Celebrate Israel

The Future of the Jews - Daniel Gordis
Just after World War II when Hitler had annihilated one-third of the world's Jews, including 90% of Eastern Europe's Jews, no sane, level-headed person could have imagined that 67 years later we would have what we have. A language brought back to life, and bookstores filled with hundreds of linear feet of books in a language that just a century ago almost no one spoke. An economic engine that is the envy of many more established countries. A democracy fashioned by immigrants, most of whom had never lived in a functioning democracy. Cutting-edge health care. An army that keeps us so safe, we go days on end without even thinking about our enemies.
    It's worth remembering that the Jews have a future because the Jews have a state. There are moments when a People has earned a celebration. Yom Ha'atzmaut (Independence Day) is, without question, one of those moments. Dr. Daniel Gordis is Senior Vice President of the Shalem Center. (Jerusalem Post)

Perplexing that Blacks choose Islam

srael saves Blacks from Arab murderers. So why do so many blacks here choose Islam? The only slave traders and genocidal tendencies to Blacks in the world today and most in history were Arab Muslims.
"Israel's stock in East Africa is particularly high because of its role in gaining independence for South Sudan. Over much of South Sudan's half-century struggle for independence, Israel almost single-handedly armed and supported the black African rebels against what was widely recognized as genocide and enslavement perpetrated by the Arabic rulers based in northern Sudan. (Financial Post-Canada)"

Our future because of Israel Danny Gordis

Tell me about the future of the Jews

04/25/2012 18:25   By DANIEL GORDIS

A Dose of Nuance: The simple but often overlooked truth is that what has made this difference for Jews world over is the State of Israel.

Photo by: Marc Israel Sellem

Imagine it’s January 1946. Imagine, too, that you are exactly who you are now: thoughtful, educated, worldly, rational. And then, someone says to you, “Tell me about the future of the Jews.”

So you survey the world in January 1946. It’s a year after the liberation of Auschwitz, and just months since the war has ended. You cast your eyes toward Eastern Europe, which not much earlier had been the world’s center of Jewish life, learning, literature and culture. Eastern European Jewry is gone.

Though we commonly say that Hitler annihilated one third of the world’s Jews, that number is technically correct but misses the point. The number that really matters is that after Hitler, 90 percent of Eastern Europe’s Jews had been murdered.

Prior to the war, there had been some 3,200,000 Polish Jews. At the end of the war, merely 300,000 were left. By 1950, estimates are that 100,000 Jews remained in Poland. As far as Polish Jewry was concerned, Hitler had won.

Hitler won in Hungary, too, and throughout Eastern Europe. The great seat of Jewish life was simply no longer. There are a few Jews left there, of course, but many of those who did survive will for a long time be living under Soviet rule, which, if you’d had a crystal ball, you’d know was going to get infinitely worse long before it got any better. A future for the Jews? It did not look pretty.

You could look a bit westward. You might turn your attention to Salonika.

Some 56,000 Jews had lived there before the war; 98% of them died. Westward still, you might consider France. But the story of Vichy France would bring you no solace.

Europe, until only some 10 years earlier the center of the Jewish world, was an enormous, blood-soaked Jewish cemetery – only without markers to note the names of the millions who had been butchered.

So you might turn your attention across the Atlantic Ocean, to the United States.

But the American Jews you would have surveyed in 1946 were not the American Jews of today. Today, at AIPAC’s annual Policy Conference, for example, thousands of American Jews (and many non- Jews, as well) ascend the steps of Capitol Hill to speak to their elected officials about Israel. They do so with a sense of absolute entitlement (in the best sense of the word), with no hesitation.

But between 1938 and 1945, how many Jews ascended those steps to demand that at least one bomb be dropped on the tracks to Auschwitz, or that American shores be opened to at least some of the thousands of Jews who had literally nowhere to go? During the worst years that the Jews had known in two millennia, virtually no Jews went to Capitol Hill or the White House. There was the famous Rabbis’ March of October 1943, in which some 400 mostly Orthodox rabbis went to the White House (though FDR refused to meet with them), but that was about it.

