unilateral withdrawal from Lebanon, because of the vacuum that would be created by an IDF pullout. I said that Hizbullah would take over the area in all its force, and would deploy opposite our settlements in the north. This is exactly what happened. Now, the IDF is correcting the mistake. I warned that the message we would be sending to the Arab world would be that it is more worthwhile to draw Israeli blood than to negotiate with us. This also came to pass. Four months after the pullout from Lebanon the second intifada broke out. We lost more than 1,000. I hope we have learned the bitter lesson. |
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HEZBOLLAH LETS IRAN BUY TIME FOR NUKES
Posted by Daily Alert, July 24, 2006. |
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This article was written by Orde Kittrie, a professor of
international law at Arizona State University. He served in the U.S.
State Department for 11 years, including as senior attorney for
nuclear affairs, and negotiated five nuclear non-proliferation
agreements between the U.S. and Russia.
It appeared yesterday in The Arizona Republic
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The big winner thus far in the clash between Hezbollah and Israel is Iran. Through attacks by its proxy, Hezbollah, Iran is deftly succeeding in distracting the world from the rapidly progressing Iranian nuclear weapons program. Iran's success brings it one step closer to one of its ultimate goals. That goal is America's destruction. As Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has starkly put it: "God willing, with the force of God behind it, we shall soon experience a world without the United States. ... This goal is attainable, and surely can be achieved." Why does Iran want to destroy the United States? Because the United States is the foremost purveyor of Western culture. Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, wants to root out Western culture because it is contrary to Islam and in his view directs "everyone toward materialism while money, gluttony and carnal desires are made the greatest aspiration." As Khamenei put it in an interview in May 2004: "The source of all human torment and suffering is the 'liberal democracy' promoted by the West." Iranian President Ahmadinejad claims he was divinely given the presidency for a single task: provoking a "clash of civilizations" wherein the Muslim world, led by Iran, defeats the "infidel" West, led by the United States, and thereby hastens the return of the "Hidden Imam," a messiah-like figure. According to Hassan Abbassi, chief strategist for the Iranian Revolutionary Guards: "We have a strategy drawn up for the destruction of Anglo-Saxon civilization ... There are 29 sensitive sites in the U.S. and in the West ... We know how we are going to attack them ... Anything that can be done to terrorize and create fright in the infidel camp is our privilege and honor... We have to uproot liberal democracy from the face of the world." What is Iran's connection to Hezbollah? Iran founded Hezbollah, arms it, trains it, and provides it with $20 million to $40 million per month. At Iran's direction, Hezbollah had, prior to Sept. 11, 2001, killed more Americans around the world than any other terrorist organization. How is Iran using Hezbollah's recent attacks on Israel to advance Iran's nuclear weapons program? This is a textbook example of how a terrorism-supporting state, Iran, like a master magician can use its left hand, Hezbollah, to distract the world from the more significant action it is undertaking with its right hand, the development of a nuclear arsenal capable of threatening the United States. This has been a crucial month for Iran's work to acquire both components of such an arsenal: nuclear warheads and the missiles capable of carrying those warheads to the United States. On July 4, Iranian officials participated in North Korea's test launch of a missile which, when perfected, would be capable of hitting Alaska, Hawaii, California, and as far inland as Arizona. The United States, Europe, Japan and others began to discuss how to punish North Korea for this test and dissuade it from future such tests. On July 11, Ali Larijani, Iran's national security adviser, met with Javier Solana, the European Union diplomat who represents Europe and the United States in negotiations to convince Iran to give up its nuclear weapons program. Solana had in early June presented a very generous offer to Iran of various incentives in exchange for Iran ceasing its nuclear weapons program. Solana wanted a response to the generous offer. Larijani's response at the July 11 meeting made it clear that Iran is simply dragging out the negotiations to buy time to advance its nuclear weapons program. "The Iranians have given no indication at all that they are ready to engage seriously on the substance of our proposals," announced the French foreign minister on behalf of the United States, France, Britain, Russia, China, Germany and the European Union. "In this context," he declared, "we have no choice but to return to the United Nations Security Council" for a resolution ordering Iran to suspend its nuclear weapons program. The world seemed to be turning against Iran, and Iran was in a bind. Larijani flew directly from his meeting with Solana to meetings in Damascus with Syrian President Bashar Assad and senior Hezbollah and Hamas leaders. The next day, Hezbollah fired dozens of Iranian and Syrian made missiles at Israel and dispatched its guerillas across the international border to kidnap Israelis. In the days since, Hezbollah has launched 1,000 more rockets at Israeli cities. Iran's gambit succeeded. At the G-8 summit, the focus was on the televised fighting between Hezbollah and Israel rather than on Iran's quiet nuclear weapons program. Russia announced it would not agree to impose sanctions on Iran. The plan for a Security Council resolution ordering Iran to suspend that program is on hold. And the world has lost interest in seriously pressuring North Korea over the missile tests it conducted in partnership with Iran. In this era of CNN and the Internet, it is easy to be distracted by news stories with vivid images. Yet every day, far from the news cameras, Iran is pushing forward with its nuclear weapons program, and continuing to work with North Korea to develop missiles capable of delivering those nuclear weapons to the United States. If the West does not refocus and do whatever it takes to stop Iran's nuclear weapons program, Israel's current difficulties fending off Iranian-made conventional rockets could turn out to be a mere pale preview of U.S. difficulties fending off Iranian-made nuclear-armed missiles. And we will risk someday finding ourselves staring at bombed-out U.S. cities and wishing we had kept our eye on Iran's right hand and taken a stand while we still could. The Daily Alert is published by the Jewish Center for Public Affairs for the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations. Contact them to subscribe at daily-alert@dailyalert.org |
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WHERE TO POST LETTERS FROM ISRAEL
Posted by Aaron Ginsburg, July 24, 2006. |
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Dear All,
Please be sure to look at the sight I have created at
Instructions for posting are on the site, or send an e-mail
Contact Aaron Ginsburg at aaron.ginsburg@gmail.com |
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ISRAEL'S WAR: JUDGED BY THE HOUR
Posted by Arlene Peck, July 23, 2006. |
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I'm confused. How long have we been lingering in Iraq? Three years? Four? And how many people are dying, not to mention the trillions of US tax dollars going towards funding this war? Hey, I am not complaining. The extreme Islamists in Iraq are bad guys, who are a threat to their region and the world, and I support our troops, who are doing their best to prevent Islamist expansion beyond that region, and to protect us at home. Yet, there is no outcry to remove forces immediately or rush to United Nation's resolutions. However, just when you would think the Los Angeles Times and their biased ilk could not get any worse, sure enough they prove us wrong. Our news media reminds us daily of the hundreds of Iraqis and United States soldiers who are being killed. That's an awful "given" of war, that western media has been rehashing on our domestic front for more than 1,000 days. So, that being said, can someone tell me why, when Israel, after finally reaching her breaking point and no longer able to tolerate the continued Hamas and Hezbollah missile attacks, using Iranian katyusha and other long-range rockets, moves to protect herself, as any sovereign country has a right and duty to do, world opinion is already rushing in to protect the terrorists? Apparently this is too difficult to understand. In between photo-ops with the Hezbollah leader, Kofi Annan gives a press conference offering his solution, which seems to consist entirely of calling for Israel to stop... stop... stop! How are we to believe a man, whose photograph is proliferating across the internet, showing him thanking Nasrallah, who is the head of Hezbollah, for maintaining law and order in the south of Lebanon in the year 2000? Surely if Annan can acknowledge Hezbollah was responsible for that, how can he now accept that it is Israel which is undermining the country's sovereignty? World-wide those leaders and "experts" who are supposedly in accord with Israel's right to defend herself, pepper their comments with absurdities, such as how many hours Israel has been in "conflict." We know it's OK to spend years, if necessary, in enemy territory defending the USA, yet Israel's defensive efforts are judged in hours and days. I do notice, however, that Israel has stated unequivocally that they would leave Lebanon, if this same Kofi Anan and his United Nations would push Syria to also leave Lebanon. Israel's position is that the Lebanese army also has to take up its position at the border with Israel and that Hezbollah has to be disarmed -- both included in UN resolution 1559, and ensure that terrorists would not be able to shoot any rockets into Israel's civilian population. This was their agreement when Israel was forced to withdraw from Lebanon. As usual, lots of talk, with photo-ops, but is anybody convinced by the efforts of the Lebanese government or the results so far? How do you arrange a cease-fire with a group of terrorists? Hezbollah's demand for the release of imprisoned terrorists in exchange for Israeli captives is not an option and it sure is not an option any other country (except maybe France) would tolerate. Why do they expect Israel to negotiate? Could we have set up negotiations with Hitler? Chamberlain tried that and we saw how brilliantly that turned out. Israel is in the position now of being able to drive a globally mutual enemy out of the area. I watch with disgust as the completely anti-Semitic United Nations, when it considers the Middle East, concentrates only on trying to rein in Israel. Not a surprise though. That is what always happens: instead of finding real solutions, the only answer the world can find is reining in Israel. That is what always happens when Israel has been attacked and is close to destroying the enemy. In addition, I do not remember when the phrase "disproportionate" became an acceptable gauge of a country's right to defend themselves from attacks against its citizens. Israel's position is well established and known: that it would withdraw if Hezbollah stops firing rockets into Israel, and returns the kidnapped soldiers. Simple? It might be helpful if Kofi and gang would specifically mention in their condemnations that Syria and Iran must cease supplying arms for the terrorists to attack Israel. Israel must be allowed to win a war that has been thrust upon them. Israel is the best friend of the United States and western democracies. Our interests are tied together. If Israel is forced to turn over the West Bank to Hamas terrorists it would only threaten the area more. In fact, I'll go one step further. Now, in my opinion, would be a perfect time to annex the territories. This is not a situation that can be cured by short-term State Dept. responses, nor is it, despite the Los Angeles Times' insistence, a short term conflict. The same pro-Palestinian Los Angeles Times always looks for a Jew-baiting story. It is well past time that they acknowledged this ludicrous and obscene situation, where the sovereign Jewish State has to defend its right to even exist. It might be prudent to remind our government that we share the same enemies; that Israel is fighting America's battle at the moment. Israel is also fighting, by proxy, America's war with Iran. It concerns me when I read LA Times headlines such as "Israeli Arabs are caught in a web of Conflicting Emotions." The Times went on to say, "They are threatened, along with Jews, as Hezbollah rockets land in their midst, but many sympathize with their brethren in Lebanon." Well gol-ly, since they dance on the rooftops after each rocket hits an Israeli city... maybe it's time to not only annex the area but cut out the cancer within ... and transfer them! The same way Beirut was able to clear out its population in just a few days....it could happen in Gaza. No! It should happen in Gaza. Since the Israeli Arabs have such terrible conflicts living among the dreaded Jewish infidels, now would be a perfect time for the enemy within to leave. For the Palestinian Arabs who are located in the middle of Israel, in my opinion, the only solution is transfer! After each attack on Israel citizens, the IDF should drop leaflets and announce that 10% of a specific PA area will be taken back and all Arab residents will have one week to move to any Arab country. Then do it! Arlene Peck is an internationally syndicated columnist and television talk show hostess. She can be reached at: bestredhead@earthlink.net and www.arlenepeck.com |
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A STRANGE WAR
Posted by Avodah 15, July 23, 2006. |
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This article was writtenby Victor Davis Hanson. |
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Sum up the declarations of Hezbollah's leaders, Syrian diplomats, Iranian nuts, West Bank terrorists, and Arab commentators - and this latest Middle East war seems one of the strangest in a long history of strange conflicts. For example, have we ever witnessed a conflict in which one of the belligerents - Iran - that shipped thousands of rockets into Lebanon, and promises that it will soon destroy Israel, vehemently denies that its own missile technicians are on the ground in the Bekka Valley. Wouldn't it wish to brag of such solidarity? Or why, after boasting of the new targets that his lethal missiles will hit in Israel, does Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah ("We are ready for it - war, war on every level") now harp that Israel is hitting too deep into Lebanon? Don't enemies expect one another to hit deep? Isn't that what "war on every level" is all about? Meanwhile, why do the G-8 or the United Nations even talk of putting more peacekeeping troops into southern Lebanon, when in the past such rent-a-cops and uniformed bystanders have never stopped hostilities? Does anyone remember that it was Hezbollah who blew up French and American troops who last tried to provide "stability" between the warring parties? Why do not Iran and Syria -- or for that matter other Arab states -- now attack Israel to join the terrorists that they have armed? Surely the two-front attack by Hamas and Hezbollah could be helped by at least one conventional Islamic military. After promising us all year that he was going to "wipe out" Israel, is not this the moment for Mr. Ahmadinejad to strike? And why - when Hezbollah rockets are hidden in apartment basements, then brought out of private homes to target civilians in Israel - would terrorists who exist to murder noncombatants complain that some "civilians" have been hit? Would not they prefer to lionize "martyrs" who helped to store their arms? We can answer these absurdities by summing up the war very briefly. Iran and Syria feel the noose tightening around their necks -- especially the ring of democracies in nearby Afghanistan, Iraq, Turkey, and perhaps Lebanon. Even the toothless U.N. finally is forced to focus on Iranian nukes and Syrian murder plots. And neither Syria can overturn the Lebanese government nor can Iran the Iraqi democracy. Instead, both are afraid that their rhetoric may soon earn some hard bombing, since their "air defenses" are hardly defenses at all. So they tell Hamas and Hezbollah to tap their missile caches, kidnap a few soldiers, and generally try to turn the world's attention to the collateral damage inflicted on "refugees" by a stirred-up Zionist enemy. For their part, the terrorist killers hope to kidnap, ransom, and send off missiles, and then, when caught and hit, play the usual victim card of racism, colonialism, Zionism, and about every other - ism that they think will win a bailout from some guilt-ridden, terrorist-frightened, Jew-hating, or otherwise oil-hungry Western nation. The only difference from the usual scripted Middle East war is that this time, privately at least, most of the West, and perhaps some in the Arab world as well, want Israel to wipe out Hezbollah, and perhaps hit Syria or Iran. The terrorists and their sponsors know this, and rage accordingly when their military impotence is revealed to a global audience - especially after no reprieve is forthcoming to save their "pride" and "honor." After all, for every one Israeli Hezbollah kills, they lose ten. You are not winning when "victory" is assessed in terms of a single hit on an Israeli warship. Their ace-in-the-hole strategy - emblematic of the entire pathetic Islamist way of war - is that they can disrupt the good Western life of their enemies that they are both attracted to and thus also hate. But, as Israel has shown, a Western public can be quite willing to endure shelling if it knows that such strikes will lead to a devastating counter-response. What should the United States do? If it really cares about human life and future peace, then we should talk ad nauseam about "restraint" and "proportionality" while privately assuring Israel the leeway to smash both Hamas and Hezbollah - and humiliate Syria and Iran, who may well come off very poorly from their longed-for but bizarre war. Only then will Israel restore some semblance of deterrence and strengthen nascent democratic movements in both Lebanon and even the West Bank. This is the truth that everyone from London to Cairo knows, but dares not speak. So for now, let us pray that the brave pilots and ground commanders of the IDF can teach these primordial tribesmen a lesson that they will not soon forget - and thus do civilization's dirty work on the other side of the proverbial Rhine. In this regard, it is time to stop the silly slurs that American policy in the Middle East is either in shambles or culpable for the present war. In fact, if we keep our cool, the Bush doctrine is working. Both Afghans and Iraqis each day fight and kill Islamist terrorists; neither was doing so before 9/11. Syria and Iran have never been more isolated; neither was isolated when Bill Clinton praised the "democracy" in Tehran or when an American secretary of State sat on the tarmac in Damascus for hours to pay homage to Syria's gangsters. Israel is at last being given an opportunity to unload on jihadists; that was impossible during the Arafat fraud that grew out of the Oslo debacle. Europe is waking up to the dangers of radical Islamism; in the past, it bragged of its aid and arms sales to terrorist governments from the West Bank to Baghdad. Some final observations on Hezbollah and Hamas. There is no longer a Soviet deterrent to bail out a failed Arab offensive. There is no longer empathy for poor Islamist "freedom fighters." The truth is that it is an open question as to which regime - Iran or Syria - is the greater international pariah. After a recent trip to the Middle East, I noticed that the unfortunate prejudicial stares given to a passenger with an Iranian passport were surpassed only by those accorded another on his way to Damascus. So after 9/11, the London bombings, the Madrid murders, the French riots, the Beslan atrocities, the killings in India, the Danish cartoon debacle, Theo Van Gogh, and the daily arrests of Islamic terrorists trying to blow up, behead, or shoot innocent people around the globe, the world is sick of the jihadist ilk. And for all the efforts of the BBC, Reuters, Western academics, and the horde of appeasers and apologists that usually bail these terrorist killers out when their rhetoric finally outruns their muscle, this time they can't. Instead, a disgusted world secretly wants these terrorists to get what they deserve. And who knows: This time they just might. Contact Avodah 15 by email at avodah15@aol.com |
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WE NEED YOUR LOVE AND YOUR SUPPORT
Posted by Barry Shaw, July 23, 2006. |
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Israel now finds itself fighting Hizbollah, Hamas, and other deadly Islamic terror groups, at the same time. We are fighting them in the north, in the south, and in the east of our country - and we are fighting them alone! As someone said to me this week, "Thank God we have the sea to our west. Otherwise we would be totally surrounded!" Our soldiers, sailors, and airmen, are trying so hard to protect us. Our citizens in the north and south are trying so hard to remain firm under horrendous rocket and terror attacks. Sometimes it is so hard to fight alone. We know we are an "Am Hazak!" a strong country. But, sometimes, we feel so alone. Show us your love and your support! Shout it! Scream it! Demonstrate it! Until we can hear you, and believe that you are with us?" Barry Shaw made aliyah from Manchester, England, 25 years ago with his family. He now runs a real estate office in Netanya. He writes the "View from Here" columns from Israel. To sign up to receive his emails, contact him at netre@matav.net.il |
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THE RESPONSIBILITY OF AN ISRAELI GOVERNMENT AND ITS ARMY
Posted by Women in Green, July 23, 2006. |
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This was written by Rabbi Eliezer Waldman, Rosh Yeshiva of Yeshivat Nir Kiryat Arba. July 19, 2006 |
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I must begin by expressing that our hearts are with our soldiers on both the northern and southern fronts, and our prayers beseech the Almighty to protect them so that they all return home safely. Also, we implore the God of Israel to grant wisdom to our leaders so they have the courage to make the decisions that will achieve the goal of destroying our enemies. In times of war, the Jewish people's secret weapon is the power of unity. Thank God this power is the active driving force in Israel today. As we reflect on what has happened to us these past few weeks, we must not stop ourselves from recognizing and analyzing the weaknesses and mistakes that brought us to such alarming circumstances. Going back to the Yom Kippur War, I cannot remember a situation where our enemies succeeded in humiliating us by invading our sovereign territory, killing and kidnapping soldiers -- and this despite the fact that intelligence sources specifically warned of such intentions. The best way to express my feelings as an introduction to the harsh words and thoughts burning within me is by quoting Rav Kook, who wrote: I am lifting my voice loudly not because I have the strength to speak, but because I don't have the strength to keep silent. I believe that for years the leadership has been weakening the army. The IDF is highly technological and ultra-modern in its weaponry but its leaders depress the morale of the troops and suppress their motivation. It began with Oslo -- creating the illusion of peace and turning our worst enemies, whose goal is to destroy us, into so-called partners for peace. And all this was done while blinding our people, especially our soldiers, to the reality of the evil intentions of these "peace partners." When an army created to protect the land and people of Israel is inculcated with distorted codes of morality which suddenly dictate that foes are friends, the result is confusion -- the illusion of peaceful borders and an inability to recognize the enemy. The tragic events on the Gaza border and the endless barrage of deadly rockets on the North are direct results of that confusion and illusions of peace. There can be no greater distortion of Jewish values and confusion planted into the hearts of our soldiers than when disengagement -- meaning the uprooting of Jewish communities and synagogues -- becomes Zionist policy. This situation has created a mentality that weakens motivation and alertness, which are so essential in preventing disastrous mistakes like those which preceded the Hamas and Hizbullah infiltration, kidnapping and murder of soldiers. All the recent humiliating military failures stem from the uncertain policymaking of Israeli leaders in recent years. Specifically, there are three policy concepts -- illusions, really -- that express a basic misunderstanding of the responsibilities of a government surrounded by enemies bent on its destruction. First illusion: By disengaging from our enemy and from our land which our enemy claims, we will lessen the friction and achieve peace. No one heeded our warnings that by fleeing from our enemies, yielding parts of our homeland and uprooting Jewish life, our enemies would be stimulated to attack us even more. Historically, Zionism always held that the best way to strengthen the Jewish position was by building up our settlements and communities in Eretz Yisrael. Second illusion: By building a fence we will ensure security and the enemy will be unable to attack us. The truth is, rockets can be fired over the fence and tunnels can be dug under it. The intention of our enemies has never changed. They mean to destroy us. Third illusion: They will remain there and we will remain here and never the twain shall meet. We have heard our leaders expressing this "logical" philosophy to justify disengagement and building fences. How silly not to understand that the enemy on the other side will continue to seek the annihilation of the State of Israel by sending rockets from there to here, as indeed we are experiencing right now. I do hope that any Israeli leader who has the courage to face reality will be able to recognize the tragic blunder of disengagement -- a blunder that has brought the enemy's rockets to Sderot and Ashkelon. Can our leaders still dream of and plan another irresponsible crime called "convergence" which will, God forbid, bring the Arab rockets from disengaged areas of Judea and Samaria to our coastal plain -- to Tel Aviv, Petach Tikva, Netanya and Ben Gurion Airport -- in addition to uprooting 80,000 Jewish men, women and children, synagogues, schools and yeshivot? The very thought of another disengagement is beyond human logic and Jewish morals. I pray and hope that our leaders have learned their lesson, a very painful one suffered by families bereaved by the loss of their loved ones as we've proceeded along this irrational path. How tragic that it took the blind hatred of the Iranian president, implemented by his prodigy Nasrallah in Lebanon, and rockets exploding in the Galilee and Haifa, to awaken the natural national instinct and pride of the Jewish leadership in Israel. I hope I am not being overly optimistic when I expect our government and armed forces to have the determination and resolve needed to subdue the enemy and obliterate their stockpiles of weapons of destruction. We cannot allow ourselves to be enticed into curtailing this mission by yielding to a ceasefire and negotiations -- as we have naively done in the past -- which will only allow our enemies to rearm and rebuild their forces of destruction. We are now in the period called the Three Weeks of mourning for the destroyed Temples which in Hebrew is called bain hamayzarim -- between the straits. I have a feeling that we are on the verge of getting out of the narrow straits we have created by deluding ourselves with distorted concepts like disengagement and convergence. If I am correct, we must open our eyes to the divine guidance arousing the Jewish People and its leadership to a revival of Zionist faith, which will bring security and renewed pioneering activity in the Land of Israel. In place of disengagement, an intense movement of reengagement -- reengagement with the Land of Israel, reengagement with the Jewish People, reengagement with the God of Israel, reengagement with the destiny of Zionism. Instead of uprooting thousands of Jews from our land, we must deepen the roots of Jewish faith and Zionist fervor in the soil of our holy land of Israel. Hopefully this will bring us to the ultimate ideal of "Lamentations" which we read on Tisha b'Av: Bring us back to you, O Lord, and we shall return. Renew our days as of old. Ruth and Nadia Matar established Women For Israel's Tomorrow (Women in Green), an activist group of women based in Jerusalem. Their website address is http://www.womeningreen.org |
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JEWISH-ISRAELI NEWS -- WAR HITS SAFED-3
Posted by Sandy Rosen-Hazan, July 23, 2006. |
| See below for my previous blogs-eds on the war. My comments are in []. |
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Surfer becomes soldier in Israeli draft:
CNN -- Saturday, July 22, 2006; Posted: 8:12 p.m. EDT (00:12 GMT) Israeli reserves have their M-16s checked as they register for service in the ongoing battles with Hezbollah. (in article's attached photo) JERUSALEM (AP) -- Roy Bass emerged from the Mediterranean waves at noon Friday for a Popsicle break when, surfboard in hand, he heard his cell phone ringing on the beach. It was a recorded message: "An emergency draft has been activated." Four hours later, the 27-year-old computer programmer was at an army base, in full uniform, preparing to head to Israel's northern border, where troops were massing to take on Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon. Israel's mighty military is comprised of thousands like Bass -- ordinary civilians who, at a moment's notice, respond to the call to arms. On Friday, several thousand reservists were drafted for immediate, emergency duty. By Friday night, the army chief of staff announced the response was full, plus thousands who volunteered on their own initiative. "The reserves have proven themselves once again," said Lt. Gen. Dan Halutz, the army chief of staff. The enthusiastic response highlights the intimate relationship Israel has with its army. Nearly every Jewish Israeli has served in the army, and opinion polls consistently show the army to be the country's most trusted institution. Since Israel became independent in 1948, reserves have been the backbone of its military, conditioned to drop everything and be mobilized within a day or two to back up the far smaller core of active duty soldiers. Men from all walks of life -- and increasingly women with special skills -- instantly become soldiers again. Israel's standing army of about 186,500 troops can jump to 631,500 with rapid mobilization, according to figures from the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies. The system has proved effective in all of Israel's wars. In 1973, when Egypt and Syria attacked en masse on the Jewish holy day of Yom Kippur, thousands of reservists were summoned from their homes and synagogues and rushed to the front lines to push back the offensive. Despite Israel's increasing reliance on technological superiority, military service remains a rite of passage. All 18-year-old men are drafted for three years and will continue with the reserves into their 40s, by which time many will have sons in the army or reserves. Women are drafted for two years. As Israel's military dominance has grown, it has become less reliant on its reserves. The retirement age has been gradually lowered from 51 to 40 in some cases, and the number of reserves called up has steadily dropped, with the army focusing more on those with specialized skills, such as air force pilots and intelligence officers. Some view the task the way Americans view jury duty -- boring and disruptive, especially for college students and the self-employed. Most, however, welcome it as a break from the rigors of daily life, a chance to bond with old comrades in a setting where a backgammon board is often a more important accessory than a rifle. In peacetime, a reserve stint is something to be haggled over with a commanding officer with all sorts of excuses -- a college exam, an overseas vacation, a spell of dental surgery. But when the call-up is an "Order 8," military parlance for an emergency summons, the response is visceral. "All of a sudden it becomes a real war, it changes everything," Bass said by cell phone from his base in northern Israel. Bass serves annually in his armored battalion, but this is his first Order 8. Where once Israelis were drafted to war by air raid sirens, passwords over the radio and recruiters going door to door, today they are summoned by computerized calls to their cell phones. When Bass got his call-up, he sped home and swapped his bathing suit for an army uniform. [As did my wonderful grandson Noam!!!!] "There was no dilemma, no doubt in my mind because it is something you grow up with, that this is the most important thing there is," he said. "It's ingrained deep inside you -- if they call you, you go." Even without a war, reservists are as much at risk as regular soldiers. The two soldiers who were kidnapped by Hezbollah on the Lebanon border, triggering the current round of fighting, were reservists. Ephraim Sneh, a lawmaker and former general, said his three parliamentary assistants were drafted for emergency duty. He said those who are called are genuinely needed and, therefore, "whoever serves, serves with joy." "The destiny of Israel is the hands of the few, and we owe our lives to the few," he said. "Those who are on the front lines were always the few, but thanks to these devoted people we are still here." Copyright 2006 The Associated Press. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Egoz soldiers survive intifada only to die in Lebanon
In this war, bad news travels faster than ever before. So far, the fighting in Lebanon has been waged very close to the camera lenses of Israeli television networks. When broadcasts are interrupted by live reports from "a tough day of battles north of Avivim," viewers on the home front don't require much explanation. The availability of uncensored (and not always verified) news on some Internet sites and the prevalence of text messages from soldiers near the frontline are way ahead of army representatives. On Thursday afternoon, when soldiers from Golani's Egoz unit engaged in fierce battle with Hezbollah fighters in the village of Maroun Ras, rumors spread almost immediately: Five soldiers killed. Although the IDF doesn't like to admit it, many of its elite units bear a clearcut sociological label. Just as Maglan, which lost two soldiers from kibbutzim in a battle in the same area on Wednesday, has remained a bastion of kibbutz members, Egoz draws religious officers and soldiers. When the extent of casualties in the incident became clear, there was a wave of worried telephone calls among graduates of the pre-military academies, in and out of uniform. This time, they knew for sure, our friends will be among the dead. The next day, Friday, names of three of the dead were released: Major Benji Hillman from Ra'anana, a graduate of the academy at the settlement of Eli, and Staff Sergeant Raphanael Muskal from Mazkeret Batya, a graduate of the academy at Keshet on the Golan Heights. Staff Sergeant Nadav Balva of Carmiel and Staff Sergeant Liran Saadia of Kiryat Shmona were also killed in that encounter. Even among a generation of remarkable Golani field commanders, Benji Hillman, 27, stood out. He spent a large part of his service in Egoz, which was established in 1995 to deal with Hezbollah and developed expertise in fighting guerrilla forces in South Lebanon. After the withdrawal from Lebanon, in May 2000, the unit was left nearly unemployed. Its then-commander, Tamir Yidai, incorporated Egoz into the fighting that erupted in the territories several months later. Because of his previous job, running the deputy chief of staff's bureau, Yidai continued to get beeper notices from the operations brigade. He located the more active sectors in the West Bank and sent his men there. In the summer of 2002, ahead of an Egoz arrest sweep in the Nablus casbah, Haaretz photographer Pavel Wolberg snapped Hillman as he painted his face together with other officers. For Hillman, then the unit's operations officer, it was a final mission before a big trip overseas. Even a momentary visitor could not miss him: energetic, brimming with humor, the object of open affection from commanders and comrades alike. Hillman, who immigrated from Britain at age 4, is survived by his parents, Daniel and Judy, sister Abigail, brother Shimon, and his wife of three weeks, Ayala. Relatively few brown berets could be seen at his funeral on Friday in Ra'anana, because most Golani soldiers are busy fighting up north. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ISRAEL UNDER FIRE
** Some 17 people were wounded Saturday, two of them seriously, as waves of Katyusha strikes - more than 160 rockets - struck targets across the north of Israel. ** Ten rockets land in Haifa Sunday morning, killing two people and wounding several others. Two children hurt in Katyusha rocket strike on Carmiel Sunday morning; more rockets fired at the Upper Galilee, Acre, Tiberias and Kiryat Shmona during Sunday. ** Some 37 Israelis have been killed (including soldiers) since the beginning of fighting in the north. ** Hospitals in Israel have treated 1,293 people who were injured in rocket attacks since the fighting on the country's northern border began 12 days ago. 19 people are still hospitalized across the country in serious condition. Another 37 people sustained moderate wounds and 325 were lightly injured. The number of people who suffered from shock stands at 875. ** More Israeli civilians are dead in these 12 days than in the 18 years that we were inside Lebanon, when 25 civilians had died. [For the latest news see the Jerusalem Post, Ha'aretz and YNet. For video of Channel 2 News in English:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Beware of Disinformation:
Following are three excerpts from this article (See the complete article at: http://www.aish.com/jewishissues/mediaobjectivity/ Beware_of_Disinformation.asp) In waging their propaganda war, Israel's enemies count on journalists to report first and research later, if at all, and most of the media outlets have fallen into their trap. The press is also spending a great deal of time talking to Lebanese civilians and their relatives in the United States and highlighting the difficult conditions they are enduring. This is no doubt the case since they are living in a war zone; however, the media has spent almost no time talking to the Israelis living under the constant threat of rocket attacks. Few reporters have gone into the bomb shelters to interview the frightened Israeli families. No one seems interested in how the relatives of Israelis in the United States feel about their loved ones being under siege. Wars are never easy to cover, and each side of a conflict wants to make its case through the media. A responsible press, however, does not repeat whatever it hears; it first makes every effort to insure the accuracy of its reporting. That is the standard expected of journalists covering the war between Israel and Hizbullah. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ [Some of the things in these four items from Safed appeared in the last Newsletter WAR Update, however, these seem more personal:] War Blogs: by Civilians in Israel
1. INSIDE A WAR ZONE HOSPITAL By Joel Mowbray TZFAT, ISRAEL -- The screams of the 9-year-old girl as she pushed through the door immediately grabbed everyone's attention. No amount of reassuring from her mother could truly comfort her. Wrapped inside her mother's arms, the trembling child was too overwhelmed to comprehend the war going on around her. As an adult, I felt oddly safe, despite the siren blaring in the distance. My adult mind was able to rationalize that the odds of being hit by a Katyusha rocket were actually infinitesimal. And I knew that inside the window-less center of the hospital, I really wasn't even at risk of flying shards of glass. While a child might not think in terms of "odds," she didn't need to go far to witness justification for her fears. Since last Thursday, more than 100 local residents have come through the front door, some with severe physical injuries, others suffering from severe emotional trauma. Just last night, a Hezbollah-launched Katyusha rocket smashed into the side of the building. Thankfully, it hit concrete, meaning there was no explosion inside the hospital. But since Katyushas spray shrapnel upward in a cone formation, the blast knocked out windows across the hospital. Walking through the children's wing the day after, it was clear that a miracle had occurred there. Even after a cleaning crew had done its work, glass was everywhere, including little shards wedged in the computer keyboard where kids normally are glued for hours at a time, day after day. But since the rocket hit after 10pm, no children were in the playroom. Another child, though, was not as lucky. Recovering from spleen surgery one floor above the children's wing, 13-year-old Koby was watching TV at the time of the blast. Glass rained down on him, and he was gashed in the back of his head. Further from the blast but on the same floor as the children's wing, 52-year-old Yakov Avoudboul was thrown out of his bed and across the room. This, though, was far less devastating than the rocket that exploded just one meter from him on Friday. An assistant chef at the hospital, Avoudboul was called in on the second day of sustained attacks to prepare meals for the increasing number of patients. Within moments of stepping out his front door, the rocket came within a whisker of killing him instantly. The rocket explosion sprayed shrapnel into his legs, back, and arms. After he bathes, merely wrapping a towel around himself "feels like dragging nails across my back." The physical wounds, though, will heal. Far more long-lasting will be the emotional scars. "Since Friday, I don't sleep; I just relive the event," he said. Like other populated civilian areas across northern Israel, Tzfat (Safed) has been showered with Katyusha rockets for almost a week now. Despite this, some residents are actually trying to maintain some semblance of normality. Dr. Anthony Luder explained that he still walks his dog. The punch line to his story, though, was that minutes after he finished one such walk, a spot he had just been was hit by a Katyusha. Welcome to life in Tzfat. Many residents have experienced near-misses or miraculous timing. Locals have been swapping stories for the past few days, and at least one person said this recent ritual is therapeutic. Based on the rest of the day's events, there will be more tales to tell. Fifteen minutes after the siren -- the recommended time during which people should stay in sheltered positions -- the group of seven journalists I was with got on the bus and drove away. Less than a mile from the hospital, we saw at least two separate plumes of smoke rising up from the valley below. We received a call from the hospital executive who had shown us around that more rockets had just hit. News reports later indicated that several more rockets pounded the Tzfat area within hours of our departure. For adults who escape physically intact, the long-term impact of the rocket attacks hopefully will be minimal. Compartmentalization and blocking painful memories are well-practiced skills for adult minds. But as we drove away with smoke from rocket explosions off in the distance, it was the image of the terrified 9-year-old girl I couldn't shake. 2. A DIRECT HIT by Miriam Swerdloff Dearest Family and Friends, By now, we've all heard the sad news of what has been happening here in Israel. As an eye witness, I must tell you that the devastation to the north is heartbreaking. What remains are ghost towns with dilapidated buildings beneath an ominous black smoky sky. I was in Tzfat for the last five days and I know now more than ever before how closely God guides our lives. There were countless miracles for the people in my community, myself included. Thursday morning, we had no idea what was about to happen. Since it was a fast day, our class decided to go the cemetery to daven for the Jewish People. I stuck around for a while after the girls had left. I wanted some time to reflect on what the fast meant. Then the missiles started. I ducked behind the nearest grave. It must have felt like hours passed in just those few moments. Someone who happened to be working in the graveyard offered me a ride back to school. He turned out to be a high ranking army official, and he explained to me why they so desperately wanted to hit Tzfat. There is a very important military base there that has an underground storehouse of much of Israel's ammunition. He made a few phone calls and quickly found out where the other missiles had hit, and then devised our escape route. Given the amount of missiles that fell, statistically so many more people should have been hurt. In the first round of missiles that hit Tzfat, the park of the local college was hit. Strangely enough, it was cold and very windy that day, so the park was empty. Another missile fell right outside of a crowded hotel. Thank God it wasn't six feet closer to the hotel. Eight missiles fell in that round. I went back to school. Most of us were in shock from what was happening. Although the school wasn't very secure with glass everywhere, we stayed put for the rest of the day. We must have gone through the entire book of Psalms 25 times!! When the military announced that things had simmered down, I decided it was better for me to spend the night in the school building than alone in my apartment. ("Coincidently," my apartment mates had left the day before.) I wanted to go home to pick up some overnight necessities. I happened to overhear another woman who wanted to leave the building. She had her child with her and her arms full of bags. My friend and I decided we would accompany her to where she wanted to go, and then we would carry on to my apartment. The woman arrived safely, and then we left to go to my apartment. About 150 feet into our journey, the missiles started to fall again. We were at the edge of the city, with only Mount Meron in our view. The first missile hit about 50 feet in front of us! Noise, fire... We dove to the ground with only a two foot wall to shield us. Moments later, I heard a woman screaming frantically for her child. I called out to her. She found her child, and then ushered us inside. We sat with her and her five children while the missiles rained down and the fast day ended. We tried to distract the kids by singing songs and playing games. A couple hours later when her husband got home, we made a mad dash back to school in the dark. We made it back safely, and then I found out the news. In the round of missiles that fell when I left the school, my apartment received a direct hit. I had been on my way to the apartment. The only reason I wasn't there when the missiles struck was because I had done a mitzvah and accompanied someone who needed help. The last I heard was that over 300 missiles fell on the small town of Tzfat while I was there. After a while, we got used to the sounds. Imagine, singing Lecha Dodi at shul with missiles falling nearby. Imagine, eating your Shabbos meal with smoke in the air. That was life for us this past week. Please pray for us! Be proud to be Jewish! Be proud that God is stronger than any fear or enemy we might have. Do an extra mitzvah, it may just save your life, or someone else's. Your sister in Israel, Miriam 3. Wedding under Fire by Miri Chason Everyone knows the sad and scary stories of the past few days in the north. This Thursday, in Kiryat Shmona, a different type of story broke the trend for a few hours. July is usually known as the 'wedding month', but 2006 has seen a number of cancellations due to the security situation. Maya and Shlomi decided that, despite the rockets, this would not be the case with them. The couple replaced their intended 900-person convention center with the Matmid school bomb shelter in their home town of Kiryat Shmona. "We'll be celebrating the wedding night in a shelter as well," said the brand-new groom. The escalation on the northern border took its toll on the bride, as she saw how the wedding she'd dreamed of for years was slowly falling apart. Her father, Albert, elaborated: "They were in a very bad mood. In one moment, everything was ruined for them. They'd saved up every penny they earned in order to have this wedding and nothing was going according to plan. They already put down a fifty percent down payment on everything but it's unclear what will happen with the money now. I hope that they'll be able to survive it." When Maya got out of her car in her wedding dress, she was shocked by the many cameras that greeted her. Instead of guests, she was surrounded by news crews, all asking to document the triumph of the human interest in a time of turmoil. The ice slowly melted and, by the time the cup was broken, the young couple started to smile. During the entire ceremony, many explosions were heard, but the guests hurried to comfort one another: "That's us firing, not them." The DJ added to the atmosphere and asked guests to "dance and be happy, so that Nasrallah would hear them rejoicing." "At first I was very stressed out, but now everything is good," said the young bride. "The most important thing is that we're together as man and wife. Nothing else matters to me," added her husband. Courtesy of ynetnews.com 4. LETTER FROM ISRAEL By Laya Saul The first thing I want to say is thank you to all of you who are supporters of Israel. Your prayers for our well being are meaningful and purposeful. Thursday, July 13, 2006, 17 Tammuz 5766, a Jewish day of fasting that marks the beginning of three weeks of mourning the destruction of the holy Temple of Jerusalem over 2,000 years ago. Since the shelling in Lebanon was so constant, we decided it would be a good thing to clean out our neighborhood bomb shelter. It was used for storage since Tzfat had never been bombed before. It was built to protect the ten homes on our little row of houses going up the side of the mountain. Within 20 minutes of finishing the shelter clean up, the first rockets started to fall on Tzfat. We did not have the warning of sirens. The bombs just started falling. Can I describe what it's like to hear a missile fall near your home? The earth rocked. I could feel the nearby impact right through to my bones. I felt stunned. Time stood still. As I heard the shrapnel fall onto my roof, the air was also filled with my husband's shouts to get to the shelter. Outside, I could see smoke rising from houses near ours, but the bombs were still coming. My neighbor asked me what was happening -- she was clearly stunned too. I pointed to the billowing smoke, shouted, and we ran into the shelter with the children. When we first went into the bomb shelter, the fearsome noises, the tumult, the frantic mothers calling family members who weren't home all added to the fear of the children. I had all my family with me, so I sat on the floor and held five young girls on my lap or next to me. I knew them all; they were my neighbors, and my daughter. The five and seven-year-olds were crying, the two-year-old just trying to be close, and the 10-year-olds were solemn at my sides needing my touch and the sound of my voice. I choked back my own tears, sang a little bit from Psalms, and hugged tight who ever wanted it. People did their best to bring each other comfort. People prayed, people phoned. There are two families with sons in the army. Young men with bright, mischievous eyes, sweet faces; they are the "big brothers" that the younger guys look up to and want to emulate. Since I moved to Israel, people often ask me what it's like here. I answer that if see a group of Israeli teens with guns, I don't feel afraid; I pray for their safety. Now my prayers are intensified. We stayed in the bomb shelter for a few hours. A 13-year-old boy who had recently celebrated his bar mitzvah, hungry from fasting, shook his head and said, "Davka, specifically on a fast day they had to start this." "You know what Moshiko?" I answer. "Our enemy knows our calendar well; they know exactly what day this is." I flash back on a story of Nazis bringing a feast to some Jews at work on Yom Kippur, Jews who would not break their holy fast. And neither did we break our fast as we sat waiting. The passage of time was surreal. Finally I ran into the house and quickly threw a few things into a suit case as my family jumped in the car to travel south to safety. We're in touch with some of our neighbors by cell phone; most of them are staying with relatives. Many residents from the north have moved south, staying with family and friends as rockets continue to rain down in the north. We're officially refugees now. We are out of our home and don't know when we can return safely. When people in the Jerusalem area where we are staying find out I'm from Tzfat, their eyes soften and I can sense their hearts open. They know the price of war and loss. For the time being, we are staying with friends. There are communities all over Israel where people are opening their homes to those that had to flee to safety. We've had many offers from friends all over the country to stay in their homes and that if we didn't need to, but knew someone who did, to please pass along the offer. There is an amazing network of people who want to take care of each other. I'm still processing all that I'm experiencing. When I meet someone else from Tzfat, the connection is healing -- a piece of home -- that "knowing" of what it was to feel the shock of being bombed. Cell phones are ringing, emails are flying, people want to know who's where, is everyone okay? My thoughts go back in time to WWII when there were no cell phones to connect, no internet so you can know where your loved ones are. Today we have an army to fight back when we are attacked. And we are fighting back. And my thoughts fly back in time to the Holy Temple, the Beit Hamikdash. We of this generation have no idea what we lost. How could we? We never knew it. But if my home is a mini Temple, if my table is a mini altar, and now I know the grief of the loss of my home -- a home I can't get back to now, a home I long to return to -- then how much more intense is it that we have lost that central hearth of the Jewish people? I can't really wrap my brain around war. I cling to the notion that what we can do to change this world are more acts of kindness. It's okay to get out of your comfort zone on this one. All the great rabbinic teachers tell us about the miracles that occur when we guard our speech. Talking negatively about someone (even when it's true!) may be the most damaging habit of our time. May our words always be gentle and kind. Right now is a good time to let go of grudges and forgive. What I've been working on lately in my own path of growth is "Love the unlovable." I read that in a book about being close to your teen and have been applying it to all different kinds of situations. Judge less, embrace more. Keep praying for peace, keep performing purposeful acts of loving kindness, and give the benefit of the doubt as much as you can. It's the best strategy I know for rocking the heavens and changing this world. May we all choose right action and share many sweet, joyous times. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Man seriously wounded in Akko rocket attack:
One man seriously injured after being hit by rocket in Akko; two lightly hurt by barrage fired at Upper Galilee; two more lightly injured in rocket attack near Tiberias. At around 5 p.m. rocket strikes apartment building in Haifa area; six lightly injured. Earlier Sunday, two people killed in Haifa rocket attack. See the VIDEO: http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3280144,00.html Two rocket barrages hit north Sunday afternoon: One man was seriously injured after being hit by a rocket in Akko. In Kiryat Shmona two rockets directly hit houses. Two people were lightly wounded by shrapnel. A short while later three rocket landed in open fields near Tiberias; two people sustained light injuries. At around 5 p.m. a rocket struck an apartment buildingin the Haifa area and ignited a fire; six people were lightly hurt in the attack. Morning Attack in Haifa: 2 killed in rocket attacks: Heavy rocket barrage hits several places in Haifa, Nesher, surrounding areas; two people killed, 12 injured, one sustaining serious wounds. In Nesher, rocket opens hole in wall, lands in center of living room. Child lightly wounded by rocket in Carmiel Avi Feldheim, who works in Akko, told Ynet: "I heard a siren followed by two blasts. I saw smoke in one of the places in the city. Now the smoke has ascended, apparently a fire hasn't started there." The siren was heard at around 3 p.m. across Haifa, the surrounding areas, Hatzor, Rosh Pina, Safed and Akko. Police reported that no rockets hit Haifa and the surrounding areas. Residents were called to enter reinforced rooms. On Sunday morning, two people were killed and 17 were wounded after rockets hit several places in Haifa. From the onset of the fighting in the north, 12 days ago, 37 Israelis have been killed. The rocket that hit the Ramot Yitzhak neighborhood in the Nesher suburb of Haifa penetrated directly into Zohar Bernstein's living room, and created a huge hole in the middle of her home. The hit caused structural damage to the apartment and caused the windows to break. "We were in an inner room," Zohar said. "We purposely weren't in the fortified room, because it is actually on the outer side of the apartment. Thankfully, I wasn't injured. My son and I were in the apartment, but we got out without injuries. I didn't understand at first that the rocket had hit my home directly." Bernstein was scared and upset and, in response to the question of whether he would remain in his home, he said: "Apparently not." The apartment itself was completely wrecked. A security official who arrived at the apartment removed part of the rocket from the living room. Deadly hit near Haifa: An employee of a carpentry shop near Haifa was killed after being directly hit by a rocket. The place suffered great damage. The other workers said that they had began running toward the reinforced room when the missiles began falling. Some of them failed to reach the room and were hurt by shrapnel. One worker was seriously injured and other were lightly hurt. "We won?t let them break us. We will overcome and will be strong. At the end everything will be okay," the carpentry shop's owner told Ynet. The shop owner was at the time of the hit in his office located on the second floor. "We heard the siren, I yelled at everyone to run to the reinforced room. This is a 2,000-meter (6,562-feet) factory, everyone ran, and the worker who reached the entrance first was hit by the missile and was killed, apparently on the spot," he recounted. The owner, whose four children work with him in the carpentry shop, began searching for them and for his workers. "I began looking for everyone. My daughter was in shock and began crying. I understood I had an injured worker, and apart from that I saw the rest of the workers in shock but not hurt," he said. The sales manager of an adjacent business heard the noise of the blast and hurried to the location to see if anyone was hurt. "We wanted to return to our daily routines, but then I heard an explosion and I understood that a rocket had fallen five or six meters (16 or 19 feet) from me. Simultaneously, windows in my building began to explode. I ran in order to see if anyone was hurt and then I saw a man running outside with a stream of blood coming out of his ear. I hurried to him, stopped the blood flow and pressed down on his ear. I didn't let go until MDA arrived," he recounted. "The whole time, I tried to keep him awake: I tried to cheer him up, asked how old he was, if he was married. He said he was married, with children, and I told him that he had to hold on for their sake," he added. Pursuant to the event, Kiryat Ata Mayor Yaakov Peretz said that he intends to reexamine the IDF Home Front Command's suggestion that city residents return to business as usual and, instead, recommend that only workers deemed critical by the local authorities continue to go to work. "There's no reason for additional people to get hurt as they did today in Kiryat Ata and a week ago in the train depot," he said. Raanan Ben-Zur, Sharon Roffe-Ofir and Neta Sela contributed to the report ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Fighting in Lebanon / The offensive is widening:
Israel has decided to widen the offensive against Hezbollah. Now the IDF chiefs are talking about fighting that would go on for weeks and the need for more time for various ground operations. On the other hand this would provide Hezbollah with time to wage a war of attrition against Israel's civilian population, unless the IDF destroys the rocket deployment in southern Lebanon. The PMO's office and IDF believe Israel has all the operational time it needs for military action. Officials who know the American administration do not agree. They believe Israel has no more than 10 to 14 days to make significant military achievements. This also applies to the Israeli public's fortitude. The Pentagon is following the fighting in Lebanon closely. They believe the key is Israel's ability to strike at the rocket deployment that Hezbollah received from Iran. The Pentagon regards the rocket deployment as strategic for Iran. That is why Israel must destroy it. Washington's expectations are also reflected in the swift delivery of bombs and munitions from the United States to Israel. The IDF, whose ground activity remained close to the border until the end of the week, will widen its offensive. Elite commandos acted in the border area, where Hezbollah took over abandoned IDF outposts. They found Hezbollah outposts had deep tunnels with lighting. The IDF sustained losses in these operations. Apparently more effective means must be used to flush out Hezbollah with minimum losses. Israel has refrained from operating large ground forces, relying mostly on the air force. But despite the air force's successes, its achievements are limited regarding short-range rockets. Introducing larger ground forces was not meant to do what the IDF did in 1982 when it conquered parts of Beirut. But if ground forces remain in Lebanon soil for long, it could be seen as occupation. Remaining there also requires protection and construction work. The IDF is expected to raid areas in southern Lebanon to undermine large parts of Hezbollah's rocket deployment. If it succeeds, it will shorten the attrition war against Israelis in the north. The air force will also continue striking the rocket deployment. Beirut's bombing has let up slightly to let civilians leave. However, the bombing to prevent the supply of weapons to Hezbollah continues. Therefore Israel will not allow Beirut's airport to open, and will bomb bridges and passes on the Damascus-Beirut road. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Two killed in Katyusha rocket strikes on Haifa:
Two people were killed and several others were wounded as ten Katyusha rockets slammed into Haifa and its suburbs on Sunday morning. A man was killed in Haifa when rocket shrapnel hit his vehicle while he was driving along a main road in Haifa. A second person was killed when a rocket hit a carpentry shop in a suburb of Haifa. Eleven others were hurt in the attack on Haifa, one of them seriously, one moderately, and the rest sustained light wounds. Earlier Sunday, one person was lightly wounded in a Katyusha rocket strike on Carmiel. Three rockets were also fired at the Upper Galilee. Sirens sounded in Acre, and as far south as Zichron Ya'akov and Binyamina, but were later said to be false alarms. Some 17 people were wounded Saturday, two of them seriously, as waves of Katyusha strikes - more than 160 rockets - struck targets across the north of Israel. On Saturday evening, a barrage of rockets landed in Safed, wounding four members of the same family, one of them seriously. Also Saturday evening, rockets hit Nahariya and Carmiel, seriously wounding a Carmiel resident. In a rocket strike earlier in the day, two Carmiel residents were hurt, one moderately and the other lightly, in direct hits on their homes. One person sustained moderate wounds and three others were lightly hurt as 54 Katyusha rockets landed in Nahariya. In Israel's northernmost city of Kiryat Shmona, six people were lightly injured as approximately 26 rockets landed in and around the city. Rockets also landed in Safed, Rosh Pina, Ma'alot, the Golan Heights, and the northern Galilee panhandle. Six rockets landed in open areas in Haifa. Alerts were sounded in Acre, Tiberias, and several northern towns and villages to warn residents of possible rocket strikes. Four people suffered moderate wounds and 12 were lightly hurt by rocket attacks in Haifa on Friday. After a reprieve of nearly a day, Hezbollah renewed its attacks, firing ten rockets into the northern city & its suburbs in two waves. The wounded were taken to Rambam Medical Center, Carmel Medical Center and Bnei Zion Medical Center (Rothschild) for treatment. Most of the wounded were hurt when a rocket slammed into a central post office branch. Another rocket hit a residential building. No one was in the apartment that was hit in the strike, and no injuries were reported. A third rocket hit a parked car in the city. Shortly after the rocket strike, municipality workers began clearing the rubble. Hezbollah also fired rockets Friday at the Galilee, where two people were hurt. One person was lightly wounded in Yesod Hama'aleh from rocket shrapnel, and a Rosh Pina resident was very lightly hurt in a strike. Two houses were damaged in the Western Galilee, near Ma'alot. Rockets hit two empty homes in Nahariya, causing no injuries. Rockets also landed in open areas near Safed and Kiryat Shmona, Tiberias, and in the vicinity of Carmiel. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ One Israeli's View:
Imagine that Mexico was calling for the destruction of the United States, backing it up with cross-border raids and missiles. The great Yogi Berra once said, "In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is." I am not a columnist -- just an ordinary American citizen living in Israel -- but I have gained some insight into both cultures, some might say mentalities. Here is what many Israelis are feeling nowadays. The first point concerns some unwritten American values I grew up with: Problems are solvable. Good will is returned in kind. In general, favor the underdog over the top dog (unless you're the top dog). If two sides are fighting, they must both have some justification. Be reasonable; split the difference. But what if you are living in a neighborhood where they are not quite as reasonable as you? Where your attempts to reason & split the difference backfire? Or worse, where concession is laughed at as weakness. The second point concerns Israel in particular. We are 6.6 million people, toughened but pragmatic. At 8,020 square miles, we have an area 25% smaller than Maryland. The difference is that, unlike America's vast power, with oceans and peaceful neighbors on all sides, the Jewish state is surrounded on several sides with people who actually want to kill us. Not subdue us -- but destroy our country. It would be convenient to think that this must be because of something we did. But Hamas and Hezbollah say it out loud and crystal clear. The "occupation" is the whole works. Their final solution is the total destruction of Israel. Iran, a member state of the UN, holds conferences called "A World Without Israel." This is the backdrop against which most civilized countries would have us turn the other cheek. As social writer Eric Hoffer once said, "We really do expect the Jews to be the only good Christians in the world." To put things in perspective, imagine, if you can, that Arlington lobbed 1,000 shells at Georgetown. Or sent suicide bombers. How exactly would you react? Imagine that Mexico was calling for the destruction of the United States, backing it up with cross-border raids and missiles. The third point is that Israel already withdrew from every last inch of southern Lebanon and Gaza, as the international community demanded. But the provocations and terror -- violence aimed intentionally against civilian targets -- continued. This is why we entered this conflict. Enough is enough. This is a horrible situation to be in, fighting Hezbollah behind its human shields. But before bombing southern Lebanon and the Hezbollah neighborhoods of Beirut, Israel dropped leaflets encouraging evacuation. Confronted with terrible choices, we are trying to fight while minimizing civilian casualties. It was wishful thinking to hope that joining the government would make Hamas and Hezbollah more responsible. Sometimes putting the bully in charge of the playground works, and sometimes it doesn't. The operative emotion in Israel right now is sadness, sadness for what is being done to us, sadness for what we must do to defend ourselves. The missiles shot at Haifa landed a few miles from the research labs of Intel, IBM, Microsoft and Google. Israelis would much rather continue working on desalination, stroke treatment, and alternative fuels. We would rather that our adversaries developed their own economies pragmatically. We hate this conflict, but we will not commit suicide. As Golda Meir said, "We will have peace when our enemies love their children more than they hate ours." My father was a survivor of Auschwitz and Buchenwald, and he was the most optimistic person I ever knew, but he once taught me, "Above all else, when someone threatens to kill you or your loved ones -- just believe him!" The lesson for America is simple. Do not hide from international responsibility. Do not assume the oceans offer protection. Iran is behind Hezbollah, Hamas, Syria, and, of course, the insurgents in Iraq. If Iran gets nuclear bombs, do you want to bet they won't sponsor a radical Islamic group to eradicate American cities? You want to know what Israelis are thinking? Theory and practice are intertwined. We are on the front line, but we will show patience and strength. That's why 89% of Israelis, Left, Right and Center, support the army right now. A mere 61 years and 10 weeks after V-E day, we know that evil and blind hatred exist. And that they can be beaten. Author Biography:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ [From my Conservative Synagogue, Kehillat Shalva, in Safed.....] 23 July, 2006 - War in the North - Introduction: This is a special bulletin being sent out by members of Kehillat Shalva, the Masorti (Conservative) synagogue in Safed, Upper Galilee, in the north of Israel. We felt we wanted to give our overseas friends and supporters a first-hand view of our experience of living in this war- zone. This is a personal initiative of members of our congregation. Kehillat Shalva is one of three Masorti congregations in Western and Upper Galilee (the other two are Kfar Vradim and Karmiel). All our communities are enduring daily missile-barrages from Hizbollah: our daily lives disrupted, our homes hit, people wounded and living in fear of the next Katyusha falling... But we are still here. We hold the fort for the Masorti Movement in the north. 1. War in the north - 21 July 2006, Zefat It's Friday morning, tenth day of this war against the Hizbullah, and our world here is a cacophony of noise. Most of the sounds come from the sky and we are all hypersensitive now, and jumpy, as we try to determine if the noise is a threat or not: is it them shelling us, is it us pounding them, is it one of our planes going over on a mission, helicopters surveying the damage, or a crop-spraying plane spreading water on fires lit by missiles? Or was it just a door slamming? We have had many sirens after the katuysha missiles fell and we have had sirens warning us they might fall but we haven't heard the all- clear, and we know that in a modern war like this, we wont. The ramifications are too broad. Missile attacks from Gaza on Southern Israel have not abated. The attack in the north was designed to keep our army fighting on several fronts at once. And yet, I never imagined that in Zefat, our beautiful, but one-horse town, high in the Galil mountains, with its clean air and lack of entertainment for the teenagers(!), that we would become the target of Iran's proxy army in Lebanon, the Hizbullah. One of my students (I am an English teacher) comes from Avivim, scene of bloody fighting on the border, fighting which is going on as I write and still claiming valuable lives. She has been evacuated : a 21st century wandering Jew, being bussed from town to town, to receive hospitality, away from the front line, but yearning to go home. So, both my student and Kehillat Shalva, seemingly tiny cogs in the wheels of the world, are embroiled in an initiative orchestrated by Iran, aided and abetted by Syria, which aims to spread across the whole globe, and which certainly doesn't have local peoples' interests at heart. Every now and then there is a moment of quiet: you can hear the birds singing, our dog stops shaking and you could almost think we were back to 'normality'. But, as The Jerusalem Post quoted Winston Churchill speaking in 1942 - "This is not the end. It's not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps the end of the beginning". We hope that the world is waking up to the broader meaning and goals of Islamic Fundamentalism - we are going to need a more joint effort to fight it. Stephanie Chait, Kehillat Shalva 2. "Peace for Israel" War - 22, July 2006: A Letter from the Front We are now in the 10th day of this war. A war that came without prior warning and caught most of us unprepared, after the kidnapping of one of our soldiers on the Gaza front and then two more from the Northern border and the shooting of rockets on the north of Israel. However, to the Israeli population, and especially of the North we cannot use the word "surprise"! A little bit of history - after the UN resolution 1559 stating that the Hezballa terrorist organisation had to be disbanded etc. and its soldiers had to move out of Northern Lebanon, nothing happened. The Israeli army pulled out leaving the Northern front open and without any protection. Instead of the world demanding the implementation of the resolution -- there was silence. What happened is that the Hezballa moved into the abandoned Israeli outposts etc. and stationed themselves right on our border. Anyone driving down the Northern Road could see these terrorists sitting there, watching every movement. It is an awful feeling, as if at any minute one could be attacked. The world sat back. We did our part and that is that! Our patience was wearing thin. Nobody is going to help us, we have to help ourselves. The Israeli population in general is in agreement with this intervention. We are continuously giving in. After destroying our villages and moving our people out from the Gaza strip we expected quietness on the part of the Palestinians, but instead rockets have been raining on Sderot and that area ever since. Where is the world's intervention -- nothing! So again we have gone in to Gaza to protect our people. But we are blamed! Now it is the same in the North of Israel. The world thinks we are fools? Up till yesterday 300 rockets have fallen, just in the Safad area. Most of them have fallen in open ground but unfortunately one or two have been direct hits and there have been fatalities, with a few children injured. About 50% of the population has left, mostly families with children or elderly people. To sit in a bomb shelter 24 hours a day is quite unpleasant and frustrating in many ways. The population that is left is sitting it out. David, my husband, is a Professor in a Laboratory on the Kinneret, and as both Tiberias and Safad are targets he has decided it is better to stay at home. As you will see from our bulletin from the War Zone, most of Kehillat Shalva's congregation has stayed. We are in constant contact with each other by telephone or e-mail and are trying to help families who cannot reach vital facilities due to the infrequency of public transport. Many of the Kehillah members work in sensitive or emergency positions, either doctors, psychologists etc. I work in the pharmacy of the Safad Hospital, in charge of the medicine inventory. As the hospital is on the front line we receive injured civilians and soldiers so there is a 24 hour alert. A few days ago a "miracle" happened. About 10.30 in the evening, during a rain of rockets, there was a phone call asking me if I knew where the rockets had landed. It seems one landed on the roof of the pharmacy! Thank goodness not only was it at night, and nobody was inside, but it landed on the only cement block on the roof, so did not penetrate. It made extensive damage to all the windows of the hospital but luckily nobody was injured. As I am sitting here typing this letter our dogs are very scared, bombs and sirens can be heard again. May we end this war quickly and without too much loss of life. My soldier daughter has many friends from her year in the army. All of us are one family, either from friendship, from relationship or just neighbours, so whatever happens to one person it is felt by everyone. 3. War in the North: View from Kehillat Shalva: Today is the 11th day of the war in the north. I'm writing this from my home in Safed (Tzfat) - my apartment over the Kehillat Shalva Masorti synagogue. If a siren sounds or I hear the explosion of a falling missile, I shall run downstairs to my "sheltered area": the back part of the synagogue. My folding bed is already down there, and I sleep there at nights. This is a sturdy old 2-storey building with thick stone walls, and the lower part is set back into the hillside, so I feel as safe there as anywhere these days... Safed is within the "kav ha-imut" [confrontation-line] area, which embraces the entire area north of the Akko-Ammiad-Tiberias road. Since the situation started, all residents of this area have been ordered to remain in bomb-shelters or sheltered areas (inner rooms) in their homes, to minimise risk of injury from shrapnel or shattered glass. We are able to go out for short times each day, to do shopping or other vital errands. Essential services, such as supermarkets, pharmacies, post office, banks, are open. People who wish to go to work may do so, provided their work-place has a bomb-shelter or protected area. I ventured out this morning, to pick up 2 members of our congregation who need to travel to Haifa today for a hospital appointment and to collect special medications. They are recent immigrants from California, they don't have a car, and their house is up on an exposed hilltop not far from an army base - so they were very relieved I could drive them to the bus station! It was only a 10-minute drive, which in normal times one would think nothing of..... but in these tense days, every time one ventures outside, there is the constant thought in one's mind: will I get back safely?? will a missile fall on me??? And in fact I drove past a couple of Katyusha craters in the road, one of them only a couple of hundred metres from our synagogue... Being so close to the northern border, we get *no* advance warning of incoming missiles: by the time a siren sounds, the missile has generally already landed! Yesterday, more than 100 missiles fell on the north of Israel - several of them in or around Safed. Providentially, many are falling on open ground and causing no injuries or damage (except for starting fires in the dry vegetation) - but yesterday in Safed, one home did receive a direct hit, the missile exploded in their living- room, and the severely injured family were taken to hospital... so the danger is *very real*. My family and friends abroad ask me if it's "quiet" where I live. In one sense, it is all too quiet... the streets of Safed are virtually deserted, most normal activity suspended... Many hours can go by without any incoming missiles, and we get lulled into an unreal feeling of "normality".... However, the apparent calm is an illusion: suddenly, literally out of the blue, a siren sounds, a boom is heard, a rocket falls... and we are back into the grim reality of the situation. We become super-sensitive to every small sound.... even when it's quiet, we are constantly waiting for the next alarm... Our little Shalva community keeps in touch among ourselves by phone and email - we phone each other after every alarm: "are you okay? did you hear that missile? was it near you?..." We don't know how long the situation will continue... but we are hanging in here for as long as it takes.... Margaret Hayon - Kehillat Shalva, Safed (Tzfat), northern Israel. Please pass this bulletin on to your congregations and your friends. We very much appreciate your continuing support!!! Any responses: please email margaret@actcom.co.il, and I will pass them on to our community. Kehillat Shalva Masorti Synagogue, Tzfat (Safed), Upper Galilee, North Israel. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ How we fell into the Iranian trap:
The following is an assortment of telltale signs of the Iranian-Syrian scheme, executed by Hamas and Hezbollah, to ignite the Arab-Israeli arena. All of the signs converge on a single event in time - the G8 gathering. It is hard to tell which is more serious - that the political and military leadership saw the signs and disregarded them, or that it did not see them at all. On July 21, on the morning of the attack in northern Israel, the conservative Iranian newspaper, Jomhuri Islami, chose to print a speech given by Hassan Nasrallah on May 23. The secretary-general of Hezbollah declared that "all of Israel is now within range of our missiles... We possess a more than adequate stock of arms, both qualitatively and quantitatively... Over 2 million Jews live in northern Israel, where there are centers of leisure and touring activities, factories, agriculture, important military airfields and army bases... Our presence in south Lebanon, contiguous to the northern part of occupied Palestine, is our most important stronghold." On July 11, following his meeting with Javier Solana, the individual who holds the nuclear portfolio in the Iranian cabinet, Ali Larijani, departed for a surprise visit to Damascus. Following the visit, Syrian Vice-President Farouk a-Shara announced that "the resistance movements in Lebanon and in Palestine [namely, Hezbollah and Hamas - A.E.] will make the decisions on their own affairs." That same day, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad threatened the Western states in a television broadcast, warning them against supporting Israel, as "the fury of the Muslim peoples is not limited to the borders of the region... the waves of the explosion... will reach the corrupt forces [the Western states] that support this counterfeit regime." On July 3, Hossein Shariatmadari, editor of the Kayhan newspaper and a close associate of Iranian leader Ali Khamenei, wrote that "we mustn't respond to Israel's crimes only in Gaza, only in the occupied lands. Why should the Zionists feel secure when Muslims have no security?" In an interview with the Iranian news agency, Mehr, Shariatmadari said that the Islamic world should not restrict its response to the Zionist attacks only to the Gaza Strip, but should create a situation in which "no Zionist will feel safe, anywhere in the world." He said that the UN was ineffective, because "all of its laws are interpreted to the benefit of those who speak with militancy, and Israel's attack in the Gaza Strip merits a mere expression of sorrow." On June 16, the Asharq Al Awsat newspaper reported the signing of an agreement on military cooperation between Syria and Iran "to repulse the threats [of the U.S. and Israel]." The newspaper emphasized that among other subjects, talks held in Tehran between the Syrian defense minister, Hassan Turkmani, and his Iranian counterpart, Mustafa Mohammed Najjar, focused on the situation in Lebanon and in Palestine, and on assistance to Hamas and to Jihad in their confrontation with the Fatah movement. The Syrian minister officially declared "a common front against Israel's threats... Iran views Syria's security as its own security." Asharq Al Awsat also reported that the minister had visited Tehran at the head of a large delegation accompanied by military and intelligence officers, and had met there with government and army leaders. The newspaper reported that Iran had agreed to underwrite the purchase of military hardware for Syria from Russia, China and Ukraine, in addition to equipping the Syrian army with artillery, ammunition, military vehicles and missiles of Iranian manufacture. Iran would also help to train Syrian naval forces. Black on white: Syria publicly announced that it had extended its previous agreements with Iran on easing the passage of trucks conveying Iranian weapons into Lebanon. There it was - black on white. All of these signs have been documented in the offices of MEMRI, the Middle East Media Research Institute, in Jerusalem. Yigal Carmon, the founder and director of the institute who spent many years in the defense establishment, placed a call soon after the Hamas attack at Kerem Shalom to a cabinet minister with whom he is acquainted. He informed the minister of his hypothesis that Hamas' deviation from its cease-fire policy (which at the time was expressed in its acceptance of the Prisoners' Document) was related to the pressure placed on Iran vis-a-vis its nuclear program. Carmon told the minister-friend that he perceived an escalation in the threats voiced by Iran, increasing in volume as the date grew closer for Iran's response to the G8 on its nuclear program. He implored the minister to speak with his counterparts around the cabinet table, asking them to bite their lips until after the meeting in Brussels between the diplomatic coordinator of the EU, Javier Solana, and the secretary of the National Security Council of Iran, Ali Larijani. "I told him it was important for the Europeans to understand that the Iranians have not intention of responding to the American compromise proposal," says Carmon, reconstructing the conversation. "I told him that in my assessment, if there was an Iranian plan to repulse the international pressure, then we could expect a threat to develop on our northern sector as well." Three days later, at the height of Operation Summer Rains (in Gaza), the minister telephoned the MEMRI offices in Jerusalem. "You and your doomsday prophecies," the minister teased. The very next day, Hezbollah attacked along the Lebanese border, and Carmon, once again asked to maintain restraint. Carmon also assesses that the acts of terror in Iraq, directed by Iran's Shi'ite proxies, led by Muqtada al-Sader, are also related to the nuclear issue. He predicts that before long, the Iranians will unleash terror attacks on Jewish and Israeli targets around the world. "We are witnessing a most serious failure of our leaders. They allowed the State of Israel to fall into the Iranian trap by responding to Iran's provocation. It was intended to disrupt the discussions of the G8 that were supposed to form an international consensus against the Iranian nuclear program. A responsible leadership would have delayed the response by several weeks, and not played into the Iranian's hands. "We missed the opportunity to expose the Iranian provocations before the G8, and the entire world. We can always go back and launch strikes in Lebanon later on. It would have been possible to set an ultimatum that if the soldiers are not returned within a short period of time, then we will do everything in our power to bring them back. In the meantime, we could have made arrangements for the home front, which was caught unprepared, and deployed three divisions on the border with Syria. "The public is not stupid. It would have understood that a threat to four million people as a result of the Iranian nuclear program is more serious than the killing of soldiers in the north and the kidnapping of their comrades." The explanation for Iran's stubborn insistence on delaying its response to the American proposal until August 22 may be found in the Iranian media. In the past few weeks, reports have been published about an imminent declaration by Ahmadinejad about a "significant development in Iran's nuclear capability." Carmon estimates that they might need another few weeks to finalize their capacity to fully or partially enrich uranium, independent of any other country. It might also have something to do with completing the development of advanced missiles. Fear or anger: When he heard the prime minister say on Tuesday that the crisis in the north is an "Iranian trick," Carmon did not know if he should be shaking with fear or exploding with anger. "It isn't a trick from the Beitar Jerusalem soccer pitch," he says, furious with Ehud Olmert. "It worries me that even the president of the United States, the leader of the free world, doesn't understand that we aren't talking here about Hezbollah 'shit,' or about regional tensions, but about a crisis on a global scale." "The current crisis has the makings of being able to create a new order in the region, or even a global conflict," stated a MEMRI position paper released yesterday. It refers to the danger of the traditional allies of the United States - Saudi Arabia and Egypt - losing their senior regional status to Iran, which is in the midst of an advanced process of acquiring nuclear capability. At the same time, Russia, which is described as an ally of Iran, is once again taking up position against the United States, as a world power that wields influence in the Middle East and in Europe, where Russia is the principal supplier of oil and gas. As such, the structure of a dual-superpower world is being revived, complete with all the rivalry between the East and West blocs in the Middle East that was characteristic of the Cold War era. Disregard of this threat is especially worrisome to Carmon, as all of this information is openly available to all, including the well-established weapons trail from Syria to Lebanon that was "suddenly" discovered by IDF generals, who have termed it a "smuggling" route. Carmon believes that if decision-makers in the government and the army had considered the Iranian involvement, they would have understood that every Iranian missile, including the C-802 that hit the Israeli missile boat, would be in the possession of Hezbollah. "There are no tricks here," he rails. "The idea is to finally internalize the fact that the IDF is fighting against an Iranian militia, with the logistical support of Iran. The United States has to understand that Putin is working to build a center for uranium enrichment in Siberia, and that Russia is Iran's main supporter. Russia has 6,000 experts there, and knows how to keep its Iranian ally in a sensitive spot. They are certain that we could not endure a home front war, as the Arabs and the Iranians would. In the Iran-Iraq War, two million Moslems died." Carmon is concerned that a few days from now, after it has finished wearing down our air force, Iran, in cahoots with Russia, will "volunteer" to settle the crisis between Israel and Hezbollah, and in exchange for these "glass beads" would win the real diamond - advancing its nuclear program. Carmon also sees significance in the exposure of Iranian and Syrian involvement in the crisis. He believes Israel must pressure the U.S. to bring the G-8 into a special meeting to reach a firm decision against Iran's nuclear program and support of terror groups. Only Iran can stop Hezbollah, and only the U.S. can stop Iran. [But, so can we!!!!] ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The spirit of the King David Hotel
The terror attack on the King David Hotel in Jerusalem was in its day the equivalent of the Twin Towers; yesterday was its 60th anniversary. There are two historic plaques at the hotel, one of whose wings was used by the British Mandate authority. On one of the plaques, which has been hanging there for some time, a few words note the terror attack: "On July 22, 1946, the Etzel underground bombed the southern wing." The action is attributed to Etzel alone, but there is no condemnation. "Underground" generally has a positive connotation. The unveiling of the other plaque this week was meant to cap an academic conference held at the Menachem Begin Heritage Center on the issue of who is a freedom fighter and who is a terrorist. It was quite a week to clarify such a question. They can be distinguished by organizational affiliation, goals, targets, means of combat and mode of operation. They all assume that a freedom fighter is a good person and a terrorist is a bad one. Nearly every terrorist defines himself as a freedom fighter, and vice versa: freedom fighters are usually defined as terrorists. So was Begin. He invested a lot of effort to convince history that he was not a terrorist. Among other things, he emphasized that his organization did not harm civilians. There's a thesis that could serve as an historic lesson from a moral standpoint: not harming civilians. The new plaque identifies the perpetrators of the attack as "Etzel fighters." It's important for them to emphasize that they acted "under orders from the Hebrew rebel movement," in other words, the Hagannah, among others. They called the hotel switchboard, the editorial offices of the Palestine Post, and the French Embassy (presumably they meant the consulate) "to prevent casualties." In other words, they sought a terrorist attack without casualties, but something went wrong. Twenty-five minutes went by and then "for some reason" the British did not evacuate the building "and as a result" 91 people were "regrettably" killed. There were 28 British, 41 Arabs, 17 Jews and five others. To emphasize the military aspect of the operation, the plaque notes that one of the Etzel people was killed "in an exchange of fire." The British government is demanding the plaque's removal. Her Majesty's ambassador and the consul have written to the mayor of Jerusalem that such an act of terror cannot be honored, even if it was preceded by a warning. To this day, it is not clear what made the bombing's planners believe the British would evacuate the building. Would Benjamin Netanyahu, as prime minister, have ordered his bureau evacuated on the basis of telephone threat from a Palestinian terror group? Netanyahu spoke at the conference. The difference between a terrorist operation and a legitimate military action is expressed, he said, in the fact that the terrorists intend to harm civilians whereas legitimate combatants try to avoid that. According to that theory, the kidnapping of an Israeli soldier by a Palestinian organization is a legitimate military operation, and the bombing of Dresden, Hanoi, Haifa or Beirut is a war crime. Of course this is not what Netanyahu meant. He learned only this from the bombing of the hotel: that the Arabs are bad and we are good. Arab actions starting in 1920 and through the Iranian nuclear plan reflect, in his words, "a terrorist mentality." Israel, on the other hand, only harms civilians by accident or when there is no alternative. For example, when terrorists hide among civilians. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ GAMLA HOMEPAGE: http://www.gamla.org.il/english SUBSCRIBE
TO GAMLA NEWSLETTER : http://www.gamla.org.il/english/sub.htm
Ever since the fighting began, Iran has been transferring rockets and other ammunition to Hezbollah via Syria. The war materiel moves into Lebanon on trucks from Syria, but much of it is being destroyed by the Israel Defense Forces. The Iranian resupply effort should not be interpreted as stemming from a serious Hezbollah logistical plight. There are no indications that Hezbollah is running out of rockets, though it may need other equipment. It is possible that the supplies are meant to build up Hezbollah's arsenal in case the war turns into one of attrition. Iran's embassy in Beirut is coordinating Tehran's involvement in the fighting against Israel. The families of the Iranian advisers have been evacuated, but it is unlikely that Israel will take the extreme step of targeting the Iranian embassy. Iran's Revolutionary Guards also provide constant intelligence and logistical report to Hezbollah s foreign operations unit. The meaning of Tehran's support is that it is very important to Iran that Hezbollah not be crushed during this confrontation. There are signs suggesting that both Tehran and Damascus are worried that Hezbollah will be worn out by the fighting. Therefore, Iran is pressuring Syria not to acquiesce to diplomatic offers that are meant to pressure or influence Hezbollah and Hamas to hold back on their attacks against Israel. It is not clear whether Tehran was party to Hezbollah's decision to refrain, for now, from launching rockets capable of striking Tel Aviv and targets further south. The intelligence agencies have not been able to provide a definite answer to this. So far, only debris from a Fajr-3 missile, which has a 45 kilometer range and a relatively small warhead, has been found inside Israel. Air force attacks have destroyed long-range rockets, including Zelzals 1 and 2, but Hezbollah operatives have not been seen trying to launch such missiles against Israel. The Zelzal 2 has a particularly long range, capable of hitting the outskirts of Be'er Sheva. Meanwhile, Hezbollah has used Syrian-made 220-millimeter rockets, which hit Haifa and its environs. Hezbollah received several hundred of these rockets, which come in two models. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The Middle East Crisis - Local, Regional, and Global; Conventional
and Nuclear (2): The War in the Perception of Iran, Syria, and
Hizbullah --
In the 1980s the Soviet Union was defeated in Afghanistan by a religious Sunni popular militia armed with large quantities of sophisticated weaponry, with Saudi and American support. Today, this same mode of warfare is being utilized to great effect by Hizbullah, a religious Shiite popular militia which is armed with large quantities of sophisticated weaponry, with Iranian and Russian support. Russia has not only been the backbone of the Iranian nuclear program; it is also providing the primary diplomatic umbrella for Hizbullah and Iran's activities. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has gone so far as to claim that there is no connection between Iran and Hizbullah. Russia also does not include Hizbullah in its list of terrorist organizations. However, the Hizbullah model differs from the Afghanistan model in one important respect: the depth of the ties between the "client" militia and the "sponsor" country. While the ties between the Afghani mujahideen and Saudi Arabia were basically ephemeral ties of religious affiliation, the ties between Iran and Hizbullah are an open-ended religious and strategic symbiosis. Hizbullah is not an independent Lebanese organization. It is part and parcel of the Iranian state, and Iran sees in Hizbullah "one of the mainstays of its strategic security." Hizbullah is "Iran's first line of defense against Israel" and the West.(1) One of Hizbullah's founders, Subhi Al-Tufeili, stated in an interview that "Hizbullah's leadership is Velayat-e-Faqih - that is, Ali Khamenei."(2) For these reasons, Iran was even willing to commit itself to a joint military pact with Syria in order to assure the steady flow of weapons to Hizbullah. The agreement was signed one month before the outbreak of the war, and the Iranian and Syrian defense ministers announced on the occasion of the signing that "Iran sees Syria's security as its own."(3) In the 1980s, the mujahideen saw the Afghan communist regime as a Soviet implant, lacking any true hold in the area. In Iran's perception, Israel is likewise a foreign, Western implant with no true roots in the region. If Hizbullah is not crushed, then it, Syria, Iran, and many others in the Middle East will see this as a victory of the "resistance" over the IDF, its American weapons, and its American sponsor. This will reinforce, in the view of the Iranians and of Hizbullah, their belief that Israel is bereft of any real strength. In a speech on February 1, 2006, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad labeled the superpowers and countries that wished to deny Iran its rights (to nuclear development) "superpowers made of straw." Hizbullah Secretary-General Nasrallah, for his part, has often called Israel "a spider-web state" - one that can easily be destroyed. On the regional level, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad represents the "Second Islamic Revolution," which strives to export the revolution beyond Iran's borders. Ahmadinejad sees himself as walking in the path of the architect of the Islamic Revolution, Ayatollah Khomeini, who made exporting the revolution one of the fundamental elements of his vision.(4) Thus, in Iran's view, the fighting in Lebanon is not just a confrontation with Israel. It is part of the struggle for hegemony in the Middle East. It should be pointed out that several Sunni Arab leaders (among them King 'Abdallah of Jordan, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, and apparently the Saudi foreign minister as well) have recently taken note of the Shiite dimension in the latest regional developments. King 'Abdallah even warned of an Iranian bid to create a "Shiite crescent" in the Middle East. *Y. Carmon is President of MEMRI; A. Savyon is Director of MEMRI's Iranian Media Project; N. Toobiyan and Y.Mansharof are MEMRI Iranian Studies Department Research Fellows. Endnotes:
Sandy Rosen-Hazen lives in Safed. Contact her at Sandy@israel.net |
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WW III: WAR OF LIES TARGETS ISRAEL -- Part 1
Posted by Professor Eugene Narrett, July 23, 2006. |
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World War III began even before WW I and got into high gear immediately after the armistice. WW II should be seen as a major spike in what we will for familiarity's sake denote WW III: the war of lies against the Jewish people. At least in its major, European theatre, WW II was in many respects a war against the Jews in which England and Germany collaborated. In this they had the assistance or acquiescence of many other powers (and petty states), the Vatican, France, Spain, Russia, Turkey and, sadly, America. Since the Jews in Israel won their independence, but not full sovereignty in 1948, WW III has intensified and become identifiable for what it has been: the War of Lies against the Jewish people that is the last stage of Western civilization and the onset of a new and terrible hi-tech Tower of Babel... It is ironic and sad that the French Foreign Minister, having just been missed by a rocket in Haifa is heading, with his British Foreign Office counterpart for talks with PM Olmert and the Foreign Minister of Israel, Livni. It is ironic because Israel is the main target of WW III, the War of Lies that the governments of Europe, with the eventual massive assistance of the US Department of State have been waging on the Jewish people since Russia published the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" (1903; circulating in its current anti-Semitic form since the 1880s) and since the long term perversion by Britain (1920 - 48) of its League of Nations Mandate to establish a National Home for the Jewish people. Given the genocidal perfidy of the British, it is particularly tragic that the warriors in the IDF serve as hamburger helper for the fading British grand game of creating a huge British dependency from Mesopotamia to the Suez Canal and Cairo, and from Mosul to Aden. That's right: Israel not only is fighting the war to save western civilization while the powers of this same civilization condemn and cripple its efforts; it is fighting specifically to save the neo-Imperial dream of the Anglo-American diplomatic - corporate - New Age elites to create a global security state directed mainly by them and their proxies. The game is going very badly, even with the enormous conscription, during the 1930s - 40s of the industrial and economic might and idealism of America to the British game. It is failing for two reasons: 1) the relentless, insane hatred of Jews within Britain (long since spread throughout the culture by the Foreign Office and its sway over British media); and 2) because the Russians, the original and still primary competitor of the British for world sway have made more effective alliances with the Islamic regimes that Britain created and whose cohesion results mainly from Islam's genocidal rage against Jews. One could write a massive and depressing tome chronicling the genocidal slander of Jews and the ostensibly Jewish state in the western, let alone the communist and Islamic media. Too many examples even to note the familiar catch phrases here. No: here we will merely note the geo-political outlines of the bungling and treacherous British game and how it is writ large in the battles of today, -- battles that the Europeans, with State Department assistance, are committed to seeing Israel lose. For the end of the end game, read on... After WW I the British broke up the remains of the Ottoman Empire, the last of many Turkish dynasties to exercise Imperial sway over the Middle East, northern Africa and the Balkans. With Russia embroiled in its Civil War, France exhausted, Italy incapable and America disgusted, Britain had the board to itself. Their Foreign Office created a congeries of states with no basis in genuine nations, peoples or ethnicities. (A nation is a group of people united by a common language, history, rituals or religion, and strong sense of group identity and difference). The list of artificial and therefore unstable states created by the British is long and, by now, familiar: "Saudi" Arabia, Kuwait, "Iraq" (the word means "the edge," it was the Turkish name for the provincial in central Mesopotamia), the Gulf states, Syria, and TransJordan. The last-named is particularly noteworthy because it was carved out of the Jewish National Home to reward an ostensibly pro-British chieftain from Mecca. One of his brothers was made King of the new dependency of "Iraq" which incorporated what had first been intended to be an Armenian nation (later, Kurdistan: the province of Mosul), as well as the province of Basra, even then a Shi'ite area. The only state that the British did not create and support was also the only genuine and ancient nation within the former Ottoman Empire, -- Israel. In fact, the British did and have continued, with the assorted help of Germany, France, America and jihad to do everything to abort it. The most signal achievement of British diplomatic /corporate / media perfidy has been to facilitate the shoah and to keep the Jews of Israel in a constant war of attrition, for as is clear, Israel is not allowed to reap the fruits of victory in war. Indeed, at this point the western powers make sure Israel is led by self-avowed defeatists who refuse to declare and wage war even when their nation is attacked and half of it is in bomb shelters. Israel will not be allowed to conquer Hezbollah and to rid the world of the artificial, unstable, terror-exporting states of Syria and Lebanon. The other main 'achievement' of the lies, the artificial states the British have imposed on world history and events is to create constant instability that provided and continues to provide an opening that the skillful and consciousless Russians adeptly exploit. Thus, the arc of Anglo-American dependencies and "allies," from Persia/Iran to Egypt has crumbled. Iran and Syria are Russian protectorates and funnels for Russian weapons. All the European powers had their hands in Mesopotamia / "Iraq" until the American invasion of 2003 and the USA has re-opened that state to European influence and commerce although it often works with Russia and against the Anglo-Ameircan interests. The situation now is that, just as Americans are bleeding in "Iraq," so the Jews of Israel, hamstrung logistically and operationally by the West are fighting and bleeding for the remnants of the Anglo-American project in Jordan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and Egypt. Such is the genocidal and suicidal nature of the "grand game" that Britain and its colony, the State Department (which also may be defined as a colony of the House of Saud) continue to cripple Israel even as it fights for them and as Russia triumphs across the north of the Middle East, turning Hamas and Hezbollah on and off to suit its plans and to keep America reeling. Why? Because the overarching goal of the British - American project is to destroy all vestiges of sovereignty and Judaism in the operations of Israel and to square the circle by integrating it into the arc of Anglo-American dependencies. This cannot be done: and while the British have honed the art of imperial sway by crisis management, the current task is too flammable for them or anyone. They are going down and taking the Jews with them. Out of the ashes will come a global security state in which there will be no security. Perhaps British and Eurabian diplomats welcome this and will be glad to coordinate with Russia to extract state control of human resources from the resulting state of endless war. They will call this "peace," or "security" and its regions, "prosperity and free trade zones." America still is mostly healthy at the grass roots but its political-corporate-media-academic elites will not let it destroy the jihadist regimes in Teheran and Arabia that faciliate the world's spin into incessant violence and terror. Thus the game grinds on... As we wrote, WW III is the War of Lies (and blood), the war against the name, identity, history and saving principles of Judaism that are to be buried so this new world disorder can reign. Call it "Tower of Babble Redux."
Dr. Eugene Narrett writes:
"My most recent book, "Israel and the Endtimes" provides background on
the matters discussed above. Go to www.israelendtimes.com."
Contact him at Culturtalk@aol.com
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HOW TO STOP THE MYOPIC PERCEPTION OF THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY
Posted by Nurit Greenger, July 23, 2006. |
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The question posed: is there a way to stop the Hezbollah and their Lebanese [civilians] patrons preposterous "rules of war engagements" strategy and the continuous myopic perception of the international community at large? This below is from Don Morris (gsdmorris@hotmail.com); it came July 19, 2006. |
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We all agree -- least I think we do -- war is ugly, inhumane, and it does not present humanity in a fine light. We have entered a new era that requires new definitions of war combatants and civilians. I say this because civilians have been and are currently being killed in numbers that are alarming those in the media. I have several questions to ask of the international community:
Contact Nurit Greenger at 4nuritg@gmail.com |
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THOUSANDS OF SOLDIERS TO JOIN COUNTER-TERROR OFFENSIVE
Posted by Yechiel Spira, July 23, 2006. |
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Thousands of IDF soldiers have been called to active reserve duty, thereby freeing up compulsory service soldiers for redeployment to the north. Defense Minister Amir Peretz has authorized the continuation of the ground forces incursion into southern Lebanon, as elite units continue to operate on the ground, near Israel's northern border, seeking to push Hizbullah back while destroying the terror organizations infrastructure. Five Egoz Soldiers Killed in Fighting In heavy fighting in the Maroun a-Ras area near Moshav Avivim last Thursday (20 July), five IDF soldiers fell in the line of duty. It was originally reported that four soldiers were killed but early Sunday morning; the IDF Spokesperson's Office confirmed the body of a fifth member of the elite Sayeret Egoz was located, officially raising the death toll to five. Also operating in southern Lebanon are paratroopers, tanks and other specialized forces. Some 5,000 reservists were activated with tzav-8 emergency call-up orders on Friday. The reservists will be deployed in areas throughout Judea and Samaria, freeing younger compulsory duty soldiers to join the effort against Hizbullah in the north. Hizbullah is a Formidable Enemy The battle will be a difficult one since Hizbullah has had six years to prepare, since then-Prime Minister Ehud Barak ordered the unilateral Israeli withdrawal from southern Lebanon. The area is mined and there are bombs powerful enough to destroy the underbellies of Israel's tanks, as was seen ten days ago when the crew of a Merkavah-3 tank was burned alive when a 200kg (120 lbs) bomb was detonated near Israel's northern border. It is also known that Russian-built Kornet missiles were sold to Syria. The laser-guided missiles manufactured in the 1990s are equipped with a thermal sight. They pose a threat to even the most advanced tank. A Sabbath of Heavy Rocket Attacks The Sabbath brought another heavy day of rocket attacks, with over 160 rockets striking northern cities between 10:00am-7:00pm. Property damage was extensive, and dozens of people were injured, including two who were listed in serious condition on Saturday night. Thousands of Israelis have fled their homes in Haifa and other cities, explaining the relatively low number of people killed and wounded in rocket attacks. Israel Police beginning Sunday will be increasing the number of personnel deployed in northern cities, primarily to prevent looting and break-ins. Magen David Adom emergency medical service officials reported on Saturday night that since the start of the current Hizbullah warfare, on 12 July, 28 Israeli civilians and security personnel have been killed and 674 wounded in rocket attacks. 14 victims were seriously wounded, 31 moderate, 204 light and the remainder treated for varying levels of anxiety and hysteria Ground Forces Deployment a Must Military experts agree that while the air forces continues to dismantle the Hizbullah infrastructure from the air, ground forces must be brought into the picture if the terror organization is to be brought to it knees. Last week's emergency call-up of thousands of soldiers signals this stage may be beginning, with members of the General Staff warning fighting will be difficult against Hizbullah but there is no alternative. Having carried out some 3,000 sorties and striking over 1,800 targets, the air force continues to strike at Hizbullah in all areas of Lebanon, in many cases successfully wiping out longer-range rockets and launchers on the ground, eliminating potential strikes by the terror organization against the Greater Tel Aviv area. Hizbullah Continues Using Civilians as Shields IDF Chief of Staff Lt-General Dan Halutz last week stated Operation Change of Direction was moving ahead, warning the process will take some time. The military commander stated once again that Hizbullah continues to base itself in civilian population areas, making Israel's job increasingly more difficult as the IDF takes measures to avoid collateral damage to civilians. Halutz added that the terror organization frequently places Katyusha rockets and launchers inside mosques, another technique aimed at enlisting the support of the international community against Israel. US Remains Firmly Behind Israel US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is expected in Israel to begin steps towards a ceasefire, but media reports are signaling US President George W. Bush is not planning to pressure Jerusalem to halt the operation at present. Rice will focus on Lebanon following the Israeli offensive, traveling from Israel to Rome where she will meet with United Nations officials and representatives of Arab states to discuss the rehabilitation of Lebanon. President Bush in his remarks blames Iran and Syria for standing in the way of a ceasefire, stating it is they who threaten the stability of the entire Middle East. American lawmakers have come out in support of Israel's operation, seeing the destruction of Hizbullah as a major step in combating global Islamic terror. Israel Seeks to Minimize Civilian Casualities For the past days, Israel has used taped telephone messages, leaflets and radio broadcasts to persuade southern Lebanese area residents to head north before the fighting increases, signaling Jerusalem's plan to cleanse southern Lebanon of Hizbullah. Israeli officials are indicating heavier air force bombardments are to be expected since Hizbullah's arsenal is well placed within civilian communities, which will be targeted as Israel seeks to eliminate thousands of rockets on the ground. While analysts and military experts agree Hizbullah will not be totally eliminated, the direct threat along Israel's border can be removed and the terror organization can be weakened enough to permit the Government of Lebanon to deploy its forces along Israel's border in compliance with United Nations Resolution 1559. Yechiel Spira writes for Arutz-Sheva (www.IsraelNN.com). |
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NOTES FROM THE REAL ISRAEL, PART II, DAY TWELVE.
Posted by Nancy Ragen, July 23, 2006. |
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[Editor's Note: Naomi Ragen's "Notes I" can be read below.] |
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1. Over a million Israeli children are spending their summer vacation listening to rockets falling, hearing horrifying sirens, watching their fathers put on their uniforms to go to the front, and experiencing the dispersion of their families, as fathers remain to care for farms and businesses while mothers and children go South. No one mentions this in all the " growing "concern about the humanitarian crisis" that the war has created. Pretty one-sided coverage. A call-in children's program on Israeli tv featuring a child psychologist answered their questions. Meshi from Safad, who was afraid of the sirens and the falling rockets, was told to breathe deeply during an attack. In between, she was advised to call her friends, to make a joke contest with her Mom, to color or paint. Meital from Beersheva, whose father has left for the front and who was in tears, was advised by a girl her age -also on the program, the daughter of a career army officer -- not to watch the news, to find games she enjoyed, to try to find someone in the neighborhood who needed help - a new immigrant, an elderly person, a child new to the neighborhood. 2. A big demonstration of the lunatic left took place in Tel Aviv. In a revealing column in Ynet, distinguished Israeli novelist Yoram Kaniuk, who has been identified with the Left, and who once said: "The more Israel orients itself according to Judaism and its fundamental variant, the more irrational is its policy, i.e., the more dangerous a threat it poses to its neighbors," got an invitation to join. He declined. This is what he wrote in YNET: "About what are they demonstrating? That Israel doesn't want to agree to her annihilation? That she doesn't want have Kassams landing in Ashkelon and Sderot, Nahariya and Haifa? Is there any city in the world that would be willing to sit quietly while being bombed, looking for excuses to understand the enemy and support him? Some say I've become a right winger. It isn't true. What's wrong with them? Anyone who isn't in favor of the destruction of the State of Israel is a right-winger? This is a holy war of Islam against the infidel West.... My, my. A new wind is certainly blowing. During the demonstration, two women, a left and right-winger politically, dared to hold up a sign calling the demonstators traitors, and saying "More power to the IDF.' They were manhandled and the flag they carried was ripped. Gotta love these "peace-lovers." "The Arab M.K.'s were the ones inciting the violence," the brave women told reporters. We are not holding our breath for arrests to be made. 3. Thousands of residents of Northern Israel went home after the Sabbath, saying they couldn't take being guests anymore. 4. For the first time, sirens sounded in Zichron Yaakov and Benyamina, but nothing happened. 5.Thousands of Israelis are volunteering to help. The
following organizations are using volunteers.Ruach Tova 1
700 505 202, Latat, 1 700 504033. Abandoned animals in the
north are being cared for by 6. Since the war broke out, 2,200 rockets have been fired at
Northern Israel into populated urban areas.
Naomi
Naomi Ragen is an American-born novelist and journalist who lives in Jerusalem. She can be contacted at www.naomiragen.com, where you can subscribe to her newsletter. |
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YES, ANTI-ZIONISM IS A FORM OF ANTI-SEMITISM
Posted by Steven Plaut, July 23, 2006. |
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1. Yes, anti-Zionism is a form of anti-Semitism!
Ms. Muir is the author of Reflections in Bullough.s Pond: Economy and Ecosystem in New England. The working title of her current project is: What Good is a Nation; A Clear-Eyed Look at Nations and Nationalism. This week, the Spanish Foreign Minister felt compelled to defend Prime Minister Zapatero from charges of anti-Semitism. Zapatero had donned the black-checked keffiyeh that is the symbol of Palestinian determination to destroy the Jewish State and criticized Israel for using "abusive force that does not protect innocent human beings."[1] It was all too familiar. On any given day one can find some eminent European -- a university professor, high-ranking churchman, a parliamentarian -- gravely explaining to reporters that harsh and disproportionate criticism of Israel is not anti-Semitic. And their protestations sound plausible. After all, this is not your grandfather's anti-Semitism. Israel's highly-educated critics do not refuse to dine in restaurants that serve Jews, use epithets like "kike," or believe that Jews control the international financial markets and are more likely than others to engage in shady business practices. At least that is what I assumed until someone did the study. Two Connecticut professors got curious about the constant denials that extremely harsh critics of Israel were anti-Semitic. Edward H. Kaplan, the William N. and Marie A. Beach Professor of Management Sciences, and Charles A. Small, Director of Urban Studies, Southern Connecticut State University, decided to examine the issue in formal way. Their paper, "Anti-Israel Sentiment Predicts Anti-Semitism in Europe," appears in the August issue of the Journal of Conflict Resolution.[2] Kaplan and Small ask whether individuals expressing strong anti-Israel sentiments, such as the statement by Ted Honderich, Emeritus Grote Professor of the Philosophy of Mind and Logic at University College London, that "those Palestinians who have resorted to necessary killing have been right to try to free their people, and those who have killed themselves in the cause of their people have indeed sanctified themselves," are more likely than the general population to also support in such old-style anti-Semitic slurs as "Jews have too much power in our country today." The correlation was almost perfect. In a survey of 5,000 Europeans in ten countries, people who believed that the Israeli soldiers "intentionally target Palestinian civilians," and that "Palestinian suicide bombers who target Israeli civilians" are justified, also believed that "Jews don't care what happens to anyone but their own kind," "Jews have a lot of irritating faults," and "Jews are more willing than others to use shady practices to get what they want." The study's other interesting finding was that only a small fraction of Europeans believe any of these things. Anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism flourish among the few, but those few are over-represented in Europe's newspapers, its universities, and its left-wing political parties. For Americans who do not read the European press, the level of raw anti-Semitism in European intellectual circles can be shocking. A couple of years ago the French Ambassador at the Court of St. James, Daniel Bernard, told his companions at a London dinner party that Israel is a "shitty little country," "Why," he asked, "should the world be in danger of World War Three because of those people?"[3] Those people? Moderates heard echoes of old-fashioned anti-Semitism. But the French Foreign Ministry stood behind their ambassador, calling assertions that Bernard's remarks were anti-Semitic "malevolent insinuations."[4] The British press agreed. Columnist Deborah Orr defended Ambassador Bernard in the Independent. "Anti-Semitism is disliking all Jews, anywhere, and anti-Zionism is just disliking the existence of Israel and opposing those who support it," explained Orr, who holds "the honest view that in my experience Israel is shitty and little."[5] Columnist Richard Woods summed up the attitude of the European intelligentsia when he wrote that Ambassador Bernard's remark was only "apparently anti-Semitic."[6] Kaplan and Small have shown otherwise. When you read, for example, the opinion of Marc Gentilli, president of the French Red Cross, that the idea of allowing Israel to join the International Red Cross and use the Star of David on its ambulances is "disgusting,"[7] you can be pretty sure that he, along with Ambassador Bernard, Prime Minister Zapatero, President Chirac, and the rest of Europe's harsh critics of Israel, are very probably the kind of old-fashioned anti-Semites who just don't like Jews very much. Post Script 7-23-06 After writing this essay, I learned that Zapatero may have had his own Daniel-Bernard-at-the-dinner-party moment. According to some reports, at a dinner party in late 2005, Zapatero loosed a tirade of extreme anti-Zionist and anti-Semitic rhetoric that ended with the phrase: "Es que a veces hasta se entiende que haya gente que puede justificar el holocausto" which means: "At times one can even understand that there might be people who could justify the Holocaust." The conversation was reported on a Spanish talk-radio program. Footnotes 1 "Spanish Minister Objects -- Says Criticism of Israel Not
anti-Semitic" International Herald Tribune, July 20, 2006
2 Kaplan, Edward H. and Small, Charles A., "Anti-Israel Sentiment Predicts Anti-Semitism in Europe," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Vol. 50 No. 4, August 2006, pp. 548-561 PDF 3 Tom Gross, "'A Shitty Little Country,' Prejudice and Abuse in
Paris and London," National Review, Jan 10, 2002.
4 "'Anti-Semitic' French Envoy Under Fire," BBC Dec. 20, 2001
5 Deborah Orr, "I'm fed up being called an anti-Semite,"
Independent, December 21, 2001, cited in Tom Gross, "'A Shitty
Little Country,' Prejudice and Abuse in Paris and London," National
Review, Jan 10, 2002.
6 Richard Woods in "When silence speaks volumes," London Sunday
Times, December 23, 2001, cited in Tom Gross, "'A Shitty Little
Country,' Prejudice and Abuse in Paris and London," National
Review, Jan 10, 2002. 7 Davis, Avi, "A Star-Crossed Resignation," Washington
Times, Jan 2, 2002,
2. Israel's film producers are the closest thing the Hezbollah has to a fan club in Israel. Ynet has an expose of these critters here http://www.ynet.co.il/articles/0,7340,L-3279357,00.html alas in Hebrew only. In an open letter, dozens of these "film producers" expressed their support for Lebanese and Palestinian terrorism against Jews. They wrote it just in time for an Arab film festival about to open in Paris. The YNET piece has 1600 talkbacks at the moment and almost all of
them are denouncing these moonbats as traitors, while some are
proposing to do things to these traitors that could not be shown in a
PG film.
Steven Plaut is an American-trained economist,
a professor of business administration at Haifa University and author
of "The Scout." He frequently comments - both seriously and
satirically - on Israeli politics and the left wing academic
community. His website address is http://www.stevenplaut.blogspot.com.
Contact him at splaut@econ.haifa.ac.il
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MEGAPHONE
Posted by Mordechai Ben-Menachem, July 23, 2006. |
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<
p>Many of us recognize the importance of the Internet as the new battleground for Israel's image. It's time to do it better and coordinate our on-line efforts on behalf of Israel. An Israeli software company have developed a free, safe and useful tool for us - the Internet Megaphone.
Please go to www.giyus.org We need 100,000 Megaphone users to make a difference. So, please distribute this mail to all Israel's supporters. Do it now. For Israel.
Amir Gissin
Mordechai Ben-Menachem is at Ben-Gurion University. He can be reached by email at quality@computer.org |
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NOTES FROM AN ISRAELI SOLDIER
Posted by Naomi Ragen, July 23, 2006. |
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Friends, The following from an Israeli soldier was sent to me by his mother. I think it will give you a deeper understanding for what we in Israel are facing. His name is Zachary Taylor and he is a soldier in the Nachal Haredi Unit. Every blessing,
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People jump to conclusions about the Israeli leadership and their strategies concerning Gaza and Lebanon. First of all, do not believe anything you read in a foreign newspaper or even half of the Israeli ones about this current situation. For example, just a few months ago an Arab Family in Gaza was killed on a beach. The Palestinians said the Israelis did the killing, as did international media. After research it was shown that in no way whatsovever was it an Israeli bomb that murdered that family, but a bomb that was left by HAMAS. However, by then, we lost the sympathies of world media, and Olmert apologized prematurely for something that Israel did not even do. In Lebanon, you must understand that Hizbollah is not a "faction" it is part of the government. As we have seen lately as the puppet Lebonese government has come out and declared itself as defenseless aganist Hizbollah. However, that is not the case. Civilians in Beirut are handing out cakes and cookies as a celebration of the 8 dead Israeli soldiers and the two kidnapped ones. What I have learned in three months of being at checkpoints is something I call the middle eastern personality which is common in both Arabs and middle easterners. People who visit Israel have experienced it here too. It is the attitude that "I gotta get for me what I can at the expense of almost everyone else." The expression in Hebrew is to "work" someone. At the checkpoints people come and cry or claim they are sick and need to go to the hospital, or have important meetings, all in an attempt to get us to let them pass quickly into Israel. Most of the cases are false, and just the way to "work" or "hustle" the soldiers at the checkpoint. Most of this is witnessed by the Women in Black, who for some reason, believe these stories and only take the position of the Arabs, never that the soldiers are trying to protect the citizens of Israel from potential terrorists. So, the Arab citizens play up these stories to "work" the hearts and minds of the "human rights" activists and the media. These people do not learn through discussion or compromise because of Middle Eastern culture. Look at the history now in every Arab country about their ability to compromise where it be honor killing, jihad terrorism, constant civil war, pillaging and rape and all the other cultural riches of the Arab world. It is not within their mentality which has been nurtured thought history to compromise civilly. (This does not in any way reflect on all Muslims or Arabs) However, it is the typical behavior you witness in the Arab marketplaces in Egypt and Israel If you have been to these marketplaces, then you will understand what I am talking about. Israel is a westernized and Jewish society which is all about discussion, analysis, and compromise Just look at the Talmud! What Israel is coming to realize now because of recent events and "compromises" such as leaving Gaza (while Israel reaps the rewards of daily punishment by missiles hitting several major cities such as Ashkelon and Sderot. Our Jewish naivete is that everyone is nice and perfect and can be dealt with through diplomacy. This is not true. Our enemies learn one way and the one and only way is through the language of war and the language of the sword. We did not set it up that way, they have. And now, going into Lebanon and destroying all of Hizbollah and their infrastructure and their supporters with a firm, unwavering hand is the only way. We were in Southern Lebanon for 20 years and there was "peace in the North" only when we "compromised" and pulled out. Our soldiers are getting kidnapped and missiles now fall on Haifa. Now you have to understand the Arab guerilla tactics, both Palestinian and Lebanese. They never fight in a battle field like a normal army. They retreat to civilian villages and cities and hide their until they poke their nose out of some window and shoot some anti tank or aircraft missile. So for defense, and I say DEFENSE forces, to succeed they must battle them even if they are in civilian territory. Again, We did not decide that, they did. So when civilians are killed unintentionally it is because THEY decided that it should be that way. The world is full of naive bleeding hearts that will bash Israel for doing what it has been FORCED to do. They forget the fact that when soldier go into an Arab town for the sole purpose of finding a group of terrorists, the "civilians" are suddenly not so civil. They have guns, they throw Molotov cocktails, and rocks, big large cement blocks at soldiers. That is what we experience everyday in Gaza, the West Bank and Lebanon. We are fighting a guerilla and civilian army at ALL times. Suicide bombers are not part of an army they are civilians. There has never been a war fought like this in the history of humankind. But the "lefties" and even some on the right and the people who are not even connected and oblivious, including the international community think they have the right to tell Israel how to act, how to respond! Do you know why so many soldiers die in the West Bank, Gaza and Lebanon? Not because the enemy's army is better, they are not even close to the IDF. We have better equipment, more equipment, better training, so how is it that soldiers are kidnapped and killed? That's a good question. It is because the left and the international community is keeping such a close look, and bias toward Israel's defense tactics, that are hands are tied in defending ourselves properly. We take so many dangerous steps in order to protect civilians, that in return, we are killed and kidnapped. Did you know that at the Lebanon Border for the last ten years, because of "International" pressure, that if you see 500 Hizbollah terrorists with AK47's and rocket launchers and missiles coming up to the actual border fence, 50 feet from the Israel soldiers, 50 feet from Israel's soil, that the IDF cannot fire unless they fire first! They can aim, set up shop 50 feet from you, but until they fire and shoot at you, the Israeli soldiers cannot defend themselves. Is that logical? No, it is insane. The only reason why so many Israeli's both civilian and military are dying is explicitly the fault of the International Leftist agenda. The Left likes to see the minority win, even if it is Hamas and Hezbollah. We can only defend ourselves the way of the sword. Do not let anyone tell you anything differently. As I and the other soldiers and Israeli citizens have personal stakes in the matter, and as a supporter of the Jewish homeland, you do too. Am Yisrael Chai! Zachary Rowen Taylor 20 years old.
Naomi Ragen is an American-born novelist and journalist who lives in Jerusalem. She can be contacted at www.naomiragen.com, where you can subscribe to her newsletter. |
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HEZBOLLAH'S IRANIAN WAR IN LEBANON
Posted by Walid Phares, July 22, 2006. |
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When Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, secretary general of Hezbollah held his press conference to declare his new victory over his enemy, Israel, he was triggering -- probably without knowing -- a new era in the history of Lebanon and the region. "We will continue in faithfulness to our line,: he declared, in legitimizing his cross border attack on an Israeli patrol, killing soldiers and kidnapping two. But the real "fidelity" Nasrallah was referring to wasn't to his captured men in Israeli jails, but to the regimes decision-makers in Tehran and Damascus. The "operation of July" came as a tipping point in a larger conflict, which superseded Hezbollah's detainee, the Shebaa farms, borders skirmishes and Israeli tactical responses. Beyond and above the events of that day, Hezbollah was triggering the first Iranian war on Lebanon's soil: A Syrian-supported offensive, even at the height of the Assad II regime. Bringing fire and smoke to the Lebanese-Israeli borders, and week before to the Gaza-Israel demarcation lines, is not simply two local disputes, one over unilateral Israeli withdrawal in Gaza and the other over real estate on the western slopes of Mount Hermon. Nasrallah (as well as his counterpart of Hamas) has calculated perfectly how to conduct a hit and run with the Israelis ordered by regional regime who have miscalculated their strategies. Pressured by the new regional realities and world concerns about nuclear threats and Terrorism, Iran and Syria wanted to throw their allies into the greatest uncertainties of survival. But as Israel's Air Force began to pound Nasrallah's organization and Lebanon's transportation and communications infrastructure, and the media reported the war in progress with its horrific images, world opinion and decision-centers commenced to swing in all directions, seeking a name to the War and a projection of its ending, with great difficulties. Attempts are still ongoing to frame it from the most simplistic to the most conspiratorial: Lebanon is a beautiful country, it doesn't deserve violence and victimization, says the less informed. Indeed such lamentation should have been expressed since 1975, when this country was thrown to the lions. Between the PLO attacks since the beginning of the War, the Syrian occupation as of June 1976, the Israeli invasion of 1982 and the Iranian penetration of the 1980s, in addition to the civil war between all communities, more than 180,000 people were massacred and killed, with very little compassion under the Cold War and despite its end in 1990. While most militias disarmed in 1991, only one camp dodged that duty: Iranian-backed Syrian-protected Hezbollah and its allies. Co-ruling the country with Syria's security services, the militia presented itself as a "resistance" for a whole decade, building its networks, and consolidating power inside the country while claiming liberation against Israel's occupation of the south. The "Khumeinist resistance" endorsed the Syrian "occupation" of Lebanon and never struggled to free its compatriots in Damascus' jails. In May 2000 it achieved victory over Israel and its local allies, by occupying the so-called "security zone" in southern Lebanon after the latter being evacuated by the Israeli Government. Since then, Hezbollah reached its golden age: Control of about 70 km of international borders with the "Zionist entity," warranting hundreds of millions of dollars and other military support from Iran's Pasdarans; but also appropriation of enormous Government assets and resources under the auspices of Syrian control. Between 2000 and 2005, Hezbollah increased its influence in Lebanese politics, becoming the dominant force, and remaining the principal ally of Syrian occupation. In this half decade, Tehran supplied the organization with weapons capable of reaching remote areas inside Israel. In those years as well, Hezbollah extended and grew its cells around the world including in South America, North America, West Africa and Western Europe. But the surge to high power, both in Lebanon and worldwide began to face challenges as of September 11, 2001.
(http://counterterrorismblog.org/2006/07/
From when the American public mobilized against Terrorism in general to the first US-led intervention in Afghanistan, Tehran's leaders got extremely nervous about the changes hitting their neighborhood. Any democracy anywhere around them is a bad omen. When the Taliban regime was removed from Kabul in 2001, Tehran's Khumenists witnessed the rise of women in the electoral process and within the Afghani Government. Iranian leaders understood the future implications at home. When Saddam's regime was removed from Baghdad, Khamenei's elite wasn't unhappy with the removal, but with the multi party process that followed, even though they succeeded in inserting their influence in it. And when UNSCR 1559 was voted calling on Syria's withdrawal from Lebanon and Hizbollah's disarming, both Tehran and Damascus felt the heat pressuring their joint influence on the Eastern Mediterranean. The Syrian Baathist reaction to the new era was quick with the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri on February 14, 2005. Assad paid a dear price for this fast drawing and shooting against his opponents in Lebanon. In March of that year, and despite an attempt by Hezbollah to shore up popular support to the Syrian President inside Lebanon, one million and a half citizens marched in the street of Beirut, shattering the myth of both Syrian "brotherly" occupation and Hizbollah's untouched position in the country. With the political weakening of its allied organization by the public and the pulling out of Damascus' regular troops from Lebanon, Iran's regime mobilized for the counter regional attack. Hezbollah readied for its role in the general Jihadi offensive. The Jihadi Syro-Iranian offensive started simultaneously in early 2005, with the Hariri assassination in Lebanon and the selecting of Mahmoud Ahmedinijad as head of the Islamic Republic in Tehran. In Lebanon and as the pro-Syrian Government collapsed, new elections were held and an anti-Syria majority was established, Hezbollah executed a sophisticated one year plan in preparation for the war launched in July 2006. It began with Nasrallah imposing on the Seniora Government a strange offer: taking three members of the Party into his cabinet, while Hezbollah maintains a strategic relation with Syria's regime. That success brought other moves forward. For six months, political leaders and journalists of the Cedars Revolution were assassinated with car bombs: Samir Qassir, George Hawi and Gebran Tueni. This sufficed to convince the anti-Syrian politicians that any serious obstruction of the Iranian-Syrian axis and opposition to Hezbollah will be "punished." The terror treatment seemed to have worked, as the Government was forced to abandon the implementation of UNSCR 1559 and have its components sit down with Hezbollah to "discuss" the future of its weapons. In short, it took Nasrallah and his allies less than a year to contain and weaken the Cedars Revolution and the Government it has produced. Twelve months passed after Syria's withdrawal from the country, and yet the Lebanese army was not allowed by Hezbollah's veto power inside the Seniora cabinet to deploy along the borders or even inside the sensitive area of south Lebanon. Strategically, Hezbollah absorbed the consequences of the Syrian withdrawal, penetrated the Government and along with pro-Syrian politicians created further divisions within Lebanon's religious communities, including within Sunni, Druze and Christian political establishments. During 2006, several factors pushed Iran and Syria to press their allies in Lebanon and in Palestine for havoc. The nuclear crisis with Tehran was the principal factor for convincing the Mullahs that a major crumbling of the region's new democracies and peace processes is vital to deflect the crisis away from Tehran. In fact the international determination to remove the Iranian nuclear threat was breaking Ahmedinijad's ambitions for increasing international power. The several elections in Iraq, despite terrorism, indicated the rise of the political process in that country, with future impact on Iran itself. Syria's isolation as a result of the UN investigation in the Hariri assassination further convinced the Assad regime that inflaming the Gaza and the Israeli-Lebanese borders is the recipe to overshadow the UN report. Hamas also had developed interest in the clash with the "Zionist enemy," as the financial credibility of their newly formed Government in the Palestinian areas was sinking down and a civil war with Fatah looming on the horizon. And finally Hezbollah: the militia-turned party and still listed as a Terrorist organization on the US list of terrorist group, used extreme patience since 2000 in building its hyper-arsenal across the country, infiltrated the Army and avoided major escalation against Israel. But on Bastille Day Sayyed Nasrallah ended the previous era of preparedness: Now is the time for a qualitative Jihad, he seemed to imply. In addition to the regional injunctions to strike Israel in order to focus the international heat on the Arab Israeli conflict, Hezbollah has also included a number of "Lebanese" factors in its decision to flare up the borders with its enemy. Back in March 2005, the leaders of the Iranian-backed organization saw in disbelief the enormous masses marching against Syria, and by ripple effect, against Hezbollah. Not only the largest democracy demonstration in the history of the Middle East, but also a multiethnic and multi-religious one: Christians, Druze, Sunnis and even some Shiites broke the taboo of Hezbollah's "sacred" character in Lebanon. Second nightmare was with the actual withdrawal of the Syrian army from the country, opening the path for the implementation of the second item of the UNSCR 1559, i.e., disarming the fundamentalist militia. The third nightmare came when this anti-Syrian coalition brought a majority in Parliament during the May-June 2005 legislative elections in Lebanon. The threat to Hezbollah was not the formation of a cabinet opposing Syrian influence in as much as it was a signal that the people of Lebanon wasn't endorsing the "resistance" story, or put it simply, wasn't buying the party's story period. The Cedars Revolution was the worse development the Khumeinist movement had to absorb since its inception. The sight of a million young men and women in colorful outfits marching in downtown Beirut was the beginning of a new era: liberal democracy, freedom and rejection of the dark ideology of Nasrallah. Hence, it became a must to eliminate that revolution at any price. In a few months, a number of leading politicians and journalists were savagely murdered by the pro-Syrian camp: Syrian intelligence, Hezbollah and other groups were suspected as being behind the assassination campaign. In parallel, Hezbollah and its allies outmaneuvered the parliamentary majority, which was supposed to form an anti-Baathist Government, bring down the pro-Syrian President Emile Lahoud and remove the pro-Syrian speaker of the House, Nabih Berri. A magic hand convinced the so-called politicians of the March 14 movement, that none of these measures is feasible. Hence Syria maintained its power in Lebanon, while U.S and French Presidents were singing the praise of the liberation of Lebanon. Furthermore, and in a suicidal move the Lebanese cabinet, headed by Fouad Seniora invited Hezbollah to join the Government, before the latter disarm. By the summer of last year, the Cedars Revolution was bleeding seriously. Not only entrenched in the legal Government of Lebanon, but Hezbollah succeeded in a penetration of the Christian community, the hardcore of the anti-Syrian resistance, by enlisting the former commander of the Lebanese Army who performed an about face after 10 years in exile, where he claimed opposition to Syria. Michel Aoun signed an agreement of "understanding" with Hassan Nasrallah during the spring of 2006. The "revolution" was beheaded and Hezbollah was waiting for the right time to operate its come back into the center of Lebanese politics, while executing the instructions of Tehran and Damascus. By early July 2006, Hezbollah's preparations for the bloody return to the top were fulfilled. The organization had already accomplished its Lebanese tasks:
It is based on these domestic achievements in Lebanon and on strategic injunctions by its regional sponsors that Hezbollah decided to trigger its awaited Armageddon. What was the Hezbollah's initial plan? The pro-Iranian militia had constructed a theory of invincibility based on the rationalization of a string of former successes against the United States and France in the 1980s, against Israel and the ex-South Lebanon Army in the 1990s, and its intimidation of the Cedars Revolution in 2005. In short, Nasrallah's team was convinced of the following: A spectacular operation against Israeli military would:
Nasrallah seemed to be in control of his strategy when he appeared in his press conference of victory. His back was safe since he has terrorized the Cedars Revolution's movement, enlisted Aoun's support (breaking Christian community unity), and pushed Sunni and Druze breakaways to challenge Jumblat and Hariri (the son). To his south, he was applauding Haniya's Hamas "cabinet" for having already engaged the Israelis. To his east, Syria was mobilizing and waiting. In Iran, the "masters" were extending their strategic umbrella; and in Iraq, the Terror sapping of sectarian relations was on. All the brothers in Khumeini Jihadism were awaiting Hezbollah to break the chain of events from the Galilee. Nasrallah was at the forefront of a plan aiming at wrecking the rising democracy and the fledgling stability of the region. The stakes were really high for the "axis." But Hassan Nasrallah's master plan failed. First the Lebanese Government, smelling the odors of conspiracy was quick to distance itself from the operation. "The Government was not informed by it nor does it endorse it," stated the Seniora release. Second, Israel's volte-face surprised Hezbollah and their allies. Why would the Olmert Government, declare a full war on an organization that classical armies cannot take out, thought the Tehran planners. Then came, the Arab position: Arabia, Egypt and Jordan, followed discretely by others didn't extend their full support to the move. They certainly criticized Israel to the fullest of rhetoric, but didn't praise the "Hizb." On the international level, the Terror group "that-provide-services" didn't fare better. The United States firmly extended its bipartisan support to UNSCR 1559; France and the rest of Europe stated the same -- with their continental language -- Russia wouldn't side with Nasrallah against the world, and China has other priorities on its plate. Only Iran threatened to wage wars in the rescue of its most western army. Nasrallah fell into his own trap but decided to come up with a contingency plan. Not so different from Plan A, the objectives of Plan B have been readjusted. If Israel bombards Hezbollah's infrastructure to the ground, Iranian oil will rebuild it. If Israel invades by land, it will find itself against a more aggressive Hezbollah than the one of the 1990s. Besides, Hezbollah will attempt nevertheless to go after the Seniora Government anyway. Calling on the "reserves," Hezbollah enlisted President Lahoud and his son in law Defense Minister Elias Murr to drag the Lebanese Army in the War against Israel's forces. And in collaboration with Aounist cadres (while the majority of his partisans are still stunned by the events), Hezbollah has unleashed an international campaign against the "inhumane aggression." If things go well, Nasrallah expect Plan B to become Plan A, and a land advance by Israel would unleash a total offensive against the Government of Lebanon by pro-Iranian and Syrian forces. If Israel moves north to create a safe area against Rockets, Hezbollah would move north to control the rest of Lebanon. The Syrian-Iranian axis will refuse UNSCR 1559, reject international initiatives for disarming the militias, and will make its stand in Lebanon, even if the Switzerland of the Middle East is to be reduced to rubbles. Assad wants to save his regime in Beirut, and Ahmedinijad wants to shield his bomb in the Bekaa: Alea Jacta Est, the dice are rolling. Hezbollah's plan for the Lebanese Army is to drag it to a fight with Israel, as a way to destroy it. For the past 16 years Syria and Hezbollah have penetrated the Lebanese Army and installed their followers at various positions. For example, the command of the southern command, the officers in charge of the southern suburb of Beirut, the Murabb'a al amni (security zone for Nasrallah) and many offices in the second bureau are in the hands of Shiite officers linked to Hezbollah. Syria's allies including the Hezb and Amal can count on 20% influence within the institution. The commander in chief, General Michel Sleiman is neutral, with possibilities of shifts to either side. The head of the military intelligence, a Christian, follows Lahoud orders. The power map inside the Army keeps changing, but at the core of this institution, most officers are pro-Lebanese, close to the West. If Hezbollah pushes the regular troop into battle against Israel, the Army may split. The United Nations is bound by a resolution it cannot but implement: UNSCR 1559. Having been among those who worked on introducing it in 2004, I have followed up till very recently the international efforts in this regards. There is a solid consensus that the resolution has to be implemented; it is inescapable. The question is who would implement it? Reality is that the Lebanese Government and its armed forces are too weak in front of the Hezbollah-Baath-Ahmedinijad axis. So if a regional bloc is obstructing a UN resolution, the international community should provide the balance of power. Hence, the US and France, along with the European Union, the moderate Arab states with the consent of the Security Council must provide the tools for the Lebanese Government to spread its sovereignty over its national soil, and the support for the Cedars Revolution to revive itself. The options are very limited: Either Hezbollah will dominate the Lebanese Republic, or the latter will disarm Hezbollah. Anything in between would be a waste of time. If Israel stops its operations short of an international intervention, Hezbollah will win the war. If Israel moves forward inside Lebanon after Hezbollah, an international intervention is inevitable. The days, weeks and months ahead will tell. Meanwhile Hezbollah and its allies both in the region and in the West are and will be waging the mother of all propaganda wars. The task assigned to the propagandists is to stop military operations so that Hezbollah survives and fail international interventions so that the Lebanese Government collapses. A war of images, photos, mudding, internet, and media will explode in all directions. Operatives helping Hezbollah, including many with Christian names, will be waging an indiscriminate propaganda offensive against Lebanese, Arab, Western and obviously Israeli figures to spread confusion and psychological collapse in the international community. Objective: Obstruct the implementation of UNSCR 1559, trash the March 14 movement, criticize the Arab Government, and incite for Jihadi violence. Hezbollah waged an Iranian War with Syrian backing. It knew how to start it, but it won't know how it will end. The forces unleashed in this conflict have been unpredictable including Israel, Lebanon's politics, the Arab Governments, and the international community. Hezbollah and its regional allies have spoken of "surprises" to come. In fact the latter are pretty much predictable: more rockets on and suicide attacks in Israel, coup d'Etat in Lebanon, and obviously international terrorism, including in the West. But "surprises" could also happen to Hezbollah. The Waad al sadeq operation may not be the only miscalculation by Secretary Hassan Nasrallah. The future of Hezbollah's war is as uncertain as the fate of the organization. Dr Walid Phares is a Senior Fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, a visiting Fellow with the Foundation for European Democracy, the author of Future Jihad (English) and of books on Lebanon and Iran. He was one of the advisors to UN Security Council missions in the introduction of UNSCR 1559 in 2004. |
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ISRAEL
Posted by David Martin, July 22, 2006. |
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I have little to say with what goes on in the world and little right to say it. I believe that the G-d of Abraham will fight and destroy before Israel. I pray that all in Israel are kept safe and well. And the G-d's promise to curse those who curse Israel is remembered. Even unto those in the USA who seek you harm. For they are Liberals and of the race of Kenite. Know that there are those of the house of Joseph in the US that pray for you. May G-d keep you. Contact David Martin at grandreal@sbcglobal.net |
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THE WORST GENERATION
Posted by Lawrence Uniglicht, July 22, 2006. |
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Movers and shakers of civil nations don't get it. Indeed, our one home in the universe has entered its second recorded millennium confronted by a budding world war between rational secularism and irrational blind faith. Technological advances in weaponry have made this nascent war potentially more perilous than all preceding wars. Surely World War III, if fought in earnest, between secular civil enclaves and Islamic jihad junkies, could wreck hard rain nuclear havoc over the entire planet, casting the human species into the darkest of ages. That is why prescient leaders must forthwith nip the emerging catastrophe in the bud; obliterate the root of this potential Armageddon, before its winding tentacles strengthen, attempting to strangle civil secular life out of sane humanity. No emotionally stable person salivates for war, yet the die has been cast. Prescient civilized nations must, however, get it right, focusing on the hellacious heart and insidious soul of their unleashed declared enemy. America broke a jury-rigged balance, within the most convoluted region of this planet, when it toppled Sadist Hussein's Sunni secular tyrannical dictatorship, allowing Persian Shiite fundamentalists to begin their unchecked malignant metastasis, transmitting dire warnings through the frayed nerves of now afraid Sunni tribal leaders that had heretofore dominated the muddled but more stable Middle East. Predictably however, the Muslim Arab street screams obscenities at U.S. supported Israeli Jews now attempting to emasculate the unleashed Shiite Iran supported Hizbullah and Hamas terrorists, intent on annihilating Israel; predictably however, much of the non-Muslim non-Arab world screams "disproportionate response" at those Jews in survival mode, these (perhaps) anti-Semitic asses stupidly ignoring the fact Islamic terrorists intentionally ooze their own cowardly bodies and deadly missiles behind brethren "human shield" citizens, including women and children, in order to achieve such worldwide sympathy when Israelis attack. Ironically, yet also predictably, aforementioned threatened Sunni tribal leaders secretly root for Israel in this Kafkaesque scenario. Let us be crystal clear. Intolerant fundamentalist Islamic regimes such as Iran and partner of convenience Syria as well as similarly inclined non-state entities such as Hizbullah, Hamas, and related groups are the enemies of sane secular nations. It is surely tragic innocent Lebanese civilians as well as innocent Arabs in Gaza are exploited by Hizbullah and Hamas respectively, portraying Israel as the bogeyman. It is also tragic that worldwide observers refuse to recognize this ploy, chastise Israel, and refuse to comprehend adherents of intolerant Islam, obsessed with jihad, must be subdued. Not recognizing and forthwith aggressively dealing with such an enemy already having declared a jihadist World War III on the perceived infidel is worse than foolhardy. Such a dereliction of duty will increase the misery quotient for subsequent civil generations, who might justifiably describe their appeasing parents as the "worst generation". Lawrence Uniglicht is a career civil servant, working for the Social Security Administration. He advocates for the State of Israel with an American perspective. He writes, "Advocating for the disrespected underdog has been my passion, no doubt Israel falls into that category." Contact him by email at luniglicht@snip.net |
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MEDIA SPIN 'N BIAS: SEE WHO BITCES ABOUT ISRAEL, "HELPING" HER BE "POPULAR"
Posted by David Meir-Levi, July 22, 2006. | |
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This letter, from an American-Christian, is his, most informative, observations of European media! See who bitches about Israel and who is "helping" her to be so "popular"! Friends, can I ask you a [silly] question: If you still do, why do you watch, thus support, CNN? This is from Don Morris (gsdmorris@hotmail.com). It's called, "Maybe it is just me," and it arrived yesterday.
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"Disproportionate News"
Israel is winning the war on the ground. When the theocrats of Iran let slip their dogs of war in Lebanon, they did not anticipate the speed and precision with which the IDF would strike back. Israel has done to Hezbollah in a matter of days what the rest of the world had failed to do in as many years. As well as defending itself against an existential threat, Israel has also struck a powerful blow for the West in the global war on Islamist terror. The war of the airwaves, however, is not going Israel's way. According to the global media, Israel is the aggressor against Lebanon, just as it is against Gaza. No matter that the U.N. and the international community did nothing to force Iran and Syria to halt their build-up of an offensive arsenal on Israel's northern border, no matter how many missiles Hezbollah fires at Israeli cities, the story doesn't change. Everything is blamed on Israel. The plight of Western tourists caught up in the conflict and desperate to be evacuated; the suffering of Lebanese civilians whose country has been held hostage and is now reaping the whirlwind; even the Israelis bombarded by Hezbollah missiles -- all these innocents are treated as direct or indirect victims of Israel's "disproportionate" response. That's the story. It doesn't matter that Hezbollah, like Hamas, deliberately instigated the crisis, by firing missiles at and abducting soldiers from the sovereign territory of Israel. It doesn't matter that even most Arab states are conspicuous by their absence from the lineup of Hezbollah's cheerleaders. It doesn't matter that Israel, far from using its military superiority recklessly, has sought to target only facilities that pose a deadly threat to its own citizens. It doesn't matter that Hezbollah, again like Hamas, surrounds its missile-launching sites, command and control centers and other infrastructure with civilians, using them as human shields. None of this signifies anything, because the story is that Israel has acted "disproportionately." The same journalists who have consistently obscured the unique predicament in which Israel has found itself since its foundation -- as the only nation permanently threatened with annihilation by its neighbors -- now conceal the genocidal motivation of Iran and its proxies, Hamas and Hezbollah. The indiscriminate missile attacks by Iranian-trained terrorists on Israeli civilians in Haifa and other towns or kibbutzim are the opening salvo of what Islamists hope will be a second Holocaust. Like the gas chambers, the very existence of these missiles has been denied. Robert Fisk, the London Independent correspondent who sets the tone for much reporting of the Middle East, has consistently refused to believe in Hezbollah's ballistic capability, for example. The warheads of these Iranian-made rockets are often packed with ball-bearings, designed to cause maximum carnage. Yet it is Israel that, in attempting to eliminate this threat, is said to be acting "disproportionately." The BBC distorts every event to depict Israel as the aggressor. Its correspondent in Beirut, Kim Ghattas, is herself Lebanese and makes no attempt to be neutral in her reporting. On Tuesday, BBC Middle East editor Jeremy Bowen spoke of Israel's "war crimes" and warned of a "worst-case scenario" if Israel is not forced to halt its attacks on Hezbollah: Lebanon, he said, could be taken over by "jihadis" -- as if that were not already the case. But the facts must be made to fit the story. Other actors in the drama are judged exclusively on whether they adhere to this storyline. Thus France escapes criticism, because Jacques Chirac was quick to denounce Israel's "totally disproportionate" reaction to terrorist attack -- even though last January the same Mr. Chirac had threatened a nuclear strike against "states who would use terrorist means against us." Israel also earns opprobrium from Vladimir Putin -- Russia is a state that is still living up to its reputation as an evil empire. Who, exactly, is calling whom disproportionate? Then there is the United Nations. Tuesday, deputy secretary-general Mark Malloch Brown told the BBC that he condemned both Hezbollah and Israel for "targeting civilians." Hezbollah makes no secret of its aim of killing as many Jews as possible, but to tar the IDF with the same brush is outrageous -- but not unexpected fom the U.N., which has signally failed to implement its own Resolution 1559 by leaving Hezbollah a free hand in Lebanon. Unlike these hypocrites, Tony Blair is treated with derision. The voyeuristic media had eyes only for his trivial conversation with President Bush, which was accidentally recorded at the G-8 in St. Petersburg, rather than his statement in Parliament about the summit, when he blamed Iran and Syria, "who are at war not against Israel's actions but against its existence." The same Iranian weapons now being used against Israel, he observed, have been turned against coalition troops in Iraq, but the idea that Israel's war is also the West's war does not fit the story, so the BBC and most of the press did not bother to report his statement. Indeed, the BBC does not take seriously any Western statesman who calls the true culprits by name. President Bush's unusually direct criticism of Syria this week was simply dismissed by the BBC Washington correspondent Matt Frei with the assertion that there was no evidence to support Mr. Bush, adding gratuitously: "He is playing a very dangerous game." Chancellor Merkel, who has quietly swung Germany behind the Anglo-American position, is merely ignored. Leaders who do not think Israel's action is "disproportionate" are simply airbrushed out of the story. Israel can defeat its enemies in the field, but those behind its own lines are more elusive -- and maybe more dangerous. The few Israelis who are interviewed by the BBC are usually critics of the Israeli government such as Yossi Beilin -- even though they are a tiny minority at this "unique moment of unity," in Natan Sharansky's words, with almost unprecedented unanimity of support for Ehud Olmert. Equally unrepresentative of diaspora Jews, most of whom support Israeli policy in Gaza and Lebanon, the London Times recently carried a full-page advertisement protesting "the collective punishment of the people of Gaza." Placed by a lobby group calling itself Jews for Justice for Palestinians, the signatories included the Nobel literature laureate, Harold Pinter, the film director, Mike Leigh, the actresses, Janet Suzman and Miriam Margolyes, the historian, Avi Shlaim, and 300 others. The spectacle of Jews denouncing Israel for defending itself lends a spurious legitimacy to the expression of those subliminal anti-Semitic reflexes that are ubiquitous in Europe. In the Middle East, of course, such reflexes are anything but subliminal. Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, described Israel this week as a "cancerous tumour," while President Ahmadinejad compared Israel to Nazi Germany. He has threatened to unleash an Islamic "explosion" which would "burn all those who created [Israel] over the past 60 years." Curiously, nobody at the BBC thought to call these gentlemen "disproportionate." David Meir-Levi is an American-born Israeli, currently living in Palo Alto. His expertise is in Near Eastern studies and the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict. He is Director of Peace and Education at Israel Peace Initiative (www.ipi-usa.org). Contact him at david_meirlevi@hotmail.com |
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THE REAL ISRAEL
Posted by Naomi Ragen, July 22, 2006. |
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Friends, I want to write you about the little things, the things that make Israel a place to love and fight for; things you will never hear on Certainly Not News, or the Crescent News Network (some people call it CNN) or in the Guardian, whose reporters are no doubt on the Saudi payroll, or USA Today, or the Washington Post, all of whom are pro-terror. In this conflict anybody who is anti-Israel is pro-terror or for for appeasement of terror. It is so interesting to seeing people being flushed out into the open who hold these views. I heard Geraldo Rivera, that jerk, who all of us remember during the Intifada as he defended the terrorists, preface his latest anti-Israel remarks on Fox by calling himself "a Zionist." Puh-lease. Maybe your young, Jewish wife might be impressed but the rest of us know better. Concerning the despicable article by Richard Cohen (Hunker Down with History) in last week's Washington Post saying Israel was a "mistake," and therefore a good thing for Hezbollah to wipe her off the map, I have this to say: Mr. Cohen, if Israel is a mistake than discuss it with God, because He is the one who made it. The only mistake I could see God making is allowing your mother's pregnancy to go full term.... Below, a collection of some things that you might not have heard. 1. At the entrance to Jerusalem, right near the stop were soldiers going to the front get their rides, someone has taken a large sheet and hand painted a sign which says: "Dear Soldier: "Thank you for helping to keep us safe. God bless you and keep you!" As we pass it in our cars, it brings tears to our eyes. 2. My neighbor, a busy lawyer with a beautiful home, has taken in a family of six strangers from Kiryat Shmona, sharing her home with them. 3. Our news reports that the IDF in Lebanon has found large stockpiles of weapons in mosques, and in private homes. 4. Our news reports that Hezbollah is keeping villagers from leaving their homes at gunpoint, forcing them to act as human shields to guard their weapons. 5. Hezbollah only targets civilians. Nasrallah murdered two little Arab boys in Nazareth, then called them "shahids." 6. Hundreds of rockets have fallen today alone on Israel's northern towns. Not one person was killed, and only two were seriously injured. The Hilleli family of Safad were sitting in their living room watching the news when a rocket fell into the room. Only the mother we seriously hurt. In Nahariyah, Avi Oved was sitting at his computer checking where the rockets were falling, when he heard the siren and decided to stand in his stairwell. When he returned to his computer he found a rocket had landed in his chair. The word "miracle" is used in news reports again, and again, and again. 7. We are fighting because Hezbollah and Hamas want a prisoner release. Who are the people they want to set free? Samir Kuntar, who landed on the beaches of Nahariyah, walked into an apartment house, took a father and his four year old daughter out. Then, as the father watched, they smashed the child's head in with a rock before shooting him. They want to release the men who set off bombs in the cafeteria of Hebrew University, killing students and teachers. They want to release men who used the head of an infant for target practice. They want to make them a heroes welcome in Lebanon. These are the "political prisoners" you are hearing about on your news programs, making it sound like tit for tat. Your kidnapped Israeli soldier who was on his side of the border for our homocidal maniac and baby killer. It is to prevent this that our sons and daughters in the IDF now risk their lives; that the people of Israel endure the nightmare of bombardment. Only one thing stands between what happened to us sixty years ago, and what is happening to the Jewish people today: the IDF. 8. Our synagogue is collecting toys and food to send North. 9. Israel has already built an Israeli prison for Hezbollah. Twenty prisoners were taken today alone. Many more were killed. 10. Omar Bakri, the radical Muslim cleric who had his British citizenship revoked after the London bombings and fled the country wound up in Lebanon.Now, he wants to be evacuated by the ...British! Trying to board the refugee repatriation ship, he asked for a one month visa. British authorities him down. The preacher, who called for Muslims to rise up against Westerners, was frightened he would be bombed by the Israelis. More soon. Every blessing, Naomi Naomi Ragen is an American-born novelist and journalist who lives in Jerusalem. She can be contacted at www.naomiragen.com, where you can subscribe to her newsletter. |
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TERROR FROM WITHOUT, TERROR FROM WITHIN
Posted by Kern Heller, July 22, 2006. |
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How remarkable our people are, rising up in great numbers in solidarity with Israel's government execution of the ongoing war with Hizbullah. Federations and Jewish organizations all over the country are organizing and holding rallies in support of Israel's actions. Justifiably so. It was also stunning to note the absence of such fervor during the implementation of the Road Map and the first round of disengagements which as you know called for the two state solution. During that disengagement, the first anniversary of which is rapidly approaching, the lives of 10,000 good Jews were effectively ruined. Why weren't these Jewish organizations and federations in opposition to such policies of perfidy to the degree they are in favor of Olmert's policies regarding this current war? What are these organizations afraid of? Being told by Arye Mekel, the Counsel General in New York, to "shut up"? It makes no sense to me. None at all. What difference should it make if the terror is coming from without or from within? Both have deep repercussions for good Jews. Afraid to vehemently protest government treachery perhaps coupled with shared contempt for those good Jews who built wonderful productive lives for themselves out of sand dunes in the land given to them by Hashem? If the people both in the States and in Israel agree to band together and fight terror from within, terror which is not manifested by Katyusha rockets but by massive civil and human rights abuses, cracking of skulls of people who just want to stay in their homes and the failure to incorporate the Torah into daily governing of the State, then we collectively will defeat the next round of "disengagements" called today by the word, "convergence"and this next round would result in between 7 and 10 times worse tragedy than the first. Olmert stated that despite the current war against Hizbullah, his plans are to still expel fellow Jews from Judea and Samaria. That is terror from within...and that must be halted as soon as possible. I hope that these Jewish organizations and Federations and synagogues finally come to their senses and join in the opposition of such a disgrace. Ken Heller is a pro-Israel activist and a member of the Philadelphia Chapter of Americans For A Safe Israel. He can be reached at kayjayphilly@yahoo.com |
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HOSTILE BANGLADESHI PRESS
Posted by Salah Choudhury, July 22, 2006. |
| When Jerusalem is continuing its battle against the mega terrorist Hizbullah, unfortunately, most of the Muslim press are running extremely negative propaganda against Israel. Bangladeshi press is also not any exception to this bad trend. This is an opinion editorial from the Today, I am sending (1) this clipping from Dhaka's English press -- although the Bangla press is even worst -- followed by (2) an Op-Ed piece by me. |
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1. The Daily Star
When will international community act? We cannot but be alarmed at the escalation of aggression in Lebanon with Israel apparently planning for a full-scale invasion. When already numerous lives have been lost and property damaged extensively following bombing by the Israeli warplanes on 'suspected Hezbollah hideouts', a full-scale war across the entire country would only mean unleashing killing machines to level everything that pertains to humanity. It is with deep concern we note that while Lebanese authorities have appealed to the international community as well as the UN for restraint and help, their Israeli counterparts continue to talk tough giving hints at going all out against the beleaguered nation on one plea or the other. We feel there is enough to read between the lines of the rhetoric of the Israeli defence minister Amir Peretz when he says, 'We have no intention of conquering Lebanon, but if we will have to act in order to complete our tasks and reach our victory we will do it without thinking twice'. War analysts also predict further escalation of the situation once the evacuation of western civilians from Lebanon is completed. Such blatant threats and ruthless military aggression with the intent of destroying a sovereign country negate all that stands for international rules and conventions, right to independence and democracy. The much-feared humanitarian disaster has already started inside Lebanon with a large number of people having been displaced. There is no knowing how many more will join the trek to refugee camps against the backdrop of dwindling food and medical supplies since bombing began nine days back. The Lebanese prime minister expressed his surprise before a group of foreign ambassadors at the poor response of the international community while his country was being torn to shreds. Truly enough, though every country speaks against warfare, none has come forward so far to initiate a ceasefire, nor the UN has yet taken any concrete step. Peace and tranquillity in the entire Middle-East is of paramount importance for democracy to find roots there. The perennial suspicion in the minds of the people in the region about the motive of the West needs to be removed through building bridges and not by destroying them. The powerful Western nations should therefore exert pressure on Israel to stop the naked aggression in the name of self-defence. 2.
"Story of the three stooges"
The world should feel extremely uncomfortable and angry at the notorious activities of three stooges of present day's world, who are trying to do everything to defend terrorism and Islamist militancy. One is Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad; others are Bangladeshi foreign minister Morshed Khan and Syrian President Bashar Al Assad. In recent weeks, Israeli forces were compelled to launch offensives on Lebanon to crash several bases of mega terrorist organization Hizbullah, since this notorious group captured two Israeli soldiers. It is known to the world that Hizbullah continues to get support and patronization from Lebanon, Syria and Iran. These three countries have already turned into a direct enemy of humanity and obstacle to the theme of war on terror. Meanwhile, for the first time, the entire Muslim world, including Saudi Arabia criticized Hizbullah's notoriety, while only two countries namely Iran and Syria as well one man, Bangladeshi foreign minister Morshed Khan passed bad comments on anti-Hizbullah offensives. Commenting on Hizbullah, a unnamed Saudi Government official said, "Viewing with deep concern the bloody, painful events currently taking place in Palestine and Lebanon, the Kingdom would like to clearly announce that a difference should be drawn between legitimate resistance and uncalculated adventures carried out by elements inside the state and those behind them without consultation with the legitimate authority in their State and without consultation or coordination with Arab countries, thus creating a gravely dangerous situation exposing all Arab countries and their achievement to destruction with those countries having no say. The Kingdom views that it is time that these elements alone bear the full responsibility of these irresponsible acts and should alone shoulder the burden of ending the crisis they have created. ... The Kingdom will continually seek security and stability in the region, exerting every possible effort to protect the Arab Nation from Israeli oppression and transgression." Saudi Arabia had earlier accused the Shiite Hezbollah group, without naming it, for what it said was its 'uncalculated adventures' that threaten the 'destruction of the achievements' of other Arab countries without consulting them. United Arab Emirates leading newspaper al-Ittihad published a commentary of Yusuf Ibrahim, where he wrote, "We have seen this film before and accordingly we can expect its end. It is not important how many times a film is shown as long as the end is the same. It means destruction, misery and evacuation of homes for the Lebanese and Palestinians. ... In fact, we will be actually irresponsible if we do not stop and think for a moment. Over more than 15 years, Hassan Nasrallah, leader of Hezbollah, has kept saying that he is keen on consulting Damascus and Tehran, but this makes one wonder about the reasons that made the leader of Hezbollah refrain from consulting the government of his own country, Lebanon." Lebanese politician Walid Jumblatt said, "The war is no longer Lebanon's ... it is an Iranian war. ... Iran is telling the United States: You want to fight me in the Gulf and destroy my nuclear programme? I will hit you at home, in Israel." Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak and Jordanian King Abdullah II in a Joint Statement said, "The region is being dragged along by an adventurism that does not serve the interests of Arab affairs. ... The necessity for all the parties in the region is to act responsibly and not to move towards an escalation aimed at taking the region to a dangerous situation and confrontations that will leave the countries and their peoples bearing the consequences." Ahmed Al-Jarallah, editor of Kuwait Arab Times said, "People of Arab countries, especially the Lebanese and Palestinians, have been held hostage for a long time in the name of 'resisting Israel.' ... While the people of Palestine and Lebanon are paying the price of this bloody conflict, the main players, who caused this conflict, are living in peace and asking for more oil from Arab countries to support the facade of resisting Israel... This war was inevitable as the Lebanese government couldn't bring Hezbollah within its authority and make it work for the interests of Lebanon. Similarly leader of the Palestinian Authority Mahmoud Abbas has been unable to rein in the Hamas Movement. Unfortunately we must admit that in such a war the only way to get rid of 'these irregular phenomena' is what Israel is doing. The operations of Israel in Gaza and Lebanon are in the interest of people of Arab countries and the international community." Bangladeshi foreign minister condemned the killing of civilians in Israeli attacks on Lebanon and urged the international community to rein in "state terrorism" and "aggression" by Israel against Lebanese and Palestinian people. "We are deeply concerned over the current situation in the Middle East. We feel the world community should come forward to restrain the state terrorism of Israeli aggression on Lebanon and the people of Palestine," the foreign minister, M Morshed Khan, said when addressing members of the Overseas Correspondents Association of Bangladesh in Dhaka. Morshed Khan also termed the recent attacks in Lebanon and Palestine by the Israeli soldiers an act of fundamentalism and religious terrorism. He was critical of the double standard maintained by certain Western powers, which he said were patronizing the aggression. "Attacking Lebanon and killing innocent civilians... I think, it is a heinous act," Morshed Khan said. Without naming the United States, he castigated its role in the aggression saying the "guardian of democracy" should give up the strategy of maintaining double standard. The White House administration has reportedly given Israel a tacit green signal to take a week it needs to neutralize Hezbollah. The United Nations was drawing up a plan for an international force to try to restore clam in Lebanon, but the US president, George W Bush, who says Israel has the right to self defense, insisted that Hezbollah had to be reined in before there could be peace in the region. The Europeans fear mounting civilian casualties will play into the hands of militants and weaken Lebanon's democratically elected government. Referring to the Middle East situation, Morshed Khan said Bangladesh fully supports the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people, including their right to have a state of their own with Jerusalem as its capital. "Bangladesh maintains its principled stance for a comprehensive solution of the Palestinian question in accordance with the relevant UN resolutions, the Arab Peace Plan and the Road Map." He said Bangladesh remains committed to the cause of unity, peace and progress of the Muslim fraternity. "Our support for the cause of Palestine and for a peaceful and durable resolution of the Middle East problem including Arab sovereignty over Holy Jerusalem is an abiding commitment." Meanwhile, according to international press reports, Egypt persuaded Israel against a planned land attack on the Lebanese capital of Beirut following Hizbullah's abduction of two Israeli soldiers earlier this week, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak said Sunday. The Egyptian leader also disclosed an Iranian offer to negotiate a settlement with Hizbullah as part of Arab initiatives to resolve the crisis, but called Tehran's bid "a trap." Egypt was keen not to let the Israelis into Beirut," Mubarak told reporters Sunday after talks with the president of the United Arab Emirates, Sheik Khalifa bin Zayid al-Nuhayyan. "If we hadn't stepped in, Beirut would have been destroyed," Mubarak said. Egyptian officials have been talking to the Israelis in a bid to find a diplomatic solution to the latest regional military confrontation, the Egyptian president said. "We are talking to them more than once a day," he said. "We told them that attacking civilians and civil infrastructure is wrong, because the Lebanese people are helpless." Like regional heavyweight Saudi Arabia, Egypt has criticized Hizbullah for starting the latest Mideast crisis. Mubarak said he was also in contact with Syrian officials and that Tehran was interested in participating in Arab mediation efforts. "They (the Iranians) want to attend the Arab foreign ministers meeting and form a joint committee that would have included Hizbullah and Hamas," he said. "Egypt realized that that was a trap." Moderate Arab nations, such as Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and oil-rich countries in the Gulf have expressed fear that Iran is using its Lebanese Shiite allies to expand its regional influence. Meanwhile, Iran's top leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei praised Hizbullah Sunday and said it would not give up its weapons. "Thanks to the power of Hizbullah, the Lebanese resistance has disturbed the dream of the Zionists," Khamenei said in a speech broadcast on state television. "The US President says Hizbullah must be disarmed. It's clear that (the US) and Zionists want this, but it won't happen," He said. On Saturday, Israel said that 100 Iranian troops from the elite Revolutionary Guards were in Lebanon, and that they helped Hizbullah fire a sophisticated radar-guided missile at an Israeli warship blockading the Lebanese coast late Friday. Israel said the rocket was made in China and upgraded in Iran, and was a radar-guided C-802 missile. Iran on Sunday denied the Israeli claims. Political analysts say that very surprisingly, Bangladesh foreign minister has echoed the voice of Ahmadinejad abd Bashar Al-Assad, which certainly will put his country into a very doubtful position. US assistant secretary of state Richard Boucher is expected to arrive in Dhaka on August 2, and possibly Khan's comments will also come into discussion table, as United States in one of the biggest development partners for Bangladesh as well a committed force in war on terror. Some of the political analysts are predicting a very dangerous fate for Dhaka waiting following the new strategy of the foreign minister. Dhaka will possibly see a good response from Iran and Syrian while will experience harsh criticism from the Western world as well many of the moderate Muslim nations. Commenting on Morshed Khan's statement, a former diplomat in Dhaka said, he knows nothing of diplomacy or world politics. He behaves like a clown. Bangladesh should have carefully monitored the entire situation in the Middle East as well the past track record of terrorism of Hizbullah, before terming Israeli actions as "state terrorism". This will not only annoy the global powers but will also put Bangladesh into the worst ever situation, which will also hamper its business and exports in the near future, he said. It is known to the world, notorious groups like Hizbullah, Hamas and Al-Qaeda are continuing murder of innocent people in the name of holy war. American writer Paul Shehaan narrates this situation in his own words saying, "When historians narrate the beginnings of the third global war, a war already under way with more than 200,000 killed, they may choose the moment on October 12, 2000, when a small fishing skiff sailed up to an American destroyer, the USS Cole, at anchor off Aden harbour in Yemen. Iran, the prototype of the modern Islamic theocracy (which also wants the nuclear bomb to match and trump Israel's nuclear option), is stronger today than it was a week ago. It already wields disproportionate power in the Middle East through its proxies helping to tie down 150,000 US troops in Iraq, which is 60 per cent Shiite. Now, thanks to its proxies in Lebanon, Israel has been goaded into an attack on a democratic neighbour. At the weekend, the foreign ministers from 18 Arab League nations held an emergency meeting in Cairo after which the Secretary-General of the League, Amr Moussa, declared that the Middle East peace process was "dead". Lebanon's Prime Minister, Fouad Siniora, said that Israel's "war machine" had turned his country into a "disaster zone". Another victory for the provocateurs of Islamic fundamentalism. Every time chaos has engulfed the Middle East, militant Islam has emerged with greater power. Creating chaos is thus the modus operandi of jihadists. Lebanon's newly reborn democracy and stability, after 20 years of civil war, has been the greatest act of national reconstruction in the Arab world, an enormous achievement. The Government in Beirut relies on a detente between former enemies, Christians, Sunnis, Shias and Druze, some 18 separate factions. No one in this fragile democracy is willing or able to disarm the Hezbollah militia dominant in the Shiite south of Lebanon. Far more important has been the multibillion-dollar rebuilding of the economy. The United Nations may have passed Resolution 1559 calling for the disarming of Lebanon's militias, but who in Lebanon would be willing to go into that hornet's nest? Who would be willing to plunge the nation into another civil war? By blaming the Lebanese Government for Hezbollah's actions, Israel has demanded the impossible from its neighbour. Hezbollah has been thriving on chaos since it began in 1982 in response to Israel's invasion. When it launched its first major suicide attack in the region on April 18, 1983, killing 63 people at the US embassy in Beirut, it created the template for the borderless war we are part of, whether we want to be or not. The only glimmer of good news at the weekend was the criticism of Hezbollah by the governments of Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan. And to put the current mayhem in perspective, the Cold War was waged for more than 50 years between democratic capitalism and totalitarianism, with nuclear weapons massed on either side. It was not a cold war for the tens of millions of people who died in purges within China and the Soviet Union, and in wars or civil wars in Vietnam, Korea, Latin America and Africa. The Cold War ended with no nuclear weapons being used. But compared with medievalists waging jihad, the communist powers of the Soviet Union and China were prudent, rational players. In today's global struggle, the objective evidence is overwhelming that where militant Islam goes, bloodshed follows. In a whole range of different settings, for many adherents of Islam the Koran is not a book of peace but a call to war.? Look at this comment! Just because of nasty activities of some notorious groups, using the term of jihad to justify their evil deeds, Islam is now coming into challenge. Everyone knows, every religion including Islam promotes peace. But these bad elements in Hizbullah, Hamas or al-Qaeda are continuously using the good name of Islam for terrorism and murder of innocent people. Does Bangladeshi foreign minister understand this reality. Before he passed the remarks, he should have at least studied the past track record of terrorism of Palestinian Hamas, Lebanese Hizbullah or Al Qaeda. Crtitics say, Khan is a mere businessman, who made his fortune with blessings from several Japanese companies. But, diplomacy is something else. Here, you just can not utter a word without knowing the consequence. Although top most level of Bangladesh government remain silent on the Middle East issue, foreign minister Khan's remarks could place the country into serious jeopardy. Morshed Khan has no right to place Bangladesh into the queue of Iran or Syria and he should not let the international community take Bangladesh as another patron of terrorism. The writer is a journalist, columnist, author, and editor of "Weekly Blitz" in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Email him at salahuddinshoaibchoudhury@yahoo.com |
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WAR UPDATE FROM SAFED, JULY 21, 2006
Posted by Sandy Rosen-Hazen, July 21, 2006. |
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Have updated all of you from the 13th through the 18th of July, now sending this update, covering the 19th through the 21st of July, as per requests from so many of you very thoughtful people!!!! We appreciate your concern and your prayers!!!! Some FYI (since many of you have asked): As for the geography of Israel.....I've included LINKS to maps in several of my WAR Update e-mails and CNN is showing the maps every few minutes, 24 hours everyday.....however, FYI: Safed is 10 miles from the Border;
You can see Safed in the aerial photos (being shown on International TV news, right now), of Avivim, which is on the Lebanese border, beause we are their neighbors!!!! There is up-to-the minute news 24/7.....FOX, CNN, Sky, BBC, ABC, CBS, NBC & lots more, on TV!!!! Also, there's a 2-minute video EVERYday at: http://www.jerusalemonline.co.il/home.asp it comes live from Israel's Channel 2 TV!!!! Plus, you can go to the Haaretz &/or the Jerusalem Post Internet Web Sites!!!! As always, my comments appear within many of the following articles, in my attempt to answer many of your questions!!!! They are in square brackets -- [ ]. Shabbat Shalom.....
