Conservatives Reject Call To Leave Israel Out of Campaign
Call for Bipartisan Unity from ADL and AJC Falls on Deaf Ears
By J.J. Goldberg the Forward
Published October 27, 2011, issue of November 04, 2011.
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Here’s how crazy things have gotten: An emergency call went out recently from the heart of the Jewish Establishment — from the very epicenter of macherdom, the twin citadels of Jewish defense, the Anti-Defamation League and American Jewish Committee themselves, in a rare moment of joint action — for American Jews to unite around Israel and defend its alliance with the United States.
And what’s been the response so far? To put it politely: Drop dead.
The machers’ summons is called the “National Pledge for Unity on Israel,” and it’s posted on the two organizations’ websites. They declare that with all the “new dangers and challenges” facing Israel in a “fast changing Middle East,” it’s more important than ever for America to “project to the world” that our support for Israel is wall-to-wall and rock solid. Right now, as we enter what’s shaping up as an ugly election season, the Jewish community should take care not to let Israel become a political football. Let’s have “American voices raised together in unshakeable support for our friend and ally.” If you agree, they say, click here, add your name and take the pledge.
Related
■Proposed Unity Pledge Spurs More Debate
■Jewish Leaders Warn Against Using Israel As 'Wedge' Issue
■AJC Blasts Anti-Obama Ad Campaign
So where’s the problem? The problem, writes Commentary magazine’s Jonathan Tobin, is that while “the cause of unity is noble” and much of the pledge’s text is “unexceptionable,” in the end the pledge “doesn’t pass the smell test” — parts of it seem “aimed more at silencing any effort to hold the Obama administration accountable.”
Matt Brooks of the Republican Jewish Coalition is more direct: “An open and vigorous debate on the questions confronting our country is the cornerstone of the American electoral process,” he writes. “This effort to stifle debate on U.S. policy toward Israel runs counter to this American tradition. Accordingly, the RJC will not be silenced on this or any issue.”
And, as is so often the case, no one puts it more succinctly than Weekly Standard editor William Kristol, chairman of the Emergency Committee for Israel. “Here’s the Emergency Committee for Israel’s answer to Directors Abe Foxman and David Harris: You must be kidding.”
Ah, you say, but that’s just a handful of voices on the Republican right. Let’s hear from the majority. What does the public say?
Funny — the ADL and AJC are wondering the same thing. As of six days after the pledge’s October 19 launch, according to one staffer, “maybe two dozen” people had signed on. “It’s not what you’d call a tidal wave.”
www.rabbijonathanginsburg.info
Read more: http://forward.com/articles/144966/#ixzz1cDIXNBlF
Saturday, October 29, 2011
latest on Israel bombing Iran
The Forward
Previous
The Political Dividends of the Shalit Deal October 28, 2011, 6:05pm
Israeli Brass Astir Amid Pressure for Iran Strike
By J.J. Goldberg
“Have the prime minister and defense minister sealed a deal between them, one on one, to attack the nuclear reactors in Iran?” So asks Nahum Barnea, commonly described as Israel’s senior and most respected political journalist, in an article leading the top of the front page of today’s Yediot Ahronot. He writes that growing rumors to that effect have created a quiet but urgent buzz within Israel’s political and military elites. They’re also troubling foreign governments, which “have a hard time understanding what is going on here”: a fateful decision that could “seal the fate of the Jewish state” for good or ill, and yet near-total silence on the topic in the public arena.
Barnea writes that the question of whether or not to attack divides Israel’s leadership into four camps. One camp says the benefits would be slim and the risks “insane,” given Iran’s ability to bombard Israel with deadly missiles from Lebanon, Gaza and Iran itself and touch off a regional war “that could destroy the state of Israel.” This camp says it’s better to focus on international sanctions, bearing in mind that if they fail and Iran does acquire nuclear weapons, “it won’t be the end of the world” — while an Israeli attack just might be.
The second camp says there’s no rush. Iran is still at least two years away from a weapon, which leaves plenty of time to let other options play out, reserving a military attack as an absolute last resort. Barnea quotes a senior American diplomat who told him Israel should back renewed negotiations on international inspections. If and when Iran turns out to be lying, an Israeli attack will have a lot more international understanding and support, which could be crucial in determining how well Israel survives the ensuing onslaught. Some Israeli cabinet ministers subscribe to this view, and suspect that the growing pressure for an immediate attack stems from “outside motives, whether personal or political.” More on that later.
The third camp consists of the heads of the military and intelligence community: IDF chief of staff Benny Gantz, military intelligence chief Aviv Kochavi, Mossad chief Tamir Pardo and Shin Bet chief Yoram Cohen. All four, he writes, are opposed to the military option, just like their predecessors: respectively, Gabi Ashkenazi, Amos Yadlin, Meir Dagan and Yuval Diskin. The difference is that the current chiefs are all new in their posts and lack the standing, experience, self-confidence and temperament to “bang on the table” and restrain Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and defense minister Ehud Barak, as their predecessors repeatedly did.
Finally, he writes, there are “the Siamese twins,” Netanyahu and Barak, who appear to be in a distinct minority, yet have the power to make the final decision. Netanyahu, he writes, has been warning since he entered office that Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is the new Hitler and a new Holocaust is looming. “There are those who describe Netanyahu’s passion on the topic as an obsession,” Barnea writes. “All his life he’s dreamed of being Churcill. Iran offers him the opportunity.” As for Barak, he looks at Israel’s past attacks on nuclear installations in Iraq and (“according to foreign reports”) Syria, and figures the pattern has been set. It’s not just a strategy, he writes, it’s a legacy. Moreover, some cabinet ministers suspect Barak is driven at least partly by personal motives: with no party or constituency behind him since he left Labor, he may see a military triumph as his best ticket to a continuing role in politics.
For more details on the increasingly urgent debate on Iran inside the Israeli brass—and the role it played in the sweeping changeover in the senior command engineered by Barak and Netanyahu over the past year, here’s some of my own coverage of the struggle from August 2010, December 2010, January 2011, May 2011 and June 2011
www.rabbijonathanginsburg.com
Read more: http://blogs.forward.com/forward-thinking/145227/#ixzz1cDH94nZm
Amos Gilad: Iran is massive threat that must be dealt with
In response to Yedioth Ahronoth article claiming Netanyahu, Barak seemingly pushing for military action against Iran, policy and political-military affairs director stresses importance of prioritizing Iran threat
Yoav Zitun
Published: 10.28.11, 14:47 / Israel News
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak are extremely concerned by the Iranian threat, and Defense Ministry Director of Policy and Political-Military Affairs Amos Gilad believes the matter must be a top priority.
"You need to know what issues to prioritize. In my opinion – it's the Iranian front," he told students at the Ashkelon College. His statements were made in response to a Yedioth Ahronoth article claiming that Netanyahu and Barak were seemingly pushing for action against Iran.
Related stories:
Op-Ed: Get serious with Iran
Ex-CIA official: Israel plans to strike Iran
Cheney: Israel to attack Iranian nuclear facilities
According to Gilad, Netanyahu "was the first who heard of Iran's forecasted move on the nuclear missile path and he sees it as a massive threat. The defense minister understands the depth of the threat as well."
Iranian missile test (Photo: EPA)
According to a Nahum Barnea article in Yedioth Ahronoth, published on Friday, the heads of the armed forces – Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Benny Gantz, Mossad Chief Tamir Pardo, Military Intelligence Chief Maj.-Gen. Aviv Kochavi and Shin Bet Chief Yoram Cohen share the opinion of their predecessors and are opposed to taking action against Iran at this time.
Former Mossad Chief Meir Dagan had previously stated that a strike against Iran was "a foolish idea" and warned against the disastrous consequences that would follow such action – an all out regional war.
Gilad believes that "Israel's main threat is Iran" and warned against complacency: "We have experience with Israel arrogance when it comes to foreign statements. Khamenei said that there was no room for Israel; He said Iran needs to be treated like an empire equal in power to superpowers like the US. That motivation drives Iran to develop ballistic capabilities."
Gilad noted that while in 1999-2000 Iran did not have even one missile that could reach Israel, today Tehran has hundreds of missiles capable of crossing a 1,500 kilometer radius within 10 minutes, as well as missile that can carry nuclear warheads.
"At the moment, there is no immediate nuclear threat, but there is definitely a great deal of motivation and determination for it," he stressed. Until now, he noted, the Iranians were enriching uranium. "Today the status is that they are at the starting point – they have uranium, they have the knowledge but they don't create (missiles) because of media publicity which is not initiated by them."
'Major game changer'
According to Gilad, the attempt to develop secret nuclear sites within Iran failed because the locations were published.
The Shihab missile on show (Photo: AFP)
The good news, said Gilad, was that "the whole world is against the Iranians, the sanctions are effective, but it doesn't change Iran's strategic direction or their motivation. Iran is determined to obtain nuclear weapons and that is a major threat to Israel. If they achieve their goal it would be major game changer".
Asked about the timeframe of the Iranian threat, Gilad answered: "The balance of power changed the moment the Iranians decide to pursue it." As for the question of whether Israel should attack Iran, Gilad noted that "all options remained open."
Gilad then spoke about the Arab Spring and stressed the strategic importance of the peace treaty with Egypt. "It has a huge significance security wise," he said, adding: "This is the first time where there is a situation in which elections are being held in Egypt in 30 days and we don't know who will rise to power and how it will affect our relations with them."
The policy and political-military affairs director made it clear that the Arab Spring poses many threats to Israel. "The question is what will happen on the day after, in Egypt the results of the first elections are still unclear.
Previous
The Political Dividends of the Shalit Deal October 28, 2011, 6:05pm
Israeli Brass Astir Amid Pressure for Iran Strike
By J.J. Goldberg
“Have the prime minister and defense minister sealed a deal between them, one on one, to attack the nuclear reactors in Iran?” So asks Nahum Barnea, commonly described as Israel’s senior and most respected political journalist, in an article leading the top of the front page of today’s Yediot Ahronot. He writes that growing rumors to that effect have created a quiet but urgent buzz within Israel’s political and military elites. They’re also troubling foreign governments, which “have a hard time understanding what is going on here”: a fateful decision that could “seal the fate of the Jewish state” for good or ill, and yet near-total silence on the topic in the public arena.
Barnea writes that the question of whether or not to attack divides Israel’s leadership into four camps. One camp says the benefits would be slim and the risks “insane,” given Iran’s ability to bombard Israel with deadly missiles from Lebanon, Gaza and Iran itself and touch off a regional war “that could destroy the state of Israel.” This camp says it’s better to focus on international sanctions, bearing in mind that if they fail and Iran does acquire nuclear weapons, “it won’t be the end of the world” — while an Israeli attack just might be.
The second camp says there’s no rush. Iran is still at least two years away from a weapon, which leaves plenty of time to let other options play out, reserving a military attack as an absolute last resort. Barnea quotes a senior American diplomat who told him Israel should back renewed negotiations on international inspections. If and when Iran turns out to be lying, an Israeli attack will have a lot more international understanding and support, which could be crucial in determining how well Israel survives the ensuing onslaught. Some Israeli cabinet ministers subscribe to this view, and suspect that the growing pressure for an immediate attack stems from “outside motives, whether personal or political.” More on that later.
The third camp consists of the heads of the military and intelligence community: IDF chief of staff Benny Gantz, military intelligence chief Aviv Kochavi, Mossad chief Tamir Pardo and Shin Bet chief Yoram Cohen. All four, he writes, are opposed to the military option, just like their predecessors: respectively, Gabi Ashkenazi, Amos Yadlin, Meir Dagan and Yuval Diskin. The difference is that the current chiefs are all new in their posts and lack the standing, experience, self-confidence and temperament to “bang on the table” and restrain Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and defense minister Ehud Barak, as their predecessors repeatedly did.
Finally, he writes, there are “the Siamese twins,” Netanyahu and Barak, who appear to be in a distinct minority, yet have the power to make the final decision. Netanyahu, he writes, has been warning since he entered office that Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is the new Hitler and a new Holocaust is looming. “There are those who describe Netanyahu’s passion on the topic as an obsession,” Barnea writes. “All his life he’s dreamed of being Churcill. Iran offers him the opportunity.” As for Barak, he looks at Israel’s past attacks on nuclear installations in Iraq and (“according to foreign reports”) Syria, and figures the pattern has been set. It’s not just a strategy, he writes, it’s a legacy. Moreover, some cabinet ministers suspect Barak is driven at least partly by personal motives: with no party or constituency behind him since he left Labor, he may see a military triumph as his best ticket to a continuing role in politics.
For more details on the increasingly urgent debate on Iran inside the Israeli brass—and the role it played in the sweeping changeover in the senior command engineered by Barak and Netanyahu over the past year, here’s some of my own coverage of the struggle from August 2010, December 2010, January 2011, May 2011 and June 2011
www.rabbijonathanginsburg.com
Read more: http://blogs.forward.com/forward-thinking/145227/#ixzz1cDH94nZm
Amos Gilad: Iran is massive threat that must be dealt with
In response to Yedioth Ahronoth article claiming Netanyahu, Barak seemingly pushing for military action against Iran, policy and political-military affairs director stresses importance of prioritizing Iran threat
Yoav Zitun
Published: 10.28.11, 14:47 / Israel News
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak are extremely concerned by the Iranian threat, and Defense Ministry Director of Policy and Political-Military Affairs Amos Gilad believes the matter must be a top priority.
"You need to know what issues to prioritize. In my opinion – it's the Iranian front," he told students at the Ashkelon College. His statements were made in response to a Yedioth Ahronoth article claiming that Netanyahu and Barak were seemingly pushing for action against Iran.
Related stories:
Op-Ed: Get serious with Iran
Ex-CIA official: Israel plans to strike Iran
Cheney: Israel to attack Iranian nuclear facilities
According to Gilad, Netanyahu "was the first who heard of Iran's forecasted move on the nuclear missile path and he sees it as a massive threat. The defense minister understands the depth of the threat as well."
Iranian missile test (Photo: EPA)
According to a Nahum Barnea article in Yedioth Ahronoth, published on Friday, the heads of the armed forces – Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Benny Gantz, Mossad Chief Tamir Pardo, Military Intelligence Chief Maj.-Gen. Aviv Kochavi and Shin Bet Chief Yoram Cohen share the opinion of their predecessors and are opposed to taking action against Iran at this time.