In January 1946, American Jews did not interview for positions on Wall Street wearing a kippa, and did not seek jobs on Madison Avenue informing their prospective employers that they would not work on Shabbat. The self-confidence of American Jews that we now take so for granted was almost nowhere to be found back then. With European Jews going up smokestacks, American Jews mostly went about their business, fearful of rocking the boat of American hospitality. A future for the Jews? There was, of course, one other place where there was a sizable Jewish population – Palestine. But in Palestine, too, the shores were sealed. Tens of thousands of British troops were stationed in Palestine, not only to “keep the peace,” but to make sure that Jews did not immigrate and change the demographic balance of the country. The story of the Exodus is famous, perhaps, precisely because it ended reasonably well. Most Jews today can name not even one of the ships that sank, carrying their homeless Jews with them. In January 1946, the British weren’t budging. A future for the Jews? In January 1946, there was little cause to believe in a rich Jewish future. You might have believed that a covenant promised some Jewish future, but it would have been hard to argue it was a bright one.

Now fast-forward 66 years, to 2012.

Where do we find ourselves today? Jewish life in Europe, while facing renewed anti-Semitism in some places, is coming back to life. Berlin is one of the fastest growing Jewish communities in the world. There are Jewish cultural festivals in Poland (though staged largely by non-Jews, since there are few Jews left). In Budapest and Prague, Jewish museums, kosher restaurants and synagogues abound. Soviet Jews are largely out, and those who remain have synagogues, schools, camps and community centers. And across the ocean, the success and vibrancy of American Jewish life is legendary.

There was no way to expect any of this in 1946, no reason to even imagine it.

How did it happen? The simple but often overlooked truth is that what has made this difference for Jews world over is the State of Israel.

It was Israel’s victory in 1967 that injected energy into Soviet Jewry and led them to rattle their cage, demanding their freedom.

Post-1967, the world saw the Jews as people who would shape their own destiny.

Unlike the Tibetans (or Chechnyans or Basques, to name just a few), Jews were no longer tiptoeing around the world, waiting to see what the world had in store for them.

The re-creation of the Jewish state has changed not only how the world sees the Jews, but how the Jews see themselves.

The days of “We looked like grasshoppers to ourselves, and so we appeared to them” (Num. 13:33) are gone, and the reason is the State of Israel.

We are a people sometimes over-inclined to indulge in hand-wringing (and at others, unwilling to do the hand-wringing we ought to). And we face our challenges. Iran is worrisome, Egyptian peace is tenuous. Hila Bezaleli’s tragic death was a metaphor for the lack of accountability that plagues this country.

The behavior of Lt.-Col. Shalom Eisner, as well as the reactions to what he did, is also deeply unsettling.

But let us remember this, nevertheless: it is far too easy to lose sight of what we have accomplished. Sixty-six years ago, no sane, level-headed person could have imagined that we would have what we have. A language brought back to life, and bookstores filled with hundreds of linear feet of books in a language that just a century ago almost no one spoke. More people studying Torah now than there were in Europe at its height. An economic engine that is the envy of many supposedly more established countries. A democracy fashioned by immigrants, most of whom had never lived in a functioning democracy. Cutting-edge health care. An army that keeps us so safe, we go days on end without even thinking about our enemies.

That’s worth remembering in the midst of the attacks on us, from the international community as well as from Jews.

There’s much to repair, and too often, we fail to meet the standards we’ve set for ourselves. All true, and they demand our continued attention, but at the same time, we dare not lose sight of what we’ve built. To borrow the phrase from Virginia Slims, “we’ve come a long way, baby.”

The Jews have a future because the Jews have a state.

There are moments when a People has earned a celebration. Yom Ha’atzmaut is, without question, one of those moments.

Daniel Gordis is senior vice-president and Koret Distinguished Fellow at the Shalem Center in Jerusalem. His most recent book, Saving Israel: How the Jewish People Can Win a War that May Never End (Wiley), won the 2009 National Jewish Book Award. His next book, The Promise of Israel: Why Its Seemingly Greatest Weakness is Actually Its Greatest Strength, will be published this August.