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ [From Official Israeli Government Site: http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA] US President Bush (July 18): "We were able to reach a very strong consensus that the world must confront the root causes of the current instability. And the root cause of that current instability is terrorism and terrorist attacks on a democratic country. Part of those terrorist attacks are inspired by nation states, like Syria and Iran. In order to be able to deal with this crisis, the world must deal with Hizbullah, with Syria and to continue to work to isolate Iran. This crisis started when Hizbullah captured two Israeli soldiers. They were unprovoked, and they then took hostages. Imagine how the United States would react if somebody provoked us with that kind of action. [We all KNOW how they reacted, thank G-d, attacking Afghanistan and Iraq!!!!] And secondly, they started firing rockets. It's this provocation of Hizbullah that has created this crisis." [Kol HaKavod, Pres. Bush!!!!] [and:] "The [U.S.] House of Representatives condemns Hamas and Hezbollah for engaging in unprovoked and reprehensible armed attacks against Israel on undisputed Israeli territory, for taking hostages, for killing Israeli soldiers, and for continuing to indiscriminately target Israeli civilian populations with their rockets and missiles." (July 20) There are 2 versions of Bill H.Res.921 for the 109th Congress: 1. Condemning the recent attacks against the State of Israel, holding terrorists and their state-sponsors accountable for such attacks, supporting Israel's right to defend itself, and... (Introduced in House) [H.RES.921.IH] 2. Whereas on September 12, 2005, Israel completed its unilateral withdrawal from Gaza, demonstrating its willingness to make sacrifices for the sake of peace; (Engrossed as Agreed to or Passed by House) [H.RES.921.EH] [EVERYthing you want to know about this war is summed up in a FAQ from the Israeli Government, at end of this newsletter.....] ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "Boys will be boys" By R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr., a nationally syndicated columnist. Thursday, July 20, 2006; 5:26 p.m. EDT -- CNN Politics WASHINGTON (CREATORS) -- To the grizzled and disheveled stalwarts of Hezbollah and Hamas, may I say you did it to yourselves. Kapow! As another Israeli bomb lands nearby, as a shell whizzes overhead, may I remind you that you are hunkering down either on Gaza or on Lebanese soil that was evacuated by the Israelis so that you could live in peace. And what did you donkeys do? You tunneled under the Israeli borders to infiltrate Israel and kill innocent civilians. You established an infrastructure of missiles to rain down destruction on Israeli cities that were at peace, providing security and prosperity for both Jews and Arabs. You captured Israeli soldiers in an unprovoked attack. Kapow! You are getting just what you deserve. Moreover the terrorists of Hezbollah and Hamas have revealed to any sensible observer that they have no interest in peace with Israel or with the West, for that matter. Needless to say, they have no interest in a peaceful Gaza or Lebanon. The same bellicosity afflicts the allies of these terrorists in Syria and Iran. The brutes in these governments are pitiless and belligerent tyrants. Listening to their sophistries about their need for nuclear power or their desire for a peaceful world puts me in mind of all the irenic poetry of the late Herr Hitler back when things were good for him in the middle 1930s. It all ended badly -- for everyone. When in May 1940 Winston Churchill became prime minister, he thought himself a failure. He recognized that all his admonitions s against the Nazis in the previous decade had proved futile. Now only world war would bring peace. The land from which Hezbollah has been firing missiles was supposed to be free of militias, according to United Nations Security Council Resolution 1559. The Taif Accords, by which the Lebanese civil war was ended, also called for disarming the militias and giving the Lebanese army control of its border. United Nations peacekeepers have been stationed there to see that these diplomatic measures were implemented. Obviously once again UN peacekeepers have failed. Though at least in southern Lebanon the peacekeepers have not raped and pillaged. Pacifying the region is obviously going to be left to the Israelis. I hope our government resupplies them as soon as they finish the business. Yet that leaves a large question. What are the next measures to be taken to secure peace in the Middle East? Again the terrorists have foolishly tipped their hand. They have revealed with their missile attacks that the missiles they have access to are increasingly powerful. Now they are landing them on Haifa. Next they will be landing them on Tel Aviv. In time they will be able to hit anywhere in Israel. Israel is going to have to take action to see to it that no more missile attacks are possible and that Hezbollah's suppliers -- Syria and Iran -- stop arming them. I would think this means that Israel for the short term is going to have to take control of the border regions of Lebanon and of Gaza from which it withdrew. Reportedly some 50 percent of Hezbollah's missile-launching capacity has been destroyed. Perhaps this is accurate, but only troops on the ground will be able to ensure that the terrorists do not return with their missiles. Yet even troops in Lebanon cannot deny Hezbollah's acquisition of ever more powerful weapons. That means its suppliers are going to have to be dealt with. Diplomacy does not seem to work with the Syrians or with the Iranians. We have been dealing with the Iranians diplomatically on their nuclear capacity for months. They remain obdurate and dishonest, and now their clients have unleashed war against Israel. The only recourse might well be the recourse taken by Israel in June 1981 when Israeli aircraft destroyed Iraq's nuclear facilities. Many, even many conservatives, get very agitated by such suggestions. Well, allow me to remind them of President Ronald Reagan's reaction when his National Security Adviser informed him in the Oval Office of the Israeli bombing. They used bombers we had sold them, the adviser harrumphed. "Well," said the Old Cowboy, "boys will be boys." That, of course, is how Reagan expressed what is the oldest idea known to man: philosophical acceptance of the inevitable. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Interesting Times: Old and new courage: saul@jpost.com -- Jerusalem Post -- Jul. 20, 2006 13:00 Four extraordinary exploits stick out in Israel's short history: the Six Day War in June, 1967, the Entebbe hostage rescue on July 4, 1976, the destruction of Iraq's nuclear reactor at Osirak in 1981, and the airlift of thousands of Ethiopian Jews in Operation Solomon, in May, 1991. These events demonstrated Israel's ability to act with almost unbelievable audacity and skill. They were met globally with admiration or consternation, but each captured the world's imagination and, perhaps most importantly, unified the Jewish people in pride. To the same degree, these events were all terrible moral blows to those seeking Israel's destruction since they demonstrated our iron will to prevail. These operations share some common characteristics: they were accomplished largely or completely from the air, and they were over in a few days. Each demonstrated the almost impossibly long reach of a tiny, embattled country. Each showed courage, decisiveness and the willingness to take calculated risks. SOMETIMES it seemed that Israel had long ago lost the gumption necessary to repeat such feats. All happened before the [damned left wing] Oslo Accords and the subsequent debilitating morass of a "peace process" gone sour. Yet twice in recent times Israel has taken dramatic action on the scale of those four extraordinary ones: Operation Defense Shield in 2002, and the operation going on in Gaza and, particularly, Lebanon today. These may not be as clean and dramatic as their more flamboyant predecessors. Arguably, however, they exhibit greater national courage and fortitude, and should contribute no less to the morale of the Jewish people and the dismay of our enemies. Remember that Defensive Shield came at a time when suicide bombers were striking our cities at a furious rate and it seemed that nothing could be done about them. In just 10 days between March 21-31, 2002, 54 Israeli civilians were murdered in five terrorist attacks, four of them suicide bombings. But something could be done, and Israel did it. IDF soldiers went into the dense warrens located in the centers of Palestinian cities where the terrorists had ensconced themselves in the midst of poor neighborhoods. Rather than bombing the concentrated areas where the terrorists were from the air, the IDF went in on the ground in order to minimize Palestinian civilian casualties. Though this decision cost the lives of numerous Israeli soldiers we were accused of "massacring" Palestinians. The UN Security Council rushed to condemn Israel and, in effect, save the terrorists by ending the Israeli military operation. FAST-FORWARD to today and the similar sense of hopelessness that prevailed in the face of Kassam missile attacks, and global indifference to them. Our enemies were playing the usual "no address" game in which the attacks came from groups with shifting names which Israel had to search out individually, while those calling the shots, be they in Ramallah, Gaza, Beirut, Damascus or Teheran, escaped responsibility. Worse, in the case of Lebanon, our decision makers faced the fact that some 14,000 missiles were pointed at our cities, from Tel Aviv to the northern border, poised to strike if we dared to change the rules and defend ourselves. Israel pretended that the rules had changed when we pulled out of Lebanon in 2000, and that we now had the right to hold Lebanon, Syria, and Iran responsible for any Hizbullah attack; but in practice it seemed that we were the ones who were deterred, by Hizbullah's arsenal, from "escalating" the situation. When the cabinet decided, in the wake of a Hizbullah attack into Israel that killed four soldiers and captured two more, to attempt to destroy Hizbullah and hold the Lebanese government accountable, it knew that that fearsome array of missiles would be let loose. Yet it decided to go ahead, hoping that the people of Israel, including those whose lives would be endangered, turned upside down, and even lost in the ensuing missile attacks, would understand the necessity for drastic and definitive action. They were right. Polls show that the vast majority of Israelis support the government's decision. In fact, they indicate slightly higher support for the operation, and for not ending it prematurely, in precisely the areas that are being bombarded. [YES, we do!!!!] If there is a question, it is whether it is a mistake to hold Syria, which has heavily supplied Hizbullah and is greatly responsible for the refusal of the Lebanese government to disarm this group, largely immune. As historian Michael Oren writes in The New Republic: "If the Six Day War presents a paradigm of an unwanted war that might have been averted with an early, well-placed strike at Syria, then Israel's current strategy in Lebanon deserves to be rethought. If Syria escapes unscathed and Iran undeterred, Israel will remain insecure." The thinking on the focus on Lebanon seems to be that the heavy price Lebanon is paying will give it a strong incentive to prevent Hizbullah from rebuilding and returning the status quo ante. But with Syria and Iran untouched, this is indeed a risky proposition. We happen to be at a moment, however, when the West is itself gearing up to confront Iran - which may well explain why Hizbullah-Iran decided to attack Israel in the first place. The near-miraculous turnabout in June 1967, when Israel went from being on the brink of destruction to total victory over multiple Arab armies, inspired Jews the world over - particularly Soviet Jews, who discovered their dormant identity and viewed Israel's victory as a blow to their oppressors. Our refusal to be cowed by Hizbullah's missiles, and our attempt to destroy Iran's external terrorist arm, should inspire the international community to similar acts of courage. In recent years, Israeli courage and decisiveness has, paradoxically, mainly been channelled into territorial withdrawal. Now we are displaying a more classic type of fearlessness, which, together with the newfangled version, is showing signs of greatly improving our military and diplomatic position. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ [The Shimon Biton in this article, is Heidi's husband's cousin.....] Moshav Avivim still stands determined during tensions: By Dan Izenberg -- Jerusalem Post -- July 20, 2006 Fifty-five-year-old Ya'acov Ivgi, decked out in a steel helmet, combat belt and M-16 rifle, did not seem perturbed by the fact that a mortar shell had recently exploded inside his moshav of Avivim and that soldiers stationed nearby were firing tank and artillery shells at Hizbullah forces less than one kilometer away. While others huddled under the roof of the communal area, Ivgi stood out in the open, rushing to the sheltered area only when he heard the shriek of an incoming Katyusha. Nevertheless, he maintained that Wednesday was Avivim's worst day so far in the current fighting with Hizbullah and one of the worst days in the history of the long-suffering community. Earlier in the day, two IDF soldiers were killed and nine wounded in a clash with Hizbullah forces on the Lebanese side of the border. The forces had been sent in to destroy a Hizbullah outpost directly opposite the moshav. [On the border, 10 miles from Safed!!!!] The outpost was originally built by the IDF and abandoned intact after prime minister Ehud Barak ordered a hasty [VERY BIG mistake!!!!] withdrawal from southern Lebanon in 2000. Ivgi is a member of the emergency squad that is on call 24 hours a day to guard against Hizbullah infiltrators and to make sure moshav residents enter their bomb shelters and safe rooms when there is an alert. Four-hundred people live in Avivim. About half of them - including almost all of the women, children and elderly people with health problems - have been evacuated from the moshav, according to Shimon Biton, head of the Avivim residents' committee and a member of the emergency team. The able-bodied men have stayed behind to protect their homes and look after their poultry. Biton is tough and determined. He lost his father in 1970, when Palestinian terrorists belonging to the Syrian-sponsored Saeka organization fired two bazooka shells at a school bus, killing 12 Avivim residents, most of them children, and wounding about 25. "We ask the government to support the army and give it another month to do the job," said Biton. "We are prepared to sit in shelters all that time." [As are we ALL!!!!] Nowadays, there are as many soldiers as farmers in Avivim. A few days earlier, soldiers prevented an infiltration of Hizbullah fighters presumably attempting to seize hostages from Avivim. On Wednesday, Israeli troops fired tank and artillery shells at the well-entrenched Hizbullah fighters while they replied with mortar shells and Katyushas. During this exchange, a second mortar shell hit a structure within the moshav, causing no casualties but setting off a large fire. Earlier in the morning, at Dovev - another long-suffering moshav 12 kilometers west of Avivim along the northern border - a group of about 20 elderly residents waited in a plaza outside the community buildings for a bus that was to take them away from all the explosions and tensions. About 90 percent of the moshav of 520 people have already left. As in Avivim, they too describe past week as the worst time in their history. Although none of the houses have been hit so far, four Katyusha rockets landed just outside the perimeter of the moshav, including one that destroyed four fruit trees and another that fell 50 meters from a house. Iranian-born Eliahu Kadusi has spent the last 40 years in Dovev. He fell in love with Galilee because it reminded him of the area along the Iraq-Iran border where he was born - the same hills, the same cold weather and snow. For these same reasons, Kadusi does not want to leave Dovev despite the dangers. "I like it here," he said. It is not the first time the moshav has been evacuated. The farmers also had to leave during the 1982 Lebanese invasion and Operation Grapes of Wrath in 1996. Moroccan-born Mima Peretz has lived in Dovev since 1953 but she too does not remember anything as bad as this. "This is no life," she said. "It has never been like this. I'm afraid to hang out my laundry or go to the grocery store." Despite the fear of sudden death and the stress caused by ear-splitting explosions, 56-year-old Yoseph Waknin has decided to stay, at least for the time being. "I have to look after my chicken coop," he explained. "I have 1,700 chickens." Among other things, Waknin has to collect the eggs, and make sure the chickens have water and feed. He and other farmers complain that the chickens have stopped giving their usual quota of eggs because they have been terrified by the loud noises. "Usually, I produce 10-11 wagon loads of eggs per month," he said. "This month, I'll be lucky if I have seven or eight." But perhaps the biggest problem faced by all those remaining along the northern border is the lack of sleep. The residents are virtually sleepwalkers who live on almost no hours of sleep. "As soon as I put my head down on the pillow and fall asleep, an artillery gun goes off and I'm wide awake again," said Ivgi. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "Rockets fired at Rosh Pina, Har Meron area:" By Ahiya Raved -- YNet News -- July 20, 2006 Rockets land on kibbutzim in Har Meron area in Upper Galilee, no reports of injuries; at around 10 p.m. the siren goes off in Western Galilee region, short while later four rockets land in open fields near Rosh Pina [From my home in Safed, Mt. Meron is my neighbor to the left and Rosh Pinna is my neighbor to the right!!!!] After a day of relative calm, with the firing of lone rockets at Carmiel, Tiberias, and other areas in the Galilee, sirens have gone off again at around 5:45 p.m. in the Upper Galilee. Rockets fell near one of the kibbutzim in the Har Meron district in the Galilee. The rockets exploded in open territory and no injuries or damage were reported. Shortly after 7 p.m. the IDF said Hizbullah fired four rocket barrages at open fields in the Upper Galilee; two barrages were fired toward Rosh Pina and the Har Meron area; no injuries or damage were reported. At 10 p.m. the siren went off in the Western Galilee region, and a short while later four rockets landed in open fields near Rosh Pina; no injuries or damage reported. During the afternoon, at around 1 p.m., an air raid siren was heard in Haifa. No rocket attacks took place on populated areas however, and some rockets may have fallen on open territory. Some Haifa residents told Ynet they heard explosions in the city before the siren went off. The areas of Nahariya, Akko, and all of the Western Galilee communities heard sirens, and residents were told to enter shelters. At 5:30 a.m. Haifa residents awoke to the sounds of sirens, but they were no rocket landings in the area. Residents of the north are currently under instructions to remain in protected structures for the seventh day in a row. Until now rockets killed 15 civilians -- including two brothers killed Wednesday in Nazareth. Dozens more have been injured. 14 soldiers have been killed since Hizbullah's first attacks last Wednesday. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Israel: Hezbollah's military power halved: Hezbollah leader denies claim: "They are unable to harm us" CNN -- Thursday, July 20, 2006; Posted: 5:27 p.m. EDT BEIRUT, Lebanon (CNN) -- Israeli special forces battled Hezbollah guerrillas Thursday during a second day of fierce ground fighting in war-ravaged southern Lebanon. The Israel Defense Forces reported six new casualties among its soldiers, though it would not specify if any had been killed in Thursday's fighting. A tank and an armored bulldozer were hit by rocket-propelled grenades, the IDF said. The Israeli military estimates that its air assault on Lebanon has destroyed about half of Hezbollah's military strength. It is using ground forces to target Hezbollah's remaining artillery, believed hidden in caves, tunnels and basements. The Israeli offensive is intended to wipe out the remaining capabilities of the Islamic militia, Israeli military officials have said. CNN cannot independently confirm Israel's estimation of Hezbollah's military strength. Speaking in an interview Thursday on Al-Jazeera television, Hassan Nasrallah, leader of the militant group, said Israel's claims of eliminating half of Hezbollah's fighting capacity were untrue. (Watch as Nasrallah promises Hezbollah 'surprises' -- 1:17) Hezbollah "stood fast and has absorbed the strike" against it he said. "They are unable up to this moment to do anything to harm us." The fighting began after Hezbollah guerillas captured two Israeli soldiers during a raid into northern Israel on July 12. The Lebanese security forces said Thursday that 258 civilians have been killed and another 582 injured. But in a speech to diplomats in Beirut the day before, Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora put the death toll higher -- at more than 300 -- and said the wounded numbered about 1,000. (Watch as hospitals in Lebanon are overwhelmed by wounded -- 2:23) Fourteen Israeli soldiers and 15 civilians have been killed, according to the IDF. Violence on both sides of the border: Although Israel believes "Hezbollah has been hurt considerably," the military operation "is not over yet," Israel's security minister said Thursday. "We are aiming and focused at dismantling the capability of this organization, prohibiting it from attacking Israel again and changing the rules of the game in the region," Isaac Herzog said. (Watch what Israeli strikes have wrought -- 3:58) The operation will continue until that mission is complete, he said. In anticipation of further strikes, the IDF has dropped leaflets written in Arabic to warn Lebanese civilians not to go near militants, at their own risk. (Watch what civilians under siege are doing to survive -- 2:10) "Do not sleep or stand with Hezbollah in the same place," the leaflets warned. "We are calling on the Lebanese people and army to avoid giving aid -- direct or indirect -- to Hezbollah elements. Anyone who does so will expose themselves and their lives to danger." Shortly after daybreak Thursday, a huge blast rocked southern Beirut. Lebanese television showed a large plume of smoke over the city skyline. Israeli airstrikes also hit three Hezbollah training camps and Hezbollah-run Al Manar television in eastern Lebanon, the IDF said Thursday. Hours earlier, dozens of warplanes dropped 23 tons of bombs on what Israel called a Hezbollah bunker, IDF sources said. "We thought that the Hezbollah leadership was gathered there," Israeli Foreign Ministry official Yigal Palmor said. "We have no information as of this moment whether they were there or not or whether there were any casualties or not." But the militant group said the bombs hit a mosque under construction and caused no casualties. Nasrallah's television interview came nearly a day after the strike. Meanwhile, guerrillas fired Katyusha rockets on cities in northern Israel, including Tiberias and Carmiel, according to the IDF. There were no reports of injuries. (See a map of area) Cease-fire chances [NO way, Jose.....we've only just begun!!!!]: The Lebanese government says its citizens are taking the brunt of the damage, and is pleading for a halt in violence. Saying his country has been "torn to shreds," Prime Minister Fouad Siniora estimated that the Israeli onslaught has displaced as many as a half-million Lebanese. He called for an immediate cease-fire. Lebanon's finance minister said Israel's bombing has reversed Lebanon's economic comeback. "Lebanon was expected to have at least 6 percent rate of growth, the economy was booming," Jiad Azour told CNN. "And in one week's time, we see all this destruction." In an address to the U.N. Security Council on Thursday, Secretary- General Kofi Annan demanded "an immediate cessation of hostilities" to prevent further loss of life, allow for humanitarian relief and give diplomacy a chance. While Israel "has a right to defend itself" against Hezbollah attacks on its cities and soldiers, "the excessive use of force is to be condemned," Annan said in an address to the U.N. Security Council. Annan also condemned Hezbollah for starting the crisis and for holding "an entire nation hostage." Israel has rejected calls for a cease-fire until it can push Hezbollah back from its northern frontier and retrieve its captured soldiers. [Right on!!!!] The United States and Israel consider Hezbollah a terrorist organization. The group, which has claimed responsibility for terrorist acts, also operates an extensive network of social services in Lebanon, and its political wing holds seats in the Lebanese parliament. Israeli forces spent more than two decades occupying parts of southern Lebanon after a 1978 invasion to set up a buffer against guerrilla attacks. The United Nations verified Israel's pullout in 2000. In other developments: Israel pounded the Maghazi refugee camp in central Gaza for a second day. Four Palestinians died in the fighting, three of them by airstrikes, Palestinian medical sources said. The IDF confirmed three of the deaths. CNN's Paula Newton, Nic Robertson, Barbara Starr, Cal Perry, Aneesh Raman, Hala Gorani and Alessio Vinci contributed to this report. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Thousands of IDF troops operating in S. Lebanon: By Haaretz Staff and News Agencies -- 01:38 21/07/2006 Two IDF soldiers were killed and six others were wounded in heavy clashes with Hezbollah just inside south Lebanon, close to Moshav Avivim [neighbor of Safed], on Thursday afternoon. Hezbollah fired mortar shells in the area in effort to disrupt the rescue of the wounded. The IDF believes that several Hezbollah guerillas were killed in the close-quarter confrontation. Four soldiers were injured late Thursday night when two Apache helicopters collided in northern Israel, near Kiryat Shmona. Major-General Benny Gantz, who serves as the head of the Ground Forces Command, said on Thursday that ground fighting in limited areas in Lebanon would continue despite the IDF's causalties. Hezbollah bunkers are well-hidden and discernible only from a close distance, said Gantz. "The operation is challenging, difficult and complex. Unfortunately, there is the price of casualties, but the other side, unlike us, doesn't report their casualties," he added. Thousands of Israeli troops are operating in south Lebanon where they are targetting Hezbollah positions. Among their activities, they are searching for tunnels dug by Hezbollah militants. According to the army, Hezbollah fighters have taken refuge inside these tunnels - often dug under homes in villages - along with their rockets, and that they occasionally emerge to fire one into Israel. On Thursday morning, three IDF soldiers were wounded in two separate clashes with Hezbollah in the same area. Two of the soldiers were wounded, one moderately and the other lightly, when a rocket hit a tank. A third soldier from a paratroop unit was seriously wounded in fighting with a Hezbollah cell. The soldier sustained head injuries and was taken to Rambam Hospital in Haifa. The army said Thursday's clashes broke out not far from where Hezbollah killed two IDF troops and wounded nine others Wednesday. Four civilians were killed in an Israel Air Force strike on a car in the southern coastal city of Tyre. Earlier Thursday, IAF jets renewed air strikes on Beirut's southern suburbs, Hezbollah's Al-Manar TV reported. Al-Manar's report of the attack on the Bir al-Abed neighborhood came after a relatively quiet night in Beirut, following the massive Wednesday evening attack by IAF jets on what the military believed was a bunker used by senior Hezbollah leaders, including Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah. There were no immediate reports of damage or casualties in Bir al-Abed. Army chief tells troops fighting may last a long time: Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Dan Halutz told IDF troops that the fighting in the north may go on for an extended period of time. In his first missive since the start of the recent conflict with Hezbollah, Halutz stated that, "We are responsible for defending our independence and the integrity of our country." "The State of Israel is in the midst of fighting an extremist Islamic terrorist organization that denies our right to exist, and is operating under the auspices of Iran and Syria, which aim to threaten Israel's sovereignty. The fighting was aggravated after provocations by Hezbollah and Hamas, which carried out terrorist attacks in Israeli territory, in which a number of IDF fighters were killed and Corporal Gilad Shalit and reservists Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev were abducted. We are responsible for defending our country's independence and sovereignty, and for the security of its citizens. "The fighting in the north was added to the fighting in Judea, Samaria and Gaza, and may continue for an extended period of time. This is a test for us. Our moral and ideological strength will reflect on the country's citizens and will aid their ability to face the threat on the home front. The society's strength and the trust has in the IDF strengthens us and will continue to do so. We will do whatever it takes to maintain the state's security. "The terrorist groups misread the map and misinterpreted the resolve of Israeli society and the IDF. The army is operating on the Lebanese front to destroy terrorist infrastructure & terrorist-supporting infrastructure. We hit and will hit Hezbollah strongholds in Lebanon, as well as the organization's rockets, while hitting Palestinian terror. "You - the dedicated and determined soldiers and commanders - who remain true to the mission and operate according to the IDF spirit, will continue to serve as the source of strength for the IDF and the basis for our success. A strong IDF serves as a security network for our country's continued existence. "I send my condolences to the families who paid the heavy price of losing a loved one, wish a speedy recovery to the wounded, and support the families of our abducted soldiers. We are trying to bring our boys home. "IDF soldiers and commanders - we carry the flag of security and defend the borders of the state of Israel. Together we will continue to carry out our missions with diligence, wisdom and resolve." Halutz warns Hezbollah wants war of attrition with Israel: Halutz warned the security cabinet on Wednesday that Hezbollah wants to drag Israel into a war of attrition in Lebanon, whereas Israel wants "a short and forceful war." His comments came as two Israeli children were killed by a rocket in Nazareth and two IDF soldiers were killed and nine wounded in clashes with Hezbollah gunmen in Lebanon. "They realize that prolonged attrition causes internal pressure from Israeli citizens and international pressure, and think that those are our weak points," Halutz said, adding that Hezbollah wants the fighting to extend over a long period "so that we will capitulate." The chief of staff said IDF operations are centering on south Lebanon. Among other things, the army is trying to cleanse the border zone of Hezbollah outposts and attack the villages from which Hezbollah is firing. When the IDF discovers that Hezbollah is firing rockets at Israel from a particular village, Halutz said, the army warns the residents to leave the village and then bombs it in an effort to damage Hezbollah's tactical operational capability. The IDF has succeeded in damaging Hezbollah's ability to fire rockets on Israel, Halutz said. [Thus, although we are still getting hit, thank G-d, less and less rockets hit us each day!!!!] "We damage, diminish, weaken and erode," he told the ministers. "Hezbollah's consciousness has already been seared, and they understood completely that Israel is reacting in a way that they never thought we would react." Halutz said that plans have already been laid for a ground incursion, but that the army is not implementing them at the moment. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said that the IDF has "as much time as you want to complete the mission." ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Barrages resume Thursday afternoon By Jpost.Com Staff -- Jul. 20, 2006 11:43 Hizbullah resumed its attacks against northern Israel on Thursday afternoon as 8-10 rockets fired at northern Israel landed in the Galilee region. No injuries or damage were reported. In total, about 40 rockets have been fired at Israel on Thursday. A total of 116 rockets were fired by Hizbullah at Israel on Wednesday. [As I said above.....thank G-d, less & less each day!!!!] Earlier, a series of rocket attacks near Moshav Avivim on the Israeli-Lebanese border sent residents into bomb shelters. Five rockets also landed in the Upper Galilee in a renewed rocket assault from Hizbullah cells in south Lebanon. Five rockets also landed in Safed and two Katyushas fell near Tiberias. No casualties or damage were reported in any of the attacks. Residents of Nahariya and the Galilee north of the Acre-Amiad road were instructed Thursday morning to remain indoors, inside fortified rooms or bomb shelters. Earlier on Thursday morning, an alert siren sounded in Tiberias warning residents to remain in protected areas. A warning siren in Haifa early Thursday appeared to be connected to rocket falls elsewhere, since there were no reports of rockets hitting the city. [They certainly got more than enough on Wednesday!!!!] ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ [This is disgusting, considering how well the Jews have always treated the Arabs of Nazareth, all of these years.....] "Nazareth sheikh attacks Zionism:" By Matthew Wagner -- Jerusalem Post -- Jul. 20, 2006 16:30 One day after the tragic killing of two baby brothers in Nazareth, (See: www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1150886033419&pagename= JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull) a leading Suffi Sheikh from the same town, who has been heavily involved in interfaith dialogue for two decades, equated the dispossession of Palestinians from their land in 1948 with the Holocaust. Sheikh Abdel Salam Manasra, Secretary General of the High Suffi Council in the Holy Land, also equated Zionism with idolatry. "Just as it says in the Bible that there were Jews who worshipped Ba'al [a type of ancient idolatry] so too there are Jews today who are Zionists," said Manasra. "You are not a Jew as you should be if you [support] Zionism," he added. "Zionism is a bad thing." Manasra rejected the idea that Israel was a Jewish state or a homeland for the Jews. "After the Europeans brought a Holocaust on the Jews, you Jews came here and brought a Holocaust on us," said Manasra. "None of the Europeans responsible for the Holocaust paid the price. Instead, I paid the price because I lost my land." Rabbi Dr. Ron Kronish, Director of the Inter Religious Coordinating Council in Israel, who has participated in numerous interfaith dialogues with Manasra over the years, said the comments were very surprising. "If this is indeed that is what he said about the Holocaust and Zionism, I think those are very poor, unhelpful comparison. I have known Sheikh Manasra as a man of peace and dialogue. I urge him to rethink his comments if indeed he said them. "I am sensitive to the pain caused by the Naqba [Israeli victory against the Arabs] but it is not to be compared to the Holocaust." When Manasra discovered that The Jerusalem Post reporter interviewing him lived in a settlement beyond the Green Line he said, "You live on conquered land. Come live in Haifa, Ashdod or Tel Aviv. "Besides, most of you are there because you love money," said Manasra. "A lot of you settlers are not even Jewish. They are Russians who oppose Judaism. I see them come to the Church in Nazareth." Manasra was quick to condemn Israeli violence in Lebanon, but only after repeated questioning by The Post was Manasra willing to criticize the Hizbullah's bombing. "But I do not want that statement against the Hizbullah to be placed prominently in your article," said Manasra to The Post. He said that the relationship Sunni Arabs like himself had with the Shi'ite Hizbullah was "similar to the relation Jews had to the Black Hebrews in Dimona". Manasra said he has been involved in interfaith dialogue since 1987. He said that as a Suffi Sunni with more moderate views than other Sunni orders, he has suffered financially. "The Saudis are opposed to the Suffis," said Manasra. "It's not easy to be a promoter of peace." ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ [Safed (Tzfat) article, from the "One Jerusalem" Web Site.....] "Inside a War Zone Hospital:" By Joel Mowbray -- FrontPageMagazine.com | July 19, 2006 TZFAT, ISRAELThe screams of the 9-year-old girl as she pushed through the door immediately grabbed everyone's attention. No amount of reassuring from her mother could truly comfort her. Wrapped inside her mother's arms, the trembling child was too overwhelmed to comprehend the war going on around her. As an adult, I felt oddly safe, despite the siren blaring in the distance. My adult mind was able to rationalize that the odds of being hit by a Katyusha rocket were actually infinitesimal. And I knew that inside the window-less center of the hospital, I really wasn't even at risk of flying shards of glass. While a child might not think in terms of "odds," she didn't need to go far to witness justification for her fears. Since last Thursday, more than 100 local residents have come through the front door, some with severe physical injuries, others suffering from severe emotional trauma. Just last night, a Hezbollah-launched Katyusha rocket smashed into the side of the building. Thankfully, it hit concrete, meaning there was no explosion inside the hospital. But since Katyushas spray shrapnel upward in a cone formation, the blast knocked out windows across the hospital. [FYI: This Hospital is directly next door to my block!!!!] Walking through the children's wing the day after, it was clear that a miracle had occurred there. Even after a cleaning crew had done its work, glass was everywhere, including little shards wedged in the computer keyboard where kids normally are glued for hours at a time, day after day. But since the rocket hit after 10pm, no children were in the playroom. Another child, though, was not as lucky. Recovering from spleen surgery one floor above the children's wing, 13-year-old Koby was watching TV at the time of the blast. Glass rained down on him, and he was gashed in the back of his head. Further from the blast but on the same floor as the children's wing, 52-year-old Yakov Avoudboul was thrown out of his bed and across the room. This, though, was far less devastating than the rocket that exploded just one meter from him on Friday. An assistant chef at the hospital, Avoudboul was called in on the second day of sustained attacks to prepare meals for the increasing number of patients. Within moments of stepping out his front door, the rocket came within a whisker of killing him instantly. The rocket explosion sprayed shrapnel into his legs, back, and arms. After he bathes, merely wrapping a towel around himself "feels like dragging nails across my back." The physical wounds, though, will heal. Far more long-lasting will be the emotional scars. "Since Friday, I don't sleep; I just relive the event," he said. Like other populated civilian areas across northern Israel, Tzfat has been showered with Katyusha rockets for almost a week now. Despite this, some residents are actually trying to maintain some semblance of normality. Dr. Anthony Luder explained that he still walks his dog. The punchline to his story, though, was that minutes after he finished one such walk, a spot he had just been was hit by a Katyusha. Welcome to life in Tzfat. Many residents have experienced near- misses or miraculous timing. Locals have been swapping stories for the past few days, and at least one person said this recent ritual is therapeutic. Based on the rest of the day's events, there will be more tales to tell. Fifteen minutes after the sirenthe recommended time during which people should stay in sheltered positionsthe group of seven journalists I was with got on the bus and drove away. Less than a mile from the hospital, we saw at least two separate plumes of smoke rising up from the valley below. We received a call from the hospital executive who had shown us around that more rockets had just hit. News reports later indicated that several more rockets pounded the Tzfat area within hours of our departure. For adults who escape physically intact, the long-term impact of the rocket attacks hopefully will be minimal. Compartmentalization and blocking painful memories are well-practiced skills for adult minds. But as we drove away with smoke from rocket explosions off in the distance, it was the image of the terrified 9-year-old girl I couldn't shake. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "In the land of guesthouses and Katyushas:" By Meron Rapoport -- Haaretz -- July 21, 2006 In the north, they still refer to the Acre-Safed road, even though it no longer reaches Safed. To reach the "capital of the Galilee," as declared by a sign at the entrance to the city that hasn't been the capital of anything for a long time, you have to get off the main road. Nonetheless, this road - which goes from Acre and passes by the ancient olives of the Beit Hakerem Valley - is the central road of the Galilee. "The Galilee of the nations," the prophet Isaiah called this region, because, as Yehoshua Steinberg writes in his "Milon Hatanakh Ivrit Ve'Aramit" ("Hebrew and Aramaic Bible Dictionary"), "the nations of all kinds held on and the tribes of Israel did not manage to dispossess them." The situation hasn't changed much since the days of Isaiah. Today, too, many nations live in the Galilee, on both sides of the road: Jews, Arabs and Druze; Christians and Muslims; veteran immigrants and new immigrants. This week I traveled along this road to see what the Katyushas have done to relations among the nations - or in other words, how they affected Jewish-Arab relations in the Galilee. I stopped in Majdal Krum, an Arab village that was hit by a barrage of Katyushas last Thursday; in Carmiel, which was hit by 25-30 Katyushas over the past week; and in Safed, second only to Nahariya in terms of the number of Katyushas that have struck there since the fighting began. I reached Carmiel half an hour after three Katyushas landed in the city center, and left Safed an hour before a barrage of rockets rained down. I encountered a few air-raid sirens on the way. All in all, it was a routine day this week in the land of guesthouses and Katyushas. Majdal Krum [Village directly below Stacey's house]: 20 wounded: Majdal Krum made the headlines last Thursday, when two houses there were the target of a direct rocket hit. Twenty people were wounded, and one of them is still hospitalized in moderate condition; he will apparently remain paralyzed in one hand. To say the barrage of rockets caught Majdal Krum by surprise would be the height of understatement. No one there had expected something like this - not the village residents and not the Home Front Command. In the market area of the nearby village, Bana, I see an image typical of the emergency situation that prevails: 100 village children are boarding buses that will take them to safe places in the center of the country. The Noar Haoved Vehalomed youth movement organized the buses within 12 hours, Khalil Mohammed, who heads the local branch of the movement, says proudly in his movement-issue blue shirt with a red lace. The children will spend four days at Petah Tikva's Mekorot Hayarkon Park with Jewish children from other Galilee towns under attack. What's more Israeli than that? Hassan Ali, the spokesman for the joint municipality of Majdal Krum, Bana and Dir al-Assad, says that this Israeliness is but an illusion. The gaps between Majdal Krum and neighboring Carmiel could be seen even in as Israeli a time as a Katyusha attack. The rescue teams couldn't pass through the narrow alleyways of the village, and police took more than an hour to reach one of two sites where rockets had fallen. The rockets certainly helped bolster the feeling of Israeliness in Majdal Krum, giving the residents the feeling that they are on the receiving end of the Katyushas no less than residents of Carmiel [Just across the street from Carmiel]. In any case, people say the rockets don't distinguish between Arabs and Jews and that "we're all human beings," but residents of the Arab villages don't watch the local Channel 2 television station, they watch the Arab stations Al Jazeera, Al-Arabiya and Al-Manar, the Hezbollah channel. They saw the burned bodies of the children killed by an Israel Air Force strike on Marwahin, a Lebanese village less than 20 kilometers from the border. The Israeli Arabs clearly identify with the Lebanese civilians being attacked, and many Arabs in the Galilee - including Hassan Ali - have close relatives in Lebanese refugee camps, almost all of whom had been living in the Galilee in 1948. Wadia Parhat is the patriarch of a family whose home was hit by a Katyusha rocket. Fortunately, no one was hurt, but the entire family - especially Parhat's wife and the grandchildren - are still in shock. Parhat himself slept with the window open "to see the Katyusha falling." His son Omran, a glass artist, laments the loss of the stained glass he worked on for years before it was destroyed in the rocket attack. Parhat is angry at Hezbollah leader Shiekh Hassan Nasrallah, who he says is firing rockets "like you throw gravel, without knowing what it will hit." Like Ali, Parhat has family in Lebanon, and he speculates that "maybe it was one of them who fired on us." Parhat is angry, but unlike almost all the Jews I would meet in Carmiel and Safed, he thinks Israel should talk to Hezbollah instead of attacking it. Coming from him, the call for talks sounds like a request for help, an attempt to defend himself. "He's not a small person, Nasrallah. They can't do this with a person like that," says Parhat. "With such a person you need to reach a compromise. If [Prime Minister Ehud] Olmert tries to assassinate him, Nasrallah will assassinate Olmert's father's father." The family members shush Parhat. Apparently these aren't the comments that a Katyusha casualty is supposed to make. Carmiel: Voluntary curfew As we were sitting in Wadi Parhat's Majdal Krum home, we heard that a rocket landed in Carmiel. Ali takes us there. A Katyusha fell here, he points out, as though continuing the rocket tour of Majdal Krum. One of the Katyushas in the last barrage, I find out on my way to Carmiel, landed on the Galilee road. I know the Galilee road quite well; my wife Osnat's parents live 100 meters from there. I am told there are no casualties, so I am calm. Carmiel is no Paris, but it is nonetheless strange to see its business district at the entrance to the city so abandoned in the middle of the afternoon. There are only a few cars and barely anyone walking in the street - a big difference from what I saw in Majdal Krum and Bana. The streets in the Arab villages are not crowded, but the stores are open and the villages don't seem like they are under curfew. The Arab villages are taking the war a little less seriously, as though it doesn't really affect them. On Wednesday morning, I am told, the Nazareth market was crowded. Jews made their way there as well, thinking that maybe Nazareth was outside Hezbollah's sights. That afternoon rockets hit the city, killing two children - brothers - outside their home. That evening, the streets of Nazareth, too, were empty. What is clear is that the voluntary curfew imposed on Carmiel and the other northern cities only increases the pressure. The Carmiel municipal spokeswoman, Lavia Shilo-Fisher, says there are no exact statistics on how many people have left the city since the rocket fire began, but a look around shows that those left behind are primarily the poor: immigrants from Russia, Ethiopia and Romania, and local youth looking for some action. "It's great that Katyushas fell here," says one of the youths. "I want more to fall. It should be a mess here. I want a revolution." Another youth, Adi, says a Katyusha landed right next to him as he was walking in the street and adds that he will go looking for some Arabs to beat up. "There are fights with the Arabs every day here," he says. "If you see an Arab, you have to hit him. After what happened here, tonight we'll go looking for Arabs. It'll be intense." The bomb shelter in my parents-in-law's apartment building looks like an ad for the absorption department of the Jewish Agency: Russians, Ethiopians, Georgians. Zvi Winkler, my father-in-law, has refused to go down to the shelter, as have several Russian neighbors who lived through the Nazi bombardment of the Soviet Union in World War II; they don't get excited by a few Katyushas. They don't speak about politics, except for a Georgian neighbor who is glued to the radio and says she is prepared to stay in the shelter for as long as necessary - the important thing is that they finish off Hezbollah. All of them. That is the accepted opinion in the city, says Zvi, but he takes pity on the Arabs in the Galilee. They have a hard time with us, the Israelis, and they have a hard time with Hezbollah. Safed: Erased from the map Dr. Calin Shapira, deputy director of the government-run Rebecca Sieff Hospital in Safed, is mainly worried by the feeling of remoteness that has overtaken the city since a bypass road was built. Shapira, who has worked at the hospital for 30 years, says it is as though Safed has been erased from the map. Now, with the Katyushas, that feeling of remoteness has only been reinforced. "There's no mail, there's no public transportation, the pharmacies are closed," says Shapira. "We just moved offices within the hospital and we were supposed to install telephones in the new offices. The company that installs the phones told us that they aren't going to the north. Other suppliers also aren't coming. The state was not ready for this situation." The city center gives off a feeling of abandonment, reflecting estimates that 60 percent of Safed residents have fled south. But Safed Mayor Yishai Maimon says he thinks those estimates are too high. "When the Katyushas fell on Mount Cana'an on Tuesday, we were sure that the neighborhood was empty," says Maimon. "But when we got there, suddenly people came out from under the ground." When it comes to the question of what Israel should do to Hezbollah, it turns out that it is no mere road dividing Carmiel and Majdal Krum, Safed and Bana, but rather a deep chasm. An Arab man from the north of the country told me that even since the rockets hit Nazareth and killed the two boys, Hezbollah still has the support of many Israeli Arabs. "They won't fly a Hezbollah flag," he says. "But they feel satisfied that Israel is getting it, even if they are getting it themselves. On Al-Manar, you hear messages coming from Arabs from Israel who tell Hezbollah to continue the opposition. Don't forget that many Israeli Arabs have relatives sitting in jail. Nasrallah promises to try to release them." But despite the major differences of opinion, the Jewish and Arab residents of the north share similar stories of deprivation. In Bana and Majdal Krum, I heard complaints about a shortage of bomb shelters and about being ignored by the establishment. The Home Front Command remembered only Wednesday that it needs to translate its announcements into Arabic. Perhaps they have only just heard the rumor that nearly half the residents of the bombarded Galilee are Arabs. In Carmiel and Safed, the complaints are more specific. Residents there tell of closed bomb shelters, health clinics that have closed their doors, banks that did not refill their ATMs, bored children unable to stay in the house day after day, endless sirens that drive people crazy, and a cigarette company that has stopped selling its merchandise in the north. The feeling is that on both sides of the divide, the residents of the north have been abandoned almost to the same extent. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ [After a delightful respite from rockets here, they're at it AGAIN.....] Rockets strike Haifa, other Israeli towns: Israel's attacks against Hezbollah enter 10th day in Lebanon CNN -- Friday, July 21, 2006; Posted: 9:52 a.m. EDT BEIRUT, Lebanon (CNN) -- Rocket attacks hit Haifa and other Israeli towns Friday in a fresh wave of strikes from Lebanon, while Israel urged people in southern Lebanon to leave their homes and move north. Israeli emergency personnel help victims of rocket attacks Friday in the northern city of Haifa. At least 19 people were wounded in the northern port city of Haifa, and Hezbollah rockets also hit the towns of Meron, Safed, Yiron and Avivim, Israeli medical officials said. About 15 rockets fell in the volley of attacks, the Israeli military said. At a Haifa hospital, one critically injured woman in her 60s had lost a leg. Another patient appeared to have a head wound. Residents said one of the rockets hit a post office in the city. To the north, Israel launched new military strikes inside Lebanon on the 10th day of violence since Hezbollah guerrillas triggered the crisis by capturing two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid. Also Friday, a U.N. observation post was struck in southern Lebanon, but there were conflicting reports about how the strike happened. Israeli forces said a Hezbollah rocket hit the post, near the northern Israeli town of Zarit. There were no immediate reports of casualties, said Israel Defense Forces. But a U.N. officer told The Associated Press that the strike was an artillery shell fired by Israeli forces. The facility was severely damaged, and Ghanaian troops manning the post were safe inside bomb shelters at the time of the strike, the U.N. official told the AP. Overall, the IDF said it had struck 40 targets in Lebanon overnight, [Thus, that lovely period of calm here, last night!!!!] including Hezbollah headquarters, missile-launching sites along the Israeli- Lebanese border, rocket launchers, vehicles and access routes. There were possible signs of new Israeli military deployments as the Israeli military said Friday that it's ready to call up a few thousand reserve troops to augment its military operations along the Israeli- Lebanese border. (See map of area) About 1,000 Israeli troops have been sent across the border to conduct pinpoint operations against Hezbollah strongholds, sources said. Israel dropped leaflets in southern Lebanon urging residents to leave their homes and move north of the Litani River -- 25 miles (40 kilometers) from the border. Lebanese President Emile Lahoud said the Lebanese army is "ready to defend" the country's territory if there were a possible Israeli ground invasion. "Of course, the army is going to defend its land, and inside Lebanon, they can do a lot," Lahoud said. "They cannot be strong enough to be against Israel on the frontier." Israeli choppers collide: Early Friday, two Israeli Apache attack helicopters collided and crashed in northern Israel near Avivim, the IDF said. One pilot was killed and three others injured. (Watch CNN video: Israeli pilots talk about flying missions over Lebanon -- 1:54) Overall, the Israeli military says its air assault has destroyed about half of Hezbollah's military strength since its operations began July 12. CNN cannot independently confirm Israel's estimation of Hezbollah's military strength. But Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah told Arabic-language TV network Al-Jazeera on Thursday that Israel's assertions were untrue. (Watch CNN video as Nasrallah promises Hezbollah "surprises" -- 1:17) The Lebanese security forces said Thursday that 258 civilians have been killed and another 582 injured. But in a speech to diplomats in Beirut the day before, Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora put the death toll higher, at more than 300, and said the wounded numbered about 1,000. The newly reported deaths in southern Lebanon bring the number of confirmed Israeli military fatalities to 19, with another 15 civilians reported killed. Cease-fire demands: In an address to the U.N. Security Council on Thurs, U.N. Secretary- General Kofi Annan [This guy has more nerve than brains!!!!] demanded "an immediate cessation of hostilities" to prevent further loss of life, allow for humanitarian relief and give diplomacy a chance. [Can he tell us how to use "diplomacy" with terrorists?!?! See: www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/Government/Communiques/2006/ Political-Security+Cabinet+communique+19-Jul-2006.htm (July 19) Political-Security Cabinet communique:
Israel has rejected calls for a cease-fire until it can push Hezbollah back from its northern frontier and retrieve its captured soldiers. The United States and Israel consider Hezbollah a terrorist organization. The group, which has claimed responsibility for terrorist acts, also operates an extensive network of social services in Lebanon, and its political wing holds seats in the Lebanese parliament. Israeli forces spent more than two decades occupying parts of southern Lebanon after a 1978 invasion to set up a buffer against guerrilla attacks. The United Nations verified Israel's pullout in 2000. Clashes in Gaza: Meanwhile in Gaza, a Palestinian militant and four others died Friday in an attack on a Gaza City home, Palestinian sources said. Earlier, Israeli tanks and troops withdrew from the Maghazi refugee camp in central Gaza after a deadly two-day raid, the IDF said. Israel is continuing its military operation in Gaza, with the stated aim of stopping Palestinian militant attacks on Israel and recovering a soldier captured in June. Some 19 Palestinians have been killed since Tuesday, according to Palestinian sources. Other developments: The Red Cross sent 22 tons of food and supplies, along with a nutritionist and a surgeon, from Beirut to Tyre, Lebanon, on Friday, according to the international relief agency. On Thursday, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert approved the establishment of a humanitarian corridor on the Mediterranean to allow the passage of international aid to Lebanese civilians via Cyprus, an Israeli government official said. CNN's Hala Gorani, Paula Newton, Cal Perry, Aneesh Raman, Nic Robertson, Barbara Starr and Alessio Vinci contributed to this report. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "5000 called up in latest mobilization" By Yaakov Katz, Jpost.Com Staff And AP July 21, 2006 16:52 The IDF sent out emergency calls for 5,000 reserve soldiers on Friday in addition to the reserves already called up. [Please be sure to keep all of us, especially our boys in the IDF, in your prayers!!!!] OC Northern Command Maj.-Gen. Udi Adam stated that the move was done in order to relieve some of the forces currently operating in northern Israel. He noted that ground forces were necessary to penetrate Hizbullah bunkers that could not be reached by the Air Force. Meanwhile, in its continuing attacks on terrorist infrastructure, the IDF struck two rocket launch cells in southern Lebanon on Friday, apparently killing the operatives. The terrorists were struck as they were launching rockets. The IDF believed the people struck were the same ones who launched the barrage of rockets that assailed Haifa and the northern Galilee early Friday afternoon. Hizbullah headquarters & communication lines were also among the targets struck during the day. Adam told the press that the IDF had damaged Hizbullah's capabilities. He reported that at least 20 operatives were killed in the harsh cross- border battles in Maroun a-Ras, north of the Israeli town of Avivim along the northern border. He stated that the decrease in rocket launchings recently was a result of the IDF operation. Still, the major general urged the public to be patient, as the current tension was expected to be a prolonged campaign and was likely to cost more casualties. The heavy exchange of fire cost the lives of five IDF soldiers on Wednesday and Thursday. The IDF resumed attacks on Lebanon at daybreak on Friday, pounding the country's main road link to Syria with missiles and setting passenger buses on fire, Lebanese police said. Part of Lebanon's longest bridge collapsed, police said. The passenger buses were in the Bekaa valley about 15 kilometers from the Syrian border, on the road linking Beirut and the Syrian capital of Damascus. The strike set three buses on fire at Taanayel, but there were no casualties, police said. Drivers abandoned the vehicles after one missile hit nearby, and then more missiles struck. The buses had dropped off in Syria evacuating foreigners, the police said. Up in the mountains of central Lebanon on the Beirut-Damascus highway, IAF warplanes fired four missiles on a bridge linking two steep mountain peaks. Part of the bridge collapsed. The 1-mile-long (1.6-kilometer-long) structure has been hit several times since the fighting began. Warplanes also attacked Hizbullah strongholds in south Beirut and in eastern Lebanon overnight. Witnesses said one explosion was heard in south Beirut, which has become a regular target for airstrikes over the past few days. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ [Not enough in the north & the south, now in the center of Israel.....] "Two terror suspects arrested in TA:"/b> By Jpost.Com Staff -- July 21, 2006 21:18 Police special forces arrested a woman and another person suspected of being involved in a planned suicide terror attack in central Tel Aviv on Friday night. The two were reportedly arrested near the beach-side Dan Hotel on Hayarkon Street in central Tel Aviv after the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) passed an intelligence alert to the Israel Police of a possible suicide terrorist inside central Tel Aviv. Police sappers were reportedly checking the vehicle in which the woman was sitting along with another three people. Intelligence indicated the terrorist was headed to an entertainment establishment in Tel Aviv. Friday night is customarily the most popular time for clubbing and entertainment in Tel Aviv, Israel's largest city. Earlier, roadblocks were set up at the entrance to the city. Large police forces were deployed throughout the Dan and Shfela regions in searches for the terrorist. The operations included hundreds of officers from the Tel Aviv and Central Regions. Hospitals were placed on alert in the Dan area. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ [But, on the BRIGHT side.....] Halutz: Hizbullah loses 100 fighters: By Jpost.Com Staff -- July 21, 2006 21:13 Speaking to reporters about the fighting in the North and in the Gaza Strip, Halutz said that the two facts that "the Hizbullah does not publish its dead or damage and has lied to the media are indicative [of its condition]." "The fighting in Lebanon has cost the Hizbullah a high price," IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Dan Halutz said on Friday evening. "About 100 Hizbullah fighters were killed in IDF operations." Halutz warned Israelis that the success of operations in Lebanon could take time. "This war is difficult and complex," he said. "The enemy has no restraints, moral or otherwise, and no responsibility for the country it is destroying. The 'protector of Lebanon' is destroying Lebanon." In outlining the IDF's strategic goal, Halutz said that "Our mission is to return security to Israel's citizens." In order to achieve that, he added, "The IDF will continue to strike at [the Hizbullah]. Our soldiers and commanders have our full backing." According to the chief of staff, "Israel's past restraint has been interpreted by the terrorists as weakness. I think they have made a mistake." He added that "the IDF's recommendation [to the government] was to work to end this perception [of weakness]." ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Arithmetic of Pain: By Alan M. Dershowitz Jewish World Review July 20, 2006 / 24 Tamuz, 5766 JWR contributor Alan M. Dershowitz is a professor of law at Harvard. "Disproportionate" response? The misuse of civilians as shields and swords requires a reassessment of the rules of war: http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | There is no democracy in the world that should tolerate missiles being fired at its cities without taking every reasonable step to stop the attacks. The big question raised by Israel's military actions in Lebanon is what is "reasonable." The answer, according to the laws of war, is that it is reasonable to attack military targets, so long as every effort is made to reduce civilian casualties. If the objectives cannot be achieved without some civilian casualties, these must be "proportional" to the civilian casualties that would be prevented by the military action. This is all well and good for democratic nations that deliberately locate their military bases away from civilian population centers. Israel has its air force, nuclear facilities and large army bases in locations as remote as anything can be in that country. It is possible for an enemy to attack Israeli military targets without inflicting "collateral damage" on its civilian population. Hezbollah and Hamas, by contrast, deliberately operate military wings out of densely populated areas. They launch antipersonnel missiles with ball-bearing shrapnel, designed by Syria and Iran to maximize civilian casualties, and then hide from retaliation by living among civilians. If Israel decides not to go after them for fear of harming civilians, the terrorists win by continuing to have free rein in attacking civilians with rockets. If Israel does attack, and causes civilian casualties, the terrorists win a propaganda victory: The international community pounces on Israel for its "disproportionate" response. This chorus of condemnation actually encourages the terrorists to operate from civilian areas. While Israel does everything reasonable to minimize civilian casualties not always with success Hezbollah and Hamas want to maximize civilian casualties on both sides. Islamic terrorists, a diplomat commented years ago, "have mastered the harsh arithmetic of pain... Palestinian casualties play in their favor and Israeli casualties play in their favor." These are groups that send children to die as suicide bombers, sometimes without the child knowing that he is being sacrificed. Two years ago, an 11-year-old was paid to take a parcel through Israeli security. Unbeknownst to him, it contained a bomb that was to be detonated remotely. (Fortunately the plot was foiled.) This misuse of civilians as shields and swords requires a reassessment of the laws of war. The distinction between combatants and civilians easy when combatants were uniformed members of armies that fought on battlefields distant from civilian centers is more difficult in the present context. Now, there is a continuum of "civilianality": Near the most civilian end of this continuum are the pure innocents babies, hostages and others completely uninvolved; at the more combatant end are civilians who willingly harbor terrorists, provide material resources and serve as human shields; in the middle are those who support the terrorists politically, or spiritually. The laws of war and the rules of morality must adapt to these realities. An analogy to domestic criminal law is instructive: A bank robber who takes a teller hostage and fires at police from behind his human shield is guilty of murder if they, in an effort to stop the robber from shooting, accidentally kill the hostage. The same should be true of terrorists who use civilians as shields from behind whom they fire their rockets. The terrorists must be held legally and morally responsible for the deaths of the civilians, even if the direct physical cause was an Israeli rocket aimed at those targeting Israeli citizens. Israel must be allowed to finish the fight that Hamas & Hezbollah started, even if that means civilian casualties in Gaza and Lebanon. A democracy is entitled to prefer the lives of its own innocents over the lives of the civilians of an aggressor, especially if the latter group contains many who are complicit in terrorism. Israel will and should take every precaution to minimize civilian casualties on the other side. On July 16, Hasan Nasrallah, the head of Hezbollah, announced there will be new "surprises," and the Aska Martyrs Brigade said that it had developed chemical and biological weapons that could be added to its rockets. Should Israel not be allowed to pre-empt their use? Israel left Lebanon in 2000 & Gaza in 2005. These are not "occupied" territories. Yet they serve as launching pads for attacks on Israeli civilians. Occupation does not cause terrorism, then, but terrorism seems to cause occupation. If Israel is not to reoccupy to prevent terrorism, the Lebanese government and the Palestinian Authority must ensure that these regions cease to be terrorist safe havens. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ [Debbie, in this story, sounds just like me.....Sandy] 'If you think of yourself as Israeli, there's really not a choice': By Ira Moskowitz -- Haaretz -- July 21, 2006 SHARON, Massachusetts - A special El Al flight from New York brought 220 American immigrants to Israel yesterday. The flight was the second of seven Jewish Agency/Nefesh B'Nefesh charters planned for this summer, and the first to arrive since warfare erupted on Israel's northern front. According to the Nefesh B'Nefesh organization, 20 prospective immigrants who had signed up for yesterday's flight decided to postpone their arrival at least for a week or two. On the eve of the flight, Haaretz visited with Joel and Debbie Wine in Sharon, Massachusetts as they struggled to finish packing their belongings, complete a list of last-minute errands, tend to their three young children and say good-bye to friends and family. "Yes, it's crazy globally and crazy in our little world, getting everything done," Joel acknowledged, sitting on a folding chair among the open suitcases and sprawl of unpacked items. After the war in the north began, people started asking them whether they still planned to move to Israel. "With what's going on now, we're being made out to be some sort of heroes," Joel said. "But this is Israel, and if you think of yourself as Israeli, you realize there's really not a choice. We've mentally, psychologically, emotionally made the commitment to be part of the people of Israel in the Land of Israel, and unfortunately, this [war] is part of the reality." When he received an email from Nefesh B'Nefesh this week confirming that the flight was still on, he sent a one-word reply: "Good." Moving to Israel is something Joel and Debbie have talked about for years. "It was really part of our dialogue ever since courtship," Joel said, adding that Debbie was more of the driving force behind their decision to finally come. Joel, 37, and Debbie, 36, met during their student days at Columbia University. After marrying, they lived for several years in Riverdale, New York before settling in Joel's hometown of Sharon, a wooded community of some 18,000 people about 22 miles southwest of Boston. Sharon is known for its strong Jewish presence. According to the web site of the local Catholic church, the town's population is 75 percent Jewish. Joel was not sure of the exact numbers, but recited a list of the local Jewish congregations: three Orthodox, two Conservative, one Reform and one Reconstructionist. For a committed Jew, the town is about the best place one can imagine in the Diaspora, Joel said. He made it clear that the family's decision to relocate to Modi'in was not because they were unhappy in Sharon. "It's an amazing community. We enjoyed a wonderful suburban lifestyle, with three kids and a dog, a wonderful house [about 2,400 square feet], a two-car garage, eight-tenths of an acre, and it's close to my parents." Debbie, originally from Los Angeles, has also come to love New England and said that she will especially miss the fall, when the leaves change colors and the family goes apple picking. Israel may lack this verdant charm, but it offers a different kind of beauty, she explained. More importantly, the Israeli landscape is imbued with a deeper sense of purpose for her: "You sense not only the physical history of the land, but also the history of all the people who have died to protect it and worked so hard to build up this incredible gift for the Jewish people, and I feel like I have to accept it if I'm able to do that." American history fails to engage Debbie in the same personal and profound way. "I don't feel that same connection, and it's ironic, because I'm a seventh-generation American and that's pretty rare." Joel and Debbie hope their children - Noam (7), Meirav (5) and Liron (four months) will develop the same type of ties toward Israel. "We're hoping that they'll look to Israeli soldiers as heroes rather than the commercial superheroes and princesses that seem to dominate American children's media," Debbie said. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Wedding under fire: By Miri Chason -- YNet News -- July 20, 2006 Maya and Shlomi Buskila refused to let Nasrallah ruin their big day. Thursday afternoon, they were married in a shelter in Kiryat Shmona. Mazel Tov!!!! Everyone knows the sad and scary stories of the past few days in the north. This Thursday, in Kiryat Shmona, a different type of story broke the trend for a few hours. July is usually known as the 'wedding month', but 2006 has seen a number of cancellations due to the security situation. Maya and Shlomi decided that, despite the rockets, this would not be the case with them. The couple replaced their intended 900-person convention center with the Matmid school bomb shelter in their home town of Kiryat Shmona. "We'll be celebrating the wedding night in a shelter as well," said the brand-new groom. Despite the happy ending, the journey to get there was rough. Maya's sister, Shilat Lugasi, said that only days before the event, the mikveh ceremony was accompanied by sounds of gunfire. "When we arrived at the mikveh, we wanted to cheer the bride, but just as she was about to be dipped in the water, a fire exchange began in Metulla and three- fourths of the girls ran away. It was very scary," she said. The escalation on the northern border took its toll on the bride, as she saw how the wedding she'd dreamed of for years was slowly falling apart. Her father, Albert, elaborated: "They were in a very bad mood. In one moment, everything was ruined for them. They'd saved up every penny they earned in order to have this wedding and nothing was going according to plan. They already put down a fifty percent down payment on everything but it's unclear what will happen with the money now. I hope that they'll be able to survive it." When Maya got out of her car in her wedding dress, she was shocked by the many cameras that greeted her. Instead of guests, she was surrounded by news crews, all asking to document the triumph of the human interest in a time of turmoil. The ice slowly melted and, by the time the cup was broken, the young couple started to smile. During the entire ceremony, many explosions were heard, but the guests hurried to comfort one another: "that's us firing, not them." The DJ added to the atmosphere and asked guests to "dance and be happy, so that Nasrallah would hear them rejoicing." "At first I was very stressed out, but now everything is good," said the young bride. "The most important thing is that we're together as man and wife. Nothing else matters to me," added her husband. See the VIDEO: http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3279150,00.html ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ [As promised above, this FAQ from the Israeli Government.....] Behind the Headlines: Israel's counter terrorist campaign Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs -- 18 Jul 2006 Frequently asked questions:<> 1. Why is Israel conducting military operations against Lebanon? Israel has suffered an unprovoked cross-border attack from Lebanese territory. The attack was carried out by the Hizbullah, which is a party to the Government of Lebanon. The attack was carried out against Israelis citizens - civilians and soldiers - while on sovereign Israeli soil. In these circumstances, Israel has no alternative but to defend itself and its citizens. For this reason, Israel is now reacting to an act of war by a neighboring sovereign state. The purpose of the Israeli operation is two-fold - to free its abducted soldiers, and to remove the terrorist threat from its northern border. Israel views Lebanon as responsible for the present situation, and it shall bear the consequences. 2. Is Israel using disproportionate force? Proportionality must be measured in terms of the extent of the threat. Israel's actions result not just from Hizbullah's unprovoked attack against Israel and the abduction of two soldiers. Israel's military operation is also being carried out against the real and tangible Hizbullah threat against more than a million civilians, throughout northern Israel. The Hizbullah - a terrorist organization dedicated to Israel's destruction which controls southern Lebanon - has over twelve thousand missiles targeted against Israel and has launched hundreds of them in the past few days. The massive use by Hizbullah of these missiles, causing numerous civilian deaths, hundreds of casualties and widespread destruction, makes Israel's actions necessary. One should ask, "What would other states do when confronted with a threat of this magnitude?" 3. Why does Israel bomb civilian buildings and infrastructure? The Hizbullah is carrying out indiscriminate missile attacks against Israeli population centers. Fifteen Israeli civilians - Jews as well as Arabs - have been killed, including three young children. Attacks have been carried out against large cities such as Haifa, small farms such as Meron and religious sites such as Safed and Nazareth. Israel only targets facilities which directly serve the terrorist organizations in their attacks against Israel. For example, Israel targeted the Beirut International Airport and the Beirut-Damascus Highway because they serve Hizbullah to re-supply itself with weapons and ammunition. Israel has also targeted buildings, such as the Hizbullah Television studios, which act as a vital means of communication for terrorist operatives. Unfortunately, the terrorists have purposely hidden themselves and stockpiled their missiles in residential areas, thus endangering the surrounding populations. Indeed, many of the missiles recently fired at Israel were stored and launched from private homes, commandeered by Hizbullah terrorists wishing to shield their actions behind civilians in order to thwart Israel's response. Despite this cruel exploitation of civilians, Israel is taking extreme care to reduce to a minimum the risk to which the population is exposed - often at the cost of operational advantages. For example, leaflets are dropped urging residents to avoid certain Hizbullah installations, even though such prior warning reduces Israel's element of surprise. 4. Isn't Israel concerned about the mounting number of civilian casualties? Israel regrets the loss of innocent lives. Israel does not target civilians, yet is forced to take decisive action against Hizbullah, a ruthless terrorist organization which has over 12,000 missiles pointing towards its cities. Israel, like any other country, must protect its citizens, and has no choice but to remove this grave threat to the lives of millions of innocent civilians. Had Hizbullah not established such a missile force, Israel would have no need to take action, and had Hizbullah chosen to set up its arsenal away from populated areas, no civilians would have been hurt when Israel does what it obviously must do. The responsibility for the tragic situation lies solely with the Hizbullah. 5. What is Israel doing to help the foreign nationals stranded in Lebanon? Israel has expressed its profound sorrow and regret at the deaths of any foreign nationals in Lebanon who are uninvolved in the violence. Israel is doing everything it can to coordinate, through discreet channels, the evacuation of all foreign nationals who wish to leave Lebanon. 6. Why didn't Israel show restraint and use diplomacy before resorting to force? Israel has shown restraint for over six years. In May 2000 Israel took the politically difficult decision to fully withdraw from southern Lebanon, having been compelled a few years earlier to establish a security zone there in order to prevent terrorist attacks and rocket shelling into Israeli towns. The UN Security Council acknowledged Israel's complete withdrawal from southern Lebanon in full compliance with Resolution 425. The Lebanese government was given an opportunity to take full control of the south and establish a peaceful border with Israel. Instead, it chose to succumb to terror rather than vanquish it, and allowed the Hizbullah to occupy the areas adjacent to the border and to accumulate a vast arsenal of rockets and missles. Israel repeatedly sounded warnings, and called upon the international community to urge Lebanon to reign in the Hizbullah, remove its gunmen from their border positions and dismantle their growing stockpile of missiles. Sadly, Lebanon did not heed the demands of the international community to exercise its sovereignty and disarm Hizbullah, and today, the Lebanese people must unfortunately bear the consequences of their government's inaction. 7. How does Israel expect the government of Lebanon to take action after having demonstrated years of inaction and ineffectiveness? The recent reduction of the Syrian military presence in Lebanon has allowed Beirut more freedom of action in order to promote Lebanese interests, yet no action whatsoever has yet been taken against the Hizbullah. The government of Lebanon bears responsibility for the Hizbullah threat. It provided the Hizbullah with official legitimacy and allowed its armed operations to proceed unhindered. Hizbullah would never have obtained the missiles and military equipment at its disposal had the Lebanese government not allowed this weaponry to reach Lebanon. Hizbullah's threat along Israel's border would not have been possible were it not for the failure of the Lebanese government to deploy its forces in southern Lebanon. It is the responsibility of the government of Lebanon to fulfill its obligation as a sovereign state to extend its control over its own territory, as called for by Security Council resolutions 425 and 1559. Through its operation, Israel expects both to pressure the Beirut government to take action, and to facilitate this action by providing the international encouragement and the operational conditions favorable to the disarming of Hizbullah and the effective deployment of the Lebanese army southward to the Israel-Lebanon border. 8. Why does Israel say that Syria and Iran are involved in the Hamas and Hizbullah terrorism? Syria hosts in its capital, Damascus, the headquarters of a number of Palestinian Jihadist terrorist groups, including Hamas. They provide shelter and logistical support for Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal, who has been living there for a number of years. From Damascus, Mashaal commands terrorists within the Palestinian territories who carry out ongoing attacks against Israel and its citizens, including the bombardment of southern Israel with Kassam missiles and the recent terrorist infiltration and abduction of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit. Syria also provides support to the Hizbullah, including the transfer of arms, munitions and operatives through the Damascus airport and border crossings into Lebanon. The Hizbullah would not be able to operate in Lebanon without clear Syrian sponsorship. Iran is the main benefactor of the Hizbullah. It provides funding, weapons, directives and even Iranian cadre (the "Pazdaran" Revolutionary Guards) for this terrorist organization. The long-range missiles which hit the Israeli cities of Haifa and Karmiel (13 July) were manufactured by Iran, as was the guided missile fired against an Israeli missile boat off the Lebanese coast. For all practical purposes, Hizbullah is merely an arm of the Teheran Jihadist regime. Iran has also made considerable inroads of influence into Palestinian terrorist organization, including Fatah's al-Aqsa Brigade and Hamas' Iz a-Din al-Kassam group. It provides their terror cells with funding, technical instruction and operational directives. 9. What motivates Hamas and Hizbullah, and why does Syria and Iran support them? Hamas and Hizbullah are driven by an extremist Jihadist ideology which calls for the immediate destruction of the State of Israel - as part of an international effort to wage "Holy War" against the "infidel" Western world in order that their radical brand of Islam prevail throughout the globe. Syria and Iran support these groups, not only because they support their ideology, but also because they provide Damascus and Teheran with a tool to strengthen the influence of their own regimes and to divert attention from other issues which have exposed them lately to international pressure. Syria is facing rising criticism over its involvement in the murder of ex-Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri and its interference in Lebanese affairs. Iran is exposed to widening pressure over its nuclear development program. In addition, the international community is denouncing both regimes for their dismal human rights record. Consequently, Israel views Hamas, Hizbullah, Syria and Iran as primary elements in the Jihad/Terror Axis threatening not only Israel but the entire Western world. 10. How will Israel respond to the bombardment of Haifa? The hundreds of ongoing rocket attacks from Lebanon by Hizbullah against Haifa and Israel's north, in which twelve civilians have been killed and scores wounded, should dispel once and for all any popular myth depicting Hizbullah as an ill-equipped guerrilla force. As the proxy of Iran created in the 1980s to carry out that country's hostile acts toward Israel - in disregard and violation of Lebanese sovereignty - Hizbullah has received massive shipments of state-of-the-art weaponry from Teheran's arsenal, transshipped through Syria. A senior Iranian army officer stated Sunday to the Arabic-language newspaper al-Sharq al-Awsat that the Islamic Republic's Revolutionary Guard set up dozens of advanced rocket and missile bases in the Lebanon Valley and along the border with Israel. Between 1992 and 2005 Hizbullah received some 11,500 short to medium range missiles and rockets. The official also said Hizbullah is in possession of four types of advanced ground-to-ground missiles: Fajr missiles with a range of 100 kilometers, Iran 130 missiles with a range of 90-110 kilometers, Shahin missiles with a range of up to 150 kilometers and a 355 millimeter rockets with a 150 kilometer range. On Friday night, July 14, Hizbullah demonstrated a previously unknown capability when it fired a sophisticated, Iranian-made, radar-guided ship-to-shore missile at an Israel Navy missile corvette, the INS Hanit, killing four sailors. In the face of this grave Hizbullah aggression, Israel will do whatever is necessary to remove the terrorist threat from its population centers, as would any other state in a similar situation. 11. How will Israel pressure Syria and Iran? There is a widening consensus in the international arena that Jihadist terror is a global menace which must be confronted with determination and resolve. Israel has been in intensive contact with foreign governments and world organizations, in order to coordination pressure on these regimes, ensuring they understand that the price that they'll pay internationally for their support of terrorism will be unbearably high. 12. If Syria and Iran are behind the terrorism, why is Israel attacking Lebanon? Israel is not attacking the government of Lebanon, but rather, Hizbullah military assets within Lebanon. Israel has avoided striking at Lebanese military installations, unless these have been used to assist the Hizbullah, as were a number of radar facilities which Israel destroyed after they helped the terrorists fire a shore-to-ship missile at an Israeli corvette. With regard to Syria and Iran, Israel has no desire to escalate the military action beyond the present theaters of operation in Lebanon and Gaza. Israel feels that the involvement of Syria and Iran is best addressed, at present, through coordinated diplomatic pressure. 13. It appears that Israel faces a two-front conflict. Are they the two fronts in fact connected? Hizbullah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah, in his press conference after the 12 July attack, presented his list of ransom demands for the release of the abducted Israeli soldiers. It included a demand for the release of Hamas terrorist inmates as well as members of Hizbullah. This is indicative of the fact that the level of coordination of these two Jihadist terror groups is not just ideological but operational as well. 14. Israel has stated that is won't negotiate with Hamas, but what about Hizbullah? Following the 12 July attack from Lebanon, Prime Minister Olmert stated that "Israel will not give in to extortion and will not negotiate with terrorists regarding the lives of Israel soldiers." 15. What are the diplomatic avenues available to end this crisis? Regarding Lebanon, Israel understands that although military operations are now necessary to defend its citizens by neutralizing the threat posed by Hizbullah's terrorist infrastructure, the eventual solution is indeed diplomatic. On this level, there is no substantive difference whatsoever between the Israeli position and that of the international community. The components of such a solution are as follows:
On the Palestinian front, Israel will conduct continuous counter-terrorist operations until Hamas terrorism ceases, the hostage Gilad Shalit is returned home safely and the shooting of Qassam missiles against Israeli cities bordering Gaza stops. There will be no negotiations on a release of prisoners. 16. What is Israel's view of the 16 July G-8 statement on the situation? Israel welcomes the recognition of the G-8 nations that Hizbullah and Hamas are responsible for initiating the current violence by their unprovoked attacks on Israel's civilians and abductions of Israeli soldiers within Israel's sovereign borders. The G-8 statement attests to the fact that Israel and the international community share common values and are facing a common problem - the grave threat posed by extreme Jihadist terrorist organizations, such as Hizbullah and Hamas. Like the G-8, Israel believes that the way to a solution lies with the release of the abducted soldiers, the cessation of rocket fire on Israel, and Lebanon's full implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 1559 requiring the disarming of Hizbullah. 17. Does Israel support the initiative to establish an international peace-keeping force? Israel will support all international efforts meant to promote the return of the abducted soldiers and the full implementation of UN Security Council 1559, which calls for Lebanon to extend its sovereignty over all its territory, deploy the Lebanese army southward to the border, and disarm Hizbullah. 18. How long will the Israeli operation last? The international community understands that in order for the objectives to be achieved, the operation cannot be halted before the implementation of the G-8 decision. While diplomatic negotiations will be necessary in order to facilitate implementation, the start of negotiations in itself will not halt the operations. This will only occur after the return of the abducted soldiers and the removal of the missile threat against Israel. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ [As the bombs fall, we wonder about tomorrow.....
I have just read & signed the petition: "Re-Affirm America's Support for Israel"!!!! Please help by signing this petition!!!! It takes 30 seconds & will really help.....please follow this link: http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/467856070 Thank you!!!! BTW: You can view this petition & my signature here, as well!!!! Remember what Martin Luther King, Jr. said: "The time is always right to do what is right"] Sandy Rosen-Hazen lives in Safed. Contact her at Sandy@israel.net |
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BENJY HILLMAN, Z"TL. HERO OF ISRAEL
Posted by Judy Lash Balint, July 21, 2006. |
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Five Israeli soldiers were buried today. Among them was Benjy Hillman, 27, z"tl, the son of one of my oldest friends. Benjy was a commander in the elite Egoz unit, who was killed fighting Hezbollah terrorists in southern Lebanon last night. Just three weeks ago, 600 of us celebrated as Benjy and his long-time girlfriend, Ayala Berger, finally got married after going together for many years. The pure joy of the two families who had become good friends over the long on-off courtship, was palpable. Ayala, accompanied by her happy parents and radiant in her beautiful wedding dress, walked down the path toward Benjy, who waited for her under the chupa with his trademark shy smile. Today, in the military cemetery of his home town of Raanana, Ayala walked toward Benjy again. This time, however, she was supported by Benjy's younger brother Shimon and her father, her young face contorted in pain and grief. Instead of approaching the chupa, as she did three short weeks ago, she drew close to the simple wooden coffin draped with an Israeli flag that held the remains of her new husband. Benjy and Ayala's story is a story of the ingathering of the exiles. Ayala's family immigrated from Argentina around the same time as the Hillmans made aliya from England, when Benjy was four years old. Benjy's mother, Judy, and I were best friends from the time we met when we were 11 years old. We were part of a small group of girls who sat in Kingsbury shul together during the late 1960s, giggling over the boys, or complaining about our old-fashioned parents. We went to the same youth movement events and parties, and shared the agonies of teenage dating. We spent countless sleepovers in each other's homes, talking most of the night as we dreamed of our futures. Even though we belonged to a religious Zionist youth movement, I honestly don't remember if we ever seriously discussed living in Israel. Those decisions came later. At Benjy's wedding a few weeks ago, we huddled with Michelle, a third member of our Kingsbury group, and marveled at the fact that here we all were, almost 40 years later, with all of our kids (except for one of mine) here in Israel, celebrating each other's simchas. We danced like mad at the joy of our continuing connection.Today, just before the funeral, we all fell upon each other in grief, as we tried to assimilate the grim reality. Thousands turned out to escort Benjy on his last journey. His coffin arrived at the cemetery in an olive green army vehicle. An honor guard of soldiers from his beloved Egoz brigade led the way to his grave as hundreds of his friends hugged each other and wiped their eyes. The eulogies were exquisitely painful. Each one reflected on Benjy's modest but strong character and his strong Zionist convictions. Judy winced as one of the rabbis read a paragraph of a letter Benjy had written four years ago to the parents of his friend, Ari Weiss, z"tl, who was killed fighting terrorists. Benjy wrote that Ari had died as a hero and would always be remembered that way. Benjy's father, Danny, thanked Benjy for bringing so much honor to the family. Benjy's best friend told Ayala and the Hillmans that he and his friends would make sure they would never be alone, and an Egoz commander told them that they would always be part of the Egoz family. During the hour-long funeral service, the honor guard stood motionless at attention in the mid-day sun. Every ten minutes or so, their commander came up behind each one of them with a squeeze of the shoulder, a whispered word of concern, offering a bottle of water. It took hours for the huge crowd to pass in front of Benjy's grave and offer their condolences to Benjy's family. As we enter this Shabbat, the second of the war, think of Benjy and Ayala when you sing the "Bo-ee Kallah" verse of the Lecha Dodi prayer that welcomes the Shabbat bride. And keep in mind all our soldiers who are on the front lines of the fight against terror as they defend the people of Israel. Shabbat Shalom from Jerusalem Judy Lash Balint is an award-winner investigative journalist and author of "Jerusalem Diaries: In Tense Times" (Gefen). It is available for purchase from www.israelbooks.com |
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BOMB SHELTER IS HIVE OF ACTIVITY AS MA'ALOT-TARSHIHA COPES WITH WAR
Posted by Daily Alert, July 21, 2006. |
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This was written by Dan Izenberg and it appeared in today's Jerusalem Post (www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1153291962114&pagename= JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull). See also: "Canadians Donate Air Conditioners to Shelters" by Haviv Rettig
and "Israelis Offer a Helping Hand" by Ruth Eglash
and "Arab and Jewish Children Share a Haifa Bomb Shelter" by David
Parsons |
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Shlomo Buhbut, the mayor of Ma'alot-Tarshiha, is already looking beyond the current fighting in northern Israel to the day after the guns go silent. Meanwhile, he and his council have been preparing for the current emergency for so long, that they seem to know what to do almost by rote. On Wednesday, the morning after the town was hit by three Katyusha rockets, town employees were out mowing the beautifully maintained lawns and palm-lined boulevard leading into the town. The town hall is closed to the public except for the welfare department, which is open to deal with the special problems that the emergency situation has created for the elderly and other residents who find it difficult to fend for themselves. But the most intensive activity takes place in the building's bomb shelter, where the mayor has set up his quarters along with the security staff that is responsible for handling the emergency. Altogether, about 150 people are involved in looking after the needs of the population during these times. Ma'alot-Tarshiha has a population of 23,000, including 4,000 Arabs. Unlike most of the Jewish communities in the North, almost no one has left town so far, including the children. "The people here are experienced in war," said Buhbut's spokeswoman, Isfahan Bahaloul. "It is not part of their experience to run away. There is solidarity here. It's a small community and the families are very tied to the place." In fact, only now, a week after the fighting started, have town authorities developed an initiative to send the children out of town for a few days for rest and recuperation. Buhbut pointed to a computer screen which contained data on each of the bomb shelters in the town: 78 public shelters, and 110 private shelters located in residential buildings. Town authorities know what is happening at all times in each one. The town is divided into quarters and a local authority employee is responsible for each one. These days, their main job is to make sure the shelters are in order at all times. For the moment, the shelters are the main point of reference. Women soldiers have been assigned to each one to keep the children busy. The town received a shipment of toys from businessman Nohi Dankner and distributed them to the shelters. Tnuva has supplied the town with milk and chocolate drinks, which are also delivered straight to the shelters. Buhbut said he was also buoyed by the support that northern residents are receiving from Israelis in Tel Aviv and other parts of the country which have not directly suffered from the fighting. "We know that even when Tel Avivians sip coffee in their coffee shops, they are thinking of us," he said. Buhbut may be satisfied with the state of affairs in Ma'alot-Tarshiha for the time being, but he is already in a fighting mood regarding the future. Government ministers and senior officials had come to Ma'alot-Tarshiha, asked what they can to do help and made promises, he said. But he added that he did not intend to sit by and wait for the promises to be fulfilled. "We in the north are like a bereaved family," said Bahaloul. "Right now, everyone comes to visit us and tell us how much they love us. But afterwards, we are all alone again." One of the first things that Buhbut did after the fighting started was to resurrect the Forum of Communities of the Confrontation Line. The forum is composed of 12 Jewish, Arab and Druse local authorities and several regional councils. They include Kiryat Shmona, Nahariya, Ma'alot-Tarshiha, Khorfeish, Kfar Vradim, Me'ilya, Mizra, Fassuta, Shlomi, Metulla, Gush Halav (Jish), and Peki'in and the regional councils of Merom Hagalil, Mevo'ot Hermon, Ma'aleh Yosef, Mate Asher and Galil Elyon. In the days before the "false peace" that began with the withdrawal of IDF forces from southern Lebanon in 2000, the forum received special benefits including grants and city tax deductions to attract outside investors, special Interior Ministry grants, and income tax reductions. After the withdrawal, many of the benefits were withdrawn and the forum itself more or less disbanded. But the fighting has revived it with a vengeance, and Buhbut, who is its chairman, declares publicly that he intends to exploit the new situation for all its worth. The members of the forum convened in Nahariya earlier this week and issued a set of demands including that the government declare a state of emergency from the first day of the fighting, that the government establish a civilian staff headquarters in the Prime Minister's Office to cut through red tape and solve the communities' immediate problems (a step which has already been done), that the government set up summer camps for the children of the North so that they can get away from the tensions for a few days, and that the Interior Ministry provide funding to the local authorities for the special expenses incurred by the state of emergency. In the longer run, the forum is demanding that the benefits that were removed after 2000 be restored. One new problem that the forum faces is that Hizbullah has expanded the confrontation line far beyond the original range of 10 kilometers from the Lebanese border, thanks to its arsenal of Syrian and Iranian-supplied rockets and missiles. But this does not faze Buhbut. The problems of the small, northern settlements are not the same as those of larger cities such as Haifa, Tiberias and Karmiel, he argues. Haifa, for example, is in the center of the country and is wealthy and highly developed. The forum is meant to represent smaller and economically weaker communities close to the northern border. If anything, he said, he would add Safed, Rosh Pina, Hatzor and Yesod Hama'leh to the current forum list. The Daily Alert is published by the Jewish Center for Public Affairs for the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations. Contact them to subscribe at daily-alert@dailyalert.org |
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WHO VOTED AGAINST ISRAEL?
Posted by Nurit Greenger, July 21, 2006. |
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Next time when you go to the polls, remember who voted against the resolutions overwhelmingly favoring and supporting Israel. All Members who are NOT listed below voted in favor of the bill. Eight (8) Members of Congress Voted AGAINST H.R. 921 California: Peter Stark Hawaii : Abercrombie Michigan: Conyers, Dingell, Kilpatrick Texas : Paul Washington: McDermott West, Virginia: Rahall Four (4) Members of Congress Voted "Present"
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Ten (10) Members of Congress Did Not Vote California: Loretta Sanchez Florida : Davis Georgia : McKinney, Westmoreland Illinois : Evans Iowa : Nussle Kentucky : Northup Nebraska : Fortenberry Tennessee : Duncan Contact Nurit Greenger at 4nuritg@gmail.com |
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HESDER SOLDIERS WIN SMALL VICTORY
Posted by Hillel Fendel, July 21, 2006. |
Hagit Rotenberg, writing for B'Sheva, reports that the issue revolved around a training course for combat medics, for which 20 hesder students signed up. The soldiers, whose commitment to Torah values mandates practical fulfillment of the Biblical commandment to "keep your camp holy," noted several problems from the outset: The course was headed by a female officer who walked amongst them during training when they were partially dressed; the meals were served in mixed-gender; and the daily line-ups were held directly opposite the women's residences. Some yeshiva soldiers resigned from the course from the outset, against their original plans and ambitions. Others refused to leave, but demanded a female-free course. The soldiers were backed up by the Union of Hesder Yeshivot, which similarly demanded a solution to all the problems, threatening that all the hesder-niks would leave if not. Union director Eitan Ozeri told Rotenberg, "The army first tried to solve the problems 'from within,' but when they saw that that didn't work, they decided to include the yeshiva soldiers in a new course that will begin next week and which will not have these problems." Ozeri's conclusion: "When we stand united in our demands, we succeed
in receiving what we want from the army."
Hillel Fendel is senior news editor at Arutz-Shevah (www.IsraelNN.com).
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ALIBHAI-BROWN AND OTHER RABIDLY ANTI-ZIONISTS
Posted by Ricky Lomey, July 21, 2006. |
| This was written by Zvi Aaron of Johannesburg. |
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I would like to thank YASMIN ALIBHAI-BROWN for her attempt to divide Jews who live outside of Israel from our brothers and sisters in the State of Israel. She does this by lauding the self-hating Jews in the diaspora who spew such venom against Israel and her people, while supporting terror attacks against Israel's men, women and children. YASMIN ALIBHAI-BROWN claims that "hardened Zionists are unmoved by photos of dead infants in Beirut, tearful young evacuees fleeing that wonderful city because "they" don`t feel pain and death like the rest of us. " Rabid anti-Zionists, including the anti-Zionist Jews who Alibahi-Brown praises so, are completely unmoved by the mass murder of Jewish women and children in Israel by Arab racists, who want a Judenreihn Palestine, just like the Nazis wanted a Judenreihn Europe. The rabidly anti-Zionist far-left ignores Israeli/Jewish suffering, and feels nothing for the thousands of Jews in Israel, mainly women and children, who have been massacred, by bomb, rocket, bullet and knife in the war of genocide against the Israeli people, known as the Intifada. No feeling for the pregnant Jewish mother and her four terrified small daughters, executed one by one by Arafatian goons at Gaza. No feeling for the five-year-old girl, Danielle Shefi, who was shot to death at point blank range by an Arab killer, while cowering under her parents' bed. No feeling for the countless Jewish children murdered in the last six years of the so-called intifada and the last 80 years in Arab pogroms against Jews in the Land of Israel. The meaning of Israel is clear. The Jew has experienced too much death, and a portion of the Jewish people decided that they would die quietly no more. So it is: and no argument, no clever political talk, no logic and no parading of right and wrong can change this fact. The Jews returned to Israel because it was their ancient land. From 1810 onwards Jews in the Land of Israel have been murdered by Arabs. The pious Jews of Safed, who would raise no hand in their own defence, had been robbed and murdered and burned out again and again by Arabs-as the Jews in Jerusalem and Tiberias had been robbed and slain and burned out. Bedouin Arabs passed through Israel at will-and robbed and killed Jews as a profitable thing. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Arab feudal lords in Israel organized pogroms precisely as the Czar had organized pogroms. The Land of Israel was a blighted and empty land until the Zionist Movement returned it to life. In 1920, Jews where masscared in Jersualem and in 1921 in Jaffa. In 1929 the entire ages old Jewish community of Hebron was massacred and from 1936 to 1939, inspired and supported by Hitler's Nazi regime in Germany, pogroms spread across the Land of Israel, taking thousands of Jewish lives. Of the population of the Arab states, more than a quarter are probabely made up of non-Arab minorities such as the Kurds, the Nilotic Black peoples of South Sudan, the Berbers of Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco, the Druze of Syria, the Christian Copts of Egypt, and the Maronites of Lebanon. These minorities face discrimination, and in some cases, such as the South Sudanese and the Lebanese Maronites, have been subjected to horrific genocide by Moslem Arabs. Why is it so unjust that a small section of the vast Arab population - those who call themselves 'Palestinians'- should live as a minority in Israel? With regard to the ridiculous charge that Israel is a racist state, Israel is truly a nation of color. It has one of the most diverse populations in the world, including black Africans from Ethiopia, brown Africans and Asians from North Africa, Yemen, Egypt, Iraq and Morocco;Jews from Central Asia, Russia and the Caucuses; and families from Romania, Latin America and the former Yugoslavia. If the Arabs and Moslems, and their international leftwing fellow travellers would accept Israel's right to exist in peace and security, and stop then there would be no war and no suffering on either side. Israel's retaliation aginst Hamas and Hizbullah took place after months of shelling rockets into Israel, from Gaza and Lebanon, since the Israeli withdrawals. Zvi Aaron
Contact Lomey Ricky at rickyl@iafrica.com |
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BREAKING THE SILENCE
Posted by Ellen W. Horowitz, July 21, 2006. |
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"I offer thanks to You, living and eternal King, for You have mercifully restored my soul within me; with compassion abundant is Your faithfulness" -- (the prayer recited upon opening one's eyes in the morning). |
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I haven't written since last spring. Things seemed to get a little redundant. I mean how many times and in how many ways can one utter the same warnings to a public already over-saturated with a deluge of information, and downright fatigued by a torrent of earthshaking events? I felt that too few of us had the time to read the full story and thoughtfully reflect on the issues and their implications, and too many of us were simply not equipped to rise to the challenge of seriously questioning the information being thrown at us by our leaders and by the mainstream media. The challenge for me was to find another creative way to get a rather dumbed-down and tired public to wake-up, think, and feel again. And so I literally returned to the drawing board and began caricaturing again - with the hope that a few basic, simple black and white lines would help to clarify some rather complex issues and expose some very basic truths (and maybe get a laugh in there somewhere, too). But things just aren't that funny right now, and I feel the need to write again. So let's make a deal. I won't say I told you so and harp too long on the disasters of the Oslo Accords, the withdrawal from Lebanon and the Disengagement plan; if you promise not to tell me that you didn't know or that you didnt see it coming. And please dont tell me that I was right, because you have no idea how much I, and others like me, wanted to be wrong. For more than a week I've been listening to the sounds of rockets exploding in the distance, and praying that they stay distant. I utter my morning prayer with a newfound gratitude and I thank G-d for allowing my family to sleep soundly through another night. My eldest son is with his unit on the Northern border - a unit which has suffered casualties. He has less than a year left of service in the IDF, and I pray that G-d will let him return whole, safe, and well so that he can stand in full strength under the chupah next month. And I pray that all of his very strong and determined comrades and friends will be in full attendance at that simcha. I fluctuate between moments of acute anxiety and remarkable tranquility - which reflect the very psalms which I occasionally pick up to read throughout the day. I suppose that's how prayer works. Its the tears and distress which arouse the prayers which ultimately lead to comfort (and redemption). I think about all the tears which fell a year ago and the profundity of that weeping. You see, it wasn't about homes and hothouses in Gush Katif. It was about a terrible and impossible choice that had to be made. A choice between fighting our brothers and their deluded plans, and risking a possible civil war; or "cooperating" with the authorities - with the full knowledge of the disastrous security scenario which awaited all of us. There's a terrible cost which comes with a lack of foresight and lack of accountabity on the part of leaders, but the public pays an equally steep price for being passive, uncaring and unaware. I'm not looking for mass spiritual teshuva from our leaders, but I will settle for some thoughtful penitence on an intellectual level. Maybe some of the experts in their ivory towers will have enough of an inkling of doubt and fear in their guts as to give rise to the questions: What have we done? and What didn't we do? I would hope that at a time like this, every Jew could take the time required to look to the heavens, as well as to do an obligatory search and realignment of their hearts and heads. Lo and behold, based on recent Knesset speeches and military briefings, it does appear that the word G-d and words of scripture are emanating from our leader's lips - whether they be on the ground, in the air, or at sea. I guess it's true that there are no atheists in foxholes, in bomb shelters, on the heights, in the valleys, on the coastline, or in the Knesset at this time. I hope that counts for something. With hopes and prayers for a peaceful and comforting Shabbat for all of Am Yisrael. May our sons, husbands and fathers be granted strength and success in the field. Ellen W. Horowitz is the author of the The Oslo Years: a mother's journal. The book is available through retailers listed at http://osloyears.com/retail.htm Contact her at ellenwrite@bezeqint.net |
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HEZBOLLAH AND MAIN STREET
Posted by Mrla 26, July 21, 2006. |
| This article was written by Diana West. |
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A thought-provoking sideshow to Israel's war on Hezbollah -- and what a precious gift Israel would bestow on the Free World by destroying the Hezbollah mini-state -- is the effort to extract "foreign nationals" from Lebanon, some of whom have had their summer vacations in Hezbollah strongholds interrupted by war. Who are these people now clamoring by the thousands for international rescue? Press reports label many of them "dual nationals." Some, despite their British, Swiss, American or French passports, make Lebanon their home. I was quite startled to hear, in an online audio report posted by the Daily Telegraph, that British passport-holders evacuated to Cyprus were undergoing "Home Office screening" to determine whether they "might constitute a threat." The report reasoned that this made sense "because obviously we're talking about a large number of people who have lived in the Middle East most of their lives." This presents a bizarre spectacle: Britain's navy re-patriating what you might call extreme expatriates who potentially pose a "threat" to Britain as a partner in the so-called war on terror. This makes the following headline from the Guardian all the more inapt: "Britain's biggest sea evacuation since Dunkirk." As I recall, none of the 300,000 Dunkirk evacuees required a security screening before returning home. In this wide-open question of loyalties we may see the expanding emptiness of the modern nation-state, where basic identification with the nation itself is no longer at the core of citizenship. And that includes the United States, where, for example, a good stretch of Main Street follows the Israeli war on Hezbollah via Al Jazeera -- at least Main Street in Dearborn, Mich., which writer Debbie Schlussel has described as "the heart of Islamic America, and especially Shia Islam America." As the New York Times reported from Dearborn, "For miles along West Warren -- in hair salons, restaurants and meat markets -- shopkeepers and their relatively few customers stared at televisions tuned in to Al Jazeera." Incidentally, there were "relatively few" customers out and about only because, as one baker knew, "most of his regular customers were home watching [Al Jazeera], just as they had all day, every day," since Israel's offensive began. Why does this matter? Al Jazeera, of course, is the relentlessly anti-American, anti-Israeli, jihad-boosting "news" network. To find TVs in the heartland tuned in to this station today is roughly akin to coming across an American town, circa 1942, tuned in to Axis propagandists Tokyo Rose and Lord Haw Haw. But this isn't, as they say, your father's heartland. Hezbollah itself is popular in Dearborn, which can fill a banquet hall to celebrate "Lebanon Liberation Day" -- the day Hezbollah claims as victory when Israeli forces withdrew in 2000. Osama Siblani, the publisher of Dearborn's Arab American News, considers members of Hezbollah -- along with Hamas and other jihadist groups -- freedom fighters. And, as Mr. Siblani tells it to the Detroit News, he's not alone: "If morally supporting Hizbollah or associating with [Hezbollah spiritual leader Muhammad Hussein] Fadlallah is a crime, 'there is not going to be enough buses to haul the people out and take them to jail.'" Mr. Siblani was speaking before the Israeli offensive began. But not before the 1983 Hezbollah bombings in Beirut, Lebanon, which killed 241 U.S. servicemen, 63 U.S. Embassy personnel and 58 French paratroopers. And not before the 1984 Hezbollah torture-murder of CIA station chief William Buckley in Lebanon. And not before the 1985 Hezbollah hijacking of TWA Flight 847 and the torture-murder of Navy diver Robert Stethem. And not before the 1988 Hezbollah torture-murder of Lt. Col. William Higgins. And not before the Hezbollah bombings of the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires in 1992, killing 29; the Jewish Community Center in Buenos Aires in 1994, killing 96; or the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia in 1996, killing 19 U.S. servicemen. American sympathy for Hezbollah profanes the American dead. In our wide-open society, however, such allegiance isn't considered beyond the pale. But it should be. And it could be. I have long argued that the "war on terror" is an amorphous term -- sacrificing clarity for fuzzy political correctness. What if we, as a nation, belatedly declared war on specific jihadist groups -- al Qaeda and Hezbollah and other organizations dedicated to our destruction? This would have the tonic effect of clarifying not only our enemies' identity, but our own. We can't fight if we don't know who we're fighting. We can't win if we don't know who we are. Contact Mrla 26 at mrla26@aol.com |
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NY TIMES BIAS; LEBANON WAR NO SURPRISE; JOURNALISTS MISLEAD;
PA SPIN EXPOSED
Posted by Richard H. Shulman, July 21, 2006. |
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EXAMPLE OF NY TIMES BIAS
The Times seeks out tales of woe by Arabs suffering or allegedly suffering from Israeli attacks. It rarely features human interest stories about Israelis suffering from Arab attacks. July 7 and 10 had examples of this bias. Arabs are known to be unreliable and indoctrinated. How could they be expected to tell inconvenient truths in front of the Arab handler and cameraman, dependent upon totalitarian P.A. goodwill? Nevertheless, reporters seemed to accept interviewees' statements without verification. The Arabs accuse Israel of plotting control. One said that peace doesn't come from violence. But the Arab goal is violence, not peace. The journalist fails to show that. Leaving incorrect impressions unchallenged is deceptive. If done routinely, as the Times does, it is deceitful. There were no interviews of Israelis to refute those canards. Unless readers have independent sources and devote themselves to remembering and analyzing the situation, instead of relying upon the newspaper, they will be misled against Israel. Journalists' questions of Arabs venting emotion usually are not challenging. The best was asking one whether he understood that Israeli parents feel the same. (Why didn't the reporter interview some Israelis?) Yes, but he called the Arab fight self-defense. That is false. The IDF had pulled out of Gaza, but the Arabs continued fighting. That is not self-defense. The NY Times fails to indicate that. It is full of false impressions. SLIGHTING ISRAEL IN PASSING Youssif Ibrahim's NY Sun columns valiantly encourage the West against jihad and encourage the Arabs to end it. He hopes the US will let Israel defeat the jihadists threatening Israel and the US. In passing, however, he undermines Israel's reputation. That is because he apparently doesn't know enough about Israel. Example 1, on 6/30: "American has never failed to support Israel politically and militarily." Mr. Ibrahim looks old enough to remember the US halting Israeli military victories; insistence upon its absorbing the first blow instead of pre-empting it; breaking guarantees, arming Israel's Arab enemies; voting for some unfair UNO censure of Israel; insistence that Israel withdraw from a key part of its homeland, strategic depth, secure borders, and vital war supply; denouncing Israeli counter-attacks rather than Arab aggression; refusal to move the US Embassy to Jerusalem; US subsidy of subversive elements; interference in Israeli elections; and failure to acknowledge what Israel does for the US. One could write a book about US betrayal of Israel. Example 2: "We have rarely asked our Israeli friends to do us a favor." We could write another book about how Israel benefits the US. To name just a few examples, Israel provided air cover, intelligence, superior equipment, and improvements in US weaponry for US military operations. By destroying Sadam's first nuclear reactor, Israel saved innumerable US lives in Gulf War I. It informed the US about Soviet weapons. It spared a US invasion to save Jordan. It diverted Nasser from a drive towards Saudi oil fields. ISRAEL'S MEDIA EFFORT "July 6th 2006 IDF SPOKESPERSON ANNOUNCEMENT IDF aerial attack on a cell in the northern Gaza Strip Tonight, July 5 th 2006, the IDF carried out an aerial attack against a cell planting explosive devices." (IMRA, 6/6). What a bare bones announcement! It does not mention results. What good is it? Why does the IDF bother? Does the IDF or government think it is keeping people informed by such uninformative announcements? Does it think the people haven't learned yet that most of IDF attacks, though not this kind, bear no results, because they are on empty buildings and fields? SOVIET LEGACY The Soviets attempted to turn the Mideast states into satellites. The USSR armed the Arabs, nurtured terrorists, approved of many terrorist missions against Americans and Israelis, and planted many agents. It backed losers but succeeded in disseminating suspicion of the West and especially of Israel. The Soviets not only coveted regional influence, they hated Jews the same as insanely and wantonly as did the Czars (The World Was Going Our Way: The KGB and the Battle for the Third World by Christopher Andrew and Vasili Mitrokhin New York: Basic Books, 2005. 677 pp. $29.95, reviewed by Barry Rubin, MEF News, 7/11). AN ODD WAR Israel destroys infrastructure in Gaza that it thinks might be used for war, but ships in hundreds of tons of food and fuel, and offers to open more gates for produce. The P.A. refuses more gates, but complains that Israel blocks entry of food (IMRA, 7/12). The terrorists must share in the supplies. This is reminiscent of Saddam's selling the food purchased under the UNO's Oil-For-Food program, and then accusing the US of starving his country's children. The world believed him. ISRAELI LINE ON THE WAR The IDF tried for a second time to assassinate terrorist leader Mohammed Dief. He was wounded, but escaped with his life. IMRA believes that the problem is that Israel again used too light a bomb. It uses light bombs to minimize collateral casualties. It is afraid of international protest if the operation wounded many civilians. Nevertheless, the government boasts that it has a free hand in the war (IMRA, 7/12). I think that the international standards are ridiculous and perhaps are an excuse for anti-Semitism and anti-Americanism. LATCHING ON TO LABELS Neo-conservatives are blamed for problems in Iraq and many other foreign policy problems. After making war, the President disregarded their advice. Here is the record: 1. Neo-conservatives supported Chalabi to head the Iraq regime; the US defamed him (and got ineffective, corrupt, and pro-Islamist regimes). 2. Neo-conservatives wanted the provisional Iraqi regime to start right away; the US held onto power for a long time (and alienated Iraqis). 3. Neo-conservatives based military success on following up with Iran, Syria, and S. Arabia; Bush didn't. (Those countries supported insurgents. Our momentum ceased). 4. Neo-conservatives wanted the US to support regime-change in Iran via native democrats; the State Dept. didn't do it. (Now we are running out of time.) 5. Neo-conservatives wanted to help refugees escape from N. Korea, but Bush wastes time negotiating with that country. 6. Neo-conservatives wanted the US to work with non-Arafat Palestinian Arab leaders, but Bush supported Abbas, leading to Hamas and worse war. 7. Neo-conservatives proposed ignoring the UNO, but the US let itself get bogged down there (NY Sun, 7/11, Ed.). Bush ought to try neo-conservative foreign policy. His own policy is not working. The well-known neo-conservatives have left the Bush administration. That has not ended the popular misconception that they run it. Having identified his policies with them, people continue the convenient label and condemnation of his policies as neo-conservative. Antisemites continue that label, too, because since a few Jews were known as neo-conservatives, they pretend that the Jews control the movement and that they do so in behalf of the Jewish people, which they don't do. Funneling money to Abbas does not help the Jewish people or any other people. EUROPE'S REACTION TO ISRAELI INCURSION The EU complained that Israel uses disproportionate force. Israeli PM Olmert replied that P.A. rockets terrorize tens of thousands of Israelis. "When was the last time that the EU condemned this shooting and suggested effective measures to stop it?" "I can imagine that some of those countries that preach to us would have done a lot more, in a more brutal and vicious and cruel way against civilian populations, than what we did." Remarking about the P.A. and Israel, Steven Gutkin of Associated Press: "Neither expressed any willingness to compromise, boding poorly for a quick end to Israel's 12-day-old incursion into the Gaza strip that has killed nearly 60 Palestinian Arabs (NY Sun 7/11, p.7). Why should Israel compromise with kidnappers, thereby rewarding them? War is not won by compromise. ISRAEL SAYS IT WON'T, BUT IT DOES The government of Israel declared that it would not negotiate for the release of its soldier nor would it exchange prisoners for him. Officials added that they had intended to release prisoners anyway, and would do so after the captured soldier were released. But they would release them to moderates, so extremists could not take credit for securing the prisoner release. Isn't that negotiating a prisoner exchange? The notion that PLO terrorists are moderate, though they commit the same kinds of war crimes as Hamas, is a media-invented rationalization and face-saver for trucking with terrorists and for pretending one is not appeasement-minded. If terrorists are released to the PLO, Hamas would assert that its capture of an Israeli soldier got them released. Hamas would be right, just as they are about their having gotten the Israelis out of Gaza, just as Hizbullah got the Israelis out of southern Lebanon. Why should Israel release terrorists ever? Why shouldn't it execute all found guilty and who had resisted capture? Alternately, why not execute 100 per day, until the Israeli soldier were released? Doing so would save many Israeli lives that the release of prisoners costs. It would daunt terrorists, who are confident of eventual release. THE HOME FRONT An Israeli report referred to rockets falling on the "home front." In civilized society, home front meant industrial, agricultural, and propaganda efforts in behalf of a war effort, but not actual fighting. The Arabs have changed that. They conduct the bulk of their fighting from civilian areas against civilian areas. The supposedly civilized parts of the world should condemn the Arabs for that. It doesn't. The world condemns Israel for fighting too hard, though I condemn Israel for not fighting hard enough. The Europeans fail to condemn the Iraqi insurgents, but vent their spleen upon the US, which tries to spare civilians. Terrorists take advantaged of warped ethics to get their enemies' response inhibited. JOURNALISTIC ONE-SIDEDNESS John Stossel asserts that people own their own bodies, and should be free to sell their kidney (NY Sun, 7/13, Op.-Ed.) He did not explain why a law was passed to outlaw such sales. How is a reader to make up his Mind without seeing the other side? This one-sidedness by exclusion is common among commentators. The best commentators are the ones who put the opposing side fairly, before making their own case. NO SURPRISE THAT LEBANON FRONT ERUPTS It was foreseen and foretold that Iran would back up Hamas by having Hizbullah raid Israel. The government of Israel paid no heed. It let Hizbullah re-fortify the border posts that Israel had destroyed not long ago. A wiser government would have blasted the rebuilt forts when Hizbullah men reoccupied them. LACK OF ETHICS Most of the world, criticizes Israel for inflicting casualties upon Arab civilians during warfare. We've explained that: Israel is within its international rights, it takes too many risks in limiting those casualties. The terrorists commit the war crime by fighting among civilians. Arab civilians commit it by serving as human shields for terrorists. The rest of the world condones those Arab war crimes. It should tell them to stop complaining about Israeli-inflicted casualties upon civilians, when the terrorists jeopardize those civilians by hiding among them and the civilians jeopardize themselves by acting as shields. The rest of the world does not call the terrorists' courage into question over their hiding among civilians. This "rest of the world" includes Western democracies. What a lapse of ethics! LACK OF LOGIC (1) The Republican candidate for Attorney-General of New York, Jeanine Pirro, said that Israel has a right to secure borders. (2) About securing US borders, Sen. Vitter (GOP, Louisiana), said we should "focus on the true priority that we face in the war on terror.'" "Stripping small amounts of prescription drugs from the hands of seniors... that should not be a priority.'" (Lara Jakes Jordan, NY Sun, 7/12, p.4.) It is easy to make a pleasing statement about Israel's right to secure borders, when one doesn't define "secure borders." The US Chiefs of Staff defined them as including within Israel about 90% of Judea, Samaria, and Gaza. It gave persuasive reasons. Now along come politicians who make vague statements instead of referring to military issues, which is what border security is about. They seem to accept any extent of Israeli withdrawal as providing secure borders. Israel's withdrawals from Gaza and even from Lebanon demonstrate the insecurity of major withdrawal. Let the Arabs withdraw, and Israel would have security. The economics of prescription drugs is complex. I have no position on it. But the logic of the Senator is faulty. It also is typical. He suggests not dealing with one issue, because another is more important. That is not a realistic position for Congress. Congress takes up many issues, large and small. It has separate committees, so it can deal with several issues at-a-time. There may be some commonality in the two issues of terrorism and medicine, in that both may come through the borders. Indeed, Congress is struggling with border security and immigration. The Senator probably has other reasons for prohibiting Canadian pharmacies from selling prescriptions to Americans. Let him make his case with them, not grasp at illogic. HOW JOURNALISTS MISLEAD The NY Times reports about the Arab-Israel conflict mostly by quoting the ignorant, foolish, or deceitful statements of people with whom the "Times" agrees, and by injecting as background the judgments of the anti-Zionist publishers. Here are five examples from a single article (7/11, A8). 1. Khaled Meshal, head of Hamas, criticized the West for emphasizing the one Israeli soldier kidnapped while Israel was holding thousands of Arab prisoners. His complaint is non-specific. Non-specificity evades the issue while leaving a sour impression. That is a mark of propaganda. One truth Hamas evaded is that the Arabs are held captive for criminality. The Israeli soldier had done nothing wrong, and the P.A. had signed agreements not to attack. The P.A. violated its agreements. The "Times," however, does not refer to Arab violations. 2. Meshal also made a non-specific accusation, "Israel is practicing state terrorism and is in violation of international law." Perhaps he is not specific, because if he were, his accusation would be seen as the defamation it is. For a terrorist who, by definition does not fight according to the international rules of war and who commits war crimes, his accusation is hypocritical. The "Times" leaves fascist defamation unchallenged. 3. Israeli leaders are cited as believing that "a tough military response" would discourage the Arabs from further attacks on Israeli cities and soldiers. There should be a caveat that Israel usually fights mildly, concentrating on avoiding civilian casualties. It lets the Arabs soon resume their military buildup, as the Gaza withdrawal showed. The Times accepts the Israeli leaders' false posturing, intended for domestic consumption, as genuine. That misleads readers, just as the Israeli leaders are misleading their people. Of course, this one time, the incursion may be tough; my comment is a general one. 4. As if there were balance in the world, journalist Greg Myre noted that the EU regularly asked the terrorists not to fire rockets into Israel. Why did he not also note that the EU consistently subsidizes the P.A. while knowing what it does and that what it does has popular support? The EU may ask the terrorists, but the request is not serious (no penalty behind it and mild censure in it). It is lip service. Lip service should be compared with the record, to give readers a gauge of sincerity. 5. PM Olmert said, "The people of Gaza deserve to have a different quality of life, and what we wanted was a quiet and peaceful border." "But there hasn't been a day of rest for the people inside Israel." The people of Gaza are uncivilized, violent bigots who support terrorism. They could have made peace but won't. They deserve nothing. Why does the Prime Minister think they deserve anything? He is trying to differentiate the terrorist people from the terrorist activists. It is a false distinction. The Arabs collectively practice total war, killing all whom they can, but the world demands that Israel take even more care than it does not to kill anyone unarmed at the time. TEACHING N. KOREA & IRAN A LESSON The US has taught those rogue states a lesson. Lesson: if they make a multilateral agreement, they won't be bothered until their violations are detected. Then they can ask for a bribe to return to the agreement. They'd cheat, again. The very food that the US sent to N. Korea was used for its military, not starving civilians. Iran used the increased income from trading with Europe, trade that resulted from critical dialogue, to invest in its military (with which it now threatens Europe - not just menaces, but threatens). The rogue states don't answer definitively foreign demands to stop nuclear weapons programs, they counter-demand larger bribes. The NY Times calls the accepted offers a diplomatic success. They are a failure. They cost us a lot, but gain no security, because the rogue states cheat. That is what makes them rogues. Appeasement fails. Iran started its nuclear program before the Iraq war. Can't blame the program on the Bush administration. At least, can't fairly blame Bush (Michael Rubin, MEF News, 7/6). ISRAEL MOVING AGAINST DEMOCRACY When the Prime Minister of Israel made his visit to a bombarded town in Israel a military secret, he was indicating that having moved his army outside of Gaza, he couldn't protect Israel from terrorists in Gaza. His policy of abandonment rendered Israel less secure. The government denies that this means the withdrawal from Gaza was a failure. How so? Its answer: it hadn't withdrawn to improve security but to improve the demographic balance and democracy. The demographic argument was based on statistics that its authors now admit were highly exaggerated. Besides, some of the abandoned areas abutted Israel, so their abandonment did not separate Israelis from Arabs. As for democracy, the government is promulgating several measures to restrict freedom of speech and democratic elections. The American philosophy is that whatever people want to do is legal, unless the government has a compelling reason to forbid it. Israel's leftist philosophy is that whatever people want to do is illegal, unless the government issues a permit for it. Thus the government proposes to ban polls three weeks before elections. It proposes to broaden the laws against "incitement" far beyond the American notion of incitement to violence to "polluting discourse." (Caroline Glick, IMRA, 7/7.) The government's logic about security is faulty. Since the withdrawal depressed national security, even though security was not the reason for withdrawal, the withdrawal still must be considered a failure. Actually, the withdrawal originally was proposed to improve security, until those grounds were discredited. That the government immediately found a series of other reasons indicates that it has a hidden reason that it is ashamed to admit. No wonder the government intends to go on to further withdrawals and further threats to national security! FREEDOM OF THE SPEECHLESS IN ISRAEL An Arab Member of Knesset admitted that he advised the P.A. Arabs to kidnap Israeli soldiers. So far, he has not been punished for his treason. The Left, as usual, is enraged by criticism of its failed policies. Example: people remark on the failure of withdrawal, proved by the kidnappings. They say, "I told you so." The Left reacts by demanding that such critics be arrested for "incitement" (Prof. Steven Plaut, 7/9). "Incitement" is criticism of the Left. The Right has the right to remain silent. They enjoy freedom of speechlessness. The Arab MK denied advising kidnapping (IMRA, 7/9). Is this a misunderstanding? There are misunderstandings, but not as many as politicians claim. SEEING SHOULD NOT BE BELIEVING The Director of Audio-Visual and Written Communication Institute in Santiago De Chile, Mrs. Fareeda Serhan Shilish, visited the "liberated" city of Quneitra. "She toured the city and saw the devastation caused by the Israeli occupation forces shortly before withdrawing from the city (almost 40 years ago). Mrs. Shilish stressed standing by Syria's struggle to restore the occupied Golan Heights and all the occupied Arab territories and usurped rights." (IMRA, 7/9.) She gives the impression of being an Arab with preconceived notions who believed Syria's false propaganda. Quneitra hardly was damaged by Israeli forces, but was damaged greatly by Syrian forces. Syria did not win it back. Rather, as part of the armistice, Israel withdrew from it. ON OVERTHROWING THE IRANIAN REGIME The leading Iranian dissident, Ganji, refuses US funds. He thinks it would make the dissidents seem to be the foreign agents that the regime claims they are (NY Sun, 7/14, p.9). I had criticized the US for under-funding the Iranian dissidents. Perhaps I was wrong. CONDONING THE RUSSIAN REGIME "How high a price are we willing to pay in terms of turning a blind eye toward repression in Russia in exchange for using Mr. Putin's good offices for problems that aren't in our control - such as Lebanon, Iran, N. Korea, and the Hamas?" (Padma Desai, NY Sun, 7/14, Op.-Ed.). What "good offices?" Putin is continuing the Cold War to undermine the West. INDISCRIMINATE OR TARGETED FIRE The Palestinian Center for Human Rights complained that Israeli forces opened "indiscriminate" fire and killed two members of the "resistance." Sec.-General Annan called on both sides to stop endangering civilians (IMRA, 7/8). In that instance, the IDF shot two terrorists and no civilians. That is more targeted than indiscriminate. The Arabs should not complain about indiscriminate fire. Most of their fighting is indiscriminate. They launch rockets at cities, to hit whomever they can, usually civilians. They aim rifles and suicide bombers mostly at civilians. They falsely complain that Israel does what they do, without acknowledging that they do. Before Israel responded to the Arab rocket barrage, Annan did not complain much about civilian casualties, when the only civilians endangered were Israeli. Neither did the Security Council take up the issue. They wait for the Israeli response. So much for UNO decency. NY TIMES CITES JEWISH NATIONALIST Journalist Steven Erlanger quoted Gerald M. Steinberg of Bar-Ilan U. that Israel must see to its security from Gaza and not depend on Egypt or the P.A. (Times, 7/13, A14). Of course. The "Times" rarely quotes Jewish nationalists. It is like a man-bites-dog story. I welcome that not just because I agree with Mr. Steinberg and that his statement gives some balance and counters statements by appeasement-minded Israelis, but also because the nationalists usually assess events more realistically -- their predictions of the folly of appeasement get borne out. P.A. "SPIN" EXPOSED An Israeli colonel explained that P.A. officials often falsely claimed to have low supplies of wheat, when Israel closed a gate that terrorists plan to attack. Israel offers to open another gate, and the P.A. refuses to use it, lest it end the basis for their complaint (Benny Avni, NY Sun, 7/12). The NY Times almost never has such a frank exposure of false Arab propaganda. DEMOCRATS SHOULD LIKE BUSH The Bush administration is conceding, as are the US courts, that terrorist prisoners have certain rights under the Geneva Convention (Mark Mazzetti and Kate Zernike, NY Times, 7/12, A1). In that concession and in Bush's deference to European and UNO policies of diplomacy on Iran, N. Korea, etc., Administration policies are what the Democrats have been asking for. Nevertheless, Democrats hate Bush just as much. They begrudge him an inch. Those policies don't work, but until they wreak havoc, Democrats don't realize their failure. Logical analysis is a lost art. The courts and he are wrong about the Convention. It states that it applies to regular armies that follow the rules of war. Terrorists do not. BRITAIN & ITS MUSLIMS Britain acted the way people usually do. Bombings in Britain were predicted, but the government did not prepare for them. Officials then denied the extent of the problem and professed shock that the recent attacks were by citizens raised in Britain. After the attack, the Prime Minister proposed counter-terrorism measures. Those have been resisted by official bodies. They must be waiting for the next attack. The Prime Minister did set up Muslim task forces to fight extremism. Who picked the task forces? The same officials who underestimated the threat. Members claimed that Blair and Bush were controlled by a sinister alliance of Jews and Freemasons, that the British media is controlled by Jews, and that Hamas and the Iraqi insurgents are just "resistance." (Those foreign Islamists are trying to take over, not "resisting.") They want Islamic separatism in schools and for women, government funding of Muslim propaganda, and a ban on relating terrorism and extremism to Islam. The failure to institute such proposals was said by a Labor legislator to disillusion British Muslims. Rather than take responsibility for Islamic terrorism, the Muslims blame Britain for it. Britain, too, blames everyone, such as the US, but not Muslims, for Islamic terrorism. The Muslim sense of grievance is growing. A significant number want to live under Islamic, not British law. On the other hand, 65% admit they need to do more to integrate. Their leaders don't try. About half the Muslims live on welfare. Their third generation members are less educated than third generation Hindu and Sikhs. Britain has a large fifth column and a larger, alienated minority (Daniel Johnson, NY Sun, 7/10, p.9). The minority feeds the fifth column, get it? If Muslims heard of a terrorist plot, 5-18% would not help the police. About a fifth of young Muslims believe in suicide attacks on British soldiers, about 7% believe in attacking civilians, and about 37% believe in attacking Jews. Most identify not as British but as Muslim. Most want those who criticize Islam to be prosecuted. The Muslim community nurtures Islamic exclusivity (Daniel Pipes, NY Sun, 7/11, p.7). British or American upbringing, which is not intensive, means little to Muslims. They resist it, by maintaining their culture of intolerance. That is a key lesson the West needs to understand. Muslims should not be allowed separate schools, if allowed into a Western country at all. Their entry sets up a struggle for domination. They do not respect the country that took them in from the society they fled. Appointing Islamists to fight extremism is counter-productive. Blair and Bush do not know that, and both hobnob with Islamists! JORDAN, CALLED MODERATE Jordan advises that violence does not solve problems and it implores the world to stop Israeli "aggression" against the P.A. It did not demand that the P.A. stop its aggression against Israel (IMRA, 7/6). The G8 resolution was one-sided, too. Richard Shulman is a veteran defender of Israel on several web-based forums. His comments and analyses appear often on Think-Israel. He provides cool information and right-on-target overviews. He distributes his essays by email. To subscribe, write him at richardshulman5@aol.com. |
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DETERRENCE TRUMPS APPEASEMENT
Posted by Emanuel A. Winston, July 21, 2006. |
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It has always been the custom for the Jewish nation to rally around Israel's government in time of war and this time will be as before. Nevertheless, perhaps this time we shall learn the lesson we have always avoided. After 6 wars and continual terrorism - (the seventh is well on its way), The Lesson - is that Deterrence trumps Appeasement. Olmert, Peretz, Peres - none of whom have the necessary experience of being generals in practice or the real instincts for protecting the Jewish nation - regrettably, they are playing a "learn-on-the-job" generals. Their weakness lies in no planning and commitments to restraint as ordered by the outside world - usually the United States. The Past should have proven that pacification of a dedicated enemy not only does NOT stop real war but actually ACCELERATES its time table. Winning the hearts and minds of Muslims dedicated to Jihad (Holy war for Islam) is simply not possible, as America has discovered in Iraq. The Present war has come too late - although it is enough of a show to possibly save the political fortunes of Olmert and the Kadima Party. With the exception of a handful of dedicated Leftists still living the dreams of the Oslo Accords since September 13, 1993. Most Israelis now understand what the cowardly retreat from Gush Katif/Gaza has proven to the Arab Muslims, namely that Israel suffers from a Lack of Creditable Deterrence. That Israel's once powerful deterrence has been carefully covered over by a pathological need to please the world, even at the cost of her own existence. This is called an existential threat to the continued life of the Jewish State of Israel. We see Ehud Barak on CNN and FOX interviews shamelessly explaining his retreat from Lebanon in 2000 and his own role in allowing Hezb'Allah, with backing from Syria and Iran, to get a strong foothold in Lebanon. Hezb'Allah became the "State within a State" while the Israeli Leftist governments merely played the role of observers taking pride in their doctrine of "Restraint" imposed by America. We hear John Bolton, America's Ambassador to the U.N., describe the Hezb'Allah and other terrorists as a cancer. We agree. If you don't surgically remove ALL the cancer, it will and has metastasized to grow again like a irrevocable evil to haunt us all in the near future - both in Israel, Lebanon, Europe and America. The metastasized cancer Jihadists have insinuated sleeper cells into all of the Free West. When the number of Muslims immigrating into Free Western countries reaches a "Critical Mass", it will assert itself and explode. When the Muslim children who are being taught to viciously hate and kill Jews and Christians of the West, from the tender age of three are photographed with explosive belts and glamorized, they will without a doubt, grow into murderous adults. Then the Cancer of Terrorism will not be stoppable. Some note that many Arab Americans who are being boat and air-lifted out of Lebanon - free of charge on American tax-payers' money - are Hebz'Allah supporters. Are we importing our own cancer sleeper cells while we are closing the borders to other alien immigrants? We know that certain cities already have their own "Critical Mass", such as Dearborn, Michigan with 7000+ Muslims. Olmert and his Kadimites, like the Appeasement-driven Osloids before him, have squandered any sense of Deterrence paid for by the thousands of dead soldiers who fought to save the nation. Think of the thousands of Jewish civilians who were attacked, merely because they were Jews and living in a land long before Mohammed was pursuing life-after-death through Jihad (Holy War for Islam). These men, women and children who died for their nation would weep as they saw their weak leadership arm the enemy. The missiles that are now falling on Israel came from Iran, Syria, Egypt and other Muslim Arab countries as an unimpeded flow of death and catastrophic injuries without so much as a murmur from Israel's political leaders which goes well beyond Shame. While the Jewish nation must once again gather herself to fight a common enemy, let us not forget those Quislings who acted as enablers for their enemies, while claiming patriotism. Here I refer to the political branch, the Leftist military commanders and a Court system of indescribable political corruption. Israel's weak political leaders did nothing to stop the flow of arms to the self-declared Arab Muslim hostiles and thus itself became an active collaborator to a deadly enemy. Olmert, as expected, fired off his mouth with threats that no one believes. All we really know is that he is like a small dog on a short leash as "Restraint" became his feeble war cry. As Olmert tries to convince the Israeli people that he is, indeed, a great general, his amateur political appointment of Amir Peretz as Chief of Defense was also holding forth on TV. Peretz was taking credit for the Israeli attacks on the Hamas Terrorists in Gaza and the Hezb'Allah Terrorists in Lebanon - ignoring the fact that it was he, Olmert and the Leftist establishment that made it all possible. The history of Rabin, Peres, Beilin, Barak, Netanyahu, Sharon and now Olmert is painfully clear. They all gave up land, deterrence and ignored the growing army of the Palestinian Arab Muslims. They politicized the Army and Intelligence so their levels of capability fell to dangerous lows. They not only allowed the Terrorists to build infrastructure but overlooked and even enabled transfer of massive quantities of missiles, weapons, explosives, home-made Kassem Rockets, etc. that the Muslims Arab terrorists have accumulated. When a courageous officer went public and exposed what the government was doing, they were either dismissed or demoted. When Israel's ship was hit by a Chinese supplied Silkworm missile of Iran, how is it that Israeli Intelligence had failed in such a critical area to warn the Navy to turn on their detection system to prevent such a missile hit. Why were they then surprised by the Russian Coronet missile which penetrated the armor of Israeli tanks? Perhaps it is because from Yitzhak Rabin onward, Israel's Intelligence Agencies were made "PC" (Politically Correct) and often 'slaved' to the needs and demands of foreign nations. The best and smartest were no longer selected for top leadership but, if you met the criteria of an obedient Leftist, you were higher on the list. Reporting your own military Intelligence to others (even friends) who 'might' pass it on to their Arab Muslim friends who 'might' be Israel's enemies does NOT make for a very secure Intelligence Service. Israel's military needs a vigorous cleaning out so the Politically Correct Leftist officers would not be present merely to advance their careers while actually subverting the safety of the nation. Actually, the Israeli Defense Forces are showing themselves to be superb during this week's attempt by Israel to defuse and neutralize the Muslim Arab Terrorist Forces facing her in the South and from the North. Israel has an excellent military force which could be even better if it were de-politicized. However, listening to Israel's Minister of Defense Amir Peretz, who has NO active military experience, on TV braying about how "his" soldiers were providing home defense was embarrassing and disgusting. One can almost excuse his ignorance of military matters except, as a Labor Leftist, he was always an advocate of the Oslo Accords and their spawned plans to evacuate Gush Katif/Gaza, Judea and Samaria, the Jordan Valley, the Golan Heights and even the Jews' holy eternal capital city of Jerusalem - all to be surrendered to Hamas, Fatah, Hezb'Allah and all the other self-declared hostile adversaries who have been prodigiously armed by Syria, Iran and countries in the Free West. On July 17th James Woolsey, former head of the American CIA, stated on FOX NEWS that to prevent further war, America should bomb Syria. Most have forgotten Syria's role as a safe harbor for 12 to 15 Muslim Arab terrorist organizations. Some have forgotten the numerous Nazis such as Alois Brunner who made their homes in Syria. The building in Beirut where 242 American Marines were killed by truck bomb organized by Syria. Some have forgotten Syria's friends and protectors in Washington who refused to retaliate against Syria for their brutal attack on American Marines. Olmert, as a grasping politician, is unlikely to resign in shame, having failed his obligations to the office of Prime Minister, must therefore be driven from his office. He has long passed the threshold of being a clear and present danger to the nation. The people of this time must support the military but, when it is over, let a court hearing be held as was done after the Yom Kippur Intelligence failure that allowed so many Israeli soldiers to be killed and permitted the guilty to merely resign. Let the entire Jewish nation show up in front of the PM's office and the useless Knesset demanding an immediate evacuation of those offices. Then immediately begin the trials for those who allowed and promoted the evacuation and destruction of Gush Katif in Gaza and the four communities in Northern Samaria. Also indict those who permitted and encouraged the flow of arms and explosives through the Gaza town of Rafah plus the tunnels dug under the border between Egypt and Israel - and by sea. Olmert did nothing to prevent this dangerous buildup of the Global Terrorist Operations Base. He and his mentor the former PM Ariel Sharon gave away the ancient Israeli homeland and helped arm them. Israeli Intelligence, although crippled by Olmert and his political cabal, had reported on the tonnage of weaponry transported to the growing Terrorist Organizations. Olmert did nothing and thus became an active collaborator to a deadly enemy. Olmert, as expected, fired off his mouth with threats that no one believes. All we really know is that he is like a small dog on a short leash as "Restraint" became his feeble war cry. Regrettably, the once renowned warrior, Ariel Sharon in his days of sanity, is no longer around to lead Israel in battle. Emanuel Winston is a commentator and Middle East analyst. His articles appear often on Think-Israel and Gamla. He is a member of the Board of Directors and a research associate of the Freeman Center For Strategic Studies (http://www.freeman.org/online.htm). Contact him at gwinston@interaccess.com |
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IDF IN LEBANON
Posted by Nurit Greenger, July 21, 2006. | |||
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Stand strong with Israel... This is about the photo album on the havoc in Lebanon that is
presented on the sabbah.biz website: Please be forewarned, some of the pictures are disturbing. Some of the pictures incorporated are from yesterday's A.N.S.W.E.R demonstration. And the associations between the photos are, propaganda-wise, masterful. These pictures can make you forget that Hezbullah in Lebanon has been shelling Israel illegally. And the Lebanese government didn't stop them -- out of weakness or sympathy with Hezbullah. They can make you forget that Israel withdrew completely from Lebanon -- many say this was a stupid move, but she did -- and all it did was to embolden Hezbollah. Some people answered the propaganda. For example Adam said:
And, when someone defended Hezbollah, saying "They were created when Israel invaded and occupied Southern Lebanon. They were exiled Palestinians." another person, Paul, wrote this:
The Lebanese have nothing to gain but world pity to distract their mishandling of their own politics and welcoming Hezbollah to live among them. No excuse should be sufficient to believe that, with all the international help the Lebanese government received since Israel withdrew beyond the "blue line," they could not abide by UN Resolution 1559. If they could not, they should have invited international forces (perhaps even Israel) to help them to dismantle Hezbollah. Instead they let Hezbollah to deeply root among them, did not report the massive arms Hezbollah was acquiring and acted in an appeasing mode; yes appeasing a ruthless terror group all the way to allowing Hezbollah to participate in the present, "fragile" government. Turning the other cheek is not a good idea. Perhaps the Lebanese government was [slightly] hopeful that once Hezbollah is strong enough, they would be able to win the war against Israel. However mistake was made -- perhaps a day too early for Hezbollah but for Israel [and the entire western world] benefit -- time will tell. Having said that, before bombing hard, Israel dropped ONE (1) million flyers, mind you in Arabic, warning civilians to leave the area; no one made a move to leave! When USA, and for that matter any other army in the same war situation, are about to heavily bomb an area, NO flyers are dropped first. Under these circumstances the IDF is simply a saint. Perhaps the Lebanese were busy praying for Israel to lose; perhaps they were fully informed how dangerous Hezbollah is, thus the hope Israel loses. So far, all Israel actions are FULLY abiding the international war rules of engagement laws. So far the Lebanese are at the wrong from A-to-Z and back. Unlike the Lebanese, Israel does not show its suffering and misery. This is more the sort of picture you will see. 
You may ask why? So the Israeli spirit is not deflated. Israel
cannot allow the spirit of attrition to begin. After all, it is
fighting for its existence.
Many believe we need a more effective, a more emotional response to the war. After all, our soldiers are being killed and wounded, the civilians hit by the Lebanese rockets are being killed or seriously wounded. For example, read this letter written by Ari Bussel -- it's an exchange with his friend Yael about the pictures.
My opinion? We can spin and spin and spin -- but this is not the issue. Israel has been fighting terror for way too long. Here is the issue: What is terror? Have you ever taken the time to see what terror is synonymous with? It is fear, horror, fright, panic, alarm, dread, and shock. This is what Israel has been living under -- day in and day out -- since 1948, when it was first established. Think! Would you like to live under terror? Would you like America to live under terror? Terror equals is Islamic fascism, totalitarianism, repression tyranny. Would you like America to live under terror? Would the free world like to live under terror?
Contact Nurit Greenger at 4nuritg@gmail.com
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THE END OF ISRAEL'S IMMORAL "MORALITY"
Posted by Sergio Tessa (HaDaR), July 21, 2006. |
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IF IT IS TRUE (I am not enlisted and do not have the "new" rules of engagement), it is about time!!! This was written by Aaron Lerner and comes from IMRA (imra@netvision.net.il). |
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IDF Spokesperson Announcement - July 20th, 2006 "As part of the IDF's operation to stop the Qassam rocket barrages against Israel, the IDF dropped leaflets addressing the Palestinian civilian population in the Gaza Strip. The leaflets are intended to warn the population not to stay in structures that are used for storing weaponry, before they are targeted by the IDF. Just four days ago, Defense Minister Amir Peretz declared during a visit to Haifa that Israel would not honor human shields protecting weapons stored in Lebanon. And while he left the impression that the rules would remain different in Gaza (in the same remarks Peretz, who is also the chairman of the Labor Party, said he was proud that in Gaza a soldier told him that he did not fire at a terrorist armed with a launcher because the terrorist was holding the hand of child), it was inevitable that once the false morality of respecting human shields was dropped in one front that it would be dropped everywhere. For years Israelis have died as a result of the bizarre policy that empowered "civilians" to protect terrorists with their bodies. Let's be clear: These aren't hostages being held by the terrorists. These are people who are fully aware of the situation and yet have decided to remain and shield the terrorists from Israeli attack. This change in policy promises to make a significant impact on the battlefield in the challenging period we are now encountering as we find ourselves scrambling up the learning curve in a war against an enemy that has enjoyed over half a decade to prepare for this conflict without interference. Yes, the IDF is suffering casualties as it clears out the heavily fortified Hezbollah weapons stores and bunkers just north of the Lebanese border. And while every loss is painful, the results are hardly akin to the "Charge of the Light Brigade". This is not the first time that Israel has had to develop solutions to challenges on the fly and there is every reason to expect the IDF to find the right combination of technology and technique to address Hezbollah - especially now that the IDF can face this challenge without one hand tied behind its back by an immoral "morality". Contact Sergio Tessa (HaDaR) at HaDaR-Israel@verizon.net |
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ISRAEL'S ILLUSION BECOMES THE ARABS' ABYSS
Posted by David Singer, July 21, 2006. |
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Israel's belief that unilateral withdrawal from Lebanon and Gaza would end Arab intransigence and bring about a resolution of the Arab-Israel conflict has turned out to be an illusion. Instead it has opened up an abyss, which threatens to swallow up Lebanon and Gaza in its wake and set back the development of their societies and economies by at least 20 years. Syria is struggling to cope with hundreds of thousands of Lebanese Shiites seeking refuge as Israel continues its' determined assault to end Hezbollah's reign of terror in Lebanon. Emboldened by what was perceived as Israeli weakness and exhaustion, Hezbollah and Hamas quickly asserted their authority within the areas vacated by Israel, claiming this was the first step in the ultimate destruction of the Jewish State. The Governments of Lebanon and Gaza chose to tolerate rather than confront and root out these terrorist entities. Both Governments were strongly supported by their civilian populations. In Lebanon, Hezbollah openly held court in Beirut. Its headquarters were well known to Lebanese authorities and the media had no trouble in locating their leaders for frequent interviews as they took every opportunity to applaud the targeted murder of hundreds of Israeli citizens and foreign nationals. They lived openly within Lebanese society and were elected to Government and held cabinet portfolios. This could not have happened without popular support. Large shipments of missiles and weaponry were routinely unloaded at Lebanese ports in full view of customs, military and police authorities and transhipped through Lebanon to launching sites and military depots in South Lebanon for ultimate use against Israel. In Gaza frequent demonstrations by tens of thousands of men, women and children marching behind hooded and well armed terrorists burning Israeli and American flags and effigies of Sharon and Bush, clearly indicated Hamas was held in awe, not disgust, by the civilian population among whom was hidden the military stockpile of rockets and explosives. Hamas was elected to power in Gaza by the overwhelming majority of Gazans whilst Hezbollah established an autonomous State within a State in Lebanon, both clearly expressing their continuing refusal to recognise the sovereign existence of Israel. Hezbollah leader Nasrallah and Hamas Prime Minister Haniyeh believed the time was now ripe to flex their muscles to procure the release of hundreds of convicted terrorists held in Israeli prisons in exchange for a few Israeli soldiers. This had worked very well before with thousands of prisoners being released by Israel in return for the remains of a few dead soldiers and the release of one businessman of dubious reputation. What better way for Hezbollah and Hamas to retain the support and hopes of their civilian populations than securing the release of husbands and children who could then be enlisted once again to repeat the missions that had led to their imprisonment in the first place. However kidnapping three Israeli soldiers by incursions into sovereign Israeli territory proved the downfall for these terrorist groups. Such brazenness was the breaking point - the red line - that these terrorist groups had not expected their actions would provoke. Rather than getting expected negotiations by intermediaries to procure the exchange of prisoners, Hezbollah and Hamas unleashed Israel's military might as it entered Lebanon and Gaza in hot pursuit to free its soldiers with the full authority of international law firmly behind it. Again completely misreading Israel's intentions, both Hezbollah and Hamas started firing rockets into Israel leading to Israel's re entry into Gaza in force and massive retaliation on Lebanon's infrastructure -- roads, bridges, airports and ports -- which had served as the supply lines for Hezbollah from Syria and Iran This time international criticism of Israel's right to defend itself has been muted and even Arab countries have been critical of Hezbollah and Hamas. Israel now carries the world on its shoulders as it alone seeks to implement Resolution 1559 of the United Nations Security Council calling for the disbanding and disarmament of all Lebanese and non-Lebanese militias. This will result in the loss of Israeli lives and many casualties as an impotent United Nations does nothing to assert and enforce its own resolutions. The civilian populations of Lebanon and Gaza have now paid and will continue to pay a huge price for the trust and belief they placed in their would be Saladdins to remove the Jewish State once and for all. Some have suggested these civilians are innocent victims who did not have the strength to overthrow their oppressors. If true, one would imagine Israel's actions would have brought forward at least some expressions of support from within Lebanon and Gaza. Not a single word has been heard. The Arab League has now finally pronounced the Road Map proposed by Bush, Putin, Chirac and Annan as "dead". The League is three years behind the times but at least it now recognises the futility of a plan that never had the slightest chance of getting off the drawing board. So where does the Middle East go from here? There is but one avenue now -- the removal of Hezbollah and Hamas followed by trilateral negotiations between Israel, Jordan and Egypt on the future sovereignty of the West Bank and Gaza. Perhaps the Arab League will at long last realise the folly of trying to wipe Israel off the map and take these positive steps to end the ongoing 120 year conflict that is now bringing suffering on a scale to their constituency that even they could never have contemplated. David Singer is an Australian Lawyer and Convenor of "Jordan is Palestine International", an organisation calling for sovereignty of the West Bank and Gaza to be allocated between Israel and Jordan as the two successor States to the Mandate for Palestine. |
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ISRAEL AND US. WE MUST...
Posted by Nurit Greenger, July 21, 2006. |
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Friends, I keep sending you articles and commentary so that we all learn the facts but most important, share the information with many others. The Internet is a POWERFUL COMMUNICATION TOOL. If we know the issues and then unite in the effort to achieve the objective at hand, by using the Internet we can even topple a government. I am sure you will agree with me that our world is in a terrible disarray and turmoil -- in the midst of WWIII. To make it a better place to live, we must unite in the effort. If you agree with me... you know what to do next.
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The Jewish community and Friends of Israel, as a whole, make up a diverse population that holds a variety of political and religious views. However, in wartime, with the deadly intentions of Israel's foes, made clear even to those whose illusions often prevent them from seeing clearly, this is no time for division. We must act to aid Israel morally, financially, and expressively. We must speak loudly, very loudly. Our voice must be carried out in unity in support of Israel. We must justify its military campaign, seeking to end the status quo whereby killers cross Israel's borders with impunity, and then bargain for the release of other killers. We must make it clear that while Israel's goal remains to have peace, it must stop its Lebanese neighbors as well as the Palestinians from harboring killers, and allowing them to use their territory from where they deploy mayhem and then pretend as if they had nothing to do with all that is going on. We must make sure that the U.S. government -- and other reliable "allies" -- do not interrupt Israel's response. We must demand that the world diplomatic focus is not on Israel's reaction, but on the actions of the terrorists, and their state-sponsors in Damascus and Tehran. We must remind our fellow citizens that Hamas and Hezbollah terrorist organizations are no different from the Al Qaeda terrorists who attacked America in September of 2001. The world democracies must unite and bring these killers to justice. Hezbollah, Hamas and their murderous allies have made no secret of their goal to destroy Israel and hurt the USA. Our answer to them -- and to the people of Israel -- must be just as clear. Enough is enough and never again! This is the crucial moment for our renewed activism and philanthropy aimed at shoring up Israel's defense and the welfare of its people. Israel's leaders have vowed that no Jewish blood will be shed with impunity again. We must applaud and stand by the -- day after day, the month after month, the year after exhausting year -- courage, resolution and determination of the Israeli people. We grieve four losses; we lament the undiminished willingness of Israel's foes to sacrifice their own people's lives. But together, united as one, we must stand behind Israel's soldiers and its government. May their efforts be blessed and rewarded with fast and eternal victory. AMEN. Contact Nurit Greenger at 4nuritg@gmail.com |
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THE LEBANON SECURITY ZONE -- A HISTORICAL RETROSPECTIVE
Posted by David Meir-Levi, July 20, 2006. |
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Below is some rather poignant history about the Israeli entry into southern lebanon in 1982, the withdrawal of most of Israel's forces in 1985, and the full liquidation of the security zone in 5/2000. There are two useful history lessons to be learned from this information: 1.) Israel garnered no brownie points when it withdrew from Beirut in 1985 and took a stand on the 12-mile zone in southernmost lebanon. The world still spoke vitriolically of Israel's occupation of Lebanon. And for the 15 years from 1985 to 2000, the world condemned Israel for holding that 12-mile strip, while ignoring Syria's real occupation of all of Lebanon, and Hezbollah's rise to power and predominance with an armed terrorist force far more powerful than the Lebanese army. The assumption that making concessions to terrorist forces will garner benefits for Israel in the form of those terrorist forces acquiescing to peace-talks and cessation of terrorism has always proven wrong. The terrorists, consistently, have always simply pocketed the concessions and regrouped to perpetrate more terrorism from positions of enhanced logistical or political or military superiority as compared to their previous position. Premature ceasefires, concessions of terrain and territory, unilateral withdrawal, all have consistently both emboldened the terrorists and enhanced their capacity for more terrorism. So, why does the EU demand a quick cease-fire? Why does Bush need to argue against the EU and the UN and the Vatican and even our own Department of State on behalf of Israel for Israel's right to defend itself against a relentless and brutal terror enemy? Why, when Arabia and Egypt and Jordan are condemning Hezbollah, and when Arab journalists from Morocco to Iraq to Kuwait are telling their readers that it is time for the Palestinian terrorism to stop, and when Christian Lebanese are rejoicing that Israel is crushing Hezbollah..... .......why do western pundits urge Israel to show restraint lest it engender more hatred in the hearts of the Lebanese?..... ......why does Putin join with the gaggle of European leaders who push for UN troops to enter the fray even when the UN troops of the last 30 years have actually facilitated terrorism against Israel and against Lebanese Christians in southern Lebanon? Why do they want to save Hezbollah from destruction? Usually, when the EU wallows in appeasement it is rushing to do the bidding of the oil-rich sheikhs....BUT....right now, only the Iranians are supporting Hezbollah. Much of the most powerful leadership in the Arab world has seen the threat of Iranian militarism and recognizes that stopping Hezbollah is the first step in stopping Iran. So what is driving the EU and Russian leadership to behave like Chaimberlain in 1939? And, where is Churchill when we need him? This was written by Yehezkel Laing and Baruch Gordon and it appeared today in Arutz-Shevah (www.IsraelNN.com). David ML |
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As a result of the recent fighting with Hizbullah, Israeli civilian deaths from Lebanon-based terror have skyrocketed in comparison to when Israel controlled the Security Zone in southern Lebanon. In the 15 years (1985-2000) that Israel controlled the Security Zone, seven Israeli civilians were killed from katyusha rocket fire. In comparison, in the first seven days of the current fighting after Hizbullah established artillery infrastructures in the former Security Zone, Israel has lost over 20 civilians. And that number is may continue to rise as rockets soar into Israeli communities. The Security Zone was first established after Israel launched Operation Peace in Galilee on June 6th, 1982 to halt the incessant PLO katyusha bombardments of Jewish towns along the border with Lebanon. The Peace of Galilee Operation ended in 1985 when the Israeli government withdrew troops leaving a small number of forces to maintain a 20-kilometer (12-mile) Security Zone to keep Israel's northern towns out of range of artillery fire. In May, 2000, then-Prime Minister Ehud Barak gave the order to liquidate the Security Zone and over the course of two days, the IDF fully retreated from Lebanon. In the public debate which raged in the years preceding Ehud Barak's surrender of the zone, security experts warned that it would endanger Israeli lives, but these warnings were ignored by the Labor government which he headed. Below are a selection of quotes from both supporters and opponents of Israeli retreat from the northern Security Zone. Prime Minister Ehud Barak
Meretz MK Yossi Beilin
Barak Government Cabinet Statement
Prime Minister Ehud Barak
Hizbullah leader, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah,
Herzl Ben-Asher, Kiryat Shmonah [a northern town] city council member
[Ed. Note: The Four Mothers movement, founded by four women with sons serving in Lebanon, was established in 1997 and called upon the government to unilaterally pull Israel's ground forces out of the Security Zone and abandon the territory to terrorist elements.] Four Mothers founder Rachel Ben-Dor
National Union Party Knesset Member Effie Eitam
Caroline Glick
Deputy Defense Minister Ephraim Sneh
David Meir-Levi is an American-born Israeli, currently living in Palo Alto. His expertise is in Near Eastern studies and the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict. He is Director of Peace and Education at Israel Peace Initiative (www.ipi-usa.org). Contact him at david_meirlevi@hotmail.com |
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THE MORE THINGS CHANGE?
Posted by Morris J. Amitay, July 20, 2006. |
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While I normally eschew anything French when it comes to the Middle East, in this case, however, I am reminded of the Gallic saying -- "the more things change, the more they stay the same." This certainly applies, because for the past 20 years or so, the U.S. Congress has been debating whether to open up a small portion of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) for oil exploration -- and two decades later, Congress is still debating this issue. Attempts to obtain the 11 billion barrels of oil locked in there have been blocked by Senate filibusters or threats thereof, spurred on by the fierce opposition of environmental groups who loudly decry the despoiling of what they describe as a "pristine wilderness". Preventing us from gaining greater energy independence from mid-east oil, while our nation's addiction to oil continues to grow, is the height of shortsightedness -- or to be more accurate -- stupidity. The reason for my outburst came about when I recently came across testimony I had offered to the Senate Energy Committee urging development in ANWR back in the year 1987! At the time, I argued that the decisions Congress must take with regard to development in ANWR "will undoubtedly have important ramifications for U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East and also for Israel's future security." So much for my powers of persuasion -- or the good sense of the U.S. Congress. But at the time of this testimony we imported only 30% of our oil needs from abroad. Today this is close to 70% -- and counting. Also, then we were talking about $15 for a barrel of oil -- today we are paying five times as much with prices at the pump going through the roof based on speculation, not the cost of production. But aside from the economic and political benefits of opening up ANWR, there is the added attraction of having fewer billions of dollars in oil revenues going to states like Saudi Arabia and Iran, whose petrodollars fund terrorism throughout the world. What is particularly galling is that we are prevented from producing the equivalent of thirty years of Saudi imports (at a million barrels a day) due to the largely bogus arguments presented by the opponents. One startling figure which stands out is that of the more than 19 million acres in ANWR -- only 2,000 (or a footprint the size of Dulles Airport) would be needed for development. This would have a minimal adverse effect on the relatively scant wildlife found in this barren region. In fact, the most populous animal species there -- the caribou -- have flourished, and quadrupled in size from 6,000 when development began in Prudhoe Bay, Alaska to 12,000 today. In the area where the existing pipeline runs, locals insist that the caribou's increase can be linked to the herds congregating there for its warmth, which in turn has led to increased procreational activity among the caribou. While I cannot personally attest to having witnessed this phenomenon -- it seems both compelling and somewhat romantic. As for the people who would be directly affected by development in ANWR, these are the 200 or so native inhabitants of Kaktovik, the only village adjacent to the Costal Plain. Not surprisingly, they are all for development in order to improve their lives. As for the rest of us, the latest polls show that 70% of the American public -- a vast majority -- believe we should develop oil and gas in ANWR. So what is still holding this up when we are paying more than three dollars a gallon for gasoline? Originally, Congress designated 1.5 million of the 19.6 million acre refuge for energy exploration. Over the years, the U.S. House of Representatives has passed legislation to open ANWR on ten different occasions only to have it filibustered to death in the Senate, ironically with the support of some lawmakers who consider themselves close friends of Israel and supporters of greater U.S. energy independence. Something is either wrong with their logic here, or the environmental extremists who have lobbied so hard on this issue are prepared to defy both logic and the national interest. Last May, the House again passed a bill permitting development in ANWR. But today, with all that is happening in the Middle East and with oil prices incredibly higher, there are still 40 some Senators who still don't get it. Of course our nation can and should do more about conservation and encouraging the development of renewable sources of energy. But this takes time and much more effort than is being expended now. In the interim, developing ANWR offers a quick fix and sends an important message. Congressional passage of legislation permitting drilling in ANWR would immediately lower prices and would reduce the obscene profits that are funding terrorism directed at us and our friends. With so much else on the pro-Israel community's plate right now -- Hamas, Hezbollah, Syria and Iran -- why raise this issue now? Because it is one which is amenable to immediate, positive action. But this can only come about if we let Congress know that they have the responsibility to act responsibly, and to do what has made sense for so many years already -- but especially now. Morrie Amitay, a Washington attorney, is a former Executive Director of AIPAC and founder of the pro-Israel Washington PAC (www.washingtonpac.com). |
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DEFINING PALESTINIAN STRATEGY
Posted by Barry Rubin, July 20, 2006. |
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Understandably, most people in the world fail to understand Palestinian ideology and strategy today, largely because it is so bizarre compared to politics as usual. On the one hand, the conflict is unsolvable and there is no way to stop the violence. On the other hand, Palestinian tactics are unworkable, politics are disorganized, and military strategy is self-defeating. They can harass Israel but not do much more than that. Before examining the basic principles of the Palestinian approach, it is useful to consider how things usually work and thus what people who don't know much about Palestinian politics think they are like. Normal politics feature realizable goals, paying keen attention to the balance of forces, avoiding losing conflicts, and seeking a stable state. They also include such things as putting a high priority on raising living standards and building effective institutions to serve the people. Every day, Western governments, media, and academics try to impose this model on Palestinian behavior, politics, and ideology. Yet, it just doesn't work. The things many in the West think motivate Palestinians--getting a state, ending the occupation--are of no interest in their own right. Indeed, the only way to maintain the pretense is a combination of amnesia and abandoning of the kind of rational analysis used to view any other political situation in the world. I must add here that in private (though virtually never in public), Palestinian intellectuals sound a lot like me. Over and over again, one hears disgust, despair, and profound cynicism along the lines described below. Here are the basic points for understanding Palestinian politics: 1. There are hardly any moderate Palestinians in public life and even they generally keep their mouths shut or echo the militant majority. With few exceptions--countable on your fingers--a Palestinian moderate in practice can usually be defined as someone who apologizes for terrorism in good English. The mantra of "helping the moderates" cannot work under these conditions. This is a losing strategy: destroy your infrastructure, subvert international and even Arab support through extremism (no one is even surprised any more that Arab states do nothing to help the Palestinians out of their mess), throw away chances for interim gains (like getting a state) to avoid compromising the chance for total victory, repeat old mistakes, rejoice at defeats as producing martyrs, taunt the world's sole superpower, exalt anarchy, and forfeit any chance of winning sympathy on the other side. Such a suicide strategy, like suicide bombing, can inflict losses on the enemy but cannot defeat it. Indeed, by sacrificing so many possible benefits it ensures that the gap steadily widens in favor of the other side. Yet, far from any sign of resistance to this disastrous approach, it seems capable of providing decades more of glorious defeat and martyrdom. Maybe it will even go on long enough for those in the West who keep expecting something different to comprehend this system. Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and co-author of "Yasir Arafat: A Political Biography" and "Hating America: A History" (Oxford University Press, August 2006). Prof. Rubin's columns can now be read online at http://gloria.idc.ac.il/columns/column.html. |
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VIEW THE AISH MOVIES
Posted by Aish, July 20, 2006. |
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This movie comes from Aish... and is called:"In Every Generation..." Go to http://www.aish.com/movies/everygeneration.asp |
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DISASTERS ARE LIKE A RIVER AND RETURN LIKE DESERT TORRENTS ...
Posted by Professor Eugene Narrett, July 20, 2006. |
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Some of the lines quoted are from Israel and the Endtimes (2006). |
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It is written that at the end of days, "disasters will come surging like a river." And it is stated that the billboard wall of lies, the whitewash over the covenant of death will be swept by a scourging flood. Israel now endures the surging flood of jihad, the predictable (and oft-predicted), inevitable reflex of the entire "Jewish land for fake promises of peace" process. Most proximately, for allowing Hizbollah ("the army of allah"), a division in the Iranian army assisted by the IRG (Iranian Revolutionary Guard) to prepare for war on Israel's northern border for six years while calling it "quiet," and worse, for utterly destroying the Jewish towns of Gush Katif the entire nation suffers disasters scourging like a river... The Jews of Gush Katif were a paradigm of the quintessential and redemptive human work. They took the raw energy and matter diffused and lost in our world and through their labors of love, their faith, dedication and good-heartedness built beautiful vessels in which this matter and energy could be creatively fused and shared. They made "a well of living waters... in likeness of Jacob" where "everyone who is thirsty could come and drink of the enduring promises of David..." The people of Gush Katif, in their towns and farms and synagogues were a light to the nations... Their dispossession now exacts its cost. In the place of their ruined homes are Hamas ("violence" -- "pillage") and other terror groups. Hamas and Hezbollah have been integrated via Damascus with the Iranian war on the Jewish people and on the world. The former Prime Minister's time to atone for this destrucion is past. But the current Prime Minister, Cabinet, government and the entire nation remains to rectify the horrors done to Gush Katif, to Amona, to the Jews of Hebron, Yitzhar, and now to large swathes of the country: indeed, to the entire Jewish nation. The expulsion of the Jews of GK replaced creation with chaos. It gouged out the "Ayin" of salvation and dumped debris and terror into the living waters of Israel that those Jews had channeled into the world. "For this, the land shall mourn!" And if thirty-eight per cent of Israeli voters could sit home rather than vote against the cossack regime that rioted at Amona, bragged of it, they must shoulder a heavy part of the load of rectification that Israel needs take in order to survive. Those who voted for Kadima owe the greatest restitution but one can expect little from a repeatedly hardened heart. Nevertheless, "akh pri l'tzaddik! Akh YEISH Elokim shoftim b'aretz" (psalm 58:5). There is a reward for the righteous. Indeed there is a G-d Who judges in the land." Today, disasters surge like a river, like torents down the eastern cliffs of Judea after winter thunder storms. It can and must be reversed. Israel cannot sing the world-healing songs and praises of Hashem in alien lands." The promise cannot be faked... Hizbollah must be entirely destroyed and so most the government of the artificial state of "Lebanon" of which the Iranian terrorists are a part. Indeed, the artificial and unstable nature of Lebanon as a state is indicated by the fact that is has passed from being a blatant colony of Syria to being a de facto colony and province of Iran who rules it via Hezbollan. So long as the make-believe state of "Lebanon" (the historical -- and Hebrew -- name of a mountain range, not a nation or people, much less a state), first cobbled together by western powers in 1945 only to fall into anarchy by 1958 exists it will be a source of instability and exporter of terror against Jews and the world. It's time, it's past time, it is nearly too late for the lies imposed by the British and the French, and subsequently endorsed, like a very bad check, by the world community to be swept off the table of history: Lebanon, Syria, Jordan to name only the most blatant new-minted nations with non-existent languages, people or history within them, must be swept away by the torrent of Israel returning to itself. For starters this means retribution on the wicked, on those whose first principle of being is murdering Jews and destroying the Creator's nation. The true and most approrpriate redress for the lies and sins of the "peace processes" including the lies of "disengagement" and the lies that Jewish settlement anywhere in the Promised Land could be "illegal" is that Israel return to its entire borders surging like torrents in the Negev: shivtainu k'afikim banegev......." Let's tell the saving truth: in regard to the area denoted "Lebanon," this means returning permanently along the coast at least "to Sidon" and the entire mountain ranges as Moshe described, "this good Lebanon" (Deuteronomy 1, ff). The torrent of Israel's return to its borders (cf. Jeremiah 31), Hashem's promise to the neshama of Rachel will sweep away the placards of lies that have bound Israel to the rack upon which it has been suffering. The people who rescued the hostages at Entebbe, who plucked the exterminator from Paraguay, who bombed Osirak as if in miracle, who conquered incompletely in 1967 must conquer again more thoroughly than ever and this time follow up their victories with a political will of faith to secure them forever and for peace. Israel will return like desert torrents that nothing and no one can resist. It's time. Professor Eugene Narrett teaches writing and Literature at Boston University. He is the author of hundreds of articles, columns and reviews on politics, American culture and the arts. He is completing a study on Romanticism and the longterm decline of Western Culture. He writes often on subjects relating to Israel and Judaism and is a weekly columnist for the MetroWest Daily News in Framingham, Massachusetts. His new book is "Israel and the Endtimes". Contact him at Culturtalk@aol.com |
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ISRAEL ABOVE ALL MUST PROTECT ITS OWN CITIZENS
Posted by Lawrence Uniglicht, July 20, 2006. |
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Hamas and Hizbullah have no regard for human life. These fanatical Islamists, indeed, ooze their own bodies and deadly weapons, including long range Haifa-bound missiles, into the bowels of civilian populations, in effect using their presumed brethren as shields, thus making surgical strikes by Israelis extremely difficult, thus garnering worldwide support as victimized Arab civilian casualties inevitably mount. Surely, Hamas and Hizbullah have taken the concept of cowardice to a new level. These wretched fanatics should be pummeled for such behavior by fair media outlets; then again the operative idea of fairness alas rings hollow among many hand-wringing journalists and editorial staffs, adept at chastising Israel for disproportionate responses, as if 20,000 missiles; hidden in garages, under beds, scattered throughout Lebanon's population centers; aimed at Israeli citizens, ought to be off limits to Israeli defense forces. Would Israeli critics so indulge terrorists, intent on annihilating them, even if such aggressors hid behind the skirts of women and immature bodies of youngsters? Think about it! Hamas and Hizbullah have no qualms about virtually commandeering even young children, the frail, the elderly; yearning for stray missiles to harm such hapless victims in exchange for sympathetic anti-Israeli propaganda. Surely such sick sadists raise shame to a level only to be surpassed by their strategy of convincing vulnerable Muslim youths to become homicidal/suicidal bombers. Why are psychoanalysts, especially those trained in psychotic mindsets of the criminally insane, not aggressively addressing the perilous pandemic of Islamic radicalism that now afflicts the Middle East, that is ever-willing to destroy any human life to advance its delusional cause celebre? Where are such experts, when needed, to analyze and expose such mutated mentalities through worldwide media outlets? How can such an insane disregard for human life be ignored? Why must Israel always be the fall guy when Islamic radicals are the true culprits, dotting Arab population centers with deadly missiles that must be destroyed? The Jewish State would never expose its citizens in a like manner, and indeed attempt to minimize harm inflicted upon Arab civilians, although that task is ever-daunting when such civilians are intermingled with, in effect held hostage by the terrorists. Alas, the cognitively dissonant aspect of human nature allows folks to shut their eyes to facts that do not support preconceived notions. Israel's intense widespread bombing campaign over Lebanon, for one, is quite necessary to counter the cowardly strategy of Hizbullah terrorists, more than willing to place deadly missiles within populated areas of that less than sovereign nation. Israel has warned Lebanese civilians and foreign visitors to flee from danger, and many have, yet some surely become casualties of war; that is inevitable. Outside observers, however, refuse to sufficiently rebuke Hizbullah for crafting a strategy whereby Arab civilians are intentionally used as human shields. It is much easier to beat up on the Jewish State, fervently attempting to protect its own citizens from future enemy rocket fire. Again, how many Israel bashers would criticize their own governments, reacting similarly in similar situations, defending their own hypocritical Israel-bashing butts otherwise in the cross hairs of enemy missiles? No doubt, Israel must prioritize the defense of its own citizens above every other consideration. To do otherwise would be morally unforgivable. Lawrence Uniglicht is a career civil servant, working for the Social Security Administration. He advocates for the State of Israel with an American perspective. He writes, "Advocating for the disrespected underdog has been my passion, no doubt Israel falls into that category." Contact him by email at luniglicht@snip.net |
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PROPORTIONAL RESPONSE
Posted by Mrla 26, July 20, 2006. |
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In the last few days the call we've seen the rise of a new phenomenon in the world press. Israel is not being criticized for its need to attack Hezbollah, but rather that it needs to take a "proportional response" to the attacks. Let me just say this about that. Oh, and if your kids read this blog or if you are sensitive to language of the nautical culture in which I was raised, please move your browser ahead past the next paragraph. I'm afraid it's going to get a little salty. Ok, kids out of the room? Fine. So here goes. Of all the chickensh*t moronic crap ideas that the left has ever shoveled out of its half mad henhouse of illogical nonsense and somnambulic concepts that make up most of what serves as the core of what is known as "leftists idealism" I have never -- EVER -- heard anything so damn head-up-your-a** dumb in all my life. And I know from chickenshit moronic crap. Ive seen it shoveled by the very best in the business. And I've lived through Carter, Dukakis, Gore, Kerry and Dean, but this is just beyond the pale. Ok, the kids can come back in now. Proportional response? PROPORTIONAL RESPONSE? Do you have any idea who it is we are talking about here? Hezbollah. HEZBOLLAH. This is not the "Jaycees of Lebanon" you wet-noodle dope smoking freaks. These are murdering bloodthirsty and I do mean BLOODTHIRSTY thugs. You notice al-Qaeda hasn't spoke a word in support of these corpse loving, coprophagic freaks? That's because they are too far out even for good old Osama himself. Even that freak has standards and these guys aren't on even their mailing lists for his annual holiday Ramadan Cards. Compared to Hassan Nasrallah
Proportional Response? Hezbollah is firing missiles into civilian populace across an internationally recognized and maintained border. Hezbollah is killing people in a sovereign UN nation, not that anyone cares. Hezbollah is capturing uniformed soldiers of an organized Army, and violating the Geneva Convention, again not that anyone cares. And who is it who is calling for a "Cease Fire?" That's right the same animals who've started the war, the same ones who are calling for the destruction of Israel out of one side of their mouths are saying -- oh please don't hurt us? out of the other. "Oh the poor little things, how could Israel just pop up all of a sudden and attack those nice little misunderstood people" seems to be what the press undercurrent is in their coverage of this little event. Maybe, just maybe people should consider that Israel is fully aware of who these animals are and just what they want to do. Yet somehow, Israel is always supposed to be the "adult in the room". Somehow the teensy weensy little old political parties who just want what's right for their families are always just like poorly misunderstood kids who soaped a few car windows or tied a tin can to the cat's tail. Precocious little scamps, they just have bingo games at the mosque on Fridays, they are beloved by the people, they only want to negotiate with Israel for the return of what is rightfully theirs, right? I do not know what it is, but there is some collective loss of memory on just who Hezbollah is. Hezbollah is Iran. Iran is Hezbollah. Hezbollah is to Iran what the Nazi "Das Reich: Division was to the Wehrmacht. Get this through your heads CNN, Helen Thomas, Patrick J. Buchanan - Israel DOES NOT BORDER IRAN! IRAN HAS HAD NO CLAIM ON WHAT IS TODAY ISRAEL, SINCE CYRUS THE GREAT! Hezbollah had to INVADE another country just to be able to fight with Israel! They now control the lower half of that country. That country, is the poor people of Lebanon who had managed to live in peace with the Israeli neighbors, until they were chewed into paste by their lovely Arab brothers who turned it into a charnel house instead of what was once the "Paris of the Mediterranean". And when you and your goat humping, three fingered leaders go screaming at the camera and get all hot and bothered by "occupation" why don't any of you talk about the occupation of Lebanon by Syria and Hezbollah? Oh yeah, "inconvenient fact". Sorry about that. I didn't mean to point out that you were the very worst sort of propagandistic genocidal maniacs. Wait! that's not true, that's EXACTLY what I wanted to do. Instead of chastising Israel, we should be sending them more arms! We should provide them satellite photos of Syrian tanks, overlaid with graphics that say "hit me" on top of each one. We should thank the Israelis. Not because the Israelis are fighting their enemy, but because Hezbollah -- Iran -- is and has always been our enemy too! Hezbollah has killed, and continues to kill Americans. Hezbollah makes no bones about calling us their enemy. Yet, despite all they have done, we continue to look the other way. So get this through your head; Hezbollah is like Al-Qaeda, only Hezbollah has a sponsor. It has Iran, it has Syria. Hezbollah is what Al-Qaeda would be if we would have stayed out of Afghanistan. Hezbollah is what Al-Queda would be in Iraq if we had stayed out of there too. Hezbollah is the very definition of State sponsored terrorism. Given the chance, Hezbollah what every terror group hopes to be. Free to move at will, given cover by the local population, who they promptly use as human shields, free to extort the host government for cover from the intrusive international government law enforcement. Imagine Charles Manson and his gang, The Baader-meinhof gang, The IRA, the Weather Underground, the KKK, the Nazi Party and the "Peoples Temple" all being gathered together. Now, feed them a solid diet of meth and put them in an isolated desert camp for 30 years. That's Hezbollah. Now, some jackass decides to give them a warehouse of Katushya missiles and tells them that all their problems will be solved when you and your neighborhood are removed from the earth. When this starts to happen, are you going to act "Proportionally" in response? As in, just sit around and do nothing while these animals fire rockets loaded with large caliber buckshot into your kid's playground? Your grocery store? Your home? They don't want to negotiate - they want you dead. There's no peace treaty, theres no trade route to give them, no "common ground" unless its your grave. Thats all they want. You and your family - dead. The only possible sane act for a decent person to take, the only act that any person interested in justice and peace could consider is to do whatever it takes to end this threat to life and civilization. Missiles are not forms of protest, they are weapons of war. No more -- no less. Before I conclude this particular screed, I wish to leave behind a sort of -- Devils Resumeé for Hezbollah for those of you who don't remember who these animals are. These people are our enemies, not because we choose them to be, but because they have already been killing us for some time. Just to put us all in the proper frame of mind when we hear the word "Hezbollah", I think its time to review their actions towards, not Israelis, but Americans. This is what Hezbollah has done to us. I can assure you, what they have done to the Israelis is far, far worse. I've gathered this information from Wikipedia, and various news sources. These sources go into much more detail on each of these subjects. I've simply compiled the list on this post to make it easier to follow for the subject at hand. Terry Anderson
Thomas Sutherland
Father Lawrence Jenco
After his death, federal judge Royce C. Lamberth awarded the estate and family of Rev. Lawrence Jenco $314.6 million in damages from Iran for the 18 months he was held hostage in Lebanon in the mid-1980s. The ruling includes $14.6 million in compensatory damages to Jenco and his six siblings or their estates and $300 million in punitive damages. Jenco "was treated little better than a caged animal" said Lamberth in his ruling, which laid the blame upon the Iranian government. The Iranian government defaulted on the lawsuit, declining to answer any of the allegations. Robert Stethem
Mohammed Ali Hamadi_ William Richard "Rich" Higgins
On February 17, 1988, Higgins was captured and held hostage by Hezbollah while he was serving on a United Nations peacekeeping mission in Lebanon. He was killed on or before July 6, 1990. William Francis Buckley
One of his tormentors during his time with Hezbollah was Aziz al-Abub who was a Hezbollah psychiatrist and mind control expert. Aziz was a graduate of the Soviet Union's People's Friendship University. Aziz al-Abub used drugs and physical torture on hostage William Buckley over his captivity. US Marine Barracks Beirut On October 23, 1983, around 6:20 am, a yellow Mercedes-Benz delivery truck drove to Beirut International Airport, where the 1st Battalion 8th Marines, under the U.S. 2nd Marine Division of the United States Marines, had set up its local headquarters. The truck turned onto an access road leading to the Marines' compound and circled a parking lot. The driver then accelerated and crashed through a barbed wire fence around the parking lot, passed between two sentry posts, crashed through a gate and barreled into the lobby of the Marine headquarters. The Marine sentries at the gate had loaded pistols but were not able to stop the driver even though they shot at him. According to one Marine, the driver was smiling as he sped past him. The suicide bomber detonated his explosives, which were equivalent to 12,000 pounds (about 5,400 kg) of TNT. The force of the explosion collapsed the four-story cinder-block building into rubble, crushing many inside. The death toll was 241 American servicemen: 220 Marines, 18 Navy personnel and 3 Army soldiers. Sixty Americans were injured. In May 2003, US District Court Judge Royce C. Lamberth declared that the Islamic Republic of Iran was responsible for the 1983 attack, on the grounds that Iran had originally founded Hezbollah and financed the group throughout the years French Parachute Barracks Beirut About 20 seconds later from the attack on the US Marine Barracks, an identical attack occurred against the barracks of the French Third Company of the Sixth French Parachute Infantry Regiment. Another suicide bomber drove his truck down a ramp into the building's underground parking garage and detonated his bomb, leveling the headquarters. In the attack on the French barracks, 58 paratroopers were killed and 15 injured Proportional response? Based on these items and many many more just like them, we are way behind our quota in the removal of Hezbollah and its Iranian zookeepers. Proportional to me means weve got a lot of work to do in killing Hezbollah. Thats not what people mean when the say "proportional" but that's what I take away from it. You can do what you want, but for me, I stand with Israel. |
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US CLARIFIES HOW MUCH IT SUPPORTS ISRAEL
Posted by Barbara Sommer, July 20, 2006. |
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When normal countries are forced to go to war against their neighbors, they get to fight those wars until they win or give up. In the Middle East, Israel's enemies get to start wars with the confidence that Israel will not be allowed to retaliate for more than a week or two before the international community steps in and puts a halt to Israel's impending victory. That's why Israel had to learn to win wars in six days - they aren't allowed to fight for any longer than that unless they're losing (see: Yom Kippur War). And so now, with Israel finally beginning to wear down Hezbollah, comes the news that the US is giving the IDF one more week before joining the rest of the world and demanding that Israel stop winning? Disclaimer: obviously, this could be wishful thinking on the part of European diplomats and fear on the part of Israeli diplomats. But does sound about right, given that the US doesn't even believe that Lebanon is responsible for Hezbollah's attack. The United States is giving Israel one whole week to win the war that Hezbollah, backed by Syria and Iran, initiated: The United States is giving Israel a window of a week to inflict maximum damage on Hezbollah before weighing in behind international calls for a ceasefire in Lebanon, according to British, European and Israeli sources? "It's clear the Americans have given the Israelis the green light. They [the Israeli attacks] will be allowed to go on longer, perhaps for another week," a senior European official said on Tuesday. Diplomatic sources said there was a clear time limit, partly dictated by fears that a prolonged conflict could spin out of control. And a non-prolonged conflict, on the other hand, means that Israel has to sulk back across the border leaving behind the two soldiers that Hezbollah kidnapped. In other words, a non-prolonged conflict means that Israel doesn't achieve its military objectives - it will lose the war that Hezbollah started. Someone needs to explain this slowly to whoever is in charge of the Israel desk at Foggy Bottom: the IDF is not throwing a temper tantrum. This campaign is not the kind of measured, pinpoint retaliation that Israel uses to respond to terrorist attacks. This is a war - a war that was started for particular reasons and that has particular objectives. When the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, the US didn't bomb a Japanese naval base and call it even. Once a war is initiated by one side, the other side is fully justified in using all of the means at its disposal to win that war (barring the commission of war crimes, obviously). The world has seen Israel's military capability shackled for so long against the Palestinians that it has forgotten that wars are fought according to different rules: rules that don't set absurd limits like time frames for winning. Contact Barbara Sommer by email at sommer_1_98@yahoo.com |
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NICE GUYS FINISH LAST
Posted by Batya Medad, July 20, 2006. |
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"Nice guys finish last."
July 20th 2006 IDF SPOKESPERSON ANNOUNCEMENT IDF drops leaflets to ensure the safety of Palestinian civilian population in the Gaza Strip As part of the IDF's operation to stop the Qassam rocket barrages against Israel, the IDF dropped leaflets addressing the Palestinian civilian population in the Gaza Strip. The leaflets are intended to warn the population not to stay in structures that are used for storing weaponry, before they are targeted by the IDF. So I quickly googled to check if someone had really said it. Leo Durocher was known to have said some other great things, such as: I come to win. Leo Durocher (July 27, 1905 - October 7, 1991), nicknamed "Leo the Lip", was an American infielder and manager in Major League Baseball. Upon his retirement, he ranked 5th all-time among managers with 2,008 career victories, and second only to John McGraw in National League history. Through 2005, Durocher still ranked 9th in career wins by a manager. A controversial and outspoken character, Durocher's career was dogged by clashes with authority and the press. I can just imagine what he'd say about Israel's mode of "fighting." I've always considered sports to be a good way to learn the truth of life, and maybe we ought to have more baseball in Israel. This "war" is just going on and on, and I just can't figure it out. Maybe it will be a good thing for me to be going away from the computer and internet on a daily basis. This time I'm not looking for frequent contact, though American TV news is the pits. Last year I found it terribly frustrating not knowing what was really happening. I'll just have to rely on my family calling me and consider "no news is good news." That's not really true, since I do want news, but I have no faith in any of the politicians including the ones I voted for. Only a few more days until I fly, G-d willing. All I can say is that we need a really big miracle, since the left isn't learning too quickly, and the right doesn't seem to have much of a sense of direction. Shabbat Shalom Batya Medad lives in Shiloh. She can be reached by email at Shilohmuse@yahoo.com or visit her website http://shilohmusings.blogspot.com/ or go to http://www.shilo.org.il |
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D.S. GREENWAY IS NOT WELL VERSED IN MIDDLE EAST HISTORY
Posted by David Meir-Levi, July 20, 2006. |
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H. D. S. Greenway's "Israel treads perilous path" (Palo Alto Daily News, 7.20.06) takes a misguided assumption and a series of historically incorrect assertions, and he blends them in to one deeply misguided and sadly misleading opinion piece. By asserting that Israel's counter-attack on Hezbollah will fuel more mideast violence, he rephrases the oft-ballyhooed admonition about the "cycle of violence". Despite his personal history in Lebanon, he seems not well versed in Mideast history. The opposite has been the case. Israel withdrew from Lebanon in May of 2000. Hezbollah took that as a sign of weakness and began its massive arms build-up courtesy of Iran and Syria, with random but consistent cross-border attacks and kidnappings of Israeli soldiers. Arafat also took it as a sign of weakness and shortly thereafter began his 2nd Intifada with the battle cry that what Hezbollah could do in Lebanon, he could do in "Palestine". In August of 2005, Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip. Hamas took that as a sign of weakness, and began an almost daily Qassam bombardment pounding Israel's civilian communities with more than 1,000 rockets, interspersed with attempted suicide bombers, drive-by shootings, sniper attacks, roadside bombs, tunnel bombs, car bombs, truck bombs, and the smuggle-importation of short and medium ranged ground-to-ground missiles and shoulder-held anti-aircraft missiles. Quite the opposite of Greenway's assertion, the more Israel yields, the more the terrorists attack. When Israel uses the force adequate to stop the terrorism, the terrorism stops. Consistently, since its inception almost 60 years ago, Israel has offered peace, and has attacked only when existentially threatened. Its Arab enemies, on the other hand, have maintained a steady and vociferous diatribe of genocide and destruction, matched by an on-going low-intensity 60-year long terror war interspersed with full-scale high-intensity wars. They have retreated only when thoroughly defeated. Another aspect of the problem about which Greenway seems ignorant is the obvioius fact that Hezbollah intentionally places its rocket launchers and other ordnance inside of Christian villages, and sometimes inside of schools, churches, and even hospitals. By internatioinal law, and by common- sense morality, the full onus of culpability for civilian losses rests solely upon Hezbollah. The Lebanese know that. And so do other Arab states and persons. That is why we are witness to some surprizing pronouncements from none other than Egypt and Arabia, condemning Hezbollah as the aggressor; and from Arab journalists in Iraq and Kuwait condemning Hezbollah and Syria and Iran; and from the G-8 resolution supportive of Israel's defensive measures to curb Hezbollah's endless relentless terror war; and from Lebanese Christians whose representative organizations have written public thank-you letters to Israel (some asking why it took so long for Israel to do what any other country would have done 5 years ago) for freeing them from the curse of Hezbollah's occupation of Southern Lebanon; and from the Lebanese Prime Minister himself who only this morning pleaded with the UN and the G-8 to disarm Hezbollah, thereby acknowledging that Hezbollah has pulled of a coup-d'etat and taken power from the Lebanese government. Far from endangering Lebanon, Israel's attack on Hezbollah, especially if there is no interference from the UN, holds out the hope of re-creating a terror-free Lebanon that can bring about the fruition of its aborted "Cedar Revolution" which Hezbollah hijacked. What Greenway should learn, before he writes his next misguided and misleading missive about the middle east, is that if the terrorists put down their weapons, there would be no more violence. But if Israel put down her weapons, there would be no more Israel. David Meir-Levi is an American-born Israeli, currently living in Palo Alto. His expertise is in Near Eastern studies and the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict. He is Director of Peace and Education at Israel Peace Initiative (www.ipi-usa.org). Contact him at david_meirlevi@hotmail.com |
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HOORAY FOR MICHIGAN STATE U. AND PROFESSOR WICHMAN
Posted by Yardena Even, July 20, 2006. |
| This was sent by Dr. Terry Rickard. |
Well, what do we have here. Looks like a small case of some people being
able to dish it out, but not take it. Let's start at the top. The story
begins at Michigan State University with a mechanical engineering professor named
Indrek Wichman. Wichman sent an e-mail to the Muslim Student's
Association. The e-mail was in response to the students' protest of the
Danish cartoons that portrayed the Prophet Muhammad as a terrorist. The
group had complained the cartoons were "hate speech."