Former Mossad Chief Meir Dagan had previously stated that a strike against Iran was "a foolish idea" and warned against the disastrous consequences that would follow such action – an all out regional war.
Gilad believes that "Israel's main threat is Iran" and warned against complacency: "We have experience with Israel arrogance when it comes to foreign statements. Khamenei said that there was no room for Israel; He said Iran needs to be treated like an empire equal in power to superpowers like the US. That motivation drives Iran to develop ballistic capabilities."
Gilad noted that while in 1999-2000 Iran did not have even one missile that could reach Israel, today Tehran has hundreds of missiles capable of crossing a 1,500 kilometer radius within 10 minutes, as well as missile that can carry nuclear warheads.
"At the moment, there is no immediate nuclear threat, but there is definitely a great deal of motivation and determination for it," he stressed. Until now, he noted, the Iranians were enriching uranium. "Today the status is that they are at the starting point – they have uranium, they have the knowledge but they don't create (missiles) because of media publicity which is not initiated by them."
'Major game changer'
According to Gilad, the attempt to develop secret nuclear sites within Iran failed because the locations were published.
The Shihab missile on show (Photo: AFP)
The good news, said Gilad, was that "the whole world is against the Iranians, the sanctions are effective, but it doesn't change Iran's strategic direction or their motivation. Iran is determined to obtain nuclear weapons and that is a major threat to Israel. If they achieve their goal it would be major game changer".
Asked about the timeframe of the Iranian threat, Gilad answered: "The balance of power changed the moment the Iranians decide to pursue it." As for the question of whether Israel should attack Iran, Gilad noted that "all options remained open."
Gilad then spoke about the Arab Spring and stressed the strategic importance of the peace treaty with Egypt. "It has a huge significance security wise," he said, adding: "This is the first time where there is a situation in which elections are being held in Egypt in 30 days and we don't know who will rise to power and how it will affect our relations with them."
The policy and political-military affairs director made it clear that the Arab Spring poses many threats to Israel. "The question is what will happen on the day after, in Egypt the results of the first elections are still unclear.
Friday, October 28, 2011
Learn Our Narrative about Israel-the facts
Even those who aren't particularly sympathetic to Israel's Benjamin
Netanyahu, could get a good measure of satisfaction from this
interview with British Television during the retaliation against
Hamas' shelling of Israel.
The interviewer asked him:
"How come so many more Palestinians have been killed in this conflict than
Israelis?"(A nasty question if there ever was one!)
Netanyahu: "Are you sure that you want to start asking in that direction?"
Interviewer: (Falling into the trap) Why not?
Netanyahu: "Because in World War II more Germans were killed than
British and Americans combined, but there is no doubt in anyone's mind
that the war was caused by Germany's aggression. And in response to
the German blitz on London, the British wiped out the entire city of
Dresden, burning to death more German civilians than the number of
people killed in Hiroshima.
Moreover, I could remind you that in 1944, when the R.A.F. tried to
bomb the Gestapo Headquarters in Copenhagen, some of the bombs missed
their target and fell on a Danish children's hospital, killing 83
little children. Perhaps you have another question?"
Apparently, Benjamin Netanyahu gave an interview and was asked about
Israel's occupation of Arab lands.
His response was, "It's our land". The reporter (CNN or the like) was
stunned - read below "It's our land..." It's important information
since we don't get fair and accurate reporting from the media and
facts tend to get lost in the jumble of daily events.
"Crash Course on the Arab Israeli Conflict."
Here are overlooked facts in the current & past Middle East situation.
These were compiled by a Christian university professor:
BRIEF FACTS ON THE ISRAELI CONFLICT TODAY...(It takes just 1..5 minutes to
read!)
It makes sense and it's not slanted. Jew and non-Jew -- it doesn't matter.
1. Nationhood and Jerusalem.
Israel became a nation in 1312 BCE, Two thousand years before the rise of
Islam.
2. Arab refugees in Israel began identifying themselves as part of a
Palestinian people in 1967, two decades after the establishment of the
modern State of Israel.
3. Since the Jewish conquest in 1272 BCE, the Jews have had dominion over
The land for one thousand years with a continuous presence in the land for
the past 3,300 years.
4. The only Arab dominion since the conquest in 635 CE lasted no more than
22 years.
5. For over 3,300 years, Jerusalem has been the Jewish capital. Jerusalem
Has never been the capital of any Arab or Muslim entity. Even when the
Jordanians occupied Jerusalem, they never sought to make it their capital,
and Arab leaders did not come to visit.
6. Jerusalem is mentioned over 700 times in Tanach, the Jewish Holy
Scriptures. Jerusalem is not mentioned once in the Koran.
7. King David founded the city of Jerusalem. Mohammed never came to
Jerusalem.
8. Jews pray facing Jerusalem. Muslims pray with their backs toward
Jerusalem.
9. Arab and Jewish Refugees: in 1948 the Arab refugees were encouraged to
Leave Israel by Arab leaders promising to purge the land of Jews.
Sixty-eight percent left without ever seeing an Israeli soldier.
10 The Jewish refugees were forced to flee from Arab lands due to Arab
brutality, persecution and pogroms.
11. The number of Arab refugees who left Israel in 1948 is estimated to be
around 630,000. The number of Jewish refugees from Arab lands is
estimated to be the same.
12. Arab refugees were INTENTIONALLY not absorbed or integrated into the
Arab lands to which they fled, despite the vast Arab territory. Out of the
100,000,000 refugees since World WarII, theirs is the only refugee group
in the world that has never been absorbed or integrated into their own
people's lands. Jewish refugees were completely absorbed into Israel, a
country no larger than the state of New Jersey ..
13. The Arab-Israeli Conflict: the Arabs are represented by eight separate
nations, not including the Palestinians. There is only one Jewish nation.
The Arab nations initiated all five wars and lost. Israel defended itself
each time and won.
14. The PLO's Charter still calls for the destruction of the State of
Israel. Israel has given the Palestinians most of the West Bank land,
autonomy under the Palestinian Authority, and has supplied them.
15. Under Jordanian rule, Jewish holy sites were desecrated and the Jews
Were denied access to places of worship. Under Israeli rule, all Muslim and
Christian sites have been preserved and made accessible to people of all
faiths.
16. The UN Record on Israel and the Arabs: of the 175 Security Council
resolutions passed before 1990, 97 were directed against Israel.
17. Of the 690 General Assembly resolutions voted on before 1990, 429 were
directed against Israel.
18. The UN was silent while 58 Jerusalem Synagogues were destroyed by the
Jordanians.
19. The UN was silent while the Jordanians systematically desecrated
the ancient Jewish cemetery on the Mount of Olives.
20. The UN was silent while the Jordanians enforced an apartheid-like a
Policy of preventing Jews from visiting the Temple Mount and the Western
Wall.
Netanyahu, could get a good measure of satisfaction from this
interview with British Television during the retaliation against
Hamas' shelling of Israel.
The interviewer asked him:
"How come so many more Palestinians have been killed in this conflict than
Israelis?"(A nasty question if there ever was one!)
Netanyahu: "Are you sure that you want to start asking in that direction?"
Interviewer: (Falling into the trap) Why not?
Netanyahu: "Because in World War II more Germans were killed than
British and Americans combined, but there is no doubt in anyone's mind
that the war was caused by Germany's aggression. And in response to
the German blitz on London, the British wiped out the entire city of
Dresden, burning to death more German civilians than the number of
people killed in Hiroshima.
Moreover, I could remind you that in 1944, when the R.A.F. tried to
bomb the Gestapo Headquarters in Copenhagen, some of the bombs missed
their target and fell on a Danish children's hospital, killing 83
little children. Perhaps you have another question?"
Apparently, Benjamin Netanyahu gave an interview and was asked about
Israel's occupation of Arab lands.
His response was, "It's our land". The reporter (CNN or the like) was
stunned - read below "It's our land..." It's important information
since we don't get fair and accurate reporting from the media and
facts tend to get lost in the jumble of daily events.
"Crash Course on the Arab Israeli Conflict."
Here are overlooked facts in the current & past Middle East situation.
These were compiled by a Christian university professor:
BRIEF FACTS ON THE ISRAELI CONFLICT TODAY...(It takes just 1..5 minutes to
read!)
It makes sense and it's not slanted. Jew and non-Jew -- it doesn't matter.
1. Nationhood and Jerusalem.
Israel became a nation in 1312 BCE, Two thousand years before the rise of
Islam.
2. Arab refugees in Israel began identifying themselves as part of a
Palestinian people in 1967, two decades after the establishment of the
modern State of Israel.
3. Since the Jewish conquest in 1272 BCE, the Jews have had dominion over
The land for one thousand years with a continuous presence in the land for
the past 3,300 years.
4. The only Arab dominion since the conquest in 635 CE lasted no more than
22 years.
5. For over 3,300 years, Jerusalem has been the Jewish capital. Jerusalem
Has never been the capital of any Arab or Muslim entity. Even when the
Jordanians occupied Jerusalem, they never sought to make it their capital,
and Arab leaders did not come to visit.
6. Jerusalem is mentioned over 700 times in Tanach, the Jewish Holy
Scriptures. Jerusalem is not mentioned once in the Koran.
7. King David founded the city of Jerusalem. Mohammed never came to
Jerusalem.
8. Jews pray facing Jerusalem. Muslims pray with their backs toward
Jerusalem.
9. Arab and Jewish Refugees: in 1948 the Arab refugees were encouraged to
Leave Israel by Arab leaders promising to purge the land of Jews.
Sixty-eight percent left without ever seeing an Israeli soldier.
10 The Jewish refugees were forced to flee from Arab lands due to Arab
brutality, persecution and pogroms.
11. The number of Arab refugees who left Israel in 1948 is estimated to be
around 630,000. The number of Jewish refugees from Arab lands is
estimated to be the same.
12. Arab refugees were INTENTIONALLY not absorbed or integrated into the
Arab lands to which they fled, despite the vast Arab territory. Out of the
100,000,000 refugees since World WarII, theirs is the only refugee group
in the world that has never been absorbed or integrated into their own
people's lands. Jewish refugees were completely absorbed into Israel, a
country no larger than the state of New Jersey ..
13. The Arab-Israeli Conflict: the Arabs are represented by eight separate
nations, not including the Palestinians. There is only one Jewish nation.
The Arab nations initiated all five wars and lost. Israel defended itself
each time and won.
14. The PLO's Charter still calls for the destruction of the State of
Israel. Israel has given the Palestinians most of the West Bank land,
autonomy under the Palestinian Authority, and has supplied them.
15. Under Jordanian rule, Jewish holy sites were desecrated and the Jews
Were denied access to places of worship. Under Israeli rule, all Muslim and
Christian sites have been preserved and made accessible to people of all
faiths.
16. The UN Record on Israel and the Arabs: of the 175 Security Council
resolutions passed before 1990, 97 were directed against Israel.
17. Of the 690 General Assembly resolutions voted on before 1990, 429 were
directed against Israel.
18. The UN was silent while 58 Jerusalem Synagogues were destroyed by the
Jordanians.
19. The UN was silent while the Jordanians systematically desecrated
the ancient Jewish cemetery on the Mount of Olives.
20. The UN was silent while the Jordanians enforced an apartheid-like a
Policy of preventing Jews from visiting the Temple Mount and the Western
Wall.
Absurdity of unialteral Palestinian effort Krauthammer
Absurdity of unilateral Palestinian effort
Land without peace: Why Abbas went to the U.N.
By Charles Krauthammer, Published September 29
While diplomatically inconvenient for the Western powers, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas's attempt to get the United Nations to unilaterally declare a Palestinian state has elicited widespread sympathy. After all, what choice did he have? According to the accepted narrative, Middle East peace is made impossible by a hard-line Likud-led Israel that refuses to accept a Palestinian state and continues to build settlements.
It is remarkable how this gross inversion of the truth has become conventional wisdom. In fact, Benjamin Netanyahu brought his Likud-led coalition to open recognition of a Palestinian state, thereby creating Israel's first national consensus for a two-state solution. He is also the only prime minister to agree to a settlement freeze - 10 months - something no Labor or Kadima government has ever done.
To which Abbas responded by boycotting the talks for nine months, showing up in the 10th, then walking out when the freeze expired. Last week he reiterated that he will continue to boycott peace talks unless Israel gives up - in advance - claim to any territory beyond the 1967 lines. Meaning, for example, that the Jewish Quarter in Jerusalem is Palestinian territory. This is not just absurd. It violates every prior peace agreement. They all stipulate that such demands are to be the subject of negotiations, not their precondition.
Abbas unwaveringly insists on the so-called "right of return," which would demographically destroy Israel by swamping it with millions of Arabs, thereby turning the world's only Jewish state into the world's 23rd Arab state. And he has repeatedly declared, as recently as last week in New York: "We shall not recognize a Jewish state."
Nor is this new. It is perfectly consistent with the long history of Palestinian rejectionism. Consider:
Camp David, 2000. At a U.S.-sponsored summit, Prime Minister Ehud Barak offers Yasser Arafat a Palestinian state on the West Bank and Gaza - and, astonishingly, the previously inconceivable division of Jerusalem. Arafat refuses. And makes no counteroffer, thereby demonstrating his unseriousness about making any deal. Instead, within two months, he launches a savage terror war that kills a thousand Israelis.
Taba, 2001. An even sweeter deal - the Clinton Parameters - is offered. Arafat walks away again.
Israel, 2008. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert makes the ultimate capitulation to Palestinian demands - 100 percent of the West Bank (with land swaps), Palestinian statehood, the division of Jerusalem with the Muslim parts becoming the capital of the new Palestine. And incredibly, he offers to turn over the city's holy places, including the Western Wall - Judaism's most sacred site, its Kaaba - to an international body on which sit Jordan and Saudi Arabia.
Did Abbas accept? Of course not. If he had, the conflict would be over and Palestine would already be a member of the United Nations.
This is not ancient history. All three peace talks occurred over the past decade. And every one completely contradicts the current mindless narrative of Israeli "intransigence" as the obstacle to peace.