Japanese and jewish birthrates

What do non Orthodox Jews and Japanese have in common? hint-I performed an unusual wedding recently-the bride said she really wanted to have alot of babies to do her part to make up for the Holocaust losses. Read this and substitute diaspora non-orthodox Jews and it works sadly.
"Japan is now a "net mortality society." Death rates today are routinely higher than birthrates, and the imbalance is growing. The nation is set to commence a prolonged period of depopulation. Within just a few decades, the number of people living in Japan will likely decline 20 percent. The Germans, who saw their numbers drop by an estimated 700,000 in just the years from 2002 to 2009, have a term for this new phenomenon: schrumpfende Gesellschaft, or "shrinking society." Implicit in the phrase is the understanding that a progressive peacetime depopulation will entail much more than a lowered head count. It will inescapably mean a transformation of family life, social relationships, hopes and expectations-and much more."


A Hebrew University demography professor has announced there were more Jewish births in the past year in Israel than any other time in the history of the State. According to data released by the Central Bureau of Statistics on the eve of the Jewish New Year 5771, the State of Israel has now reached a population of 7.645 million.

Professor Sergio Della-Pergola,  who holds the Professor Shlomo Argov Chair in Israel-Diaspora Studies at the university, said that the a survey he conducted indicates the Jewish population has seen a moderate increase in fertility rates in the past year (2.9 children), with the largest number of births of Jews in the nation's history.
Della-Pergola attributed the increase to various factors, including the high birth rate in the hareidi religious community and the increase in the general public due to “life satisfaction.” In addition, said the professor, despite the global economic crisis, Israel has enjoyed a relatively positive economic status compared with other countries, which impacts on the fertility rate both in Israel and abroad.
Moreover, immigration to the state is another factor affecting the increase in the population, he said.
“While in Israel this year we recorded an increase of 1.7% in the Jewish population, in the Diaspora there was a corresponding decrease of 0.2% in the number of Jews,” said Della-Pergola.

Responding to Wiesel responding to Netanyahu

www.rabbijonathanginsburg.info

Iran wants Israel's destruction

Netanyahu - "Iran Is Committed to Israel's Destruction" - Von Andrea Seibel, Clemens Wergin and Michael Borgstede (Welt am Sonntag-Germany)

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in an interview:

• "I think what [Gunter] Grass says is an absolute outrage....What Grass has said shows a collapse of moral clarity. He has created a perfect moral inversion where the aggressor becomes the victim and the victim becomes the aggressor. Where those who try to defend themselves against the threat of annihilation become the threat to world peace. And where the firefighter and not the arsonist is the real danger."
• "Here is a simple fact that apparently has eluded Mister Grass: Israel doesn't seek to destroy Iran, Iran seeks to destroy Israel and openly calls for it and works for it by building atomic bombs for that expressed purpose....Those now who agree with Gunter Grass about the Jewish state should ask themselves if they wouldn't have agreed with the slanders against the Jewish people in the time of the Holocaust....I am glad that Germany's leadership has responded clearly."
• "There is no question they [Iranian leaders] are committed to our destruction....Look at what they're doing without nuclear weapons: They've engulfed us with two poisonous tentacles: Hamas in Gaza and Hizbullah in Lebanon. They're supplying them with tens of thousands of rockets, thousands of which have already been fired on our cities, our homes. They're putting in more and more sophisticated weapons there and are developing more and more deadly weapons in Iran. And they're quite open about their express purpose of wiping Israel off the face of the earth. They also say this is the first stop. We are the small Satan, America is the great Satan."
• "The great scholar of Islam, Bernard Lewis from Princeton, has said...that for Iran's radical clerical leadership the possibility of mutually assured destruction is not a deterrent but an inducement. They have a peculiar and bizarre belief that the hidden Imam, a religious leader who disappeared a thousand years ago, would come back just about now in a hail of fire where a catastrophic exchange is required for his reappearance. And I would not bet on the rationality of this regime."

Never Again must mean action to save Jewish lives

Rabbi Joshua Hammerman writes a piece http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/never-again-is-not-enough/#.T5FjUD6n3GI.email where he argues that we also need to teach our jewish kids to celebrate Judaism, not just mourn the Holocaust. Of course we do, but I come to the opposite conclusion and had hoped his title led him to a very different conclusion-that we aren't teaching enough what never again means. How many people do you know marked Yom Hashoah in any way? How many discuss and then DO SOMETHING about the threats to the Jewish people today. Iran every day gets closer to building nuclear bombs and have stated Israel must disappear and that rabbis take on "Never Again is not enough" is that we need to sing more? Check Hebrew school curriculum and see how much is devoted to historic and current threats to Jews. Very little. Never again must mean do something to stop Iran and save Jewish lives