Enter Professor Wichman. In his e-mail, he said the following:
Dear Moslem Association: Contact Yardena Even at yardena3@aol.com |
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HEZBOLLAH USES CHRISTIAN LEBANESE AS HUMAN SHIELDS
Posted by David Meir-Levi, July 20, 2006. |
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Israeli sources provide DEBKAfile with inside information that usually never makes it to the front page of USA newspapers.....information that is almost always correct. So, when you read in our mainstream press about all of the civilian Lebanese killed in the Israeli attacks, keep in mind that it is Hezbollah that is using primarily Christian villages as their human shields. In international law, and in common sense morality, Hezbollah bears the full onus of culpability for these iinnocent deaths. The first article below is on Maronite Christians used as human shields. In the second, Canon Andrew White writes, "There have been no suicide bombs in Iraq for the past 6 days" maybe because Syria fears Israel's wrath, and her terrorists return from Iraq to prepare for war against Israel. |
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1. DEBKAfile Exclusive: Hizballah sub-contracts Palestinian launch squads, uses Christian villages as human shields July 19, 2006, 5:48 PM (GMT+02:00) DEBKAfile's military sources report that Palestinian Jihad Islami, Ahmed Jibril's PFLP-General Command and Palestinian crime gangs based in S. Lebanon's Burj Shimali east of Tyre are leading the rocket offensive against Nahariya and coastal Galilee. Early Wednesday, an Israeli air raid struck a village house in this sector east of Tyre, causing 10 deaths, according to Lebanese officials. DEBKAfile further discloses that the rocket fire against the eastern town of Safed emanates from the Maronite Christian village of Rumeish, while the Galilee panhandle villages and the town of Kiryat Shemona are being attacked from the Christian villages of Marjayoun and Kleia in central-south Lebanon. One difficulty in halting Hizballah's rocket barrage in the east has been Israel's reluctance to attack Christian targets, except for pinpointing launch teams. Israeli negotiators are in contact with the village heads on terms for their evacuation so that Hizballah sites can be smashed. Hizballah is using Lebanese Christians as human shields for its attacks and their towns and villages as supply centers to pump ordnance to the launch teams in forward positions. The Israeli air force therefore attacked Hizballah targets sheltering near the Maronite town of Zahleh Tuesday and is taking out every container truck heading west from the Beqaa Valley on the Syrian border. Eighteen such trucks were blown up Tuesday. ========================== 2. The Middle East Crisis
As things continue to worsen in the Middle East, there has been the clear expression by some that the crisis in Lebanon may have reduced the number of suicide bombings here in the capital of Baghdad. There has not been a suicide bombing in Baghdad for six days; most of these are carried out by non-Iraqis and the belief here is that many of those set for this end have returned to Syria. The reason for this is that they believe that Israel will soon move into Syria and the suicide bombers will attack those involved in any military activity there. If there was to be any ground offensive in Lebanon it could also happen there. There is also the belief here that there is a clear link between Syria and Iran and that Iran and Syria are behind the attacks on Israel. There is also strong disbelief that Iran wants nuclear materials for benign purposes. Iran has so much electricity that they supply it to Southern Iraq. David Meir-Levi is an American-born Israeli, currently living in Palo Alto. His expertise is in Near Eastern studies and the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict. He is Director of Peace and Education at Israel Peace Initiative (www.ipi-usa.org). Contact him at david_meirlevi@hotmail.com |
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NICHOLAS BURNS, A REAL SMOOTHIE
Posted by Boris Celser, July 20, 2006. |
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http://video.google.com/videoplay? docid=-5410219961304048630&q=genre%3ATV_show The first interview is with Nicholas Burns of the State Dept. Move the cursor to 32'30" to hear the second one. He's very smooth, pay attention on how he builds the case about Israel being at fault. How he brings the issue of "refugees" returning to Israel. How he is able to defend Hamas and Hizbollah. Quite smooth, compared to so many anti-Israel people in the media. Perfectly possible to fool anyone who only watches regular news. Unfortunately Charlie Rose didn't push on Arafat's terror, or Jews being expelled from Arab countries, etc. It is worth listening to, because it is tricky. Contact Boris Celser by email at celser@telusplanet.net |
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ARAB DEFIANCE; SLANDEROUS SLANDER TRIAL; US ARMS POTENTIAL EGYPTIAN INVADERS;
MORALITY OF CASUALTIES
Posted by Richard H. Shulman, July 20, 2006. |
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ARAB PSYCHOLOGY OF DEFIANCE P.A. Arabs tell Western media that the more Israel besieges them, the more steadfastly they cling. Meanwhile, the media reports, as is there were no connection, that most P.A. manufacturers have shut operations down or transferred them to Egypt or Jordan. These days, when the media fails to draw conclusions, intelligent readers must think for themselves or be no further ahead than unintelligent readers. The transfer leaves the P.A. almost entirely dependent upon charity. Despite this dependency, it diverts needed donations to a war of religious imperialism. That demonstrates the primacy, to them, of religion over economics. In the West, economics has primacy over religion; Westerners think this attitude universal. The Israeli troops pouring into Gaza keep Arab casualties low. One way is by bombing buildings when not occupied. Terrorists not killed, however, do not give up, no matter what difficulty their war makes for their people. Israel thinks that the difficulties will motivate the people to rein in the terrorists. It doesn't work as well with religious fanatics as it does with the more secular Western countries. JORDAN'S GAME Every few days, the King or Parliament of Jordan declares itself in favor of Palestinian Arab rights and against "dangerous Israeli escalation," in sending troops into Gaza to rescue a kidnapped soldier and to stanch the increasing flight of rockets against Israel. The rockets are the dangerous escalation, but the Arabs call the Israeli response "escalation." If Jordan were moderate, it would decry the original escalation, which was by the Arabs. Israel is moderate, actually suicidal and foolish, for having let itself be bombarded for months without this incursion. Jordan's support for Palestinian Arabs comes at the expense of Israel. The kingdom takes measures to bar those Arabs from resettling in the Palestinian Arab state of Jordan. It is difficult to blame Jordan for not wanting a pack of killers destabilizing it. The Arabs differ among themselves over how to conquer Israel, not over whether to do so. Nevertheless, it is pretended that Jordan is moderate. But the King supports the jihad against Israel even though he doesn't join the fighting, and his people would like him to join it. THE N. KOREAN MISSILE LAUNCHING N. Korea was reported to be getting ready to launch a long-range missile capable of carrying an atomic bomb to N. America. The US was considering every option. That includes military intervention. I think that before the US resorts to military means, it should continue working on a diplomatic solution. Oh, the missile already was launched? So much for relying upon diplomacy with vicious enemies! INSULTING THE STATE Ten years ago, a Palestinian Arab had interviewed a Syrian refugee on Swedish television. The journalist was arrested upon arrival at the Damascus airport for having "insulted" the government of Syria, back then (IMRA, 6/26). What gave offense was undisclosed. It doesn't matter to a dictatorship. Criticism or a negative opinion is taken as an "insult," and an insult is taken as a criminal offense. Israel has a similar law, used similarly to repress dissent. SLANDER TRIAL WAS SLANDEROUS The editor of "Maariv" criticized "the Holocaust revisionist statements by the Arab woman judge, Reem Naddaf, in the Nazareth court verdict that ruled that illegal pro-terror activities by an anti-Israel extremist are protected speech, but criticism of those same illegal pro-terror activities is 'slander.'" The trial was of Prof. Steven Plaut, for having criticized Prof. Neve Gordon's statements sympathetic to terrorism and to Holocaust deniers. The judge complained that merely raising criticism of the usual Holocaust statistics in a scholarly way incurs undemocratic accusations of antisemitism. She cited David Irving as such a scholar. She was unaware that Mr. Irving was convicted in a British court for fraudulent and unscholarly Holocaust denial. She appeared unaware that Holocaust denial has an antisemitic agenda, often a pro-Arab one, seeking to reduce sympathy for the Jewish people as victims, while the Arab aggressors try to portray themselves as the victims. Plaut was convicted by distorting an analogy he had made. The judge cited civil liberties. What about Plaut's? Totalitarians exploit the extreme application of civil liberties to further their efforts to eradicate them. Liberal democracies go too far in protecting fraud and sedition. They must defend themselves (Plaut, 6/26). Libel law was meant to prevent defamation, by making truth a defense, but now the law protects slanderers from truth. PHONY ARGUMENT ABOUT "ILLEGAL OUTPOSTS" The Shomron (Samaria) Council produced a film debunking the argument that many outposts there are illegal. It showed that: (1) Many Israeli towns arose but likewise took many years for full legal authorization; (2) Many violate land use regulations; (3) The Arabs built more than 30,000 illegal dwellings in Israel, of which fewer than 5% were demolished; and (4) Ariel Sharon had pointed out why many of the outposts and entire communities were erected to foster Israeli security (Arutz-7, 6/26). The objection to them cites legality falsely, to justify anti-Zionism. This is demonstrated by hypocrisy about illegal Arab building and government violations of democratic norms. ISRAELI BLUSTER MASKING RETREAT PM Olmert's interviewer presented his policy of retreat as bold. First, he states that foreign leaders disapprove of it. Second, he points out that certain other Israeli actions, such as declaring independence and attacking the Arabs preemptively, also incurred foreign disapproval. This policy of abandonment is declared to follow precedent in self-defense. The terrorists should be afraid of Israel defying international opinion, he suggested (IMRA, 6/26). Israel usually is afraid of international opinion. How tough is Olmert to give the Arabs most of their immediate demands for nothing? Why should the Arabs fear that? How does letting the Gaza Arabs saturate Israel with missiles protect Israel? The Apaches were fearless but realistic. They retreated under military pressure, so they could fight again and even ambush hasty pursuers. That is not the kind of strategic retreat Olmert proposes. He is abandoning the core of the Jewish homeland to enemies seeking to conquer Israel. He is like the coward talking tough while running away. The defiance is minimal and largely for show. Most of the world appeases the Arabs, yet do not disapprove of the abandonment. For all we know, the State Dept. ordered it. What the diplomats disapprove of is the Israeli assertion that it would retain up to 8% of Judea-Samaria, and not expel the hundreds of thousand of Jews in it and ruin their lives. Rather, the diplomats want Israel to negotiate a full surrender to the Arab belligerents, who indoctrinate their people in genocide. There is no legal or ethical reason for that international position except prejudice. Real boldness would be to retain the territories and let the Arabs become too miserable to stay. It would be bold to annex now the area Olmert claims he would keep. That would show he means what he says. Israel usually gives away its position in advance, and then finds itself yielding more, under diplomacy. That probably is Olmert's real purpose. INDIGNATION TO MASK CRIMINALITY The world expresses indignation against Israel, despite the evidence that it did not shell the seven Arabs on the Gaza beach. The world does not express indignation against the Arabs, whose rockets killed more Israelis than that and are increasingly effective. We deemed the Nazis war criminals for firing V-2 rockets at English cities during WWII. Why doesn't the world declare the Palestinian Arabs war criminals for firing a thousand rockets into Israel? Abbas declared that period of rocket launchings a truce. When Israeli troops finally re-enter Gaza, to rescue a kidnapped soldier, Abbas says Israel should save the truce. Some truce! The P.A. calls the rescue operation and not the kidnapping "escalation." Oh the foolish Israelis, thinking that if they withdrew from Gaza, the rocket launchings would cease! They intensified (IMRA, 6/26) since the IDF did not have patrols to stop them. CHRISTIAN ARABS Gate of the Sun, fiction by a Lebanese Christian, Elias Khouri, is full of loathing of Israelis. It accuses them of shooting unarmed old men in the face, calmly massacring and demolishing whole villages, forcing prisoners to swallow their own broken teeth or to lie naked on the ground all day, stoning women, and keeping livestock in abandoned mosques. It glorifies terrorism against Israel. Mr. Khouri has been labeled "moderate" (Algis Valiunas, Commentary, 7/2006, p.73). Who came up with that label? What is moderate about him? Remarkable that what he accuses Israelis of doing they never have, but the PLO did in Lebanon! This raises the question of the self-identity of Christian Arabs. Arabs were Christians and pagans before Islam captured most of them. How much of the ethical and psychological make-up of Arab Christians and Arab Muslims is due to their religion and how much to their Arab culture? Christian Arabs originally led the Arab nationalist movement and the struggle against Zionism and into terrorism. Apparently they hoped to unite the Arabs so that the Muslim majority would accept them and not persecute them. Given the Muslim oppression of native Christian populations for centuries, it was a vain hope and not an ethical manifestation of it. The nationalist movement is superseded by the Islamic movement. The PLO has been persecuting Christians and driving them away, whereas Israel has been tolerant of them. Shouldn't this experience prompt Christian Arabs to accept Israel and to oppose Muslim Arabs? Or have Christian antisemitic attitudes priority over their own survival? WHEN TO LISTEN TO WHAT THE ENEMY SAYS? Iran contends that its nuclear program must be peaceable, because Islam prohibits weapons of mass-destruction (NY Times, 7/4). Is that so? Islamic Pakistan has nuclear bombs. Egypt and Iraq have used poison gas - and upon fellow Muslims. Other states have made or are developing weapons of mass-destruction. The P.A. is experimenting with inserting poison into its bombs. A Muslim official may assert what Islam requires or forbids, but Muslims fight over their interpretations and some mullah may issue a fatwa for the opposite. When should one ignore what Muslim officials tell us and when should one take them seriously? Simple. Ignore their assurances, which may be deceptive. Pay heed to their threats, which likely express their true feelings, if not their power. OLMERT STILL NOT ADMITTING FAILURE "Olmert and his associates have four general messages. First, they tell us that P.A. Chairman and Fatah chief Mahmoud Abbas is responsible for bringing about Cpl. Gilad Shalit's release. Second, they say Hamas better watch out, because they're gonna get it. Third, they say that Hamas won't get it until later. Finally, while stipulating that they will not negotiate with Hamas, Olmert and his associates are negotiating with Hamas." Those messages hardly are relevant to the problem. The problem is that Israeli doctrine is to empower terrorists, as by letting terrorists run the P.A. from the start. Israel thought this would enable the Arabs to work with Israel. Instead, and it should have been obvious, empowering terrorists empowers terrorism. This enables the Arabs to work against Israel. That happened in Gaza, but the government stubbornly intends to multiply the damages in Judea-Samaria. It won't admit that the withdrawn troops were not, as claimed, garrisoned in Gaza to protect the Jews of Gaza. The IDF was in Gaza to protect the Jews of Israel. This doctrine, along with Israeli reluctance to admit that the doctrine is a failure and that the government has no doctrine based on reality, kept Israel from overthrowing Arafat when he refused to negotiate in good faith and made war on Israel. Israel gave Abbas money and arms. Abbas took them and used them against Israel (as Arafat did before him), to bolster his standing, as by calling for the murder of Arabs who help Israel against terrorism. He's also working on a blueprint for war, called the prisoners' plan. Israel won't acknowledge those problems, because that would mean that empowering Abbas empowers terrorism. Likewise, the Arabs go under, over, and through the security fence, but the government won't admit the failure of excessive reliance upon the fence. A big offensive in Gaza would signify Israeli policy failure and would incur foreign condemnation. Foreign condemnation would debunk PM Olmert's claim that the withdrawal could be followed by a counter-offensive without the world condemning Israel. Hence, Israel keeps the offensive small (Caroline Glick, IMRA, 6/27). Then it doesn't suffice! WHAT IS ASKED OF ISRAEL The world asks Israel not to raid Arab terrorists unless it can guarantee that none of the terrorists' vicious shields would be killed. No army has this capability. No other army is asked to refrain from counter-attacking. The world is unfair to Israel. Those who object to incidental Arab civilian deaths but not to deliberate murder of Israeli civilians are just antisemites (Prof. Steven Plaut, 6/27). The US is asked it, too. EGYPT HEADING TOWARDS CATASTROPHE The Nile River deposits water and silt, making farmland. In ancient times, Egypt was Canaan's granary and then Rome's. The Aswan Dam was supposed to enable a major agricultural advance. It did immediately increase the amount of irrigated farmland. Then, however, the silt carried by the river was stopped by the dam and deposited right at its base. About 40% of the reclaimed land has reverted to desert. The government had intended to irrigate more westerly sections of desert, but failed to do much. Meanwhile, the rising population not only needs more food, but the people build housing illegally on farmland, thereby reducing cultivated land. This cannot go on (IMRA, 6/27). Western commentators have observed that the US problem with large-scale illegal immigration would be ameliorated if Mexico built up its economy and employed more people domestically. True. But a better solution would be for that country to practice more birth control. The commentators fail to observe that. They also fail to observe that the Arabs' economic problems stem from an irresponsible approach to their population explosion. PUTTING THE CART BEFORE THE HORSE The NY Times reported that Israel often closes the gate into Israel through which Gaza produce is exported. It stated the Arab explanation for the closing before it stated the explanation by the Israelis who did the closing (6/4). It is more logical to state the reason given by the party that performed the act, before the denial by another party. Israel referred to frequent warnings it gets of terrorist cells intending to attack through the portal. The Arabs have made such attacks, as they do at checkpoints, too. The Israeli explanation is reaonable. The P.A. explanation is an accusation of Israeli intent to punish the Arabs. This appears to be the customary Arab evasion of responsiblity for their own problems by blaming others. The Arabs are conspiracy-oriented. Everything is someone else's conspiracy. Actually, the Arabs plot all sorts of terrorism and wars, whereas Israel doesn't care to engage much in propaganda, tries to avoid war, and just wants to be left alone. No wonder that the P.A. explanation is such a bald accusation, devoid of evidence. The order of reporting makes Israel look worse. If the "Times" really served its readers, rather than existing to mold public opinion, it would give them some basis for judging the rival explanations. Instead, it states the opposing explanations without indicating what, on the basis of experience and the local cultures, is realistic. ISRAEL ARRESTS TERRORISTS OF ALL RANKS Israeli forces in Gaza and Judea-Samaria have arrested for terrorism dozens of members of the P.A. parliament and officials of Hamas. Hamas protests this as violating sovereign parliamentary rights and democracy. An Israeli MK is proposing to expel from the Knesset Arab members who support terrorism (Arutz-7, 6/29). What about Jewish MKs who do the same, more or less? Hamas doesn't believe in democracy, nor is democracy worthwhile in the hands of those bigoted murderers. Besides Islam favors theocracy over democracy. Democracy is just the temporary means of fastening its grip. The P.A. is not sovereign. Israel has primary legal authority for security there. RUSSIA COMMENTS The Foreign Minister of Russia made the usual comments that the escalation in Gaza is dangerous, Israel has a right to defend itself but not at the expense of many civilians, and the parties should negotiate solutions (IMRA, 6/29). That's the usual nonsense. It fails to distinguish between aggression being the problem and counter-attack being at least a temporary remedy. It equates societies that want solutions (Israel) and societies that want conquest (Islamic). It is misleading about protection in war for civilians. Aggressors may not hide behind civilians. The counter-attacker is entitled to pursue the aggressors, but not to kill civilians unnecessarily. That injunction Israel follows more than any other country, the US coming in second. Some civilians are killed - that is unavoidable in war. Few as they are relative to earlier wars, the world cries out in mock horror, while hundreds of thousands of victims of jihad go unlamented by this supposedly upright world. It is not upright but upside-down. Russia is particularly hypocritical about civilians. It bombards towns in Chechnya, killing many civilians long after the rebels have fled. It also arms terrorist states, just as did the Soviets. What kind of people are those Arab civilians? Overwhelmingly they believe that the P.A. should get something in return for giving up the Israeli soldier improperly held. They do not believe that Israel should get anything in return for releasing its many convicted terrorist prisoners. I do not lament the deaths of such pro-terrorist civilians. Westerners don't understand that the whole Arab culture there is a threat to humanity. U.S. ARMING EGYPT TO INVADE ISRAEL "Boeing has signed a Foreign Military Sales (FMS) agreement with the US Army to deliver Avenger short-range air defense fire units to Egypt." The units protect forward moving forces. In other words, they protect invaders (IMRA, 6/29). Egypt's military doctrine posits invasion of Israel. The US has built up its Army to do that. Thus the US record of arms sales is not much better than Russia's. MERETZ PARTY OPPOSES OLMERT'S UNILATERAL PLAN Meretz Party head Yossi Beilin opposes the plan to abandon most of Judea-Samaria unilaterally. He said that the rest of the world would not agree to partial retention. Instead, he said, Israel should sign some agreement with Abbas. He admitted that although Abbas could give "legitimacy" to an agreement by signing it, Abbas probably would not or could not implement it (IMRA, 6/28). What is the good of signing an agreement not implemented?" Doesn't Beliin know that Abbas would not sign or keep an agreement under which Israel retains any part of Yesha, and that the terrorist goal is to conquer Israel? STATE DEPT. DOUBLETALK The State Dept. declared that the current crisis is the P.A.'s fault for having kidnapped the Israeli soldier (and for having bombed Israel), but Israel should "ensure" that innocent lives there are unharmed and civilian infrastructure is not damaged. Ensure means guarantee. Rather difficult in war. Arab gunmen deliberately risk civilian lives to shield their own. Reporters asked whether Israel harmed innocent lives and by bombing a power plant damaged civilian infrastructure. The State Dept. wouldn't say (IMRA). Israel has explained that some infrastructure that appears to be civilian also is used by the military. Don't the reporters know that? Now why doesn't State demand that the P.A. not harm Israeli civilians? OPPORTUNITY IN GAZA The terrorists have turned Gaza into a giant terrorist camp, into which Hizbullah men are pouring. The P.A. is recruiting, stocking arms, and learning how to be more destructive. All the terrorist organizations are about to be put on the P.A. payroll that we are told must be met for "humanitarian" reasons. Israel should destroy their capability before it gets more dangerous. It is reaching the point where it can both inflict serious damage upon Israel and tie down large Israeli forces needed to face invading armies. The opportunity to act against the P.A. was provided by the P.A. bombardment, kidnapping, and endorsement of the belligerent prisoners' document. Israel must make good use of this opportunity, before the US presses it to withdraw its forces (Dr. Aaron Lerner, IMRA, 6/29). DUTCH LOSING FREEDOM TO ISLAMISTS The ex-Muslim member of the Dutch parliament has received death threats. The government placed her in a secure apartment. Most of her neighbors feared that an attack on her might endanger them. They sued to evict her, and won. Holland is losing its freedom (Pipes #658, 6/30). Where are innocent victims of jihad to live? She isn't endangering the neighbors, the Islamists are. Why not deport them, instead, as originally intended but since rescinded, her? They are allowed to make war, but Holland is not allowed to defend itself? HOW TO DEAL WITH THE P.A. In 2001, Daniel Pipes recommended what in principle he thinks remains valid: Bury suicide bombers in potter's fields rather than deliver their bodies to relatives (who turn funerals into frenzied demonstrations). THE REVISED HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION The supposedly reformed Human Rights Commission has continued the former UNO Commission's practice of having the world's rogue nations ignore their own human rights abuses and fabricate abuses to accuse Israel of (Benny Avni, NY Sun, 7/5, A5). JIHADISTS ABUSE JUSTICE SYSTEM In a Chicago case of Muslim terrorist conspiracy, "defense lawyers may be able to use the election outcome of Hamas' victory and the recognition of Hamas by other countries to portray the group as part of the mainstream" (Josh Gerstein, NY Sun, 7/6, p.5). The Supreme Court does not understand that terrorism is a new means of warfare. It still treats terrorism as criminal. It recommends trials for pirate-like captives not entitled to POW rights, because they don't follow the rules of war. "Unlike in previous wars, conspiracy is the primary occupation of the combatants in this one." (NY Sun, 6/30/06). Stalin, Hitler, and Mao were recognized. That didn't make them mainstream. The courts enable terrorists' lawyers to abuse the justice system to facilitate war on us. If the same perverted principles were applied to WWII, one would see their absurdity. THERE'S BOMBING AND THEN THERE'S BOMBING Israel bombs routes used by P.A. rocket crews to move missiles near the border. That is different from US bombing in, say, Korea, of trucks moving enemy supplies towards the front. One is costly domestic propaganda that makes for antagonistic foreign relations. The other serves a military purpose. THE MORALITY OF CASUALTIES The world presses Israel to minimize Arab casualties but does not press the Arabs to minimize Israeli civilian casualties. Indeed, the Arab tactic is to strive for as many Israeli civilian casualties as possible. In such a case, given that the Arabs have a collective mentality and approval for that genocide-like policy, perhaps it theoretically would be better if Israel wiped their population out. FREE SPEECH OR SELF-DEFENSE The anti-American, anti-Israel Mufti, dismissed for being too radical even for the Arabs, made a speaking tour of the US last March. He incites followers to become suicide bombers. Should he be allowed to speak in the US? He is not a citizen of the US, and the US has discretion over whom to admit. It need not admit him. The basic question is when to consider Islamist speakers a question of free speech or barring them a matter of self-defense. The obsolete view is to consider terrorism a matter of individual crimes to be adjudicated. Then their speaking here is a matter of free speech. The currently valid view is to consider terrorism a matter of international jihad in various stages in various places. Then their speaking here, to rouse the faithful to hatred and to support jihad against us is a matter of terrorism, to be barred. And if we can bar them, why not deport their followers, as enemy aliens, as countries traditionally have done? ODD LOGIC Conservatives cite the improvements in the US economy as vindication of tax cuts. They may be right but they cannot prove their case. Since the tax cuts preceded the improvements, they claim that the cuts caused them. Their narrow focus may overlook other factors. People do not understand cause-and-effect and how to tell which is which. Opponents of the war in Iraq call for a withdrawal, without discussing the likely consequences. That, too, is a narrow focus. It is like telling the dentist not to use Novocain, because the needle hurts. Richard Shulman is a veteran defender of Israel on several web-based forums. His comments and analyses appear often on Think-Israel. He provides cool information and right-on-target overviews. He distributes his essays by email. To subscribe, write him at richardshulman5@aol.com. |
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ROAD MAP TO WAR
Posted by Marcel Cousineau, July 20, 2006. |
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An Israeli paper states: "" It's a war "" Gee, I thought the Road Map led to peace? You did everything the U.S. told you to do for their peace plan and ............ where did it lead you Israel? Into a trap set by your enemies. While you turned your face for a phony peace and threw fellow Jew out of their homes for the terrorists and your baal master George they were busy, busy, busy preparing for war. The false peace by the false friend almost put you in a permanent coma Israel. Much talk in Israel that the president gives them a LIMITED green light! a snare Israel has yet to free itself from. This war, has it awakened any in Israel to the man who hold the green light for Israel? He can also send Israel a red light if you let him! What I hear from the world is that they don't like to see Jews fight and defend themselves. It would be more peacefuly for everyone if the Jews would just give up and die peacefully. That is the true sentiment of a majority of the non Islamic world. God continues to seperate the wheat from the chaff. We already know what the moslem world thinks, ONLY NOW, GOD HAS REINFORCED THEIR HATRED AGAINST HIS PEOPLE ISRAEL This is a sign that His judgment now begins against His enemies. Indonesia, the largest population of moslems in the world. I've lost track at the number of earthquakes since the Tsunami struck in December 2004 They had another major earthquake and Tsunami the other day. Immediately after they volunteered for 'peacekeeping duties' against Israel on the Lebanese border. God is attempting to get the attention of all the inhabitiants of the earth, but in America almost everyone is drunk with sport, wine, women, wealth, etc. They will not see it coming! Contact Marcel Cousineau at his website: http://averyheavystone.blogspot.com |
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THE U.S.-ISRAELI SUICIDE PACT
Posted by Elan Journo, July 20, 2006. |
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The Iran-Hamas-Hezbollah axis is fully responsible for initiating the war on Israel, but the Islamists' aggression is the logical product of U.S.-Israeli policy. The longstanding commitment of Israel and America to "diplomatic engagement" with Palestinians and Islamists--a euphemism for appeasement--is suicidal. For decades America has urged Israel to placate and surrender to our common enemy. The U.S.-endorsed "Road Map to Peace," like the "Peace Process" and sundry initiatives before it, rationalized Palestinian terrorism as the result of a legitimate grievance. If only the Palestinians' wish for a civilized, peaceful state were fulfilled--Washington deluded itself into believing--terrorism would end. And fulfilling this wish requires not smashing their terrorist infrastructure, but showering them with land and loot. But the majority of Palestinians actually seek the destruction of Israel, and the slaughter of its people. Because they embrace this vicious goal, hordes of Palestinians idolized arch terrorist Yasser Arafat for waging a terrorist war to wipe out Israel and establish a nationalist dictatorship. They abetted Arafat's terrorism and celebrated his atrocities. They served as cheerleaders or recruits for terrorist groups--and when they had the chance, they embraced the even more militant religious zealots of Hamas. It is no surprise that, according to a recent poll, 77 percent of Palestinians support their government's kidnapping of an Israeli soldier and that 60 percent support the continued rocket fire from Gaza into Israel. But even as Palestinians mounted more attacks, Washington pressed Israel for more concessions--and bolstered the terrorist-sponsoring Palestinian Authority with millions of dollars in aid. The U.S. forbade Israel from laying a finger on Arafat, and extended this tender solicitude to Hamas leaders. Washington actually whitewashed the blood-stained Arafat and his crony Abbas as peace-loving statesmen and invited them to the White House. And when Hezbollah now fires rockets at major cities in northern Israel, President Bush demands that Israel show "restraint." Depressingly, Israel has continually relented to American pressure to appease our common enemy. It has prostrated itself before the Palestinians, with flamboyantly self-sacrificial offers of land-for-peace; it has withdrawn from southern Lebanon, ceding ground necessary to its self-defense; it has withdrawn from Gaza, leaving its southern cities at the mercy of rocket fire from the Hamas-run territory. Such U.S.-endorsed appeasement by Israel, across decades, has enabled Hezbollah and Hamas to mount their current attacks. Yet America remains undeterred in its commitment to appeasement. The U.S. is now trying to woo Iran with endless offers of economic "incentives," if only Iran promises to stop chasing nuclear weapons. Evading Iran's lust to "wipe Israel off the map," evading its funding of Hezbollah and Hamas, evading its avowed enmity to America, evading its decades of fomenting and orchestrating a proxy terror war against American civilians--evading all of this, Washington deludes itself into believing that paying Iran off will, somehow, wipe out its hostility. Inevitably, this encourages Iran to continue its aggressive support for terrorists and its fervent quest for nuclear weapons. Merely by prolonging the negotiations endlessly, Iran gains time to acquire a weapon to wield against its neighbors, to provide to Hamas and Hezbollah or to other proxies to use against the United States. And were Iran eventually to accept some deal, American aid would merely be sustaining Iran's regime--and, inexorably, a covert nuclear program. We are teaching the Islamic totalitarians in Gaza, Lebanon and Iran that their goal of destroying us is legitimate; that aggression is practical; that the more aggressive they are, the more we will surrender. U.S.-Israeli policy has demonstrated that we lack the intellectual self-confidence to name, let alone condemn, our enemies--and that we lack the will to deal with threats mercilessly. It vindicates the Islamists' premise that their religious worldview can bring a scientific, technologically advanced West to its knees. To protect the lives of our citizens, America and Israel must stop evading the nature of the enemy's cause: our complete destruction. We must stop appeasing our common enemy--and embrace self-defense as a matter of intransigent principle. To put an end to the current rocket attacks from Lebanon and Gaza, America should urge Israel to annihilate the annihilators: Hamas and Hezbollah. And to thwart Iran's nuclear ambition, America must use as much military force as is necessary to dispose of that catastrophic threat and the regime responsible for it. Elan Journo is a junior fellow at the Ayn Rand Institute (http://www.aynrand.org/) in Irvine, Calif. The Institute promotes Objectivism, the philosophy of Ayn Rand--author of "Atlas Shrugged" and "The Fountainhead." Contact the writer at media@aynrand.org. |
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AFTER UNIFIL
Posted by David Meir-Levi, July 20, 2006. |
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Here is a Jerusalem Post editorial from July 19, 2006
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We have to work with the Lebanese government to extend its authority over southern Lebanon... The Lebanese government has indicated to me that already they've put in a thousand troops, and others will follow as the UN also moves down, and we will re-enforce the UN troops on the ground... Let me say that Hizbullah... is a player in the south of Lebanon... I did tell Mr. Nasrallah that Hizbullah exercised restraint, responsibility and discipline after the withdrawal, and that we would want to see that continue, and I'm sure from the indications that he gave me that he intends to do it. - UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, with prime minister Ehud Barak, June 21, 2000 Kofi Annan's faith in "Mr. Nasrallah" and the Lebanese government, just after the UN had certified Israel's complete withdrawal from Lebanon six years ago, was somewhat misplaced. Now Annan is talking about sending a "considerably larger" force than UNIFIL with a "different concept of operation." What can we learn from the UN's failures in Lebanon? The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon was created after a March 11, 1978 PLO attack against Israel from Lebanon that caused "many dead and wounded among the Israeli population," as UNIFIL's Web site explains. Israel retaliated with a massive military operation against the PLO state-within-a-state in southern Lebanon on the night of March 14. The next day, the Lebanese government asked the Security Council to intervene, claiming that the Israeli action had "no connection" to the PLO attack. Just four days later, the Security Council obliged, demanding Israel's immediate withdrawal and establishing UNIFIL to "confirm the Israeli withdrawal, restore international peace and security, and assist the government of Lebanon in ensuring the return of its effective authority in the area." Almost 30 years later, after much confirming, restoring, and assisting by UNIFIL, Israel is again in Lebanon, again destroying an alien force ensconced there, this one with capabilities that the PLO could only dream of. Hizbullah's massive arsenal of missiles, some of which can reach greater Tel Aviv and are controlled directly by Iran, was assembled under the noses of UNIFIL troops. Indeed, UNIFIL's latest contribution is to complain that the current IDF operation has endangered its troops. Perhaps this is because Hizbullah has been known to base itself right next to UNIFIL forces, in the hopes that Israel would inadvertently hit UNIFIL in response. This is understandable from Hizbullah's cynical perspective, but harder to fathom in relation to UNIFIL's mandate to restore peace and security. It is often noted that UNIFIL failed in its mission, but even that is too kind, to the extent that it implies that its presence is benign. In reality, UNIFIL has provided more security to Hizbullah than it has to Israel, thereby increasing the likelihood of conflict and helping to make the current war inevitable. The principal blame for this cannot be placed on the blue-helmeted troops from assorted countries themselves, over 250 of whom lost their lives over the years. Even if they wanted to, the troops could not escape the distorted political constraints imposed by the organization and the nations that sent them. Nor could they escape the iron law of peacekeeping forces: those that are "successful" are not necessary, and those that are most necessary are doomed to failure. On the Golan Heights and in the Sinai, for example, UN forces are "successful" because Syria and Egypt deem it in their interest to prevent direct conflict with Israel. In Lebanon, where Syria and Iran decided they had an opposite interest, UNIFIL would not lift a finger to stop them. Enlarging UNIFIL will not solve this problem. An international force - by whatever name, of whatever size, and manned by whichever countries - can at best be the decoration on a fundamental shift in the strategic landscape that prevents further aggression. That shift must begin with "letting" Israel maximize Hizbullah's destruction. It should continue with a Lebanese, international and Israeli determination to physically prevent southern Lebanon from becoming a terrorist state-within-a-state ever again. There is already broad international understanding that Hizbullah must be trounced, not trusted. To this must be added the realization that the road to peace and security lies not in helping to protect Israel's attackers, but in helping Israel to protect itself. David Meir-Levi is an American-born Israeli, currently living in Palo Alto. His expertise is in Near Eastern studies and the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict. He is Director of Peace and Education at Israel Peace Initiative (www.ipi-usa.org). Contact him at david_meirlevi@hotmail.com |
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URGENT CAMPAIGN: LET IDF SMASH THE BASTARDS!
Posted by Mike Yekutiel, July 20, 2006. |
PLEASE SEND YOUR EMAIL OF ENCOURAGEMENT TO IDF SAYING KOL HAKAVOD TO ZAHAL, AND URGING OLMERT TO DISREGARD WORLD OPINION AND TO ALLOW THE IDF TO DO EVERYTHING NECESSARY TO SMASH THE HIZBULLAH AND THEIR SYRIAN AND IRANIAN HANDLERS!!! SEND YOUR EMAILS NOW TO: GetIran@aol.com |
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NOW IS THE TIME TO sponsor a meaningful ad campaign in all of the major Israeli press as well as a nationwide petition/independent referendum to encourage "completion of the operation". There needs to be FULL PAGE ADS IN ISRAEL'S YEDIOT ACHRONOT as well as in other major Israeli papers CALLING FOR A PREEMPTIVE STRIKE AGAINST THE HIZBULLAH'S HANDLERS IN IRAN AND DAMASCUS BEFORE THOSE REGIMES REACH THE POINT OF NO-RETURN IN THEIR NUCLEAR AND OTHER PROGRAMS OF MASS DESTRUCTION. (We all know exactly what they are planning to do, as soon as they can do it.) NOW IS THE TIME TO DEMAND THAT ISRAEL FIGHT THE WAR, INCLUDING SENDING IN GROUND TROOPS TO FLUSH OUT THE ENEMY AND TO ANNEX A 50km SECURITY BUFFER ZONE IN THE NORTH AND THE SOUTH. Faith in G-d combined with Jewish power and the disregarding of world opinion is the only way to stop random missile attacks on Israel and the only way to stop the future destruction of Israel. Never again should we rely on the nations of the world to defend us! A full page ad in Yediot Achronot costs about 20,000 dollars. I already raised 5000. Time is of the essence. If we receive funds by Thursday-Friday, perhaps we can still catch Sunday's papers. Regardless, we need to get this urgent message out in posters throughout Israel as well as over the internet€¦And we need to sign-up a million Israelis and Jews worldwide on our petition. What can you do? YOU CAN HELP US PUBLISH THIS MESSAGE - PRAISING THE IDF AND URGING THE ISRAELI GOVERNMENT TO ALLOW THE IDF TO FIGHT, COMPLETE AND WIN THIS WAR!! WE NEED TO RUN THESE ADS NOW. AND WE NEED YOUR HELP TO SPONSOR AND SPREAD THIS MESSAGE. Please get back to me, TO FIND OUT HOW YOU CAN HELP US SPONSOR ADS
NOW and please send back an email showing your support and urging
Olmert not to cave in to international pressure€¦email
to GuzofskyYekutiel@yahoo.com Or call 011 972 52 318 0290
Thanks,
Yekutiel (Mike)
PLEASE FORWARD THIS EMAIL EVERYWHERE AND URGE EVERYONE YOU SEND IT
TO, to FORWARD THIS OUT -
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WHY GROUND OFFENSIVE?
Posted by Yoram Ettinger, July 20, 2006. |
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A comprehensive, decisive and disproportionate ground offensive is a prerequisite for denying Hizballah and Palestinian terrorism the capabilities to bomb the center of Israel, to whack the psyche of civilians in northern and southern Israel, and to hit sensitive Israeli defense and civilian installations. An enemy cannot be demolished by a quick, elegant, remote-control, low-casualty operation via smart bombs and surgical operations. Demolishing an enemy, and obliterating its capabilities, require a sustained military presence and control -- which characterize ground forces -- in order to leverage the effect of smart bombs. Thousands of such bombs hit Iraqi forces for three months during the 1991 War, but it was the four days of ground battles, which forced Saddam to surrender. In 1989, US aircraft and choppers strafed Panama City with missiles and bombs, but it was the introduction of US ground forces, which destroyed the Noriega regime. In 1995 and 1999, US aircraft demolished the Serb military in Bosnia and Kosovo respectively, but it has been the presence of US ground forces, which has stabilized the region. Israel's experience in Gaza and Lebanon is replete with missiles, surgical eliminations and limited short-term ground operations, which have caused much destruction of enemy capabilities, short of bringing the enemy to submission. Just like the effect of pruning a tree, the long-term effect of such military tactics has been to strengthen the roots of Palestinian and Lebanese terrorism. Safeguarding the long-term security of its civilian sector is the most critical duty of Israel's government, which can be attained only by a major ground operation. A ground operation entails fatalities, but there is no free lunch in the battle for personal and national security, especially not in the Mideast. Refraining from a comprehensive ground operation would cause a further increase in Israeli civilian losses and a further destruction of civilian infrastructures, which could instill a sense of helplessness and vulnerability and an erosion of confidence in the capabilities of the IDF and the government. The 1991 precedence of 39 Iraqi "Scuds" hitting Israel has demonstrated that the long-term psychological impact of missiles hitting the civilian sector is worse than the impact of homicide bombing. How much worse will be the impact of thousands of Katyusha (Hizballah) and Kassam (Palestinian) missiles afflicting the Israeli psyche?! The US President and Congress have supported Israel's battle against Hizballah and Palestinian terrorism, which constitutes a mutual enemy and a role-model for anti-US terrorism in Iraq and in Afghanistan. The American President and Congress hope that Israel -- an outpost of US interests and values - will launch the decisive operation as soon as possible. Any delay of such an operation makes it more difficult -- for them -- to withstand the pressure (for evenhandedness) by the Department of State bureaucracy, CIA, Bush 41st, Jim Baker and Brent Scowcroft, the multi-nationals, Saudi Arabia, Western Europe and the UN. A reluctance to undertake a large-scale ground operation would lead Israel, once again, toward political negotiation with Lebanese and Palestinian terrorism, which have systematically and terroristically violated all commitments made to the US and to Israel. The temptation to conduct a dialogue with terrorists, who are determined to annihilate the Jewish State, does not constitute a virtue. It is a self-destruct symptom of vacillation and a reflection of the victory of wishful-thinking over realism, which have played into the hands of terrorists. One may attribute such reluctance to the trauma of the 1982 Israeli war against PLO presence in Lebanon. However, the damage of that war was not the war itself, which prevented a consolidation of PLO deployment along the Lebanese border, as currently demonstrated by Hizballah. The damage of the 1982 war was the adoption of an erroneous lesson -- avoidance at all cost of a large-scale ground operation. Rather than concluding the appropriate lesson -- avoidance of an unnecessarily expanded operation and improving intelligence and operational capabilities -- the tendency has been to "throw the baby out with the bath water", thus handicapping the IDF and the morale of the public. It would be illogical to assume that the helpless Lebanese government would "snatch the chestnuts out of the fire" for Israel, asserting its sovereignty in Southern Lebanon. Beirut does not have the muscle or the will to challenge Hizballah. One should not expect weakling Lebanon to undertake an initiative shunned by Israel. A strong sovereign nation should not subcontract its counter-terrorism effort. The aversion toward a comprehensive, decisive and disproportionate ground offensive -- which has been embraced by the advocates of restrain in face of Hizballah's buildup during the last six years -- would prevent the attainment of the goals of the war on Lebanese and Palestinian terrorism, would exacerbate civilian losses, would further erode Israel's posture of deterrence, would feed Arab belligerence, would further destabilize regional instability, would weaken US support of Israel, would distance the area from peace and would plant the seeds of future and more horrific waves of terrorism. Ambassador Yoram Ettinger is a consultant on US-Israel relations as well as the Chairman of Special Projects at the Ariel Center for Policy Research. Formerly the Minister for Congressional Affairs to Israel's Embassy in Washington, DC, Ettinger also served as Consul General of Israel to the Southwestern US. He is a former editor of Contemporary Mideast Backgrounder, and is the author of the Jerusalem Cloakroom series of reports. Contact him at yoramtex@netvision.net.il |
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SAUDIS BRIBE JOURNALISTS
Posted by David Meir-Levi, July 19, 2006. |
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Richard Cohen's "Hunker Down with History" (Washington Post, 7.18.06) makes too many errors of fact, history, and logic for correction in a brief letter. But, there is one consistent pattern that can be noted. All of his false statements, revisionist pseudo-history, and irrational assertions are congruent with the Arab narrative.....that propaganda screed which rewrites both ancient and modern Near Eastern history in order to create the mendacious pseudo-historical foundation for the Arab justification of its endless, relentless genocidal violence against Israel and against the West. On January 14, 2004, the courageous Saudi journalist Nasser al-Fawzan published an article in the Saudi newspaper Al-Watan ("Bribing Journalists - A Rumor or the Sad Truth?"). In that article he publicly disclosed, and then criticized, the Saudi royal family's long-time habit of making cash payments, in amounts of up to several hundred thousand dollars, to foreign journalists in order to induce them to write media reports that are complimentary to the Saudis and consistent with the Arab propaganda line. So now we know that the Saudis bribe journalists. But, we don't know which ones they bribe. If I were a journalist on the Saudi gravy train, or wanted to be on it, I suspect that I would be highly motivated to write articles that cavalierly disregard fact, history, and logic, and instead cast Israel in the worst possible light by the use of false statements, revisionist pseudo-history, and irratiional assertions; in order that my essays might keep me in the good graces of my Saudi employers. Perhaps those characteristics of a journalist's writing can give us a clue as to which journalists are on the Saudi payroll. This next is called "Hunker Down With History," and was written by Richard Cohen, July 18, 2006; A19, Washington Post. My comments are interspersed inside square brackets [...] IN CAPS. Cohen's article is followed by some responses to the article. |
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The greatest mistake Israel could make at the moment is to forget that Israel itself is a mistake. It is an honest mistake, a well-intentioned mistake, a mistake for which no one is culpable, but the idea of creating a nation of European Jews in an area of Arab Muslims (and some Christians) has produced a century of warfare and terrorism of the sort we are seeing now. Israel fights Hezbollah in the north and Hamas in the south, but its most formidable enemy is history itself. [THE ABOVE IS COHEN'S OPINION. IT CAN BE NEITHER CONFIRMED NOR REBUTTED, BECAUSE IT IS SIMPLY AN ASSESSMENT MADE INSIDE OF HIS OWN HEAD. MANY ARABS AGREE WITH HIM. ON THE OTHER HAND, IT IS WORTH NOTING THAT ISRAEL IS NOT A "...NATION OF EUROPEAN JEWS". SHORTLY AFTER THE 1948 WAR, THE 750,000 JEWS DRIVEN FROM THEIR HOST COUNTRIES (WHERE THEY AND THEIR ANCESTORS HAD LIVED FOR, IN SOME CASES, MORE THAN 2,500 YEARS) BY THE ARAB MOBS AND GOVERNMENTS, FURIOUS THAT THE 'DIRTY JEWS'/'DHIMMI JEWS" HAD BESTED THE BEST OF THE ARAB ARMIES, FOUND REFUGE IN ISRAEL. AT GREAT COST AND SUFFERING, THEY WERE REHABILITATED AND INTEGRATED INTO ISRAELI SOCIETY. THEY WERE FORCED FROM THEIR HOMES WITHOUT PROPERTY, MONEY, OTHER BELONGINGS, ARRIVING PENNILESS AND TRAUMATIZED IN AN ISRAEL ONLY BARELY RECOVERING FROM ITS OWN TRAUMA OF THE 1948 WAR WHICH CAUSED THE DEATHS OF 1% OF iSRAEL'S TOTAL POPULATION AND MORE THAN 10% OF ITS ARMED FORCES. THESE JEWS CAME FROM ARAB COUNTRIES AND IRAN, FROM NORTH AFRICA AND EGYPT AND SYRIA TO IRAQ AND YEMEN AND IRAN. SO, WITHIN TWO YEARS OF ITS EXISTENCE, THE STATE OF ISRAEL WAS. C. 50% EUROPEAN AND C. 50% JEWS OF ARAB COUNTRIES. CAN COHEN BE IGNORANT OF THIS FACT OF HISTORY?] This is why the Israeli-Arab war, now transformed into the Israeli-Muslim war (Iran is not an Arab state), persists and widens. It is why the conflict mutates and festers. [THIS IS A RATHER STRANGE ASSERTION. ACCORDING TO THIS STATEMENT, THE PROBLEM IS RACIO-CULTURAL. EUROPEAN FOLK AND MIDDLE EASTERN FOLK CANNOT GET ALONG. BY MAKING THIS ASSERTION, COHEN HAS REVEALED HIS DEEPLY INGRAINED AND PERHAPS ALMOST UNCONSCIOUS RACISM AGAINST ARABS (BECAUSE THEY RACIALLY OR CULTURALLY/SOCIOLOGICALLY CANNOT ACCOMODATE EVEN A HINT OF MULTI-RACIAL MULTI-CULTURAL SOCIETY). MOREOVER, COHEN IGNORES THE PLETHORA OF PUBLIC STATEMENTS BY ARAB LEADERS INDICATING THAT THE PROBLEM IS NOT SOCIO-CULTURAL BUT RATHER RELIGIOUS. "NO JEWS IN ARAB LANDS'...'NO JEWS IN PALESTINE'....'PALESTINE IS OUR LAND AND THE JEWS ARE OUR DOGS'....'THERE IS NO ROOM FOR JEWISH SOVEREIGNTY IN A MOSLEM LAND'.... ACCORDING TO THE ARABS, WHEN THEY SPEAK IN ARABIC AMONG THEMSELVES, IT IS ALL ABOUT JEWS, JEWS, JEWS. IT IS NOT ABOUT EUROPEANS. FOR THE OBJECTIVE OBSERVER WHO READS ARAB PRESS AND GOVERNMENT STATEMENTS OVER THE PAST 70 YEARS, IT IS OBVIOUS THAT THE CORE PROBLEM IS THE REFUSAL OF THE ARAB WORLD (EXCEPT, NOW, SINCE 1979, A SMALL BUT -- GOD WILLING-- GROWING NUMBER OF ARAB STATES) TO ACKNOWLEDGE THAT THERE CAN BE A JEWISH STATE IN LAND THAT WAS ONCE RULED BY MOSLEMS. IT IS NOT LIKELY THAT COHEN IS IGNORANT OF THIS HISTORICAL REALITY.] It is why Israel is now fighting an organization, Hezbollah, that did not exist 30 years ago and why Hezbollah is being supported by a nation, Iran, that was once a tacit ally of Israel's. [THE INANITY OF THIS STATEMENT IS BEYOND COMPREHENSION. COHEN SEEMS TO HAVE FORGOTTEN THAT IRAN TURNED ANTI-ISRAEL IN NOVEMBER OF 1979 WHEN THE AYATOLLAH RUHOLLAH KHOUMEINI DROVE OUT THE SHAH (ALLY OF ISRAEL) AND IMPLEMENTED THE "ISLAMIC REVOLUTION". COHEN SEEMS TO HAVE FORGOTTEN THAT IT WAS IRAN UNDER THE AYATOLLAH WHICH CREATED HEZBOLLAH IN THE EARLY 1980S TO BE A REPLACEMENT FOR THE PLO WHICH ISRAEL DROVE FROM LEBANON IN 1982 BY TWISTING HISTORY JUST ENOUGH SO THAT THE IGNORANT WILL SHAKE THEIR HEADS AND SAY...HMMM....GOOD POINT, WHY DID ISRAEL BEHAVE SO BADLY AS TO CREATE AN ENEMY WHERE THERE WAS ONCE A FRIEND.... ......BY DOING THAT AND MORE OF THE SAME BELOW, COHEN MAKES ISRAEL THE VILLAIN AND THE MOSLEM WORLD THE VICTIM.] The underlying, subterranean hatred of the Jewish state in the Islamic world just keeps bubbling to the surface. The leaders of Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan and some other Arab countries may condemn Hezbollah, but I doubt the proverbial man in their street shares that view. [THIS IS TRUE. HE FAILS TO NOTE THAT THIS UNDERLYING SUBTERRANEAN HATRED HAS BEEN BUBBLING TO THE SURFACE IN POGROMS AND MURDERS AND GANG RAPES AND EXILE FROM VILLAGE AND COUNTRY AND IN THE ISLAMIC RACIST APARTHEID INSTITUTION OF DHIMMITUDE...FOR 1300 YEARS.] There is no point in condemning Hezbollah. Zealots are not amenable to reason. [YES THERE IS. WE DO NOT CONDEMN HEZBOLLAH BECAUSE WE THINK THAT HEZBOLLAH WILL SAY: OH, GOODNESS, ALLAH FORGIVE ME, NOW THAT THE WEST CONDEMNS ME I SEE THAT I HAVE BEHAVED POORLY AND WILL AT ONCE CORRECT THE ERROR OF MY WAYS." NO. HEZBOLLAH MUST BE CONDEMNED BECAUSE BY CALLING IT WHAT IT IS, WE ALERT THE WORLD TO THE DANGER THAT AN IRREDENTIST IMPLACABLE EXTREMIST JIHADIST TERRORIST GROUP POSES FOR LEBANON, FOR ISRAEL, FOR THE MIDDLE EAST, AND FOR THE WESTERN WORLD...AND WITH THAT ALERT, WE URGE THE REQUISITE ACTION. COHEN'S CAVALIER WILLINGNESS TO NOT CONDEMN HEZBOLLAH IS A WAY OF DISTRACTING THE READER FROM THE OBVIOUS DANGER THAT HEZBOLLAH POSES, AND FOR WHICH IT SHOULD BE CONDEMNED SO THAT THAT DANGER CAN BE EXPOUNDED AND QUANTIFIED AND SO THAT OUR LEADERS CAN BE GALVANIZED INTO ACTION AGAINST THAT DANGER.] And there's not much point, either, in condemning Hamas. It is a fetid, anti-Semitic outfit whose organizing principle is hatred of Israel. [SAME AS ABOVE.] There is, though, a point in cautioning Israel to exercise restraint -- not for the sake of its enemies but for itself. [THIS IS TRULY MASTERFUL. BY EXONORATING HAMAS AND HEZBOLLAH FROM CONDEMNATION, HE THUS LEAVES THE FIELD OPEN FOR ONLY ISRAEL TO BE CONDEMNED....OR AT EAST CAUTIONED. GOOD WAY TO FOCUS ATTENTION ON ISRAEL....AND AWAY FROM THE ARAB TERRORISTS.] Whatever happens, Israel must not use its military might to win back what it has already chosen to lose: the buffer zone in southern Lebanon and the Gaza Strip itself. [WHY IN THE WORLD NOT? WHAT WOULD HE WANT THE USA TO DO IF MEXICO WERE FIRING 1200 ROCKETS IN TO TEXAS? ] Hard-line critics of Ariel Sharon, the now-comatose Israeli leader who initiated the pullout from Gaza, always said this would happen: Gaza would become a terrorist haven. They said that the moderate Palestinian Authority would not be able to control the militants and that Gaza would be used to fire rockets into Israel and to launch terrorist raids. This is precisely what has happened. It is also true, as some critics warned, that Israel's withdrawal from southern Lebanon was seen by its enemies -- and claimed by Hezbollah -- as a defeat for the mighty Jewish state. Hezbollah took credit for this, as well it should. Its persistent attacks bled Israel. In the end, Israel got out and the United Nations promised it a secure border. The Lebanese army would see to that. (And the check is in the mail.) All that the critics warned has come true. But worse than what is happening now would be a retaking of those territories. That would put Israel smack back to where it was, subjugating a restless, angry population and having the world look on as it committed the inevitable sins of an occupying power. [THE ABOVE SCENARIO EXISTS ONLY IN HIS IMAGINATION. ISRAEL'S RETAKING OF THOSE TERRITORIES WOULD STOP THE TERRORISM, JUST AS IT DID IN THE WEST BANK WHEN ISRAEL RE-OCCUPIED THE WEST BANK ON 3.29.02. MOREOVER, RETAKING THOSE TERRITORIES WOULD ENABLE ISRAEL TO DESTROY HAMAS, AND HEZBOLLHA, OR AT LEAST CRIPLE THEM. THIS WOULD BE A SERIOUS SETBACK FOR IRAN (AN EVENTUALLITY MUCH TO BE APPRECIATED BY THE WEST) AND WOULD STOP THE TERROR ON ISRAEL'S BORDERS FOR THE NEXT TEN YEARS....AND WOULD GIVE BOTH THE PALESTINIAN MODERATS AND THE LEBANESE GOVERNMENT THE ABILITY TO FILL THE VACUUM WITH LEADERS WHO WANT PEACE. JUST WHAT SYRIA DOES NOT WANT, AND JUST WHAT THE USA DOES WANT.] The smart choice is to pull back to defensible -- but hardly impervious -- borders. That includes getting out of most of the West Bank -- and waiting (and hoping) that history will get distracted and move on to something else. This will take some time, and in the meantime terrorism and rocket attacks will continue. [SO NOW HE JUST RE-GURGITATES THE ARAB LINE....PULL BACK TO UNDEFENSIBLE BORDERS (WEST BANK WEST BORDER IS 9 MILES FROM TEL AVIV AND THE BEN GURION AIRPORT IS WITHIN SHOULDERHELD ANTI-AIRCRAFT MISSILE RANGE OF RAMALLAH) AND THEN SORT OF HUNKER DOWN AND HOPE. WAY TO GO, MAN. GOOD STRATEGY.....IF YOU WANT THE TERRORISTS TO WIN.] In his forthcoming book, "The War of the World," the admirably readable British historian Niall Ferguson devotes considerable space to the horrific history of the Jews in 19th- and 20th-century Europe. Never mind the Holocaust. In 1905 there were pogroms in 660 different places in Russia, and more than 800 Jews were killed -- all this in a period of less than two weeks. This was the reality of life for many of Europe's Jews. Little wonder so many of them emigrated to the United States, Canada, Argentina or South Africa. Little wonder others embraced the dream of Zionism and went to Palestine, first a colony of Turkey and later of Britain. They were in effect running for their lives. Most of those who remained -- 97.5 percent of Poland's Jews, for instance -- were murdered in the Holocaust. Another gifted British historian, Tony Judt, wraps up his recent book "Postwar" with an epilogue on how the sine qua non of the modern civilized state is recognition of the Holocaust. Much of the Islamic world, notably Iran under its Holocaust-denying president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, stands outside that circle, refusing to make even a little space for the Jews of Europe and, later, those from the Islamic world. They see Israel not as a mistake but as a crime. Until they change their view, the longest war of the 20th century will persist deep into the 21st. It is best for Israel to hunker down. [EXCEPT FOR HIS UNDESERVED ACCOLADES FOR TONY JUDT, THESE LAST TWO PARAGRAPHS ARE CORRECT. HE DOES NOT WANT TO LOOK AS THOUGH HE IS ON THE SAUDI PAYROLL, SO HE MUST MOUTH SOME INEFFECTUAL PLATITUDES ABOUT THE NASTY ARABS.] RESPONSES There is no limit to journalistic chutzpa! You have a cushy spot on the Washington Post and the words just pour out of your computer and onto the page. No need for fact checking. It's modestly called "opinion" but when your reputation is secure, and the country you are bashing is getting attacked by thousands of rockets, with a promise of nuclear annihilation just behind the thin veil that separates Nasrallah from Ahmadinejad, opinion turns into historical expertise. I suppose you think jihad is conspiracy theory. I assume you do not know that your comfortable desk chair wherever it is is no less marked for conquest than the skinny little land of Israel. And you, Richard Cohen, are no less a candidate for death or dhimmitude than any Israeli on any street corner anywhere in the world. The force of opposition to Israeli presence in the Middle East, to Jewish existence in the world, does not ask for opinions, it acts on its own terms to take what rightfully belongs to it. If you can still think that means Gaza, the "West Bank" and half of Jerusalem plus right of return, then just stop listening to yourself and listen to them. Tell me, please explain to me how you can be so ignorant and so proud of yourself? Not only do you not know where the Jews of Israel came from, you do not know where the Arabs who recently decided to call themselves Palestinians came from. Hunker down? Like Europe, perhaps? Do you see where that is going? There is no hunkering sufficiently humble to satisfy this enemy. While Europeans, France in the lead, plead for surrender, the little homegrown Nasrallahs are preparing the next phase of their campaign. My advice to you, my sincere and paradoxically respectful advice, expressed with no animosity, is to go to Iran, declare yourself as Jewish, sidle up to the nearest pasdaran, and hunker down. Or try Pakistan. Or Gaza. Unfortunately, the absence of resolve so prevalent in certain circles and particularly pronounced in the Washington Post these days (cf. the taqqiya op-ed of Ismail Haniyeh published on July 11th) is drawing out this conflict and indirectly causing casualties and, even worse, preparing the way for ever more brutal attacks. Read "The Legacy of Jihad," read "'Eurabia," read "From Time Immemorial." It is time for the Jihadis to hunker down, Mr. Cohen. And if they don't, your comfortable column will go up in smoke. There will be no room for opinion in the world they are preparing. The extermination of European Jewry did not just happen. And talk about hunkering down...look what that did for our demographics! We could not defend ourselves then because we had no place to go. No arms, no army. So of course those who prepare the next extermination attempt want to first eliminate the State of Israel. And this small courageous State will not let it happen. The longest war of the 20th century, Mr. Cohen, began in the 8th. If you owe nothing to your readers, you owe it to yourself to study the history of jihad conquest and understand how the so-called Arab-Israeli or Palestinian-Israeli conflict nestles into it. You will undoubtedly receive many insulting letters. It can't be helped. So my advice to you is to hunker down. If the pressure is strong enough, surrender. Just to see what if feels like. cordially,
And from Alyssa Lappen Dear Colleagues-- As a journalist, I am astounded by the inaccuracy of Richard Cohen's column in today's Washington Post. He contends that Israel was established as a nation "of European Jews." Wrong. More than half of Israel's citizens in 1948, and today, are from Arab and Muslim nations, or descended from the oppressed Jewish minorities of those nations, all of them in the Middle East, North Africa and Central Asia: Egypt, Morocco, Yemen, Libya, Iran, Iraq, Tunisia, Algeria, Afghanistan, Turkey and Azerbaijan. Beginning in the 1920s and continuing throughout the decades following Israel's 1948 establishment, nearly one million Jews were driven from their homes in these nations, without recompense for their seized property, businesses and financial assets. Importantly, more than half these Jewish refugees settled in Israel. In short, Israel was not established for European Jews. It was established to give safe harbor and self-determination to the oppressed and subjugated Jewish people worldwide, who were originally driven from Israel, by dozens of invasions over the centuries, including several brutal Muslim invasions beginning in 634, as documented by Moshe Gil, in A History of Palestine, 634-1099 and reiterated in the essays and books of Bat Ye'or, Dr. Andrew Bostom, and many others. http://frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=16235 Finally it is false that the Arab-Muslim war against Israel is only now becoming an "Israeli-Muslim war." In fact, the perennial Muslim war against Israel's establishment and existence is an extension of the Muslim jihad against Jewish infidels that began with Mohammed's slaughter of Arabia's Jewish Banu Quraizah tribe and continued with the first 634 Muslim invasion of Israel. This history has been well-documented by Dr. Andrew Bostom in The
Legacy of Jihad, his forthcoming book, Islamic Anti-Semitism, and
"Apocalyptic Muslim Jew-Hatred," www.heritage.org/Press/Events/ev050906a.cfm. I recommend that Mr. Cohen take time to listen to this entire lecture. There are many other serious errors in this piece, including Cohen's statement that "there is no point condemning Hezbollah." Of course there is, just as there were condemnations of Hitler, Stalin, Idi Amin, and every other tyrant over time. To say that Israel should never have been created is to say that the Jewish people deserve the Muslim discrimination, hatred and attacks that continue to this day. If Israel were destroyed, these attacks--and the Muslim Jihad against the West--would not cease. They would grow, exponentially. Best regards--
Washington Post syndicated columnist Richard Cohen asserts in his July 18 commentary "Hunker Down With History" that "Israel itself is a mistake." Historical ignorance and an appeasement mentality underlie such an assertion. Cohen's lead paragraph reads: "The greatest mistake Israel could make at the moment is to forget that Israel itself is a mistake. It is an honest mistake, a well-intentioned mistake, a mistake for which no one is culpable, but the idea of creating a nation of European Jews in an area of Arab Muslims (and some Christians) has produced a century of warfare and terrorism of the sort we are seeing now. Israel fights Hezbollah in the north and Hamas in the south, but its most formidable enemy is history itself." Errors Israel is not the embodiment of "the idea of creating a nation of European Jews in an area of Arab Muslims (and some Christians)." Rather, Israel embodies the return of the Jews, an indigenous people, to their ancestral homeland, in which some Jews always resided; Approximately one-third of Israel's Jewish population are non-European Jews, including those who immigrated from throughout the Middle East, as well as from Ethiopia and India. Ashkenazi (Eastern European) Jews who led the Zionist movement and the late 19th, early 20th century resettlement of Eretz Yisrael - the land of Israel - envisioned a state for all Jews. It was not "the idea of creating a nation of Jews" that produced anti-Israeli warfare and terrorism. It has been Arab-Islamic intolerance of equality and sovereignty for non-Arabs and/or for non-Muslims, and even for Muslims who do not share their particular interpretation of Islam, in the Middle East and beyond, that causes the Arab conflict with Israel. This supremacist attitude also causes periodic violence against and routine social suppression of Christian Arabs, Druze, Copts, Berbers and many other minorities. It fuels Shi'ite versus Sunni violence like that in Iraq, Persian Iranian manipulation and subversion of Arab affairs, hostility to the non-Muslim "Crusader" or Christian West, and - during times of fundamentalist Islamic fervor like the present - dreams of revenge against and conquest of non-Muslim people and lands. Cohen does not understand that similar intolerance motivated the terrorists who attacked the United States on Sept. 11, 2001, who assassinated Egypt's Anwar Sadat in 1981, who overthrew the Shah of Iran in 1979, who blow up hotels from Egypt to Indonesia, and trains from Madrid to London. Hezbollah's Iranian patrons refer to Israel as "the small Satan." The United States is "the great Satan." Does such hostility make the West, make America a "mistake"? Failure to connect the dots The columnist observes that Hezbollah "did not exist 30 years ago" and that Iran "was once a tacit ally of Israel's." A little understanding is a dangerous thing. Hezbollah didn't exist, but the Muslim Brotherhood, from which most Islamic terrorist groups spring, did. It began in Egypt in the 1920s, a reaction against Western influence in the Arab-Islamic world, including what it decried as America's lax moral and social standards. Will Cohen eventually agree to Islamic law here to erase the "mistake" of individual freedom? Cohen warns Israel against "subjugating a restless, angry population" in south Lebanon or the West Bank and "having the world look on as it committed the inevitable sins of an occupying power." Israel's first responsibility is to survive and protect its citizens. The world will look on each state through the filter of its own perceived interest. To the extent "the world" focuses on Jews, this might discomfit Cohen, but it should not subvert Israeli policy. In any case, its own failures mean the Arab-Islamic world would have "restless, angry populations" had Jews and a Jewish state never existed. The columnist advises Israel "to pull back to defensible - put hardly impervious - borders. That includes getting out of most of the West Bank - and waiting and hoping that history will get distracted and move on to something else. This will take some time, and in the meantime terrorism and rocket attacks will continue." Such fatuousness accords with neither Jewish nor military history. One cannot imagine Cohen giving such advice to Washington, D.C.-area police or the Pentagon if rockets were falling on his neighborhood. Until fanatics like Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad stopping calling for Israel's destruction, Cohen recommends "it is best for Israel to hunker down." Hunker down and wait for Crusaders, the Inquisition, the Black Hundreds, the Gestapo, Nasser or Saddam? Cohen doesn't just stare history in the face and blink, he pulls the covers over his head. Moral failure If seemingly unrelenting Arab-Islamic hostility convinces Cohen that "Israel is a mistake," then would Cohen's response to pervasive European antisemitism in the 1930s have been that it was a force of nature to be submitted to? Given that many people in early America thought blacks inferior, should the slaves not have been freed? Since kings and aristocrats insisted for centuries that they ruled by divine right, and society organized itself accordingly, would Cohen have counseled acquiescence? No mistake, but great success Cohen, who in the past has taken on antisemites like those in the Nation of Islam, seems not to understand Israel at all. Not a "mistake," Israel is perhaps the most successful of the scores of post-colonial, post-World War II states. It is, among other things:
With Tony Judt & Ahmadinejad, Dreaming of a World Without Israel The columnist cites the "gifted British historian Tony Judt ...." Judt is a vocal post- or anti-Zionist advocate of a "one-state solution" in which Israel abandons its Jewish character in favor of a "bi-national" Palestine of Israel, the West Bank and Gaza Strip - the Palestine Liberation Organization's old propaganda slogan of a "democratic, secular Palestine," Except that when the Arabs outnumber the Jews in such a state, it would be unlikely to remain either democratic or secular. And if the Jews aren't expelled or worse, they would likely become second-class citizens walking on eggshells, as they have been in every Arab or Muslim country they have resided in. Cohen simply cannot comprehend that Israel was not to be just a refuge for Jews fleeing oppression, but the center of a Jewish people reborn and flourishing. And, despite the war waged against it, so it has become. Without this "mistake," the Jewish people, in demographic decline elsewhere, would face a tenuous future. Last October, Ahmadinejad asked the world to consider "A Future Without the United States and Israel." Such a future is the logical conclusion of a column whose premise is that "Israel is a mistake." Tuesday, July 18, 2006
At Little Green Footballs this morning, Charles Johnson points to an article in today's Washington Post with the comment, "At the Washington Post, Richard Cohen agrees with Hamas and Hizballah that 'Israel is a mistake.' And he's open to the argument that Israel is a 'crime.' If that sounds like an overly blunt characterization of what Cohen wrote in this morning's Washington Post, it's not. Cohen's article reflects a total ignorance of Jewish history, and of the Jewish connection to the land of Israel dating back to biblical times, which is inexcusable even for an assimilated Jew (which I assume Cohen to be). In fact, even Christians should be offended by Cohen's writing them out of the history of the Holy Land. Cohen adopts the Arab narrative of the last century of history lock, stock and barrel, without even considering that it might be false. Note, I said Arab and not 'Palestinian,' because the 'Palestinians' by their own admission are a fiction created by that Arab narrative. The term "Palestina" was invented by the Roman emperor Hadrian. The Romans wanted to rename Eretz Yisrael (the Land of Israel) after the Philistines, the longtime enemy of the Jews. Hadrian believed that by renaming the Jewish homeland after the Jews' archenemy, he would be able to forever break the bond between the Land of Israel and the Jewish people. But even the name of the Philistines, from which the term "Palestine" was adopted, is completely alien to the Land of Israel. The name Philistines in Hebrew is plishtim, which comes from the Hebrew verb polshim (foreign invaders). Arabs only came to the Land of Israel in large numbers after the Jews returned in the 20th century and started to rebuild the nation, thereby creating economic and employment opportunities for Arab immigrants. Prior to 1870, when Jews started to return to the Holy Land in large numbers, there were fewer than 100,000 Arabs living in what is today the State of Israel - including Yesha (the Hebrew acronym for Judea, Samaria and the Gaza District). This small number of nomadic, tribal Arabs who lived in the Holy Land before the modern Jewish return never considered themselves to be a separate people or nation. The Arabs who lived in the Land of Israel were not "Palestinians" but Arabs - part of a huge Arab people with 22 very large independent nations that control one-ninth of the land mass on the planet Earth. In an interview given by Zuhair Mohsen to the Dutch newspaper Trouw in March 1977, Mr. Mohsen explains the origin of the 'Palestinians': The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct "Palestinian people" to oppose Zionism. In this morning's Washington Post, Richard Cohen writes: The greatest mistake Israel could make at the moment is to forget that Israel itself is a mistake. It is an honest mistake, a well-intentioned mistake, a mistake for which no one is culpable, but the idea of creating a nation of European Jews in an area of Arab Muslims (and some Christians) has produced a century of warfare and terrorism of the sort we are seeing now. Israel fights Hezbollah in the north and Hamas in the south, but its most formidable enemy is history itself. Israel is anything but a mistake, and history shows the justice of Israel's cause. With the exception of the period between the two Jewish Temples between roughly 586 and 516 BCE, Jews ruled this land continuously from approximately 1300 BCE until 68 CE. Since that time, no other government has been based in Israel, no other country has called Jerusalem its capitol, and no other people has called this land its home. It is not history that is Israel's enemy but the false narrative of history presented to the World by the Arab Muslims. It is not history that is Israel's enemy, but Arab attempts to wipe out the vestiges of that history, as if destroying all of the Temple artifacts on the Temple Mount will confirm that it was 'always' Haram al-Sharif, that two Jewish Temples never stood there and that Jesus never argued with money changers there. This country was deserted swampland for much of the period between 68 CE and the beginning of the return of larger numbers of Jews started in 1870. Israel's interior areas were mainly a desert-like wasteland while her coast was a malaria-ridden swamp. But Jews always prayed three times a day that God should gather them in from their diaspora and bring them back to this country. Many Jews attempted to come here on their own. Jews were a majority of the population of Jerusalem in the 19th century, and settled many of the cities of the Galilee as well. In 1844 - when the Land of Israel was controlled by the Turkish Muslims - the Turkish census counted 7,120 Jews and 5,000 Muslims living in Jerusalem. Thus, Jerusalem was already a Jewish city 160 years ago. Until an Arab massacre wiped them out in 1929, there was even a large Jewish community in Hebron, which included a major Talmudical academy, which was transplanted from the village of Slobodka in Lithuania. In Chapter LVI of Innocents Abroad, Mark Twain wrote regarding his trip here in 1867: Of all the lands there are for dismal scenery, I think Palestine must be the prince. The hills are barren, they are dull of color, they are unpicturesque in shape. The valleys are unsightly deserts fringed with a feeble vegetation that has an expression about it of being sorrowful and despondent. The Dead Sea and the Sea of Galilee sleep in the midst of a vast stretch of hill and plain wherein the eye rests upon no pleasant tint, no striking object, no soft picture dreaming in a purple haze or mottled with the shadows of the clouds. Every outline is harsh, every feature is distinct, there is no perspective--distance works no enchantment here. It is a hopeless, dreary, heart-broken land. This is from Twain's description of seeing the remains of the Temples (in Chapter LIV): Every where about the Mosque of Omar are portions of pillars, curiously wrought altars, and fragments of elegantly carved marble -- precious remains of Solomon's Temple. These have been dug from all depths in the soil and rubbish of Mount Moriah, and the Moslems have always shown a disposition to preserve them with the utmost care. At that portion of the ancient wall of Solomon's Temple which is called the Jew's Place of Wailing, and where the Hebrews assemble every Friday to kiss the venerated stones and weep over the fallen greatness of Zion, any one can see a part of the unquestioned and undisputed Temple of Solomon, the same consisting of three or four stones lying one upon the other, each of which is about twice as long as a seven-octave piano, and about as thick as such a piano is high. But, as I have remarked before, it is only a year or two ago that the ancient edict prohibiting christian rubbish like ourselves to enter the Mosque of Omar and see the costly marbles that once adorned the inner Temple was annulled. The designs wrought upon these fragments are all quaint and peculiar, and so the charm of novelty is added to the deep interest they naturally inspire. One meets with these venerable scraps at every turn, especially in the neighboring Mosque el Aksa, into whose inner walls a very large number of them are carefully built for preservation. These pieces of stone, stained and dusty with age, dimly hint at a grandeur we have all been taught to regard as the princeliest ever seen on earth; and they call up pictures of a pageant that is familiar to all imaginations -- camels laden with spices and treasure -- beautiful slaves, presents for Solomon's harem -- a long cavalcade of richly caparisoned beasts and warriors -- and Sheba's Queen in the van of this vision of "Oriental magnificence." These elegant fragments bear a richer interest than the solemn vastness of the stones the Jews kiss in the Place of Wailing can ever have for the heedless sinner. In 1913, the British Royal Commission reported: "The road leading from Gaza to the north was only a summer track suitable for transport by camels and carts ... no orange groves, orchards or vineyards were to be seen until one reached Yabna village.... Houses were all of mud. No windows were anywhere to be seen.... The ploughs used were of wood.... The yields were very poor.... The sanitary conditions in the village were horrible. Schools did not exist.... The rate of infant mortality was very high.... The western part, towards the sea, was almost a desert.... The villages in this area were few and thinly populated. Many ruins of villages were scattered over the area, as owing to the prevalence of malaria, many villages were deserted by their inhabitants."And so the land remained until the Jews cultivated it plot by plot. Israel is a 'mistake' created in 'Arab land'? Hardly. The rest of Cohen's argument is standard leftist drivel about how Israel has to 'hunker down' and allow itself to be beaten rather than decisively winning a war (and that's what we're in now) and being able to find peace on its own terms. The fact that Israel has tried to 'hunker down' and give away its territory time and time again in a bid to make 'peace' with the 'Palestinians' - and that the 'Palestinians' and their Arab supporters have come back to fight another day each time - shows the fecklessness of that policy. It's very simple: the Arabs will not willingly tolerate any Jewish presence in this part of the world. There is no amount of land that we can give them that will entice them to live in peace with us. Until we decisively defeat them, they will come back to fight another day and another day. There is no need to give any more of an answer than that. Israel is neither a mistake nor a crime. It is the beginning of the culmination of more than 2000 years of Jewish yearning to return to our homeland. The manner in which the Jewish people has chosen to govern the Land of Israel has its faults. But being a 'mistake' created in 'Arab land' - let alone being a 'crime' - is not among those faults. We Jews have to learn to stop listening to liberals like Cohen and to start fighting - with God's help - for our existence. Hopefully, the current battle marks a turning point. |
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WHERE WERE THEY WHEN...
Posted by Rodeco, July 19, 2006. |
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I am just watching CNN and I somehow feel that they are so intent on showing again what was over 50 years ago their total commitment to Arab suffering; like the poor Palestinians, now the poor Lebanese...I don't ever hear them say: the poor Israelis who have had to suffer for over 50 years the aggression of the arabs....they have it had for twice and my, oh my, how terrible..I heard one woman say: where is the world, why don't they care??? How well I remember that 60 years ago when we were murdered by the Nazis, yes, where was the world? and not that we could run somewhere.... they can never be compared to us, we had nowhere to run, thanks to the anti-semites all over the whole world....who did their best not to let us enter America, especially U.S. and many other following their example... It seems so unbelievable today but our cries were in vain... They, the arabs have so many gigantic countries to run too, and yet each one of them was so unwilling to take the "Palestinians " (philistines) in their midst. Perhaps they knew that they would totally undermine their society... Our own Jews are so unwilling to realize that no one can help us, than we ourselves... And for feeling empathy with the poor refugees, first feel sorry for our people who are always subjected to this old hatred, and stand together to make our lives better!!!! Learn to answer an antisemite, teach them to be reminded that Jesus was a born a Jew and died a Jew, nothing else... and if they follow him, the Christians are basically all Jews, no matter what they want to believe.....perhaps in the class of reform Jews, we have to have better answers to antisemitsm, not remain mute, as we did for 1800 years, to our detriment..... So please, have pity for our people Rodeco |
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TWO DEAD SOLDIERS
Posted by Sergio Tessa (HaDaR), July 19, 2006. |
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TWO DEAD SOLDIERS AND SEVEN INJURED NEAR AVIVIM!!! What's going on with our army readiness level??? It seems like every time we are attacked by the enemy we bleed TOO MUCH!!! WHY AREN'T THEY BURNING ALL OF THOSE BASTARD SHIITES ALIVE????? WHY DO WE HAVE TO LOSE OUR CHILDREN??? SCREW THOSE HYPOCRITICAL IMMORAL PSEUDO HUMANISTIC IDEAS OF THE LEFTISTS WHO WANT US TO TREAT THE ENEMY "HUMANLY"!!! SCREW THEM, REALLY!!! ONE NAIL OF ONE OF OUR KIDS IN EGOZ IS WORTH A MILLION HIZBOLLAH FIGHTERS OR SUPPORTERS!!!! PHOSPHOR BOMBS, NOT LAND FORCES!!!! Contact Sergio Tessa at HaDaR-Israel@verizon.net |
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THE WAR THAT EHUD BARAK BEGOT
Posted by Steven Plaut, July 19, 2006. |
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1 "The View from Haifa -- September 10th Syndrome"
www.jewishpress.com/page.do/18895/%3Ci%3E
The_View_from_Haifa%3C%2Fi%3E_September_10th_Syndrome.html
"All you do all day is threaten that there will be Katyusha rockets landing in Ashkelon. Would you mind telling me why there are no rockets fired from Aqaba to Eilat?" -- Foreign Minister and Labor MK Shimon Peres, Knesset minutes, September 9, 1993 I could still hear Peres's words echoing when Katyusha rockets began exploding in Haifa a few days ago, some of them just several blocks from my home. Filled with thousands of lead pellets to maximize the carnage, one of them ended the lives of nine people in a Haifa train depot. I contemplated those words while Patriot missile batteries were being erected on my campus at the University of Haifa. The college was shut down for the duration of the attacks, but I proposed to the powers-that-be that all leftist professors be forcibly kept on campus to serve as human shields. The e-mails and phone calls come in nonstop. Why are you online and not down in the bomb shelter, you meshugena? asks a friend from California. I reply that there are too many spiderwebs down there. The Katyushas landing in Haifa were, for all intents and purposes, dropped here by Ehud Barak. In the summer of 2000, in what amounted to a cowardly unilateral retreat, then-Prime Minister Barak ordered the IDF to abandon its positions in southern Lebanon. Hizbullah terrorists had been sniping at Israeli troops inside Lebanon and the toll was slowly mounting. With a bit of initiative Israel could have put a stop to that, but instead Barak opted for placing all of northern Israel within the rocket sites of the terrorists. Ever since that withdrawal, the Israeli Left had been patting itself on its collective back, insisting that the unilateral retreat had not only worked but could serve as a role model for Gaza and the West Bank. The abandonment of Gush Katif in the Gaza Strip was largely based on that notion, as is Prime Minister Olmert's current plan for "contraction" in the West Bank. After all, the retreat from Lebanon had "worked" in the sense that the Lebanese border seemed to be "relatively" tranquil, with a death toll below what it had been when the Israeli army was still on the ground in Lebanon. Six years have passed since the retreat from southern Lebanon. The attitude of the Israeli chattering classes toward that "success" is illustrative of what I call the September 10th Syndrome. On September 10, 2001, there were many public figures in the U.S. convinced that there was no chance terrorists could or would strike America. Their conclusion, to quote Mark Twain, was just a little premature. Israel has suffered from a mass infestation of September 10th Syndrome ever since the capitulation to Hizbullah in 2000. But in recent days it's become clear that there can be something even worse than such an affliction. namely, suffering from September 10th Syndrome on September 12, i.e., not even realizing how wrong one had been even after events should have removed all doubt. True, the Lebanese border remained "relatively" quiet after the Barak withdrawal, but not for the reasons marketed by the Israeli political establishment. All that had happened was that Syria was cowed into keeping the Lebanese border quiet for a while after 2001 due to its fears of being targetedby an enraged America on the warpath against Middle East terrorism. The supposed success of the Lebanese capitulation was also the official theology behind Israel's security fence in the West Bank. The security fence along the Lebanese border was thought to have demonstrated that all Israel now needed to do with Gaza and the West bank was get itself out and build similar fences, replete with all manner of electronic gizmos, just as it had done along the Lebanese border. After all, the politicians kept chanting, once there were no Israeli troops in "Arab lands," the Arab side would have no reason to engage in terror and military aggression against Israel. Of course, the Barak withdrawal never really solved anything. The Lebanese border was not calm. Thousands of state-of-the-art rockets were sitting there, ready to strike. Shelling and cross-border incursions by Hizbullah were regular occurrences, and Hizbullah agents were freely wandering the Gaza Strip, helping Hamas build its bombs. In short, the Lebanese border was as secure and as calm as the World Trade Center towers were on September 10, 2001. ****** There is no diplomatic way of putting this. The kidnapping of Israeli soldiers in Gaza and along the Lebanese border is the direct result of Israel's rewarding and appeasing terrorism over the past few decades. Long gone are the days when Israelis boasted that their government never negotiated with terrorists. The 1976 Entebbe rescue was the greatest and, alas, the last serious use by Israel of force to deal with the kidnapping of Israelis by Arab terrorists. Since then, Israel has more often than not dealt with hostage situations by capitulating and conceding. Such situations, of course, are never easy, both from a strategic and a moral perspective. There is a complex trade-off between the desire to free hostages at once and the need to deter and punish hostage grabbers. The understandable human. and humane. instinct to seek the immediate freeing of hostages must be weighed against actions that will put other lives in jeopardy. Decision makers face the dilemma that saving a single life today may well produce scores of deaths tomorrow. . In 1985, the Likud-led government of Yitzhak Shamir carried out a prisoner exchange with the "Jibril" terrorists. Israel agreed to release more than a thousand Arabs incarcerated for terrorist activities in exchange for three Israeli soldiers. Just three days after the trade, one of those released Arabs was brought into an Israeli hospital. He had accidentally blown himself up while preparing a bomb intended for Israeli shoppers. Others among the released terrorists would, in the months and years to come, participate in a number of attacks and murders. These days, Israeli leftists are busy assisting the residents of Bir Naballah in sabotaging the security wall Israel is constructing, because it offends the sensitivities of the Arab villagers. . In July 2003 the Israeli cabinet decided in a 14-9 vote to buy Ariel Sharon a Kodak moment in Washington by releasing more than 500 Palestinian prisoners, including Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and Fatah terrorists, again as a "goodwill gesture." Few of the released terrorists took up quilting. The prisoner exchange was widely opposed in Israel, and passed the Israeli cabinet by a single vote. Afterward, Israel never avenged the three soldiers murdered by Hizbullah. A suicide bombing that killed 10 Israelis took place the very day of the prisoners' release, but Israel went ahead with it anyway. Two of those set free had been high-ranking Lebanese terrorists, directly involved in the kidnapping, torture, and reported "sale" of Ron Arad to Iran. Israel did not even demand information on the whereabouts of Arad in exchange, just an empty promise of some information in the future, which, needless to say, has never materialized. At the time, the Arab media crowed in smug satisfaction at Israel's humiliation in the prisoner release. Al-Ahram called it a "new notch in Hizbullah's belt!" In Israel it was seen as a debacle. Even Yoel Marcus at Israel's far-left daily Haaretz called it a "License to Kidnap." Yuval Arad, Ron Arad's daughter, said she felt Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon had abandoned her father. In a letter to Sharon, she wrote: "I can't understand how you can sleep at night ... you're about to release the man who tortured him [her father]." ****** In the early stages of the Allied invasion of Iraq, a number of Western hostages were grabbed by terrorist groups. Some were murdered by beheading. The U.S. and Britain did not release any captured terrorists in exchange for any hostages, nor did they make any other concessions to the terrorists. On the contrary, in cases where hostages were not released unharmed, allied troops went after the kidnappers with a special vengeance and ferocity. The result was an end to the wave of kidnappings. The Israeli strategy of appeasing terrorists by releasing prisoners has caused more kidnappings and more terrorism. The lessons of recent years are as simple as they are absent from Israeli policy thinking. Releasing prisoners to appease terrorists causes more kidnapping. Refusing to capitulate to terrorist demands stops the kidnapping. Cutting and running when rockets fall causes them to fall in much larger numbers. Yes, Jewish tradition has always allowed, indeed mandated, payment for the redemption of Jewish captives. Buried in the Aramaic in every marriage contract is a clause that obligates husbands (male readers, be warned!) to ransom their wives should they be taken captive. But there were always clear limits on what could be paid for ransom. for two reasons. The first was to "avoid placing onerous economic burdens on the community." But the second was more for strategic considerations, and in some ways is the more important. Paying out large ransoms creates incentive for further kinappings and inspires escalated ransom demands. The Talmudic sages understood what Israel's politicians do not. During the Middle Ages, Rabbi Meir of Rothenberg, one of the last Tosophists, was the leader of German Jewry. He prohibited women from wearing tefillin but at the same time was a strong defender of wives against abusive husbands. Some of his elegies are still part of the prayer book. (Interestingly, there are reports that he claimed to be a direct descendent of the evil emperor Nero.) Convinced that Jews had no future in Ashkenaz (Germany), Rabbi Meir was leading a contingent of families to the Land of Israel when he was abducted by the authorities in Basel and held for ransom. He prohibited the Jewish community from paying for his release, fearing it would encourage more kidnappings of Jews. He died in a prison near Colmar in 1291, and some years later his body was ransomed and then buried in Worms. Rabbi Meir chose death over putting the burden of frequent abductions on the entire Jewish population. At the time of the capitulation by the Israeli government to Hizbullah in the 2004 mass release of terrorists, Israeli politicians insisted that they had no choice and were just following the dictates of Jewish ethics. While it is nice to hear Israeli politicians (uncharacteristically) acknowledge the importance of Jewish ethics, they had no idea what those ethics actually say about hostage redemption (or anything else). They were simply looking for a pseudo-ethical argument to use as a fig leaf for their appeasement of terrorists. Speaking of Jewish ethics, Judaism unambiguously supports the death penalty for murderers, whereas Israeli politicians are pusillanimously opposed to it. Let us take note of the fact that no terrorist has ever murdered anyone else after being executed. Had convicted terrorists and murderers been executed in Israel all along, there would be few terrorist prisoners frolicking in Israeli jails, serving as bait and incentive for Palestinian militias and Hizbullah to kidnap Jews. Had Hizbullah villages been turned into parking lots years ago, there would be no Katyushas falling on northern Israel. http://www.jewishpress.com/UploadedImages/stdImage/ 450072106_frntpg_colorcomp.jpg 2. "Bomb Damascus, not Beirut:" by Meyrav Wurmser
Meyrav Wurmser is the director of the Center for Middle East Policy at the Hudson Institute. In the last few days, the Middle East has all but deteriorated into another Arab-Israeli war. Already engaged in Gaza in response to the kidnapping of an Israeli soldier, Israel has now been forced to open another front in the north. Hezbollah's kidnapping of two more Israeli soldiers and its shelling along Israel's northern border has provoked a severe Israeli response, as it should. The problem is that the response is misdirected. Lebanon is not the right address for reprisal. Syria is. Israel's defensive attack on Lebanon simply lacks strategic purpose. After years of occupation by Syria, and despite the recent democratic elections, Lebanon is still a very weak, and not fully independent, country. Its government is still under the sway of Damascus and Teheran. Syrian and Iranian proxies, such as Hezbollah, operate from Lebanon and drag its government into otherwise unwanted conflicts. In 2005, following the murder of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafic Hariri, Syrian forces purportedly withdrew from Lebanon. A popular uprising, coupled with international pressure, freed Lebanon from direct Syrian military presence. This was not the end of Syrian operations in Lebanon, however. Syrian-backed Hezbollah and the Syrian secret service have continued their activities there unabated. The responsibility for the Hezbollah assaults on Israel thus lies squarely in the hands of the Syrians, and not their vulnerable Lebanese hosts. Israel's decision to attack Lebanon is thus a strategic mistake. Israel's military action is not only a local error, insofar as Lebanon lacks the capability of reigning in Hezbollah, but it is also an error that has large implications for the entire region. The spontaneous democratic Cedar Revolution in Lebanon, which drew a million people to the streets calling for their freedom from Syrian occupation, points to the success of America's Forward Strategy of Freedom, the president's vision for a free and democratic Middle East. With the fall of the dictatorial governments in Kabul and Baghdad, democratic ideas have clearly begun to capture the imagination of people in the region, and the Lebanese have been the first to take action on their own. Destabilizing the Lebanese government therefore threatens to undermine democratic aspirations for the region and to empower the enemies of Israel and the West. No one wants this Lebanese government destroyed more than Iran and Syria, who would like to revive their direct control and oppression. By taking action that could easily kill the hostage Lebanese government, Israel may hand Syria, Iraq, and Hezbollah a collective strategic victory that the three alone could never have achieved. Furthermore, Israel's attack on Lebanon seems to be reverting back to its old "Grapes of Wrath" strategy. That operation -- which took place in Lebanon in 1996 in response to Hezbollah shelling on the northern border -- was ineffective, morally questionable, and strategically flawed. First, Grapes of Wrath did nothing to address the real Hezbollah threat. Just the opposite. It resulted in a ceasefire that sanctioned and codified Hezbollah's presence in the area, therein conferring a degree of legitimacy on that terror group. Second, the operation, during which 118 Lebanese civilians were killed, was morally questionable because it played into Hezbollah's tactic of using civilians as human shields. Israel had no intentions of killing those people in Qana, but that was the inevitable result of fighting a war on Hezbollah's terms. Third, it was flawed strategically because instead of delegitimizing Hezbollah in Lebanese politics and deepening fissures between Hezbollah and various Lebanese communities, it drove those communities in despair to seek protection where they could get it, namely Hezbollah, Syria, and Iran. Israel therein secured for Iran and Syria a major strategic gain. Israel now could once again be facilitating the repositioning of Syria and Iran as the protectors of, rather than aggressors against, Lebanese sovereignty. If Israel has not learned its lessons from Grapes of Wrath, it could repeat all of these errors and fail to secure both its borders and its moral standing. But as much as Israel has to be faulted for an abysmal strategic imagination, the United States must also bear some responsibility since it failed to fully oust the Syrian terror network from Lebanon when we had the opportunity to do so in 2005. The U.S. played a central role in stripping Lebanon of its Syrian occupation, but it left the job half done. When Hezbollah demonstrated on behalf of the Syrian occupation calling for its continuation, the group exposed itself as an agent of Syria and Iran and not an indigenous patriotic Lebanese force. That was enough to trigger a million man march in the streets of Beirut, but not enough to trigger a change in U.S. policy. Having left Hezbollah intact, the U.S. essentially left Iran and Syria in control. The chaos and violence that we see now was predictable and inevitable because it serves the interests of Damascus and Tehran. Forced now to confront an empowered and energized Hezbollah, Israel must remember who its enemies are. The bottom line is that Israel's gripe is not with Lebanon; it with Syria and Iran, and their escalating confrontation with the West. Given the explosive nature of the situation, Israel ought not let its adversaries define the battleground. Rather, it ought to carry the battle to them. Steven Plaut is an American-trained economist, a professor of business administration at Haifa University and author of "The Scout." He frequently comments - both seriously and satirically - on Israeli politics and the left wing academic community. His website address is www.stevenplaut.blogspot.com. Contact him at splaut@econ.haifa.ac.il |
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THE INDISPENSABLE CONDITION OF PEACE
Posted by Onkar Ghate, July 19, 2006. |
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Only when the initiators of force learn that their actions lead to their own destruction, will peace be possible in the Middle East. As Israeli soldiers reenter Gaza and bomb Lebanon, and Israeli citizens seek shelter from Hezbollah's missiles, the world despairingly wonders whether peace between Israel and its neighbors can ever take root. It can--but only if America reverses course. To achieve peace in the Middle East, as in any region, there is a necessary principle that every party must learn: the initiation of force is evil. And the indispensable means of teaching it is to ensure that the initiating side is defeated and punished. Decisive retaliatory force must be wielded against the aggressor. So long as one side has reason to think it will benefit from initiating force against its neighbors, war must result. Yet this is precisely what America's immoral foreign policy gives the Palestinian Authority, Hamas and Hezbollah reason to think. Israel is a free country, which recognizes the rights of its citizens, whatever their race or religion, and which prospers through business and trade. It has no use for war and no interest in conquest. But for years, Arafat and the Palestinian authorities, with the aid of Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia and other states, sought not to learn the conditions of freedom, but to annihilate the only free nation in their midst: Israel. Did the United States demand that the Palestinian leadership be destroyed? No. Clinton invited Arafat to dine at the White House and Bush declared that peace requires Israel to give in to its aggressor's insistence on a state. Worse still, as part of the "two state solution" announced in 2002, Bush demanded that Israel withdraw to its pre-1967 borders. In 1967 Israel captured the Golan Heights, West Bank and Gaza Strip after yet another attempt by Arab nations to annihilate it. To give back any of this land--as Israel has done in the face of international pressure--teaches the Arabs that they can launch wars against Israel with impunity. If they at first do not succeed militarily, they need only continue issuing threats against Israel and arming more suicide-bombers--and eventually the land they lost in a war they initiated will be returned to them. They can then start the process anew, as they have since Israel withdrew from Lebanon and Gaza. In order to move toward his "two state solution," Bush championed elections in the Palestinian territories and Lebanon, which predictably brought Hamas and Hezbollah into government. Terrorism, Bush is thus teaching the killers, is the means to political power. The reason peace eludes the Middle East is therefore not difficult to discern. The lesson President Bush is conveying to the Arabs and Islamists--that the initiation of force is practical--is a continuation of the lesson America's foreign policy has been teaching them for decades. The Egyptians seized the Suez canal from the French and British in 1956--and we demanded that the Europeans not retaliate. Israel had the Palestinian terrorists surrounded in Lebanon in 1982--and we brokered their release. Many Arabs idolized a terrorist for hijacking airliners and murdering civilians--and we poured money into his regime, hailed him for winning the Nobel Peace Prize in 1994, and demanded that Israel enter into a protracted "peace process" that consisted of concession after concession. What possible conclusion could the Arab world draw but that the initiation of force is practical? So long as they have grounds to believe that, war is inescapable. If we truly seek peace, we must reverse this perverse lesson. We must proclaim the objective conditions of peace. This means declaring to Arab nations that Israel, as a free country, has a moral right to exist, that the Arabs and Palestinians are the initiators of the conflict and that aggression on their part is evil and will not be tolerated. And it means encouraging Israel not to negotiate and compromise with its current assailants, but to destroy them. Only when the initiators of force learn that their actions lead not to world sympathy and political power, but to their own deaths, will peace be possible in the Middle East. Dr. Onkar Ghate is a senior fellow at the Ayn Rand Institute (www.AynRand.org) in Irvine, CA. The Institute promotes Objectivism, the philosophy of Ayn Rand--author of "Atlas Shrugged" and "The Fountainhead." Contact the writer at media@aynrand.org. |
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KATUSHA SHRAPNEL
Posted by David Frankfurter, July 19, 2006. | ||||
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Dear Friends, Lenny M., a resident of Haifa, has documented the war on his city with some amazing photos. These are some of the pictures which show ball bearings that were packed in the Katyusha rocket's nose cone - and examples of the damage they do. These Iranian-provided Hizbullah rockets are not aimed at strategic targets. They were packed with ball bearings and aimed at civilians - with the objective of maximizing death and injury. Imagine what these ball bearings do when a man, woman or child is hit by one of them.
[You can email Lenny at len2004@gmail.com for a powerpoint file with the full set of photos, which puts them into context.]
Best wishes,
David
David Frankfurter is a business consultant, corporate executive
and writer who frequently comments on the Middle East.
To subscribe to his 'Letter from Israel', email him at
david.frankfurter@iname.com. Or go to
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NEW JCPA SURVEY ON DISENGAGEMENT
Posted by JCPA, July 19, 2006. |
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New Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs (JCPA) Survey: Even Before the Conflagration in the North the Israeli Public opposed further disengagement and was anxious about putting the whole country on the front lines A poll was conducted on Monday and Tuesday the 9th and 10th of July 2006, before the confrontation with Hizbullah exploded on Israel's northern border. The poll was conducted among two target populations: the general adult Jewish population, represented by 504 respondents, and the adult Jewish population which resides in the cities of Netanya, Afula, Hadera, Kfar Saba, Hod Hasharon and Meitar, represented by 500 respondents. These cities were chosen as a representative sample of the communities that will be placed in Kassam missile range, similar to the situation in Sderot and Ashkelon, after the proposed convergence plan is carried out. The survey was conducted by the polling and research company Midgam on behalf of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs. Mono Geva, director of Midgam, stated regarding the survey that, "results are surprising in that they show no substantive distinction between the general public in Israel and the residents of communities that will be transformed into border communities after the convergence plan. This is true with regard to all relevant issues such as the decline in the sense of security, the fear about additional withdrawal from territory and the opposition to the convergence plan. In effect it can be said that general public sentiment is nearly identical to the sentiment of those residents of the post-convergence border communities. It is important to emphasize that these findings reflect public sentiment prior to the missile bombardment of Israel's northern cities, Haifa, Tzefat, Carmiel and Tiberias." The survey found that 65% of the public believes that the disengagement from Gaza did not improve Israel's security standing and instead contributed to Hamas's rise to power in the Palestinian administered territories. Additional findings include: 61.5% think that IDF control of depth areas in Judea and Samaria rather than diplomacy or UN troops is the best way to prevent the firing of Kassam missiles and 80% oppose turning over areas outside the security fence that put Ben- Gurion airport in the range of Kassam missiles. 50% of the respondents think that removing Jewish communities from Judea and Samaria while leaving the IDF in place is a worse paradigm than the disengagement from Gaza where the IDF withdrew as well. With regard to concessions in the Jordan Valley the survey found that
65% of the population is opposed to concessions in the Jordan Valley
even in the context of a peace agreement.
Did your sense of security rise or decline since the
disengagement for Gaza?
Rose- 19%
It was argued that the disengagement from Gaza would improve
Israel's security standing. In you opinion did the
disengagement improve or not improve Israel's security
standing.
Improve- 33%
In your opinion did the disengagement from Gaza contribute or not
contribute to the rise of Hamas in the Palestinian administered
territories?
Did not contribute- 29%
To what extent did Egypt fulfill its obligation to prevent
smuggling of weapons and terrorists into the Gaza strip?
Did fulfill- 18%
Do you support or oppose disengagement from Judea and Samaria
which is called the "convergence plan?"
Support- 36%
Government officials argue that the situation in Gaza should not
influence the convergence plan - do you agree or disagree with that
argument?
Agree- 32%
For those who disagreed:
You stated that the situation in Gaza should influence
decisions regarding the convergence plan, how so?
Expedite implementation- 4%
There is a possibility that in the convergence plan, civilian
settlements will be removed, but the IDF will remain in place. In your
opinion is this a better or worse security paradigm in comparison to
the situation in Gaza?
Worse- 50%
Will the removal of settlers make it easier or harder on the IDF
to protect civilians inside pre 67 borders from Kassam missiles?
Easier to protect- 41%
In your opinion do you think it's necessary to carry out a
national referendum before an additional disengagement is carried out?
Yes to referendum- 56%
To what extent do you think that the convergence plan will expand or contract the Kassam missile threat to additional cities in Israel?
Contract the threat- 20%
To what extent do you think that the convergence plan will strengthen or weaken extremist elements of the Palestinian Authority?
Weaken extremist elements- 22%
In you opinion, what is the most effective way to prevent the firing of Kassam missiles?
Diplomatic activity with the Palestinians- 24%
In you opinion what is the reason that the Kassam missiles are not yet being fired from Judea and Samaria?
Operational impediments- 24%
Do you support or oppose concessions in the Jordan Valley in the context of a Peace Treaty with the Palestinians
Support concessions in Jordan Valley- 26%
To what extent do you rely on Jordan to prevent the smuggling of weapons into the Palestinian authority?
There are areas beyond the security fence that place Ben Gurion airport in Kassam missile range. Do you support or oppose concessions over these areas?
Support- 14%
Do you support or oppose the posting of UN soldiers in the
Jordan Valley and other conflict areas with the IDF?
Support- 35%
Contact JCPA at brief4@jcpa.org |
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MOST AMERICANS IN LEBANON ARE HEZBOLLAH SUPPORTERS
Posted by Nurit Greenger, July 19, 2006. |
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This is what Brigitte Gabriel wrote me from the American Congress For
Truth
Most Americans in Lebanon Are Hezbollah Supporters; U.S. Taxes Shouldn't Fund Their Return. |
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One thing is lost in all the press coverage of the whining Americans who went to Lebanon of their own accord and now want us to pick up the tab to get them out. THE MAJORITY OF AMERICANS IN LEBANON ARE HEZBOLLAH SUPPORTERS. Most of them are Shiite Muslims, many of whom hold dual U.S. and Lebanese citizenship. Many are anchor babies born here to Muslims in the U.S. illegally. Some are illegal aliens who became citizens through rubber-stamping Citizenship and Immigration Services (and its INS predecessor). Of the 25,000 American citizens and green-card holders in Lebanon, at least 7,000 are from Dearborn, Michigan, the heart of Islamic America, and especially Shia Islam. These 7,000 are mostly Shi'ite Muslims who openly and strongly support Hezbollah. Ditto for many of the rest of the 25,000 that are there. Many of the 7,000 plus Detroiters in Lebanon are active in Dearborn's Bint Jbeil cultural center (the Lebanese American Heritage Club also features mostly Hezbollah fans). Bint Jbeil is a Hezbollah-dominated city in the South of Lebanon, a frequent destination of Hezbollah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, who is very at home there. Bint Jbeil is a frequent source of shellings on Northern Israel. Bint Jbeil natives now living in our country so strongly support Hezbollah that they got Republican Congressman Joe Knollenberg (and his then top staffer, Paul Welday) and then-U.S. Senator Spencer Abraham to give Hezbollah forces in Southern about $86 million of our tax money, no strings. Given this information, and the fact that several Shi'ite Muslim Lebanese U.S. citizens from Dearborn have been indicted and/or convicted of laundering money to Hezbollah, is it a good idea to rush to bring 25,000 such persons back to the U.S. at a time when Hezbollah is at war against our strongest U.S. ally? Does the fact, that Hezbollah numerous times--and especially now--has announced veiled and not-so-veiled intentions to attack Americans on U.S. soil, make the case to quickly bring these terror-sympathizing Americans back to U.S. soil? These are people who hold U.S. citizenship but support a group that murdered over 300 U.S. Marines and civilians, some through torture; a group that is part of the Al-Qaeda network; a group that is training insurgent terrorists against our troops in Iraq and giving them IEDs to blow them up; a group that worked with Qaeda to bomb the Khobar Towers. Americans who support this group are not American. They merely possess the proper paperwork. And they are very dangerous. One of them, Lola Elzein--a student at the University of Michigan-Dearborn and an officer of the Hezbollah-supporting Arab American PAC--threatened my life and that of my family members because I've written about the group's Detroit-area's extremist Hezbollah sympathizers. Hezbollah's violence has already arrived in America, and we don't need to pay to transport 25,000 of its sympathizers back to our shores. While the government has announced it will charge these individuals for the expensive transport out of Lebanon to Cyprus back to the U.S., the feds say they will accept IOUs for that transport. Think we'll get the money back? Just ask the Katrina aid administrators. Do you want your tax dollars to subsidize Hezbollah supporters' return to America? Are these the kind of U.S. citizens we badly need back in our country at this time? Should Hezbollah supporters be transported on a ship named for one of the most heroic events in U.S. history, the U.S.S Iwo Jima? Should U.S. tax dollars fund the charter of commercial ships to transport the rest of these terror-sympathizers? The instant answer from all freedom-loving Americans to these questions should be a loud "NO." These people went to Hezbollah-dominated Lebanon of their own accord. And they were safe there because they support the terrorist group. Now, their fortune has changed. Tough. It is not the responsibility of U.S. taxpayers to rescue terrorist-supporters who voluntarily went to a dangerous area ... just because their whines are loud and annoying. We are picking up the tab for this unfortunate rescue. U.S. funds used to rescue terrorist-sympathizers-- YOUR TAX DOLLARS AT WORK. Contact Nurit Greenger at 4nuritg@gmail.com |
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"MODERATE" CAIR'S ISLAMOFASCISM EXPOSED ON THE MIKE GALLAGHER SHOW
Posted by T.R., July 19, 2006. |
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CAIR's Ibrahim Cooper, hung up on Mike Gallagher
This was after this CAIR guy bashed Israel and calling it a "terrorist" for going after "civilian" infrastructure in Lebanon. [BTW, If Israel would copy the Muslims & (start to) go after the civilian population intentionally, just how many Arabs would then survive?] Mike: Do you agree that Hezbullah is a terror organization? Ibrahim: Yes, but... Mike: Did Hezbullah intiated the fight? Ibrahim: Yes, but... it was a "response" to "Palestinian" conflict", and... Mike: What's the connection to Hezbullah? Ibrahim, Oh, and Israel is "occupying" Lebanon... Mike: What? Israel withdrew 6 years ago! _______ Mike: Does Israel have a right to (even) exist? Beeep, the coward typical LYING Islamic "peaceful" "moderate" leader runs off, hangs up. [Well, of course it is all about ISLAMOFASCISM not letting non Muslims live!] Contact T.R. by email at therealityshow@mail.com or go to his website:
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ISRAEL'S UNNECESSARY WAR
Posted by David Meir-Levi, July 19, 2006. |
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Dear Prime Minister Olmert, I have a question for you. As usual, Daniel Pipes raises very insightful questions and offers equally insightful analyses. This article, however, begs a critical question. WHY do you, and other of Israel's leaders, insist upon making the same mistakes over and over? In the current situation, it seems reasonably clear that Israel should literally smash Hezbollah and Hamas, kill or incarcerate their leades, destroy their WMDs and missiles and bomb-factories, disarm their surviving terrorist rank-and-file, disband their gangs, and pressure Lebanon and the PA to make terrorism illegal (much as Nazism is illegal in Germany and Austria). Even Egypt, Arabia, some other Arab countries and Arab journalists and spokespersons for the Christian Lebanese say that this is the case. Doing so, it seems, would be Israel doing the world a huge favour, at Israel's own expense (of israeli soldiers dead and wounded, civiliians killed or maimed by Hezbollah rockets, and the strain on the country's economy)....the favour of solving part of the international terrorist threat to the western world....a job that western armies should be doing, but lack the political backbone to do. Yet, we still have pressure from Condaleeza Rice to have Israel accept a grossly pre-mature cease- fire -- a cease-fire from which only Hezbollah and Iran and Syria would profit. And we have a gaggle of western journalists condemning Israel for using 'dis-proportioniate force'. WHY do they seek to save Hezbolah, at the expense of Israel and Lebanon and perhaps even the free world and western civilizatiion, if a Hezbolla partial victory emboldens Iran and el-Qaeda? In some cases the reason is clear: Some Arab and Moslem states want Hezbollah to win. They seek the destruction of Israel and the genocide of its Jews. Hezbollah is their proxy army, and even the slightest hint of victory (aka...just coming out of this conflict with some armaments intact and leadership able to function) will be a giant step in the right direction.....for them. Some western folk, journalsits, politicians, religious leaders, intellectual leaders, share those sympathies. These are the intellectual descendents of the pro-Nazi intellgensia of the UK and USA in World War 2. They hate Jews. They hate Jews so much that they cheer for the Arab side that seeks Israel's destruction and the genocide of its Jews, even though the victory of that side is a giant step forward for the forces of Triumphalist Terrorist Jihad.....the Jihad which threatens their own civilization and religion. Their hatred blinds them to the danger to themselves, their countries, their religions....if Israel loses. These sentiments are apparently shared by some western Jews, like Rabbi Michael Lerner and others who lead "voice for peace" and "peace and justice" and "free palestine" and "end the occupation" groups that brand Israel as the aggressor and hail the terrorism as legitimate resistance to the mythical "brutal occupation". they may be self-hating Jews, or they may be Israel-hating Jews (like Neturei Qarta), or they may be people who seek to demonstrate to some unseen audience out there that they are first and foremost humanitarian and humanistic liberal lovers of the underdog, the putatively oppressed, the wronged, the hopeless hapless homeless helpless of the world, and they hate those who oppress (but they lack the intellectual werewithall or the intellectual honesty to test their assumptions about that oppression against reality)....but hatred is the answer. Hatred drives them, hatred blinds them. One may not know, never know, why such hatred festers in the souls of these folk; but it does, and it drives them to a pathological behavior that borders on slow-motion suicide. And some, Jew and non-Jew, may not hate at all, but have been bought, like the Kapo Jews of Nazi occupation. Arabian journalists reported on the Royal Family's bribery of foreign journalists; Joel Mowbray and Daniel Pipes have written extensively of the compromised status of our State Department to Saudi money and influence; and we all know of the multi-million dollar gifts from oil-rich sheikhs to various universities (no strings attached but more will be forthcoming if the sheikh likes the results of the first gift)....so some are willing to tow the line of the terrorist triumphalist totalitarian imperialist supremiscist islamofascist Jihad...for money, even though they are aiding and abetting those who seek their very own destruction. BUT....what of Israel and its leaders? Why are you, Mr. Prime Minister, willing to countenance another round of just barely managing the conflict, hitting Hezbola or Hamas just hard enough to postpone more rockets for a few months or a few years, killing rank and file and blowing up truckloads of missiles but leaving the leaders in place with unlimited access to more ordnance as soon as Iran has a chance to ship some, and...worst of all...giving Iran more time to develop the WMDs that it says it will use against Israel as soon as it is able? Why are Israeli leaders orchestrating the slow-motion suicide of Israel and Israelis? Can you please answer that question for me? Thank you. David Meir-Levi |
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"Israel's Unnecessary War"
The blame for the current fighting falls entirely on Israel's enemies, who deploy inhuman methods in the service of barbaric goals. While I wish the armed forces of Israel every success against the terrorists in Gaza and Lebanon and hope they inflict a maximum defeat on Hamas and Hezbollah while taking a minimum of casualties, erroneous Israeli decisions in the last 13 years have led to an unnecessary war. For 45 years, 1948-93, Israel's strategic vision, tactical brilliance, technological innovation, and logistical cleverness won it a deterrence capability. A deep understanding of the country's predicament, complemented by money, will power, and dedication, enabled the Israeli state systematically to burnish its reputation for toughness. The leadership focused on the enemy's mind and mood, adopting policies designed to degrade his morale, with the goal of inducing a sense of defeat, a realization that the Jewish state is permanent and cannot be undone. As a result, whoever attacked the State of Israel paid for that mistake with captured terrorists, dead soldiers, stalled economies, and toppled regimes. By 1993, this record of success imbued Israelis with a sense of overconfidence. They concluded they had won, and ignored the inconvenient fact that Palestinian Arabs and other enemies had not given up their goal of eliminating Israel. Two emotions long held in check, fatigue and hubris, came flooding out. Deciding that they had had enough of war and could end the war on their own terms, Israelis experimented with such exotica as "the peace process" and "disengagement." They permitted their enemies to create a quasi-governmental structure (the "Palestinian Authority") and to amass hoards of armaments (Hezbollah's nearly 12,000 Katyusha rockets in southern Lebanon, according to the Arab daily Asharq al-Awsat). They shamelessly traded captured terrorists for hostages. In this mishmash of appeasement and retreat, Israel's enemies rapidly lost their fears and came to see Israel as a paper tiger. Or, in the pungent phrasing of Hezbollah's leader, Hassan Nasrallah, in 2000: "Israel, which has both nuclear power and the strongest air force in the region, is weaker than a spider's web." As I wrote in 2000, "their earlier fear of Israel has been replaced with a disdain that borders on contempt." As Israelis ignored the effect of their actions on enemies, they perversely seemed to confirm this disdain. As a result, Palestinian Arabs and others rediscovered their earlier enthusiasm to eliminate Israel. To undo this damage of 13 years requires that Israel return to the slow, hard, expensive, frustrating, and boring work of deterrence. That means renouncing the foolish plans of compromise, the dreamy hopes for good will, the irresponsibility of releasing terrorists, the self-indulgence of weariness, and the idiocy of unilateral withdrawal. Decades of hard work before 1993 won Israel the wary respect of its enemies. By contrast, episodic displays of muscle have no utility. Should Israel resume the business-as-usual of appeasement and retreat, the present fighting will turn out to be a summer squall, a futile lashing-out. By now, Israel's enemies know they need only hunker down for some days or weeks and things will go back to normal, with the Israeli left in obstructionist mode and the government soon proffering gifts, trucking with terrorists, and yet again in territorial retreat. Deterrence cannot be reinstated in a week, through a raid, a blockade, or a round of war. It demands unwavering resolve, expressed over decades. For the current operations to achieve anything for Israel beyond emotional palliation, they must presage a profound change in orientation. They must prompt a major rethinking of Israeli foreign policy, a junking of the Oslo and disengagement paradigms in favor of a policy of deterrence leading to victory. The pattern since 1993 has been consistent: Each disillusionment inspires an orgy of Israeli remorse and reconsideration, followed by a quiet return to appeasement and retreat. I fear that the Gaza and Lebanon operations are focused not on defeating the enemy but on winning the release of one or two soldiers -- a strange war goal, one perhaps unprecedented in the history of warfare -- suggesting that matters will soon enough revert to form. In other words, the import of hostilities under way is not what has been destroyed in Lebanon nor what the U.N. Security Council resolves; it is what the Israeli public learns, or fails to learn. David Meir-Levi is an American-born Israeli, currently living in Palo Alto. His expertise is in Near Eastern studies and the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict. He is Director of Peace and Education at Israel Peace Initiative (www.ipi-usa.org). Contact him at david_meirlevi@hotmail.com |
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IT'S OUR WAR
Posted by Bryna Berch, July 19, 2006. |
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This article was written by William Kristol and it appeared in the
Weekly Standard
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Bush should go to Jerusalem--and the U.S. should confront Iran.
WHY IS THIS ARAB-ISRAELI WAR different from all other Arab-Israeli wars? Because it's not an Arab-Israeli war. Most of Israel's traditional Arab enemies have checked out of the current conflict. The governments of Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia are, to say the least, indifferent to the fate of Hamas and Hezbollah. The Palestine Liberation Organization (Fatah) isn't a player. The prime mover behind the terrorist groups who have started this war is a non-Arab state, Iran, which wasn't involved in any of Israel's previous wars. What's happening in the Middle East, then, isn't just another chapter in the Arab-Israeli conflict. What's happening is an Islamist-Israeli war. You might even say this is part of the Islamist war on the West--but is India part of the West? Better to say that what's under attack is liberal democratic civilization, whose leading representative right now happens to be the United States. An Islamist-Israeli conflict may or may not be more dangerous than the old Arab-Israeli conflict. Secular Arab nationalism was, after all, also capable of posing an existential threat to Israel. And the Islamist threat to liberal democracy may or may not turn out to be as dangerous as the threats posed in the last century by secular forms of irrationalism (fascism) and illiberalism (communism). But it is a new and different threat. One needs to keep this in mind when trying to draw useful lessons from our successes, and failures, in dealing with the threats of the 20th century. Here, however, is one lesson that does seem to hold: States matter. Regimes matter. Ideological movements become more dangerous when they become governing regimes of major nations. Communism became really dangerous when it seized control of Russia. National socialism became really dangerous when it seized control of Germany. Islamism became really dangerous when it seized control of Iran--which then became, as it has been for the last 27 years, the Islamic Republic of Iran. No Islamic Republic of Iran, no Hezbollah. No Islamic Republic of Iran, no one to prop up the Assad regime in Syria. No Iranian support for Syria (a secular government that has its own reasons for needing Iranian help and for supporting Hezbollah and Hamas), little state sponsorship of Hamas and Hezbollah. And no Shiite Iranian revolution, far less of an impetus for the Saudis to finance the export of the Wahhabi version of Sunni Islam as a competitor to Khomeini's claim for leadership of militant Islam--and thus no Taliban rule in Afghanistan, and perhaps no Hamas either. It's of course true that Hamas--an arm of the Sunni Muslim Brotherhood--is at odds ideologically with Shia Iran, and that Shia and Sunni seem inclined to dislike, even slaughter, each other elsewhere in the Middle East. But temporary alliances of convenience are no less dangerous because they are temporary. Tell the Poles of 1939, and the French of 1940, that they really had little to worry about because the Nazi-Soviet pact was bound to fall apart. The war against radical Islamism is likely to be a long one. Radical Islamism isn't going away anytime soon. But it will make a big difference how strong the state sponsors, harborers, and financiers of radical Islamism are. Thus, our focus should be less on Hamas and Hezbollah, and more on their paymasters and real commanders--Syria and Iran. And our focus should be not only on the regional war in the Middle East, but also on the global struggle against radical Islamism. For while Syria and Iran are enemies of Israel, they are also enemies of the United States. We have done a poor job of standing up to them and weakening them. They are now testing us more boldly than one would have thought possible a few years ago. Weakness is provocative. We have been too weak, and have allowed ourselves to be perceived as weak. The right response is renewed strength--in supporting the governments of Iraq and Afghanistan, in standing with Israel, and in pursuing regime change in Syria and Iran. For that matter, we might consider countering this act of Iranian aggression with a military strike against Iranian nuclear facilities. Why wait? Does anyone think a nuclear Iran can be contained? That the current regime will negotiate in good faith? It would be easier to act sooner rather than later. Yes, there would be repercussions--and they would be healthy ones, showing a strong America that has rejected further appeasement. But such a military strike would take a while to organize. In the meantime, perhaps President Bush can fly from the silly G8 summit in St. Petersburg--a summit that will most likely convey a message of moral confusion and political indecision--to Jerusalem, the capital of a nation that stands with us, and is willing to fight with us, against our common enemies. This is our war, too. |
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WHY THE LEFT HATES ISRAEL - KOHLMAYER MAY BE ON TO SOMETHING
Posted by Meir-Levi, David, July 19, 2006. |
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The Left hates Israel, and the Moslems hate Israel. But wait, shouldn't the Left be at severe ideologcal odds with much of the Moslem world? (you know -- all the things that are the opposite of what the Left is supposed to stand for: oppression of women, reducing women to expendible sex objects, no free speech, no freedom of religion, no freedom to congregate, muzzled media, oppression of Christians and Jews and Hindus and all non-Moslems, oppression of homosexuals, murder of converts out of Islam, inculcating hatred of minorities, inculcating hatred of other relgions and cultures to the point of obscene religious apartheid, totalitarian governments, denial of free access to information, and an extremist messianic apocalyptic vision of an end-day scenario in which triumphalist supremicist imperialist totalitarian Jihadist terrorist Islam will reign supreme over the entire world which has been rendered Judenrein by a Moslem global genocide of Jews -- "Islam uber alles"....just to name a few) So why doesn't the Left demonstrate its rejection of those aspects of Moslem politics, culture and society which are so completely antithetical to the Left's liberal humanitarian humanistic cornerstone ideologies and socio-political priorities? And why doesn't the Left acknowledge the primacy of Israel as a society characterized by democracy and possessed of all those same freedoms that most of the Moslem world lacks? And why does not the Left admonish those in the Moslem world who are possessed of an extreme, unrelenting, pathological, irational hatred of a free society's democratic country? This is a conundrum. The first article below was written by Vasko Kohlmayer and it is
called "Why The Left Hates Israel. It was published in the Jewish
Press (www.jewishpress.com).
Vasko Kohlmayer defected from Communist Czechoslovakia at
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Vasko Kohlmayer
Few facets of today's politics are more obvious or more startling than the Left's hatred of Israel. Be it the United Nations, elite universities or The New York Times, the Left unashamedly uses its institutions as forums from which to conduct its relentless campaign of vilification. What makes the Left's behavior especially puzzling is that it runs counter to one of its supposedly most cherished principles -- concern for oppressed minorities. Its opprobrium of the country sheltering a group that has been persecuted longer, more unjustly and more cruelly than any other thus presents a seemingly irreconcilable contradiction. To see what's behind it, we need to begin with the Left's overall disposition, which is one of entrenched anti-westernism. Making no secret of its contempt for the West's traditions, values and achievements, the Left is as much offended by the West's Judeo- Christian religion as it is by its moral code. The Left deems the West's cultural triumphs no more unique than those of other societies and sees its past as little more than a story of oppression, exploitation and ignominy. And the Left despises free market capitalism -- our socio-economic foundation -- which it claims to be exploitative, unfair or worse. The Left does not confine itself to criticism, but also expresses itself in practical action. These efforts take place on two fronts. Internally, it seeks to undermine the West by corroding its values and institutions. Externally, it renders assistance to its enemies which is why, for instance, many on the Left sided with the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Belligerent and armed, the Soviets vowed to consign the West to the abyss of history and large numbers of leftists relished the prospect. Needless to say, the collapse of the Soviet Empire came as a bitter setback. Then, on 9/11, radical Islamists burst on the scene. Their attacks and subsequent statements left no doubt that their goal was the West's destruction. Perceiving a unique opportunity, the Left sprang into action and since then has done all it can to undermine our ability to prosecute the war. Impugning the president, attacking our military, calling for the closure of detention centers and outing secret programs are all part and parcel of this effort. Intent on using Islam as a battering ram against the West, the Left has pressed on with hopeful zeal, for the terrorist attacks in America and Europe revealed just how vulnerable we are. Even more significantly, most Western nations are quite obviously unwilling to defend themselves and they castigate the one country willing to confront the threat head on. The West has shown itself weak and vacillating, and there is indeed much reason for optimism as far as the Left is concerned. The Left's hopes, however, are being seriously threatened from an unexpected quarter: Israel. The Islamic movement derives much of its impetus from the belief in the coming of a worldwide caliphate which, most Muslims believe, is ultimately destined to rule this earth. One of the great obstacles on the road to this vision is Western civilization, which will have to be overcome if Islam is ever to reign supreme. Given the West's economic and military superiority, conquering it is a task whose magnitude could easily discourage even the most ardent believers. In order to shore up the fighting spirit of their followers and unleash their destructive passions, Islamic ideologues employ a two-pronged strategy. They portray the West not only as a beehive of godless infidels, but also as a decadent, corrupt, depraved and dysfunctional culture. This ensures that many are driven to jihad as much by their outraged moral sensibilities as by a desire to bring about Allah's kingdom and securing their place in paradise should they die on the way. But this strategy of vilification has one profound weakness. It is based on lies. Nothing makes this more obvious than the State of Israel, a flourishing Western-type democracy in the heart of the Middle East. Decent, just and fair, the country's mode of existence is completely at variance with Islam's claims about the West's inherent wickedness. Furthermore, Israel's success and prosperity accentuate the backwardness, poverty and stagnation of the Islamic regimes themselves. Israel thus puts the lie in devastating fashion to Islam's claims about the West while throwing into sharp relief the depth of its own failures. Situated right in their own backyard, the Jewish state continually threatens to expose Islamic ideologues for the demagogues they are in the eyes of the very populations they seek to manipulate. This in turn poses a grave danger to radical Islam itself, because once it is shown for a fraud in its own hotbed of the Middle East -- the place from which it draws much of its impetus and energy -- it may as well abandon its aspiration of ever becoming a force that can seriously challenge the West. This possibility alarms the Left deeply. Having enlisted Islam as its closest ally in the anti-Western crusade, the Left naturally wants it to remain as strong and robust as possible. By undercutting the viability of radical Islam, Israel thus endangers the Left at the point of its ultimate hope and desire -- the West's destruction. Only when we grasp this will we understand the true reasons for the Left's bitter dislike of the Jewish state. The Left's virulent attacks on the country that is home to a long-persecuted minority will then no longer seem so bewildering. One of the Left's most salient characteristics is that its concern for the causes it outwardly espouses extends only insofar as those causes further leftist objectives, which, in the case of minorities, is the weakening of Western culture through balkanization. The moment a minority happens to benefit the Western cause -- as Israel does in this clash of civilizations -- the Left not only abandons it, but turns against it with a vengeance. There can be little doubt that the elimination of Israel is what the Left is ultimately after. Statements by many of its spokesmen make this amply clear. Noam Chomsky, Ralph Nader and their ilk speak of Israel as a land whose malignant influence can only be checked by severe measures. And the liberal elites throughout the West back that kind of rhetoric with action. In a gesture so twisted as to defy belief, it awarded the Nobel Peace Prize to a terrorist who had devoted his life to Israel's obliteration. The United Nations, the Mecca of the international Left, passes resolution after resolution condemning Israel while turning a blind eye to the barbarism of its enemies. Attempting to force terms that would make its survival untenable, the UN tries to box Israel into a position from which it would be unable to defend itself. At the same time, the Left's media organs put out editorial after editorial castigating Israel. Few examples better reveal the Left's duplicity than its stance on Israel, a country whose only offense is that it is a successful practitioner of the Western tradition. A Western outpost in the very heart our enemy's base, the Jewish state is a crucial battleground in this war of civilizations. And the Left, fully cognizant of its seminal importance, is doing all it can to tear it down. As the West's strategic ally, Israel must not be abandoned if we are to emerge victorious from the life-and-death conflict in which we are currently engaged. But there is another, equally important, reason why Israel must survive. An enlightened and decent country, its demise would be a tragic setback not only for Jews but for all who fight on the side of humanity and enlightenment against terror, fanaticism and darkness. 2. "Apocalyptic Muslim Jew-hatred"
There are short-term reasons behind the attacks on Israel by Hezbollah and Hamas. But underlying all the geo-strategy is a solid foundation of fanatical Jew-hatred, dating back to the founding of Islam. There is literally nothing Israel or Jews can do to appease those who seek to annihilate them. Dr. Walid Phares, a perspicacious expert on modern jihad terrorism, has elucidated the practical, short-term considerations that likely motivated Hizbollah's aggressive actions across Israel's internationally recognized northern border with Lebanon (kidnapping of Israeli soldiers; katyusha rocket attacks on Israeli civilian populations), which precipitated the ongoing conflagration:
Phares argues that Hizbollah's strategic solution was, not surprisingly, open resumption of the jihad against Israel. Ultimately, this chronic, annihilationist jihad being waged against Israel by both Hizbollah and Hamas, is driven by orthodox Islamic theology, and eschatology. Georges Vajda -- in a seminal 1937 essay [1] (long before the establishment of the State of Israel) -- provides an overall assessment of the portrayal of the Jews in the hadith collections (the putative words and deeds of the Muslim prophet Muhammad, as recorded by pious transmitters), complemented by Koranic verses, and observations from the earliest Muslim biographies [or "sira"] of Muhammad. Vajda's research demonstrates how Muslim eschatology emphasizes the Jews' supreme hostility to Islam. Jews are described as adherents of the Dajjal -- the Muslim equivalent of the Anti-Christ -- and as per another tradition, the Dajjal is in fact Jewish. At his appearance, other traditions state that the Dajjal will be accompanied by 70,000 Jews from Isfahan wrapped in their robes, and armed with polished sabers, their heads covered with a sort of veil. When the Dajjal is defeated, his Jewish companions will be slaughtered -- everything will deliver them up except for the so-called gharkad tree. Thus, according to a canonical hadith (Sahih Muslim, Book 40, Number 6985), if a Jew seeks refuge under a tree or a stone, these objects will be able to speak to tell a Muslim: "There is a Jew behind me; come and kill him!" As Vajda observes, Not only are the Jews vanquished in the eschatological war, but they will serve as ransom for the Muslims in the fires of hell. The sins of certain Muslims will weigh on them like mountains, but on the day of resurrection, these sins will be lifted and laid upon the Jews. But it is the Jews stubborn malevolence, Vajda further notes, that is their defining worldly characteristic: Jews are represented in the darkest colors [i.e., in the Koran, hadith, and sira]. Convinced by the clear testimony of their books that Mohammed was the true prophet, they refused to convert, out of envy, jealousy and national particularism, even out of private interest. They have falsified their sacred books and do not apply the laws of God; nevertheless, they pursued Mohammed with their raillery and their oaths, and harassed him with questions, an enterprise that turned to their own confusion and merely corroborated the authenticity of the supernatural science of the prophet. From words they moved to action: sorcery, poisoning, assassination held no scruples for them. Examples of this archetypal Jew hatred from the sacred Islamic texts, sira, and main early Sunni historiographical accounts, include: - Koranic verses labeling Jews as malevolent enemies of Islam (5:82); Vajda's analysis indicates that all these archetypes in turn justify Muslim animus towards the Jews, and the admonition to, at best, "subject [the Jews] to Muslim domination", as dhimmis, treated "with contempt", under "humiliating arrangements". Hizbollah and Hamas have constructed core ideologies based upon this Islamic theology of Jew hatred, which one can glean readily from their foundational documents, and subsequent pronouncements, made ad nauseum. Hamas further demonstrates openly its adherence to a central motif of Jew-hatred in Muslim eschatology? Article 7 of the Hamas Charter concludes with a verbatim reiteration of the apocalyptic hadith alluded to earlier: "The Last Hour would not come unless the Muslims will fight against the Jews and the Muslims would kill them until the Jews would hide themselves behind a stone or a tree and a stone or a tree would say: `Muslim, or the servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me; come and kill him'; but the tree Gharkad would not say, for it is the tree of the Jews." (Sahih Muslim, Book 40, Number 6985). Both jihadist terror organizations believe they can now take advantage of their political gains in Lebanon (Hizbollah), and the Palestinian controlled areas of Gaza and the West Bank (Hamas), and succeed in their goal to destroy Israel -- motivated by a primordial hatred of Jews, sanctioned in Muslim theology and eschatology. Hizbollah's name, "The Party of Allah" derives from Koran 5:56: "And whoever takes Allah and His messenger and those who believe for a guardian, then surely the party of Allah are they that shall be triumphant." In a public statement issued February 15, 1986, Hizbollah conceived of itself as a "nation" linked to Muslims worldwide by "...a strong ideological and political bond, namely Islam." Expressed in the political language of the Koran, Hizbollah's ideology encompasses, triumphally (as per the slogan adorning the party emblem, "The Party of Allah is Sure to Triumph") at least three major objectives: transforming Lebanon into a Shari'a state; destroying Israel; establishing regional, followed by international Islamic hegemony, i.e., bringing the region, then the world under Shari'a law. Demonizing Israel and Jews -- via motifs in the Koran and hadith -- Hizbollah views the jihad against the "Zionist entity" as an annihilationist war intrinsic to broader conflicts: the struggle between the Islamic world and the non-Muslim world, and the historical struggle between Islam and Judaism. The most senior clerical authority for Hizbollah, Husayn Fadlalah has stated, "We find in the Koran that the Jews are the most aggressive towards the Muslims... because of their aggressive resistance to the unity of the faith." Fadlallah repeatedly refers to anti-Jewish archetypes in the Koran and the hadith: the corrupt, treacherous and aggressive nature of the Jews; their reputation as killers of prophets, who spread corruption on earth; and the notion that the Jews engaged in conspiratorial efforts against the Muslim prophet Muhammad. Fadlallah argues, ultimately, "Either we destroy Israel or Israel destroys us." Hizbollah is viscerally opposed to Judaism and the existence of Israel, stressing the eternal conflict between the Jews and Islam. Eradicating Israel represents an early stage of Hizballah's Pan-Islamic ambitions, and its jihad against the rest of the non-Muslim world. Since 1989, historian David Littman has made repeated appeals to the UN Human Rights Commission alerting its members to the dangers inherent in the binding Hamas Charter (circa 1988). Recently Littman elucidated some of key the motifs of Islamic Jew-hatred contained in this document which amount to no less than a "direct and public incitement to commit genocide," punishable under article 4 of the 1948 Genocide Convention. Article 7 of the Hamas Charter contains the apocalyptic hadith (Sahih Muslim, Book 40, Number 6985) referred to earlier -- reflecting the annihilationist Jew hatred of Islamic eschatology. As Littman observes, Article 8, "...a blueprint for jihadist terrorism," is the slogan of the Islamic Resistance Movement -- Hamas: "Allah is its target, the Prophet is its model, the Koran its Constitution; Jihad is its path, and death for the sake of Allah is the loftiest of its wishes." Article 28 targets all Jews: "Israel, Judaism and Jews challenge Islam and the Muslim people: `May the cowards never sleep.'" The Charter in its preface quotes Hassan al-Banna, founder of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, as saying: "Israel will exist and continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it." The conclusion has a subheading: The Islamic Resistance Movement is Composed of Soldiers stating that the Islamic Resistance Movement "will only serve as a support for all groupings and organizations operating against the Zionist enemy and its lackeys (...) The Islamic Resistance Movement adopts Islam as its way of life. Islam is its creed and religion. Whoever takes Islam as his way of life, be it an organization, a grouping, a country or any other body, the Islamic Resistance Movement considers itself as their soldiers and nothing more." Finally, this transcript from the June 22, 2006 pronouncement by Yasser Ghalban, a Hamas terrorist leader makes clear how, as with Hizbollah, the liquidation of Jews in Israel by jihad is linked to Hamas' own universal ambitions: "The Jihad for Allah... is the way of Truth and the way for Salvation and the way which will lead us to crush the Jews and expel them from our country Palestine. Just as the Jews ran from Gaza, the Americans will run from Iraq and Afghanistan and the Russians will run from Chechnya, and the Indian will run from Kashmir." Unfortunately, the orthodox Islamic archetypes of Jew-hatred promulgated by Hizbollah and Hamas, are also being disseminated by the most respected, mainstream Islamic institutions. For example, Muhammad Sayyid Tantawi wrote these words in his 700 page treatise rationalizing Muslim Jew hatred, Banu Isra'il fi al-Qur'an wa al-Sunna [Jews in the Koran and the Traditions], originally published in the 1970s, and then re-issued in 1986: [The] Koran describes the Jews with their own particular degenerate characteristics, i.e. killing the prophets of Allah, corrupting His words by putting them in the wrong places, consuming the people's wealth frivolously, refusal to distance themselves from the evil they do, and other ugly characteristics caused by their deep-rooted lasciviousness -- only a minority of the Jews keep their word... [A]ll Jews are not the same. The good ones become Muslims, the bad ones do not. [3] Tantawi was apparently rewarded for this scholarly effort by being named Grand Imam of Al-Azhar University in 1996, a position he still holds. These are the expressed, "carefully researched" views on Jews held by the nearest Muslim equivalent to a Pope -- the head of the most prestigious center of Muslim learning in Sunni Islam, which represents 90% of the world's Muslims. And Sheikh Tantawi has not mollified such hatemongering beliefs since becoming the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar as his statements on the Jews as "enemies of Allah, descendants of apes and pigs", the legitimacy of homicide bombing of Jews, or "dialogue" with Jews (just below), make clear. ...anyone who avoids meeting with the enemies in order to counter their dubious claims and stick fingers into their eyes, is a coward. My stance stems from Allah's book [the Koran], more than one-third of which deals with the Jews... [I] wrote a dissertation dealing with them [the Jews], all their false claims and their punishment by Allah. I still believe in everything written in that dissertation. [see above, and citation 3] Tantawi's case illustrates the prevalence and depth of sacralized, "normative" Jew hatred in the contemporary Muslim world which can no longer be ignored. The neutered compromise statement of the G-8 Summit leaders on "Middle East violence", despite being a far better pronouncement than the predictably craven dhimmitude of Spanish Prime Minister Zapatero, or the miserable immoral equivalence of official Vatican spokesman Cardinal Angelo Sodano, is a poor substitute for the moral clarity desperately needed now. Although this memorable December 2002 jeremiad by Oriana Fallaci "I Stand With Israel. I Stand With The Jews" surely fits the bill, never could such words be uttered in public by the current generation of rather dull-witted, and fortitude-challenged world leaders, Western and Eastern alike. Until such a moral awakening occurs (if ever), perhaps it is best for Israel to heed the existential, street-wise advice of songwriter extraordinaire Bob Dylan: Well, he's surrounded by pacifists who all want peace,
Notes [1] Georges Vajda. Juifs et Musulmans selon le hadit [Jews and Muslims according to the hadith]. Journal Asiatique, 1937, Vol. 229, pp. 57-129. English translation by Susan Emanuel. [2] Ibn Sa'd. Kitab Al-Tabaqat Al-Kabir. Volume 2, New Delhi, 1993; pp. 249-252. English translation by S. Moinul Haq and H.K. Ghazanfar 3. Banu Isra'il fi al-Qur'an wa al-Sunna [Jews in the Koran and the Traditions], 1986. English translation by Dr. Michael Schub Andrew G. Bostom is the author of The Legacy of Jihad, and a
frequent contributor to The American Thinker.
David Meir-Levi is an American-born Israeli,
currently living in Palo Alto. His expertise is in Near Eastern
studies and the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict. He is Director
of Peace and Education at Israel Peace Initiative (www.ipi-usa.org).
Contact him at david_meirlevi@hotmail.com
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NOORANI THREATENS US AGAIN
Posted by Salah Choudhury, July 19, 2006. |
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As you know, we had already been threatened by Khatmey Nabuat Movement leader Mufti Noor Hussain Noorani on 29th June 2006 and subsequently lodged a General Diary with Paltan Police Station, as well our office had been attacked by this Islamist millitant group on 4th July 2006, once again, on July 19, 2006 at 7:34 pm (Bangladesh time), Mufti Noor Hussain Noorani called at my Cell phone and said "Assalamu Alaikum, get prepared for death". Before I could say anything he hanged up the phone. Later I checked with my people and saw that this is the same number wherefrom Noorani called and threatened on 29th June. I immediately brought this matter to the attention of variious intelligence agencies and top most level of the government. They suggested me to file another General Diary with Paltan Police Station immediately. I filed the General Diary accordingly. General Diary number 1113. This is for your kind information please. Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury The writer is a journalist, columnist, author, and editor of "Weekly Blitz". Email him at salahuddinshoaibchoudhury@yahoo.com |
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NICHOLAS KRISTOF'S NOT WELL-VERSED IN MIDEAST HISTORY
Posted by David Meir-Levi, July 19, 2006. |
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Nicholas Kristof's "Boomerang effect..." (Palo Alto Daily News, 7.19.06) takes two misleading assumptions and skillfully blends them in to one deeply misguided and sadly misleading opinion piece. 1.) By asserting that Israel's counter-attack on Hezbollah will fuel more mideast violence, he rephrases the oft-ballyhooed admonition about the "cycle of violence". He seems not well versed in Mideast history. The opposite has been the case. Israel withdrew from Lebanon in May of 2000. Hezbollah took that as a sign of weakness and began its massive arms build-up courtesy of Iran and Syria, with random but consistent cross-border attacks and kidnappings of Israeli soldiers. Arafat also took it as a sign of weakness and shortly thereafter began his 2nd Intifada with the battle cry that what Hezbollah could do in Lebanon, he could do in "Palestine". In August of 2005, Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip. Hamas took that as a sign of weakness, and began an almost daily Qassam bombardment pounding Israel's civilian communities with more than 1,000 rockets, interspersed with attempted suicide bombers, drive-by shootings, sniper attacks, roadside bombs, tunnel bombs, car bombs, truck bombs, and the smuggle-importation of short and medium ranged ground-to-ground missiles and shoulder-held anti-aircraft missiles. Quite the opposite of Kristof's assertion, the more Israel yields, the more the terrorists attack. When Israel uses the force adequate to stop the terrorism, the terrorism stops. Consistently, since its inception almost 60 years ago, Israel has offered peace, and has attacked only when existentially threatened. Its Arab enemies, on the other hand, have maintained a steady and vociferous diatribe of genocide and destruction, matched by an on-going low-intensity 60-year long terror war interspersed with full-scale high-intensity wars. They have retreated only when thoroughly defeated. 2.) By asserting that Israel may have over-reacted, Kristof is rephrasing the new and irratioinal concept of 'proportionate response": Israel should use force only in proportion to the attack. Apparently he is not well versed in military history. No country employs 'proportionate force'. No country, ever, across the entire world and throughout world history, has ever met aggression with 'proportionate' retaliation. No general has ever said: "they are invading with 20,000 troops, so we will use only 20,000 troops to push them back to our border". When Japan hit Pearl Harbor, the USA did not retaliate by bombing a Japanese port and then saying "tag -- you're it". The USA brought Japan to its knees. Our former Secretary of State Colin Powell put it best: "The lessons I absorbed from Panama confirmed all my convictions over the preceding 20 years...use all the force necessary and do not apologize for going in big if that is what it takes. Decisive force ends wars quickly and in the long run saves lives." [My American Journey, p. 421]. The irrationality of 'proportionate response' derives from the obviously ominous conditions that it creates: a. the initiative remains in the aggressors' camp. They attack and are, perhaps, repelled with proportionate force. They then are free to attack again and again, at their leasure, knowing that the defenders' response will be merely proportionate. The aggressor then defines the time and scope of the aggression. b. no war can be won with defensive actions only. Proportionate response means that the aggressor remains alive and well to re-grouop and re-arm and re-deploy for future attacks. And in addition to the above, Kristof's assertion, that Israel's very highly 'dis-proportionate' response will boomerang and cause Israel even more problems in the mideast, is contradicted by the recent pronouncements from none other than Egypt and Arabia, condemning Hezbollah as the aggressor; and by Arab journalists in Iraq condemning Hezbollah and Syria and Iran; and by the G-8 resolution supportive of Israel's defensive measures to curb Hezbollah's endless relentless terror war; and by Lebanese Christians whose representative organizations have written public thank-you letters to Israel (some asking why it took so long for Israel to do what any other country would have done 5 years ago) for freeing them from the curse of Hezbollah occupation of Southern Lebanon. What Kristof should learn, before he writes his next misguided and misleading missive about the middle east, is that if the terrorists put down their weapons, there would be no more violence. But if Israel put down her weapons, there would be no more Israel. David Meir-Levi is an American-born Israeli, currently living in Palo Alto. His expertise is in Near Eastern studies and the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict. He is Director of Peace and Education at Israel Peace Initiative (www.ipi-usa.org). Contact him at david_meirlevi@hotmail.com |
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THERE IS NO NEED FOR AN ENDLESS GLOBAL CONFLICT
Posted by Debi Ghate, July 19, 2006. |
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Islamic totalitarians have explicitly stated their goal: to forcibly impose Islamic law around the world. To succeed, they will continue to attack those parts of the world that oppose their "divine mission." The United States, Israel, Canada, England, India, and any other country that places the least bit of value on freedom and progress, will continue to be targets. The freer nations need to recognize the real nature of this enemy: an ideology that demands complete submission to Allah, either voluntarily or at the point of a knife. Do you wait for the knife to slit your throat or do you fight back and defend yourself? The combined military strength of the freer countries is more than enough to eliminate decisively and definitively the assorted collection of murderous terrorists and the governments that support them financially or ideologically. There is no need for an endless global conflict. What there is a need for is a recognition that those of us living in freer countries have the right to take any necessary actions to defend ourselves--and that our lives are at stake. Debi Ghate is Vice President, Academic Programs, Ayn Rand Institute. The Institute promotes Objectivism, the philosophy of Ayn Rand--author of "Atlas Shrugged" and "The Fountainhead." Contact the writer at media@aynrand.org. |
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NOW IS NOT THE TIME FOR RESTRAINT FROM ISRAEL
Posted by Shaul Ceder, July 19, 2006. |
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This was written by former House speaker Newt Gingrich, a senior
fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and author of Winning
the Future: A 21st Century Contract with America. This appeared on
USA Today |
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Imagine that this morning 50 missiles were launched from Cuba and exploded in Miami. In addition to buildings and homes being destroyed, scores of Americans were being killed. Now imagine our allies responded by saying publicly that we must not be too aggressive in protecting our citizens and that America must use the utmost restraint. Our history shows us that we, as Americans, would reject such bad advice. After all, we have never reacted to a direct attack on our soil with any restraint. Every time America has been attacked by an enemy, we set about defeating it and ending the threat. This was true of Pearl Harbor in World War II, after which we replaced the imperial Japanese government. The regimes of Nazi Germany and fascist Italy met the same demise. Without actually being attacked, President Kennedy risked nuclear war to eliminate the threat of Soviet missiles in Cuba. After the 9/11 attacks, we replaced the Taliban in Afghanistan once it became known that they were providing refuge for the al-Qaeda terrorists responsible for the attack. This is our history as Americans. We believe that our government has a duty to protect us. When compared with U.S. history lessons, the advice of the Group of Eight industrial nations to Israel is wrong. The communiqué says the No. 1 priority is a cease-fire that would effectively leave Hezbollah in possession of all its rockets. We'd never accept such advice for ourselves. The Israelis should not accept it for the same reasons: It would not end the threat. Israel, a fellow democracy, has the same duty and right to protect its citizens from enemy attack. It is doing so while making every effort to avoid civilian casualties. The Israeli response is wholly justified based on a history where Israeli concessions to the Iran-Syria-Hezbollah-Hamas terrorist alliance have consistently resulted in their enemies preparing for the next attack. The terrorists have been attacking with increased capability, brutality and violence aimed at civilians. This is only the latest cycle in an ongoing 58-year campaign to destroy Israel. In 2000, the Israelis withdrew from southern Lebanon, creating an opportunity for peace. Instead of peace, for six years Iran, Syria and Hezbollah moved more than 10,000 missiles into the vacated area. More recently, the Israelis withdrew from Gaza to provide another circumstance for peace and an opportunity for a self-governing Palestinian people to work toward creating a place of prosperity, but instead Hamas created a place of terror. Now Israel is the target of more than 1,000 missiles from both Gaza and southern Lebanon in the past week alone. Iranian involvement is not in question. There are at least 100 Iranian guards in southern Lebanon. Apparently, it was an Iranian missile fired with Iranian know-how that hit an Israeli warship. Because Hezbollah and Hamas are waging war against Israel as proxies for Syria and Iran, the United States should announce that we support Israel's effort to remove every one of the thousands of missiles in southern Lebanon, and that we will decisively stop any effort by Syria and Iran to intervene. United Nations Resolution 1559, supported by the European Union, called for Hezbollah to be disarmed. If not now, when? If not by the Israelis, who? The G-8 advice, if taken, would only guarantee the cycle of violence. The terrorist alliance must be destroyed or it will be rebuilt with more dangerous capabilities. The appeals for an Israeli cease-fire, if heeded, will enable Israel's enemies to re-lay the groundwork for yet another violent campaign for what has been a nearly six-decade episode with the sole objective of destroying Israel. The key steps to ending the violence in Lebanon first requires recognizing that Hezbollah in its military form must be eliminated, that the 100-plus Iranian guard in southern Lebanon must be removed and that the allowing of the Syrian and Iranian dictatorships to supply, train and equip the terrorists must be stopped. To do that, the United States should offer to help strengthen the Lebanese government so that it has the ability to re-establish itself in all of Lebanon and defeat the military wing of Hezbollah. We should encourage the Israelis to work with the Lebanese government to eliminate the thousands of missiles within its borders that threaten Israel. Finally, Iran and Syria must be forced to cease their support of Hezbollah and Hamas by the United States communicating to them such dire consequences that they could not sustain the relationships. And then we should be prepared, if necessary, to impose those consequences. Contact Shaul Ceder at shaul.ceder@gmail.com |
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ARITHMETIC OF PAIN
Posted by Shaul Ceder, July 19, 2006. |
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Brilliant - Dershowitz at his best - from today's Wall Street Journal (WSJ). Alan Dershowitz is a professor of law at Harvard. |
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There is no democracy in the world that should tolerate missiles being fired at its cities without taking every reasonable step to stop the attacks. The big question raised by Israel's military actions in Lebanon is what is "reasonable." The answer, according to the laws of war, is that it is reasonable to attack military targets, so long as every effort is made to reduce civilian casualties. If the objectives cannot be achieved without some civilian casualties, these must be "proportional" to the civilian casualties that would be prevented by the military action. This is all well and good for democratic nations that deliberately locate their military bases away from civilian population centers. Israel has its air force, nuclear facilities and large army bases in locations as remote as anything can be in that country. It is possible for an enemy to attack Israeli military targets without inflicting "collateral damage" on its civilian population. Hezbollah and Hamas, by contrast, deliberately operate military wings out of densely populated areas. They launch antipersonnel missiles with ball-bearing shrapnel, designed by Syria and Iran to maximize civilian casualties, and then hide from retaliation by living among civilians. If Israel decides not to go after them for fear of harming civilians, the terrorists win by continuing to have free rein in attacking civilians with rockets. If Israel does attack, and causes civilian casualties, the terrorists win a propaganda victory: The international community pounces on Israel for its "disproportionate" response. This chorus of condemnation actually encourages the terrorists to operate from civilian areas. While Israel does everything reasonable to minimize civilian casualties -- not always with success -- Hezbollah and Hamas want to maximize civilian casualties on both sides. Islamic terrorists, a diplomat commented years ago, "have mastered the harsh arithmetic of pain. ... Palestinian casualties play in their favor and Israeli casualties play in their favor." These are groups that send children to die as suicide bombers, sometimes without the child knowing that he is being sacrificed. Two years ago, an 11-year-old was paid to take a parcel through Israeli security. Unbeknownst to him, it contained a bomb that was to be detonated remotely. (Fortunately the plot was foiled.) This misuse of civilians as shields and swords requires a reassessment of the laws of war. The distinction between combatants and civilians -- easy when combatants were uniformed members of armies that fought on battlefields distant from civilian centers -- is more difficult in the present context. Now, there is a continuum of "civilianality": Near the most civilian end of this continuum are the pure innocents -- babies, hostages and others completely uninvolved; at the more combatant end are civilians who willingly harbor terrorists, provide material resources and serve as human shields; in the middle are those who support the terrorists politically, or spiritually. The laws of war and the rules of morality must adapt to these realities. An analogy to domestic criminal law is instructive: A bank robber who takes a teller hostage and fires at police from behind his human shield is guilty of murder if they, in an effort to stop the robber from shooting, accidentally kill the hostage. The same should be true of terrorists who use civilians as shields from behind whom they fire their rockets. The terrorists must be held legally and morally responsible for the deaths of the civilians, even if the direct physical cause was an Israeli rocket aimed at those targeting Israeli citizens. Israel must be allowed to finish the fight that Hamas and Hezbollah started, even if that means civilian casualties in Gaza and Lebanon. A democracy is entitled to prefer the lives of its own innocents over the lives of the civilians of an aggressor, especially if the latter group contains many who are complicit in terrorism. Israel will -- and should -- take every precaution to minimize civilian casualties on the other side. On July 16, Hasan Nasrallah, the head of Hezbollah, announced there will be new "surprises," and the Aska Martyrs Brigade said that it had developed chemical and biological weapons that could be added to its rockets. Should Israel not be allowed to pre-empt their use? Israel left Lebanon in 2000 and Gaza in 2005. These are not "occupied" territories. Yet they serve as launching pads for attacks on Israeli civilians. Occupation does not cause terrorism, then, but terrorism seems to cause occupation. If Israel is not to reoccupy to prevent terrorism, the Lebanese government and the Palestinian Authority must ensure that these regions cease to be terrorist safe havens. Contact Shaul Ceder at shaul.ceder@gmail.com |
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FIGHT AGAINST THE MERCILESS NATION
Posted by Professor Eugene Narrett, July 19, 2006. |
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The situation in which Israel finds itself is not new but it is a particularly vivid example of its position in the world, and not only since 1948 or 1920. Edom and Ishmael for millennia have acted if they are hardwired to slander, pillage, and murder Jews "saying, 'come, let us blot them out from nationhood that Israel's name not be remembered anymore" (psalm 83). I read that a favorite tehillim of Rav Kook reflects the position of Israel today and in so many centuries: "Judge me, God, and fight on my behalf against a merciless nation." Israel has been attacked by and is being warred on by merciless nations, Ishmaelites armed, equipped, often trained and diplomatically explained by Edom. They are merciless to Jews and howl when there is even a very limited Jewish military response to wholesale rocket attacks on cities of Israel. In order to find and enjoy peace. IsraeI must declare and wage all out war on these merciless nations. "Just as they show no mercy to you, so you shall show no pity to them." The nation that murdered Eliahu Asheri, the grandma and little grandson in Tzefat must be obliterated without mercy as David HaMelekh teaches in psalm 22. Then and only then will Israel enjoy the blessings of peace. David is our greatest teacher on how to create the conditions in which the teachings of Moshe Rabbeinu can flourish. This indeed is how Moshe instructed Yehoshua: "be strong and of good courage." Those enemies are like bread for us... Now! every rocket that falls on Israel demonstrates the bad faith of the Israeli government and its failure of the Jewish people. Professor Eugene Narrett teaches writing and Literature at Boston University. He is the author of hundreds of articles, columns and reviews on politics, American culture and the arts. He is completing a study on Romanticism and the longterm decline of Western Culture. He writes often on subjects relating to Israel and Judaism and is a weekly columnist for the MetroWest Daily News in Framingham, Massachusetts. His new book is "Israel and the Endtimes". Contact him at Culturtalk@aol.com |
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SHOW YOUR SUPPORT FOR ISRAEL
Posted by Unity Coalition for Israel, July 18, 2006. |
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[Editor's note: Go to http://jblogosphere.blogspot.com/ Rally Central: for the list of rallies -- those that have taken place and those planned. FRIDAY, JULY 21 / Tamuz 25
SUNDAY, July 23 / Tamuz 27 4 PM in LOS ANGELES, CA,
MONDAY, July 24 / Tamuz 28 12-2 PM - PHILADELPHIA, PA -
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We encourage everyone to organize and/or participate in Solidarity With Israel Rallies. Rallies are an important tool to help educate both the media and the public. HOW TO ORGANIZE OR MAXIMIZE THE EFFECT OF A RALLY Call the media to cover the rally, in an effort to bring awareness to the key issues involved. Work to get pro-Israel government reps and community leaders to speak. If that's not doable, it's also okay to just do a simple street corner demo, with no speakers, just placards, but do try to have at least 10 participants. Prepare at least 3 people to speak to the media, each with a different soundbyte (see talking points below). These people should not wait to be approached by the reporter, but should approach the reporters on their own, as soon as they see them. Particularly if the media do not show up for your rally, arrange for someone going to the rally to bring a digital camera. Take photos of people holding pro-Israel signs. Tell them you want to send the photo to their local paper. Ask for their name, town, phone number (so newspaper can verify the photo caption) and the local newspaper's name. That same day, put a caption on the photo, send it to the person's local newspaper and urge that the photo be published. PLACARD MESSAGES Placard messages of all sizes are available to download at www.standwithus.com (click on Signs ) You can also display these signs in the windows of your home and car or tape them onto your T-shirt or backpack to wear. Examples include: Lebanon, Disarm Your Terrorists Or Israel Will
With thanks, Lee Green
MEDIA CONTACT INFO Reliable@cnn.com, viewer@c-span.org, booktv@c-span.org, comments@foxnews.com, oreilly@foxnews.com, hannity@foxnews.com, foxreport@foxnews.com, special@foxnews.com, beltway@foxnews.com, hemmer@foxnews.com, mailto:feedback@foxnews.com, generalcomments@feedback.msnbc.com, letters@msnbc.com, hardball@msnbc.com, countdown@msnbc.com, joe@msnbc.com, abramsreport@msnbc.com, newshour@pbs.org, jdvorkin@npr.org, onthemedia@wnyc.org, Monica@wabcradio.com, suggestions@lauraingraham.com, rush@eibnet.com, janet@jpamerica.com, dennisprager@dennisprager.com, letter@globe.com, ombud@globe.com, jsmith@globe.com, letters@suntimes.com, ctc-tribletter@tribune.com, publiceditor@tribune.com, alipinski@tribune.com, cmcmahon@tribune.com, letters@plaind.com, dclifton@plaind.com, letters@star-telegram.com, letters@latimes.com, readers.rep@latimes.com, marjorie.miller@latimes.com, heralded@herald.com, editor@nysun.com, newsdesk@nysun.com, letters@nytimes.com, public@nytimes.com, foreign@nytimes.com, executive-editor@nytimes.com, insight@orlandosentinel.com, mpynn@orlandosentinel.com, editor@orlandosentinel.com, inquirer.letters@phillynews.com, editor@phillynews.com, foreign@phillynews.com, forum@newsobserver.com, msill@newsobserver.com, oquarles@newsoberver.com, letters@uniontrib.com, david.smith@uniontrib.com,letters@sfchronicle.com, readerrep@sfchronicle.com,letters@sun-sentinel.com, letters@post-dispatch.com,eletters@starledger.com, readerrep@starledger.com,charrison@starledger.com, editor@usatoday.com, etinsley@usatoday.com, wsj.ltrs@wsj.com, letters@washpost.com, ombudsman@washpost.com,foreign@washpost.com, letters@newsweek.com, Editors@newsweek.com, letters@time.com, letters@usnews.com, info@ap.org, editor.reuters@reuters.com,levine.joanne@gmail.com CHRISTIAN LEADERS AND PUBLICATIONS
Anglican Communion News: clare.amos@anglicancommunion.org
Catholic World News URL: http://www.cwnews.com/about/contactus.cfm Christian Broadcasting Network's Newswatch
Christian Century magazine email: main@christiancentury.org Christian Science Monitor URL:
Christianity Today email: letters@ChristianityToday.com Episcopal Life editor: jhames@episcopalchurch.org letters@episcopal-life.org Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, The Most Rev. Frank G. Griswald
God's Learning Channel: info@ptcbglc.com Leadership Journal (of Christianity Today magazine): ljeditor@leadershipjournal.net Janet Parshall radioshow: janet@jpamerica.com 1-800-343-9282 Presbyterians Today URL: http://tinyurl.com/e2lnc To find your local Presbyterian USA church:
Presbyterian News Service Director: Rev. Jerry Van Marter
Alexa Smith, International News: AaSmith@ctr.pcusa.org Today's Christian: tceditor@Todays-Christian.com United Church of Christ leaders: thomasj@ucc.org, guffeye@ucc.org, jacksonb@ucc.org, malayanj@ucc.org, copel@ucc.org UCC Ecumenical Officer Lydia Veliko: velikol@ucc.org United Methodist News Service email: newsdesk@umcom.org Worthy Ministries Newstip URL:
Government Contact Info:
Find your congressional rep at: http://www.house.gov/ Find your senators at: http://www.senators.gov/ Click on "Find your Senator" at top right. The Unity Coalition for Israel (http://www.israelunitycoalition.org) is "the largest worldwide coalition of Jewish and Christian organizations, with more than 200 groups representing millions of people dedicated to Israel. Though we have many different backgrounds, we have one common goal: A Safe and Secure Israel." "Israel is not just a Jewish issue. Millions of Christians resolutely endorse the principle of peace with security for the state of Israel. Because we work closely together and speak with a united voice, our message is being heard!" |
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A TRUE STORY FROM TSFAT
Posted by Aryeh Zelasko, July 18, 2006. |
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This personal account from a young woman who has been studying in Tsfat was just sent to me by a friend here in Jerusalem. We have been given permission to forward her true story. This comes from Ashirah Yosefah of the www.Shuvoo.com website. Contact her by email at ashirah@shuvoo.com |
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Dearest Family and Friends, By now, we've all heard the sad news of what has been happening here in Israel. As an eye witness, I must tell you the devastation to the north is heartbreaking, what remains are ghost towns with dilapidated buildings beneath an ominous black smokey sky. I was in Tzfat for the last five days ... and I know now more than ever before how closely HaShem guides our lives. There were countless miracles for the people in my community, myself included. Thursday morning, we had no idea what was about to happen. Since it was a fast day, we decided to go the the cemetery to daven for the Jewish People and our speedy redemption. I stuck around for a while after the girls had left. I wanted some time to reflect on what the fast means. Then the missiles started ... I ducked behind the nearest grave. It must have felt like hours passed in just those few moments. There happened to be someone working in the graveyard that offered to give me a ride back to school. As it turned out, he was a high ranking army official, who explained to me what was happening and why they so desperately wanted to hit Tzfat. There is a very important military base there, that has an underground storehouse of much of Israel's ammunition. He made a few phone calls and quickly found out where the other missiles had hit, and then devised our escape route. For the amount of missiles that fell, statistically so many more people should have been hurt. In the first round of missiles that hit Tzfat, the park of the local college was hit, but since strangely enough, it was cold and very windy weather that day, the park was empty. Another missile fell right outside of a crowded hotel. Thank G-d it wasn't six feet closer to the hotel. Eight missiles fell in that round. I went back to school. Most of us, were in shock from what was happening. The school wasn't very secure with glass everywhere, nevertheless those that were there, stayed put for the rest of the day. We must have gone through the entire book of Tehillim 25 times!! When the military announced that things had simmered down, I decided it was better for me to spend the night in the school building than alone in my apartment ("coincidently," my apartment mates had left the day before), and that I would go home to pick up some overnight necessities. I happened to overhear another woman, who wanted to leave the building. She had her child with her and her arms full of bags, so my friend and I decided we would accompany her to where she wanted to go, and then we would carry on to my apartment. We did! She arrived safely, and then we left towards my apartment. About 150 feet into our journey, the missiles started again. We were at the edge of the city, with only Meron in our view. The first missile hit about 50 feet in front of us. Noise, fire ...We dove to the ground with only two foot wall to shield us. A few moments later, I overheard a women screaming frantically for her child. I called out to her. She found her child, and then ushered us inside. We sat with her and her 5 children while the missiles fell and the fast day ended. We tried to distract the kids by singing songs and playing games. A couple hours later when her husband got home, we made a mad dash, back to school in the dark. We made it back safely... and then a few hours late, I found out the news. In the round of missiles that fell when I left the school, my apartment was hit, a direct hit. I was on my way to the apartment. The only reason I wasn't there WHEN the missiles fell, was because I had done a mitzvah and accompanied someone else. She needed help and I was there for her. The last I heard was that over three hundred missiles fell on the small town of Tsfat while I was there. After a while, we got used to the sounds. Imagine, singing Lecha Dodi at shul with missiles falling nearby. Imagine, eating your Shabbos meal with smoke in the air. That was life for us this past week. Please daven for us! Gush Katif isn't our front line anymore ... it's in every Jewish home today! Be proud to be Jewish! Be proud that our G-d is stronger than any fear or enemy we might have. Do an extra mitzvah, it may just safe your life, or someone else's. Your sister from Israel, Miriam Aryeh Zelasko lives in Beitar Illit, south of Jerusalem. He is Director of Sales and Marketing of Israel Visit (www.israelvisit.co.il) which provides information and an internet buying facility for American visitors to Israel. Contact him at zelasko@actcom.co.il |
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MASHAALL: END OF ISRAEL
Posted by Ramy Dishy, July 18, 2006. |
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This article by Khaled Abu Toameh was written almost a year ago (Jerusalem Post, August 18, 2005). I kept it, knowing its importance, and the way the Arab perceive our moves. |
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Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal declared on Wednesday that the Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and northern West Bank marked the beginning of the end of the Zionist dream in Palestine. Mashaal was speaking to reporters in Beirut and his remarks were broadcast live by a number of major Arab TV satellite stations. He dubbed the pullout a "defeat in the face of Palestinian resistance and a significant step with historic dimensions." "The resistance and the steadfastness of our people forced the Zionists to withdraw," he boasted. "The resistance is capable of ending the Israeli occupation and achieving all our rights. The armed struggle is the only strategy that Hamas possesses." Mashaal reiterated his movement's refusal to lay down its weapons, saying Hamas's duty was to defend the Palestinians and help them restore their rights. "As long as Palestinian lands remain under occupation, Hamas won't lay down its weapons," he stressed. He said, however, that Hamas was not interested in a confrontation with the Palestinian Authority. "Hamas is not competing with the Palestinian Authority, but we reject attempts to monopolize power," he explained. Mahmoud Zahar, Hamas's overall leader in the Gaza Strip, said in an interview published on Wednesday that his movement will move its activities to the West Bank after the disengagement. "Now, after the victory in the Gaza Strip, we will transfer the struggle first to the West Bank and later to Jerusalem," Zahar told the London-based pan-Arab daily Asharq Al-Awsat. "We will continue the struggle until we liberate all our lands. This is an important day for the Palestinians and proof that the armed struggle has born fruit." Asked about Hamas's future plans, Zahar said: "Neither the liberation of the Gaza Strip, nor the liberation of the West Bank or even Jerusalem will suffice us. Hamas will pursue the armed struggle until the liberation of all our lands. We don't recognize the state of Israel or its right to hold onto one inch of Palestine. Palestine is an Islamic land belonging to all the Muslims." Zahar said the disengagement would boost morale in the Arab and Muslim world and positively influence the [anti-US] campaign in Afghanistan and Iraq. "We are part of a large global movement called the International Islamic Movement," he explained. Ismail Haniyeh, another Hamas official in the Gaza Strip, expressed his fear that Israel would target Hamas after the disengagement. He also warned the PA against cracking down on Hamas supporters as it did in 1996. Meanwhile, the Popular Resistance Committees, an alliance of various Palestinian militias operating in the Gaza Strip, said it was planning to transfer the technology of rocket-manufacturing to the West Bank after the disengagement. Muhammed Abdel Al, one of the leaders of the committees, said his group would move the battle against Israel to the West Bank. "We will make every effort to transfer all forms of resistance [to the West Bank] because [Prime Minister Ariel] Sharon intends to move his defeated soldiers to the West Bank," he told reporters. Abdel Al, who is better known by his nickname Abu Abeer, said his group had already begun transferring the technology of rockets and other military expertise to the West Bank. "We will transfer two-thirds of our budget to the West Bank," he said. "Our rockets have a range of 18 kilometers. This means that if we fire them from Kalkilya, they will hit the occupied city of Tal al-Rabi [Tel Aviv]." Contact Ramy Dishy at clement32@sympatico.ca |
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WAR UPDATE FROM SAFED -- DAY 7
Posted by Sandy Rosen-Hazen, July 18, 2006. |
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It's me, Sandy, AGAIN, with the latest news.....but first a personal observation of mine: Has anyone noticed that over 20,000 of the 25,000 Americans in Lebanon have opted to flee.....but NONE of the over 200,000 Americans in Israel chose to leave here?!?! In fact, EVERYday Americans are arriving here in solidarity with us!!!! My remarks below are in square brackets -- [ ]. |
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Jerusalem Post -- July 18, 2006 0:25
At 2:30 p.m. on Monday, a Katyusha rocket gauged a gaping black hole into the outer wall of a shabby apartment building in the Cana'an neighborhood of Safed. It was the latest in a series of some 30 missiles that have struck the city since last Thursday and, according to residents of the run-down neighborhood, the seventh to strike Cana'an. The missile hit a fourth story apartment and exploded in the bedroom. At the time of the blast, three elderly people, Eli and Zohara Yisrael and Zohara's sister, were two rooms away. "I was sitting in the living room when I heard an enormous explosion," an amazingly calm Eli Yisrael told The Jerusalem Post. He, his wife and sister-in-law were waiting near the entrance of a neighboring building together with horrified neighbors for the sappers to come and examine whether there were unexploded bomb fragments remaining in the burned out apartment. "At first I thought the bomb had exploded outside the building," Yisrael continued. "I went to get my cell phone to report the incident when suddenly I saw flames. I tried to douse them with a bottle of water, but they grew bigger. I went to get a pail of water from the bathroom, but the fire came closer." The three managed to escape from the apartment unharmed, while a neighbor called the fire department. Yisrael returned to the apartment afterwards to find it flooded and filled with smoke and char. The family was lucky. No alarm was sounded before the missile struck and the old apartment did not have a safe room. The building has a bomb shelter six floors below the Yisraels' apartment, but, the husband said, his 70-year-old wife has trouble navigating the stairs. Canadian-born Chabad rabbi Menahem Mendel Kumer does not believe the Yisraels were lucky. He believes the incident was one of a series of miracles the inhabitants of the neighborhood have experienced over the past few days. Kumer immigrated to Safed from Toronto in 1979 and lives in Kiryat Chabad in the Cana'an neighborhood. By his count, this is at least the fourth miracle in his neighborhood alone. One of them was experienced by Yoram Ne'eman, Kumer said. On Thursday, Ne'eman's children were playing outside the house when his father called them to come inside. Before they managed to sit down at the computer, a Katyusha rocket exploded in the very spot where they had been playing. On another occasion, four youths were sitting in a car outside an apartment building on Zalman Shazar Street. Two of them left the car to go into an apartment. The other two remained in the parked car, when one of them suddenly suggested that they buy something to eat. No sooner had he driven off when a rocket struck the entrance of a building next to where the car had been. The two youths who had headed upstairs were nicked by fragments of shrapnel and glass. The other two were not aware of what happened until they saw the site of the explosion during a newscast later on. The greatest of all the miracles, said Kumer, happened to Erez Horowitz. A Katyusha was heading toward his house when its trajectory changed at the last moment and the rocket exploded outside a new addition that Horowitz had built underneath his home. If that wasn't enough, a boy was supposed to have been sleeping in the new addition, but was not home at the time of the explosion. One person's luck is another person's miracle is a third person's idea of fate. Earlier Monday, before the Katyusha struck the Cana'an neighborhood, I noticed an open shop among the largely closed businesses in the old city of Safed, opposite City Hall. It was Eliezer's House of Books, a religious book store owned and operated by an American who had immigrated to Safed 12 years earlier. [Eliezer is Nathan's father-in-law] Asked why he dared open his store in such dangerous times, Eliezer replied that he lived in the Cana'an neighborhood and it was no less dangerous than downtown Safed. Wasn't he afraid, I asked. "No," he replied. "Hashem [God] decides where every bomb will fall." Then why, I insisted, had others been killed by bombs. "I don't know," he said. "I guess it was their time to go, and Hashem had them go in this way." [Exactly my sentiments!!!!] ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Fresh waves of rockets strike Haifa, Safed; alert in Tiberias:
Fresh waves of Katyusha rockets fired by Hezbollah guerillas in Lebanon struck the northern towns of Haifa and Safed on Tuesday afternoon. There were no immediate reports of casualties in Haifa, medics said. Israel Radio said that six rockets struck Haifa, Israel's third city, some falling in open areas and others striking sites that had previously been hit. The alert was also heard in Tiberias on Tuesday afternoon. Several rockets landed near the west Galilee town of Shlomi before noon, but no casualties or damage were reported. On Monday night, Hezbollah fired more than 50 rockets, including a barrage which landed after 10 P.M. in the northern towns of Safed, Rosh Pina, Tzivon, Sakhnin, Hatzur Haglilit and Peki'in. Nine people were wounded in the rocket barrage, including eight hurt when a rocket hit a hospital in Safed. The Katyusha struck the Rebecca Sieff Hospital at around 11 P.M. Most of the wounded were hit by shrapnel. The rocket hit the hospital's northern external wall. Five patients, two doctors and two other hospital employees were hurt in the attack. The casualties were treated in the hospital's emergency room. Hospital deputy director Dr. Klein Shapira said after the attack that the rocket damaged the air conditioning system in the building. "It is hard to know if the fire was intentionally directed at us. We know from the movies that hospitals are not attacked (in war), but when it comes to Katyushas the rules must be different," he said. [Yeah, like the terrorists would ever even hesitate to hit our hospitals!!!!] "It was a miracle that the hit didn't cause more serious damage," said one of the hospital employees wounded in the attack. On the border with Lebanon, IDF troops on Monday night opened fire at a group of Hezbollah militants who approached the fence, thwarting an attempt to infiltrate Israel. An unknown number of militants are suspected to have been wounded in the exchange of fire. No IDF troops were wounded, IDF officials said. On Monday, an Israel Air Force air strike in Lebanon destroyed at least ten long-range Iranian-made missile capable of hitting Tel Aviv, the IAF's chief operations officer, Brigadier General Ram Shmueli, said. The officials said an IAF aircraft targeted a Hezbollah truck carrying the weapons before they could be launched. The force of the blast sent at least one missile flying into the air, but it fell nearby. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity under military regulations. Officials said the destroyed missile was an Iranian-made "Zilzal," which has a range of about 200 kilometers. Lebanese TV stations broadcast video pictures of the downed missile which they initially reported was an IAF aircraft falling to the ground. During nearly a week of fighting, Hezbollah militants have fired missiles up to 40 kilometers into Israel. But officials have raised concerns the guerrilla group could strike Tel Aviv, roughly 120 kilometers south of the border with Lebanon. At least 10 rockets fired from Lebanon on Monday targeted the northern port city of Haifa. Eleven people were wounded Monday afternoon when a building in the Bat Galim neighborhood of Haifa collapsed after a direct hit from a Katyusha rocket fired by Hezbollah guerillas in Lebanon. One person sustained serious wounds, one person sustained moderate wounds, and the rest were lightly hurt. Magen David Adom rescue personnel set up a field hospital next to the remains of the three-story building. The wounded were lated evacuated. The rocket tore the front off the building, crushing cars underneath. Medics said an initial inspection indicated no one was trapped under debris. Israel closed its port in Haifa on Monday in the wake of the rocket attacks, the Transportation Ministry said. The port is one of the country's key shipment points. Eight people were killed Sunday morning when a rocket struck an Israel Railways deport in Haifa. Volleys of Katyushas also struck Tiberias and Safed on Monday afternoon, hours after six people were lightly wounded as rockets hit communities across the Galilee. Security and medical officials in Haifa said the rockets hit away from buildings and caused only minor damage and no injuries. Rockets also struck the southern Golan Heights for the first time, the television said. Rockets landed earlier Monday in Kiryat Shmona, Acre, Tiberias, Talal, Julis, Abu Snan, Kafr Yassif and other towns across the north. A rocket scored a direct hit on a house near Acre, landing just a few meters away from a couple as they slept. Three family members suffered light injuries. Earlier Monday morning, thirteen Israel Defense Forces soldiers were hospitalized in Western Galilee Hospital in Nahariya suffering smoke inhalation from a rocket landing. A barrage of rockets landed in the Jezreel Valley in lower Galilee for the first time late Sunday. landed in the city of Afula and the surrounding communities of Upper Nazareth, Migdal Ha'emek and Givat Ela at 11 P.M. At 50 kilometers inland from the northern border, this was the longest range rocket to hit Israel. There were no reports of injuries. Hezbollah secretary general Hassan Nasrallah may decide to use the longer range missiles in his movement's arsenal against Israel, according to Israel Defense Forces assessments. IDF sources say that use of such weapons will depend on authorization from Iran, which has equipped Hezbollah with long-range missiles and has played a formative role in shaping the character of the current fighting. If the confrontation continues to escalate, as it appeared to have done Sunday, the chances that Nasrallah's organization will launch such missiles increases. The army is concerned that Iranian-made Zelzal missiles, whose range is estimated to exceed 200 kilometers, may be used, thus allowing Hezbollah to target the Tel Aviv metropolitan area. Intelligence information suggests that the organization has a limited number of these missiles. The IDF on Sunday told Israelis from Tel Aviv northward to "be alert." The command said that in the event of a rocket strike, a siren will sound, alerting the public to seek shelter inside in a protected room or an area away from doors, windows and exterior walls. Those caught outside at the time of the siren should enter a stairwell or get close to wall or shelter and lie down. The Home Front Command also told the public to await further instruction. Hezbollah still has at its disposal a significant arsenal "of very many rockets of all kinds," Israel Air Force Commander Major General Elyezer Shkedy told reporters at a news briefing on Sunday. Shkedy said that thus far the IDF has struck part of Hezbollah's array of rockets and that the goal of the military campaign against Lebanon is to "deal seriously with the infrastructure that has been built over the course of years." The IDF's chief intelligence officer, Brigadier General Yuval Helmish, said that since the end of Operation Grapes of Wrath - the IDF's offensive in south Lebanon in April 1996 - Hezbollah has amassed over 10,000 rockets, some of which have a range of over 70 kilometers, and has dispersed the missiles in towns and villages throughout south Lebanon. Nasrallah on Sunday said the IDF offensive on Lebanon had not depleted its large stockpile of rockets, and warned that the Islamic group could strike almost anywhere in Israel. "We will continue. We still have a lot more and we are just at the beginning," Nasrallah said in a taped televised address on Al-Manar. "We promise them surprises in (any) confrontation." ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ [Excerpts from a related article.....]
Channel 2 reporter Nessli Barda worked very hard this past weekend. On Friday she broadcast for many long hours from places where Katyushas had fallen in Safed, Rosh Pina and Miron. At night, on the way to the guest house at Kibbutz Hagoshrim, she also managed to cover a fall at the Gomeh Junction. On Saturday morning she rushed to Hatzor Haglilit. "As we were broadcasting from Hatzor," she recapitulates, "we received reports about Tiberias. We went there, hopping from Katyusha to Katyusha." Barda, until not long ago a crime reporter in Tel Aviv, has managed during her short journalistic career to broadcast from a number of terror attack sites. This time, she says, her experience has been completely different. Like the inhabitants of the north who chose to remain in their homes, the hundreds of media people who are rushing around are vulnerable to dangers of the rocket strikes. On Thursday, producer Ortal Salman and recording technician Eyal Vermus from Channel 1 crew were hurt by shrapnel from a Katyusha that fell in Safed. "In seven years of work I had already experienced quite a number of terror attacks and difficult sights," relates Salman. "I was at the Dolphinarium and at the Versailles disaster, and it took a while for me to realize that this time is different. I think that this happened as we were driving from Shtula to Safed, a short time before we were hit. All of the sounds and all of the sights of the artillery pieces were completely different from those to which I am accustomed. I wasn't afraid, but I realized that rockets could fall anywhere and that I didn't really have any way to take precautions." Gilad Adin, the director general of Channel 2 News, reports on a real dilemma in the decision to send people to the danger zone. "Last Wednesday Ofer Shelah and I went to Kiryat Shmona to broadcast from the special studio there," reconstructs Adin. "A few minutes before the broadcast began we heard on the system an instruction to go down into the shelters. As a reporter, I often had occasion to broadcast from that place in a similar situation, and I never hesitated. But now I was in the position of an administrator who is responsible for many people, who were asked to expose themselves to a completely tangible risk. I said to them that whoever was interested in going down to the shelter should feel free, but no one went down." ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ [And, the GOOD news is.....
Forty to fifty percent of Hizbullah's military capability has been destroyed in the six days of the IDF counter-attack following last Wednesday's Hizbullah raid in northern Israel, The Jerusalem Post has learned. The IDF, it is understood, believes it needs another week or so minimum to achieve its military goals in terms of alleviating Hizbullah's capacity to threaten Israel. The IDF further believes, it is understood, that it will be given at least that long to continue its actions, in light of the G8 nations' essential support for Israel and those nations' branding Hizbullah and Hamas as being responsible for the current escalation. Operations in Lebanon, the Post has learned, are costing Israel NIS 50-100 million a day. [later updated: War costs economy up to NIS 500 million a day!!!!] Only Tuesday afternoon, IAF aircraft attacked two trucks parked on the coastal road in the town of Byblos, north of Beirut. They also hit two trucks on the narrow mountain road between Beirut and Syria, which has become the main route to Damascus since the air attacks made the highway unusable. The IAF has recently begun targeting vehicles in Lebanon it suspects of transporting missiles for Hizbullah. Television showed pictures of one truck on fire and another damaged on the mountain road. One driver was reported wounded. In other attacks Tuesday, IAF jets carried out two raids on southern Beirut - where Hizbullah is known to occupy many buildings - and the eastern city of Baalbek. Earlier, Deputy IDF Chief of General Staff Maj.-Gen. Moshe Kaplinsky said in an interview to Army Radio that the offensive against Hizbullah would reach its completion "in a matter of weeks." Meanwhile, Defense Minister Amir Peretz approved a call-up of three additional reserve battalions. The reservists are set to replace troops currently operating in the West Bank, allowing those soldiers to be deployed in the north, to assist in the conflict with Hizbullah. The orders were expected to be distributed on Tuesday. Nevertheless, Kaplinsky said a massive ground incursion was not necessary at the moment. "At this stage we do not think we have to activate massive ground forces into Lebanon but if we have to do this, we will. We are not ruling it out," Kaplinski told Israel Radio. The deputy chief of staff added that Hizbullah had a very large system of different types of rockets. "The (group) still has the ability to fire at the north and residents still feel this. We will do everything to shorten this suffering," he said. On Monday night, the IDF continued its assault on Lebanon, attacking some 100 targets throughout the country, including five rocket launching sites. The IAF bombed bunkers in the neighborhood of Dahiya in southern Beirut. Also, a weapons cache and trucks used to carry arms were also hit near Ba'al Bek in eastern Lebanon. Eleven Lebanese soldiers were killed and 41 others wounded in an overnight strike on a Lebanese army base, Lebanese security officials said Tuesday, as Israel renewed its attacks on Beirut and northern Lebanon. The security officials said warplanes swooped down on the area of Kfar Chima early Tuesday, firing missiles near a local army base. As the soldiers were rushing to their bomb shelters, the base took a direct hit, said the officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because the army had not issued a communique. In one attack in southern Lebanon, a building collapsed and 13 people were killed, witnesses reported. The bombing of the southern region continued into Tuesday morning. Also on Monday night, the IDF thwarted an infiltration attempt when the forces identified a Hizbullah cell attempting to enter Israel along the central region of the border. The soldiers opened fire at the infiltrators, striking the target. The IDF stepped up its offensive against Hizbullah on Monday and, in pinpointed ground incursions, razed the group's military outposts along the northern border as IAF fighter jets bombed stockpiles of long-range missiles capable of reaching Tel Aviv. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ WAR IN THE NORTH: DAY 7 * Pilot who bombed Nasrallah's bunker: 'We will get them all'
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ [NO, we have NOT forgotten.....]
The families of kidnapped soldiers Gilad Shalit and Ehud Goldwasser met Saturday to support each other, share their experiences and discuss how they could work together to secure their sons' freedom. "It was a first meeting," said Noam Shalit, father of Gilad who was captured by Hamas on June 25 near Kerem Shalom on the border with Gaza. "They [the Goldwasser family] asked to meet with us to learn about our own experiences." Shalit said he did not meet with the family of the third kidnapped soldier, Elad Regev, 26, from Kiryat Motzkin, who was taken by Hizbullah along with Goldwasser last Wednesday on the Israeli-Lebanese border. "We talked about how we should organize ourselves for the future," said Shalit in an interview with The Jerusalem Post Monday. He said that the families had decided to wait and see what happens in the next few days. "The agenda has gone in a different direction, towards a war," continued Shalit. "People, civilians, are getting killed, more soldiers are getting killed but we won't let people forget about us." Mikki and Shlomo Goldwasser - who had been working as emissaries in Durban, South Africa when they found out their son had been kidnapped - also met in the past few days with the parents of Benny Avraham and Omar Sawayid, soldiers who were kidnapped along with Adi Avitan in a Hizbullah ambush in the Mount Dov region in October 2000. The bodies of the three soldiers were returned to Israel in a 2004 prisoner swap. "They asked me to meet with them to help them with my experience," said Benny's father, Haim, adding that he had also spoken with Regev's family. "The first few hours and days after the kidnapping the families are always in shock, I didn't want them to make the same mistakes that we made in the beginning." Avraham went on to describe how, when his son was taken, the family "sat in silence, that was a big mistake. We should have spoken out and met with the right people." He added that he had passed onto the Goldwasser and Regev families important telephone numbers of international humanitarian organizations and had advised them on how to obtain accurate information and updates on the status of their sons from army and government bodies. "They gave us a lot of hope and reminded us to be strong," commented Yair Goldwasser, the brother of Ehud. "They also gave us advice on how to handle things and how to emotionally stay together." Despite the escalation of violence between Israel and Lebanon, the families of the kidnapped soldiers are remaining optimistic. Avraham said he believed the Israeli government was doing all it could to get "these boys back." "Even during the fighting, all the staff are there to help them get through this difficult time," he said. Shalit said that because of the growing intensity of the situation, it might take a little longer to secure the release of his son. "I know there are things going on under the surface to get Gilad released," he said, but would not elaborate. "Regarding the other two soldiers taken by Hizbullah, their situation is a little different." According to Yair Goldwasser, the army has not disclosed any information about Ehud's whereabouts or about any plans regarding upcoming military courses of action. For now, "the most important thing is for us to be all together and to remain optimistic," he said. [And, once again, someone expressing exactly my sentiments!!!!] Sandy Rosen-Hazen lives in Safed. Contact her at Sandy@israel.net |
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STAND WITH ISRAEL AND FIGHT THE FORCES OF EVIL!