Settlements? Every settlement remaining within the new Palestine would be destroyed and emptied, precisely as happened in Gaza.
So why did the Palestinians say no? Because saying yes would have required them to sign a final peace agreement that accepted a Jewish state on what they consider the Muslim patrimony.
The key word here is "final." The Palestinians are quite prepared to sign interim agreements, like Oslo. Framework agreements, like Annapolis. Cease-fires, like the 1949 armistice. Anything but a final deal. Anything but a final peace. Anything but a treaty that ends the conflict once and for all - while leaving a Jewish state still standing.
After all, why did Abbas go to the United Nations last week? For nearly half a century, the United States has pursued a Middle East settlement on the basis of the formula of land for peace. Land for peace produced the Israel-Egypt peace of 1979 and the Israel-Jordan peace of 1994. Israel has offered the Palestinians land for peace three times since. And been refused every time.
Why? For exactly the same reason Abbas went to the United Nations last week: to get land without peace. Sovereignty with no reciprocal recognition of a Jewish state. Statehood without negotiations. An independent Palestine in a continued state of war with Israel.
Israel gave up land without peace in south Lebanon in 2000 and, in return, received war (the Lebanon war of 2006) and 50,000 Hezbollah missiles now targeted on the Israeli homeland. In 2005, Israel gave up land without peace in Gaza, and again was rewarded with war - and constant rocket attack from an openly genocidal Palestinian mini-state.
Israel is prepared to give up land, but never again without peace. A final peace. Which is exactly what every Palestinian leader from Haj Amin al-Husseini to Yasser Arafat to Mahmoud Abbas has refused to accept. Which is why, regardless of who is governing Israel, there has never been peace. Territorial disputes are solvable; existential conflicts are not.
Land for peace, yes. Land without peace is nothing but an invitation to national suicide.
Land without peace: Why Abbas went to the U.N.
By Charles Krauthammer, Published September 29
While diplomatically inconvenient for the Western powers, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas's attempt to get the United Nations to unilaterally declare a Palestinian state has elicited widespread sympathy. After all, what choice did he have? According to the accepted narrative, Middle East peace is made impossible by a hard-line Likud-led Israel that refuses to accept a Palestinian state and continues to build settlements.
It is remarkable how this gross inversion of the truth has become conventional wisdom. In fact, Benjamin Netanyahu brought his Likud-led coalition to open recognition of a Palestinian state, thereby creating Israel's first national consensus for a two-state solution. He is also the only prime minister to agree to a settlement freeze - 10 months - something no Labor or Kadima government has ever done.
To which Abbas responded by boycotting the talks for nine months, showing up in the 10th, then walking out when the freeze expired. Last week he reiterated that he will continue to boycott peace talks unless Israel gives up - in advance - claim to any territory beyond the 1967 lines. Meaning, for example, that the Jewish Quarter in Jerusalem is Palestinian territory. This is not just absurd. It violates every prior peace agreement. They all stipulate that such demands are to be the subject of negotiations, not their precondition.
Abbas unwaveringly insists on the so-called "right of return," which would demographically destroy Israel by swamping it with millions of Arabs, thereby turning the world's only Jewish state into the world's 23rd Arab state. And he has repeatedly declared, as recently as last week in New York: "We shall not recognize a Jewish state."
Nor is this new. It is perfectly consistent with the long history of Palestinian rejectionism. Consider:
Camp David, 2000. At a U.S.-sponsored summit, Prime Minister Ehud Barak offers Yasser Arafat a Palestinian state on the West Bank and Gaza - and, astonishingly, the previously inconceivable division of Jerusalem. Arafat refuses. And makes no counteroffer, thereby demonstrating his unseriousness about making any deal. Instead, within two months, he launches a savage terror war that kills a thousand Israelis.
Taba, 2001. An even sweeter deal - the Clinton Parameters - is offered. Arafat walks away again.
Israel, 2008. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert makes the ultimate capitulation to Palestinian demands - 100 percent of the West Bank (with land swaps), Palestinian statehood, the division of Jerusalem with the Muslim parts becoming the capital of the new Palestine. And incredibly, he offers to turn over the city's holy places, including the Western Wall - Judaism's most sacred site, its Kaaba - to an international body on which sit Jordan and Saudi Arabia.
Did Abbas accept? Of course not. If he had, the conflict would be over and Palestine would already be a member of the United Nations.
This is not ancient history. All three peace talks occurred over the past decade. And every one completely contradicts the current mindless narrative of Israeli "intransigence" as the obstacle to peace.
Settlements? Every settlement remaining within the new Palestine would be destroyed and emptied, precisely as happened in Gaza.
So why did the Palestinians say no? Because saying yes would have required them to sign a final peace agreement that accepted a Jewish state on what they consider the Muslim patrimony.
The key word here is "final." The Palestinians are quite prepared to sign interim agreements, like Oslo. Framework agreements, like Annapolis. Cease-fires, like the 1949 armistice. Anything but a final deal. Anything but a final peace. Anything but a treaty that ends the conflict once and for all - while leaving a Jewish state still standing.
After all, why did Abbas go to the United Nations last week? For nearly half a century, the United States has pursued a Middle East settlement on the basis of the formula of land for peace. Land for peace produced the Israel-Egypt peace of 1979 and the Israel-Jordan peace of 1994. Israel has offered the Palestinians land for peace three times since. And been refused every time.
Why? For exactly the same reason Abbas went to the United Nations last week: to get land without peace. Sovereignty with no reciprocal recognition of a Jewish state. Statehood without negotiations. An independent Palestine in a continued state of war with Israel.
Israel gave up land without peace in south Lebanon in 2000 and, in return, received war (the Lebanon war of 2006) and 50,000 Hezbollah missiles now targeted on the Israeli homeland. In 2005, Israel gave up land without peace in Gaza, and again was rewarded with war - and constant rocket attack from an openly genocidal Palestinian mini-state.
Israel is prepared to give up land, but never again without peace. A final peace. Which is exactly what every Palestinian leader from Haj Amin al-Husseini to Yasser Arafat to Mahmoud Abbas has refused to accept. Which is why, regardless of who is governing Israel, there has never been peace. Territorial disputes are solvable; existential conflicts are not.
Land for peace, yes. Land without peace is nothing but an invitation to national suicide.
Thursday, October 27, 2011
Obama losing battle vs Islamic fantaticism www.rabbijonathanginsburg.com
Advantage: Islamism
Abe Greenwald | @abegreenwald 10.26.2011 - 11:24 AM
Fewer than six months after Osama Bin Laden’s death, the United States is closer than ever to losing a fundamental battle in the war on terror. Winning that war is not ultimately about killing this mastermind, that cleric, or a whole parade of al-Qaeda No. 3s. It is not synonymous with drone strikes, Navy Seal operations, or airport pat-downs—although those all help. In the end, victory means thwarting the dream harbored by the terrorists who committed 9/11. Their dream was to overthrow the Middle East’s autocracies and replace them with Islamist regimes. After a decade of American gains, that dream is suddenly nearing partial realization.
Libyan transitional government leader Mustafa Abdul-Jalil has announced that “Islamic shariah law” would be “the basis of legislation” in post-Qaddafi Libya. In Egypt, the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood is all but destined to sweep into power via parliamentary elections scheduled for late November. And regarding Tunisia’s celebrated “free and fair” elections, democrats can only hope that the Islamists of the winning Ennahda party will rule as moderately as they now profess. Elections can be hijacked as easily as airplanes, and the martyr-minded bin Laden would have died a thousand times for this kind of progress.
Rounding out this landscape are some non-ballot-related developments. A week after releasing the details of an alleged Iranian plot to kill ambassadors and bystanders in Washington, the Obama administration announced the complete withdrawal of American forces from Iraq by the end of 2011. For Tehran’s theocrats this is an invitation to further meddle in their neighbor’s political affairs and chip away at a fragile Iraqi democracy. For al-Qaeda and affiliates it’s a signal to step up the violence. In Afghanistan, the American-installed Hamid Karzai has announced his prophylactic alliance with terrorist-infested Islamabad in the event of an America-Pakistan conflict. A year from now, the United States will pull 30,000 troops out of Afghanistan, leaving Karzai to develop the “on” part of his off-and-on friendship with the Taliban.
What brought us to this pass? Critics of the war on terror often ask, “How can you wage war on an idea?” But they tend not to stay around for the answer. Here it is: You deploy a superior idea, disseminate it more broadly and forcefully than your enemy can handle, and defend your gains with everything you have—including the physical materials of actual warfare. That is how the United States advanced the cause of freedom in the Middle East for 10 years after 9/11. It was done imperfectly, for sure, but that period saw a significant drop in worldwide Muslim support for jihad and a corresponding uptick in democratic sentiment.
When Barack Obama took office, the U.S. pulled back on the defense of freedom abroad and re-invested energies in the notion of indigenous authenticity. This posited that the only political change that is both valid and virtuous must come wholly from within a given country. That stance has the appearance of nobleness except for this: history. Hosni Mubarak’s three-decade-long authoritarian rule was an authentic and indigenous Egyptian development, the presidential coup of Tunisia’s Zine El Abidine Ben Ali was a genuinely Tunisian affair, and the preposterous 42-year reign of Libya’s Muammar Qaddafi sprang up from within Libya. To make homegrown change the gold standard is to annul the case for removing today’s homegrown tyrants (to say nothing of the nationalist monsters of the past). Much worse, doing so has intentionally tied America’s hands as Islamists have sought to exploit power vacuums left by departing dictators.
Today’s popular uprisings in the Middle East were not motivated by radical Islam. They are manifestations of a widespread desire for freedom. But even glorious ideas need defending, especially in the Middle East. And democrats needed American protection and support at the very moment that the United States got out of the democracy-defense game. Instead of making early allies of the democratic trailblazers who rose up in Iran in June 2009, President Obama continued his diplomatic courtship with the oppressive theocratic regime—a mistake he would cut-and-paste all over the region. When Egypt ignited, the White House and State Department spent weeks mulling continued support for Mubarak. As Syrians were killed in confronting the regime of Bashar Assad, Hillary Clinton took to Sunday morning television to describe him as a “reformer.” Instead of making aid to the countries of the so-called Arab Spring contingent upon democratic reform, Washington stood on the sidelines. And instead of using overt and covert means to put roadblocks in Islamists’ way, the administration released bland statements describing the future of this or that country as being decided by its people.
The war on terror is an actual, not metaphorical, war. And to shrink from defending our ideas is to cede ground to the enemy. Our leaving Iraq (and then Afghanistan) is a continuation of the retreat that began with the thinking of the Obama administration. As proponents of the 2007 troop surge often noted, that change in strategy marked a surge in necessary troops and innovative ideas. Both are now leaving the region.
The perpetrators of 9/11 wanted an Islamist political order in the Middle East not only for its own sake, but also as a means of advancing their interests globally. The celebrants of American retreat would do well to recall that those men, too, were authentic and indigenous manifestations of their region. As were the attacks they carried out.
Abe Greenwald | @abegreenwald 10.26.2011 - 11:24 AM
Fewer than six months after Osama Bin Laden’s death, the United States is closer than ever to losing a fundamental battle in the war on terror. Winning that war is not ultimately about killing this mastermind, that cleric, or a whole parade of al-Qaeda No. 3s. It is not synonymous with drone strikes, Navy Seal operations, or airport pat-downs—although those all help. In the end, victory means thwarting the dream harbored by the terrorists who committed 9/11. Their dream was to overthrow the Middle East’s autocracies and replace them with Islamist regimes. After a decade of American gains, that dream is suddenly nearing partial realization.
Libyan transitional government leader Mustafa Abdul-Jalil has announced that “Islamic shariah law” would be “the basis of legislation” in post-Qaddafi Libya. In Egypt, the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood is all but destined to sweep into power via parliamentary elections scheduled for late November. And regarding Tunisia’s celebrated “free and fair” elections, democrats can only hope that the Islamists of the winning Ennahda party will rule as moderately as they now profess. Elections can be hijacked as easily as airplanes, and the martyr-minded bin Laden would have died a thousand times for this kind of progress.
Rounding out this landscape are some non-ballot-related developments. A week after releasing the details of an alleged Iranian plot to kill ambassadors and bystanders in Washington, the Obama administration announced the complete withdrawal of American forces from Iraq by the end of 2011. For Tehran’s theocrats this is an invitation to further meddle in their neighbor’s political affairs and chip away at a fragile Iraqi democracy. For al-Qaeda and affiliates it’s a signal to step up the violence. In Afghanistan, the American-installed Hamid Karzai has announced his prophylactic alliance with terrorist-infested Islamabad in the event of an America-Pakistan conflict. A year from now, the United States will pull 30,000 troops out of Afghanistan, leaving Karzai to develop the “on” part of his off-and-on friendship with the Taliban.
What brought us to this pass? Critics of the war on terror often ask, “How can you wage war on an idea?” But they tend not to stay around for the answer. Here it is: You deploy a superior idea, disseminate it more broadly and forcefully than your enemy can handle, and defend your gains with everything you have—including the physical materials of actual warfare. That is how the United States advanced the cause of freedom in the Middle East for 10 years after 9/11. It was done imperfectly, for sure, but that period saw a significant drop in worldwide Muslim support for jihad and a corresponding uptick in democratic sentiment.
When Barack Obama took office, the U.S. pulled back on the defense of freedom abroad and re-invested energies in the notion of indigenous authenticity. This posited that the only political change that is both valid and virtuous must come wholly from within a given country. That stance has the appearance of nobleness except for this: history. Hosni Mubarak’s three-decade-long authoritarian rule was an authentic and indigenous Egyptian development, the presidential coup of Tunisia’s Zine El Abidine Ben Ali was a genuinely Tunisian affair, and the preposterous 42-year reign of Libya’s Muammar Qaddafi sprang up from within Libya. To make homegrown change the gold standard is to annul the case for removing today’s homegrown tyrants (to say nothing of the nationalist monsters of the past). Much worse, doing so has intentionally tied America’s hands as Islamists have sought to exploit power vacuums left by departing dictators.