Why Eli Weisel is wrong and Netanyahu right

Below is what Weisel wrote disgreeing with what Netanyahu wrote which is posted below that. Weisel's flaw is: Hitler's goal was the elimination of the Jewish people, devised a system to do so and was not stopped until 6 million died. Iran's stated goal by leadership is the death of Jews, the end of Israel and is devising a method to be able to carry it out. If they bomb Israel with nuks and kill 6 million, will Weisel then agree he is wrong? He has been a huge force for teaching about the holocust, but the jews have never faced a threat as they do now, aside from Hitler, and 6 million dead is 6 million dead Jews, be it the Holocaust or Iran's nuks. Just as the world did not take Hitler seriously enough or care enough to save more Jews until too late, so too now the world, (Obama) is not doing enough. Weisel, you are tragically wrong Nobel laureate and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel has dismissed comparisons between Iran’s intentions for Israel and the fate of Jews during World War II. Asked about Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s increasing tendency to invoke parallels between the regime in Iran and the Nazis, Wiesel said the comparisons were out of place. “Iran is a threat, but can we say that it will make a second Auschwitz?” Wiesel said in an interview published in the Hebrew daily Globes on Thursday. “I don’t compare anything to the Holocaust.” Netanyahu made the parallel most recently on Wednesday night, in a speech marking Holocaust Remembrance Day, saying that warning of the Iranian threat was the best way to honor the victims of the Holocaust. “I know there are some who don’t like it when I express uncomfortable truths like these,” Netanyahu said. “They would prefer that we not speak of a nuclear Iran as an existential threat. They claim that this statement, even if it is true, only spreads fear and panic… Those who dismiss the Iranian threat as a whim or an exaggeration have learnt nothing from the Holocaust… The memory of the Holocaust is a command to learn the lessons of the past in order to ensure the future.” Wiesel, in the interview, said he did not approve of the frequency with which comparisons with the Nazis were made, and mentioned isolated incidents in which ultra-Orthodox Jews in Israel put on yellow stars in protest at ostensible persecution. “Putting yellow stars on children? And in Israel? What have we come to? The world-renowned concentration camp survivor-turned-educator decried using references to the Holocaust in the political arena and also warned against comparisons to acts of genocide that, aside from being inaccurate, only belittle the Holocaust itself. “Only Auschwitz was Auschwitz. I went to Yugoslavia when reporters said that there was a Holocaust starting there. There was genocide, but not an Auschwitz. When you make a comparison to the Holocaust it works both ways, and soon people will say what happened in Auschwitz was ‘only what happened in Bosnia.’” Wiesel does not believe that, as the generation of Holocaust survivors dies out, the events they experienced will be forgotten. There is more learning, more seminars, and more books published on the subject than ever before, he said. “Anyone who listens to a witness who experienced the Holocaust becomes a witness himself, and today they are listening to us.”