Posted by Help Israel, July 18, 2006. |
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Tell your friends. Tell your students. Tell your congregation. Israel is in a state of war and needs your help. There are so many ways we can help our brethren right here and right now. www.25waystohelpisrael.com offers you hundreds of opportunities to turn your passions for Israel into concrete actions. You can find the way to help that best suits who you are and which positive impact you wish to make for Israel, the Jewish people, and the world. TWENTY FIVE WAYS TO HELP ISRAEL:
1. Speak Out and Influence the Media by Writing Opinion Letters
Contact Help Israel by email at thebestwaystohelpisrael@hotmail.com |
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HEZBOLLAH'S LITTLE HELPERS
Posted by Bryna Berch, July 18, 2006. |
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This is today's Editorial in the Washington Times
(www.washingtontimes.com/op-ed/20060717-084229-3601r.htm) |
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As Israel fights to break the back of one of the world's most dangerous terrorist organizations, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan has come up with a very bad idea. He wants to throw a lifeline to Hezbollah, dispatching U.N. peacekeepers to Lebanon. Perhaps Mr. Annan and other advocates of such a force can tell us how many peacekeepers would be necessary, whether Hezbollah would be required to disarm, and, if so, who would disarm them. Mr. Annan must explain how his peacekeepers would differ from the current U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), which has failed miserably ever since it was dispatched in 1978. UNIFIL was created following the Coastal Road Massacre of March 11, 1978 -- when Palestinian terrorists based in Lebanon and affiliated with Yasser Arafat's Palestine Liberation Organization entered Israel along the Mediterranean coast and hijacked a bus. Thirty-six hostages died. In response, the Israel Defense Force invaded southern Lebanon to destroy terrorist bases there. The U.N. Security Council responded by adopting Resolution 425, calling on Israel to "immediately" withdraw from Lebanon and establishing UNIFIL for the purpose of "assisting the government of Lebanon in ensuring the return of its effective authority to the area." In June 1982, UNIFIL failed to stop Palestinian terrorist groups from attacking Israel and forced an occupation of much of Lebanon, leading to the destruction of the Palestinian terrorist bases there. With substantial Syrian and Iranian complicity, Hezbollah supplanted the PLO as the dominant terrorist organization in Lebanon. In 1985, Israel withdrew from Lebanese territory but for a small security zone on Lebanon's southern border, required to prevent attacks on Israel. Over the next 15 years, UNIFIL was mostly worthless, unable to stop Hezbollah attacks but remarkably successful in getting in the way of Israelis defending themselves. Dore Gold, a former Israeli ambassador to the United Nations, describes how this worked: "Hezbollah would launch military attacks 50 meters from a UNIFIL outpost, Israel would shoot back and UNIFIL would protest against the Israeli response." When Israel withdrew from the security zone in May 2000, UNIFIL was worthless again, as Hezbollah rushed to the border to establish a terrorist presence the U.N. forces could only observe. On Oct. 7, 2000, Hezbollah operatives used cars disguised as U.N. vehicles to kidnap and kill three Israeli soldiers. When Israel asked UNIFIL for a videotape of the cars that Hezbollah used in the kidnapping, U.N. officials lied, telling them that no such tape existed. UNIFIL failed to prevent last week's Hezbollah raid, in which two Israeli soldiers were kidnapped and eight others died. That set off the current mess. Once Hezbollah is defeated, disarmed and forced to return the soldiers kidnapped last week, someone may find a useful role for the United Nations to play in helping the Lebanese Army extend its authority to the south. For now, however, the Israeli military is doing more to enhance the long-term prospects for peace in Lebanon than the United Nations has ever done. Kofi Annan can perform a great service by staying out of the way. |
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THE INTERNATIONAL CHRISTIAN EMBASSY PLEDGES ITS SUPPORT FOR ISRAEL
Posted by Avodah 15, July 18, 2006. |
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This is a Statement on Current Affairs from the International Christian Embassy Jerusalem Jerusalem, Israel. Malcolm Hedding is Executive Director, International Christian Embassy Jerusalem. Contact him at the website: www.icej.org |
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"Show the wonder of your great love, you who save by your right hand those who take refuge in you from their foes. Keep me as the apple of your eye; hide me in the shadow of your wings from the wicked who assail me, from my mortal enemies who surround me." Psalm 17:7-9 "The Current Conflict with Hamas and Hizb'Allah" From the desk of Malcolm Hedding, Executive Director of the International Christian Embassy Jerusalem: * The ICEJ has for years in its bulletins, articles and press releases, warned of the terrorist threat to Israel posed by Hamas and Hizb'Allah. For both groups, the inspiration behind their agenda is fanatical Islam, which seeks the total destruction of Israel. * Now, in concert with their devious sponsors in Damascus and Teheran, they have unleashed a war against Israel. Both groups have been branded terrorist organizations by the world community and thus, once again, the true face of the so-called Middle East conflict has come to light. In short, Israel now has no alternative other than to destroy the terror infrastructure and capabilities of these two groups. * It is thus with indignation that we condemn the unprovoked aggression unleashed against Israel by Hizb'Allah in recent days. We fully support Israel in her right to self-defence and in her measured military campaign now being waged against this terror militia. Israel's response is entirely just and we note with appreciation the statement of the G8 Summit gathered in St. Petersburg, that affirms Israel's right to self-defence in light of this wicked and unprovoked aggression. Likewise, we are not without sympathy for the vast majority of Lebanese citizens who have been forced into war by Hizb'Allah. * The International Christian Embassy Jerusalem also notes that some of the blame for this tragic state of affairs lies at the door of the United Nations and the wider world community, in that they failed to insist on the complete disarmament of Hizb'Allah and its removal from southern Lebanon, as called for in UN Security Council resolutions. This disregard for the stipulations regarding Hizb'Allah laid down in UNSC Resolution 1559 has resulted in the attacks on Israel in recent days. There is no excuse for this inaction. Once again, the international community has failed Israel! * Hamas is also designated a terrorist organization by the international community and once more Israel, after fully withdrawing from Gaza to the recognized border, is under attack in the form of hundreds of Kassam rockets. The international community must support Israel in this theatre of operations as well. * Finally, we wish to record that recent events have proven that the 'axis of evil' identified by U.S. President George W. Bush was right. We salute the American president's courage, forthrightness and discernment. * The International Christian Embassy Jerusalem and its worldwide constituency of millions of Christians pledge our full and unreserved support for Israel and her people in these difficult days. As always, we will defend Israel's right to exist in peace and security in the region and we will pray for Israel's unqualified victory over these terrorists. Contact Avodah 15 at avodah15@aol.com |
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CAN ISRAEL WIN THIS WAR? -- A SPECIAL UPDATE
Posted by Dovid Shirel, July 18, 2006. |
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After last week's update in which Moshe Feiglin wrote that the war currently being fought in Israel is "a pointless war of deception that endangers soldiers and civilians for no reason and with no goal," we received a number of letters asking for clarification. The following is a more in depth explanation of Manhigut Yehudit's position: Dear Editor, It amazes me that Moshe is advocating not supporting this war. The whole country is behind the war, and Manhigut Yehudit, which always promotes Jewish identity and pride doesn't support it? Does he want Israel not to retaliate after the killing and kidnapping of our soldiers? What is he driving at? DK Dear DK, Thanks for writing. Moshe's comments in last week's update were very brief, and we definitely should explain what brought him to his conclusion. Israel has been at war quite a few times. The soldiers fight valiantly, and the public displays courage, fighting spirit and determination to "once and for all let them have it." But what happens as the fighting continues, and Israel is obviously on the brink of victory? The UN, the Europeans, the US, the Arab world and/or our own homegrown Leftists snatch the military victory right out from under our feet. Cease fire, negotiations, terrorist release, retreat... We've all experienced this scenario time and again. Our brave soldiers fall, citizens suffer and in the end, there is no tangible, long lasting gain from the fighting. What goes wrong? First and foremost, we have a problem with our goal. Israel does not seek to triumph. All we want is to return to our borders and attain some peace and quiet. For how long? At what price? As the price rises, we concomitantly agree to a shorter respite. During the interval, our enemies re-arm and ready themselves for the next round. And then they start the fighting all over again, with Israel in a more compromised starting point, as in our current situation. Right now, we are tragically paying the price of six years of "quiet" on our northern front -- "quiet" that we attained by literally running away from Lebanon. Israel under its current leadership cannot win this war. Hizbollah, which in Arabic means "the army of Allah" is not fighting a strategic war. They are not sending troops over our borders in an effort to conquer more land. They are fighting a holy war, declaring that the entire Holy Land was promised to them by their deity. But Israel cannot comprehend the language of holy war. The Hizbollah has a strong sense of justice, but we have none. All that our political and military leaders repeat is that we have no intention of conquering territory in Lebanon, and that we simply want to return in peace to the international border. The international border may have meaning in a strategic war, but not in a holy one. And until Israel regains its sense of justice -- that this entire Land is G-d's gift to the Jewish People and that we will fight to preserve its Jewish integrity and sanctity -- we're going to lose because we don't know where we're going. When Moshe wrote that the current war endangers soldiers and civilians with no goal, he is pointing at a disturbing truth. As a leader, that is his job -- to create awareness of the truth -- even if people are not yet willing to apply the conclusions of that truth on a practical level. Our soldiers will fight their strategic battle and will batter the enemy, but he will continue to elude us. The most basic tool in a holy war is a sense of justice, and that is exactly what we are lacking. How should an authentically Jewish government handle the situation? After all, Israel's air force is pounding Lebanon and Prime Minister Olmert seems to be determined to drive the Hizbollah away from Israel's borders. What could Manhigut Yehudit do better? Israel needs to fight its own holy war. Our enemies must know that if they attack us, they will lose their land. Israel should not be sending troops into battle just to pull them out after the world intervenes. Israel should be sending troops to conquer those parts of the Promised Land currently being held by the aggressor, and to prepare those areas for Jewish settlement. If that were government policy, carried out with self-assurance and trust in G-d, our enemies would think many times before daring to attack. This, by the way, is the way that any normal country would react to attacks on its sovereign territory. Another point to ponder...Former Deputy Chief of Staff Uzi Dayan said a few days ago that we must restore Israel's battered deterrence so that we can get on with our real national goal -- the convergence plan. Until Israel has leaders with authentic Jewish goals, Israel's soldiers and citizens will continue to be in danger -- from the terrorists -- and from the Israeli politicians who suffocate our own sense of justice. With love of Israel,
Dovid Shirel is Educational Director, Manhigut Yehudit - Hebron. Manhigut Yehudit (Jewish Leadership) is a group of people inside the Likud party who want to see Israel adopt a more Jewish character. Moshe Feiglin, its cofounder, has emphatically said he does not want a theocracy, but he does want a State based on Jewish values. The Manhigut Yehudit website address is http://www.manhigut.org. |
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FREEDOM VS. UNLIMITED MAJORITY RULE
Posted by Peter Schwartz, July 18, 2006. |
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America helped empower Hezbollah, by confusing the idea of freedom, which rests on the principle of inalienable individual rights, with the idea of democracy, which rests on the principle of unlimited majority rule. Hezbollah, which has been waging war on Israel, and America, for years, is the immediate cause of the current fighting in the Middle East. The broader cause, though, is the United States government. When Washington declared that freedom could be advanced by elections in which Hezbollah participated, and by which it became part of Lebanon's government, we granted that terrorist entity something it could never achieve on its own: moral legitimacy. We gave legitimacy to Hezbollah--just as we did to such enemies as Hamas in the Palestinian Authority and the budding theocrats in Iraq and Afghanistan. These people all came to power through democratic elections promoted by the U.S. But a murderer does not gain legitimacy by getting elected to the ruling clique of his criminal gang--nor does anyone gain it by becoming an elected official of an anti-freedom state. The premise behind the Bush administration's policy is the hopeless view that tyranny is reversed by the holding of elections--a premise stemming from the widespread confusion between freedom and democracy. The typical American realizes that there ought to be limits on what government may do. He understands that each of us has rights which no law may breach, regardless of how much public support it happens to attract. An advocate of democracy, however, holds the opposite view. The essence of democracy is unlimited majority rule. It is the notion that the government should not be constrained, as long as its behavior is sanctioned by majority vote. It is the notion that the very function of government is to implement the "will of the people." It is the notion espoused whenever we tell the Lebanese, the Iraqis, the Palestinians and the Afghanis that the legitimacy of a new government flows from its being democratically approved. And it is the notion that was categorically repudiated by the founding of the United States. America's defining characteristic is freedom. Freedom exists when there are limitations on government, imposed by the principle of individual rights. America was established as a republic, under which the state is restricted to protecting our rights. This is not a system of "democracy." Thus, you are free to criticize your neighbors, your society, your government--no matter how many people wish to pass a law censoring you. You are free to own your property--no matter how large a mob wants to take it from you. The rights of the individual are inalienable. But if "popular will" were the standard, the individual would have no rights--only temporary privileges, granted or withdrawn according to the mass mood of the moment. The tyranny of the majority, as the Founders understood, is just as evil as the tyranny of an absolute monarch. Yes, we have the ability to vote, but that is not the yardstick by which freedom is measured. After all, even dictatorships hold official elections. It is only the existence of liberty that justifies, and gives meaning to, the ballot box. In a genuinely free country, voting pertains only to the means of safeguarding individual rights. There can be no moral "right" to vote to destroy rights. Unfortunately, like President Bush, most Americans use the antithetical concepts of "freedom" and "democracy" interchangeably. Sometimes our government upholds the primacy of individual rights and regards one's life, liberty and property as inviolable. More often, however, it negates rights by upholding the primacy of the majority's wishes--from confiscating an individual's property because the majority wants it for "public use," to preventing a terminally ill individual from ending his painful life because a majority finds suicide unacceptable. Today, our foreign policy endorses this latter position. We declare that our overriding goal in the Mideast is that people vote--regardless of whether they value freedom. But then, if a religious majority imposes its theology on Iraq, or if Palestinian suicide-bombers execute their popular mandate by blowing up Israeli schoolchildren, on what basis can we object, since democracy--"the will of the people"--is being faithfully served? As a spokesman for Hamas, following its electoral victory, correctly noted: "I thank the United States that they have given us this weapon of democracy... It's not possible for the U.S... to turn its back on an elected democracy." All these enemies of America -- Hamas, Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed Shiites -- abhor freedom, while adopting the procedure of democratic voting. If we are going to try to replace tyrannies, we must stop confusing democracy with freedom. We must make clear that the principle we support is not the unlimited rule of the majority, but the inalienable rights of the individual. Empowering killers who happen to be democratically elected does not advance the cause of freedom--it destroys it. Peter Schwartz is a Distinguished Fellow at the Ayn Rand Institute (www.AynRand.org) in Irvine, California. The Institute promotes Objectivism, the philosophy of Ayn Rand--author of Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead. |
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THE KATYUSHAS CANNOT BE STOPPED WITHOUT A GROUND INVASION
Posted by Steven Plaut, July 18, 2006. |
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1. SO how bad is it? Death statistics and probabilities are always hard to explain to non-statisticians. It sounds like between 25 and 30 Israelis have been murdered so far by the katyushas and other missiles that Ehud Barak and the Israeli Labor Party dropped this week on Israel through their Hezbollah peace partners whom they installed on Israel's northern border. But let us keep something in perspective. This is about the same as the death toll from a SINGLE one of some of the worst suicide bombings of buses and cafes Israel has known. For a while, Israel was having 3 such bombings each week. Another way of putting this is that a week of katyushas has produced a death toll about the same as a week of Israeli traffic accidents. Actually, because a quarter of the country is indoors and in shelters, traffic accidents are probably down this week, offsetting Ehud Barak's katyusha toll a bit. True, the katyushas tend to frighten people more and are more emotionally upsetting, because they can strike you at random inside your home. But traffic accidents and suicide bombers also kill people at random as they go about their lives. SO get a grip everyone. And I say that from Haifa, in the top floor of my building (the vulnerable floor)! 2. Ground troops It is a complete delusion to think that Israel can resolve the Lebanon Hezbollah problem with air strikes. The air strikes, mainly on empty buildings, cannot stop firing of katyushas or kassams. Only Israeli ground troops can stop the rockets. So far, the Israeli government and chattering classes prefer to delude the public with gee-whiz high-tech displays of air power. It is all show and a kind of national video game. There will be no choice put to conduct a massive ground invasion and re-conquer southern Lebanon. The only alternative to THAT is to make the katyushas a permanent part of life in Israel. Having said that, there is another way to read the Olmert reluctance to introduce ground troops so far. I myself do not believe this is the actual explanation, which I think is cowardice, but I mention it to you anyway. For the past 58 years, almost every armed confrontation between Israel and the savages was ended by international pressure to cease fire, always much too early for Israel to complete its military program. The Six Day War may be the only exception and even that was done quickly to beat the stopper. In every other case, Israel was forced to race the clock to accomplish as much as it could in artificial haste. So far, there is no international pressure on Israel to hurry things along regarding Lebanon. But the moment a ground invasion were to take place in south Lebanon, the pressures would build at astronomical pace. So someone less cynical than me might attribute that consideration to Olmert's delay of the ground operations. 3. The Demise of the Left? Israel's anti-Israel Jewish Left, led by the tenured traitors, is out showing its solidarity with the Hezbollah this week at protests in Tel Aviv (you know, the lattes in Sderot are not very good so why go there?). But there are signs that the entire country has gone through an ideological revolution and has earmarked the moonbat Left for special hatred and denunciation, which probably will not become fully evident until after the war ends. Why do I say this? Well, the "talkbacks" at leftist Haaretz are viciously anti-Left (at the other papers they have ALWAYS been so). Chat lists usually featuring leftist professors denouncing Israel are being flooded with denunciations of the Left. And there are other signs. This past Friday, for the very first time, a mainstream columnist in Israel denounced the Israeli Left as anti-Semitic. Incredibly, the writer who wrote this is himself a left-of-center professor; Amnon Rubinstein was among the founders of Meretz. A professor of law, he had been a strong supporter of Oslo. But lately he has shifted towards center. He writes a column this past Friday in Maariv, Israel's second largest daily, and he explicitly denounced the "Post-Zionist" and anti-Israel professors in Israeli universities as anti-Semites (his word), turning out anti-Semitic propaganda, indoctrinating their students in anti-Israel extremism, and working for anti-Semites all over the world. He notes that some departments at universities are so filled with anti-Semites that if all the anti-Semites were to be fired, those departments would be shut down. Sure, I have been saying that for years, but it sounds better coming from a founder of Meretz! (Article not available online or in English) 4. I continue to believe that there are some important advantages in having the Left leading the battle against the Hezbollah. By that I mean the Labor-Kadima coalition. If the Likud under Bibi were bombing the bejeebers out of the savages in Lebanon, the Labor Party would be shutting down the country in protests against the "war criminals" and "fascists" from the Likud mistreating the Lebanese in their unnecessary war of imperialism and colonialism. 5. A University of Haifa Leftist prof defends Israel's battle against terror:
War does not preclude clear thinking. When Israel withdrew from southern Lebanon six years ago, to the last inch, and from Gaza one year ago, to the last inch, scenarios of over-the-border hostilities were high on the public agenda. Thus, even as smoke rises over northern Israel, Lebanon and Gaza, some clearheaded points are being made on the Israeli side of the border. Here is a brief selection. First and most crucial, a majority of Israelis consider this sad unleashing of Israeli firepower in Gaza and Lebanon to be, up to now, a just war. It has both a casus belli and a convincing rationale. Hostilities were initiated by militias strongly associated with the elected governments in both regions, targeting IDF personnel strictly on the Israeli side of the border. Since many media consumers have short memories, a reminder is in order: Over the last five months, some 800 Kassam rockets were fired at towns and villages in southwestern Israel. The town of Sderot alone was hit several hundred times. Israel occupied not an inch of Gaza at that time. Israel certainly responded, as any sovereign state would; and it did so not by reinvading Gaza, but with air strikes against militants and launchers. Palestinian civilians were hurt; Europeans vocally reproached us; the rockets kept coming. Then came the recent assault on soldiers stationed within Israel, killing three and kidnapping one. Hezbollah of Lebanon, wholly unprovoked, simply liked the idea and sent a force into northern Israel and two follow-up ambushes, killing a total of eight soldiers and kidnapping two. Both assaults breached a fully legitimate international border, in the aftermath of a full Israeli withdrawal -- just in case some media consumers have forgotten. Possible lesson: A sense of right still counts for something amidst all the smoke. Which leads to a second clearheaded point. Why is Israel's response not "proportional," and why don't we rush to negotiate with the kidnappers, as so many peace-lovers in the Western world would like us to do? Let me be blunt: A "proportional" response would please many Europeans no end, but would scarcely move a hair in the beard of a Hamas or a Hezbollah leader. They are not set to be gently pushed into moderation, or to hammer out an exquisite compromise with the Jewish state, but to wipe it out as soon as they can. If we shoot a little, they will shoot back all the way into Islamic eternity. If we "negotiate," cave in to blackmail and release Hamas and Hezbollah militants held in Israeli prisons in return for our three kidnapped soldiers, they will send them back to bomb schools and buses and pizza parlors in no time at all. Negotiation? For sure. It worked with Egypt and Jordan. It would work with Saudi Arabia. It would work with moderate Palestinians -- as soon as they recapture their own polity from Hamas and Hezbollah. But it would not work with the latter, who along with their Iranian allies openly declare that they want us dead, not merely complacent. Possible lesson: Compromise with ultra-extremists usually misfires. And here is a sad, third clearheaded point: Democracy, in the Middle East as elsewhere, is not just about universal suffrage. The Palestinians brought Hamas to power, and Hezbollah is a coalition partner in the Lebanese government. Please reflect on this, dear Western lovers of democracy: Is majority vote truly the sole gist of it all? Here is a painful truth: Israel is killing civilians -- inadvertently, though arguably too freely -- as it targets militants in Gaza and Lebanon. Yet the hair-raising aspect of it is that many of those civilians voted Hamas, and some voted Hezbollah, into their own governments. Democratically elected, these groups care little for the lives of their own citizens, even less for the Israeli Arabs they have bombed and killed in recent days, and null for Israeli civilians. Yet their voters keep applauding. Gazan and Lebanese children are innocent victims of this policy, and many Israelis -- I must assert this even in the face of disbelief -- truly grieve for them. But the adults? Are these men and women hostages of live-in terrorists, dumb natives managed by shrewd colonialists, or are they perhaps accountable civil agents who made a very bad choice in one of their first democratic performances? Possible lesson: Reread Pericles. Arab democracy is not hopeless, a fourth clearheaded reflection suggests. The Middle East is divided between those who jeer with any rocket hitting Haifa, and those -- in Lebanon, Palestine and Saudi Arabia -- who secretly hope for both Hamas and Hezbollah to vanish into the limbo of lost lunatics and make way for better and saner Arab regimes. In the aftermath of the current war, Ehud Olmert's Kadima-Labor coalition government would promptly talk with a peace-seeking Palestinian government; this is why a majority of Israelis voted them in to begin with. Possible lesson: Moderates don't easily lose their nerve these days. My final point may be news to both friends and foes of Israel: This society is holding strong. Opinions here are divided, for sure, about the wisdom and morality of using force, and about the wisdom and effectiveness of withholding force. The public argument keeps sizzling as the north of Israel, including my own Jewish-Arab university of Haifa, is under fire. For some reason, going beyond Israel and deeply linked to Pericles, I take this to be good news. Ms. Oz-Salzberger is a senior lecturer at the University of Haifa. URL for this article:
6. Metropolitan News-Enterprise
A Jewish writer who claims that a prominent local rabbi attacked and injured her after they argued about Middle East politics can sue the organization he works for, the Court of Appeal for this district has ruled. Reversing a contrary ruling by Los Angeles Superior Court Judge James A. Bascue, the panel said Wednesday there was sufficient evidence for a jury to decide whether Chaim Seidler-Feller was acting in the role and scope of his employment when he allegedly attacked Rachel Neuwirth three years ago. Neuwirth sued Seidler-Feller along with Hillel: The Foundation for Jewish Campus Life and the Los Angeles Hillel Council. The rabbi has headed the UCLA affiliate of Hillel, which serves Jewish students on more than 500 campuses throughout the world, for more than 30 years. The suit resulted from a brouhaha outside Royce Hall on the Westwood campus, following an address by Harvard Law School's Alan Dershowitz, who was promoting his book The Case for Israel. Outside the hall were some Palestinian or pro-Palestinian demonstrators. The rabbi stopped to talk to one of them about an upcoming event involving Sari Nusseibeh, a prominent Palestinian involved in an ongoing non-governmental peace effort. Controversial Writings Neuwirth, who has suggested in her writings that peace between Israel and the Palestinians is an impossibility, that responsibility for the Palestinians should be placed on the Arab nations, and that President Bush's "road map" for Mideast peace is doomed to failure, attended the speech and overheard the rabbi's conversation. She alleges in her complaint that she "calmly" told the rabbi that Nusseibeh had been identified by Israeli intelligence during the Gulf War as having phoned Iraqi officials and urged them to "send the Scud missiles not to the Negev, but to more effective places." Neuwirth claims that Seidler-Feller then "flew into a rage," called her "a liar," grabbed and twisted her right hand and scratched her thumb and index finger with his fingernails. Neuwirth said she was shocked and outraged, causing her to exclaim that Seidler-Feller was a kapo -- the title given to Jews who collaborated with the Nazis by helping administer concentration camps. The rabbi had to be pulled off Neuwirth by "three or four large college men," Neuwirth claims. Neuwirth alleged causes of action for battery and infliction of emotional distress against the rabbi and claimed that Hillel was vicariously liable on those claims and directly liable for nMs. Neuwirth and her attorney, Robert Esensten, maintain that the case is not about politics, but battery. "This case is solely about a man battering a woman," said Mr. Esensten. "This is not about his political views and we are not trying to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict." Right and Left Wing Both parties have extensive political and religious backgrounds. She is traditional in her observance and politically conservative concerning Israel; he is Orthodox, but politically on the far left. Rabbi Seidler-Feller was ordained in 1971 at Yeshiva University where he also earned a masters degree in Rabbinic Literature. He serves on the governing council of the Progressive Jewish Alliance; on the advisory council of EDAH, a voice of Modern Orthodoxy; and is a founding member of Americans for Peace Now. He is the founder of the Streisand Center for Jewish Cultural Arts at UCLA Hillel, and was a rabbinic consultant to Barbara Streisand during the making of the film "Yentl." Ms. Neuwirth was born and raised in Israel, where she served in the Israeli Air Force and was a member of the Israeli national basketball team. Presently she is a member of the board of the LA chapter of the American Jewish Congress and a freelance journalist and commentator on the Middle East and radical Islam.egligent retention. Violent Tendencies Alleged The plaintiff asserted that attending the Dershowitz event, of which Hillel was a co-sponsor; recruiting attendees for the upcoming event, and engaging in public discussion on issues of Jewish interest were within the scope of the rabbi's duties. She also contended that Hillel should have been aware of Seidler-Feller's tendency towards violence. Bascue sustained Hillel's demurrer to the claims of vicarious liability, finding that Seidler-Feller was not, as a matter of law, acting within the scope of his duties at the Hillel event. He overruled the demurrer as to the negligent retention cause of action, but later granted summary adjudication to the defendants on that issue. Neuwirth appealed, but only as to the issue of vicarious liability. Justice Fred Woods, in an unpublished opinion for the Court of Appeal, said she had shown enough evidence for the panel to conclude that the issue was triable. He cited a case in which the Court of Appeal held that a car rental agency had ratified an employer's assault on a customer because it knew the employee was volatile, yet placed him in a sensitive situation where customers were likely to get emotional. "Although the alleged attack here was not as directly related to respondents' business, it cannot be determined as a matter of law based on the allegations of the SAC that the attack was purely a personal attack such as if it had occurred in similar circumstances in a supermarket," the justice wrote. "It is not clear from the allegations whether the attack was personal or business-related. Consequently, whether the attack was attenuated from Seidler-Feller's work, i.e., whether the attack arose out of Seidler-Feller's employment or whether he substantially deviated from his duties for personal purposes, and whether the attack was unusual or startling given this rabbi's duties and his prior history are fact issues which cannot be determined at the demurrer stage." Attorneys on appeal were Charles L. Fonarow for the plaintiff and Matthew J. Trostler and Casandra P. Cushman of Borton, Petrini & Conron for the defendants. The case is Neuwirth v. Los Angeles Hillel Council, B18505. [Editor's Note: Click here to view a very readable account of the incident written by Sharon Hes.] Steven Plaut is an American-trained economist, a professor of business administration at Haifa University and author of "The Scout." He frequently comments - both seriously and satirically - on Israeli politics and the left wing academic community. His website address is http://www.stevenplaut.blogspot.com. Contact him at splaut@econ.haifa.ac.il |
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AND DON'T FORGET RON ARAD
Posted by Benjamin Svetitsky, July 18, 2006. |
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Professors for a Strong Israel wishes the IDF success in reaching its goals in Lebanon and in Gaza, and calls on the government to give the IDF all the time that is needed. The suspension of diplomacy in this period is an obvious requirement. Moreover we remind the government to include Ron Arad in any activity undertaken to bring our soldiers home. Benjamin Svetitsky is spokesman for Professors for a Strong Israel. Contatct them at 050 470 9061 or Email Dr Svetitsky at bgs@julian.tau.ac.il |
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MANY ARAB REGIMES CONDEMN HIZBULLAH
Posted by Lawrence Uniglicht, July 18, 2006. |
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Amazing! Many Arab regimes are condemning Hizbullah for its unendorsed (by them) aggression against Israel. How is that possible? For one, the Sunni Arab world loathes and fears Iran, the controlling non-Arab Shiite force behind Hizbullah's actions. Indeed, erstwhile Persia continues to develop nuclear capabilities, in its mind's-eye a precursor to domination over the mostly Arab Middle East. The last thing Sunni Arab States want is the Persian fundamentalist Shiites to rule the roost in their dysfunctional region of spaceship Earth. However, one other perhaps even more essential reason for castigating Hizbullah is the opportunity it has given Israel to demonstrate strength through a willingness to use military force unsparingly and successfully against an organization of Arab extremists. Despite all the rhetorical noise across hand-wringing media outlets, berating the Jewish State for a "disproportionate response" to Hizbullah's blatant acts of aggression, as well as hysterical condemnation of Israel throughout the Arab street, Israel's demonstrated military might trumps all within the calculating brains of Arab ruling class predators, no doubt humiliated by such a display. Strength uber alas is the motto of the fascist movers and shakers that control the Arab world. The Jewish homeland, suffering from inauspicious morale-deflating retreats from Lebanon and Gaza, severely tarnishing its warrior status, now flexes sinew and breathes new life within the surrounding nuance-bereft primordial cesspool it must endure. Nave popinjays worldwide, politely weaned on tea and muffins, are clueless when it comes to scorpion infested Middle East culture. Surely, milieus of "peace-loving" sophisticated corporate capitalism engulf sundry small cosmopolitan pockets along the Persian Gulf, yet major player robed and suited dictators ruling regimes like Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Jordan maintain less sophisticated combative natures to stay in power; remain ever wary of perceived enemy combatants Iran and kindred spirit Syria; and absolutely cringe, exploding with jealousy, when tiny Israel kicks "collective" Arab butt, this time represented by Hizbullah, on the battlefield. No wonder they spew venom directly at the out of control "Party of God" terrorist grunts; indirectly at manipulative fanatical Iran and Syria; for humiliating fragile egos, awakening the Jewish military leviathan, exposing a hidden frailty within their less than potent culture for all the world to observe. No longer can Israel be falsely accused of back-pedaling when Arabs get tough. No longer can Arabs attempt to extort Israel, falsely believing that such extortion will be met with impunity. The Persian megalomaniacs overplayed their hand through Hizbullah; Israel has all the aces and intends to use them! Lawrence Uniglicht is a career civil servant, working for the Social Security Administration. He advocates for the State of Israel with an American perspective. He writes, "Advocating for the disrespected underdog has been my passion, no doubt Israel falls into that category." Contact him by email at luniglicht@snip.net |
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TUNNEL ATTACK; PRISONERS' DOCUMENT; P.A. EXPLOITS ARAB DEATHS; INVESTIGATING SHOOTING IN GAZA
Posted by Richard H. Shulman, July 18, 2006. |
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Elie Wiesel pressed PM Olmert to meet with Abbas. They met with a hug,
and were photographed shaking hands with each other and with the King
of Jordan.
Olmert promised "painful concessions," but Abbas demanded the whole pie. Olmert said he wouldn't negotiate with the P.A. while Hamas runs it. Reporter Steven Erlanger described Hamas as "considered a terrorist group by Israel, the US, and the EU." Olmert apologized for civilians killed during the course of Israeli attacks on terrorists in the P.A.. Abbas did not apologize for eulogizing the terrorists (NY Times, 6/23, A3). What a contrast! One wants peace, and the other wants conquest. A genuine Israeli leader would not shake hands with Abbas. The Israeli doesn't see Abbas' similarity with Hamas. Is there any question about Hamas being terrorist, that the "Times" qualifies its being terrorist as according to Israel, the US, and the EU? When calling Abbas, a lifelong terrorist, "moderate," and right-wing opponents of Olmert's plan to surrender strategic territory to terrorists, "extremist," the "Times" asserts it on its own, mistakenly. POLL FINDS MUSLIM-WESTERN DISCORD The findings were not surprising, except that they were not consistent. Many Muslims claimed the conflict was due to the Arab-Israel conflict and accuse the West of double standards on terrorism (Meg Bortin, NY Times, 6/23, A3). The Muslims mis-define terrorism, so as to excuse theirs and to falsely implicate Israel in it. There is no reason for them to dislike the West on that account. If the Arab-Israel conflict were the cause of Muslim alienation from the West, why do they refer to Western troops as "Crusaders," evoking age-old jihads? How come they bomb people all over the world, having nothing to do with the Arab-Israel conflict? Blaming the Arab-Israel conflict is a poor excuse, though they tend to believe their leaders' rationalizations. They blame Israel, because the West can be moved against Israel, in the hope of reducing jihad against itself. The Arabs won't admit that they hate the West because it is Western -- free, innovative, prosperous, and not Muslim. UNO REFORM? The UNO investigated itself for corruption, and it reformed its Human Rights Commission. Many of the same opponents of Human Rights sit on the new Commission as were on the old one. Just accepted onto it is a notoriously brutal Iranian prosecutor of dissidents, who released Islamic rapists. An independent team accused the official investigators of accepting whatever they were told, rather than investigating. The UNO is hopelessly corrupt and evil. With such a membership, could it be otherwise? OLMERT IS DESPERATE TO SELL SIMPLISTIC PLAN "The same Olmert who keeps saying that he won't negotiate with the Palestinians unless they first fulfill their security obligations is the Olmert whose team says is now planning to retreat from most of the West Bank and allow for the establishment of a sovereign Palestinian state in the evacuated areas if the Palestinians don't fulfill their security obligations." PM Olmert keeps intoning that nothing will stop him plan from withdrawing more. But his earlier withdrawal from Gaza proved a failure, by enabling the Arabs to arm faster, while ruining thousands of Israelis removed from their communities there. Enjoying sovereignty, the Judea-Samaria part of the P.A. would be able to import arms just as the Gaza part of the P.A. now does, absent Israeli supervision. The P.A. is bombarding Siderot from Gaza, and Olmert seems unable to stop them. Imagine when the P.A. can bombard almost all Israeli cities from Judea-Samaria! Israelis seem to have caught on to this folly. The latest poll shows opposition to the plan has grown to 70%. At some point, Olmert may be stopped (Dr. Aaron Lerner, IMRA, 6/22). BEACH BOMB A piece of shrapnel was removed from a second Gaza Arab. It, too, was tested and found not to have come from an Israeli artillery shell (IMRA, 6/22). DID YOU KNOW, TERRORISM IS A HUMAN RIGHT? The director of a human rights organization in the P.A. said, "the Palestinian issue is one of human rights, since the first and third articles of the International Declaration of Human Rights established the rights of self determination and resistance against the occupation. He stated that Palestinians will not forgive the enemy that kills children and that the perpetrators of these crimes will be brought to justice." Mr. Sourani also stressed the importance of maintaining a higher moral ground than the occupation, and to avoid committing crimes similar to what the occupation commits." (IMRA, 6/22.) Just this week, Arabs tried to kidnap two Israeli girls, shot at a school bus, and fired rockets at Israeli cities. The main Palestinian Arab way of warfare is against civilians, including children. Israel does not aim at children. Nor would Israeli firing strike Arab children, if the terrorists did not station themselves among the children. There is no Israeli occupation. There is no right to resist occupation by terrorism. The P.A. signed a peace agreement giving up warfare. The Arabs ignore their agreements and either misquote the Declaration or it is a peculiar declaration out of harmony with basic international law. SAUDIS & THE BOYCOTT The Saudi Ambassador admitted that S. Arabia still boycotts goods originating in Israel. He claimed it is a sovereign right permitted under the rules of the World Trade Organization. He said that he told this to US officials. US officials claimed that the Saudi government promised the US it would drop the boycott, in order to qualify for membership in the World Trade Organization (IMRA, 6/22). Arabs constantly claim they did not promise what they lead others to believe they had. Or, a different Arab official undoes an agreement made by another Arab official. IT HAPPENED TO BRITISH EDUCATION, TOO In Britain, the government gained control over the non-sectarian private schools, and is trying to get the sectarian schools abolished. Leftists run the government-controlled schools under what they call "progressive education." In their egalitarianism, the leftists discouraged special curriculums and a faster pace for superior students. Calling knowledge disputable and values equivalent, they dropped instruction in a solid body of knowledge. They said they would focus on getting students to learn how to think. Having little knowledge, students don't have much to think about. The result is that they neither know much nor think much. Talented students are "dumbed down." Bright lower-class students now find it harder to get admitted to better colleges and gain more upward mobility. British "progressives" are starting to realize that their educational philosophy is backward. In the US, the leftists inject their propaganda. Their notions are blanket anti-capitalist and even anti-American, anti-Christian, and antisemitic. They extol multi-cultural to the exclusion of American founding principles. No wonder politicians and government get away with so much folly and knavery! Few people know enough about enough. OLMERT CRAWLS INTO ACTION! For many weeks, the P.A. Arabs have been pounding Israeli cities with rockets. In the first three weeks of June, they fired more than 140. They declare intent to drive the Jews out of Siderot. Residents, getting no protection from the government, are evacuating. Only on 6/22 did PM Olmert schedule discussion of the matter with the Security Cabinet. Cabinet Members had criticized him for ignoring the issue. Former PM Netanyahu, tough now that he is not Prime Minister, contends that the IDF must pursue Hamas leaders and even make its government fall, to stop the barrage. He points out that the barrage resulted from abandonment of Gaza, and that the much larger abandonment Olmert intends for Judea-Samaria would bring about a much larger barrage. Israel retreats not only from territory but from its "red lines." Retreat neither deters nor allays (Arutz-7, 6/22). The terrorists think it vindicates their tactics. What is the import of the Primed Minister not having discussed the problem with concerned officials, but he threatened to retaliate severely? It reveals that Israel had no plan of action, no decision about where and how to retaliate. It means that its threats were bluffs. It is too afraid of public opinion to kill more than a couple of Arabs at-a-time. It should officially declare war, to make the justification for a sweeping counter-attack obvious. WHAT THEY ARE NOT SAYING ABOUT THE TUNNEL ATTACK Israeli armored and air forces have struck at Gaza, to try to rescue the Israeli soldier captured by Arab raiders who infiltrated into Israel by tunnel. That tunnel started in a former Jewish community in Gaza that the Sharon government abandoned (my source in Israel). That fact proves another fallacy in the arguments that Israel should withdraw from Gaza: (1) The better to defend Israel; and (2) To retain the Jewish majority in Israel. Some of those Jewish communities were abutting Israel. They should have been incorporated into Israel. That would not have reduced the Jewish majority in Israel. Neither would it have exposed Israel to more military attack. As of 6/28, I have not seen this acknowledged in the newspapers I read. The notion that Israel could withdraw and hide behind a fence was ridiculed, but not by the ideologically leftist major media. Other commentators predicted that the Arabs would get around a fence by firing over it and tunneling under it and by using the Arabs living on the other side of it, where a million dwell in Israel. Since they already were firing over it, a responsible media would have questioned the wisdom of withdrawing the patrols that could apprehend most of the rocket crews. A TOUCH OF REALISM The NY Times and other opinion-makers have been referring to certain terrorist clerics as the terrorist organizations' "spiritual leader." They made it sound as if those clerics merely served a religious function. When the US arrested, or Israel liquidated some clerics, the avenging angels were made to seem anti-religious. The depiction of the clerics inhibited anti-terrorism. The "Times" et al overlooked Islam's nature as a combination of the secular and the religious. Those clerics issued fatwas to authorize and bless specific terrorist attacks. The religion of Islam has a military component, and that military component often is terrorist. In some cases, those clerics ran their organizations, whose purpose is to conquer the infidels by any means, however barbaric the civilized world considers them. The characterization of terrorist clerics as solely "spiritual advisors" was misleading. Finally a tinge of realism, or is it integrity, or is it inability to pretend any longer, appeared about the Arab prisoners' proposal. That proposal has been debunked by other sources for weeks, but it wasn't until June 29, as best I can tell, that the "Times" included, alongside its false assertion that the document "implicitly recognizes Israel," some arguments why it does not recognize Israel. I would have put it clearer and more definitively. The "Times" spread them out in a way that loses effect. It usually presents arguments against the Arabs in desultory fashion. THEY HAVE ONLY RIFLES, DO THEY? The popular but invalid excuse for Arab terrorism is that it is needed to balance off Israel's superior weaponry. Having explored the illogic and immoral aspects of that excuse before, here I'll comment just about its error. In the recent raid across from Gaza, Arab gunmen killed and wounded Israeli soldiers with an anti-tank shell. The P.A. Arabs have heavier weapons than supposed. Their use, in the absence of Israel's full use of its Army, gives Arabs an advantage. There are lessons in this, besides not to heed pro-Arab propaganda. One is that by not wiping out the P.A. military capability and not patrolling among them to make sure it doesn't rebuild, eventually the Arabs acquire heavier weapons. Another is that by not monitoring the border, the P.A. can smuggle in heavier weapons. ISRAEL'S CONTRIBUTION TO HAMAS' VICTORY Treating western Palestinian Arabs as civilized and desirous of peace was an Israeli blunder. Israel had intended giving them just autonomy. Unfortunately, Israel fails to peer ahead, while the Arabs plan and demand steps that have repercussions Israel fails to notice or hasn't the determination to oppose. So it was that the Arabs demanded a full-sized legislature and a judiciary, as well as an executive branch, for the P.A.. They called their head "President." Israel didn't want to recognize him by that title, so it continued calling him by his title of Chairman, Chairman of the PLO. Now that the P.A. has a Prime Minister, it is difficult not to call Abbas "President." Having a legislature meant conflict between it and the executive branch for dominance. Arafat prevailed, and ignored the legislature. Abbas has less power. Due to the peculiarities of the election setup, Hamas won control over the legislature. If there were no legislature, Hamas would not now be in charge. Israel's lack of foresight made that outcome possible. In my own opinion, the PLO was terrorist enough, and the new government is no worse. ANTI-WAR INDIGNATION - Where Are Its Ethics? Americans' opposition to the Iraq war could reasonably be to attacking Iraq before some other countries and to the post-war policies. Opponents act as if blunders are not to be expected. Officials persist in them. I object to indignation over the war and exaggeration over its few casualties, tinged unfairly with pre-existing dislike for Pres. Bush. The minimal casualties should be celebrated as progress. Toppling a genocidal dictator should make us proud. Where is the indignation against the foe that beheads and mutilates our troops and relief workers? The lack of that indignation reveals hollow ethics or shallow thinking in the anti-war movement. THE ARAB PRISONERS' DOCUMENT "The document does not rule out terrorism, but rather restricts it to Judea and Samaria." (No, it suggests that most terrorism be there. Besides, Arabs don't adhere to such restrictions, for long.) "It also mentions the 'Right of Return' of Palestinian refugees six times as a fundamental right and political goal." (You know by now that means the destruction of the Jewish state. When denied that "right," the Arabs certainly would resume terrorism, even if they got a state in the Territories. Therefore, it is not a peace proposal and does not recognize Israel.) "Contrary to popular opinion, the document does not explicitly recognize Israel or even a two-state solution. It begins with an affirmation that '[t]he Palestinian people at home and in exile seek to liberate their land,' then claims a Palestinian 'right to establish an independent state with Jerusalem as its capital on all the land occupied in 1967,' (for a start, folks) and also asserts 'our people's historic right in the land of our ancestors.'" (Arutz-7, 6/27) In their opinion, "land of our ancestors" includes Israel. Therefore, they want to take over Israel. Some recognition of Israel! Despite these explanations, the NY Times of 6/27 reiterated its many background assertions that the document implicitly recognizes Israel. Why does the "Times" keep making that false assertion? Answer: the "Times" is anti-Zionist and not above inserting false propaganda in its news columns. ISRAELI CINEMATIQUE Israeli cinematiques are municipally subsidized "alternative" movie houses that present terrorists sympathetically and even as heroes. They showed the "Goebbels-style blood libel film 'Jenin Jenin,' and similar works of 'art.'" Now "the Tel Aviv Cinematique is screening a film about Leila Khaled, the notorious woman plane hijacker who was part of the early plague of plane hijackings in the 1970s, organized by the communist PFLP terror group." (Prof. Steven Plaut, 6/27). WHAT DID HAMAS MEAN? Hamas said that the Israeli soldier it kidnapped "is in a secure place." The major media I read did not analyze that statement. IMRA did. It thought he may have been spirited across the border to Egypt, awaiting transportation to Lebanon. When Sharon abandoned Gaza, Israel stopped guarding the border. It had no troops on hand to pursue the kidnappers promptly (6/27). The folly of abandoning Gaza has been demonstrated in perhaps a dozen different ways. HAMAS TOOK RESPONSIBILITY, NOW PAYS THE PRICE Israeli forces reconquering Gaza in search of the kidnapped soldier have arrested some Hamas leaders, including legislators. It will try them for membership in a terrorist organization (IMRA, 6/29). Having declared the kidnapping partly its effort, Hamas must suffer the consequences. Israel should acknowledge that this is a war, or that terrorism is a form of piracy, to avoid having to go through a process of trials. Appeasers are urging Israel to negotiate for the soldier's release. That means releasing many prisoners and encouraging more kidnapping to get more released. Then there is no pointing capturing them. Instead, Israel should execute a couple of hundred terrorists a day, until the Arabs decide that kidnapping does not pay. Terrorism, as a form of piracy, is justifiably a capital offense. CHINA'S SPY PLEA-BARGAINS Ronald Montaperto worked for the US Defense Intelligence Agency. He pled guilty to passing top secret information to China. He also helped China deceive the US about its military relationships in the Mideast. The crime to which he admitted carries a maximum sentence of 10 years. By contrast, Pollard, who did not spy against the US, was given life without parole, in violation of his plea agreement (IMRA, 6/25). Pollard has already served 20 years. Is that fair? Why is there more indignation against Pollard than against Montaperto? ANOTHER PRICE OF ABANDONMENT "Military experts warned on various Israeli broadcasts today that thanks to the retreat from the Gaza Strip the Palestinians have had a considerable period of time to prepare, undisturbed, landmines, booby-traps and other "surprises" for Israeli forces should they now enter the area." (IMRA, 6/25.) Add that problem to the price of having abandoned Gaza. Also remember how cavalierly Israeli officials promoting abandonment said they easily could return, if necessary. SAYS THE PLO "The Palestinians have been observing a unilateral 16-month truce, but Israel's unabated military incursions and extra-judicial killings have proved that the Israeli successive governments had no intention to reciprocate." Abbas is trying to get foreign countries to press Israel not to fight back against the recent attack on an army base in Israel (IMRA, 6/25). Why doesn't he try to get foreign countries to press Arabs not to start the fights? The IDF attacks are an attempt to stop them from firing about 10 rockets a day at Israeli cities. Some Arab truce! Anyone who believes the Arabs fools himself. The NY Times solemnly refers to the truce as if genuine. It isn't genuine and neither is "Times" reporting, it is tendential. "TIMES" PROPAGANDA TECHNIQUE "In an ominous development, Israel threatened strong military action on Sunday, after eight Palestinian (Arab) militants in Gaza, including members of the governing faction Hamas, emerged from a secret tunnel dug 300 yards into Israel, killed two soldiers, wounded three and kidnapped another." (Steven Erlanger, NY Times, Monday, June 26, A1.) The ominous development was Arab escalation by tunneling into Israel, making a multi-pronged attack on the Israeli Army, and kidnapping the first Israeli soldier in a decade. But the "Times," in this initial report of the Arab attack, started not with the attack but with the threatened Israeli pursuit. Israeli threats often are empty or exaggerated. By reversing the natural order of reporting, the "Times" made Israel seem the problem. I have noticed this misleading kind of reporting, before. ISRAELI COURT IMPRISONS CRITICS Israel had a wall built to protect a terrorist family that moved back into its abandoned house near the Jewish community of Hebron. Jews protested. Police said that some youths threw stones at them, but do not know which did. They arrested three protestors for stone-throwing, despite lack of evidence. Three girls, about age 14, are disgusted with the courts for calling them criminal but which, they say, defends real criminals. They won't recognize the court's authority. A judge ruled to keep one of them in prison until trial, not because she poses a danger to the community, but as the judge put it, because she "did not sign and recognize our authority." (Arutz-7, 6/23.) Sounds egotistical and fascistic, to me. IRAN TO RATION GASOLINE Iran subsidizes gasoline prices. Cheap fuel has encouraged extensive car ownership and smuggling of gasoline to neighboring states. That costs the government billions of dollars. The government will stop importing gasoline and start rationing what it refines (IMRA, 6/24). When governments think they act to control something, people maneuver accordingly and create new problems. Legislators need to figure out the likely consequences of legislation that is proposed in the name of solving some problem. ARAB WORLD SHIFTING TO CHINA The Arabs are getting ready for the day when China challenges the US. They will have relationships established. For now, those that have comfortable ties with the US are not dropping them (IMRA, 6/24), except S. Arabia is shifting. China woos customers' good will by protecting them from the UNO. The US imposes political, usually humane, conditions. The US will lose influence. Will mankind reach the day when one country does not challenge another with hostility? ARAB LOGIC & FRENCH LOGIC France has a law against inciting to violence, not necessarily immediate violence as by a mob. A Saudi TV station broadcast a call to destroy Israel. France warned the station that it risks banishment from French airwaves and perhaps all of the EU. Arabs called that a double standard, citing the Danish cartoons (IMRA, 6/25). The cartoons, which were truthful, innocent, and misconstrued, did not call for violence. The problem is that Muslim rabble are readily roused. Does French law prohibit warning of the need to combat international jihad as inciting to violence? How good is French logic? ROCK STAR DEMONSTRATES AGAINST ISRAEL Rock star Roger Walters did not apprise his Israeli audience that he came to Israel to demonstrate against Israel as much as to sing. He refused to hold his concert in the usual halls but held it in an empty field in Neve Shalom. Neve Shalom is billed as a community where Arabs and Jews live together in harmony. But one might say that about other communities in Israel. What is different about Neve Shalom? There the Jews slight their identity. No Israeli flag is displayed; Israeli Independence Day celebrations are banned; Arabs openly identify with terrorism. Mr. Rogers said that he had found idealistic Palestinian Arabs in Beirut. He did not mention that those were the days when Arafat sent death squads into Israel from there. Rogers sprayed the security fence with calls for its demolition as apartheid. Didn't he know that between 2000 and 2005, Israel suffered 28,000 terrorist attacks? The fence is more fairly called a security barrier than an apartheid wall (David Bedein, 6/23). BRITAIN'S DOUBLE STANDARD ON ASSASSINATION Zarqawi is responsible for many killings of civilians and British and American soldiers. Britain approves of his targeted assassination. Britain condemns Israel's targeted assassination of commanders of terrorists who attack Jewish civilians. Britain put it that such a method never should be condoned. Then why does it approve of the assassination of Zarqawi? (Prof. Steven Plaut, 6/23.) Consistency is not Britain's long suit. THE WEAPONS ISRAEL SENT ABBAS Israel had thousands of rifles sent to Abbas' militia, Force 17. The ostensible purpose is to enable him to defend himself from Hamas. The weapons already have been used in terrorist attacks against Israelis, with some casualties. In addition, other weapons are being stored (Arutz-7, 6/23). If stored, how urgent was the need? What deluded PM Olmert to send the rifles? OLMERT OFFERS SETTLERS A NEW OPTION He said the settlers need not be expelled. They may become P.A. citizens. The P.A. said their property would be confiscated unless owned before 1967 (Arutz-7, 6/23), which most was not. Jews are mistreated in Arab states. P.A. citizenship is no option at all. Is Olmert demented? ARABS SUCCESSFUL IN USING HUMAN SHIELDS European monitors got the Rafah crossing between Sinai and Gaza closed, after receiving warnings about terrorism from Israeli intelligence. In reaction, terrorists now focus on smuggling arms into Gaza by sea. "This morning, Navy personnel detected two Arab swimmers on their way from Egypt to a Gaza shore, laden with arms and weapons. The Israelis opened fire, hitting one, but refrained from shooting at the second because of his proximity to civilians. The maritime smugglers were detected in a no-swim zone." The smugglers abandoned their weapons (Arutz-7, 6/22). Israel should explain international law, cites a duty to protect its innocents, and shoot. P.A. EXPLOITS ARAB DEATHS FOR PROPAGANDA The girl who lost most of her family on the beach in Gaza has now testified that just before the explosion, her father was poking in the sand with a pole. Indications are, he struck a mine (Prof. Steven Plaut, 6/22). The wounded were operated on to remove evidence from shrapnel. It usually is considered to dangerous to do (IMRA, 6/23). The IDF spokesman "...outlined how the PA first attempted, by juxtaposing various video clips, to show that Israel had attacked the family from the sea. Later, when this was proven to be false, the Arabs "started disseminating, to anyone who wanted, pieces of mortar shells that were found within hundreds of meters of the site, spreading questionable data of handwritten incident time-lines, and giving wide coverage to various accounts of what happened - all, of course, according to the changing and flexible Palestinian story line." (Arutz-7, 6/22.) I did not find this explanation in the NY Times. The Times gave a generalized Israeli assertion of non-responsibility and full coverage to Human Rights Watch's accusations against Israel. JORDAN REACTS TO HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH REBUKE Jordan had arrested four Islamist Members of Parliament for glorifying the slain Jordanian terrorist, Zarqawi. Human Rights Watch criticized that as curbing freedom of speech. The Justice Minister replied, ""No country would accept that its citizens publicly glorify terrorists and mass murderers." IMRA hints that the P.A. leadership makes such glorification (6/22). It does. IMRA ought to note that Israel is a country that accepts citizens publicly glorifying Arab terrorists. Arab Members of Knesset routinely do. So do far leftist Jewish professors and journalists. NEW ISRAELI METHOD OF SELF-DEFENSE For years, foreign sympathizers with terrorism entered the Territories through Israel, and interfered with military measures against terrorism. Some vandalized the security fence. Israel finally has passed a law to deport all those foreigners caught doing that (Prof. Steven Plaut, 6/22). It's long overdue but too mild. MUTILATION Two GIs had been mutilated so badly by Islamist insurgents in Iraq, that only by DNA were they identified (Plaut, 6/22). How savage is our enemy! INVESTIGATING SHOOTING IN GAZA Things aren't always what they seem. Certain investigators make things seem what they aren't. When is which? This question applies to the 6/24 "New York Times" report on the slaying of a British journalist in Gaza, a couple of years ago. After a day of combat in Gaza, the journalist called it a day. Waving a white flag, he advanced towards the Israeli troops. Two shots from an unseen source felled him. The IDF seemed to take weeks to start investigating. It did not immediately check its troops' weaponry nor keep a rein on the "chain of evidence." It had differing assessments from which direction the shots came, but concluded that the soldier known to have fired at about that time did not fire at the journalist. The troops say they didn't see the victim. Unsatisfied with the Israeli investigation, Britain checked the research and concluded the opposite. It claims the shooting was premeditated. The newspaper cites eyewitness assertion that the troops earlier had taunted the journalist. I don't know the truth, but notice that the "Times" furnishes much background except these exculpating facts: 1. Cigarette packages warn about cancer, but newspaper packages do not warn about bias. The "Times" is no objective observer but traditionally anti-Zionist and a devotee of advocacy journalism, engaging in much selective reporting and false, anti-Israel propaganda. 2. The British and especially their journalists have become notoriously anti-Jewish. Most foreign journalists rely upon local Arab cameramen and assistants, who often ply the Arab line. Israel cannot expect a fair assessment by outsiders. Many foreign "observers" interfere with Israeli troops, then complain when they are sucked into mortal peril. 3. The PLO is making total war on the Jewish state. Their methods include false propaganda. One of the methods is to falsely accuse Israel of committing massacres and murders. Any natural death or murder by Arabs may be laid at Israel's door. The rest of the world seizes upon the mere color of guilt to paint it in darkly against Israel, as part of the worldwide defamation of Israel. 4. The "Times" often cites Arab "eyewitnesses." It does not advise that they may not have been witnesses and that they, too, are propagandists, and believe in deceit. 5. Israel is nave about propaganda. It neither seriously engages in it nor points out that its enemies do. It tries to investigate fairly, most of the time. It checks so painstakingly, as to seem to be stalling. Journalists claim it started late, but sometimes it investigates first at a lower level, unpublicized. Often it completes its investigation after a myth of its culpability in the incident has been widely disseminated and too late for the media to publicize its exoneration. When it investigates itself, its findings are treated skeptically, but when its enemies investigate it, their findings are treated credulously. 6. Israel is poor at solving mysteries. It is careless about maintaining a tight chain of evidence. It didn't do so in the Rabin assassination, but that was an inside job. It is capable of murder, but against Jews. It is over eager to blame Jewish nationalists for harming Arabs. It is either fair towards the Arabs or bends over backwards for them, often leaving troops and police hardly able to defend themselves. The "Times" is remiss in not acknowledging that prematurely blaming Israel for murder is almost at the level of a global blood libel. Readers should be cautioned to wait for conclusive evidence before reaching a conclusion. Richard Shulman is a veteran defender of Israel on several web-based forums. His comments and analyses appear often on Think-Israel. He provides cool information and right-on-target overviews. He distributes his essays by email. To subscribe, write him at richardshulman5@aol.com. |
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NO SPIN ZONES' BILL OREILLY'S GUEST TONITE, MITCHELL PLITNIK
Posted by Yardena Even, July 18, 2006. |
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Dear Mr Oreilly I heard Plitkin say "Occupation" on your show I guess for lack of another term to use as to why he is an embarassment to his race... Plitnik, Your use of the term "occupation" is an arab excuse we hear over and over which you have adopted! Let me tell you Plitnik, occupation is a mere excuse to persuade gullible and historically ignorant Westerners to support the Arab cause against Israel. The issue is, and has always been, Israel's existence. That is what is at stake. but because "Jewish Voice for Peace" which, among other anti-Israel activities, calls for a suspension of U.S. aid to Israel!, YOU Plitnik, might want to consider suspending consumption of ice cream, twinkies and women's lipstick! Thanks Oreilly for exposing "useful idiot Jew" to toe the "Palestinian" line. Contact Yardena Even at yardena3@aol.com |
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OVERCOMING THE GAS CHAMBERS
Posted by Mordechai Ben Menachem, July 18, 2006. |
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I find this very apropos at this time. It was written by Rabbi Dovid
Silber and it appeared in the July issue of Innernet Magazine
(http://innernet.org.il).
It is excerpted from "Noble Lives, Noble Deeds III." Published by
ArtScroll/Mesorah -
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[In Auschwitz], the Nazis designated 50 boys and led them to the gas chambers. Upon their arrival they were ordered to enter the "bath house," a familiar ruse, providing the illusion that they were merely asked to shower. By now, however, the youngsters knew the fate of the millions who had been led along that route. They were not prepared to die routinely, choosing instead to die defiantly declaring their faith. One youngster took the lead and turned to the rest: "Today is Simchas Torah when Jews rejoice, having concluded the reading of the Torah and following directly with the commencement of the new cycle of Torah reading. As God's children, we have attempted to uphold the Torah while we had the opportunity to do so. At the present moment, we shall also celebrate the 'conclusion,' followed immediately by the beginning. While the 'conclusion' will mark the end of our lives on this sinful earth, our new beginning will take place in Heaven... "Since we presently possess nothing, not even clothing to cover our bodies, and surely not the customary Torah scroll with which to dance, let us instead dance with God, Who is here with us, as the verse states, 'I [God] am with [every Jew] in distress.' Let us therefore dance with God prior to returning our souls to Him." The youths began dancing with enthusiasm, singing the famous tune found in the morning prayers: "How fortunate we are and how wonderful is our portion; how pleasant is our lot and how beautiful is our heritage." They continued with, "Cleanse our hearts so that we may serve You in truth." The voices of those wonderful youngsters, prepared to depart this world in a state of joy because they are members of the Jewish nation, and whose only concern during their last moments was the purity of their hearts, must have split the heavens, evoking an outpouring of Heavenly benevolence. The Nazi guards standing outside became enraged upon hearing the sounds of singing and dancing within the gas chamber. The commandant in charge became crazed with fury when he heard from one of the boys the reason for their outpouring of joy. The youngster told him sardonically that the mere anticipation of leaving a world where Nazi beasts reign is sufficient cause for elation. In addition, he said, they were exhilarated at the prospect of uniting shortly with their brutally murdered parents. "I will teach you a lesson," the Nazi barked with fury. "You thought that the gas chamber was your last station. You'll find out otherwise. I will torture you with indescribable suffering. I will slice your flesh till you will expire." The youngsters disregarded the Nazi's threats and continued their singing and dancing with added fervor. The response was swift and immediate. All the youngsters were removed from the gas chambers and transferred to a holding block so that by next day the torture regimen could commence. At this juncture, an apparent miracle took place, which can only be attributed to the spiritual power of joy. The following morning a high-ranking Nazi commander arrived at Auschwitz and chanced to pass by that barracks. He had come to the camp to choose several hundred young, able-bodied men and send them to a work camp that was short of manpower. Peering into the barracks he saw a group of energetic youngsters full of life, a profile that fit perfectly with his requirements. The local commandant did not dare mention the circumstances surrounding the placement of the boys in the barracks, for fear of being demoted or put on trial for dereliction of duty. Knowledgeable observers have confirmed that every one of those 50 youngsters survived the war, and all raised exemplary families, a true source of pride to the Jewish people. Indeed, how appropriately that one popular Simchas Torah hymn articulates the power of joy, with the phrase, "No joy equals that of Torah, and no nation seeks it out as does the Jewish people." Mordechai Ben-Menachem is at Ben-Gurion University. He can be reached by email at quality@computer.org |
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NGOS QUICK TO EXPLOIT LEBANON CRISIS TO ATTACK ISRAEL
Posted by NGO Monitor, July 18, 2006. |
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Background: On July 12, Hizbollah launched an attack across the Lebanese-Israel border, killing eight soldiers and kidnapping two. In response to these blatant violations of international law, Israel launched a major military operation designed to push the Lebanese government to take control of the border and disarm Hizbollah. (In 2004, UN Security Council Resolution 1559 demanded that all Lebanese militia, including Hizbollah, be disarmed.) In the ongoing conflict, Hizbollah has launched hundreds of missiles, killing and wounding a number of Israeli civilians. The conflict has also led to deaths and injuries among the Lebanese population. Concurrent with the outbreak of the fighting, major international NGOs, including Human Rights Watch (HRW), Amnesty International (AI), Christian Aid (CA) and World Vision International (WVI) issued statements. As in the past, these politicized statements do not distinguish between Hizbollah's intentional attacks against civilians, and Israel's response against strategic Hizbollah targets, many of them located in residential areas of Beirut. Terms such as "war crimes", "disproportionality", and "collective punishment" are used indiscriminately to promote an anti-Israel political agenda, and the context of the conflict was distorted or simply erased. This moral equivalence between terror and legitimate self-defense is particularly pronounced in Amnesty International's press release of July 13. AI declared that "Israeli and Lebanese governments, and Hizbollah, must take immediate steps to end the ongoing attacks against civilians and civilian objects", describing both Israel and Hizbollah's actions as "war crimes." Malcolm Smart, Director of Amnesty International's Middle East Programme said that Israel must "respect the principle of proportionality when targeting any military objectives or civilian objectives", without providing a standard for determining proportionality in the wake of Hizbollah's attacks. The statement said that "Israel must put an immediate end to attacks against civilians", falsely asserting that Israel deliberately targets civilians, in a manner similar to Hizbollah. AI also failed to mention that Hizbollah's military headquarters are located in southern Beirut, and that the positioning of military/guerrilla installations in residential areas is considered a war crime, as defined by Protocol I (1977) to the Geneva Convention, article 51(7), relating to human shields. Hizbollah also store and launch missiles from civilian villages in southern Lebanon, but this is not criticized by AI. The NGO charged that IDF strikes on infrastructure targets constitute "collective punishment", despite the clear military rationale of sealing off air and sea ports, roads and other such targets to prevent the re-supply of arms from Syria and Iran. In contrast, Amnesty failed to condemn Hizbollah's initial aggression or to call for the release of the two abducted Israeli soldiers. On July 13, Human Rights Watch stated in a press release that "Israeli military officials and Hizbollah leaders traded threats to attack areas populated by civilians," erasing the facts and context. HRW's blanket comment at the end of its statement that "international humanitarian law requires that armed forces distinguish between combatants and civilians" again serves to promote this inappropriate and unethical equivalence between aggression and legitimate response. HRW made no mention of Hizbollah's use of Beirut's residential neighborhoods as a human shield, expressly forbidden under international law. (In contrast, HRW ran a vocal campaign in 2002 against the alledged use of Palestinian civilians as "human shields" in IDF operations). HRW also did not call for the release of the captive Israeli soldiers. HRW also published a seven page "Question and Answers" document on Hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah on July 17.[1] The document makes a number of veiled accusations against Israel which are inflammatory, without foundation, and which deligitimize any Israeli response to attack. These include the charge that the IDF's current tactics "opens the door to deliberately attacking civilians and civilian objects themselves - in short to terrorism," and that Israel's "destruction seems aimed more at...preventing [the civilian population] from fleeing the fighting and seeking safety," This very document reports on Israel's leaflet drops on Beirut instructing civilians to evacuate the area before IDF bombing missions, so HRW's assertion that Israel may be attempting to prevent civilians from seeking safety is contradicted by its own report. HRW also states that the IDF's arguments for bombing Beirut airport "are at best debatable", which follows a noticeable trend of HRW contradicting the IDF based on military expertise with dubious credibility. HRW states in a number of places that it "sets out these rules before it has been able to conduct extensive on-the-ground investigation," demonstrating the primacy of its political agenda over accurate analysis. Christian Aid published a news report on July 13, legitimizing Hizbollah's attack by stating that it was "an attempt to negotiate the release of Lebanese prisoners in Israeli jails." There was not mention of the fact that the three Lebanese prisoners held by Israel are terrorists, one of whom, Samir Kuntar, was convicted by an Israeli court in 1979 of two murders, including the beating to death of a four year old girl. The CA report also claimed that the Hizbollah attack took place "on the Lebanese border with Israel", erasing the illegal cross-border nature of the incident. Christian Aid explicitly condemned the Israeli response, claiming that the IAF targeted areas in southern Beirut without mentioning that this area is Hizbollah's headquarters, and ignoring its use of civilians as human shields. The report also states that "52 Lebanese civilians have been killed by Israel's offensive in the country in retaliation for the kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers by Hezbollah militants". The use of the term "retaliation" falsely implies that Israel has deliberately targeted civilians as a form of retribution. As in other recent CA reports, the text was emotive so as to direct the reader to a clear political agenda. The report said "days of dread and despair long-lived by the Lebanese during the war seem to have returned" but made no mention of the fears and emotions of Israeli civilians in the northern cities of Haifa, Nahariya, Acre, Tiberias and others. This selective empathy illustrates CA's consistent partisan and politicized stance against Israel, and its exploitation of moral claims to pursue this agenda. World Vision International issued two reports, focusing mainly on the impact of events on this NGO's activities in Lebanon. The report of July 14 alleges that Israel has launched "a major air offensive on the infrastructure including the International Airport in the Lebanese capital, Beirut" without mentioning the initial Hizbollah attacks or Israeli casualties. A second report issued on July 14 did make mention of Israeli casualties, but again omitted the context of Hezbollah aggression. Thus, as the violence and death toll in this conflict increased, these international NGOs continue to use the rhetoric of human rights to promote their political agendas and a highly distorted version of events. Footnotes: 1. There are no such documents on the HRW website for other crises such as the current armed escalation between Sri Lanka and the Tamil Tigers in which more than 700 people have died so far this year, or Pakistan's offensive in Baluchistan which has also caused numerous casualties.
The NGO Monitor Report is published by NGO Monitor. Contact them
email at mail@ngo.monitor.org or go to the website: The original article
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WASHINGTON POST PAINTS ISRAEL AS BRUTAL AGGRESSOR
Posted by Jerome S. Kaufman, July 18, 2006. |
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I. Washington Post Paints Israel As Brutal Aggressor and
Downplays Damage to Israel for the rest of the world
By "EyeOnThePost, Inc."
info@eyeonthepost.org July 16, 2006
Well over 700 Hezbollah rockets have now rained down on the Israeli cities of Haifa, Nahariya, Tiberias, Safed, Meron, Kiryat Shmona, Karmiel, but you would never know if from reading the Washington Post. The Post has focused virtually all of its resources on amplifying the damage in Lebanon, with almost no coverage of the impact on Israel. The distorted picture the Post hopes to convey is of widespread and random destruction by Israel, and it is, therefore, ignoring Israel's effort to pinpoint its attacks on Hezbollah strongholds and targets that are strategically important to the terrorists. In the Post's narrative, Israel is attacking and trying to destroy Lebanon and not just Hezbollah. In addition, the Post is covering up the association to Hezbollah of many of the so-called civilian casualties, and it is misleading its readers by falsely depicting the world outside Israel and the US as united against Israel, while ignoring statements of those countries or leaders who have conspicuously refused to condemn Israel. The following Alert was written about the Post's reporting on Saturday, but the distorted reporting continues today. In a front-page article the Post today stated: "In a war that has witnessed an escalation each day, the asymmetrical nature of the conflict was laid bare Saturday: For each attack by Hezbollah since it captured two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid, Israel has inflicted a far greater price. It has systematically dismantled the country's infrastructure, displaced thousands of residents and instilled a new sense of foreboding and fear in the now-deserted streets of this brash, confident city still shadowed by the legacy of Lebanon's 15-year civil war." II. The Asymmetric Use of Power
The popular complaint of the asymmetrical use of power by Israel is ludicrous! Of course, Israel uses its asymmetrical power but, unfortunately to me, with far too much discretion. Thank G-d Israel has that power. Can anyone imagine Israel's fate if the Arabs had that power? Does anyone believe that Israel would be anything but dust and bare bones and totally annihilated as Hezbollah, Hamas, their legions of supporters and Iran's Ahmadenejad promise daily? And what about the use of asymmetrical power by the other nations of the world? Is there any better example than our own use of the atomic bomb in Hiroshima and Nagasaki? What about the complete destruction of the main cities of Germany in WWII by the US and Britain? Where was the complaint against asymmetrical use of power then? As usual, it is only the Jews that are not to use asymmetrical power. The Jews are only to serve as victims for the rest of the world as they have done over the centuries. G-d forbid it should happen again. Jerome S. Kaufman is National Secretary of the Zionist Organization of America. and host the Israel Commentary website (http://www.israel-commentary.org). |
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SO, CLASS, WHAT'S THE REAL LESSON HERE?
Posted by Gerald A. Honigman, July 17, 2006. |
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Amid the kidnappings, murder, and terror Israel has been subjected to by Arabs in territories it has totally withdrawn from, there is an obvious--if politically inconvenient--truth emerging day by day in both Gaza and Lebanon. Gaza had been used since the days of the Pharaohs as a major invasion route to attack Israel's Jews. Despite this, Israel consented to total withdrawal a year ago. Since the June '67 Six Day War, Arabs had been quite vocal about their new strategy for Israel's destruction. They would henceforth work first to get Israel to return to its 1949, U.N.-imposed, microscopic armistice line existence and then, at the opportune moment, aim for its jugular. Most of Israel's population and industry lie in a ridiculously narrow waistband roughly nine to twenty miles wide. Most people travel farther just to go shopping or to go to work. Arabs are well aware of this. Before the recent outbreak of full-blown hostilities, the world--with America at the lead--was forcing Israel to cave in to the Arabs' destruction in phases plans. The latter was given a new name -- the "road map." Before the ascendancy of Hamas, the Jews were constantly being pressured by the American State Department to yield tangibles such as territory to Mahmoud Abbas and his Arafatians despite the fact that these folks are no different than the Hamas crew when it comes to the subject of the survival of a Jewish Israel. While their tactics might sometimes differ, both of their charters still call for Israel's destruction--despite what Abbas's whitewashers say--and a look at any of their websites, maps, and other publications should put this subject to rest for those who have eyes that function. Abbas, the "good guy," did nothing to stop the disputed--not "Palestinian"--territory given back to him from being used as launching pads to attack Jews -- in Israel proper as well as in the disputed lands. His own good cop Fatah affiliates have as much or more Jewish blood on their hands as the bad cop Hamas/Islamic Jihad half of this team. As most of us knew, Israel was simply making one-sided concessions to an enemy which only perceived such things as weakness, allowing their destruction in phases plans to proceed as planned. The alleged Arab "moderates" had long said that the real goal was to create a purely Arab Palestine from the River to the Sea and that any negotiations with the Jews would just be a Trojan Horse. They would then use the lands they received to build bases of attack that much closer to Israel's main population centers. After being squeezed relentlessly to make additional concessions to prop up Abbas, Prime Minister Sharon agreed to the Gaza withdrawal. While a case could be made for this, the no strings attached manner in which it was done simply allowed Arabs to do their predictable rejectionist thing. Sure enough, rather than focus on nascent state building--the Arabs #22 and second, not first, one to be created within the original 1920 borders of the Mandate of Palestine (Jordan having been formed earlier on some 80% of the total area)--they focused, instead, on continuing to try to destroy the Jews' lone resurrected Israel. But what Arabs must understand is that Gaza was an extremely important test... And they flunked it--both the Arafatians and the Hamasniks--horrendously. There must be lasting consequences of that failure. An Arab entity taking root in Gaza and willing to build a truly peaceful future with Israel could possibly be allowed to expand further. But, as most of us knew, this was not to be. While others tried to say that the Arabs would moderate their rejectionist positions, Gaza is blatant proof as to what Israel can expect from any other one-sided concessions it might offer to those who, after all, have been honest all along as to what their long term goals are vis--vis the Jewish State. The West's darling, Abbas, ran on a platform for Israel's destruction. And we all know what Hamas' more honest agenda calls for. With mortars and rockets now hitting cities in Israel proper from Gaza after Israel has withdrawn from it, this has to be seen as acts of outright war from sovereign territory Arabs now control. How would other nations react to such continuous aggression? The next stage of proposed one-sided Israeli concessions lie in an even more vulnerable area -- Judea and Samaria, aka the "West Bank." This is the area adjacent to Israel's miniscule waistband mentioned above. Returning disputed territories here will victimize most of Israel's population and vital infrastructure the same way other parts of Israel are currently being hit today...Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Ben Gurion Airport, etc. and so forth. Turning north, Israel has been out of Lebanon for six years. It was forced there earlier for the same reason that it's there again now -- a weak Lebanese government that wouldn't or couldn't stop others from using its sovereign territory to attack its Jewish neighbor. But the same thing occurred here as in Gaza. After Israel withdrew, it was still repeatedly attacked. As all with functioning neurons have long understood, "occupation" was never the problem -- unless by occupation one means all of Israel proper -- as most Arabs and their stooges actually do. So, Class, what have we learned here? It better include all of the following? Under no circumstances will Israel be forced back to its suicidal, pre-'67 Auschwitz/armistice lines. As U.N. Security Council Resolution 242 called for after the '67 War, Israel was entitled to secure and recognized borders...not a forced return to the status quo ante. Israel must tell its dear American friends thanks but no thanks once the Foggy Folks start twisting its arms again if and when Hamas ever gets relegated to the back burner. The barbarism and atrocities which accompanied the fiasco of the "Oslo Peace" occurred with Abbas's folks at the helm. Israel must draw its own borders in Judea and Samaria taking into account the range of Arab missiles, potential infiltration of suicide bombers, and so forth. Arabs don't accept a 9-mile wide Israel, so forget about their consent to anything bigger. Hence the necessity for Israel to act unilaterally. Keep in mind that the land in question falls into the category of non-apportioned territories of the original Mandate -- lands that were open to both Arabs and Jews for settlement. While Israel will not want to bring the bulk of the area's Arabs into its fold, it must allow itself enough of a territorial compromise which will permit a reasonable defense against those who--regardless of what Israel offers--will still aim to destroy it. Furthermore, there must be no further withdrawals from any other territory until actual treaties of peace--not hudnas--are signed by Arab partners with the strength to actually abide by them. In short, Gaza and Lebanon are obvious models of what Israel can expect down the road if it caves in on these issues. Israel's five million Jews can't afford to absorb the hits over two hundred million surrounding Arabs can. America, Great Britain, Russia, and other nations have gone to war and have acquired territories far from home in the name of their own national security interests. Indeed, many nations have lost territory to others after said territory was used to launch aggression. Having been repeatedly attacked by neighbors sworn to its destruction, an Israel that one needs a magnifying glass to find on a world map must insist on some territorial adjustments as well. Any proposed 22nd state for Arabs must not come at the expense of the Jews' lonely one. And that's the real lesson of the rockets, mortars, and missiles raining death and destruction upon Haifa, Ashkelon, Sderot, Acre, Kiryat Shemona, Nahariya, and elsewhere as this piece is being written. Gerald A. Honigman is a Florida educator who has done extensive doctoral studies in Middle Eastern Affairs. He has created and conducted counter-Arab propaganda programs for college youth, has lectured on numerous campuses and other platforms, and has publicly debated many Arab spokesmen. His articles and op-eds have been published in dozens of newspapers, magazines, academic journals and websites all around the world. Visit his website at http://geraldahonigman.com/. |
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YESHA, GAZA EXPELLEES AND ALL OF ISRAEL EXTEND HELPING HANDS
Posted by Ezra HaLevi, July 17, 2006. |
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Families in Judea and Samaria and elsewhere, and even former Gaza residents have opened their homes to residents of the north and the western Negev who have fled in the face of missile attacks. Former residents of Gush Katif extended an offer to Jewish families from northern Israel to join them in their already snug caravan trailer homes (pictured above) set up by the government after they were forcibly evicted last summer. Residents of Haifa and Tiberias were extended the offer Sunday night and other threatened towns will be offered the hospitality in coming days. The Shomron community of Kedumim, which housed scores of Gaza residents following the Disengagement, has opened its doors to any northern residents seeking refuge. The mayors' office can be reached at: 057 761 4403 or 09 792 2073. All number can be dialed from outside Israel by dialing Israel's country code, 972, and leaving off the first "0" in the local number. Two hundreds people from Moshav Bar-Yochai, near Meron, have sought refuge in the Gush Etzion community of Efrat. They will take up residence in the community's Neve Shmuel school beginning Monday. Efrat residents have begun to bring towels, linens, cribs and snacks to the school's office in preparation for the refugees' arrival. The school's number is 02 548 8430. For more information or to volunteer, call Yehuda at 050 636 6726. Anyone in Israel (or outside Israel that owns property here) interested in hosting families from the north can sign up on a web site set up Thursday by volunteers for this purpose: http://www.tzafon.co.il (The web site is only active during certain hours of the day) Hundreds of families signed up in the first hours after the site was set up. Families looking to be hosted, but who do not have Internet access can call Shlomy at 054 453 3604 to be set up with a compatible family. More than 250 families from Ramat HaSharon have opened their homes to northern residents. Several other municipalities have opened hotlines for those interested in being matched with resident families.
Lists of families thoughout Israel offering their homes to northern residents can be found at http://10.tv/Mivzak.asp?pgID=2304. The Raanana municipality set up a section on its web site to match families and has also announced that residents of northern Israel may enter Park Raanana free of charge. Anybody in Israel is asked to donate much-needed blood to their nearest blood bank. Hours and locations can be found at www.mdais.org/main/siteNew/index.php?langId=3&page=827. The Association for the Advancement of Education in Jaffa is offering free summer camps for 100 northern youths to take place in Tel Aviv, Jaffa and Bat Yam. Thirty community centers in other areas of Israel have also offered to incorporate northern youths into their day camps and summer activities. The hotline for the community centers is: 04 988 2848. The Zaka organization has dispatched hundreds of volunteer medics in the north to provide immediate care wherever needed and to provide for the needs of families in bomb shelters. The Meir Panim organization has been distributing basic foodstuffs to residents in the threatened areas, particularly to the elderly and infirm located in bomb shelters. A group of dog-lovers in the Hadar Yosef section of Tel Aviv have offered to host up to 20 dogs whose owners are fleeing their homes. Alma, Alon, Yosef, Itai, Ruti, Neumit, Oren and Sammy can be reached at 050 741 2410. A veterinarian named Sharon from Tel Aviv has offered to treat any injured or neglected pets free of charge. She can be reached at 052 829 2293. The Ruach Tovah (Good Spirit) hotline was launched to enable residents to receive counseling and to dispatch volunteers to provide services as diverse as art classes and comedy performances in threatened areas. The hotline is: 1-700-505-202 The Natal organization is offering counseling in several languages spoken in Israel, including English, Spanish, French, Russian and Amharic. The hotline is: 1-800-363-363 Ezra HaLevi writes for Arutz-Sheva (www.IsraelNN.com). |
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FRESH DATE FOR MY TRIAL
Posted by Salah Choudhury, July 17, 2006. |
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Greetings from Dhaka, Bangladesh! My dearest brother Dr. Richard L. Benkin and Daily Pennsylvanian journalist Mr. Gabriel Oppenheim well predicted that the trial date of 13th July will again be shifted. Yes, the judge has shifted the date for charge framing on 17th August 2006. If you remember, this is the day, when last year, Islamist millitants exploded bombs throughout Bangladesh. Just yesterday, they were convicted for this crime. And on 17th August, when Bangladesh will remember the notorious bombing by the Islamist radicals, I shall have to be in the court to face the trial. My 'crime' is, I forecatsed the rise of Islamist millitancy in Bangladesh. Although my lawyers are quite confident that this case is not maintainable under any sections of the Penal Code, the judge is yet inclined to 'check' the papers. If you remember, this is the sixth time, I was in the court for charge framing. So, may I ask, whether the judge did not have any time to look into the papers in past two years? Actually he did! This time, the reason behind postponement of the date is the visit of Mr. Richard Boucher, Assistant Secretary of State, who is scheduled to visit Bangladesh during the first week of August. Government wants to let Mr. Boucher leave, before I am once again in the court. This is a real harrassment (both mentally and financially) by the repressive government. Each time, I was given false promises by the government of dropping the charge. But, in fact, they did not. They made the same promise to my brother Dr. Benkin and Congressman Mr. Mark Steven Kirk. By now, everyone has understood the ultimate motive of the government. They wish to push the matter to the tenure of Caretaker government, which will assume power on 28th October 2006. So, naturally, the court might shift the date once or twice, before my fate is left with the caretaker government. This is for your kind information please... Shoaib The writer is a journalist, columnist, author, and editor of "Weekly Blitz". Email him at salahuddinshoaibchoudhury@yahoo.com [Editor's Note: Google "choudhury" (in the search box just under the top banner on the Home page) to see other Think-Israel articles by Salah Choudhury, who is being persecuted by the Bangladash Government for writing against the Muslim extremists and for trying to attend a writer's conference in Israel.] |
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LETTER TO POPE BENEDICT
Posted by Bella Kontsevaya, July 17, 2006. |
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This was written by Dov Levin. It was sent To: Office of the Cardinal-Secretary of State;
Sent: Sunday, July 16, 2006 8:20 AM
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Dear Pope Benedict, On 7/14 you issued a statement through your Secretary of State Cardinal Angelo Sodano critisizing Israel for its attacks on Lebanon. Cardinal Sodano said "The right of defense on the part of a state does not exempt it from its responsibility to respect international law, particularly regarding the safeguarding of civilian populations". Let me remind you that the thugs who were firing "Katyushas" and "Kasams" into Israeli territory were supposed to respect international law too, but didn't. It is very pacifistic to issue a statement asking to support international law in general. The only problem with that is that if one side doesn't follow the law what are the options? If you think Israel should not have attacked Lebanon or Gaza, can you please recommend a practical approach along with your general statements? Let me also remind you that you had to join Hitlerugend against your will because you apparently didn't want to fight evil with your hands, only with your prayers. But you were able to get out of Hitlerugend precisely because countries like Russia, Great Britain and United States fought for their freedom and for your freedom with their hands and blood. Had they not fought, you would probably be wearing a different outfit now and would be wearing a swastika on your sleeve. It's OK to issue a call for civility, but please stay away from condemning actions of people who in the long run are protecting your religion. If you and the peaceniks in Europe succeed in your calls for Israel's restrain and Hizbullah and Hamas succeed in destroying Israel, who do you think they will view as their next enemy? -- of course, Christianity. So, please, let people who can handle evil better than you in practical cases take care of it and you just stay on theological side of things. Now, since you have ideas about how Jews are supposed to behave, let me, a Jew, give you an idea how a good Catholic Pope can help in the current situation: Why don't you offer Hizbullah and Hamas yourself as a hostage instead of Israeli soldiers? This will be a very pacifistic thing to do and if they agree you will be able to talk to your captors and make them understand the value of every human life. |
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AN EMERGENCY APPEAL FROM HATZALAH ISRAEL
Posted by Hatzalah@SyMall.com, July 17, 2006. |
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Introduction: Our dear friend, Mr. Zelig Krohn, the Executive Director of Hatzalah Israel, has just arrived in Deal. The situation in Israel, which has developed literally overnight, is both dangerous and desperate, and in coordination with Hatzalah of The Jersey Shore, Mr. Krohn is here to seek our much needed help & support. The Situation: In Northern Israel there are 175 Hatzalah volunteers out of 1000 around the country and they are constantly under missile attacks. An estimated 1400 rockets fell in Northern Israel in the past week alone. Specific Needs: Hatzalah of Israel is in dire need of the following three items, helmets, bulletproof vests and defibrillators. As you can imagine we are also in desperate need of basic emergency supplies. The amount of injuries is staggering, over 500 in the past week alone. Keep in mind this is hundreds more than the region is accustomed to. Emergency Appeal: Our brothers are living in pain and constant fear that would be difficult to describe. Many are living as prisoners in their own homes, in this climate of random civilian injuries and deaths. This is not an everyday fundraiser, but an emergency appeal to help our brothers in our homeland, who are living and working on the frontlines of this current agitation and aggression by Israel's hostile neighbors. Please Help: Israel is at war and our brothers need our support, please help us help them. Any donation, contributions you can make helps. Contact Info: Please contact Zelig Krohn, Executive Director, Hatzalah Israel, at his United States cell phone number, (347) 446-7054 or email at Zeligk@gmail.com Hatzalah of The Jersey Shore can be reached at (732) 531-4323 Please make checks payable to:
For Credit Card Donations:
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WE FREE MUSLIMS URGE DESTRUCTION OF HEZBOLLAH NOT LEBANON
Posted by Free Muslims Against Terrorism, July 17, 2006. |
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The Free Muslim Coalition Against Terrorism calls on the United States government to take an active role in limiting the fighting in Lebanon to Hezbollah infrastructure and for Arab governments to demand that Hezbollah be dismantled. Several days ago the Hezbollah militia attacked the Israeli military and kidnapped two soldiers hoping they can exchange the soldiers for Hezbollah hostages imprisoned in Israel. Israel responded by attacking Lebanon's infrastructure. Israel has destroyed oil depots, bridges, seaports, electric transformers, air port and otherwise did enormous damage to Lebanon in the hope that the destruction of Lebanon would persuade the Lebanese government to dismantle Hezbollah and replace the militia with Lebanese soldiers. (Incidentally, the kidnapped Israel soldiers are Arab Muslims (Druze)). The Free Muslims have been calling for the dismantling of Hezbollah for the last three years. We recognize that Hezbollah's loyalty is to Iran and not Lebanon. This is why Israel's attack on Lebanon's infrastructure rather than just Hezbollah is shortsighted, immoral and counterproductive. Israel's fight is with Hezbollah and not Lebanon nor the Lebanese government which has no control over Hezbollah. The irony is that Israel itself recognizes that Lebanon is too weak to control Hezbollah but nevertheless holds Lebanon liable. If Israel wants to dismantle or destroy Hezbollah Israel has to do it itself by attacking the militia directly. At the same time, the Free Muslims recognize that a legitimate government must be responsible for the actions of terrorists and rogue elements that operate from its soil and Lebanon is no exception. The United States and the Arab countries must work together to bring an end to this war, to dismantle Hezbollah and to strengthen the Lebanese military. Lebanon is headed by a pro-western, pro-American government that would love for Hezbollah to disappear. The goal of the United States and Israel should be to strengthen the Lebanese government not weaken it. If Israel focuses its attack against Hezbollah the Lebanese government will be in a better position to dismantle Hezbollah and control the border with Israel. If Israel continues to attack non-Hezbollah infrastructure more and more Lebanese, including the Christians, Sunnis Muslims and Druze may unite behind Hezbollah and that would be catastrophic. Contact the Free Muslim Coalition against terrorism at media@freemuslims.org or visit their website at www.freemuslims.org |
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SAFED WAR UPDATE, JULY 17, 2006
Posted by Sandy Rosen-Hazen, July 17, 2006. |
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Trying to keep you all updated..... with this job, and all the wonderful telephone calls, I must apologize for not replying to all your beautiful personal e-mails, albeit I do appreciate your concern!!!! Please KNOW that I have great faith in G-d and in Israel's IDF.....also, that I am VERY proud of President Bush, who is our partner in obliterating terrorism from the world!!!! He is bravely dealing with N. Korean, as well as Afganistan and Iraq.....while we are dealing with Hezbollah (Iran) and Hamas (Syria).....together we MUST defeat all fanaticism, any/everywhere in the world, where fanatical terrorism rears its ugly head!!!! As Frank Keating, on FOX News, stated today: "This situation is a matter of the world against terrorism"!!!! Please keep us in your prayers..... as we are keeping you in ours..... Love always,
Some of today's news updates [with my comments in square brackets] follow below. |
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Joining the 'Katyusha club':
On Friday night, during the prayer welcoming the Shabbat, a siren interrupted the prayers in the synagogue of the Sanz Hasidim in Safed. About 20 worshipers - the few members of the congregation who remained for Shabbat - all moved close to the inner wall of the synagogue, as far as possible from Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. Such sirens have been heard in the city since Thursday, when a resident of the city was killed, and the confused worshipers held a discussion as to whether it was preferable to finish their prayers inside the synagogue or to obey the instructions of the security forces. "Daddy, the sealed room," said a child pulling on his father's sleeve, prompting a debate that was held in Yiddish laced with Hebrew terms from the security vocabulary: "The security room? Never mind," another person answered, and the prayers were renewed inside the largely empty synagogue. Five minutes later a whistling was heard in the distance. Those of the worshipers with sharp ears and fast reflexes quickly made for the nearby kitchenette, a kind of impromptu security room; others, even before the building trembled from the nearby explosion of a Katyusha rocket, managed to lie down on the floor. In Safed people lie down like that, and not only on the local graves of righteous men. The Divrei Haim synagogue of the Sanz Hasidim is located in Tarpat Alley (Tarpat is the acronym for 1929, a year infamous for Arab rioting all over Palestine). Overall, Jewish spirituality and the Israeli-Arab conflict are combined in the streets of the old city - "Defenders' Square" with "Messiah Alley," the mikveh (ritual bath) of the Ari (Rabbi Isaac Luria, a leading kabbalist) with the Arab house in which Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) grew up. In Tarpat Alley a Magen David Adom ambulance was parked on Friday night, outside the synagogue. The motor was running, the red lights were flashing. In front sat two Sanz Hasidim. They wore Shabbat clothes, including the traditionally festive coat made of silk, but they were on call. Both are volunteers for Hatzala (Rescue), an organization whose ultra-Orthodox volunteers, MDA paramedics, have evacuated over 100 victims in the Galilee since Thursday. While their friends were praying in the synagogue, they sat frozen in the ambulance listening to the intercom, forbidden to open the door or perform any activity not related to saving lives. When the falling of the Katyushas was heard, the ambulance disappeared. Fortunately, one of the rockets fell on Friday night on a synagogue that had not opened because there were too few worshipers. Barely a soul: Safed and all its neighborhoods is a city that is beaten and in shock, which is worriedly monitoring any sliver of information and every Katyusha landing in Haifa and Tiberias. Its unexpected joining of the "Katyusha club" led to the closure on Friday night of local shops, hotels, banks, postal services and most of the drugstores. There is barely a living soul on the streets. The Safed municipality estimated that 50 percent to 60 percent of the 23,000 inhabitants of the city have abandoned their homes. "Anyone who remains here is someone with nowhere to go, or someone who can't afford to leave," said Moshe Madar, the municipality treasurer and the head of Safed's emergency headquarters. Apparently many of the residents of the Canaan neighborhood belong to this category. On Friday afternoon, a Katyusha hit a wretched and peeling housing project on Hashiva Street. Eleven residents were injured, two moderately. On the sidewalk lay a dead Pekinese dog. His owner was injured as well. After the evacuation of the wounded, many residents went out into the street, and the desperate policeman called on them to enter shelters and other protected spaces. Protected spaces? Security rooms? Who has heard of them in the housing projects? "Where should we go?" asked one resident in panic. On the third floor of the building that was hit the door was opened a crack, and from it Yaffa Ben-Porat peered inside the stairwell. Her husband, Ephraim, was in the other room, and she was beside herself with fear and helplessness. He is a chronically ill and bedridden, and needed care - even under the barrage of Katyushas that in the end hit the building in which they have lived since immigrating to Israel from Morocco in the 1950s "I have nobody," said the 62-year-old Ben-Porat. My children are in Ashdod, so we're here alone. There is nobody to come and visit us. Please sir, speak to the municipality, speak to someone about taking care of us." A few minutes later an ambulance crew came to evacuate Ben-Porat and his wife to Ziv Hospital until things blow over. Perhaps few people remained in Safed, but for the most part those who stayed there over the weekend tried to demonstrate high morale. Both religious and secular people spoke of determination and patience, and expressed faith and confidence in the Israel Defense Forces, or in God. Shlomo Zeid is the owner of the only hotel in the old city that opened its doors on the weekend. Only one room was occupied - by a journalist. Zeid himself is an atheist, frustrated by the fact that Safed is becoming ultra-Orthodox, but on Shabbat morning, when his ultra-Orthodox neighbor came to visit and spoke of faith in the shadow of the Katyushas, they both managed to agree that "every missile has an address." They're not sure why, but this saying gave them confidence. Memories of 1948: In 1948, legend has it, Safed held out through natural and miraculous means - through natural means, because the Safed old-timers didn't stop reciting Psalms, as is their wont; and miraculously, because the Palmach (the pre-state commando strike force) arrived in time. Meanwhile, Rabbi Shlomo Makleb, one of the city's old-timers today, says that he and his neighbors are praying. "Imagine if we didn't pray, a Katyusha would land here every second," he said. Rina Kobi, who lives in the old city, was a newborn during the 1948 War of Independence, but this weekend she pulled out the arsenal of family stories from her memory: how her older brother used to run between the outposts of the Haganah (the pre-state military force) and the Etzel (right-wing militia), and distribute cans of sardines to the Jewish fighters. "I grew up on those stories about 1948," she smiled. "Who would have believed that missiles would be flying over our heads?" In the afternoon, with Katyushas rumbling in the background, she sat on a bench in the street chatting with an ultra-Orthodox neighbor. She was calm. "Me?" she said. "I have no fear at all. The children and grandchildren asked me to come stay with them in the center of the country, but why should I leave my house? In 1948 we didn't leave, and I'm not leaving now." [Ditto here.....I didn't leave in 1982, I rushed home, cutting short my trip to South Africa, to be here in 1991, and I'm NOT leaving now!!!!] Kiryat Bratslav was full compared to the other ultra-Orthodox neighbors of Safed; almost half the members of the community remained. In the large Bratslav synagogue they decided to try to maintain routine as much as possible. They even celebrated a circumcision there on Shabbat morning; the baby was named Israel. After prayers, they read the haftara from Jeremiah, which includes the verse: "Out of the north the evil shall break forth upon all the inhabitants of the land." The rabbi said in his sermon, based on the words of Rabbi Nahman of Bratslav, that "out of sadness comes happiness." Some of the worshipers found relief in jokes about Nasrallah, but Nahman Klein, the head of Hatzala in the Galilee, instructed them, in a very severe tone, to make sure their children did not play outside. Before the beginning of Shabbat we m et Klein in the mikveh. "On a day like this, immersion is a very exalted thing," he said. "We remove from ourselves everything we have undergone during the week. Today and yesterday we evacuated over 100 casualties. I personally immersed myself in the hope that the sanctity of Shabbat will preserve us from all evil. I prayed that God would help us, that we will see better days." Two hours later the ambulances raced to Moshav Meron, where Yehudit Itzkovich and her grandson, Omer Pesachov, were killed. There were no casualties in Safed. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Eleven wounded as top two floors of building collapse:
A barrage of rockets fired from Lebanon hit the Haifa region Monday afternoon. One of the rockets hit an apartment building in the city causing severe damage to the top two floors. Eleven people were wounded and evacuated to Rambam Hospital. Two were in moderate-to-serious condition, four in light condition and five were suffering from shock. Haifa Police spokesman Nir Meyer told The Jerusalem Post that a total of three barrages hit the city, the third hitting the apartment building. Two of the rockets landed before the city's warning siren was sounded. Elsewhere, rockets landed in Tiberias and adjacent Lake Kinneret beaches, Acre and Safed as well. In addition, rockets were fired for the first time on communities in the southern Golan Heights. Three Katyusha rockets were also fired at the northern town of Karmiel earlier Monday afternoon, causing severe damage to a building. [Thank G-d Stacey, with Irene Debbi, left Carmiel & are with Gabbi, Siniya and her grandchildren, in Tel Aviv!!!! However, we are, of course, all worried for Noam's safety, since he has been called up to serve in the Army!!!!] A number of people in all of the areas were reportedly suffering from shock. Four residents of Mitzpe Tal El in the western Galilee were very lightly wounded Monday morning as Hizbullah resumed its Katyusha attacks on the north of Israel. Two more were wounded when a Katyusha landed near Acre. After a night of heavy IAF strikes on targets throughout Lebanon, Monday morning witnessed fresh barrages of Katyusha rockets on the western Galilee villages of Julis, Abu Snaan, and Kfar Yasif as well as Tiberias. There were reports that an air raid siren had gone off in Haifa but no Katyushas were found in the vicinity. Earlier Monday, IDF officials stated that the Katyushas that landed in Afula, [Afula article follows this one, below] Upper Nazareth, Migdal Hamemek, and Givat Ela shortly after 11 p.m. Sunday had been aimed at the Ramat David air force base, Army Radio reported. The missiles triggered the area's early warning system, and no one was wounded. Afula, located some 45 kilometers southeast of Haifa, marks the southernmost region the rockets have reached since the current conflict between Israel and Hizbullah began. Six people were treated for shock after the assault. Meanwhile, the public is advised that the Education Ministry is prepared to provide alternate accommodation for some 3,000 residents of the north of Israel in boarding schools whose pupils have gone home for the summer. Anyone seeking further information is invited to contact the Education Ministry at 03-689-8758. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Katyusha rockets hit Afula area
IDF officials stated early Monday that the barrage of Katyusha rockets that landed in Afula, Upper Nazareth, Migdal Hamemek, and Givat Ela shortly after 11 p.m. Sunday were aimed at the Ramat David air force base, Army Radio reported. The missiles triggered the area's early warning system, and no one was wounded. Sunday evening's attack marked the southernmost region rockets had reached since the current conflict between Israel and Hizbullah began. Six people suffered from shock. Afula is located some 45 kilometers southeast of Haifa. Earlier, 15 IDF troops were lightly wounded on Sunday night when a Katyusha rocket landed in the Shlomi area of the Western Galilee. The rocket caused a fire and the soldiers suffered from smoke inhalation. Meanwhile, the names of the eight victims who were killed in the rocket barrage that struck Haifa on Sunday morning were released for publication. The following people all died when a rocket hit a maintenance depot at the train station: Shlomi Mansora, 35, from Nahariya; Rafi Hazan, 30, from Haifa; Kiryat Ata residents Nissin Elharach, 43, and Reuven Levy, 46; Kiryat Yam residents Asahel Damati, 39, David Feldman, 28, and Dennis Lapidus, 24, and Shmuel Ben Shimon, 41, from Upper Yokne'am. Just two hours after the fatal attack, a second barrage of rockets landed in Haifa's port area and Nahariya. A third barrage of rockets hit the Haifa area on Sunday afternoon. Nobody was wounded in the latest attack. Air raid sirens had sounded immediately before the Katyushas hit. MDA reported on Sunday evening that eight people were killed and 54 people wounded, four seriously, nine moderately, 23 lightly and 18 suffering shock, since Sunday morning in northern Israel. Since the fighting in the north began, a total of 20 Israelis have been killed including IDF troops. 398 have been wounded - seven seriously, 22 moderately, 142 lightly and 207 have suffered shock. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ WAR IN THE NORTH: JPOST.COM SPECIAL COVERAGE
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Israel to create Lebanon buffer zone: BEIRUT, Lebanon (CNN) -- Amid renewed cross-border fighting between Israeli and Hezbollah forces, Israel said Monday that it intends to create a buffer zone in southern Lebanon to stop rocket attacks from the militant group. "We intend to complete this operation. We have no intention of allowing anyone to stop us before we complete the creation of a buffer zone," Israeli Defense Minister Amir Peretz said. Several suspected Hezbollah rockets hit the northern Israeli city of Haifa on Monday -- the sixth day of fighting that began after Hezbollah guerrillas abducted two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid. A large cloud of smoke could be seen coming from near the port area of Haifa, Israel's third-largest city. Another rocket landed in the sea. A rocket also struck a residential building. Two wounded people were removed from the building. The barrage also hit the towns of Sefad and Tiberias, but no casualties were reported, Israeli medical sources said. Earlier reports suggested Israeli ground forces had entered southern Lebanon, but an Israeli military source said that there is no Israeli ground operation going on at present. The source said a small Israeli military unit "destroyed one or two Hezbollah outposts just over the line in Lebanon last night." "At the moment, there are no military ground troops in Lebanon, and we are working primarily with an air campaign," the source said. Meanwhile, an Israel Defense Forces spokesman denied an Israeli plane had gone down over east Beirut. Video footage showing an aircraft falling from the sky may have been a missile crashing instead, the spokesman said. Arabic-language television networks earlier reported an Israeli plane went down. Reaction at G-8 summit: In the face of the escalating violence, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan and British Prime Minister Tony Blair on Monday called for an international stabilization force to go to the Mideast to help end the cross-border attacks between Hezbollah and the Israeli military. The proposed international force would be the first step in what Annan and Blair said should be a series of actions that would stop the hostilities. "The only way we are going to get a cessation of hostilities is the deployment of an international force to stop the bombardment of Israel and get Israel to stop its attacks on Hezbollah," Blair told reporters at a news conference in St. Petersburg, Russia, at the end of the Group of Eight summit. Annan said the U.N. Security Council would have to discuss the matter but said such a force would be only a part of a comprehensive plan of action to stop the fighting across the Israeli-Lebanese border. Beirut port bombed: Earlier Monday, Israel bombed Beirut's port, an army barracks and the capital's southern suburbs. Video footage of the strike's aftermath showed black smoke billowing into the air over the port against a backdrop of large shipping containers and the charred remains of a truck. (Watch Beirut airport burn -- :46) At least two people died in the attack. In the city of Abdeh, about 50 miles (about 80 kilometers) north of Beirut, three Israeli missiles struck an army barracks, officials said, killing six soldiers and wounding 28. Israeli strikes Monday in the Bekaa Valley near the Syrian border killed seven people, authorities said. Forty-three others were wounded, and a girl is missing. The attacks followed Hezbollah rocket attacks on northern cities in Israel on Sunday. One of those rockets struck a train depot in Haifa, killing eight Israelis. Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora told CNN's "Late Edition With Wolf Blitzer" on Sunday that the Israeli attack had opened "the gates of hell" with what he called a disproportionate response to Hezbollah's initial raid last week. Lebanon has called for a cease-fire, but Israel says it will only stop its campaign when kidnapped troops are freed, Hezbollah withdraws from southern Lebanon and rocket attacks stop. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ St.-Sgt. Osher Damri killed in Nablus
An IDF soldier, St.-Sgt. Osher Damri, 20, from Netanya, a member of the Haruv Battalion, was killed and five soldiers were wounded in Nablus overnight Sunday after a bomb was thrown at their patrol. Some of the soldiers were wounded after they came under heavy gunfire while pulling out of the battle zone [Yes, yet another battleground!!!!]. One soldier was seriously wounded; two were moderately wounded, while the rest sustained light wounds. The son of OC Central Command Lt.-Gen. Yair Naveh was wounded in the incident, and was being operated on Monday morning with his father at his side. Some body parts of the dead soldier were left behind, Palestinian witnesses said. Hundreds of Palestinians later gathered at the scene to view parts of the soldier's leg, and many of them reacted with celebratory chants, the witnesses said. Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades gunmen, who claimed responsibility for the deadly explosion, later said they had collected the body parts and would hand them over to an Israeli-Palestinian liaison office to return them to Israel. The army had threatened dire retribution if the soldier's body part was not returned. Damri's funeral will be held Monday evening at 6 p.m. in the military section of the Netanya cemetery. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ [Once again, I must say how much I admire President Bush..... http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/07/17/bush.tape/archives/oldindex.html
The president was expressing frustration at the United Nations' stance on the Israeli-Hezbollah conflict in Lebanon. Apparently not expecting an open mike to pick up his remarks, Bush told Blair: "See the irony is what they need to do is get Syria to get Hezbollah to stop doing this s___ and it's over."!!!! Meanwhile, guess who is NOT with Israel and the USA?!?!
Sandy Rosen-Hazen lives in Safed. Contact her at Sandy@israel.net |
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HOW TO ASSESS THE IRAQ WAR; ABBAS LIES YET RETAINS RESPECT
Posted by Richard H. Shulman, July 17, 2006. |
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WHICH WAY IS IRAQ WAR GOING? I don't know. One source finds that Iraq is safe in most places, but another source fears that the insurgency is spreading and Westerners are safe nowhere. The first source declares that the economy has revived and refugees are returning. The second one asserts that oil production is down or is dominated by smugglers and insurgents. The optimists crow that the government holds free elections and plebiscites, but pessimists bark that Islamists have been brought to the fore. Journalists are unreliable. Most are propagandists first and reporters second. Those in the NY Times report only the bad news about Iraq, as if there were no good news. Those in the NY Sun provide the good news, which they complain that other papers omit, but often omit the bad news. Journalists are selective and not forthcoming about the facts. Most report according to whether they favor a war against Islamism or appeasement, and whether they are Democrats or Republicans. Is there a Democratic truth or a Republican truth? We need journalists to report all the news and weigh the good against the bad. FREE-FOR-ALL AGAINST THE JEWS More Internet nonsense. Antisemites constantly invent new calumnies against the Jews. As a source of ideas, they take Arabs crimes and append a Jewish provenance to it. They pervert Talmudic preaching and Jewish action. Some try to write in the language of scholarship, but their crude, antisemitic name-calling gives them away early. For example, a Ben Cramer writes that the Talmud urges Jews to lie, whereas Islam sanctions deceit and the Jewish people gave the Western world its ethical code (against which the West has been rebelling). He asserts that the Jews invented terrorism and truck-bombing, and cites the bombing of the King David Hotel by the "terrorist" Irgun. I don't know who started terrorism or when. Certainly Russians and Serbs committed it before WWI, Britain used it in the Boer War, and Hitler's private militias committed terrorism before WWII. The Palestinian Arabs launched terrorism about 1920, a generation before the King David Hotel attack. History must not be Mr. Cramer's forte. At the Hotel, the explosives were placed in milk containers, not in trucks. Although the facility was a hotel, the wing under direct attack was British military headquarters. Therefore, the act was not terrorism. It was called terrorism, first by the British, who called all attacks on their troops as "terrorism," because it sounded bad. Then the Left picked up the term, because it made their right-wing political opposition, which sponsored Irgun, sound bad. The Irgun may have committed one or two questionable acts, but it was not a terrorist organization. If the Arabs had a case, would the Cramers have to resort to libel? The Arab-Israel conflict enables antisemites to vent. CIVILIAN CASUALTIES Some Israeli missiles misfired, killing Arab civilians. In reaction, Defense Min. Peretz ordered the Army to scrap mission that might harm civilians. This appears to give preference to Arabs over Israelis (IMRA, 6/21). If the terrorists are spared, they will not spare Israeli civilians! If Peretz has no effective alternative, he should scrap his order. Former Israeli soldier Haim Watzman wrote an Op.-Ed. (NY Times, 6/22) against IDF use of Arab human shields. Some practices he described, my news sources, which may sugar-coat what Israel does, deny. Is he vinegar-coating what the Army does? I suspect both. The Op.-Ed. is phrased as thoughtful, but were it thoughtful, it would acknowledge the best arguments from my sources and find a compromise. He ends with a statement that Israel and its soldiers would be more secure if it acted more ethically, i.e., put Arab civilians first. The Arabs put their terrorists first, their civilians second, and Israeli civilians last, without ill consequences. Europeans sneak into the P.A. to serve the Arabs as human shields in order to hinder Israeli defense against terrorism. The Arabs make their whole population human shields, by hiding among civilians and shooting at Israelis from behind civilians. That widespread and totally unethical Arab tactic - it is a war crime - rates not even a mention by the former soldier. And he talks about Israel needing to gain the high ground? Watzman describes a former IDF practice, since then banned by the Supreme Court as getting neighbors, sometimes by coercion, to knock on doors. He neglects the fact that the practice prevented firefighting and thereby saved lives of civilians as well as of soldiers. That is ethical. Not doing it is unethical, at least not asking the people to. Forbidden from using Arabs to knock on doors behind which terrorists have taken refuge, the IDF has taken to bulldozing the houses down, when the terrorists fail to surrender. Mr. Watzman claims that endangers the civilians inside. Why? They could come out, couldn't they? Why not just ban the coercion? If abused, Arabs would complain. In Israel, they get more than a fair hearing for their complaints. He casually mentioned the Supreme Court as if it were being ethical. It is so far leftist as to be anti-Israel. It favors the Arabs and forbids most Israeli methods of defense. How it carps and harps on the few civilian casualties that are inevitable in war. Not inevitable are numerous casualties, which the Arabs strive for. I lived through the period of WWII, when both sides targeted civilian cities. The US and Israeli armies now minimize civilian casualties. We should be proud of them and not worry about the few collateral casualties accompanying proper prosecution of the war. We should remember that the Arabs have no mercy and seek mass-murder, and that their civilians support their gunmen in this. I find it all too convenient for anti-Zionists to use ethical standards for civilians as a means of keeping Israel from effective self-defense, while ignoring the criminal means employed by the Arabs. These human rights people are like the Devil quoting scripture. ABBAS LIES, BUT RETAINS RESPECT Abbas told the peace prize winners that: 1. His Palestinian Arabs are victims of a century of war. 2. Israel is building an apartheid wall. 3. The wall doesn't stop terrorism. His arrests of terrorists attempting to infiltrate into Israel does stop it 4. Eastern Jerusalem (including the Jewish Quarter of the Old City and the Jewish neighborhoods of French Hill and Ramat Eshkol) was acquired by Israel in 1967, so Israel should withdraw from it (IMRA, 6/20). I wonder whether those Nobelists are sufficiently informed to know that everything he said is false or misleading: 1. The Arab-Israel conflict has been going on for 85 years. The Palestinian Arabs started it, via terrorism. They also started the War for Independence and the current war. The other Arabs started the other wars with Israel. Arabs are perpetrators, Israelis, victims. 2. The security fence does not segregate ethnic groups within the same country, but is designed to keep terrorists from getting at Israel and at some Israeli communities in the Territories. It hardly is fitting for the P.A. to wax indignant about apartheid, for it has a death penalty against Arabs who sell land to Jews. 3. What arrests? Haven't heard of any by him or of any by Arafat that were serious. He and Arafat paid for terrorism. He still praises it. Since the fence is difficult to bypass, infiltrators are channeled more through checkpoints or are picked off in Gaza by aircraft. 4. The Arabs didn't have title to Jerusalem before 1967, so why should Israel withdraw? Why should Israel withdraw from Jewish neighborhoods, including the traditional Jewish Quarter and the site of Judaism's holiest shrine? Why should the Arabs gain territory via aggression? EUROPEANS POLLED The election of Hamas has not changed British public opinion about the Arab-Israel conflict. French and German opinion, however, has shifted away from the Arabs. In France, opinion is about equally divided now. In Germany, twice as many now favor Israel over the Arabs (IMRA, 6/21). Did Germans learn to distrust the media? I think the Arabs were just as vicious and wrongful as before the election. Richard Shulman is a veteran defender of Israel on several web-based forums. His comments and analyses appear often on Think-Israel. He provides cool information and right-on-target overviews. He distributes his essays by email. To subscribe, write him at richardshulman5@aol.com. |
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BUSH CURSES HEZBOLLAH'S ACTIONS AT G-8 LUNCH
Posted by Deb Kotz, July 17, 2006. |
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It's when the microphones are turned off that you see what politicians are really like. I, for one, am glad that the microphone was accidentally left on. We see that Bush is sincere in his unequivocal support of Israel and brave in taking the stance he has taken on Hezbollah and Israel's forays into Lebanon. He remains the one lone voice of reason at that European summit. At least he appears to have Blair on his side. This is Reuter's version: President's Use of Expletive Caught on Tape |
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ST. PETERSBURG, Russia (July 17) -- A microphone picked up an unaware President Bush saying on Monday Syria should press Hezbollah to "stop doing this [expletive]" and that his secretary of state may go to the Middle East soon. Bush was talking privately to British Prime Minister Tony Blair during a lunch at the Group of Eight summit in St. Petersburg about an upsurge of violence in the Middle East, not realizing a microphone was transmitting what he said. "I think Condi (Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice) is going to go pretty soon," Bush said. Blair replied: "Right, that's all that matters, it will take some time to get that together." Rice said on Sunday she was thinking of going to the Middle East if it would help. Blair said Rice has "got to succeed" if she goes to the region. Bush replied: "What they need to do is to get Syria to get Hezbollah to stop doing this [expletive]." The U.S. president blames Syria and Iran for supporting Hezbollah guerrillas operating in southern Lebanon. Bush also seemed to complain about U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan wanting an immediate ceasefire to stop the violence between Israel and Hezbollah. "I don't like the sequence of it," Bush said. "His attitude is basically ceasefire and everything else happens." Blair said: "I think the thing that is really difficult is you can't stop this unless you get this international presence agreed." G8 leaders, in a statement on Sunday, suggested the U.N. Security Council should consider an international security and monitoring presence along the Lebanese-Israeli border. Later, Bush said he felt like telling Annan to telephone Syrian President Bashir Assad "and make something happen." "We're not blaming Israel and we're not blaming the Lebanese government," he said. The two leaders also appeared to chat about the Doha Round of world trade talks, stalled by lack of common ground among governments on farm subsidies and intellectual property rights. "I just want some movement. Yesterday I didn't see much movement, the desire to move," said Bush. "It may be that it's impossible," Blair replied. Ultimately Blair noticed the microphone and hastily switched it off, but not before the recording had reached news media. In the chummy conversation between long-time allies, Bush teased the British leader about a sweater Blair had apparently given him. "Thanks for the sweater, it was awfully thoughtful of you. I know you picked it out yourself," Bush said. "Oh, absolutely," said Blair. Deb Kotz is an active member of the Brandeis Chapter of the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) and maintains an email list to distribute articles of interest to the local community. She can be reached at DebKotz@aol.com |
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WHAT "MASSIVE ISRAELI INVASION"?
Posted by Professor Eugene Narrett, July 17, 2006. |
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Dear people, Point 1: I would like to add to Professor Eidelberg's precise insight that the main beneficiary of Israel's being bled and of Israel's bleeding of Hezbollah and Hamas, Iran and Syria is SAUDI ARABIA, Iran's main competitor and opponent in the islamic world. As I've written often, and as Paul noted in our June discussion in Jerusalem, the entire Iran crisis, so irrationally drawn out by the USA and EU is to enable Iran-Syria and their forward armies to continue the multi-decades task of taking down the Jewish [sic] state till it a completely pliable and servile client of the USA and foreign corporate interests. Point 2: By the way, all of last evening and night into the wee hours, the main AOL news page when you've signed on featured as its lead photo and headline "MASSIVE ISRAELI INVASION." Thus do the powers and their media preempt Israeli action and pressure its pitiful government by pretending Israel is doing what it needs to do but is not doing. The story linked to the AOL headline had no information about this "Massive Invasion" because there was not one. The news was old but the first page headline and photo (an Israeli soldier charging through smoke) did its job. The servility of the Olmert regime and the stupidity and arrogance of the 18% of registered Israelis who voted for Kadima is taking its toll. All-out war on Israeli cities and Israel responds with 'surgical strikes' instead of invading the fictional state of "Lebanon" and occupying at least to the border of Sidon. Professor Eugene Narrett teaches writing and Literature at Boston University. He is the author of hundreds of articles, columns and reviews on politics, American culture and the arts. He is completing a study on Romanticism and the longterm decline of Western Culture. He writes often on subjects relating to Israel and Judaism and is a weekly columnist for the MetroWest Daily News in Framingham, Massachusetts. His new book is "Israel and the Endtimes". Contact him at Culturtalk@aol.com |
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'THANK YOU ISRAEL,' FROM LEBANESE CHRISTIANS
Posted by Naomi Ragen, July 17, 2006. |
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This was written by Brigitte Gabriel, a Christian Zionist, A Lebenese Christian. |
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For the millions of Christian Lebanese, driven out of our homeland, "Thank you Israel," is the sentiment echoing from around the world. The Lebanese Foundation for Peace, an international group of Lebanese Christians, made the following statement in a press release to Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert concerning the latest Israeli attacks against Hezbollah: "We urge you to hit them hard and destroy their terror infrastructure. It is not [only] Israel who is fed up with this situation, but the majority of the silent Lebanese in Lebanon who are fed up with Hezbollah and are powerless to do anything out of fear of terror retaliation."Their statement continues, "On behalf of thousands of Lebanese, we ask you to open the doors of Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion Airport to thousands of volunteers in the Diaspora willing to bear arms and liberate their homeland from [Islamic] fundamentalism. We ask you for support, facilitation and logistics in order to win this struggle and achieve together the same objectives: Peace and Security for Lebanon and Israel and our future generations to come." The once dominant Lebanese Christians responsible for giving the world "the Paris of the Middle East" as Lebanon used to be known, have been killed, massacred, driven out of their homes and scattered around the world as radical Islam declared its holy war in the 70s and took hold of the country. They voice an opinion that they and Israel have learned from personal experience, which is now belatedly being discovered by the rest of the world. While the world protected the PLO withdrawing from Lebanon in 1983 with Israel hot on their heals, another more volatile and religiously idealistic organization was being born: Hezbollah, "the Party of God," founded by Ayatollah Khomeini and financed by Iran. It was Hezbollah who blew up the U.S. Marine barracks in Lebanon in October,1983 killing 241 Americans and 67 French paratroopers that same day. President Reagan ordered U.S. Multilateral Force units to withdraw and closed the books on the marine massacre and US involvement in Lebanon February 1984. The civilized world, which erroneously vilified the Christians and Israel back then and continues to vilify Israel now, was not paying attention. While America and the rest of the world were concerned about the Israeli/PLO problem, terrorist regimes in Syria and Iran fanned Islamic radicalism in Lebanon and around the world. Hezbollah's Shiite extremists began multiplying like proverbial rabbits out-producing moderate Sunnis and Christians. Twenty-five years later they have produced enough people to vote themselves into 24 seats in the Lebanese parliament. Since the Israeli pull out in 2000, Lebanon has become a terrorist base completely run and controlled by Syria with its puppet Lebanese President Lahood and the Hezbollah "state within a state." The Lebanese army has less than 10,000 military troops. Hezbollah has over 4,000 trained militia forces and there are approximately 700 Iranian Revolutionary Guards in Southern Lebanon and the Bekaa Valley. So why can't the army do the job? Because the majority of Lebanese Muslims making up the army will split and unite along religious lines with the Islamic forces just like what happened in 1976 at the start of the Lebanese civil war. It all boils down to a war of Islamic Jihad ideology vs. Judeo Christian Westernism. Muslims who are now the majority of Lebanon's population, support Hezbollah because they are part of the Islamic Ummah-the nation. This is the taboo subject everyone is trying to avoid. The latest attacks on Israel have been orchestrated by Iran and Syria driven by two different interests. Syria considers Lebanon a part of "greater" Syria. Young Syrian President Assad and his Ba'athist military intelligence henchmen in Damascus are using this latest eruption of violence to prove to the Lebanese that they need the Syrian presence to protect them from the Israeli aggression and to stabilize the country. Iran is conveniently using its Lebanese puppet army Hezbollah, to distract the attention of world leaders meeting at the G-8 summit in St. Petersburg, from its pursuit of nuclear weapons. Apocalyptic Iranian President Ahmadinejad and the ruling Mullah clerics in Tehran want to assert hegemony in the Islamic world under the banner of Shia Mahdist madness. Ahmadinejad wants to seal his place as top Jihadist for Allah by make good his promise to "wipe Israel off the map. No matter how much the west avoids facing the reality of Islamic extremism of the Middle East, the west cannot hide from the fact that the same Hamas and Hezbollah that Israel is fighting over there, are of the same radical Islamic ideology that has fomented carnage and death through terrorism that America and the world are fighting. This is the same Hezbollah that Iran is threatening to unleash in America with suicide bomb attacks if America tries to stop Iran from developing nuclear weapon. They have cells in over 10 cities in the United States. Hamas, has the largest terrorist infrastructure on American soil. This is what happens when you turn a blind eye to evil for decades, hoping it will go away. Sheik Nasrallah, the head of Hezbollah, is an Iranian agent. He is not a free actor in this play. He has been involved in terrorism for over 25 years. Iran with its Islamic vision for a Shia Middle East now has its agents, troops and money in Gaza in the Palestinian territories, Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq. Behind this is this vision that drives the Iranian President Ahmadinejad who believes he is Allah's "tool and facilitator" bringing the end of the world as we know it and the ushering in of the era of the Mahdi. He has a blind messianic belief in the Shiite tradition of the 12th or "hidden" Islamic savior who will emerge from a well in the holy city of Qum in Iran after global chaos, catastrophes and mass deaths and establish the era of Islamic Justice and everlasting peace. President Ahmadinejad has refused so far to respond to proposals from the U.S., EU, Russia and China on the UN Security Council to cease Iran's relentless quest for nuclear enrichment and weapons development program until August 22nd. Why August 22nd? Because August 22nd, coincides with the Islamic date of Rajab 28, the day the great Salah El-Din conquered Jerusalem. Ahmadinejad's extremists ideology in triggering Armageddon gives great concerns to the intelligence community. At this point the civilized world must unite in fighting the same enemies plaguing Israel and the world with terrorism. We need to stop analyzing the enemies' differences as Sunni-Hamas or Shiite-Hezbollah, and start understanding that their common bond in their fight against us is radical Islam. Naomi Ragen is an American-born novelist and journalist who lives in Jerusalem. She can be contacted at www.naomiragen.com, where you can subscribe to her newsletter. |
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A LIKELY OUTCOME OF THIS WAR
Posted by Marcel Cousineau, July 17, 2006. |
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Israel tried and tried and tried restraint with their enemies. And now, Israel must fight. There is a down side if you are a Jew defending himself. The world hates this kind of Jew with a passion. Already the French and others come to the rescue of Israel's destroyers. In the end the blame will fall on Israel and not the terrorist
warmongers of Hamas and Hezbollah
The reverberations already being felt around the world because Israel
had the audacity to defend itself is more hatred and polarization
against the Jews and Israel. The amoral soul's secret prayer is:
Jews are only loved when they are defenseless, dead or just taking the hezbollah, hamas attacks in an extremely restrained and defeatist fashion. The world only has pity for dead Jews and they hate it when they go after their enemies. Witness the memorials for dead holocaust Jews in many countries and the somber paying of respects by the world community in their yearly phony pilgrimages to honor the dead Jew of Hitlers holocaust. Israel, if only you were destroyed, weak, restrained, surrendering and dying by the millions, the world would love you today. So many could go back to their vain pursuits and their wine and cheese crackers and what was happening to the Jews would not cause him to lose sleep. That would be fine with them. A Beirut blogger said he kind of 'supported' Israel, but is revealing his true heart now. Sometimes it takes war to bring out what is really in people's hearts. It removes the facade and the lies behind the smiles. His balanced(?) mind now speaks about Israel using poison gas when he knows full well that it is his Syrians who aim these missiles at Israel. This Lebanese Christian with his many Hezbollah friends plots his escape to Syria. He's no longer on the fence about Israel, the facade is removed and his true heart is revealed to all. This goes for the many other flakes on the fence after Israel had the audacity to fight instead of steadily surrendering and retreating to the Satanic forces of Islam. Contact Marcel Cousineau at up2zionsg8@yahoo.com or go to his website: http://averyheavystone.blogspot.com |
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ISRAEL UNDER FIRE -- JULY 17, DAY 6
Posted by Honest Reporting, July 17, 2006. |
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LATEST DEVELOPMENTS
For the latest news see Arutz-Sheva, The Jerusalem Post, Ha'aretz and YNet. PLEASE RESPOND TO THE FOLLOWING
RECOMMENDED READING AND ANALYSIS The Washington Times w calls for Israel to be given time to complete its mission: "time to root out the weapons caches stockpiled in private homes; time to hit the rocket and missile-launching sites and terrorist training camps Hezbollah has established throughout Lebanon; and time to hunt down the jihadists in the Bekaa Valley and elsewhere whose life's work is to destroy the Jewish state." The editorial continues: "It is no exaggeration to say that, if Hezbollah is severely weakened, the biggest long-term beneficiaries will be the great majority of Lebanese -- Muslim and Christian alike -- who have seen their nation dragged into a war with Israel which they want no part of in order to serve the malevolent purposes of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Syrian President Bashar Assad. The LA Times places the blame squarely on Hezbollah: "MAKE NO MISTAKE ABOUT IT: Responsibility for the escalating carnage in Lebanon and northern Israel lies with one side, and one side only. And that is Hezbollah, the Islamist militant party, along with its Syrian and Iranian backers. Reasonable minds can differ on the strategic wisdom of the Israeli response, but there can be no doubt about the blame for the mounting death toll on both sides of the border." A number of UK newspapers have called for action against Iran, including the Daily Telegraph and Dore Gold, who argue that "Teheran is sponsoring terrorist movements on Israel's borders as part of its wider strategy of regional encirclement. As long as the mullahs go unchecked, neither Israel, nor Palestine, nor Lebanon will be secure." This sentiment is echoed by Anton La Guardia in the Daily Telegraph who notes that "Lebanon has become the battleground between pro-western and radical Islamic forces. Few governments, even Arab states, want to see Hizbollah win the contest", while the Times of London calls for international action to help Lebanon evict Hezbollah. In the same paper, Tim Hames states that "In the dreadful circumstances, Mr Olmert has been "proportionate" and "balanced", as is acknowledged by the United States and Britain and, privately, officials in Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia." The Australian declares: "If there was ever any doubt that Israel's response to Hezbollah's hail of rockets was proportionate to the threat they pose to Israeli security, it has been dispelled by attacks launched from southern Lebanon deep into Israel." SOME OTHERS
HOW YOU CAN HELP - DONATE TO HONESTREPORTING Israel's international image is extremely important, particularly during a crisis of this magnitude. Please consider donating to Israeli causes, some of which are listed below, and also forward this communique and encourage others to subscribe to HonestReporting to enable them to better respond to media bias. SOME FEATURED ISRAELI CHARITIES:
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DOES THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION CONSTRAIN ISRAEL?
Posted by David Bedein, July 17, 2006. |
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The Hizbullah has launched a war of extermination against the Jewish people in the land of Israel. Yet in terms of US policy, the question must be raised: Does the Bush administration now advocate two dissonant policies towards Israel, at one and the same time? While Bush is not communicating directly with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert at this time, the President is making strong statements to the media in favor of Israel at this time, repeatedly calling on Israel to take all necessary steps to defend itself against the Hizbullah aggression from the north. On the other hand, US Secretary of State Condeleeza Rice, the US official who does communicate directly with all levels of Israeli leadership on behalf of the Bush Administration, delivers an entirely different message. She openly implores Israel NOT to dispatch ground troops into Lebanon to knock out the 12,000 missiles now at the disposal of Hizbullah in Southern Lebanon. Rice's stated goal: a "cease fire" as soon as possible.. That would leave Israel short of its goal of neutralizing Hizbullah. After all, even though there have been over 1,000 Israeli Air Force sorties into Lebanon, the Hezbollah missiles continue to hit Israel. Israeli intelligence estimates that despite the pounding at the hands of the IDF, the Hizbullah has only lost 25% of its military capability. In other words, without a ground operation, it will be impossible for Israel to strike accurately and to actually take out these missiles, at a time when Hezbollah threatens key strategic facilities throughout Israel. There are other sources of major concern: The C-802 rocket that hit an Israeli ship on Friday was a sophisticated radar-guided weapon that comes from Iran via China. Israeli authorities were surprised: they didn't know Hezbollah had such capability. Clearly, Iran is testing the waters. Indeed, long-range Iranian supplied rockets held by Hizbullah are said to be capable of reaching the Tel Aviv area. Sources in Israeli intelligence assesses that the Zelzal-1 and Zelzal-2 long-range rockets, which can reach Tel Aviv, were moved by Iran into Lebanon to deter Israel from attacking Iran. If these rockets are fired deep into Israel, Israel will understand that this means that the government of Iran will be directly engaging in battle against Israel. What now mitigates against Israel from conducting a solid land sweep into Lebanon with the purpose of soundly defeating and disarming the Hizbullah remains the firm opposition of the person who communicates with Israel on behalf of the Bush Administration: Condeleeza Rice. If Israel does not "take out" Hizbullah and eliminate it now, this dagger at Israel's throat will be almost impossible to remove in the foreseeable future, and Israel would have to live with an Iranian menace at its northern border. Hezbollah is far from a rag-tag operation. It acts as an Iranian expeditionary force. David Bedein is Bureau Chief, Israel Resource News Agency, Beit
Agron, Jerusalem, Israel
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UNITED AT LAST
Posted by Naomi Ragen, July 17, 2006. |
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Many have asked me: How does it feel to be in Israel right now? My answer has to be this: fearful, amazing, heartbreaking and full of love and pride for our country and our people. Gone are the petty, sectarian fights. There is no religious - secular divide. There is no right-left divide. Except for a bunch of loonies who demonstrated in Tel Aviv demanding Israel negotiate with Hamas and Hezbollah, the government and the people of all political stripes have banded together in almost total unity. This is a war we didn't want. This is a war we have to win, hands down, whatever it takes. Except for a die-hard leftist here and there, like Amnon Levi, who wrote a really pathetic plea for immediate negotiations, no serious voice has been raised. And Mr. Levi got close to 500 responses of outraged citizens calling him every name in the book. In the meantime, all over the country, people are reaching out to each other. Every death, is a death in the family. Every soldier is our son. The television has a running text with people's names and phone numbers who are willing to host families from the war zone. Kibbutzim in the south have made room for the members of kibbutzim in the north, inviting parents and children to enjoy a little vacation, pool side. The immigrant absorption center in Safad, crowded with new Ethiopian immigrants who spent days squashed together in a bomb shelter that didn't even have room to move, have been picked up by Jewish Agency buses and taken to youth centers for a vacation. The television broadcasting authorities are making an effort to put on quality children's programming and good movies. There is a sense of all of us being one family, all the bitter divisions of the past years disappearing like smoke as we band together to support each other and our soldiers in a life and death struggle to reclaim our sovereignty and security. And the government, which has so far and to our great pride and satisfaction, stood fast in its decision not to stop this war before victory, has unprecedented support from its citizens. Our critics, used to immediate capitulation, are finding a new wind blowing. The International Federation of Journalists, which issued an appalling statement condemning Israel for bombing the Hezbollah television station, got the following response from Israel: Withdraw the statement, or Israel is quitting the organization for its overt support of terror. I guess all of us who have been wondering why press reports on terrorism are so screwed up now have official proof who journalists back in the war on terror. So throw out your newspapers and don't bother to listen to the radio or tv. I, sitting here in Jerusalem, have been spared the terror of kassam rockets aimed at my home. But that doesn't mean we are out of danger. Just this morning a terrorist was picked up with a bomb in downtown Jerusalem before he detonated. Baruch Hashem. Rabbis have issued a plea for people to avoid conflict, and to reach out to one another,and in this way to court God's favor. All over the country, we are carrying on our lives. As I walked through the shuk filled with people, the stands full of fresh figs, mountains of cherries, silver displays of fish, and the myriad colors of our home-grown vegetables and fruits, I thanked God for the miracles that keep our hearts strong, our minds determined, and our nation, finally, amazingly, united at last. I feel privileged to be here. Naomi Naomi Ragen is an American-born novelist and journalist who lives in Jerusalem. She can be contacted at www.naomiragen.com, where you can subscribe to her newsletter. |
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TRAGEDY OF ERRORS
Posted by Mrla 26, July 17, 2006. |
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This was written by Ralph Peters and it appeared yesterday in the
New York Post |
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THE violence that scorched the Middle East this time didn't result from a sly Iranian plot. It was the product of emotion, miscalculation, impulsiveness and folly. On all sides. Here's a sound rule in analyzing problems anywhere between Cairo and Karachi: Never ascribe to a calculated strategy what can be blamed on passionate incompetence. Another iron rule that applies to this and every Israeli attempt to strike back at Islamist terrorists is that, just when the Israeli Defense Forces really start to hurt the enemy, the world community - including the United States - intervenes to save the terrorists from destruction. Europeans have more sympathy with Iran's nuclear program than they do with Israel's attempts at self-defense. But, then, the only thing continental Europeans regret about the Holocaust is that they didn't get to finish the job. Even as Europe suffers its own attacks by Islamist terrorists, Europeans defend the selfsame terrorists against Israeli retribution. Meanwhile, the flare-up that began last week resulted from bad judgment on the part of every organization and state involved - as well as producing some spectacularly bad analysis by our herd-like media. AS soon as Hezbollah commandos snatched two Israeli soldiers from northern Israeli, we were told Iran was behind it. Utterly wrong. That raid was a Hezbollah-conceived copy-cat operation launched impulsively to piggyback on the Hamas seizure of an Israeli soldier in Gaza the week before. The Iranian government was as surprised as anyone. Iran was dragged into the mess thereafter. But - while President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad is always delighted to give we-will-bury you speeches - Iran's best interests just now are served by avoiding violent confrontations with Israel while Tehran tries to persuade the world that its nuclear program is strictly for peaceful purposes. Iran's fanatics don't just want to capture or kill six Israeli soldiers. They want to kill 6 million Jews. The Iranians were blindsided, but had to back their clients (as Germany had to back Austria in 1914). Because it offers an easy sound-bite explanation, journalists consistently misrepresent Iran's degree of control over Hezbollah, insisting that Tehran pulls all the strings. Just not true. Iran's relationship with Hezbollah is a dark mirror image of our own relationship with Israel: We support Israel, providing funds and weapons, and we can influence Israel. But we don't control Israel. Sometimes Israel surprises us - and not always happily. Iran's in the same situation with Hezbollah. Despite drawing vital support from Iran and Syria, Hezbollah has its own goals, tactics and internal dynamics. And since it was allowed to defy U.N. resolutions calling for it to disarm in the wake of Israel's withdrawal from southern Lebanon, Hezbollah has been able to build the most-effective and best-motivated Arab military, man-for-man. BUT Hezbollah got this one wrong. Whoever green- lighted the raid on Israel didn't anticipate the ferocity or scale of the Israeli reaction. Then the Israelis began to miscalculate - reacting impulsively and emotionally themselves. Attacking Hezbollah was fully justified and necessary, but Israel's frustration with the Lebanese government's toleration of terrorists boiled over into folly. Israeli aircraft attacked Beirut's international airport and other targets around the city, doing both Israel and Lebanon's fragile democracy far more harm than good. Israel hopes to pressure the Lebanese government into taking action against Hezbollah. But Lebanon's leaders can't do that. If they ordered their work-in-progress military to attack and disarm Hezbollah, some Lebanese Armed Forces units would mutiny, others would disintegrate - and any outfits that attempted to take on Hezbollah would be badly and swiftly defeated. And the action would reignite the country's dormant civil war. After the Israeli strikes in Beirut, Hezbollah then raised the stakes again by raining rockets down on Israeli cities - making it impossible for Israel to limit its offensive. The global media nonetheless portrayed Israel as the aggressor, highlighting Lebanese casualties, rather than the suffering in Israel. FOR its part, Israel picked the wrong fight by striking Beirut's infrastructure while its deadly enemies sat comfortably in Damascus. Israel should've hit Syria. It had nothing to lose and far more to gain. No matter what Israel does and no matter how many concessions Israeli governments make, its enemies prove implacable and the "global community" will condemn it. Returning Gaza to Palestinian control was a noble attempt at making peace. Fanatics made sure it failed. Likewise, withdrawing from southern Lebanon was a risky attempt at compromise and international cooperation. We've seen the rewards. The heart of the problem beats in Damascus, not Beirut. Israel should've gone for it. As for world opinion, it's saved the terrorists, time and again. Does any reader believe that the United Nations or more than a handful of its member states would act to save Israel? Israel's in a ceaseless fight for its life, and we, at least, have to stop intervening to save its enemies. THE situation in the Middle East has no good or clear solution. The struggle will continue beyond our lifetimes (unless, of course, the Iranians get their nukes). This is just the latest round, if a particularly ugly one. The ultimate amount of blood that will be shed is unknowable. But we can be certain that Israel's genocidal enemies will always be saved by the bell. Contact Mrla 26 by email at mrla26@aol.com |
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EMERGENCY RELIEF FOR ISRAEL'S SOLDIERS
Posted by Join the Boycott, July 16, 2006. |
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Help Israel fight its battles by donating to the Friends of the IDF. -- http://www.fidf.org Donations are also vital for Magen David Adom -- http://www.afmda.org/site/PageServer and for victims of terrorism. -- http://www.onefamilyfund.org The URL of the Join the Boycott is
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THE SANCTITY OF LIFE
Posted by Fern Sidman, July 16, 2006. |
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As the war in Israel enters its sixth day, we have witnessed unprecedented Katyusha rocket attacks from Syrian and Iranian backed Hezbollah militia on the cities of Acco, Nahariya, Tzfat and most recently in Haifa. CNN reports that, "In the attack on Haifa, one of the Hezbollah rockets hit a railway depot in the city's industrial zone, killing at least eight and wounding 17 others -- six of them seriously," -- Israeli medical services said. The report goes on to say that, "Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said Sunday that his fighters still have plenty of weapons and the will to keep fighting. Our fighters are ready, and they love the confrontation and have the determination to defeat," he said in a televised address in Arabic to the Lebanese people. And as we surprised [Israel] in the sea, and as we surprised them in Haifa, we will surprise them with what's beyond Haifa," Nasrallah said. He accused Israel of attacking civilian targets, while insisting that Hezbollah was patient and has aimed its rocket attacks only at the Israeli military. "The enemy does not know our capabilities," he said. "The Zionist enemy is ignorant of what we have on all levels. We are still in the beginning, and the Zionists will see." On the southern front in Gaza, CNN reporters that, "Israeli forces redeployed to Beit Hanoun in northern Gaza early Sunday to halt Qassam rocket launches, the IDF said. The Israeli military moved in after launching three airstrikes overnight Saturday to quell "terror infrastructures" in northern Gaza. At this juncture in time, the reaction of the world to this latest Middle East conflict has been cascading in at a blinding pace. According to the American Foreign Press, "Russia, France, Britain and Italy criticized Israel for its "disproportionate" use of force. It is to no one's surprise that the European Union chimed in with their own condemnation of Israel's offensive in Lebanon. According to an Associated Press report issued on 7/13/06, it states, "The European Union on Thursday criticized Israel for using "disproportionate" force in its attacks on Lebanon following the cross-border raid by Hezbollah guerillas who captured two Israeli soldiers." The EU also called Israel's naval blockade cutting off supply routes to Lebanon unjustified. Separately, EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana said he was planning a peace mission to the Middle East. "The European Union is greatly concerned about the disproportionate use of force by Israel in Lebanon in response to attacks by Hezbollah on Israel," according to a statement issued by Finland, which holds the EU's rotating presidency. "The presidency deplores the loss of civilian lives and the destruction of civilian infrastructure. The imposition of an air and sea blockade on Lebanon cannot be justified." In the EU's strongest comment on the escalating violence, the statement said "actions, which are contrary to international humanitarian law, can only aggravate the vicious circle of violence and retribution, and cannot serve anyone's legitimate security interests." And while the world and leaders of the G8 summit urge Israeli restraint and the rest of the world is busy castigating and lambasting Israel for defending itself against Hezbollah, one of the world's leading terrorist organizations, we can only sit and ponder what the world's perspective is on the sanctity of life. Let us remember that this conflict with Hezbollah forces in Southern Lebanon began on Wednesday, July 12th, with a brazen and surprise attack on an Israeli military outpost on the Israeli-Lebanese border. Katyusha rockets killed three Israeli soldiers and two were kidnapped by Hezbollah terrorists. Five more Israeli soldiers were subsequently killed as a result of a Hezbollah planted land mine. Israel immediately demanded the return of the two soldiers and since that time there has been no response from Hezbollah except for the outrageous demand of "direct negotiations" with Israel over the release of thousands of Palestinian terrorists imprisoned in Israel. We also must remember that Cpl. Gilad Shalit, is still being held captive by Hamas forces somewhere in Gaza. It should be clear to the world that while in the past Israel has agreed to prisoner exchanges with the forces of terrorism in the Middle East, this time around Israel will not acquiesce to the blackmail of the Arab enemy. Direct negotiations with the enemy and the possibility of a prisoner exchange must be ruled out as solutions. And so the world is up in arms, and has expressed shock and dismay that Israel would wage such an intense battle "just" for the release of three soldiers. The world labels the response from Israel as "disproportionate" and "unjust". This kind of response should bring the nation of Israel great comfort and hope. While the vociferous Arab enemy and the world devalues and cheapens life, we must hold our collective heads up high and continue to declare to the world in no uncertain terms, that the life of one Jew demands that we employ a bold and relentless effort to secure his release. It must be made clear to the world that the nation of Israel and the Jewish people places an incredibly high value on life, respects and reveres it, even if it is "only" one life. We must enunciate our view that it is incumbent on the nation of Israel to move mountains to save a Jewish life and that we will not be deterred by the plethora of criticism and condemnations spewed forth by a world that feels that Jewish blood is cheap and meaningless. In the end, we much prefer the world's condemnations, rather than their condolences when a Jewish life has been snuffed out. The Torah tells us that the life on one life is tantamount to an entire world. Today we are in a battle to save three worlds. Today we are in a battle to preserve Jewish life and to declare to a world predicated on callous disregard for human life, that we, the nation of Israel are indeed a different and special nation. It is a nation that places enormous emphasis on the sanctity of life. This position has been evidenced both in Gaza and Lebanon, with careful measures not to target civilian populations, even though it is abundantly clear that these "civilians" are supporters and advocates of the very terrorists that we are fighting. In Gaza, these innocent "civilians" lob grenades and bombs at Israeli troops with one hand while holding their own child in the other. The Arab enemy is well aware that the nation of Israel respects life and exploits that dear and cherished value to their own end. They interpret and perceive this respect for "innocent civilians" as a sign of weakness and surrender and capitalize on the humanity and civility of the nation of Israel. As a result, Israel has sustained an inordinate number of casualties and deaths because of the scrupulous measures that we implement to spare the lives of our ferocious and unremitting enemies. When we read of "innocent civilians" being killed by Israeli rockets, we must know that the Israeli government precedes every attack with the spreading of thousands of leaflets warning "civilians" to leave the area. We also know that the term "innocent civilians" as it applies in this latest conflict is a misnomer and an erroneous term. These people who call themselves "civilians" are rather enemy combatants, for they spare no words in praising Hezbollah and Hamas. Yet, Israel treats these members of the Arab enemy with respect and warns them of imminent attacks. So if we are deluged by the incessant and insane condemnations of the world and if we hear the hackneyed and trite expression, "disproportionate reaction" pertaining to the Israeli offensive, ad nauseum, our hearts must swell with pride and we must revel in the majesty and glory of this special and chosen nation of Israel. We must raise our voices to the Heavens and say the words, Mi K'Amcha Yisroel. Who is like your people, Israel?? We must raise our cups every week at the conclusion of the holy Sabbath and say the words, Hamavdil bein Yisroel L'Amin when we pronounce with pride the DIFFERENCE between Israel and the nations of the world. What other nation, would wage this type of battle to secure the freedom and welfare of "just" three people. For no other nation or no other leader can fully comprehend or understand the glorious respect that the nation of Israel has for the lives of its people. Let us continue to beseech the Almighty G-d of Israel with our prayers an supplications for the release of three solders of the nation of Israel and let us ask Hashem to march into battle with the nation of Israel. Concerning our enemies, let us recite the worlds of the sweet singer of Israel, King David who said, (Psalms, chapter 83), "Let them (our enemies) be shamed and terrified forever, then they will be disgraced and they will be doomed. Then they will know that You whose name is Hashem (Almighty G-d of Israel) are alone, Most High, over all the earth." Contact Fern Sidman by email at AriellaH2aol.com |
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WHO WILL FIGHT?
Posted by Rachel Saperstein, July 16, 2006. |
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Israel is being heavily bombed. City after city in the north, like Sderot in the south, is reeling from the intense rocket attacks. The streets are empty. The people of Safed, Nahariya, Carmiel, Meron, Kiryat Shmona, Shlomi and Haifa are huddled in their safe rooms and community shelters. The rockets are deadlier and far-reaching. We are glued to the television. We see families leaving their homes and moving south. The army is warning the public that even Tel Aviv in range of Hizbollah rockets. Day after day we watch the war move closer to the center of the country. We will run out of places to flee. In Nitzan, our refugee camp located between Ashdod and Ashkelon, we hear the thud of artillery. We hear the planes and helicopters overhead and the sounds of explosions from northern Gaza close to the border of Ashkelon. We worry about the people of Israel and we received a notice on our internal community cellphone asking for volunteers to go north to help our brothers and sisters with repairing damage, cleaning shelters and the like. These are the same brothers and sisters who called for our eviction, who demanded that our army cease protecting us because we were "settlers" and not worth protecting. "Our boys shouldn't have to give their lives to protect settlers" was a popular refrain. And we asked these people, "Who will come to protect you when it is your turn to be bombed and shot at? Shall we send 'our sons' to fight for you?" We see our soldiers firing artillery into Lebanon. We watch the destruction of Israeli cities. We watch the ZAKA men in bombed out ruins searching for body parts. The scenes are reminiscent of our own bombed out homes in Gush Katif. How bravely we held out. We did not run away. We accompanied our children to school each morning despite sniper fire. We went to work while Kassam rockets rained down on us. But most of the good people of Israel agreed that we were not worth protecting. We saw the future. We knew that our enemies were stockpiling more effective rockets. We saw and spoke out, but were ignored. Those who chose to ignore us are now being bombed. A friend called. Her son had been one of "our boys from Beit Shemesh", teenagers who had lived in Gush Katif and spent many a Shabbat in our home in Neve Dekalim. We talked of the war. "Rachel" she said, "Jewish history is replete with wars started on this date, the Three Weeks before the 9th of Av, our day of mourning for our destroyed temple. History tells us that, as today, the invasion began from the north. As Israel was threatened by Babylon, we sought help from Egypt. The Prophet Jeremiah said 'Do not depend on treaties with foreign governments. They will betray you.' It looks like we'll be betrayed today as well," she sighed. I cry for my country. It is bleeding and I am torn between my loyalty to my ancient homeland and my sense of betrayal by the modern state that has turned me into a refugee. Many of our men, called up for reserve duty, are torn. A good friend told his commanding officer that he would not serve: "You destroyed my home. You destroyed my farm. You destroyed my life. And now you want me to fight for you?" But most will serve. Hundreds are fleeing. Destroyed homes have now created new refugees. Businesses have closed down. Parts of the country are in flames. And we of Gush Katif go out to fight. Rachel Saperstein and her husband Moshe lived in Neve Dekalim, Gush Katif, Gaza, Israel. She was a teacher at the Neve Dekalim ulpana and a spokeswoman for the Katif Regional Council. Her recent book, "Eviction: A Gush Katif Viewpoint", with photos by Moti Sender can be ordered from www.pavilionpress.com. They now live in a trailor camp in Nitzan. |
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RECURRING JIBBER-JABBER
Posted by Women in Green, July 16, 2006. |
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This was written by Sarah Honig and it appeared in the Jerusalem Post July 14, 2006. |
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Preeminent American wit, H.L. Mencken, had no idea how right he was. The "Sage of Baltimore" died half-a-century ago, but only had he lived to see the Jewish state's latest shenanigans could he have begun to fathom how absolutely on the mark he was to observe that "no one has ever gone broke by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of plain people." Israel's plain people still lend their ears attentively to the analyses and opinions liberally purveyed by politicians who market timidity as prudence, prattling generals, self-glorified security-experts and a host of media-pundits sincerely impressed with the sounds of their voices. All the above rarely pass up the opportunity to get it outrageously wrong. Yet when their egregious blunders regularly blow up in the plain people's face, these same plain people tune in to the talking-heads' repeat performances and indeed confer renewed credibility on their recurring jibber-jabber. It's less than a year since banners and bumper-stickers everywhere alerted the plain people to disengagement's dangers. "Whoever flees from Gaza will be pursued by Gaza," these proclaimed. But the plain people were told to disregard such warnings because they came from the "enemies of peace," those loony Rightists who wanted to deprive folks of the Good Life. Retreating from Gaza and expelling 9,000 hard-working Jews will vastly improve our strategic situation, the people were assured. Escapism was too enticing to resist. Moreover, salesmen of snake-oil to the masses and their arrogant mouthpieces spared no effort to delegitimize and demonize anyone who tried to draw attention to the fraud. Mind you, this was nothing new. It was a tactic first used to great advantage by Yitzhak Rabin, the man who fell for and facilitated Oslo, triggering Israel's since-inexorable downward slide. On the first anniversary of Gaza's handover, Rabin cockily excoriated what he dubbed as "the Likud's scare stories. They promised us Katyushas from Gaza. It's been a year already that Gaza is mostly under Palestinian Authority control, and there haven't been any Katyushas and there won't be any... The Likud is simply frightened to death of peace, and this is the reason it's reacting in a truly childish manner." This mild appetizer was followed up by more pungent and acerbic offerings like calling Oslo critics "Hamas collaborators." The neo-Rabinite cheerleading chorus, dominating the airwaves and drowning out any dissonant overtones, had since made this perception the common wisdom. Anyone who heretically thinks otherwise is excommunicated from sacrosanct consensus. Typically, though, when things didn't go as the know-it-alls prescribed, it was never their fault. Take Haaretz's court columnist to the powers-that-be, Yoel Marcus. On September 28, 2001 - a year after the Israel's peace-partner and Nobel peace-prize laureate launched his bloody intifada - Marcus had the temerity to write that "few among us correctly gauged Arafat, his character, abilities and intentions... Nobody could foresee that the weapons we handed him would be turned against us, along with lethal terror and mortar fire." Did his-master's-voice incredibly manage never to encounter a single bumper sticker bearing the slogan: "Don't give them guns"? How intellectually dishonest can one get? Why not write a mea-culpa instead of the outright lie that "nobody could foresee"? People did foresee, but were disdainfully denigrated by him and his like. IN TIME Marcus became Sharon's confidant, disengagement's ardent booster and unofficial spokesman. This renders his updated cop-out all the more galling. "Escalated shelling of Israeli territory," he recently asserted, "was the last thing which Israel's peace-seekers expected with the beginning of the end of occupation and the parting from the Land of Israel dream." Really? Did "peace-seekers" truly not expect Gazan aggression? They obviously didn't listen to those of us who did expect it and didn't stop shouting so, despite all the abuse that earned us. With relentless haughtiness they dismissed us as pesky nuisances at best, if not villainous antagonists of democracy and enlightenment. Now with colossal intellectual duplicity they dare pretend that Gaza's war is a bolt-from-the-blue. The flipside of the peace-seekers' expedient sensory deprivation is the admission that their self-acclaimed omniscience is worthless. They obviously can predict nothing accurately, which should generate a great outcry from the plain people for an apology and acknowledgement of inadequacy. But instead of contrition we get more kibitzing. The demolition of disengagement's premise led only to limited introspection like that of Yaron London, who with uncommon candor wrote that "we must own up that the warnings of disengagement's opponents were validated. Disengagement didn't reduce the intensity of conflict, and despite ourselves we are forced to dispatch our army to the sites it abandoned." With well-honed verbal scalpels, avowedly leftist London surgically exposes layer after layer of misguided assumptions that uncooperative reality discredited. But London's challenge to leftist orthodoxy is so far unique and perhaps a one-off indiscretion which - considering the flack he got - he may well yet come to rue. His peers continue to congratulate themselves as unerring clairvoyants and all-wise specialists. They fill newspaper inches and crowd every broadcast studio to pompously pontificate on the nuances which distinguish Khaled Mashaal from Ismail Haniyeh, advocate that we enter into a dialogue with the better-terrorist and fortify the roofs of Ashkelon because we can't win militarily. They know best. Their remarkable record shows it. Hence the plain people - in Mencken's words with "yearnings to be instructed, edified and pulled by the nose" - mindlessly lend an ear to the supercilious babble. Too bad they're ignorant of his admonition that "no trumpeting of falsehood, no matter how virtuous in intent, can be anything but vicious." Ruth and Nadia Matar established Women For Israel's Tomorrow (Women in Green), an activist group of women based in Jerusalem. Their website address is http://www.womeningreen.org |
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WHERE'S THE BATTLE PLAN? WHERE'S THE VISION?
Posted by Batya Medad, July 16, 2006. |
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I don't think the problem is my nothing-to-brag-about Hebrew. I listened very carefully to the news and all the official spokespersons. They bragged about how hard they're pounding Lebanon and how they're counter-attacking Gaza. But that's the problem. Our army is reacting. It's letting the enemy set the pace. Think of a tennis match. Generally the player serving wins that game, since he controls that first ball, how quickly and what angle it goes over the net. The Arabs know what they want. They want us dead and gone, G-d forbid. They're not shy about saying it, and we have to listen to what they're saying in order to defeat them. And yes, we must defeat them. A friend told me a very disturbing thing. She saw a group of young soldiers and asked them to pose for her, with their finger in the air in the classic international " V for victory sign." As they began with enthusiasm, suddenly their officer told them to stop. "It's forbidden; it's political." Their faces fell, and she could tell by their body language what danger they were in. How can victory be "political?" What are the soldiers supposed to be? Mannequins? for show? Is this some sort of theatrical farce? Maybe "theatre of the absurd?" What's the point of endangering themselves if the government is just hoping to turn the clock back a couple of weeks to our former status quo? At least some people are starting to think. A TV news commentator asked why nothing is going according to the "experts'" predictions. He suggested that the military do a "bedek bayit," a very thorough "spring cleaning" in its entire military concepts and strategy. Defense Minister Peretz gave a very poorly rehearsed speech that made even less sense. The scenes on the news speak for themselves. Death and destruction. People are confused. Should they stay home or flee and if to flee, to where? Haifa never thought itself in danger. It's a city where Jews and Arabs live together. Some neighborhoods are more integrated and others less so. No one considered Tzfat to be in danger either. Neither city had shelters ready for use. Some of my neighbors are preparing to receive friends and relatives from the north, and some refugees have already arrived. We must pray for our survival and we must pray for a new leadership to take over from those holding the strings. And not only must we pray, we must also act. Passively waiting and expecting it all to come from G-d are not enough. Judaism is a religion of action; one that integrates and synthesizes the spiritual and the material. We are in Olam Hazeh, This World. We have a reponsibility to do everything we can. And then HaKodesh Baruch Hu will complete the job. G-d willing. Batya Medad lives in Shiloh. She can be reached by email at Shilohmuse@yahoo.com or visit her website http://shilohmusings.blogspot.com/ or go to http://www.shilo.org.il |
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THE LEFT'S EXISTENTIAL WAR AGAINST HAMAS
Posted by Elyakim Haetzni, July 16, 2006. |
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Kidnapping has become a national sport for the Arabs. The Hizbullah declared an open season in which the Arab is the hunter and the Jew -any Jew, from children to old people - is the prey. What was the illicit drug trap that was set for Elchanan Tennenbaum if not a hunt? And the fact is that the prey entered the trap, and the Jewish government went in after. Just as the operation near Kerem Shalom was a Hizbullah-style guerrilla action - and apparently with Hizbullah direction - so too the kidnapping trend has come from there. We captured a cell that attempted to hunt the two girls near Rachelim, who were miraculously saved. And another kidnapped young man, Eliyahu Asheri, has already lost his life. The future is ominous. Those who regularly break into homes in the Sharon region, for example, and steal the car keys from the owners' pockets as they sleep, who have been stealing everything from us over the years - from tractors to bee hives to entire barns and the laundry from the line - will not have difficulty wandering around in Israeli dress, in stolen cars, hunting lone pedestrians. Nonetheless, one must assume that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, knowing all of this and despite his declarations, will eventually fold. He'll eventually agree to a "deal" and he will turn the people of Israel into a herd of sheep from which the wolf chooses a new victim each time. The reason is, as the prophet says, "He who sows wind will reap the whirlwind." The "Now culture", of which Peace Now is just its political manifestation, is vengeful. Even now, the media is pressuring the government, hinting, asking questions, investigating day and night: What has changed? Why is Israel suddenly altering its policy and being stubborn this time? And they have already drawn the doomsday weapon: Jewish morality. The hostile media suddenly remembers "Jewish morality" and rolls pious eyes heavenward, claiming that it is a "supra-mitzvah" to redeem captives at any price. Indeed, the redemption of captives is a very important mitzvah; however, we are explicitly forbidden to pay more than "market value", so as not to encourage more kidnapping. In other words, precisely the opposite approach. Even if Olmert and company have every honest intention not to concede this time, the warped education - leftist, egotistical, short on stamina - will take its revenge. They will be forced to give in to the Golem of Now-ism, of concessions, of withdrawal, of weakness, of nihilism, of short-term calculations at the expense of the future - and they will institutionalize kidnappings. And from here to the big question. Why are the Kadima government leaders all of a sudden displaying a strong stand against the Hamas regime? No right-wing government (or what we incorrectly identified as "right") has ever expelled Hamas members from Jerusalem, or thrown Hamas "ministers" and "parliamentarians" in jail, or publicly threatened the life of the Palestinian "prime minister" - not even the criminal and murderer Yasser Arafat, who makes Ismail Haniyeh look like a saint. And no Israeli government has ever launched a military offensive that had as one of its aims deposing the Palestinian "government". Only a far-leftist in spirit must launch a war of destruction against the Hamas regime in the Palestinian Authority. You see, for a nationalist Jew, there is no difference between Haniyeh and the evil Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen), financier of the Munich Massacre. Both Haniyeh and Abu Mazen are our enemies. In fact, the regime of Fatah is perhaps more dangerous to us than the Hamas. Fatah gives the appearance of a chance for peace; whereas, Hamas insists on telling the truth - that all of them, including the "moderates" of Fatah, are intent on liberating Haifa and Jaffa. Deception is always more dangerous than the truth. Therefore, the Right did not fall out of its chair over the rise of Hamas. A nationalist Jew sees anyone who wants to take even a centimeter of his country away from him as an enemy. What difference does it make if it is accomplished by war and terrorism or by negotiation? A patriot does not give up his country even to an English lord. Therefore, the rise of Hamas to power among the Palestinians does not appear to the Right as such a big change, for even the words of peace of the leaders of Fatah are lies and their signature is not worth the paper it is written on. A nationalist Jew will define violence between us and the Arabs as war and will strive for victory. He has wartime goals, a strategy of victory that includes whatever expands, stabilizes, reinforces and entrenches our hold on our homeland. In the eyes of a nationalist Jew, war was, is and will be about the land of Israel, and how to take advantage of the momentum of Arab aggression in order to expand Jewish settlement. It is precisely the opposite among the Left. For the leftist, the Land of Israel is not a value. A value is "the good life", which he calls "peace". And if peace cannot be obtained, then at least "quiet". And for that, it is enough to "converge" into a small corner, with no need for a homeland. All that is needed is a "Palestinian partner" for the "solution" delusion. If a nationalist Jew is told that he can have the Land of Israel, but not peace, as long as the Arabs remain as they are, he will accept such a "deal". He understands that "the Land of Israel is acquired through suffering." It was for this reason that the people of Gush Katif absorbed 5,000 mortar shells with almost no complaints. A leftist - once convinced that an authentic Palestinian partner, who will not deceive him, will never be found, that there will never be peace here like there is between Belgium and Holland - will apparently reach the conclusion to simply emigrate. That is why the Left treats the rise of the Hamas regime as if it is an existential disaster. If the result of withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and northern Samaria, and the destruction of 25 communities, is a strengthening not of the "moderates", but of the rule of Hamas, then the foundation for peace, for negotiation, for coexistence crumbles. When the Left's vision collapses, with no partner, there remains no reason for them to live here. It is precisely the true Left, the innocent Left that truly believed in the possibility of good neighborliness with the Arabs on the basis of our concessions in Judea, Samaria, Gaza and east Jerusalem, and on their concession to Israel within the Green Line, that has had its world destroyed by the rise of Hamas. It is precisely this innocent lamb that all of a sudden becomes a vicious tiger in its opposition to Hamas. Aggressive tactics are aimed at bringing down the Hamas regime and returning Fatah, along with the fantasy of peace, to power. Without that fantasy, the Left is not willing to live here at all. Olmert and Defense Minister Amir Peretz would have been happy to release terrorists in exchange for the kidnapped soldiers had the Palestinian Authority been ruled by Fatah, the partner from Olso, the partner to the Road Map. What bothers our leaders is releasing terrorists to Hamas, which would amount to an admission that there will be no "peace process", but a process of concessions to extortion, of Arab war for the land and Jewish defense with no concept of why, with no purpose. All these years, I held feelings towards the Left of dislike and outrage in my heart. Today - I pity them. Elyakim Haetzni is a lawyer and former Knesset member who resides in Kiryat Arba. |
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AN APPEAL TO ACT TO SAVE ISRAEL! SERIOUS NEW INFORMATION.
Posted by Nurit Greenger, July 16, 2006. |
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Friends, the Barrage of e-mails is critical to Israel's survival?do all that you can even if ONLY reading and telling others? Israel needs time to PUSH HEZBOLLAH OUT OF SOUTHERN LEBANON and finish the job. Senator Dianne Feinstein on CNN saying that Israel needs time to create this buffer zone... We ALL AGREE! Israel is DRAINING the terrorists' SWAMP for the ENTIRE world. Father Vianni who is in Lebanon as Beirut University guest speaker says, "I now know what it is to be a hostage -- when you cannot go freely anywhere, no where to move, no proper phone and fax service?" Israel has been hostage of Hamas and Hezbollah -- time to get rid of the captures and peace will prevail. This was written by Arlene Kushner, who is an investigative reporter with Israel Behind the News. |
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I have just acquired information of a most alarming nature from the Middle East NewsLine, the most reliable of sources, regarding the situation of the war in the north. Please! spread this information absolutely as widely as possible, especially in the U.S. Send this to everyone you can, put it on your lists and websites. If ever a groundswell of response was necessary, it is now. The Bush administration is playing a good cop-bad cop routine with Israel. Bush is not taking phone calls from Olmert, but is saying positive things to the press. Sec. of State Rice is the one who is communicating with Israel, and she is putting pressure on Israel not to send in ground forces. The goal is a "ceasefire" in the next 72 hours. Unfortunately, we are dealing with a novice, confused government that is lacking the essential part of the male anatomy (figuratively this applies also to Livni) that will allow it to mount a ground war in the face of Rice's objections. If we were determined to do so, we damn well could. What is more, Steve Hadley, Bush's National Security Advisor, was in Russia two days and made a statement to the effect that the U.S. has no evidence that Iran and Syria are involved in what's happening here -- thereby making it a local Israeli issue. A local Israeli issue is precisely what it is not!! The facts: Even though there have been over 1,000 Israeli Air Force sorties into Lebanon, with airport, etc. bombed, the Hezbollah missiles continue to hit us. In fact, it's getting worse. Eight people were killed in the last attack on Haifa. Hundreds have been wounded. Residents of Tel Aviv are now warned that they may be attacked. Rosh Hanikra and the Golan have been hit. What is happening? Without a ground expedition, it's impossible to strike accurately and actually take out the missiles. Hezbollah is threating our stategic facilities and this remains a real danger. There are other sources of major concern: The C-802 rocket that hit the Israeli ship on Friday was a sophisticated radar-guided weapon that comes from Iran via China. Israeli authorities were surprised: they didn't know Hezbollah had these. This means intelligence is lacking and we don't know what else they have. The fact of the Iranian weapon makes even clearer what is well understood: Iran is involved here. Hezbollah is not a rag-tag operation, it is an Iranian expeditionary force. Israel is the canary in the mine, dealing with what the west will deal with in larger terms down the road, if no action is taken. Iran is testing the waters!! In spite of talk in the last day or two (which I had duly reported) of an IDF goal of putting the Lebanese army on the border, the IDF is opposed to this. Putting the Lebanese army on the border without taking out Hezbollah strength will be counted as a victory by Hezbollah. The Lebanese army is much weaker than Hezbollah; Hezbollah will strengthen its forces behind the lines and then come forward to attack us again. Hezbollah strength must be removed. Here in Israel, there must be pressure on the government to stay strong, stay the course, do what needs to be done to take out Hezbollah strength. This should be shared with every member of the Knesset. But even more important is pressure from inside the U.S. on Bush; he is focused on the election later this year and needs to know that American voters are watching him now!!! Please, call or write to President Bush: [*] Remind him that he promised to defend Israel if it is attacked by Iran. Ask him to communicate directly and unequivocably to the Israeli government that it has the full support of the U.S. in doing what needs to be done to take out Hezbollah strength, including a ground action. Ask him to acknowledge that our fight in Israel is also the U.S.'s fight. Ask him to oppose a ceasefire before the job is done. Phone calls are best, then letters (snail mail or fax), then e-mail. Do as you can. White House Comment line: 202-456-1111 TTY/TDD Comment line: 202-456-6213. The White House
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CLOSING IN, AGAIN
Posted by Judy Lash Balint, July 16, 2006. |
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"Will my gas mask from the last war do any good if they start sending over biological weapons?" inquires Rachel from Kiryat Tivon, a Haifa suburb, on a special Sunday afternoon call-in radio show on the Army Radio channel. "Where's the best place in the building to survive a direct hit?" asks Moshe in Karmiel in the upper Galilee. "Nothing defends against a direct hit," intones the calm voice of the Home Front Command officer fielding calls on the radio show designed to reassure an edgy public. And, "no, your gas mask from 2003 won't help in this case." On this, the deadliest day yet of the new, as yet unamed war, Israelis braced themselves for more bad news and adjusted to the new reality that left almost half the country under threat of either Kassam, katyusha or the new Hizbollah missiles with a 70 km. range. After ten Israeli civilians were killed in the north over the past two days, more than a million Israelis north of Tel Aviv were told not to go to work today and stay close to home, while tens of thousands more in the long-suffering southern part of the country endured yet another day of Kassam rockets fired from Gaza. Indeed, irony of ironies, it's the Jews in Judea and Samaria, the so-called "settlements," the "obstacles to peace," who are being left alone by the enemy today. Together with a few friends, I spent a peaceful Shabbat in another disputed part of the country--the Golan Heights, just a few miles east of Tiberias, Hatzor and Tsfat, where rockets rained down all weekend. Yes, we heard the constant thud of the missiles launched from Lebanon, but in Alonei Habashan, the Israeli community closest to the Syrian border, all was quiet and Shabbat was observed as normal in the pretty, small village. It's hard to recall that just six years ago, Prime Minister Ehud Barak was considering trading the Golan Heights for a peace treaty with Syria. The prospect of such an action precipitated one of the most successful grassroots movements in Israeli political history. Ha Am Im Hagolan (The People are with the Golan) proclaimed bumper stickers, flyers, ads and balloons all over Israel. The idea of giving away one of the country's most strategic border areas and the largest, most beautiful open space filled with 18,000 residents and dozens of productive small communities was dropped after Barak resigned in December 2000. Today, the Golan Heights, which shares a border with Syria and Lebanon, has not yet been targeted by Hizbollah. Most likely explanation is that there's nothing of strategic value up on the vast plain that makes up the Heights, plus there are a number of Druse villages scattered among the Jewish communities. Someone at Alonei Habashan even speculated that perhaps the terrorists didn't have such great control over their missiles, and were afraid that if they shot a few eastward in the direction of the Golan, one might actually overshoot its mark and land in Syria. In any event, all was quiet as we drove up the Jordan Valley on Friday, making a right at the southern end of the Kinneret. A stop at Kibbutz Ein Gev, on the eastern side of the Sea of Galilee provided a welcome refreshment break, as well as an opportunity to gaze across the beautiful blue waters at the resort town of Tiberias across the lake. Exactly 24 hours later, Tiberias was hit by at least 12 rockets, causing extensive damage to apartments in the upper part of the city. Tourists fled south in droves, as residents were left to pick up the pieces and the mayor in a TV interview, begged Israelis to return to the tourist-dependent town, "after all this is over." Up at Alonei Habashan, a busload of American 11th graders taking part in the Mach-Hach Summer Israel Program sponsored by the religious Zionist Bnei Akiva youth movement, were our companions for Shabbat. It was their first Shabbat in Israel and they celebrated it with gusto, singing and dancing and socializing as they got to know their madrichim (youth leaders) and each other. Late Saturday night, the group was told to move out of the north of Israel, and the subdued teenagers quickly packed up and piled onto their bus for the long drive down to Eilat. Walking around Alonei Habashan, a community of about 65 Torah observant families, it's hard to miss the bomb shelters that stick up every few hundred yards amidst the manicured lawns and lush flora. Close inspection reveals, however, that as in many northern communities, apart from those closest to the border with Lebanon, the concrete shelters are in a serious state of neglect. They haven't been used for years. On the drive back down to Jerusalem we learn of the latest missile hit. Eight workers killed at the main garage of the train terminus in Haifa. A few hours later, Defense Minister Amir Peretz tells the country: "None of the families of the victims should think that their loved ones died in vain.." Then he intones the now cliched and standard response that we're still waiting to have realized: "Those that perpetrated this deadly attack will pay a very heavy price." Meantime, many people in the shrinking "safe" areas of the country, like Jerusalem and Beersheva, are offering to put up families from the north for the duration of the war. "It sounds like you were born here," the Army radio anchor says to Rachel from Kiryat Tivon, who called about the gas masks. "So you know we've gone through all this so many times before. We overcame Pharoah--we'll overcome this time, too." (Visit http://flickr.com/photos/jerusalemdiaries/ for some unusual photos from Israel.) Judy Lash Balint is an award-winner investigative journalist and author of "Jerusalem Diaries: In Tense Times" (Gefen). It is available for purchase from www.israelbooks.com |
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FROM GRUNER TO GRUNER
Posted by Shifra Shomrom, July 16, 2006. |
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Dov Gruner. Ariel Gruner. Past and present merge in a surname, in an imprisonment, in a stance. Dov Gruner -- he gazes shyly at me and smiles gently. Is his smile a bit crooked? Perhaps. After all, his jaw was busted by a bullet during the Irgun Tzvai Leumi (I.Z.L.) 1946 attack on the Ramat Gan police station. Dov was wounded severely during this, his second and last attack. And the British captured him. After seven months of imprisonment he was finally brought before a military court. Did it matter that Dov had served five years in the British army, that he had served bravely and been wounded in combat? Did it matter that he'd fought with them on the dangerous Italian front? Of course not. And after the judge pronounced that Dov was to be hung until dead, the court was silent. Dov rose and proudly declared: "In blood and fire Judea fell, in blood and fire Judea will rise again." [A quote from a poem by Ya'acov Cohen, 1903, after the Kishinev pogrom]. He then spent the next 103 days in a small cell waiting to be hung. He refused to beg for clemency, and wrote to I.Z.L. leader Menachem Begin -- thanking him and saying that if he could choose again he would do the same thing. Such was Dov Gruner. Today he is a national hero. And now let's take a look at another Gruner -- Ariel Gruner. He hails from the Shomron, wears a large kippa and a beaming smile. Has been arrested and placed with hardened criminals in Shikma prison -- yet he hasn't been tried and hasn't committed any crime! That is, if you don't think that being a religious and nationalist Jew is a crime. Today he is being taken to the Be'er Sheva court in order to increase his administrative detention term. The government can imprison his body, but his spirit is free. The same spirit that brought Gush Katif evacuees last night to sing and dance in front of the Shikma prison in order to uplift him and show our solidarity. The spirit that can topple governments. The spirit that can save our land. The merging of a busted jaw and a big kippa. Shifra Shomron was expelled from Gush Katif with her family. She now lives on a Nitzan Caravilla site. |
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KASSAMS CONTINUE IN GAZA, AS DO IDF COUNTER-ATTACKS
Posted by Hillel Fendel, July 16, 2006. |
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With war raging in the north, Kassam rockets continue to fly in the Negev - eight were fired this morning - and the IDF continues its counter-terrorist offensive. Hamas Authority terrorists fired eight Kassam rockets at the Negev since this morning. Four were fired towards Sderot, including one that landed in a school and another that caused a fire. Four others were launched towards Netivot and Kfar Maimon, causing damage to a building in Netivot. Early Sunday morning, IDF ground forces began operating near Beit Hanoun in northern Gaza, as part of the ongoing counter-terror and counter-Kassam operation in Gaza. The IDF also attacked two Kassam launching cells in northern Gaza this morning, as well as a tunnel being dug by terrorists for the purpose of smuggling terrorists into Israel. The army continues to warn the PA civilian population to stay clear of combat zones. In the course of Saturday night, the Israel Air Force carried out several aerial attacks in northern Gaza, targeting two terrorist cells and a Hamas terrorist headquarters. In other war news: Around 2 PM, the day's third Katyusha wave hit Haifa, with rockets falling on elsewhere in the north as well. Rockets also hit the Golan Heights. No one was reported hurt... An Arab resident of Hevron attempted to stab a soldier today, but was stopped by soldiers in time... At least five Kassam rockets were fired at Sderot in the western Negev Friday. Hillel Fendel is Senior News Editor, Arutz-Sheva (www.IsraelNN.com). |
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IS ANYONE LISTENING TO 'BIG MUSTACHE'?
Posted by Sergio Tessa (HaDaR), July 16, 2006. |
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Our DM Perets, live on Israeli TV, has just resumed in a few words what's WRONG with our army: lack of REAL ETHICS. He reported PROUDLY of a soldier who saw in Gaza a terrorist with an RPG and did not shoot at him because the terrorist had a child by the hand. THAT IS IMMORAL. EXACTLY THE SAME BEHAVIOUR COST A FRIEND'S LIFE IN LEBANON 24 YEARS AGO. HE WAS BLOWN INTO SMITHEREENS BY A CHILD WITH AN RPG BECAUSE HE HESITATED AND DID NOT SHOOT AND SO DID HIS CHILDHOOD FRIEND NEXT TO HIM!!!! WHEN THE ENEMY'S LIVES ARE MORE PRECIOUS THAN OURS, THAT'S SICKNESS, NOT ETHICS!!! THAT IS NOT A MORAL ARMY. IT IS THE ARMY OF PULCINELLA!!!!! Contact Sergio Tessa at HaDaR-Israel@verizon.net |
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DIS-PROPORTIONATE
Posted by Emanuel A. Winston, July 16, 2006. |
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This word: "Disproportionate" has itself taken on a 'disproportionate meaning. Now, it is like a knife with only one edge, that is - to cut Israel. There are two edges to that word but the concept being used by the European Arabists is taken to mean excessive force when Israel retaliates to outrageous terror attacks by Muslim terrorists. The terror attacks are discussed as if they were minor events that should be treated with "restraint" - even sympathetic understanding. Even now, we hear first calls demanding Israel help support Abu Mazen's Fatah and then Condoleezza Rice tells Israel to "support the failed Lebanese government". The centuries have taken their toll on the Jewish people by the disproportionate use of hatred, generally justified by honoring a religion whose evolved dogma is to kill Jews. Can there be anything more disproportionate than that of the Europeans so eagerly adopting Hitler's Genocide then claiming they were forced to levels of barbaric atrocities "disproportionate" to any display of humanity. The Arab people, be they Palestinians, Saudis, Iranians, Syrians, Egyptians have all accepted Genocide not as "disproportionate" to their culture but rather the bedrock of their Islamic teachings. Even Arnold Toynbee did not dispute the Right to Life of the Jewish people. He merely expressed surprise that the Jews lasted long enough to reclaim their State and their ancient Hebrew language. The disproportion is that so-called civilized nations who themselves support nations who support terrorists with whatever reason they could find to once again justify eliminating the Jewish people from this planet. I have watched in horror the word-smiths of such journals as the New York Times, Chicago Tribune, European Media twist and squirm as they justify waging a war of terror against the Jewish nation. When they find ways to speak of the unspeakable, they find proportionality is logical, even acceptable, because the Jews did not fall in the six previous wars. Only if the Jews of Israel were wiped out, might the Europeans babble about "disproportion" as they now speak about the Holocaust. Even when the Muslim terrorists bomb England's underground commuters, Spain's trains, hijack aircraft to plow into buildings in New York and Washington, riot, burning and murders of Jews in France, 7/11 bombing of trains in Bombay, India. They ignore the savage "disproportion" but, somehow they find it is all justifiable and proportionate when directed against the Jews. When the Jews dare to retaliate, that is called "disproportionate". The Arab Muslims understand and use "disproportion" when they kidnap Jewish soldiers and then demand the release of terrorists convicted in wildly disproportionate numbers and who are now in prison for murder. Are we surprised to hear Vladimir Putin of Russia speak of Israel's 'disproportionate use of force against Palestinian terrorists' while he orders attacks against the Chechens. Israeli leaders have, in the past, released large numbers of terrorists only to have them immediately return to their vicious killing ways. Did the Europeans or Arabist Americans even bother to apologize for pressuring these releases and the subsequent dead Jews that was a direct result of their pandering to the Arab oil nations' markets. In the Chicago Tribune of July 13, the opening paragraph of an article by Megan Stack from Beirut was "Hezb'Allah has long been described as a "State Within a State". Here "disproportion" reaches new heights (or lows) as they carefully ignored Yassir Arafat's "State Within a State" which was wholly dismissed as of no matter while his Palestinian killers generated over 100,000 dead Lebanese Muslims and Christians during the course of Arafat's 12 year civil war. Arafat and his killing Palestinians set the pace for all the Palestinian people who wherever they settled immediately began to terrorize their "Host" government as a disproportionate danger to all. There were no blaring statements from America, France, England, Russia et al that Arafat's killing spree was "disproportionate" to the need. There was no need then, just as there is no need now for Islamic terrorists to disproportionately continue on their Genocidal mission merely because Allah told them so and the nations have only occasional minor objections. This is where the "Disproportionalists" switch to "Humanitarianism". Although the Palestinian people are themselves sponsors of the terrorists who they protect, feed, hide, train, pay, equip, etc., there is this idea that we must treat them with "humanitarian" deference. That they dance in the streets and hand out candy when a spectacular atrocity is accomplished, we pretend that they are "just regular peaceful folk". Yes, they also danced when the "jihadists" took down the Twin Towers and the Pentagon on 9/11 and candy was showered upon the revelers in the Palestinian cities. They screamed "Allah Akbar" (G-d is Great) but surely, as murderers they could not have been talking about the one G-d. They must still be worshipping the pagan god of the desert, Zin, the moon god, later called Allah. The desert tribes were always a murderous band, ready to attack each other, to plunder and steal each other's women. Nothing much has changed except for the improvement in weapons and explosives. The ruthlessness, the brutality is still the same as it was in the 7th century when Mohammed started the Islamic religion and butchered any tribe who refused to honor his visions - especially the Jewish tribes. Regrettably, although the Israeli Jews should know their neighbors' characteristics, they do not. They are still "disproportionately" delusional over the ability to pacify, appease and bribe the Arab Muslims into civility. Releasing terrorist prisoners for absolutely nothing has destroyed any sense of deterrence. What is there to fear when you know that sooner or later the Jews will release even the most heinous terrorist killers. Besides, even being killed contains the promise of heavenly delight according to Islamic teachings. In the meantime, the Arab Muslims have the Europeans and American Arabists babbling words like: "Disproportionate", "Humanitarianism"... all of which creates a protective curtain around any vile act they do. Emanuel Winston is a commentator and Middle East analyst. His articles appear often on Think-Israel and Gamla. He is a member of the Board of Directors and a research associate of the Freeman Center For Strategic Studies (http://www.freeman.org/online.htm). Contact him at gwinston@interaccess.com |
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UNDER THE KATYUSHAS
Posted by Steven Plaut, July 16, 2006. |
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I am writing this in between ducking in and out of the bomb shelter as Haifa is bathed by the Katyusha rockets and other missiles that Ehud Barak has now fired at the city. Why Ehud Barak? Because as Israeli Prime Minister in 2000, HE ordered the cowardly unilateral withdrawal of Israeli troops from the security zone in southern Lebanon, and so HE positioned the thousands of Hezbollah rockets on Israel's northern border. It occurred to me that now would be as good a time as any to sum up everything that has been learned about the Middle East conflict, that is, everything that the Israeli government and chattering classes refused to learn for the past two decades. 1. Nice fences do not stop missiles, rockets, and mortars.