Today’s popular uprisings in the Middle East were not motivated by radical Islam. They are manifestations of a widespread desire for freedom. But even glorious ideas need defending, especially in the Middle East. And democrats needed American protection and support at the very moment that the United States got out of the democracy-defense game. Instead of making early allies of the democratic trailblazers who rose up in Iran in June 2009, President Obama continued his diplomatic courtship with the oppressive theocratic regime—a mistake he would cut-and-paste all over the region. When Egypt ignited, the White House and State Department spent weeks mulling continued support for Mubarak. As Syrians were killed in confronting the regime of Bashar Assad, Hillary Clinton took to Sunday morning television to describe him as a “reformer.” Instead of making aid to the countries of the so-called Arab Spring contingent upon democratic reform, Washington stood on the sidelines. And instead of using overt and covert means to put roadblocks in Islamists’ way, the administration released bland statements describing the future of this or that country as being decided by its people.
The war on terror is an actual, not metaphorical, war. And to shrink from defending our ideas is to cede ground to the enemy. Our leaving Iraq (and then Afghanistan) is a continuation of the retreat that began with the thinking of the Obama administration. As proponents of the 2007 troop surge often noted, that change in strategy marked a surge in necessary troops and innovative ideas. Both are now leaving the region.
The perpetrators of 9/11 wanted an Islamist political order in the Middle East not only for its own sake, but also as a means of advancing their interests globally. The celebrants of American retreat would do well to recall that those men, too, were authentic and indigenous manifestations of their region. As were the attacks they carried out.
Libya fooled us www.rabbijonathanginsburg.info
Did the Libyan Leadership Deceive the West? - Jonathan D. Halevi (Institute for Contemporary Affairs-Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs)
On October 23, Mustafa Abdul Jalil, Chairman of the National Transitional Council (NTC) that is the temporary power in Libya replacing the Gaddafi regime, announced: "We, as an Islamic state, determined that Islamic law is a major source for legislation, and on this basis any law which contradicts the principles of Islam and Islamic law will be considered null and void."
The NTC has the support of the West and NATO countries, which helped it militarily to bring down the Gaddafi regime, hoping to establish a democratic regime in Libya.
In early October, Dr. David Gerbi, who was born in Libya and fled to Italy in 1967, arrived in Tripoli and asked to repair the synagogue. The NTC was quick to remove him, while demonstrations were held in Tripoli calling to prevent any Jewish presence in Libya or the establishment of synagogues. The NTC did not condemn this expression of anti-Semitism, nor was there any objection by any other political factions in Libya.
NTC and Western officials have already stated their growing concerns that Qatar is trying to interfere in the country's sovereignty, and the rebels are said to have received about $2 billion from the Qatari government. Qatari involvement is likely to produce a regime in Libya that follows the political orientation of Sheikh Yusuf Qaradawi, thereby giving the Muslim Brotherhood an open door in the new Libya.
The political debate in Libya will be within an essentially Islamist universe, with different leaders distinguished by the degree to which they seek to implement their Islamism. It seems that the strategy of the democratic states that trusted the promises of the rebel forces to adopt and implement the principles of democracy has collapsed, and that Western aid to overthrow Gaddafi's tyrannical regime prepared the groundwork for the establishment of an Islamic state, which eventually may become hostile to the West.
The writer, a senior researcher of the Middle East and radical Islam at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, is a former advisor to the Policy Planning Division of the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
On October 23, Mustafa Abdul Jalil, Chairman of the National Transitional Council (NTC) that is the temporary power in Libya replacing the Gaddafi regime, announced: "We, as an Islamic state, determined that Islamic law is a major source for legislation, and on this basis any law which contradicts the principles of Islam and Islamic law will be considered null and void."
The NTC has the support of the West and NATO countries, which helped it militarily to bring down the Gaddafi regime, hoping to establish a democratic regime in Libya.
In early October, Dr. David Gerbi, who was born in Libya and fled to Italy in 1967, arrived in Tripoli and asked to repair the synagogue. The NTC was quick to remove him, while demonstrations were held in Tripoli calling to prevent any Jewish presence in Libya or the establishment of synagogues. The NTC did not condemn this expression of anti-Semitism, nor was there any objection by any other political factions in Libya.
NTC and Western officials have already stated their growing concerns that Qatar is trying to interfere in the country's sovereignty, and the rebels are said to have received about $2 billion from the Qatari government. Qatari involvement is likely to produce a regime in Libya that follows the political orientation of Sheikh Yusuf Qaradawi, thereby giving the Muslim Brotherhood an open door in the new Libya.
The political debate in Libya will be within an essentially Islamist universe, with different leaders distinguished by the degree to which they seek to implement their Islamism. It seems that the strategy of the democratic states that trusted the promises of the rebel forces to adopt and implement the principles of democracy has collapsed, and that Western aid to overthrow Gaddafi's tyrannical regime prepared the groundwork for the establishment of an Islamic state, which eventually may become hostile to the West.
The writer, a senior researcher of the Middle East and radical Islam at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, is a former advisor to the Policy Planning Division of the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Monday, October 24, 2011
Conservative Rabbi students far left wingers on Israel
Jokes My Grandfather Told Me Daniel Gordis, Jerusalem Post. Gordis responds that the recent JTS study does not disprove but actually confirms his thesis that non-Orthodox rabbis have taken a universalist turn.
But if the new crop of Conservative rabbis has anything to say about it, Conservatism may not occupy the center for very long. That, at least, is the message of a recent report by the movement's Jewish Theological Seminary, based on a survey of political views among "Generation Y" rabbinical students—born in the mid-1970's to mid-1990's—and the Seminary's somewhat older rabbinical alumni, ordained since 1980.
At first blush, the report purports to show what one would hope to find among the rabbinate: a solid Jewish identity and strong attachment to Israel. On closer examination, this identity appears increasingly filtered through a universalistic and liberal political perspective. Among American Jews as a whole, according to the Pew Forum, 38 percent identify themselves as liberal; 39 percent call themselves moderate. In contrast, 58 percent of the Conservative rabbis surveyed—and 69 percent of the rabbinical students—called themselves liberal. It's hard to defend the center when you're not in it.
These rabbis and rabbinical students are "pro-Israel," but they are redefining what "pro-Israel" means. As liberals, they hold an optimistic view of human nature: Though Palestinian leaders see their conflict with Israel as a zero-sum game, it seems hard for the rabbis to acknowledge this grim fact. Instead, they get their understanding of events in Israel from ideologically reinforcing left-oriented sources: liberal media outlets, Facebook posts, and Haaretz. These sources help explain the conspicuous disconnect between the next generation of Conservative rabbis and mainstream American Jews on the subject of the Arab-Israel conflict. More than three-quarters of American Jews, according to the latest American Jewish Committee survey, believe that the Arabs' goal is not merely the return of the "occupied territories" but the actual "destruction of Israel." Only 30 percent of the JTS rabbinical students agreed with a similar statement.
Indeed, fully 12 percent of the rabbinical students are "uncomfortable" with Israel's being a "Jewish state." To individuals with this universalistic bent, moral relativism comes more naturally. Most of the future rabbis—all of whom have studied in Israel—do not see Palestinian leaders as their enemies. A majority, 56 percent, say the Palestinian side is no "more to blame" than Israel for the ongoing conflict. Sure, Hamas dominates Gaza. Yes, the West Bank Fatah leadership refused to negotiate with the Netanyahu government during a ten-month settlement freeze. Even so, a majority of the rabbis wants an Israeli withdrawal to the 1967 borders, with "land swaps" and a freeze on any "expansion of settlements in the West Bank."
Compare these views with the position of most American Jews in the face of unremitting Palestinian intransigence: 55 percent, according to an AJC poll, oppose a Palestinian state. In equally stark contrast, most Israelis, regardless of their political views, simply do not believe that today's Palestinian leadership is capable of making peace with Israel.
The JTS survey elicited the opinion of 68 percent of the rabbinical students that the "settler movement"—not just extremist settlers, mind you—is a "threat." The survey did not bother to ask whether the Palestinians should be required to accept Israel as a Jewish state (the position of 96 percent of American Jews) or whether Mahmoud Abbas should abandon his demand for a Palestinian "right of return." The survey tells us that 72 percent of the rabbinical students have engaged in efforts at dialogue with Arabs: Some head to Ramallah for the opportunity to socialize with Palestinians, while others take excursions to West Bank Arab villages with New Israel Fund-supported activists. The survey says nothing about any commensurate efforts by the rabbis to understand the "settler mindset." Many report having visited a "settlement"; but the definition of "settlement" and the auspices under which the visits were made are left to our imagination.
We can guess the reasons for the disparate treatment of Palestinians and settlers. The rabbis believe AIPAC is not liberal enough. J Street, whose platform practically mirrors that of the Palestinian Authority, is closer to their hearts, with 58 percent approval. At 80 percent approval, the New Israel Fund is the absolute cat's meow.
The 63-year-old Zionist enterprise is a work-in-progress. No Israeli would suggest it is beyond criticism. But 30 percent of Reform rabbinical students return from Israel feeling "hostile" or "indifferent" toward the Jewish state; now we learn that 53 percent of JTS rabbinical students are "sometimes" or "often" ashamed of Israel. Is it the ultra-Orthodox stranglehold on state-controlled religious life that alienates them? Too bad, then, that so few future Conservative rabbis volunteer extensively at Conservative-affiliated Masorti congregations in Israel.
Seminaries and professors have been unable or unwilling to provide their students with the moral compass needed to navigate between worthy universalistic values and particularistic Jewish standards. By the time they get to seminary, it may be too late. Most of today's rabbinical students did not attend Jewish elementary or high schools, though they are likely to have attended Camp Ramah. The attitudes revealed in the JTS survey hammer home the need, now more than ever, for the community to find ways to provide its youth with, yes, a parochial education.
The JTS report concludes that the younger cohort of rabbinical students is "no less connected" to Israel than its elders. Yet, for many, this connection seems compromised by the felt need to reconcile their attachment with uncritically assimilated universalist ideals and, in extreme cases, left-liberal dogma that is anti-Zionist. No amount of redefining what it means to be pro-Israel can paper over the predicament facing Conservative Judaism's future leaders: What is the place of the movement in Jewish life if not as an embodiment of political and theological centrism and moderation?
But if the new crop of Conservative rabbis has anything to say about it, Conservatism may not occupy the center for very long. That, at least, is the message of a recent report by the movement's Jewish Theological Seminary, based on a survey of political views among "Generation Y" rabbinical students—born in the mid-1970's to mid-1990's—and the Seminary's somewhat older rabbinical alumni, ordained since 1980.
At first blush, the report purports to show what one would hope to find among the rabbinate: a solid Jewish identity and strong attachment to Israel. On closer examination, this identity appears increasingly filtered through a universalistic and liberal political perspective. Among American Jews as a whole, according to the Pew Forum, 38 percent identify themselves as liberal; 39 percent call themselves moderate. In contrast, 58 percent of the Conservative rabbis surveyed—and 69 percent of the rabbinical students—called themselves liberal. It's hard to defend the center when you're not in it.
These rabbis and rabbinical students are "pro-Israel," but they are redefining what "pro-Israel" means. As liberals, they hold an optimistic view of human nature: Though Palestinian leaders see their conflict with Israel as a zero-sum game, it seems hard for the rabbis to acknowledge this grim fact. Instead, they get their understanding of events in Israel from ideologically reinforcing left-oriented sources: liberal media outlets, Facebook posts, and Haaretz. These sources help explain the conspicuous disconnect between the next generation of Conservative rabbis and mainstream American Jews on the subject of the Arab-Israel conflict. More than three-quarters of American Jews, according to the latest American Jewish Committee survey, believe that the Arabs' goal is not merely the return of the "occupied territories" but the actual "destruction of Israel." Only 30 percent of the JTS rabbinical students agreed with a similar statement.
Indeed, fully 12 percent of the rabbinical students are "uncomfortable" with Israel's being a "Jewish state." To individuals with this universalistic bent, moral relativism comes more naturally. Most of the future rabbis—all of whom have studied in Israel—do not see Palestinian leaders as their enemies. A majority, 56 percent, say the Palestinian side is no "more to blame" than Israel for the ongoing conflict. Sure, Hamas dominates Gaza. Yes, the West Bank Fatah leadership refused to negotiate with the Netanyahu government during a ten-month settlement freeze. Even so, a majority of the rabbis wants an Israeli withdrawal to the 1967 borders, with "land swaps" and a freeze on any "expansion of settlements in the West Bank."
Compare these views with the position of most American Jews in the face of unremitting Palestinian intransigence: 55 percent, according to an AJC poll, oppose a Palestinian state. In equally stark contrast, most Israelis, regardless of their political views, simply do not believe that today's Palestinian leadership is capable of making peace with Israel.
The JTS survey elicited the opinion of 68 percent of the rabbinical students that the "settler movement"—not just extremist settlers, mind you—is a "threat." The survey did not bother to ask whether the Palestinians should be required to accept Israel as a Jewish state (the position of 96 percent of American Jews) or whether Mahmoud Abbas should abandon his demand for a Palestinian "right of return." The survey tells us that 72 percent of the rabbinical students have engaged in efforts at dialogue with Arabs: Some head to Ramallah for the opportunity to socialize with Palestinians, while others take excursions to West Bank Arab villages with New Israel Fund-supported activists. The survey says nothing about any commensurate efforts by the rabbis to understand the "settler mindset." Many report having visited a "settlement"; but the definition of "settlement" and the auspices under which the visits were made are left to our imagination.
We can guess the reasons for the disparate treatment of Palestinians and settlers. The rabbis believe AIPAC is not liberal enough. J Street, whose platform practically mirrors that of the Palestinian Authority, is closer to their hearts, with 58 percent approval. At 80 percent approval, the New Israel Fund is the absolute cat's meow.
The 63-year-old Zionist enterprise is a work-in-progress. No Israeli would suggest it is beyond criticism. But 30 percent of Reform rabbinical students return from Israel feeling "hostile" or "indifferent" toward the Jewish state; now we learn that 53 percent of JTS rabbinical students are "sometimes" or "often" ashamed of Israel. Is it the ultra-Orthodox stranglehold on state-controlled religious life that alienates them? Too bad, then, that so few future Conservative rabbis volunteer extensively at Conservative-affiliated Masorti congregations in Israel.