Iran must be stopped from another Holocaust

Iran's plan for a second Holocaust must be stopped John R. Bolton | Newsmax March 26, 2012 Iran's plan for a second Holocaust must be stopped Download PDF Recent advances in Iran’s nuclear weapons program show that events are moving extraordinarily swiftly, as Tehran nears the end of its decades-long quest to possess a lethal WMD capability. One thing is certain: If Iran succeeds, the Middle East – and the world – will be far more dangerous and unstable, with substantially increased prospects for further nuclear proliferation. That is why we are facing difficult, risky, and uncertain decisions. Iran has pursued nuclear weapons since the Islamic Revolution of 1979 overthrew the shah, replacing the monarchy with an authoritarian, theocratic regime. Iran today is the world's central banker for internation­al terrorism. It funds and arms terrorist groups worldwide, including Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in the Gaza Strip, Shia terrorists in Iraq, and the Sunni Taliban and other radical in Afghanistan. In February, President Obama's Director of National Intelligence James Clapper testified that Iran even had a "shotgun marriage, or marriage of convenience" with al­ Qaida. Given Iran's global sponsorship of terrorism, a nuclear Iran could easily deliver nuclear weapons via ballistic missiles (which it has developed in cooperated with North Korea) and by providing them to terrorists for use around the world. Iran's objectives in seeking nuclear weapons are clear. First, Tehran prizes them as the ultimate trump card against Israel (the "little Satan" in the words of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, leader of the 1979 Revolution) and the United States (the "great Satan"). President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has called for Israel to be "wiped off the map," and he has speculated about "a world without the United States" or Israel. Given these plainly stated intentions, if Iran were to achieve the capability to launch what former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon called a "nuclear Holocaust," only the hopelessly naive would not see Iran as an existential threat to Israel, and as a grave terrorist menace to America. For the United States, Iran would not be a serious military risk, but it would constitute a classic example of an asymmetric threat, aimed at our innocent civilians rather than military targets. Second, nuclear weapons would give Iran a firm foundation for Middle East hegemony, and would make it a significant global power. In the centuries-old regional struggle between Persians, Arabs, and other ethnic groups, these weapons would dramatically shift the local balance of power. The threat posed by a nuclear Iran would permit it to dominate the small Arab monarchies across the Persian Gulf, increase its already significant presence, malign influence over Iraq, and challenge Saudi Arabia for dominance throughout the entire theater. Iran's reach would be not only political, but also economic, as its clout grew dramatically within OPEC, with potentially enormous consequences for the international price of petroleum and the West's economy. Third, nuclear weapons would provide Iran and its Shiite faith an enormous advantage in the struggle against Sunni Muslims for dominance within Islam. This battle is currently being fought out in Syria, where Iran's support for the Assad family dictatorship constitutes a proxy war against the Sunni majority. In Bahrain, a small island off Saudi Arabia's coast (and once a province of an earlier Iranian empire), the Sunni Arab king rules a population that is 70 percent Shiite. There, "democratic" reform could well bring a pro-Tehran regime to power. Already, even before Iran acquires nuclear weapons, the Obama Justice Department has indicted IRGC officials for conspiring to kill the Saudi ambassador to Washington; one can imagine what Iran’s behavior will be once ir crosses the nuclear finish line. For these reasons, Saudi Arabia and the other oil-exporting nations of the Gulf Cooperation Council do not want Iran to have nuclear weapons any more than Israel does. Many Westerners, whether or not intending to act as propagandists for Iran, downplay the threat, contending Iran would never actually use nuclear weapons. Some argue that Iran seeks nuclear capabilities purely for defensive purposes, given America's massive atomic arsenal, and the nuclear assets of dangerous neighbors like Israel and Pakistan. Of course, Iran itself, by joining the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), committed to eschew nuclear weapons – one of those ‘solemn treaty obligations” rogue states violate casually and with impunity. But even more importantly, Iran does not actually need to use nuclear weapons to change the balance of power in the Middle. East (and globally) in profound way's. Consider, for example, how Europe would have responded in the 1990s to the breakup of Yugoslavia, if President Slobodan Milosevic's Serbia had possessed nuclear weapons. Merely holding such a capability gives Iran an advantage its aggressive use of terrorism and powerful conventional forces along cannot provide. Faced with dangerous consequences of a nuclear Iran, the United States and others have tried for decades to prevent it. Nonetheless, despite rhetoric, diplomacy, and economic sanctions, Iran has .made steady progress. Tehran is now at the point where even Leon Panetta, Obama's secretary of defense, said in January that Iran could fabricate a nuclear weapon "within about a year." Many analysts believe it could come sooner. Why have we allowed Iran to