Steven Plaut is an American-trained economist, a professor of business administration at Haifa University and author of "The Scout." He frequently comments - both seriously and satirically - on Israeli politics and the left wing academic community. His website address is http://www.stevenplaut.blogspot.com. Contact him at splaut@econ.haifa.ac.il |
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TO ISRAEL'S GENERAL STAFF: LESSONS FROM A MASTER OF WAR
Posted by Profesor Paul Eidelberg, July 16, 2006. | |
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Israel is at war. Israel's General Staff would do well to emulate George S. Patton, the general most feared by Nazi Germany. On the eve of battle, Patton would admonish his soldiers: "The object of war is not to die for your country. It is to make the other poor dumb bastard die for his." This requires confronting and killing the enemy on the battlefield. "Never let the enemy rest." No cease fires or hudnas. Unconditional surrender should be Israel's proclaimed war aim! "We want the enemy to KNOW that they are fighting the toughest fighting men in the world!" This precludes benevolence (which Arabs despise). Just as Hezbollah warriors would show no mercy to you, so you should show no mercy to them. These warriors must be killed even if this results in civilian casualties. "Forget about army regulations -- [which] are written by those who have never been in battle... Our only mission in combat Lessons From A Master of War is to win." Hence general officers may sometimes have to disobey orders of the political echelon! Patten's famous admonition, "Grab the Enemy by the nose and kick him in the pants," though simple, is profoundly significant in the war between Jews and Arabs. Israel must devastate the Arabs or Muslims from top to bottom so as to erase the Islamic arrogance that prompts them to wage war against "infidels." Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Defense Minister Amir Peretz shy from these war principles, which would require them to order the IDF to confront and kill the enemy primarily on the battlefield. Bombing the enemy's infrastructure should not obscure the importance of destroying the enemy's ground forces. The defeat of these Arab warriors must be so thorough that it will eradicate their desire to wage war for a hundred years -- the policy of the Allies powers that made militant Germany and Japan lovers of peace. Olmert will be reluctant to pursue this policy not because he is a humanitarian -- recall Amona -- but because he fears world opinion, UN condemnation, and possible sanctions. This fear cannot but undermine the General Staff and the fighting spirit of Israeli soldiers. This fear is baseless.[1] It is of capital importance that Israel's ruling elites pursue the war in Lebanon and in Gaza as a war between good and evil. They must shun the moral relativism that tainted Ariel Sharon who said, while Jews were being reduced to body parts, that he does not think in terms of "black and white." This relativism modulated Sharon's policy of self-restraint toward Arab warriors -- a policy that resulted in more than 6,000 Jewish casualties under his premiership. That Sharon did not think in terms of "black and white" indicates that he was unfit to be Israel's prime minister, especially in a war where the enemy consists of Arabs whose leaders emphatically think in terms of "black and white," and who therefore imbue their warriors (as well as civilians) with the most ferocious hatred of Israel. This hatred steels Islamic warriors. Hence the IDF will have to become a virtual killing machine to stop the killing once and for all! Israel's victory in this war will ultimately depend on whether its General Staff is animated by the profound sense of good and evil that inspired America's greatest generals -- suffice to mention, along with Patten, William Tecumseh Sherman of Civil War fame. Both generals inspired their armies with complete confidence in the justice of their cause. Yet both pursued a war strategy that actually minimized casualties on all sides. They imbued their soldiers with the will to win and in the shortest possible time. This requires the use of overwhelming force and the uninterrupted attack. The general who believes in the justice of his country's cause will not shy from cruelty against Hezbollah because it is by means of cruelty that he can shorten the war and thus minimize bloodshed. Thus, in this war between good and evil, those Israeli generals who implement the principles of war will be our greatest humanists.[2] [1] I shall show in a future article that American corporations and congressmen have a vested interest in opposing sanctions against Israel. [2] Although many deemed Patten a supreme egoist, his egoism was fired by patriotism and constrained by morality. Consider how a commander recalled a speech of Patten to his men: The General's speech -- was a little different from the movie version [Patten]. For one thing it was bloodier. He suggested ways to make the enemy suffer. And he closed by quoting part of Kipling's Recessional. At the end every man in the combat team cheered, a genuinely spontaneous cheer. And there were cries of "More! More!" The General grinned and came down the steps, entered his car, and was gone. The troops were dismissed but the excitement lingered -- Never before had they heard a general talk like that. He had made a deep impression.
Professor Paul Eidelberg is President of the Foundation For Constitutional Democracy. He can be reached by mail at 244 Madison Avenue, Suite 427, New York, NY 10016, Tel: 212-372-3752, and by email at Constitution@usa.net |
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MIVCHAN HA-TOTSA'À (MEASURING SOMETHING BY ITS CONSEQUENCES)
Posted by Sergio Tessa (HaDaR), July 16, 2006. |
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Thirteen years ago they told us: "No more blood" in that ridiculous display of disgusting science fiction in the Rose Garden in Washington where bloody hands were shaken. Three months later almost to the day, in December 1993, that surrender cost the lives of Mordechai and Shalom Lapid, and the leg of the little Betzalel, struck by "the kalashnikov bullets of peace". The disgusting directors of the same science fiction production even invented the term "qorbanot ha-shalom", sacrifices for peace, to describe the cold blooded murder of Jews by THEIR "peace partners". Since then, with the arms that the same liars gave to the terrorists, and the military grade high power explosives they allowed them to import from Sudan (Semtex) via Egypt into Gaza, MORE ISRAELIS HAVE DIED in the following twelve years than in the 45 previous years of the existence of the State of Israel. Car bombs started blowing-up since the early 1994, so-called "palestinian police" started murdering our soldiers with the Israeli given weapons since June 1994, and a few months later buses started blowing-up all over Israel. That was the beginning of the Oslo War brought onto the People of Israel by the Oslo Criminals. THAT disastrous surrender of land and power to terrorists and sworn enemies continued and even accelerated with Barak's flight from reality and flight from Lebanon. Which caused the escalation ALL OVER our land, as our enemy even had the courtesy of telling us very clearly for all those who wanted to hear rather than hiding their heads in the sand. The area was left for Hizbollah to occupy with thousands of troops and fill it with its Iranian made weapons. All the leftists that, whining the mantra "peace, peace", had pushed for our troops to run away rather than demanding the destruction of the enemy instead, or at least before, were jubilant seeing our army running away like a scared sheep with its tail between its legs. Once again they LIED and told all of us: "No more blood". We see now that - for the first time in 58 years - places like Haifa and Tsefat are receiving missiles and defenseless Jews are killed and injured, that THEY LIED AGAIN. And UNTIL WAR BECOMES SOMETHING IN WHICH THE ENEMY IS DESTROYED OR PUT ON ITS KNEES BEGGING FOR MERCY, OUR BROTHERS' BLOOD WILL BE SPILLED. They need to change the "diskette" up there: it's about time to finish the Jewish people's sadomasochistic relationship with the ghetto mentality. It's about time to learn from our REAL LEADERS: Moshe and David Ha-Melekh. NO MERCY ON THE ENEMY! If they choose to spit on us, we don't say "it rains" or even "it's not so bad". A weasel who provokes a lion gets killed! So, since in muslim culture one throws stones to dogs and pigs, it's about time to show them that we are neither dogs nor pigs. A fortiori if they throw anything else on us. End Arab occupation of the Land of Israel: Judea to the Jews, Arabia to Arabs Be'ahavath Israel -HaDaR- a Torah-wing Jew from Qiryath Arba Hebron one of those THEY call "religious fanatic, gun-toting settler" :-) =================================================== He who is merciful with the cruel, will end-up being cruel to the merciful - Kohelet Rabba 7:16 =================================================== On a visit to inter-war Berlin, Rabbi Yerucham Levovitz of Mirrer witnessed household pets dressed in pants and sweaters. He commented: "Where they treat animals as humans, in that place they will slaughter humans as animals" and he quoted the verse "Those who slaughter men will kiss their calves." (Hosea 13:2). ================================================== When terrorists kill a Jew in Erets Israel, there are two responsible parties: the terrorists and the government that allows it. - Rav Meir Kahana ================================================== THE TORAH ON WALLS AND FENCES: "He [your enemy] shall besiege you in all your gates, until the fall of the tall and fortified walls in which you trust throughout your land..." -- Deut. 28, 52 Ezekiel Chapter 13: 10 Because - even because they have led My people astray, saying: Peace, and there is no peace; and when it buildeth up a wall, behold, they daub it with whited plaster; 11 say unto them that daub it with whited plaster, that it shall fall; ============================================== "Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for dinner. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote!" -Benjamin Franklin (1706 - 1790) US Founding Father- ============================================== Every drop of Jewish blood spilled by Arab terror, is on the hands of ALL those who refuse to work for the removal of these blood-thirsty beasts from among us. They cannot say: "Our hands did not spill that blood." - HaDaR ============================================== "The question is not how can we remove the Arabs, but rather how can we not"? Rabbi Meir Kahane, ZTUQ"L, HI"D, They Must Go, 1981, p.245 ============================================== Woe unto them that call evil good and good evil. (Isaiah 5,20) =========================================== "At a time of universal deceit - telling the truth is a revolutionary act." (George Orwell) ================================================== "You declare, my friend, that you do not hate the Jews, you are merely anti-Zionist. And I say, let the truth ring forth from the highest mountaintops. Let it echo through the valleys of God's green earth. When people criticize Zionism, they mean Jews. Zionism is nothing less than the dream and ideal of the Jewish people returning to live in their own land." (Martin Luther King) =================================================== "Lots of bad editorials are better than a beautiful obituary." -an old Israeli saying from the times before "Lemmings Disease" and "Osloporosis" struck most of the country- ================================================== "The strength of the prophets of Israel lay in the fact that they proclaimed the Truth when everything was against it." - Andre Malraux - =================================================== Pacifism is objectively pro-Fascist. This is elementary common sense. If you hamper the war effort of one side, you automatically help out that of the other. (George Orwell, Partisan Review, 1942) ===================================================== "Patriotism is supporting your country all of the time, and your government when it deserves it." (Mark Twain) ===================================================== "A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and he carries his banners openly. But the traitor moves among those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the galleys, heard in the very hall of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor - he speaks in the accents familiar to his victims, and wears their face and their garment, and he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation - he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of a city - he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to be feared." -Cicero, 42 B.C.E. ================================================ "No Jew has the right to yield the rights of the Jewish People in Israel. No Jew has the authority to do so. No Jewish body has the authority to do so. Not even the entire Jewish People alive today has the right to yield any part of Israel. It is the right of the Jewish People over the generations, a right that under no conditions can be cancelled. Even if Jews during a specific period proclaim they are relinquishing this right, they have neither the power nor the authority to deny it to future generations. No concession of this type is binding or obligates the Jewish People. Our right to the land - the entire land - exists as an eternal right, and we shall not yield this historic right until its full and complete redemption is realised." -David Ben Gurion - at the Zionist Congress in Basel, Switzerland, in 1937 Contact Sergio Tessa at HaDaR-Israel@verizon.net |
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FACTS YOU MUST KNOW AND SHARE WITH OTHERS
Posted by Healthin, July 16, 2006. |
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Dear Friends: PEACE WILL HAVE A CHANCE ONCE WE RECOGNIZE THE TRUE FACTS !!! AND ACT TO STOP THE INCITEMENT, THE PROPAGANDA AND THE TERRORISTS!!!
Contact Healthin at healthin@pol.net |
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IN THIS TIME OF CRISIS, DO NOT FORGET THE GUSH KATIF EXPELLEES!
Posted by Buddy Macy, July 16, 2006. |
With the security crisis Israel now faces, it is likely that many charitable individuals and organizations will once again ignore or forget about the Jewish refugees from Gush Katif and northern Samaria. Ironically, the actions taken against our Israeli brethren last August are responsible for the current war in Israel, Gaza and Lebanon. And, even more ironically, many of the expellees who were ostensibly moved to areas of safety, are now suffering rocket attacks in their "new" temporary homes in Ashkelon and the Negev! It is critical at this time of heightened concern for the welfare of all Israelis, and especially all those injured during the attacks and all Israeli military personnel, that we continue to support those who have suffered tremendously for more than 11 months. The expellees would be grateful for your financial assistance. Please send your most generous of gifts to: Friends of Gush Katif
To donate by credit card, please go to: www.katifund.org. When filling out the simple donation form, please type, "We Give Generously" in the "Comments" section. Friends of Gush Katif is a registered 501(c)(3) charity. A special thank you goes out to the wonderful contributors from Philadelphia. For more information about the campaign, or to offer your welcomed assistance, please call toll-free: 800-BUDDY-NY (800-283-3969) from the U.S. or Canada. Outside North America, please call: 973-785-0057. Thank you so much for your help.
Forward this email to everyone on your list! Please pray for the safety of all Israeli military personnel, civilians and visitors.
Contact Buddy Macy at vegibud@aol.com
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ONE SLICE AT A TIME...
Posted by Arlene Peck, July 15, 2006. |
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My mother, Queen Mollie, once told me when I was a kid, "There are four words I want you to take out of the English language. Those are 'ought,' 'should,' 'fair,' and 'equitable' cause, darlin', life isn't always the way it oughta or shoulda be." For sure, it's rarely fair or equitable. I first noticed this when I was in Beirut in June of '82 with the Israel Defense Force as a journalist. I went over there as a typical nave American thinking that we would see some fighting. However, it did not take me long to realize that the Islamic mentality that with which we were dealing was founded on terror. Their version of fighting was sniper warfare and bombing. It goes along with their mentality that I was told is based in the Koran: that the way to defeat an enemy (and, let there be no mistake, this barbaric mentality lives by the attitude that the death of everyone who is not one of them is necessary) is to strike, one slice at a time. One slice may not harm their quarry, but after 2,000 slices, they leave victorious. That has been the method that they have been using against my government in Iraq with their constant roadside bombings and land mines. It matters not that our soldiers arrive there as mean, lean fighting machines; they almost never see the enemy. The enemy slinks in the background with their heads covered in black like the roaches that they are. By the way, what is that all about? They remind me of the old KKK who walked around in dunce hats. Anyway, this savage enemy never fights in a fair or equitable manner or the way they oughta or shoulda. Israel, as it is well known, though not acknowledged by the E.U., U.N. and much of the mainstream media, has been living under a barrage of "one slice at a time" from a multitude of surrounding enemies who regularly lob Katushas and Kassams across Israel's border. The world is and has been aware for many years of this deplorable situation that Israel has been forced to live under. Yet, the hatred for the Jewish state is so great that it has become "normal" to expect Israel to adhere to a different standard of behavior than that is expected of the terrorists who attack them. The EU, UN and all the Arab and Muslim states do what they always do, call for and get another emergency session to condemn Israel. Enough of worrying about what the EU, UN and the rest of the anti-Semites think or the pressure they exert. I sometimes think that they are still wistful that they were not able to finish the job under their watch in the 40's. Each condemnation, in my opinion, furthers their effort to rectify what they started; sort of on-going sour grapes for having started something they could not finish. Worse, in the usual pattern, whenever Israel is on the verge of real victory against their many enemies, my President and State Dept. begin to send the message: "show restraint." For some reason, it is OK for us, when attacked, to go and bomb the hell out of whomever we think caused the attack. Yet, when Israel does the same, we sabotage their effort. This time, though, Israel must stay strong and finish the job! And, they must not take any prisoners to be later used as a concession in yet another one of those mass releases of jailed murderers. The terrorists should be killed...period! In fact, these terrorists, when caught, should be buried in nameless graves alongside and hugging a very large pig so they can't be made into martyrs. There should be no terrorists left so that Israel can't be forced to open the jails at a later date in order to trade them. These are not soldiers that we are fighting in Iraq. Nor are they soldiers who are bombing the homes and schools in Israel. The Geneva and Hague Conventions do not apply to these savages who roam the streets wearing masks and shooting guns in the air while trolling for someone to kidnap and behead. Normal rules don't apply. The Islamic culture has never abided by the rules of war... or peace and their word means nothing. It never has. What is the point of a settlement with those who live by a religion that encourages them to lie or instructs them that any agreement made with the infidel can be broken whenever it is convenient to do so? Israel has learned a lesson that we, in the United States, have not yet realized. Iran signed the nuclear nonproliferation treaty and now? They expect bribes to keep their word; and even if they get the bribes, they won't live up to those commitments either! They do understand: kill rather than capture. Especially when it's their Imams who preach this hate and their leaders who carry out the orders! Our country has not learned that this is a religion of terrorists that will live in a heavily civilian population and explode their rockets and grenades, within their neighborhood, aiming to kill and maim our soldiers. Then, once out of ammo and surrounded, they run out waving a white flag with the number of their local CAIR in their pocket to call and demand their release because they has been 'abused." Israel understands that this vermin doesn't deserve legal status. Since the United States had conferred legal status upon these terrorists, they live in our prisons better than they've ever had it in their caves, with three hot meals and a cot to sleep in. So, now Israel understands the enemy and must be allowed to do what has to be done; with help, preferably, from the rest of the world - that will never come. But, they must not be forced by those who do not wish them well, to abide by the rules of war that do not apply to these barbarians. Nor should the US be forced to apply such rules in Iraq, as we are not fighting an army but terrorists. Instead of George W. Bush standing strong against our common enemy, he has made it known that fifty million in our tax dollars will be sent to the Palestinians as "humanitarian aid." Moreover, Bush has promised the president of Lebanon that he would begin to restrain Israel from causing them any more damage to the Lebanese government or infrastructure. Gawd...what message does this send to Hezbollah, Hamas, Iran, Syria and the rest of those ghouls? Would he do that if New York were being attacked by hundreds of rockets on a daily basis as the Jewish state has been? Of course not! What kind of leadership is it when our government knows that the ties between Hezbollah, Teheran and Damascus are well documented? Correct me if I am wrong, but Israel is now fighting Hezbollah, which has headquartered itself in Lebanon. They are our mutual enemy yet the press reports, "For now, Bush is letting Israel defend themselves." Why are we not doing more than "letting Israel defend themselves?" For once, I truly hope that Israel remembers its objectives and sticks to them. I have written many columns about transfer. Now would be the perfect opportunity to be rid of the enemy from within. They are well on their way toward eliminating the terrorist leadership in the PA and targeting the political terrorists who head the new Hamas government. However, this is NOT enough! No matter what pressure is placed upon Israel's leaders, the tolerance for terrorism has to be zero. The Arabs who stand on the rooftops in Israel, dancing and passing out candy after every Israeli Jewish death, have no business living there. Their citizenship and voting rights should be revoked. None of them has any business being part of the government of the Jewish state as they are now serving in the Knesset. It is not their place to decide the map of Israel and I believe that immediate annexation of all territory in Judea and Samaria that is strategic and religious should be done! For years, this "peace for pieces" philosophy has been chopping Israel up like salami. Now is the time to correct that. The Arab community in Israel has been given a free rein in building and lifestyle. Transfer should be encouraged by strict enforcement of tax payments and force them to apply and pay for building permits, something a great many do not do today. Those that have been built without them should be torn down. And, they are allowed to avoid national service requirements. To be considered Israeli, Israelis must serve the nation in various ways, the same as the other citizens of Israel. Those that need financial help in moving to any of the other twenty-two nations of their Arab brothers should be helped. Which reminds me, where are these same Arab brothers now in their offers to come to their aid? Instead of the United States sending fifty million of my tax dollars, let the grossly wealthy Arab states chip in. Poll after poll tells us that the Islamic community, especially those in Gaza, not only supports the homicide bombers by a large margin but also the destruction of Israel. These are the same Arabs who are living inside Israel; only the address is different. The only thing they agree on is how to recruit, finance, train, transport their bombs and murder Jews. That they do in a collective manor. When Israel refuses to hire them or support their livelihood... Israel is accused of "collective punishment." The time has come to destroy them... not just punish them.... The anti-Israel Los Angeles Times quoted a Hezbollah guard who was gloating how many hundreds of their followers were standing out of their offices begging to become martyrs in "suicide missions". He was quoted as saying, "This is the difference between us and them; They fear death and love life. We are believers in another life, and we welcome death." Folks, it's time to give them what they want! Arlene Peck is an internationally syndicated columnist and television talk show hostess. She can be reached at: bestredhead@earthlink.net and www.arlenepeck.com |
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CNN PORTRAYS PHONY SUFFERING
Posted by Barry Shaw, July 15, 2006. |
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I have just watched Ben Wederman of CNN walking the streets of Gaza, and portraying a picture of phony suffering. This was a typical piece of false and manufactured reporting. The streets were calm and peaceful. Ben Wederman failed to mention that. Instead, the camera concentrated on as pile of bagged garbage as Wederman tried to make the point that the Palestinian Authority did not have the money or equipment to collect it. My reaction was that they should have started nation-building six months ago, when Israel pulled out of the Gaza Strip, rather than turn the place into a terrorist launching base. The Palestinian people would have been better served if their leaders (Hamas and Fatah) had begun building the infrastructure of a new and better society rather than launch hundreds of Kassam rockets at Israeli towns, and then turn to hostage-taking, rather than garbage collection. Then Wederman pointed to a generator that was parked across the road. He made a point that, since Israel had knocked out a Power station, the Palestinians are without electricity and, he stated, the storekeepers only operate at night by candlelight. He then walked into a store to interview a man. I was struck by a shop well lit by many fluorescent lights merrily lighting the store. Wederman failed to mention that Israel had resupplied electricity to Gaza, and was also supplying the Palestinians with water. This blatant and false piece of reporting must be condemned, and Ben Wederman should be censured by CNN. Barry Shaw made aliyah from Manchester, England, 25 years ago with his family. He now runs a real estate office in Netanya. He writes the "View from Here" columns from Israel. To sign up to receive his emails, contact him at netre@matav.net.il |
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IF YOU DO NOT THINK IT IS THE BEGINNING OF WWIII, THINK AGAIN.
Posted by Nirit Greenger, July 15, 2006. |
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The Muslim world MUST listen! Hatred gets you nowhere! As always, David Horowitz has a great analysis of the current war in Israel. If you do not think it is the beginning of WWIII, think again. This is called "Moment of Truth" and it appeared in Front Page Magazine (www.FrontPageMag.com) July 14, 2006. |
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Americans need to take a hard look at what is going on in the Middle East, because it provides the clearest picture possible of the war we are in. On one side are al-Qaeda, Hamas, Hizbollah, Syria and Iran and their allies: Russia, France, Greece, and the UN majority. On the other is the only democracy in the land of Muslim and Arab terror. The origins of this front in the war on terror are crystal clear: the desire of the Muslim terrorists -- the elected majority among Palestinian Arabs and the occupying Shi'ite army in Lebanon, backed by Syria and Iran -- to destroy Israel and push the Jews into the sea. The war reveals the impossibility of a Palestinian state and the necessity of a civilized occupying force in a region that is populated by a people who have been terminally brainwashed into an ideology of hate, which makes their self-government a crime waiting to happen. There were 10,000 Jews living in Gaza until recently. They were so creative that while representing less than one percent of the population they accounted for 10% of the entire gross national product of the country. Productive and law-abiding as they were, their existence in Gaza required Israeli army presence to protect them. So uncontrollable is the genocidal hatred of Palestinians for Jews (more than a million Palestinians on the other hand live peacefully in Israel enjoying more rights than any Arabs or Muslims living in their own countries ). The Israeli army in Gaza was also necessary to prevent genocidal Palestinians Jew-haters from lobbing rockets into Israeli schoolyards. Eventually, the Israeli leadership made a decision to capitulate to Arab Jew hatred and uproot the Jews living in Gaza, and to withdraw the forces that protected Israel from being attacked by Arab criminals. In the months that followed, the Arabs did nothing to improve their new homeland, which they now controlled completely. Instead, they elected genocidal terrorists to govern them. They destroyed the horticulture industry the Jews had created and that provided 10% of their GNP. They lobbed 800 or so rockets into Israel. During all this mayhem no word of condemnation for the Gaza aggressors came from the UN, France, Russia and the rest of the Jew-hating, terrorist-appeasing and terrorist-supporting international community. Consequently, the Hamas army command, based in Syria, authorized a further aggression -- a tunnel into Israel and the kidnapping of an Israeli soldier. For good measure, Palestinians in the West Bank executed an 18-year old Jewish hitch-hiker for the crime of being a Jew. Still no condemnation of the Palestinians from the Jew-haters in France, Russia and at the UN. This support encouraged Iranian-sponsored Hizbollah to initiate another aggression, this time from the north. The goal of the United States and Israel and all freedom-loving and
civilized people in this war must be the destruction of the Hamas and
Hizbollah leadership, their military infrastructure and capabilities.
If there was a UN worthy of the name, it would expel Syria and Iran
from its body, and send a Security Council armed force to the West
Bank and Gaza to institute an occupation whose duration should not be
less than a generation. During this occupation, the hate schools of
the West Bank and Gaza should be revamped so that the children of
Palestinian Arabs are taught basic rules of civilized behavior --
tolerance instead of ethnic and religious hatred, condemnation of
suicide bombers instead of reverence for them as martyrs, and such
common decencies as regarding monsters like Samil Kuntar, a
Palestinian terrorist who took a father and child hostage and smashed
the child's head against a rock
The world will not be a safe place or a decent one until the present regimes in Gaza, the West Bank, Syria and Iran are gone. This is a war all Americans must support. Contact Nirit Greenger at 4nuritg@gmail.com |
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THE REAL CRISIS IN THE MIDDLE EAST
Posted by Nurit Greenger, July 15, 2006. |
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Unfortunately, destroying Hamas and Hizbollah isn't sufficient. To be secured, the Hamas and Hizbollah backers -- Iran and Syria -- must fall for Israel, in short, and the world, at large. If Israel manages to quell Hamas and Hizbollah, which under any circumstance will not be an easy task, Iran and Syria will find other avenues to strike at Israel and certainly the West too. A greater war involving these menacing Islamic states may be the only chance at peace for both Israel and the entire non-Islamic world. As you well know, a Judeo-Christian war with Islam -- no politically correct Westerner wishes to describe as such -- has been brewing quickly and steadily. Given how manically determined radical Muslims are to wage war with and destroy the West, maybe the timing of this most recent Middle East escalation is the straw that will break the camel's back. Even though it isn't a good situation, as many casualties will arise; maybe that's not the worst possible scenario after all. However, it's surely better that some non-Muslims are proactive and risk their lives now in order to quash the fanatical Islamic regimes sponsoring all the terror than for many countless people to die senselessly in the future if the conflict were to initiated by these same regimes at a time when they are much more heavily armed with nuclear weapons and whatever else. We shall soon see what ultimately happens. Contact Nurit Greenger at 4nuritg@gmail.com |
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LITTLE WOMEN
Posted by Angela Bertz, July 15, 2006. |
| The other morning, Sky news, in its infinite wisdom asked the following $65,000 question; "How can the international community stop the fighting". My initial reaction was that this had to be a trick question, as something so trite didn't warrant the dignity of a reply. In fact after mulling it over for a few minutes I came to the conclusion that it served as much purpose as asking whether it's worth shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted. That is, until I suddenly realized the parody between the international community and the ever worsening situation in this region, was in no small part caused, by them. For years, not only did they leave the stable door open, but let the horses bolt with their blinkers firmly in place. The international community and its mostly blinded views on Israel can be summed up by three momentous events and the very ad nauseam views of three very different little women. Almost 60 years have passed since November 29th 1947 when the United Nation passed resolution 181 calling for an Arab and a Jewish state in what was then Palestine. The Jews were jubilant. Haj Amin Al-Husseini who was the Mufti of Jerusalem summed up the Arab response very eloquently "I declare a holy war. My Moslem brothers, murder them all." A few months later on May 14th 1948 the State of Israel was born and as part of its declaration, offered, not only equal citizenship to its Arab residents, but extended the hand of friendship to all it neighbors in the hope of establishing "bonds of cooperation and mutual help with the sovereign Jewish people settled in its own land." The Arabs had already rejected the offer of their own homeland and Azzam Pasha, the Secretary General of the Arab League declared "This will be a war of extermination and a momentous massacre which will be spoken of like the Mongolian massacres and the Crusades". In fact Israel barely had time to celebrate its newly founded statehood before it was attacked by five Arab States, Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, Iraq and Jordan, none of whom had any inclination towards mutual cooperation. Almost 19 years later to the day an ominous sequence of events took place. Between May 15th-22nd Egypt moved its troops into the Sinai, expelled UN peace keeping forces and shut the Straits of Tiran to Israeli shipping. By the 25th five Arab states, urged by Egypt, had yet again mobilized their troops on Israel's borders. It was seen as an open act of hostility and President Nasser soon made their intentions known "Our basic goal is the destruction of Israel." Although Israel fired the first shot and has often been unfairly accused of starting the hostilities, war correspondent and since then staunch supporter of Israel, Winston Churchill Jnr (grandson to the former British Prime Minister) made Israel's situation clear when he said "Like the cowboy of the old west, Israel did not wait for its opponent to fire. It saw the glint in his eye." Within six days Israel not only emerged victorious but remained true to its original charter and was prepared to negotiate over captured territory. Four months later at the Arab conference in Khartoum they issued the following statement. "No Recognition of Israel, No Peace with Israel, No Negotiations with Israel." In December 1981, Marxist activist and star of stage and screen Vanessa Redgrave did not even have the good grace to call the now very established sovereign state of Israel by its official title, telling a reporter from the Arab Perspective that "The Zionist state is the cause of conflict and violence in the Middle East." Twenty three years later in 2004 this fading and mawkish movie star was back in the region acting as a Goodwill Ambassador for UNICEF. Adding to her substantial talents as an actress and her uncanny knack of deciphering in-depth political analysis; she was now an expert on walls and used Israel's capital city to vent her one sided criticism of its construction. It didn't end there. Ms. Redgrave went on to astound the medical profession with her intimate knowledge of anatomy. Following a propaganda filled trip to the West Bank, her seemingly unquestioning mind came back with unsubstantiated, yet apparently true tales of how Israeli soldiers were using the skulls of Palestinian children for target practice. In July 2004 a second British woman was at the centre of yet more travesty. This time that den of iniquity, the United Nations, was at the centre of it all. It managed to stoop, even by its own appalling standards when it comes to fair-mindedness towards Israel to an all time low level of hypocrisy. The Hague which houses the organizations "kangaroo" court sat in judgement of Israel's security barrier, voting unanimously (14-1) against its legality. It apparently considered the inconvenience of Palestinian farmers of more consequence than the lives of Israel's civilian population who had been targeted by more than 100 homicide bombings and thousands more attacks of terrorism. Judge Higgins, of Great Britain, went as far as to make an absolute mockery of Israel and what it stands for, by declaring in her sanctimonious report that "Since 1948 Israel has been in dispute, first with its Arab neighbours (and other Arab States) and, in more recent years, with the Palestinian Authority." Almost a year later this doltish duo turned into a trio as it welcomed Sue Blackwell into it ranks. Instigator of the April 2005 AUT boycott ban of Israeli academics, Ms Blackwell turned up at the organization's conference draped in a Palestinian flag and surrounded by keffiya clad goons from the dubious Palestinian Solidarity Campaign. To drum home her case for a boycott and to show her overwhelming support towards the poor plighted Palestinians, leaflets were handed out branding Zionism as a racist ideology and accusing Israel of "ethnic cleansing". She managed like her two counterparts to express yet again her total ignorance of the conflict "From its very inception, the state of Israel has attracted international condemnation for violating the human rights of the Palestinian people and making war on its neighbours." These three little women, comprising as they do of a fading terrorist apologist movie star, a simpering neo-Nazi university teacher and a member of the legal profession, who would be hard put to judge anything more innocuous than an overgrown marrow in a tiny farming community in any of England's pretty Shire counties, tragically typify a pretty diverse section of the so called international community. These women and their ilk comprise of anything and everyone from the BBC with its sloppy correspondents weeping buckets for the ailing Arafat, yet barely had a word for his policies that left more than a thousand Israelis dead, to his lovely pampered wife Suha living nowhere near a sewer in Gaza, but in the lap of luxury from the proceeds of Norwegian government aid money thousands of miles away in Paris. Since the start of the Palestinian Intifada (uprising) in 2000 we have witnessed ad nauseam the worlds media spend approximately five minutes with a tear filled eye for Israel. Its victims are rarely portrayed in any other light than a statistic, certainly not as victims of terrorism, but in contrite terms popularized by the media of being bona fide targets of Palestinian militants, activists or resistance fighters as if this gives them some sort of legitimacy and turns them into brave romantic heroes. The ensuing diatribe usually follows a distinct pattern of painting Palestinians in the never ending light of hapless victims, with stern faced reporters shaking bemused heads and coming up with asinine comments like "The Palestinians are no match to the full might of Israel" as if this gave them some moral right to get on a bus strapped with explosives and blow up innocent Israeli children on their way home from school. So yes Sky news were right to ask the seemingly useless question of what can the international community do to stop the fighting, however they should have rephrased it and asked what they could have done to have prevented the fighting in the first place. The obvious answer is had their even been any real effort from the media, the UN, EU, US and any number of misinformed foreign governments to lay blame on those that preach hatred 24/7 and whose policies of denial have demonized a whole generation of poor Palestinian children, not to long for the smell of flowers planted in there very own state, but to crave for the stench of blood and the pride of their mothers. Maybe if the international community had ever taken off their blinkers and criticized those policies, instead of constantly parroting the Palestinian party line of blaming Israel for all the ills in the region, we would not be witnessing the terrible events that are now unfolding around us and causing the death of many innocent people on all sides of the border. Still it would seem that like the unbolted stable door the international community really does behave like horses; you can certainly take them to water but you can't make them drink, or in this case you can tell them the truth but you can't make them print it. Contact Angela Bertz at angela03@netvision.net.il |
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AN OPEN LETTER TO EHUD OLMERT FROM THE LEBANESE FOUNDATION FOR PEACE
Posted by Unity Coalition for Israel, July 14, 2006. |
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This comes from the Lebanese Foundation for Peace. The Lebanese Foundation for Peace and the American Congress for Truth represent the sentiments of millions of Lebanese who know that they and their country have been held hostage to Hezbollah terror and intimidation, mass murder and threats of more of the same. This was sent by Ziad Abdelnour, the CEO of Blackhawk Partners in NYC. He is active in the Lebanese-American community. |
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Your Excellency, Dear Mr. Prime Minister, It was about time, We Lebanese congratulate you on your recent actions against the Hezbollah terrorist infrastructure in Lebanon. We urge you to hit them hard and destroy their terror infrastructure. It is not Israel who is fed up with this situation, but the majority of the silent Lebanese in Lebanon who are fed up with Hezbollah and are powerless to do anything out of fear of terror retaliation. Since Israel's forced withdrawal in 2000, pulling out due to pressure from the Clinton Administration, Hezbollah has not for one day ceased its terror incentives, acts of war and provocations at the border. Hezbollah, with the help of Syria and Iran, turned Southern Lebanon into a terror base supported by 12,000 Iranian missiles threatening every initiative for Peace in general and the security of Israel in particular. Unfortunately, the West should have understood from the beginning that diplomacy does not work with terrorism, neither the Saudi backed initiatives in Lebanon, it enforces terrorism and acts like a booster for Hezbollah justifications on the ground. The Lebanese are trapped within their own nation. We urge you not to hit Lebanese infrastructure, Lebanon is a friendly country, rather hit and destroy Hezbollah's infrastructure in the country. The IAF raids on suspected Hezbollah strongholds will have a limited effect on this terror organization; an infantry offensive is needed to clean up Southern Lebanon from the threatening missiles and launching bases, destroy Hezbollah infrastructure and consolidate security. On behalf of thousands of Lebanese, we ask you to open the doors of Tel Aviv Ben Gurion airport to thousands of volunteers in the Diaspora willing to bear arms and liberate their homeland from fundamentalism. We ask you for support, facilitations and logistics in order to win this struggle and achieve together the same objectives: Peace and Security for Lebanon and Israel and our future generations to come. As of the fighting continue in the north of Israel in order to create security, at the Lebanon Israel border, we ask the world's nations to endorse your political action and wish you full success in your deterrence against terrorism's autonomy in Southern Lebanon and Gaza. Mr. Prime Minister, Help Lebanon in order to help yourself. The Unity Coalition for Israel (http://www.israelunitycoalition.org) is "the largest worldwide coalition of Jewish and Christian organizations, with more than 200 groups representing millions of people dedicated to Israel. Though we have many different backgrounds, we have one common goal: A Safe and Secure Israel." "Israel is not just a Jewish issue. Millions of Christians resolutely endorse the principle of peace with security for the state of Israel. Because we work closely together and speak with a united voice, our message is being heard!" |
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ISRAEL MUST CRUSH HER ENEMIES!
Posted by Lawrence Uniglicht, July 14, 2006. |
| The early 1990s Gulf War foretold the genesis of a new power equation within the dysfunctional Middle East. The secular Sunni Islamic regime of ruthless thug Sadist Hussein was, in effect, neutered by subsequent sanctions, thus rendered impotent to continue neutralizing the fundamentalist Shiite Islamic despotic Persian regime next door. Saudi Arabia, petrodollar guarantor of the American economy forced the issue, fearing the imperialist Hussein might attempt to invade that Wahhabi infected Islamic monarchy. What else might Bush Senior and coalition forces do but emasculate a tyrant who overplayed his hand by entering oil-rich Kuwait? The final curtain was drawn on Hussein's empire in 2003 when Bush Junior's American troops and allied armies preemptively broke an already flimsy seal, completely freeing the pernicious genie from its bottle, throwing Iraq into a chaotic uncivil war on the road to fundamentalist Shiite domination, thus enhancing Iran's growing sphere of influence and egomaniacal delusions of grandeur, embodied in a venomous vision of an intolerant "infidel bereft" neo-Ottoman empire throughout the Middle East and Europe. Exponentially growing fossil fuel revenues, ironically extorted from "infidel" Eastern and Western industrial nations, substantially contributed and contribute to Iran's ambitions, indeed proving that presumable civilized societies can be their own worst enemies. U.S. Secretary of State Condi Rice, former zoning commissioner of Ma'ale Adumim, suggests that Israel, in survival mode, ease up on presumed disproportionate responses to, in fact, unprovoked attacks by Iranian underwritten Hamas and Hezbollah fulminating Islamic fanatics near the Gaza and Lebanese borders respectively. Rice, not having dabbled in the medical field, fails to realize that in a metaphorical sense, too little antibiotic will not expunge but will in fact exacerbate an insidious bacterial or in this case fundamentalist Islamic infection. At least America's U.N. Ambassador John Bolton, a true supporter of the besieged Jewish State, correctly and courageously exercised veto power against a Security Council resolution blasting Israel for "disproportionate use of force" calling for Israel to "halt military operations, release Palestinian prisoners, restore fuel supplies, and replace power plant equipment", not at all mentioning Gilad Shalit in its one-sided set of demands. Indeed, Israel is never right and Islamic jihadists are never wrong in a Kofi Annan led disgraceful organization purporting to support humane causes, yet unable to propose more than lip service even to ongoing genocide against Black Africans, by Arab savages, in the Darfur region of oil-rich Sudan. Did I mention Arab and oil-rich in this observation? Do such factors override everything else within a "world classless" institution grossly manipulated by so many pompous jackals disguised as Ambassadors? Currently, it is more than obvious that the widening conflagration between Israel and her fundamentalist Muslim enemies is primarily due to the latter's perception of a weakened Jewish State, encouraging those Muslim maniacs to attack and abduct Israeli soldiers, rightly believing any substantive retaliation would be met with worldwide condemnation, wrongly believing that a further weakened morale distraught Israel would back off, releasing Arab criminals, with tail between its wobbly legs. Israel's erstwhile retreat from Lebanon strengthened Hezbollah's will to destroy its sworn Jewish infidel enemy, Israel's perceived retreat from Gaza strengthened Hamas' will to destroy the same sworn Jewish infidel enemy. Such Islamic radicals only think in terms of strength and weakness when it comes to Jews/Israel. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and wise Israeli leaders know this. There must be no negotiations! Israel must relentlessly pursue and crush those that yearn to destroy her! Those nations underwriting radical Islamic extremists, enriched by extorted burgeoning fossil fuel revenues, must also be punished! Any unfinished business will only fester and grow, creating even more onerous problems for another day. Israel, with or without allies, will be the master of her fate, the captain of her soul. Let us hope Israel buries those only obsessed with burying her, for her sake and the sake of civilized mankind! Lawrence Uniglicht is a career civil servant, working for the Social Security Administration. He advocates for the State of Israel with an American perspective. He writes, "Advocating for the disrespected underdog has been my passion, no doubt Israel falls into that category." Contact him by email at luniglicht@snip.net |
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SAFED WAR UPDATE
Posted by Sandy Rosen-Hazen, July 14, 2006. |
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THANK YOU to all who have so thoughtfully telephoned & e-mailed us.....we really appreciate your concern and your wonderful prayers for us!!!! Below is the latest update from here.....also, a photo of some of the devastation here in Safed, is attached!!!! Yes, the rockets are continuing to hit us, now..... Love always,
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Fri., July 14, 2006 Tamuz 18, 5766
A woman and her 5-year-old grandson were killed, and four others were injured, when a Katyusha rocket fired by Hezbollah slammed into a home in Moshav Meron on Friday evening. Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Dan Halutz said Friday that Hezbollah has rockets that can reach as much as 70 kilometers (43.5 miles) or more, an admission that brings more major cities within their range. Halutz also put the blame on Lebanon's government for the numerous rocket attacks on northern Israel that have killed four people and injured dozens more. Dozens of people were injured throughout the day Friday, as Katyusha rockets landed in the Galilee. At least three people were lightly injured when Hezbollah fired a salvo of Katyusha rockets at targets in northern Israel on Friday evening. One person was hurt in Yesod Hama'alah, and others were injured in Kfar Szold and Kibbutz Hulata. Earlier Friday, two people were moderately hurt and eight sustained light injuries after a Katyusha rocket hit a residential building in Safed on Friday afternoon. The building sustained heavy damage. Channel 1 TV footage showed heavy damage to the building and its surroundings. Smashed windows and wrecked cars were seen on the street that was strewn with cement fallout. Early Friday evening, one man sustained light injuries when a Katyusha rocket landed in the Galilee village of Yesod Hama'alah. Earlier in the day, casualties were reported in the upper Galilee village of Peki'in after four rockets landed there, as well as in the community of Hatzor Haglilit where two people were lightly wounded. Three Katyusha rockets hit Kiryat Shmona on Friday afternoon. No casualties were reported in the strike. Also Friday evening, a Katyusha rocket landed in Acre, four landed in Nahariya, one in Carmiel, and several hit Safed. No injuries were reported in the incidents. On Thursday, two Israelis were killed by rocket fire and some 120 were wounded when scores of Katyusha rockets rained down across northern Israel. On Friday morning and afternoon, Hezbollah fired Katyusha rockets at Kibbutz Baram in the Upper Galilee, at Safed, Rosh Pina, and also at the northern town of Nahariya. Two people were lightly wounded in Nahariya and one woman was treated for shock in Safed. Several rockets that landed in open areas near Nahariya sparked fires. Firefighters and crop dusters were battling a large blaze between Kibbutz Kabri and the village of Sheikh Danoch. Haifa hit by Katyusha for first time Katyusha rockets struck Haifa, Israel's third-largest city, for the first time Thursday night, and the Home Front Command ordered area residents Friday to stay near bomb shelters so they could go inside as soon as they hear an air-raid siren. There were no casualties in the rocket strike on Haifa's Stella Maris area. Hezbollah said Friday that Israel should expect an attack on Haifa at any time. Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Daniel Ayalon told reporters in Washington that Thursday's rocket attack on Haifa was a "major, major escalation" by Hezbollah. Residents of the north, except those in Nahariya, were told Friday morning they could leave the shelters for a few hours. Channel 10 reported Friday that security forces were warning that Nahariya was under threat of continued attacks from Lebanon. Some 220,000 Israelis stayed in bomb shelters in northern Israel on Thursday night to avoid the rocket fire, the army said. In the south of the country, five Qassam rockets hit the Sderot area early a fire. Around noon three more rockets landed in the western Negev. No casualties or damage were reported. Rockets target Nahariya, Safed
The woman killed by rocket fire in Nahariya was identified as Monica Zeidman (Lehrer), 40. She died in her home. The attack also wounded 29 people, including a number of children. Most of the casualties were lightly hurt; one person sustained serious wounds. Hezbollah renewed its bombardment of Nahariya on Thursday evening. Some of the rockets hit a group of journalists working in Nahariya, wounding at least one person. A barrage of Katyusha rockets hit Safed on Thursday, in two separate attacks. One person was killed and about 20 wounded. Four of the wounded were in serious condition, including two children. The rocket fire began in the early hours of Thursday, after Israel Air Force jets struck targets across Lebanon following cross-border attacks by Hezbollah during which eight Israel Defense Forces soldiers were killed and two others abducted. Rockets also fell in the town of Carmiel, but there were no injuries. In the nearby village of Majdal Qrum, one person was moderately hurt by a rocket. A resident of the northern town of Zirit was also lightly wounded by a Katyusha on Thursday. Jul. 14, 2006
Over 100 Katyusha rockets that were fired at northern Israel on Friday killed a woman and a 5-year-old child, and wounded about 50 others. The rockets landed across northern Israel in the following communities: Nahariya, Safed, Hatzor, Yesod Ha'ma'ala, Bar'am, Kiryat Shmona, Mahanayim, Horfesh, Biranit, Meron, Ma'alot, Matat, near Rosh Pina, Sasa, Karmiel, Pki'in, Misgav Am, Shar Yishuv and near Kibbutz Hagoshrim and Kibbutz Ma'ayan Baruch. On Friday evening, a woman and her 5-year-old grandson were killed in a rocket strike on the town of Meron. The child's mother and father were lightly wounded. Another child was listed in moderate to serious condition. In light of the situation, the IDF has decided to operate a silent radio wave in the following frequencies: FM 102.2, 98.5, 95.7. This enables those keep the Sabbath to leave the radio turned on and listen to emergency announcements. For a Jerusalem Online video of events, go to: http://www.jerusalemonline.co.il/home.asp Earlier, 18 people were wounded in a barrage of rockets on Safed and Nahariya. A rocket landing in Safed hit a residential building, wounding 12. One of the wounded in Safed sustained serious wounds, another was moderately wounded. Nahariya also sustained another barrage of five Katyusha in the late morning, causing a brush fire in an open area. Western Galilee fire fighters were working to control the flames. Over 700 Katyusha rockets and mortar shells have been fired on northern Israel in the current offensive in Lebanon, a senior IDF official reported on Friday. And, an earlier report from CNN.....
SAFED, Israel (AP) -- Hotels in northern Israel sent guests packing. Hospitals moved patients to the basement. Schools shut down. And residents of Haifa, Israel's third-largest city, were warned to stay near bomb shelters. Hezbollah rockets and mortars have been slamming into cities and towns across a wide swath of northern Israel, triggering widespread anxiety in the usually tranquil region. "We're living in a war zone," said Herut Tamari, 66, who runs a pottery business and guest house in the border town of Metulla. "I am sure the residents of the north all know that all citizens, in these difficult hours, are praying for them and worrying about them," President Moshe Katsav said during a tour of the northern town of Nahariya, which was hit repeatedly. As Katsav walked through the town Thursday, another volley of rockets landed nearby amid a group of journalists, lightly wounding one. Katsav's security detail rushed him into a nearby building. Safed, the home of Judaism's mystical Kabbalah sect and the center of life in the region, became a ghost town after seven Katyusha rockets hit, killing one person and wounding eight others. The last time an Israeli civilian was killed near the border was in anti-aircraft fire in August 2003. Shops shut down and the winding cobblestone streets of the old city were deserted. The sound of rockets exploding could be heard in the background. Broken glass covered the street in the center of Safed, a city of about 30,000. A small crowd gathered to gawk at a damaged furniture shop. An immigrants' center and a college were also hit. The only open store in the area was a grocery whose owner, Alain Bensadoun, said the current barrage was worse than previous attacks in the 1980s. He said his niece fainted and was taken to the hospital when a rocket exploded nearby. "I'm not scared. I'm not scared of Hezbollah or anyone. If God wants to call me, he will anyway," he said. "This is war. ... If we are not strong, it will go on forever." The violence started Wednesday when Hezbollah guerrillas captured two Israeli soldiers and killed eight in attacks on Israel's northern border. In response, Israel hit southern Lebanon with waves of airstrikes, blasting Beirut's airport and army bases in its heaviest air campaign against its neighbor in 24 years. In Nahariya, a Mediterranean resort town of 50,000, cars with suitcases tied to the roofs headed south after Israel's Home Front Command ordered hotels and guest houses to shut down. One woman was sitting on her fifth-floor balcony when a rocket hit her building, cutting through the ceiling and killing her. Nahariya Hospital was on high alert, and the deputy director, Moshe Daniel, said all elective surgeries were canceled. Doctors evacuated the top floor and moved the patients, most of them children, to the basement, along with dozens of women in the maternity ward. One of the basement rooms was packed with about 30 new mothers. Doctors rushed back and forth and babies cried. Golan Elbachli, 31, stood with his wife looking into a crib at their second child. "This doesn't affect her. She's sleeping like a queen," Elbachli
said of his newborn daughter. "Her mother, it affects."
Sandy Rosen-Hazen lives in Safed. Contact her at Sandy@israel.net
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THE STEALTH DEMOGRAPHIC FACTOR IN ISRAEL
Posted by Marion D.S. Dreyfus, July 14, 2006. |
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The demographics of Israel, which, owing to the lies of the TransJordanians (local arabs pretending to be anything other than migrators from Jordan, arrogating the name of palestinians for themselves-- a name that always denoted "Jews" from the area, 3,000 years under Hebrew dominance, continuous residence and Biblical referents) and their henchpeople outside of Gaza and the disputed territories seemed insuperable, are now known to be gross distortions in the citations of the arabs, can be and are changing. My high school buddies have done their best to have more than 5 children or more each. Some have had 10 or 12 each. Because the news in Israel is reported by secular people who largely hate the Orthodox or Observant, this is little-noted and thus swallowed up in the overall low Israeli birthrate of some 1.8 children per family (non-affiliated, since Reform is not a big factor, or any factor, in Israel, and Conservativism is in quick desuetude both there and in the US). All religious Jewish families in Israel have large, large families, their children marry early, and procreate similarly--many consciously replacing in a small way the more than six millions of live and unborn Jews who were slaughtered in the Shoah. Not unusually, some grandchildren are older than their newer uncles and aunts. So a demographic imperative seems indicated by the cultural trend--the Orthodox will achieve a de facto greater proportion of the overall population, and the swift birth-rate of the early-to-wed and-child groups will make up a more impressive number than had been projected heretofore. Replacement numbers will inch up to meet and eventually surpass the arab/TransJordanian [false] figures. The Transjordanians have a strong birthrate, supposedly 3.5 per female (subject to perenniel doubt, as the tendency to lie about that, too, is supported by their primed medical staffers and [demonic] demographers) but fewer survive to adulthood, and the economics of their lives indicate that their current economic woes will not make further children a good indication of success in later citizenship. The Isaraeli Jewish children are not abandoned or miseducated, are economically supported and reach adulthood equipped to pursue human careers and creative lives. This argues for a catch-up factor not accounted for in the projections of the past. So another of the 'three basic factors'--geography, demography, culture--(aside from culture) impacting Israeli politics is mutable. Watch this space. Contact Marion D.S. Dreyfus at dreyfusmarion@hotmail.com |
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YOUR DISPROPORTIONATE REPORTING OF ISRAEL
Posted by Barry Shaw, July 14, 2006. |
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The Editor,
Dear Sir, While Israel is under Katusha and Kassam rocket attacks (in excess of 700 rockets have been fired into Israel from Lebanon in the last three days alone), as Israel burns, as Israelis die and are injured, it is with disgust that I hear Emma Hurd describe the Israeli response as 'disproportionate'. On what grounds does this military expert base her opinion? Is she aware that the rockets that landed on Haifa were close to causing a disaster of catastrophic, even nuclear, proportions? If she is not, I will be happy to educate her as to what I mean. But as a professional journalist I would have expected her to do her groundwork and fully understand the implications of Katusha rockets hitting the massive chemical and fuel depots in Haifa. The massive death, destruction, and environmental damage such a hit would cause is too terrible to contemplate. In this perspective, the Israeli response, to search for and destroy the Hizbollah infrastructure and the thousands of Kathusha rockets that they possess, is entirely proportional. I was also angered by your male reporter who, this morning, stated (and I quote exactly what he said), "Lebanon is being pushed to the brink of a new war with Israel!" Lebanon has fired rockets at Israel for six years. This week, Israeli soldiers were killed when Hizbollah fighters infiltrated into Israel, and two others were taken hostage and dragged into Lebanon. This is an international crime. This was followed by a concerted Katusha attack against the northern towns of Israel. When one sovereign country attacks another this is an act of war. How then can Lebanon be pushed to the brink of a war that it had already started? Perhaps your reporters need an education in local politics before idly reporting personal opinions that a blatantly one-sided and false? They can begin by realizing that Hizbollah is an integral part of the Lebanese Government and as such the whole country must share the brunt for their dangerous act of war against Israel. Barry Shaw made aliyah from Manchester, England, 25 years ago with his family. He now runs a real estate office in Netanya. He writes the "View from Here" columns from Israel. To sign up to receive his emails, contact him at netre@matav.net.il |
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THE ROAD TRAP IS DEAD, MR BUSH, SO WAKE UP TO REALITY!
Posted by Mordecai Ben Haim, July 14, 2006. |
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Dear Pres Bush, The TERRORISTS, led by SYRIA, IRAN and Hezbollah, Hams, etc,and PLO have been attacking a SOVEREIGN NATION, ISRAEL, for YEARS. HOW WOULD YOU RESPOND IF MEXICO FIRED ROCKETS AT USA, DAILY, and BLEW UP RESTAURANTS, BUSES and MARKET PLACES? There is NO peaceful solution UNTIL they are REMOVED PERMANENTLY. Peace ONLY comes after VICTORY of DEFEATING AN ENEMY who wants to KILL you ALL! When 70% of the civilians have been brainwashed in the mindset of DESTROY ISRAEL, how can they live together ANYWHERE? Forget this "Road Map" nonsense, once and for all. There is NO LEADER for these Terrorists.their HATRED is their only life. Stop your Secretary of State from making a bigger FOOL of herself! I thought and warned you for years to SACK Colin Powell because of his lack of authority as a waffling equivocator., But Ms RICE is a FOOL, and should close her mouth IFshe cannot speak with WISDOM, from the LORD GOD of ISRAEL ABBAS is also a TERRORIST, in a business suit - FATAH is a TERROR group - it is still the PLO, formed SOLELY for the "destruction of the Zionist Entity" in 1964 There are NO palestinians - for this word ALWAYS referred to JUDEA and SAMARIA, which we all KNOW is now called ISRAEL. 3,400 years of HISTORY show this. (Despite the Lying Propaganda of the Arab-controlled MEDIA) Please READ THIS: Abbas threatens resignation Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas has threatened to resign and dismantle the PA, according to reports Wednesday in a London-based Arabic news service. Abbas made the statements to US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice during a phone interview after she requested that he use his authority to help free the kidnapped IDF soldier Gilad Shalit. The PA chairman responded by saying that he no longer held any authority in Gaza or the West Bank. On Tuesday, Abbas fired accusations at Israel, claiming that IDF forces specifically target civilians and families and that "every day you see a big number of women and children being killed." Nearly 60 Palestinians have been killed since the confrontation began 13 days ago - the majority of them being armed gunmen in the act of firing at Israeli troops or planting explosive devices. What Planet is Condy RICE living on? Where is her MIND? READ and UNDERSTAND THIS: Meshal: 'I'm the man' The first speech yesterday by Khaled Meshal, the Damascus-based head of Hamas' political bureau, since the abduction of Corporal Gilad Shalit was intended mainly to reinforce his leadership position vis--vis both Palestinians and Israel. His statements contained little real news. He reiterated the Hamas promise not to hurt Shalit and the position that he would be released only in exchange for the release of Palestinian prisoners held in Israel. What Meshal did do was to declare that he and not the chairman of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, in Ramallah, or Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh in Gaza, is the sole spokesman for the Palestinian people in the territories and beyond. The message was also intended for the ears of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert: Whether you want it or not, I am the only partner you can speak to about the release of prisoners and suspending the Kassam rocket attacks. (read this Ha'aretz editorial in full.) 'Stop Contact Mordecai Ben Haim by email at lustylamb888@juno.com |
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SUPPORT ISRAEL: ARAB TERROR MUST NOT BE PERMITTED TO RUN AMOK
Posted by Marion Dreyfus, July 14, 2006. |
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Dear Mr. President: Lest you be misled by the forces of animosity: Israel's response to aggression is not excessive. Nor is it 'disproportionate,' as the Arabs are trying to charge. Terrorism has once again sparked a major conflagration in the Middle East. The Hezbollah terrorists, part of the Lebanese government, have attacked Israel and are launching massive rocket attacks against some of Israel's major population centers. To quote an editorial in the Jerusalem Post (13 July 2006): "An 'act of war.' This is how Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has correctly described the Wednesday morning attacks on soldiers defending Israel's sovereign border in the North. The words may also be applied to the escalating attacks across Israel's sovereign borders in the South. The responsibility of the Israeli government in such circumstances, the responsibility of any government, is to cripple the attackers and to restore security to its people." Hezbollah, the emissary of Syria and Iran, attacked Israeli territory and killed three Israel soldiers on border patrol and captured two more in an onslaught that included heavy Katyusha and mortar fire. Four more Israelis were murdered when their tank was blown up as the Israeli forces moved into Lebanon in an attempt to rescue their captured comrades. Prime Minister Olmert said, "The events this morning are not terror attacks but actions of a sovereign state that attacked Israel for no reason. The Lebanese government, of which Hezbollah is a member, is trying to undermine regional stability. Lebanon is responsible and it will bear responsibility." For months Israel's border with Gaza has been under attack. Daily barrages of rockets have been aimed at Israeli cities and towns on the border of the Palestinian Arab Gaza enclave. The number of attacks exceeds 5,000. The Hamas leadership has supported these attacks in both word and deed. Defending Israel requires both military and diplomatic action. Hezbollah and Hamas, in both the north and in the south, must be dealt direct, heavy blows from which they cannot be allowed to recover. In the North, Hezbollah's rocket arsenal, some 15,000, army and terrorist training camps in southern Lebanon must be destroyed. It is Israel's responsibility to defend its citizens from attack by destroying the capabilities of its attackers and imposing sufficient costs at all levels of responsibility. However, it must also seek the help of the international community to stop the continuing terror attacks. The Jerusalem Post editorial criticized the role the UN has played: "In the past, the UN Security Council has actually provided a vital incentive to Israel's attackers by standing silent when Israel is attacked and stepping in only to restrain the Israeli response. If the international community wants to prevent future crises, this pattern must be reversed." Israel is caught between the forces of Arab terror in both the north and the south. It must be allowed to protect its citizens. The Lebanese acquiescence to Hezbollah forces on its border with Israel, Syrian and Iranian support of Arab terror, and the support by the Palestinian Arab street of Hamas terror must end. I appreciate your support of the Israeli government and its people, surrounded as they have been by millions of hostile Arabs. I urge you to support the uprooting of the Hezbollah and Hamas terror bands. The only hope for peace is the eradication of these groups and their evil political designs. I urge you to continue to give Israel they free hand to get their soldiers back and free their people from the threat of constant attack. Respectfully yours,
Contact Marion D.S. Dreyfus at dreyfusmarion@hotmail.com |
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OCCUPATION MYTH FINALLY SHATTERED
Posted by Nurit Greenger, July 14, 2006. |
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This was written by Jonathan Gurwitz and it appeared in San
Antonio Express News |
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Here's a brief multiple choice quiz: During the 11 months since Israel effected its withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, Palestinians have: A) moderated their anti-Israel rhetoric, curbed terrorist violence and focused on creating their own democratic, civil society; or B) increased their support for terrorist violence, fired more than 500 Qassam rockets into southern Israel and intensified their efforts to destroy another democratic, civil society. So much for the notion that the conflict between Palestinians and Israelis is primarily about land or that terrorism is the understandable result of occupation. Of course, anyone whose memory or knowledge of history extends back beyond 1967 already knew the occupation argument was phony. If it weren't, Palestinian terror groups would have been attacking Egyptians and Jordanians between 1948 and 1967, and British and Ottoman Turks before them, when they occupied the Gaza Strip and West Bank. Yasser Arafat would have created the Palestine Liberation Organization after the Six Day War, not in 1964. And the group would have directed its attacks against the Israeli military in the disputed territories formerly occupied by Egypt and Jordan, not against civilians within the internationally recognized borders of Israel. The Palestinian-Israeli conflict, like the broader Arab-Israeli conflict, is and always has been about the complete rejection of Israel within any borders. There's nothing new about a two-state solution -- the United Nations came up with one in 1947. But Arab extremists who dreamed of driving Jews into the sea violently rejected that compromise. The Israeli withdrawal from Gaza last August, which for the first time gave the Palestinian people territory free from foreign dominion, once again puts that rejectionism into perspective. And it highlights the tragic hypocrisy of advocates for the Palestinian cause who fuel the bloodlust of extremists. A vignette of that hypocrisy was on display last week. As Israel was gearing up a military operation to suppress rocket fire from the Gaza Strip and rescue a soldier kidnapped from within Israel, Palestinian militants blew a hole in the wall separating Gaza from Egypt. The Associated Press reported, "Hundreds of Palestinian and Egyptian police formed human cordons ... to block Palestinians trying to get through." There's not even a pretext of preventing suicide bombers from attacking Egyptian civilians. Sounds like a case for the International Court of Justice. Like that fantasy, the election of the Hamas government in January engendered two others. The first was that the imperative of governing would compel Hamas to moderate, despite its founding document's commitment to the obliteration of Israel. The second was that elections automatically lend legitimacy. After Hamas gunmen attacked the Israeli outpost within the Green Line, killing two soldiers in the process of abducting their captive, Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh had a clear choice. He could act responsibly, force his Hamas foot soldiers to release their hostage and avoid a military conflict. Or he could follow the well-worn path of rejection and extremism. Old habits die hard. The biggest losers in this failure of leadership, as they have been for 59 years, are ordinary Palestinians. After billions of dollars in international assistance, Gaza is a humanitarian catastrophe and the West Bank is not far behind. The improbable legacy of the Hamas government may be that it actually does more to squander the aspirations of the Palestinian people than Arafat's kleptocracy. The Israeli policy of disengagement has earned criticism from the left for failing to seek a diplomatic solution with a nonexistent Palestinian partner and from the right for giving away Gaza without reciprocal security guarantees from a government composed of competing militias and armed gangs. But those whimsical criticisms pale in comparison to disengagement's towering achievement: putting the lie to the mythology of occupation. Contact Nurit Greenger at 4nuritg@gmail.com |
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NO TO THE PREVIOUS STATUS QUO
Posted by Bryna Berch, July 14, 2006. |
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This was written by Ze'ev Schiff
in today's Ha'aretz
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During a major crisis in Turkey, former president Turgut Ozal said something very wise: "The only thing that should not be done during a time of crisis is to return at the end of the crisis to the status quo, to the previous situation." Israel will have to take this under advisement after fighting on both front ends. Under no circumstances should Israel return to the situation that existed before the fighting. That is to say, Hezbollah must not be allowed to return close to the northern locales, and Hamas, or any other Palestinian organization, must not be allowed to continue to bombard Sderot and other locales, and harm soldiers within Israeli territory. The aim of the operations Israel is conducting is not only to free the captives or to punish, but also to prevent future kidnappings and bombardments. The fighting on both fronts was initiated by two Islamic terror organizations, Hamas and Hezbollah. Their aggressive activity was facilitated by Israel's withdrawal from southern Lebanon and the Gaza Strip, respectively. The reality on each of the fronts is different, as was the status quo that prevailed before the current outbreak, and it is necessary to behave differently on each of the fronts so that the previous status quo will not return. The effort on the Lebanese front is primarily military, and is beginning from a poor point, because Israel did not react to construction of the tremendous rocket system in southern Lebanon. This is an attack system that was established with the help of Iran and Syria and with the tacit agreement of Lebanon. Israel never struck at Hezbollah's rockets or storehouses, and it did not stop any convoy of rockets from the airport in Damascus to Lebanon. Those in the Israel Defense Forces thought that the rockets would rust over time. As a result, Israel acted dismissively regarding the fortification of sensitive targets in Haifa Bay. From time to time, Hezbollah attacked the borders, and Israel reacted with a light response. Israel believed that in this way, it would be able to preserve the bed-and-breakfast economy in the Galilee, which has now been ruined, and also Lebanon's tourism economy. This status quo must be altered, because the danger is not only to locales in the Galilee, but also to large cities in the center of the country. Today's reaction is focusing on air force bombardments of bridges throughout Lebanon and at the airport, but the turning point will be preventing Hezbollah's return near the border with Israel and destroying its rocket system, with which Iranian advisers are active. The Lebanese government is refusing to exercise its sovereignty in southern Lebanon, and it is the Lebanese government that is responsible for this area becoming a no-man's land. The treatment of the Gaza Strip front is vis-a-vis Hamas. The action to change the status quo there cannot be only military. Israel has no interest in having a humanitarian crisis occur in the Gaza Strip, but under no circumstances should it agree to continued firing of Qassams on Israeli locales. A return to the previous situation will be considered a defeat in the fight. And therefore, the day is not far off when areas in the Sharon region will be bombarded from territories in the West Bank. All of the efforts to solve the problem technologically have failed so far. Israel's answer cannot be reoccupying territories in the Gaza Strip. From the military perspective, there apparently is no alternative to the simple method: for every Qassam rocket that hits an Israeli locale, an artillery barrage should be fired at a Palestinian locale - not into empty areas. This is a basic rule in war. Moreover, Israel has tried all other alternatives. Nevertheless, the proposal to arrive at a hudna, a truce, by means of mediators should not be rejected. But it should not include direct contact with Hamas before it accepts the three conditions demanded by the international community. Israel has no interest in chaos prevailing in the Palestinian territories without a government. An agreement, however, would necessitate supervision by an international entity, and then Israel could also include in one of its provisions an exchange of captives and prisoners. |
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BRET STEPHENS GETS IT WRONG
Posted by One Jerusalem, July 14, 2006. |
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The Wall Street Journal has published an editorial by Bret
Stephens that uses tortured reasoning to conclude that Israel's
disengagement from Gaza is working. Boker tov, Boulder takes
this analysis apart.
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July 11, 2006, Bret Stephens wrote "Israel is winning (thanks to the disengagement)." In today's (print) Wall Street Journal, Bret Stephens expresses a "Global View" "In Defense of Disengagement." He takes the fact that, since the Expulsion, Palestinians have been killing numerically more of one another than they have Israelis, as "hard and dry evidence" that the "disengagement has been a success" and "cause for gratitude." How pathetic can you get? Stephens writes, "When your enemies are killing each other instead of killing you, it means you're winning." I will have to check my military manuals, but somehow I don't think that's anywhere near the definition of victory. His criticism of disengagement opponents is this: "Suppose Israel reoccupies part of Gaza, or all of it: Then what? Opponents of disengagement rarely offer a plausible reply to this most basic question." I'll give you a "then what." It's called The Right Road to Peace,[1] or the Elon Plan, after Benny Elon who first proposed it. "It is clear that what is needed is a paradigm shift." In this description at World Net Daily (2002),[2] Gaza is not mentioned, but I don't see why we can't add it in as a footnote. Under Elon's plan, Israel would recognize the Palestinian Authority as the enemy of Israel. They would nullify their (Oslo) recognition of the PA, and in fact, cancel the Oslo Accords altogether. All terrorists and weapons would be forcibly removed from Palestinian terror-tories. Refugee camps would be dismantled. Here's the difficult part (difficult because King Abdullah doesn't want any more Palestinians in his country,[3] for fear of overthrow of his Hashemite rule): the establishment of a Jordan-Palestinian state with Amman as its capital. Under the Elon Plan, both Israeli Arabs who remain in Israel and the Arabs who remain in Judea and Samaria (and Gaza?) would be offered citizenship in the Jordanian-Palestinian state. Only if any of these J-P Arabs breached Israeli terms would they be forcibly deported to the other side of the Jordan River. See also Richard Baehr at RCP:[4] "The Fate of the Jewish
People" for the view that disengagement from Gaza was another in a
string of "failed initiatives" that were supposed to strengthen
Palestinian "moderates" (like Abu Mazen) Footnotes 1. Israeli Israeli Cabinet Minister Binyamin (Benny) Elon,
"THE RIGHT ROAD TO PEACE: A Regional Solution To The Arab-Israeli
Conflict," May 2003, 2. (Trouble In The Holy Land: Radical new plan for Mideast
peace." 3. Boker Tov, "Abdullah doesn't want to get stuck with the
Palestinians," June 7, 2006, The website of One Jerusalem is at
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LEBANON; ISRAELI LEFT A FOREIGN AGENT?; DESTROY PA ROCKET FACTORIES
Posted by Richard H. Shulman, July 14, 2006. |
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ISRAEL PENALIZED FOR TALKING TOUGH The NY Times refers to "Amir Peretz, the dovish defense minister who nonetheless has pledged a tough line on militants who have been firing homemade rockets from Gaza into Israel." (Ian Fisher & Steven Erlanger, 6/22, A3.) Most Israeli leaders talk tough and act soft. The "Times" refers to their tough talk as if they act tough. It is a way to make Israeli bombast seem like bombing. How tough is Israel to fire at empty buildings and fields? That is what Israel does. How tough are Israeli officials who threaten more drastic measures, but don't follow through? The "Times" studiously uses the term, "militants," for Arabs who fire at Israeli cities. Gunmen who aim at civilians are "terrorists." The "Times" knows that. It is softening the picture it presents of the Arabs and unfairly hardening the picture of Israel. By that deceitful propaganda, it pursues its traditionally anti-Zionist policy. Another use of wording to make the Arabs seem less menacing, and therefore Israeli retaliation more "disproportionate, is to call the terrorists' rockets "homemade." Manufacturing arms probably is the Arabs' biggest industry after smuggling, stealing, and welfare cheating. They are getting skilled at it. They improve the range and accuracy of the rockets, which are damaging houses, factories, and schools, wounding people, and homing in on fuel dumps that could blaze up and annihilate thousands of people. Could not the "Times" foresee sufficient enhancement of the rockets as to become a major strategic threat? I think it could but won't. Rockets also are being smuggled in. Those are not homemade. If the "Times" know, how well does it keep readers informed? If Israel has to keep its retaliation proportionate, the enemy would increase its rockets' destructiveness. The concept of proportionate retaliation is inherently pernicious. The Arabs are genocidal aggressors, whereas Israel is trying to defend itself and live in peace. The defender should retaliate disproportionately, punishing those who threaten, making them stop. That makes for justice. LEBANON COMPLAINS OF ISRAELI ASSASSINATIONS Lebanon may lodge a complaint with the Security Council that Israel assassinates terrorists operating from Lebanon (Benni Avni, NY Sun, 6/20). How terrible of Israel, liquidating terrorists who attack its civilians! The UNO can't allow that. Israel is supposed to let them fire at will. (That was tongue in cheek.) In that country of many factions and civil strife,, it is not clear who is assassinating whom. Lebanon may be making its usual false accusations against Israel. If so, I would be disappointed. I want Israel to demonstrate the will and the skill to do it. GUNS FOR WHICH ARABS? Each newspaper report about the weapons that Israel recently allowed into the P.A., purportedly for Abbas' bodyguard, cites a different quantity and a different provider. The 6/20 NY Times report has the highest figure, 3,000 rifles, and attributes their provision to the US and Israel. Perhaps the problem with accuracy is that the reporters accept Arab new sources, without checking with the US and Israel. A senior officer of the bodyguard, who in other reports claimed they were being used against Israelis, rather than just to protect Abbas, in this report asserts that if Hamas merges its forces with the P.A. and Fatah forces, Hamas would share in the weapons (Aaron Klein, p.7). While the Arabs accuse Israel of ingenious plots against them, Israel makes idiotic offers to them. The Right could capitalize politically on such blunders, and save the country, if it could publicize them. But it has little access to the media. After decades of leftist media monopoly, why didn't the Right set up a newspaper? Why when it controlled the government didn't it curb the government's power to deny radio licensing to right-wing broadcasters? Why didn't it eliminate government TV's leftist or far leftist bias? Israeli stupidity is not limited to the left wing. DESTROY P.A. ROCKET FACTORIES? The IDF developed a play for destroying the P.A. rocket factories. Defense Min. Peretz rejected the plan. No further information in the news bulletin, not his reason, nor details of the plan (IMRA, 6/21). Until now, it had destroyed only one of them. IMRA asked the Defense Ministry whether a plan to destroy all he factories means that the IDF knows their locations. The Ministry refused to answer. The pattern of IDF bombing indicates to me that it knows of more targets than the Cabinet selects. The main IDF objective seems to be to spare as many Arabs as possible, even terrorists. It is a peculiar objective for an army defending its people from genocide. ISRAELI POLICY OF CENSORSHIP The Consul General of Israel in New York told American Jewry that US Jewish groups that do not support PM Olmert's withdrawal plan should keep quiet. Some Israeli groups, including Professors for a Strong Israel and Women in Green challenged that undemocratic position. They said that American Jews, who have the right to demand action against genocide in Darfur, have the right to demand that the Jewish people not give parts of their homeland to the enemy. Indeed, given Pres. Bush's endorsement of the scheme, US Jewry has a duty to help head it off (Arutz-7, 5/21). IRAN'S MILITARY GOAL Iran no longer develops its military only for self-defense but also to exert power abroad. Thus it invests not in weapons to meet, say a US invasion in battle, but in weapons to: (1) Inflict enough damage on the approaching forces to deter them; and (2) Threaten all the countries within its region and many outside the region. Iran claims to speak in behalf of Islam. It wishes to end the Western ascendancy in the world (IMRA, 6/20) in behalf of its 7th century outlook). N. KOREA'S PENDING MISSILE TEST S. Korea is "closely watching the situation." If N. Korea launches the missile, Japan would send a "fierce" protest to the UNO. The US would make an "appropriate response" (Burt Herman, NY Sun, 6/19). Do those countries think that they show determination or that N. Korea is quaking over the threats of S. Korea closely watching it, of Japan protesting fiercely, and of the US responding appropriately? What is an appropriate response? I think that those toothless threats encourage N. Korea to proceed to test. I think that if we had a bi-partisan foreign policy, and if it weren't for the Democrats as a whole opposing any forceful exertion of US power in the national defense or interest, Pres. Bush would have considered taking out that missile before it could be launched. That would have been an appropriate response. Instead, the President activated our anti-missile defense. It may or may not work. (AN. Korean attack is not like a rigged Pentagon test.) Not reassuring. THE ISRAELI LEFT A FOREIGN AGENT? Britain, Norway, and Finland gave Peace Now $500,000 last year. Peace Now is asking more European governments for money. The US may be providing some of the money given in the name of Finland. The leftist organization advocates complete withdrawal. It maps every building built by Jews in Yesha, in preparation for demands taken up in the sympathetic (biased) Supreme Court to demolish such buildings. Its position serves those foreign countries policy. It not only conducts surveillance of Yesha housing for foreign governments, it takes photographs of IDF military installations as well. It spies for foreign powers (Arutz-7, 6/20 from David Bedein). Those foreign countries are picking on Israel, using Peace Now as a fulcrum to split the country. How much influence would the Left have without foreign subsidy and without the undemocratic features of Israeli non-constitutional government? If the Israeli people were informed and in control, they would bar foreign subversion. Richard Shulman is a veteran defender of Israel on several web-based forums. His comments and analyses appear often on Think-Israel. He provides cool information and right-on-target overviews. He distributes his essays by email. To subscribe, write him at richardshulman5@aol.com. |
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INCOMPETENCE OR WORSE?
Posted by Sergio Tessa (HaDaR), July 14, 2006. |
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Whose hands are we in? Foreign press agencies and Lebanese sources confirm that all the MEA (Lebanese Airlines) planes and many other private planes have taken off this morning from Beirut Airport for unknown destinations from a side runaway missed by the Israeli Air Force. These are the kind of things that they keep hidden from Israelis. NO ONE HERE SPEAKS ABOUT IT! Wasn't the Israeli Air Force supposed to prevent the take off of all planes from Lebanon so as to avoid the transfer of our soldiers outside of Lebanon??? Are we once again in the hands of people who do not know what they are doing, chas we-shalom? Do we have reasons to trust the same guys who gave us the Palestinian Authority, Hamastan, Hizbollahstan, and said things like "they would not dare using the weapons we give them against us" (Rabin 1994); or "Shtuyoth: whoever speaks of missiles from Gaza does not know what he is talking about" (Peres 1994), "In the new middle east Israel is going to be part of the Arab League" (Peres 1994); "if they dare doing anything against the Jews of Hebron we'll send in the tanks" (Netanyahu 1997 while giving the PLO terrorists control of the high grounds overlooking Hebron's Jewish community, which caused six months of uninterrupted fire upon it and the assassination of 10 months old Shalheveth Pass); "if they just dare shooting one bullet from Lebanon we'll hit them hard" (Barak 2000 just a few months before katyushas fell on Shlomi, Hizbollah kidnapped and killed our soldiers and Israel did nothing); "if they dare sending missiles from Gaza onto Israel we'll make it stop painfully" (Mofaz and Sharon 2005). Contact Sergio Tessa at HaDaR-Israel@verizon.net |
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THE SEPTEMBER 10TH SYNDROME AND EHUD BARAK
Posted by Steven Plaut, July 14, 2006. |
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Speaking of the "September 10th Syndrome", it seems it can sometimes continue even on September 12th. The katyushas falling on Haifa, Nahariya, and Safed might as well have been personally fired into Israel by Ehud Barak, who implemented the "Israeli Unilateral Retreat in Exchange for Nothing" doctrine for achieving peace. So did little Ehud learn something from this week's events? Not a
bit! Here is Ehud defending his decision to abandon northern Israel to
the mercies of the Hezbollah missiles: Hey what are YOU complaining about? Didn't his unilateral surrender to the Hezbollah result in 6 years of tranquility until now? He deserves a medal for his shrewd foresight! Oh, and here is Yossi Beilin proposing that Israel stop the rockets by turning the Golan Heights over to Syria: 'Meretz faction chairman Yossi Beilin backed the military operation but asked Peretz to keep the operation's end objective in mind. "An attack on Hizbullah is justified, but in the end we will have to come to an understanding, including one with Syria," he said.' Meanwhile, I really am concerned about the parking congestion problems throughout the Hezbollah-dominated areas in southern Lebanon. I really think the humane thing for Israel to do would be to help relieve those problems with some new large parking lots. Labor Party's Amram Mitzna, who ran on a platform of unilateral capitulation and withdrawal when challenging Ariel Sharon in the election for Prime Minister, in Maariv July 14: "The (2000) withdrawal from Lebanon was correct and justified, but was done too late and under circumstances that llowed the Hezbollah to brag that it had expelled us from Lebanon. Under these circumstances, it was clear that one day a conflict would erupt, in which we would have to restore our deterrent powers." In other words, Mitzna, who took time off from striking corrupt deals with his oligarch cronies as Haifa Mayor in order to endorse Ehud Barak's capitulation and cowardly withdrawal from Lebanon with his full enthusiasm, now insists that if that same cowardly capitulation had taken place just a bit earlier and under Mitzna's own guidance, then the Hezbollah would today be shooting batches of flowers at Haifa and Nahariya rather than Katyushas. Steven Plaut is an American-trained economist, a professor of business administration at Haifa University and author of "The Scout." He frequently comments - both seriously and satirically - on Israeli politics and the left wing academic community. His website address is http://www.stevenplaut.blogspot.com. Contact him at splaut@econ.haifa.ac.il |
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HISTORICAL SURVEY OF ISRAELI LEADERS: WILL ROCKETS FALL?
Posted by Ezra HaLevi, July 14, 2006. |
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Israeli leaders were split over whether there would ever really be rockets falling on Israeli territory from Gaza. IsraelNationalTV's Yechezkel Lang compiled their sentiments and predictions. If we cut and run, Gaza will be taken over by terror organizations... Gaza's squares shall be transformed into launching platforms of Katyushas toward Ashkelon ... The only way to defeat terrorism is by controlling its bases.
"Every time there is a wave of terrorism, all sorts of 'experts' say that we should unilaterally get out of Gaza. If we do so, the Gaza Strip will become a cancerous thorn of terrorism, 1,000 times more dangerous than it is now. What will we do when katyushas are fired from Biet Yachie on Ashkelon and from Biet Hanoun on Sderot?"
You have to tell the citizens of Israel how you plan to prevent terrorist attacks from the Gaza Strip. How will you prevent Katyusha attacks on Ashkelon?"
All you do all day is threaten that there will be Katyusha rockets landing in Ashkelon. Would you mind telling me why there are no rockets fired from Aqaba to Eilat?"
We're familiar with the Likud's horror stories. They promised us Katyushas from Gaza, but Gaza has been under the primary control of the Palestinian Authority for more than a year now, and there hasn't been a single Katyusha.
A particularly favored line is that the Likud's dire predictions of Gaza turning into another Lebanon, with Katyusha rockets hitting Ashkelon, have proved unrealistic and plain silly.
The purpose of the Disengagement Plan is to reduce terror as
much as possible, and grant Israeli citizens the maximum level of
security...These steps will increase security for the residents of
Israel and relieve the pressure on the IDF and security forces in
fulfilling the difficult tasks they are faced with. The Disengagement
Plan is meant to grant maximum security and minimize friction between
Israelis and Palestinians.
We must take into account that after withdrawal, Ashkelon, a major Israeli city, will be within the effective range of Kassam rockets. In the future, when sea and airports are built in Gaza and we will have no control, they will have Katyushas with a longer range that can also reach Kiryat Gat or southern Ashdod.
Before the withdrawal from Lebanon, the Intelligence Directorate also threatened us with Katyushas reaching Hadera and we see what actually happened. I estimate, and my estimate is just as valid as those that threaten us with horrors, that after we leave the Gaza Strip, terrorism will decrease, not increase.
If the Disengagement plan is carried out, Kassam rocket attacks will be the lot of cities from Ashkelon to Ofakim [also inside Israel], and will become a daily occurrence.
After the withdrawal, Kassam rockets will rain on Ashkelon.
I anticipate that the level of terrorism will drop after the disengagement and after pragmatic Arab forces take control.
We will find a full answer to the Kassams without crossing lines.
Ezra HaLevi is a writer with Arutz-Shevah.
This article is archived at
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THE FACE OF TERRORISM IN INDIA
Posted by T.S. Girishkumar, Ph.D., July 14, 2006. |
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To Israel: You must have heared in the news about the Bombay Blasts, killing over 200 people recently. Such is the face of terrorism in India by the Muslims. We are big takers of this unfortunate phenomenon of terrorism at the hands of the Jihadis from day one. They got our lands and made a Pakistan out of it, with the promise that once they get land to build their Islamic state, then they shall ever live in peace and quiete. Their promise was that they shall live as good neighbors with the Hindus. But now look at them, and what they do! The moment they got the land, they declared that 'now we shall fight until the entire India is ours.' Further, they organised terrorist camps and started training terrorists, primarily meant for India, but in fact for the entire world. They infiltrate and do such nefarious activities of killing innocent people, just because they are Hindus. Many time before they planted bombs in Delhi, Bombay etc., and killed many people. Now in Bombay, they planted Bombs in suburban trains like they were sowing seeds. This should end, and these mad men ought to be put to death, and those who abet them, those nations ought to be boycotted by the world community. You should never repeat our mistakes. We gave them land, and now they use the land to make terrorists. They constantly are on the look out for planting explosives and killing people. We have many of them among us, Muslims are a sizable number in India. So they are within us. You should never give them an inch of land, and never let any of those mad men step into your soil. Keep off pollution! Go right ahead and all the very best for you and your good nation from India. |
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JUMANJI CHANGING YOUR MIND?
Posted by Yocheved Golani, July 14, 2006. |
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It's been a while since I wrote about Israel's formidable predicament. I despaired that the Jewish world, apparently learning disabled on a global scale, would ever realize that the rest of the world's rules of engagement do not apply to us. From my home in Israel, I feel despair at the up-close, personal exposure I have to victims of the Disengagement. A relevant fact sheet below gives an overview about why the homelessness, unemployment, despondency and dispossession of thousands of Jews within the very Jewish state that arose on the ashes of the Holocaust is unceasingly tragic. It was unnecessary. And it was highly destructive not only to Israel's welfare, but to that of the world at large as well. As Yossi Klein Halevi states in his article "Battle Plans," Israel is facing off with Islam's genocidal war upon the world (see http://jewishworldreview.com/0706/halevi_war.php3). Not only do Islamists want to annihilate Jews; they have bigger goals, too. Islam's Genocidal War With The World is a Global Problem. And it affected Gush Katif after attacking Eurabia, the USS Cole, the WTC, and Buddha's statue in Afghanistan first. Spain's railroad systems and Britain's defenseless and clueless commuters have also died, been maimed or terrified by genocidal Islamic attacks. The situation is reminiscent of the 1982 book and 1995 movie called "Jumanji." Innocent children caught up in a game (allegedly about keeping the house tidy and attaining a state of "Jumanji" before authoritative parents return home) become victims of pathological plans with no constructive goal whatsoever. Trapped beyond reason in a war upon their lives, they had presented no threat to anyone in the first place. Biased and false media reports notwithstanding, Israel never posed a threat to Arabs either. Arabs have been accommodated with housing, health care, employment, voting rights and even Kneset membership, in present-day Israel. Our house has always been in order, a golden Jumanji. Nevertheless, 20th and 21st Century Arabs saw fit to persecute Israeli Jews, Jews all over the world, and then anyone not a Muslim. The fantasy that they are Balestinians (Arabic speakers have difficulty pronouncing the letter "P") has been foisted on the world to subvert Jewish claims to the Holy Land. World Net Daily's Aaron Klein filed a relevant report on all that when he reported that some Arab clerics admit to archaeological evidence connecting Jerusalem and Israel to Jews and to Judaism. Jewish Newswire augments Palestine Media Watch's reality check with the headline "Palestinian Arabs Top Arab journalist slams 'Palestinians' Says children left to suffer while leadership chases fantasies" at http://www.jnewswire.com/article/955. Thus, we realize that Arab genocide has no boundaries. Co-religionists and manipulated neighbors are Arab targets, too. Still and all, the UN and other bodies of governance, oversight and neglect allow the people of Darfur to deteriorate (as did the Hutsis and Tutus under their watch) while condemning a once democratic Israel and its Jews. History books do not record any wars that the UN ended or any populations significantly better off in political terms, for UN involvement in their alleged welfare. Though British history fills volumes with its aggressive wars, British figures of noteworthy newspaper ink cower in dread of Arab wrath as they get with the "Condemn the Jews and Sympathize with Homicidal Acts Program." The UAE doesn't even deign to allow Jewish reporters into its
environs
America's president speaks from both sides of his mouth as he publicly claims to support Israel's needs to defend herself while supporting further concessions, to established murderers, of Jewish land. Israel is the size of a global toenail compared to the UAE, a mere sliver compared to America's state of Delaware. A land-grab has never been the issue. That is convenient cover for the fact that Israel is Jewish owned, populated and cherished. Disengagement Plans (call them Convergence, Withdrawal, Road Map or whatever you wish) are simply another Gentleman's Agreement to dispense with Jews and Jewish rights, as portrayed in the book of that name decades ago. But reality is for naught as far as the Israeli government and critics of the pro-Gush Katif crowd are concerned. Jewish soldiers have been kidnapped, murdered and used as proof that Geneva Conventions do not apply to the Jewish State or to Jews. Druse soldiers in the IDF risk their lives, too. The world has yet to admit that Israel's army includes those Arabs and that Druse and all Arab residents of Israel are treated as well as Israeli Jews in every phase of their lives. As you read in the opening paragraph above, indeed, " the rest of the world's rules of engagement do not apply to us." The week of November 8 2001, VP Dick Cheney announced to the press: "We cannot deal with terror. It will not end in a treaty. There will be no peaceful coexistence, no negotiations, no summit, no joint communiquÁ with the terrorists. " At that time, a joke wended its way around the world: General Swarzkopf was asked how to deal with an enemy dedicated to dying while trying to kills its victims. He allegedly replied, "Accommodate them." Reality vastly differs from world opinion, and now the average Citizen in the Street worldwide is being persecuted for Minding His/Her Own Business instead of behaving in Islamic fashion. Those citizens choose to remain in the Jumanji game of their lives. But increasing numbers of Israelis, despite their governors (there is no validity in calling these pro-unilateral withdrawal proponents "leaders"), opt out. Our house has been neat and clean since its inception, our golden Jumanji attained. Liars and manipulators inside and outside the media, who deny and distort this salient fact, are cruel in the fashion of Jumanji's deranged lost tourist and merciless march toward destruction. Just as the juvenile victims of the Jumanji story and movie saved themselves without outside assistance, Israel's Jews need to do the same. World opinion is irrelevant to and dangerous for us. The new existential question now facing the world goes like this: Jumanji Changing Your Mind When Israel is Concerned? The answer will become apparent in tomorrow's headlines. These next are Fact Sheets, called "Israel's Gaza Incursion" and written by Mitchell Bard (http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org) July 11, 2006. |
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The nearly daily firing of rockets from the Gaza Strip at civilian targets in Israel is an act of war. Despite this provocation, Israel responded with great restraint for 10 months, sending no troops into Gaza and focusing most of its counter strikes on terrorists responsible for the ongoing violence. When the Palestinians took the additional belligerent step of killing several soldiers on Israel's side of the border, and kidnapped a young soldier, it was no longer possible to wait for the Palestinians to act responsibly and put an end to the provocations and the decision was made to launch an operation to secure the release of the soldier and stop the rocket attacks. Even after sending troops into Gaza, Israel has continued to use a minimal amount of force. Because the terrorists continue their cowardly tactics of operating from civilian areas, Israel has been unwilling to unleash its full military might and has made every effort to avoid harming noncombatants. The IDF displays far greater concern for the Palestinian people than the terrorists who use them as shields. The kidnappers have demanded that Israel release prisoners in exchange for the soldier they are holding, but the people in Israeli jails are there because they were involved in terrorist activities and many committed heinous crimes. Out of the 109 women and 313 juveniles currently in prison, 64 women and 91 juveniles "have blood on their hands." Palestinian prisoners under the age of 18 threw Molotov cocktails, transported weapons and associated with terrorist organizations. The women planned suicide attacks, prepared bombs and assisted suicide bombers; they also attacked Israeli soldiers and joined terrorist organizations. Ahlan Tanimi, for example, brought the bomb that murdered 16 in the Sbarro pizza restaurant in Jerusalem. Kahira Sa'adi drove a terrorist to King George Avenue, where he blew up three people. Hanady Jaradats killed 21 in the Maxim restaurant in Haifa. It is true that Israel has exchanged prisoners for soldiers in the past, often in lopsided trades of dozens of prisoners for a handful of Israelis. Sometimes the Israelis have already been killed and the nation is just trying to retrieve the bodies of its soldiers. These cases demonstrated how much Israel values the lives of its citizens, and reflects the IDF policy of leaving no soldiers -- dead or alive -- on the battlefield. Prisoner exchanges are dangerous, however, because they increase the risk that the terrorists will see kidnapping as a weapon to use repeatedly to force Israel to make concessions. It is the prospect that Hamas and the other Palestinian terror groups might be emboldened to take more hostages that led Prime Minister Olmert to dismiss any discussion of trades and to demand the unconditional release of 19-year-old Cpl. Gilad Shalit. The acts of war committed by a small number of Palestinian terrorists has brought great suffering to the general population. No one takes any pleasure in seeing the Palestinian people suffer and Israel has gone to great lengths to provide humanitarian assistance, but wars have consequences and the people have a responsibility to take whatever steps are necessary to prevent the terrorists in their midst from instigating a conflict. Leaders also have a responsibility to demonstrate statesmenship. Many people have suggested that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is a partner for peace, but he was unable or unwilling to stop the rocket attacks over the last 10 months. He was unable or unwilling to prevent Gaza from descending into chaos prior to Israel's incursion. And now he is unable or unwilling to secure the release of Cpl. Shalit. In what respect then is he a partner for peace? What hope do Israelis have that he is able or willing to deliver peace in any negotiation? The situation today is particularly tragic because the Palestinians had an opportunity to build a model of a peaceful, democratic Arab state. Less than a year ago, every Israeli civilian and soldier was evacuated from Gaza. Nothing prevented the Palestinians from spending the last ten months developing their economy, building infrastructure, dismantling the refugee camps and demonstrating to Israelis that coexistence is both desirable and possible. The whole world was ready and willing to help the Palestinians create a bright new future. Instead, the Palestinians once again proved the old saying that they never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity. For years, they chanted the mantra "end the occupation" to suggest that peace would follow Israel's withdrawal from disputed territory. Instead of land for peace, Israel traded land for more terror. Israel left behind greenhouses that had produced food, flowers and wealth for the Jews who built them and could have done the same for the Palestinians, but, instead, the greenhouses were looted and vandalized, and many were rendered useless. Israel left behind areas where Jews had created communities. Houses were destroyed because we were told the Palestinians did not need the beautiful homes that held small Jewish families and that apartment buildings would be built in their place to finally empty the refugee camps. Instead, Palestinians have fought over the land the Jews evacuated and not a single residential building has been constructed. The leadership of the PA still prefers to see its people confined to refugee camps where they are radicalized rather than moving them into homes where they would have a chance for a normal life. The decision of the Palestinians to instigate a war at this time is even more tragic because it was done just after Prime Minister Olmert made clear his intention to withdraw from even more territory and to give the Palestinians an even greater opportunity to improve their lives and move closer to independence. Olmert remains committed to his vision of realignment, but it will be much more difficult now. No one wants to trade more land for more war. The original article (www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/talking/46_gazaincursion.html) has live links to additional material. Yocheved Golani can be contacted by email at
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TRIAL DATE SHIFTED AGAIN!
Posted by Salah Choudhury, July 14, 2006. |
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Regards and Greetings from Dhaka, Bangladesh! Yesterday, 13th of July 2006, I went to the court of Metropolitan Session Judge at 9:00 am along with my lawyers Advocate Samarendra Nath Goswami, Advocate Govinda Chandra Pramanik, Advocate Prakash Biswas and Advocate Mahbubul Haque. The court took my case at 1:15 pm. My lawyer Advocate Goswami informed the court that it is a false case and an evidence of state repression of a journalist who spoke against the rise of Islamist millitancy in the country. He (Goswami) termed the case as "an anti Bangladesh effort to patronize the Islamist radicals and millitancy". He said, "there was no way to frame charges under any of the Penal Codes mentioned in the case". The judge asked him with smile, "none of the penal codes could be applied to frame the charge?". Mr. Goswami said, "No, none of the codes. Because it is a case brought against a man, who actually should be rewarded by the country for his foresightness in telling his people about the rise of Islamist millitancy in this country. This case is not maintainable. I have brought with me 18 judgements of Supreme Court and the privy Council, where you will see that such cases were always quashed by the higher courts". Then the judge said, "in that case, I need to read the entire file carefully and listen to your submission in another date". Advocate Goswami said, "this is a case of 2003 and it is 2006. You already had full three years to read anything and we are in your court for the fourth time, so please read the matter now and drop this case". The judge said, "i can not do it today, nor in even next one month. I have to fix another date after one month". Advocate Goswami said, "my client is unnecessarily harrased with this false case and kindly fix a short date and hear the matter'. The judge said, "I can not fix a short date. It should be after one month". Then Goswami said, okay, in that case, please fix it on any Thursdays and with specific time. The judge agreed to fix it on any Thursday and at 2:00 pm. After coming out from the court, Advocate Goswami said, this is a clear harrassment. The judge also knows for sure, he can not frame the charge under any of the Penal Codes mentioned therein. So, he is now buying time. Anyway, this is the sordid story of State Repression. Each dates appearance in the court means, I have to bear both mental and financial stain. Above all, it is a kind of mental torture to stand in the court for hours in high humidity and heat. There is no air conditioner in lower courts in Bangladesh. This is for your kind information please. Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury The writer is a journalist, columnist, author, and editor of "Weekly Blitz". Email him at salahuddinshoaibchoudhury@yahoo.com |
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ODD COUPLE: ISRAEL'S CURRENT TOP TEACHERS
Posted by Professor Eugene Narrett, July 13, 2006. |
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Bitterness, -- that is the first and perhaps the last word of the day. Bitterness, -- and yet an opportunity is here if only Jews will listen, learn and act before it is too late. Do we not know what it is when it is too late? We do not want to drink that cup again. There is NO way that the Olmert - Peretz lobbyist group will declare and fight a genuine war against Israel's primary enemies, Syria and Iran and their clients Hezbollah, Hamas and the contrived state of Lebanon, a quasi-legal fiction if ever there was one. Olmert may issue statements that Israel is "at war" and will crush the enemy, or whatever, but so long as he and his party are in power with Labor there will be no declaration of war. Should there be massive escalation of hostilities against Israeli land and Jews, the Knesset might declare war but bitter experience teaches us that it will not be waged full bore: not even the 1967 war was fought that way, especially in Judea and Samaria... Let us resist for now spinning out plausible scenarios of tepid Israeli reactions to escalating Jihad against it and of the magnitude of the disaster that might be required for an even half-decisive Israeli military strike to develop. Let us rather focus on the surprising tandem of truth tellers that emerged in the past twenty-four hours that reveal the particulars of the coffin Israel's anti-Jewish client regime in the Knesset and courts have constructed for it. Former Deputy Chief of Staff for Israeli Military Intelligence, Major-General Yaakov Amidror emphasized on Israel National Radio on July 12 that the Iranian-Syrian attack on northern Israel via their Hezbollah division was no surprise. Indeed it was no surprise to anyone that has followed events in Israel for the past seven or eight years, since former PM Ehud Barak began pushing for and eventually implemented the total withdrawal of the IDF from the buffer zone north of Israel's current constricted and artificial borders. Since May 2000 observers have watched (and listened to the boasts, taunting and threats of Hezbollah and Iranian chieftains) as Syria and Iran thickly garnished Israel's northern border with missiles. As General Amidror noted, "we were able to see, hear, and detect what Hezbollah was preparing but we could not take the initiative against them. Because of political arrangements with the international community it was decided to let them shoot first..." Pause here and consider those sentences, consider their implications, a subject I have written and spoken about many times. "Because of political arrangements with the international community it was decided to let them shoot first..." And who makes these arrangements, Israeli politicians and the politicized officer corps that goes along to get along; politicians who are the bought-and-owned clients of foreign regimes for whom Israel is a useful target and tester not only of counter-terror measures of various kinds but of how a population can be made accustomed to living under assault while its leaders feed it bromides of rhetoric. The Jewish people, especially but not only in Israel have been sold out by their faithless, preening politicians and their appointees. And the foreign masters of these betrayers have decreed that Israel be shot first, that it bleed, that it become weakened, and ever more pliable as was the plan in 1973. Clearly the upper echelons of the IDF, although they may read Sun Tzu do not take his strictures to heart, certainly not his warnings that the civilian leaders not try to direct a war as if it was a society at peace, and not trying to tell its generals how to fight an enemy. And, as Professor Eidelberg has explained, instructing Generals to ignore politicians who hinder it from pursuing and repeatedly striking an enemy until its ability and desire to wage war is destroyed. "Because of political arrangements with the international community it was decided to let them shoot first..." And now that they have been shooting first, the puppet politicians continue to restrict the IDF to carefully limited "surgical strikes" rather than an all-out and quickly victorious hammer strike against Syria and its Lebanese colony. And if this means preemption of Iran, after all that is gravely overdue and more dangerously belated every day. Major-General Amidror did not explain, and probably was not asked what prevented his own views (probably shared by many officers) from prevailing and going vigorously public for the six years that the Iranian-Syrian missile build-up continued. Perhaps it was more "political arrangements." He did add, however, the basic truth that "if you don't take the initiative, and you allow the enemy to shoot whenever and wherever he wants than even if he fails twenty times in the end he succeeds." "If you fail to take the initiative..." Note that Rabbis often remind us of the Torah teachings that Israel is to be "a head and not a tail," a teacher and initiator in all matters, war included. Ariel Sharon won his first term as PM by reiterating tirelessly that he would "initiate, initiate, and again initiate" against terror; that "we will not just react, we will win..." That's the key, too bad that he didn't mean it and didn't do it. No, Major-General Amidror, no more than C.O.S. Dan Halutz (who also journeyed to Washington to cement political arrangements) has bound themselves to the critical dicta of Sun Tzu regarding the duty of all soldiers, including top Generals to the nation rather than to the ruler of the day. As Amidror said, "the IDF is unable to fulfill its obligation to stop terrorism if it does not receive orders to do so, no matter what." Consider the implications of that "no matter what." As Tadeusz Borowski wrote, "This way to the gas, ladies and gentlemen..." While his consensus platitude may suffice for a radio interview (and for a secure place in the power structure, one rapidly conducing to the destruction of Israel) it emphasizes that Israel's survival depends on regime change. If this does not come from the IDF than from where? The man understands the military situation vividly: "if the [political] instructions are to 'stop the terrorism but don't hit Gaza streets,' it can't be done." That's right: the streets of Gaza must be hit with a crushing blow, and the streets of Beirut, Damascus, Antioch, Hamath and Latakia. "The only way to stop terrorism is by going into the area and gaining control of the ground." Let me add to the General's assessment that this must not be done by turning Israeli soldiers into corpses to avoid harming enemy "civilians." Rather, it should the leading edge of terror-suppression should be massive aerial assault and then occupation and then reclamation and re-settlement of the land by Jews. That's what true peace-lovers want. Here is the odd partner who on July 12 provided a complement to the good but incomplete assessment of General Amidror. We are referring to Abu Oudai, "rocket coordinator" for Abu Mazen's Fatah and its self-styled "Al Aksa Brigades." Speaking with Aaron Klein of World Net Daily news service, Oudai emphasized that possession of Gaza had enable Fatah groups to ship many Kassams to Judea and Samaria where they are being refined and manufactured. He asserted repeatedly that all of central Israel, Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, and every Jewish area in Israel's "waist" would be targeted from "Palestinian" cities like Tulkarm, Jenin and Kalkilye. "He hinted that Iran, Syria and the Lebanese Hezbollah would help in developing these rockets." Jenin is the main town in the northern Shomron that the "Disengagement" of August 2005 turned into a virtual terror state cleansed of Jews. Jenin was where IDF soldiers were slaughtered in 2002 because the IAF was not allowed to strike with even a tiny fraction of its might. So now rockets will be shot from there and the other terror havens created by Oslo... "For if you do not drive them out, those who remain shall be pins in your eyes and thorns in your sides..." (Deuteronomy 32). Klein asked Oudai about the threats of the Israeli government to take stern countermeasures alternating with their minimizing of the threat of Kassams, epitomized by Shimon Peres's "kassams, shmassams" remark. "It is their own business that they deny and minimize," he said. "But in the coming days the proofs on the ground will be very clear to the average Israeli in the street." As I have often explained, and as is implied by Amidror's comments above, Israel's client politicians minimize these existential dangers because they are numbing their public to the fact of war that surrounds them. Even today, the "political arrangements they made with the international community" causes them to tie the hands and feet of the IDF. After all, the Road Map must be saved. Hamas, Syria and Hezbollah must be taken down a little so as not to awaken the Israelis and thus endanger progress down the rails of the Road Map. But perhaps Israel's teacher Abu Oudai, if not General Amidror will wake up "the average Israeli" before the large iron gates are reached. "The only unprecedented thing" Oudai told Klein regarding the Israeli strikes against Hezbollah -- Lebanon "is the frequency of the Israeli 'empty threats.' We are not afraid and we have nothing to fear." Why should he and his cadres? As he notes, they have heard these empty threats thousands of times for fourteen years and still the Jews will not wage war. Moreover he knows what the grand game is and that, as Arab mobs have been screaming since Britain made clear to them that the Mandate would be undone, "the government is with us." Israel, you've been warned high and low. An end to the bitterness of attrition. It's "a time for war, -- it's not too late." Professor Eugene Narrett teaches writing and Literature at Boston University. He is the author of hundreds of articles, columns and reviews on politics, American culture and the arts. He is completing a study on Romanticism and the longterm decline of Western Culture. He writes often on subjects relating to Israel and Judaism and is a weekly columnist for the MetroWest Daily News in Framingham, Massachusetts. His new book is "Israel and the Endtimes". Contact him at Culturtalk@aol.com |
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IDENTIFYING THE ENEMY -- A SLOW LEARNING CURVE
Posted by George Mason, July 13, 2006. |
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It may encourage you to know that many of us fully support the current [Israeli] activity and wish our government had the guts that Israel is displaying right now. Little by little, we are "getting it" here in the States, although it has been a painfully slow process, proceeding from the ground up from the "little people," to the radio talk show hosts, and now, finally, to a few polititicians. Most of us think that it will take another Trade Tower kind of attack to wake up the rest of us, but inasmuch as reality always wins in the end, the time will come when 1) it will be recognized that the fundamental philosophy of Islam will never permit the wholesale change of the status quo; so long as they have the motive and the means, this sort of behavior will continue, and 2) that something definitive, whatever that turns out to be, will eventually have to be done so that the civilized world can live normally without having to look over our shoulders all the time. Who knows? Maybe one day, the PC curtain will be pulled back enough for the real enemy to be identified. After all, we didn't hesitate to say that it was a "war against Nazi Germany" instead of a "war against the blitzkrieg," so why should we hesitate to say it's a "war against Islam" instead of a "war against terrorism"? In my humble opinion, Islam is using "religion" as a cloaking device, much as the Klingons did on Star Trek; by using religion as a "cover," they can sneak in under the tent flap and do what they please, knowing that the use of "religion" will grant them immunity from scrutiny and appropriate responses to their behavior (which you guys are engaged in now). It isn't just their status as a religion per se that grants them this peculiar immunity, it's the failure to recognize that despite their belief in a single deity (which seems to form another impenetrable barrier to criticism), it's their moral code. A "moral code" is a set of values chosen to guide our thoughts and behaviors; it always contains a single, most important value by which all the rest are judged. The philosophers call this single, fundamental value the "standard of the good." In the West, and in rest of the world to varying degrees, the "standard of the good" is human life. Any thoughts or behaviors that tend to support human life are considered "good," while any thoughts or behaviors that tend to threaten it are considered "bad." Islam's moral code is different; its "standard of the good" is the "spread of Islam." Any thought or behavior, up to and including murder and mayhem, which tends to support the spread of Islam is considered "good," while any thought or behavior tending to threaten the spread of Islam is considered "bad." That is why they can lob bombs into your towns, ram airplanes into our skyscrapers, kill hundreds of schoolchilren in Russia, blow up people in a subway, torture and mutililate people, etc. ad nauseam, and still wake up in the morning and smile. They consider that they have done something "good." Unfortunately, far too many people do not recognize that the element of choice exists in the formation of a moral code, so they remain puzzled - "How can they claim to believe in God and still do these things?" - at Islam's behavior. Oh, well, the time will come. Contact George Mason on his website: http://sixthcolumn.typepad.com |
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IRAN MUST NOT GO UNPUNISHED
Posted by Lawrence Uniglicht, July 13, 2006. |
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Israel is at war on two fronts, both financially and spiritually supported by Iran, intent on wiping the Jewish State off the map. Erstwhile Persia indeed is ruled by Islamic fanatics, obsessed with annihilating not only Israel, but also focused on destroying all "infidel" nations not loyal to its twisted fundamentalist interpretation of the Koran, concurrently creating a neo-Ottoman intolerant empire throughout the Middle East and Europe. No doubt, partnering with radical Muslim cadres Hamas and Hezbollah to do away with Israel represents but the opening salvo in the muscle flexing Islamic regime's quest to dominate a substantial part of its Hemisphere. However, Western and Eastern "infidel" industrial nations, the former most assuredly in the current cross-hairs of Iran's despotic delusion of domination, are unwilling to tame the belligerent beast, presciently demand that it forthwith cease and desist from developing a nuclear arsenal, being ever addicted to the fossil fuel reserves beneath its scorpion infested desert, intimidated by prospects of any disruption of that "heroin-like" liquid energy so needed to flow unimpeded through connected global arteries. Khaled Meshal, leader of Hamas' political bureau, remains in Syria yet is backed by Iran. He along with Iran called the shots, without provocation, murdering two Israeli soldiers along the Gaza border while abducting Gilad Shalit. A short time later, Iran's kindred spirit underwritten Hezbollah fundamentalist Shiites, without provocation, abducted two more Israeli troops along the Lebanese border, killing eight Israeli soldiers in the process. Of course, Israeli forces retaliate fiercely on both fronts, justified in such action, despite hand-wringing accusations of "disproportionate response" by presumed human rights advocates, truly "infidels" with no brains. Still, the Persian spiritual and monetary lifeline of jihad junky Hamas, Hezbollah, and related Islamic organizations remains unscathed, industrial leviathans paralyzed by their oil addictions, unwilling to substantively sanction this obvious threat to planetary stability. Clearly, Israel fends for itself, and must do what no other powerful nation is willing to do. Iran's declaration of war against the Jewish State must be answered in no uncertain terms by the Jewish State, and the Jewish State alone. Hamas, Hezbollah, and related Islamic radical groups will lose their effectiveness without "got rocks" Iran's financial support. Thus, it is high time for Israel to hit the pernicious Islamic bank, and hit it hard. All nuclear infrastructure needs to be targeted by spot on air strikes. Political enemies of Israel, directing the despicable Iranian regime, are fair game as well. Militarily, Israel's superiority can and should render that bogeyman Islamic nation with delusions of grandeur impotent. Industrial leviathans shocked by Israel's boldness, yet even more alarmed by a consequential disruption of fossil fuel flow, will just have to deal with it. In the short run, the tiny Jewish nation in survival mode will absorb much antipathy from petulant pundits, academic jackasses, and human rights buffoons. In the long run, Israel will be doing the world an immense favor. Lawrence Uniglicht is a career civil servant, working for the Social Security Administration. He advocates for the State of Israel with an American perspective. He writes, "Advocating for the disrespected underdog has been my passion, no doubt Israel falls into that category." Contact him by email at luniglicht@snip.net |
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TO ISRAEL: GET 'R' DONE!
Posted by George Mason, July 13, 2006. |
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We are neither Jews nor Israelis, but we are very bullish on a free Israel against these monsters from Islam. |
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My sole worries about the actions of Israel against Gaza and Lebanon come down to two: Israeli over-restraint and stopping short of the definitive. I sense that Israel is pussy-footing about in Gaza so as not to kill "innocent" Muslims. Similarly, I fear that Israel will stop short of taking out Syria. Part of this mix is my concern that the USA may not give Israel its fullest possible backing although supporting Israel would be the most moral of acts. The thought of an Islam-free levant is delicious. It can be brought about by beating Muslims into plowshares or hitting them so hard that enough sense sinks into even their hard heads--getting it done, whatever it takes. Riding Gaza of Muslims would allow Israel to incorporate the Gaza Territory into Israel where it belongs anyway. "Innocent" Muslims!?!?!?! Well, were there "innocent Nazis"? The same answer applies to both, for exactly the same fundamental reasons. The real trouble-making comes from the Iran-Syria connection, and Syria needs to be treated as a carbuncle on the ass of the civilized world. Incise, deloculate, flush, drain, and pack open, while giving huge doses of systemic antibiotics until the carbuncle has pulled an Elvis and left the body, which, in this case, is existence itself. Going after Syria could draw Iran into the conflict, and that just might be a terrific idea. It is now or later regarding war with Iran. Now is much more advantageous, and surely this would commit the US to do the obvious finally. Syria, like Lebanon, is easy flying from the decks of Mediterranean based aircraft carriers, land-based bombers and fighters from Iraq, and certainly for Israeli aircraft. Syria may be described properly as a "target-rich environment." Once Syria is out of the picture, we will all feel like that thrombosed hemorrhoid has finally gone away. Israel is behaving rightly in every regard. Above all, it is MORALLY RIGHT in what it is doing. It is doing something it should have done years ago, and it must not stop until the so-called "Palestinians" have gone from Gaza and the West Bank and these properties become fully Israeli. Obliviating Lebanon and Syria is as right as calling Orkin to rid your home of termites. Let the sorry Left feel for the vermin of the levant. As for Israel: Let freedom ring and reign. And do it completely, and may we get off our dead butts and help, or, as Larry the Cable Guy says: "Get 'r' done." Contact George Mason on his website:
http://sixthcolumn.typepad.com
This essay is archived at
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PAYING THE PRICE FOR DISENGAGEMENT
Posted by Sergio Tessa (HaDaR), July 13, 2006. |
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This was written by Major-General (res.) Ya'acov Amidror and it appeared in The Jerusalem Post Jul. 7, 2006 Ya'acov Amidror, a former head of the research branch of Military Intelligence, is director of the Institute for Contemporary Affairs at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs. (Interview by Ehud Zion Waldoks.), |
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We are now paying just a portion of the price for the withdrawal from Gaza. Because of the pullout, Hamas rose to power. Moreover, its ideology became widely accepted in Gaza. Before disengagement, no one got through the security fence around the Gaza Strip. The trickle of arms that was being smuggled underneath the Philadelphi corridor has risen to a flood through the Rafah Crossing. And we've had many more Kassams. What we will see in the future is the rise of al-Qaida and Hizbullah in Gaza. It's been less than a year, just give them enough time. It is not right to second-guess those who have to make the operational decisions. I don't have access to the intelligence information that they have. However, it is worth asking so-called strategists like [adviser to former prime minister Ariel Sharon] Dov Weisglass and [former director of the strategic coordination staff in the Prime Minister's Office] Brig.-Gen. (res.) Eival Giladi: how could you bring us to this point, you who promised us salvation? These people have caused the rise of Hamas, at the price of 8,000 people who still do not have homes. And most of the world is criticizing us for our actions now! Contact Sergio Tessa at HaDaR-Israel@verizon.net |
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ISRAEL SHUTS DOWN LEBANON IN RESPONSE TO HIZBULLAH BARRAGE
Posted by Hillel Fendel, July 13, 2006. |
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Dozens of Hizbullah-fired Katyusha rockets struck all over the north Thursday morning, killing two. Northern Israel had six years of quiet, and Hizbullah had six years to build up its rocket forces. Israel has essentially imposed a total blockade on Lebanon, having taken out the runways of the Beirut International Airport and imposing a naval blockade of Lebanese seaports. Israel also continues to attack dozens of targets throughout Lebanon, destroying bridges, roads, military positions, arms storehouses and missile battery locations. The city of Baalbek - the main Hizbullah stronghold in Lebanon, some 100 kilometers north of Israel - was also bombed. Close to 50 Lebanese have been reported killed in the Israeli attacks. The Israel Air Force also hit the Al-Manar terrorist television studios. The station, however, apparently anticipated the attack, and moved its broadcasts to an unknown location ahead of time. IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Dan Halutz says that Israel has warned residents of a southern Beirut suburb - home to Hizbullah chief Sheikh Nasrallah and many other leading Hizbullah terrorists - to evacuate the area. "It is unreasonable to assume that they will be allowed to live there in serenity for much longer," Halutz said. Hizbullah threatens to bomb Haifa if southern Beirut is bombed. The Beirut-Damascus highway is also a target that "will be taken care of," IDF sources said. Interior Minister Roni Bar-On (Kadima), a staunch supporter of the Disengagement plan, said today, "There is only one possible outcome: the victory of [our] army, leadership and nation." Israeli officials said the purpose of Israel's offensive is to eradicate Hizbullah, and pressure Lebanon to withdraw its tacit support for the terrorist organization in its midst. The names of the two soldiers who were abducted by Hizbullah yesterday were released this afternoon. They are Ehud Goldwasser, 31, of Nahariya, and Eldad Regev, 26, from Kiryat Motzkin. Early Afternoon Attacks After Hizbullah's initial Katyusha attack this morning, it continued firing afterwards at northern Israel, firing a total of more than 50 Katyushas. Rockets hit Beit Hillel again and caused a fire - one of several that were caused by the rockets - and struck other areas as well. Katyushas fell in Kfar Nasi in the Galilee and in Kibbutz Mahanayim, deeper into Israel than ever before. The hospital in Nahariya, operating on an emergency basis, has moved all of its hundreds of patients to underground floors, for fear of a Katyusha attack. After a lull of 3-4 hours, another four Katyushas hit the city of Tzfat. Two people were hurt, with critical and moderate wounds, respectively, and several others were treated for shock. Rockets were also fired at Shlomi, in the northwestern Galilee, this afternoon. Government and military officials say that the offensive in Lebanon will take weeks, and will be qualitatively different than any Israeli offensive since the 1982 Peace for Galilee War. Israel's Retaliation Followed by Morning Katyusha Barrage Israel attacked Hizbullah throughout yesterday (Wednesday) and over the night, following Hizbullah's killing of eight soldiers and its abduction of two others Wednesday morning. Israel's retaliation included more than 100 aerial attacks in southern Lebanon Wednesday night and early Thursday. Hizbullah's response to the retaliation, as expected and long-planned, was quick to come: Shortly after 7 AM this morning (Thursday), a barrage of Katyusha rockets began, hitting an IDF position in Mount Meron, not far from Tzfat. No one was hurt, but soon afterwards, four more rockets hit the other side of the Galilee - the coastal city of Nahariya. One Katyusha hit the porch of a home where a woman was eating breakfast; she was killed on the spot. Within minutes it became clear that Nahariya and Mt. Meron were not isolated attacks. Nahariya was rocketed again, as were many other locations throughout the north, including Rosh Pina, Tzfat, Margaliot, Machanayim, Machanayim Airport, Beit Hillel, Kfar HaNasi, and Mishmar HaYarden. The IDF Northern Command Headquarters was also hit. Ten Katyushas hit Tel Chai between 8 and 9 AM. The total number of injured is close to 70. The IDF has instructed residents throughout the north - hundreds of thousands of people - to enter their shelters and reinforced rooms. The orders have been largely ignored, however, and army officials have stepped up their tone, practically imploring residents to protect themselves. If until now Nahariya and Kiryat Shmonah were always in range of Hizbullah's Katyusha rockets, communities further to the south are now in range as well - but the IDF estimates that Hizbullah has not even fired its longest-range Katyushas as of yet. The army is considering ordering the residents of towns and cities further to the south into their shelters. Israel Police was placed on a level-3 alert, just one level below a state of emergency, anticipating a possible attempt by Palestinian terrorists to attack in the homefront. The Israeli Offensive Among the Lebanese targets attacked by Israel's air force over the night were a dozen bridges and much of southern Lebanon's highway infrastructure. One strike hit a vehicle in which two Hizbullah terrorists were traveling. Israel has announced that it views the Lebanese government as responsible for the attacks from within its borders, including the rockets and abduction of the two IDF soldiers. The IDF announced the formation of a one-kilometer buffer zone, and any Lebanese seen in the area will be shot on sight. Until now, Hizbullah has stationed many outposts all along the border with Israel, practically adjacent to Israeli positions. Defense Minister Amir Peretz said that Israel would not allow Hizbullah to return to its former positions. "The only body that can operate there is the Lebanese Army," Peretz said. Last night, Gen. Udi Adam, the Commander of the Northern Command, said he was unsure whether Hizbullah would be permitted to rebuild its positions. Just a few weeks ago, the IAF destroyed many Hizbullah positions, but allowed the terrorists to begin rebuilding immediately afterwards. Hillel Fendel is Senior News Editor, Arutz-Sheva (www.IsraelNN.com). |
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Fern Sidman
Posted by Fern Sidman, July 13, 2006. |
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As a young person growing up in New York City, I was a member of Brit Trumpeldor of America, better known as the Zionist Youth Movement Betar, founded by the great Zionist leader, Ze''ev Jabotinsky. When I joined Betar at the age of 12, every potential member was required to enroll in the Tironut program. Tironut of basic training was an intensive series of lectures and seminars covering a wide range of topics including Jewish history, the history of the Zionist movement and the glorious legacy of Betar and the Jewish underground that valiantly battled the British during the mandatory regime, prior to the creation of the State of Israel. I learned about a young Jew from Poland named Shalom Tabachnik, a/k/a Shlomo Ben Yosef, a member of Betar who came to live in the land of Israel and who settled on the northern settlement of Rosh Pina. On Thursday, April 21, 1938, the 20th day of Nissan 5698, Ben Yosef and two Betar colleagues attempted to defend the settlement of Rosh Pina from an impending Arab attack, emanating from the neighboring Arab village of Djani. An automobile carrying Arabs approached Rosh Pina. Ben Yosef and his two fellow Btarim stepped out on the road and tried to stop the automobile. A single shot was fired and the Arabs fled in panic. A few hours after the incident the three young men were arrested by the British police. They gave themseleves up without any struggle. "Despite the fact that not a single drop of blood was shed at Rosh Pina and despite the fact that the police knew very well that the three young men had only fired into the air in order to discourage the Arabs from passing through the settlement, the British decided to create a big "terrorist" incident out of the Rosh Pina affair. The very fact that Jews had resolved to withstand an Arab attack made them feel afraid. Their plan to frighten Jews from coming to Palestine would be endangered if Jews were to fight back. They knew very well that the Jews could put an end to the Arab "revolts" in a few days." (Triumph on the Gallows, Itzhak Gurion, 1950) On June 29, 1938 Ben Yosef was hanged on the gallows by the British authorities. His last words in a conversation with friends were, "Havlagah" (self-restraint) is fatal." Today I also thought of the brave and courageous defender of the settlement Tel Chai. I thought of Yosef Trumpeldor, for whom Betar is named. I thought of his efforts to defend Tel Chai against Arab attacks. No stranger to military conflicts, Trumpeldor was the highest ranking Jewish officer in the Czar's army during the Russo-Japanese war of 1905. I thought of him and of his last words when he was gunned down by an Arab bullet while defending the settlement in 1920. Today, I thought of the last words of Shlomo Ben Yosef and Yosef Trumpeldor when I read of Katyusha rocket attacks on cities in northern Israel. Besides Nahariya, it was reported that Rosh Pina and Tel Chai had been hit by rocket fire and that the airport in Rosh Pina was shut down. I thought of Shlomo Ben Yosef and Yosef Trumpeldor when I heard Ehud Olmert's response to the rocket attacks by the Syrian backed Hizbollah militia in Lebanon. According to a news report from Arutz Sheva, "Olmert was clear that the multi-pronged attack, which involved ground forces as well as Katyusha rockets, was not an act of terror, but "an act of war" and said the Israeli response would be "very restrained but very, very painful." Seems like the word restraint keeps rearing its head. The Associated Press reported that, "U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan called for restraint. "We would not want to see an expansion, an escalation, of conflict in the region," he said. Mr. Annan was joined by US Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, who was quoted by Associated Press as saying, "All sides must act with restraint to resolve this incident peacefully and to protect innocent civilians and civilian infrastructure." If we've learned anything from this two front war that threatens to explode like a powderkeg, we've learned that the calls for restraint from world leaders only apply to Israel. Seems like the age old double standard concerning the actions of Israel are in full swing. While the State of Israel engages Hizbollah terrorists on its northern border and Hamas terrorists on its southern border, let us remember the words of the young Betari from Rosh Pina. Let us remember the words of this simple Jew whose courage and bravery move us to tears. Let us remember the actions and examples that Yosef Trumpeldor set for his people and his beloved nation of Israel, so many years ago. It is these axioms that must shape our destiny in the current military conflict. We must address the world clearly and unequivocaclly. We must shout from the rooftops, the words of Shlomo Ben Yosef. Yes, it is true. Self restraint is fatal. We know that self restraint only emboldens our enemies. We know that the Arab enemy mocks and ridicules Israel when self restraint is elevated to the level of a religious commandment. We know that only swift action without trepidation or hesitation can ensure our preservation. The facts are clear and cannot be debated. Three Israeli soldiers are being held captive by our Arab enemy and eight Israeli soldiers lay dead as a result from the brazen attacks from Hizbollah. Jewish settlements, towns and cities are being barraged by Katyusha rocket attacks on our northern front and continued Kassam rocket attacks are being staged by our Arab enemy In Gaza. This is the time to throw off the yoke of "restraint". Our survival and preservation as a people and nation are at stake. Now is the time conquer our proverbial nemisis, better known as fear of world opinion. Now is the time to reach out to the Almighty G-d of Israel. Now is the time to know that Hashem marches into battle with us. As Jews, we are never alone. Hashem will be with us, if only we allow Him to be. If only we bend our collective necks to the yoke of Heaven and walk in His ways and remain faithful to His commandments. Hashem commands us to show no mercy on our enemies. We are commanded to fear only G-d and to treat our enemies accordingly. To engage in bold and decisive military actions that will permanently disable Hizbollah and Hamas. If we can summon up the strength to quash our own egos and accept Hashem's dominion, the battle will be fought for us. On this 17th day of Tammuz, may our prayers reach the Almighty G-d of Israel and may He protect His nation Israel. Contact Fern Sidman at AriellaH@aol.com |
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HOW OLMERT JUSTIFIES FAILURE
Posted by Sergio Tessa (HaDaR), July 13, 2006. |
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This was written by Caroline Glick, and it appeared in The
Jerusalem Post |
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Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's secret visit to Sderot Tuesday morning was met with snorts of disgusted laughter. When the prime minister of Israel treats a visit to a city in Israel as a military secret on the order of an American presidential visit to Baghdad, the message he sends is clear: Israel's withdrawal from Gaza last summer was a national security disaster - and he knows it. Olmert said he hid his plan to visit Sderot because he didn't want to give the Palestinian Authority a special reason to launch rockets against the city. That statement, like the government's decision to retake the destroyed communities of Dugit, Elei Sinai and Nisanit in a bid to halt the Palestinian rocket offensive, is a clear admission that the IDF is incapable of defending southern Israel from outside the Gaza Strip. That is, it is a clear admission that the government lied last year when it said the IDF was in Gaza just to "protect the settlers." If anything, the Gaza settlers, by providing a friendly base of operations, protected the IDF. And just as opponents of the retreat warned, the removal of both endangered Israel's national security. So now that the consequences of last year's retreat are clear, how is the Olmert government defending its goal of compounding the failure 20-fold in Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem? The government's line is that the withdrawal from Gaza wasn't supposed to make Israel more secure, and therefore the deterioration of the security situation in the South doesn't mean that the withdrawal was a strategic blunder. As Yonatan Bassi, the outgoing head of the government's so-called Disengagement Authority, explained, "From a security point of view, I never thought things were going to be better" after Israel left Gaza. In an interview with The Jerusalem Post on Thursday, Bassi claimed that the retreat was important for strengthening Israeli democracy, which is "better... now than it was a year ago." Amplifying Bassi's line are government ministers who claim that what is happening in Gaza is irrelevant to the government's plan to retreat from Judea and Samaria and to partition Jerusalem. Internal Security Minister Avi Dichter explains that the failure of the withdrawal from Gaza is immaterial to Judea and Samaria because there the IDF will remain in place. According to Dichter, all the government wants to do is to orchestrate mass expulsions of Israeli citizens from their homes and to destroy their communities. The IDF, he promised in an interview Thursday with Ha'aretz, will stay where it is. The removal of the Israelis, Dichter says, will be undertaken to strengthen Israel's demographic balance and to enhance Israeli democracy. Dichter's assumption that it is possible to expel tens of thousands of Israelis from their homes and to destroy their communities while leaving the IDF deployments in the areas untouched is delusional. The Israeli Left, on whose support the government depends for survival, and the Europeans, on whom the Israeli Left depends for survival, will not back the retention of IDF forces in Judea and Samaria in the wake of the planned mass expulsions. BUT LEAVING aside the military consequences of the government's plans for Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem, the question arises: Is the government working to enhance Israel's demographic stature and strengthen its democratic system? The Olmert government bases its claim that Israel's demographic standing is in need of immediate enhancement on a census carried out by the Palestinian Authority in 1997. That census claims there is near numerical parity between the Arab and Jewish populations west of the Jordan River. Yet a study published in January 2005 by a group of independent American and Israeli researchers who examined the PA population data proved that that data was fraudulent. The researchers, who presented their findings to the government and the Knesset, showed that the PA's numbers were inflated by some 50 percent, or up to 1.5 million people. After the study was published, Prof. Arnon Sofer - Israel's loudest demographic alarmist - quietly reduced his Palestinian population data by one million. Last month, in an interview with Hadassah magazine, Prof. Sergio Della Pergula, Sofer's colleague, reduced his Palestinian population estimate by some 900,000. So today, Israel's two most prominent demographic sirens admit that, far from approaching numerical parity, Jews make up approximately two-thirds of the population of Israel, Judea and Samaria. The government may well believe that a two-thirds majority is not enough. But expelling up to 100,000 Jews from Judea and Samaria and partitioning Jerusalem will not add one Jew or detract one Arab from Israel's population rolls. The fact of the matter is that if the government was truly concerned about Israel's demographic balance, it would be working tirelessly to bring every possible Jew to Israel. Yet, not only is the government not doing this, it is subverting the rule of law to prevent Jews from coming here. Last month, Immigration Minister Ze'ev Boim broke the law in order to block the aliya of 218 Jews from India who have been waiting, suitcases packed, for nine months to come. These Jews, members of the Bnei Menashe community, underwent conversion under the auspices of Israel's Rabbinate nine months ago. As Michael Freund related in Thursday's Post, the community's more than 7,000 members were recognized as "descendents of the Jewish people" by Sephardi Chief Rabbi Shlomo Amar in March 2005. One thousand community members, fully converted, are already living in Israel. All the rest, including the 218 who have completed the conversion process, want to come. But rather than helping to facilitate the aliya of the members of one of the 10 Lost Tribes who after nearly 2,800 years miraculously found their way back to their people, the government of Israel prefers to make a mockery of the rule of law. Boim claims that he decided to violate the Law of Return and block the aliya of the 218, whose status as Jews is not in dispute, in order to consider how to best deal with the Bnei Menashe as a group. And how is the government now dealing with Bnei Menashe as a group? By freezing all of their conversion activities until further notice. In a similar vein, today some 20,000 members of the Falash Mura community in Ethiopia are living in a refugee camp in Addis Ababa, waiting to make aliya. The conditions in their camp are reportedly unspeakable. These same Falash Mura have relatives in Israel who have been waiting for 15 years to be reunited with them. In January 2005, the government decided to double the monthly quota of Falash Mura allowed to enter Israel, from 300 to 600. It then proceeded to do nothing. In September 2005, camp residents opened a hunger strike in hopes of forcing the government to implement its own decision, but to no avail. Last month, the ministerial committee charged with handling the Falash Mura canceled the 2005 decision. Committee chairman Interior Minister Roni Bar-On justified the move by claiming that Israel lacked the money to bring them and that even if Israel had the funds, the Falash Mura would cause social problems once here. No one seems to have thought of asking the Falash Mura whether they would prefer to come to Israel and forgo welfare assistance or remain in the camp in sub-Saharan Africa. Moreover, Diaspora Jewry has already raised the money to bring 600 Falash Mura a month to Israel. The government simply refuses to use it. Then there is the government's discriminatory policy towards New York's Yeshiva University. A year ago, it came to light that the government does not recognize bachelors degrees from YU. As a result, graduates of the Orthodox university's undergraduate program who live in Israel and work in government jobs are paid as if they only graduated from high school, even if they went on to receive advanced degrees and now work as heart surgeons in government hospitals. A year ago, the Education Ministry promised to end this discriminatory practice. Yet the government has done nothing. As Richard Joel, president of YU, put it to New York's Jewish Week, "On the one hand, Israel is saying we want everybody to make aliya and build the state, and on the other hand it is actively discouraging people from thinking that way by engaging in outrageous minutia. We all spend such energies encouraging people to make aliya, we can't have the State of Israel fighting us." THE GOVERNMENT'S behavior indicates that it does not give a hoot about demography. But what about strengthening Israeli democracy? Is strengthening Israeli democracy an aim of the Olmert government? Last month the government submitted to the Knesset a bill to change the sections of the criminal code relating to the crime of incitement. In the bill's explanatory notes, the government claims that there is a need to broaden the scope of the statute to "prevent the 'pollution' of the public debate." The government also claims that freedom of speech must be constricted "to prevent an atmosphere that threatens the members of society and its leaders [and so prevents] them from forming their views and expressing them freely." Dr. Avi Bell, a constitutional law expert from Bar-Ilan University's Law School, explains that the explanatory note reveals the amendment's anti-liberal intentions. "Rather than adopting the liberal assumption that people should be free to do whatever they want unless there is a compelling reason for the government to abridge their freedom, it adopts the anti-liberal assumption that people are free only to do what the government permits them to do, and, in this case, the government should not permit them to speak in a way that produces a 'violent' and 'polluted' public discourse." The same anti-liberal tendencies are evident in a bill the government pushed through a first reading in Knesset on Wednesday that would make it illegal to publish opinion polls in the three weeks leading up to national elections. Here too, the government's claim to champion democracy is undermined by its actions. Indeed, its actions empty the term "democracy" of all meaningful content. The government's illiberal tendencies were similarly exposed by its decision this past month to restrict the freedom of movement of more than 20 citizens in Judea and Samaria. According to the Attorney General's Office, although none of these people have been indicted on any charges, they are all "dangerous." All these citizens live and work in Judea and Samaria, and so the consequence of the restraining orders issued against them is that they are prohibited from living in their homes, seeing their families or going to their jobs. While the government does not have enough evidence to arrest any of these supposedly dangerous people for any crime, by issuing the restraining orders, the police are free to arrest them if they dare to enter their own homes. No self-respecting liberal democracy would accept this sort of behavior, yet in Israel, the government justifies its trampling of democratic norms in the name of democracy. An Israeli government that was interested in strengthening Israel's Jewish majority and its democratic system would be making use of the ample and readily available opportunities for doing both. Rather than doing so, the Olmert government is ignoring and indeed undermining these opportunities while, in the name of democracy and demographic stability, it is advancing a policy that will turn Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Netanya, Ra'anana, Kfar Saba, Afula, Hadera and Tiberias into frontline communities just like Sderot and Ashkelon. Contact Sergio Tessa at HaDaR-Israel@verizon.net |
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IT'S NOT EASY, BUT WE WOULDN'T HAVE IT ANY OTHER WAY
Posted by Aryeh Zelasko, July 13, 2006. |
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This is nicely expressed and reflects the attitude of most Jews who have come home to Israel. I would only like to add that I am much more worried about the fate of the Jews outside of Israel then with those who are here. It is true that we are at war here and it is a long war that started over a hundred years ago. Nevertheless we are winning the war and rebuilding the Jewish people in Israel so it is possible to live, if never actually be comfortable, with the cost. No, I have been to too many funerals to ever be comfortable with the cost. However when I decided to live in Israel, I considered that I might have to pay a high price for the honor of participating in our rebirth as a nation and accepted it. |
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It is now 06:00 and I have been awake for more than 3 hours. Part of it is a result of a direct flight home on Tuesday after a 12 day trip to California for the wedding of my niece. The jet lag is very difficult. It was wonderful having had 12 short days to spend with family and friends and to share in the concerns about a wedding cake, spending a Shabbat in beautiful San Francisco and the wonder of shopping at Costco. But another part is hearing our planes flying north for hours at end and knowing that so many of our kids are once again being asked to serve our country simply because there is no compromise with terror. On the one hand, we look forward to the marriage of our youngest daughter Lana in September and to Suzy giving birth of our first grandchild in November. On the other hand, we are concerned about our immediate situation (the possibility of our boys having to perform reserve duty in Gaza and Lebanon and my personally having to give additional time to the civil guard because so many policemen will be called for army reserve duty and what this may do to our economy and fragile tourism). And yet we would not have it any other way. Unless you live here, you can't understand how happy we were to connect from our American Airlines flight to our return flight home with El Al and how emotional it is for us every time our plane lands in Israel. 27 years ago, we made a choice to leave America, the country of our birth, the country that had provided us with so much and to leave our parents, family and friends. It was not an easy choice, but one that we are still happy we made. Unless and until you have done it yourself, it is probably very difficult for most people to understand let alone make such a choice. And yet coming to live in Israel is a choice that many young families are still doing. Yesterday, a plane with over 500 North American immigrants arrived. Included on that flight are our new friends, the Greenberg family of Encino, California. They not only bring with them the skills and numbers that Israel wants and needs (how many countries in the world are still encouraging immigrants?), but by deciding to live the dream of living in Israel, they reinforce the commitment of those of us who are already here. Until you too are prepared to join us permanently in our homeland, there are many ways you can help. We hope and pray that you will make many trips to Israel to visit us. Remember that less than 50% of all North American Jews have ever visited Israel. You can also help us and yourselves by investing in Israeli businesses. Your financial support and involvement can help to continue the advancement of our economy. Finally get involved in Jewish organizations both in Israel and in your country. Outside of Israel, the single most important thing you can do is to insure the Jewish future of your children. There are no short solutions to the problems we face, but together, we can conquer them all. Jack Aryeh Zelasko lives in Beitar Illit, south of Jerusalem. He is Director of Sales and Marketing of Israel Visit (www.israelvisit.co.il) which provides information and an internet buying facility for American visitors to Israel. Contact him at zelasko@actcom.co.il |
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A MESSAGE FROM BEN GOLDIN
Posted by Avodah 15, July 13, 2006. |
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This was published July 5 and 7, 2006 on the Rabbi Lazer Brody website
(http://lazerbrody.typepad.com/lazer_beams/ geula_and_redemption/archives/oldindex.html) |
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July 05, 2006/ 9 Tammuz 5766 "All over the Western World fear reigns. The fear of an unknown army of terrorists who have no real identity, an unknown enemy with no face, only one face known to the world - Bin Laden. But how can a whole army fight against one man? How could the whole Western World be afraid of one man? So what have we really learned from all of this? I will explain what you should be learning from all of this: HaKadosh Baruch Hu (The Holy One, blessed be He) is destroying the lie, the false world we've been living in, the excessive, decadent gashmius (reliance on physical things for pleasure and security) that has become our god. God is destroying the false beliefs that security lies in the army, social security, the great insurance companies, a steady job and a big bank account. ...So, my dear Am Yisrael, if you want to save yourselves and the world, renounce the Egel Hazahav [golden calf - LB], its lies, its illusion, and come back wholly to your Father in Heaven. Destroy your false gods and come back! When will you learn? You're not frightened enough. Your hearts are not broken enough. A great selection has already begun. Each Jew, each Gentile, each living thing, will choose a side. Either with man, trusting in man himself, or with God, trusting only in Him. It will be a terrible battle, a very, very torturous fight, but those who hold on to their trust, their love and their belief in God will, with God's help, greet Moshiach (the Messiah). This letter is for every Jew, religious or not. This is the message. This is the truth. A letter from Heaven to tell you explicitly what is expected of you. I bless you all, every single Jew alive today, man, woman, of every age, that all of us together will merit to greet the Moshiach, speedily in our days. Amen. The above is a message from Binyomin (Ben) Goldin, an autistic student who's 34 today. Ben communicates by way of FC, or facilitated communication. Both the Amshinover Rebbe shlit'a and the Melitzer Rebbe shlit'a have told me that Ben's message is an actual revelation from above designed to counterbalance the formidable forces of evil in this generation. Ben has been silent for nearly four years, except for a brief message he said last April, calling again for tshuva. I hope he speaks again, soon. This is no joke. With Hashem's help, Ben and I will be meeting later today (Wed., 9 Tammuz) in Jerusalem. July 07, 2006 Ben Golden breaks his silence - an exclusive FC interview with Rabbi Lazer Brody Lazer Beams expresses sincerest gratitude to Mrs. Chaya Tova Solomon, Rav Dovid Gross, Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Golden (Ben's parents), Ms. Yocheved Yehuda, and Facilitated Communicator Mrs. Zalmanov, all of whom made important contributions in arranging Lazer's FC session with Ben Golden. Introduction: Ben Golden is a 34-yr. old autistic. Beneath his veneer of mental retardation lies a soul of enormous spiritual stature. Thanks to Facilitated Communication -- www.jewishfuture.com/jf_facilcom.shtml -- (FC), Ben is able to express himself. Several years ago, other autistics, such as Galia, revealed that Ben is the "Rebbe" of the autistics. Ben himself revealed eye-opening messages that called for tshuva - especially among the religious community itself - befor! e the impending redemption of our people. He pulled no punches. His messages ignited a worldwide debate as to the reliability of FC; the debate also threw the autistics into the international limelight. Ben clammed up for nearly five years, except for a brief and very general message last April. These are difficult times everywhere. Many are disheartened because of the continuation of the diaspora and the tarrying of Moshiach. Many of the gains of Jewish Outreach are offset by the spiritually weak within the religious community that fall by the wayside. Within Israel, we're fighting our own government to preserve our spiritual lives and fighting our neighbors to preserve our physical lives. Through a number of go-betweens, I sent a message to Ben Golden that said, "Ben, you can't afford the luxury of silence any more. I'm in the front-line trenches of the battle for tshuva, emuna, and Geula (penitence, faith, and redemption) and I need your help." Nothing happened for several weeks. Suddenly, I received a message from a go-between that Ben is willing to talk to me. But, as a prerequisite, Ben wanted me to review Rebbe Nachman's Tale #5, "The Prince that was made of precious stones," and learn it with him. That's exactly what I did. No one ever told Ben that I was a Breslever chossid... Ben and I met on Wednesday afternoon at Jerusalem. His father and Mrs. Zalmanov were present. First, Ben and I learned alone for an hour. The whole time, he held both my hands; I could literally feel him conveying all kinds of Our FC session was in two parts: First, Ben's introduction, and then, my questions and answers. Ben's father transcribed the intro, while I transcribed the Q & A. Two types of material have been edited out - first, things that Ben ordered not to publicize; and second, things of a personal nature that Ben said to me. I have made a painstaking effort to make every syllable completely accurate, and beg Ben's forgiveness for any mistake. May this post be a sanctification of Hashem's holy name, amen. Part 1: Ben's Introduction (Mr. Golden, facilitator Mrs. Zalmanov, and Lazer present): I consented to write such essays because the Hester Panim
(concealment of Hashem - LB) is so great and the suffering and
confusion is so great that I received permission to write something
that would focus on Truth in order to give some Jews a way to focus on
the Truth. Part 2: Lazer's question's, Ben's answers (with Mrs. Zalmanov and Lazer; Ben's father left the room.) LB: Ben, you can't sit back because you don't like the heat. I'll match you for flak and humiliation any day of the week; if I backed down, I couldn't function in my task for a day. Ben: You can't back down - you're a shaliach (messenger) of Hashem and doing what you're supposed to do. LB: So are you! I'm not ashamed to trouble you, because if today's message helps even one soul get closer to Hashem, then it's necessary for you to speak up. I often feel that the Tshuva movement is taking a step forward, and the religious community as a whole is taking a step backward. Please tell me, why are we losing ground? What's wrong? Ben: It's the Golden Calf. People must put aside their love of the material and transfer it to love of Hashem; there's little time left to do this. Also, there's a lack of tznius (modesty - LB) that tears our people from within. The third problem is of education - people lack emuna at heart. They serve Hashem like robots. Hashem wants their hearts. LB: Rav Shalom Arush and I talk about emuna day and night. Isn't that having an effect? Ben: Yes, it's very good, but not enough. Anybody can interpret emuna whatever way they want. You must also instruct people in fulfilling Hashem's mitzvas. LB: What's the most important thing to instruct them? Ben: Everything is important, but first - modesty and family purity. The opposite is the biggest threat to Am Yisroel today. LB: How so? Ben: The Gay Parade planned for Yerushalayim. This is the real reason I'm allowed to speak, because the evil has become so great and so brazen that Hashem has to allow a small revelation from the pure side. If this tragedy is allowed to take place, and if those people - the lowest and most dangerous order of Amalekites - are allowed to reach the Wall, then no army will be able to prevent the disaster that awaits Am Yisroel, heaven forbid. LB: We've been doing everything to stop this. What else must we do? Ben: 900,000 Jews - religious and non-religious - must block the way to the Kotel with their bodies. This must be stopped, Hashem won't forgive such a blatant desecration of His courtyard... LB: May we cooperate with the other religions, who are also against the gay parade? Ben: Yes, if the poskim (rabbinical authorities - LB) allow it. Just be careful - they're attempting to reach the Wall. Don't let that happen under any circumstances. Hashem demands mesiras nefesh (total dedication) on this matter. LB: With Hashem's help. I have wars on all sides with this issue. Ben, I want to ask you about something else I get constant bombardments about - Breslev. You said that I know the truth; can you give me a chizuk on this? Ben: Rebbe Nachman of Breslev is a highest echelon tzaddik whose word carries tremendous weight in shamayim (heavens - LB). His true talmidim (disciples - LB) are also firmly on the path of truth. Hashem disdains those that disparage either the tzaddik or the true talmidim. But, the fringe groups that have attached themselves to Breslev are erev rav (riff-raff - LB); one must stay away from them. (Ben pauses, then adds...)! Rebbe Nachman is a sam'eman (harbinger - LB) of the Geula. LB: How so? Ben: When thousands of people come to his grave on Rosh Hashanna, this is the end of the old world and the beginning of the new world. LB: Ben, you mean the Geula has started? Ben waved his hand decisively to Mrs. Zalmanov and indicated that the FC was over. He invited me to come again and learn with him. I blessed him, kissed his forehead, and the session was over. Contact Avodah 15 by email at avodah15@aol.com |
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BUSH'S PRO-ELECTION STRATEGY IS PRO-TERRORISM
Posted by Dr. Yaron Brook, July 13, 2006. |
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IRVINE, CA--"Hamas and Hezbollah's war on Israel is the inevitable result of Bush's immoral policy of promoting elections in Gaza and Lebanon instead of killing terrorists," said Dr. Yaron Brook, executive director of the Ayn Rand Institute. "Hamas won a landslide to become the ruler of Palestinian territories, and Hezbollah is part of Lebanon's government and has a devoted mass following. Both gained power through U.S.-supported elections; both gained unearned legitimacy for their vicious war to exterminate Israelis and Americans. Winning power with the aid of their enemy confirmed for these Islamic totalitarian groups that the West will abet its own destroyers. "America's self-defense entails crushing Islamic totalitarianism--not ushering its jihadists into political office and galvanizing them to redouble their war against us." Dr. Yaron Brook is executive director of the Ayn Rand Institute (http://www.aynrand.org/) in Irvine, CA. The Institute promotes Objectivism, the philosophy of Ayn Rand--author of "Atlas Shrugged" and "The Fountainhead." Contact the writer at media@aynrand.org. |
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MARZEL INTRUDES HOME OF MAJ.-GEN. NEVEH, SEEKS ROOM FOR DAUGHTER
Posted by Herb and Miki Sunshine, July 13, 2006. |
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This is from yesterday's Jerusalem Post. |
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Far-right activist Baruch Marzel infiltrated the home of OC Central Command Maj-Gen. Yair Neveh in Givat Shmuel on Tuesday and asked for a room there for his daughter and son-in-law who have been evicted from the West Bank in the run-up to the planned evacuation of illegal outposts. Naveh, who has received threats in the past from right-wing elements, is accompanied by a security guard around the clock and has a guard booth at the entrance to his house. When Marzel arrived at the home in the afternoon, the guard let him through after he said he came to visit Naveh's wife. Naveh was not home at the time, but the general's son opened the door and engaged in a conversation with Marzel regarding the orders issued by his father against the far-right activist's son-in-law "My name is Baruch Marzel and your father issued a restraining order against my son-in-law and 20 other people in the West Bank," the far-right activist told Naveh's 17-year-old son. He asked the youth to make room in the house for his daughter and son-in-law who needed a place to live since they were evicted from the West Bank. After several minutes, the guard at the entrance to the house identified Marzel and alerted the police who came and evacuated him from the area. In recent months, far-right activists have dispatched attack dogs on the home of a senior police officer and have burned several police cars. The IDF Spokesperson released a statement calling the incident a "clear breach of privacy." Contact Herb and Miki Sunshine at sunshine.h@012.net.il |
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RESTRAINT, CYCLE OF VIOLENCE AND CONFIDENCE BUILDING MEASURES
Posted by Naomi Ragen, July 13, 2006. |
| This is from a listmember, Stephen J. Kohn. |
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These three expressions -- Restraint, Cycle of Violence and Confidence Building Measures -- are code names for Israel to "cool" it. Be suicide bombed, have your soldiers kidnapped or live in a world of vitriolic anti-Semitic and anti-Israel scorn, and the three terms are tossed out in the stentorian voices of Seville suited Arab diplomats and quoted by snide BBC, New York Times and CNN reporters and the Secretary General of the UN to keep us in check. These expressions are most important when terrorist organizations (AKA as militants) do their deeds and Israel, exercising its right to self-defense, is told to hold back. Always Israel is told to hold back because, well, because we are Israel and the world has become used to telling Jews to hold back for Millennia. As in my grandfather's case. Taking a ferryboat at the turn of the century he was accosted, so the family tradition says, by a baseball player. Seeing my grandfather's beard, he felt it deserved to be pulled as hard as his home run hitting arms would allow. My grandfather, for self-defense, bit the ball player's hand. Moreover, the judge (it was my grandfather who was arrested), said "Couldn't you restrain yourself?" Well, we as Jews and Israelis have been holding back, somehow expecting that our confidence building holding back would bring us favor with Moslems or the civilized world. Just like my nave grandfather must have thought as he nursed his bruised chin. So now, as before, we have decided to attack in return. Instantly the factors that caused our reaction are set in the next to last paragraphs of the news stories, and our reaction is balanced with that of the Moslem aggressor as if pulling the Jew's beard is natural and his biting back was an unnatural act. As I write this, CNN.com's headline is "Israel Strikes Beirut's Airport", BBC' "Israel Blockades Lebanese Waters" and the New York Times' "Israelis Enter Lebanon after Attack". The fact that rockets have been bombarding Northern and Southern Israel, with injuries and deaths, seems to be far less important to these "objective" sources of information on the waters and concrete runways near Beirut. And a report on Japan's reaction to North Korea's nuclear arsenal, a strong threat, seems quite logical, but Israel's reaction to 800 to 1000 Kassams, we are told, should not rekindle the "Cycle of Violence". The bombed houses in Sderot never seem to be worth a picture, those in Gaza and Beirut are. Perhaps those sitting in Europe or in Peace Cafes in Boston will continue to view us as warmongers. Perhaps these folk would react with restraint to another mega terrorist disaster in their midst. We here do not have that luxury. In this part of the world, despite the attempts at calming us, gestures of restraint have only one meaning -- weakness. In addition, enraged reactions might cause some apoplectic reactions by Arab leaders and European diplomats, but here we know that no matter what we do, in certain quarters, it will be condemned. In populations that still cannot accept that Moslems blew up the Twin Towers, not the Jews and Americans, we really cannot expect too much understanding on anything we do. And that is why, more and more of us, right, center, and left, are saying, "We will do what we have to do." And if we need to bite off a finger to stop the scourge of terror and kidnapping and verbal assault, we will do, just as my grandfather threatened to. Since the judge has spoken anyway, why not commit the "crime" of securing our safety. And since even giving back Gaza and Southern Lebanon and promising much more over the last 120 years has never brought us peace, it is doubtful if many of us will support a new slew of Confidence Building Measures, abstain from the Cycle of Violence and practice Restraint. Perhaps, a bit of effort at "manipulating" our foes is in order. We know them very well, and with continued appeasement, so will most other non-Moslem nations (and Iraq), as well. That is those who have not already been attacked. Naomi Ragen is an American-born novelist and journalist who lives in Jerusalem. She can be contacted at www.naomiragen.com, where you can subscribe to her newsletter. |
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PROPORTIONALITY TO THE RESCUE
Posted by David Meir-Levi, July 13, 2006. |
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I encourage you to go to
A very interesting BBC panel discussion ensues....about whether or not Israel is justified in its invasion of the Gaza Strip. The first issue is that of "proportionality". Israel is being condemned because it is using force 'out of proportion' to the threat. This is an interesting, and confusing, concept. A): There are some obvious definitional problems: inter alia: 1.) how does one decide the correct dimensions of the damage presaged by the threat? One must know those dimensions before one can devise the apporpriately proportional respose. The word 'threat' by its own definition and usage, means that a future calamity to a victim is presaged by actions and/or words of those perpetrators who may enact that calamity on a victim in the future. So just how big, dangerous, lethal, destructive, that calamity will be in the future is what must be guessed by the description of the threat. Can one actually guess that with accuracy? B): there is the obvious logistical problem of what happens after 'proportional force' is used in response (per A:4 above)? Does Israel just sit back and relax and wait for Hamas to strike again? C): there is the obvious political problem of: If Hamas strikes again with more serious consequences (10 soldiers killed, 5 kidnapped, for example), does anyone then accuse Hamas of exceeding its proportionality by escalating the damage? So far no one but Israel has accused Hamas of being the aggressor. And must Israel's response to this escalation be only per "B" above, thus allowing Hamas to deterimine the paramaters of the conflict? D): and then there is the obviously ludicrous extrapolation of the concept to its irrational extreme. If Israel will respond only with the force needed to inflict an equal amount of damage, then not only does Hamas control the paramaters of the conflct, and not only is Israel always on the defensive, and not only does Israel then resign itself to absorbing whatever casualties and damage Hamas chooses to inflict, but also, a conflict continued along those lines will eventually be decided by whoever has the most population.....when the last of 6,000,000 Israelis is killed by #6,000,000 of 300,000,000 Arabs, the Arabs will have won the conflict and annihilated the Jews of Israel....because Israel never did more than respond to the damage done with an equivalent amount of damage. E): and finally there is the obvious MILITARY problem: precisely because of the obvious irrationality of A-D above, no country anywhere in the world and any time in all of human history, has adopted the concept of 'proportionality' as its guiding principle in war time. No military leader or military philosopher has ever espoused the concept of proportionality as the definition of how a country must defend itself against aggression. No military leader anywhere in the world or any time in history has ever said: well, they have 20,000 men, so we'll field an army of only 20,000 men. They have only bolt-action rifles, so we will not use our semi-automatic weapons. In fact, the opposite is the case. Military theory since early historic China has stressed the need for as much of a dis-proportiionate response as possible. The goal in a country's self-defense against aggression is not just to inflict similar damage, or to punish specific individuals who have perpetrated violence. It is to render the aggressor unable to wreck further aggression -- and this can be done ONLY by the use of whatever sized force is needed in order to dismantle the war capabilities of the aggressor. In war, proportionality is not a relevant concept. In war, victory is the only relevant and operative concept. Nations fight wars in order to win them. Nations do their best to field the largest and best armed force to overpower the aggressor as soon as possible with as few casualties on the defender's side as possible. When the USA entered WW2, did it field a force larger or smaller than the German force? (A= larger) During that war, did the USA armed forces kill more, fewer, or the same number of Germans as Germans killed USA soldiers? (A= about four times as many Germans were killed) Did our former Secretary of State and Commander of the General Chiefs of Staff, Colin Powell, espouse a theory of proportionality in American warfare, or did he advocate the use of overwhelming force? (A = overwhelming force, cf. his biography My American Journey, page 421]. In short, it is beyond nonsensical to suggest that any nation should use 'proportionality' as an operating concept in war time. Then why do they condemn Israel? So, why do some analysts, critics, journalists assert that Israel is to be condemned because it responds disproportionately to the terror attacks? a) some feel that there is not a war going on. Rather there is a low-level struggle by a poor, destitute, hapless, helpless, hopeless oppressed people to shuffle out from under the oppression of the occupier. In this context, anything and everything that Israel does to defend itself against Hamas and the dozen other terror groups is completely unjustified, wrong, immoral, and cause for criticism and calumny. This is the concept that the Arab propagandists and spin-meisters seek to present. Those who support this concept and blame Israel for all the ills that the conflict has inflicted on both sides are either on the Arab side (and thus lose all moral valence in their presentations), or are deeply ignorant of the conflict's history and dynamics (and thus lose all intellectual valence). b) some feel that Israeli dis-proportionate response fuels the hatred and causes the 'cycle of violence' and 'tit for tat' belligerence. One need only look at the pattern that has emerged many times during the conflict's history to see that the opposite is the case. When Israel pleaded for peace in 1947, the Arabs took that as a sign of weakness and were thus encouraged to mount their invasion in 1948. When President Levi Eshkol pleaded for peace at the UN in june of 1967, the Egyptians took that as a sign of weakness and used that very speech as a lever to get the Jordanians to join them in what would turn out to be the 6-day war. When Israel agreed to the Oslo Accords and gave Arafat vast freedoms and resources, Arafat said in his many speeches that Israel's concessions were a sign that Israeli society was weakening, it could not stand up to terrorism, it would fall apart, many would leave the country, and it could be brought to its knees by the far smaller but more determined force of his brave 'fedayeen'. when Sharon ceded the Gaza strip, unconditionally and unilaterally, as a sign of peace and willingness to make major concessions, Hamas declared that theirs was a victory won by terrorism, and it promised more terror and more terror until Israel was destroyed. In short, every Israeli concession has been matched with an Arab commitment to more aggression. Far from causing an escalation, the display and deployment of what Coliin Powell calls "overwhelming force" is the only thing that causes the Arab belligerents to halt their aggression. c) some feel that what is needed is police action, not warfare. They feel that Israel should hunt down and arrest terrorists, one by one, rather than strike at the terrorist forces with much larger force and weaponry....thus treating terrorism as a crime, and not as a declaration of war. This is the same as the tension between the Clinton doctrine (terrorists are criminals and we will hunt them down and arrest them and try them for their crimes) and the Bush doctrine (terrorist attacks are acts of war, and they must meet the appropriate USA response which is a response to military aggression). since the Clinton Doctrine proved to be not only a total failure, but also part of the cause for Osama to feel that the USA could be counted on NOT to launch a real counter-attack to his 9/11 attack, it is obvious that using police action to defeat terrorist aggression is not likely to work. Moreover, even in a police action, the doctrine of proportionality is not relevant. No police force sends out one policman to chase down a criminal. Dragnets are mounted. city-wide searches employ hundreds of officers, back-up is standard procedure, and the police are more likely to succeed in stopping crime if they can field a force that outnumbers and outguns the criminals.....the use of overwhelming force even in police actions is an important deterrent and an inducement for the criminal to surrender without violence. So....bottom line: It seems beyond obvious that the call for Israel to exercize restraint and limit itself to a proportiionate use of force is one that does not make sense.....unless you want the terrorists to win. All nations use the force necessary to dismantle the military infrastructure of the enemy. And the same is rational and reasonable in the case of Israel vs the Arab terrorists. Israel must use the force necessary that will prevent Hamas from fielding the terrorists who fire the Qasams, dig the tunnels, kill the soldiers....and to make sure that such threats are not resurrected in the future. OK...so if this is so obvious, why does the Catholic clergyman on the BBC program condemn Israel for use of 'disproportionate force'? In my opinion (remember guys, this is just an opinion; I'm an insurance broker, not a psychiatrist), the concept of 'proportionality' is used because it allows those who hate Israel to condemn Israel even when Israel's actions are reasonable. In fact, precisely because Israel's actions are reasonable, the Israel-bashers must find something else with which to condemn Israel. So the expectation of 'proportionality' can be employed to make Israel look like it is doing somethig wrong in its invasion of Gaza.....so that the audience's attention can be turned away from the obvious conclusion that Israel has not just the right, but the obligation, to render Hamas incapabler of harming Israelis. If what Israel is doing cannot be condemned in military or political or historical terms....then it is important to invent something that allows the Israel-hater to condemn Israel in pseudo-moral terms. That is why proportionality suddenly comes up in the discussion of the conflict. Proportionality comes to the rescue for the Israel-hater when rational thought fails. David Meir-Levi is an American-born Israeli, currently living in Palo Alto. His expertise is in Near Eastern studies and the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict. He is Director of Peace and Education at Israel Peace Initiative (www.ipi-usa.org). Contact him at david_meirlevi@hotmail.com |
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THAT BOOM YOU JUST HEARD
Posted by Steven Plaut, July 13, 2006. |
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That boom you just heard was a katyusha rocket hitting Haifa a couple of miles from my house. You will all be very relieved to hear that it did not hit the home of Ilan Pappe or any other Post-Zionist professors or Haaretz columnists. I could not resist:
Onward, Jewish soldiers, marching as to war,
Refrain Onward, Jewish soldiers, marching as to war,
Refrain Like a mighty army moves the I.D.F.;
Refrain What Moses established that I hold for true.
Refrain Crowns and thrones may perish, kingdoms rise and wane,
Refrain Onward then, ye people, join our happy throng,
Refrain Steven Plaut is an American-trained economist, a professor of business administration at Haifa University and author of "The Scout." He frequently comments - both seriously and satirically - on Israeli politics and the left wing academic community. His website address is http://www.stevenplaut.blogspot.com. Contact him at splaut@econ.haifa.ac.il |
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ECHOES OF THE PAST
Posted by Patrick Dempsey, July 13, 2006. |
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This all appears so much like 1967 for Israel? Maybe what Israel needs to do is to name those Mullahs, hold them responsible and make them the target of response. Those who demand others die by the sword, must face the consequences of that sword. The IRA leadership (sic) stood in the background and commanded the Bombings, and remained untouched. The lesson to learn is how Israel has struck at the heart of the viper, penetrated the venom, and used their knowledge to cut off the snake's head! Contact Patrick Dempsey by email at patrick1010@tiscali.co.uk |
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EHUDGRAD
Posted by Steven Plaut, July 13, 2006. |
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1. Open Letter
Mr. Prime Minister: As you know, Haifa was hit this evening by at least two katyusha rockets. I demand that you evacuate myself and my family at once and move us to some place safe - to Gush Katif. We want to repopulate the Gush Katif settlements in Gaza as part of R&D = Re-Occupation and DeNazification, so that we can feel safe again. Please Mr. Prime Minister, help protect my family from terror attacks by reconquering Gaza. Sincerely yours, **** 2. Ehud Barak was on TV a few moments ago. He was asked about his cowardly unilateral decision to order Israeli troops out of Sourthern Lebanon in 2000. Leaving Hezbollah smack on the border with thousands of rockets. He stammered, hemmed and hawed. Israel is now going to have to reconquer southern Lebanon and restore the Israeli security zone, or else the katyushas will contine to rain down on northern Israel. I suggest that the scores of soldiers who will be killed reversing Ehud Barak's cowardly decision to cut and run be buried in a special cemetery that should be named "Ehudgrad". Steven Plaut is an American-trained economist, a professor of business administration at Haifa University and author of "The Scout." He frequently comments - both seriously and satirically - on Israeli politics and the left wing academic community. His website address is http://www.stevenplaut.blogspot.com. Contact him at splaut@econ.haifa.ac.il |
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NORTHERN ISRAEL ON WAR FOOTING
Posted by Avodah 15, July 13, 2006. |
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Northern Israel goes on war footing after 60 Hizballah rockets fired from
Lebanon land inside 20km radius from border
The main highways from Acre, Safed and Rosh Pinah heading north are closed to civilian traffic. Also targeted for Hizballah rocket attack: Kiryat Shemona, Rosh Pinah, Mishmar Hayarden, Mahanayim airfield and Kibbutz Kfar Hanassi. Some of these locations have never before come under Hizballah attack. The Nahariya regional hospital has moved its wards to underground, bombproof facilities. The train service to the town is suspended. Summer schools and camps, also shops, are closed across northern Israel. Contact Avodah 15 by email at avodah15@aol.com |
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SAFED AND ALL OF ISRAELI'S NORTH ARE UNDER ATTACK
Posted by Sandy Rosen-Hazen, July 13, 2006. |
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This is a first for me.....I've always said that no matter what you hear/see on CNN, things are never that bad, but today I must, sadly, say that no matter what you hear/see on CNN, things here are much worse!!!! G-d willing this will pass..... please keep praying for Israel!!!! Thank you,
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Jul. 13, 2006
Seven Katyushas fell in the northern city of Safed on Thursday afternoon. The city's immigration center, [A building identical to mine, just up the street from us] old marketplace, Safed College [This is Safed's branch of Bar Ilan University and it's Library took a direct hit.....the Library is directly above the school's bomb shelter!!!!] and the Amit Center were hit. [Just since beginning this e-mail, Safed's main street, the "Midrahov" has also been hit, hard.....the bombs are continuing to hit us now, as you are reading this!!!!] At least two people were wounded at the immigration center. In all, there were two people seriously wounded from shrapnel, with about a dozen lightly wounded and many more in shock. MDA teams were treating the wounded at the scene and evacuating in ambulances to the city's Ziv Hospital. In addition, at least one Katyusha reportedly fell in the nearby town of Hatzor Haglilit. Hospitals throughout the North were ordered to raise their readiness level to Level Three, the second highest possible. Medical teams were being ordered to remain at their posts in expectation of continued Katyusha strikes. Earlier, one woman was killed and 29 were wounded - one seriously - when four Hizbullah-fired Katyusha rockets landed in central Nahariya on Thursday morning. She was killed while sitting on her fifth-floor balcony Thursday morning. A rocket hit a floor above, cut through the ceiling and killed her. More than 60 katyushas have been fired into northern Israel since Thursday morning. Magen David Adom reported that dozens were treated for shrapnel wounds and nine for shock. Many Nahariya residents have begun leaving the city, Israel Radio reported. A short while later, two Katyusha rockets fell near Kibbutz Hagoshrim. Buildings in the area shook from the impact. Visitors were refusing to leave the hotel in the kibbutz and reservations were reportedly being canceled. At Nahariya Hospital, patients were moved to secure rooms on lower floors, and about 60 expectant mothers were taken to underground shelters, said hospital deputy director Moshe Daniel. He said elective surgery has been halted. `We are on very high alert," Daniel told Israel Radio. "We are prepared." Nahariya Mayor Jackie Sabag said the whole town has shut down, with businesses closed. Sabag urged all residents to comply with army orders to stay in underground shelters. All soldiers serving in Northern Command Headquarters in Safed also went down to shelters due to Katyusha attacks. Katyushas also fell on Thursday morning in Kfar Nasi in the Galilee and in Kibbutz Mahanayim, signifying an increase in the range of Katyusha rockets to 20-25 kilometers. There were no immediate reports of casualties in the attacks. Hizbullah said that in some of its attacks it was using a rocket called "Thunder 1" for the first time, which may have a longer range than older Katyushas. So far on Thursday morning alone, there have been confirmed Katyusha attacks on Nahariya, Rosh Pina, Kibbutz Hagoshrim, Kibbutz Mishmar Hayarden, Gadot, Kfar Nasi, Beit Hillel, Kibbutz Mahanayim, Kibbutz Kabri, Mount Hermon, Netiv Haasarah, Mount Meron, Shlomi, Zar'it. Earlier Thursday morning, several Katyusha rockets landed on an IDF base in Mount Meron on Thursday morning. No one was wounded and no damage was reported. Hizbullah also shelled the Western Galilee with mortars. No one was wounded and no damage was reported. "This is a new situation. The residents of Israel need to know that we are going into a period that will require resilience," Minister Issac Herzog said after the emergency cabinet meeting late Wednesday night. According to Herzog, Israel is holding Lebanon responsible for the attack, which was carried out from its territory. AP contributed to this report. 13/07/2006
At least 11 people were wounded Thursday afternoon when a fresh barrage of Katyusha rockets fired from Lebanon struck the northern town of Safed. Of the wounded, one person was seriously hurt, another sustained moderate wounds, two people were lightly hurt and seven were treated for shock. The strike comes hours after a Katyusha rocket hit a house in the northern border town of Nahariya, killing an Israeli woman and wounding 29 others, including a number of children. Most of the casualties were lightly wounded; one person sustained serious wounds. A resident of the northern town of Zirit was also lightly wounded by a Katyusha on Thursday. Meanwhile, Israel threatened Thursday to strike at Hezbollah offices in a residential area of Beirut in response to Katyusha strikes on population centers inside Israel. In response, Hezbollah said that it would target the major northern port city of Haifa. Israel Air Force jets Thursday morning carried out flybys over the area, which is home to senior members of Hezbollah, as well as some of its supporters. The Israel Defense Forces confirmed that several rockets landed some 15 kilometers south of the border with Lebanon on Thursday morning, signaling that Hezbollah is becoming increasingly successful in expanding the reach of the crude projectiles. This is the furthest that Hezbollah rockets have managed to penetrate inside Israel. A Katyusha also struck the town of Safed on Thursday. There were no injuries. Hezbollah has declared it has over 10,000 rockets to use against Israel. The government is working on the assumption that Hezbollah will use rockets with a longer range than they have previously had to strike civilians areas in Israel. Should that happen, the IDF will then consider sending ground troops into Lebanon. Hezbollah fired another 10 Katyusha rockets overnight at an IDF base on Mount Meron. No injuries were reported in that incident. The IAF is prepared to strike anywhere in Lebanon, including the capital of Beirut, if the Lebanese government fails to rein in Hezbollah guerrillas, IDF Chief of Staff Dan Halutz said Thursday. Halutz noted that all senior Hezbollah leaders live and have offices in the southern Beirut neighborhood of Dahiya. He said Beirut could be included among the targets if Hezbollah rockets continue to hit northern Israel. "Nothing is safe [in Lebanon], as simple as that," he said. He said the residents of Dahiya should understand the situation and draw the proper conclusions if concerned about their safety. "We are not at war, but we are in a very high volume crisis, and we have an intention to put an end to the situation here along the northern border," Halutz told reporters Thursday. "We are taking the Lebanese government as the one who is carrying all the responsibility on its shoulders regarding this area and regarding the future of Lebanon," said Halutz. "The Lebanese government needs to understand that there is a price for its inaction. They need to understand that if they are not able to deal with terror, we will have no choice but to fight with them," he added. The IDF began preparing Wednesday night for a widespread aerial assault on Lebanon, after the cabinet approved a "severe" response to the Hezbollah attack on the northern border earlier in the day, which ended with eight soldiers dead and two kidnapped. Defense Minister Amir Peretz said following the late night meeting that Israel would not allow Hezbollah return to its positions along Lebanon's border with Israel. "Beirut is paying the price for its small-minded attitude that has lasted for years," Peretz said during a special meeting of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee in Tel Aviv on Thursday morning. In southern Lebanon, at least 36 civilians were reported killed in overnight Israel Air Force attacks, including a family of 10 and another family of seven in the village of Dweir, Lebanese officials said. Defense officials said Thursday that Israel intended to impose a sea and air blockade on Lebanon. Overnight, Israel Air Force aircraft struck Beirut International Airport, and on Thursday morning naval vessels entered Lebanese territorial waters and blocked access to the country's ports. "Since this morning Israeli naval vessels have enforced a full naval closure on Lebanon, because Lebanon's ports are used to transfer both terrorists and weapons to the terror organizations operating in Lebanon," an IDF spokesman said. The airport, in the suburbs of Beirut, was forced to close when a shell crashed shortly on the eastern runway after 6 A.M., airport employees said. Another impact was heard shortly afterward. A senior airport official announced the facility had been closed and diverted scheduled flights to Cyprus. The IDF confirmed it had struck Beirut airport, saying the facility is "a central hub for the transfer of weapons and supplies to the Hezbollah terrorist organization." Also, see: Northern escalation / Syria: a possible third front, at:
Related news....the following articles are from Gamla today: We need more understanding that each so-called" "lull in violence", "Hudna", "Tahidya" - is just terrorist gaining time, organizing troops, amassing weapons, for the next round of violence!!!! Now that the Israeli public is mainly just hoping for quiet, the Arabs ruthlessly exploit this! 'West Bank Rocket War'
FROM WND'S JERUSALEM BUREAU
JERUSALEM -- While Israeli towns near the Gaza Strip have been contending with almost daily missile attacks, Palestinian rockets will now also be launched regularly on the other side of the country aimed at Jewish communities a few miles from Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, Abu Oudai, a chief rocket coordinator for the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades in Judea and Samaria told WorldNetDaily in an exclusive interview. Abu Oudai claimed major Israeli cities and the country's international airport would eventually become Palestinian rocket targets, particularly following Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's planned withdrawal from most of Judea and Samaria, which borders Israel's main population centers. Judea and Samaria is also commonly called the West Bank. Abu Oudai said his group has the ability to produce rockets in northern Samaria - a claim denied by the Israeli army. He hinted at possible help in developing rockets from Iran, Syria and the Lebanese Hezbollah militia. "Our goal is to cover all Israeli regions and to bring them inside the distance of our rockets," said Abu Oudai, speaking from Nablus in northern Samaria. "Every Israeli site or city is inside our capabilities and if some sites are not yet they will be very soon. The Ben Gurion Airport, Tel Aviv, Jerusalem every site and city will be targeted. We are speaking about a new era in the conflict between us and the enemy." The rocket master's statements follow a series of claims by the Al Aqsa Brigades of firing rockets the past few days from the northern Samaria towns of Telkarem and Jenin targeting Jewish communities nearby. Brigades leaders called WorldNetDaily to take credit for the rocket launchings, which they said fell short of their intended goals, landing instead in Palestinian areas. They promised more missile firings. Security officials say any Judea and Samaria missile attack would open a whole new front of rocket targets against Jewish communities in the territories and against neighboring cities, including Jerusalem. The Israeli Defense Forces has not yet officially confirmed this week's claimed northern Samaria rocket attacks. Palestinian and Jordanian officials said the attacks indeed took place. The Al Aqsa Brigades has the past few months previously claimed they fired rockets from northern Samaria. The IDF denied the claims only to later release select information stating some rockets had been fired from the area. Security analysts maintain publicity about terror groups' current missile capabilities in the territories could generate criticism of Olmert's Judea and Samaria withdrawal plan. Abu Oudai said the missile firings from Telkarem and Jenin were "only the very beginning of our blessed operation of launching rockets from the West Bank against Israeli cities. In the next days and from now on the falling of rockets in the enemy territory [in and near the West Bank] will not be strange and rare. "In a previous interview with you we promised that the next stage of our struggle in the West Bank will be characterized by the shooting of rockets." Israel minimizing Judea and Samaria rocket threat? The Al Aqsa leader described his Judea and Samaria rocket infrastructure: "With the help of Allah we succeeded to transfer rockets and technology that will bring in the very next days the number of rockets in the West Bank to hundreds. As for the kinds of rockets, they are very similar to the rockets in Gaza but here in the West Bank we are making huge efforts to improve them, especially their accuracy and distance." He said his group has stockpiles in northern Samaria of primitive versions of the Qassam rocket. Qassams are improvised steel rockets, about four feet in length, filled with explosives and fuel. They can travel between one and four miles depending on the sophistication of the particular rocket The IDF says terror groups abilities to produce rockets in Judea and Samaria are minimal. But Abu Oudai rejected the Israeli statements, claiming his group "absolutely" has the ability to manufacture Qassams and other kinds of rockets in northern Samaria. "The Israeli army said a few years ago that Gaza rockets are nothing and that they don't present any threat to the security of Israel and its citizens," Abu Oudai said. "Now we all know what is the truth and what is the real situation. Every day our rockets in Gaza become more accurate and do more killing and this is exactly what will happen in the West Bank. "It is their own business that they deny and minimize. But in the coming days the proofs on the ground will be very clear to the average Israeli in the street and not only to the Israeli political and military leadership." Abu Oudai, though, admitted to problems with his group's Judea and Samaria rocket infrastructure. "We have the capabilities of producing the rockets in the West Bank and we are also smuggling from Gaza, but I will be honest and sincere with you that our weakest point is the lack of experience in the West Bank. But we are working very hard to solve this problem. 'No fear' of Israeli retaliation Asked if the Al Aqsa Brigades received any outside help to its missile development program, Abu Oudai explained, "It is our right to receive any help from anybody and our doors is open to every support, from Syria, Iran, Hezbollah or anyone who wants to help and to support the Palestinian people." Prior to Israel's withdrawal from Gaza last August, then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon threatened an "unprecedented response" to any rocket firing carried out by terror groups after Israel vacated the territory. For the past ten months, until Israel sent ground troops into Gaza last month, the Israeli army mostly responded to the regular rocket attacks with aerial and artillery fire, failing to stop or even slow the rate of rocket attacks. Abu Oudai said he does not fear Israeli retaliation for his group's planned rocket launchings from Judea and Samaria. "I heard many time the expression of unprecedented response. The only unprecedented thing is the frequency of the Israeli 'empty threats.' We are not afraid and we have nothing to fear," said Abu Oudai. Iran and the Recent Escalation on Israel's Borders: In statements published over the last few weeks, senior Iranian officials advocated an escalation of the violent activity against Israel and against "Zionists" around the world. Additionally, in mid-June 2006, Syria and Iran signed a military cooperation agreement. The Syrian defense minister stated on that occasion that the two countries "are establishing a joint front against Israel... [since] Iran regards Syria's security as its own." For the last few weeks, Iran has been constantly delaying its response to the ultimatum presented to it by 5+1 (the five permanent U.N. Security Council members plus Germany) regarding its nuclear program, since it has no intention of accepting the international community's terms and of suspending its uranium enrichment activities. Iran was required to respond to the ultimatum by July 12 (before the G8 summit in Saint Petersburg). So far, the international community has not yielded to Iran's attempts to evade the ultimatum, and has denied Iran's request to postpone the deadline to August 22, 2006. Iranian National Security Council Secretary Ali Larijani, who is in charge of Iran's nuclear dossier, made a surprise visit to Damascus after meeting with E.U. Council Secretary-General Javier Solana on July 11, 2006. Syrian Vice President Farouq Al-Shar' stated after the meeting that the resistance [movements] in Lebanon and in Palestine [i.e. Hizbullah and Hamas] would make their own decisions regarding their affairs. It is possible that the escalation on Israel's borders, set off by elements supported by Iran - Hamas, Hizbullah and Syria - is meant to take the pressure off Iran by triggering a major military clash in the Middle East, which will divert international attention from Iran's nuclear program. The following are excerpts from statements by top Iranian figures and details about the Syrian-Iranian military agreement: Military Cooperation Agreement Between Iran and Syria On June 16, 2006, the London daily Al-Sharq Al-Awsat reported:(1) "Well-informed sources in Tehran have told Al-Sharq Al-Awsat that the talks held in Tehran between Syrian Defense Minister Hassan Turkmani and his Iranian counterpart Mustafa Mohammad Najjar did not only deal with military and security aspects of the strategic cooperation between the two countries, but also with the situation in Lebanon... [The talks also] dealt with the situation in Palestine, and with the ways of assisting the Hamas and the [Islamic] Jihad in their conflict with Fatah... "In a meeting with reporters after the signing of the military cooperation agreement, the Syrian defense minister stated that 'the American threats against Iran and Syria are nothing new... We are examining ways of countering these threats, and are establishing a joint front against Israel's threats... [since] Iran regards Syria's security as its own.'" The daily reported that the Syrian defense minister had visited Tehran at the head of a large delegation escorted by army and intelligence officers, and met with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iranian Chief of Staff Hassan Fayrouz and Iranian Revolutionary Guards commander Yahya Rahim Safavi. It further reported that "Iran has agreed to finance Syrian military deals with Russia, China and Ukraine, to equip the Syrian army with cannon, warheads, army vehicles, and missiles manufactured by the Iranian Defense Industries, and to enable Syrian navy drills. "Syria, on its part, has renewed its previous agreements with Iran which allow Iranian ammunition trucks to pass [through Syria] into Lebanon..." Al-Sharq Al-Awsat added that the Syrian and Iranian defense ministers "had agreed to establish a 'consultation room' and maintain open communication channels between the two countries in security and military matters." Threats by Iranian President Ahmadinejad In a television program aired on July 11, 2006, Iranian President Ahmadinejad warned Western countries not to support Israel, because "the rage of the Muslim peoples will not be restricted to the boundaries of our region... The waves of the explosion... will reach the corrupt forces [i.e. the Western countries] which support this fake regime." The following is an excerpt from Ahmadinejad's statement on the program: (2) "Mahmoud Ahmadinejad: Today, it has been proven that the Zionists are not opposed only to Islam and the Muslims. They are opposed to humanity as a whole. They want to dominate the entire world. They would even sacrifice the Western regimes for their own sake. I have said in Tehran, and I say it again here - I say to the leaders of some Western countries: Stop supporting these corrupt people. Behold, the rage of the Muslim peoples is accumulating. The rage of the Muslim peoples may soon reach the point of explosion. If that day comes, they must know that the waves of this explosion will not be restricted to the boundaries of our region. They will definitely reach the corrupt forces that support this fake regime." Editor of Iranian Daily Kayhan: No Zionist Should Feel Secure Anywhere in the World On July 3, 2006, editor of the conservative Iranian daily Kayhan Hossein Shariatamadari, who is close to Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, wrote, "The reaction to Israel's crimes in Gaza should not be confined to the occupied territories. Why should the Zionists [feel] secure when there is no security for the Muslims?" In an interview with the conservative Iranian news agency Mehr, Shariatamadari reiterated that the Muslim world should not limit its responses to the Zionist attacks only to the Gaza Strip, but should see to it that "no Zionist feels secure anywhere in the world." He added that the Zionist attack in Gaza does not reveal the Zionists' power, but [only] their fear. According to Shariatamadari, the U.N. is useless since "all its rules are interpreted [in a way that] favors [the aggressors], and the Israeli attack in Gaza elicits a mere expression of sorrow on the part of the U.N." Shariatamadari called on the Muslim countries that maintain economic ties with Israel to sever these ties, and also to minimize their ties with countries that support Israel and to recall their ambassadors to these countries.(3) Threats by Hassan Nassrallah in Conservative Iranian Daily Jomhouri-ye Eslami On the morning of July 12, concurrently with the Hizbullah attack on Israel's northern border, the conservative Iranian daily Jomhouri-ye Eslami, which is affiliated with the religious seminaries of Qom, published a speech given by Hizbullah Secretary-General Hassan Nassrallah on May 23, 2006 at a conference on "The Culture of Resistance." The following are excerpts from the speech: "We can hit Israel's entire northern region with thousands of rockets... All of Israel is now within the range of our missiles. Its seaports, [military] bases, industrial plants and everything else are all within our range... I repeat and say that our stockpile of weapons is significant, both in quantity and in quality... Another advantage that I wish to mention is the geography of Lebanon and Palestine. Most of Israel's vital areas are concentrated in the northern [half] of occupied Palestine, while the south is uninhabited and desolate. More than two million Jews live in the north of occupied Palestine, which contains the recreation centers and [tourist] resorts, the industrial plants, the agricultural [areas] and the important military airports and bases. This is an advantage for us... Our presence in South Lebanon, in proximity to the north of occupied Palestine, is our greatest advantage..."(4) Emphasis on Hizbullah's Importance to Iran According to a May 11, 2006 Al-Sharq Al-Awsat report, a high-level Iranian official who held a closed meeting with a small group of Western diplomats in London emphasized Hizbullah's importance to Iran: "Hizbullah is one of the pillars of our security strategy, and forms Iran's first line of defense against Israel. We reject [the claim] that it must be disarmed..."(5) Endnotes: (1) Al-Sharq Al-Awsat (London), June 16, 2006.