Seminaries and professors have been unable or unwilling to provide their students with the moral compass needed to navigate between worthy universalistic values and particularistic Jewish standards. By the time they get to seminary, it may be too late. Most of today's rabbinical students did not attend Jewish elementary or high schools, though they are likely to have attended Camp Ramah. The attitudes revealed in the JTS survey hammer home the need, now more than ever, for the community to find ways to provide its youth with, yes, a parochial education.
The JTS report concludes that the younger cohort of rabbinical students is "no less connected" to Israel than its elders. Yet, for many, this connection seems compromised by the felt need to reconcile their attachment with uncritically assimilated universalist ideals and, in extreme cases, left-liberal dogma that is anti-Zionist. No amount of redefining what it means to be pro-Israel can paper over the predicament facing Conservative Judaism's future leaders: What is the place of the movement in Jewish life if not as an embodiment of political and theological centrism and moderation?
Friday, October 21, 2011
More reason not to get complacent re Iran www.rabbijonathanginsburg.org
Iran's Nuclear Program: The Full Picture - J.E. Dyer
A widely referenced Washington Post story has got folks feeling complacent about Iran's nuclear program. The piece, crediting Stuxnet and sanctions, speaks of a "sharp decline" in the output of low-enriched uranium (LEU) at the Natanz enrichment facility, along with the aging and low-performing condition of Iran's original Pakistani-design centrifuge cascades. Meanwhile, sanctions have apparently made it impossible for Iran to import high-strength maraging steel, forcing the Iranians to manufacture their newest centrifuges from less reliable carbon fiber.
But one of the most important facts is that, according to the September 2011 IAEA report, Iran had - as of mid-August 2011 - piled up a total of 4,543 kg. of LEU. By Western intelligence estimates, that is enough for 4 nuclear warheads. While the efficiency of production has declined and the Iranians are now using more centrifuges to produce the same amount of LEU, between May and August 2011, Iran still produced enough LEU on an annualized basis for a nuclear warhead per year. The writer is a retired commander who served in U.S. Naval intelligence. (Hot Air)
See also UK: Iran Nuclear Issue to Grow More Urgent - Adrian Croft
Tackling Iran's nuclear program will become more urgent over the next year and the world must not be distracted from it by the focus on the Arab Spring popular uprisings, British Foreign Secretary William Hague said on Tuesday. This was because Iran had stepped up its nuclear work by increasing the fissile content of its enriched uranium to the 20% level and moving centrifuge machines to a previously secret underground bunker near Qom. (Reuters)
See also Iran's Nuclear Program Suffering New Setbacks, Diplomats and Experts Say - Joby Warrick (Washington Post)
See also Report: Iran Could Make Atom Bomb Material Despite Hurdles
Iran's nuclear program is struggling with low-performing enrichment machines but it would still be able to produce material that could be used for atomic bombs, according to a U.S. think tank. "Is the Iranian enrichment program on a trajectory toward being dedicated to producing weapon-grade uranium for nuclear weapons?" the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) asked and replied: "Unfortunately, despite its severe limitations, this program is able to do so." (Reuters)
A widely referenced Washington Post story has got folks feeling complacent about Iran's nuclear program. The piece, crediting Stuxnet and sanctions, speaks of a "sharp decline" in the output of low-enriched uranium (LEU) at the Natanz enrichment facility, along with the aging and low-performing condition of Iran's original Pakistani-design centrifuge cascades. Meanwhile, sanctions have apparently made it impossible for Iran to import high-strength maraging steel, forcing the Iranians to manufacture their newest centrifuges from less reliable carbon fiber.
But one of the most important facts is that, according to the September 2011 IAEA report, Iran had - as of mid-August 2011 - piled up a total of 4,543 kg. of LEU. By Western intelligence estimates, that is enough for 4 nuclear warheads. While the efficiency of production has declined and the Iranians are now using more centrifuges to produce the same amount of LEU, between May and August 2011, Iran still produced enough LEU on an annualized basis for a nuclear warhead per year. The writer is a retired commander who served in U.S. Naval intelligence. (Hot Air)
See also UK: Iran Nuclear Issue to Grow More Urgent - Adrian Croft
Tackling Iran's nuclear program will become more urgent over the next year and the world must not be distracted from it by the focus on the Arab Spring popular uprisings, British Foreign Secretary William Hague said on Tuesday. This was because Iran had stepped up its nuclear work by increasing the fissile content of its enriched uranium to the 20% level and moving centrifuge machines to a previously secret underground bunker near Qom. (Reuters)
See also Iran's Nuclear Program Suffering New Setbacks, Diplomats and Experts Say - Joby Warrick (Washington Post)
See also Report: Iran Could Make Atom Bomb Material Despite Hurdles
Iran's nuclear program is struggling with low-performing enrichment machines but it would still be able to produce material that could be used for atomic bombs, according to a U.S. think tank. "Is the Iranian enrichment program on a trajectory toward being dedicated to producing weapon-grade uranium for nuclear weapons?" the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) asked and replied: "Unfortunately, despite its severe limitations, this program is able to do so." (Reuters)
Wednesday, October 19, 2011
repub candidates need to hire me as their argument maker
anemic responses last night to the question on cutting foreing aid to Israel. here is my video on it 9from former national HS debate national champion 1974)
Monday, October 17, 2011
Why Israel made the Shalit deal www.rabbijonathanginsnurg.org
· OPINION
· OCTOBER 17, 2011
Israel's Deals With the Devils
What explains its lopsided prisoner exchange with the terrorist group Hamas, which will save one life now but endanger many lives in the future?
By ROBERT H. MNOOKIN
It's hard to think straight when negotiating with an adversary you claim is evil, and Israel proved it last week. The usual problem is a refusal to negotiate at all. Here the Israelis made what seems to be a crazy deal.
In a lopsided prisoner exchange, the Netanyahu government agreed to release about 1,000 Palestinian prisoners in exchange for a single life: that of Gilad Shalit, an Israeli corporal kidnapped by Hamas in a cross-border raid in 2006 and held hostage in Gaza. What explains this decision?
Israel has always claimed it will not negotiate with what it considers terrorist organizations. Chief among those groups is Hamas, which has repeatedly expressed its commitment to the destruction of the Jewish state. The deal announced on Oct. 11 was the result of months of secret negotiations between the Israeli government and Hamas, facilitated by the Egyptian government. Israel may claim that no one in the government ever met face-to-face with representatives of Hamas, and it is possible that the two adversaries worked out the details by exchanging offers and counteroffers through Egyptian intermediaries. But this fig leaf hardly hides the fact that a deal was negotiated.
I am not claiming that a government should never deal with terrorists under the table. Many governments maintain an official policy of never negotiating with terrorists, pirates or evil regimes—while secretly violating that policy when important interests are at stake.
In some situations this may be a pragmatic approach: Hypocrisy is at times the handmaiden of statecraft. But in this case, Israel is only compounding the damage from previous deals.
For example, in the Jibril Agreement of 1985 (made with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine), Israel freed 1,150 prisoners in exchange for the release of three Israelis captured during the first Lebanon war. And in 1998 Israel and its ally, the South Lebanese Army, released 65 prisoners to Hezbollah in exchange for the remains of one dead Israeli soldier.
In cost-benefit terms these exchanges make little sense. Israel has typically justified such deals on the ground that Israel has a citizen army in which nearly all Jewish citizens (except the ultraorthodox) must serve. In asking its citizens to risk their lives in service of their country, part of Israel's implicit bargain is that it will make every effort to recover anyone who falls into enemy hands.
This justification would hardly seem rational to any hard-headed security analyst who thought through the long-run costs and benefits. In the present case, one Israeli soldier has regained his freedom. But to free 1,000 prisoners in exchange? Israeli parents may on some unthinking level feel better about their government's concern for each individual soldier. But the deal jeopardizes the freedom and safety of many Israelis in the future.
The most direct security threat is perhaps posed by the about-to-be-freed prisoners themselves. Some have "blood on their hands"—they were imprisoned after a trial demonstrating their participation in specific terrorist acts. They may well commit additional terrorist acts. In 2004, Israel exchanged several hundred Palestinian prisoners for an Israeli held captive by Hezbollah (and the remains of three soldiers). Drawing on government figures, Nadav Shragi noted in a report by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs that "those freed in the deal had murdered 35 Israelis" by 2007.
A more substantial cost is that of precedent. Just as paying a high ransom to pirates may encourage more piracy, paying this ransom to Hamas may encourage Israel's enemies to engage in more kidnapping.
A third cost is political. The deal enhances substantially the political standing of Hamas and further weakens its rival Fatah. Hamas cleverly negotiated for the release of not simply its own members, but members of Fatah as well as Palestinians who are Israeli citizens. In securing the release of nearly 1,000 Palestinians of mixed demographics, Hamas will claim that it is the most effective representative of all the Palestinian people.
So what may explain Israel's bargain? Gilad Shalit is a known individual: what psychologists would call an "identifiable being." His picture has been plastered throughout Israel. The Israeli press has written hundreds of articles speculating about his well-being. By contrast, the Israelis who are endangered by this deal are mere statistics—an unidentifiable group of people who may die in the future. Psychologists call these "statistical lives."
There is a long line of psychological research showing that, in making decisions, human beings will incur far greater costs to save one identifiable being from immediate peril than to enact safety measures that might save many more statistical lives. While no expense will be spared to save an identifiable miner trapped in a coal mine, there is often great political reluctance to spend an equal amount on mine safety. Such a response is entirely human, but it is not rational.
Mr. Mnookin is chair of Harvard University's Program on Negotiation. His most recent book is "Bargaining with the Devil: When to Negotiate, When to Fight" (Simon & Schuster, 2010).
· OCTOBER 17, 2011
Israel's Deals With the Devils
What explains its lopsided prisoner exchange with the terrorist group Hamas, which will save one life now but endanger many lives in the future?
By ROBERT H. MNOOKIN
It's hard to think straight when negotiating with an adversary you claim is evil, and Israel proved it last week. The usual problem is a refusal to negotiate at all. Here the Israelis made what seems to be a crazy deal.
In a lopsided prisoner exchange, the Netanyahu government agreed to release about 1,000 Palestinian prisoners in exchange for a single life: that of Gilad Shalit, an Israeli corporal kidnapped by Hamas in a cross-border raid in 2006 and held hostage in Gaza. What explains this decision?
Israel has always claimed it will not negotiate with what it considers terrorist organizations. Chief among those groups is Hamas, which has repeatedly expressed its commitment to the destruction of the Jewish state. The deal announced on Oct. 11 was the result of months of secret negotiations between the Israeli government and Hamas, facilitated by the Egyptian government. Israel may claim that no one in the government ever met face-to-face with representatives of Hamas, and it is possible that the two adversaries worked out the details by exchanging offers and counteroffers through Egyptian intermediaries. But this fig leaf hardly hides the fact that a deal was negotiated.
I am not claiming that a government should never deal with terrorists under the table. Many governments maintain an official policy of never negotiating with terrorists, pirates or evil regimes—while secretly violating that policy when important interests are at stake.
In some situations this may be a pragmatic approach: Hypocrisy is at times the handmaiden of statecraft. But in this case, Israel is only compounding the damage from previous deals.
For example, in the Jibril Agreement of 1985 (made with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine), Israel freed 1,150 prisoners in exchange for the release of three Israelis captured during the first Lebanon war. And in 1998 Israel and its ally, the South Lebanese Army, released 65 prisoners to Hezbollah in exchange for the remains of one dead Israeli soldier.
In cost-benefit terms these exchanges make little sense. Israel has typically justified such deals on the ground that Israel has a citizen army in which nearly all Jewish citizens (except the ultraorthodox) must serve. In asking its citizens to risk their lives in service of their country, part of Israel's implicit bargain is that it will make every effort to recover anyone who falls into enemy hands.
This justification would hardly seem rational to any hard-headed security analyst who thought through the long-run costs and benefits. In the present case, one Israeli soldier has regained his freedom. But to free 1,000 prisoners in exchange? Israeli parents may on some unthinking level feel better about their government's concern for each individual soldier. But the deal jeopardizes the freedom and safety of many Israelis in the future.
The most direct security threat is perhaps posed by the about-to-be-freed prisoners themselves. Some have "blood on their hands"—they were imprisoned after a trial demonstrating their participation in specific terrorist acts. They may well commit additional terrorist acts. In 2004, Israel exchanged several hundred Palestinian prisoners for an Israeli held captive by Hezbollah (and the remains of three soldiers). Drawing on government figures, Nadav Shragi noted in a report by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs that "those freed in the deal had murdered 35 Israelis" by 2007.
A more substantial cost is that of precedent. Just as paying a high ransom to pirates may encourage more piracy, paying this ransom to Hamas may encourage Israel's enemies to engage in more kidnapping.
A third cost is political. The deal enhances substantially the political standing of Hamas and further weakens its rival Fatah. Hamas cleverly negotiated for the release of not simply its own members, but members of Fatah as well as Palestinians who are Israeli citizens. In securing the release of nearly 1,000 Palestinians of mixed demographics, Hamas will claim that it is the most effective representative of all the Palestinian people.
So what may explain Israel's bargain? Gilad Shalit is a known individual: what psychologists would call an "identifiable being." His picture has been plastered throughout Israel. The Israeli press has written hundreds of articles speculating about his well-being. By contrast, the Israelis who are endangered by this deal are mere statistics—an unidentifiable group of people who may die in the future. Psychologists call these "statistical lives."
There is a long line of psychological research showing that, in making decisions, human beings will incur far greater costs to save one identifiable being from immediate peril than to enact safety measures that might save many more statistical lives. While no expense will be spared to save an identifiable miner trapped in a coal mine, there is often great political reluctance to spend an equal amount on mine safety. Such a response is entirely human, but it is not rational.
Mr. Mnookin is chair of Harvard University's Program on Negotiation. His most recent book is "Bargaining with the Devil: When to Negotiate, When to Fight" (Simon & Schuster, 2010).