come so close to its goal? Successive U.S. presidents - Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and now Obama have repeatedly put their faith in diplomacy to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear power. Obama said in his inaugural address, "we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist." But this has always been delusional. Iran was never going to betalked out of its nuclear program, no matter how many carrots were placed before it. Iran understood that Russia and China were fully prepared to fly political cover for it in the U.N. Security Council and elsewhere, and that it could play "the Israel card" by arguing its nuclear weapons were purely defensive, a favorite line of Iran's Western friends. Of course, it is more than ironic that these Westerners are justifying a "defensive" nuclear weapons program that Iran has repeatedly denied it even has. During George W. Bush's administration, Britain, France, and Germany repeatedly tried to persuade Iran to give up its uranium-enrichment efforts (a key element in the nuclear fuel cycle, and the route to nuclear weapons through highly-enriched uranium). Iran simply used the lengthy negotiation process to overcome the scientific and technological obstacles it faced. In 2006, Hassan Rouhani, Iran's former nuclear negotiator, disdain­ fully and publicly declared: "While we were talking to the Europeans in Tehran, we were installing equipment in parts of the [uranium conversion] facility, but we still had a long way to go to complete the project. "In fact, by creating a calm environment, we were able to complete the work at Isfahan." Iran's successful strategy of deception shows that negotiations have costs as well as benefits. Europe and the United States - which continuously supported and encouraged Europe's diplomacy failed to recognize this. Iran gained both time and legitimacy, and made progress toward obtaining nuclear weapons. In return, the West gained nothing. By 2006, faced with the potentially catastrophic failure of these negotiations, the Europeans and the United States turned to the U.N. Security Council to adopt economic sanctions against Iran. Russia, China, and other council members, however, watered down the sanctions, rendering them weak. To be effective, sanctions must be comprehensive and swiftly applied and vigorously enforced, none of which has been true to date of the penal­ ties against Iran. Even oil sanctions recently adopted by the Europeans, and financial- institution sanctions forced on the Obama ad- ministration by Congress, are filled with loopholes, exemptions, and waiver provisions. Many key countries with important oil and other business dealings with Iran, such as China, India, and Turkey, have essentially said they will simply ignore any sanctions not imposed by the Security Council. Clapper testified to the Senate in January that "The sanctions as imposed so far have not caused [the Iranians] to change their behavior or their policy." Accordingly, all the spin and hype about the impact of sanctions to date has been just that, with­ out any substance whatever. Even now, the goal of Obama's sanctions policy is simply to get Iran back to the negotiating table. The administration does not even try to argue that sanctions will stop or roll back the nuclear weapons program itself. What if diplomacy did resume? It may well be in Iran's interest to restart negotiations, given its previous successes in buying time and political legitimacy. But what is the acceptable "compromise" between Iran, clearly striving to acquire nuclear weapons, and the West, which wants to prevent just that? Iran gets to keep a, small nuclear weapons program? That is plainly unacceptable. Iran gets to have a "peaceful" nu­ clear power program? That would be a fool's paradise. Given its decades­ long duplicity and complete indigenous mastery over the nuclear fuel cycle, Iran could "break out" of any commitment to purely civil use with relative ease. International monitors could not prevent cheating, as rogue states like North Korea have shown, by hiding extensive nuclear weapons programs even with U.N. inspectors in-country. And if Iran expelled the inspectors and renounced the NPT, as Pyong­yang did in 2003, what then? The unpleasant reality is that both diplomacy and sanctions have failed, are failing, and will fail to halt's Iran's steady march toward nuclearization. Indeed, the most likely outcome today is that Iran will achieve nuclear weapons, perhaps even earlier than predicted by Defense Secretary Panetta. The only surprise is that its progress has been so stately and measured, thereby showing Iran simply does not fear outside interference. In February, on the anniversary of the Islamic Revolution of 1979, Ahmadinejad announced what was already suspected: advanced centrifuges were enriching uranium at the hardened . and deeply buried centrifuge halls at Fordo, near Qom, and that Iran had successfully fabricating fuel rods for the Tehran Research Reactor. Could regime change, overthrowing the Islamic Revolution, succeed before Iran gets nuclear weapons? While it should obviously be our goal, regime change is not like turning a light switch on or off. The IRGC brutally suppressed unarmed civilians demonstrating against Iran's obviously fraudulent June 2009 presidential elections, which gave Ahmadinejad a second term. Had earlier U.S. administrations worked more extensively and effectively to aid Iran's opposition, President Obama might have been capable in 2009 of using the massive popular unrest in Iran to overthrow the regime. Unfortunately, no such preparation had been made, and Obama himself, apart