From: Iran's national security adviser flies to Syria: DEBKAfile reports: Iran's national security adviser Ali Larijani flies to Damascus aboad special military plane Wednesday night as war tension builds up around Hizballah kidnap of 2 Israeli soldiers Larijani is also Iran's senior nuclear negotiator. He will remain in Damascus for the duration of the crisis in line with the recently Iranian-Syrian mutual defense pact. His presence affirms that an Israeli attack on Syria will be deemed an assault on Iran. It also links the Israeli hostage crisis to Iran's nuclear standoff with the West. The White House released a statement holding Syria and Iran responsible for Hizballah abduction and demanding their immediate and unconditional release. The Syrian army has been put on a state of preparedness. DEBKAfile's military sources add that the Iranian air force, missile units and navy are also on high alert. DEBKAfile's counter-terror sources report Hizballah acted on orders from Tehran to open a second front against Israel, partly to ease IDF military pressure on the Hamas in the Gaza Strip. This was in response to an appeal Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal made to the Iranian ambassador to Damascus Mohammad Hassan Akhtari Sunday, July 9. DEBKAfile's Iranian sources report Tehran's rationale as composed of three parts: 1. Iran shows the flag as a champion and defender of its ally, Hamas. 2. Sending Hizballah to open a warfront against Israel is the logical tactical complement to its latest order to go into action against American and British forces in southern Iraq. 3. Tehran hopes to hijack the agenda before the G-8 summit opening in St. Petersberg, Russia on July 15. Instead of discussing Iran's nuclear case and the situation in Iraq along the lines set by President George W. Bush, the leaders of the industrial nations will be forced to address the Middle East flare-up Any Israeli decision taken at prime minister Ehud Olmert's high level consultation in Jerusalem Wednesday night must take this turn of events into account before deciding on limited air strikes against Hizballah and Lebanese civil targets without delay. Our sources also report that immediately after Nasrallah's statement to the media, Hizballah's leaders went into hiding, their bases were evacuated and their fighting strength transferred to pre-planned places of concealment. Ahead of the abduction, Hizballah ordnance and missile stocks were transferred to the Palestinian Ahmed Jibril's tunnel system at Naama, 30 km south of Beirut, which was built in the 1980s by East German engineers. The Israel navy has long tried to smash this coastal underground fortress from the sea without success. Israel began calling up an armored division, air crews and technicians from the reserves Wednesday night. DEBKAfile's military experts: If Israel's leaders opt for an anti-Hizballah operation on the lines of Operation Summer Rain against Hamas in the Gaza Strip, the IDF can expect the same measure of success as it has had in recovering Gilead Shalit and ending the Qassam missiles barrage... Gamla Shall Not Fall Again
"When Calamity Begins"
Today is a fast day for all Jewish people.....from Aish.com, FYI: The 17th of Tammuz is a day of distortion, of confusion, of fear. The looming specter of war makes this very clear. Every 17th of Tammuz, either someone asks me or I have to ask someone else: Why are we fasting today? There are multiple answers, all true. On the 17th of Tammuz, Moses smashed the tablets containing the Ten Commandments when he saw the sin of the Golden Calf. On the 17th of Tammuz during the period of the First Temple, daily sacrifices stopped when the priests couldn't obtain kosher animals. During the second Temple era, an idol was placed in the Temple. Along with a litany of other dreadful things up until the modern era. The one that seems most significant is that the walls of Jerusalem were breached on the 17th of Tammuz in 70 CE. That was the beginning of the end of the Second Temple. Once the walls were breached, the end was in sight, and the Temple was destroyed not long after. The 17th of Tammuz is a day of calamity for the Jewish people -- a day when calamity begins. Those examples, however difficult it might be for our modern minds to understand them, are linked. What, after all, does the destruction of the Temples mean? 17 Tammuz 5766: Today My modern mind doesn't always get why it was so calamitous. But there are moments when I get it. Especially like today, the 16th of Tammuz 5766: A day on which two Israeli soldiers were kidnapped (joining another already held for two weeks), at least eight killed, and the specter of some sort of all-out war is once again looming. The loss of the Temple represents a loss of Jewish sovereignty, the loss of national self-determination. The Temple represent living as a people in our own borders, subject not to the whims of other nations but to God. Spiritually, the loss is far clearer -- and far more devastating. The 17th of Tammuz represents the beginning of the loss of our clear connection to God, a loss of our clear purpose in the world, the disappearance of clarity, of understanding. The 17th of Tammuz is a day of interruptions, of disruptions, of defilement, of obfuscation. When we worshipped the Golden Calf, we misplaced our loyalty and devotion --transferring our gratitude and fidelity from the God who had taken us out of Egypt to a "god" we fashioned from melted-down bits of metal. The placement of an idol in our holiest of holies defiled the spot where God had chosen to "dwell" among us; the ineffable was replaced with the profane. The 17th of Tammuz is a day of distortion, of confusion, of fear. Our sages tell us that the fasts we mark are supposed to awaken within us a sense of loss and mourning over the tragedies that have befallen our people, and that should awaken within us a desire to do teshuvah, to repent. Temples defiled, soldiers held hostage And so tonight, as I am thinking about what I should eat now so that I will have an easy fast tomorrow, my mind is flying between thoughts of Temple defiled and -- so much more real to me at the moment -- three soldiers being held somewhere, scared and probably a whole lot more hungry and uncomfortable than I will be tomorrow. I am thinking of eight families mourning. Mothers wailing. Wives now widowed. Children now fatherless. I am thinking of all of the soldiers sitting in armored personnel carriers, already in Lebanon. Young soldiers, whose mothers won't sleep tonight, and probably won't sleep for a few weeks yet. Those soldiers make me think of my upstairs neighbor's son, Yakir. Just this week I'd returned from a month-long trip to the U.S. and found my car battery completely dead. When Yakir heard, he interrupted his one night off duty and turned around his car full of off-duty soldiers to come home and jump my car. There were five soldiers piled into his tiny car and they all poured out, tossing around jumper cables, hooking up wires, turning knobs and yelling good-naturedly to one another until my recalcitrant car started up and they were convinced it was okay to drive. Only then did they go off for their one night out. It is those boys for whom I am praying with all my heart this 17th of Tammuz, praying that God will not make these coming weeks another series of painful memories (and praying that our leaders will make the right decisions). It scares me that this is all beginning on today, of all days. This is not a historically auspicious time for the Jewish people. The future is murky. Longing for a perfect world Above all, this day reminds us that in a perfected world (what Jewish tradition calls the Messianic Age), everything will be clear. We will understand that we have the privilege of living here in order to serve our Creator. The will of God will be clearer to us -- and to the whole world -- than the obfuscations of Hezbollah apologists and other demagogues (let alone unfortunate or inaccurate word choice by reporters). We'll see the direct link between things like serving idols -- be they golden calves or priorities misshapen into perversities -- and horrors like today. We'll understand how kindnesses like Yakir and his friends showed me the other night move us closer to a perfected world and how thinking that we can control everything moves us further away. I hear someone's haunting voice crying in my ears, "Ad matei?" For how long? For how long will the confusion and pain and excuses go on? For how long will we mistake idols for power? For how long will the mothers of Gilad Shalit and every other brave soldier have to live in fear? For how long will we live subject to everything except our own God? We know that Jewish tradition reassures us that, someday, the 17th of Tammuz will be a day of rejoicing. And that must give us hope. Today's fast marks only the beginning, only the confusion, the distortion; there is still time for things to be set right. For politicians to make the right decisions, for soldiers to fight bravely, for righteous anger to be expressed. And for us to stand up for what each of us can -- some with broad
reach to speak truth to power, some to look at ourselves and
repair what is flawed within us, some to pray, some to learn, some
to fight, all of us to reach out to one another with kindness and
caring and the conviction that, one day, the smoke will clear and
that elusive clarity of purpose will be back in our hands.
Sandy Rosen-Hazen lives in Safed. Contact her at Sandy@israel.net
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INTERNET NONSENSE; CIVILIZATION'S ENEMY: ISLAMISM OR ISLAM?; ABBAS DEMONSTRATES EXTREMISM
Posted by Richard H. Shulman, July 13, 2006. |
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ROOTING FOR THE UNDERDOG Sports are mere amusement. Society does not rise or fall depending upon which team wins. It is harmless to root for the underdog team. Foreign affairs are different. The outcome of war is serious. Lives and civilization may hinge on the results. The Arab-Israel conflict is one such war. When the Arabs lose, their lives usually return to normal. Those under Israeli rule retain freedom of religion and gain a more general prosperity. If Israel should lose, its people face death or dispossession and dispersal. The Islamist trend is to exterminate defeated foes, and the last time they tried to flee, they were barred from most countries. Therefore, rooting for the Arabs, as a matter of cheerleading for the perceived underdog, and taking active steps to help the Arabs or inhibit Israel, encourages genocide. The Arab side is part of a global jihad, seeking to replace civilization with the primitive Islamic ethos. Perceived as the underdogs, are the Arabs actually the underdogs, as one would think from much Internet essay? No. Israel was written off a few times in its wars. It was going down in the War for Independence and the Yom Kippur War, and would have lost the Six Day War if it hadn't taken the initiative. By hard work, brilliant improvisation, and luck, Israel prevailed. Then the historical revisionists, i.e., people who abuse the discipline of history as a vehicle for anti-Zionism, just as others abuse the rubric of civil rights and humanitarianism for antisemitism, claim that the Jewish state had the advantage in its wars. But the real underdog was Israel. It still is. "HATRED ON BOTH SIDES" The decline of Western religion and the rise of moral equivalency produce assumptions of both parties to the conflict having equally valid cases and acting ethically the same. The Western media vacillates between moral equivalency and pro-Arab bias, rarely assessing the facts fairly, which would favor Israel. The two sides' cases are not of equivalent value. It's simple. The Jews want to live their own way in their own country in their own homeland. The Muslim Arabs want to take over everybody else's country and either kill them or make them live the Muslim way. It's the primitives against the civilized. History teaches those who want to learn it that primitives stand a good chance against the civilized, because the civilized tend to their comforts while the primitives tend to their spears. One of the misconceptions derived from the concept of two sides being equivalent is "two states will live side-by-side in peace." The Fatah and Hamas Covenants indicate that the Muslim Arab goal is to eliminate the Jewish state. Fatah's parent organization, the PLO, cleverly lets the West delude itself with the "two-state solution" nonsense, but its own Covenant, as Arafat explained to Muslim diplomats, proposes to use any area vacated by Israel to make war on Israel. The Muslims count on ignorance and media complicity to keep that subterfuge from public awareness. All the negotiations and what they call the "peace process" work toward a "two-step solution": Step 1, conquer and destroy the Jewish communities in the territories of Judea, Samaria, and Gaza; Step 2, conquer and destroy the Jewish communities of the State of Israel. It is a solution for Islam and a "final solution" for the Jewish people. Another false equivalency, with which an Internet writer recently headed his article, was of there being "hatred on both sides." What can he possibly base that on? There certainly is hatred on the Arab side. Islam is a religion of hatred. Most of its preachers indoctrinate the faithful in antagonism towards people who believe differently, including other Muslims. Practicing the religiously-sanctioned deceit not only against enemies but also upon their own people, they deepen the hatred by fabricating grievances against other people. One of the Muslim standbys is to stimulate riots by warning of some Jewish plot against al-Aqsa mosque. There never has been such a plot. The reverse is true. The Muslims are destroying ancient Jewish artifacts, as they usurp the entire Temple Mount, turning it into a giant mosque. What about the Jews? Israeli education stresses tolerance. Israeli propaganda is defensive rather than offensive. The Jews believe in live and let live. There is no discernable hatred on the Israeli side. I wish there were more spirit, indignation, and determination. The regional issues are complex and the history fascinating. How unfortunate that so many people take mouse in hand and spread misconceptions about them! It is irresponsible in this matter of survival of the Jewish people and of civilization, itself. As for the constantly lamented "suffering of the (so-called) Palestinian people," who themselves enjoy inflicting suffering, all they have to do is stop the war, civilize, and let Israel show them how to prosper, as it had been doing before it granted them autonomy, which they abused to wage war. IS THE ENEMY OF CIVILIZATION ISLAM OR ISLAMISM? Daniel Pipes identifies our enemy as Islamism. He professes to see moderation in the majority of Muslims. (I'm not talking about the handful of exceptions). What he sees is invisible to the rest of us. Pres. Bush talks about moderates in a theoretical sense. He and his officials, however, meet with Islamists. Are there no moderates or do they hide? I have been challenging Mr. Pipes' perception. I see in Islam the basis for Islamism. So does Youssef Ibrahim, writing for the NY Sun. His June 19 essay makes these points: 1. A fundamental Islamic tenet is rejection of other faiths. Any other religion is not legitimate in the eyes of all streams of Islam. 2. Islamism is a particularly political impulse from Islam but not alien to Islam. 3. Any apparent tolerance mentioned in the Koran is partial. It is conditioned on unbelievers' "humiliating" submission to the Muslims. The Koran is obsessed with isolating infidels from Muslims, battling them, and converting them, by the sword if necessary. Thus holy war is not just a practice of Islamists but of Islam. 4. Religious texts and speeches constantly lament the loss of Christian Spain and other parts of Europe that Islam once had conquered. The Muslims want to return those areas to the fold (and they are returning to those areas to see to it). 5. Islam demands loyalty to it before loyalty to country. Muslim immigrants usually do not wish to assimilate. (Most of them hate their adopted country's culture, even though they fled from one that offered them no hope.) Their preachers encourage them to spread the faith, which means to dominate the others. From there to jihad is a small step for that religion of violence. That attitude breeds civil strife. 6. S. Arabia sets up indoctrination centers all over the world to spread hostility towards other views and faiths. In the West, the Islamists dominate immigrant communities, because the mosques, religious schools, and imposition of the veil, the tools of domination, are under Islamist control (and the West doesn't yet admit it). 7. The West should and must fight back. SELECTIVE NY TIMES REPORTING "Israeli Attack Kills 3 Gaza Children," was the 6/21 story. Where are the multiple stories every week of Arab civil strife killing Gaza Arabs, including children? The story cited Israelis calling the IDF response to rocket attacks, firing 6,000 artillery shells, excessive and the danger from rockets minor. Reporter Ian Fisher failed to mention that most shells were aimed at empty fields, and that the rocket menace is growing exponentially. JORDAN CRITICIZES HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH (HRW) HRW condemned Jordan for arresting four politicians who praised the slain Zarqawi. The organization said that praise and mourning for an alleged terrorist is no crime. Jordan, in turn, condemned HRW for its lack of realism. First, Zarqawi was a terrorist, not an alleged terrorist. Second, supporting him supports terrorism (IMRA, 6/19). The explanation is that among the Arabs, such support for a terrorist boosts terrorism. It builds up the mood and prestige for terrorism. In Muslim Arab culture, the process of terrorism is not separable into criminal and non-criminal components, as HRW imagines. Jordan understands Islamic terrorism better than HRW does. ABBAS MODERATE OR SLANDERER? "Mr. Abbas said he was trying to 'stop the Israeli military escalation' and violence in the Palestinian Arab territories?" (Jamal Halaby, NY Sun, 6/19, p.5 from A.P.). Although the Arabs are fighting to wear down Israel, Israel is not trying to stamp out the enemy. Therefore, the war has ebbs and flows. As the Arabs get more and better arms, the level of violence rises. Being the aggressors, and with world public opinion inhibiting Israel, the Arab forces set the pace. When the Arabs escalate to the point at which internal indignation at Israel's failure to act decisively outweighs foreign indignation were Israel to act decisively, Israel fights harder. That step up, the Arabs call escalation, ignoring their own escalation. Recently, Israel withdrew from Gaza. That is de-escalation. The Arabs imported arms, moved them closer, and increased their firing of rockets at Israel from one a day to a dozen. That is escalation. Israel then resumed incursions and liquidation of terrorist commanders. That is in response to Arab escalation. Therefore, when Abbas complains about "Israeli military escalation," he is lying like any other Islamist terrorist. In slandering Israel, which tries to make peace, Abbas supports those Arabs who make war. Then how much is he the moderate as reputed? The myth of his moderation was cultivated by the State Dept., as an excuse to aid the Arab side. HIZBULLAH REBUILDING DAMAGED FORTS In response to a barrage from Hizbullah, Israeli forces destroyed several Hizbullah facilities along the border of Lebanon. Now Hizbullah is rebuilding those facilities without Israeli hindrance (IMRA, 6/20). Why isn't Israel destroying them again? Otherwise, the destruction turns out to have been a temporary inconvenience, not a reduction in their power and not a deterrent. A BROADER VIEW OF IRAN'S GOAL Nuclear weapons development is only part of Iran's goal. Iran really is stirring and leading an Islamic assault on liberal democracy. It is encouraging warfare against Iraq and Israel. The nuclear weapons serve to make Iran seem the equal of the West and to enable it to blackmail countries. Then Iran can encourage hesitant Muslims to join it. It is confident that there is no moderate majority in Islam, just those who are willing to act now and those who will, later. As Iran rises, reformers fall. The defiant President of Iran is behaving like Nasser and Hitler, building a threat against the existing order of civilization. He looks back to the past, the backward past. The US must stop Iran. It should do so without negotiating, for negotiating makes the current leadership seem legitimate, and discourages internal foes (IMRA, 6/19). Besides, the Iranian regime uses negotiations to stall and deceive, not to resolve. It is more skilled at negotiating than is the US. MUSLIM VIEW OF JERUSALEM Jerusalem historically had an abiding Jewish interest and claim to it and a later and occasional Muslim interest and claim to it. When it was not in contention, Muslims neglected it or bargained it away. When infidels had it, Muslims wanted it. After reciting that history, Daniel Pipes went further, to observe that many Jews are losing their attachment to Jerusalem while the Muslims have built up a pseudo-history of it that accords themselves an exclusive claim to it. They now have invested so much in it emotionally, that they cannot come to terms over it (Pipes, 6/20). He is indicating that the Muslims are not interested in religious access so much as political control. I don't agree that they could have negotiated peace before coming to claim an exclusive historical presence there. The Muslims are engaged in jihad. Jihadists don't exist to resolve conflict but to excite and win conflict. They seek world hegemony. ISRAELI APPEASEMENT CLIMBS Defense Min. Peretz is allowing more Arab merchants into Israel and taking other measures to ease conditions for them economically (IMRA, 6/20). The Arabs are trying to boycott Israeli exports and get Europe to, and are trying to kill Israelis, but Israel is concerned about Arab welfare. I think the Israeli government is foolish. It should make the Arabs so miserable that they have to depart. It shouldn't feel sorry for such an evil society. By contrast, sub-Sahara Africans are much poorer, badly afflicted with AIDS, and almost without hope. Turn charitable instincts towards them. Richard Shulman is a veteran defender of Israel on several web-based forums. His comments and analyses appear often on Think-Israel. He provides cool information and right-on-target overviews. He distributes his essays by email. To subscribe, write him at richardshulman5@aol.com. |
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WHY IS THE U.S. ALWAYS RESTRAINING ISRAEL?
Posted by Marcel Cousineau, July 13, 2006. |
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This standing U.S. policy is always maintained to make sure Israel does not embarass the Arab world again with a quick and humiliating defeat. There is too much at stake for America to be loyal to any one small nation, especially when they are Jews. The dubious ally, America, always effectively ties Israel's hands since their surprising defeat of Syria,Jordan and Egypt in 1967. And Israel always falls for this ruse. I received an email for a deluded Israeli today who found a convinent excuse for why Bush was limiting Israel's response to Arab agression across their border. He wrote" "the Bush Administration is restraining Israel because the Administration is having a time of it in Iraq and with Iran." That's rubbish Yom Kippur was supposed to be a decisice victory for the Arabs,as the U.S. hoped it would be. The 1st Bush administration restrained Israel from responding to Saddam's 39 scuds during the first U.S. move on Saddam. This began the bleeding of Israel's now non existent deterrence against her Arab neighbors. It's just more of the same U.S. Policy against Israel. Israel's most serious tactical error has been to rely on the U.S.to look out for their best interests. You still have not awakened to the dangers of U.S. calls for restraint and Iraq is just another red herring excuse to tie Israel's hands again. The world as a whole is troubled when the Jews defend themselves. They would much rather like to see them quietly head to slaughter without fighting or protest and this is why France and so many a crying against Israel's supposed disproporinate use of force. Wake Up Israel, this is not the time for restraint. It is time to tell Bush to restrain himself from interference in Israel's attempt to revive deterrence with her neighbors. Marcel Cousineau can be reached at up2zionsg8@yahoo.com. Or go to his website: http://averyheavystone.logspot.com |
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SAFE TRANSPORTATION FOR ISRAELI SOLDIERS
Posted by Deb Kotz, July 13, 2006. |
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This Baderech Habayta looks like an excellent organization to send donations to, given that it provides safe transportation for Israeli soldiers serving in remote locations to get them home safely. Here are additional email contacts to send messages urging unconditional support of Israel. I'd like to see our Senators and Representatives adding their names to any pro-Israel resolutions that may come out of Congress today. vice.president@whitehouse.gov, Secretary@state.gov, For those who live in Maryland and Silver Spring area: chris.vanhollen@mail.house.gov, senator@mikulski.senate.gov, SENATOR@sarbanes.senate.gov Phone calls, of course, are always far more effective than emails. Call the Senate switchboard (202) 224-3121 to be connected to your Senator's office. Or the House of Representatives switchboard (202) 225-3121 to be connected to your Rep. Leave a message saying that you'd like your representative to express his unqualified support of Israel's actions to protect its security in response to terrorist attacks. I received this message from Steve Rabinowitz (SRabinow@ida.org). Given the recent call up of reserves, the organization below seems like a perfect answer to the question "what can we do to really help at this point?" Saying tehillim is nice, but making sure these kids get to their posts safely is a very tangible contribution we can make. I also recommend the Friends of the IDF (http://www.israelsoldiers.org) and my usual favorite, the Pizza IDF site (www.pizzaidf.org ) where you can send pizza, soup, burgers, ice cream, etc. directly to the troops. Finally, we all need to write to the President and thank him for his support, which so far has been quite strong. |
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Baderech Habayta works with the Israeli Defense Forces to transport Israeli soldiers serving in remote army bases where there is very limited, if any, public transportation to their homes. Today, the IDF called up thousands of reserve forces. Many must make their way to the Northern border from all over Israel. Baderech Habayta which means "on the way home" has one purpose--- ensuring our soldiers a safe ride home. In light of recent attacks and kidnappings near Gaza and on the Lebanese border, the service offered by Baderech Habayta is more critical than ever. Without your financial support, we cannot continue to provide buses and transportation to the soldiers who need it most. The soldiers of the Israel Defense Forces stand ready to protect our people day and night, guarding our borders and serving as sentries against those that desire to harm us. Our young men and women stand bravely in spite of great danger. As the young soldiers of the IDF head home for their well-earned breaks and leaves, they are forced to hitchhike in remote locations with no public transportation, and are left vulnerable to attack. Baderech Habayta has established networks of buses that help transport our soldiers serving in remote army bases. We turn to you now during this critical period in the State of Israel's history to help our brave soldiers return home safely. Please help us meet the increased requests for safe transportation. Sincerely, Chai Shimoni
<> Please make your contribution now. You may donate directly to Baderech Habayta by visiting their website
at
If you donate through All4Israel, please note that your contribution is for Baderech Habayta. 100% of the donations will be wired immediately to Israel to help with this critical need. For more information, please email yaacov@baderechhabayta.org Deb Kotz is an active member of the Brandeis Chapter of the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) and maintains an email list to distribute articles of interest to the local community. She can be reached at DebKotz@aol.com |
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TERROR AS STATECRAFT
Posted by Deb Kotz, July 13, 2006. |
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Great editorial in today's Chicago Tribune. (And I love the way it takes a swipe at the Wash Post for publishing Haniyeh's op-ed.) Please send emails to Pres. Bush asking for his continued unqualified support of Israel during these acts of war from Hezbollah, Hamas and other terrorist groups. President@whitehouse.gov Standwithus.com provides a sample letter on their website www.standwithus.com. Let's pray that Israel has quick success with these incursions and brings its kidnapped soldiers home safe and sound. |
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When terrorists raided Israeli territory and kidnapped an Israeli Army soldier a few weeks ago, they had a ready explanation. They wanted a prisoner exchange with Israel. As usual in these attacks, the terrorists also could recite an elaborate provenance of Israeli provocation, sometimes tracing back years if not decades. But the brazen kidnapping of Israeli soldiers--one by Palestinian terrorists a few weeks ago and two more on Wednesday, by Hezbollah terrorists from Lebanon--can't be disguised as part of any historical pattern of attack and revenge. Israel withdrew from Gaza a year ago; the soldiers who were killed and the one kidnapped were on Israeli soil. Similarly, Hezbollah guerrillas crossed the border to capture two more soldiers in an attack that opened a second front in a fast-spreading conflict. The coordination of these attacks isn't an accident. Hezbollah, in thrall to Iran, has reportedly helped finance and train Hamas terrorists. It's likely that exiled Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal in Damascus is the mastermind behind these coordinated attacks. Just after the first attack, one of his top aides telegraphed that intent: "I believe the resistance [fighters] should not be content with taking one Israeli soldier as prisoner," the official told a reporter. "They should develop this kind of operation and seek to capture more soldiers, and perhaps officers, so that the occupation realizes that our prisoners will not die and rot in jail." Both Hamas and Hezbollah are demanding a prisoner release in exchange for the hostages. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is rightly refusing. Dealing with terrorist thugs only ensures more kidnappings. All those who hoped that Hamas or Hezbollah would abandon terror when they gained political power must confront the fact that power has only emboldened their impulse to terrorism. This is terror as statecraft, terror by a ruling political party in one instance, and by a leading political party in the other. Just a few days ago it was revealed that Lebanese authorities, working closely with the FBI, arrested a terrorist who confessed to planning a series of attacks on the New York commuter train tunnels. Lebanon's role in that arrest was encouraging. If the Lebanese authorities are really serious about dismantling terror, however, they can't ignore Hezbollah. As Israeli defense minister Amir Pertz said after the first attack: "The masquerade ball is over. The suits and ties will not serve as cover to the involvement and support of kidnapping and terror." In an op-ed in the Washington Post recently, Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas railed about being "besieged by our occupiers, who destroy our roads and buildings, our power stations and water plants, and who attack our very means of civil administration. ... As I inspect the ruins of our infrastructure--the largess of donor nations and international efforts all turned to rubble once more by F-16s and American-made missiles--my thoughts again turn to the minds of Americans. What do they think of this?" Here's what we think, Mr. Prime Minister. Hamas had a chance to govern peacefully. It had a chance to build a state in Gaza, to stop terrorists from lobbing shells into Israel. It chose to cheer a terrorist attack in Tel Aviv and help kidnap a soldier for ransom. For Hamas and Hezbollah, the masquerade is over. Deb Kotz is an active member of the Brandeis Chapter of the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) and maintains an email list to distribute articles of interest to the local community. She can be reached at DebKotz@aol.com |
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WE FEEL STUPID, OH SO STUPID
Posted by Steven Plaut, July 13, 2006. |
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In the past every time the Left's "conception" and Oslo completely fell apart, I would hurry to celebrate. Sure, it would be in the middle of terrorist carnage, or the Hamas "election" victory, or Hezbollah outrages, but all that would be a small price to pay if it meant that at long last Israel would awake from its long hallucinatory pipedream of "peace process", would take to the tanks and planes, and implement R&D = Re-Occupation and DeNazification, at long long last. Each time I would show up on campus with a large grin, expecting all the moonbats to be ripping out their hair and rending their clothes in mourning over how stupid they had been, how obvious it is NOW that their entire "understanding" of the conflict has been completely wrong, how there was no solution to the war besides victory over the savages, how the entire set of policies implemented at the Left's direction ever since 1993 (and perhaps earlier) were simply 180 degrees in the incorrect direction and had made the situation infinitely worse. Of course, I was always wrong. There was no such awakening from the pipedream, just an insistence that Israel had not gone far enough in appeasing, self-abasement, self-humiliation, and capitulation. I must confess my perpetual weakness, because part of me still is deluded into think thating the opening of an all-out war against Israel this week by the Hezbollah and Hamas would be enough to wake up the clueless lemmings of Israel, the wishful thinking dullards, and the deluded Left with its Me-Too-Kadima-and-Likud "Right". Actually if some katyushas on the Galilee were enough to achieve that, I would propose we all say a special prayer of thanksgiving to He who has given us the katyusha of hope and national recovery. Meanwhile, I still cannot help gloating as the entire edifice of Leftist stupidity comes crashing down, yet again. There are so few reasons for amusement. I regret to tell you that it got my poetic juices a-working. The New Song of the Israeli Left (and fellow travellers) From West Bank Story
We feel stupid,
We feel helpless,
See the stupid prof in that mirror there,
We feel useless
Have you met my good friend Avnery,
We thought we had love.
It must be the heat
We feel stupid,
GIRLS
We feel dizzy,
GIRLS
GIRLS
GIRLS
Such a stupid camp,
GIRLS
ALL
Steven Plaut is an American-trained economist, a professor of business administration at Haifa University and author of "The Scout." He frequently comments - both seriously and satirically - on Israeli politics and the left wing academic community. His website address is http://www.stevenplaut.blogspot.com. Contact him at splaut@econ.haifa.ac.il |
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12 WOUNDED AS KATYUSHA ROCKETS LAND IN NAHARIYA
Posted by Avodah 15, July 13, 2006. |
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This was written by Yaakov Katz, Herb Keinon and Jpost Staff, and it appeared in The Jerusalem Post (www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1150885981850&pagename= JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull) today. |
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Twelve people were wounded - one seriously - when four Hizbullah-fired Katyusha rockets landed in central Nahariya on Thursday morning, Army Radio reported. The attack was one of the deepest launched by Hizbullah into Israeli territory. Residents of the North were asked to remain in bomb shelters in anticipation of further attacks. IAF fighter jets bombed runways at Beirut International Airport early Thursday morning as part of a military campaign which it vowed would be harsh and quick against the Lebanese government and Hizbullah, which killed eight IDF soldiers and kidnapped two others along the northern border the previous day. Al-Jazeera television network reported that 15 people were killed in the airstrike. The IDF said that the airport was targeted because it was used by Hizbullah to import weapons. The IAF attack forced the closure of the airport and the diversion of two flights to Cyprus. Meeting in emergency session late Wednesday, the Cabinet approved plans by IDF echelons to target the airport and other strategic infrastructures inside Lebanon including power plants. Earlier Thursday morning, several Katyusha rockets, fired by Hizbullah from southern Lebanon, landed on an IDF base in Mount Meron on Thursday morning. No one was wounded and no damage was reported. In southern Lebanon, at least 22 civilians were reported killed in overnight Wednesday in IAF attacks, including a family of 12 in the village of Dweir, leading TV station LBC reported. Overnight Wednesday, the IAF struck a Hizbullah post and two bridges in southern Lebanon as the number of targets hit by the Airforce since fighting erupted after the kidnapping of two IDF soldiers, reached into the hundreds. Meanwhile, Hizbullah shelled the Western Galilee with mortars. No one was wounded and no damage was reported. Earlier, in a series of air strikes, IAF aircraft bombed Kfar Shuba and Sheba Farms. The communications infrastructure connecting Beirut to the south of the country was also damaged by IAF strikes. The strikes followed an attack by IAF warplanes and navy gunboats on a Palestinian terrorist base south of Beirut late Wednesday in the closest raid to the Lebanese capital since fighting erupted. Meanwhile, the names of six of the eight soldiers killed Wednesday in a Hizbullah attack on IDF forces patrolling the Lebanese border were released for publication Wednesday evening: Sgt. Nimrod Cohen, 19, from Mitzpe Shalem; Sgt.-Major Eyal Benin, 22, of Be'ersheba and Sgt.-Major Shani Turgeman, 24, of Beit Shean. All the soldiers' families have been notified. The fourth victim was later identified as Sergeant-Major Wasim Nazel, 27, from the Druze village of Kfar Yanouch. Earlier, Nazel's family was mistakenly informed that he had been kidnapped. Two of the soldiers who were killed when the tank in which they were riding drove over an explosive device, were identified as Staff-Sergeant Alexei Kashiniervski, 21, from Ness Ziona and Yaniv Bar-on, 19, from Maccabim. Under heavy fire, IDF forces continued their attempts to reclaim the bodies of the four soldiers who died when their tank was ripped apart by the blast. Three other soldiers were killed were riding in a Hummer jeep when it was attacked, while two other soldiers in the same jeep were kidnapped. All residents along Israel's northern border from Nahariya in the west to Kiryat Shmona in the east were ordered into bomb shelters on Wednesday night. "This is a new situation. The residents of Israel need to know that we are going into a period that would require resilience," Minister Issac Herzog said after the emergency cabinet meeting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert convened on Wednesday night in Tel Aviv in light of the events on the northern border. According to Herzog, Israel is holding Lebanon responsible for the attack, which was carried out from its territory. OC Northern Command Maj.-Gen. Udi Adam said the IDF was preparing for a widespread operation not only against Hizbullah but also against the Lebanese government. The IDF, The Jerusalem Post learned, has drawn up plans to bomb main infrastructure, including power stations in Lebanon. "The IDF is responding with its full might by the air, the sea and the ground," Adam said. "We are also preparing for a massive operation to defend Israeli citizens and stop the terror." Warplanes, meanwhile, flew over the Na'ameh base in the hills overlooking the Mediterranean, about 16 kilometers south of Beirut. Gunboats sailed facing the position, and explosions rang out across the area. The base is run by the Syrian-backed Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command and was a frequent target of Israeli attacks in the past. AP contributed to this report. Contact Avodah 15 at avodah15@aol.com |
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THE JEWS WILL NEVER "GO" QUIETLY AGAIN
Posted by Nurit Greenger, July 13, 2006. |
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The thought of the day?
To the question, "can Israel survive?" The answer is, "Don't worry -- never again will the Jews go quietly." If the world doesn't come to understand that, it is as simple as that, millions of Arabs are going to die. The Jews are the most abused and kicked-around people in the history of the world. For thousands of years "The Chosen People" were picked from the crowd in the most terrible and tragic way. From slavery in Egypt and until today many nations came up with the "Jewish Solution," all schemes were to crush the Jewish spirit and kill them to the very last one of them. Through out history the Jews were hated, libeled, chased, dispersed, scattered, and exiled. "Inquisition," "Pogrom", "ghetto", and "anti-Semitism" are expressions synonymous to the word "Jew." Ancient Israel, God 's homeland to the Jews, was destroyed, over the years many attempts to crush the Jewish culture were made, and where ever they lived, their safety was fragile, and often subject to the whims of the moody hosting country. There is not a country where Jews lived that, at one time or another has not decided to lash out against the "Chosen People," the children of Moses. In spite and despite of it all, the Jews prevailed and it is impossible to deny or conceal their, cultural, scientific, and spiritual contribution to this world. The Jews requested to have their Jerusalem back and the world went along. The Jews have a homeland again; a homeland that is theirs; Israel. If it comes down to survival they will fight like a lioness fighting to save her cubs. It doesn't matter how many times the United States and the Europeans try to rein in Israel, to defend their existence, they will fight with ferocity, determination, and skill that will astound the world over and over again. And that's the point. And many will die, mostly their attackers. The Israelis will be standing at the end; they will kill their suicidal attackers, until there are not enough to agonize them again. It doesn't make any difference whether you are pro-Israeli or you [still] think Israel is the bully of the Middle East. A new holocaust is looming; with or without the concurrence of the United States and Europe -- Israel will lash out without pause or restraint at those who would try to annihilate their country. The Jews will never "go" quietly again Contact Nurit Greenger at 4nuritg@gmail.com |
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IT'S A STRANGE OL' WORLD: IS IT WAR IN THE MIDDLE EAST?
Posted by Professor Eugene Narrett, July 12, 2006. |
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Jihadists bombed train stations in Mumbai on the west-central coast of India. They murdered about 160 people. There were no demands from the UN that India begin ceding land to the murderers or again partitioning itself to create yet another Islamic state. Notice that the favorite geopolitical game of western powers in the past 85 years is creating Islamic states. Now why would these ruling elites, bankers, secret services, 'diplomats,' and so on want to create all these instant crises? Might it be that in order to 'solve' the crises, in the name of security, which recedes ever farther into the future's haze they want to consolidate ever more power in their own hands? Anyway, there are no official calls from the G-8 or "world community," as yet, for India to partition itself again. Several weeks ago it was reported that Hamas and Hezbollah had systematized operational liaisons to strengthen their war on Israel and the Jewish people. The center of their command and control axis is in Damascus which also is the center for the German Secret Service's links to the Islamic world (through Damascus they complement and enhane Berlin's direct ties to Teheran). Not coincidentally, and also in mid June, Syria and Iran signed a military cooperation agreement to establish "a joint front against Israel." The Syrian Defense Minister stated that "Iran regards Syria's security as its own" (Memri #1204, www.memri.org). Middle East Media Research Institute also reminds us that July 12 as the date by which Iran was supposed "to respond to the ultimatum" of the UN about its uranium enrichment activities. Apparently they have responded through Hezbollah's attack this past twenty-four hours upon Israel. This attack is war. Numerous jihadist groups and their spokesmen, as Arafat frequently did, declare and practice war against Israel but the client regimes in Jerusalem, in place to carry out the Road Map, respond with minimal reactive raids: they will neither fight nor declare a war. It's attrition for them per the orders of the State Department. Memri also notes that Iran's National Security Minister, Ali Lrijani visited Damascus on July 11 after meeting with EU secretary General, the ubiquitous and very dangerous Javier Solana. After the meeting, the Syrian VP said that Hezbollah and "Palestinian resistance movements" would "make their own decisions" (hah! hah!!!) about how to direct their affairs. How interesting to note the convergence (can we spell hitkansut in arabic?) of Teheran, Damascus, Berlin, Brussels and Madrid with the Hezbollah assault on northern Israel to assist the Hamas assault on southern Israel. The interest is made more complex by noting the series of "no you can't do that" decrees that the puppet-Olmert regime has imposed on the IDF such that the bombing of empty offices even of top-ranking global terrorists continues to be par for the course, and the use of IAF fighter bombers strictly off-limits. Remember, they're just for show so everyone will understand that Israel is a paper tiger.... This means more terror, more jihad - war, more murders, kidnapping and killing. Not only do banking cartels and consortia continue to pump money from Berlin, Beijing, and the West into the Arab world via Teheran and Damascus, but through Teheran they finance Hezbollah and, since June Hamas. "Iran has agreed to finance Syrian military deals with Russia, China and Ukraine..." (ibid). This is called the shoah at one remove; it's much more effective than the Inquisition and a little bit more difficult to trace. Apropos the above, remember that "Iran" is the Persian word for "Aryan" because the Shah in the 1930s felt a deep connection for Nazi ideology and wanted to highlight Persia's credentials therein. None of its leaders (except, briefly, Shah Pahlevi in the 1970s before the State Department and the French used Khomeini to take him down) has shown an inclination to restore the nation's ancient name. A last note on the incongruities of our terrible moment: the State Department, in whose toils Dubya Bush no longer bothers to struggle, has succeeded beyond its wildest dreams in installing a pliable tool at the head of an Israeli government. But like in all tragedies, dramatic irony and nemesis step in to assert enduring truths. So limp a lickspittle, so incontinent a conduit for the Road Map is Olmert that he's too good from a Foggy Bottom view: Israel is collapsing too fast and they've got to get some counter-terror mileage out of the Jews before the entire middle eastern part of their game gets badly out of joint. After all, they can't have Hamas take down Mubarak, Hezbollah take down Abdullah or al Qaeda take down the beloved House of Saud which they need to finish the subversion of America through the Democratic party, the state and Federal prison systems, and on university campuses. Gosh, it sure gets difficult to keep the bubble level at the end of the end game.... Hey: the Israelis might even take up the jihadists on their boast and declare war back on them. And then what might happen? O, Happy Day.... Professor Eugene Narrett teaches writing and Literature at Boston University. He is the author of hundreds of articles, columns and reviews on politics, American culture and the arts. He is completing a study on Romanticism and the longterm decline of Western Culture. He writes often on subjects relating to Israel and Judaism and is a weekly columnist for the MetroWest Daily News in Framingham, Massachusetts. His new book is "Israel and the Endtimes". Contact him at Culturtalk@aol.com |
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GOING TO COURT IN SEVERAL MINUTES
Posted by Salah Choudhury, July 12, 2006. |
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Greetings from Dhaka! It is 7:00 am in the morning in Bangladesh right now. I shall start for the court just at 7:30 as it takes almost one and half hours to reach the court from my residence. My residence is at city's Uttara residential area whereas the court is located at Sadarghat (very close to Buriganga river), at city's most crowded area with tremendous traffic congessions. I shall have to pick up Advocate Goswami from High Court on my way to the Metropolitan Session Judges Court. Other lawyers will also be available at the court premises. Last night I spoke to my lawyers and their opinion is the government might once again shift the charge framing date. Actually now we doubt that their intention is to push the matter to the Caretaker government, which assumes power on 28th October 2006. They want to let the case be dropped (because there is no substance to this false case) by the Caretaker Government, so that the rulling government can avoid from annoying the Islamist radicals. I shall update you the matter on my return. By the way, here are some pictures on the bomb blast. Please read Weekly Blitz for details at www.weeklyblitz.net Regards
The writer is a journalist, columnist, author, and editor of "Weekly Blitz". Email him at salahuddinshoaibchoudhury@yahoo.com |
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ANALYSIS: ISRAEL PREPARES FOR WIDESPREAD MILITARY ESCALATION
Posted by Avodah 15, July 12, 2006. |
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This was written by Amos Harel and appeared in Haaretz (www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/737744.html). |
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On the 18th day since the abduction of Corporal Gilad Shalit, the picture has become all the more complex. From limited fighting on a single front (the Gaza Strip), the Israel Defense Forces is now approaching what might evolve into a near outright war on two fronts. This is the most complex crisis Israel has faced since Operation Defensive Shield in 2002, when Israel successfully curbed Hezbollah's bid to spark a confrontation on the northern border in response to the IDF occupation of West Bank cities. The winning formula for resolving the crisis consisted of military actions combined with diplomatic pressure. In some respects, however, the situation now is even more complicated than in 2002, because terror groups are holding three soldiers captive: Gilad Shalit in the Gaza Strip, and two other soldiers who were captured Wednesday morning on the northern border. The attack on Israel's northern border was an impressive military achievement for Hezbollah and a ringing failure for the IDF. Despite Israel's intelligence analyses and despite wide operational deployment, Hezbollah has succeeded in carrying out what it has been threatening to do for more than two years - and it couldn't have happened at a more sensitive time. Israel has until now responded with restraint by bombarding bridges in central Lebanon and attacking Hezbollah positions along the border. But considering the nature of the military high command's current evaluation of the situation, it is clear that the IDF is interested in inflicting a much sharper blow on Lebanon. Senior officers in the IDF say that the Lebanese government is responsible for the soldiers' abduction. According to the officers, if the kidnapped soldiers are not returned alive and well, the Lebanese civilian infrastructures will regress 20, or even 50 years. Lebanon has invested considerable resources in the rehabilitation of its civilian infrastructures from the damage sustained during its civil war in the 1970s and the years of war with Israel throughout the 1980s and 1990s. If Israel is having difficulty in deterring Hamas in Gaza, and certainly if it is unable to bring the crisis to a conclusion, indeed Hezbollah is a much more sophisticated and experienced rival than its Palestinian counterpart. It is safe to assume that Hezbollah planned the abduction months in advance, and that the Shi'ite organization has made every effort to conceal the location where the kidnapped soldiers are being held. From another perspective, however, the opening of a new front somewhat eases Israel's dilemma. It now seems that the government may be able to stop acting like it is walking on eggshells, as it has thus far. There is every indication that Israel is on its way to a wide escalation of its military operations, both in the north and in the Gaza Strip. Contact Avodah 15 at avodah15@aol.com |
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ISRAEL SHOULD WAGE WAR ON PALESTINIANS
Posted by David Holcberg, July 12, 2006. |
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Dear Editor:
Results from a recent poll indicate that 77 percent of Palestinians support their government's kidnapping of an Israeli soldier and that 60 percent support the continued rocket fire from Gaza into Israel. This despite Israel's withdrawal of its troops and removal of its citizens from Gaza just a few months ago. Israel should declare and wage war not only against the Palestinian leadership but also against the Palestinian people. The inevitable deaths of a few truly innocent Palestinians should not stop Israel from doing whatever it takes to eliminate its enemies; any deaths of innocents would be the moral responsibility not of Israel but of the guilty majority of Palestinians that seek to destroy it. David Holcberg is with the Ayn Rand Institute (http://www.aynrand.org/) in Irvine, CA. The Institute promotes Objectivism, the philosophy of Ayn Rand--author of "Atlas Shrugged" and "The Fountainhead." Contact the writer at media@aynrand.org. |
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THE PSYCHOLOGY BEHIND SUICIDE BOMBINGS
Posted by Ramy Dishy, July 12, 2006. |
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This is an interview with Pierre Rehov, documentary filmmaker. On July 15, MSNBC's "Connected" program discussed the July 7th London attacks. One of the guests was Pierre Rehov, a French filmmaker who has filmed six documentaries on the intifada by going undercover in the Palestinian areas. Pierre's upcoming film, "Suicide Killers," is based on interviews that he conducted with the families of suicide bombers and would-be bombers in an attempt to find out why they do it. Pierre agreed to a request for a Q&A interview here about his work on the new film. [See the trailer for "Suicide Killers" at http://www.pierrerehov.com/sk_trailer_wmv_b.htm]. |
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Q - What inspired you to produce "Suicide Killers," your seventh film? A - I started working with victims of suicide attacks to make a film on PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) when I became fascinated with the personalities of those who had committed those crimes, as they were described again and again by their victims. Especially the fact that suicide bombers are all smiling one second before they blow themselves up Q - Why is this film especially important? A - People don't understand the devastating culture behind this unbelievable phenomenon. My film is not politically correct because it addresses the real problem, showing the real face of Islam. It points the finger against a culture of hatred in which the uneducated are brainwashed to a level where their only solution in life becomes to kill themselves and kill others in the name of a God whose word, as transmitted by other men, has become their only certitude. Q - What insights did you gain from making this film? What do you know that other experts do not know? A - I came to the conclusion that we are facing a neurosis at the level of an entire civilization. Most neuroses have in common a dramatic event, generally linked to an unacceptable sexual behavior. In this case, we are talking of kids living all their lives in pure frustration, with no opportunity to experience sex, love, tenderness or even understanding from the opposite sex. The separation between men and women in Islam is absolute. So is contempt toward women, who are totally dominated by men. This leads to a situation of pure anxiety, in which normal behavior is not possible. It is no coincidence that suicide killers are mostly young men dominated subconsciously by an overwhelming libido that they not only cannot satisfy but are afraid of, as if it is the work of the devil. Since Islam describes heaven as a place where everything on Earth will finally be allowed, and promises 72 virgins to those frustrated kids, killing others and killing themselves to reach this redemption becomes their only solution. Q - What was it like to interview would-be suicide bombers, their families and survivors of suicide bombings? A - It was a fascinating and a terrifying experience. You are dealing with seemingly normal people with very nice manners who have their own logic, which to a certain extent can make sense since they are so convinced that what they say is true. It is like dealing with pure craziness, like interviewing people in an asylum, since what they say, is for them, the absolute truth I hear a mother saying "Thank God, my son is dead." Her son had became a shaheed, a martyr, which for her was a greater source of pride than if he had became an engineer, a doctor or a winner of the Nobel Prize. This system of values works completely backwards since their interpretation of Islam worships death much more than life. You are facing people whose only dream, only achievement goal is to fulfill what they believe to be their destiny, namely to be a Shaheed or the family of a shaheed. They don't see the innocent being killed, they only see the impure that they have to destroy. Q - You say suicide bombers experience a moment of absolute power, beyond punishment. Is death the ultimate power? A - Not death as an end, but death as a door opener to the after life. They are seeking the reward that God has promised them. They work for God, the ultimate authority, above all human laws. They therefore experience this single delusional second of absolute power, where nothing bad can ever happen to them, since they become God's sword. Q - Is there a suicide bomber personality profile? Describe the psychopathology. A - Generally kids between 15 and 25 bearing a lot of complexes, generally inferiority complexes. They must have been fed with religion. They usually have a lack of developed personality. Usually they are impressionable idealists. In the western world they would easily have become drug addicts, but not criminals. Interestingly, they are not criminals since they don't see good and evil the same way that we do. If they had been raised in an Occidental culture, they would have hated violence. But they constantly battle against their own death anxiety. The only solution to this deep-seated pathology is to be willing to die and be rewarded in the afterlife in Paradise. Q - Are suicide bombers principally motivated by religious conviction? A - Yes, it is their only conviction. They don't act to gain a territory or to find freedom or even dignity. They only follow Allah, the supreme judge, and what He tells them to do. Q - Do all Muslims interpret jihad and martyrdom in the same way? A - All Muslim believers believe that, ultimately, Islam will prevail on earth.They believe this is the only true religion and there is no room, in their mind, for interpretation. The main difference between moderate Muslims and extremists is that moderate Muslims don't think they will see the absolute victory of Islam during their lifetime, therefore they respect other beliefs. The extremists believe that the fulfillment of the Prophecy of Islam and ruling the entire world as described in the Koran, is for today. Each victory of Bin Laden convinces 20 million moderate Muslims to become extremists. Q - Describe the culture that manufactures suicide bombers. A - Oppression, lack of freedom, brain washing, organized poverty, placing God in charge of daily life, total separation between men and women, forbidding sex, giving women no power whatsoever, and placing men in charge of family honor, which is mainly connected to their women's behavior. Q - What socio-economic forces support the perpetuation of suicide bombings? A - Muslim charity is usually a cover for supporting terrorist organizations. But one has also to look at countries like Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Iran, which are also supporting the same organizations through different networks. The ironic thing in the case of Palestinian suicide bombers is that most of the money comes through financial support from the Occidental world, donated to a culture that utterly hates and rejects the West (mainly symbolized by Israel). Q - Is there a financial support network for the families of the suicide bombers? If so, who is paying them and how does that affect the decision? A - There used to be a financial incentive in the days of Saddam Hussein($25,000 per family) and Yasser Arafat (smaller amounts), but these days are gone. It is a mistake to believe that these families would sacrifice their children for money. Although, the children themselves who are very attached to their families, might find in this financial support another reason to become suicide bombers. It is like buying a life insurance policy and then committing suicide. Q - Why are so many suicide bombers young men? A - As discussed above, libido is paramount. Also ego, because this is a sure way to become a hero. The shaheeds are the cowboys or the firemen of Islam. Shaheed is a positively reinforced value in this culture. And what kid has never dreamed of becoming a cowboy or a fireman? Q - What role does the U.N. play in the terrorist equation? A - The U.N. is in the hands of Arab countries and third world or ex-communist countries. Their hands are tied. The U.N. has condemned Israel more than any other country in the world, including the regime of Castro, Idi Amin or Kaddahfi. By behaving this way, the U.N. leaves a door open by not openly condemning terrorist organizations. In addition, through UNRWA, the U.N.is directly tied to terror organizations such as Hamas, representing 65 percent of their apparatus in the so-called Palestinian refugee camps. As a support to Arab countries, the U.N. has maintained Palestinians in camps with the hope to "return" into Israel for more than 50 years, therefore making it impossible to settle those populations, which still live in deplorable conditions. Four hundred million dollars are spent every year, mainly financed by U.S. taxes, to support 23,000 employees of UNRWA, many of whom belong to terrorist organizations (see Congressman Eric Cantor on this subject, and in my film "Hostages of Hatred"). Q - You say that a suicide bomber is a 'stupid bomb and a smart bomb' simultaneously. Explain what you mean A - Unlike an electronic device, a suicide killer has until the last second the capacity to change his mind. In reality, he is nothing but a platform representing interests which are not his, but he doesn't know it. Q - How can we put an end to the madness of suicide bombings and terrorism in general? A - Stop being politically correct and stop believing that this culture is a victim of ours. Radical Islamism today is nothing but a new form of Naziism. Nobody was trying to justify or excuse Hitler in the 1930s. We had to defeat him in order to make peace one day with the German people. Q - Are these men traveling outside their native areas in large numbers Based on your research, would you predict that we are beginning to see a new wave of suicide bombings outside the Middle East? A - Every successful terror attack is considered a victory by the radical Islamists. Everywhere Islam expands there is regional conflict. Right now, there are thousands of candidates for martyrdom lining up in training camps in Bosnia, Afghanistan and Pakistan. Inside Europe, hundreds of illegal mosques are preparing the next step of brain washing to lost young men who cannot find a satisfying identity in the Occidental world. Israel is much more prepared for this than the rest of the world will ever be. Yes, there will be more suicide killings in Europe and the U.S. Sadly, this is only the beginning. Contact Ramy Dishy at clement32@sympatico.ca |
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THE LEBANON FRONT -- MORE BLOOD FOR OIL
Posted by David Meir-Levi, July 12, 2006. |
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Here is the most recent update on the newly opened front in Lebanon (with special thanks to Sanne DeWitt and her excellent daily email news compilation, from which I cut-pasted the email below). |
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Recall that Lebanon is still de facto occupied by Syria (and the Iranian Pasdaran), and ruled by Hezbollah (which is funded by Iran and managed/directed by Syria). The sudden opening of the Lebanon front by means of a copy-cat attack and kidnapping (to which Iran knew Israel would respond with force) is probably Iran's way of taking attention off of itself and its quest for WMDs, and turning the world's attention to Israel and Lebanon. It is also a good strategic move by Iran/Syria for several other reasons, because it:
Thus, in a variety of ways, Iran has pulled off a great coup against Israel and the USA and the West by opening up the Lebanon front agaisnt Israel. David Meir-Levi is an American-born Israeli, currently living in Palo Alto. His expertise is in Near Eastern studies and the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict. He is Director of Peace and Education at Israel Peace Initiative (www.ipi-usa.org). Contact him at david_meirlevi@hotmail.com |
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A LETTER TO THE WORLD
Posted by Gary S. Selikow, July 12, 2006. | |
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This was written by Rabbi Meir Kahane, Zt"l, January 19, 1968/18 Teveth 5728. | |
Contact Gary Selikow at ahavat@telkomsa.net |
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FORMER CHIEF OF STAFF YAALON: SHARON PLANNED PULLOUT OF PERSONAL DISTRESS
Posted by Tessa, Sergio (HaDaR), July 12, 2006. |
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This is from IMRA - Independent Media Review and Analysis - (www.imra.org.il) July 6, 2006. |
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Yaalon: "Sharon planned pullout out of personal distress" As IDF troops enter Gaza, former chief of staff Moshe Yaalon says
disengagement was planned by people lacking military, strategic
expertise
Former IDF chief of general staff Moshe Yaalon said Thursday that Israel's pullout from the Gaza Strip is a failure, saying the plan was conceived to save former prime minister Ariel Sharon from political distress. "There is no doubt that the disengagement failed. This failure emanates from the fact that the disengagement was essentially based on a doomed idea. It was not the result of thorough strategic analysis but the result of a political distress of his who was prime minister then, Ariel Sharon," Yaalon told Haaretz. Yaalon, whose term at the helm of the army was not extended by a year under a common IDF practice, added that "the disengagement was an internal Israeli game that ignored what's going on outside Israel. It was a disengagement from reality and a disengagement from the truth." Speaking to Haaretz, the former chief of staff said: "The process created an illusionary hope that was not planned strategically and practically. The disengagement was mainly a media spin. Those who initiated it and lead it lacked the strategic, security, political and historical background. They were image counselor. They were spin doctors. These people put Israel in a virtual spin that is disconnected from reality using a media spin campaign which is imploding before our eyes." "The intellectual failure of the disengagement is this: the fact that there is no one to speak to on the other side doesn't mean that we can ignore the other side and the effects of his activities on us. The fact that even the Fatah leadership is not ready to recognize the State of Israel as a Jewish state while it says it is committed to the road map peace plan doesn't mean it is possible to ignore the fact that pulling out under fire is perceived as surrender and encourages terror," he said. He added that "The disengagement was a strategic mistake of the first order. It brought about Hamas's victory. It emboldened terror groups. It has fueled the Palestinian struggle for years. It created a feeling among the Iranians, the Muslim Brotherhood, and al-Qaeda, that Israel can be beaten. That Israel is a society of spider webs as Nasrallah said or a rotten tree as Ahmadinejad said. And therefore the disengagement not only harmed us badly, but also harmed America's strategic war on terror in the region. It created a feeling among Muslim extremists that as it defeated the Soviets in Afghanistan it defeated us in Gaza and it will defeat us in Tel Aviv. As such, as they destabilized a super power, they will destabilize the west by defeating Israel." 'Like a weak animal' He said: "At the moment our situation in Gaza is similar to south Lebanon. Plenty of arms have been smuggled into Gaza: explosives, Katyusha rockets, anti-aircraft rockets, anti-tank rockets, Grad rockets. As a result of the manner in which the pullout was carried out, there are Hizbullah, al-Qaeda and Iranian elements in the Gaza Strip. "The Israeli public backed the disengagement because it was blinded and drugged and also because it really wanted to free itself from the burden of the conflict and divide the land. But we have to understand that although we are trying to shake the Palestinians off our backs they refuse to do so and stab us instead. We shouldn't fool ourselves. We live in the Middle East. We cannot barricade ourselves behind walls and fences. There is no such thing as unilateralism. Even when we refuse to talk with our neighbors there is interaction with them. Our steps affect them. When the steps are withdrawal after withdrawal, after withdrawal, we convey weakness. And he who conveys weakness in the Middle East is like a weak animal in nature: he comes under attack." Contact Sergio Tessa at HaDaR-Israel@verizon.net |
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HOW TO GET ARRESTED FOR INCITEMENT
Posted by Steven Plaut, July 12, 2006. |
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1. The question you will be arrested for incitement in Israel if you
ask: "Do you think that releasing by the Israeli government two years
back of over 400 terrorists and murderers, including the two who had
"sold" Ron Arad to Iran, in order to obtain the release of an abucted
Israeli criminal and the bodies of three Israeli soldiers murdered in
cold blood by the Hezbollah, and the failure by Israel to avenge those
3 murders, has anything to do with today's headline?"
"Hezbollah kidnaps 2 IDF soldiers during clashes on Israel-Lebanon border" by Amos Harel, Jack Khoury and Yoav Stern, Haaretz Correspondents. Hezbollah kidnapped two Israel Defense Forces soldiers on the northern border in the midst of massive shelling attacks on Israel's north Wednesday morning. The IDF confirmed two of its soldiers were missing on the Lebanese border, Channel 10 TV reported. 2. From the JTA:
Ya'alon: "Two states" no longer relevant: "The two-state paradigm is not relevant," Moshe Ya'alon said Monday at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, where he has been a fellow since leaving the military last year. "Israel should issue a new paradigm." Asked to elaborate, he said one scenario could involve a regional arrangement among Israel, Jordan, the Palestinians and possibly Egypt. He said the Hamas regime, Iran's increased role and Palestinian instability made Palestinian statehood unrealistic for now. He said Israel should establish a "defensible-borders" policy, which would include a heightened military presence in the West Bank and pressure on the international community to recognize Israeli sovereignty in West Bank areas close to Israeli population centers. Steven Plaut is an American-trained economist, a professor of business administration at Haifa University and author of "The Scout." He frequently comments - both seriously and satirically - on Israeli politics and the left wing academic community. His website address is http://www.stevenplaut.blogspot.com. Contact him at splaut@econ.haifa.ac.il |
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I KNOW WHAT STOPS ISRAEL; BUT WHAT IS STOPPING INDIA?
Posted by David Meir-Levi, July 12, 2006. |
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Hi Dr. Meghani, thanks for the article (below). My sincerest condolences to all who suffered in these most recent barbaric islamofascist terror attacks against innocent people in India. The multiple (almost) simulteneous terror attacks have become the halmark of Islamofascist Moslem(*) terror organizations operating under the umbrella of el-Qaeda. We witnessed similar carnage in Bangladesh a few years ago; and Osama's websites promise the same for the USA at some point in the future, when all of his secret USA operatives are in place and properly armed. And, once again, India and Israel are united in their stand against world-wide Islamofascist terrorist barbarism and ruthless psychotic hatred, which express themselves in their brutally primative relentless jihadist terror wars. Israel is hamstrung in its responses to Hamas and Islamic Jihad and the other ten terror gangs that assail it relentlessly from Gaza and Lebanon. An Israeli full-scale counter-attack, as a long overdue and completely justified defensive and pre-emptive full scale mmilitary response to the endless terror war that Arab states and Arab terrorists have waged against Israel for the past 70 years (since 1936), is deemed counter to USA interests in the Middle East by President Bush and the US Department of State. So Prime Minister Olmert, as was Ariel Sharon before him, is forced by American political pressure to merely manage the conflict, rather than resolve it with the kind of stunning and decisive victory that the Allied forces of World War II achieved when they forced Nazi Germany to unconditional surrender and total disarmament. Because Israel is very heavily dependent upon the USA, as its only 'foul weather friend', PM Olmert cannot act independently. He cannot do what any other nation in Israel's threatened position would do (and which countless other nations throughout history have done) to protect his citizenry and effectively stop Arab aggression. But what of India? What is stopping India from its long overdue and completely justified defensive and pre-emptive full scale military response to Kashmiri Muslim jihadist triumphalist supremicist fascist terrorism? (*) There are, of course, many hundreds of millions of Moslems who are not Islamofascists, do not support terrorism, do not engage in terrorism, and do not countenance terrorism. But we are not threatened by those Moslems. So I am not talking about them. I refer exclusively to the unnumbered tens or hundreds of millions of Moslems world-wide who do support, tacitly or actively, the scores of Moslem terrorist organizations in the world today, and who rejoice in the carnage that those terror gangs create with their hundreds of attacks against innocent civilians all over the world. |
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From: "mihirmeghani" HINDU AMERICAN FOUNDATION PRESS RELEASE
Hindu American Foundation Reacts to Terrorist Attacks on Mumbai
Trains
WASHINGTON, D.C. (July 11, 2006) -- The Hindu American Foundation
(HAF) expressed horror and outrage over coordinated terrorist attacks
on commuter trains in Mumbai, India early today. Synchronized
bombings on at least seven different suburban trains killed nearly
200 people and injured hundreds more. The attacks in Mumbai followed
five bombings in the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir earlier the
same day that killed six others.
"Today, we join all Americans in condemning the murder of hundreds
of innocent victims in Mumbai, and pray for a speedy recovery for the
injured," said Mihir Meghani, M.D., President of HAF. "The brutality
of these terror attacks highlights the ruthless potential of
foreign-based terror groups operating in India, and the harsh reality
that India is a frontline nation in the international war against
terror."
Though no group has claimed responsibility for the attacks,
Al-Qaeda affiliates operating from Pakistan, including the notorious
Lashkar-e-Toiba, are widely implicated in today's blasts due to their
extensive coordination in Mumbai and Kashmir. These latest strikes
follow the pattern of other recent attacks, including those on major
Hindu temples.
The network of Al-Qaeda surrogates working with Pakistani support
is documented extensively in the second annual Hindu human rights
report released by HAF on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. two weeks
ago
David Meir-Levi is an American-born Israeli, currently living in Palo Alto. His expertise is in Near Eastern studies and the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict. He is Director of Peace and Education at Israel Peace Initiative (www.ipi-usa.org). Contact him at david_meirlevi@hotmail.com |
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I'M ASHAMED TO BE AN ISRAELI
Posted by Steven Plaut, July 12, 2006. |
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1. Ever since Ehud Barak ordered the IDF to abandon its positions in southern Lebanon in cowardly retreat, the Israeli Left has been patting itself on the back, insisting that this unilateral withdrawal had not only "worked" but could serve as a role model for the Gaza Strip and West Bank. The abandonment of Gush Katif was largely based on it. It "worked" in the sense that the Lebanese border was "relatively" tranquil after the capitulation, with periodic shellings and murders, but with a death toll below what it had been while the IDF was still on the ground inside Lebanon. It was relatively quiet NOT because of the cowardice but because Syria was being cowed by an enraged US warring against the Islamofascist enemy that had attacked the US on 9-11. Iran was also lying low, the better part of valor, not knowing where the US troops would stop. That kept the Hezbollah reined in for a while. Exactly six years have passed since that capitulation. For six years I have argued that the Left's attitude towards that "success" and the celebration of it by the Israeli media illustrates the "September 10th syndrome." On September 10th, 2001, there were no doubt oodles of public fugures in the US ready to swear that there was no chance terrorists could strike the US, and that the US was secure, terror defeated. Like in Mark Twain's famous quip, they were just a little premature. True, Syria had kept the Lebanese border relatively quiet for a while. After all, Syria suddenly found itself with NATO forces on its northern and eastern borders, and Western regimes to its south. But control of the Hezbollah passed to Iran, and Syria was itself forced to cut many of its outward signs of control in Lebanon. But the belief that the Lebanese border problem had been "solved" by Israeli cowardice was nothing more than another case of the September 10th syndrome. In reality, the border was not calm. Shelling and cross-border incursions by the terrorists took place all the time, and the Hezbollah was wandering the Gaza Strip freely and helping teh Hamas build its bombs. Today, the Hezbollah has thousands of rockets along the border it can fire at any time, turning Haifa and Hadera into rubble. The head terrorist of the Hezbollah promised to do so on TV this evening. I suppose one benefit of that would be to make the countless far-leftists in Haifa experience what those in Sderot undergo and perhaps make them a little less snide and seditious. Today's murders and kidnappings of Israeli soldiers are a direct result of Ehud Barak's cowardly abandonment of Israeli positions in southern Lebanon. But, even more so, they are the direct result of arguably the stupidest state decision Israel ever made, the decision two and a half years ago to release hundreds of terrorists and murderers in excahneg for a single common criminal and bodies of three murdered soldiers, while never avenging the murders of those three soldiers (one of them a Bedouin by the way). At the time of that "prisoner exchange" outrage and boondoggle, I published the following article in many venues. I reprint it here: I AM ASHAMED TO BE AN ISRAELI by Dr. Steven Plaut
I have spent most of the past 12 years being ashamed to be an Israeli. Israeli governments made me ashamed, and they did so by debasing, disgracing and humiliating me as a Jew and as an Israeli. I have been ashamed for 12 years at being an Israeli because this was the period in which the governments of Israel abandoned the struggle for Jewish national survival. They stopped trying to defend me and all other Jews. They lectured me that it was my fault that the Arab fascists were attacking Jews, and that it was within my power to stop the carnage if only I would agree to demean myself sufficiently, to grovel before the terrorists of the Middle East, and to appease the anti-Semites. I could achieve peace if I would agree to place my neck in an Arab noose, but if I refuse to do so then I would be the impediment to peace and my obstinacy would be to blame for all further carnage. For 12 years, my government pursued a policy of defending me and my family by abandoning all attempts to defend us. My government decided to pursue peace by pretending that war did not exist. After two millennia of anti-Semitism, my government decided that anti-Semitism does not REALLY exist, and that when people randomly murder Jewish children it is because they have some legitimate grievances, because they have suffered, and because Jews have shown them insufficient sensitivity. My government implemented policies based on the presumption that the making of concessions to blood-thirsty terrorists would be rewarded with moderation and goodwill, that importing armed Nazis into the suburbs of Tel Aviv and Jerusalem would cause them to seek peace. My government followed policies based on the notion that the Jews were evil, insensitive, and selfish. My government decided that if Jews would only "share" their land and resources with those who rule the entire territory from the Atlantic Ocean to Central Asia, that is, with those who refuse to agree to any "sharing" that allows a Jewish state to exist anywhere in the Middle East, then there would be peace. My government decided that rewarding terrorists for violence would end violence, and then told me that there was simply no alternative to coddling terrorists and Islamofascists. My government pursued peace by pretending that war did not exist. My government sought peace through arming and bankrolling terrorists. My government decided that anti-Semitism can only be overcome by redressing the "underlying grievances" that it reflects. My government fought terrorism by not fighting it, and by trying to appease it. My government insisted that I must coddle anti-Semites and terrorists, and must pander to their agenda and desires, for there is no other choice. My government over the past 12 years preached to me that it was my own pride and my parochial patriotism that was the obstacle to peace. It told me I must seek peace through self-debasement and self-humiliation. My government told me that if I would show willingness to compromise, then so would the Arabs. My government has been wrong about everything, but refuses to admit it has been wrong about anything. My government decided that Palestinians are a "nation" and that chunks of my Jewish lands were in fact "Palestinian lands". My government decided that Arabs may freely live any place they wish anywhere in the land of Israel, but I may not live freely where I might choose if it happens to be across the "Green Line". My government instituted discrimination against me and against other Jews in the name of "affirmative action", quotas and preferences for Arabs and directed against me. My government fought for my survival through cowardice and endless "restraint", turning my other cheek against my will, pursuing endless "goodwill gestures", which only enflamed the violence. It did so despite the fact that I and my fellow Israeli citizens voted repeatedly to revoke the "Oslo approach" and voted in favor of pursuing war against our enemies, not appeasement. My government abandoned all of northern Israel to the mercies of the Hizbollah rockets, now aimed at me in the thousands. My government abandoned the Jewish towns near the Gaza Strip to rocket barrages from the PLO. I have spent the past 12 years cringing in shame. My government made me feel that way. But I have NEVER felt as ashamed at being an Israeli as I did this week, when my government decided to reward the Hizbollah for murdering three of my fellow citizens in cold blood. My government also abandoned Ron Arad, releasing his kidnapper, rewarding the terrorists who kidnapped him, who "sold" him to Iran and possibly murdered him. My government decided to release nearly 450 murderers with blood on their hands in order to "buy" the release of the carcasses of three of my fellow citizens who were murdered by the Hizbollah after they had been kidnapped by it. My government had abandoned southern Lebanon to the Hizbollah and assured me there would be complete tranquility thereafter. After the farcical Israeli "withdrawal" ordered by my government, the Hizbollah has fired almost daily into Israel, has sent in terrorists who murdered Israeli civilians, and snatched the three soldiers (two Jews and one Bedouin Arab) whose bodies were released this week, after murdering them in cold blood. Last week the Hizbollah murdered one more army officer working a bulldozer; in response my government punished some empty Hizbollah buildings. The prisoner "deal" was possible only because my government refuses to execute the murdering savages, the terrorists. My government thinks capital punishment is inhumane, and its absence has made possible the murders of 1700 of my fellow countrymen. That is like twenty two September 11ths, when measured proportional to population. The Hizbollah also held as prisoner a man who had entered Lebanon for criminal purposes, possibly a drug deal to pay off his gambling debts. I opposed releasing any terrorists to get him released. I might have considered agreeing to release a handful as payment to the Hizbollah to keep him imprisoned there, if he is indeed a drug smuggler. My government decided to respond to the murders of the three POWs by rewarding their murderers, not by converting three Hizbollah towns into large parking lots, not by bathing the Hizbollah leaders in napalm. My government signalled to all my fellow citizens that it was unwilling to avenge our deaths. My government let every Israeli soldier know that his life would be worthless if captured by the enemy because my government would always seek "deals" with those who murder POWs. My government made it known that by grabbing some Israelis as hostages, anyone could obtain any concession they want from my country. My government also let every soldier know that, if captured in war, he would be abandoned to his fate by my government. My government agreed to this "deal" with the Hizbollah, a deal that spit on the family of missing Israeli airman Ron Arad. The man who kidnapped and "sold" Arad has been released by my government as payment for the release of the common criminal. My government is trying to cover its shame by boasting that it "held out tough" and refused to release the baby-murdering terrorist Samir Kuntar, the man who murdered the members of the Haran family in Nahariya. My same government boasts that it would have released this arch-murderer had the Hizbollah so much as told Israel where Ron Arad (or his grave) is. So much for "standing tough". My government is a disgrace. My government practices cowardice and pretends it is courage. My government displays indifference to the Israelis who will now be murdered by those released terrorists and murderers. My government had the gall to pretend it was acting out of compassion and morality when it signed this capitulation, when it placed that smirk on the face of the Hizbollah chief terrorist, boasting of his victory. To drive home the point that the "deal" proves to the world that the Jews are on the run, the terrorists blew up a bus in Jerusalem, the same Jerusalem they pretend is holy to them, as part of celebrating the stampede of Jewish flight. After all, the Hizbollah was being rewarded for terror, so why should not the Palestinians follow their lead in obtaining Israeli surrender? The bus atrocity in Jerusalem was carried out by the "Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades," a PLO terror group under the direct command and control of Yassir Arafat. My government pretended it was suddenly acting out of Jewish ethical values. My government would not know a Jewish ethical value if it popped up in its face. My government pretends there is a "Part B" to this capitulation, in which information about Ron Arad will be released. I do not belive them. I think my government is lying to window-dress this act of cowardice. As I watch the victory smile on the mug of the Hizbollah Chief Terrorist, my own government makes me cringe. My government makes me ashamed of being an Israeli. 2. A number of people have sent me inqueries about how they can help defray some of the legal costs involved in my ongoing court battle against Israel's fascist Left and its attempt to suppress from speech. I am filing the first round of appeal this week against the decision by the Arab woman judge who ruled against me while endorsing Holocaust Denial and while declaring that all of Israel was erected on lands belonging to "another people". In the verdict the judge ignored all Israeli law and case precedents protecting free speech. She openly identified with the anti-Semite who filed a malicious anti-speech "libel" suit against me as harassment. If anyone is interested in chipping in via a tax-exempt US route, you can send any contribution Central Fund of Israel
To avoid red tape, make the check payable to with an attached note that it is to go to Those not in the US who are interested, please drop me an email for instructions. Many thanks. 3. More Israelis, including Israeli "academics", promoting boycotts
and divestment: Steven Plaut is an American-trained economist,
a professor of business administration at Haifa University and author
of "The Scout." He frequently comments - both seriously and
satirically - on Israeli politics and the left wing academic
community. His website address is http://www.stevenplaut.blogspot.com.
Contact him at splaut@econ.haifa.ac.il
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AFTER LONDONISTAN
Posted by May Leiner, July 12, 2006. |
| This was written by Caroline Glick and it appeared in the Jerusalem Post yesterday. |
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In the wake of last year's terror attacks on London, the people of Britain seemed muster the will to rally around their flag. After years of denial, the country that gave Israel the British jihad bombers who blew up Mike's Place in 2003; gave Pakistan and America Daniel Pearl's British jihadist executioner; and gave America the British jihadist shoe bomber finally acknowledged that British jihadists were a problem for Britain. British Prime Minister Tony Blair started to admit that the source of the terror was not poverty, Iraq, Afghanistan or Israel but the jihadist ideology propagated within Britain's Muslim community. Rather than make excuses for the murderers and their army of teachers and enablers, Blair began formulating a program to go after Britain's jihadist hotbeds that indoctrinate British born and bred Muslims to wage war against their country. Yet, as Melanie Phillips points out in painstaking and hair-raising detail in her book Londonistan, Blair's efforts to curb the influence of radical jihadists and undermine their operations were quickly stymied. The multiculturalists who have taken hold of Britain's cultural, intellectual, judicial, ecclesiastical and political life attacked, blocked or watered down every single one of his anti-terror initiatives. In the end, far from winning over his seemingly endless critics, Blair backed down. One of Blair's initiatives had been to establish a Task Force which would tackle jihadist Islam that had declared war on Britain. As Phillip's explains, "It would go into [Muslim] communities to actively confront what [Blair] called an 'evil ideology' based on a perversion of Islam and 'defeat it by force of reason.'" Yet, with his anti-terror campaign torn to shreds, Blair allowed the very extremists he was seeking to counter to take over the Task Force. Not surprisingly these men - who included Swiss jihad apologist Tarik Ramadan and prominent British Hamas supporters - decided that the proper British response to the homegrown British jihadists who killed 52 of their fellow citizens was to surrender to their demands. One of the chief demands of Britain's radical Muslims is for Britain to change its foreign policy regarding Israel and the US. The view that Britain should take a pro-Islamic stance on issues such as Hamas, the US-led campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan and the Iranian nuclear weapons program in order to placate British Muslims has gained currency in British foreign policy circles. Labor MP John Denhan, chairman of the Commons Home Affairs Select Committee said in September 2005, "We need to recognize that some foreign policy has now a very direct impact on domestic policy. We may well need to ... be prepared to change the emphasis of our foreign policy in order to safeguard our security... It is no exaggeration to say that Israeli policy in the occupied territories is not simply a matter of foreign policy - it is a matter of British domestic security as well." UNFORTUNATELY, Britain's efforts to appease its Muslim minority have only served to further radicalize its members. While Britain has all but outlawed the use of the phrase "Islamic terrorism;" as the British media studiously refused to publish the cartoons of Muhammed out of respect for British Muslims and systematically distorts the reality of the Palestinian jihad against Israel and the violence in Iraq; and while the British police takes the mildest view of overt Muslim incitement to wage jihad against Britain, the US, Israel and other Western democracies in mosques and on the streets of London, the latest Pew Global Attitudes poll showed that British Muslims have the most radical views of all European Muslims. As Amir Taheri noted last week in The Wall Street Journal, only 32 percent of British Muslims have positive views of Jews while 71 percent of French Muslims reportedly have positive views of Jews. A majority of British Muslims hold a dim view of Westerners and 16,000 of them expressed an interest in carrying out terrorist acts. ONE OF the casualties of Britain's tilt towards the jihadists is the struggle to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. Last July, as the rotating head of the EU Presidency the British published an appeal to Iran to release political prisoners Akbar Ganji and Nasser Zar-Afshan. In the wake of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's less than democratic electoral victory, Blair said, "It would be a serious mistake if he [Ahmadinejad] thought that we are going to go soft on them, because we are not." Today, the British are soft and silent as thousands of Iranian protesters are rounded up, students and workers are brutalized, and women are attacked by secret police. And Britain played a central role in convincing the US to join Britain, France and Germany in trying to buy off the mullahs rather than confront their program to acquire nuclear weapons. Indeed, today there is little difference between Britain's policy towards Iran's nuclear weapons program and that of the UN and the Arab and Muslim world. This past weekend, Ahmadinejad hosted the foreign ministers of Egypt, Jordan, Turkey, Iraq, Bahrain, Syria, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia as well as the UN envoy for Iraq and the secretaries general for the Arab League and the Organization of the Islamic Conference in Teheran. After participating Friday in a demonstration calling for Israel's destruction, Ahmadinejad addressed his distinguished audience and explained, "The basic problem in the Islamic world is the existence of the Zionist regime, and the Islamic world and the region must mobilize to remove this problem." He went on to say that anyone who supports Israel should expect to be attacked and demanded that Israel's supporters get rid of Israel themselves or face the wrath of Islam. Although this was not the first time that Ahmadinejad specifically called for the eradication of Israel, his speech is nonetheless newsworthy because of his audience. Not only did none of those assembled condemn his call for Israel's destruction, they issued a condemnation of Israel of their own. They attacked Israel for "increasing aggression against the Palestinian people" and condemned the "silence" of the international community. The Teheran demonstrations were followed by similar ones in Turkey. FOR ITS part the so-called international community in the EU and the UN leapt into action. Both issued statements condemning Israel for using "disproportionate force" against Palestinian terrorists in Gaza. And like the Arab and Muslim states, neither the EU nor the UN felt the need to say anything at all about Iran's threat to "remove" Israel. Phillips wrote Londonistan for the American rather than the British audience. She explained that she wanted to alert the Americans to the true status of their closest ally and by extension of the Anglo-American alliance. If Britain surrenders to the forces of jihad it will spell both a national security nightmare and a political disaster for America. As Phillips notes, on a cultural level, "Britain's already calamitous slide into cultural defeatism might boost similar forces at play in the United States." Unfortunately, from the looks of things, those forces seem to have taken over the Bush administration. Like the British and the EU, Washington had no response to Ahmadinejad's latest statement of intentions about Israel and the rest of the Western world. Nor did the administration have anything to say about the silence of the Arab and Muslim states and the UN whose representatives seemed to accept Ahmadinejad's remarks. Rather, on Friday, President George W. Bush stated that he sees reason for hope that the international community will come together to prevent Iran from achieving nuclear weapons during the upcoming G-8 summit in Moscow. Moreover, on Saturday the Washington Post reported that Bush will announce a dramatic policy shift at the opening of that summit. Instead of attacking Russia for blocking all concerted international responses to Iran's nuclear weapons program, Bush will announce that he is rewarding Russian despot Vladimir Putin and risking the alienation of the Republican Congress in an election year by agreeing to sign a civilian nuclear cooperation deal with the man most responsible for Iran's free hand in developing nuclear weapons. Bush's apologists claim that the deal will act as an incentive for getting Putin to stop supporting Iran and North Korea. Yet that rings hollow. It is hard to find compelling examples of states who behaved better after their bad behavior was rewarded. One year after the London bombings, with Britain slouching towards dhimmitude and the Bush Doctrine in shambles, it is hard to keep from wondering what it will take for the free nations of the world to abandon appeasement and fight for victory. Contact May Leiner at MayLeiner@cs.com |
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OPEN LETTER TO PRIME MINISTER OLMERT
Posted by Joanna Whitney, July 12, 2006. |
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Mr. Prime Minister -
As I just now woke up I saw the disturbing news that two more of Zion's soldiers have been kidnapped by those wishing for the destruction of your state. As I type this, your cabinet is in an emergency session and there have been strong words that this is an act of war and something to the effect of blowing Lebanon back 20 years. I am just an average small-town Christian supporter of the people and land of Israel and her right to her land. I have no sway, I cannot compete with the pressures and offers that come from my government or anyone else's. But, I ask, I beg, I implore that you back up those strong words with strong actions. You know the nature of your enemy (as well as the enemy of the free world). They respect strength and prey upon weakness. Your primary responsibility is to the safety of your citizens. No matter what Israel does, how many concessions, how many good will gestures, how many sacrifices, the world still criticizes what Israel does. You need to do what is best for your people. You need to show that Israel is not to be messed with. I pray for the safe treatment and safe return of these two soldiers as well as Cpl Gilad Shalit. I pray for the strength of their families and of all people in Israel. I know it is such a small country that everyone has been affected by terrorism, by brutality from your enemies, by some of your best and brightest being taken from you on the battlefield and on buses, at shopping malls and hotels. I look at Israel and marvel at the obvious work of the Lord. He has brought His people back after so many centuries, nearly 20 of them, to re-birth the nation of Israel. I know that perhaps living the normal, mundane, sometimes difficult everyday life as a citizen of Israel, this might get lost in the shuffle. But it is no less a miracle, a working of the Lord God Almighty. Lean on Him for your strength, no one else. Please be strong, Mr. Prime Minister. Please be strong, people of Israel. I love you. Joanna Whitney Contact Joanna Whitney at z4zion@yahoo.com |
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AL-HAYAT: THIS IS HOW CPL. SHALIT IS BEING HELD
Posted by Nissan Ratzlav-Katz, July 12, 2006. |
According to a report published in the Wednesday edition of the Saudi-backed, London-based Al-Hayat newspaper, the Israeli soldier is being held in isolation, somewhere underground, in the Gaza region. Even those gunmen assigned to guard Shalit have no contact with the outside, except in emergency situations, the newspaper said, adding that even that contact is carried out without the use of telephones or electronic communication. The Al-Hayat report described the location of the kidnapped soldier as completely isolated. His captors are without cellular phones and their movements are well concealed from outside eyes. Among those who have contact with Cpl. Shalit, according to the London newspaper, is a medical professional, who is treating the soldier for injuries suffered at the time of his capture. Cpl. Shalit was taken captive on June 25th, when Hamas and Popular Resistance Committees attackers tunneled under a Gaza perimeter fence and struck an IDF military base in Kerem Shalom. Two soldiers were killed in the attack. Sometime within eight days after his capture, a member of an Egyptian security delegation to the Palestinian Authority visited Cpl. Shalit. A PA doctor was also reported to have treated him. Other reports of observers having seen the abducted soldier turned out to be false. According to unnamed sources quoted by Al-Hayat, the visit by the Egyptian official was an Israeli condition for opening negotiations with Hamas over Shalit's release. However, the Israeli government has repeatedly stated publicly that it would not negotiate with terrorists, saying that such a course would invite more kidnappings in the future. In his first public appearance since the Israeli soldier was taken captive in Gaza, Damascus-based Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal said, "Our goals and our morals command us to keep the soldier alive." He called Shalit "a prisoner of war" and said that "international conventions and laws should be applied to his case." Mashaal praised the attack that led to the capture of the IDF soldier as "a heroic operation," which united Palestinian Authority Arabs "in a way that they had not been in the past." Mashaal also declared, "Our people are united on the insistence to
swap the captured soldier with prisoners in the jails of the Zionist
enemy. It's impossible to release the soldier without getting
something in return. This would be humiliating for the Palestinians."
This news item appeared in today's Arutz-Sheva.
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HIZBULLAH ATTACKS IN THE NORTH; TWO SOLDIERS MISSING
Posted by Nissan Ratzlav-Katz, Ezra HaLevi and Baruch Gordon, July 12, 2006. |
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IDF sources state that five soldiers have been killed and two kidnapped along the Lebanese border in a multi-pronged attack by Hizbullah terrorists on IDF positions Wednesday morning. Lebanon's Al-Manar television station claimed that the two soldiers were taken captive by the Hizbullah attackers. Al-Manar is the on-air mouthpiece for the Lebanese terrorist group. Qatar-based Al-Jazeera also reported that Hizbullah attackers struck Israeli military outposts, taking captive two IDF soldiers at around 8:30 Wednesday morning. An IDF spokesperson later confirmed the reports of the missing personnel. With information of the kidnapped soldiers, air force planes took to the air, striking bridges and escape routes in southern Lebanon in an effort to prevent the Hizbullah from taking their Israeli captives deeper into enemy territory. Around 8:30 a.m. Wednesday, explosives and mortar shell attacks by Hizbullah on IDF positions, patrols and civilian targets along the Lebanon-Israel border injured at least eleven people and facilitated the kidnapping of two soldiers. An IDF spokesperson said that one of the injured was in serious condition as a result of attacks on two military vehicles. Those injured were ferried by helicopter to the Rambam Hospital in Haifa and to the hospital in Nahariya. Residents of the northern town of Shlomi were ordered into bomb shelters shortly after the first explosions were reported. Unconfirmed, but reliable, sources say that seven Israelis were killed in the Hizbullah attack. Details of the incident indicate that an army tank hit a land mine or a roadside bomb, trapping soldiers inside, in addition to a Hizbullah mortar shell that struck two Hammer jeeps. Rescue efforts were delayed because of fears that the area was mined with more explosives planted by the terrorists. IDF Chief of Staff Dan Halutz stated that "the period of quiet" has ended for Hizbullah in Lebanon. Military sources said that the Israeli retaliation to the Hizbullah attack and apparent kidnapping of IDF soldiers will be extremely strong. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said, "These are difficult days for Israel and its citizens," adding that there are forces trying to test Israel's resolve. "They will fail and will pay a heavy price for their deeds," said the prime minister. He spoke to reporters Wednesday morning, as he hosted Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, who is visiting the region. In reaction to events along the Lebanese border and to the ongoing conflict in Gaza, Knesset Member Aryeh Eldad (National Union) called on the government Wednesday morning to carry out a "war in Lebanon and Gaza to destroy terrorist organizations." MK Eldad said that the abduction of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit and the Hizbullah attacks this morning "again prove that it is impossible to run away from terror." This news item appeared in today's Arutz-Sheva. |
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GAZA FOLLIES
Posted by Jonathan Rosenblum, July 12, 2006. |
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Even as the nation of Israel prays for the safe return of Gilad Shalit to his family, it becomes clearer with each passing day that the Israeli response to his kidnapping has only reinforced the worst failure of Israeli diplomacy since the Gaza withdrawal: the treatment of a rain of Kassams on Sderot and Ashkelon as a normal event. Prime Minister Sharon repeatedly stressed that after the withdrawal from Gaza, full responsibility for any attacks from Gaza would fall on the Palestinian Authority, and would be treated like an attack by an enemy state. Accordingly, the first Kassam to fall after the withdrawal should have elicited a fierce Israeli response. And when the U.N., the EU, and various nations condemned Israel's response, as they would inevitably have done, Israel should have asked: How would the United States (for instance) have responded to a missile attack on Amarillo from Mexican territory? That question - or its equivalent for every country condemning Israel's response as 'disproportionate' - needed to be repeated constantly until the point was clearly understood: No country in the world would remain passive in the face of missile attacks on its towns and cities, especially if it had the power to prevent those attacks. But the harsh response threatened by Prime Minister Sharon never happened. Nearly 1,000 Kassams have been launched at Israel since the Gaza withdrawal, without Israel moving back into northern Gaza to destroy the workshops in which the Kassams are manufactured and to create a security zone from which Palestinian groups would no longer be able to fire unimpeded. Instead Israel has confined itself to artillery attacks on the sites of launchings - i.e., shelling empty fields long after the perpetrators have fled the scene. The only other tactic employed by the IDF has been trying to pick off terrorists by missiles fired from the sky, the minute they poke their heads out of the ground. Yet, inevitably, the Israeli missiles have claimed the lives of Palestinian civilians (how innocent I cannot judge), while frequently missing their targets. The result has been a series of propaganda victories for the Palestinians. Of threats and lines in the sand, there have been plenty. But Israel has repeatedly failed to make good on those threats, even after having the sand kicked in its face. It perpetually finds itself in the position of the parent who threatens his child with dire consequences if he or she does not arrive by the time he counts three, and then starts counting - 1, 2, 2 & a half, ... Haifa University professor Stephen Plaut points out that this pattern has been in force since the outset of the Oslo process. After each territorial withdrawal, the current prime minister would insist that after this withdrawal the relationship with the Palestinians would change completely because now they know that our response to any further terrorist attacks will be to hit them RRH (Really, Really Hard), and the world will support us. But RRH has never been consistently implemented, and on the few occasions when it was - e.g., after the Seder night suicide bombing in Netanya - the world surely did not support Israel. Indeed, suggests the sardonic Plaut, it now appears that Israel's long-range strategy is to cause the Palestinians to die of laughter every time it trots out the RRH threat again. By continually threatening and never delivering after the Gaza withdrawal, Israel has simultaneously lost all deterrent power and normalized the Kassam attacks on Israel. For a long time, it has been clear that nothing can stop the barrage of Kassams falling on the Negev and the outskirts of Ashkelon short of the IDF reentering northern Gaza and demolishing the terrorist infrastructure responsible for those attacks, in much the same way it did in the West Bank during Operation Defensive Shield. Prime Minister Olmert has been unwilling to do so, however, for two reasons. The first is the fear of revealing the lunacy of further unilateral withdrawals from the West Bank, which could only result in those areas becoming terrorist launching pads against Israel's densely populated heartland. And the second is the fear of adverse world reaction. With respect to the second, a cynic could easily be forgiven for suspecting that the Israeli government has been waiting to act for a Kassam to land on a crowded Sderot classroom (they have already done so while children were davening in the next room) or an oil refinery in Ashkelon. If so, last week's attack on the IDF base near Kerem Shalom and the kidnapping of Gilad Shalit by Hamas operatives should have also served as the long-awaited pretext to free the citizens of Sderot from cowering in their homes. But it has not. Through the first week of action, the IDF had not killed a single Palestinian terrorist (compared to five Palestinians killed in inter-clan warfare in the same period) or destroyed any Kassam factories. The air force contented itself with making a few sonic booms over Gaza and buzzed Bashar Assad's summer palace. Meanwhile, the IDF refrained from entering into northern Gaza, from which almost all the Kassams have been fired, in order, we were told, to allow more time for Egyptian diplomatic efforts to secure Shalit's release. The most dramatic IDF action - the capture of Hamas ministers and parliamentarians - was designed primarily to gain bargaining chips for Shalit's return. From the prime minister on down, the consistent message of the Israeli government was: the IDF will leave the Gaza Strip as soon as Gilad Shalit is returned safely. (Only when the second Kassam in two days landed on Ashkelon, on the tenth day of Operation Summer Rains, did that message change and senior government spokesmen begin talking about establishing some kind of security zone in the northern Gaza Strip.) Thus Israel signaled the world that IDF troops will be massed to enter Gaza to gain the release of one kidnapped soldier, but not to protect tens of thousands of citizens traumatized by months of an ongoing barrage of Kassams. By treating the Kassams as a normal event - Kassams, Shmassams - said the heroic Shimon Peres two weeks ago -- Israel has ensured that when the inevitable happens and the IDF has no choice but to reoccupy, all or part of Gaza, the onus will fall upon it for breaking the status quo. The Gemara (Sotah 13a) describes how when the Shevatim came to bury Yaakov Avinu in Ma'arat HaMachpela, Esav blocked the way. Negotiations remained at an impasse until Chushim ben Dan knocked off Esav's head in one fell swoop. Why did resolution of the crisis have to await Chushim ben Dan? Chushim ben Dan was deaf. He had no part in negotiations with Esav. When he saw his grandfather lying unburied, and Esav obstructing the way, he immediately felt the insanity of the situation and acted accordingly. Israel now awaits a leader who understands the insanity of treating missile attacks as another 'normal' event. Jonathan Rosenblum lives in Yated Ne'eman. Contact him at his website: http://www.jewishmediaresources.org |
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RESTORE THE POWER OF DETERRENCE
Posted by Sergio Tessa (HaDar), July 12, 2006. |
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This was written by Professor Aryeh Eldad, Member of Knesset. |
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We are still mourning the deaths of IDF soldiers Lt. Hanan Barak and Staff Sgt. Pavel Slutzker, and we are still praying for the safety of Gilad Shalit and his return home. And yet some of us, as if deliberately so, have begun to focus on the most marginal details of the incident. As if deliberately not to focus on the main issue. When a terror attack used to be committed in one of the settlements, a half-day of debates would begin immediately about whether there was a fence or whether there wasn't a fence. When a suicide bomber terrorist would blow himself up in a bus or a mall they used to debate for an entire day how the suicide bomber got in: through the fence or through the roadblocks that bypass the fence. When soldiers who were guarding a "settlement" were killed, a knife-in-the-back debate used to begin: why does an entire IDF battalion have to guard a single settlement. And now, when we still have not buried the dead of the Kerem Shalom attack and it is patently evident that the fence did not stop the terrorists, an endless debate has begun over whether there was concrete intelligence or not. In Chelm [the town of fools in Jewish lore] there was a small river that had a bridge over it. One day the bridge broke and many of the people crossing it tripped and were injured. The wise men of Chelm sat for seven days and seven nights until they decided to build a hospital beside the bridge. The State of Israel is behaving similarly. We have a war and our attention is focused on budget cuts. Hundreds of rockets slammed into Sderot in the course of this past month and the government experts busy themselves with the question of where we are going to take the money from to finance installing protective armor in the schools in the city. We have a war on our hands and the government busies itself with defense, fortification, excuses and preparations for the next withdrawal, which is going to turn the lives of everyone in this country into a living hell. Where today are all those people who gambled with our lives, who promised us that if we would only withdraw from the Gaza Strip back to the Green Line quiet would reign? Where are they today, all those foolish experts who argued passionately that it would be in the terrorist organizations' best interest to maintain quiet in the Gaza Strip and that they would relocate the bulk of their terrorist activities to Judea and Samaria? They have names: Shaul Mofaz, Dan Halutz and Amos Gilad. Why is it that they do not admit today to their strategic error? Why are they not doing penance and admitting openly: we were mistaken and we misled you. We fled from Gaza and Gaza is now pursuing us. The rule for Netzarim is the rule for Kerem Shalom. Fix the Bridge The people who did not respond to the 5,000 rockets that were fired on Gush Katif are now perplexed by the thousands of rockets that have been fired on the western Negev. And the defense minister, who preached restraint a week ago, bears responsibility for our dead today. If he thought seriously that the warnings that he aired to Hamas would deter that murderous organization, perhaps we need a defense minister who knows how to think better. And if he knew that the warnings would be insufficient, but he needed the Israeli casualties to "justify" assassinating the Hamas leadership, then, in my opinion, he is an out and out criminal. Either way, he and the prime minister are responsible for the fact that Israel has been unsuccessful at stopping the Kassam rocket fire. They have sent a message of weakness and hesitation to the terror organizations and incessantly-but truly incessantly-have busied themselves while Sderot was under continuous rocket attack with trips overseas and statements that Israel wants to withdraw and to uproot tens of thousands of settlers and to destroy hundreds of settlements. As we speak, when the entire army ought to be busy fighting in the Gaza Strip, the defense minister has chosen to busy himself with uprooting outposts in Judea and Samaria. It is no wonder that the army needed "early warning" even when it was deployed opposite an enemy that is engaged in warfare. And now they will punish Hamas. Now they will carry out one operation or another in Gaza, perhaps they will kill Mohammed Deif, perhaps they will kill Ismail Haniya. But, once again, it will be too little too late, if with the other hand they signal to Hamas - patience, you're winning, we intend to continue to withdraw. You can dig tunnels from Nabi Samuel all the way until you're under the Knesset, you can shoot up Ben-Gurion Airport, and then Peretz and Olmert will roll their eyes and threaten the guilty parties. But it is they who are guilty. It is not a hospital we need, but to fix the bridge itself. To change Israel's security approach. To restore the power of deterrence. Contact Sergio Tessa at HaDaR-Israel@verizon.net |
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NEWS FROM THE NORTH
Posted by Aryeh Zelasko, July 12, 2006. |
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The latest report as to what happened on the Northern border is that a tank ran over a Hizballah land mine. It seems that three soldiers were killed on the spot and another eight injured. Two soldiers were captured by enemy forces and at least one was know to be alive at the time of his capture. Please note that these soldiers were captured by enemy forces and not "kidnapped" as is being bantered around the media. It is part of the psychosis that has grabbed Israel's ruling elite that they can not even recognize that we are at war. They have sunk so deep into the fantasy world they have created for themselves that they no longer recognize basic reality. Aryeh Zelasko lives in Beitar Illit, south of Jerusalem. He is Director of Sales and Marketing of Israel Visit (www.israelvisit.co.il) which provides information and an internet buying facility for American visitors to Israel. Contact him at zelasko@actcom.co.il |
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GUSH KATIF EXPELLEES DROP FROM HEADLINES; PROBLEMS REMAIN
Posted by Hillel Fendel, July 12, 2006. |
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A Knesset committee has learned the gravity of the plight of the expelled families, via a report detailing their psychological, emotional and family problems. The report, prepared by the Land of Israel Legal Forum, was submitted on Tuesday to a Knesset committee that deals with the expelled families of Gush Katif and northern Shomron. It talks of sociological and emotional problems, the most extreme of which are: youths who cut their hands and veins, youths who required hospitalization in psychiatric wards, dozens of divorce proceedings, and a high percentage of cardiac incidents and other serious diseases. The legal forum, which has been accompanying the expellees free-of-charge for over a year and a half, included its own recommendations for speedy and efficient handling of the issues. One of the participants at the Knesset session was Rachel Yechieli, a volunteer social worker with the youth of Gush Katif. Born in Gush Katif herself, she lived in Moshav Katif when she was thrown out in the framework of the Disengagement. She told Arutz-7's Hebrew newsmagazine, "Everyone sees and agrees that the emotional situation is very grave, and the bottom line is that no one was prepared in advance - not SELA nor anyone else. I meet with the youth and hear their problems - such as drugs which we never had before but which have now increased many times over, very difficult psychological problems of my friends and acquaintances, and more and more." Asked if it is truly important to go into such detail of the problems, Rachel said, "Of course it's important! This is the best proof that the government was not prepared in advance, and didn't know how to treat these problems. If the treatment would have been offered right away, and if they would have listened to us in advance, I believe that most of the problems would not have happened." Rachel said that "lots of data were presented at the committee session, but no clear answers. Some groups are trying to help, including some municipal councils - but they have to lay out money and take a chance that they will receive budgetary allocations some time in the future. This is not the way things should be run in a normal country." Excerpts and summations of the report, as presented to the Knesset committee: Children - Problems of attention deficit disorders have worsened, or developed, in a significant number of children. Scholastic achievements of many children have dropped. Many of the schools were not prepared to deal with the children's problems, especially since the arrival of the new students was not at a uniform rate, but was dependent on when the families moved from their hotels to their new locations. Post-trauma disorders have been observed, including lack of recognition of parental authority, anxiety attacks, increased violence, hair loss, etc. Youth - Problems of acceptance of parental and rabbinic authority have increased, together with a deterioration in religious observance. Early marriages at ages 17 and 18, against parents' wishes, have occurred. Some 30% of youth do not attend school regularly, and a drop in scholastic achievements - especially in matriculation exams - is evident. Twelve suicide attempts have been registered among youth. Youths are having difficulty in finding their place and in developing ties, as they feel that everything is transient. Drug and alcohol use is on the increase, ten eating disorders have been diagnosed, and nine youths have been hospitalized in psychiatric wards. Adults - Some 50 divorce proceedings have been opened in the nearly 11 months since the expulsion, on the backdrop of difficult tensions and economic difficulties. Some 51% of the population is unemployed. In Nitzan alone, where live nearly 500 families - the largest concentration of displaced families - some 300 people are unemployed. Unemployment payments are ending at this time, and people are beginning to rely on the compensation money - which in many cases has not yet been paid, but in all cases is meant for building a new home and not for day-to-day expenses. New furnishings and appliances to replace those that were destroyed or lost as a result of the expulsion, psychological treatment, and other expenses have brought many families to the verge of poverty. This results in low self-image and problematic relations between parents and children and between spouses. Psychological problems among adults include depression, anger, introversion, mal-functioning, and deep sadness. Medicine usage is up, and there has been increased incidence of cardiac diseases, cancer and even death. Family relations were seriously impaired as a result of the lack of privacy in the hotels and even in the relatively small pre-fabs in which they now reside. Community - The report states that the communal frameworks in Gush Katif were a central pillar of strength, mutual support, communication and help during times of crisis. Most of the communities have since broken up into several sub-communities, living at distances that do not enable the maintenance of ties as before. An important resource of strength has thus been largely neutralized. The concept of "organizational advisors" accompanying the various communities, as arranged by the SELA Disengagement Administration, is considered to be a correct idea. The report says that the communities must continue to be helped in this way up until their final housing arrangements are finalized - even if takes, as it appears it might in many cases, years. At present, communal affairs are run in a complex and confused manner, adding to the sense of chaos in which the residents find themselves. Some 250 families are living without any communal framework, in different locations across the country. Many of them need special support, yet are not receiving it. The report spares no criticism of the government for its faulty mishandling of the entire affair, beginning with the very idea of moving nearly 10,000 people to the unknown. Those dealing with youth problems - the Education Ministry, Community Centers, the Welfare Ministry, youth movements - are working independently and without coordination, thus adding to the confusion. Salaries are set to be suspended at the end of the summer, and lack of sufficient quantities of youth in each location makes it hard to have activities. Only three out of 18 temporary locations have youth clubs. The lack of qualified social workers is complex and acute. Many of the municipal councils housing the new residents have not hired new social workers, while some hired them only several months ago. Among those who have been hired are many who are not suitably trained for work with traumatized expellees. In Ashkelon, expellees who requested social work aid were turned away. The community of Elei Sinai, most of whose families are living at the Yad Mordechai tent site, has not had any professional social help from the municipality. A private group called Maanim offers 12 sessions per family, for the purpose of dealing with loss and trauma. With the realization that this number was not sufficient, and that individual family members required different types of treatment, the number has been increased to 24 - leaving families the problem of deciding how to divide them up amongst themselves. Among the many recommendations in the report is the following: "If the same attention and planning that was invested in the expulsion had been invested in the people's treatment after the expulsion, things would have been very different... Nearly a year after the expulsion, it is time that all the injustices be put right. A central body should be established that will coordinate all the needs - emotional, psychological, familial and communal - of the expellees. This body must coordinate the work in a professional manner, with maximum attention to what is best for the uprooted residents." The Lemaan Achai organization accepts donations for communal help, a free loan fund, and trauma and crisis relief services for Disengagement refugees. Hillel Fendel is Senior News Editor, Arutz-Sheva (www.IsraelNN.com). |
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MURDERERS OF ELIYAHU ASHERI ARRESTED
Posted by Sergio Tessa (Hadar), July 12, 2006. |
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July 4th 2006 IDF SPOKESPERSON ANNOUNCEMENT Murderers of Eliyahu Asheri arrested Early this morning, July 4 th 2006, IDF forces arrested three of the murderers of Eliyahu Asheri, 18, who was abducted and murdered on June 25th 2006. IDF forces surrounded the Palestinian police building in Ramallah where three of the murderers of Eliyahu Asheri were hiding and called for them to exit the building. After several hours the three turned themselves in and were taken for questioning by security forces. BACKGROUND INFORMATION Attributed to "security sources" [provided by the IDF Spokesperson] Murderers of Eliyahu Asheri Arrested In a joint IDF and ISA operation early this morning, June 4th 2006, security forces arrested three wanted Tanzim terrorists, operating under a joint Hamas and PRC infrastructure which originates in the Gaza Strip. The three were in the Palestinian police headquarters in Ramallah at the time of the arrest. The arrested men are: Bassam Shafik Atiya Ahtiya, 34, resident of the Umari R.C, Khamze Salah Taktuk, 22, resident of Ramallah and I'iam Fuab Naaef Kamamju, 20, resident of Ramallah. The three are the prime suspects in the abduction and murder of Eliyahu Asheri on June 25th 2006. The three were additionally involved in other terror activity, including planning of a suicide attack which was to be carried out by Hamzi Dahduh which was thwarted by security forces in March 2006 and the smuggling of large amounts of weaponry from the Gaza Strip to the West Bank by Basem Shafik Atiya Ahtiya. The three men were taken for questioning by security sources. The IDF will continue to act with determination against Palestinian terror anywhere the Palestinian Authority fails to do so and will continue to employ all means at its disposal to protect the citizens of Israel. Contact Sergio Tessa at HaDaR-Israel@verizon.net |
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WEST BANK ROCKET WAR
Posted by Aryeh Zelasko, July 12, 2006. |
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This was written by Aaron Klein for World Net Daily
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Terror leader announces start of barrage nearing Israel's main population centers JERUSALEM -- While Israeli towns near the Gaza Strip have been contending with almost daily missile attacks, Palestinian rockets will now also be launched regularly on the other side of the country aimed at Jewish communities a few miles from Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, Abu Oudai, a chief rocket coordinator for the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades in Judea and Samaria told WorldNetDaily in an exclusive interview. Abu Oudai claimed major Israeli cities and the country's international airport would eventually become Palestinian rocket targets, particularly following Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's planned withdrawal from most of Judea and Samaria, which borders Israel's main population centers. Judea and Samaria is also commonly called the West Bank. Abu Oudai said his group has the ability to produce rockets in northern Samaria - a claim denied by the Israeli army. He hinted at possible help in developing rockets from Iran, Syria and the Lebanese Hezbollah militia. "Our goal is to cover all Israeli regions and to bring them inside the distance of our rockets," said Abu Oudai, speaking from Nablus in northern Samaria. "Every Israeli site or city is inside our capabilities and if some sites are not yet they will be very soon. The Ben Gurion Airport, Tel Aviv, Jerusalem every site and city will be targeted. We are speaking about a new era in the conflict between us and the enemy." The rocket master's statements follow a series of claims by the Al Aqsa Brigades of firing rockets the past few days from the northern Samaria towns of Telkarem and Jenin targeting Jewish communities nearby. Brigades leaders called WorldNetDaily to take credit for the rocket launchings, which they said fell short of their intended goals, landing instead in Palestinian areas. They promised more missile firings. Security officials say any Judea and Samaria missile attack would open a whole new front of rocket targets against Jewish communities in the territories and against neighboring cities, including Jerusalem. The Israeli Defense Forces has not yet officially confirmed this week's claimed northern Samaria rocket attacks. Palestinian and Jordanian officials said the attacks indeed took place. The Al Aqsa Brigades has the past few months previously claimed they fired rockets from northern Samaria. The IDF denied the claims only to later release select information stating some rockets had been fired from the area. Security analysts maintain publicity about terror groups' current missile capabilities in the territories could generate criticism of Olmert's Judea and Samaria withdrawal plan. Abu Oudai said the missile firings from Telkarem and Jenin were "only the very beginning of our blessed operation of launching rockets from the West Bank against Israeli cities. In the next days and from now on the falling of rockets in the enemy territory [in and near the West Bank] will not be strange and rare. "In a previous interview with you we promised that the next stage of our struggle in the West Bank will be characterized by the shooting of rockets." Israel minimizing Judea and Samaria rocket threat? The Al Aqsa leader described his Judea and Samaria rocket infrastructure: "With the help of Allah we succeeded to transfer rockets and technology that will bring in the very next days the number of rockets in the West Bank to hundreds. As for the kinds of rockets, they are very similar to the rockets in Gaza but here in the West Bank we are making huge efforts to improve them, especially their accuracy and distance." He said his group has stockpiles in northern Samaria of primitive versions of the Qassam rocket. Qassams are improvised steel rockets, about four feet in length, filled with explosives and fuel. They can travel between one and four miles depending on the sophistication of the particular rocket The IDF says terror groups abilities to produce rockets in Judea and Samaria are minimal. But Abu Oudai rejected the Israeli statements, claiming his group "absolutely" has the ability to manufacture Qassams and other kinds of rockets in northern Samaria. "The Israeli army said a few years ago that Gaza rockets are nothing and that they don't present any threat to the security of Israel and its citizens," Abu Oudai said. "Now we all know what is the truth and what is the real situation. Every day our rockets in Gaza become more accurate and do more killing and this is exactly what will happen in the West Bank. "It is their own business that they deny and minimize. But in the coming days the proofs on the ground will be very clear to the average Israeli in the street and not only to the Israeli political and military leadership." Abu Oudai, though, admitted to problems with his group's Judea and Samaria rocket infrastructure. "We have the capabilities of producing the rockets in the West Bank and we are also smuggling from Gaza, but I will be honest and sincere with you that our weakest point is the lack of experience in the West Bank. But we are working very hard to solve this problem. 'No fear' of Israeli retaliation Asked if the Al Aqsa Brigades received any outside help to its missile development program, Abu Oudai explained, "It is our right to receive any help from anybody and our doors is open to every support, from Syria, Iran, Hezbollah or anyone who wants to help and to support the Palestinian people." Prior to Israel's withdrawal from Gaza last August, then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon threatened an "unprecedented response" to any rocket firing carried out by terror groups after Israel vacated the territory. For the past ten months, until Israel sent ground troops into Gaza last month, the Israeli army mostly responded to the regular rocket attacks with aerial and artillery fire, failing to stop or even slow the rate of rocket attacks. Abu Oudai said he does not fear Israeli retaliation for his group's planned rocket launchings from Judea and Samaria. "I heard many time the expression of unprecedented response. The only unprecedented thing is the frequency of the Israeli 'empty threats.' We are not afraid and we have nothing to fear," said Abu Oudai. |
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REFINED GENOCIDE FACILITATORS
Posted by Steven Shamrak, July 12, 2006. |
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September 29, 1938 - Munich agreement of German, Italian, British and French leaders agrees to German demands regarding annexation of Sudeten borderland of Czechoslovakia. November 9, 1938 - Kristallnacht begins in Germany, the "night of broken glass" begins as NAZI troops and their sympathizers loot and burn Jewish businesses (the all night affair saw 7,500 Jewish businesses destroyed, 267 synagogues burned, 91 Jews killed, and at least 25,000 Jewish men arrested). June 4, 1939 - The SS St Louis, a ship carrying 963 Jewish refugees, is denied permission to land in Florida and was forced to return to Europe, most of its passengers later died in Nazi concentration camps. June 30, 1939 - A drastic Immigration Restriction Bill passed through congress, suspending all quota immigration to the US for five years. The bill also called for the immediate registration of all aliens in the US at the time. July 6, 1939 - The last remaining Jewish enterprises in Germany are closed. In 1939 - The British government issues the 'White Paper'. It reversed the support of the Balfour Declaration and announced a limitation on future Jewish immigration to Palestine. Most countries agreed with and followed the guideline set by the United States, France and Great Britain. It took brave and honourable men like Raul Wallenberg of Sweden, who saved hundreds of thousands of Hungarian Jews and Chiune Sugihara, a Japanese diplomat stationed in Lithuania, who issued thousands of transit visas to the desperate Jews. But, Wallenberg and Sugihara were exceptions and an embarrassment to their governments. Since the WW2, the same genocidal tendency has prevailed. Millions of people were exterminated and facilitated by international apathy and hypocrisy. The memory of the Pol Pot and Rwanda genocides is still fresh. The on-going slaughters of innocent civilians are presently being perpetrated in Sudan and Congo for many years. Even now, nothing is done to force Turkey to take responsibility for the genocide of up to 1.5 million Armenians in 1905, which paved the way for Holocaust. But, the only news that is fed to the public by International media is a story of fictitious Arab nation - Palestine. The same facilitators of Holocaust have been generating the justifications for the blood-thirty terror, unleashed on Jews during the last 60 years by Arabs. The intentions of the Arab leadership and the Islamic terrorist infrastructure are to destroy Israel and kill Jews are completely ignored. The right of Jewish people to live in peace on the Jewish land deemed by them to be non-existent! Steven Shamrak was born in the former Soviet Union (USSR) and participated in the Moscow Zionist "refusenik" movement. For the last 3 years, he has been publishing internet editorial letters on the Arab-Israeli conflict - independently, not as a member of any organization or political movement. He can be reached by email at StevenShamrak@mail2world.com |
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SOLUTION FOR ISRAEL -- THE GAZA PRISON
Posted by Shoshana Rubin, July 11, 2006. |
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Now that all Israeli Jews have been evacuated from Gaza by the State of Israel's pledge to democratic values and we have been witness to the democratically-elected Hamas Government by the democratic Palestinians, the State of Israel must be genuinely baffled by the fact the Palestinians have fully chosen to become even more violent and terroristic than they used to be, before they so fully embraced democracy, with more of their glaring rockets falling upon Israel this year alone, since the evacuation of all Israeli Jews from Gaza, than in all prior 38 years combined. What does democracy do to violent murderers and violent law-breakers in America? They lock them up. We all know what happened to Timothy McVeigh, Sirhan Sirhan and Charles Manson, do we not? What did America do after 9/11? Did they offer Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda sanctuary and humanitarian aid? Perhaps America knows the true meaning of "He who is merciful to the cruel will be cruel to the merciful," (Isaiah 520), and the democratic State of Israel needs to be reminded of reward and punishment. Israel should make a prison and rehabilitation center in Gaza. The democratic State of Israel should erect thick walls around it and and electric wires over it. There should be no pretense nor question whatsoever that Gaza is indeed, one big prison. The democratic prison of Gaza will have free humanitarian aid, education, health care, job skills, entertainment and healthful food, to be paid by the State of Israel. The Gaza prison will hold any Israeli who commits terror in Israel against Jews, Muslims, Christians, Hindus, Buddhists, democrats, socialists and the secular, including those who help terrorists, defined by the democratically-elected government of the State of Israel as treason. Those prisoners who have served their time in Gaza without causing violence to each other nor to the Israeli guards will be released on probation. They will report to the government probation officers regularly. This solution for the raging terrorism in Israel today will not eradicate terror completely but it will greatly reduce terror. Contact Shoshana Rubin by email at etcetras@comcast.net or at ShoshanaRubin@hotmail.com |
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GETTING CLOSE
Posted by Anita Tucker, July 11, 2006. |
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Dear friends, We are getting close to the year memorial of the cruel destruction of my home of 29 years, Netzer HAzani, Gush Katif. As that date gets closer and closer it becomes more and more difficult for me to absorb and to understand what happened in Gush Katif and how it happened. Time has not been a healing factor. I was so pleased to receive this link from Avi Abelow who camped out in Netzer Hazani the weeks before the expulsion and helped me cope and coordinate all the media that came to cover this "horror"story. It was really refreshing for me to open this four minute preview to the upcoming movie that Avi Abelow and his friend Yaron Shane have prepared for us all, for you and for me. You too will feel their refreshing new angle of seeing and
understanding what happened that summer in Gush KAtif when you open
this site and see the sneak
preview:
I know that all of you who care will help Avi bring his special
movie to our public by ordering tickets and telling your friends to do
the same.
Eretz Yisrael's pain is still so real, Am Yisrael's pain is still so real -- but the most agonizing pain of all is that of our youth who loved their home so much and gave all they had to try and save it -- for them it is a wound that is still very open. Please open preview and also forward to all your acquaintances who care. anita
Anita Tucker was a farmer in Gush Katif, Gaza. She was made a refugee last August. Contact her at tucker.anita@gmail.com |
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CIVIL RIGHTS ORGANIZATION LEADER IN ADMINISTRATIVE DETENTION
Posted by Lee Caplan, July 11, 2006. |
| This was written by Nissan Ratzlav-Katz of Arutz-Sheva. |
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Ariel Groner, one of the leaders of the Honenu legal aid society, has been imprisoned for three months under an administrative detention order signed by Defense Minister Amir Peretz. Groner, responsible for handling prisoner affairs for Honenu, was incarcerated today in Ashkelon's Shikma Prison. Under the legal process of administrative detention, the defense minister ordered Groner jailed without charge or trial. Generally, administrative detention is meant to foil threats to state security by particular individuals and has been employed frequently against suspected Arab terrorists. In recent years, the state has employed administrative detention also against those suspected of planning actions in protest of unilateral withdrawal policies in Judea, Samaria and Gaza. According to security sources, Groner's activity "poses a real danger to national security and is a threat to the general public and to the security forces." Honenu is dedicated to protecting the legal rights of those arrested in the course of defending themselves from Arab terrorism or in the course of nationalist protest activities. The organization issued a statement responding to the detention of Groner, a resident of Yitzhar in Samaria, with direct accusations against Defense Minister Peretz and Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. "The prime minister and defense minister have decided, in order to avoid their own problems, to take administrative steps against the [citizens in Judea and Samaria]," the Honenu statement said. "The main reason for this is that they do not recognize the authority of the court to adjudicate based on evidence. Youth for the Land of Israel, an activist group in favor of a continued Jewish presence in Judea, Samaria and Gaza, said: "Groner's arrest is intended to prepare the groundwork for the coming expulsion - as declared by the prime minister of destruction, Olmert, in recent days - and to silence the voices of those opposed to these dangerous steps." Right-wing activist Baruch Marzel called for the attention of his political opposites to the ramifications of the administrative detention of the Honenu leader. Marzel said that "the arrest of a person who deals with civil rights should worry not only members of the Right. This is a terrible infringement upon freedom of speech. If there is evidence then they should file an indictment, but if not, then he should be released immediately." In March, the chairman of Honenu, Shmuel Meidad, was detained and released the same day by police, who took him into custody in his Hevron home. During his interrogation by police, the investigating officer indicated that he was suspected of involvement in an illegal gathering and endangering life on a public thoroughfare in August of 2005. The police then said that Meidad had to deposit his personal weapon with them as a result of the suspicions against him. Meidad denied the suspicions and noted that he was never previously questioned regarding any such incident. Meidad refused to be fingerprinted or to sign a personal guarantee, and he was unconditionally released thereafter. Fax numbers:
Contact Lee Caplan at leescaplan@yahoo.com
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WORLD-WIDE COMMEMORATION OF EXPULSION FROM GUSH KATIF
Posted by AFSI, July 11, 2006. |
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TUESDAY, AUG. 1 -- 8 P.M.
Report submitted to Knesset committee reveals severe problems of Gush Katif and northern Shomron expellees. Children - Attention deficit disorders have worsened or developed. Scholastic achievements have dropped. Post-trauma disorders observed, including lack of recognition of parental authority, anxiety attacks, increased violence, hair loss, etc. Youth -- Drop in acceptance of parental and rabbinic authority -- deterioration in religious observance. Marriages at ages 17 and 18, against parents' wishes have occurred. 30% of youth do not attend school regularly. Drop in scholastic achievements and matriculation exams evident. Twelve suicide attempts registered among youth. Social problems. Increase in drug and alcohol use. Ten eating disorders diagnosed -- nine youths hospitalized in psychiatric wards. Adults - 50 divorce proceedings opened since expulsion. 51% of the population is unemployed. Of 500 families in Nitsan- some 300 people are unemployed. Unemployment payments are ending. People relying day to day on compensation money (which in many cases has not been paid) and is money meant for building a new home. New furnishings and appliances to replace those that were destroyed or lost, psychological treatment, and other expenses have brought many families to the verge of poverty, resulting in low self-image and family tensions. Psychological problems among adults include depression, anger, introversion, mal-functioning, and deep sadness. Medicine usage is up, and there has been increased incidence of cardiac diseases, cancer and even death. Family relations were seriously impaired as a result of the lack of privacy in the hotels and even in the relatively small pre-fabs in which they now reside. Community - The report states that the communal frameworks in Gush Katif were a central pillar of strength, mutual support, communication and help during times of crisis. Most of the communities have since broken up into several sub-communities, living at distances that do not enable the maintenance of ties as before. An important resource of strength has been neutralized. COME OUT AND SUPPORT OUR BROTHERS AND SISTERS IN NEED Americans For a Safe Israel/AFSI is a pro-active pro-Israel advocacy group. AFSI may be contacted by mail at 1623 Third Ave., Suite 205, New York, N.Y. 10128 (Tel: 212-828-2424; Fax: 212-828-1717); by email at afsi@rcn.com; or by accessing its website: www.afsi.org. Barry Freedman is Executive Director. |
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I'M AFRAID IT WILL BE LIKE THIS
Posted by Deb Kotz, July 11, 2006. | ||
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Great essay by Daniel Gordis (www.DanielGordis.org). Please take a few minutes to read. It deftly connects the bombings on Sderot and the traumatized Israeli schoolchildren with the kidnapping of Gilad. As Gordis points out, although the rest of the world thinks Israel is looking for a captured soldier, "we're really looking for Gilad." An 18-year-old boy who could be anyone's child. | ||
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Early in the fall, I visited a high school in Sha'ar HaNegev, not far from Sderot and the Gaza border, to interview some students. A while into the conversation, I asked them two questions. "You'll be middle aged when Israel's 100 years old," I told them. "So tell me. As you imagine the future, what do you dream of? And what are you afraid of?" These were fifteen highly intelligent, very articulate kids. But interestingly, none of them had anything terribly substantive to say about their dreams. As they sat quietly, trying to think what they could say that might not sound platitudinous, one of the guys spoke up. "Can I tell you," he asked with a slight hesitation and a cautious glance at his schoolmates, "what I'm afraid of?" There was a moment of discomfort in the group, and a stifled giggle here and there. Sixteen year old guys, sitting in a group that also includes girls, aren't supposed to want to talk about what they're afraid of. But this guy wanted to speak, and within seconds, it was completely silent in the room. Everyone looked at him, and waited. "I'm afraid," he said after a pause, "that the future will be just like this." That was in November, after the Kassams and Red Dawn sirens had started, but long before the rain of rockets on their town began in earnest. It was before Ariel Sharon's stroke, before the election of Hamas, before the people who took over the Gaza strip that we'd left in August declared that they would fire so many rockets on Sderot that that they would turn it into a ghost town. And even then, with many fewer rockets falling, this kid was afraid -- afraid that the future would look like the present. My secretary, who has two very young children, was with me at that interview. [She] looked at me, her eyes wide with shock, as though his hopelessness was unbearable. Because no matter what else may be wrong with Israeli society, and there is plenty, it's a society in which we take care of our kids. It's a country filled with parks and playgrounds, a country where strangers will stop for a crying child on the street, hold him by the hand and take him home. It's a county where young teenagers go camping by themselves, because they'll be OK. Someone else will be around. And whoever that person is, they will take care of them, if our kids need them to. And it's a society which, in those rare moments when we can't keep our kids safe, memorializes them in a way that I still find chilling. Every year, on the Fast of Gedaliah, I go with a close friend to the cemetery on Mount Herzl. To Rabin's grave. To Herzl's. To some of the military sections. And invariably, we find ourselves making our way to the half-underground bunker of graves for people who were killed during the siege on Jerusalem in 1948. There are adults, there, lots of them. But there are kids, too. These kids were used primarily as runners, to carry messages in or out. A lot of them made it, but some of them didn't. And now, those who didn't make it through are memorialized near the soldiers who died in combat, and like the soldiers, have plaques commemorating the price they paid. The plaques list their name, their age, and then the phrase nafal be-milui tafkido -- "he fell in the performance of his mission." A boy aged seventeen. And a girl aged fifteen. And, a boy named Nisim Gini, born in Jerusalem, and killed at the age of ten, "in the performance of his mission."... It's been the week of kids, an unbearably long week since Sunday. I was in Zichron Yaakov, a gentrified city about an hour and a half north of Jerusalem, with our Foundation's staff for the day. Mid-day, I began to notice a number of people listening attentively to their cell phones, and others trying to get the news on the little screens. So, I called Avi, and asked him to check the Internet. Two Israeli soldiers had been killed, he told me. Another wounded. And worse, one had been kidnapped. We're a society that is tragically used to burying our kids in uniform. But we're not used to their being held captive. The thought of our kids -- for that's what they are -- in the hands of "people" like that is simply unbearable. And later that day, when the news released the now ubiquitous photograph of Gilad Shalit, his thick black glasses making him look younger than his nineteen years, Israelis found themselves despondent. The baby face. In the hands of who knew whom... Did he know we'd come to get him, I wondered? Because it was clear we would. You don't take care of kid in the parks to let them grow up and be stolen out of sovereign Israeli territory. You just don't. Avi and I talked on the phone a couple of times that day. He'd check the news, and keep me posted. "Nothing new," he said a few times, his voice no less anguished than any of the adults with whom I was spending the day. And then he called an hour later. "Are you and Ema still planning to go away next week?" I told him we were. "Why do you ask?" "Because I just got a call from the army," he said. "They're moving up my date [for the next phase of his tryout to get into a certain commando unit that he wants to try to get into]. If I go, I can't watch Micha while you're gone." I told him we'd make arrangements for Micha, and that if he wanted to go, he should. And I wondered what it must have felt like to still be just sixteen, to hear news like he'd heard that morning, and then to get a call from the army about his unit. And to still want to go. I thought of asking him, but I didn't. I couldn't. And then a day or two later, the wounded soldier, still in the hospital, began to speak to reporters who visited his room. "When I realized that I was trapped [in the tank]," he said, "I knew that was it." And, he added, "I started to cry." So did the people I saw at work reading the article. And then, I was driving down Hebron Road, a main drag in our part of town, and I stopped at a red light. It's been hot this week, so all the cars had their windows closed and the air conditioning on. There was another car in the lane to my left, and one to the right. The newscaster (for who wasn't tuned to the news?) announced that that Gilad's parents had written him a letter and had made it public. He then read the text (the translation is mine, but the Hebrew original is posted):
As the newscaster finished reading the letter, I happened to glance out the windows of my car. Both drivers to my side, one a man in his fifties and one a woman in her late twenties, were wiping tears from their eyes. The windows didn't need to be open to know what they'd been hearing. And then, what had been rumors of a second kidnapping proved true. On the West Bank, the PRC claimed to be holding Eliyahu Asheri. An eighteen year old kid, now in the hands of animals, for the crime of hitchhiking... Another big child. Wearing a t-shirt, sitting under a tree. With a wide smile. And a numb country didn't know what to do. (Eliyahu, of course, was shot in the head the day they kidnapped him, and was buried yesterday. Another reminder of who our neighbors are.) In the meantime, the IDF was amassing tanks, APC's and artillery along the border, just minutes away from the high school that I'd visited in November. The enormous array of armor was a relief, at least to people here. Because they can't steal our kids and think that we're simply going to let it go on. Then, a few nights ago, the movement into Gaza began. Now, days later, the campaign still goes on. We've bombed here and there, have taken out much of their electric power, destroyed some bridges, sealed Gaza tight, buzzed Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's summer home with four F-16's. But still, no Gilad. So the IDF arrested dozens of members of the Hamas government. And still, no Gilad. The rest of the world thinks we're looking for a kidnapped soldier, so they don't really get this massive reaction. The EU's beginning to express concern. Bombing bridges was OK, but arresting the members of Hamas' parliament, they think, is a bit over the top. Buzzing Assad's palace, we're told, was provocative. Maybe. The reason they don't get it is that they think we're looking for a soldier. But we're not. We're looking for Gilad. Everyone I hear talking about it calls him by name. Never "the soldier." Always Gilad. Our cell phones are buzzing with text messages reminding us to say a Psalm for him. Email in-boxes are filling with the same reminder, and even include the text of the Psalm, so you can say it right when you open the e-mail. And then, you're supposed to forward it. For the past several mornings, as our kids have woken up, the very first words out of their mouths have been "Did we find him?" They just have to look at us to know the answer. Not yet. The unbearable week drags on. The international press is abuzz with the accounts of what Israel's troops are up to. It's an interesting word, that term "troops." One of them (though not one who's in Gaza) has a bedroom across the hall from ours. She got some mail the other day, but she was away in the army, so I walked upstairs to leave it for her. To the left of her desk was her knapsack, which, for some reason, she hadn't taken with her back to the base. Draped over the chair behind her desk, a shirt from her uniform. And on her bed, her stuffed animal, Curious George, or "Curious" as we've all called him since he joined the family the week she was born nineteen years ago. The combination of her uniform shirt draped over the chair, and Curious lying there all alone, almost as if he was waiting for her to come home -- especially this week -- was simply too much. I just needed to get out of her room. So I put the mail on her desk, gave Curious a last glance, left the room and firmly shut the door. Gilad, I'm sure, has a room something like hers. Probably no stuffed animals, but maybe. Who knows? He is, after all, just a kid. Take a look at his picture, and you see. In a few hours, Shabbat will begin. Hopefully, we'll get Gilad back by then, but we may not. And if we haven't, people all across our neighborhood, with an anguish that words can scarcely capture, will turn off their cell phones, shut down their computers and silence the radios, knowing that on Shabbat, we're going be cut off from the world. That, of course, is precisely the point of Shabbat, and usually, it's a great relief. But on a Friday night like tonight, it's going to be beyond
painful. Not to know. Not to be able to check. Simply to have to
wonder, and to wait. And as soon as the sun sets tomorrow night, we'll
make Havdalah, and turn on the TV and the computers. Hoping, and
praying. Praying that he'll have come home, safe. And hoping that
we'll have some plausible reason to give our kids a hug, and to tell
them, "You see, the future will be better than this. Really, it will."
Deb Kotz is an active member of the Brandeis Chapter of the Zionist
Organization of America (ZOA) and maintains an email list to
distribute articles of interest to the local community. She can be
reached at DebKotz@aol.com
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WAS THE ISM INVOLVED IN BOMBING LONDON?
Posted by Steven Plaut, July 11, 2006. |
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1. Here is today's most important current events question: Was the ISM or International Solidarity Movement involved in the London subway bombings? Why is that suddenly an important current events question? Well, as you know, the ISM collaborated with and hosted the two
terrorists who murdered three people and injured 50 when they blew up
the "Mike's Place" bar on the Tel Aviv waterfront on April 29, 2003.
The two terrorists had been hosted and wined and dined by the ISM
before carrying out the atrocity (see
Now the Times of London reports that those two terrorists
who blew up Mike's Place with the ISM's connivance also were tied to
the group in the UK that placed the bombs in the London subways
(See
The British Islamofascist who organized the subway bombings in London had ties to the two perps who blew up Tel Aviv and had earlier gone to the Gaza Strip at the time of the terror attack in Tel Aviv. SO did the bombers of London ALSO have ISM collaborators? Steven Plaut is an American-trained economist, a professor of business administration at Haifa University and author of "The Scout." He frequently comments - both seriously and satirically - on Israeli politics and the left wing academic community. His website address is http://www.stevenplaut.blogspot.com. Contact him at splaut@econ.haifa.ac.il |
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LAUNCHING A NEW WEBSITE: JERUSALEM-4THTEMPLE.ORG
Posted by N. Natan, July 11, 2006. |
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We are pleased to announce the launching of the Web Site
At this Web Site www.jerusalem-4thtemple, the Book-On-Line The Temple of Solomon could not stand on its Water Tower (300 pages in English with under! ground maps), provides the following documentation and data : -a/ all the documentation of ancient texts concerning the exacting rites of purification in the Jewish Temple by immersion of the body of the High Priest and Priests in the bath-mikweh of living purifying waters, conveyed by aqueduct from the springs of Etam, and without the use of any recipient. -b/ all the precise mathematics data of the 19th century archaeologists who have been the only scientists ever allowed to study the Haram rocky underground hydraulic system invented by the Priests and engineers of King Solomon in order to comply with the Biblical prescriptions concerning the rites of purification in the Sanctuary. A meticulous cross examination of the elevation of the levels above the sea of all parts of this unified and dynamic hydraulic System makes absolutely IMPOSSIBLE, altogether gravitationally, hydraulically and religiously, that the Temple of Jerusalem could have ever stood on the site of the Haram (Esplanade of the Mosques). The Temple of Solomon could only stand downstream of its water tower which had been dug in the rocky entrails of the ancient Jewish citadel overlooking and protecting the Sanctuary, the site of which is nowadays occupied by the Haram of the Muslims who have jealously kept intact and engraved in the rock, the irrefutable archaeological proofs of the vanished reality. Contact Mr. Natan by email at n.natan@jerusalem-4thtemple.org |
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IN RESPONSE TO "REMEMBER WHAT HAPPENED HERE"
Posted by Dr. Steven Carol, July 11, 2006. |
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In response to Charles Krauthammer's recent article, "Remember What Happened Here," in July 10, 2006 - TIME magazine: |
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While Mr. Krauthammer is to be commended for writing this important article and more importantly getting it published in Time Magazine, he is in error on several points. Like many others, Mr. Krauthammer falls into the propaganda vocabulary trap, using wording circulated by the opponents of Israel. The conflict has never been an Arab-Israeli dispute as in implying equivalence to both sides. It has been an Arab war against the Jews and later Israelis in the Land of Israel. It is now an Arab-Muslim war against the Jews and Israel, for Iran and others are not Arab states. It is not a 59 year old crisis, for in fact it has been waged for nearly 135 years against the Jews in the Land of Israel and pre-dates the re-establishment of the modern Israeli state. One of the first Jewish victims of Arab terror was Aharon Hershler, who was murdered on January 1, 1873 and is buried on the Mount of Olives. The June 25, 2006, Hamas attack on Israel Defense Forces, was an act of war because the Hamas militants directly engaged Israeli military forces. The soldier taken was not "kidnapped." He was taken as a prisoner of war. This episode was one of the rare occasions where the Arab terrorists did what they were criticized for not doing. They attacked the Israeli Defense Forces as opposed to innocent civilians. They committed an act of war. It is now Israel's sovereign duty to respond accordingly, in the fullest sense, against the aggressor as it did in 1947-1949, 1956, 1967, 1967-1970, 1973 and 1982. For the past 13 years of the misnamed "Oslo Peace Process," Israel has suffered over 1,600 civilians killed including 124 children in addition to thousands more maimed, wounded, or injured. From 1920 to 1993, (a 73 year period) about 2,000 Jewish civilians were killed. From 1993, Israel has shifted from victory-driven warfare to conflict management, and that policy has failed. Unilateral withdrawal has also failed. Israel must now use military force to the fullest extent, to defeat the enemy. The Arab-Muslim war, as aptly put by Mr. Krauthammer, was never one of "occupation, settlements and so on." Therefore, the war was, is and will continue to be one of getting the Arab-Muslim enemy to recognize Israel's right to existence as a Jewish State in its present location in the Middle East. That some Arabs recognize the fact that Israel exists is meaningless. Facts can be altered as history shows in the cases of Katanga, Biafra and even the Confederate States of America, to name but a few of the political entities that once existed in fact. Any policies that focus on other aspects are doomed to failure or will result in the ultimate destruction of Israel. It took 1,875 years for the re-establishment of the Jewish commonwealth. If Israel loses this war, only God knows if and when it will ever reappear. Dr. Steve Carol is Prof. of History (retired); Senior Fellow, Center for Advanced Middle East Studies www.cames.ws; Official Historian, Middle East Radio Forum, www.middleeastradioforum.org. He lives in Scottsdale, Arizona. Contact him at drhistory@cox.net |
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THE HAMAS CIVILIAN INFRASTRUCTURE IN PA TERRITORIES
Posted by Dr. Reuven Erlich, July 10, 2006. |
1 The Hamas Charter puts great emphasis on the battle for heart and minds. The activity of spreading the Hamas perception is defined as one of its main missions and one which must be carried out by all religious, educational and cultural leaders, all media and information personnel and the educated public in general. 2 Da'wah, literally "preaching, calling, propaganda; in reality a religious-cultural indoctrination [system] which [employs various Islamic and preachers and] uses all the [available] communications media to change their culture [i.e., world view] and to turn them into [loyal Muslim believers in their own usually radical interpretation of Islam];" from Uriah Furman, Islamiyyun, [Hebrew], Ma'arachot Publishing, Tel Aviv, 2002, p. 322. Appendix A selection of Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center Special Bulletins dealing with the Hamas da'wah issued during the past few years 1. "Unprecedented Hamas Fundraising Drive Held in Gaza to Support
Terrorist Activity against Israel. A Hamas fundraising drive was
held in Gaza to ease financial difficulties caused by European,
Israeli and Palestinian Authority pressures, and to protest steps
taken by the PA against Hamas-affiliated "charitable
organizations." Prominent were declarations that donations would be
put to military (and not humanitarian) use and would support the
"resistance" and jihad (holy war) for the land of
Palestine," at 2. "Palestinian terrorist organizations use the Arab Bank to channel
money into terrorism,"
3. "Palestinian terrorist organizations and 'charitable societies'
identified with them make extensive use of the Arab Bank for
transferring funds (Volume 2),"
4. "Hamas' broad civilian infrastructure (da'wah) provides a potential
alternative to the Palestinian Authority and its institutions and
supports terrorism: analysis of the Ramallah-Al-Bireh region as a
case study based on documents taken from the Palestinian security
apparatus and da'wah institutions." 5. "IRFAN: A Hamas front organization operating in Canada to enlist
financial support for Hamas institutions in the Palestinian
Authority-administered territories,"
6. "Interpal"
7. "The Union of Good: an umbrella organization comprised of more than
50 Islamic charitable funds and foundations worldwide. It in fact
channels "charity" money and provides other items for
Hamas-affiliated institutions in the Palestinian
Authority-administered territories, contributing to sustaining the
support system infrastructure of Palestinian terrorism through the
so-called financial jihad,"
8. "Charity and Palestinian terrorism -- spotlight on the Hamas-run
Islamic al-Tadhamun 'charitable society' in Nablus: a case study of
the workings of the Palestinian terrorism support-system
infrastructure and the organizations abroad which finance it," 9. "Spotlight on a Hamas da'wah institution in the West Bank : A
file of Palestinian Preventive Security documents identified the
Bethlehem Orphan Care Society as Hamas-affiliated. The file also
contained reports of funds for the Society and Hamas coming from
various external sources, including Interpal in Britain and the
Islamic Movement in Israel" 10."Comit de Bienfaisance et de Secours aux Palestiniens (CBSP): a
French Hamas-affiliated fund which provides financial support for
Hamas institutions in the PA-administered territories." 11. A lecture given by Dr. Reuven Erlich on "The battle for hearts
and minds: The ongoing Israeli-Palestinian confrontation as a case
study," Dr. Reuven Erlich is Head of the Intelligence
and Terrorism Information Center in Israel. Its website address is
http://www.intelligence.org
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BUT I WAS GOING TO MAKE ALIYA
Posted by Yocheved Golani, July 10, 2006. |
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This sets forth a fictional but much-feared scenario. I hope to motivate other Jews to think hard about the question "You love Israel? Torah? HaShem? Put your heart and all your other body parts in the Holy Land and prove it before the chance is lost." |
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"But I was going to make aliya!" the exasperated man wept. "I was planning to reach retirement age while amassing my wealth with investments. I was going to live off my savings. It would have been good for my wife and children. I could have given them a comfortable start in Israel. None of that aliya panic about wondering if we could afford Bamba, arnona municipal taxes and school books." "We were supposed to make aliya, really! I told my husband and children that, after all of us got ready, we'd go. No, I can't say that we agreed on how to be 'ready.' I wanted the children to learn Hebrew in day school. My husband wanted to make some career achievements. I needed to collect recipes for cooking without important ingredients that you just can't buy in Israel. My family's used to certain things, expects... oh gawd, expected their meals to be just right." "Oh we had a tik with the Jewish Agency for years. We were definitely getting ready to make aliya. Well, almost ready. I wanted to make some career changes in line with my unique abilities. I needed time to accomplish that. My husband and I had to finesse things. My parents and in-laws objected that we would endanger ourselves. What if someone tried to hurt the children? What if they didn't survive IDF service? If relatives had come to visit us in Israel, who'd have taken care of my mom with her high blood pressure and my father-in-law with his diabetes? Kupat cholim, the National Health Service, was so limited then. You know, family relationships, shalom bayit, is so important, especially under the stressful conditions of making aliya. I never imagined that things would go the way they did. I... nobody, we... who could have imagined all this?" These and other allegedly prospective olim to the Holy Land expressed their excuses for having remained behind to one and all of those who remained alive. They tried to reason with distracted neighbors, unusually reticent rabbis, themselves and locally situated former reporters. That is, when they had time or opportunity to reflect aloud. Usually, they wandered about their homes and neighborhoods trying to scratch together a new life in post-Paradox times. It was highly unlikely that significant numbers of newspaper readers or aficionados of online news sources would learn of the existence of these once-prospective olim, let alone their regret and despair. The Internet had died with the freedoms of the western world. So had a free press. Public transportation was a thing of the past what with all the shattered tunnels, railroad and subway tracks, and public thoroughfares. Travel in these times could only be achieved on foot, upon the occasional horse, a bicycle (if it had tires in post-Paradox life and its depleted store shelves) or the extremely rare gas-driven vehicle. Hoards of precious gasoline sometimes exploded due to intense heat and improper storage within the rubble that now passed for buildings. Radioactive contamination, flooding from intentionally shattered dams, bombs or tanks had largely obliterated sturdy structures let alone their occupants. The shacks commonly used today as holding grounds for combustible fuels were simply unsafe. Airports and seaports were genuine risks to life. Snipers shot at anyone daring to make use of surviving planes, runways, boats and sea channels. The North American continent was now a ghastly specter: broken bridges, scared and hungry people dressed in dirty rags, and an appalling sense of gloom in the atmosphere. Europe lay in shambles. Filthy burkas upon intimidated blonde or red-haired women clumsily walking beneath the reeking fabric of strictly imposed modesty laws shambled to makeshift markets. The emotionally and physically bruised female survivors under the gloomy garments of post-Paradox life struggled to seek out food remnants for themselves and loved ones. The minds of the socially controlled women silently wondered how Arab culture had enabled its practitioners to survive over the centuries. Many women newly covered from head to toe broke their limbs falling over objects because their eyes were unable to see clearly through compulsory netting on the face, their legs struggling to move despite cumbersome folds of restrictive fabric. Shambling and stumbling was a way of life now. Pain and infected wounds were part of that life. Shattered psyches, too. A scrap of yellowed newspaper rolled along the ground on another continent, driven by a soft wind. Its ink recounted the onslaught of highly motivated hordes of anti-democratic enemies. Stunning victories had swept the free world around the globe just as rolling blackouts of electricity had once darkened large population centers. But the democracy-haters had not been a temporary phenomenon. Not so far. It was a paradox. Europe had opened its doors to denizens of the Middle East, welcoming them into governmental offices, placing them in socially prominent positions of influence and power. North American officials had tried to curtail the policing of porous borders so that they would not be guilty of racial profiling in the name of Homeland Security. Middle Eastern immigration eventually outstripped the birth rates of Europe and North America. New citizens swayed prison populations and its own progeny to practice murder and mayhem in the name of holiness upon their gracious hosts and everyone else. The worldview of these new arrivals had remained inexplicably intractable, hostile and illogical. Well, inexplicable to all but a few who had deeply understood the problem. Many of them had perished in the Holy Land, decimated by powerless politicians and an overwhelmed, paradoxically restricted Israel Defense Force. A skeletal human dropped an empty jar of Marmite and grasped the windblown bit of newsprint, read it with rheumy eyes and cried. The voice was thin and weak. Anyone overhearing it would have wondered if the crier was male or female. But they would have heard words stated in a voice as forceful as the casualty of politics and self-deception could muster. "The headline. Oh. 'Israel Disappears in Multi-pronged Attack: Air, Land, Sea and Hand-to-hand Combat.' Oh gawd. There was a joke about a guy. Refused to get in a boat or helicopter when floods threatened his life. He yelled at potential rescuers that he was waiting for Gawd to save him. He was shocked when angels told him as a dead man that Gawd had sent him the boat, helicopter and rescuers. I should have shifted to the Holy Land before we lost it. Nothing here was worth preserving for a better life. Nothing. What life can survivors have now? Oh, oh, I was going to make aliya, fill Israel with another Jewish voter dedicated to preserving her integrity... We could have saved the world. Will there be a techiat hameitim? I was going to make aliya... Yocheved Golani can be contacted by email at
yocheved@yochevedgolani.com or go to her websites |
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UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER
Posted by Dov Silverman, July 10, 2006. |
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During World War II, the famous Winston Churchill said, "You ask: What is our aim? I can answer in one word. It is Victory. Victory at all costs, Victory in spite of all terror. However long or hard the road may be; for without Victory there is no survival." Those famous words speak also of today's Iraq and Israel in particular. That is, provided we have the courage to stay the course, a course that means: UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER BY THE PALESTINIANS! Italy, Germany and Japan are winning in peace what they lost in war after their UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER. America is still fighting the Korean War because of its lack of political determination in 1954. It is fighting the Terrorist War in Iraq, Afghanistan and New York because one terrorist suicide bomber in Lebanon killed 220 Marines and the American politicians made the Marines leave Lebanon. Israel has defeated several Arab nations in several wars and still does not have peace. We now have the opportunity to stabilize our lives and those of the Palestinians. We have the opportunity to share our prosperity with them, but we must have the courage to do so. Winston S. Churchill left us an important message: "Victory. Victory at all costs. Victory in spite of all terror. However long or hard the road may be; for without Victory there is no survival." UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER BY THE PALESTINIANS! Dov Silverman is a historical novelist and lives in Raanana, Israel. Contact him at janet@docustar.co.il |
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HAVE WE LEARNED NOTHING?
Posted by Rodeco, July 10, 2006. |
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Thank you for your e-mail, but I have too many things to read during
the month, I volunteer a lot, am 79, do my thing as I see fit...but I
am always very interested to read about Israel. Am a holocaust
survivor, have my comments about Israel. Came to America in 1947,
witnessed a lot of UN sessions, got very upset about the lack of
response from Israel, our jewish leaders here, when the ambassador
Baroody, of Saudi arabia, used to walk up and down the aisle at the
UN and shouted: the Zionist Entity....No ONE ever rebuked him....No
representative of Israel answered him EVER!!!! Had we not learned
anything from Goebbels' propaganda???? We are supposed to be so
smart...what a myth!!!! If you repeat something constantly, it
becomes a "truth"!!!! Letting this b....d keep on repeating this
phrase did not help us at all...He should have been shut up right the
first time, why didn't someone answer with the islamic entity???? For
being silent for 1800 years we sure paid a heavy price, didn't we?
There is always this: we don't want to come down to their
level....Sh...t, we should go down even lower to attack an ennemy or
he will eliminate you!!! We haven't learned anything: lets rock that
boat...what are we jews always so afraid of? I keep on thinking
everything we did in the past, we turned the other cheek, christians
did not, although Jesus told them to do it..... We were slandered,
thought of having horns, or a third eye on top of our heads, and what
did we do, absolutely NOTHING!!!!!! I could go on and on, of our
failings...but that is just water under the bridge, when will we
learn?????
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GAZA - PROPORTIONALITY AND COLLECTIVE PUNISHMENT IN INTERNATIONAL LAW
Posted by Eli E. Hertz, July 10, 2006. |
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To finance, recruit, train, house, feed, transport and murder Jews, is a collective Palestinian effort, requiring a collectively responsible response. In fact, poll after poll shows widespread collective support among the majority of the Palestinian population for suicide bombers and the destruction of Israel. In a poll just released, [1] the majority of Palestinian respondents 77.2% expressed support for the abduction of the Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit and 60.4% supported the continuation of indiscriminate firing of deadly Qassam rockets into Israeli towns. It is a denial of reality to assume that only a small group of terrorists could be involved in thousands of documented acts of terror in the past 10 years by Palestinians from all walks of life. It would be reckless to assume that these acts of terror are isolated, undertaken independently, without the direct involvement of the Palestinian populace and the leadership they opt to elect. Israel often is portrayed in the media, by Western leaders, human rights activists and the many different organs of the United Nations as inflicting disproportionate and collective punishment on many Palestinians for the deeds of a few terrorists. Ironically, the prohibition of imposing "collective penalties [punishment] ... intimidation and terrorism" Article 33 of the Forth Geneva Convention [2] talks about, refers to "protected person [s]" under occupation. But in the present case it needs to be applied to the innocent men, women, and children of the Israeli towns of Sderot and Ashkelon that are collectively punished day-in and day-out by Arab terrorists for "offences" they never "personally committed." As to "terrorism" the Article speaks about; it is the Israelis that fight to prevent Palestinian terrorism, and not the other way around. Interestingly, the British in 1929 thought that collective punishment was a perfectly legitimate measure when inhabitants of Arab villages attacked the Jews. This collective punishment was not merely a single necessary step, but actually an existing ordinance of the British Mandate supported by the League of Nations, in dealing with Arab terrorism: "Collective Punishments. The Collective Punishments Ordinances were applied to the [Arab] towns and villages whose inhabitants were guilty of participation in the concerted attacks on Jews at Hebron, Safad, Motza, Artuf, Beer Tuvia, and heavy fines were inflicted." [3] Throughout history, Jews were law-abiding, peaceful people defending themselves against Arab aggression. In a 1946 Report, the Anglo-American Committee described its observation regarding Jews living in the land of Palestine: "The Jew had to train himself for self-defence, and to accustom himself to the life of a pioneer in an armed stockade. Throughout the Arab rising, the Jews in the National Home, despite every provocation, obeyed the orders of their leaders and exercised a remarkable self-discipline. They shot, but only in self-defence; they rarely took reprisals on the Arab." [4] Israel's reaction to Arab aggression is nothing more than a measured, fair response designed "to effectively terminate the attack [s]" by a conglomerate of Arab Palestinian terrorists, supported by Iran, Syria, and Lebanon, in order to "prevent its recurrence." [5] Arab Palestinians, by their first use of armed force against Israeli civilians and non-combatant Jews in contravention of the United Nations Charter, constituted prima facie [Latin: on its face] evidence of an act of aggression - aggression being defined by international law as "the most serious and dangerous form of illegal use of force." [6] Therefore, the rule of proportionality in this case of continuous aggression, needs to be met by Israeli acts that will 'induce' the wrongdoing aggressors to comply with its international obligations. A countermeasure need not be the exact equivalent of the breaching act. [7] Judge Schwebel, the former president of the International Court of Justice is quoted saying: "In the case of action taken for the specific purpose of halting and repelling an armed attack, this does not mean that the action should be more or less commensurate with the attack." [8] The perception among Palestinians - that politically motivated violence is legitimate and effective - is nothing new. From a broader perspective, if the Palestinians are rewarded with political gains following their acts of aggression, it can be expected that other radical groups will also make use of the suicide bomber model. Israel will no longer be the main target of such tactics. No one will be immune. [1] JMCC Latest Poll, Poll no. 59 on Palestinian Attitudes Towards
The Abduction of the Israeli Soldier and Firing of Rockets, 9 July
2006.
[2] See:
www.icrc.org/ihl.nsf/c525816bde96b7fd41256739003e636a/
[3] From the report by His Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland to the Council of the League of Nations on the Administration of Palestine and Transjordan for the year 1929. [4] Report of the Anglo-American Committee of Enquiry regarding the problem of European Jewry and Palestine. Lausanne, 20th April, 1946. [5] See Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy; 3/22/2002; Beard, Jack M. [6] See UN GA Resolution 3314. [7] United States Department of State, Draft Articles on State
Responsibility, Comments of the Government of the United States of
America, March 1, 2001. See:
[8] Ibid. Contact Eli Hertz by email at info@mythsandfacts.org or go to his website: www.mythsandfacts.org |
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ESTHER WACHSMAN SPEAKS OUT
Posted by Naomi Ragen, July 10, 2006. |
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The kidnapping of Gilad Shalit has been a horror to us all. But to the parents of Nachshon Wachsman, kidnapped and murdered by Hamas, it has been unbearable. I give Esther, my friend and neighbor, for having the strength to face the media which has been badgering her for weeks now. Below, Esther's revealing article printed in Haaretz.