Sunday, October 16, 2011
why no conversation? www.rabbijonathanginsburg.com
Iran Iran Iran in all the discussion about the Iran backed effort to kill Saudi ambassador on US spoil note 1. virtually no conversation about the effort was also to bomb the Israeli Embassay and much much worse, 2. notice how virtually no talk about the impending Iran nuclear weapons developement and their determimnation to destroy Israel and the US? Sanctions are a joke. why is no one in this country talking about going to do the responsible thing and stop them with force?
Israel does not stand alone Amb Michael Orren www.rabbijonathanginsburg.org
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/israel-does-not-stand-alone/2011/10/12/gIQAbXqyhL_print.html
Israel does not stand alone
By Michael Oren, Published: October 13
The claim of Israel’s isolation, echoed by Democratic and Republican leaders alike, is gaining status as fact. “Israel finds itself increasingly isolated, beleaguered, and besieged,” John Heilemann wrote recently in New York magazine. The Economist reported that “Israel’s isolation has . . . been underlined by the deterioration of its relations with Turkey and Egypt.” New York Times columnist Nicholas D. Kristof accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of “isolating his country,” while Thomas Friedman described Israel as “adrift at sea alone.”
But is Israel really more isolated now than in the past?
Isolation, of course, is not automatically symptomatic of bad policies. Britain was isolated fighting the Nazis at the start of World War II. Union forces were isolated early in the Civil War, as was the Continental Army at Valley Forge. “It is better to be alone than in bad company,” wrote the young George Washington. That maxim is especially apt for the Middle East today, where one of the least-isolated states, backed by both Iran and Iraq and effectively immune to United Nations sanctions, is Syria.
Israel, in fact, is significantly less isolated than at many times in its history. Before the 1967 Six-Day War, Israel faced a belligerent Egypt and Jordan and a hostile Soviet bloc, Greece, India and China — all without strategic ties with the United States. Today, Israel has peace treaties with Egypt and Jordan; excellent relations with the nations of Eastern Europe as well as Greece, India and China; and an unbreakable alliance with America. Many democracies, including Canada, Italy and the Czech Republic, stand staunchly with us. Israel has more legations abroad than ever before and recently joined the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, which comprises the most globally integrated countries. Indeed, Egypt and Germany mediated the upcoming release of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, who had been held hostage by Hamas for five years.
Israel is not responsible for the upheavals in the Arab world or for the lack of freedom that triggered them. Israelis did not elect Turkey’s Islamic-minded government or urge Syria’s army to fire on its citizens. Conversely, no change in Israeli policies can alter the historic processes transforming the region. Still, some commentators claim that, by refusing to freeze settlement construction on the West Bank and insisting on defensible borders and security guarantees, Israel isolates itself.
The settlements are not the core of the conflict. Arabs attacked us for 50 years before the first settlements were built. Netanyahu froze new construction in the settlements for an unprecedented 10 months, and still the Palestinians refused to negotiate. Settlements are not the reason that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas signed a unity pact with Hamas in May, or why, in his address to the U.N. General Assembly last month, Abbas denied the Jews’ 4,000-year connection to our homeland. As Abbas wrote in the New York Times in May, the Palestinian attempt to declare a state without making peace with Israel was about “internationalization of the conflict . . . to pursue claims against Israel” in the United Nations, not about settlements.
As for borders and security, Israel’s position reflects the 2005 withdrawal from Gaza. After uprooting all our settlements, we received not peace but thousands of Hamas rockets fired at our civilians. In Lebanon, a U.N. peace force watched while Hezbollah amassed an arsenal of 50,000 missiles. Israel’s need for defensible borders and for a long-term Israeli army presence to prevent arms smuggling into any Palestinian state is, for us, a life-and-death issue. Moreover, in a rapidly changing Middle East, we need assurances of our ability to defend ourselves if the Palestinians who support peace are overthrown by those opposed to it.
Despite repeated Palestinian efforts to isolate us, Israel is not alone. And we have a great many friends, especially in the United States, who we know would not want to imply that Israel stands alone in a dangerous region. Prime Minister Netanyahu remains committed to resuming peace talks with the Palestinians anywhere, any time, without preconditions, while insisting on the security arrangements vital to Israel’s survival. Meanwhile, we will continue to stretch out our hand for peace to all Middle Eastern peoples. To paraphrase one of George Washington’s contemporaries — if that be isolation, make the most of it.
The writer is Israel’s ambassador to the United States.
Israel does not stand alone
By Michael Oren, Published: October 13
The claim of Israel’s isolation, echoed by Democratic and Republican leaders alike, is gaining status as fact. “Israel finds itself increasingly isolated, beleaguered, and besieged,” John Heilemann wrote recently in New York magazine. The Economist reported that “Israel’s isolation has . . . been underlined by the deterioration of its relations with Turkey and Egypt.” New York Times columnist Nicholas D. Kristof accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of “isolating his country,” while Thomas Friedman described Israel as “adrift at sea alone.”
But is Israel really more isolated now than in the past?
Isolation, of course, is not automatically symptomatic of bad policies. Britain was isolated fighting the Nazis at the start of World War II. Union forces were isolated early in the Civil War, as was the Continental Army at Valley Forge. “It is better to be alone than in bad company,” wrote the young George Washington. That maxim is especially apt for the Middle East today, where one of the least-isolated states, backed by both Iran and Iraq and effectively immune to United Nations sanctions, is Syria.
Israel, in fact, is significantly less isolated than at many times in its history. Before the 1967 Six-Day War, Israel faced a belligerent Egypt and Jordan and a hostile Soviet bloc, Greece, India and China — all without strategic ties with the United States. Today, Israel has peace treaties with Egypt and Jordan; excellent relations with the nations of Eastern Europe as well as Greece, India and China; and an unbreakable alliance with America. Many democracies, including Canada, Italy and the Czech Republic, stand staunchly with us. Israel has more legations abroad than ever before and recently joined the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, which comprises the most globally integrated countries. Indeed, Egypt and Germany mediated the upcoming release of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, who had been held hostage by Hamas for five years.
Israel is not responsible for the upheavals in the Arab world or for the lack of freedom that triggered them. Israelis did not elect Turkey’s Islamic-minded government or urge Syria’s army to fire on its citizens. Conversely, no change in Israeli policies can alter the historic processes transforming the region. Still, some commentators claim that, by refusing to freeze settlement construction on the West Bank and insisting on defensible borders and security guarantees, Israel isolates itself.
The settlements are not the core of the conflict. Arabs attacked us for 50 years before the first settlements were built. Netanyahu froze new construction in the settlements for an unprecedented 10 months, and still the Palestinians refused to negotiate. Settlements are not the reason that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas signed a unity pact with Hamas in May, or why, in his address to the U.N. General Assembly last month, Abbas denied the Jews’ 4,000-year connection to our homeland. As Abbas wrote in the New York Times in May, the Palestinian attempt to declare a state without making peace with Israel was about “internationalization of the conflict . . . to pursue claims against Israel” in the United Nations, not about settlements.
As for borders and security, Israel’s position reflects the 2005 withdrawal from Gaza. After uprooting all our settlements, we received not peace but thousands of Hamas rockets fired at our civilians. In Lebanon, a U.N. peace force watched while Hezbollah amassed an arsenal of 50,000 missiles. Israel’s need for defensible borders and for a long-term Israeli army presence to prevent arms smuggling into any Palestinian state is, for us, a life-and-death issue. Moreover, in a rapidly changing Middle East, we need assurances of our ability to defend ourselves if the Palestinians who support peace are overthrown by those opposed to it.
Despite repeated Palestinian efforts to isolate us, Israel is not alone. And we have a great many friends, especially in the United States, who we know would not want to imply that Israel stands alone in a dangerous region. Prime Minister Netanyahu remains committed to resuming peace talks with the Palestinians anywhere, any time, without preconditions, while insisting on the security arrangements vital to Israel’s survival. Meanwhile, we will continue to stretch out our hand for peace to all Middle Eastern peoples. To paraphrase one of George Washington’s contemporaries — if that be isolation, make the most of it.
The writer is Israel’s ambassador to the United States.
Caroline Glick Bad Shalit Deal www.rabbijonathanginsburg.org
Home
A pact signed in Jewish blood
October 13, 2011, 6:23 PM
Comments (21) | | Print
No one denies the long suffering of the Schalit family. Noam and Aviva Schalit and their relatives have endured five years and four months of uninterrupted anguish since their son St.-Sgt. Gilad Schalit was abducted from his army post by Palestinian terrorists and spirited to Gaza in June 2006. Since then, aside from one letter and one videotaped message, they have received no signs of life from their soldier son.
There is not a Jewish household in Israel that doesn't empathize with their suffering. It isn't simply that most Israelis serve in the IDF and expect their children to serve in the IDF.
It isn't just that it could happen to any of our families.
As Jews, the concept of mutual responsibility, that we are all a big family and share a common fate, is ingrained in our collective consciousness. And so, at a deep level, the Schalit family's suffering is our collective suffering.
And yet, and yet, freedom exacts its price. The cause of freedom for the Jewish people as a whole exacts a greater sacrifice from some families than from others.
Sometimes, that sacrifice is made willingly, as in the case of the Netanyahu family.
Prof. Benzion and Tzilla Netanyahu raised their three sons to be warriors in the fight for Jewish liberty. And all three of their sons served in an elite commando unit. Their eldest son Yonatan had the privilege of commanding the unit and of leading Israeli commandos in the heroic raid to free Jewish hostages held by the PLO in Entebbe.
There, on July 4, 1976, Yonatan and his family made the ultimate sacrifice for the freedom of the Jewish people. Yonatan was killed in action. His parents and brothers were left to mourn and miss him for the rest of their lives. And yet, the Netanyahu family's sacrifice was a product of a previous decision to fight on the front lines of the war to preserve Jewish freedom.
Sometimes, the sacrifice is made less willingly.
Since Israel allowed the PLO and its terror armies to move their bases from Tunis to Judea, Samaria and Gaza in 1994, nearly 2,000 Israeli families have involuntarily paid the ultimate price for the freedom of the Jewish people. Our freedom angers our Palestinian neighbors so much that they have decided that all Israelis should die.
For instance Ruth Peled, 56, and her 14- month-old granddaughter Sinai Keinan did not volunteer to make the ultimate sacrifice for the freedom of the Jewish people when they were murdered by a Palestinian suicide bomber as they sat in an ice cream parlor in Petah Tikva in May 2002.
And five-year-old Gal Eisenman and her grandmother Noa Alon, 60, weren't planning on giving their lives for the greater good when they, together with five others, were blown to smithereens by Palestinian terrorists in June 2002 while they were waiting for a bus in Jerusalem.
Their mothers and daughters, Chen Keinan and Pnina Eisenman, had not signed up for the prospect of watching their mothers and daughters incinerated before their eyes. They did not volunteer to become bereaved mothers and orphaned daughters simultaneously.
The lives of the victims of Arab terror were stolen from their families simply because they lived and were Jews in Israel. And in the cases of the Keinan, Peled, Alon and Eisenman families, as in thousands of others, the murderers were the direct and indirect beneficiaries of terrorists-for-hostages swaps like the deal that Yonatan Netanyahu's brother, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, made this week with Hamas to secure the release of Gilad Schalit.
The deal that Netanyahu has agreed to is signed with the blood of the past victims and future victims of the terrorists he is letting go. No amount of rationalization by Netanyahu, his cheerleaders in the demented mass media, and by the defeatist, apparently incompetent heads of the Shin Bet, Mossad and IDF can dent the facts.
IT IS a statistical certainty that the release of 1,027 terrorists for Schalit will lead to the murder of untold numbers of Israelis. It has happened every single time that these blood ransoms have been paid. It will happen now.
Untold numbers of Israelis who are now sitting in their succas and celebrating Jewish freedom, who are driving in their cars, who are standing on line at the bank, who are sitting in their nursery school classrooms painting pictures of Torah scrolls for Simhat Torah will be killed for being Jewish while in Israel because Netanyahu has made this deal. The unrelenting pain of their families, left to cope with their absence, will be unimaginable.
This is a simple fact and it is beyond dispute.
It is also beyond dispute that untold numbers of IDF soldiers and officers will be abducted and held hostage. Soldiers now training for war or scrubbing the floors of their barracks, or sitting at a pub with their friends on holiday leave will one day find themselves in a dungeon in Gaza or Sinai or Lebanon undergoing unspeakable mental and physical torture for years. Their families will suffer inhuman agony.
The only thing we don't know about these future victims is their names. But we know what will become of them as surely as we know that night follows day.
Netanyahu has proven once again that taking IDF soldiers hostage is a sure bet for our Palestinian neighbors. They can murder the next batch of Sinais and Gals, Noas and Ruths. They can kill thousands of them. And they can do so knowing all along that all they need to do to win immunity for their killers is kidnap a single IDF soldier.
There is no downside to this situation for those who believe all Jews should die.
In his public statement on the Schalit deal Tuesday night, Netanyahu, like his newfound groupies in the media, invoked the Jewish tradition of pidyon shevuim, or the redemption of captives. But the Talmudic writ is not unconditional. The rabbinic sages were very clear. The ransom to be paid cannot involve the murder of other Jews.
This deal - like its predecessors - is not in line with Jewish tradition. It stands in opposition to Jewish tradition. Even in our darkest hours of powerlessness in the ghettos and the pales of exile, our leaders did not agree to pay for a life with other life. Judaism has always rejected human sacrifice.
The real question here is after five years and four months in which Schalit has been held hostage and two-and-a-half years into Netanyahu's current tenure as prime minister, why has the deal been concluded now? What has changed? The answer is that very little has changed on Netanyahu's part. After assuming office, Netanyahu essentially accepted the contours of the abysmal agreement he has now signed in Jewish blood.
Initially, there was a political rationale for his morally and strategically perverse position.
He had Defense Minister Ehud Barak and the Labor Party to consider.
Supporting this deal was one of the many abject prices that Netanyahu was expected to pay to keep Labor and Barak in his coalition.
But this rationale ended with Barak's resignation from the Labor Party in January.
Since then, Barak and his colleagues who joined him in leaving Labor have had no political leverage over Netanyahu.
They have nowhere to go. Their political life is wholly dependent on their membership in Netanyahu's government. He doesn't need to pay any price for their loyalty.
So Netanyahu's decision to sign the deal with Hamas lacks any political rationale.