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"No strength for silence"
I don't know if we're living in George Orwell's "1984" - where good was bad, bad was good, peace was war and war was peace - in Chelm, the city fabled for its stupidity, or in evil Sodom. In any event, this is not the country I moved to 36 years ago out of Zionist enthusiasm, as the daughter of Holocaust survivors. At that time I felt that I had the privilege of being part of the history of this new/old country, to get married here, to give birth to my seven sons in the Jerusalem to which we had prayed to return for 2,000 years. There was no mother prouder than me when my oldest son joined the Israel Defense Forces, wearing the uniform of the Golani Brigade, and his two younger brothers did the same. Nachshon was our third son to join the elite Orev Golani unit, and we were very proud that he had fulfilled all the expectations on which he was raised: love for the people, the land and the heritage. And then, in October 1994, our Nachshon was kidnapped by Hamas. In a tape that was transferred from Gaza and played on television, he was seen appealing to then prime minister Yitzhak Rabin, with a rifle aimed at his temple, with his hands and feet bound and with a terrorist pushing him to speak. And he spoke: "The group from Hamas kidnapped me. They are demanding the release of Sheikh Yassin and another 200 murderous terrorists from Israeli prison. If their demands are not met, they will execute me on Friday at 8 P.M." We lived the six days from the time he disappeared in total uncertainty with respect to his well-being, torn the entire time between terrible fear and great hope. We appealed incessantly to everyone who could help - prime ministers and presidents the world over, and especially to then U.S. president Bill Clinton, since Nachshon was also an American citizen. We appealed to the leaders of Arab countries with which Israel did not have diplomatic ties and to Islamic leaders, and all of them (including Sheikh Ahmed Yassin) made announcements in all the media outlets that the soldier should be released. We did not know at any stage that our intelligence officials had located the house in which Nachshon was being held, and we did not know that Rabin had decided on a military operation to free him - a decision that sealed his fate, and for which Rabin took full responsibility. We did not know that Nachshon was in Bir Nabala - 10 minutes from our home in the Ramot neighborhood of Jerusalem. On Friday night - we were not listening to the radio or watching TV because of Shabbat - we sat and waited, our eyes glued to the door, waiting for Nachshon to enter. And then the head of the IDF Personnel Directorate walked in, and we knew that the worst had happened. Only then were we informed of the discovery of the house, and of the military activity in the course of which Nachshon was shot to death and Captain Nir Poraz was also killed. We sat with our deceased all of Shabbat. We buried our son on Saturday night, 11 Heshvan (exactly a year before the Rabin assassination, which also took place on Saturday night, at the same time we buried our son). Now we are once again going back there. We think and feel and fear and hope as we did then. We hear the same things, like "Abu Mazen is guilty, Haniyeh is guilty, the soldier's blood is on their heads," although in our time it was Yasser Arafat. We hear "We will not negotiate" and "We won't give in to terror." This is the Israeli destiny, they say. I am not calling for the release of murderers, but they should not insult our intelligence because they have negotiated and they have given in to terror - in the Jibril deal, and in the agreement in which the bodies of our soldiers who had been abducted by Hezbollah were returned, and in the deal with Elhanan Tennenbaum, and in the release of Sheikh Yassin when two Mossad agents failed in their attempt to assassinate Khaled Meshal. Everyone knows the bloody price we paid for the release of these murderers. It's very difficult for me to understand the mentality of our leaders, on both the right and the left. It's difficult for me to understand the response given by then vice premier Shimon Peres - who announced that he had won the Nobel Peace Prize, along with Rabin and Arafat, on the same Friday on which the ultimatum was issued on my son's life. Peres was asked his opinion on the "peace" that he had achieved in Oslo in light of my son's abduction, and he responded that peace processes involve "calculated risks." When Peres came to comfort us after the funeral, I told him I felt he had come to comfort a family on the death of a son with no name - that he was simply a "calculated risk" in his dream of a new Middle East. Until now, I have not spoken to the media - which have come to me once again, from all over the world and of course, from Israel - primarily because our story ended so badly, so tragically, and I thought it was best that I not be heard, that I not damage the morale of the Shalit family or of the Asheri family. I have not stopped crying since the body of the Asheris' son was found. I am speaking up and writing to you now solely due to the inspiration of Rabbi Avraham Yitzhak Hacohen Kook, the first chief rabbi of Israel, who said: "I am not speaking because I have the strength to speak; I am speaking because I do not have the strength to be silent." Naomi Ragen is an American-born novelist and journalist who lives in Jerusalem. She can be contacted at www.naomiragen.com, where you can subscribe to her newsletter. |
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DON'T BUDGE
Posted by Naomi Ragen, July 10, 2006. |
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The following is from a list member. I thought it worthwhile enough to share. |
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Dear Ms. Ragen, I enjoy reading your articles very much. Having been born in England in 1946 I was raised with a complete knowledge of the many cruelties bestowed on the Jews. Our history is a sad one, and yet full of hope that if we are kind to others they will be kind to us. In the past several years I see that our optimism is rewarded with attacks on our people. I do not understand why the government of Israel cannot see that no matter how much land they return to the Palestinians we will only be rewarded with hatred and more spilling of Jewish blood. They hate us, this will never change, every time we give them something they simply laugh at us. The people of Europe asked after the war why did we just go to the gas chambers without a fight. I know the answer, that we did not believe that we were going to the gas chambers. Again we were optimistic for a kind outcome. So when will we learn that the Arabs and the world in general will never reward us for trying to be understanding and kind. We must plant both of our feet into the ground and refuse to give in, we must fight as we fought in the past, for it is the only way we will survive. Sincerely,
Naomi Ragen is an American-born novelist and journalist who lives in Jerusalem. She can be contacted at www.naomiragen.com, where you can subscribe to her newsletter. |
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ASHKELON KASSAM ROCKET WARNINGS ARE TWO YEARS OLD
Posted by Hillel Fendel, July 10, 2006. |
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Three Kassam rockets were fired from northern Gaza during the night... Red Dawn warning system to be changed... Experts warned that Ashkelon would be hit two years ago... One of last night's rockets landed in an open area in the western Negev, while the other two landed near Netiv HaAsarah, just north of Gaza. No one was hurt, and no damage was caused. The city of Sderot's Red Dawn early warning system, which features a woman's voice announcing calmly but firmly "Shachar Adom - Red Dawn" throughout the city whenever a Kassam launch is detected, will be changed. Residents of the town with children named Shachar (Dawn) said that they were particularly frightened by the sudden announcement of their name on loudspeakers, and especially as it was followed by the eery whistle of a rocket and the anticipation of its landing in an unknown but close location. The army received the complaint with understanding, and the warning will thus become "Tzeva Adom - Red Color." Just two years ago, before the unilateral withdrawal from Gaza, IDF forces created - as they are doing now - a buffer zone in and around Beit Hanoun, in the northeast corner of the Gaza Strip, in response to the Kassam rocket bombardment of Sderot. "We will remain there for as long as necessary," then-Defense Minister Sha'ul Mofaz said at the time, "even, if we have to, until the Disengagement." Asked what would happen after the Disengagement, Mofaz said, "The IDF, GSS, Border Guard and Israel Police are sufficiently strong and clever to provide a response to terrorism even after the disengagement. I anticipate that the level of terrorism will drop after the disengagement and after pragmatic Arab forces take control." Two months later, then-Prime Minister Sharon said that if the Arabs of Gaza continue to rocket Israel with Kassams and mortar shells even after Israel withdraws, "we will blast them right back." Attorney-General Meni Mazuz responded that if such retaliation harms civilians, it could be considered a war crime, and might lead to very sharp international sanctions. Shortly afterwards, in early September 2004, President Moshe Katzav met with former IDF officers Gen. David Haguel. a former commander of the Judea/Samaria region, and Col. Gideon Altshuler, Sharon's Chief of Staff when Sharon was a general in the Yom Kippur War. The two warned him that the Disengagement would enable the terrorists to attack Israeli targets with greater ease. "Ashkelon will receive Kassam rockets just like Sderot," they said. A few weeks later, after another wave of Kassam rocket attacks, the army initiated Operation Days of Penitence in northern Gaza, brining heavy forces into the towns of PLO-controlled northern Gaza, including Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahiya. The objective: to distance the Kassam rocket launchers from Sderot. Throughout this period, warnings continued to be sounded that the withdrawal from Gaza could lead to attacks on Ashkelon and even Netivot. Among those who warned were Rabbi Ovadiah Yosef of Shas, former MK Michael Kleiner, and many others. Two Kassams were fired last week at Ashkelon, and one at Netivot. Hillel Fendel is senior news editor at Arutz-Sheva (www.IsraelNN.com). |
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ATTACK ON EGGED BUS #1 NOT REPORTED
Posted by Jack Golbert, July 10, 2006. |
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The following is not a rumor. This is a first-hand account of a woman my wife and I know. She is sane and entirely credible. This is the letter she wrote to Egged. It was also reported to the police. People have to be made aware of incidents like these and not be lulled into the sense that everything is relatively quiet veyihyeh beseder. It is not quiet. Our enemies are becoming bolder and bolder. And unless people act --- people inside the Green Line --- nothing will be beseder. Please take it to heart. Jack Golbert |
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To the Egged Bus Company
Dear Friends, I am writing to commend and praise, with all my heart, the outstandingly brave and resourceful behavior of the driver of the #1 Jerusalem bus that was attacked in East Jerusalem en route to the Kotel yesterday evening at Apx 6:50 pm, 7 June, 2006. This driver acted in an extremely selfless way to protect the passengers of his bus, and risked his life to make sure all of us got to safety. He succeeded, but was injured and I wish him a speedy recovery in every respect. I wish I could thank him personally, but I hope you'll at least convey this letter to him. My family and I immigrated to Israel from New York in 1979 and have lived in Jerusalem ever since. My oldest son served in the IDF, and all my children are grown. My husband passed away I six years ago, and I now travel to the Kotel by bus every afternoon. As fairly usual for me, I boarded the #1 bus at apx 6:35 pm at the last stop in Geulah before it crosses over Kikar Shabbath into Meah Shaarim. It was an accordion bus, and almost filled to seating capacity. There were only about three seats available, and I took the one directly in back of the back door. As usual on this bus, the men were seated in the front section, the women and children in the back. The woman sitting next to me at the window got off at the Shivtei Yisrael station, so I moved to sit next to the window. At the entrance to East Jerusalem, just before the first traffic circle, the middle section of the bus scraped a stone block lining the street on the driver's side. It took about five minutes to get free. I was worried about getting to the kotel in time for mincha, so I considered getting off the bus and walking up to Shaar Yaffa. But it seemed dangerous to get off the bus so close to Shaar Shechem, so I waited. The driver managed to back up and steered clear of the obstacle. After we passed through East Jerusalem, we made the right turn onto the highway and began traveling south, around the city wall. I was sitting near the window so I had a perfect view of what then happened. It was now about 6:50 pm and a tractor pulling a wooden wagon was being driven in the lane to our right. Our driver passed him carefully and at a normal, safe passing speed, when suddenly the tractor speeded up and I was shocked -- I had never seen these types of vehicles travel so fast. Then I realized that the driver of the tractor was doing something extremely dangerous and illegal. He was trying to pass our bus in the right lane. He sped up to the point where the wagon he was pulling began to veer and rattle -- it looked like might tip over or crash into the side of the bus -- exactly where I was sitting. I thought to myself, "What's this tractor driver doing? Committing suicide?" There was a scraping sound and the bus stopped. So did the tractor. Right next to my window. I saw the driver of the tractor and he looked as if he might attack the bus, so I stood up and pulled away from the window and the door. I stood in the aisle, away from the window, and watched. I saw a man approach him with wallet filled with papers which was then flung into the air, money and papers scattered. The women near me began shrieking, as a man was hurled against the rock wall at the western side of the road. There was more fighting but I didn't watch. Instead, I went to the front of the bus. There was general hysteria and shock, and people didn't know what to do. Nobody had weapons. The driver's seat was empty, the bus stopped, and it was only then that I realized that it might be our bus driver being attacked out there and that other attackers might try to get onto the bus (the door was open), so I stood in the front, ready to try to stop anyone I could. The driver returned, covered with blood and disoriented, in shock. The tractor driver tried to get on the bus but the driver slammed the door just in time -- it was a miracle. Several people had already called the police, and the attacker left. We didn't see where he went, but I was afraid he might have gone to get more people. The bus door was opened again, because some of the passengers told the driver they wanted to walk. Three passengers (two men and a woman) got off the bus. I decided to go with them, because it seemed we were trapped and my one thought was not to be on a bus like a sitting target, if there was a bomb or any other violence. We had walked about 100 meters when the bus started driving again, and the bus driver stopped to pick us up. That was to his credit, because he probably saved our lives. Meanwhile, the driver of the tractor caught up to the bus in his tractor, passed us, and drove his vehicle across the road, stopping it in the middle of the road, blocking traffic both directions. I saw a man walking outside the driver's side of the bus, walking from the back toward the front of the bus, calmly carrying a rock about the size of a soccer ball. He approached the front of the bus, where the driver sat. We yelled to the driver to watch out, but the man carrying the rock used it like a hammer until the driver's window smashed. Then the attacker walked to the front windshield and hammered the same rock into the windshield, smashing it as well. Fortunately, it was shatter proof glass. But he didn't throw the rock, he used it like a sledge hammer and broke the window in several places. We were stopped, no one on the bus had any weapons, and we were trapped. No soldiers or police were anywhere to be seen. Another person and myself stood next to the driver and I just said, "Sa.!" ("Drive!") The driver was weak and said that his head was injured. "Paga li b'rosh" he told me, reluctant to start the engine. I saw the blood soaking his shirt and he was struggling to stay conscious, but I knew we were in danger anyway. So I told him "Sa. Sa l'kotel." He somehow got the bus around the tractor and then drove. Perfectly. Blood covered him, but he just kept driving and we kept encouraging him, telling him "Sa!" I don't know how he did what he did. But he is a very brave person, and a credit to Eged and to Israel. To all of us, he will always be a hero. I hope that he is protected in the future, and never is harmed again. If it's necessary to stand as a witness for him, I will be glad to. It's not the first time I've seen heroism by Eged drivers. They are very special people, all of them, and I wish every Jew in the world would appreciate what they are doing for Am Yisroel! They are heroes in this day to day war, and I respect them as such. After all, we get on the bus and get off again. They are risking their lives many hours every day, every working day of the week. So I'm writing to tell Eged that your driver has my admiration, and I'm sure the admiration of all the many people, unarmed men, women, and children, who filled the bus that day. My heartfelt best wishes to him, and to all Eged drivers. Be strong! Please let me know if I can be of any help if the case is brought to trial. Everything I've written here I will say. Sincerely,
Contact Professor Golbert at golbert@actcom.co.il |
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PALESTINIAN ROCKETS ATTACK 25 MILES FROM TEL AVIV
Posted by Aryeh Zelasko, July 10, 2006. |
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This news report is from Aaron Klein, WorldNetDaily's Jerusalem bureau chief, whose past interview subjects have included Yasser Arafat, Ehud Barak, Mahmoud al-Zahar and leaders of the Taliban. WND's Editor Note: The following article is adapted from the premier issue of the Galil Report, a regular Mideast briefing by WND Jerusalem bureau chief Aaron Klein published exclusively in Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin, the premium, online intelligence newsletter. The Galil Report is published at G2 Bulletin and available as an email newsletter free to G2 Bulletin subscribers. |
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TEL AVIV -- With Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert last week reluctantly sending large ground troop forces into the northern Gaza Strip to counter Palestinian missile fire from the territory, three rockets yesterday were launched by Palestinian terrorists on the other side of the country aimed at Jewish communities about 25 miles from Tel Aviv, the Galil Report has learned. Israeli news agencies have not yet published a story on the rocket attack, which took place in northern Samaria and opens a whole new front of missile targets in Judea and Samaria, territories Olmert is looking to evacuate in the near future. Judea and Samaria is also commonly referred to as the West Bank. Leader of the Al Aqsa Martrys Brigades, an offshoot of Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah party, contacted the Galil Report to take credit for three Qassam rockets they said they fired yesterday from the north Samaria town of Tulkarem toward Kibbutz Avnei Chesed, a small Jewish community about 6 miles from the coastal city of Netanya. Netanya is about 19 miles from Tel Aviv. The terror leaders said the rockets fell short of their intended target, landing in Palestinian territory. But they vowed more rocket fire from the area. Israeli Defense Forces officials said they were investigating but could not confirm whether the three rockets were fired. Al Aqsa has previously claimed to WND several Samaria rocket attacks. The IDF has denied for several months rockets were launched from northern Samaria, only to later release selected information stating some rockets had indeed been fired from the area. Security analysts maintain publicity about terror groups' current missile capabilities in the territories could generate criticism of Olmert's plan to withdraw from most of Judea and Samaria, parts of which are within rocket-firing range of Jerusalem. But much to the Israeli government's chagrin, the Galil Report has learned Palestinian security forces today passed rocket fragments to the IDF they said were collected from yesterday's north Samaria rocket attack. The next issue of the Galil Report details the Judea and Samaria rocket threat, including information security officials here say the political echelon would rather be held back. The Galil Report features: * exclusive, behind-the-scenes information regarding the latest news and events in the Middle East, with particular emphasis on Israel and the Gaza Strip, Iraq, Iran, Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon; |
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JERUSALEM FILM FESTIVAL GETS UNDERWAY AT THE CINEMATHEQUE OPPOSITE THE OLD CITY WALLS
Posted by Judy Lash Balint, July 10, 2006. |
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Jerusalem International Film Festival gets underway at the Cinematheque opposite the Old City walls OK--so I'm a film nut. My friends all know not to expect to hear from me during the 10 days of Jerusalem's International Film Festival held every year in July. This year, as usual, I had a hard time culling down to 14 the number of films I could afford to see from the 300 offerings. (Even for Cinematheque annual subscribers like me, it's about $8 per film during the festival) To date, by far the most powerful movie I've seen is "And Behold, there comes a strong wind..." or "Vehinay, Ruach Gedolah Baah," in Hebrew. It's a brand new film directed by Ziv Alexandroni, a self-confessed secular leftist, that documents the eight months leading up to last summer's traumatic destruction of 21 Jewish communities in Gush Katif. The film follows the heart-rending plight of two families in the Gush--the Yefets in Netzer Hazani and the Peretz family from Atzmona. We see the simple, honest lifestyle of Benny & Rachel Yefet, herb farmers in Netzer Hazani, whose faith and strength of character shines through in every scene. After losing their son, Itamar to a terror attack in Kfar Darom in 2000, they somehow gather themselves to go on and continue to build their family and community. In the film, Benny Yefet vows to rebuild his home and business within a year. There wasn't a dry eye in the theater as we watch the family cling to each other on the day of the eviction--we all know that today's reality, one year later is that barely any of the 1700 families has been able to rebuild anything. Sure enough, as the lights go up, the Yefets announce that only one week ago did they move out of their tiny kibbutz guest house with no cooking facilities into their "caravilla" temporary housing at Ein Tzurim. "Imagine, I was able to fry a shnitzel for the first time in 11 months," exclaimed Rachel Yefet, who was pictured in the film cooking in her spacious kitchen at her former home in Netzer Hazani. Benny, in his late 50s, explained to the audience that he'd finally found work in agriculture near Netanya, a 90 minute drive from his temporary home. Rabbi Raffi Peretz, a Lieutenant Colonel in the air force reserves and head of the pre-military training academy in Atzmona, is the other person featured in the film. An extraordinary leader, the clean-shaven rabbi whose broad smile reveals prominent teeth, is the father of 12 and the spiritual father to his 200 students. As he struggles to prepare his students and family for the inevitable uprooting, Rav Peretz exudes practical Torah-based wisdom and faith. His main principle is to respect the government and leaders despite the strong disagreement with the policy about to be carried out. In his final speech to the assembled students, many of whom are weeping at the impending dismantling of their beloved surroundings, Rav Peretz breaks down and sobs as he asks how the IDF could be put into the position of destroying a Torah institution built by their brothers. In the post-screening discussion, director Alexandroni admits that he'd never been to Gush Katif before getting the idea for the movie. "I went on a long difficult journey during the course of filming," he says. "But nothing like the tragedy experienced by the Yefets and Rav Peretz, people I love." Alexandroni called the Yefets and Rav Peretz, "real people" who represent the communities of Gush Katif, unlike many of the extremists depicted by the media, Alexandroni declares. The film has English subtitles--ask your local Israeli film festival to book this powerful testimony to the courage and faith of the people of Gush Katif. Judy Lash Balint is an award-winner investigative journalist and author of "Jerusalem Diaries: In Tense Times" (Gefen). It is available for purchase from www.israelbooks.com |
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OFFICE OF CONTROVERSIAL BANGLADESHI MAGAZINE WEEKLY BLITZ BOMBED
Posted by Committee to Protect Journalists, July 9, 2006. |
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This is from the website of the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ)
-- www.cpj.org/news/2006/asia/bangla07july06na.html |
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The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns a bomb attack on the office of the Bangladeshi magazine Weekly Blitz whose editor is on trial for sedition after writing about radical Islam. Editor Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury told CPJ that two small devices exploded Wednesday outside the Weekly Blitz office in the capital, Dhaka, causing minor damage. No one was injured. He said two other unexploded bombs were found inside the office. Although the attacks have received no coverage in the English-language press, they were confirmed by Nayeemul Islam Khan, editor of the vernacular daily Amader Shomoy (Our Time). "Even though these were small explosions, they must not be ignored. There are so many threats and attacks on journalists in Bangladesh that each one must be taken seriously," Khan told CPJ. Choudhury, whose sedition trial is scheduled to resume July 13 in Dhaka, has written about the spread of Islamic militancy in Bangladesh, and criticized anti-Israeli attitudes in Muslim countries including Bangladesh. Choudhury spent 17 months in jail before his release on bail in May 2005. Sedition carries the death penalty. "We urge the authorities to act quickly to bring those responsible for this attack to justice," said CPJ Executive Director Joel Simon. Choudhury was originally charged with passport violations after he tried to travel to Israel in November 2003 to participate in a conference with the Hebrew Writers Association. Bangladesh has no formal relations with Israel, and it is illegal for Bangladeshi citizens to travel there. Those charges were dropped and sedition charges brought in February 2004. In support of the sedition charges, court authorities cited Choudhury's articles about the rise of Islamic fundamentalism in Bangladesh. Contact the Committee to Protect Journalists at their website http://www.cpj.org or by email at info@cpj.org |
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E.U. WILL USE NATO TO TAKE ISRAEL
Posted by Emanuel A. Winston, July 9, 2006. |
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Some time ago I noticed a small article in U.S. Defense News about the Europeans 'somehow' planning to employ NATO as their military arm as a Rapid Response Force. My alarm bells started ringing that this was a threshold move to gather sufficient military power to cross the Mediterranean Sea and occupy the Jewish nation of Israel, claiming it was a "necessary move toward regional peace" - for the good of all". Nothing in that small article suggested that there was a far greater 'Game Plan', intended to pacify the Arab and Muslim oil nations by driving the Jews either onto a smaller sliver of land, as originally proposed by the U.N. or to extinction....whatever was doable first. That translates to seeing that which was not supposed to be seen. Sometimes clues expose the intentions without the hard evidence of what is called the "smoking gun". So, let's start accumulating the bits and pieces which, by themselves, don't tell all of the story but point us in the right direction. We know that in 1947 the U.S. State Department worked diligently at the behest of the Saudis, Egypt and the oil corporations to kill the U.N. proposal to allow the Jews to have their ancient homeland, the only place in the world where they could be safe as Jews and upon which to settle themselves a State. When the State Department's strenuous efforts failed, thereafter they used every hostile stratagem to subvert Israel's existence by arming the Muslim Arab countries to a point that it would be a foregone conclusion that Israel would be easily overrun, occupied and driven off the planet. They also created small enclaves of Arabists within America's most important government institutions to act with hostility toward Israel and threatened American Jewish leaders to force them into silence. Instead of their hostile plans succeeding, the constant assaults of the Arab Muslim nations by wars and incessant terrorism, forced the Jews of the new born State of Israel to develop an army of consequence and a people with strength, fortitude and courage. As a result, despite being mightily armed, the Arab armies shamefully lost 6 wars and resorted to terrorist proxies to attack the Jews in order to save their Muslim Pride. The Arab Muslim oil nations went ballistic and employed their international oil servants, the multi-national oil companies, to carry their message of hate into Washington and to the Generals of the Free World. The Europeans were easy recruits to Arab Muslim plans of Genocide as proven, age-old Jew-haters. By adding their vested interests in escalating oil needs and prices, the Arabs had a dedicated ally. All oil-using nations began pandering to the Middle Eastern oil states and their consummate hatred of the Jewish State. Perhaps that is why the NSA (National Security Agency) developed a secret center nicknamed: "The Jew Room" in which various Intel agencies exchanged information about Israel specifically and Jews generally. According to John Loftus' book "The Secret War Against the Jews: How Western Espionage Betrayed the Jewish People - 1920-1992" (1) this "Room" was off limits to all American Jews. (2) As I recall, fundamentalist Christians who supported Israel were likewise unwelcome. Clearly, subverting an ally by misusing the word 'democracy' as cover is not something Washington Arabists would want exposed to the American people. At that time, according to our laws, American Intelligence Agencies were restricted in their 'domestic' spying so they traded with British Intelligence Agencies to by-pass those restrictive laws as follows: the Brits agreed to monitor the American Jews in the U.S., while the CIA reciprocated by monitoring British Jews for the Brits in England. Clearly, in deference to the foreign influence of the Saudis, among other Arab Muslim nations, American Jews and all their organizations were under surveillance. The American "Jew Room" was where the various Intelligence Services traded information about Jews when needed which was also passed on to Egypt, the Saudis and others. This was particularly true of Israel's defensive and offensive plans regarding their hostile neighbors. Presumably, this would include electronic surveillance both from satellites and, on the ground, from Humint (Human Intelligence). While Israel was adhering to the M.O.U. (Memorandum of Understanding - Agreement signed by American Presidents to share vital intelligence with Israel), Arabists in the State Department would simply pass it on to the Arabs and conceal it from the Israelis. Apparently, that twisted arrangement continues today for whatever benefits it brings government and commercial interests from grateful Muslim nations like Egypt, Saudi Arabia, et al. The American people admired the plucky little Jewish nation that could beat a well-armed Muslim civilization numbering millions.But small Arabist cabals in Washington were dedicated to the rivers of oil and the trillions of dollars that flowed out of Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran, and the Gulf States. These became the "Shadow Government" (4) that drove American foreign policy in the Mid East. Every new Secretary of State seemed to change character upon entering the hallowed halls of "Foggy Bottom" - the State Department. Please note that our current Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice hardly ever voiced a negative word against Israel while she was President Bush's National Security Advisor. However, after entering the State Department, her public statements seem to be extraordinarily slanted against Israel. The recommendation called: "restraint" was more than a mere word spoken through back channels and publically to Israel. The word: "Treason" doesn't even approach what these evil people were doing in the name of true Americans via a hijacked foreign policy. The oil interests lined their pockets, as crude oil was conveniently ramped up. While plundering the national treasury, they insured that Americans began to spiral down in their ability to afford daily living - which rose exponentially with the extortionate price of oil. Seniors saw their retirement savings diminished to the point that they had to choose between food and their medications. This meant absolutely nothing to the oil barons who joined the Arabs in posting profits which escalated beyond mere petty thievery into the stratosphere. Quietly being whispered in Washington was that, when gasoline reached $4 per gallon at the pump, it would be necessary to nationalize the oil industry. So, what is the next move for the Arabists and their "Shadow Government" in Washington despite their clout in the Oval Office? One "band-aid" solution was that they need a war sufficiently large enough between Israel and the Arab Muslim Palestinians which (to save the "poor Palestinians") would warrant a U.N. call for Global intervention. "Intervention" means the use of a mix of military forces under the umbrella of the U.N. but, actually driven by Washington Arabists with the E.U. (European Union) of the world with words of "Peace", "Saving the Jews" and "we must save those poor Palestinians" to justify t led by France, Germany and England, among others. The well-informed propagandists are prepared to flood the communities heir moving troops into Gaza, Judea and Samaria (the so-called "west bank"). This, of course also includes forcing the Jews out of the Jordan Valley, off the Golan Heights in order to establish an elevated U.S. military base to oversee the vested interests of the major multi-national oil corporations in the region. Goebbels understood the need to manipulate the minds of the people if Genocide was to be willingly accepted. But before that venture, a small war is needed. The present clash in Gaza may suffice when Israel is forced to re-occupy Gaza merely to stop the rain of Kassam Rockets and Katyusha Missiles - with the ongoing unification of the various deadly terrorist organization into one protected base of global terrorist operations. When Israel starts to clean out the terrorists from Gaza, the Global Media will be urged by Washington to show Palestinian families suffering, to justify intervention by the Free West. Israeli suffering from Arab Muslim Palestinian Terror and cascading missiles will be positioned in the media as Israel's own fault for daring to strike back at her tormentors. Should Israel refuse to passively allow occupation of their ancient homeland, there could be a manipulated conflict, staged like the Gulf of Tonkin incident. A report entitled, "Israel, Foreign Preference - Foreign Influence Cases" in Insight Magazine of the Washington Times (3), said the Pentagon has sought to increasingly restrict access to Americans Jews with relatives in Israel for jobs in the FBI, CIA, NSA., etc. This report, authored by Sheldon Cohen, reviewed 47 security clearances hearings held by the Pentagon since 1996. Eighteen of the 47 applicants were granted clearances but the report cited other cases in which the Pentagon banned security clearance from dozens of Americans, mostly Jews, who either lived, worked or have relatives in Israel. Within that article the authors outline the question posed by the Pentagon to American Jewish applicants for security clearance: "Would you be willing to join a U.S. attack on Israel and abandon your relatives if the Jewish State was threatened?" That's like asking anyone: "If the situation arose where there is a choice of saving their mother or their father - or your daughter or your son? Who would you choose?" It's a question that should never be asked and, if asked, never answered unless, of course, the game plan by Arabist moles in Washington is to, indeed, create a pretext to invade our ally, Israel. When the Jews of Europe were gathered up for extermination by the German Nazis and Europeans, they too were asked exactly that question when they were off-loaded from the cattle cars before entering the Nazi death camps. For example, if a woman held two children, the Nazi officer would ask which child would she keep and which would she give up to be taken away. Is this what the Pentagon questioners are asking to entrap the Jews? Will you fight against the country where your religion and soul resides or will you fight against that country because Arabists, slaved to oil, want the only Jewish nation to be obliterated as the Europeans - at the behest of the German Nazis attempted to do? Is this then the role to be adopted by American officers while telling the American people and Congress that, it's not Saudi Arabia or other Muslim nations who hate America's Judeo-Christian ethics but, somehow, it's the Jewish nation which threatens our national security. If Hitler and Goebbels were able to sell this Orwellian psychosis to the German people, why not sell it to the Americans? Looking past what I shall call "The Weinberger Doctrine" of subverting both the Jewish State whenever possible, there was Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger's extensive opportunities of threatening American Jews. Jonathan Pollard blew the whistle on Weinberger's scheme to withhold vital information from Israel on the development by Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, Syria and others - of WMD (Weapons of Mass Destruction) including NBC (Nuclear, Biological and Chemical) weapons - much of which was paid for by Saudi Arabia. Weinberger used the expos by Pollard to exclude Jews from research programs that could similarly expose collusion to occupy Israel or to subvert her. The question arises: Was there a (hopefully) small, limited circle within U.S. Intelligence who spied upon our ally, Israel, as we spy on all others but, act as hostiles while pretending friendship? When Gen. Alexander Haig (Sec. Of State) was asked (on TV) if America spies on her friends, he answered: "I certainly hope so." (4) Why were Weinberger and his cronies so deeply tied to Saudi oil, while overlooking their role as deep pockets for global terrorists? He and his cronies were never investigated for treason for these crimes, acting as a rogue operation within American Intelligence. Perhaps that was why President Reagan accepted Weinberger's resignation or, in other words, fired him. Some believe that Weinberger was dismissed for countermanding President Reagan's order to have Americans fire on Syria after the Marine Barracks was blown up in Beirut at Syrian instigation killing 242 American Marines in 1983. Have you ever noticed how Syria is always so carefully protected in Washington, no matter what they do? Imagine what James Baker and former President George Herbert Walker Bush could tell us about the inner workings of a doctrine that put a wall around Syria. SHADOW GOVERNMENT Was the arrest of Jonathan Pollard a pretext to expand a supposedly closed down illegal covert operation by the FBI called "SCOPE" whose purpose was to compile lists of Jews in government, research and institutional leadership, et al? This operation was revealed publically in the Wall St. Journal January 17, 1992. (5) Jews have played a disproportionate role in advanced research and development, assuring that America stayed well ahead of her enemies, like the Soviet Union. Albert Einstein, Robert Oppenheimer, Edward Teller, among many other Jews were the reason that American could build a nuclear weapon (before Germany) which subdued Japan in two blasts, saving an estimated million plus American soldiers who could have died trying to take Japan with conventional forces. The Weinberger Cult, buried deep in the State Department, Pentagon, CIA, et al has continued to flourish with its primary victim being the Jewish State of Israel. Would the Congress dare to investigate the existence of a "Shadow Government" and would the New York Times or any other major Media sources publish this story? [Please note list of 11 major articles out of 68 written by E. Winston discussing "Shadow Government"] (6) American Jews need not apologize for bettering the lives of all Americans, all humans, for their work in medicine and technology both in the civilian and military sector while the Islamists bring us nothing but global grief. As for Israel, the Israelis were always ready to fight side-by-side with American soldiers against such threats from Iraq, Iran, Syria, or any other hostile Muslim nations. I cannot help but wonder if this same "Shadow Government would dare to evolve such plans to invade England, France, the Netherlands, Germany and then, as cover, question the loyalty of dual citizens from those nations? One: If the Defense Department is supposedly asking questions of loyalty to protect America, perhaps it would best start within the bowels of State Department, whose employees - especially those who have cycled back into the American system after serving abroad in any one of the 23 Arab Muslim countries or 40 some total Muslim countries. It seems that the Muslim cult is both invasive and pervasive to those who served there, absorbing the Muslim prejudices by osmosis and by money enticements for their future jobs. It is often noted that the State Department (Foggy Bottom) has a "revolving door". Once someone serves in such Muslim governments of the world, he (or she) returns to take up "expert" residency at the Middle East desk, biases intact and well-honed. Worse yet, when these former diplomats leave "official" government service and are now on the direct pay roll to Middle East oil sheiks, do they act as moles deep within our American government institutions? Two: As gate-keepers for those who enter this country, how is it that the State Department colluding with the Department of Immigration has worked so diligently to permit the entry of Muslims, to flood America with hostile Muslims, both in our vital industries and universities where the incoming Muslim students invariably choose Nuclear Physics, Biology and Chemistry. Most of these fields have military application when the young zealous Muslim students return to their countries of origin (or proceed to fit into America as "loyal" citizens who can subvert from the inside). Both Britain and Canada are first beginning to learn about second generation Muslims who adopt the extreme religious hatred of Saudi or Taliban Wahhabism. France is experiencing a massive increase in violent anti-Semitic acts from the "critical mass" of Muslims now in France. I cannot help but wonder if other Americans, both Christians and Jews who come under suspicion if they believe that Israel is a true friend and devoted ally, while the Saudis are looked upon as hostile enemies? Remember that of the 9/11 hijacking bombers, 15 of the 19 were Saudis and the other 4 were Egyptian. Not all Muslims are terrorists, for sure. But, all the terrorists (except for Oklahoma City) have been Muslims. When WMD were transferred directly or indirectly to Saddam Hussein during his 8 year war with Iran, little to nothing was investigated. It all fell into that black hole entitled National Security well used by father President George H.W. Bush and James Baker - as described by the 9/11 Commission and prior to that as Iran-Contra. When Saudi Arabia acquired long range missiles from China, the U.S. State Department remained unusually silent, despite the probability that they were probably nuclear capable and stationed in the Rubi Kahli Desert of Saudi Arabia. (The Saudis refused to allow inspection.) Why was not the Pentagon and the State Department questioning the visits by the notorious Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan, father of the Islamic Atom Bomb of Pakistan who made frequent visits to Egypt with his nuclear "package" - as he did to Libya, Iran and Iraq? Do I hear a resounding silence? Who at State, the Pentagon, the Oval Office decide to keep this buried tightly under wraps as a matter of national security? Who created what I hope is a limited secret policy to protect and preserve hostile Muslim regimes while using American resources to cast Israel as a threat? Am I being paranoid to think that the same German doctrine of World Rule (as in the Third Reich) is still alive and thriving as it did all through the last WW2? There we found cooperation by U.S. and European companies, like the Ford Company, through their subsidiaries, selling trucks to the German Army. Have we forgotten the sale of the mobile SCUD missile launchers to Saddam which was reportedly sold by Matrix Churchill, a subsidiary of a major American corporation. How deeply are they entrenched in the State Department, Pentagon, Intelligence, et al? What should irk all Americans and Congress is that we rely upon the State Department, the Pentagon, the CIA, NSA to reflect American values and protect us from our enemies and not from our friends. Has a secret America become like East German Stasi where everyone was under surveillance? Americans do not anticipate secret cabals within these organizations to run a "Shadow Government" and make their own policy. As mentioned earlier: I don't remember Condoleezza Rice, then as National Security Advisor, being an outspoken representative of pro-Arab Muslim policies as she is now ever since she entered the portals of the State Department. It seems as if State runs America's foreign policy and almost all those at the top, represent the ideals of those unknown and unidentified "experts" within who drive that Agency. This is how Adolph Hitler came to power because neither the German Parliament nor the German people recognized that Power had slipped from their hands into evil. It all looked legal then and it is looking legal now. They have good PR. (I am not accusing anyone in America of assuming a Nazi style agenda but, this is how it happens.) Clearly, it is time to question the insiders about their loyalty to America or, is it their loyalty to their own doctrine? Weinberger and associates had a doctrine with a bias in favor of "their good friends" the Saudis which embodied a reverse bias against Israel. A Hitler-ian legacy brings no honor to the great nation of America because that is NOT who we are. To allow a gang of Dr. Strangeloves to subvert and trash the American way is a mistake which cannot be undone, unless Congress takes a sword to that Gordian knot. A Game Plan for occupying Israel in deference to the Saudis and their proxy terrorists has been laying on the shelf, awaiting the right moment to be utilized. (Its time may have come.) The present face-off between Israel and the Palestinian Arab Muslim terrorists can be the opportunity for Washington Arabists to claim to bring "Peace" but, the underlying reason will be to force Israel to cede more of her G-d given Land under supposedly U.N. "Peace"-keeping soldiers. This would be a replay of U.N. collaboration with terrorists in Lebanon when they were there as so called "Peace-Keepers". The so-called Peace-Keepers would, of course, be primarily U.S. and European soldiers, formed into combat units, straight out of NATO. It is here the Pentagon wants to know if Americans (including especially American Jews) would go along with an attack against Israel, in deference to Saudi and other Muslim countries' wishes. Perhaps a better question is to ask all Americans (both Jews and Christians): Would they agree to serve in an attack on the only Democratic nation in the Middle East so the oil companies can continue to post astronomical profits? This also requires the pre-recruitment of accommodating Leftist Jews in Israel's government NOT to fight occupation but to accept such an invasion in passive silence and thus become something like a Bosnia under U.N. supervision. That recruitment has been in progress for some time, led by Shimon Peres, then Ariel Sharon and now Ehud Olmert - all following the failure of the 1993 Oslo Accords. Wherever Good establishes itself, Evil is sure to follow. Evil comes to nest and, like any parasite, it hides itself, using the coloring of Good as its cover. Most parasites know that, as long as it does not kill the host but merely feeds on it, they too will live on. But, when Evil truly takes over and, in its greed, devours its host, it will eventually die - unless it can transfer itself to another host. We have in this great land Islamo-Fascists burrowing deeper inside of our most valuable institutions. The Pentagon, the CIA, the NSA are not supposed to be servants of the Saudis through the offices of the State Department. We have watched Eurabia flourish as France, England, the Netherlands, Germany have started down that slippery slope where Muslim critical mass has started to take control through violence. We have many Good institutions in America which is what makes it a great country. But, the parasites of Evil have found it too comfortable and safe a nesting place while the Good acts too late to survive. Strong indicators of a nation's decay is when they first use the Jews as an explanation for evil behavior. That is happening now across Europe and within certain American institutions which cater to the predatory nature of Islamo-facsism. None of the Muslim nations can achieve a decent living standard for their people so the leading dictators blame the Jews and recruit the oil parasites of the West to support their failure to achieve. Therefore, we should not be surprised to see the Arabists in the Pentagon, State Department, CIA cut open the familiar wound of Jew-hatred. We have excellent patriots in our American Services but, some have been brain-washed to see things through an Arabist lens. In effect, shifting the focus of the failure in Iraq and Afghanistan to win over the hearts and minds of hostile Muslims of Iran, Syria, Iraq and Saudi Arabia and that bunch called Palestinians so the sacrifice of Israel will buy some time. To build up a case against Jews so we can accommodate the Muslim oil world by attacking Israel is what Arabists hope to achieve. It is the enemy within our institutions which endanger us - not our proven allies as Israel is. Let us start the clean-up and clean-out to bring the State Department, Pentagon, Oval Office and Intelligence Agencies back to the American way and the awareness that they are not the Government. Some will recall the old movie, "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" where Jimmy Stewart as an elected Congressman, fights corruption in Congress against deals in his home state run by the party bosses and subversion at the highest levels of Government. I do not know if it is anymore possible to take back America from the hustlers and special interests whose loyalty lies with Arab oil nations who openly express their hatred for anything American and Democratic. Here I address the President, the Congress and Institutions which should be serving Americans and not adopting the secret ways of subverting what we Americans stand for. Does it really pay to allow the crippling of Israel by advancing the cause of Palestinian Islamists so they can run wild as they now do in Iraq and in Gaza? Israel has often been referred to as America's Aircraft Carrier in the Middle East. Some will recall that it was Israel who provided the on-ground Humint Intel to Chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff Colin Powell and General Norman Schwarzkopf when America took back Kuwait from Saddam Hussein. Israel also supplied air cover for incoming U.S. cargo planes for much of the 6 months it took for a reluctant President George H.W. Bush and James Baker and Colin Powell to get ready to fight Saddam. One American General publically congratulated Israel for her invaluable assistance, where upon the Bush, Baker, Powell clique relieved him of command. The pretense that the Saudis, Syrians, Egyptians, actually helped free Kuwait without Israeli assistance was a charade that had to be maintained. ### 1. The Secret War Against the Jews: How Western Espionage Betrayed the Jewish People - 1920-1992 by John Loftus & Mark Aarons St. Martin's Press 1994 2. "Room With A View of virtually every Jewish citizen, organization and charity in the world" by Geoffrey Paul London Jewish Chronicle October 28, 1994 3. "Defense Dept. Imposes Loyalty Test on American Jews" INSIGHT Magazine of the Washington Times June 27 to July 4, 2006 4. "Spying on Friends...Or Enemies" December 20, 1988 Chicago Sun-Times 5. "Operation Scope" Wall St. Journal January 17, 1992 6. List of articles (9 key ones listed out of 68) by Emanuel A. Winston re: "Shadow Government": a. "THE AGONY OF THE POLLARDS" June/July 1988 Emanuel Winston is a commentator and Middle East analyst. His articles appear often on Think-Israel and Gamla. He is a member of the Board of Directors and a research associate of the Freeman Center For Strategic Studies (http://www.freeman.org/online.htm). Contact him at winstonmedia@comcast.net |
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POLL: MAJORITY OF PALESTINIANS BACK KIDNAPPINGS, QASSAM FIRE
Posted by Avodah 15, July 9, 2006. |
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Poll: Majority of Palestinians back kidnappings, Qassam fire
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A sizable majority of Palestinians support the continued kidnappings of Israelis as well as persistent Qassam rocket fire as a means to pressure Israel to release Palestinian prisoners, according to a new poll commissioned by the Jerusalem Media and Communication Center, the results of which were released Sunday. Of the 1,197 respondents from the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, 66.8 percent expressed support for further kidnappings of Israeli civilians while 77.2 percent backed the Kerem Shalom tunnel operation and subsequent kidnapping of Israel Defense Forces Corporal Gilad Shalit. Nonetheless, just 47.7 percent of those polled said they believed the Shalit affair would end positively for the Palestinian side. The poll also showed that 60 percent of the public supports the continued Qassam rocket fire into Israel as opposed to 36 percent who oppose. Public support for Hamas marked a slight improvement compared to last month - 33.1 percent compared to 30.8 percent one month ago - while support for Fatah weakened a bit from 33.2 percent last month to 32.2 percent today. Contact Avodah 15 at avodah15@aol.com |
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A MUSLIM JIHAD AGAINST MUSLIMS
Posted by Barry Rubin, July 9, 2006. |
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In a shocking statement, whose implications are enormous, Usama bin Ladin has called on Sunni Muslims to fight their Shia counterparts. This is only the latest in a trend toward rising conflict between the two groups which is already the central feature of the Iraq situation. While bin Ladin is echoing ideas earlier expressed by his man in Iraq, the late al-Qaida leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi--killed by U.S. forces in Iraq, June 7--last year bin Ladin criticized this approach. Now, however, he has made it his own strategy. Equally shocking, and revealing, is the lack of denunciation of this view in the majority Sunni Arab world, even though this would give regimes ample ammunition to use in discrediting bin Ladin, who is also their enemy. Shia Muslims are the largest group in Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Oman, and Bahrain, while also comprising significant minorities in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and other countries. The Sunni and Shia sects split in the early years of Islam, with the Sunni generally becoming the rulers throughout the Arab world and elsewhere. Iran's 1979 revolution created a Shia Islamist state, where Sunni Muslims are often treated as second-class citizens in practice. Yet generally, and certainly in the Arab world, any existing distinctions were formally papered over by the doctrine of Arab nationalism, which transcended issues of religion. Now that Arab nationalism is declining and Islamism is on the rise, theological questions are reemerging in the political arena. While Sunni and Shia Islamists sometimes cooperate--Iran is the patron of Hamas and Islamic Jihad, Sunni Islamist groups--they are far more often in contention. Thus, bin Ladin's call for sectarian civil war is very important and quite dangerous. But, after all, this is what is happening now in Iraq. Sunni Islamist insurgents commit a huge number of terrorist acts against their Shia neighbors, cheered on by the largely Sunni Arab world. Condemnation of the Iraqi insurgents' terrorism is rare and, when it does happen, usually comes in distorted terms. For example, Egypt's leading newspaper, al-Ahram, claims that all terrorist acts in Iraq are actually carried out by American agents. What bin Ladin and Zarqawi have done is simply to add the Shia Muslims to the alleged Christian-Jewish alliance they say is trying to destroy Islam and take over all the Muslim-majority countries in the world. In the tape, posted on the internet July 2 and authenticated by experts, bin Ladin accused Iraqi Shia of trying to wipe out the Sunni, though the truth is actually the exact opposite. He calls the Shia "traitors" and "agents of the Americans." Contrary to previous Muslim practice, bin Ladin proclaims that the Shia are themselves "apostates," a crime punishable by death in Islamic law. Of course, bin Ladin represents a very extreme view of Islam and even of Islamism. But in the past some of his ideas, though less so his strategic proposals, have percolated throughout Islamist and even into mainstream thought. Moreover, it would be easy for Sunni clerics and political leaders to denounce passionately the call to split the Arab world and proclaim that millions of Muslims are traitors. Such a stance would be a clever way to promote unity between Sunni and Shia Muslims if used by either Arab nationalists or Islamists. In fact, though, the silence has been deafening. Indeed, no less a figure than Egyptian President Husni Mubarak, ruler of the single most important Arab state, has made a statement similar to that of bin Ladin. During an April 8 interview on al-Arabiya satellite television, Mubarak remarked, "The Shiites are always loyal to Iran. Most of them are loyal to Iran and not to the countries in which they live." To say that the Shias are Iranian agents and traitors to the Arabs is as serious a slander as bin Ladin's claiming that the Shias are American agents and traitors to the Muslims. Of course, some Shia do work with Iran--Hizballah in Lebanon is a client of Tehran and there are similar forces in Iraq too--but most do not. In Iraq, most Shia have no interest in being Iranian puppets or clients. They consider themselves good Arabs, though not Arab nationalists. In fact, it is the Arab world's bad treatment of post-Saddam Iraq, including its support for the terrorist insurgents there, which is the main factor pushing that country toward closer relations with Iran. By declaring war on about 12 to 15 million Muslims who happen to be Shia, bin Ladin has reopened further conflicts which have been relatively minimal for many centuries. Clearly, the insurgency in Iraq is not just about some Iraqis fighting foreign forces but is now a declared war to seize control of Iraq from other Muslims and to murder as many as possible in the process. Equally, by failing to condemn bin Ladin's statement, and indeed also making clear a deep suspicion of Shia Muslims in its midst, the Arab world is setting itself up for a new conflict, which could be far more turbulent and bloody in domestic terms than the Arab-Israeli issue has ever been. Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and co-author of "Yasir Arafat: A Political Biography" and "Hating America: A History" (Oxford University Press, August 2006). Prof. Rubin's columns can now be read online at http://gloria.idc.ac.il/columns/column.html. |
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MODERN WARS SHOULD BE FOUGHT ELECTRONICALLY
Posted by Lawrence Uniglicht, July 9, 2006. |
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Perceptions are everything! Jew-despising Persian President Ahmadinejad rants, asserting Israel should be wiped off the map, and much of the Middle East Muslim world agrees. Alas, the beleaguered Jewish state's image has been so battered, tarnished, indeed Satanized, especially in this dysfunctional region of the world, any anti-Israel suggestion would be met with applause. Yet, what if this contemptible creep transmitted pro-Israeli rhetoric? What if he asserted that Israel was not so bad after all? Egad, how could such a change of rhetoric even be possible? How much schnops or perhaps something stronger would it take to effectuate such a change in Israel enemy number one? Let's go back to our original premise perceptions are everything. Why not concoct through the magic of cyberspace an image of Ahmadinejad, extolling Israel as well as Jews in farsi, then transmit it to the Muslim world? Would a satellite dish Internet enraptured Muslim audience discern the difference between the real Ahmadinejad and the electronically cloned Ahmadinejad? Sound implausible? No doubt, Iran's potentate would vigorously renounce his clone on a subsequent transmission. Yet, if a follow-up electronic message by the cloned Ahmadinejad, supporting women's rights, confronted this same audience, would the elected fundamentalist fanatic be as vigorous in his denunciations? If another follow-up electronic message by the cloned Ahmadinejad, praising the free-thinking spirit of Iranian youth, propagated through those same electromagnetic waves to that same audience, would the perplexed President castigate that message? Would he attempt to ban satellite dishes or computers? Or would be rethink such a hard-line reaction to be counter productive, perhaps fanning the flames of revolution within an Iranian pressure cooker populated by disenchanted young adults? Furthermore, would an association be consciously or even subconsciously crafted between a falsely maligned Israel, women's rights, and liberation of the Iranian spirit; all conceptualizations emanating from the same carefully engineered electronic source? Israel indeed is a thriving democratic nation that supports human rights, including women's rights, and encourages free-thinking. Any of the aforementioned associations implied by our Ahmadinejad clone would be quite accurate. Israeli electronic engineers could develop and effectuate clandestine "Project P", replete with mind-altering projections, a cyber-weapon more potent than all the guided missiles the real pernicious Persian potentate might ever imagine. Defeating one's sworn enemy can require strategic thinking outside the box. Ahmadinejad and kindred spirit anti-Semitic jackals rely on electronically disseminated rhetoric to manipulate audiences. A detail-intensive counterfeit cyber-image will have the same effect. Such images would have to be broadcast over popular stations, as well as through the Internet, using appropriate languages, throughout the Muslim world, but especially within Iran. Advanced electronic apparatus no doubt would be necessary to successfully effectuate such a peaceful operation, the creation of which should be no problem for cerebral Israelis. Advances in destructive weapon technology increase exponentially; why should not the same creative effort be forthcoming in civilian oriented communications systems, even capable of overlaying transmitted messages from regime sanctioned official sources? The human mind, in this case the Muslim mind, indoctrinated to hate the infidel, especially the Jewish infidel, and Israel, can be skillfully reprogrammed if the initial source of programming, in this case Ahmadinejad, becomes associated with counteracting conceptualizations. The war of words and images is a war that can be won by Israel. It is a more sensible form of combat than destructive wars fought on battlefields and within civilian enclaves. Indeed, to generalize, wars fought in a smarter kinder way are ever appropriate at the genesis of a new millennium, thus analogous strategies can be utilized by all nations to fight their respective enemies when necessary. Modern wars should be fought in cyberspace, manipulating mindsets to one's advantage, where even a "do over" is possible. Let nascent century twenty-one emerge as a propitious turning point for all mankind, taking one gigantic leap, where the forces of good overcome evil cerebrally. The human species deserves a break every once in a while. Lawrence Uniglicht is a career civil servant, working for the Social Security Administration. He advocates for the State of Israel with an American perspective. He writes, "Advocating for the disrespected underdog has been my passion, no doubt Israel falls into that category." Contact him by email at luniglicht@snip.net |
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PROPORTION OR PAYMENT LONG OVERDUE?
Posted by Gerald A. Honigman, July 9, 2006. |
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So, have you heard the latest news out of those who murdered as many Jews over the centuries prior to the Holocaust as Hitler did during it? In response to Israel's July 2006 pseudo offensive against Arabs who have deliberately lobbed thousands of mortar shells and rockets and have constantly terrorized, kidnapped, murdered, wounded, and maimed Jews since Israel unilaterally withdrew from Gaza a year earlier, the European Union issued a statement critical of Israel's alleged "disproportionate use of force." Really? There are about five million Israeli Jews. France and Great Britain have roughly the same population--about sixty-one million. Germany has some twenty million more, and there are about forty million Poles. While not part of Europe, there are about two hundred million Arabs surrounding Israel--smaller than New Jersey--in twenty-one states on over six million square miles of territory...lands (as I always like to remind my readers) mostly conquered and forcibly Arabized from mostly non-Arab peoples. There are roughly three hundred million folks in the United States of America. Proportion... Putting this another way, each time either the Arafatian or Hamasnik variety of Arabs has deliberately blown up five, ten, twenty, or so Jews in restaurants, on buses, and such (as they've done often), multiply the figure by twelve for Brits, sixteen for Germans, sixty for Americans, and so forth to get an idea of the damage done to Israel. Now also ask yourselves what those countries mentioned above--or any others--would have done if their own populations were terrorized daily, had thousands of mortars and rockets lobbed at their cities causing death, injury, and destruction, and so forth. In this latest round, Arabs under Hamas' banner kidnapped a young soldier based in Israel proper (not the disputed territories) after killing and wounding a number of his comrades. Other Arabs kidnapped and murdered another Israeli teen about the same time. Imagine what America's response would be to such an attack launched from across one of our own borders. After months of taking relatively little action to terror, murder, bombardment, and other provocations, Israel finally launched its recent limited invasion of Gaza, deliberately trying to avoid civilian casualties. Indeed, in contrast to the daily Arab targeting of Israeli civilian centers and populations, Israel has tried to strike out primarily at non-human targets to get its message across--electric utility works, empty fields where Arab rockets have been launched, training facilities, and so forth. One result of Israel fighting with one hand tied behind its back has been only more Arab bravado. Despite what the European Union and others claim, Israel has tried to solve the problem as painless as possible to its enemies--those who are sworn to its total destruction. Keep in mind that the Arab Street elected the rejectionist Hamas crew...not that the other folks are really any different on this issue. So, let's ask the European Union, the Russians, Turks, and other now vocal hypocrites (including those at Foggy Bottom)--they who have killed multitudes when their own security was perceived to be at stake--what any of them would do under the same circumstances Israel has been faced with. But we don't have to ask. History has indeed recorded their bloody actions time and time again...still going on as this article is being written. The cold, cruel fact is that this war--and it is war--continues because Israel is not being allowed to win it. Following the European Union's current demand for "proportion" only perpetuates this confict...and Israel has been doing just this very thing for far too long. Again, the acts mentioned above are blatant acts of war. And they are committed by those whose openly-stated goal is the utter destruction of their neighbor. No compromise which permits the long term survival of a Jewish Israel--regardless of size--is acceptable to the Arabs Israel is now confronting. What would the Brits do with such a neighbor? The French? America? Russia? Who above would consent to self-destruction? Would any of these folks agree to a mere wrist-slapping of those aiming to destroy both themselves and their countries as well? Look up what the Powell Doctrine--of General/Secretary of State Colin Powell fame--has to say about such things...use of overwhelming force against enemies, and so forth...as just one example. Israel must strike truly devastating blows to those whose aim is to murder its people and destroy its very microscopic existence. To Hell with so-called "proportion." Again, such wisdom has indeed only perpetuated this conflict. Truth be told, and despite the protestations of their many derriere-kissers, Arabs have not yet paid their due price for their repeated barbarism. Payment long overdue... Is Israel to sit back and simply wait until scores more of its people are victimized before it acts? I think not... But, besides finally dealing appropriately with the Arabs, Israel must also get itself leaders with the backbone to deal effectively with the likes of the hypocritical bigmouths in the European Union and elsewhere as well. Gerald A. Honigman, a Florida educator, has created and conducted counter-Arab propaganda programs for college youth, has lectured on numerous campuses and other platforms, and has publicly debated Arab spokesmen. His articles and op-eds have been published in both the print media and on websites. Contact him at honigman6@msn.com or go to his website: http://geraldahonigman.com/blog.php |
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FREE SPEECH IN ISRAEL
Posted by Steven Plaut, July 9, 2006. |
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For those confused about freedom of speech in Israel, we think we can clarify things for you. Demanding that terrorists kidnap Israelis is free speech. Criticism those same people who demand that terrorists kidnap and murder Israelis, however, would be "slander! From today's news services:
Knesset Member Wasal Taha, corresponding publicly with internet surfers on the Arabic-language IslamOnline site, said he repeatedly advised PA terrorists to battle and kidnap Israeli soldiers. MK Zevulun Orlev (National Religious Party), who last week submitted a bill to negate Knesset membership to MKs who support terrorists, said that Taha's "traitorous" remarks are further proof that Israeli democracy must protect itself. According to a report in Maariv newspaper today, Taha told surfers on Thursday that he repeatedly advised the PA Arabs to stop shooting and targeting civilians, and to concentrate on IDF targets. An English translation of Maariv's Hebrew translation of Taha's Arabic words: "We told them more than once that the Palestinians, who are subjected to murder and ongoing crimes on the part of the Israeli army, have two options: One is to explode and kill civilians - and these are much easier operations. The second option is the military option, in the framework of which a military unit from the resistance [i.e., terrorist infrastructures - ed.] is established in order to break into a military camp, clash with the soldiers and battle them and take them and the conquest into captivity." Taha also had words of advice for the PA on the publicity front, saying that the kidnapped soldier Gilad Shalit should not be called "kidnapped" but rather "imprisoned" or "captive." Taha said, "Kidnapping is an act carried out by gangs, terrorists, and the like. But 'captive' means that [it is carried out by] an organized, legitimate group that makes decisions. Israel is trying to present our resistance as something less - as terrorism, murder, and kidnapping - in order that the diplomatic circle will be closed to it." Arutz-7's Uzi Baruch spoke with Taha's aide, who said that Taha's words had been taken out of context. She then repeated over Taha's words as they appeared in Maariv, and added, "I don't tell and won't tell the Palestinian Authority and the organizations how to act." Asked if MK Taha condemns the abduction of Corp. Gilad Shalit, his aide said, "We do not condemn actions against IDF soldiers, we condemn actions only against innocent civilians." MK Orlev responded today, "The traitorous words of MK Taha prove that Trojan horses have invaded the Knesset, and the democracy must protect itself from them. Taha brags about his collaboration with the enemy and shows that the instructions for the kidnapping did not emanate only from Khaled Meshaal in Syria." "Taha must be tried for treason," Orlev added. (But he will NOT be -- SP) Steven Plaut is an American-trained economist, a professor of business administration at Haifa University and author of "The Scout." He frequently comments - both seriously and satirically - on Israeli politics and the left wing academic community. His website address is http://www.stevenplaut.blogspot.com. Contact him at splaut@econ.haifa.ac.il |
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STOP YAKKING AND START DOING
Posted by Eliezar Edwards, July 9, 2006. |
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This was written by Yoel Marcus and it appeared in Haaretz today |
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Yigal Allon, commander of the Palmach and a foreign minister in the first Rabin administration, once boasted that a Syrian plane hadn't been made that could invade Israeli airspace. The next day, the sonic boom of a Syrian plane was heard over Haifa. Years have passed, but the bragging and big talk of our national leaders continues. A day after Ehud Olmert declared that Israel will not be brought to its knees, a Qassam rocket landed in the center of Ashkelon and we saw quite a few Israelis on their knees, examining the remnants of the rocket. Which proves that even today, as Hamas wages a war of attrition against us, it is not clear what is wearing us down more - the Qassams or the garrulousness of our state leaders. At the newsstand, a banner headline caught my eye: "Declaration of War." I looked and looked, but couldn't figure out who was declaring war on whom. Was it Hamas on Israel, or Israel on Hamas? Syria on Israel, or Israel on Syria? Iran on Israel or Israel on Iran? Was it a reference to Amir Peretz, who announced that Syria is the chief hothouse of terror and personally warned Assad that he would be held responsible? Or Shimon Peres ("Qassam-Shmasam"), who reminded Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that Iran could also be wiped out? Or Ronny Bar-On, who warned Gilad Shalit's captors that there would be an unprecedented price to pay? But none of them beats the prime minister. With no military background or experience in national defense, he's been churning out threats and warnings like there's no tomorrow. He has even adopted the aggressive first-person style of Benjamin Netanyahu and Ariel Sharon: "I ordered this, I ordered that." "I will not let Israel be brought to its knees," he said, for example. "I have given orders to do everything possible to bring Gilad Shalit home safe and sound, and when I say 'everything,' I mean everything." Olmert's cocktail of remarks has included threats ("We'll grit our teeth and knock them silly," and "We'll have these Hamas leaders weeping and wailing. No one who messes with us is going to get off scot free") and statements that show his firm resolve ("Israel will not free prisoners. Period"). Olmert, who is losing political ground and going down in the surveys along with his party, the patron of disengagement, is like a person who shouts in the dark to boost his own courage. Sharon had a simpler solution. At government meetings he used to yell at his defense minister, Shaul Mofaz: "Stop those Qassams already!" Sharon knew that a prime minister had to protect his citizens and not just give endless speeches about it. The Qassam that landed in Ashkelon is not an escalation of violence. It is yet another rocket fired at Israel. Ashkelon is in the same boat as Sderot, which has been a target of Qassams for a whole year now. Israel lies within reach of all the weapons in the Arab world, but these countries are not firing at us. In the span of a year, five people at most have been killed by Qassams. But even if no one were killed, the very fact that population centers in Israel are under constant attack is a casus belli. No country in the world would stand for such a thing. Gaza must be dealt with on a trouble-spot basis, without a stopwatch in hand. We must go in and out as needed, and do whatever clean-ups need to be done. The point is not to go in there and stay, turning into sitting ducks like we were in Lebanon. Hamas strategists, who obviously prefer a pirate enterprise over the chance to establish a state alongside Israel, are trying to drag us in. So we must beware of the trap they are setting for us. The Palestinian Authority has a government, a chairman, a parliament and security forces. Israel must insist that the PA take responsibility and crack down on this strange octopus-like creature that has a foreign arm and a domestic arm, a military arm and a prisoner arm, with Khaled Meshal waving his baton over all of them and orchestrating from Damascus. If the PA's arm is not long enough, perhaps it is time for Israel to stretch out its arm again and take matters into its own hands - but more successfully this time. Restraint has its limits, too. Israel has no interest in making an innocent population suffer, but it must use force, properly and wisely meted out, to protect its citizens. The time has come to stop yakking and start doing. |
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THE SOUNDS OF WAR
Posted by Rachel Saperstein, July 9, 2006. |
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We sit in our plasterboard caravilla in Nitzan, the largest of the refugee camps for those expelled from Gush Katif. Nitzan lies between the coastal cities of Ashdod and Ashkelon. Last week Ashkelon was hit by two Kassam rockets launched from the former communities of northern Gush Katif. One landed in a schoolyard, the other in an open space. Ashkelon is in turmoil. The southern city of Sderot has been bombed repeatedly. The kibbutzim and moshavim bordering Gaza are hit incessantly. Having tunneled under the much touted protective walls Gazan terrorists killed two IDF soldiers and kidnapped Cpl. Gilad Shalit. The government, pressured by public protest over the kidnapping and the bombings, finally allowed the IDF to react. We hear the bombing runs of our jets, the whirring of helicopters over our caravillas. The thumping sound of artillery and tank fire is constant. Our windows rattle from the echo of Kassam fire from the other side. We lived with these sounds for five years when we were the victims of endless mortar and rocket fire. Now the rockets are larger, have greater range, and are more deadly. We pleaded with the government to act to end these attacks. But we were "settlers" and the government allowed the army only a symbolic response. We warned the country that if the IDF left Gaza, the attacks would become more deadly. We were evicted, and the enemy's appetite increased. Today our homes are made from plasterboard and will not stand up to any attack when the Arabs start to use the longer range rockets they are known to be stockpiling. Our flimsy caravillas will simply disintegrate. This past week a woman selling clothes designed for religious women came to Nitzan. We are the perfect customers for her wares. Her cell phone rang repeatedly. "I'll be home soon" she said over and over again. She looked at me and finally broke down. "I'm from Sderot", she sighed. "That's my son calling. He is thirteen and alone in the house. My husband is away, my daughter is at summer camp. They've taken some of the children to the north of the country for respite. My son is terrified of being alone. He's wetting his bed. He's afraid to go to sleep. People are packing and renting homes in the center of the country. Soon Sderot will be a ghost town. What has happened to this country? Why won't we fight back?" Moshavim and kibbutzim in the western Negev are emptying out. The members of kibbutzim close to the Gaza border, who spent their Friday afternoons carrying signs saying "End the occupation. End Gush Katif" are running away or cowering in terror as their homes and fields are blasted. Their dream has come true. The "occupation" has ended. Gush Katif is no more. Now their grateful Gazan neighbors are thanking them in the traditional manner. Do they finally realize that we, the "Gush Katif occupiers", had protected them with our lives? Yes, we the people of Gush Katif were pulled out to placate a cruel enemy but the deadly attempts to destroy Israel continue. I am constantly amazed at the naivete or wishful thinking of our leaders, or is it their simple disregard for the safety of Israel's citizens? Meanwhile the sounds of war are outside our home. ############################################ The Orange Gallery showed the works of the artists and artisans of Gush Katif at the Emunah Center in Kiryat Moshe, Jerusalem. A well-attended musical evening, by women and for women, was held in tribute to Gush Katif. ############################################## The Orange Gallery is one of OPERATION DIGNITY's many projects. We are now proud to announce our participation in the Outreach Project of the Gush Katif Kollel [Rabbinical Seminary for Men]in which Kollel members tutor youngsters from non-religious backgrounds. OPERATION DIGNITY needs your help to revitalize a once proud people. Send your checks, earmarked OPERATION DIGNITY, to Central Fund for Israel
OR Central Fund for Israel
Rachel Saperstein and her husband Moshe lived in Neve Dekalim, Gush Katif, Gaza, Israel. She was a teacher at the Neve Dekalim ulpana and a spokeswoman for the Katif Regional Council. Her recent book, "Eviction: A Gush Katif Viewpoint", with photos by Moti Sender can be ordered from www.pavilionpress.com. They now live in a trailor camp in Nitzan. |
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BBC, REMEMBER DRESDEN: END OF STORY
Posted by Professor Eugene Narrett, July 9, 2006. |
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Stopping for gasoline this evening (after taking out another mortgage to finance the trip to the grocery store, gas and food), while paying I heard a female BBC newsperson nattering an Israeli official of some sort about the deaths of some "Palestinians" in Gaza. The poor fellow was sputtering, straining for justifications without straying from the corral of leftist, 'peace process' categories of thought and word which send Israel to the incinerator every time. Rubbish and damnation! Especially when talking to a Brit about collateral damage during war (and that's what the jihadists have been doing to Jews for six years, minimum, shooting rockets within the borders of pre 1967 Israel. No need to review here the evidence that the so-called 'Palestinians" are a hostile population that plots to murder and wars on Jews everywhere in Israel and even outside it. During a war, a hostile population is subject to attack and their death, as 'collateral' (unintended) casualties or even if targeted is legal and to be expected. You don't want to get killed, don't war on another people. Even Jews eventually will strike back and defend themselves, although the "world community" frequently considers 'motions' to withdraw this right from Jews. That's right: they want us to just get in the cattle cars again without any resistance or fuss... Given the restrictions under which the entire IDF operates when striking back against Arabs (thanks to all the Labor 'Zionists' and their suicidal havlaga), and given initial studies from the field, those much-ballyhooed deaths were not the result of IAF weaponry. Too bad; and this is what anyone should tell any BBC or other twit chattering and slathering to finger the Jews. DRESDEN, March 1945: a scarcely fortified city in east central Germany a few weeks before the end of the war in Europe. The British decided it was time for payback for the blitz of 1940. So they fire-bombed Dresden and basically melted it, slaughtering about 200,000 civilians. The British idea of an apology? When they put up a statue to RAF General 'Bomber' Harris a few years ago the Germans whimpered about it not being quite cricket. The British told them to stuff it. End of story. The British government and its institutions, not least their armed forces, were major accomplices of the Germans 'final solution' to the Jewish problem, that the BBC still wants to solve. Why: because of their total perversion, 1920 -48 of the League of Nations Mandate to re-establish the Jewish national home and facilitate Jewish immigration into it. the British bombed civilian populations daily for years during WW II even though the Germans had no intentions of exterminating the British as the Muslims have for exterminating the Jews (you can read it in their sermons or Koran). The best answer to all such criticism from the "world community" and its media is to unleash the IAF, protect the lives of Jewish soldiers, and to obliterate the hostile population in Gaza and in their rotten terror-haven cities in Judea and Samaria. Annihilate them and remind the 'bleeding hearts' about Dresden and about how they had no room for any Jews during the shoah. Professor Eugene Narrett teaches writing and Literature at Boston University. He is the author of hundreds of articles, columns and reviews on politics, American culture and the arts. He is completing a study on Romanticism and the longterm decline of Western Culture. He writes often on subjects relating to Israel and Judaism and is a weekly columnist for the MetroWest Daily News in Framingham, Massachusetts. His new book is "Israel and the Endtimes". Contact him at Culturtalk@aol.com |
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"WHAT THE WEST NEEDS TO KNOW" -- AN EXPOSÉ OF ISLAM
Posted by Warren Manison, July 9, 2006. |
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Film: What the West needs to know The threat of Islam is a threat not only to Israel and to us, but also to the Free World. This danger has, in effect, been hidden by the general news media not willing, for politically correct reasons, to expose, discuss or perform in-depth analysis of just what Islam really is and its goals. The following is a description of a film to be shown in Washington this week. I plan to go down to see it and strongly recommend that the film receive as wide an exposure as possible. Please take the time, it is 98 minutes long, to see what should be the best exposure and duplicity of an Islam that needs a Reformation in order to be considered part of modern civilizations. Below is a synopsis of the film. Warren |
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What the West Needs to Know An examination of Islam, violence, and the fate of the non-Muslim
world.
Virtually every major Western leader has over the past several years expressed the view that Islam is a peaceful religion and that those who commit violence in its name are fanatics who misinterpret its tenets. This claim, while widely circulated, rarely attracts serious public examination. Relying primarily on Islam's own sources, this documentary demonstrates that Islam is a violent, expansionary ideology that seeks the destruction or subjugation of other faiths, cultures, and systems of government.
Content
The documentary consists of original interviews, citations from Islamic texts, Islamic artwork, computer-animated maps, footage of Western leaders, and Islamic television broadcasts. Its tone is sober, methodical, and compelling.
Outline of the Documentary
Introduction
We hear from prominent Western leaders that Islam is peaceful and that those who commit violence in its name are heterodox fanatics.
Part 1: 'There is no God but Allah and Muhammad is his
Prophet' Our interviewees affirm their belief that Islamic
violence is entirely orthodox behavior for Muslims and stems directly
from the teachings and example of the Prophet Muhammad and the
commands of the Koran. We learn that the example of Muhammad is one of
a violent warlord who killed numerous people. The Koran -- the verbatim
words of Allah -- prescribes violence against non-Muslims and Muhammad
is the perfect example of the Koran in action.
Part 2: The Struggle
We learn that jihad, while literally meaning 'struggle', in fact denotes war fought against non-Muslims in order to bring the rule of Islamic law to the world. Violent death in jihad is, according to the Koran, the only assurance of salvation. One of our interviewees tells of his personal involvement in terrorism and his leaving Islam.
Part 3: Expansion
Following the death of Muhammad, his 'rightly-guided' successors carried his wars to three continents, fighting, enslaving, and massacring countless Christians, Jews, Zoroastrians, Hindus, and others. Islam did not spread through evangelism or through its natural appeal, but through aggressive wars of conquest. The Crusades were largely a belated response on the part of Christian Europe to rescue Christians in the Holy Land suffering under Muslim oppression. The Muslim world today, while no longer the unified empire of the Caliphs, is exceptional for being responsible for the vast majority of conflicts around the world and for almost all of international terrorism.
Part 4: 'War is Deceit'
A great problem with Western efforts to understand Islam is due to the Islamic principle of 'religious deception', which enjoins Muslims to deceive non-Muslims in order to advance the cause of Islam. Muslim groups today in the West employ deception and omission to give the impression that 'Islam is a religion of peace', an utter fiction.
Part 5: More than a Religion
The most important characteristic of Islam not understood by the West is that it is more a system of government than a personal religion. Throughout its history, Islam has never recognized a distinction between the religious and the secular/political. Islamic law governs every aspect of religious, political, and personal action, which amounts to a form of totalitarianism that is divinely enjoined to dominate the world, analogous in many ways to Communism.
Part 6: The House of War
Islamic theology divides the world into two spheres locked in perpetual combat, dar al-Islam (House of Islam - where Islamic law predominates), and dar al-harb (House of War - the rest of the world). It is incumbent on dar al-Islam to fight and conquer dar al-harb and permanently assimilate it. Muslims in Western nations are called to subvert the secular regimes in which they now live in accordance with Allah's command. Due to political correctness and general government and media irresponsibility, the danger posed by observant Muslims in the West remains largely unappreciated.
Contact us at info@whatthewestneedstoknow.com
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TERRORIST GUIDELINES: "TARGET ANY WHITE PERSON"
Posted by Jeffrey Epstein, July 8, 2006. |
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From the London Telegraph, written by Anton LaGuardia Any white person is a target. Avoid hotels because they are too well protected. Carry the bombs in small knapsacks to avoid suspicion. And don't worry about your escape route because you will become a "martyr". These guidelines for suicide bombers were found on a computer captured by Indonesian police during a raid in November, and are believed to have been written by the British-educated bomb-maker Azahari Husin, who died during the attack. Azahari, in his mid-40s when he died, studied for a doctorate at the University of Reading, and was a leading Malaysian member of Jemaah Islamiah, the South East Asian terrorist group that has close ties to al-Qaeda. Azahari, nicknamed the Demolition Man by Malaysian newspapers, earned a Phd in property valuation at Reading and was an associate professor at the Malaysian Technology University. But in 1998 he took a sabbatical after falling under the influence of a radical preacher, and then trained in explosives with the Taliban in Afghanistan. Azahari had been the prime suspect in a campaign of bombings against western targets including two attacks on the tourist resorts of Bali in 2002 and 2005, killing 202 and 20 people respectively. The 34-page document on his computer set out the meticulous planning and execution for the second Bali attack, including a minute-by-minute timetable culminating with the triple suicide bombing on Oct 1. The blasts were set for 7.34pm when the restaurants would be full, and the entry read: "Allahu Akbar" (God is great). Whites being lured into Islamic terror From London Telegraph, written by Sean Rayment. Significant numbers of white Britons have been lured into Islamic terrorism, according to a Whitehall report. Details of the document, which have emerged in the week before the first anniversary of the July 7 London Tube bombings, also reveal that white converts and other British Muslims are joining a "terrorist career path" after being targeted by radicalist recruiters at universities or by extremist preachers. The report follows calls made by al-Qaeda in April last year for white converts to become suicide bombers because it was easier for them to travel and evade detection before carrying out their attacks. The document, which was produced by officials from MI5 and the Home and Foreign Offices, also states that as many as 16,000 British Muslims - or one per cent of the Muslim population in Britain - "support" Islamist terrorist acts at home and abroad. Jeffrey Epstein is with People's Truth Forum. Contact him at jepstein@lauramansfield.com |
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A COURSE FOR ISRAEL TO FOLLOW
Posted by Lawrence Uniglicht, July 8, 2006. |
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Israel must forthwith set a course maximizing the prospects of prosperous long-term survival. No prescient nation can allow itself to be economically or militarily dependent on a more powerful nation over the long haul, hence the Jewish State needs to cut the cord traversing the Atlantic Ocean, affixed to formidable quasi-protectorate America, changing that relationship to an alliance based on mutual self interest. To effectuate such a metamorphosis, all presumed foreign aid funneled west to east must cease and desist. Indeed, commercial contractual arrangements can be increased, allowing an equivalent amount of earned greenbacks to flow into Israel. The term foreign aid itself is stigmatic, does breed contempt especially from anti-Semites, and such "perceived welfare" is wholly unnecessary for Israel's economic well-being. No doubt, it is in America's interest for Israel to remain a potent Middle East democracy. However, ironically, today's Bush Administration's primary ally in the Middle East remains Saudi Arabia, Israel's primary enemy. In 1971, U.S. President Richard Nixon completely severed his nation's economy from a gold standard, allowing greenbacks to be printed by fiat i.e. on command. Furthermore, a Faustian covenant exists between America and Saudi Arabia, insuring that abundantly flowing American dollars, aptly termed petrodollars, be the primary trading currency of OPEC supplied fossil fuel. Indeed, such an arrangement allows today's superpower to, in effect, export dollars and import products from the rest of the world. Why is that? The psychological value of a greenback, so bolstered by being the planet's primary oil trading currency, is ever enhanced in the mindsets of foreign governments. Furthermore, treasury bonds denominated in dollars, truly IOUs backed by the world's faith in the power and stability of the American economy in conjunction with the petrodollar, are held in enormous quantities especially by oriental leviathans like Japan and China, dependent on American consumers to buy many more of their tangible products than their consumers buy from American manufacturers, thus allowing such oriental economic dynamos to ever whirl and strengthen. Indeed, if the Saudi oil pusher and petrodollar guarantor comes to shove Washington muckamucks to the detriment of Israel, guess whose interests would be trumped. Yet, pseudo-scholars like John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt of the University of Chicago and Harvard respectively, skewer the Israel lobby, thus Israel and Jews in general, with a blatantly skewed paper accusing that "crafty" Zionist organization of influencing America, against its own interests, to craft policies favoring the Jewish State. Not surprisingly, white supremacist David Duke has nothing but accolades for this anti-Semitic misrepresentation of the truth, an apt tribute to that sophisticated sophist duo immersed in pro-Arab academia, ever deserving that most inglorious honor of bathing in fetid waters with a kindred spirit Ku Klux Klansman. "The Israel Lobby" is a work replete with cherry picked statements and presumed facts taken out of context to support a pre-determined false conclusion. Still, many will agree with Mearsheimer and Walt that the Bush Administration's invasion of Iraq was largely conceived at the behest of Israel, even though facts on the ground suggested Sadist Hussein was in no position to threaten Israel, while today's chaotic Shiite dominated Iran influenced Iraq could very well portend a much greater danger to the Jewish State. America acted in its own interest during its two invasions of Iraq, punishing Hussein for trading Iraqi oil for euros, and protecting the interests of Saudi Arabia, its petrodollar partner. No doubt, Hussein's potential imperialist ambitions were a significant threat to The House of Saud, thus had to be held in check during the first Gulf War. Additionally, America's military more recently had to leave Saudi Arabia lest radical Islamists attack the royal family, and where better to deploy than a preemptively invaded Iraq? Any objective analysis suggests that Israel's interests had no bearing on all this. Furthermore, U.S. Jewish pie-in-the-sky neo-conservatives, yearning for a democratic Middle East, offered the Bush Administration one more rationale for entering a presumed WMD harboring Iraq, obfuscating true intentions. Of course, any foreign policy analysis not castigating Israel would not be acceptable to anti-Semitic agenda driven pseudo-scholars such as Mearsheimer and Walt, hoist by their own petard in the objective minds of true scholars. We can only hope that Israeli policy makers, tacticians, journalists, and orators always read between the lines, utilize forceful logic to slap away the Mearsheimers and Walts of the world like the houseflies that they are, and presciently guide the development of a truly independent nation with potential to kick economic butt at the genesis of this new millennium. Lawrence Uniglicht is a career civil servant, working for the Social Security Administration. He advocates for the State of Israel with an American perspective. He writes, "Advocating for the disrespected underdog has been my passion, no doubt Israel falls into that category." Contact him by email at luniglicht@snip.net |
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FORMER ARAB MK DEFENDS SUICIDE BOMBINGS AND QASSAM ROCKETS
Posted by Yardena Even, July 8, 2006. |
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Former Arab MK defends suicide bombings Former Arab MK Dehamshe
justifies use of Qassam rockets against Israel as means of
self-defense, says suicide bombings keep Palestinian issue alive. In another instance, - the Hadash party in Nazareth in March - participants repeated the chant: "All government ministers are war criminals." The 3 Hadash Commies and current Knesset members are : Mohammad Barakeh Dov Khenin Hanna Swaid MK Talab al-Sana, the chairman of Ra'am-Ta'al Knesset faction. The time has come to toss these traitors out of the Knesset and out of Israel. they have Jordan - The Palestine nobody wants to talk about!!! They can thank their lucky stars they only get deported instead of their heads cut off as it would be the custom for traitors in their native arab countries!!! Contact Yardena Even at yardena3@aol.com |
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ISRAEL RADIO LEGAL COMMENTATOR: PA HAS DECLARED WAR ON ISRAEL
Posted by Hillel Fendel, July 7, 2006. |
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The Hamas interior minister's order to "shoot at Israeli forces" is a declaration of war on Israel - or at least a nullification of the Oslo Accords. So says left-wing legal commentator Moshe Negbi. The Hamas Authority minister, Said Siyam, ordered his security forces last night to fight back against the Israeli invasion. Moshe Negbi, who is generally known for his extreme left-wing views, said that this may be considered as a declaration of war against Israel. Speaking on Israel Radio this afternoon, Negbi agreed that PA Chairman Abu Mazen (Fatah), and even Hamas prime minister Abu Haniyeh, had distanced themselves from the order, "but this is not enough. They must fully rescind the order in order for it to be nullified." The interior ministry spokesman, Abu Hilal, announced last night that PA policemen and security forces had been ordered to open fire against IDF soldiers in Gaza. This was the first time PA officials had openly ordered official PA forces to shoot at IDF soldiers. At the very least, Negbi said, the declaration - which was later denied by the PA - can be viewed as having nullified the Oslo Agreements of 1993. Minister Eitan Cabel (Labor), who was interviewed on Israel Radio following Negbi, attempted to skirt the issue. Asked if he agreed that Hamas had declared war or nullified Oslo, Cabel said, "Look, Oslo and the other agreements are not on the agenda right now. We're dealing only with Gilad Shalit and stopping Kassams..." Israel's invasion itself, it should be noted, is not a declaration of war. Israeli officials repeat time and again that the operation is aimed only against terrorists. The U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 was similarly not accompanied by a declaration of war. Hillel Fendel is Senior News Editor at Arutz-Sheva (wwww.IsraelNN.com). |
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WHEN NOT TO COMPROMISE
Posted by Fern Sidman, July 7, 2006. |
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As Israel proceeds with its "Operation Bashan Oaks", originally termed "Operation Summer Rains" offensive into the Gaza Strip, it has been reported by Arutz Sheva that, "many Kassam rockets have been fired northward from Gaza at Ashkelon, Israel's 5th-largest city, over the past several months. Only a few, however, have reached as far as the industrial zone in southern Ashkelon. In the past week, the situation escalated dramatically when two Kassams hit the heart of the city on consecutive nights. On Tuesday night, a rocket landed in a schoolyard just as parents and children were engaged in registration for next year. The next night, one of two Kassams fired northward sent eight Ashkelon residents into a state of shock." Spontaneous demonstrations by residents of Ashkelon have been staged in the last few days, with the most recent one at the main Ashkelon entrance junction. According to Arutz Sheva, "Some of the signs at the Ashkelon protest read, "Stop the Shmassams!" - a reference to a recent remark by Vice Premier Shimon Peres. Peres said that the people of Sderot should not be complaining so strongly about the Kassams attacking their town, and that Israel should categorically inform the Palestinian Authority that, "Kassams, Shmassams, we're staying in Sderot no matter what!" The protestors also demanded warfare against the terrorists, and not mere protection and reinforcement of shelters. One of the protestors, Meir Dana-Pecard, told Arutz-7, "The truth is, the people of Ashkelon have not yet woken up to what's going on. Just like in Sderot - at first no one took it really seriously, and only when it became a nearly daily affair and took on a genuine life-threatening air did people really begin to protest, with the hunger strike and the like. Here as well: people refuse to believe it. Some say, 'What are we, Sderot? They're only 25,000 people over there, but we're a real city, with 120,000 people, etc.'" "Only when the rockets hit Tel Aviv will this country really wake up," Dana-Pecard concluded pessimistically. Arutz Sheva also reported that, "On Thursday, the first day of the IDF's Operation Bashan Oaks - a major ground offensive into Gaza - none of the eight Kassams fired at Israel hit Ashkelon. They landed, instead, in Kfar Aza, Sderot, and near Kibbutz Zikim south of Ashkelon, not far from the electric plant. Friday's toll: At least seven Kassams have been fired since late last night, with at least five landing in Israel. Among them were two that hit populated areas in the city of Sderot, sending three people to Barzilai Hospital in Ashkelon with shrapnel wounds. Four people were reported suffering from shock. Earlier today, a rocket hit Kibbutz Saad, causing a number of shock victims and damage to two cars. Another rocket landed near Sderot, damaging a gas station, and yet another one landed between Kibbutz Zikim and Ashkelon. One Sderot resident, Kineret Rosenfeld, reflects the attitude of many of her neighbors when she says that Prime Minister Olmert and the government acted "maliciously" by waiting for the rockets to hit Ashkelon before responding. "I say this with sorrow, but there is a form of a caste system here," Rosenfeld told Arutz-7's Hebrew newsmagazine. "The settlers are Class D citizens, who 'shouldn't be living there anyway and if they get killed it's their own fault'; then come the residents of Sderot, who are Class C, then Ashkelon people who are Class B, and then perhaps the residents of the Tel Aviv area are Class A. Decisions as to whether and how to take military action are made, unfortunately, based on this." On the military front in Gaza, Arutz Sheva reports that, "IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Dan Halutz said this morning that close to 40 armed Arabs have thus far been killed "while trying to attack our soldiers." Two more were killed since then. Most of them were killed in aerial attacks and exchanges of fire. Hamas Authority sources report that 26 have been killed and 80 have been wounded. Defense Minister Amir Peretz, publicly addressing soldiers outside Gaza today, said, "Our actions have national and international legitimization. We sought every way to avoid a conflict, and now it is a question of 'no choice.' ... Our soldiers are fighting under the strictest ethical codes; no other army has such codes." "The Palestinians are clearly acting and shooting from within civilian-populated areas, and are even using the population," Peretz added. "They hold their Kassam rockets with one hand, and their children with the other hand." Soldiers continue to encounter heavy pockets of resistance, including anti-tank rocket and automatic weapons fire. On Friday morning, one missile missed its target and hit an Arab house instead. In Thursday's fighting, day one of IDF Operation Bashan Oaks, a Givati Brigade soldier was killed and two were wounded. St.-Sgt. Yehuda Bassal, 21, from Moshav Yinon near Kiryat Malachi, was killed by bullet fire to his head when he was covering for other soldiers in a house in the town of El-Atatra, just south of the former Jewish community of Dugit. It appears that he was shot by an Arab sniper; the possibility of errant friendly fire has apparently been ruled out. Southern District Commander Gen. Yoav Galant said that the purpose of the IDF operation is not to conquer the area, but rather to put an end to Kassam attacks and other terrorism, and to "create the proper conditions for the release of [kidnapped soldier] Gilad Shalit... Our modus operandi is one of raids, and not of conquest." Hamas has demanded the release of 1000 Palestinian prisoners being held in Israeli prisons in exchange for the release of Cpl. Gilad Shalit. Arutz Sheva reported that, "Noam Shalit, Gilad's soft-spoken father, spoke with a spokesman for Hamas terror group Izaddin El Kassam this morning. The conversation was facilitated by the Arab-Jewish Voice of Peace radio station in Jerusalem. Shalit asked that his son not be harmed, and said, "I repeat what I said yesterday, which is just that there's no reason for any further suffering, and we could end this today." He said yesterday that the abductors should allow a third-party such as the Red Cross to meet with his son. The Hamas spokesman, Abu Abeida, responded in Arabic, "We have submitted our demands, and Israel can respond and negotiate with us... What does Israel demand?" Noam Shalit said, "I am not a spokesman for the government of Israel." It has also been reported by Arutz Sheva that, "Public Security Minister Avi Dichter released a statement on Friday during an event in Tel Aviv's David Intercontinental Hotel, stating "if Israel is required to release prisoners to obtain the release of the hostage soldier, it will do so. We did it in the past." The message is the first by a senior cabinet minister signaling that a deal may be in the works towards the release of Corporal Gilad Shalit who was taken hostage during a terror attack in Kerem Shalom on 25 June. He is being held in southern Gaza according to military intelligence reports." Meanwhile, Hamas has not issued any information about the condition of Cpl. Gilad Shalit and there has been no evidence presented of signs of life. Thus far, the International Red Cross has not taken action to garner concrete information or evidence of Cpl. Shalit's condition. According to Arutz Sheva, "The Victims of Arab Terror organization has written to the International Red Cross, demanding to know why it has not been more forceful in demanding to see the kidnapped soldier. "Israel always agrees to allow the Red Cross to see imprisoned terrorists," VAT head Shifra Hoffman told Arutz-7. "We have not received a single sign of life from Gilad Shalit. Why is the Red Cross not making similar demands to see this soldier, who is suffering in captivity?" Arutz-7 contacted the Gaza office of the International Red Cross, and asked Gaza sub-delegation chief Georgis Georgantas this question. Georgantas said that Shalit is being held in an undisclosed place by elements who have not been clearly specified. The Red Cross had therefore made it clear to "various interlocutors," Georgantas said, that "we are ready to visit the soldier." Asked if the precise wording of the request could be seen, Georgantas said that it had been delivered orally. Georgantas refused to explain why the Red Cross does not contact the Hamas government directly." The events of the past week deserve closer examination. Thus far, we do not even know whether Cpl. Shalit is alive or dead. We are conducting a military operation in the Gaza that portends a high casualty rate amongst Israeli soldiers. We are conducting a war in which our main objective is to avoid Palestinian civilian casualties or death, while many of the attacks directed at Israeli soldiers are emanating from the Palestinian civilian population. The unceasing and unremitting Kassam rocket attacks continue, with the inclusion of major Israeli population centers, such as the city of Ashkelon, as their main targets. Representatives of the government of Israel are hinting at a future release of Palestinian terrorists now imprisoned in Israeli jails. The question remains, what is the exact purpose of this offensive in Gaza? If the objective is to liberate Cpl. Shalit from his captors and to destroy the Hamas infrastructure, then why is this war being fought "on eggshells" and with a litany of restrictions? Who is Israel more afraid of, Hamas retributions or world opinion? We would suspect, based on the history of international relations in Israel, that it is the tidal wave of denunciations from Washington, the European Union and the entire world that causes major anxiety amongst Israeli officials. If an Israeli offensive in Gaza is to have any effect and achieve even a modicum of success, it must be fought like all wars. The enemy is not an "innocent" civilian population, rather they are enemy combatants. Hamas is not just a small terrorist organization that operates on the fringes of the constituency that it represents. Hamas is a democratically elected government that received an overwhelming mandate of support from its voters. While it is not an official governmental body, it must be treated as such. A soldier of the army of Israel was taken captive by an enemy army. His whereabouts and his condition are not known to us. Outrageous demands of a prisoner release by Israel are being made by Hamas. These demands cannot be recognized or even considered. History has proven that when Palestinian terrorists were released by Israel, they went forth and committed other terrorist acts directed at Israeli civilians and soldiers. The rules of war must be applicable in this latest Gaza offensive. We must enter this conflict with the goal of securing the release of Cpl. Shalit and of vanquishing the enemy from our midst. There is a time for war and a time for peace. A time to compromise and a time to remain vigilant and unyielding. The enemy that we engage in battle is one that has no respect for the rules of war and has no respect for the sanctity of life. It is a ruthless, brutal enemy that is propelled by a religious and nationalist conviction and it possesses a blood lust that we have yet to comprehend. This is a war that must be fought with great strength, patience and resolve. Our victory or defeat will depend not only on military might or lack thereof, but it will depend on our moral courage and conviction. It will depend on our relegating our fear of world opinion to the bottom of the trash heap. The results of our endeavors will depend on our fear and trust in the Almighty G-d of Israel, who enters into war with us. We must prevail upon the Almighty G-d of Israel for His Heavenly assistance and we must commit ourselves to dedicating ourselves to walking in His ways and following His commandments. The Torah tells is in Parshas Ki Teitze, in the book of Deuteronomy, "Ki Teitze L'Milchama al Oyvecha", when you will go out to war against your enemies. It is often asked why this verse sounds redundant. Isn't it clear, that when our nation goes out to war, it is obviously against our enemies, because one does not go out to war against their friends or allies. The verse specifically states, "against you enemies" because Hashem wanted us to remember that these people are our enemies, to remind us not to have compassion against those who would brazenly murder servants of the Almighty. Hashem reminds us that we cannot forget who are enemies are and to treat them accordingly. We must cry out to the Almighty in our prayers and ask for the strength to overcome our fears and for His hand to do battle against our enemies. We must remember the words of King David who said (Psalms 144), "Hashem is my Rock who trains my hands for battle, my fingers for war. My Benefactor, my Fortress, my Stronghold, my own Rescuer, my Shield in Whom I take refuge." May it be the will of the Almighty that we sanctify His holy name and emerge victorious over our enemies. Contact Fern Sidman at ariellah@aol.com |
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MEMORIAL FOR ELIAHU ASHERI
Posted by Professor Eugene Narrett, July 7, 2006. |
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Now that Operation Summer Rains, the fabric-softener incursion, has morphed into its less limp sibling, Operation Bashan Oaks something and someone are being forgotten who should not be forgotten at all: Eliahu Asheri, the youth who was kidnapped at the Ofra hitch hiking stand and then murdered by Arabs -- one of them disguised as an orthodox Jew -- in Bir Zeit. The Israeli media, and aping it, the world media frequently mentions the kidnapped soldier, Cpl Gilad Shalit who is the ostensible reason for the IDF incursion into the Gaza Strip, but the Asheri youth, living in Itamar since he was a toddler is all but forgotten. All but forgotten: forgotten except for blaming him for being where he shouldn't have been in Ofra, heading home; in Yehuda and the Shomron altogether. That is he's a "settler" one of those Jews responsible for jihadist violence, and for the homicidal treacheries, financial gifts to terror states and deals of the West, and therefore he more or less invited his own murder. This is horrible but not new: for thirty-five years the Israeli establishment, since Oslo almost totally subordinated to the State Department in Washington has joined the rest of the world in blaming the settlers for Arab violence and for all the miseries of the world. This is very convenient for the dysfunctional, theft-based, deceitful and murderous autocracies that control nearly all the peoples in the world. The more dysfunctional the culture, the more openly and frequently in blames the Jews, especially the Jews of the Jewish heartland for all the world's problems. If only the Jewish problem could be solved, they imply or assert, then there would be peace and security and prosperity... This is how great their deceitful malice is. Many reports state that Eliahu Asheri was a youth of intense prayer. And many say that his legacy is even more prayer and focus on prayer as the essence of Judaism and answer to the world's problems. This is genuine and sweet, very unlike the previously summarized solutions to the world's problems but it is tragically mis-directed. It reflects the deformations of Judaism ground into Jews during the long centuries of exile. Judaism is a derech, a way of acting in and moving through the world that unites deeds and faith. From the first of Israel's existence as a nation, at Sinai, this defining mixture has emphasized deeds first and later understanding. Not prayers first, deeds first. So it was as the Sea of Reeds when the Eternal One told Moshe and all Israel to stop crying out to Him but instead to jump into the sea and start walking. Deeds come first, they demonstrate faith. This led to victory, the first great national victory still commemorated every day when Jews recite the "Song of the Sea" (Exodus 15) which demonstrates the Eternal's view of Jewish victory and the appropriate Jewish response to the destruction of the enemies of the Jewish people. It was not long after that defining event of the nation that a similar crisis occurred: Amalek attacked the people, a sneak attack, from the rear upon the weak and unprepared. The response: deeds by the national host, everyone 20 - 60 years of age, and prayer by the leading elders, principally Moshe assisted by Aaron and Hur. The result: victory for the Jews (decimation of Amalek) and the positive commandment that every Jew must REMEMBER the hostility of Amalek, the enemy of the Jews, and that Hashem will demand that we blot them out from under heaven: remember, don't forget! The Jewish response to the kidnapping and murder of the beautiful youth is to destroy Amalek beginning with Ramallah and Bir Zeit. The very presence of these plague sores in the Land of Israel disgraces the Eternal One, mocks His word and plan, and is a source of constant mortal peril and distress for His people. Anyone who genuinely wants peace knows that the homes bases of those who preach and practice murdering Jews must be obliterated. All Arab towns, villages, and cities from which issue murderers or would-be murderers must be flattened. Look how the prophet Samuel addressed and did to King Saul for failing to destroy Amalek totally; consider how David addressed non-Jew warrior Goliath who dared to threaten, humiliate and promise to roll back the inheritance of the children of Israel. The best memorial and monument to Eliahu Asheri consists of a few complementary parts whose implementation (deeds show faith; the essential deed, -- build the Land so Torah shleimah, not Torah galut can be practiced in it) will sanctify Hashem and begin to raise up the fallen booth of David. First, destroy Ramallah and Bir Zeit, because put together they are not in any way worth the beautiful lives, and there have been many, that they have destroyed, and the murder they teach there including in their university in which they had an 'art exhibit' celebrating the bombing at the Sbarro restaurant. Flatten them like the Jewish towns in Gush Katif were flattened and drive any survivors across the Jordan. Let the CIA's man Abdullah from Mecca (temporarily in Amman) deal with them. Next, drive all the Arabs from the Gaza strip. Make amends for the omission of thirty-nine years ago, a failure of national will and integrity that has cost so many lives but that should not cost one more Jewish life except any unavaoidably lost in making the area not Judenrein but emptied of Arab savages raised to murder and taught for a millennia to despise, humiliate and murder Jews. Drive them all out with fire and storm, remember Amalek, and then rebuild the entire area with fifty Jewish towns from Rafiach Yam to Netiv HaAssara, all contiguous, all beautiful, flourishing, productive and joyous, a blessing on the world. Lastly, for starters, build up Itamar to a town of five thousand Jews stretching from Tapuach to Elon Morah, and assist them in establishing thousands of flocks and gorgeous productive orchards, a blessing for the world, a pardise on earth, and a model and precedent for the reclamation and flourishing of all of Judea and Samaria, a paradise of harvest plenty, bird song and joy. And Jews will walk, hitchhike, sow and reap and picnic whereever they wish, and no one will make them afraid. These are fitting memorials and monuments to Eliahu Asheri and the thousands before him who have had their precious lives needlessly cut short. "Neither the dead can praise G-d nor any who descend into silence, but we..." (psalm 115:17-18). His and our souls "will sing and not be stilled" when these living memorials to the fulfillment of the Promise are established. Not xtian science but active faith, Jewish faith in deeds fulfills the promise and brings victory, the wholeness without which there never will be peace. Professor Eugene Narrett teaches writing and Literature at Boston University. He is the author of hundreds of articles, columns and reviews on politics, American culture and the arts. He is completing a study on Romanticism and the longterm decline of Western Culture. He writes often on subjects relating to Israel and Judaism and is a weekly columnist for the MetroWest Daily News in Framingham, Massachusetts. His new book is "Israel and the Endtimes". Contact him at Culturtalk@aol.com |
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MS MARSHALL MISLEADS PALO ALTO DAILY READERS WITH ERRORS AND FALSEHOODS
Posted by David Meir-Levi, July 7, 2006. |
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Rachelle Marshall's "Mideast column biased" (Palo Alto Daily News, 7.7.06, 8-9) is an excellent demonstration of either her deep and abiding ignorance of the mid-east conflict, or her misguided belief that your readers are abysmally ignorant. She packs almost as many errors and misrepresentations into her three paragraphs as there are seeds in a pomegranate. 1. Brutality of Israeli occupation: wrong! Israel's legal sovereignty over the West Bank and Gaza Strip began in 1967 and continued until 1994. After the 6-day war, Israel offered to return the conquered territories to their previous sovereigns in the context of peace agreements. Israel's peace offers were rejected. Then, starting in late 1967, in the absence of any willingness on the Arab side to negotiate a settlement, Israel began a massive up-grading of the quality of life in both the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Later dubbed the "Mini-Marshall plan" (reminiscent of the Secretary of State George Marshall's plan in post-WW2 Europe), Israel invested hundreds of millions of dollars into the territories, bringing up to 20th century standards the roads, sewerage, water supply, water purification, electricity, phone, and radio broadcasting systems. Hundreds of thousands of Arabs found relatively high-paying employment in Israel's economy. Tourism skyrocketed, seven universities grew where only three teacher training colleges were before. And perhaps most telling of all, the GDP of the West Bank during those years ranged from 4 or 5% to as much as 13% per year, and the Arab population grew from c. 950,000 in 1967 to more than 3,400,000 in 1994. Arabs and Israelis traveled freely on all roads, and Arabs shopped in Tel Aviv, and took courses at Haifa university. No brutality there. All of the above came to a grinding halt when Arafat took over in July, 1994. And what Ms. Marshall terms 'brutal' are the self-defense operations (curfews, lock-downs, road blocks) that Israel has mounted against Arafat's relentless ruthless terror war. 2. Israel's continuing occupation of the West Bank is at cause for Palestinian terrorism: Wrong! The Arab terrorism began back in the 1920s....before the State of Israel was even created. Arab terrorism against Israel has been going on since 1948. Fatah and the PLO, with their uncompromising commitment to destroy Israel and genocide its Jews, were founded long before the Israeli capture of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Please. Let's keep cause and effect in mind. Cause must come before effect. Israel's control of the West Bank cannot be the cause of Arab terrorism when the terrorism predates that control by several decades. 3. Israel defies international law: wrong again! International law does not require Israel to return any of the territories that it captured in the 1948 war or in the 1967 war. Since those territories were captured in a defensive war against external aggressive beligerents, their disposition awaits peace treaties between the beligerents. Israel offered peace and the Arabs said no. When Egypt finally made peace in 1979, Israel ceded the entire Sinai peninsula. When Jordan made peace in 1994, Israel ceded thousands of acres of land east of the Jordan River. Israel has already offered to make peace with the Palestinian terrorists, and has made obvious and unmistably clear the sincerity of its intentions by its unconditional and unilateral withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and from communities in northern Samaria....and the Palestinian leaders have said no with thousands of qassam attacks, road sided bombings, car bombs, truck bombs, mines, sniper attacks, suicide submachine gun attacks, knifings, kidnappings, and suicide-bombers. There have been more than 28,000 terror attacks against Israel since Arafat eschewed terrorism and swore to resolve all differences amicably at negotiating tables, in Oslo, (9/28/1993), with 1,700 dead and almost 7000 wounded or maimed for life. The Arab terrorism defies international law...not Israel's defense against it. 4. West Bank water diverted to Israel. Wrong! Most of Israel's water comes from the National Water Carrier (HaMovil HaArtzi) which brings water from the Sea of Galilee. The west Bank water issue arises from the fact that Arab mis-use, over-use and polution of ground water sources and artesian wells, the product of more than 150 years of population growth in the West bank, raises the spectre of a badly damaged eco-system and long-term polution of the underground reservoirs. Israel has applied ecologically necessary and technologically advanced restrictions on this water use (along with an upgrading of the sewage systems of West Bank cities, prior to which Arab municipalities dumped human waste onto agrarian areas). Arab mendacious propaganda turns these intelligent, necessary, and long-range beneficial restrictions into putative Israeli mis-deeds. And Ms. Marshall believes their lies....or wants us to believe them. 5. Jewish Roads. Lord have mercy!! Wrong again!! There are no 'apartheid' or 'Jewish only' roads. Never were. In the days before Arafat's war (see above, #1), everyone used the same roads; many of which ran through the centers of villages and towns on the West Bank, bringing tourists and money as the economy grew and tourism flourished. With the intensification of Arafat's Oslo war (10/1993-11/2004), Israel chose to build "Israeli only" roads from pre-1967 Israel into the West Bank, so that Israelis (Jewish, Christian, Moslem, Druze, Alawi, Bahai, Buddhists, Aetheist...whatever) could access West Bank Israeli communities without being exposed to Arab terror attacks. Whereas most countries in the past have resorted to punative retalitory attacks in response to terrorism, Israel chose to pursue peace with its terrorist enemies, avoid attacking the Arab villages where the terrorists resided and operated, and instead went to the expense of building Israeli-Only roads that circumvented the villages. 6. Palestinians dependent on the 'whim' of Israelis guarding checkpoints. Wrong Wrong Wrong!!! There is no whim. That is the image that the anti-Israel bigots seek to engender in the readers' imagination. The reality is that the Israeli military intelligence receives on a daily basis scores and sometimes hundreds of actionable intelligence reports of planned terror attacks. Road blocks are set up and cars stopped in order to stop the terrorists. Were there no terrorists, there would be no road blocks. In the years from 1967 to 1994, there were almost no terrorists, and almost no roadblocks. In the face of the reality of an endless, relentless, ruthless, brutal terror war, Israel must answer the question that Ms. Marshall adroitly avoids: where do you want the casualties? With the road blocks and lock downs and curfews and other security-driven impositions on Arab civilian life, the casualties are those civilians who are inconvenienced, humiliated, or perhaps even harmed, by those defensive measures. Without those measures, the casualties are the dozens or scores or hundreds of Israelis blown up or shot or burned alive by the terrorists who are stopped by those measures. Where does Ms. Marshall want the casualties? 7. Sit down and negotiate an end....Finally, she gets something right! Yes! That is exactly what both sides should do. But wait,.... Israel has already offered that...dozens of times, over and over, from 1947 onward. Even as both President Bush (6/14/2002) and Prime Minister Sharon (4/14/2004) were telling Paletinian leadership that they would indeed get their state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip if/when they stopped the terror war, terrorist leaders were launching terror attacks and Qassam attacks into the cities and farming communities of pre-1967 Israel. Since 1947, most of the Arab side has adamantly refused a negotiated settlement; even when Egypt and Jordan had great success in negotiations. And even under the pressure of international censure and the cut-off of funds, the Hamas government of the Palestinian Authority today still adamantly refuses to negotiate with Israel. So, which side needs to be urged? David Meir-Levi is an American-born Israeli, currently living in Palo Alto. His expertise is in Near Eastern studies and the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict. He is Director of Peace and Education at Israel Peace Initiative (www.ipi-usa.org). Contact him at david_meirlevi@hotmail.com |
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TWO HAMAS TERRORISTS KILLED IN WORK ACCIDENT IN GAZA CITY
Posted by Bryna Berch, July 7, 2006. |
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Who says terror group buddies like the Palestinian Center Human Rights (PCHR) can't be amusing? This starts out as a straightforward account of guys knocking themselves off while constructing an explosive device. So what is PCHR's advice? Stop making terror devices? Worry about Israel's Human Rights? No way. Read the last paragraph. It's a hoot. I couldn't help wondering how they would bring the perpetrators to justice -- said perpetrators having already arrived in Paradise. Or maybe as usual, it's all Israel's fault. |
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Security Chaos and Proliferation of Small Arms
2 Members of Izzedeen El-Qassam Battalions Killed in a Mysterious Explosion Gaza City At approximately 13:10 on Wednesday, 5 July 2006, two Palestinians were killed in a mysterious explosion in a house located in the densely-populated Zaitoon Quarter in Gaza City. PCHR?s preliminary investigation indicates that both were members of Izzedeen El-Qassam Battalions, the armed wing of Hamas. It is believed that they were preparing an explosive device that detonated by mistake. The explosion killed them instantly, and tore their bodies apart. It was difficult to recognize them immediately after the explosion. Sources at Shifa Hospital in Gaza informed PCHR's fieldworker that the two dead Palestinians are from Zaitoon Quarter in Gaza City: - Ammar Arafat H'jazi (24); and
PCHR is concerned over the continued falling of victims by the misuse of weapon or storing weapons in civilian areas, which falls under the security chaos plaguing the Occupied Palestinian Territory. The Centre calls upon the PNA, represented by the Attorney-General, to investigate these incidents and bring the perpetrators to justice. |
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TIME TO SAY WHO WAS RIGHT
Posted by Hillel Fendel, July 7, 2006. |
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Nationalist camp leaders warn that the right-wing had better not make the same mistake twice. "This time," they declare, "we have to say, 'We told you so.'" Nationalist camp commentator and journalist Haggai Segal and the Rabbi of Ofrah, Avi Gisser, are the first to send out the message. Segal, broadcasting on his Knesset Channel TV show and writing in his weekly column in B'Sheva, says the right-wing must not be as modest as it was when the PA broke out the Oslo War in late 2000. "The right-wing at the time," Segal writes in B'Sheva, "criminally decreed upon itself a form of modesty. It felt that it would be better to show 'gallantry of victors' (woe unto such victories), and let the new reality speak for itself. There was a naive belief that the Minister of History would assume responsibility for sweeping all the false peace prophets into his garbage bin. The right-wingers were innocent enough to believe that those false prophets would hide out in shame. That's why not one official or important source outside of Yesha said the little words, 'We told you so.' If someone ever tried to say this, he would immediately receive a kick under the table." "This nobility cost the right-wing dearly," Segal continues. "After a few months of shock, the leftists again reared their heads. Instead of cowering apologetically in their corners in mourning and shame, they started pointing an accusatory finger at Yesha. Their publicists began brazenly rewriting history, formulating strange theories in which the Oslo War was actually Israel's fault. Just this past week, one of the main Oslo champions, Ben Caspit of Maariv, wrote, 'I'm not certain that Oslo would have been so catastrophic, had we not helped the agreement to collapse by building more settlements.'" "Now, with another left-wing initiative, the insane Disengagement plan, going up in flames, we see again a left-wing trend to evade responsibility," Segal writes, noting a host of left-wing figures who have been saying that they always opposed a unilateral move and warned that it would strengthen Hamas, etc. "We're beginning to think that at least a third of the Kfar Maimon protestors [tens of thousands of people who came to protest and possibly even to physically stop the withdrawal from Gaza - ed.] were left-wingers..." Segal, a resident of Ofrah, then continues, "In light of the danger that this chutzpah-like narrative will begin to attract attention, and mainly because of the danger that the lessons of the Disengagement might not prevent a further withdrawal from Judea and Samaria, Rabbi Avi Gisser of Ofrah declared this week the opening of the 'We Told You So' campaign. He is not one of the most vocal or raucous spokesmen in the right-wing, but he has reached the conclusion that there is no other choice. He feels that the right-wing must not again fall for the sweet illusion that the left-wingers will recognize their folly and not repeat it. He took out a large ad in Haaretz this week, declaring, 'We told you so - Whoever runs away from Gaza, Gaza will run after him. Whoever disengages and converges, terrorism will find a way to re-engage with him.' The late Prime Minister Yitzchak Rabin ridiculed those who warned that rockets would be fired from Gaza. "The scare-stories of the Likud are well-known," Rabin said in 1995 in the above recording. "Why, they also promised us Katyushas from Gaza. It's already a year that the Gaza Strip is mostly under the control of the Palestinian Authority - and there wasn't a Katyusha and there won't be any..." Hillel Fendel is senior news editor at Arutz Sheva (www.IsraelNN.com). |
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ISRAEL FORCED TO FACE THE END OF ILLUSIONS
Posted by Bryna Berch, July 7, 2006. |
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This article was written by Rich Lowry, editor of the National Review. It appeared in the Salt Lake Tribune (www.sltrib.?com/opinion/ci_4025678) today. I agree with Lowry that the peace fantasy has never had a chance -- mostly because the Arabs want to loot and destroy Israel, not make peace with her. Lowry believes "[t]he cleanest solution is for the Palestinians to reform themselves. Maybe -- but this sounds like more the peace fantasy -- the 'just let them have responsibility and they'll forget terror' motif. In fact, Lowry has to call upon the granddaddy of unreal and illusionary thinking, Shimon Peres, for support, who is still saying, "The question now is whether the Palestinians have the inclination and the capacity to build a state." That question has been answered long ago by the terrorists -- no they don't want and aren't capable of building a state. So maybe we should reexamine the sensible option of tranferring Arabs out of the Territories. This isn't fantasy. It's a practical solution -- it sends the local Arabs to some part of the vast domain -- much of it uninhabited -- that is controlled by the Arab states. The other Arabs have been weeping (crocodile) tears for their poor bethren in Gaza and the West Bank. So let them set the Palestinian Arabs up in an area that is bigger than all of Israel -- this might actually give the Palestinian arabs the environment to reform themselves. And if it doesn't, what does it matter -- they'll be away from where they can do harm. So why do the pundits reject the transfer-the-Arabs-out-of-Israel solution? Is it because it doesn't fit into their constricted frame of reference. Maybe the puntificators should abandon some of their untenable ways of viewing the Arab-Israel conflict and get real. |
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JERUSALEM - The end of illusions is always clarifying, but not always comforting. So a grim realism is the mood here in the wake of the unilateral Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip last year, which was met first by the election of a Hamas government to run the Palestinian Authority, and now by rocket attacks into Israel and a crisis over the kidnapping of an Israeli soldier. Israel's withdrawal itself required the shattering of illusions. The Israeli Right had to give up its dream of a Greater Israel. The Israeli Left had to abandon its dream of a negotiated peace with the Palestinians. Both were fantasies, but anyone who imagined that leaving Gaza would transform Palestinian politics or Israel's security for the better has watched those comforting notions sink as well. Hence, the low rumble of disenchantment here. (I'm part of a delegation of visiting journalists sponsored by the pro-Israel American Israel Education Foundation.) Since the Oslo agreement, one Israeli official notes the Israeli-Palestinian dynamic has been gripped by "a spirit of confidence destruction." If Oslo offered a vista of (false) hope, very little hope of any kind seems on offer now: "Everything we do today is a fallback plan," the official says. "There are no options that don't have negative fallout." The hope was that withdrawing from Gaza and creating a security fence around the Palestinian territories would basically allow the Israelis to wash their hands of the Palestinians. The fence has been spectacularly successful where it has been completed, reducing suicide bombings by 90 percent or more. So why worry about the intricacies of Palestinian politics? As one Israeli official puts it, "If they want to create a Taliban-style Islamic government in Gaza, that's their problem, not mine." Except Palestinian radicals can routinely jump the security fence, in the form of the Kassam rockets they are pouring into Israel from Gaza. If Israel were to pull out unilaterally from the West Bank, as Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert talks about, major Israeli population centers would be within Hamas rocket range. What to do? No option is appealing. Seek to collapse the Hamas government? That might only make Hamas more popular. Re-occupy Gaza? If Israel wanted to occupy Gaza, it wouldn't have left. Give the Palestinians some positive inducement? "What are we going to do for them," an Israeli official sardonically asks, "pull out of Gaza?" The cleanest solution is for the Palestinians to reform themselves. In this sense, Palestinian politics still very much matters to Israelis. "The question now is whether the Palestinians have the inclination and the capacity to build a state," says Israeli elder statesman Shimon Peres. Roughly speaking, Palestinian politics is dominated by terrorists - as represented by Hamas - and corrupt, terrorist-enabling incompetents - as represented by Fatah, the late Yasser Arafat's organization. Pity the Palestinians if Fatah is their best hope for rational government. Former Arafat negotiator and elected Fatah representative Saeb Erekat admits that Fatah needs to reform. "We're not doing it," he says, "and have no excuse for not doing it - I don't feel like lying today." Something of a model for a way forward is Southern Lebanon, where Hizbollah dominates and has a significant rocket capability that it handles with restraint. Like Hamas, Hizbollah is a terrorist organization with a role in government, but Israel has managed to establish a somewhat stable deterrent relationship with it. Hizbollah knows that if it goes too far, Israel will hit back hard. Perhaps it will be possible to establish a similar deterrent relationship with Hamas. One senior Israeli security source says, for now, that means forcing Hamas "to choose between their regime and their terror." It might be that Hamas can never be made to moderate its behavior. And still looming is yet another crisis - the approach of a nuclear-armed Iran, whose deterability Israel obviously can't determine with trial and error. It's a good thing Israel is abandoning illusions. It can't afford them. |
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SO WHY DO THEY HATE CANADA?
Posted by David Meir-Levi, July 7, 2006. |
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I know that you must often face the question: why do they hate us? The article below will assist you in finding an answer. When it comes to Israel, we are told that they hate Israel because of what Zionism did to the Palestinans. Well, that's a debatable issue. As I have demonstrated numerous times in my letters to you, Zionism did much for the Arabs of the region; but their hatred, and the hatred ignited by their leaders, left no room for the cooperation and improvement in their condition that Zionism offered. But....there are many certainly very smart people who disagree. When it comes to Jews, we are told that they don't hate Jews because they really only hate Zionism. Well, that's a debatable issue. As I, and many others far more qualified than I, have demonstrated elsewhere, Arab and Moslem Jew-hatred is deeply ensconced in the traditions of Moslem education and Moslem preaching (hate teach, hate preach) from the days of Mohammed, as an integral part of the Moslem belief system. But....there are certainly some people who disagree. when it comes to the West, we are told that the Arab/Moslem world hates us because of western Imperialism. Well, that is a debatable issue. The USA did not engage in the European imperialism of the 18-20th centuries. European imperialism ended before or after world war 2. The countries that suffered from European imperialism have all made peace and moved on, benefiting mightily from their contact with, trade with, intellectual and scientific exchanges with....their former imperialist occupiers (look at South Korea, Japan, Viet Nam, Hong Kong, Singapore, Philipines, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, India).....except for the Arab world. They still nurture the hatred. And, conveniently, they neglect to mention that they became sovereign over what is now the 'arab world' by a brutal barbaric genocidal imperialism that resulted in the destruction of 4 great civilizations and the murders of tens of millions of 'infidels'. But...there are certainly some pundits and politicians who disagree. When it comes to America, we are told that the USA has waged a war against Islam. Well, that is hardly debatable. The USA has given scores of billions of dollars to Islamic countries for their well-being and even for their survivial, since post-word war 2. American troops have fought and died on behalf of Moslem countries threatened by Christian (Croatia vs Serbs) or other Moslem (Kuwait vs Iraq) forces. Moreover, Nov 5, 1979 was the official beginning of the Ayatollah Khoumeini's declaration of the Moslem World's Islamic terror War agaisnt the USA....and the USA has suffered hundreds of terror attacks since then from Iranian and Arab Moslem terrorists....so that makes 22 years of attacks before 9/11/01: and 9/11/01 came before our invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq. So it is beyond reasonable argument that hatred against the USA is justified by accusations that the USA is at war with Islam, or is an imperialist nation. Here there are none that I know of who have actually analyzed the history of the USA in the Moslem world since world war 2 and drawn conclusions different from mine. The accusations come from the Moslem world, and are echoed by some academicians and journalists (and a few polticians) whose arguments cannot stand up to even the most superficial critique. But, when it comes to Canada....that is not even 'hardly debatable' at all. It is beyond nonsensical. Canada has been the epitome of the welcoming non-melting pot for Moslem 'refugees' world-wide. Even more so than England or France. Canada has never been an imperialist country. Immigrants are assisted with monetary aid and job training and language training and freedom of religion and no pressure to conform or integrate or assimilate, and very very lax laws re sedition that permit the most fire-breathing of Moslem imams to preach the destructiion of the infidel West, and no troops in Iraq, and very lax immigration laws that have welcomed Moslems even though it became clear at least a decade ago that among the immigrants were terrorists or potential terrorists....and yet....see the article below. So, when it comes to Canada, we are forced to revamp our thinking: we are forced to face the unpleasant fact that: "....This (jihad as an outgrowth of hatred of the west) is a matter of religious conviction. These ideas will not be dislodged by education about Western values, which are all part of the jahiliyya (*) these women and their husbands despise, or by better access to jobs or housing. One primary lesson that authorities should draw from these Internet postings is that Islamic terror is not a problem that can be solved by social engineering. It cannot be assuaged by gestures of good will, negotiations or concessions. There is in Western countries today a large and growing population of Muslims, among whom are many who have no intention of assimilating or adopting Western values and perspectives, and who regard the West with as much or more disdain and contempt as these women show in their Internet postings. The jihad ideology as such must be confronted and combated, or it will continue to spread, and breed terrorists and subversives." Bottom line: they don't hate us for what we do or did. They hate us for what we are: free, democratic, rich, successful, and non-Moslem. So who are 'they'? First, 'they' are osama and his close friends who are calling the shots. Recall that he has said often that "...first and foremost, my war is against 'global non-belief'" (that's us). This includes active fighters and those who support him monitarily or with some other sort of collaboration. Second...His active followers, the soldiers in his army, the terrorists who respond to his commands; plus others who support them monitarily or via other sorts of collaboration (offering safe haven, forging documents, using positions of high office to facilitate terror activities). Third...His active immitators, the Moslem terror groups that operate independently of him, but laud and emulate his deed and aims (like the ones who blew up the night club in Bali, or are waging right now a war against the Christians of the Philipines, or Hezbollah or Hamas etc.); plus their supporters and collaborators. Fourth...the wannabbees all over the world who are willing to strike on their own against the forces of non-belief with home made bombs or poisons, just to be sure that they get in to heaven with their virgins by killing the kafiroon....just to make sure that they have done their part to advance the ultimate victory of Islam over all other religions of the world. Fifth...the Moslems like the women quoted in the article below, who may not themselves be a clear and present danger for terror attacks against us, but who harbor the sentiments that support and encourage these attacks, and who lionize and idealize and romanticize and justify and legitimize the terror acts of their jihadist co-religionists. Sixth...the nice non-violent normal Moslems who are not the 'they' of #1-5; but who watch in silence as 'they' do their terror and wreck their mass murder; and who make flacid excuses or convoluted justifications for Osama and his friends. So, who are 'they' NOT! They are not the hundreds of millions of Moslems world-wide who want nothing more than to live a normal life, raise crops and a family, leave the world a little better than they found it, and give their children the best start possible in to their own lives. They are not jihadists, do not want us all dead or moslem, and feel no support or allegiance to those Moslems who do. The problem that we are encountering in our pursuit of an effective defensive response to the war being waged upon us by the 'they' of groups 1-5 is that this last group of #6 is indistinguishable from the 'they' of groups # 4 & 5....until one of them goes public with a terror attack or with pronouncements like those in the article below. And worse, the "Not They" group is indistinguishable from the 'they' group of #6. Terrorism is evil.
----------------- (*) Jahiliyya, literally means 'ignorance'. a 'jahil" is a fool, an ignorant person, an unlearned person. The term Jahiliyya is used in Islamic historiography to denote the entire world and all the world's religions and learning and philosophy and science..... prior to Islam (628 AD). Today the term is used to designate all the world that is not Moslem (or, according to some in groups #1-5, not Moslem enough) This article is called "We Hate Canada," and it was written by Robert Spencer. It appeared in www.FrontPageMagazine.com, July 5, 2006. |
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Investigators have recently uncovered a series of Internet postings made by the wives of a group of suspected jihad terrorists. They include these comments (all spelling and punctuation is as it was written): "Know what you will face one day. Let them call you a terrorist, let them make you look like a savage, but know that THIS [the American military] is the filth of the earth, the uncivilised destroyer of humanity." "[And] if [my husband] ever refuses a clear opportunity to leave for jihad, then i want the choice of divorce." "All muslim politicians are corrupt. There's no one out there willing to rule the country by the laws of Allah, rather they fight to rule the country by the laws of democracy." "Are you accepting a system that separates religion and state? Are you gonna give your pledge of allegiance to a party that puts secular laws above the laws of Allah? Are you gonna worship that which they worship? Are you going to throw away the most important thing that makes you a muslim?" "May Allah crush these jews, bring them down to their kneees, humuliate them. Ya Allah make their women widows and their children orphans." "May Allah curse the jews.. Ameen." These posts and others like them were written not in Pakistan, Saudi Arabia or Yemen. They were written in Canada by several of the wives of the jihad terror plotters recently arrested there: Mariya, the wife of the suspected plot ringleader, Fahim Ahmad; Nada Farooq, wife of Zakariya Amara, who is thought to have been Ahmad's second-in-command; Rana, the wife of another suspect, Ahmad Ghany; and Cheryfa MacAulay Jamal, a convert to Islam and the wife of Qayyum Abdul Jamal, who is alleged to have stirred the others to act with his fiery sermons preaching jihad and hatred of Christians, Jews, and the West -- and whose violent exhortations were tolerated by mosque officials because he took out the garbage. Leftist analysts who explain Islamic jihad as a reaction to Western atrocities and oppression, as well as those on the Left and the Right who assume that education and exposure to Western culture and values will blunt the force of that jihad, are hard-pressed to explain the phenomenon of jihadists and jihad sympathizers who are born and raised in Western countries. Of course, the Council on American Islamic Relations and other advocacy groups attempt to fill this gap with their largely trumped-up reports of hate crimes against Muslims in Western countries, but when the best they can come up with are some insults at a supermarket, it's hard to build a case for large-scale oppression of Muslims. But if they are not oppressed, what would possibly have inspired the hatred and contempt these women feel for their own country? When asked what she thought was unique about Canada, Nada Farooq replied, "Who cares? We hate Canada." Why would someone who lives in Canada and benefits from its freedom and prosperity hate Canada? Almost certainly because she has been taught to do so. Nada Farooq and the other women who wrote the comments above have no doubt been taught that all non-Muslim society and culture is jahiliyya -- ignorance or barbarism, worthless and to be despised. The Egyptian Qur'an commentator and Muslim Brotherhood theorist Sayyid Qutb (1906-1966), whose writings are popular today among Muslims in the West, emphasized this: "It is not the function of Islam to compromise with the concepts of Jahiliyya [the society of unbelievers] which are current in the world or to co-exist in the same land together with a jahili system... Islam cannot accept any mixing with Jahiliyyah. Either Islam will remain, or Jahiliyyah; no half-half situation is possible. Command belongs to Allah, or otherwise to Jahiliyyah; Allah's Shari'ah [law] will prevail, or else people's desires: "And if they do not respond to you, then know that they only follow their own lusts. And who is more astray than one who follows his own lusts, without guidance from Allah? Verily! Allah guides not the people who are disobedient."[Qur'an 28:50]... The foremost duty of Islam is to depose Jahiliyyah from the leadership of man, with the intention of raising human beings to that high position which Allah has chosen for him."[1] Likewise, Syed Abul Ala Maududi (1903-1979), founder of the Pakistani political party Jamaat-e-Islami, which is still the largest exponent of political Islam in Pakistan, declared that non-Muslims have "absolutely no right to seize the reins of power in any part of God's earth nor to direct the collective affairs of human beings according to their own misconceived doctrines." If they do, "the believers would be under an obligation to do their utmost to dislodge them from political power and to make them live in subservience to the Islamic way of life."[2] This is a matter of religious conviction. These ideas will not be dislodged by education about Western values, which are all part of the jahiliyya these women and their husbands despise, or by better access to jobs or housing. One primary lesson that authorities should draw from these Internet postings is that Islamic terror is not a problem that can be solved by social engineering. It cannot be assuaged by gestures of good will, negotiations or concessions. There is in Western countries today a large and growing population of Muslims, among whom are many who have no intention of assimilating or adopting Western values and perspectives, and who regard the West with as much or more disdain and contempt as these women show in their Internet postings. The jihad ideology as such must be confronted and combated, or it will continue to spread, and breed terrorists and subversives. But for authorities to understand this and take positive steps to deal with it, they would first have to admit that Islam has anything to do with terrorism at all -- something they have taken great pride in denying. And that denial only ensures that there will be many more jihad cells in Canada and Western countries, with the wives of the plotters cheering from the sidelines. ENDNOTES: [1] Sayyid Qutb, "The Right to Judge," http://www.islamworld.net/justice.html. [2] Sayyid Abul A'la Maududi [here, Mawdudi], Towards Understanding the Qur'an, Zafar Ishaq Ansari, translator, The Islamic Foundation, revised edition 1999. Vol. 3, p. 202. David Meir-Levi is an American-born Israeli, currently living in Palo Alto. His expertise is in Near Eastern studies and the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict. He is Director of Peace and Education at Israel Peace Initiative (www.ipi-usa.org). Contact him at david_meirlevi@hotmail.com |
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THE RAINFOREST OF CIVILIZATION
Posted by Zalmi, July 7, 2006. |
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I have always regarded the Jewish nation as the rainforest of civilisation. The world stands idly by whilst it is systematically destroyed. And with it, the God-given cures for most of the worlds ills. Here is just one recent example of this truism: Researchers from Israel's Institute of Evolution have identified a gene that could revolutionize agriculture and help alleviate world hunger. Discovered in fungi at the bottom of The Dead Sea - the saltiest body of water in the world - the gene enables plants to withstand salinity. Institute director Eviatar Nevo's team has shown that when the gene is transplanted into brewer's yeast, it enables the yeast to grow in saline earth as well, a development that could mean that much more land worldwide can be used in the future for agriculture. Contact Zalmi at zalmi@zalmi.net or go to his website:
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END TIMES CAFE
Posted by Professor Eugene Narrett, July 7, 2006. |
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It's World Series Time. The Yankees are playing the Diamondbacks, and the festivities are grand. Tuesday evening in the Bronx, the President was on hand to throw out the first ball, an unprecedented convergence of the greatest moment in sport and the world's pre-eminent elective office. Mr. Bush (former General Managing Partner of the Texas Rangers) looked snappy in his windbreaker and it's nice to have a President who's comfortable on a ball field. He toed the rubber in fine fashion and threw a strike, a nifty circle change. After a strenuous, off key anthem, a bald eagle swooped in from center field to its handler on the mound. A magnificent creature and a beautiful touch featured this post-season in every game in NYC. Heaven-shaking chants of "U-S-A, U-S-A" erupted. Even if the Yankees don't win this year, they play and plan like Champions, the way Americans are meant to do. We were ready to win any war that season. But the spin, and the undercurrents of our times do their work... Many Americans believe, and President Bush has said that part of what we're fighting "terrorism" for is to protect our way of life, our freedoms and pleasures. Surely, baseball is chief among them. I felt this very strongly five-six weeks ago. Now, watching the parade of new sitcoms and made-for-TV dramas, I'm less sure. I marvel at the lavish if not profligate expense of capital, labor and time invested in even a single pro football game, the stadiums, the roads, thephysical preparation (and salaries), the concessions and attention in the media, the vast emotional investment. And there are thousands of College football and Basketball games every week with similar investment. Some say sports is our religion, rather as it became for the Athenians in the age of Pericles, when Greece tore itself to ruins in a long civil war. "Our love of what is beautiful does not lead us to extravagance," he asserted, blind to coming cultural changes of the Hellenistic age, its cynicism, worries, and pleasure-driven inward-turning so like our own. But in the late classical era Pericles could boast that "our adventurous spirit has forced an entry into every sea and every land. Good things from all over the world flow to us. Future ages will wonder at us, as the present age wonders at us now." Thirty years later, Athens was destroyed. At this moment, half a world away, are a billion people that hate America and Americans, the people with whose tactics (terror) if not with their States we are said to be at war, sort of. President Bush has aligned himself with State Department policy to create a "Palestinian" State within Israel, so one notes the sermon of a high PLO official from the mosque atop the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. (Our Executive Branch does not recognize Israeli sovereignty in Jerusalem and the Israelis, duly intimidated, allow Muslims to control the Mount, site of the Temples of David and Solomon, Nehemiah and Haggai). The official preached that "the attack on our Islamic allies [al Qaeda] by the heretic nations is like their First World War attack on Germany." this from Yusuf abu Snena with a characteristic blend of rage and odd reinterpretation of history. "These dogs," he continued, "are again attacking us, seeking to destroy Islam -- The issue today is not only Afghanistan, but also points to Europe, and those who support Europe. This is an attempt to return to the Crusades" (10-26-01). "We must give praise to Allah," he summarized and 'giving praise to Allah, as Al Muhajiroun explained, "means using military force, where diplomacy fails, to remove obstacles to carrying Islamic ideology to all mankind. A true Muslim will not distance himself from Jihad" (10-26-01). The next day, Yasir Arafat gathered the chiefs of Hamas, Islamic Jihad and his own Fatah-Tanzim militia to Gaza and announced he would take a State with their help. "Anyone who doesn't like it, can drink sea water," he boasted, adding that it was he, not Bin Laden who was the leader of Islamic forces. Three days later, Edward Walker, State Department Chief in Syrian-occupied Beirut, told a Press Conference that his Bureau remains committed to a Palestinian State with Jerusalem as its capital (10-30-01 wafa.pna.net/Eng). The games, all the beautiful, expensive, terrible games play on. America commits a tiny fraction of its immense wealth to the War on Terror; the Afghanis, Saddam Hussein and Arafat give it nearly everything they've got. Since September 09, British intelligence officers have been stationed at European border crossings, checking for Iraqis carrying anthrax. Rolf Ekeus, former head of UNSCOM and colleague of Maj. Scott Ritter, details Saddam's long term involvement in chemical warfare and terrorism (Milan, Il Sole 24 Ore, 10-26-01). "With every passing day he becomes more popular on the Arab Street," states Ekeus. "While the world is busy thinking about Bin Laden, Saddam is busy thinking about how to control the world. He who controls the [Persian] Gulf controls the oil, and he who controls the oil becomes a world power. Non-conventional weapons are a necessity for him." At the Donut Cafe, II, attention rests elsewhere. They're talking about flu shots, the local election and Molly who used to work the counter. A man with a Texas drawl discusses hymnals with the lady at my right. Though the light is bad the coffee's hot, as is the toast. The old people eat muffins. A five-year old makes a mess while his mother baby talks him. The clock hands crawl across lunch hour. Up June Street at Bagel's & Friends there's a strange mix of women who seem awfully friendly. A sullen, dread-locked black woman drapes a proprietary arm around the shoulders of an off duty waitress as she engorges a plate of potatoes and eggs. An extremely fat blond gal gets up to hug a pretty thing who wants to talk about her visit to a dentist. The image of the Attorney General flickers on a small TV set high in the wall facing the counter. Beige paint peels above the kitchen ventilator. The coffee's hot, and outside, rust-colored leaves swirl through the hilly old industrial city. It's gray and cold. Far above the noise, a red-tailed hawk is hunting. The CIA is sharing intelligence information with Syria, Sudan and Libya. Even the State Department terms them terrorist nations, but now they're going "to help us investigate and defeat Osama bin Laden's network" (New York Times, 10-30-01). "They're going to help us in ways they don't need to acknowledge" says one official, mysteriously. Trust us. My car-flags came last Monday. They work great. The President says Islam is not the enemy; it's a religion of peace. Witches hang from trees and rooftops. The neighborhood's filled with be-hatted burlap sacks and pillowcases with painted on faces and stuffed with straw and dried leaves. The kids are tick or treating, adorable groups of make-believe evil doers. There's a knock at the door. Thirty years before the end, Pericles said, "we are free and tolerant in our private lives, but in public affairs we keep to the law" (The Peloponnesian Wars, Bk. II, 37). That's never been an easy balance. "We rely not on secret weapons, but on our own real courage and loyalty." To what are we loyal today; or rather, to what are those who rule us loyal? Will the Yankees stage a great comeback? Like Pericles we once believed, "our system of government does not copy the institutions of our neighbors; but we are a model to others." Do the forms remain after the soul expires? Will others inherit and ruin what we have built? Contact Professor Narrett at culturtalk@aol.com. This essay was written November 1, 2002 |
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11 MONTHS LATER, IDF RE-ENTERS FORMER JEWISH TOWNS IN GAZA
Posted by Hillel Fendel, July 6, 2006. |
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IDF forces penetrated into Gaza, taking up positions in and near the three former Jewish communities of northern Gaza: Dugit, Nisanit, and Elei Sinai - from where Kassams have been fired at Israel. The offensive has a new name - Bashan Oaks - but it is a continuation of the few-days old Summer Rains offensive. Officials say it is open-ended in time, and in fact no one can say with certainty whether the forces will remain in Gaza for days, weeks, or even longer. MK Tzachi HaNegbi, head of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, said that it could be "years." Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer (Labor), on the other hand, said that Israel would go in and go out at will. The immediate objective of the mission is to stop the Kassam attacks by taking over the areas from which the rockets are fired. However, Kassams continued to be fired througout the day - one towards the IDF forces in Gaza, another one towards Sderot, and a third that landed near Netiv HaAsarah, just north of Gaza. Ashkelon, which suffered its first direct Kassam hit on Tuesday night, was the target of two more Kassams last night. One of them hit the city, sending eight people into a state of shock, and the other one fell short, landing near Kibbutz Zikim and causing no damage. Ashkelon is Israel's 5th-largest city. Some 16 Arabs have been killed in the fighting so far. Arabs in Gaza fired at least seven anti-tank missiles at the IDF forces. One soldier was lightly hurt, but another one was taken to Barzilai Hospital in very critical condition. At the same time, the Karni Crossing has been re-opened for the passage of goods into Gaza. It has not been announced how long the crossing - which has been closed because of warnings of terrorist attacks originating there - will remain open. The IDF's Golani Brigade entered northern Gaza after 2 AM, and continues to advance. Some of the units have already reached their destinations, such as in El Atatra, just south of Dugit, from where Kassams were fired at Ashkelon, a crowded built up area. Over the past few days, the forces have penetrated only as deep as 600-1000 meters into Gaza, but they have now already gone as far as 5-6 kilometers. The forces have a non-offensive demeanor, in that they are very carefully protected from explosives and mines - which may have been placed there over the months that Israel was not in the area. In addition, the soldiers have been warned not to harm civilians. "Our top priority is to protect and assure our soldiers' safety," Golani Brigade Commander Col. Tamir Yadai said. "Our second goal is to exact a price from the other side, and third, we want to make sure not to hurt civilians." The IDF also attacked terror cells, buildings and access roads in northern Gaza last night. Hillel Fendel is senior news editor at Arutz Sheva (www.IsraelNN.com). |
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WE WON'T BE FOOLED AGAIN!?
Posted by Matthew S. Finberg, July 6, 2006. |
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Former Chief of Staff Moshe Yaalon confirms the whole debacle was a
fraud, just as many of us suspected. Please, let's not be duped
again! A strong Greater Israel populated with Jews is necessary to
keep the murderers at bay. Yes, we showed the World we would try
almost anything to win its love by stupidly removing Jews from their
homes in Gush Katif and giving them and all of Aza to the PA. Don't
you agree that we must stop our wishful thinking that the Nations will
love us if we further humiliate ourselves with concessions which
result in the murder of our children in the IDF as well as civilians?
JUST SAY NO to Shalom Achshav and Women in Black. Peace now through
mass Aliyah of Jews who live Torah lives in our Land coupled with a
Second Amendment style right to bear arms to defend ourselves. In
1948, Shechem was virtually unpopulated. I am a Levite and it was
given to me and my tribesmen as an inheritance which the Torah tells
us we may redeem at any time. I'm moving into my hilltop home in Eli
in September, but I want my city back! "Should our sister be treated
like a whore?" Genesis 34. It is time for all Jews to reclaim their
inheritances in the Land. That is the Torah way.
This comes from Arutz Sheva News Service (www.IsraelNationalNews.com). It is entitled "Former Chief Of Staff: Sharons Disengagement A Disaster". |
| Lt.-Gen. (ret.) Moshe Yaalon, IDF Chief of Staff until the implementation of the Gaza withdrawal, says that the entire Disengagement was conceived to save PM Sharon from legal troubles. "The Disengagement was not the result of thorough strategic analysis, but the result of [then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's] political distress," Yaalon said in an interview to be published in full in Haaretz this weekend. "It was a disengagement from reality and a disengagement from the truth." Though such a claim has been made in the past, including by two prominent journalists Ofer Shelah and Raviv Drucker in their book Boomerang, this is the first time an official who was privy to the Sharon regime from the inside has cited such motives. "The process created an illusionary hope," Yaalon said, "which was not planned strategically and practically. The Disengagement was mainly a media spin. Those who initiated it and lead it lacked the strategic, security, political and historical background. They were image counselors and spin doctors. These people put Israel into a virtual spin, disconnected from reality, using a media spin campaign which is imploding before our eyes." "There is no doubt that the Disengagement failed," Yaalon said. The entire withdrawal and expulsion of 10,000 Jewish residents from Gaza and northern Samaria "was an internal Israeli game that ignored what's going on outside Israel." The former Chief of Staff does not accept the argument that because polls have shown a broad section of the Israeli public wanted to leave Gaza, it was the right thing to do. "The Israeli public backed the Disengagement because it was blinded and drugged and because it really wanted to free itself from the burden of the conflict and divide the land. But we have to understand that although we are trying to shake the Palestinians off our backs, they refuse to get off our backs and stab us instead. We shouldn't fool ourselves. We live in the Middle East. We cannot barricade ourselves behind walls and fences. There is no such thing as unilateralism. Even when we refuse to talk with our neighbors there is interaction with them." Strategic Mistake of the First Order Yaalon has harsh criticism for those in the IDF and defense establishment that bought into the withdrawal as a viable strategic move. "The Disengagement was a strategic mistake of the first order," Yaalon said. "It brought about the Hamas victory. It emboldened terror groups. It has fueled the Palestinian struggle for years. It created a feeling among the Iranians, the Muslim Brotherhood, and al-Qaeda that Israel can be beaten, that Israel is a society of spider webs as Nasrallah said or a rotten tree as Ahmadinejad said. And therefore the Disengagement not only harmed us badly, but also harmed America's strategic war on terror in the region. It created a feeling among Muslim extremists that as it defeated the Soviets in Afghanistan, it defeated us in Gaza and it will defeat us in Tel Aviv. As such, as they destabilized a super power, they will destabilize the west by defeating Israel." "The intellectual failure of the Disengagement is this," Yaalon said. "The fact that there is no one to speak to on the other side doesn't mean that we can ignore the other side and the effects of our actions upon them. The fact that even the Fatah leadership is not ready to recognize the State of Israel as a Jewish state, while it says it is committed to the Road Map peace plan, doesn't mean we can ignore the fact that pulling out under fire is perceived as surrender and encourages terror." The former Chief of Staff says that Gaza has been allowed to become a staging ground for the worst of the terror groups taking part in the Global Jihad. "At the moment, our situation in Gaza is similar to southern Lebanon," he said. "Plenty of arms have been smuggled into Gaza: explosives, Katyusha rockets, anti-aircraft rockets, anti-tank rockets, Grad rockets. As a result of the manner in which the pullout was carried out, there are Hizbullah, Al-Qaeda and Iranian elements in the Gaza Strip." "When the steps are withdrawal after withdrawal after withdrawal, we convey weakness," Ya'alon concludes. "And he who conveys weakness in the Middle East is like a weak animal in nature: he comes under attack." Matthew Finberg is Chairman of B'nai Elim. Contact him at matt@finberglaw.com or go to the website: www.bnaielim.org |
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THE PURPOSES OF OPERATION "SUMMER RAIN"
Posted by Professor Eugene Narrett, July 6 2006. |
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The Israeli army has been inching its way into the Gaza Strip for about eight days, ostensibly in response to the kidnapping of Corporal Gilad Shalit. Kidnapping is a misnomer and the tip-toe incursion is not mainly about rescuing him, as will be explained below. But the name of the Operation, "Summer Rains" is pure pr genius: soft, gentle, it sounds like a fabric softener which is basically its relation to the harsh reality of the war waged by global jihad. It's named to please western spinners and consumers of news by conjuring up images of a moisturizing soap or other emollient. Alas, the clever, only-too-apt name will not save Corporal Shalit, Sderot, Ashkelon or neighboring towns; it will not bring justice to Eliahu Asheri or the thousands of others like him. Rather, it will teach the jihadists even more contempt for Israel and Israelis thus resulting in more frequent and more horrible attacks. And then??? Summer Rains is meant to be an open-ended series of graduated phases because it is not meant to end or succeed in its ostensible mission. No; it is yet another part of the endless war of attrition which the American-Israeli diplomatic elites have long been deploying, through various means, against the Jewish people in their Land. Barring regime change, by or before a catastrophic terror strike, this is the future in store: more and more places in Israel (and throughout the world) are going to look and live like Sderot. It's not a pretty picture. Here are the true purposes of Operation Summer Rains: 1): To save by saving the face of the elites that cripple Jewish settlement, viability, identity and pride; to save the Barak -- Peres -- Olmert regime that rules in accordance with the global vision of Foggy Bottom, Brussels and the Vatican. This is the most immediate but not the main reason for the incursion into Gaza, so notable for the bombing of empty fields and empty offices. The main reason is, 2) to save the Road Map that the Israeli regime exists to execute. They are helped and held in place by the overt and covert maneuvers of the State Department and CIA and by various forms of economic blackmail and bribery. Repeat: the main reason for the incursion in Gaza in to save the Road Map toward the expulsion of Jews from Judea and Samaria, for starters. We will come back to this main goal. The third reason, 3) is to save the client regimes in Cairo and Amman, the regimes of President-for-life Mubarak and Prince Abdullah of trans-Jordan who are buttressed and programmed mainly by Washington (with assistance from the client regime in Jerusalem and from Europe) in order to keep the Road Map in place by insuring that jihadist pressure is channeled toward Israel and the Jews. If the forces of global jihad become too powerful too soon it could lead to the fall of these client regimes and complicate the clearly laid rails of the Road Map to ghettoizing and decimating Jews. We will come back to this too; its feasibility is intricately linked to that of the preceding two purposes? 4) The least important purpose by far, the "for public consumption" pretext for the entire charade is to retrieve Corporal Shalit. If he is not retrieved the client regime in Jerusalem will lose a lot of face and, with it, its ability to maintain its chokehold on the Jewish people in Israel (and elsewhere). So they'd like to get him out although their slavish adherence to the Camp David -- Oslo -- Road Map to Israel's constriction is what put him and all other Jews in Israel in daily risk of their lives in the first place. Here's one of those junctures where the internal contradictions and de facto impossibility of the Road Map and the new world order become apparent. If the regime truly gave a hoot about Jewish life the Road Map (and Oslo) would have been rejected out of hand as the suicidal and treasonous games that they are. Eliahu Asheri and thousands of other Jews like him were murdered or maimed because of what Oslo did to Israel, fragmenting it into a congeries of terrorist havens and small terror states. Those who did it and still defend its full implementation are fully responsible for everything that has ensued. The good and bad news is that these goals of Summer Rains, of the Barak-Peres clique and of the global grand-gamers in Foggy Bottom, White Hall and Brussels are mutually contradictory. The Operation is a paper tiger emollient because the terrorists must not be dispirited by a major counter blow. They must not be dispirited or decimated because their relentless murderous pressure is needed to provide the rationale for Israel's ruling elite to continue expelling Jews from ever larger portions of the Promised Land per the Road Map. Also, not dealing them a crushing blow in Gaza keeps them and the hostile population that harbors and largely supports them from fleeing to Egypt. This they in fact had begun to do when Israel's tanks arrived, but they were halted in their flight by reassurances of the Israeli government and the familiar limpness of its "military response" to terror. After all, Washington's puppet regime does not want the Jews of Gush Katif to go back and rebuild their beautiful communities; Washington and its clients do not want a flourishing and sovereign Jewish Israel established in its land. They can't manage the crisis without a crisis to manage. Thus the bloody game continues. However, by failing to significantly decimate the jihadists, the Israeli regime and its string-pullers in Washington have led the former to become more defiant and aggressive, increasing their threat not only to Jews in Israel but to the stability of the client regimes in Cairo and Amman. Mubarak and Abdullah are looking at the abyss and they know it, but the contradictions in Washington's policy have created an irresolvable dilemma for all concerned. As a result, as bitter a failure and a joke as Operation Summer Rains has been to date, the agenda of Washington and its main puppet has locked it into a context where unintended consequences will force Israel closer to regime change and, dare we say it, victory. The terrorists that are the West's weapon of choice for bludgeoning Israel into abject servility (Olmert is the poster boy for this condition) grow ever more emboldened and increasingly a threat to the client states in Cairo, Jerusalem and Amman. The puppet governments in all places are in great jeopardy and a major change in Israel's governance and orientation toward the world and its birthright grows closer with the catastrophic terror attack that successive administrations have all but insured. The end game being played by the globalists is untenable and self-negating, and the above is an empirical explanation of how their scheme is doomed for attempting to trump the Divine plan for Israel. Their impressive and bloody magic trick, imposed by enormous and varied pressures is coming apart. Soon the emperor's raw nakedness will be exposed so even most leftists will see it. What a bitter shame that it will take a tragedy of immense proportions to reveal the obvious and malicious facts. Two potential bright spots: 1) recognition that Corporal Shalit is a P.O.W. and must be treated according to the Geneva Convention stipulations. If he is harmed in anyway the entire enemy apparatus becomes responsible and must pay. This message comes closer to articulation and with it exposure of the entire charade of what Islamic jihad means and seeks. 2) Simply for reasons of personal and professional pride the General Staff of the IDF, increasingly disgusted by the indecision and limpness of the current government may decide it's had enough of being a dishrag for the politicians and judges. With power comes responsibility and this is where a major change is possible and needed. Perhaps the humiliated pride, if not a sense of brotherhood of the top echelons in the IDF will prompt them to act to save their honor and, thus, indirectly the Jewish people before disaster strikes. To do that, the enemy must be destroyed and victory achieved and Israel will settle in its place, proud and beyond doubt. There is no peace without integrity and wholeness (shleimyut) and no wholeness without victory. It is in sight. Where is the will to choose honor and sovereignty? Professor Eugene Narrett teaches writing and Literature at Boston University. He is the author of hundreds of articles, columns and reviews on politics, American culture and the arts. He is completing a study on Romanticism and the longterm decline of Western Culture. He writes often on subjects relating to Israel and Judaism and is a weekly columnist for the MetroWest Daily News in Framingham, Massachusetts. His new book is "Israel and the Endtimes". Contact him at Culturtalk@aol.com |
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REALIGNING ISRAEL'S DREAM WITH REALITY
Posted by Moshe Feiglin, July 6, 2006. |
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The headlines are enough to make every Israel lover proud. Finally Israel is letting them have it! Finally the powerful IDF is rooting out the terrorists and their rocket launchers in Gaza. Finally, Israel's air force is striking back. And to top it all off, even former Chief of Staff Bugi Yaalon has declared that the entire Disengagement plan was nothing more than a shortsighted media spin. But after the initial rush of enthusiasm that we all feel, the cold dark truth creeps back in. Israel has no intention of winning this war against the enemy that we ourselves created. We need him to hold up the Zionist ethos. Israel will not defeat the terrorists. Israel will not stay in Gaza any longer than necessary to retrieve the abducted soldier (if possible) and to temporarily stop the Kassams. In truth, the IDF has re-entered Gaza for only one reason: To save face for Olmert and his cronies. Has Israel lost its sanity? We cannot understand what is happening now if we do not recall Israel's basic goals. The aim of Zionism and the dream upon which the State of Israel was founded are to be a normal country and to be accepted into the family of nations. This family of nations, namely the more dominant Western faction, dictates that in any given conflict, the weak is just. So Israel needs the terrorists, their knives, guns, kidnappers, rockets and suicide bombers because they help us to fulfill our dream of acceptance: 1) They help us to portray ourselves as weak. How do we extricate ourselves from this impossible situation? How do we overcome our relentless march toward self-destruction? We need to do a reality check on our Zionist dream and realign it with reality. We need to dream authentic, Jewish dreams. The Israeli dream cannot present a solution for terror. Acceptance by the nations cannot free the kidnapped soldier. But the Jewish dream of destiny can. It would never have created the problem. Manhigut Yehudit (Jewish Leadership) is a group of people inside the Likud party who want to see Israel adopt a more Jewish character. Moshe Feiglin, its cofounder, has emphatically said he does not want a theocracy, but he does want a State based on Jewish values. The Manhigut Yehudit website address is http://www.manhigut.org. |
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CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY IN INTERNATIONAL LAW
Posted by Eli E. Hertz, July 6, 2006. |
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Switzerland says Israel is violating international law in Gaza. Below is the definition of crimes against humanity in international law. |
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UN Security Council resolutions and International treaties define crimes against humanity as the "participation in and knowledge of a widespread or systematic attack against a civilian population, and the multiple commission of [such] acts ... against any civilian population" These international binding instruments go-on to impose uniform mandatory counter-terrorist obligations on all states to "bring to justice the perpetrators, organizers and sponsors of terrorist attacks and stresses that those responsible for aiding, supporting or harboring the perpetrators, organizers and sponsors of these acts will be held accountable." There is no escape clause - the Council repeats "its unequivocal condemnation of all acts, methods and practices of terrorism as criminal and unjustifiable, regardless of their motivation, in all their forms and manifestations, wherever and by whomever committed." Palestinian terrorists such as Hamas that kidnap Israelis, blow up and destroy public buses, murder young people at cafes and discos, school outings, and hitchhikers on their way home, alongside indiscriminate around-the-clock shelling of Qassam rockets at civilian populations in Israel, are clearly committing Crimes Against Humanity - acts of terrorism for which the UN Security Council under UN Charter Chapter VII directs everyone to fight by all means. International law leaves no room to question Israel's right to defend its citizens against systematic and sustained Palestinian terrorist attacks launched from Gaza and the West Bank by Hamas. Palestinian claims of civil rights on the other hand, do not come with 'clean hands,' their hands are mired by their lawless violence in a bid to destroy the Jewish State. "War is Hell." [General Sherman, June 19, 1879] Let Palestinians who choose the path of war bear full responsibility for the Hell that follows. "... no legal right shall spring from a wrong." [Judge Schwebel, former president of the International Court of Justice, "Justice in International law," 1994.] Contact Eli Hertz by email at info@mythsandfacts.org or go to his website: www.mythsandfacts.org |
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SOME NEW LIGHT ON THE GAZA CRISIS
Posted by David Meir-Levi, July 6, 2006. |
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This article by Victor Davis Hanson throws considerable light on the current crisis in Gaza. It appeared in Jewish World Review today. It is called "The Israel enigma" Victor Davis Hanson is a classicist and military historian at the Hoover Institute. |
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What explains most of the world's dislike of Israel? Since Israeli settlers withdrew from Gaza in 2005, Palestinian terrorists have replied by consistently shooting homemade Qassam rockets at civilian targets inside Israel. Just recently, they've kidnapped a soldier and a hitchhiker (who has been killed) -- and promised to do the same to others. You'd expect these terrorist attacks on Israel to be viewed by responsible nations as similar to the jihadist violence we read about daily around the world -- radical Islamists beheading Russian diplomats over Chechnya, plotting to do the same to the Canadian prime minister or threatening murder over insensitive Danish cartoons. But that isn't the case at all. Israel is always seen as a special exception that somehow deserves what it gets. Other states can retaliate with impunity, brutally killing thousands of Muslim terrorists, while Israel is condemned when it takes out a few dozen. When in late 1999 Russians stormed Grozny, thousands of Chechnya Muslims died. Yet the press was mostly silent. Baathist Syria went after the Muslim Brotherhood in 1982, wiping out much of the city of Hama and killing perhaps more than 10,000. Not many U.N. resolutions or international refugee efforts there. To this day, no one knows the horrific body count from the Islamic insurrection in Algeria. Darfur finally earns occasional airtime, but only after tens of thousands have perished. But Israel's 2002 "siege" of the West Bank town Jenin, where less than 80 died on both sides, was evoked as "genocide" by those in the Middle East who often deny the real one that took 6 million Jewish lives. When Israel retaliates by air to terrorism, it is dubbed a "blitz" by the press -- as if it were akin to the Nazis carpet-bombing London. Israel's border fence is referred to as a "Berlin Wall," but you never hear Egypt's nearby massive concrete barrier to keep Palestinians in Gaza described that way. Then there is the open sore of the West Bank "occupation." Even if you forget that a series of offensive wars to destroy Israel in part originated from "Palestine", or that Israel has given up land acquired by war in its perennial hope for "land for peace," what is so unique about the West Bank that drowns out all other crises over contested ground (from islands like Cyprus and the Falklands to entire countries like Tibet)? Why has tiny Israel alone earned more U.N. resolutions of condemnation than all those offered against all other nations of the world combined? It is not as if Israel is a rogue state. For over a half-century, it's been the only liberal democracy in the Middle East. Israeli scientists have given the world everything from innovative computer software to drip-irrigation technology. Oil explains some of the weird discrepancy in how the world views certain countries. It warps policymaking. Take away Iranian and Arab petroleum -- and thus the risk of another oil embargo or rigged price hike -- and Western fears of Middle East oil states would diminish. Naked self-interest determines the foreign policy of most nations. The size of Israel factors in here as well. Israel has a population of not much more than 6 million and is surrounded by nearly 350 million Muslim Arabs. Most of the world counts heads -- and adjusts attitudes accordingly. The old anti-Semitism is, of course, another ingredient that accounts for the animus shown Israel. Even sensitive, multicultural Westerners care little that Arab "allies" often portray Jews as "pigs" and "apes" in their state-run media. Odious tracts like "Mein Kampf" still sell briskly in Palestine, and Iranian and Gulf money subsidizes a mini-industry of holocaust denial. Finally, as we know from our own southern border, anytime a successful Westernized nation is adjacent to a poorer Third World country, primordial emotions like honor and envy cloud reason. Rather than concede that Western-style democracy, capitalism, personal freedom and the rule of law explain why a prosperous, stable Israel arose from scrub and rock, Palestinians fixate on "Zionism," "colonialism" and "racism." No wonder they do. Otherwise they would have to grapple with intractable and indigenous tribalism, gender apartheid, militias and religious fundamentalism, while building an open society based on the rule of law. In some ways, Israel's values and success most resemble the United States. And that raises a final question: Is Israel hated by the world for supporting us -- or are we hated for supporting it? Or is it both? David Meir-Levi is an American-born Israeli, currently living in Palo Alto. His expertise is in Near Eastern studies and the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict. He is Director of Peace and Education at Israel Peace Initiative (www.ipi-usa.org). Contact him at david_meirlevi@hotmail.com |
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DO NOT FORGET WHERE IT ALL BEGAN
Posted by Nurit Greenger, July 6, 2006. |
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Following an urgent meeting at the Israeli consulate in Los Angeles, California, it has been agreed that the entire Jewish community is standing firm behind Israel's action in Gaza Strip. We will not relent until the Palestinians recognize Israel's sovereignty and leave her ALONE! It is our duty -- 700,000 Jews living in California, the 2nd largest Jewish community in the USA -- to come out in the thousands and announce it loud and clear -- we are all for and behind Israel! Amen! |
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"No rockets, no terror in Israel's backyard!" Can you fathom rockets hitting your town or city each and every day? This is what Israel has been contending with for nearly a year, since its voluntary disengagement from Gaza. Let's put this current crisis in perspective. Would the U.S. permit rockets to be fired at its border towns from Mexico on a daily basis for months on end? For that matter, would any sovereign country stand idly by while bordering nations repeatedly fired rockets aimed at killing its innocent civilians? The answer, of course, is a resounding no. Such actions would be tantamount to war and would rightfully be met with retaliatory aggression. As the world watched, Israel willingly "disengaged" every last civilian and soldier from Gaza without so much as a promise for peace from the Palestinians. Rather, this withdrawal, which so devastatingly uprooted thousands of Israelis, was done with only the hope that peace would result and that the Palestinians would cultivate the responsible society that they had so long clamored for. This historic event occurred a mere nine months ago. In the time since, Israeli border towns, such as Sderot -- situated 4 kilometers from Gaza northern boarder -- and Ashkelon, have been bombarded by an astounding number of Kassam rockets--more than 800 in fact--fired by militants from Gaza. These acknowledged terrorists have targeted civilian not military installations. They have worked tirelessly to kill, injure, and terrorize the same people that gave them the autonomy over the land they had demanded! Does this make any rational sense? Israel conceded Gaza in good faith with the intention never to return. Unfortunately, a promise never made can never be kept. When Palestinian terrorists recently used an 800-meter long tunnel (beginning in Gaza and extending 200 meters into Israel) to attack a border post, things changed. The terrorists murdered two soldiers, badly injured another, and abducted corporal Gilad Shalit. They have since threatened Shalit's life in hopes of extorting the release of prisoners from Israel. Israel has refused to negotiate any agreement with the terrorists fearing that doing so would reaffirm a terrible precedent. The Israeli government has sworn not to rest until its native son and soldier, Gilad, has been returned home unconditionally. To that end and for the purpose of halting the barrage of increasingly dangerous rocket attacks, Israeli military forces have unwillingly but necessarily reentered Gaza. In close to two weeks, the Hamas led Palestinian government has had ample opportunity to behave like a civilized government and work earnestly to free Gilad Shalit whose present condition is unknown. Instead, Hamas has chosen to act like the terrorist organization it is. Hamas, in fact, is strongly implicated in the attack on the post itself, as well as the many rocket firings. No Palestinian terrorist organization has taken direct responsibility for abducting corporal Shalit, but one such group is merely offering "information," whatever exactly that entails, about the young soldier in exchange for the release of some 1,000 terrorists imprisoned in Israel, many serving consecutive life sentences. This organization is attempting to emulate what Hezbollah has managed in the past. Hezbollah was able to negotiate the release of Palestinian prisoners in return for the release of Israeli hostages. Israel, however, does not want to make that grievous error again. History has shown that the country that cowers in the face of terrorism is the country that will endlessly be afflicted by it. Now, Israel must defend its citizens by defending its borders, which demands incursion into Gaza. If no defensive action was to be taken, the attacks would quickly worsen until no Israeli was safe anywhere in Israel. Yet, as Israel does what any other rational country would do to protect its citizenry, it is relentlessly criticized for so doing. One must wonder about such critics. Are they simply anti-Semitic? Or do they find it easier to pick on little, old Israel than to risk offending the ever present, overly aggressive Muslim populace in their midst? Or is it a combination of the two? Clearly, it is easier to rebuke Israel from within the relatively safe, protected borders of another country. Israel, simply put, could no longer turn the other cheek. The safety and confidence of the entire nation was eroding as its border town residents suffered under relentless attack. People should not be frightened to leave their homes. They simply cannot live healthily when in constant fear. Israeli inaction in respect to Palestinian terror has proven to be an invitation for greater numbers of attacks and increasingly violent ones. Hamas is weathering international sanctions for its expressed determination to destroy Israel. If Hamas wishes to wage war with Israel, which it blatantly has, then Israel has every right to attempt to cripple the radical Islamic movement's military capabilities, to capture its leaders (all of whom are members of an internationally recognized terror organization), and to topple its governmental regime. Such is the nature of war. If neither the Palestinians nor the Muslim nations will dismantle the terror organizations endangering Israel's existence, Israel must. Israel must also be more impervious to the slanderous and misleading international propaganda when casualties and suffering befall the Palestinian populace. The sequence of events speaks to who bears blame for this most current crisis. Israel extended an olive branch to the Palestinians yet again. Once more, the Palestinians trampled it. Jews, friends of Israel, and defenders of democracy the world over must be resolute in their support of Israel and their defense of its public image. A soldier securing a civilian border against terror dare not be equated with the malevolent doings of a militant striving to murder civilians. Well-intentioned people don't use bystanders as shields from reprisal attack nor do they send their children to kill innocents by way of suicide. We cannot allow anti-Semitism, in its many guises, to distort the truth of what Israel is doing. The truth is that Israel's peace yearning democracy is here to stay in spite of its ruthless adversaries! Please pass this message along to everyone! Contact Nurit Greenger at 4nuritg@gmail.com |
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ISRAEL SAVED, AGAIN?; ARABS "FIXED" GAZA DEATH SCENE; NOT A PARODY
Posted by Richard H. Shulman, July 6, 2006. |
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THE ODDITY OF THE BOYCOTT MOVEMENT First there was the Arab boycott of Israel. Then Protestants fostered divestment. Now there is a movement to boycott Israeli universities. The head of an Arab university thought the last movement misguided. He pointed out that Israeli universities are the country's institution most sympathetic to the Arab cause. An Israeli professor is suspicious of the world's singling Israel out for such censure on the basis of human rights that it is other countries, such as China, that violate and severely so (IMRA, 6/17). What kind of Jews are those Israelis, that they don't recognize antisemitic scapegoating! SMUGGLING INTO GAZA BIG BUSINESS Clans in Gaza hire young boys cheap, to dig tunnels, then rented to smugglers of arms, terrorists, and other contraband. No IDF there to restrained diggers, this smuggling has increased. Israeli officials will not estimate how many tunnels there are, implying that they do not know. Nevertheless, the IDF estimates for the Knesset how many of each type of weapon is smuggled through them. What an uncanny ability to estimate the quantity of goods passing through an unknown number of tunnels! (IMRA, 6/17.) SIZE OF THE EGYPTIAN MILITARY In 1973, Egypt had a million troops. Now it has 350,000 but a million security police (IMRA, 6/18). The implication is that there were fewer security police in the past. Now, however, Egypt has a modern army. ISRAEL SAVED, AGAIN? The EU has prepared a plan to subsidize P.A. Arab consumers by 100 million euros. Abbas disapproves, because the plan does not deliver the funds to the P.A. government. The EU also declared its opposition to any unilateral withdrawals by Israel. It insists that any territorial arrangements be by mutual consent of the P.A. and Israel (IMRA, 6/18). Every time Israel is about to let itself get destroyed, something intervenes. Members of Olmert's own party are questioning the value of a withdrawal that the world won't accept as setting the permanent borders that Olmert claims is the purpose of the scheme. ARAB CHILDREN'S RIGHTS NEGLECTED The Palestinian Center for Human Rights is holding a conference with the P.A. regime. The agenda has a section on children's rights. The topic is entirely in relation to the war's effect on schooling. There is no mention of children's rights against being indoctrinated into suicide missions or recruited into the military (IMRA, 6/18). As part of the Islamic Establishment, the Center is not that interested in human rights. P.A. PLANS TO SWITCH TO EGYPTIAN ELECTRICITY Kuwait has approved funding for a facility in Egypt to enable the P.A. (at least in Gaza) to draw its electricity from Egypt at close to half the price Israel charges (IMRA, 6/18). There also is a security factor in this. Israel does not cut off the P.A. supply of power, even while the P.A. makes war on Israel. It could. The measure may be designed to assure more P.A. independence. ARABS FAKED GAZA DEATH SCENE When a German TV company that paid the Arab cameraman for the filming of the grisly film at the Gaza beach asked him questions, he became evasive. He claimed to have arrived with the medics, but filmed their arrival, as if waiting for them! Dead and wounded already were covered with cloths. Who did that? The Germans noticed that a man lying next to the dead father and covered up as if dead, later appeared walking around with a gun in hand. Police did not secure the area, and medics did not show concern for the supposedly injured people. The story was given out that the mourning girl survived because she had been swimming, but she was wearing dry street clothes. Asked why he didn't calm the girl down but instead filmed her for minutes, as she ran around, the cameraman answered that the girl, instructed him to show her resentment over what Israel did. Would a girl in mourning have that presence of mind to direct the filming? However, there was no crater on the beach from the explosion. Hamas men were filmed gathering crime scene evidence that they withheld, as if they had something to hide. Human Right Watch did not start its own investigation until after that evidence was removed (IMRA, 6/19). The incident was faked in whole or in part. They faked other 'massacres,' too. When will the world catch on to Arab fraud, or will it refuse to? IRAN'S OFFER TO THE P.A. Two aircraft and other combat vehicles, plus cash (IMRA, 6/19). That is for war. Israel blundered in ceasing to guard the border at Gaza. For its people, the P.A. begs for foreign aid. The NY Times treats the request to pay the salaries of P.A. employees as wholly humanitarian, without mentioning that almost half those employees are in the P.A. police, which commits terrorism, and that many of them also belong to terrorist militias. ISRAELI LEADERS ON ROCKET BOMBARDMENT On the one hand, he reiterated his old and unredeemed threat that if the Arabs don't stop bombarding Israel with rockets, the IDF would respond harshly. On the other hand, he indicated the IDF would not respond, by remarking that if Israel escalated (meaning if it took measures that worked), the Arabs would escalate the bombardment. [IMRA: No. This is not a parody.] Security Min. Ramon said that Israel has liquidated hundreds of members of rocket crews, and the P.A. is realizing it had better stop the bombardment, but some of the extremist organizations still don't realize this (IMRA, 6/20). Two rockets landed in Siderot, as Peretz was visiting the town and asserting he would stop the rockets (IMRA, 6/19). "When asked about the nonstop barrage of Kassam rockets hitting Sderot every day, turning Sderot into the Negev's Stalingrad, emptying it of its low-income population who flee as refugees, Shimon Peres replied with what became Maarivs top headline: "Kassams? Shmassams!!" He said Kiryat Shmona withstood years of bombardment. "This is not a spoof!," wrote Prof. Steven Plaut, 6/20. When the government of Israel comments about the Arab-Israel conflict, and especially when Peres is making the comment, the reporter has to add, "This is not a spoof." That's how absurd the ruling Israeli elite is. If the media were free and fair, it would have some fun with those fools. These armed organizations all are extremist, because they are jihadist. Their leaders don't care if the crews get killed. The work is not very skilled. Others can replace the slain. Israel should liquidate the leaders. It is not the government's function to let its people be killed. The P.A. keeps improving its rockets, already landing near fuel dumps. SYRIA COMPLAINS ABOUT RED CROSS? Syria chided the Red Cross for working on a clinic in the Golan Heights without bringing the Syrian government into the issue (IMRA, 6/19). Syria has no basis for complaint. The Golan was incorporated into Israel, because of Syria repeatedly committed aggression against Israel from it. The incorporation is in accordance with international law. P.S., the Red Cross apologized to Syria, especially for its representative staying overnight in an "occupied" settlement. Richard Shulman is a veteran defender of Israel on several web-based forums. His comments and analyses appear often on Think-Israel. He provides cool information and right-on-target overviews. He distributes his essays by email. To subscribe, write him at richardshulman5@aol.com. |
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MIKE WALLACE'S MIDDLE EAST PROBLEM
Posted by Jerome S. Kaufman, July 6, 2006. |
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This was written by by Kate Naseef from CAMERA - Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America |
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The Real Mike Wallace - Arch-typical Self-hating Jew As Mike Wallace nears retirement, virtually all the retrospectives so far on his 43-year career at CBS News recall his reputation for tough interviews and the ability to get the story. The reputation may be deserved, in general, but at least one subject has tripped up the "60 Minutes" veteran continually over the years -- Israel. The aggressive questioner in Wallace was not in evidence when he interviewed Yasir Arafat in 1989. As Near East Report observed, Wallace accepted Arafat's responses largely without question. He asked if Arafat had renounced "military operations" inside Israel. Arafat's response was, "Any people who are facing occupation or oppression have the right to use all methods." Wallace did not probe with a follow-up question. He also didn't question Arafat's claim that he was going to punish the terrorist then thought responsible (the leader of the Palestinian Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command) for the Pan Am 103 bombing in which 270 people were killed. This even though Arafat wasn't known for punishing terrorists. (Later the perpetrators were identified as Libyans.)The late David Bar-Ilan, then editorials editor at The Jerusalem Post, suggested that Wallace "acted like a public-relations agent for Arafat" in the 1989 interview. In a 1987 story on Soviet Jews, including Refuseniks, invited to immigrate to Israel, Wallace concluded that "one and a half million Soviets identified as Jews apparently live more or less satisfying lives." Wallace acknowledged that Russia had a history of harboring anti-Semitism, but then said that anti-Jewish activities were against the law, without mentioning that the law was frequently broken -- often by the government. After talking with Refusenik mathematician Victor Brailovsky, whose family had been trying to emigrate to Israel for 15 years, Wallace said, "If it is just Jewish culture the Brailovsky family seeks, they could go to the Jewish Autonomous Region." This region in Siberia, Birobidzhan, was Stalin's solution for the Zionist challenge of Jews wanting to move to Palestine and was never popular in the Russian Jewish community. In 1987, the year Wallace filed his story, only 12,000 of the 200,000 residents of Birobidzhan were Jewish. As Bar-Ilan noted, in Birobidzhan "there are no Jewish schools and no study of Hebrew, and ... Jews are incessantly pressured to disappear as an ethnic group ..." While Brailovsky was the only Refusenik shown in the broadcast, Wallace did interview Samuel Zivs and Mikhal Milschstein, described by Bar-Ilan as "the most notorious 'court Jews' in the USSR ... despised by all self-respecting Jews and representing solely the authorities." In 1992, Wallace did another story that touched on Russian Jews, but this time those who had immigrated to Israel. Wallace interviewed an Israeli street sweeper who had been a doctor in Russia, and an electrical engineer in an unemployment office who said that some ex-Soviet Jews had expected more from Israel. Wallace didn't mention the challenges Russians who emigrated to the United States at the same time were having finding jobs, or the fact that more than 400,000 Jews from former Soviet states had emigrated to Israel in the previous three years. Apparently they weren't as satisfied with their lives under Kremlin control as Wallace reported three years before. Wallace also suggested that American taxpayers were going to pay for a $10 billion loan guarantee to Israel. Congress was considering the guarantee for loans Israel sought to help fund immigration absorption. In reality, the U.S. guarantee would have been provided only if Israel defaulted on its loans, which it had never done. In addition, Wallace indicated that the money was going to be used to help annex the West Bank and Gaza Strip. This did not happen, but even at the time Israel had pledged to the United States that it wouldn't spend the loans in the territories, and the Israeli government had never called for annexation. In a 1988 segment on "60 Minutes" -- 18 years before publication of the almost instantly discredited essay "The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy," by John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt -- Wallace advanced essentially the same theme. His report seemed to be an attempt to discredit pro-Israel activists in the United States -- especially the American Israel Public Affairs Committee -- and undermine U.S. support for Israeli aid. Wallace, in Bar-Ilan's words, "portrayed the 'Jewish lobby' as an insidious, all-powerful, multi-headed Washington Svengali manipulating the U.S. Congress and administration." Wallace said a CBS poll found that 72 percent of Americans thought the United States should not give Israel "more aid that it gives any other country." That wording was loaded, but a poll taken by the Los Angeles Times close to the airing of Wallace's report found that 55 percent of Americans favored the present level of U.S. aid to Israel or an increase. Near East Report noted that after this segment aired, three congressmen spoke the next day to contradict it. Sen. Al Gore Jr. (D-Tenn.) and Rep. Jack Kemp (R-NY) both emphasized the importance of a strong U.S.-Israeli alliance. Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA) cited a study asserting that it would cost the United States $45 billion more in defense spending to protect U.S. interests in the Middle East without Israel or absent U.S. aid to Israel. In late 1990, Wallace reported on Arab riots on the Temple Mount, in which several thousand people stoned Jewish worshipers at the Western Wall before beleaguered Israeli police shot some rioters in regaining control. He based his report almost exclusively on Palestinian sources, choosing Palestine Liberation Organization mouthpiece Daoud Kuttab as main production consultant, ignored key Israeli sources, took then-Jerusalem Mayor Teddy Kollek's comments out of context, and spliced in a pre-riot tape of then-Foreign Ministry spokesman Benjamin Netanyahu rather than tape a post-riot interview. Essentially, Wallace's report reversed the order of events, making it appear that the stone-throwing riot followed the police shooting rather than led to it. In a number of other segments, Wallace's portrayal of Israel was similarly skewed. In 1982, "60 Minutes" aired a segment that featured an Israeli who had only lived in the country for three years, speaking out against his new land, but cut the interviews Wallace had done with Israel's deputy foreign minister and the former ambassador to the United States. In 1975 and 1984, Wallace filed reports on Syria that minimized the oppression of Syrian Jews and obscured the dictatorial nature of Hafez al-Assad's regime. Mike Wallace may be missed by some CBS viewers, but not his reporting on Israel and other related subjects. Jerome S. Kaufman is National Secretary of the Zionist Organization of America. and host the Israel Commentary website (http://www.israel-commentary.org). |
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KEEP OUR "ADDICTION" TO OIL, END OUR ALLERGY TO SELF-ASSERTION
Posted by Alex Epstein, July 6, 2006. |
| Politicians and commentators from both parties are decrying our "addiction to oil." They exhort us to embrace costly programs to reduce our consumption of oil as quickly as possible. The primary rationale for this is national security. Our oil consumption is dangerous because, in the words of a New York Times editorial, "Oil profits that flow to Saudi Arabia and other Middle Eastern countries finance . . . terrorist acts." With the same justification, President Bush has called for cutting "more than 75 percent of our oil imports from the Middle East by 2025 ... and mak[ing] our dependence on Middle Eastern oil a thing of the past." But Americans are not "addicted" to oil. "Addiction" implies an intense desire for something harmful. But we do not desire oil irrationally; we consume it because it is a wonderful, life-sustaining product. Oil is unmatched as an efficient, safe source of portable energy. It enables us to affordably ride, drive, or fly anywhere we wish, and fuels a transportation industry that enables us to trade anything with anyone from anywhere around the world. We are not addicted to oil any more than we are addicted to the myriad values it makes possible, like fresh food, imported electronics, going to work, or visiting loved ones. The problem we face today is not our love of oil, but oil-rich dictatorships like Iran and Saudi Arabia--who use ill-gotten profits to spread totalitarian Islamic ideology around the world and terrorize us with their minions. The solution is not to punish ourselves by renouncing oil--but to punish our enemies until they renounce their aggression. As the most powerful nation on earth, the United States has many options at its disposal. One means of ending the Iranian and Saudi threat would be to issue an ultimatum to these regimes: cease all anti-American aggression immediately, or be destroyed. Many, witnessing the Iraqi quagmire, might scoff at this option. But such a course is eminently practical if America's unsurpassed military forces are committed to the task, not of "rebuilding" or "liberating" these states, but of making their inhabitants fear threatening America ever again. Another means of addressing the threat would be to remove Middle Eastern oil fields from Iranian and Saudi control, put them in the hands of private companies, and then employ surveillance and troops to secure that oil supply. Contrary to popular assumption, Middle Eastern dictatorships have no right to their nationalized oil fields, which should be private property--the property of individuals who work to find and extract the oil. Still another option might be a comprehensive, all-out embargo by the United States and its allies to starve the leader of the enemy, Iran, until the regime crumbles and the Islamic totalitarians lose their will to fight. Which policy is best is for military strategists to determine--but our politicians and intellectuals refuse to consider any of these options. Instead, they decry our "addiction to oil," condemn us for not all wanting to drive Priuses, and urge, as penance, that we cut ourselves from the world oil market. Can anyone honestly believe that such asceticism will protect us from attack--given that Saudi Arabia and Iran both actively sponsored terrorism when oil was $10 a barrel? Why do our leaders eagerly embrace impractical policies that punish Americans, while eschewing practical options that would punish our enemies? Because the practical policies would involve "going to war for oil," "America imposing its will on the rest of the world," upsetting the "international community," and all of today's other foreign policy taboos--i.e., they are branded immoral because they involve American self-assertion. Our leaders do not believe that America has a moral right to assert itself in self-defense. This is why we engage in self-effacing, appeasing "diplomacy" with easily defeated enemies like Iran and Saudi Arabia. And this is why, when we actually do go to war (after such diplomacy fails), we pull our punches and declare our purpose to be lavishing the good life on hostile foreign peoples. Now, after over 2,500 American lives and hundreds of billions of dollars put in service of mob rule in Iraq, we are told to give up the lifeblood of our civilization rather than wage real war against our enemies. Could anything be more encouraging to our enemies than the knowledge that America will make Americans, not them, pay for their aggression? This senseless sacrifice must stop. It is past time to adopt a foreign policy of self-assertion and self-interest--i.e., a truly moral policy. Alex Epstein is a fellow at the Ayn Rand Institute (http://www.aynrand.org/) in Irvine, CA. The Institute promotes Objectivism, the philosophy of Ayn Rand--author of "Atlas Shrugged" and "The Fountainhead." Contact the writer at media@aynrand.org. |
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OPEN LETTER TO PM EHUD OLMERT AND DEFENSE MINISTER AMIR PERETZ
Posted by Yardena Even, July 6, 2006. |
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It is no secret that Israel's Operation Summer Rain has involved no serious counter-terror combat in the eight days since the first Israeli troops entered the southern Gaza Strip on the heels of the Hamas-led assault inside Israel that left two soldiers dead and a third, Corp. Gilead Shalit kidnapped,. This make-believe offensive has had several consequences: 1. Gideon Shalit is now out of reach unless the IDF can stage a surprise rescue assault to free him. This option was allowed to float over the heads of the cabinet ministers Wednesday, but nothing specific was said. 2. Hamas is stepping up its efforts to kidnap Israelis -- servicemen and civilians. 3. Missiles continue to rain down on Sderot, the western Negev villages, Ashkelon and Netivot. Hamas and its allied terrorist groups will persist in their effort to achieve Israeli casualties. 4. The Palestinians are in the midst of a new terror offensive from the West Bank aimed at bringing suicide bombers into Israeli towns for civilian massacres. There were several foiled attempts this week. In Jenin, Israeli troops defused two large car bombs destined for a central Israeli city, followed by the interception of a Palestinian wearing a bomb vest on his way to an industrial zone north of Tel Aviv. 5. Hizballah and Palestinian terrorist groups based in Lebanon will be encouraged to launch attacks on northern Israel in support of Hamas. Israel's sluggish and ineffectual responses to Hamas aggression coincide with the test-firing of seven ballistic missiles by North Korea, one capable of reaching the American mainland, in the face of Washington's threats to shoot them down. After the US national security adviser Stephen Hadley said on Tuesday that the launch of 6 missiles by the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) posed no apparent threat to U.S. territory as "a missile that fails after 40 seconds is not a threat to the United States," Pyongyang followed up Wednesday with a seventh missile. Tehran is displaying the same defiance to Washington and the West. After weeks of Iranian procrastination, the big powers demanded a reply to their proposed incentives for Iran to halt uranium enrichment by July 12, but the Iranians are leaving them to cool their heels until late August. Other powers, including Russia, are taking advantage of the Bush administration's perceived immobilization by the Iraq imbroglio to pursue their own interests. In other times, Israeli prime ministers David Ben Gurion and Menahem Begin used similar periods for stunning military operations to extricate the country from extreme peril. Failing bold action against escalating Palestinian terror initiatives, Israel will continue to fall back in the face of this spiraling threat. Let's move on, do the job, clean out Gaza, to hell what the world thinks.. whats important is to keep our country Medinat Yisrael Safe. Do you have the ability to understand me? Contact Yardena Anat Even at Yardena3@aol.com |
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IAF INTENSIFIES ATTACKS AFTER ROCKET HITS ASHKELON
Posted by Hillel Fendel, July 5, 2006. |
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Israel destroyed the PA's interior ministry building in Gaza early this morning, and bombed a Hamas training camp and Jihad-training school. Top Hamas government figures are in hiding. Last night's Kassam rocket attack on the heart of Ashkelon - Israel's fifth-largest city, with a population of nearly 110,000 - marks the latest "major escalation" in the Hamas war against Israel. In response, Israel has threatened a major retaliation against the terrorist authority. Hamas has marked a number of achievements over the past year, beginning last summer with Israel's retreat from Gaza, and continuing a few months later with the Israeli and U.S. consent to allow the terrorist group to participate in the Palestinian Authority election. Haaretz commentator Amir Oren said this week that Israel's consent was based on political considerations. The current situation, he said, was "brought upon us by Sharon, Olmert and Mofaz when they gave into American pressure to allow Hamas to take part in the election, fearing that if Hamas were to be kept out, the terrorist attacks would be renewed, thus harming the Kadima party on the eve of the Israeli election." Following its overwhelming victory in the PA election, Hamas continued its success by forming a government, and then evading the Western countries' financial boycott by raising hundreds of millions of dollars from Muslim countries such as Saudi Arabia and Iran. In the meanwhile, Hamas terrorists launched a massive rocket campaign against Sderot and other Negev areas, implemented an impressive attack in which they tunneled into Israel, killed two soldiers and kidnapped a third, and have now successfully rocketed Ashkelon. Throughout this process, Israeli officials have termed various junctures "a dramatic escalation" and have threatened - and sometimes attacked - Hamas in various ways. The Kassam attack on Ashkelon was no exception. Prime Minister Olmert said last night, "This grave act and this criminal attempt to harm Israeli citizens will have far-reaching ramifications, and Hamas will be the first to feel them." While Israel's offensive in Gaza continued and intensified last night, Olmert convened his security-political cabinet this morning to decide a course of action. Defense Minister Amir Peretz is expected to recommend strong action against Hamas. Hamas has already threatened counter-actions. One likely option that Israel might implement is to send the IDF into northern Gaza more massively and permanently, in order to prevent Kassam launching-cells from nearing the border fence. With the now-proven 10-12 kilometer range of the new Kassams, and given the fact that the Gaza Strip is less than 8 kilometers wide in most places, this is likely to prove to be very difficult. Last night's bombing of the Hamas interior ministry was the second in a week, and this time the four-story building totally collapsed and began burning. Four Arabs were reportedly moderately injured. In the previous attack, only Hamas minister Said Siam's 4th-floor office was targeted. Israel Air Force Apache helicopters also bombed a Hamas training camp in southern Gaza. Six consecutive missiles totally destroyed one of the buildings. A third target was a school on Jaffa Rd. in Gaza City which is known to teach a particularly radical brand of Islam and hatred of Israel, Jews and the West. The NFC Hebrew news website reports that a study by the Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center, based on a document written by the late arch-terrorist Sheikh Ahmed Yassin himself, presents the goals of the school: it was designed to form a new generation of young Palestinians imbued with the spirit of radical Islam and permeated with deep political awareness of the fight against Israel and against the "world Zionist plots" and the "hate of the Crusades." Another front in the offensive last night was Khan Yunis, adjacent to much of what used to be Gush Katif. Tanks and infantry, covered by helicopters, penetrated deep into the area, but the objective was not publicized. IDF forces in Ramallah attempted, yet again, to arrest the chairman of the PA's parliament, Abdel Aziz Dvik, and two other parliament members. The forces surrounded their homes, but the wanted men were not found and are in hiding. They have been forced to be on the run since last week, when the IDF arrested 26 PA legislators and 8 Hamas government ministers. Hillel Fendel is senior news editor at Arutz-Sheva (www.IsraelNN.com). |
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EVEN FRENCH COURTS DEFEND FREEDOM OF SPEECH -- BUT ISRAELI COURTS DON'T
Posted by Steven Plaut, July 5, 2006. |
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1. French Court Dismisses Malicious SLAPP "Libel" Suit against Jewish Philosopher: PARIS (EJP)--- French-Jewish philosopher Alain Finkielkraut has been discharged by a Paris court after being sued by an Israeli film director whom he described as "one of the current actors of Jewish anti-Semitism". Interviewed in 2003 on the French Jewish radio RJC about Eyal Sivan's film, "Route 181, fragments d'un voyage en Palestine-Israel" (Road 181, Extracts from a Palestinian-Israeli journey), which was broadcast on a TV station, Finkielkraut called the film maker "one of the actors of today's particularly hard and frightening Jewish anti-Semitism". The philosopher criticised Sivan for having made a link between the Israeli treatment of the Palestinians and the Holocaust. "But those who are sewing a Star of David on our chest want to claim the yellow star for themselves," Finkielkraut said at the time. Eyal Sivan, a leftwing militant, decided to sue Finkielkraut for his "slanderous words which constitute an infringement to my honour and consideration". In the past, Eyal Sivan has supported actively the boycott of Israeli products in order to denounce Israeli policies towards the Palestinians. Israeli professor and former ambassador to France Eli Barnavi testified in court for Alain Finkielkraut while two other Israeli professors, among them Haim Bresheeth, testified in favour of Sivan. Critical analysis Finkielkraut, who also received the support of Claude Lanzmann, director of the famous film "Shoah", said that he reacted to the "violent unilateral character" of Sivan's movie which represents the history of Israeli-Palestinian relations "as the aggression of one people crazed by the Shoah against a profoundly peaceful people." "I don't know why this man is indignant about being called anti-Semitic, that's what he is," Lanzmann said when he testified in favour of FInkielkraut. Sivan's "Road 81" film was distributed in small independent Paris theatres. The film maker accused Finkielkraut of being one of those people "ready to fight against the last Israeli citizen, including myself, to preserve the state of Israel". "This is not my position," he added. The court rejected Sivan's complaint. "Finkielkraut only credited the other side with intellectual attitudes and never attributed a precise fact which could be proved," the presiding judge, Nicolas Bonnal, said. "Above all he gave a critical analysis of Sivan's work and of its political positions," he added. Sivan told EJP he was surprised by the ruling. "It is clear to me that I was the victim of defamation," he stressed. "This has nothing to do with a simple opinion debate." In another case, Finkielkraut has been sued and accused of libel by French anti-racist association MRAP (Movement Against Racism and for Friendship Among Peoples) for comments made during a conference in 2003 on "Anti-Semitism: the Left against itself". In a reference to the failure of the Durban conference on racism in 2001, Finkielkraut said: "a movement was created in Durban against racism and for popular anti-Semitism". Comments about French identity MRAP's president Mouloud Aounit, took it as a personal attack and accused Finkielkraut of hinting that MRAP was anti-Semitic. A public prosecutor representative has asked for Finkielkraut's discharge. The decision will be made shortly. Finkielkraut, who is one of France's most notable French intellectuals along with two other Jews, Bernard-Henri Levy and Andr Glucksmann, already made headlines at the end of last year when he had to apologize for comments about the riots which took place around France in an interview with Israeli newspaper Haaretz. In the interview, Finkielkraut underlined that many immigrant do not identify with France. "If immigrants say 'the French' when they are referring to the whites, then we are lost. If their identity is located somewhere else and they're only in France for utilitarian reasons, then we're lost. "I have to admit that the Jews are also starting to use this France. I say to them, 'if for your France is a utilitarian matter, but your identity is Judaism, then be honest with yourself: you have Israel." Some of Finkielkraut's answers were translated to French and published in the national newspaper Le Monde before they grew into a general controversy and condemnation of Finkielkraut, who was accused of racism. From left to right Considered as a free-speaker in politically-correct France, Alain Finkielkraut has been described by some as one of the leading "neo-reactionary" figures along with interior minister and presidential candidate, Nicolas Sarkozy. Finkielkraut started his career as a militant of the left but drifted through the years to the right, making many enemies on the way. In 2005 he strongly defended a petition against anti-white racism in French suburbs. Controversial French comic Dieudonne told EJP Finkielkraut was "one of his main enemies." The philosopher claims he is being harassed by his opponents with repeated lawsuits but other intellectuals accuse him in private of provoking controversies in order to get publicity and sell more books. Finkielkraut has a weekly show on national French radio and on the Jewish radio RCJ. Afterword: Had Sivan been allowed to forum shop the suit into Nazareth Court, Finkelkraut would have been found guilty of "slander", as would Deborah Lipstadt. David Irving however would have been awarded a large cash award in damages. 2. From the Jewish Press, July 5, 06:
I was speechless after reading Allyson Rowen Taylor's superb article ("Plaut Verdict A Symptom Of Israel's Sick Judiciary," op-ed, June 30) about an Arab judge in Israel endorsing Holocaust denial while ruling that treason is protected speech but criticism of treason constitutes "slander." This matter cannot be allowed to stand. I invite all Jewish Press readers to take a few moments to act. First, please write the Israeli minister of justice and demand that this judge be removed at once from the bench. Letters should be sent to Haim Ramon, Minister of Justice, Ministry of Justice, Salah-a-Din 29 P.O.Box 49029 Jerusalem 91490 (Fax: 972-2-6466357) And please write the new president of Ben Gurion University, Professor Rivka Carmi, at Ben Gurion University, P.O. Box 653, Beer-Sheva 84105 Israel (e-mail: rcarmi@bgumail.bgu.ac.il.) Tell her that Ben Gurion University will not be receiving a dime in support from us and our communities as long as extremists like Neve Gordon serve as members of the faculty, and that we will be advising parents not to send their children to Ben Gurion University until this outrage is redressed. Don Levine
Steven Plaut is an American-trained economist, a professor of business administration at Haifa University and author of "The Scout." He frequently comments - both seriously and satirically - on Israeli politics and the left wing academic community. His website address is http://www.stevenplaut.blogspot.com. Contact him at splaut@econ.haifa.ac.il |
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FROM YONI TO GILAD
Posted by Women in Green, July 5, 2006. |
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This was written by Caroline Glick and appeared yesterday in the Jerusalem Post. |
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On Sunday, as Cpl. Gilad Shalit's terrorist captors in Gaza prepared their ultimatum, in Jerusalem, at the Mt. Herzl military cemetery a crowd stood quietly around a grave, bowed their heads and remembered one of the greatest heroes the State of Israel has produced. The 30th memorial ceremony for Lt.-Col. Yonatan Netanyahu, who was killed on July 4, 1976 while commanding the raid that freed more than 100 hostages held in Entebbe by Palestinian and German terrorists, could not have come at a more significant moment. For Israel's Arab enemies, who today hold Cpl. Shalit, no doubt the decision to set July 4, 2006 as their deadline for Israeli surrender to their demands is motivated by their desire to wipe out for the world Yoni's legacy and that of the Entebbe raid he led. The legacy of Entebbe for the world couldn't be clearer. The message of the raid is that nations must never give in to the demands of terrorists. Through their war crime of taking over the Air France jet, the terrorists declared war not only on Israel but on all who abide by the norms of human decency and value freedom. If Israel is brought to its knees 30 years later, it will send the message throughout the world that the barbarians are the victors after all. While the Entebbe raid is vested with deep significance for the entire world, its significance in shaping Israel's national psyche has been deeper still. This was apparent on Sunday evening on Mt. Herzl. As speakers stood at the foot of his grave and one by one discussed the significance of Yoni's life and his death for Israelis today and for generations of Israelis to come, it was clear that Yoni - now immortal - is an embodiment of Israeli exceptionalism, Israeli morality, Israeli Judaism, the Israeli warrior ethos and the inherent justice of Zionism. ADDRESSING THE mourners, Maj.-Gen. (res.) Yossi Ben-Hannan - whom Yoni rescued when Ben-Hannan was wounded and caught behind Syrian lines during the Yom Kippur War - discussed Yoni's legacy for Cpl. Shalit. As he sits alone with his captors in Gaza, Ben-Hannan said that Shalit has hope. His hope is based on the knowledge - seared into the collective consciousness of our nation at Entebbe - that the IDF does not leave men behind. Yoni, Ben-Hanan noted, "is one of the foundations of this moral underpinning." Yet, just as Yoni's memory and that of the heroic raid he led at Entebbe is one that Israel's enemies are desperate to blot out, so too in Israel's culture wars there are powerful forces vested in tearing down Yoni's memory and in dwarfing the significance of the Entebbe raid. Indeed, these forces, motivated by a mix of envy and politics, have been attacking Yoni for 20 years. The aim of his detractors is not dissimilar from that of Israel's enemies. His domestic foes also wish to weaken the power of Yoni's legacy and the legacy of Entebbe over Israel's national ethos. They too wish to make Israelis believe that we have no option other than to placate our enemies. THE ASSAULT against Yoni has been led by Muki Betzer, who served as his deputy in the Sayeret Matcal reconnaissance unit. In 1986 Betzer gave a series of media interviews in which he argued that he, not Yoni had planned the raid at Entebbe. This claim gradually morphed into a full-scale attack on Yoni and his family for their work in memorializing him. Betzer claims that Yoni was not a hero but a failure and that the Entebbe raid succeeded in spite of Yoni rather than because of him. Indeed, according to Betzer, it was Betzer, not Yoni who saved the day. Initially Betzer was reviled as a jealous pretender. His attacks against the Netanyahu family were seen as grotesque assaults on a bereaved family. Yet, over the years, the Israeli political and cultural Left adopted Betzer's revisionist history of the Entebbe raid and his criticisms of Yoni as a cause celebre. Tearing down Yoni was seen as a way of breaking the morale of society and so of convincing the Israeli people that we have no option other than appeasement. By destroying what people like former education minister and Meretz leader Shulamit Aloni describe as the "sacred cows" of Israel's national ethos, the Left very publicly set out to culturally subvert Israeli society. Betzer's assault on Yoni became increasingly acceptable in the early 1990s, when then prime minister Yitzhak Rabin recognized the PLO and began giving land to Yasser Arafat. In 1993 Avigdor Shahan published a revisionist history of Entebbe based on Betzer's attacks on Yoni. In 1994, the "alternative" theater festival in Afula awarded first prize to a play by Etgar Karat that attacked Yoni's brothers Iddo and Binyamin for their work chronicling Yoni's life. Karat's below the belt assault included obscene insinuations regarding Yoni's masculinity. FOR TWENTY years, in keeping with the tradition of secrecy that is the mark of their covert unit, Yoni's soldiers refused to weigh in on the issue. Unfortunately, Betzer used their reticence as cover for his increasingly sharp attacks. As the 30th anniversary of the Entebbe raid approached, Betzer launched an all-out assault against his martyred commander. On June 16, Amir Oren in Haaretz published an article based on interviews with Betzer. Oren concluded, "The sad truth, which Netanyahu's commanders and comrades first tried to hide, is that his contribution to the raid was between marginal and negative." This libelous attack on Yoni, together with Oren's aggrandizement of Betzer, caused Yoni's soldiers to break their silence. The day after Oren's article was published, 15 of the officers and men who participated in the raid published a declaration defending Yoni and attacking those "who think it is possible to rewrite history, and attempt for years to create their own versions" of what happened. The warriors wrote, "We were silent until now not because we have nothing to say but because we think that neither Yoni Netanyahu, nor we his soldiers, need additional glory - we are proud of what we did. But this does not mean that we will sit by passively at a time when others are trying to glorify themselves not only by putting down other warriors and distorting their role in the mission, but also by attacking someone who cannot respond - Yoni Netanyahu. "Yoni was killed at the hour that he commanded the force of Sayeret Matcal. As the commander of the unit, he planned and prepared the unit's mission with his officers from the start. Because of him, his warriors and staff members, the unit successfully rescued the hostages. Yoni justifiably became a national hero and we will not allow for his memory to be defiled and will not accept continuous attempts to distort Yoni's contribution and what we and our comrades did in the operation. "We were there." IN AN interview with Yediot Aharonot last Friday, Yoni's soldiers also weighed in on the capture of Cpl. Shalit. Maj. (res.) Avi Weiss, former deputy director of the Mossad and former POW in Syria, said, "Just as then, at Entebbe, we refused to surrender to the terrorists' demands, the message must now be the same message: We do not give into the demands of kidnappers." In deciding to put an end to Betzer's unanswered attacks, Yoni's soldiers worked not only to defeat those who assault Yoni's honor. Their defense of Yoni serves as a counterattack against those who assault the very notion of honor. In defending Yoni, they moved to defeat those within Israeli society that seek to demoralize us by distorting our national memory. It is now the duty of the IDF and the government to ensure that on Entebbe's 30th anniversary, Israel does not allow our enemies to wipe out the international and strategic legacy of that heroic operation. Ruth and Nadia Matar established Women For Israel's Tomorrow (Women in Green), an activist group of women based in Jerusalem. Their website address is http://www.womeningreen.org |
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HELP A LOCAL EX-POLICEMAN
Posted by Lee Caplan, July 5, 2006. |
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This comes from Aryeh Sonnenberg, who writes: |
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In the process of last year's expulsion of Jews, a young, local police officer (Yassam, actually) stood up and said "I won't do it." For this act of morals, he was fired from the service, and he has spent the past year working part-time and studying a new trade. He just finished his studies, but the work he has found is very far away and not adequate yet to support his family. It would be an incredible Mitzvah to financially assist this gentleman (and he really is) in any way possible. He is clearly "poor of your city," and for many of us, he fulfilled a "nisayon" that many of us would have cherished to fulfill. For monetary contributions, please contact:
Aryeh Sonnenberg
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EUROPE PUTS THE BALL IN IRAN'S NET
Posted by David Frankfurter, July 5, 2006. |
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US president Bush and EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana have taken their eyes off the World Cup ball, writes David Frankfurter. Teheran has other means of scoring in Europe. |
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As Germany's football grand media spectacle grinds to its climax, our chappies in Brussels can let out a huge sigh of relief. It is not just that the football heroes of Tehran are out. Even better copy is that Iranian President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, will not need to invite himself to the quarter-finals. Many have asked what all the fuss is about. Well, for a kick off, much of Europe's intellectual diplomatic corps cannot even pronounce his name. (Ah-madi-ne-jad for those still struggling.) Next up, since sneaking down the blind side to power, our friend Ahmadi has caused more than a tad of bother for Brussels. His anti-Semitic, Holocaust-denying dribble has become a stinging cause for embarrassment for Europeans. Especially so, when you consider that the last time so many politicians gathered for an event in Germany was just 18 months ago at the commemoration of the liberation of the concentration camps. Oops! Of course, this is not what is really catching the Europeans off side. What distracts the Europeans from their game are the Iranian threats to world peace. Here, the Iranians have cleverly used three point strikers to press home their claims. Let us start with their supposedly defensive missile technology. Never mind that Iran is developing a nuclear capability, clearly designed to change the balance of power in the Middle East. Look at the Shahab-4 missile, attractively decorated with North Korean and Cyrillic graffiti. It has a range of around 1,500 miles -- enough to land it bang (sic) in the middle of Berlin's football stadium, the setting for the World Cup's grand finale. Then there is the ever-troubling concern over oil reserves. Iran is considered the second-largest oil producer in OPEC, exporting about 2.4 million barrels of oil each day. Imagine what would happen to the price of oil and the international economy if this supply were to be switched off in retaliation for any Western action considered "unhelpful". Practicing maneuvers Alternatively, consider the upshot of an Iranian offensive on three UAE governed islands in the Persian Gulf. Ahmadi's army has been praticising maneuvers around the islands for months. Nobody is sure how much oil reserves can be found in the sector, but it sure ain't a small amount. And finally we come to that niggling problem of Jihad. Was ist das Problem, you may ask? In Germany alone, EU officials are aware of 800 Iranian-backed Shiite Hezbollah terrorists that reside in the country. Further, intelligence reports point to sleeper cells in twenty European Union countries. And everyone accepts that Ahmadi admires homicide bombers. He personally supervises the "Lovers of Martyrdom" organisation, whose goal is to recruit and to train men and women for suicide operations. Muhammad Ali Samadi, a spokesman for the group, has said that: "We have brothers who are ready to sacrifice their lives for the triumph of Islam in Great Britain, France, Belgium, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands and also the United States." A patient crowd now understands that Europe, with the help of Russian and Chinese jeering from the sidelines, has finally convinced their Yankee trainer to employ new tactics. Following a game-plan hurriedly scribbled on a piece of rice paper, Europe is playing a much tougher game, hugging the empathetic left wing, as America controls the right of the park. It is the same trusted formula for success; Play as a united team and your opponents will have less chance of victory. In mid June, European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana presented the Tehran government with a deal that included incentives for giving up uranium enrichment. In return, Ahmadi has begun to respond positively to what was labeled the new "respectful" approach of the West. Will Ahmadi really cool his rhetoric, or is it just another feint? Certainly the chappies at their comfortable desks are not yet brave enough to invite him to the Nuremberg Stadium. More likely is that, despite the apparent turn towards peace, Ahmadi will continue to shout (as he did in Qom in December 2005) "We don't shy away from declaring that Islam is ready to rule the world." David Frankfurter is a business consultant, corporate executive and writer who frequently comments on the Middle East. To subscribe to his 'Letter from Israel', email him at david.frankfurter@iname.com. Or go to http://www.livejournal.com/users/dfrankfurter/ |
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AFTER 30 YEARS
Posted by Yardena Even, July 5, 2006. |
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About the story written by Amira Haas called "after 30 years, wife
loses right to enter Israel" in Ha'aretz Setting aside that Israel as a sovereign country has the right to set her own immigration policy. Setting aside that the real problem is that Israel has let in terrorists coming in under the guise of "family reunification" your ending of the piece is "Israel's policy is known. If it could, it would expel everyone. By any means possible it will get people out of here." is unfair but I have to admit, Amira has consistently hated Israel, so it isn't surprising. But keep writing such pro Pali tear jerker and maybe you'll find your tooshi out of Israel as well. Another thing Amira, it's almost too bad that Jews don't issue Fatwas against the anti Zionist Jews and the Israel haters like yourself. I wonder what the muslims whom you adore (the palestinians) would do with outlaws like yourself. Contact Yardena Even at yardena3@aol.com |
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LIBEL LAW SERVING THE LIBELOUS; INTERNET NONSENSE; SLAVERY MAKING A COMEBACK AMONG MUSLIMS
Posted by Richard H. Shulman, July 5, 2006. |
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LIBEL LAW IN THE SERVICE OF THE LIBELOUS Prof. Steven Plaut performs a public service for his people and country in tracking the false and unpatriotic careers of fellow professors in Israel and the US. He has quoted their statements and documented their actions as supporting Holocaust denial and affirming the Arab case against Israel and even as taking the side of the terrorists. Pro-Arab professors Neve Gordon did not defend his record. He can't. Instead, he sued his critic, Prof. Plaut for libel. He won, though Plaut's accusations obviously were valid. Problem is, Plaut used analogies. That gave Gordon an opening; he denied the analogies, rather than the facts on which they are based. Plaut informed me that the court was prejudiced, for the judge was an Arab who found that Holocaust denial is legitimate scholarship, not antisemitism. Plaut said that he had no chance even if Moses were the defense lawyer. (Israel has no right to trial by jury.) What is an Arab doing as a judge in Israel? Does my question display ethnic bias or question the opportunity the judicial system gives to ethnic bias? One Arab sits on the Supreme Court. What does one expect him to rule about Israeli national security? That Court asserts jurisdiction over everything. It enjoins the route of the security fence, in favor of the Arabs. It inhibits methods of defense by the Army. It breaks down prohibitions of land sales to Arabs. All this it does in the name of equal justice, though Jews who venture into Arab areas risk being murdered. The Court acts in the name of multiculturalism, while the Arabs act in behalf of jihad. Actually, most Jewish members of the Court are radicals who hate their own culture and religion. With their neurosis evident, one cannot expect the Israeli Arabs to restrain themselves as they might if the Jews were united in defense of their right to their own country. The radicals recognize a non-existent right of the western Palestinian Arabs to their own country, but not their own people's right. No consistency in supposed concepts of justice. Multiculturalism cannot work with the hostile Muslim culture and especially with a large Muslim minority struggling to overthrow the Jewish state. It can get the Jews killed. INTERNET NONSENSE Antisemites in general and Muslims in particular believe in deceit. They don't just slander Jews occasionally; they demonize them constantly. On the Internet, they conspire to turn topic-after-topic into a Jewish conspiracy, and find no aggressors to criticize. Thus one claimed that Israel wants to "absorb significant Palestinian land" to "dominate the W. Bank." Untrue. Fact 1: there is no country, "Palestine," hence no "Palestinian land." Fact 2: Olmert proposes ceding at least 90% of Judea-Samaria. These critics of Israel are greedy. They stick with their propaganda line, regardless of its falsity. They simply like to complain about the Jews. More Internet Nonsense to come. SLAVERY MAKING A COMEBACK AMONG MUSLIMS S. Arabian textbooks still approve of slavery. Muslims will tell you that Islam bans slavery, but Mohammed sold conquered tribes' women and children into slavery. A couple of centuries ago, the powerful Western world banned the slave trade. Now that the Muslim world has regained some power, slavery is regaining a hold there. Slavery is extensive in Sudan. Middle East Forum reports its chilling practice in Pakistan. In Pakistan, an agent of al-Qaeda kidnapped 20 Christian boys 6-12 years old, for sale as domestics or sex objects. The organization mistreated its captives. Not being Muslim, the parents had no recourse to the government. They were in despair until, in this case, Christian missionaries and a US evangelist financed and mounted a rescue operation (Daniel Pipes #681, 6/16). The US thanks Pakistan for helping against terrorism. Apparently the government does not curb al-Qaeda as much as it might. What could be more disgusting? Here is what. Pres. Bush's welcome to the Muslim contribution to "family values!" Americans need to realize that the Muslims are primitive socially, and want to re-impose evils upon us that we reformed our way out of. One of our reforms was equal protection of the law. Islam places infidels into a subordinate class, easily molested and lacking basic civil rights. Muslims, themselves, don't enjoy many of the modern rights of Western societies, but they have the right to take out bestiality upon the subordinate class, which the police ignore and the courts do not take seriously. THOMAS FRIEDMAN'S RECORD ON IRAQ Thomas Friedman is perhaps the pre-eminent columnist of the NY Times. One of his frequent topics is Iraq. How accurate are his predictions for that country? For 2 1/2 years, from 11/30/03 to 05/11/06, he predicted at least 4 times that in the next half-year or so, Iraq's future will unveil. He said Iraq would either firm up or fall down. Amusingly, he repeats the prediction long after his earlier iterations expired without coming to pass. His is a record of failed predictions (Op. Cit.). To be fair, predicting what will happen is like predicting how people in democracies will vote. A pundit cannot read minds, and minds change. Iraq stumbles through crises. If Mr. Friedman were sensible, he would note each crisis but be more modest. CAIR MAKES UP BIAS INCIDENTS CAIR claims that the movie about 9/11 has stimulated bigotry against Muslims. A CAIR official alleges such an incident not confirmed independently. CAIR fabricates incidents of bias, as part of its propaganda to cast the aggressor Islamists as victims (Ibid.). CAIR finds Americans readier to sympathize than to investigate. We need skepticism. HAMAS INTERVIEW & THE TRUTH Der Spiegel interviewed the P.A. Prime Minister. The journalist asked pertinent questions, then followed up the false answers. The Prime Minister asserted an interest in peace, which his platform disavows. He alleged a right of "refugees" to "return" to Israel, which the journalist said would destroy Israel (IMRA, 6/17). The journalism might have pointed out that almost all of the so-called refugees are not refugees but charlatans, assimilated citizens, welfare cheats, and/or descendants of refugees. Very few of the refugees still are alive. Their hatred of the Jewish people lives on in their descendants. ROCKET ATTACKS ALMOST UNIMPEDED The IDF purports to be fighting the rocket attacks. It has intercepted some rocket launching crews. It has not destroyed the engineers who design the rockets, the lathes and factories that make them, and the warehouses that store them. Meanwhile, Israeli communities nearer Gaza undergo shelling. Watching this failure of Israeli deterrence is Hizbullah, sitting on another Israeli border and possessing 14,000 rockets. They must see this Israeli weakness. It is a weakness of political will (IMRA, 6/17). Israel hides its temerity behind empty threats. IRAN TO ARM SYRIA Syria has been allying itself closely with Syria. Syria agreed to set up arms factories in Syria and to provide Syria with missiles and tanks (IMRA, 6/17). Just what Syria needs for conquering Israel, if its diplomacy, via fraudulent negotiations for a peace agreement, sponsored by the State Dept., that would get Israel to evacuate from that tank trap known as the Golan Heights. PERES THEORIES OF PEACE As the warfare within the P.A. and between the P.A. and Israel flares up, PM Shimon Peres says that peace is nearer than ever. He suggests cementing it with economic ties rather than try vainly to do so with political ties. How would Peres explain that European countries often war on countries with which they had economic relations (IMRA, 6/17)? Peres doesn't explain it. Perhaps he can't. That high school graduate said he isn't interested in studying history. Often, the P.A. eschews economic cooperation with Israel. Richard Shulman is a veteran defender of Israel on several web-based forums. His comments and analyses appear often on Think-Israel. He provides cool information and right-on-target overviews. He distributes his essays by email. To subscribe, write him at richardshulman5@aol.com. |
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WHY DID ALHURRA FAIL?
Posted by Sliwa News, July 5, 2006. |
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This article was written by Magdi Khalil, a writer and political analyst, who is based in Washington, D.C. Contact him at magdikh@hotmail.com To interview him, contact M. Sliwa Public Relations at 973-272-2861 or msliwa@msliwa.com |
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In March 2004, the United States launched the Arabic language satellite network Alhurra, the biggest news media project aimed at the Middle East since "Voice of America" was first launched in 1942. At that time, Norman J. Pattiz, chairman of the BBG's Middle East Committee who spearheaded development of AlHurra declared, "Alhurra will present fresh perspectives for viewers in the Middle East that we believe will create more cultural understanding and respect", adding, "a key part of our mission is to be an example of a free press in the American tradition, and we will stand out like a beacon of light in a media market dominated by sensationalism and distortion." Mouafac Harb, the news director, has also stated with much confidence: "We are working to establish the gold standards that the other guys will want to rip off, the best technology, the finest professionals, the most innovative programming, the most eye-catching sets", adding, "Our motto is freedom and democracy". He was excitedly proclaiming Alhurra's groundbreaking advent Now that almost two years have passed, it is time to verify whether these promises were fulfilled or not. Did Alhurra manage to offer exceptional American media coverage in Arabic? Did it further the Arab - American understanding, challenge the fierce campaign against the U.S. and restore America's image? Did it foster democracy in the Middle East? Did it manage to work independently from the Arab regimes, the security services and intelligence agencies, and did it hold its own against Arab networks such as Al-Jazerra and Al-Arabia? Unfortunately, the answers to all of these questions appear to be negative; the network achieved none of its objectives. If Mr. Pattiz's noble dream failed to materialize, it is mostly the fault of the Arab management team led by Mouafac Harb. The Americans put their faith in the Arab team and gave them free reign to run the network; unfortunately, it turned out that their faith was sorely misplaced. The mismanagement and blatant abuse of power have cost Alhurra greatly, and have raised doubts about the United States' ability to create a successful news media and maintain a competitive edge against the established Arab channels. Alhurra is not as much American as it is Arab - with the typical flaws and mediocrity of an Arab news media. To quote Dr. Mamoun Fandi, a researcher at the Baker Institute, "Alhurra seems to be in league with the typical Arab media. What did Alhurra offer the Arab viewer? Nothing more than what he usually gets from an Arab news media; he was not introduced to American culture or values, and all he got was a reflection of his own sad reality." To be honest, Alhurra didn't offer "more" but rather "less" than the usual, as the Arab media specialists in the Middle East seem to concur. Their comments include, "Alhurra is dull, dry and bland, lacking spirit and rhythm, a pale imitation of Al-Jazeera but without its professional flair and elegance". No one would guess the American identity of the channel given its poor performance, and the lack of exclusive scoops or unique coverage, a fact which is not surprising considering the ineptitude of most of its reporters. Alhurra sounds more like a local Lebanese channel, and indeed it has fallen in the hands of a leftover group from the civil war, with attitudes and ideologies typical of that era, along with a group that worked under Safwat el-Sherif in Egypt's state-controlled television--an uninspired media that took its every cue from the government and the security services. Tariq el-Hamid, the editor-in-chief of "Asharq al-Awsata" newspaper had labeled Alhurra "Washington's sin". He believes the Arab management team to be responsible for the network's failure, explaining: "the decision to leave the "Al-Hurra" Channel in the hands of a supervising Arab team was a wrong decision much like what Paul Bremer did when he discharged the Iraqi army after the collapse of Saddam's regime. To leave such a significant media institution in Arab hands is like giving 'Mohamed Atta' control over a modern airplane, he would only use it to crash into the nearest skyscraper. People familiar with the American media and who have previously worked in Washington are shocked by the poor performance of the Virginia-based satellite; the last thing we expected was for Washington to actually sell us back our poor Arab-made merchandise through Alhurra".(1) Salama Ahmed Salama, a political commentator in Al-Ahram Egyptian newspaper, found Al-Hurra to be "boring", as he told Reuters agency, adding that he has yet to meet anyone pleased with the channel's performance. William Rugh, a former ambassador and public diplomacy expert told the Financial Times newspaper that the viewers describe Alhurra as a bland, poor-quality Lebanese station with a Lebanese slant that reflects the ethnic make-up of its staff. (2) Saad Eddin Ibrahim, the chairman of Ibn Khaldun center points out "Those who were biased against the channel since the very beginning were relieved when it failed to hold the public's interest, while those who had high hopes for Alhurra as an American, liberal channel felt disappointed. The Arab team that has been running Alhurra did not succeed. I was hoping for a performance level matching that of CNN, given that most of CNN. staff in the management and planning department are Americans, though it employs non-Americans when needed. I was expecting Alhurra to follow the same track, especially that it is well-funded, and has its base in Washington - the nerve center of American politics - where news stories come up almost every minute of the day, the kind of significant news that the world ought to see, and that the Arabs wish to know. For instance, it is obvious that "Al-Jazeera" and "Al-Arabia" channels have done a much better job in covering the American elections than Alhurra, despite the fact that Al-Hurra has all kinds of resources and advantages. Even the folks in my hometown in rural Egypt think that Alhurra is dull, dry and uninspiring".(3) So, why exactly did Al-Hurra fail to live up to those expectations? REASONS RELATED TO THE NETWORK'S STAFF First: Incompetent Arab Employees: The majority of Arab employees are under-qualified in comparison to their peers in the successful Arab news channels. Given their noticeable lack of experience, very limited political knowledge -- particularly in regards to American affairs, and their poor grasp of the English language, it is not surprising that they did such a poor job relaying America to the Arab World. It goes without saying that they are so far behind their American peers. Mouafac Harb, the news director and the one who took full charge of the hiring process, is directly responsible for this blunder. "There is no oversight", says Hishem Melham, the Washington bureau chief of the Lebanese daily newspaper Al-Safir. "This guy [Harb] hires and fires and sets salaries on his own, and he'll continue to do it as long as he feels protected by Norman Pattiz and Kenneth Tomlinson".(4) An incompetent man wielding that kind of authority is a recipe for disaster, and the end result was a network standing on a shaky foundation, unable to hold its own against the fierce competition. To quote Salameh Nematt, the political analyst, "Harb is a third-rate journalist who has hired fourth-rate journalists, Most of them don's speak English well, and they don's know much about the Middle East, let alone America. No serious journalist from the Middle East works there".(5) This sentiment is confirmed by Mamoun Fandy, a senior fellow in Middle East policy at Rice University's Baker Institute, who says that the rules governing the network have made little difference, and that MBN is operating "runaway stations that need to be brought under control", adding "Al-Hurra looks like the Middle Eastern states we want to change: It's run by a small dictator who is totally corrupt".(6) Samir Douaihy, the former managing news director of Radio Sawa in its Dubai Center, who helped Harb launch the network, confirms that Harb wasn't at all interested in real professional qualifications. The truth of the matter, as I can personally confirm, is that Harb never appeared to be in favor of hiring qualified or well-known characters; perhaps because he might consider them a potential threat. I have worked in the network for a year, as an anchor of a political show, and it took little time for me to realize the seriousness of this problem. A month later, I shared my misgivings with an official in the Broadcasting Board, specifically telling him that I believe Al-Hurra will be heading towards imminent failure if the management style doesn't change, and if it continues to rely on an under-qualified staff. When I first met Harb, a month after the channel was launched, he told me that I was a well-known figure in Washington and an accomplished political analyst, stating that I would be a worthy addition to Al-Hurra. Words were not followed by action; not immediately, and not for six months during which Harb kept stalling; I was finally assigned a program thanks to the intervention of an American official. Naturally, a channel operated by an under-qualified staff would fail - as Saad Eddin Ibrahim points out - "to offer an exceptional Arab-American dialogue and inspiring debates or to provide a first-rate coverage of American events". Salameh Nematt, Washington Bureau chief of the international Arab daily Al-Hayat, expected the channel to initiate an honest and free debate about the violations of human rights suffered by Arab citizens, the oppressive practices in the Arab countries, the corruption and the governments' plunder of public funds, saying, "I was expecting Alhurra to break through taboos and forbidden topics, and was disappointed when it turned out that the channel is readily bowing to the pressure of public relations and seeking the approval of the regressive Arab regimes".(7) All things considered, Alhurra seems to have given us nothing more then a bland, unappealing version of the Arab satellite channels. Second: Cronyism When competence, vision, accountability and sound management are lacking, it becomes easy for cronyism, personal interests and nepotism to overwhelm the work environment - as indeed indicated in the State Department Inspector General's report about Alhurra's first year which mentioned "a lack of uniform quality control over hiring and reporting standards". Ironically, a channel that is supposed to foster democracy in the Middle East, was run in a rather dictatorial fashion! Harb assigned the key positions in the channel to handpicked friends regardless of their lacking professional competence, and kept tight control over the network's operations including programs, guests, annual salaries and recruitment. In the absence of an American supervisory role, he took full charge of the hiring process and showed a blatant disregard for professional hiring criteria. It is hard, for example, to imagine that the position of programs' director was accorded to a person whose credentials in politics are somewhat lacking; and whose main qualification was working as a director of a Lebanese television channel. But stranger things have happened at Alhurra, where someone is being paid $80,000 a year to talk for just ten minutes per week; minutes that he invests in a shallow, unoriginal analysis, and a passionate criticism of all things American. Even stranger, is that a number of broadcasters from Beirut and Dubai were being regularly paid considerable salaries without having made a single appearance on the channel for more than six months. Equally shocking is Harb's blatant discriminatory policy: "We know Harb was discriminating in the hiring, promotion, and treatment of experienced Arabic radio broadcasters -- all U.S. citizens -- in favor of inexperienced young workers, many of whom were Lebanese", said Stephen Spitz - an American attorney - to "The American Prospect Magazine". In addition, plenty of talk has been circulating about outrageous sexual comments, harassment, sexual relations and power abuse, something which imagination in a country where even the President himself would not dare tell a junior female employee that she has got "great legs" -- an allegation which, if true, would lend credence to the existence of an unacceptable situation in this regard. You would never believe that you're actually still in the United States if you happen to visit Radio "Sawa" or "Alhurra" network. It feels like you have somehow landed yourself in a typical corrupt Arab country, and everything would remind you of that fact; even the selection of guests for a talk show becomes a painful process as Mouafac's black list - which included Mamoun Fandi, Foad Agami, Shebli Talhami, Walid Phares, Daniel Pipes. I had managed, after considerable effort, to remove Walid Phares from that list and he appeared a few times on the show. I could only get Harb's approval for Daniel Pipes to appear for just a few minutes on a program about Islamic movements, but completely failed in persuading him to have "Fandi" participate in any talk show. Oddly, an Egyptian intellectual made a five hour appearance on a single talk show in less than a year, just because he was recommended by an Arab staffer in Liz Cheney's office, without any regard for the channel's actual broadcasting substantive requirements -- even the infamous media owned by the Princes in the Gulf states would not make such allowances. Third: Did the Arab Intelligence Services Infiltrate Alhurra? After Alhurra was launched, I wrote an English article(8) where I discussed, among other things, the potential danger posed by the Arab regimes' attempts to exercise a covert control over the network agenda and programs, through the channel's staff. Recently, Hala Mustafa, a well-known researcher, wrote the following in The Washington Post: "In Egypt, The media are subjected to the control of the security services, and that goes for TV stations -- including Alhurra, the U.S.-sponsored satellite channel, which is supposed to be providing uncensored news from an American point of view. From the beginning, Alhurra's operation in Egypt was subject to the covert control of the security services, a fact that is not always apparent to those who oversee the station from Washington. State security forces have close ties to some of the station's directors and hand-pick many correspondents. They even have final say over which guests appear on programs. As a result, anyone who has paid careful attention to the tone and opinions of the regular programming will notice that liberal, progressive, open-minded views are presented almost apologetically. While Alhurra is supposed to be a vibrant, fresh forum for freedom, it has failed to provide a real space for balanced views, and so it has been incapable of competing with the "Islamic" Al-Jazeera and "pan-Arabist" Al-Arabiya channels".(9) Along the same lines, Art Levine wrote the following: "Friendly connections between Harb and certain Arab regimes have also distorted the news on Alhurra, with particularly soft coverage reserved for Qatar and Tunisia, as Paula Yaacoubian, Harb's wife, was doing public relations work for the Tunisian government's information service".(10) The strange thing, as Levine says, is that Harb has managed to fabricate a story of success that has impressed major officials in Congress, as well as both the Democratic and Republican parties. He seems to have an appreciative audience in official Washington, where the Americans who do not speak Arabic are convinced that he has done an excellent job. Stranger yet is the fact that Deidre Kleine, the communications director of the US government's Middle East Broadcasting networks, is highly praising the channel, and speaking in its defense to the reports, though she speaks no Arabic and has no knowledge of what has been going on in Alhurra. Harb, however, is clinging to his own version of the truth as he claimed in a congressional hearing recently that the network was above the Arab conflicts, and is carrying out its mission impartially and independently of those conflicts, and that's why it outdid both "'Al-Jazeera" and "Al-Arabeya" in its coverage of the Egyptian elections! Speaking of the coverage of Egyptian elections, here is an incident that can speak for itself: The correspondent of Radio "Sawa" in Cairo happens to be a former state-security officer and a broadcaster in "Alhurra", residing in Washington. He sent a letter to the Egyptian newspaper "Al-Ahram", where he expressed his extreme displeasure at the way Saad Eddin Ibrahim has criticized President Mubarak for not allowing the Egyptians living abroad to vote in the elections. The letter stated: "I was thinking about renting a few buses (and getting people into them) and heading to the Egyptian embassy, just to say one word in favor of Mubarak who has devoted his life to serve Egypt, I say 'Yes for Mubarak .. Yes for Egypt... Yes for the man who has raised Egypt's status high for all to see' ... We should be making our country's future instead of damaging it in the name of demands of reform and change, especially that we are living abroad and we know what some people have in mind for Egypt".(11) It is beyond my imagination why anyone would think of such an individual to be a suitable candidate to defend the United States' plan of reform in the Middle East, but, apparently, someone did! The majority of the channel's staffers were selected from the Middle East and brought to the States, and they are more loyal to the Arab World than they are to American values, and to the American vision, which is the reason this channel was created in the first place. There are several indications for that alarming trend: For instance, in a news bulletin a broadcaster in Alhurra when referring to "terrorism" used an expression borrowed from Al-Jazeera: "what the United States deems as terrorism, which is typical of Al-Jazeera". Salameh Nematt has recorded a news bulletin in Radio "Sawa", where suicide bombers of Hamas, who carry out attacks against civilians, were described as "Hamas activists." Mamoun Fandi confirms that "there are people in Alhurra and Sawa who shed tears when Saddam Hussein fell".(12) And considering the fact that more than 50% of the political programs are being recorded in or broadcast from the Middle East, would it be possible for an Arab reporter living in that region to stand up for Alhurra's objectives and the United States' vision for the Middle East? But more alarming is Harb's apparent biased attitudes and how these reflected on the channel. To cite just a few examples:(13) 1. The first day the channel went on the air, Harb called the Libyan President Khadafi "a terrorist" on a live program. He later prevented me from interviewing Khadafi though I had already made the necessary arrangements with the Libyan President. Presumably, the reason for this hostile attitude could be that Harb (a Shiite himself) might have considered Khadafi to be behind the kidnapping of the Shiite Imam Moussa el-Sadr. On the other hand, Harb had rejected my request to interview the Syrian President Bashar el-Assad. My feeling was that he probably didn't want to subject el-Assad, a known ally of Hizballah, to tough questioning. 2. While I was preparing for an episode about the Islamic movements in the Arab World, Harb refused that I refer to Hizballah as a "terrorist organization", and rejected another reference to the Iranian revolution's key role in spreading terrorism in the Middle East. 3. He did not allow me to complete an episode about the phenomenon of the unconstitutional passage of the office of the presidency by fathers to their sons in non-monarchic Arab states (otherwise known as "power inheritance" in Arab republics), though I had already recorded a number of interviews with nine international experts, some of whom were Arabs, and was planning to meet with a total of twenty-five experts to discuss the issue. Am I right to think that Harb did not wish to embarrass some Arab regimes?. 4. There are four producers of political programs on Alhurra who are in charge of preparing questions, and recruiting Arab guests. Three out of them are from South Lebanon, who deny that Hizballah is a terrorist organization; in contradiction to American laws. 5. Mr. Harb has personally told me that he cannot openly criticize the autocratic Arab regimes because he expects them to report him to the American Secretary of State, thereby putting his job on the line. To the best of my knowledge, no reporter of Alhurra has ever been arrested in an Arab country, and the Arab regimes have never issued a protest against the network. Nothing surprising there, since Alhurra has erred on the side of caution, not tackling taboo subjects or hot issues that hold the interest of Arab citizens such as corruption, oppression, freedoms and democracy. In fact, the channel has been receiving very little attention or criticism from the Arab media as a whole lately. On the one hand, the channel hasn't offered anything particularly worthy of attention, and on the other hand, the media in the Arab world takes its cue from the regimes that have no reason to censure the "tame" channel. It seems like the regimes and the Arab media are both conspiring to maintain that miserable status. 6. Mr. Harb appears to be a master of the art of double talk. When in the presence of American officials, he is a passionate defender of American values and interests, but that zealous attitude seems to be reserved just for these occasions, and a careful examination of his actions would prove that his loyalties lie elsewhere. Each time he goes to visit a Middle Eastern state, Harb puts in a request for special protection from the American embassy to give the impression that his life is in danger, as part of the image he has created for himself. The truth is, Harb has never been committed to building up the channel's capacity, and had no vision or plans in that respect, being rather busy marketing himself to Congress and the American administration. 7. Harb's supporters in Washington have managed to create a lobby that speaks in defense of the channel, and tries to thwart any attempt to evaluate the channel's performance or investigate the reported lapses, as if Alhurra is off limits, and its officials are not to be touched. Furthermore, they have been very vocal in praising Harb, caring nothing for the negative comments and reactions he has elicited. REASONS RELATED TO MISMANAGEMENT First: Corruption Following months of investigations, the journalist Art Levine published a detailed report in "The American Prospect Magazine", where he revealed different aspects of corruption, wasteful extravagance, and mismanagement in Alhurra channel and Radio Sawa. So far, these two have cost the American tax payers around $200 million, and are expected to get another $80 million for the coming fiscal year. As Levine indicated in his report: "The dubious expenditures involve a host of companies, staffers, and contractor; that ranges from inflated salaries and bonuses paid to cronies, including Shia fundamentalists, with little broadcast experience and English skills; to millions in questionable sole-source contracts given to Harb's friends in Washington and Beirut. On top of that, the start-up Alhurra network spent $10 million for a bungled computer - and software -installation project that violated standard procurement practices and has led to repeated crashes. Critics have also questioned the annual salaries of top network executives, which have reached $250,000, or more than the annual amount earned by the vice president of the United States".(14) The figures mentioned in Levine's report are truly shocking: an $80,000 annual salary for a Makeup artist and a hair stylist -- Hanan -- who is reportedly a friend of Harb's wife; Eli Khouri, a friend of Harb and a partner in Quantum Communications company, produced promotional and "branding" commercials for Alhurra at a cost of $125,000 or more per spot (another company got nearly $250,000 for developing a Web site that still lacks streaming audio or video clips of Alhurra news shows. Quantum Communications got a contract worth $500,000 last year alone for providing the vaguely defined job of "production coordination" for shows that are ready to air, and require no coordination; a million and a half dollar contract for live interpreting services was granted to the Capital Communications Group, a Washington firm managed by a Lebanese American named Akram Elias. I noticed when I first started working in Alhurra that the guests signed a payment receipt in Arabic and that the receipt was not issued by the channel but under this company's name; one of the producers explained that this was their company in Lebanon, but I still have no idea what was done with those Arabic receipts and how they were integrated into the accounting system. Levine's report brings up the issue of the executive director of Alhurra TV's Iraqi division, who has limited experience, poor grasp of the English language and gets $110,000 per year. A strict Shiite, the man is known to frequently make religious quotes, and has allegedly caused Nahar Ramadan, an experienced broadcaster, to quit, after criticizing her for having cohabitated with her boyfriend before marrying him. Art Levine's report indicates that Alhurra has fallen victim to corruption, mismanagement, cronyism, and an agenda that serves the Arab regimes instead of the United States. According to William Rugh, the former ambassador and public diplomacy expert, "the issues of alleged irregularities and partiality in programming stem from the lack of proper oversight from the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), a federal agency responsible for overseas US broadcasts funded by Congress".(15) Financial corruption and political deviation are not the only irregularities; the private company that conducts polls and audience surveys on behalf of the network may have manipulated poll and viewership results to give the impression that Alhurra has a substantial audience in the Middle East. As Alvin Snyder points out, the numbers released by the network paint a much more optimistic picture of its viewership than do those calculated by outside sources. The survey released by the network showed 44% viewed Alhurra in Iraq, compared with 14% by an independent survey. The surveys basically followed the same process; the question that led to the differing results was whether the viewer watched the channel during the past week (44%) or during the day before (14%).(16) In any case, a viewership percentage can tell us that an audience is watching a particular channel, but it does not rate the channel's reliability and credibility as a source of news and analysis, and does not indicate how it fares in comparison with other channels. For instance, while Alhurra claims that 35 million Arab citizens view its programs, the Coalition Provisional Authority conducted a comparative study among news networks, which indicated that Alhurra ranked as low as No. 14, and that only 1% of the viewers chose Alhurra as their preferred network. Shibley Telhami of the Brookings Institution, who conducts Middle East research for the polling firm of Zogby International, is convinced that the Arabic networks "certainly don't connect with the public." His surveys found that only 0.02 percent of Arabic audiences named Alhurra as their first choice for news. "So few people are watching," says the respected scholar, "that I'd be shocked if it's making a difference".(17) The network's management sent a detailed copy of the surveys and opinion polls to Saad Eddin Ibrahim who, after reviewing a number of performance evaluation studies, reached the following conclusion: "I noticed that the methodology used was neither strict nor entirely objective, but rather lax; there is an evident lack of pertinent questions, the study poses primary questions, but do not follow up on those questions to gain a profound insight ... it looked like a custom-made study".(18) Second: Lack of Planning The word that would best describe what has been happening in Alhurra is "chaos", with no plans in place, no regular performance evaluation or coordination of programs, manifested in the fact that each staffer was working in his own remote island, separately from others. There were no weekly, monthly or annual plans, but above all, the vision that the channel was created to fulfill was completely overshadowed. The program producers and anchors had to consult with Mouafac Harb regarding the topic and the guests, coming back with a list of instructions. Harb would not meet on a regular basis with producers or anchors to discuss network affairs. I had to insist, quite adamantly, to get him to agree to hold a meeting with anchors, myself included. Two anchors of weekly programs hadn't had a single meeting with him for a year, and believed he only agreed to that one because of my persistent demands. Insisting on retaining complete control in the work environment, Harb obviously thought it convenient to skip the planning process. I wish an American official would catch him by surprise and inquire about his monthly or annual plans. When Harb anticipates questions, whether during meetings with American officials or in congressional hearings, he seeks the help of a public relations company to prepare a list of possible questions and answers. I have in my possession a full copy prepared for Harb with some of those anticipated questions and the kind of "right" answers. Harb probably needs all the help he can get to avoid saying the wrong thing, or appear confused, given that t he hasn't managed to develop a profound vision for the channel or for his own duties. Third: An Uneven Geographical Distribution At this point in history, the Arab region can be divided into 5 zones, according to American interests: Syria and Lebanon; Iraq; Gulf area; North Africa from Libya to Morocco; Egypt, Sudan, Palestine and Israel. The network should have accorded each of those zones a fair share of space, as regards the coverage of news and issues, guests, staffers, and the particular relationship of each zone with the United States. Obviously, significant events and hot issues should be given special consideration. If that balanced pattern were followed, we would have had a channel that reflects both the main stream in the Middle East and in the United States as the channel's sponsor. In reality, the balance was clearly tilted in favor of Lebanon and the Shiia in Iraq. More than 30% of the guests are from Lebanon, (thus disproportionately representing both the population and agenda/issues of a very small country in the region), six programs are broadcasted from the same country and the majority of broadcasters are either Lebanese or Shiia from Iraq, in addition to the obvious uneven geographic distribution of the network's staff. Fourth: The Absence of an American Role (Influence) The absence of an American influence is one more thing that can be clearly felt in Alhurra channel and Radio Sawa, whether we're talking about mission and strategies, financial audit, or program coordination. The American members of the staff may serve the Arab objectives without being aware of what really goes on, since they neither speak the language nor understand typical intricacies. Americans naturally expect the Arab executives to tell them the truth; unfortunately they are not always told the truth. There are definitely many Americans who speak the Arabic language, particularly the former ambassadors in the State Department, and I am not sure why the Broadcasting Board of Governors has not considered getting their help to monitor, evaluate and manage the network. I am also not sure how an American accountant can deal with financial records written in Arabic; it would be difficult to keep track of large amounts of money in this fashion, unless this task is given to a trustworthy financial firm with Arabic speaking staff. The prevalent impression is that the American employees - executives included - feel somehow lost in an environment that is almost entirely controlled by Arabs. Lack of transparency is another issue. Experts seem to concur that Alhurra did not succeed in its mission; some even say that it has failed, as reported in the Financial Times: "It seems that the US-funded channel Alhurra that was created to counter the effect of al-Jazeera, and attract its audience, has somehow failed to achieve its purpose".(19) Mr. Harb should be held accountable for each American tax-dollar that went into the network; he should be questioned about what's going on in Cairo, Dubai and Beirut, and answer for the network's failure to accomplish its mission. SUGGESTIONS AND SOLUTIONS "I suggest outsourcing by CNN, as a quick and short term solution", says Saad Eddin Ibrahim: "An adept and more academic solution would be to create an independent board to manage the channel as is the case with the B.B.C. The Board has to include media experts, intellectuals and retired ambassadors who have previously worked in the Arab region; this combination of academics, media-men, diplomats, and perhaps businessmen as well is the right one for Alhurra. The board of directors will monitor the channel, conduct regular public opinion surveys which will provide guidelines for restructuring, implementing seasonal and semi-annual changes in programs, introducing new faces, etc..".(20) Salameh Nematt recommends a reassessment of the network's project as a whole, "to revise the political and media strategies that govern the channel and ensure its success within the Arab world. The people in charge of the channel should believe wholeheartedly in the values of democracy and freedom, refuse to be manipulated by the Arab regimes, and be ready to wage a war against oppression and corruption at any price".(21) The decision to create Alhurra was well founded, and the channel possesses great potential as a means of American diplomacy, cultivating international relations and fostering understanding among cultures. However, the channel will not fulfill its potential unless it undergoes a restructuring of its objectives, human resources, programs and management. I propose the following approach:
As I wrote back in April 2004, in order for Alhurra to achieve its stated purpose, it must adhere to certain strategic principles:(22) First and foremost, Alhurra must remain true to the fundamentals of journalistic integrity and independence. It must uphold the highest standards of broadcast journalism such as accurate reporting, diligent research, fair and balanced perspective, and multiplicity of viewpoints, including tolerance of opposing viewpoints. Second, one of the goals of Alhurra, as an American media channel, should be to advance American and Western values and objectively introduce them into the homes of a turbulent part of the world. This will mean educating, enlightening (and perhaps empowering) the viewer about the ideals of political and economic freedom, democracy, free markets, and transparency; as well as the importance of human rights, and the acceptance of diversity, whether intellectual, ethnic, or religious. Third, as an American channel, Alhurra should reflect US political and cultural values through interviews with American icons, including politicians, academics, writers, artists, entrepreneurs, and intellectuals. Televising thought provoking discussions of current political and cultural events could serve the dual purpose of disseminating information and promoting Western ideals. Programming on American art and culture would be of interest to Arabic viewers, particularly if it includes interviews with famous American performers. In brief the channel should transmit a genuine and comprehensive image of American life. A simple suggestion, that may actually give Alhurra a considerable boost in the Arab World, is to broadcast a recent American movie that hasn't aired in the Middle East yet, and intercept it with a short, 15 minute news bulletin. The audience can be notified, as the movie airs, that an interview with the movie stars will follow shortly. The movie is to be followed first by a political program, and then by the interview. The idea here is to offer attractive material that is guaranteed to capture and keep the attention of the Arab viewer, and intercept it with political programs. Alhurra is supposed to "explain" America to the Arabs, and bridge the gap that exists between the two; if it mostly acts like a mirror for the Arab viewer to see the reflection of his own image, then it has lost its purpose. Unfortunately that's what Alhurra has been doing, joining the same league as the Arab news channels. Therefore, I think that the majority of the programs should be broadcasted from the headquarters of the network in Washington, which would also remove it from the potential influence of the Arab regimes and safeguard it against the infiltration of intelligence services. N.B.: This study was made at the request of some members of Congress and senior executives who wish to steer the network back to its original course. References: 1. Al-Shark Al-Awsat, 12 July 2004 (Alhurra .. Washington sin)
Contact Sliwa News at SliwaNews@aol.com |
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GETTING RID OF POTENTIAL TROUBLEMAKERS
Posted by Aryeh Zelasko, July 5, 2006. |
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As the next POGROM is being planned, getting rid of potential troublemakers is a high priority. I can not say if this story is true or not but I do know that such things have already happened and there is no reason not to believe it could not be happening again. Hundreds of Jews have been persecuted by the SHABBAK on orders of the political establishment over the past few years in order to shut them up and instill fear into anyone considering opposing the ruling elites. "The GSS torture Jewish Detainees (Hebrew)" |
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The following is a translation of the posting on the Rotter Net Forum.. Three guys from the village of Yitzhar where detained by the Israeli Secret Police, the SHABBAK, last night. It appears that the boys are being tortured and this has come to light by way of a person that saw them and said that at least one of them has a black eye. They were incarcerated and arraigned today without benefit of a lawyer and in a closed door hearing. The Secret Police, the SHABBAK, is attempting to neutralize any publicity on this. It would seem that they are ashamed of the conditions of incarceration and the treatment of the prisoners. Anyone who knows further details is encouraged to publicize them. Aryeh Zelasko lives in Beitar Illit, south of Jerusalem. He is Director of Sales and Marketing of Israel Visit (www.israelvisit.co.il) which provides information and an internet buying facility for American visitors to Israel. Contact him at zelasko@actcom.co.il |
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ISRAEL COMMEMORATES 30TH ANNIVERSARY OF ENTEBBE RESCUE
Posted by Hillel Fendel, July 4, 2006. |
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Thirty years ago today, while the U.S. was celebrating its bicentennial, Israel was carrying out a daring trans-continental rescue of 100 hostages held in Entebbe, Uganda.
The Knesset will mark the day this afternoon with a special session commemorating the heroic rescue. Among the participants at the Knesset ceremony will be family members of the four Israelis who died in the operation, many of the hostages themselves and their family members, former IDF Chief of Staff Dan Shomron, who oversaw the operation, as well as officers and soldiers who took part in the rescue.
Originally called Operation Thunderbolt by its planners, the mission was renamed Operation Yonatan in memory of its commander Yonatan Netanyahu (former Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's brother), whose life was one of the prices Israel paid.
The incident began on June 27, 1976, when an Air France jet on its way from Tel Aviv to Paris was hijacked by a group of German and Palestinian terrorists, who embarked in Athens. They first flew the plane to Libya, and then to Entebbe, the capital of Uganda, 4,000 kilometers (2,500 miles) from Israel.
At the Entebbe airfield, the hijackers separated the 100 Jewish
passengers from the 150 non-Jewish ones, freeing the latter - though
the plane's pilot Michel Bacos refused to abandon the Jewish
passengers. (He was later temporarily suspended by Air France for his
troubles.)
Uganda was ruled at the time by dictator Idi Amin, who had had some ties with Israel years before. Israeli officials made contact with Amin, who had been helped by Israel in the past but who was now cooperating with the hijackers. At the same time, the Israelis were making very detailed plans for the bold rescue plan, based on knowledge of the airport in which the hostages were being held - because Israel had helped build it.
After receiving the final go-ahead from then-Prime Minister Yitzchak Rabin, four large cargo planes carrying over 100 Israeli commandos took off for Entebbe. They landed under the cover of darkness, rolled out a black Mercedes of the type used by dictator Amin, and proceeded to the airport lounge and killed the hijackers with grenades and gunfire. One hostage was killed when he jumped up to greet the rescuers, and another hostage - Dora Bloch, 75, who had been taken to a Uganda hospital when she choked on food - was later murdered at Amin's behest.
The hostages and army forces were greeted joyfully by thousands of Israelis upon their return. Three movies were later made of the Entebbe rescue. The official IDF account of the operation can be read here. Israel's Ambassador to the UN and later to be its President, Chaim Herzog, told the UN at the time: "It has fallen to the lot of my small country, embattled as we are, facing the problems which we do, to demonstrate to the world that there is an alternative to surrender to terrorism and blackmail. It has fallen to our lot to prove to the world that this scourge of international terror can be dealt with. It is now for the nations of the world, regardless of political differences which may divide them, to unite against this common enemy which recognizes no authority, knows no borders, respects no sovereignty, ignores all basic human decencies, and places no limits on human bestiality. "We come with a simple message to the Council: we are proud of what we have done, because we have demonstrated to the world that in a small country, in Israel's circumstances, with which the members of this Council are by now all too familiar, the dignity of man, human life and human freedom constitute the highest values. We are proud not only because we have saved the lives of over 100 innocent people -- men, women and children -- but because of the significance of our act for the cause of human freedom. "We call on this body to declare war on international terror, to outlaw it and eradicate it wherever it may be. We call on this body, and above all we call on the Member States and countries of the world, to unite in a common effort to place these criminals outside the pale of human society, and with them to place any country which co-operates in any way in their nefarious activities..." Hillel Fendel is senior news editor at Arutz-Sheva (www.IsraelNN.com). |
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SWEDISH CREDIBILITY AS FRAIL AS IKEA FURNITURE
Posted by Bruce Tuchman, July 4, 2006. |
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Ilya Meyer wrote "I'd be very grateful if you read the following and spread it far and wide. It is the most disgraceful action Sweden has ever taken against Israel, and that's not saying little." He wrote this report. |
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2006 is election year in Sweden. In early April, Swedish Chancellor of Justice Gran Lambertz squashed an investigation into calls from the Stockholm Grand Mosque to "kill the Jews". In his opinion, such statements should be seen against the background of the conflict in the Middle East, rendering them entirely permissible. Later the same month Minister of Justice Thomas Bodstrom declined to withdraw an entry visa to Hamas leader Salah Muhammad al-Bardawil or to have him arrested upon entry - even though Sweden is a signatory to the pan-European decision to brand Hamas a terrorist organisation. Bardawil and his associates will be visiting Sweden in early May under the full protection of the Swedish authorities. And now Cabinet Secretary Hans Dahlgren announced that Sweden has withdrawn from a European peacekeeping exercise. The explanation: "the participation of the Israeli Air Force has changed the prerequisites of the exercise." Swedish Defense Minister Leni Bjorklund goes further: Sweden pulled out because Israel is a state "that does not participate in international peacekeeping missions" - in other words, if you're not already in the club you have no right to try and lend a helping hand. Of course, the Defense Minister is entirely wrong - nothing unusual in Swedish diplomatic circles - because Israel sent a peacekeeping force of policemen to Fiji in conjunction with that country's elections. Perhaps accuracy is not the Defense Minister's strong suit. In an election year when the votes of Sweden's 400,000 strong Muslim electorate easily outweigh those of the country's mere 16,000 Jews, the Swedish Social Democratic administration obviously considered it worth the half million or so kronor it has already spent on its 10-month preparations for the joint exercise to drive home its desire to attract more votes. Sweden's latest in a long line of questionable decisions could scarcely have come at a more indelicate point in time - almost coinciding with Holocaust Remembrance Day in memory of the millions exterminated on an industrial scale in a Europe unwilling to work together to stop tyranny and encourage coexistence and loyalty. Today Sweden is doing what it did sixty years ago - turning its back on those in need and siding with the force it sees as likely to win. This is perhaps the right time to remind ourselves that it was high-quality Swedish ore that powered Nazi Germany's war machine. It is perhaps also the right time for people of conscience to vote with their wallets and give Sweden 's IKEA, Volvo and Saab a wide berth. There is no Swedish product that cannot be replaced with an alternative from a democracy with moral values. Ilya Meyer
Contact Bruce Tuchman at Bruce@nycat.org |
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HUMAN RIGHTS ADVOCATES MUST GET IT RIGHT
Posted by Lawrence Uniglicht, July 4, 2006. |
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Presumed human rights advocates must respond cerebrally to the scenario unfolding within the Gaza Strip. Berating Israel for responding aggressively to nineteen- year-old Gilad Shalit's heinous abduction by Arab militants, accompanied by homicides perpetrated on two other young Israeli soldiers, ignores the very essence of a terrible dilemma foisted upon the Jewish homeland. Nine thousand Israeli citizens were forcibly evicted from that current hellhole, bizarrely by their own government, simply because hostile Arab neighbors hated those Jews, threatened their lives thus forced Israeli troops to protect them, created the unjustified worldwide impression such protectors were occupiers, and in the end wore down a nation that only yearns for peace. Alas, the collective Muslim population of so-called Palestinians subsequently elected Hamas, a cadre of jihad junkies, to govern their nascent enclave. Almost immediately, deadly missiles were launched from Gaza into the sovereign State of Israel, no doubt as an expression of gratitude to beleaguered Jews for providing them with territory, justly acquired by Israel in 1967 as a consequence of vanquishing Arab aggressors attempting to annihilate the Jewish State. No other nation on Earth would or should tolerate missiles fired into its sovereign territory, put up with murders and abductions, react calmly to the ever present threat of homicide/suicide bombing, yet many hand wringing card carrying human rights advocates expect the Jewish State to walk on egg shells, measuring any response to criminally insane Arabs with ever cautious politically correct slaps on the wrist. Indeed, many other substantially armed so tormented nations, especially of the Middle East Muslim variety, would have pummeled today's Gaza into a parking lot by now. "In the absence of justice, what is sovereignty but organized robbery"? once opined Saint Augustine. Those seriously concerned with advancing human rights and justice must objectively examine the nature of any culture they might consider supporting, especially one attempting to become a sovereign nation. Fundamentalist Islamic cultures are obsessed with enacting misogynist sharia codes substantially diminishing female rights; obsessed with teaching, indeed brainwashing, their children with a version of the new math that two Jews plus two Jews equals four dead Jews; obsessed with a jihadist interpretation of the Koran that justifies slaying the infidel, especially the Jewish infidel; and obsessed with the notion that homicidal/suicidal martyrdom will guarantee any detonated Muslim male paradise in Allahland among compliant female virgins. Hamas and supporters, presumably a sovereign entity in progress, comprise such a culture. Reasonable human rights advocates; those bereft of pie-in-the-sky naivety regarding unbalanced individuals indoctrinated with the jihad mentality, those bereft of anti-Israeli/Jewish tendencies; would petition world bodies to sanction Hamas; would support Israel's government, a democratic governing body imbued with the concept of justice, in its efforts to thwart foreign aggression; and in fact would demand that individuals implicated in abetting homicidal/suicidal martyrdom be charged by the International Court of Justice at The Hague with crimes against humanity. Unfortunately, political considerations as well as anti-Israeli/pro-Palestinian bias skew actions taken by various individuals and the human rights groups they represent. Objectivity and fairness remain absent from their short list of priorities. Pro-Palestinian leadership within the Presbyterian Church U.S.A as well as kindred spirit Church of England, in lock step with Britain's biggest college and university teacher's union, proposing economic and educational boycotts against companies dealing with Israel and Israeli professors respectively, cite but two recent examples of tainted irresponsible advocacy purporting concern for human rights. Surely, the essential promotion of human rights is ill served when presumed promoters refuse to get it right. Yet, as a dysfunctional century twenty-one emerges, the necessity of getting it right becomes evermore critical. :If the human brain were so simple that we could understand it, we would be so simple that we couldn't" deftly deduced Emerson M Pugh. Such an adage aptly applies to convoluted mindsets of both fundamentally flawed intolerant Islamists, like those tormenting Israel, as well as fundamentally deluded human rights advocates, like those also tormenting Israel. No doubt, the former is infinitely more perilous to Israel specifically, the planet generally, than the latter; yet without robust truly effective human rights advocacy insightfully implemented, intelligent life on earth will squander much potential for social progress. Comprehending the complexities of the aforementioned skewed thinking surely requires must research. Why not propose a conference dedicated to the analysis of such brain function, emphasizing methods of treatment for the sake of mankind, to be held in Israel's capital Jerusalem? Honest thinkers and brain scientists of the world should receive invitations to participate. The status quo is quite unacceptable. Lawrence Uniglicht is a career civil servant, working for the Social Security Administration. He advocates for the State of Israel with an American perspective. He writes, "Advocating for the disrespected underdog has been my passion, no doubt Israel falls into that category." Contact him by email at luniglicht@snip.net |
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DAVID HA'IVRI OF TAPUACH ADDRESSES AMERICAN STUDENTS
Posted by David L. HaMeir, July 4, 2006. |
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1. David Ha'Ivri Addresses Group from George Mason University Last week, David Ha'Ivri was chosen, as representative of the Shomron, to speak to a group of students and professors from George Mason University near Washington, DC who were on a "fact finding mission" in Israel to study first hand the Middle East Conflict. The meeting which took place at the Ariel College included an audio-visual presentation on the history of Israel and the importance of Judea and Samaria from Professor Hanokoglo former chairman of "Professors for a Strong Israel" as well as a tour of the Shomron and Jordan Valley by Shilo resident and veteran Eretz Yisrael activist Yair Shalev. Also present were two college students who were born and raised in the settlement "Ateret". Ha'Ivri addressed the group from the point of view of a long time resident of Kfar Tapuach in the Shomron, and explained that the Land of Israel belongs to the Jewish People, and after praying and crying for 2000 years to return to our land, we are not willing to simply hand it over to other nations who demand we do so. Ha'Ivri also emphasized that our claim is a religious one, from the Torah and that anyone who believe in the "Old Testament" has no choice but to acknowledge that claim. In response to the claim that the Settlers have "stolen" and are squatters on Arab land, Ha'Ivri pointed out that he personally has been living in Tapuach for 17 years and all of his children were born and raised here. To throw several generations of Jews out of their homes which they have known their entire lives for political reasons is wrong and an unacceptable solution. The students were also given a chance to ask questions and it was clear from the direction of their questions that despite "fact-finding" in Israel for several weeks, they still have no conception of the true nature of the situation and the conflict currently going on in Israel and still are very much blinded by Western philosophy and culture (the "can't we all just get along", melting pot world outlook) and are unable or unwilling to view the conflict from the perspective of those involved, neither side of which is interested in "integration" or cultural assimilation. Although time was very limited, hopefully these students will at least be aware and open to the Torah viewpoint on Eretz Yisrael, which is an important opportunity as such groups are rarely given a balanced portrayal of the situation and are encouraged to meet every Israeli "peace" activist and delegate from the Arab side possible, without ever actually meeting a real live "settler." 2. Hachnassat Sefer Torah in Kfar Tapuach Last Monday, the "Kibbutz Galyout Bet" Synagogue in Tapuach celebrated the dedication of a new Torah Scroll. The scroll written by (former Tapuach resident) Rabbi Eyal Segel was sponsored by Tapuach Resident Shraga Cohen, and the writing of the final letters and beginning of the procession towards the shul took place in his home "770" in Tapuach. Many of the participants were given the honor of writing one of the final letters in the Torah Scroll (under the supervision of a qualified Scribe), and after the Evening Maariv service, a procession led by the Youth of Kfar Tapuach carrying torches, and a special van with a sound system whose music could literally be heard for miles around. As is traditional, the Torah Scroll is carried under a Chuppa (wedding canopy) and is danced with in a joyful manner until it is finally placed in the Ark in the shul. As there was no place in the current Aron Kodesh in the synagogue, a beautiful new wooden Ark was also dedicated and a custom Parochet (curtain) has been ordered and is being crafted. The event was not limited to the members of the Kibbutz Galiyout shul, and Tapuach residents of all persuasions and guests from all over Israel took part in the celebration. 3. Tapuach Youth hosts "Eretz Yisrael Parade" Participants This Sunday hundreds of youth from all over Israel took part in a special hike which started in the Scully Farm in Elon Moreh and ended in Shvut Rachel. The march stopped in many hilltop communities (several of which are slated for destruction G-d forbid), and was intended to strengthen the connection of the younger generation to the land, while at the same time giving encouragement to the many communities in danger of being destroyed by the Olmert government. The Journey was split into two days and the Boys were hosted overnight in Kfar Tapuach and the Girls in the nearby settlement of Eli (with the help of the girls from Kfar Tapuach Youth). In Tapuach a large BBQ was held in honor of the hikers, and music was provided by Ariel Zilber and other musicians. Pictures of the event can be seen here http://www.revava.org/forum/index.php/topic,2117.0.html Contact David HaMeir at info@hameir.org |
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REMEMBER WHAT HAPPENED HERE
Posted by Naomi Ragen, July 4, 2006. |
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I send you this not because it contains anything we don't know and
haven't thought of, but because it was published by Time Magazine. It
was written by Charles Krauthammer and it appeared in Time Magazine
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Israel Invades Gaza. That is in response to an attack from Gaza that killed two Israelis and wounded another, who was kidnapped and brought back to Gaza ...which, in turn, was in response to Israel's targeted killing of terrorist leaders in Gaza...which, in turn, was in response to the indiscriminate shelling of Israeli towns by rockets launched from Gaza. Of all the conflicts in the world, the one that seems the most tediously and hopelessly endless is the Arab-Israeli dispute, which has been going on in much the same way, it seems, for 60 years. Just about every story you'll see will characterize Israel's invasion of Gaza as a continuation of the cycle of violence. Cycles are circular. They have no end. They have no beginning. That is why, as tempting as that figure of speech is to use, in this case it is false. It is as false as calling American attacks on Taliban remnants in Afghanistan part of a cycle of violence between the U.S. and al-Qaeda or, as Osama bin Laden would have it, between Islam and the Crusaders going back to 1099. Every party has its grievances--even Hitler had his list when he invaded Poland in 1939--but every conflict has its origin. What is so remarkable about the current wave of violence in Gaza is that the event at the origin of the "cycle" is not at all historical, but very contemporary. The event is not buried in the mists of history. It occurred less than one year ago. Before the eyes of the whole world, Israel left Gaza. Every Jew, every soldier, every military installation, every remnant of Israeli occupation was uprooted and taken away. How do the Palestinians respond? What have they done with Gaza, the first Palestinian territory in history to be independent, something neither the Ottomans nor the British nor the Egyptians nor the Jordanians, all of whom ruled Palestinians before the Israelis, ever permitted? On the very day of Israel's final pullout, the Palestinians began firing rockets out of Gaza into Israeli towns on the other side of the border. And remember: those are attacks not on settlers but on civilians in Israel proper, the pre-1967 Israel that the international community recognizes as legitimately part of sovereign Israel, a member state of the U.N. A thousand rockets have fallen since. For what possible reason? Before the withdrawal, attacks across the border could have been rationalized with the usual Palestinian mantra of occupation, settlements and so on. But what can one say after the withdrawal? The logic for those continued attacks is to be found in the so-called phase plan adopted in 1974 by the Palestine National Council in Cairo. Realizing that they would never be able to destroy Israel in one fell swoop, the Palestinians adopted a graduated plan to wipe out Israel. First, accept any territory given to them in any part of historic Palestine. Then, use that sanctuary to wage war until Israel is destroyed. So in 2005 the Palestinians are given Gaza, free of any Jews. Do they begin building the state they say they want, constructing schools and roads and hospitals? No. They launch rockets at civilians and dig a 300-yard tunnel under the border to attack Israeli soldiers and bring back a hostage. And this time the terrorism is carried out not by some shadowy group that the Palestinian leader can disavow, however disingenuously. This is Hamas in action--the group that was recently elected to lead the Palestinians. At least there is now truth in advertising: a Palestinian government openly committed to terrorism and to the destruction of a member state of the U.N. openly uses terrorism to carry on its war. That is no cycle. That is an arrow. That is action with a purpose. The action began 59 years ago when the U.N. voted to solve the Palestine conundrum then ruled by Britain by creating a Jewish state and a Palestinian state side by side. The Jews accepted the compromise; the Palestinians rejected it and joined five outside Arab countries in a war to destroy the Jewish state and take all the territory for themselves. They failed, and Israel survived. That remains, in the Palestinian view, Israel's original sin, the foundational crime for the cycle: Israel's survival. That's the reason for the rockets, for the tunneling, for the kidnapping--and for Israel's current response. If that history is too ancient, consider the history of the past 12 months. Gaza is free of occupation, yet Gaza wages war. Why? Because this war is not about occupation, but about Israel's very existence. The so-called cycle will continue until the arrow is abandoned and the Palestinians accept a compromise--or until the arrow finds its mark and Israel dies. Naomi Ragen is an American-born novelist and journalist who lives in Jerusalem. She can be contacted at www.naomiragen.com, where you can subscribe to her newsletter. |
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MURDERERS OF ELIYAHU ASHERI ARRESTED
Posted by Avodah 15, July 4, 2006. |
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This was posted on IMRA - Independent Media Review and Analysis
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In a joint IDF and ISA operation early this morning, June 4th 2006, security forces arrested three wanted Tanzim terrorists, operating under a joint Hamas and PRC infrastructure which originates in the Gaza Strip. The three were in the Palestinian police headquarters in Ramallah at the time of the arrest. The arrested men are: Bassam Shafik Atiya Ahtiya, 34, resident of the Umari R.C, Khamze Salah Taktuk, 22, resident of Ramallah and I'iam Fuab Naaef Kamamju, 20, resident of Ramallah. The three men were taken for questioning by security sources. The IDF will continue to act with determination against Palestinian terror anywhere the Palestinian Authority fails to do so and will continue to employ all means at its disposal to protect the citizens of Israel. Contact Avodah 15 at Avodah15@aol.com |
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OLMERT DOESN'T GET IT
Posted by Women in Green, July 4, 2006. |
| This was written by Caroline Glick and it appeared in the Jerusalem Post June 30, 2006. |
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Since replacing Ariel Sharon in office last December, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has refused to permit a large-scale IDF incursion into the Gaza Strip. The hundreds of rockets, mortars and missiles that have rendered the Western Negev's population and economy hostage to Palestinian rocket crews could not budge him from his refusal to take the war to the enemy. Indeed, for months he ignored the pleas of residents of Sderot and told the IDF to suffice with artillery fire into empty fields and aerial bombings of terrorists en route to launching rockets. The fact that Israel's intelligence collection capabilities in Gaza were grievously undermined in the aftermath of last summer's withdrawal; the fact that IDF commanders acknowledge that more weaponry has been brought into Gaza in the past ten months than entered in the previous 38 years, made no impression. Repeated reports of Al Qaida opening shop in Gaza and of Iranian Revolutionary Guards units training Fatah and Hamas members in the destroyed Israeli communities were dismissed as unimportant, irrelevant and insignificant. Olmert refused to send forces into Gaza to contend with the transformation of Gaza into a strategic threat to Israel because doing so would involve acknowledging that his plan to retreat from Judea, Samaria and parts of Jerusalem will turn Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Hadera, Afula and Beersheba into frontline communities. He refused to send forces into Gaza because doing so would demonstrate that Israel cannot defend its cities from their outskirts. He refused to send forces into Gaza because it would involve an acknowledgment that Israel is at war and that the war cannot be ignored by building walls or inciting the public against Israeli residents of Judea and Samaria. He refused to send forces into Gaza because doing so would be tantamount to admitting that all territory abandoned by the IDF is taken over by Israel's enemies. He refused to send forces into Gaza or take concerted action against Palestinian terror leaders because, as the nasty upbraiding that Israel suffered Thursday at the hands of US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and her colleagues at the G-8 showed, the international community sees Israeli counter-terror operations in the aftermath of the withdrawal from Gaza as no more legitimate than its counter-terror operations before the withdrawal. So does the fact that this week Olmert finally permitted forces to reenter Gaza mean that he now gets it? Does Olmert's decision to arrest Hamas parliamentarians and government ministers in Judea and Samaria in spite of Condi's objections signal that he has accepted that Israel must destroy its enemies' capacity to attack its territory, its forces and its citizens? Does the fact that Olmert ordered IAF jets to overfly Syrian dictator Bashar Assad's palace mean that he understands that the war being fought against Israel is part of the global jihad? Unfortunately, a close look at Olmert's counter-terror measures makes clear that, no, in spite of the wailing of the international press corps, and the whining of the State Department and its European and Russian counterparts, in fact, Olmert still refuses to get it. Olmert and his associates in the government have pointed their fingers at Hamas blaming it for the Palestinian guerrilla attack on Israeli territory Sunday morning while ignoring Palestinian Authority Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah terror group's equal share of culpability. It was Fatah, not Hamas that kidnapped and murdered 18-yearold Eliahu Asheri. It is Fatah that is threatening to blow up Israeli embassies abroad. It is Fatah that is threatening to renew shooting attacks on Jerusalem and attack Israel with chemical and biological weapons. It is Fatah that is threatening to kill the IDF hostage Cpl. Gilad Shalit. While Shin Bet Director Yuval Diskin was preparing the list of Hamas leaders IDF forces arrested in Judea and Samaria Wednesday night, Abbas was finalizing his deal with Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh for the formation of a Hamas-Fatah unity government. Abbas and Haniyeh not only agreed to form a unity government, they also agreed that Hamas would become a member of the PLO. Aside from that, they agreed that to establish a unified force for fighting their joint war against Israel. That is, this week, as Israel trained its rifles on Hamas alone, Abbas effectively unified Hamas with Fatah. Rather than contending with this development, Olmert and his colleagues chose to ignore it. And this makes sense of course. Acknowledging that Fatah and Hamas are equally at war with Israel would mean that Israel has no option of giving away Judea, Samaria and parts of Jerusalem to any of these groups. Olmert's decision to blame Syria for Sunday's attack on Kerem Shalom is similarly problematic. Yes, it is true that the orders for Hamas's major operations, (like those of Fatah and Islamic Jihad) come from Syria and Teheran. The fact that the government is acknowledging that the war being fought against Israel is not simply a dispute between Palestinians and Israelis about the partition of the western part of the Land of Israel is on the face of it a welcome development. Unfortunately, the government's acknowledgement of the foreign command of the Palestinian war against Israel is being used not as a justification for fighting, but as a justification for not fighting. Olmert has used Syria's role in ordering attacks against Israel as a way of letting the local terror commanders Abbas and Haniyeh off the hook. Rather than recognize that they are both subordinate to and supportive of Damascus and Teheran's terror war strategy against Israel, Olmert and his associates are using the foreign elements of the war as a way to say that the Palestinians are not responsible even though they are the ones carrying out the operations on the ground. As to the current IDF operation in Gaza, it is fairly clear that whatever accomplishments the IDF may achieve over the next few days, Olmert will call for a retreat rather than enable those tactical accomplishments to become translated into an enhanced strategic environment for Israel. Olmert, whose primary goal as prime minister is to reenact the failed withdrawal from Gaza twenty-fold in Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem cannot enable the Israeli public to see proof on its television screens night after night that the withdrawal was an abysmal failure. The footage that the Israeli public has seen every night since Sunday shows them with absolute clarity that the country was safer when the Israeli communities separating Gaza from Ashkelon and Egypt were still standing and when the IDF was deployed in Gaza protecting southern Israel and keeping the border with Egypt quiet. Making this point absolutely clear, this week Olmert and Defense Minister Amir Peretz paved the way for new pictures to be seen on the television screens next week. Amidst the military earthquake in the south, the two men repeated their intention to destroy four communities in Judea and Samaria next week. What they refuse to recognize is that while doing so may confuse the public for awhile about whom its real enemy is, the footage from their planned operation will destroy in one fell swoop any accomplishments the IDF may garner this week in Gaza. Pictures of Israeli police and military forces forcibly removing Israelis from their homes will prove to the Palestinians - once again - that their hope to destroy Israel through jihad is well founded. When one compares Olmert's management of the current crisis with former prime minister Ariel Sharon's management of Operation Defensive Shield in April 2002, the fact that this operation is not serious becomes manifestly clear. On March 29, 2002 Sharon announced the cabinet's decision that precipitated Operation Defensive Shield. In his words, "Israel will act to defeat the terror infrastructure - all its component parts and facets." He further announced that Yasser Arafat "is the enemy." The reason Defensive Shield was a success is not because in its aftermath the Palestinian terror infrastructure in Judea and Samaria was destroyed. Indeed, shortly after it was officially concluded there was a suicide bombing in Rishon Lezion. In fact, the terror never really stopped at all. Defensive Shield was a success because it set the conditions for making it impossible for the Palestinians to carry out an effective terror offensive from Judea and Samaria. During Defensive Shield, the IDF reasserted its security control over the Palestinian towns and villages in the areas, a control it has not relinquished. Because it remains in control of the area, rather than being forced to kill terrorists from the air, as is done in Gaza where the IDF never reasserted its control, in Judea and Samaria every night, forces go into the homes of terrorists and arrest them in their beds with no collateral damage. And every day, because the IDF is in charge, it is able to enhance its intelligence capabilities. Those enhanced capabilities in turn make it possible for the silent nightly raids that keep Israelis safe in their beds to continue. But while Defensive Shield's goal was to "defeat the terror infrastructure," the current Operation Summer Rains in Gaza has set as its goal returning Cpl. Shalit to Israel. Olmert and Peretz hope to somehow convince Hamas and Fatah and their bosses in Damascus and Teheran that they are better off coughing up Shalit. They are supposed to think this even though Israel has made it clear that it won't stay in Gaza and is dead set - regardless of the outcome of Summer Rain - on giving them Judea, Samaria and parts of Jerusalem. On Monday, Meretz leader MK Yossi Beilin told Olmert that his party, like the Arab parties will not support Olmert's plan to retreat from Judea and Samaria and parts of Jerusalem because Olmert plans to retain control of some 5-10 percent of Judea and Samaria for the long haul. Two weeks ago Beilin met with the EU's External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner and elicited from her a clear EU rejection of Olmert's plan to determine Israel's borders. Beilin told The Jerusalem Post that Israel must surrender all the Israeli communities to the Palestinians and sign a deal with Abbas to this effect even if Abbas is incapable or unwilling to uphold any pledge to fight terrorism. In staking out this position, Beilin is repeating he actions towards then prime minister Ehud Barak after the outbreak of the Palestinian terror war in September 2000. Beilin, who served as justice minister in Barak's government saw that Barak had lost all security credibility with the failure of his peace talks and his inability to take effective actions against the Palestinian terror offensive. Beilin understood that what Barak feared most was the fall of his government and new elections. Because of this, Beilin was able to force Barak to adopt still more accomodationist positions after the outbreak of the Palestinian terror war than he had proposed at Camp David in July 2000. Beilin convinced Barak to agree to the transfer of the Temple Mount and the Jordan Valley to the PLO. Olmert, like Barak was brought to power as the head of leftist coalition. If Olmert loses that support base, his government could easily fall. In light of this, and given the fact that through his actions and inactions Olmert has made clear that he remains unwilling to reconsider his policy of surrendering Judea, Samaria and parts of Jerusalem to terrorists, it is hard to imagine that his decision to approve the IDF's operations in Gaza and the arrest of Hamas leaders will have any ameliorative effect on Israel's security situation. In short, the limited nature of this week's IDF operations makes clear that Olmert still refuses to get it. Ruth and Nadia Matar established Women For Israel's Tomorrow (Women in Green), an activist group of women based in Jerusalem. Their website address is http://www.womeningreen.org |
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SCORE TWO FOR THE GALUT, ONE FOR ISRAEL
Posted by Professor Eugene Narrett, July 3, 2006. |
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I'll invoke the metaphor of an articulate Israeli who was expelled last summer with her family from Atzmona. For the many decades since Jews began gathering in great numbers back in the Promised Land Israel has been like a man just waking up from a coma. Such a person is not fully in control of themself or their destiny and in their confusion can hurt themself badly. The reborn state exhibits just such behavior. Much of this, governing structures, disastrous economics and social policies that suppress Jewish initiative and encourage dependency and fatalism -- can be chalked up to socialist attitudes and governance which gained a new virulence in post-modernism, or "post-Zionism" as the hostility for history and national self-respect is termed in Israel. But some of the self-destructive behavior also reflects the necessary healing process and re-orientation of a nation long banished from the land that gave it its integrity, identity and clarity about its mission. Socialism (like many other aspects of Hellenism) is a sign of the disorientation if Israel still bearing the burdensome hurts of exile. The IDF 'offensive' in Gaza is a largescale example of the continuing dominance of galut reflexes in Israel. This "major operation," ostensibly triggered by the kidnapping of soldier Gilad Shalit and the entirely predictable attack on the tank position near Kerem Shalom in its first five days exacted the life of one terrorist. That is not a 'major' anything; that, ladeis and gentlemen is a farce that reflects the timidity and self-contempt at the top of Israel's ruling echelons, especially the current administration which is "tired of being brave." How painfully obvious is this half-truth: when were these toadies, these lickspittles of Washington every brave? And predictably, the limp-along, gasoline-wasting exercize of the IDF eventually elicited a characteristic response from the jihadists who see that the entire operation is yet another made-for-the-media Israeli joke (a bitter joke on the IDF and people of Israel). So now the terrorists are issuing their own outrageous demands (free 1000 terrorist Jew-killing wannabe's or else). This occurs in the vaccuum where Israel's own stern, non-negotiable demand should have been ever since the kidnapping (as I wrote a week ago): return soldier Shalit by tomorrow morning or else face the total elimination of your cadres here and in Syria and Lebanon. With every hour of delay, the IDF and IAF especially should exact a more and more severe price. The murder of Eliayahu Asheri should have added to the immediate 'costs' for the jihadists of their attacks and public denunciations of Israel, their plans to eradicate it. But no, the Galut wins out here and so long as it does, the Arab demands, like poverty in the attic, will grow more outrageously out-sized. Another dispiriting development was the announcement by a group of Rabbonim that in response to kidnappings and attempted kidnappings by terrorists that Jews should stop hitchhiking. You see the familiar logic: they attack us, we should become invisible, -- stay inside or, maybe, move to America. This counsel from Israel's 'teachers,' G-d help us. To those who threaten and/or attack Jews the teaching, a teaching of pidyon shvuyim is massive preemption and ensuing deterrence leading to the only kind of peace the Arabs understand: when they are cowed into a semblance of non-violence. Strike them down, ten thousand for every Jew they kill and there will be a cessation of killing; then, and not until then.... The victory for Israel? You guessed it, involves reclaiming the land from the ground up. The march by several hundred young Israelis from Elon Moreh and its environs to Tapuach, Eli, Shiloh, Shvut Rachel until Kol Tzion, with their own protection is the way to demonstrate the true to the Land identity of the Jewish people. It also is the best and original way to lay claim to the inheritance: "arise and walk the land, for to you I will give it." So two steps, no, many steps back, but also one collective step forward for national redemption. Walk the land; visit every town in Yehuda and the Shomron and when this is done we will in good time see retribution on the wicked... Professor Eugene Narrett teaches writing and Literature at Boston University. He is the author of hundreds of articles, columns and reviews on politics, American culture and the arts. He is completing a study on Romanticism and the longterm decline of Western Culture. He writes often on subjects relating to Israel and Judaism and is a weekly columnist for the MetroWest Daily News in Framingham, Massachusetts. His new book is "Israel and the Endtimes". Contact him at Culturtalk@aol.com |
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AL-JAZEERA'S TERRORIST REPORTER
Posted by Avodah 15, July 3, 2006. |
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This is called
"Al-Jazeera's Terrorist Reporter" and it
was written by Cliff Kincaid; it appeared today on the Accuracy
in Media website
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When Al-Jazeera runs a new terrorist video, U.S. networks are anxious to get their hands on a copy. But when Al-Jazeera recently ran a story about its own reporter losing an appeal of his conviction on charges of being an agent of al Qaeda, we couldn't find the news anywhere in the U.S. media. The June 2 Al-Jazeera "news" story began: "Al Jazeera has expressed shock at the Spanish Supreme Court's decision on Thursday to uphold the seven-year jail term of its correspondent, Teyseer Alluni [Al-Jazeera spells the name differently]." The story reported that the Arab Committee for the Defense of Journalists "described the move by the court as unjust and called upon all civil rights and media groups to 'uncover the truth' of Alluni's case." Spanish judge Baltasar Garzon alleged that Tayseer Alouni was involved with an al-Qaeda terror cell that helped plan the 9/11 attacks on America. "Alouni, 48, was a high-profile correspondent for al Jazeera who had met with Osama bin Laden and was often the reporter who received al-Qaeda tapes and messages from unknown sources," as one report put it. In the most infamous interview with bin Laden, conducted after the 9/11 attacks, Alouni gave the terror boss an international platform, saying, "Do you have a message for the viewers of Al-Jazeera? You know Al-Jazeera is now translated into so many languages and transmitted around the world." Bin Laden responded, in part: "In this fighting between Islam and the crusaders, we will continue our jihad. We will incite the nation for Jihad until we meet God and get his blessing. Any country that supports the Jews can only blame itself." Something called the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has come to Alouni's defense, saying the Supreme Court decision was a "regrettable confirmation" that journalists "reporting on security issues or on organizations branded as 'terrorist' could find themselves before the courts accused of collaboration with violent extremists." U.S. affiliates of the IFJ include The Newspaper Guild, the Writers Guild of America and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists. The "truth" about Alouni? Here's what Al-Jazeera itself reported about his "work" after 9/11 and the U.S. hit terrorist bases in Afghanistan: "Alluni, who began his career as an Arabic translator for a news agency in Granada, Spain, is credited as being the only journalist based in Afghanistan in October 2001 to show the world what the US war machine was doing to one of the world's poorest countries. By then working for Aljazeera, Alluni was able to capture images of civilian victims in the destitute villages of Afghanistan and the miserable streets of Kabul. His coverage triggered international outrage over the US action in Afghanistan." (emphasis added). It turns out that Alouni just happened to live close to al-Qaeda strategist Mustafa Setmariam Nasar. As noted by Washington Post reporter Craig Whitlock, Alouni was Nasar's "neighbor" in a small town in the province of Granada. Whitlock, strangely, did not pursue the matter. The Granada connection figured prominently in the indictment. A website called Trackingthethreat.com, citing an ABC News account, explained the case: "The indictment details his travels and wiretapped phone conversations in which Alouni allegedly agrees to carry money and messages to al-Qaeda operatives planning the Sept. 11 attacks. It also charges that Alouni later used his job at al Jazeera while based in Afghanistan to make it easier for him to pass money to al-Qaeda members. "The indictment details Alouni's relationships with many al Qaeda members. Documents, mostly seized phone records, show that he was in frequent contact with Imad Eddin Barakat Yarkas, also known as Abu Dahdah, the leader of al Qaeda's activities in Spain. The indictment also maintains that both men were involved in recruiting and supporting a young group of extremists in Granada, where Alouni lived before moving to Madrid in 2000, and that after moving to Madrid, Alouni kept in frequent contact with the group in Granada. "According to the indictment, Yarkas helped Alouni with passport and visa renewals, and he also handled the documents to obtain Alouni's permanent resident status in Spain. The indictment also says Alouni often received money from Yarkas in order to support members of the group in Granada." Contact Avodah 15 at avodah15@aol.com |
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CAREFUL WHAT YOU HOPE FOR
Posted by Avodah 15, July 3, 2006. |
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This was written by Andrew Friedman, the opinion editor of Ynetnews He asks, "Now that they've got a Jewish-free Gaza, why are the Palestinians doing everything in their power to bring back the IDF?" |
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"Now that they've got a Jewish-free Gaza, why are the Palestinians doing everything in their power to bring back the IDF?" Immediately following the withdrawal of all Israeli civilian and military personnel last summer, Palestinian spokespeople around the world set out on a strange (and largely unsuccessful) PR campaign to convince the world that Gaza was somehow still occupied. To be sure, Palestinian history is full of strange claims about Israel (such as charges that Israeli soldiers pass out poison candy to Palestinian children), but this was surely one of the strangest. How could Gaza be "occupied" with no Jews? What is the nature of this claim? Another question: Since the disengagement, Palestinians have done everything in their power to force Israel to re-enter Gaza. As Bethlehem-based human rights lawyer Shawqi Issa wrote, "the Palestinians must force Israel to re-occupy Gaza." Doesn't make sense But it just doesn't make sense. Israel's presence in the West Bank and Gaza has been the centerpiece in Palestinian claims for years. Palestinian factions don't agree on much, but the notion that an Israeli withdrawal would facilitate the construction of a Palestinian state has been one thing they could all agree on. Israelis of many stripes have also lined up to back such a withdrawal, saying such a move was not only the only way to ensure Israel's Jewish, democratic nature, but would also to encourage the Palestinians to give up dreams of Greater Palestine and finally make peace with Israel. "Give them something to lose, and they won't be so fast to gamble with it," went the argument underlying the process. But a funny thing happened on the way to the peace: The Palestinians didn't buy it. Israel made significant withdrawals from disputed land in 1994, 95, 96 and 97, and by the time Benjamin Netanyahu was elected in May, 1996, well over 90 percent of Palestinian civilians lived under Palestinian civil jurisdiction. But the number of terror attacks rose consistently, forcing Israeli to increase arrests, security closures and eventually targeted killings, in direct relation to the amount of territory given over to Palestinian control. The whole picture seems to suggest a concerted effort on the part of the Palestinian leadership to ensure Israel maintain some control over Gaza. Two possibilities There are several possible explanations for this phenomenon. The most obvious is that the absence of an Israeli occupier places a tremendous burden on the Palestinian leadership to produce results. Since the "naqba" in 1948, and especially since the Six Day War in 1967, Israel has always been there as a scapegoat for every Palestinian or international problem imaginable, from September 11 to the death of Yasser Arafat and everything in between. Now that the Israel is out of Gaza and the "occupation" is no longer, the Palestinians are in a bind. They've got the resources to build the state they say they want (per capita the PA receives more foreign aid than any other country in the world), meaning they've got to reign in corruption and start producing, or they've got to come up with some reason they "can't." In other words, in an Israel-less Gaza, the only options for the Palestinians are to create their state or to reconstruct their scapegoat. In this context, Shawqi Issa's words bear repeating: "The Palestinians must force Israel to re-occupy Gaza." Perhaps there is another possibility: Could it be that for the Palestinian national movement, the Israel- Palestinian conflict is existential in nature? Groups like Hamas, Islamic Jihad, the PLO and others were created to fight Israel, and for very little else. Could it be that these groups will try to preserve the conflict at all cost, because without the conflict there is no PLO/Hamas/Islamic Jihad? One might even take this line of reasoning further. While it is true that there are a group of people who now identify themselves as Palestinian, it is equally true that before 1964 no such group existed. Had Arab residents of Jaffa, Haifa or Jerusalem been asked in 1900, or even in 1950, about their nationality, they would likely have answered "Arab," not Palestinian. And indeed, it is difficult to distinguish 'Palestinianism' from a broader Arab identity. All the main defining characteristics of "nation" -- language, cuisine, culture, religion - are indistinguishable from Arab culture. And even in examples where a unique, Palestinian culture has emerged -- such as film maker Hany Abu-Assad or poet Mahmoud Darwish -- their work focuses almost entirely on aspects of the conflict with Israel. Not that this negates Palestinian nationhood today. With somewhere between 2-7 million people around the world who define themselves in whole or in part as Palestinians, the nation exists, and must be treated as such. But it could be an explanation for the determination of Palestinian officialdom -- in all groups and at all levels -- to prevent a true end to Israeli involvement in Palestinian life. |
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EU OFFICIALS ARE RENDERED STENOGRAPHERS BY THE EUROPEAN ARAB LEAGUE (EAL)
Posted by David Meir-Levi, July 3, 2006. |
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Some thoughts on the status of the EU officials who develop the foreign policy that condemns Israel for defending itself against terrorism: Switzerland, Sweden, and Norway, and even Denmark (despite, or because of, its cartoon ordeal) are so very quick to demonize Israel and condemn Israel -- in a vaccuum, decontextualized. No concern for the trauma to Israelis because of the daily Qassam bombardments (but recall the condemnation of Israel when its jet planes caused sonic booms that traumatized some Palestinian children)..... No condemnation of a society educated in to blind and toxic hatred that values death over life and war over peace.... BUT.... .....when israel mounts a defensive campaign, to stop the Qassams and save an innocent life, and this campaign is aimed at property and infrastructure, intentionally avoiding civilian and even terrorist persons; and Israel provides food and other vital supplies to the Palestinians even as Qassams fall, and the IDF generates only a very few casualties (5 at last count).... .......that is cause to castigate Israel and condemn it as a rogue state violating humanitarian norms and international laws. " Israel has been violating international law in its Gaza offensive by heavy destruction and endangering civilians in acts of collective punishment banned under the Geneva conventions on the conduct of warfare." (Swiss declaration, 7.3.06) Whose words are these? They sound an awful lot like Arab propaganda that dates back to 1956. Any time the Arab forces (tradtional armies or terror forces) attack, with threats of genocide and massacre....well...they are fighting a war of liberation. any time Israel defends itself....it is violating international law. I wonder if Europe has reached such a nadir that the EAL is actually dictating the content of ithe EU's foreign policy statements, and the EU officials are just stenographers. Now that's dhimmitude...that's "Eurabia"! EAL = European Arab League: founded in the 1970's, funded by saudi arabia, mirrors the Arab League but has offices in several European cities and its officials interface on a daily basis with the prime ministers and presidents and kings and parliamentarians of the EU member countries, as well as with major media outlets. The job of the EAL is to keep Arab and Moslem considerations at the forefront of the EU decision makers, so that Moslem citizenry can have their civil rights protected, can maintain their language and religion and culture without interference from assimilation-intentioned EU laws or enducements, and so that the EU can be aware of the Arab League's stand on various international issues (such as the Arab Israel conflcit, the Iraq war, the Iran WMD issue, etc.). Not that the EAL would try to pressure or otherwise influence the EU in its own decisioin-making processes....no, not at all...but just so that the EU folks know in advance what the positions of the Arab league are, and can, therefore, demonstrate consideratiion and concern for the Arab League's "delicate sensibilities".
David Meir-Levi is an American-born Israeli,
currently living in Palo Alto. His expertise is in Near Eastern
studies and the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict. He is Director
of Peace and Education at Israel Peace Initiative (www.ipi-usa.org).
Contact him at david_meirlevi@hotmail.com
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ERLANGER OF THE NEW YORK TIMES WHITEWASHES HAMAS. AGAIN!
Posted by David Meir-Levi, July 3, 2006. |
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The Erlanger and Fisher article "Israel Steps up Raids in bid to free Soldier" (NY Times, 7.3.06) makes five critical omissions, resulting in a distressingly misleading message and gross misrepresentation of Hamas. 1.) "...both sides appeared to be groping for a solution to the crisis;" This is an almost nonsensical rendition of the situation. Hamas is not "groping for a solution". Hamas has caused the crisis and is refusing its obvious solution - the release of the kidnapped soldier. Nor is Israel "groping". The only solution it will accept is the release of the kidnapped soldier. Erlanger and Fisher seem to be intent on mis-representing the nature of the crisis. Far from two sides groping for some way to find resolution, the crisis is one terrorist criminal polity having perpetrated an illegal act of terror, and the victim state using restrained force while avoiding civilian casualties, to right the wrong. 2.) "...but (Israel) is struggling to find increasingly punitive ways to prevent any future kidnappings of soldiers, while trying to weaken Hamas". What Erlanger and Fisher somehow fail to notice is that Israel also wants to stop the Palestinian terrorists' daily Qassam attacks and mortar attacks and katyusha attacks and suicide bomber attacks and sniper attacks and drive-by shootings and road side bombs and car bombs and knifings -- all perpetrated by or supported by Hamas since, and despite the fact that, Israel made its monumental peace gesture by unilaterally and unconditionally ceding the Gaza Strip (and deporting 9000 Israeli civilians who lived there for the past 35 years). 3.) "(Hamas)... which Israel considers a terrorist organization." Have fisher and Erlanger forgotten that the EU and the USA and the President and the State Department also consider Hamas to be a terrorist organization? The statement is true; but it is only half of the truth. And half a truth is often far worse than a lie. By not mentioning the fact that Hamas is considered by much of the West to be a terrorist organization, Erlanger and Fisher imply that only Israel thinks it is. This is a very effective, albeit misleading to the point of mendacious, way to minimize the significance of Hamas' terrorist status. 4.) "Their aim is just to cause panic... they want to pressure us, to play with our nerves." So says an Arab "man on the street" about Israel's supplying the Gazan Arabs with food and other essential supplies and energy. Even when Israel makes the most obvious humanitarian gestures, even while Hamas is still firing Qassams and sending suicide bombers, all in the middle of a war, some Palestinians must still find some way to turn Israel's humanitarian gesture into an evil deed. 5.) "It is uncertain what kind of deal might be acceptable to Israel." This is utter nonsense. As Erlanger already stated in earlier articles, releasing the kidnapped soldier is acceptable to Israel. There is no uncertainty. There is only Hamas' unwillingness to comply. By some strange coincidence, all of the omissions and half-truths and mis-representations made by Mssrs. Fisher and Erlanger tend to minimize Hamas' culpability, and to whitewash the illegal terrorist nature of its crimes. Now why would a good journalist try to do that? |
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New York Times
July 3, 2006 "Israel Steps Up Raids in Bid to Free Soldier" by Ian Fisher And Steven Erlanger GAZA, Monday, July 3 -- Israeli aircraft intensified their attacks on Palestinian targets in Gaza early on Monday, hitting the downtown offices of the Fatah political party here and sites in the northern part of the territory, a day after Israel's prime minister ordered his military to do whatever was necessary to pressure militants to free an Israeli soldier captured a week ago. Just after daybreak, Israeli tanks and troops began to move into northern Gaza from massed positions on the border. An Israeli Army official said the operation was not large, calling it "a pin-point operation, to reveal explosives and tunnels" prepared by Palestinians. "There's no massive entrance of forces right now," he said. About 25 tanks entered Gaza to protect the troops, most of them from engineering brigades, the official said. Still, such an operation would be a logical preparation for a larger entry of forces later. The strikes appeared to be a direct response to the instructions of the Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert, who told subordinates at a cabinet meeting on Sunday that he intended to make the lives of Gazans ever more miserable until the captured soldier, 19-year-old Cpl. Gilad Shalit, was released. But Israel also yielded somewhat to outside pressure by allowing a limited supply of fuel and food into Gaza. Mr. Olmert, whose air force has already bombed Gaza's bridges, crippled its only power plant, shelled the Palestinian prime minister's office here and subjected all 1.4 million Gaza residents to night after night of sleep-depriving sonic booms, said he had ordered the military and government "to do everything in order to bring Gilad back home." There were no immediate reports of casualties in the Israeli attacks early on Monday, but Israeli soldiers killed three Palestinian gunmen near the airport on Sunday night, raising the total Palestinian death toll in the latest crisis to five. At the same time, senior Israeli military officials counseled the Israelis to have patience and suggested that the operation to pressure the Hamas-led government to release the soldier could take some time. On Saturday, the Israeli defense minister, Amir Peretz, approved a limited opening of two border crossings for the next four days to allow in basic supplies of food, fuel and medical supplies. By early Sunday evening, 50 trucks of wheat, corn, meat, cooking oil and other basics had passed through the Karni crossing, according to Capt. Jacob Dallal, an Israeli military spokesman. About 265,000 gallons of diesel fuel, 21,000 gallons of gasoline and 200,000 tons of natural gas were shipped through the fuel terminal at Nahal Oz, he said. A week after Palestinian militants attacked an Israeli military post, capturing Corporal Shalit and killing two other soldiers, both sides appeared to be groping for a solution to the crisis, each caught by potentially competing aims. Israel has repeatedly signaled that it does not want to harm civilians or reoccupy Gaza, which it vacated last year, but it is struggling to find increasingly punitive ways to prevent any future kidnappings of soldiers, while trying to weaken Hamas, which Israel considers a terrorist organization. At the same time, leaders of the Fatah faction have appeared stymied by the refusal by Hamas and allied groups to release the corporal, as Hamas leaders have sought not to appear to be capitulating to Israeli pressure. Meanwhile, aid groups have warned of a looming humanitarian crisis in Gaza, completely sealed off for a week. The United Nations secretary general, Kofi Annan, added his voice to the concern on Sunday, telling reporters at an African Union summit meeting in Gambia that Israel's actions appeared counterproductive. "I remain very concerned about the need to preserve Palestinian institutions and infrastructure," he was quoted as saying by Agence France-Presse. "They will be the basis for an eventual two-state solution and that's in the interest of both Israel and the Palestinians." With Israel's limited reopening of two Gaza crossings, fuel began arriving by late morning at gas stations, many of them dry for days, but the relief did not necessarily ease anxiety here. With short tempers bursting into shouting matches, drivers waited for two hours at one station in Gaza City, which had received about 500 gallons of diesel -- less than one-tenth the capacity of a fuel tanker. "Their aim is just to cause panic," said Sabem Bhar, an employee at the station. "They can't cut it off completely. But they want to pressure us, to play with our nerves." Early on Wednesday, the Israeli military began its military operations to free Corporal Shalit, striking the power station, bridges, training camps for militants and suspected bomb-making factories. Israeli artillery fire -- suspended on June 9 after seven members of a Palestinian family were killed on a beach in Gaza -- resumed in force, with hundreds of rounds fired every day from the land and sea. The Israeli military said it had fired 1,500 shells since the operation began and carried out more than 40 airstrikes. But for all the pyrotechnics, the operation has been relatively restrained. Part of that restraint seems to reflect worry for Corporal Shalit's life. And part is over pressure from outside, including from the United States, not to endanger civilians' lives. The shells have been aimed at open areas, many of them places in the north of Gaza where militants had been firing homemade Qassam rockets at civilians in Israel. But the Israel military has been steadily increasing the pressure, on both the militant groups and Palestinians generally, in the hope that their discomfort forces the prisoner's release. In addition to the cuts in power -- which has also limited water and air-conditioning on sweltering days -- Israeli jets have scorched over the skies at night setting off sonic booms that jolt people out of bed. Overnight on Sunday, Israeli aircraft hit the empty office of the Palestinian prime minister, Ismail Haniya, who is also a top member of Hamas, which led the attack through a secret tunnel into Israel that ended with the capture of Corporal Shalit. The message, underscored regularly by Israeli officials, is that Israel would not hesitate to assassinate top Hamas leaders, and that they hold the Hamas government responsible for the actions of Hamas's military wing. Mr. Haniya visited his office after the strike. "This is the policy of the jungle and arrogance," Reuters quoted him as saying. "Nothing will affect our spirit and nothing will affect our steadfastness." Despite the small number of casualties, Israel has been coming under strong criticism for its attacks on the infrastructure in Gaza, especially for the bombing of the power plant, which is partly owned by an American company. The plant -- still smoking four days after all six of its transformers were hit -- was visited Sunday both by the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, and the United Nations special coordinator for the Middle East peace process, lvaro de Soto. Two days ago, Israeli warplanes also bombed the entrances to all four access roads to the plant, which is insured by the United States Overseas Private Investment Corporation, or OPIC. Meantime on Sunday, hopes for any negotiated end to the standoff looked increasingly bleak. Egypt has taken the lead in trying to find some compromise, but according to news media reports, it has been frustrated by apparent divisions inside Hamas, split into parts in Gaza and in Syria, where its political leader, Khaled Meshal, lives. Hamas has demanded the release of all women and people under 18 years old in Israeli jails in exchange for Corporal Shalit, who Palestinian officials say is alive and in good health. "Efforts are continuing without results," Nabil Abu Rudeineh, a top aide to Mr. Abbas, who has also been working on a deal, told reporters. "We are close to a dead end." On Saturday, Mr. Abbas told The Associated Press, "The Egyptian efforts have encountered difficulties because there is no partner in Hamas capable of making decisions." "The Hamas leadership abroad says that the decision is in the hands of the military wing in Gaza," he added, "while the military wing says that the decision must be made by the leadership abroad." It is uncertain what kind of deal might be acceptable to Israel. Mr. Olmert has ruled out any prisoner exchange with Hamas, and did so again in the cabinet meeting on Sunday. "Surrendering today means inviting more extortion," he said. It is possible, however, that in a wider summit meeting later with Mr. Abbas, Mr. Olmert might be willing to release Palestinian prisoners, as former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon did in his summit meeting with Mr. Abbas in Egypt in February 2005. Ian Fisher reported from Gaza for this article, and Steven Erlanger from Jerusalem. David Meir-Levi is an American-born Israeli, currently living in Palo Alto. His expertise is in Near Eastern studies and the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict. He is Director of Peace and Education at Israel Peace Initiative (www.ipi-usa.org). Contact him at david_meirlevi@hotmail.com |
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IN THE DAYS OF THE GIANTS IN ISRAEL
Posted by Ramy Dishy, July 3, 2006. |
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This Is a true "Gem", an article from "The Jerusalem Post" (J. Post, 6/13/06). It is called "Israel does not need Palestinian recognition," and it was written by By Yehuda Avner, who served on the personal staff of five prime ministers, including Menachem Begin. |
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There is irony in the thought that were Menachem Begin alive today he would be saddened, indeed outraged, at Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's insistence - in consort with the US and the EU - that Hamas's political legitimacy be conditioned, inter alia, on its recognition of Israel's right to exist. "Right to exist?" I can hear the late prime minister roundly chastising his younger successor who declares himself to be a Begin disciple. "Are you telling me, Ehud, that our right to exist in Eretz Yisrael has to be sanctioned for political purposes by an intrinsically anti-Semitic, murderous Palestinian Arab terrorist organization? Have you lost your Jewish self-respect? Where is your Jewish memory?" Menachem Begin had a surfeit of both - Jewish self-respect and memory. He had an all-encompassing grasp of Jewish history. Instinctively his memory went back thousands of years and his vision forward thousands of years. Jewish nostalgia fed his soul; it nurtured his deepest convictions. SO WHEN, on the first day of his premiership in 1977, he was waylaid by a tall, debonair, rakishly good-looking Englishman in a bow tie and a perfectly pitched BBC announcer's voice, and saucily asked whether he looked forward to a time when the Palestinians would recognize Israel, his jaw tightened in restrained Jewish anger. But honed as he was by years of legal training, he answered with the composed demeanor of a practiced jurist, saying, "Traditionally, there are four major criteria of statehood under international law. One - an effective and independent government. Two - an effective and independent control of the population. Three - a defined territory. And four - the capacity to freely engage in foreign relations. Israel is in possession of all four attributes and, hence, is a fully fledged sovereign state and a fully accredited member of the United Nations." "But, surely, you would insist, would you not, that the relevant Palestinian organizations recognize Israel as a sine qua non for negotiations with them?" persisted the fellow. "Certainly not! Those so-called relevant organizations are gangs of murderers bent on destroying the State of Israel. We will never conduct talks about our own destruction." "And were they to recognize Israel's existence - would you then negotiate with them?" pressed the correspondent. "No, sir!" "Why not?" "Because I don't need Palestinian recognition for my right to exist." TWO HOURS later Menachem Begin stood at the podium of the Knesset, presenting his new cabinet. He began by dryly outlining the democratic processes that led to the changing of the guard, from Labor to Likud. And then, in recollection perhaps, of his acerbic exchange with the BBC man, he began talking about Israel's right to exist. "Our right to exist - have you ever heard of such a thing?" he declared, passion creeping into his voice. "Would it enter the mind of any Briton or Frenchman, Belgian or Dutchman, Hungarian or Bulgarian, Russian or American, to request for its people recognition of its right to exist?" He glared at his audience and wagged a finger, stilling every chattering voice in the Knesset chamber. And now, using his voice like a cello, sonorous and vibrant, he drove on: "Mr. Speaker: We were granted our right to exist by the God of our fathers at the glimmer of the dawn of human civilization four thousand years ago. Hence, the Jewish people have an historic, eternal and inalienable right to exist in this land, Eretz Yisrael, the land of our forefathers. We need nobody's recognition in asserting this inalienable right. And for this inalienable right, which has been sanctified in Jewish blood from generation to generation, we have paid a price unexampled in the annals of nations." Then he rose up on his toes, his shoulders squared, thumped the podium, and perorated in a voice that was thunder, "Mr. Speaker: From the Knesset of Israel, I say to the world, our very existence per se is our right to exist!" A spontaneous applause rose from the benches. Many got to their feet in full-throated acclaim. It was a stirring Knesset moment - a moment of instinctive self-recognition affirming that though the State of Israel was then but 29 years old, its roots in Eretz Yisrael ran 4,000 years deep. THREE WEEKS later, the very same issue cropped up once more when prime minister Begin first met president Jimmy Carter in the White House. As their encounter drew to a close, the president handed the premier a piece of heavy bond White House stationary on which the formal communiqu to be released in their name was drafted. "I trust this will meet with your approval," said Carter in his reedy Georgian voice. Begin ran his eye over the one page text, and said, "Totally acceptable, Mr. President, but for one sentence." Secretary of State Cyrus Vance, an unruffled man as a rule, who had invested much effort in drafting the document, became momentarily agitated. After a year at the job he had perfected a manner of drafting such joint statements designed to convey as little meaning as possible. "And what might that be?" he asked. "Please delete the sentence which reads, 'The United States affirms Israel's inherent right to exist.'" President Carter's steely pale-blue eyes flared in surprise. "It would be incompatible with my responsibilities as president of the United States were I to omit this commitment to your country," he said. "To the best of my knowledge, every Israeli prime minister has asked for this public pledge." "I sincerely appreciate you sentiment, Mr. President," said Mr. Begin, his tone deeply reflective as if reaching down into generations of memory, "But it would be equally incompatible with my responsibilities as prime minister of Israel were I not to ask you to erase that sentence." "But why?" "Because our Jewish state needs no American affirmation of our right to exist. Our Hebrew bible established that right millennia ago. Never, throughout the centuries, did we ever abandon or forfeit that right. Therefore, sir, we alone, the Jewish people - no one else - are responsible for our country's right to exist." So yes, Menachem Begin would, indeed, have had what to say to Ehud Olmert, were he around today. Never would he have put on the table a demand for recognition of Israel's right to exist as a quid pro quo for negotiation. To him, this was a high ideological principle, a fundamental axiom, an absolute given, a natural corollary of his all-embracing view of Jewry's extraordinary history. Ehud, take it out. Contact Ramy Dishy at clement32@sympatico.ca |
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DGFI AND ISLAMIC PARTIES AGAINST BB GUIDELINES FOR ISLAMIC BANKING
Posted by Salah Choudhury, July 3, 2006. |
| This appeared in Daily Star today: |
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In an unprecedented move, the Directorate General of Forces Intelligence (DGFI) and some Islamic political parties are preventing the Bangladesh Bank (BB) from circulating its recently finalised new guidelines for Islamic banks.
Going out of its jurisdiction, DGFI in a report to the finance ministry recommended that the central bank forms the guidelines in line with the wishes of a focus group comprising 'Islamic economists, bankers and Shariah Council experts'. The central bank should not modify or add any idea to the focus group recommended guidelines, wrote DGFI. The report all along echoed the recommendations of various Islamic groups and advised the central bank on how to protect the interest and image of the four-party alliance government. Expressing DGFI's concerns about protecting the alliance government's image, the report urged the central bank to urgently frame the policy in line with the wishes of the Shariah Council. "If the Bangladesh Bank refrains from circulating the [focus group recommended] guidelines under pressure from some higher authority, the forces opposing the alliance government might take an initiative to implement the guidelines during the caretaker government's regime. That could create a negative impact on the alliance government during the next election," the report pointed out. The central bank in February finalised the new guidelines for Islamic banking that makes the provision for Shariah Council optional. The guidelines also allow banks to decide whether they want to be a member of the Shariah Council. According to the new guidelines, a bank may form a shariah supervisory body to monitor its Islamic banking services but the board of directors of that bank will be accountable to the central bank for its overall operation. Presently, banks have their own shariah councils and there has been a central shariah council to look into whether Islamic banking as a whole is in compliance with the Islamic principles. The central bank could not issue a circular with its guidelines due to last minute pressure from different Islamic groups including a certain partner in the ruling alliance as well as Bangladesh Sharia Council (IBBSC) and others. Before scripting the guidelines, BB formed a focus group comprising Shariah Council members and representatives from different Islamic banks. Shariah Council members in the meetings of the focus group recommended making Shariah Council mandatory to keep exerting their influence like before. However when the central bank framed the final guidelines it did not accommodate the council's recommendations. Some officials of the banks that are operated on the basis of Islamic principles said the Shariah Council often interferes with a bank's day to day business. It even insists on seeing internal circulars of a bank. The council is acting as if it is parallel with the central bank, observed the officials. Although there are a number of banks in the country which operate on Islamic principles, there has not been a standard guideline for Islamic banking and that is why the central bank took the initiative to frame the new guidelines. The Bangladesh Bank as the regulatory body often consults with stakeholders while framing policy guidelines, but it is in no way obligated to accommodate any view or recommendation put forward by any of the stakeholders. But surprisingly, DGFI in its report explicitly suggested that the central bank incorporates the focus group's recommendations in the guidelines. "The Bangladesh Bank, after failing to bring changes into the focus group recommended guidelines in the face of opposition from most of the focus group members, took steps to circulate the guideline prepared by itself, after changing two important sections of the recommendations," the report pointed out. The six commercial banks presently providing Islamic banking services in the country are Islami Bank Bangladesh Ltd, Al-Arafah Bank, Social Investment Bank Ltd, Exim Bank Ltd, Oriental Bank Ltd and Shahjalal Islami Bank Ltd. Some other banks also provide Islamic banking services in some of their branches. According to the central bank proposed guidelines, a commercial bank may form a separate company with Tk 100 crore paid up capital for providing Islamic banking services. The subsidiary company will need to offload 49 percent of its share while the parent company may own the remaining 51 percent. As per the proposed guidelines, commercial banks will have to maintain separate accounts for their Islamic banking services at the branches where such services are provided and they also have to maintain separate statutory liquidity ratio (SLR) and cash reserve requirement (CRR) with the central bank for such services. At the same time, the central bank also finalised the guidelines for new Islamic banks in the country. In case of a new Islamic bank, the sponsors will have to offload 50 percent of the bank's shares and sponsor directors will not be allowed to own shares worth more than Tk 2.5 crore. Currently, there is no separate guideline for Islamic banking in the country. The central bank, for the first time, formulated the guidelines for new Islamic banks and for the banks already providing Islamic banking services at some of their branches. The writer is a journalist, columnist, author, amd editor of "Weekly Blitz". Email him at salahuddinshoaibchoudhury@yahoo.com |
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DEFENSE DEPT. IMPOSES LOYALTY TEST ON AMERICAN JEWS
Posted by Justice For Jonathan Pollard, July 3, 2006. |
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The Washington Times' INSIGHT on the news magazine - Issue Date: June 27-July 4, 2006, The Pentagon has banned security clearance to Americans with relatives in Israel. Government sources and attorneys said the Pentagon has sought and succeeded in removing security clearance from dozens of Americans, mostly Jews, who either lived, worked or have relatives in Israel. Official documents report that American Jews, employed by major defense contractors and denied access to military projects, were asked by Pentagon examiners whether they would join a U.S. attack on Israel and abandon their relatives if the Jewish state was threatened. "The policy didn't start yesterday," a Pentagon source said. "But those applying for security clearance are coming under greater scrutiny than ever for ties with foreign countries, and that especially includes Israel." In some cases, the sources said, the Pentagon even sought to remove the security clearance of high-ranking U.S. officers who served as consultants in Israel. Some of the Pentagon's decisions were overturned on appeal. "There's always been accusations of dual loyalty all along with American Jews who worked on classified programs," a congressional staffer who oversees the Pentagon said. "But since the Phalcon episode the situation for anybody with ties to Israel has gotten worse," the staffer said, referring to the episode in which Israel tried to sell an early-warning aircraft to China in 2000. A report said the Pentagon has sought to increasingly restrict access to Americans with relatives in Israel. The report said more and more Americans with Israeli connections have been excluded from U.S. defense projects based on hearsay as well as claims that they would come under Israeli government pressure. In 2000, the Pentagon issued directives that denied security clearance to anybody with an Israeli or other foreign passport. "Prior involvement with the Israeli defense industry or any contact with Israeli security will probably cause denial [of U.S. security clearance]," said the report, entitled, "Israel, Foreign Preference- Foreign Influence Cases." Authored by Sheldon Cohen, a Washington-based attorney who specializes in national security cases, the report reviewed 47 security clearance hearings held by the Pentagon since 1996 in which applicants were accused of ties with Israel. Eighteen of the 47 applicants were granted clearances, but the report cited other cases in which Israel was not named, rather referred to as "Country A." During hearings by the Pentagon's Defense Office of Hearings and Appeals, officials and judges asserted that Israel was spying on the United States. They have cited the 2005 indictment of two pro-Israeli lobbyists as evidence of Israeli espionage. Last year, Pentagon analyst Lawrence Franklin was sentenced to 12 years for relaying classified information to the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee and an Israeli diplomat. "The Israeli government is actively engaged in military and industrial espionage in the United States," a Pentagon administrative judge ruled. "An Israeli citizen working in the U.S. who has access to proprietary information is likely to be a target of such espionage." The Pentagon board also asked applicants whether they would disclose classified information to increase the security of Israel so "his family in Israel could live in peace and safety or to reduce threats to the lives of Israeli military personnel." The board ruled that strong family ties to Israel or another foreign country could be sufficient to deny security clearance. The report said applicants were asked whether they would fight with the U.S. military against Israel in a "hypothetical conflict." Those who did not pledge to fight Israel were denied security clearance by the Appeals Board. "The Appeal Board rejected the Administrative Judge's assumption that Israel did not pose a serious security risk because it was a country friendly to the U.S.," the report said. "It held that such a view ignores the historic reality that relations between nations can shift, and that even friendly nations can have profound disagreements with the United States over matters which they view as important to their vital interests or national security." At one point, the Pentagon sought to deny security clearance to a highly decorated U.S. Air Force lieutenant colonel who upon retirement served as a consultant to the Israeli Defense Ministry on its foreign military sales program. A judge ruled the officer had been acting for a foreign interest because he was paid by a U.S. company that sold weapons to Israel. The Appeals Board rejected the Pentagon argument. "The only conclusion that can be drawn is that the Appeal Board will affirm all denials and reverse all grants of clearance, except if the case is so compelling that it could not withstand public criticism for its decision," the report said. See Also: Israeli ties impair US security clearance - Jerusalem Post
U.S. Increases Intel Against Israel: MENL
CIA Reduces Exchange with Israel: Middle East Newsline U.S., Israel Still At Odds Over China Arms Sale, Pentagon Spy: Christian Science Monitor Towards a Mature Israeli-US Partnership: The Jerusalem Post Contact Justice For Jonathan Pollard at Justice4JP |
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YOUTH ANSWER TERRORISM WITH TRANS-SAMARIA HIKE
Posted by Ezra HaLevi, July 3, 2006. |
More than 400 young hikers left from the Samaria community of Elon Moreh Sunday morning, walking on foot in the direction of Tapuach. The young people, enjoying their summer vacation, hailed from communities across Judea and Samaria, as well as from Haifa, Rechovot, Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. Posters had been put up and distributed in schools by the grassroots Youth for the Land of Israel movement in the final days before the summer break. The posters read: "Like Abraham our father, who walked the length and breadth of the land; like our fathers who walked from Shechem to Hevron and from Jerusalem to Beit El; like King David who walked the fields of Bethlehem; like Rabbi Akiva and his students who walked throughout Judea; like Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai and his students, lovers of the Galilee; like the students of the Vilna Gaon and the Baal Shem Tov who saturated the land with their blood, tears and love -- against the strangulation policies, we will take to the roads on a Land of Israel hike." By Sunday afternoon, the marchers reached Tel Aroma, opposite the Itamar mountain ridge and enjoyed the view of the region from above "We finally feel like we are conquering the land," one of the organizers, Sheva Ratzon, told Arutz-7. "We don't need to ask anyone where to place our feet." The youth group has strengthened and spread its influence in schools on both sides of the Green Line. "There are those of us who are no longer youths who want to spread this enthusiasm and this fearlessness among adults as well," Land of Israel Faithful spokesperson Datia Yitzchaki told Arutz-7. "We are breaking out of the paradigm of hiding behind concrete walls. The youth are going back to hiking through the mountains and the fields, and reminding our community and all of Israel that every retreat behind cement walls -- like we saw in Kerem Shalom and we see at Netiv HaAsara -- leads only to tragedy. "Our public, which suffered a great blow this past summer, cannot sit back and say 'we are tired' (a reference to a phrase used often in recent months by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert). We must lift the flag back up and counter the feeling of hopelessness and defeat being sown by the heads of the government. We have concentrated on reopening roads that have been closed to Jews, such as the Wallerstein Road and the Jerusalem-Tekoa road. We intend, through our feet, so show that the land is ours." Monday, with sunrise, the hikers will continue once again, from the Tapuach Junction, past Eli and Shilo, toward the hilltop communities in the Shvut Rachel region, in northern Binyamin. They will be joined by less-rugged hikers as they pass the larger communities and a festive ceremony will be held at the Kol Zion (Voice of Zion) outpost. Though planned before his murder, the march is dedicated to the memory of Eliyahu Asheri, the 18-year-old Itamar resident kidnapped and murdered by Arab terrorists last week. Marchers listened on transistor radios to media reports that Arab fields had been vandalized, allegedly by them. Outraged, they contacted the news agencies and were told that Arabs had made the allegations. They said that there had not even been any friction with local Arabs during the course of the march, and now plan to bring charges against at least one of the media agencies that chose to continue to broadcast the allegations even after they received the facts from participants. The hikers informed the IDF of their plans but did not request security from the army, opting to hire private security guards and rely on volunteers. "Had we requested assistance from the army they would want to surround us with barbed wire and have us walk along the roads and communities," Yitzchaki said, "but that is exactly the world view we are trying to change." Those wishing to join the march, even mid-day can contact Yitzchaki
at 050 524 6770.
Ezra HaLevi is an Arutz-Sheva writer. This appeared on
Arutz-Sheva yesterday and it is archived at
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ADOPT A JEW FROM YITZHAR
Posted by Jonathan Silverman, July 2, 2006. |
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Mission Statement: As Olmert's disengagement plan is put into effect - the assumption is that Yitzhar will be the first to go. Accordingly, the goal is to inundate Yitzhar with 50,000 protestors - i.e. to do in Yitzhar what didn't happen in Gush Katif This program acknowledges that: - only a large show of civil disobedience will stop the pull-out from Judea and Samaria - had 50,000 protestor reached Gaza, the Gaza pull-out would have never happened Furthermore, this program acknowledges that:
Therefore, the goal of this program is to: Inspire, encourage and organize the 70,000 citizens who live in communities slated for destruction to act as one unit by coming to the aid of the first community selected for destruction - i.e. Yitzhar For it not them - then who? And if not now - then when? THE PLAN: Market an adopt a Yitzhar resident. 1. A photograph of each resident in Yitzhar will be printed with their biography and an appeal for help. The goal is to get 100 residents of other doomed Judea and Samaria residents to "adopt" and take personal responsibility of that particular person from Yitzhar (If there's 500 people in Yitzhar, that's 50,000 people) HOW TO IMPLEMENT THE PLAN: 1. Assess how many communities are slated for destruction. 2. Assess how many groups of 100 "activitists" could be organized from each community. (We're looking for 500 such groups). If that's too hard, find 100 "activists" from another cohesive community in Israel. Note: an "activitist" is someone who is willing to forgo school/work for one week in order to all gather as one massive group of 50,000, break through police barracades and hold onto Yitzhar. 3. Assess how many people would be willing to be "grass-roots organizers" who would go house to house and sign up the groups of 100. If one figures that each house would take a 15 minute conversation, then 100 houses needs 25 hours of house visits. If conducted from Sunday night - Thursday night, it all could be done in one week by 2 "grass-roots organizers". Accordingly, 500 of such groups means that you need 500 "organizers" who can drag another friend along with them. If not, then take two weeks and find 250 of such "organizers". Note: "Grass-roots organizers" would go house to house with a contract. The contract would state the case for anti-disengagement and include the plea from one particular resident of Yitzhar. By signing the contract one is committing oneself to be one of the 100 "activists" who will save this person from Yitzhar. They need to get firm commitments from people. (If signing such a document is legally dangerous, another mode of commitment affirmation is needed). The "Grass roots organizers", after getting 100 people to sign, would be in charge of that group. They would meet once a week until mobilized. The "Grass-roots organizers" themselves would all meet one a week with a person who oversees all the "organizers" and tells them what to do and what to coordinate within their own groups of 100. The person who meets will all the "organizers" is merely the liason between the "organizers" and the anti-disengagement coordinating committee. Therefore: 4. Before anything happens, there must be put together a non-Yesha council anti-disengagement committee of 10 or so people who are: a. true to the cause
Then, once the committee is set, everything should go like clock work. It should be no problem to find 250-500 people who would love to put the committee's leadership into actions by being "organizers". And this, in turn, should create a momentum such that those "organizers" will readily each find 100 people to commit to being "activists". If not, at best Yitzhar and the rest of Judea and Samaria will go down just like Amona. Contact Jonathan Silverman at jonsilverman2002@yahoo.com |
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PRAYERS FOR CORP. GILAD SHALIT
Posted by Fern Sidman, July 2, 2006. |
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As the tension mounts between Israel and the plethora of Arab terrorist organizations that claim responsibility for the kidnapping of IDF Corp. Gilad Shalit, we sit glued to news reports of any developments. Our hearts go out to the family of Corp. Shalit and we lift our voices to Heaven and beseech the Almighty G-d of Israel to return Corp. Shalit, alive and well to his family and to his nation. We offer prayers and supplications to Hashem for his speedy release and we ask Hashem to provide comfort and strength to Corp. Shalit's family and friends. As "Operation Summer Rains" continue in Gaza, israelinsider.com reports that, "Israeli aircraft sent missiles tearing through the office of Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh on Sunday, in an unmistakable message to his ruling Hamas group to free an Israeli soldier. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said the military was ordered to do "everything" within its power to return the captured 19-year-old corporal, and cautioned that arrests of senior Hamas officials could spread to Gaza, the Islamic militant group's power base, a confidant said. Defense Minister Amir Peretz, meanwhile, said Israel would go after "higher-caliber targets" in the future -- a reference to senior Hamas officials inside and outside of the Palestinian territories, a political ally said. Israeli aircraft, tanks and naval gunboats have been pounding Gaza for the past week in an effort to win the freedom of Cpl. Gilad Shalit, seized in a cross-border raid. Thousands of troops were also sent into the coastal strip for Israel's first ground invasion since quitting Gaza nine months ago." In addition, the Arab terrorists have issued news demands for the release of Corp. Shalit. According to further news reports from israelinsider.com, "Palestinian militants holding an Israeli soldier issued a new set of demands Saturday, calling for the release of 1,000 prisoners and a halt to Israel's military offensive in Gaza. But Israel rejected the demands. The militants called for the release of 1,000 prisoners, including non-Palestinian Muslims and Arabs held by Israel. The gesture appeared to be aimed at boosting support in the broader Arab world. The statement repeated a demand made earlier this week for the release of all Palestinian women and minors held in Israeli prisons -- an estimated 500 people -- in exchange for information about Shalit. " The Jerusalem Post (07/02/06) reported that, "Hamas's armed wing, Izaddin al-Kassam, on Sunday threatened to attack infrastructure facilities inside Israel, including schools, hospitals and universities. The threat, the first of its kind since Hamas won the parliamentary election last January, was issued in response to continued Israeli military strikes in the Gaza Strip. "If they continue with these attacks, we will strike at targets in Zionist territory that we have not struck until now," said the organization's spokesman. According to a report by Fox News on 07/02/06 that an anti-Israel and anti-American demonstrated was held in Sidon, Lebanon by Palestinians protesting the Israeli attacks in Gaza. "About 2,000 Palestinians protesting the Israeli military offensive in Gaza set fire to an Israeli flag and shouted "Death to Israel" Sunday as they marched in Lebanon's largest refugee camp. Children, some in military uniforms, women and men took part in the protest in Ein e--Hilweh, Lebanon's largest refugee camp and home to some 70,000 Palestinians in the southern port city of Sidon. The 90-minute protest was organized by the Fatah faction of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. Protesters trampled and tore Israeli flags and later set one aflame amid shouts of "Allahu Akbar" (God is Great), "Death to Israel," "Where are Arab rulers?" Intermittent cries of "Death to America" punctuated the march. America is the source of this killing, destruction and racism," said Sheik Mahmoud Jishi, a moderate Islamic cleric. He called on people in Arab and Islamic countries to rise up "to defend the Palestinians ... and stand united in the face of the Zionist aggression that is supported by the American forces of terror and evil." Col. Khaled Aref, Fatah leader in Sidon and Ein El-Hilweh, argued that the best way for Palestinians to confront the attacks was to close ranks behind Abbas. "As we face this Zionist onslaught, we say that national unity breaks this conspiracy." Palestinian Islamic militant groups like Hamas and Islamic Jihad and other smaller factions did not join the protest. Speakers said nothing about the kidnapping of the Israeli soldier by militants, but focused on Palestinians' plight as a result of the military offensive on Gaza, which Israel said it launched to force the release of the soldier." It has also been reported by CNN that, "In the midst of the standoff over Shalit, Israel opened two routes into Gaza on Sunday to allow for humanitarian aid to flow into the Palestinian territory, an Israeli army official said. The Karni crossing in northern Gaza and a nearby fuel terminal at Nahal Oz were opened at midday to allow for the passage of food, medicine and fuel. Israeli Defense Minister Amir Peretz said the Karni crossing would be open four days so trucks could carry humanitarian supplies into Gaza." As we stand at the precipice of a potentially explosive war between Israel and her Arab enemies, it is appropriate at this juncture in time to pray not only for the welfare of Corp. Gilad Shalit, but we must pray that the leaders of the government of Israel do not accede to the demands of Hamas. We must pray that Hashem give the leaders of the government of Israel enough strength, courage and wisdom to understand that releasing Arab terrorists will not be a deterrent to further kidnappings of Israeli soldiers and civilians. Quite to the contrary, it will only embolden the Arab enemy and strengthen him in his quest to destroy the entire nation of Israel. We must ask Hashem to guide our leaders in a fearless path of unremitting non-compromise with the Arab enemy. We must ask G-d to give the leaders of the government of Israel the strength to resist the pressures from the UN and internal groups such as Yesh Gvul which has demanded that the Olmert government release Arab terrorists from their prisons. We must stand together in strength, faith and above all, trust in the Almighty G-d of Israel, for the survival and preservation of the nation of Israel is at stake. Let us remember and utter the words of the sweet singer of Israel, King David who said (Psalms, chapter 18), "I will love you Hashem, my Strength. Hashem is my Rock, my Fortress and my Rescuer, my G-d, my Rock in Whom I take shelter, my Shield, and the Horn of my Salvation, my Stronghold. With praises I call unto Hashem, and from my enemies I am saved." Contact Fern Sidman at AriellaH@aol.com |
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WORLD-WIDE COMMEMORATION FOR GUSH KATIF, AUGUST 1, 2006
Posted by AFSI, July 2, 2006. |
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Tuesday, August 1, 2006, will mark the first annual world-wide Commemoration for the 21 destroyed communities of Gush Katif, and its 10,000 Jewish inhabitants, now refugees seeking relief from their staggering losses. The focus will be on remembering the past, educating people as to the painful conditions still prevalent in regard to the refugees, preventing the repetition of such events, and raising funds to help the needy get through this critical time. In Manhattan, the Commemoration will take place at the Fifth Avenue Synagogue, 5 E. 62nd Street, between Fifth and Madison Avenues, on Tuesday, August 1, from 8-10 PM. A film, along with educational material prepared by the Gush Katif Committee, a new organization made up of representatives from the 21 expelled communities, will be on the program, along with a roster of distinguished guest speakers from Israel and from the New York community. Dror VAnunu, International Coordinator for the Gush Katif Committee, and Lauarence Beziz, Projects Coordinator for Friends of Gush Katif, were in the U.S. recently to plan for the events. At a large meeting with representatives from AFSI, Chabad, the OU, Young Israel, Women in Green, the ZOA, and other concerned activists and PR experts, it was announced that a major event would take place in Jerusalem on August 1, with parallel events held throughout the U.S., and indeed, throughout the world. At private meetings with representatives from JNF, the Conference of Presidents, and American Friends of Likud, there was general agreement that humanitarian concerns regarding the Gush Katif refugees had to be addressed by major Jewish organizations. 10,000 displaced Jews are still in temporary homes, or tent cities, or kibbutz rooms, or hotel rooms, without jobs, without farms, without local schools, and without facilities for young people. These people want to rebuild their broken lives. The world-wide community is asked to listen and respond with emotional and financial support. As plans begin to unfold, we hear of daytime "street theater" events, an extensive email fund-raising campaign that has already been launched, and newspaper ads being prepared for release on August 1. Schools and summer camps are being enlisted, and synagogue events are being scheduled throughout the country. Details will be released in a few weeks, so that plans still in the works can be formalized. There is still time for communities everywhere to plan events, both big and small. The activities can take many forms. Use your imagination. Get involved. To give or get information, contact any of the following: Barry Freedman, Americans For a Safe Israel/AFSI -- 212-828-2424; afsi@rcn.com Helen Freedman, AFSI -- 917-886-0729; ghfree@aol.com Dror Vanunu -- Friends of Gush Katif -- gkatif@netvision.net.il Laurence Beziz -- Friends of GK -- help4@katifund.org Americans For a Safe Israel/AFSI is a pro-active pro-Israel advocacy group. AFSI may be contacted by mail at 1623 Third Ave., Suite 205, New York, N.Y. 10128 (Tel: 212-828-2424; Fax: 212-828-1717); by email at afsi@rcn.com; or by accessing its website: www.afsi.org. Barry Freedman is Executive Director. |
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GETTING CLOSE
Posted by Anita Tucker, July 2, 2006. |
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Dear friends, we are getting close to the year memorial of the cruel destruction of my home of 29 years,Netzer HAzani, Gush Katif. As that date gets closer and closer it becomes more and more difficult for me to absorb and to understand what happened in Gush Katif and how it happened. Time has not been a healing factor. I was so pleased to receive this link from Avi Abelow who camped out in Netzer Hazani the weeks before the expulsion and helped me cope and coordinate all the media that came to cover this "horror"story. It was really refreshing for me to open this four minute preview to
the upcoming movie that Avi Abelow and his friend Yaron Shane have
prepared for us all,for you and for me. You too will feel their
refreshing new angle of seeing and understanding what happened that
summer in Gush KAtif when you open this site and see the sneak preview
-- I know that all of you who care will help Avi bring his special
movie to our public by ordering tickets and telling your friends to do
the same.
Eretz Yisrael's pain is still so real, Am Yisrael's pain is still so real -- but the most agonizing pain of all is that of our youth who loved their home so much and gave all they had to try and save it--for them it is a wound that is still very open. Please open preview and also forward to all your acquaintances who
care.
Anita Tucker was a farmer in Gush Katif, Gaza. She was made a refugee last August. Contact her at tucker.anita@gmail.com |
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OLMERT'S CALLI-UP
Posted by Zalmi, July 2, 2006. |
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During the election campaign we all lampooned Olmert for saying in a major speech in the USA: "We are tired of fighting, we are tired of being courageous, we are tired of winning, we are tired of defeating our enemies." True to that ethos, he has held his army back again and again. And when they have been allowed to move, it has been just to rattle sabres and fire artillery into sand dunes, so as not to upset the "civilized world" which sits in judgment over Israel's every defensive move. He has lost a week in wasteful diplomacy, relying on anti-Semites like Mubarak and Abbas to save the life of a teenaged Jewish soldier. During that lost week Hamas will have wasted no time marshalling the tank-traps, antiaircraft missiles and RPG's they have freely imported since disengagement to counter the non-surprise attack which must now follow if Olmert is to make good on his promises to retrieve Gilad Shalit. What's more, we can expect the opening of a northern front with Hezbullah firing missiles in support of their brother terrorists in the south. This promises to be no cakewalk. It is to be hoped that, during that same week, the reservist prime minister has accepted his call-up orders to: "fight, be courageous, win and defeat our enemies". Contact Zalmi at his website: http://www.zalmi.net |
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SNAKES ON A PLAIN: PLAYING WITH TERRORISTS GETS ISRAEL BITTEN
Posted by Sergio Tessa (HaDaR), July 2, 2006. |
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This was written by Debbie Schlussel and it was on her website http://www.debbieschlussel.com |
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You make nice to snakes, you get bitten. With Palestinian terrorists kidnapping Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit and a 62-year-old Israeli civilian--and murdering an 18-year-old Israeli, Israel says it will not negotiate with terrorists. But, in fact, Israel has long negotiated with terrorists. Even worse, it has given vital unilateral concessions, without even negotiations. Throughout recent history, Israel has played with Islamic terrorists, including those in the Palestinian government. And it got bitten. Unfortunately, the nation is not "once bitten, twice shy." More like multiple bites, but repeatedly coming back for more--often under American pressure. A series of releases of thousands of Palestinian terrorists from prison in meaningless deals has garnered Israel nothing, except proof that it lies when it claims it does not negotiate with terrorists. A year ago, Israel released 400 Palestinian terrorists from prison in addition to 500 terrorists released in February 2005, per an agreement with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. What did Israel get in the agreement? A big fat nothing. In August 2003, Israel Then, there was that January 2004 "exchange" of hundreds of Lebanese Hezbollah and Palestinian terrorists for three dead Israeli soldiers' mutilated bodies and a live drug-dealing Israeli businessman, Elhanan Tannenbaum, who was a double agent for Hezbollah. Yet another stupid deal Israel made with Shia Hezbollah and Sunni Palestinian Terrorists (both of whom are working hand in hand to defeat the evil Zionist entity and even Jews at the Buenos Aires, Argentina Jewish Community Center). So does Israel negotiate with terrorists? Unfortunately, yes it does. Often under pressure from the U.S. government, particularly the "counter-terrorist" President, George W. Bush. That's how the country got itself into the position it is in. It constantly makes empty deals with terrorists with Uncle Sam demanding it. And never learns its lesson, nor does its U.S. taskmaster, which continues requiring more from the tiny besieged State. Imagine if our country released all terror suspects at Guantanamo, plus most of those in U.S. Prisons--including the Blind cleric who was involved in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing--as a goodwill gesture to Bin Laden. Last year, Israel gave Palestinians--sworn to wipe Israel off the map--an important base from which to carry out that oath. That was just after Israel released several hundred Palestinian terrorists. Under pressure from the "Your either on our side or the terrorists' side" American President, Israel gave terrorists the Israeli Texas, Arizona, and California. With nothing in return. Now, the Ehud Olmert Israeli government is in the process of violently expelling its own citizens from West Bank towns, giving those to the Palestinians also. The Israeli Detroit, Chicago, Boise, and Seattle. (Well, they can have Seattle.) Soon, Jews will no longer be able to visit Ma'arat HaMachpelah, the cave in which Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph [not Joseph] are buried, one of the holiest Jewish sites. There is no American equivalent for that. Or any other, anywhere else on earth. It should not shock anyone that Palestinians now use Gaza as a base of attack on Israel. It's no surprise that they tunneled into Israel (from Gaza) and kidnapped Israeli soldier Shalit. It should be no surprise that yet another young Israeli civilian, Eliyahu Asheri, was brutally murdered, and another--a All by Palestinian terrorists, er ... government officials. All by Palestinian government terrorists who Israelis--on President Bush's command with Israeli Prime Ministers' Sharon and Olmert's rear-kissing obedience--never showed any real, deserved retaliation.
And that is happening even now with Israel's entrance into Gaza. It is too little, too late. Israel cannot now take back Gaza. The vipers have taken over the snake pit.
True, Israelis are blowing up some bridges. But there are hardly any casualties. There's nothing on the order of a real War on Terror. Because Israel isn't allowed to do one. Clueless Condoleeza Rice of the pan-Arabist State Department--with 22 Arab Desk jockeys and countless other Muslim ones--is demanding "restraint" from Israel in seeking to save its own citizens from terrorists. And sadly, Israel is listening.
Don't look for the well-deserved mass casualties on the Palestinian side. Israel won't do it. It doesn't have the guts ... because it's U.S. big brother doesn't have the guts.
America wants Israel to make nice with the snake that has already bitten. The snake America is fighting in Iraq, Afghanistan, and even on American shores.
But even if you make nice with the viper, you always feel the puncture of its fangs.
Contact Sergio Tessa (HaDaR) at Hadar-Israel@verizon.net |
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HOW TO DEAL WITH THE HOSTAGE GRAB BY THE TERRORISTS
Posted by Ken Heller, July 2, 2006. |
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As you know, PM Ehud Olmert and Defense Minister Amir Peretz are attacking one another, neither of whom has any idea of how to deal with the recent wave of Palestinian terror and th ekidnapping of the Israeli soldier hostage. Well, I have located an interesting commentator who seems to have an interesting take on what to do. I present here, for Olmert and Pertz to consider. The Master Plan for Dealing with the Crisis, from a knowledgable strategic commentator: "And the Canaanite heard that Israel had approached and he arose to battle with Israel and he kidnapped a hostage. And Israel swore an oath saying, 'When we get our hands on those people we will seize all their cities and confiscate everything in them.' And sure enough, right after that Israel went in and seized all their cities and confiscated their contents." But, alas, right after that the Israelis started bitching and whining, so a plague of annoying pests starting attacking them, as their comeuppance and punishment. But eventually, when they got there act together at last and finally got serious about going on the warfare against the terrorists, they annihilated the enemy. *** The above sums up Chapter 24 of Numbers, part of this week's Torah portion. Ken Heller is a pro-Israel activist and a member of the Philadelphia Chapter of Americans For A Safe Israel. He can be reached at kayjayphilly@yahoo.com |
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ISRAEL'S FAILED SECURITY POLICY
Posted by Bernard J. Shapiro, July 2, 2006. |
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Israel has, without a doubt, the best military in world. The Israel Defense Forces are quite capable of achieving any objective the Israeli government puts before it. The soldiers of the IDF are brave, patriotic and exceptionally well trained and equipped. Unfortunately Israel's political leadership is confused, inept and lacking in Zionist motivation. Israel has been unable to stop the War of Extermination against it, because it lacks the political will to do what is necessary. The current campaign to secure the release of Cpl. Gilad Shalit, the captured IDF soldier, illustrates this fact. The Israeli government has given the military very limited objectives, primarily the release of the soldier. Proper strategic planning would use the sad situation of Shalit's capture to achieve a number of far reaching and important objectives. Already Olmert has done several things that prevent the accomplishment of these aims. He has stopped the offensive in Gaza to allow time for negotiations to release Shalit. He has allowed Israel's enemy, Egypt, to intervene, and given the terrorists time to re-group and make demands. Yesterday, Defense Minister Peretz even authorized the shipment of 600 truckloads of supplies to relieve the siege. The Israeli objectives should be: 1. The release of the soldier. 2. Elimination of the terrorist leadership in the PA. 3. Item #2 means successfully destroying the newly elected Hamas government. 4. Immediate annexation of all territory in Judea and Samaria that has strategic and religious value (which means all). 5. Withdraw citizenship and voting rights from Israeli Arabs who support terrorism against the State of Israel. 6. Create municipal councils but not sovereignty for Arab cities in the newly annexed areas. 7. Encourage Arab emigration by strict enforcement of taxes, building permits, national service requirements, and by providing funds to aid in emigration. 8. Dramatically increase Jewish immigration to Israel by reducing taxes and regulations on business. Immigration will soar once the lands of Judea and Samaria are opened up for massive Jewish settlement. 9. The Zionist/Jewish character of Israel must be affirmed and the cost of Jewish blood must rise dramatically as the government develops a zero tolerance for terrorism. All of the above objectives are achievable. It is my hope that the Olmert government will be replaced soon with a new Zionist government committed to the objectives I have listed. A failure of the present government to achieve the first three objectives would only hasten its being massively repudiated by the public. There are a few other things that make my blood boil. Here is a list and the explanations. 12 THINGS I AM SICK AND TIRED OF: 1. I am sick and tired of the slowly escalating actions of the IDF to fight terrorism. The slow escalation allows PA terrorism to become immune to Israel's strategy. It allows them to smuggle more guns, missiles, mortars and anti-aircraft missiles into PA territory. This is much the same as with bacterial infections. If the antibiotic is not strong enough to eliminate it, then the disease will return in a much more virulent form. I would suggest that the IDF launch a massive offensive against the terrorists until victory. 2. I am sick and tired of the Israeli government's fear of collateral damage to the enemy. The Arabs have no such qualms. In fact they target civilians in bestial suicide bombings. PA weapons factories, weapons storage depots and bomb making facilities should be blasted off the face of earth even if it causes civilian casualties. Remember that "he who is merciful to the cruel, will end up being cruel to the merciful." 3. I am sick and tired of Israeli PM Olmert's policy of restraint. The adjustment to accepting the killing of Jews is an abomination. A Jew here or there murdered daily, pretty soon adds up to a lot of dead and maimed Jews. I remember when the Al Aksa terror on Israel began in September 2000, the IDF general staff opened a file called "Operation Thorns", a plan for the retaking of the PA areas. They estimated Israeli dead at 300. Since then there have been almost 1500 Jews killed, which is five times the estimated combat deaths (plus 10,000 wounded, many maimed for life), with no apparent consequences to the terrorists' ability to inflict casualties on Israel. There is one extremely important variable. The PA has used the last six years to build bunkers, firing positions, smuggle in heavy weapons and missiles, create an underground arms industry and organize an army of 80,000. The defeat of PA now would certainly be more costly. And it will grow with time. There is a very short window of time to defeat the PA terrorists with minimal losses. Many political analysts and military experts agree that Israel must take decisive action NOW. 4. I am sick and tired of the US State Department urging Israel to show "restraint." Despite the fact that the CIA knows exactly WHO (PA) is attacking WHOM (Israel) the State Department continues call for a stop to the "cycle of violence." Whenever Israel is attacked viciously, there is rush to tell Israel "to turn the other cheek". 5. I am sick and tired of Shimon Peres trying to arrange another appeasement for the PA. He claims to be seeking a cease fire and a return to negotiations. Let me be honest with you. I don't want negotiations with either Hamas or Abbas, I want to crush them and their terrorist gangs. 6. I am sick and tired of the continued UN presence within the borders of Israel. It's time to remove them and assert Israel's sovereignty. Israel should work to have the world withdraw its recognition of Arab refugee camps and refugees. It should condemn the hypocritical treatment of the Arab countries in exploiting these people for political purposes. Israel should declare in a strong voice that there are NO refugees. That status is not permanent and obviously should not apply to people living in the same place for 58 years. 7. I am sick and tired of the international boycott of Jerusalem as Israel's capital. Israel should unilaterally announce to the nations of the world that all embassies MUST be in Jerusalem. (Consulates may be in Tel Aviv or any other place they want). Israel will no longer permit its eternal capital to be disrespected. 8. I am sick and tired that under both Labor and Likud governments, Arutz Sheva, Israel National Radio, has not been fully legalized. Whatever happened to freedom of speech? Arutz Sheva should not only be allowed to establish facilities on land but also a television channel. I am also sick and tired of government television being controlled and dominated by the extreme left that does not represent the Israeli public. A lot of the time they represent the Arabs and not Israelis. 9. I am sick and tired of Israel's trying to be Mister Nice Guy to a hypocritical world. Europeans are increasingly comparing Israel to the Nazis. Over half of all the resolutions of the UN since its founding have been directed against Israel. At the conference on how to condemn Israel in Durban, South Africa, UN head Kofi Anan condemned Israel for existing. In fact, at a recent meeting at the UN, there was a map of "Palestine", which included all of Israel. The Arab world openly plots the destruction of Israel. I am sick and tired of the vilification of "settlers". 10. I am sick and tired of Israel tolerating Moslem restrictions and desecrations on the Temple Mount. The excuse that it would cause violence to exercise our rights there is absurd. Israel has the capability to enforce security. Virtually everything Israel wants do in the Land of Israel displeases the Arabs, who want us to leave. Jews should be allowed to pray on the Temple Mount and the destruction of Jewish antiquities by the Moslem waqf needs to be stopped immediately. 11. I am sick and tired of PA demonstrations of the fierceness of their terrorists and how they will destroy Israel. Why not knock off a bunch of them during their demonstrations? Maybe they would be more circumspect. 12. And most important, the IDF and police should never be used for political purposes. Their purpose is to protect Israelis and not to expel them from their homes or persecute them. I believe that we will defeat our current adversaries. We will succeed and survive from three sources of our strength: Love of Tanach (Torah), Love of Eretz Israel (Land of Israel, and Love of Am Yisrael (People of Israel). .......In blood and fire was Israel born, and on a hot anvil was she forged. Her youth understood that life in the new Jewish homeland would require sacrifice. With stories of the stench of burning flesh from the ovens of Auschwitz embedded deep in their psyches, the young Israeli soldiers fight with the firm conviction that there is still no alternative, "ein breira." To that I would like add something the American soldiers used to say during the heaviest fighting in Viet Nam. This is dedicated (slightly revised) to the brave IDF soldiers who face the enemy every day: Yea, though I walk through the Valley of Death, I will fear no evil because the Almighty fights with me for the Restoration of Zion and for love of HIS people, Israel. .......And for the Jews of YESHA, I believe that He will NOT allow Olmert to expel them from the heartland of ERETZ YISRAEL.
Bernard J. Shapiro is the executive director of the Freeman Center For Strategic Studies and the editor of The Maccabean Online and the Freemanlist. Contact the Center at Freeman Center For Strategic Studies, P.O. Box 35661, Houston, Texas 77235-5661. Phone or Fax at 713-723-6016 This article was published by the Freeman Organization (www.freeman.org/serendipity/index.php?/archives/ 299-ISRAELS-FAILED-SECURITY-POLICY.html). |
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THE NATAN FOUNDATION
Posted by N. Natan, July 2, 2006. |
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We are pleased to announce the launching of the Web Site www.jerusalem-4thtemple At this Web Site www.jerusalem-4thtemple, the Book-On-Line The Temple of Solomon could not stand on its Water Tower (300 pages in English with under! ground maps), provides the following documentation and data: -a/ all the documentation of ancient texts concerning the exacting rites of purification in the Jewish Temple by immersion of the body of the High Priest and Priests in the bath-mikweh of living purifying waters, conveyed by aqueduct from the springs of Etam, and without the use of any recipient. -b/ all the precise mathematics data of the 19th century archaeologists who have been the only scientists ever allowed to study the Haram rocky underground hydraulic system invented by the Priests and engineers of King Solomon in order to comply with the Biblical prescriptions concerning the rites of purification in the Sanctuary. A meticulous cross examination of the elevation of the levels above the sea of all parts of this unified and dynamic hydraulic System makes absolutely IMPOSSIBLE, altogether gravitationally, hydraulically and religiously, that the Temple of Jerusalem could have ever stood on the site of the Haram (Esplanade of the Mosques). The Temple of Solomon could only stand downstream of its water tower which had been dug in the rocky entrails of the ancient Jewish citadel overlooking and protecting the Sanctuary, the site of which is nowadays occupied by the Haram of the Muslims who have jealously kept intact and engraved in the rock, the irrefutable archaeological proofs of the vanished reality. Contact N. Natan by email at n.natan@jerusalem-4thtemple.org |
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THINK NOW BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE
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This was written by Ari Shavit. Contact him by email at ashavit@haaretz.co.il |
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For five years, Giora Eiland was the most important person on the command bridge of the Israeli ship of state. Both as head of the Israel Defense Forces' Operations Directorate and as head of the National Security Council, Eiland deal with the most important strategic issues that Israel faces. He worked in concert with the country's leaders, doing the groundwork for them and observing them at close range when they made the most significant decisions of the past decade. For this reason, the harsh conclusions he has come to regarding the behavior of Israel's political-military leadership are worrisome. Eiland makes note of a fascinating fact: that every prime minister in the past generation who initiated a foreign policy move was swept into a process with unexpected results. Menachem Begin never imagined that he would cede all of Sinai and "establish" the Palestinian homeland; Yitzhak Rabin never imagined that he would effectively create a "Yasser Arafat state"; and Ehud Barak never imagined that he would agree to give back 95 percent of the West Bank, as well as the Temple Mount. According to the outgoing national security advisor, Ariel Sharon, similarly, did not presume that the limited unilateral measure that he initiated would turn into a comprehensive unilateral one. The unilateralist strategy was never accepted by Sharon, Eiland argues. Had Sharon remained prime minister, he would not be proceeding toward a convergence plan a la Ehud Olmert. Even in his final days as prime minister, Sharon viewed a withdrawal to the 1967 borders as a disaster. In Eiland's view, therefore, the pattern that is emerging is fascinating: One after another, Israeli prime ministers release the genie from the bottle in the belief that they can tame it, but quickly discover that it is the genie that is taming them. What was thought to be reversible turns out to be irreversible. What was planned as a limited operation becomes comprehensive. The moment the ship leaves the harbor without a compass, without a clear destination and without a proper map of the ocean, the strong currents in the international realm exercise their own will upon it. They mock each Israeli leader in his turn, and sweep his ship into remote and hazardous quarters. Eiland has an explanation for the repetition of this pattern of foreign policy failure: It is because Israel has no organized strategic management method. There's no system, he says. There is no critical examination of fundamental assumptions. There is no systematic definition of goals and targets. There is too much reliance on intuition. There is a strong tendency toward improvisation and instant solutions. There is no attempt at beginning-to-end planning. The opposite is true: There is great pressure to reach the finish line quickly without wasting precious time on forethought. And the result? A questionable decision-making process with regard to the definition of the disengagement. A complete lack of decision-making with regard to the declarations on the convergence. A serious foreign policy failure vis-a-vis Iran's nuclear program. The Hamas election surprise and a refusal to confront its significance. A country that is run like a shtetl, not a state. A country where every medium-sized company is managed more responsibly than the state itself. The conclusion is clear: The basic law of the Israeli-Palestinian jungle is that an Israeli withdrawal does not diminish the conflict, but instead exacerbates it. Since any Israeli withdrawal is interpreted by the Palestinians as surrender, it increases their appetite to obtain additional surrenders. The result is not stability, but violence, which under the conditions of the end of the occupation, is liable to become extreme. Eiland is not the first to voice criticism along these lines. He was preceded by Ephraim Levy. He was preceded by Uzi Dayan. They were preceded by most of the important people who preceded them on the command bridge of the Israeli ship of state. But these are not normal times. The decisions that Israel must make in the course of the next year are not ordinary. They are fateful decisions, unlike any that Israel has taken since the decision concerning the Dimona nuclear facility half a century ago. Therefore, this time the harsh comments of the outgoing head of the NSC must not be ignored. His remarks must be taken seriously. They deserve public debate. They must be examined and they must lead to a plan of action. Ehud Olmert and his chief of staff Yoram Turbowicz have permitted a very important public servant to resign. That's their right. But the parting words of this principled public servant must not be ignored. Eiland leaves behind him a challenge to the ruling ideological paradigm. He leaves behind him a series of warnings about the future. But above all, Eiland has commanded us to think. For their sake and for all of our sake, Olmert and Turbowicz must take on that command. The command to think now, to think before it is too late. Mordechai Ben-Menachem is at Ben-Gurion University. He can be reached by email at quality@computer.org |
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WHAT MAGEN DAVID ADOM "VICTORY?"
Posted by Jerome S. Kaufman, July 2, 2006. |
| Once again Jews, especially Israelis, are advised that the Emperor is fully clothed when in fact he has no clothes, except for those viewers who prefer to live in their own self-delusion. The latest fiasco is the heralding as a great "Victory" the fact that the International Red Cross has finally condescended to allow one of the finest humanitarian emergency units in the world - Magen David Adom of Israel - to become a part of the organization. The news is trumpeted by reporter Rachel Silverman in her Jewish Telegraphic Agency article as a "Magen David Adom Victory" which "reflects 58 years of aggressive sustained lobbying and a last-minute push." But at what cost and what was the "last minute push" (now six months in the making) dependent upon? Not much - just that the Jewish organization hide its identity by changing its insignia - no more Jewish star on their ambulances in locations where the nation receiving Jewish aid and Jewish blood objected! Evidently having the Jewish star on the ambulances would be too embarrassing and give the Jews and particularly the Israelis, too much credit. How could the sight of Jews and Israelis in such a favorable light be explained to the masses of population that had been taught so diligently to hate Jews? Of course, these restrictions do not apply to the nations of the rest of the world. They will continue proudly to exhibit their Red Cross, the Muslims their Red Crescent and by the way, the Palestinian Authority will also be admitted, although no such nation yet exists, and will, of course, have a Red Crescent - no unidentifiable red square like the Jews! So the "Jewish Problem" was again solved. The Jews simply re-assumed their shtetl mentality, that they have never, in fact, lost - speak quietly, hide in your cellars at the time of another pogrom and try, at all costs, to not irritate your non-Jewish assailants. The JTA article concludes: "After the ruling, Rabbi Danny Allen of the American Friends of Magen David Adom called it a 'vote for humanitarian over sectarian politics.'" How noble, how very Jewish! Only in this case, the very existence of Jews and the State of Israel, are the 'sectarian politics" at stake. Once more, as Jews, as Israelis, we take no pride in our own existence, our glorious history, our remarkable G-d-given achievements, and his return to us, after 2000 years, of our nationhood. How then can we possibly expect more from those that surround us? Jerome S. Kaufman is National Secretary of the Zionist Organization of America. and host the Israel Commentary website (http://www.israel-commentary.org). |
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ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER OLMERT AS AN ACCESSORY TO MURDER
Posted by Jerome S. Kaufman, July 2, 2006. |
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This appeared in Arutz-Sheva (www.IsraelNN.com) June 18, 2006. It was written by Nissan Ratzlav-Katz. |
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The Manhigut Yehudit faction of the Likud released a statement calling anyone involved in last week's transfer of weapons to the Palestinian Authority an "accessory to murder." Manhigut Yehudit (Jewish Leadership) "sees the prime minister, the defense minister, the justices of the High Court of Justice, and any officer and soldier involved in the transfer of weapons to the murderer Abu Mazen and his gang as accessories to the murder of Jews," the movement's statement said. Furthermore, Manhigut Yehudit, headed by Moshe Feiglin, declared that it would work towards trying the aforementioned before a court of law when the movement takes over the reigns of power. The Israeli government, through the IDF, transferred 1,050 automatic rifles and one million bullets to the Palestinian Authority. The weapons reached the Allenby Crossing, on the Jordan-Israel border, as a gift to PA head Mahmoud Abbas from the Hashemite kingdom of Jordan. Other reports state that the guns are a gift of the United States. IDF forces then transported the weapons from the Jordanians across Israel and handed them over to PA forces at the Erez and Karni crossings into the Gaza Strip. During his visit to Jordanian King Abdullah II earlier this month, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert approved the Jordanian request to transfer the weapons to the PA. The weapons transfer is apparently meant to prop up the militia controlled by Abbas; however, IDF sources report that the low-level war waged between Fatah and Hamas in the PA indicates that the weapons may not stay in the hands of Abbas-controlled gunmen. A senior member of the terrorist Force 17, aligned with the Fatah movement, told WorldNetDaily that the weapons earmarked for Abbas's personal guard will be used against Israel. Terrorist Abu Yousef told WND that the weapons - some of which, he claims, were delivered to the PA earlier than last week - have already have been used in two shooting attacks, one of which resulted in the death of an Arab whose car was mistaken for that of a Jew. "These weapons will not be used in an internal war, but against Israelis," he said. "Force 17... will also be the first to lead the Palestinians in the current struggle against Israeli occupation." On Thursday, the High Court of Justice turned down three petitions, one of which was filed by the Almagor terror victims association, asking it to ban the arms shipment to the PA. Prior to its final rendering in the matter, the court turned down an appeal to delay the transfer until it ruled on the petition. The Hamas terrorist organization also released a statement demanding an explanation as to how the weapons and bullets made their way to Abbas and his men. In light of the violent clashes over power in the Palestinian Authority between Hamas and Abbas's Fatah organization, Hamas leaders are concerned that the weapons shipment changes the internal balance of power. On Saturday, Abbas denied that he had received weapons from Israel to shore up his personal militia, but he admitted that general PA forces have been in need of weapons. It is widely assumed that the public reports of Israel's transfer of weapons to Abbas in order to help him fight Hamas have not strengthened his image within the Palestinian Authority public. Jerome S. Kaufman is National Secretary of the Zionist Organization of America. and host the Israel Commentary website (http://www.israel-commentary.org). |
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ISRAEL MUST CONTROL GAZA'S BORDERS - ALL OF THEM
Posted by Professor Gerald Steinberg, July 2, 2006. |
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This was in today's Jerusalem Post |
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The return of the IDF to Gaza marks the end of the first phase of the post-disengagement experiment, less than a year after it began. The two immediate causes are obvious: Palestinian tunnelling from Gaza into Israel, resulting in the killing of two soldiers and the kidnapping of another; and the escalating rocket attacks against Sderot and elsewhere. But the underlying factor, and the more lasting impact, is the rediscovery that as long as the Palestinian war continues, there is no substitute for an Israeli military presence on the ground. The innovative arrangements that accompanied the withdrawal of Israeli military forces from Gaza in August 2005 have all collapsed. Once again, the pessimists turned out to be realists. The transfer of responsibility for preventing the smuggling of weapons and terrorists to Egyptian and European border monitors was a complete failure. The warheads of the Kassams and the anti-tank missiles fired in the recent attack were brought in under their noses - or perhaps their feet. WHEN PRIME minister Ariel Sharon decided to remove the IDF from the 13-kilometer long Philadelphi corridor that separates Gaza from Egypt, many Israelis warned of what might happen. Following detailed negotiations, Israel agreed to allow Egypt to bring in additional forces and weapons (beyond those specified in the 1979 peace treaty) so that they could block the illicit activity. Under the eye of the American-led Multinational Force and Observers, Egypt was supposed to stop the Palestinians from digging tunnels for use in smuggling explosives, terrorists and anti-tank and even anti-aircraft missiles. And the Israeli government's diplomatic advisers argued that by withdrawing its presence completely, the occupation of Gaza would be seen as having ended, as well as responsibility for the welfare of its population. Shortly after this agreement, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice brokered a separate security arrangement covering the Rafah crossing. On November 15, 2005, Rice "knocked heads together," and Sharon agreed to allow Palestinian Authority control of this border zone, accompanied by a European Union monitoring mission to insure implementation of the prohibition on the entry of weapons and terrorists. This effort was also a response to the pressures from Javier Solana, the European Union's high representative for the common foreign and security policy, and James Wolfensohn, who was the Quartet's special envoy in Gaza. At the end, Rice triumphantly declared: "This agreement is intended to give the Palestinian people freedom to move, to trade, to live ordinary lives." INDEED, this effort was based on the hope that the Palestinians would adopt these goals and act accordingly. The US and Europe were trying to prop-up the post-Arafat leadership, headed by PA President Mahmoud Abbas, despite its record of decades of corruption and anarchy. President George W. Bush pledged American leadership, "working together with Jordan, Egypt, and others in the international community, to build the capacity and will of Palestinian institutions to fight terrorism, dismantle terrorist organizations and prevent the areas from which Israel has withdrawn from posing a threat that would have to be addressed by any other means..." These hopes went nowhere. As the Israelis left, the Palestinians extended the terrorist infrastructure into many of the greenhouses, schools and structures of the former settlements. A few months later, Hamas took over, pledging to eradicate Israel and escalating the attacks. Nor did the diplomatic gains materialize - Israel is still blamed for the plight of Gazans. AFTER PAYING a high price, Israel has rediscovered the fundamental need for direct control over the border between Gaza and the Egyptian Sinai. This lesson has been learned on many occasions - in 1948, 1967 and 1973 (three years earlier, Egypt relocated anti-aircraft positions after the American-brokered cease-fire had supposedly frozen their locations). But each time, after paying the price of the previous round, Israel has been forced to resume responsibility. It is still far too early to know how the return to Gaza will end. But even if the kidnapped soldier is released, Israeli forces cannot simply turn around and leave, waiting for the next round in the war. Reoccupying the poor and hate-filled cities would be a mistake, but the days when Palestinians terror cells could simply go from Egypt into Gaza with their weapons are over. Having relied on Egypt and Europe to no avail, Israel now has no choice but to resume direct control over Gaza's borders. The lessons of the failed Gaza disengagement must also be applied to the West Bank, where Israel will need to maintain tight control over the Jordan Valley. Perhaps the next time Israel agrees to transfer border responsibility, it will be after the Palestinians have finally accepted the need prevent attacks from being launched from their side of the border. Gerald M. Steinberg is editor of NGO Monitor and director of the Program on Conflict Management at Bar-Ilan University. |
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MANKIND MUST SOON SEE THINGS FROM ISRAEL'S PERSPECTIVE
Posted by Lawrence Uniglicht, July 1, 2006. |
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Hamas militants had to know Israeli troops would enter Gaza as a consequence of their heinous raid, murdering two young Jewish soldiers in the process of a planned kidnapping of another Gilad Shalit. Continuous missile fire into Israel was not sufficient to induce such a deployment, thus a more psychologically insidious thus effective strategy had to be perpetrated. Hamas militants knew that Jewish humane instincts would create a scenario insuring widespread Muslim sympathy for their nascent misogynist fundamentalist regime in progress, further deplete support for their competitive enemy the more moderate tolerant secular presumed peace negotiator Fatah leader Abbas, and once again cast the illusion throughout Jew-despising cesspools of the world, especially throughout the mind-muddled Muslim dictatorships of a dysfunctional Middle East, that Israel remains a despicable occupier of ever-abused Palestinian waifs. Allah forbid any prospects of peace, prosperity, and the abandonment of jihad! Muslim nazis' obsessive quest to annihilate the infidel, command obedience to one neo-Ottoman Hitleresque pure planetary faith, as delineated in their horrifically racist Mein Koran born of Wahhabi rhetoric, depends on scapegoating the Jewish shlamazel. Hints of this doctrine for one are scrawled within Hamas' charter. "The Day of Judgment will not come about until Moslems fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Moslems, O Abdullah, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him. Only the Gharkad tree (evidently a certain kind of tree) would not do that because it is one of the trees of the Jews." Yet, such Islamic fundamentalist fascists also depend on funding from wealthy fossil fuel autocracies like Saudi Arabia and Iran, themselves ironically extorting exponentially increasing revenues from industrial oil-addicted 'infidel' nations. Indeed, the collective 'infidel' remains its own worst enemy, indirectly underwriting those who yearn for its demise, while concurrently berating Israel for chronic disproportionate responses to perpetrators of murders conveniently justified by twisted Islamic verse. Alas, were civilized movers and shakers of the planet to embody Samuel Taylor Coleridge's adage, "Common sense in an uncommon degree is what the world calls wisdom," alternative non-prehistoric energy sources would flourish; arachnid infested Saudi, Iranian, and kindred spirit deserts, ruled by arachnid-like turbaned despots, would lose underwriting revenues thus wallow in insignificance; and Israel would receive the long overdue worldwide respect it deserves. No doubt, uncommon common sense is in short supply so far at the genesis of a new millennium, not unlike the preceding millennium, however a critical stage of human history emerges where that luxury of less than prescient behavior is no longer sustainable. Facts on the ground suggest the technology of weaponry, especially of the mass destructive variety, increases at a rate far exceeding that of human maturity, the poisonous fruits of which lie evermore ominously cached in caves controlled by those 'got-rocks' Muslim OPEC autocrat financed homicidal/suicidal demented Islamic troglodytes, mesmerized by post-detonation delusions of paradise. Concurrently, an accelerating pace of global warming, exacerbated by the same maniacal Muslim OPEC fossil fuel pushers as well as their common sense bereft 'infidel' industrial consumers, provides a one two punch of catastrophic potential. Will civilized mankind awake soon enough, strategizing policies that might avoid grimly reaping the consequences of a heretofore unwillingness to correctly connect the dots? Will civilized mankind soon comprehend and denounce the wily ways of manipulative Islamic militants, thus support Israel's necessary incursions into the dens of its enemies? Will civilized mankind cease enriching the bulging coffers of autocratic Islamic terrorist-financing fossil fuel providers? "The doors of wisdom are never shut," opined Benjamin Franklin, not addressing mankind's reticence to look inside such cerebral chambers. If only that were not so! Lawrence Uniglicht is a career civil servant, working for the Social Security Administration. He advocates for the State of Israel with an American perspective. He writes, "Advocating for the disrespected underdog has been my passion, no doubt Israel falls into that category." Contact him by email at luniglicht@snip.net |
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DISGUSTING IMMORALITY: JEWISH CHILDREN ARE WORTH LESS THAN ARAB CHILDREN!
Posted by Sergio Tessa (HaDaR), July 1, 2006. |
| This is from IMRA - Independent Media Review and Analysis, whose website is www.imra.org.il. Or contact them by email at imra@netvision.net.il Subject: Israel Air Force Chief: Won't stop Kassam aimed to kill if the terrorist is holding his son's hand as he launches rocket |
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NOTHING IS JEWISH IN SUCH APPROACH. NOTHING IS MORAL! .... They "cloak" themselves in the most appalling sense of the word - to protect themselves because they know we act with the highest morality. They surround themselves with women and children. ... If we know that [the terrorist] is holding his son's hand, we do not fire. Even if the terrorist is in the midst of firing a Kassam, and the Kassam is aimed to kill. We do not fire. Interview with Israel Air Force chief Maj.-Gen. Eliezer Shkedy carried out on Wednesday 28 June, timed for the IAF's annual "Air Force Day," happened to coincide with this week's "Operation Summer Rains" offensive in Gaza, launched after the killing of two soldiers and the capture of Cpl. Gilad Shalit near Kerem Shalom. David Horovitz, The Jerusalem Post Jun. 30, 2006
Contact Sergio Tessa at HaDaR-Israel@verizon.net |
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ABU MAZEN EXPOSED
Posted by Yoram Ettinger, July 1, 2006. |
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1. FIVE LEADING TERRORISTS compiled the "Prisoners' Document", which has been embraced by Abu Mazen: Fatah's Marwan Barghouti, serving 5 terms of life imprisonment, Hamas' Abd Al-Khaliq Al-Natsheh, Islamic Jihad's Bassam Al- Saadi, Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine's Abd Al-Rahim Mallouh and Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine's Mustafa Badarneh. 2. THE GOAL of the "Document" is to restore coordination between the PLO and Hamas, while adhering to the fundamentals of the Palestinian attitude toward the "Zionist Entity". The goal is not to advance peace with Israel, but to clarify that "Palestinian Unity" supersedes any agreement signed with Israel. 3. THE "CLAIM OF RETURN", by Palestinian refugees to the pre-1967 area of Israel, is emphasized 5 times in the "Document". The "Claim of Return" is a euphemism for the inadmissibility of the Jewish State. 4. THE STAGE-BY-STAGE POLICY, which was adopted by the PLO in 1974, has been reaffirmed. The "document" calls for the establishment of an independent Palestinian State, in the "1967 area", without withdrawing claims to the "Pre-1967 area" - a provisional stage/accord. 5. TERRORISM IS ENCOURAGED by calling for the "widening the circles of resistance" and for the "release of all prisoners" held by Israel "by all means". These prisoners are held for terrorism and not for theft and burglary. Precedents determine that the terms "by all means" and "resistance" are code words for terrorism, including the abduction of Israelis as bargaining chips. 6. HOMICIDE BOMBING IS HERALDED by urging support of "those who bore the burden of resistance, in particular the martyrs' families". "Martyrs" is a common reference, by Palestinians, to homicide bombers. 7. PLO-HAMAS COOPERATION IS HIGHLIGHTED by calling for the implementation of the March 2005 Cairo Accord, which was the latest in a series of PLO-Hamas understandings, engineered by Abu Mazen since the signing of the Oslo Accord. The understandings state that "Palestinian Unity" and Palestinian national claims - especially the "claim of return" - supersede any accord with Israel. 8. ABU MAZEN is the architect of Palestinian hate-education in schools, mosques and official media - the most authentic reflection of his vision, and a manufacturing line of homicide-bombing. Notwithstanding Abu Mazen's seemingly moderate appearance, his embrace of the "Prisoners' Document" has reaffirmed the fundamentals of his own hate-education: idolizing homicide bombers, the "claim of return", terrorism and the inadmissibility of the Jewish State. Ambassador Yoram Ettinger is a consultant on US-Israel relations as well as the Chairman of Special Projects at the Ariel Center for Policy Research. Formerly the Minister for Congressional Affairs to Israel's Embassy in Washington, DC, Ettinger also served as Consul General of Israel to the Southwestern US. He is a former editor of Contemporary Mideast Backgrounder, and is the author of the Jerusalem Cloakroom series of reports. Contact him at yoramtex@netvision.net.il |
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