WHAT HAS really changed since the deal was first put on the table two years ago is Hamas's position. Since the Syrian people began to rise up against the regime of Hamas's patron and protector President Bashar Assad, Hamas's leaders, who have been headquartered in Syria since 1998, have been looking for a way to leave. Their Muslim Brotherhood brethren are leading forces in the Western-backed Syrian opposition.
Hamas's leaders do not want to be identified with the Brotherhood's oppressor.
With the Egyptian military junta now openly massacring Christians, and with the Muslim Brotherhood rapidly becoming the dominant political force in the country, Egypt has become a far more suitable home for Hamas.
But for the past several months, Hamas leaders in Damascus have faced a dilemma. If they stay in Syria, they lose credibility. If they leave, they expose themselves to Israel.
According to Channel 2, in exchange for Schalit, beyond releasing a thousand murderers, Netanyahu agreed to give safe passage to Hamas's leaders decamping to Egypt.
What this means is that this deal is even worse for Israel than it looks on the surface.
Not only is Israel guaranteeing a reinvigoration of the Palestinian terror war against its civilians by freeing the most experienced terrorists in Palestinian society, and doing so at a time when the terror war itself is gradually escalating. Israel is squandering the opportunity to either decapitate Hamas by killing its leaders in transit, or to weaken the group by forcing its leaders to go down with Assad in Syria.
At best, Netanyahu comes out of this deal looking like a weak leader who is manipulated by and beholden to Israel's radical, surrender-crazed media. To their eternal shame, the media have been waging a five-year campaign to force Israel's leaders to capitulate to Hamas.
At worst, this deal exposes Netanyahu as a morally challenged, strategically irresponsible and foolish, opportunistic politician.
What Israel needs is a leader with the courage of one writer's convictions. Back in 1995, that writer wrote: "The release of convicted terrorists before they have served their full sentences seems like an easy and tempting way of defusing blackmail situations in which innocent people may lose their lives, but its utility is momentary at best.
"Prisoner releases only embolden terrorists by giving them the feeling that even if they are caught, their punishment will be brief. Worse, by leading terrorists to think such demands are likely to be met, they encourage precisely the terrorist blackmail they are supposed to defuse."
The writer of those lines was then-opposition leader Binyamin Netanyahu. Netanyahu wrote those lines in his book, Fighting Terrorism: How Democracies Can Defeat Domestic and International Terrorists.
Israel needs that Netanyahu to lead it. But in the face of the current Netanyahu's abject surrender to terrorism, apparently he is gone.
Originally published in The Jerusalem Post.
A pact signed in Jewish blood
October 13, 2011, 6:23 PM
Comments (21) | | Print
No one denies the long suffering of the Schalit family. Noam and Aviva Schalit and their relatives have endured five years and four months of uninterrupted anguish since their son St.-Sgt. Gilad Schalit was abducted from his army post by Palestinian terrorists and spirited to Gaza in June 2006. Since then, aside from one letter and one videotaped message, they have received no signs of life from their soldier son.
There is not a Jewish household in Israel that doesn't empathize with their suffering. It isn't simply that most Israelis serve in the IDF and expect their children to serve in the IDF.
It isn't just that it could happen to any of our families.
As Jews, the concept of mutual responsibility, that we are all a big family and share a common fate, is ingrained in our collective consciousness. And so, at a deep level, the Schalit family's suffering is our collective suffering.
And yet, and yet, freedom exacts its price. The cause of freedom for the Jewish people as a whole exacts a greater sacrifice from some families than from others.
Sometimes, that sacrifice is made willingly, as in the case of the Netanyahu family.
Prof. Benzion and Tzilla Netanyahu raised their three sons to be warriors in the fight for Jewish liberty. And all three of their sons served in an elite commando unit. Their eldest son Yonatan had the privilege of commanding the unit and of leading Israeli commandos in the heroic raid to free Jewish hostages held by the PLO in Entebbe.
There, on July 4, 1976, Yonatan and his family made the ultimate sacrifice for the freedom of the Jewish people. Yonatan was killed in action. His parents and brothers were left to mourn and miss him for the rest of their lives. And yet, the Netanyahu family's sacrifice was a product of a previous decision to fight on the front lines of the war to preserve Jewish freedom.
Sometimes, the sacrifice is made less willingly.
Since Israel allowed the PLO and its terror armies to move their bases from Tunis to Judea, Samaria and Gaza in 1994, nearly 2,000 Israeli families have involuntarily paid the ultimate price for the freedom of the Jewish people. Our freedom angers our Palestinian neighbors so much that they have decided that all Israelis should die.
For instance Ruth Peled, 56, and her 14- month-old granddaughter Sinai Keinan did not volunteer to make the ultimate sacrifice for the freedom of the Jewish people when they were murdered by a Palestinian suicide bomber as they sat in an ice cream parlor in Petah Tikva in May 2002.
And five-year-old Gal Eisenman and her grandmother Noa Alon, 60, weren't planning on giving their lives for the greater good when they, together with five others, were blown to smithereens by Palestinian terrorists in June 2002 while they were waiting for a bus in Jerusalem.
Their mothers and daughters, Chen Keinan and Pnina Eisenman, had not signed up for the prospect of watching their mothers and daughters incinerated before their eyes. They did not volunteer to become bereaved mothers and orphaned daughters simultaneously.
The lives of the victims of Arab terror were stolen from their families simply because they lived and were Jews in Israel. And in the cases of the Keinan, Peled, Alon and Eisenman families, as in thousands of others, the murderers were the direct and indirect beneficiaries of terrorists-for-hostages swaps like the deal that Yonatan Netanyahu's brother, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, made this week with Hamas to secure the release of Gilad Schalit.
The deal that Netanyahu has agreed to is signed with the blood of the past victims and future victims of the terrorists he is letting go. No amount of rationalization by Netanyahu, his cheerleaders in the demented mass media, and by the defeatist, apparently incompetent heads of the Shin Bet, Mossad and IDF can dent the facts.
IT IS a statistical certainty that the release of 1,027 terrorists for Schalit will lead to the murder of untold numbers of Israelis. It has happened every single time that these blood ransoms have been paid. It will happen now.
Untold numbers of Israelis who are now sitting in their succas and celebrating Jewish freedom, who are driving in their cars, who are standing on line at the bank, who are sitting in their nursery school classrooms painting pictures of Torah scrolls for Simhat Torah will be killed for being Jewish while in Israel because Netanyahu has made this deal. The unrelenting pain of their families, left to cope with their absence, will be unimaginable.
This is a simple fact and it is beyond dispute.
It is also beyond dispute that untold numbers of IDF soldiers and officers will be abducted and held hostage. Soldiers now training for war or scrubbing the floors of their barracks, or sitting at a pub with their friends on holiday leave will one day find themselves in a dungeon in Gaza or Sinai or Lebanon undergoing unspeakable mental and physical torture for years. Their families will suffer inhuman agony.
The only thing we don't know about these future victims is their names. But we know what will become of them as surely as we know that night follows day.
Netanyahu has proven once again that taking IDF soldiers hostage is a sure bet for our Palestinian neighbors. They can murder the next batch of Sinais and Gals, Noas and Ruths. They can kill thousands of them. And they can do so knowing all along that all they need to do to win immunity for their killers is kidnap a single IDF soldier.
There is no downside to this situation for those who believe all Jews should die.
In his public statement on the Schalit deal Tuesday night, Netanyahu, like his newfound groupies in the media, invoked the Jewish tradition of pidyon shevuim, or the redemption of captives. But the Talmudic writ is not unconditional. The rabbinic sages were very clear. The ransom to be paid cannot involve the murder of other Jews.
This deal - like its predecessors - is not in line with Jewish tradition. It stands in opposition to Jewish tradition. Even in our darkest hours of powerlessness in the ghettos and the pales of exile, our leaders did not agree to pay for a life with other life. Judaism has always rejected human sacrifice.
The real question here is after five years and four months in which Schalit has been held hostage and two-and-a-half years into Netanyahu's current tenure as prime minister, why has the deal been concluded now? What has changed? The answer is that very little has changed on Netanyahu's part. After assuming office, Netanyahu essentially accepted the contours of the abysmal agreement he has now signed in Jewish blood.
Initially, there was a political rationale for his morally and strategically perverse position.
He had Defense Minister Ehud Barak and the Labor Party to consider.
Supporting this deal was one of the many abject prices that Netanyahu was expected to pay to keep Labor and Barak in his coalition.
But this rationale ended with Barak's resignation from the Labor Party in January.
Since then, Barak and his colleagues who joined him in leaving Labor have had no political leverage over Netanyahu.
They have nowhere to go. Their political life is wholly dependent on their membership in Netanyahu's government. He doesn't need to pay any price for their loyalty.
So Netanyahu's decision to sign the deal with Hamas lacks any political rationale.
WHAT HAS really changed since the deal was first put on the table two years ago is Hamas's position. Since the Syrian people began to rise up against the regime of Hamas's patron and protector President Bashar Assad, Hamas's leaders, who have been headquartered in Syria since 1998, have been looking for a way to leave. Their Muslim Brotherhood brethren are leading forces in the Western-backed Syrian opposition.
Hamas's leaders do not want to be identified with the Brotherhood's oppressor.
With the Egyptian military junta now openly massacring Christians, and with the Muslim Brotherhood rapidly becoming the dominant political force in the country, Egypt has become a far more suitable home for Hamas.
But for the past several months, Hamas leaders in Damascus have faced a dilemma. If they stay in Syria, they lose credibility. If they leave, they expose themselves to Israel.
According to Channel 2, in exchange for Schalit, beyond releasing a thousand murderers, Netanyahu agreed to give safe passage to Hamas's leaders decamping to Egypt.
What this means is that this deal is even worse for Israel than it looks on the surface.
Not only is Israel guaranteeing a reinvigoration of the Palestinian terror war against its civilians by freeing the most experienced terrorists in Palestinian society, and doing so at a time when the terror war itself is gradually escalating. Israel is squandering the opportunity to either decapitate Hamas by killing its leaders in transit, or to weaken the group by forcing its leaders to go down with Assad in Syria.
At best, Netanyahu comes out of this deal looking like a weak leader who is manipulated by and beholden to Israel's radical, surrender-crazed media. To their eternal shame, the media have been waging a five-year campaign to force Israel's leaders to capitulate to Hamas.
At worst, this deal exposes Netanyahu as a morally challenged, strategically irresponsible and foolish, opportunistic politician.
What Israel needs is a leader with the courage of one writer's convictions. Back in 1995, that writer wrote: "The release of convicted terrorists before they have served their full sentences seems like an easy and tempting way of defusing blackmail situations in which innocent people may lose their lives, but its utility is momentary at best.
"Prisoner releases only embolden terrorists by giving them the feeling that even if they are caught, their punishment will be brief. Worse, by leading terrorists to think such demands are likely to be met, they encourage precisely the terrorist blackmail they are supposed to defuse."
The writer of those lines was then-opposition leader Binyamin Netanyahu. Netanyahu wrote those lines in his book, Fighting Terrorism: How Democracies Can Defeat Domestic and International Terrorists.
Israel needs that Netanyahu to lead it. But in the face of the current Netanyahu's abject surrender to terrorism, apparently he is gone.
Originally published in The Jerusalem Post.
Thursday, October 13, 2011
Santorum willing to go to war to stop Iran www.rabbijonathanginsburg.info
Santorum on the threat of Iran's nuclear weapons program
Posted by
CNN's Diana Ozemebhoya
Washington (CNN) – GOP presidential hopeful Rick Santorum said Thursday that as president he would use "whatever means necessary" to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear program, including going to war.
In an effort to halt the steps he says Iran is taking to grow a nuclear weapons program, the former Pennsylvania senator said on CNN's "The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer" that in addition to using covert operations he would order "actual operations within the country to make sure the program does not continue."
Posted by
CNN's Diana Ozemebhoya
Washington (CNN) – GOP presidential hopeful Rick Santorum said Thursday that as president he would use "whatever means necessary" to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear program, including going to war.
In an effort to halt the steps he says Iran is taking to grow a nuclear weapons program, the former Pennsylvania senator said on CNN's "The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer" that in addition to using covert operations he would order "actual operations within the country to make sure the program does not continue."
http://www.jewishcommunityheroes.org/nominees/profile/jonathan-ginsburg
Thanks to whomever nominated me for Jewish community Hero. See it at
http://www.jewishcommunityheroes.org/nominees/profile/jonathan-ginsburg
http://www.jewishcommunityheroes.org/nominees/profile/jonathan-ginsburg
Obama responds limpedly about Iran again www.RabbiJonathan
bama responds limpedly about Iran again www.RabbiJonathanGinsburg.info
He is mad about Iran trying to kill Saudi ambassador in US. Lauds his efforts so far to curb Iran. But
1. White House Wants to Stall Iran Sanctions
Wednesday, 16 Dec 2009 09:59 AM
By Kenneth R. Timmerman
Even before the House overwhelmingly passed long-stalled legislation Tuesday to impose sanctions on foreign suppliers of refined petroleum products to Iran, the Obama administration had asked the Senate to hold off on approving new sanctions on Iran until early next year.
In a little-noticed move Friday, Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg wrote to Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Sen. John Kerry, D.-Mass., urging him not to move similar legislation in the Senate because it “might weaken rather than strengthen international unity and support for our efforts.”
The Obama White House has used similar arguments in the past to forestall the House sanctions bill, which Democrats held for six months before finally voting it out of committee in frustration mid-October.
2. Obama to Iran: U.S. offer of dialogue still stands
By Jeff Mason And Ross Colvin Sat Mar 20 2010
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Barack Obama renewed his administration’s offer of dialogue and diplomacy with Tehran on Saturday, a year after his offer of a new beginning with Iran failed to achieve concrete results.
Obama, who addressed Iranians in a new videotaped appeal to mark the observance of Nowruz — a festival celebrating the arrival of spring — has pledged to pursue aggressive sanctions to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon.
"We are working with the international community to hold the Iranian government accountable because they refuse to live up to their international obligations," Obama said in the address released by the White House.
"But our offer of comprehensive diplomatic contacts and dialogue stands." …
During his first year in office, Obama marked Nowruz with an unprecedented message offering Iran a "new beginning" of diplomatic engagement with the United States.
3. Why is there no mention of the plot including bombing the Israeli embassy too? Doesn't Israel matter at all to him?
By JOHN STEVENS and OLIVER TREE
Last updated at 8:36 AM on 13th October 2011
House Speaker John Boehner today called on Obama to 'hold Iran's feet to the fire' in the wake of the thwarting of a 'significant terrorist act' by agents working for the Iranian government to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to America in Washington DC.
Vice President Joe Biden this morning said that 'nothing has been taken off the table' as the U.S. discusses possible sanctions and military action. He said the consequences for Iran will be 'serious'.
Retaliation: House Speaker John Boehner called on Obama to 'hold Iran's feet to the fire' after the plot was uncovered
He is accused of plotting to kill Adel Al-Jubeir by bombing a restaurant, before setting off blasts at the Saudi and Israeli embassies.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2047939/US-foils-Iran-terror-plot-kill-Saudi-ambassador-Washington-D-C.html#ixzz1agJRoLYA
He is mad about Iran trying to kill Saudi ambassador in US. Lauds his efforts so far to curb Iran. But
1. White House Wants to Stall Iran Sanctions
Wednesday, 16 Dec 2009 09:59 AM
By Kenneth R. Timmerman
Even before the House overwhelmingly passed long-stalled legislation Tuesday to impose sanctions on foreign suppliers of refined petroleum products to Iran, the Obama administration had asked the Senate to hold off on approving new sanctions on Iran until early next year.
In a little-noticed move Friday, Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg wrote to Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Sen. John Kerry, D.-Mass., urging him not to move similar legislation in the Senate because it “might weaken rather than strengthen international unity and support for our efforts.”
The Obama White House has used similar arguments in the past to forestall the House sanctions bill, which Democrats held for six months before finally voting it out of committee in frustration mid-October.
2. Obama to Iran: U.S. offer of dialogue still stands
By Jeff Mason And Ross Colvin Sat Mar 20 2010
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Barack Obama renewed his administration’s offer of dialogue and diplomacy with Tehran on Saturday, a year after his offer of a new beginning with Iran failed to achieve concrete results.
Obama, who addressed Iranians in a new videotaped appeal to mark the observance of Nowruz — a festival celebrating the arrival of spring — has pledged to pursue aggressive sanctions to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon.
"We are working with the international community to hold the Iranian government accountable because they refuse to live up to their international obligations," Obama said in the address released by the White House.
"But our offer of comprehensive diplomatic contacts and dialogue stands." …
During his first year in office, Obama marked Nowruz with an unprecedented message offering Iran a "new beginning" of diplomatic engagement with the United States.
3. Why is there no mention of the plot including bombing the Israeli embassy too? Doesn't Israel matter at all to him?
By JOHN STEVENS and OLIVER TREE
Last updated at 8:36 AM on 13th October 2011
House Speaker John Boehner today called on Obama to 'hold Iran's feet to the fire' in the wake of the thwarting of a 'significant terrorist act' by agents working for the Iranian government to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to America in Washington DC.
Vice President Joe Biden this morning said that 'nothing has been taken off the table' as the U.S. discusses possible sanctions and military action. He said the consequences for Iran will be 'serious'.
Retaliation: House Speaker John Boehner called on Obama to 'hold Iran's feet to the fire' after the plot was uncovered
He is accused of plotting to kill Adel Al-Jubeir by bombing a restaurant, before setting off blasts at the Saudi and Israeli embassies.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2047939/US-foils-Iran-terror-plot-kill-Saudi-ambassador-Washington-D-C.html#ixzz1agJRoLYA
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
Tuesday, October 4, 2011
Buy Israel Bonds now www.rabbijonathanginsburg.net
There is no better way for your members to support Israel than through a Bond purchase and there is no more compelling deliverer of this message than you.
With the attack on the Israeli embassy in Cairo, the venom and hatred directed at Israel from Turkey, regime change and pro-democracy demonstrations throughout the Arab world, and of course the Palestinian’s petition to the UN for statehood, now is the time for every Jew to show their solidarity with Israel.
The strong message of solidarity in every purchase of an Israel Bond is unmistakable when you make out your check to State of Israel and the feeling of connection is lasting and satisfying.
In these uncertain economic times rabbis and community leaders need not hesitate to mention supporting Israel with a State of Israel Bonds purchase because they are an investment not a donation. Moreover the State of Israel has never missed an interest or redemption payment ever.
contact your regional Israel Bonds office (see www.israelbonds.com for local contact information)
With the attack on the Israeli embassy in Cairo, the venom and hatred directed at Israel from Turkey, regime change and pro-democracy demonstrations throughout the Arab world, and of course the Palestinian’s petition to the UN for statehood, now is the time for every Jew to show their solidarity with Israel.
The strong message of solidarity in every purchase of an Israel Bond is unmistakable when you make out your check to State of Israel and the feeling of connection is lasting and satisfying.
In these uncertain economic times rabbis and community leaders need not hesitate to mention supporting Israel with a State of Israel Bonds purchase because they are an investment not a donation. Moreover the State of Israel has never missed an interest or redemption payment ever.
contact your regional Israel Bonds office (see www.israelbonds.com for local contact information)
Absurdity of uniltaeral Palestinian effort www.rabbijonathanginsburg.info
Land without peace: Why Abbas went to the U.N.
By Charles Krauthammer, Published: September 29
While diplomatically inconvenient for the Western powers, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s attempt to get the United Nations to unilaterally declare a Palestinian state has elicited widespread sympathy. After all, what choice did he have? According to the accepted narrative, Middle East peace is made impossible by a hard-line Likud-led Israel that refuses to accept a Palestinian state and continues to build settlements.
It is remarkable how this gross inversion of the truth has become conventional wisdom. In fact, Benjamin Netanyahu brought his Likud-led coalition to open recognition of a Palestinian state, thereby creating Israel’s first national consensus for a two-state solution. He is also the only prime minister to agree to a settlement freeze — 10 months — something no Labor or Kadima government has ever done.
To which Abbas responded by boycotting the talks for nine months, showing up in the 10th, then walking out when the freeze expired. Last week he reiterated that he will continue to boycott peace talks unless Israel gives up — in advance — claim to any territory beyond the 1967 lines. Meaning, for example, that the Jewish Quarter in Jerusalem is Palestinian territory. This is not just absurd. It violates every prior peace agreement. They all stipulate that such demands are to be the subject of negotiations, not their precondition.
Abbas unwaveringly insists on the so-called “right of return,” which would demographically destroy Israel by swamping it with millions of Arabs, thereby turning the world’s only Jewish state into the world’s 23rd Arab state. And he has repeatedly declared, as recently as last week in New York: “We shall not recognize a Jewish state.”
Nor is this new. It is perfectly consistent with the long history of Palestinian rejectionism. Consider:
●Camp David, 2000. At a U.S.-sponsored summit, Prime Minister Ehud Barak offers Yasser Arafat a Palestinian state on the West Bank and Gaza — and, astonishingly, the previously inconceivable division of Jerusalem. Arafat refuses. And makes no counteroffer, thereby demonstrating his unseriousness about making any deal. Instead, within two months, he launches a savage terror war that kills a thousand Israelis.
●Taba, 2001. An even sweeter deal — the Clinton Parameters — is offered. Arafat walks away again.
●Israel, 2008. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert makes the ultimate capitulation to Palestinian demands — 100 percent of the West Bank (with land swaps), Palestinian statehood, the division of Jerusalem with the Muslim parts becoming the capital of the new Palestine. And incredibly, he offers to turn over the city’s holy places, including the Western Wall — Judaism’s most sacred site, its Kaaba — to an international body on which sit Jordan and Saudi Arabia.
Did Abbas accept? Of course not. If he had, the conflict would be over and Palestine would already be a member of the United Nations.
This is not ancient history. All three peace talks occurred over the past decade. And every one completely contradicts the current mindless narrative of Israeli “intransigence” as the obstacle to peace.
Settlements? Every settlement remaining within the new Palestine would be destroyed and emptied, precisely as happened in Gaza.
So why did the Palestinians say no? Because saying yes would have required them to sign a final peace agreement that accepted a Jewish state on what they consider the Muslim patrimony.
The key word here is “final.” The Palestinians are quite prepared to sign interim agreements, like Oslo. Framework agreements, like Annapolis. Cease-fires, like the 1949 armistice. Anything but a final deal. Anything but a final peace. Anything but a treaty that ends the conflict once and for all — while leaving a Jewish state still standing.
After all, why did Abbas go to the United Nations last week? For nearly half a century, the United States has pursued a Middle East settlement on the basis of the formula of land for peace. Land for peace produced the Israel-Egypt peace of 1979 and the Israel-Jordan peace of 1994. Israel has offered the Palestinians land for peace three times since. And been refused every time.
Why? For exactly the same reason Abbas went to the United Nations last week: to get land without peace. Sovereignty with no reciprocal recognition of a Jewish state. Statehood without negotiations. An independent Palestine in a continued state of war with Israel.
Israel gave up land without peace in south Lebanon in 2000 and, in return, received war (the Lebanon war of 2006) and 50,000 Hezbollah missiles now targeted on the Israeli homeland. In 2005, Israel gave up land without peace in Gaza, and again was rewarded with war — and constant rocket attack from an openly genocidal Palestinian mini-state.
Israel is prepared to give up land, but never again without peace. A final peace. Which is exactly what every Palestinian leader from Haj Amin al-Husseini to Yasser Arafat to Mahmoud Abbas has refused to accept. Which is why, regardless of who is governing Israel, there has never been peace. Territorial disputes are solvable; existential conflicts are not.
Land for peace, yes. Land without peace is nothing but an invitation to national suicide.
letters@charleskrauthammer.com
By Charles Krauthammer, Published: September 29
While diplomatically inconvenient for the Western powers, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s attempt to get the United Nations to unilaterally declare a Palestinian state has elicited widespread sympathy. After all, what choice did he have? According to the accepted narrative, Middle East peace is made impossible by a hard-line Likud-led Israel that refuses to accept a Palestinian state and continues to build settlements.
It is remarkable how this gross inversion of the truth has become conventional wisdom. In fact, Benjamin Netanyahu brought his Likud-led coalition to open recognition of a Palestinian state, thereby creating Israel’s first national consensus for a two-state solution. He is also the only prime minister to agree to a settlement freeze — 10 months — something no Labor or Kadima government has ever done.
To which Abbas responded by boycotting the talks for nine months, showing up in the 10th, then walking out when the freeze expired. Last week he reiterated that he will continue to boycott peace talks unless Israel gives up — in advance — claim to any territory beyond the 1967 lines. Meaning, for example, that the Jewish Quarter in Jerusalem is Palestinian territory. This is not just absurd. It violates every prior peace agreement. They all stipulate that such demands are to be the subject of negotiations, not their precondition.
Abbas unwaveringly insists on the so-called “right of return,” which would demographically destroy Israel by swamping it with millions of Arabs, thereby turning the world’s only Jewish state into the world’s 23rd Arab state. And he has repeatedly declared, as recently as last week in New York: “We shall not recognize a Jewish state.”
Nor is this new. It is perfectly consistent with the long history of Palestinian rejectionism. Consider:
●Camp David, 2000. At a U.S.-sponsored summit, Prime Minister Ehud Barak offers Yasser Arafat a Palestinian state on the West Bank and Gaza — and, astonishingly, the previously inconceivable division of Jerusalem. Arafat refuses. And makes no counteroffer, thereby demonstrating his unseriousness about making any deal. Instead, within two months, he launches a savage terror war that kills a thousand Israelis.
●Taba, 2001. An even sweeter deal — the Clinton Parameters — is offered. Arafat walks away again.
●Israel, 2008. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert makes the ultimate capitulation to Palestinian demands — 100 percent of the West Bank (with land swaps), Palestinian statehood, the division of Jerusalem with the Muslim parts becoming the capital of the new Palestine. And incredibly, he offers to turn over the city’s holy places, including the Western Wall — Judaism’s most sacred site, its Kaaba — to an international body on which sit Jordan and Saudi Arabia.
Did Abbas accept? Of course not. If he had, the conflict would be over and Palestine would already be a member of the United Nations.
This is not ancient history. All three peace talks occurred over the past decade. And every one completely contradicts the current mindless narrative of Israeli “intransigence” as the obstacle to peace.
Settlements? Every settlement remaining within the new Palestine would be destroyed and emptied, precisely as happened in Gaza.
So why did the Palestinians say no? Because saying yes would have required them to sign a final peace agreement that accepted a Jewish state on what they consider the Muslim patrimony.
The key word here is “final.” The Palestinians are quite prepared to sign interim agreements, like Oslo. Framework agreements, like Annapolis. Cease-fires, like the 1949 armistice. Anything but a final deal. Anything but a final peace. Anything but a treaty that ends the conflict once and for all — while leaving a Jewish state still standing.
After all, why did Abbas go to the United Nations last week? For nearly half a century, the United States has pursued a Middle East settlement on the basis of the formula of land for peace. Land for peace produced the Israel-Egypt peace of 1979 and the Israel-Jordan peace of 1994. Israel has offered the Palestinians land for peace three times since. And been refused every time.
Why? For exactly the same reason Abbas went to the United Nations last week: to get land without peace. Sovereignty with no reciprocal recognition of a Jewish state. Statehood without negotiations. An independent Palestine in a continued state of war with Israel.
Israel gave up land without peace in south Lebanon in 2000 and, in return, received war (the Lebanon war of 2006) and 50,000 Hezbollah missiles now targeted on the Israeli homeland. In 2005, Israel gave up land without peace in Gaza, and again was rewarded with war — and constant rocket attack from an openly genocidal Palestinian mini-state.
Israel is prepared to give up land, but never again without peace. A final peace. Which is exactly what every Palestinian leader from Haj Amin al-Husseini to Yasser Arafat to Mahmoud Abbas has refused to accept. Which is why, regardless of who is governing Israel, there has never been peace. Territorial disputes are solvable; existential conflicts are not.
Land for peace, yes. Land without peace is nothing but an invitation to national suicide.
letters@charleskrauthammer.com
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