from rhetorical flourishes, did little to oust the mullahs. Sanctions could facilitate regime change and warrant support for that reason. But regime change will not come in time to stop Iran from crossing the nuclear finish line. In fact, the regime is wildly unpopular. Economic mismanagement since 1979 (and not recent sanctions) has thwarted economic growth in this potentially powerful, wealthy country, creating shortages of goods and services that regularly prompt strikes and other disruptions. Iran's young people (those under 30 constitute over two-thirds of the total population) are educated and sophisticated, and know from foreign media and their own travels that they could enjoy a vastly different lifestyle if the Islamic Revolution collapsed. Finally, there is widespread ethnic dissatisfaction. Persians constitute only half of Iran's people. The Azeris, Kurds, Arabs, Baluchis, and others have long chafed under discriminatory policies. While these sources of discontent do not .coincide exactly, their very magnitude shows why the regime must cling to power through military force, which it is perfectly prepared to do. After all, the mullahs represent God's view. Why worry about mere popular opinion? . The unfortunate reality is that the only real alternative to a nuclear Iran is pre-emptive military force to break its control over the nuclear fuel cycle. The Obama administration has made it plain that it does not plan to take military action, which leaves Israel to take the initiative. Israel has twice before struck preemptively against hostile governments seeking nuclear weapons, first against Saddam Hussein's Osirak reactor outside of Baghdad in 1981, and then in September 2007, against a nuclear reactor in Syria being constructed by North Koreans. If anything, Israel may have already waited too long, by allowing Iran's Bushehr reactor to be loaded with nuclear fuel rods and operations to begin, thus potentially providing Iran with the plutonium route to nuclear weapons. Even more seriously, Iran may already have built deeply buried, hardened facilities beyond the reach of Israel's military capacity. Israel and the United States may be completely unaware of them. There is no doubt that Washington could shatter Iran's nuclear program, thus potentially buying years of valuable time. Israel acting alone, how­ ever, would be straining at the limits of its capacity. And time is growing short as the window for a military option closes. Israel does not have to destroy Iran's entire nuclear infrastructure, but only break it at key points. These include the little-publicized, but absolutely vital, Esfahan uranium-conversion plant, the uranium-enrichment halls at Natanz, and the heavy-water production facility and reactor under construction at Arak. All but Natanz are above ground, and even Natanz's buried facilities are well known, having been subject to repeated IAEA inspection. The highly sensitive centrifuges there are the key targets, not the physical structures. Israel knows exactly what it must do to destroy or irreparably damage the centrifuges, even if the hardened steel-and-concrete works largely survive an attack. The Fordo nuclear facility is harder, but it can be severely impaired, its tunnel entrances closed, and repeatedly closed in subsequent months and years should Iran try re­ opening them. Obviously, everyone worries about Tehran's potential response, and a regime not rational in Western military terms is capable of almost anything. Careful analysis, however, shows that Iran's real options, post-attack, are limited. Retaliating against U.S. military personnel or facilities in the region (including Iraq or Afghanistan), or launching terrorist attacks worldwide, would all invite a devastating American response - as would any Iranian effort to blockade the Strait of Hormuz. Iran's most likely answer would be to unleash Hezbollah and Hamas to rocket innocent Israeli civilians, thus posing a fearful threat. That is why Israel must count on the prompt re­ supply of planes and ordnance lost or expended over Iran, so it can control the airspace over Lebanon and Gaza to thwart Hezbollah or Hamas. While the Obama administration has implicitly threatened to with­ hold that resupply to pressure Israel against using force, Congress will overwhelmingly come to Israel's side if it strikes Iran. Nonetheless, even the risk of a delay in replenishment causes Israel enormous concern, obviously complicating its decision on whether to attack. Panetta's recent prediction to The Washington Post that an Israeli attack would be in the April-June period likely shows that private pressure has failed and that, not squeamish about squeezing a close ally faced with an enormous threat, Obama has turned to pressuring Israel publicly. Contrary to the Obama view, how­ ever, the United States can and should support Israel, and there would be enormous public support to do so. But ideology, not strategy, drives Obama, and his antipathy to Israel is strong and deep. He apparently fears an Israeli strike more than an Iranian nuclear weapon. President Obama's plan B is to contain and deter a nuclear Iran. This is delusional. A regime prizing life in the hereafter more than life on earth does not play by classic deterrence theories. The Soviets' atheist mindset in the Cold War at least made them more sensitive to entering the darkness of nuclear war, a sensitivity the mullahs do not register. The complexity of deterrence strategies obviously goes beyond simple psychology, but relying on deterrence against anti­ Western religious fanatics is not a winning play. Moreover, Obama's decision to withdraw U.S. combat forces from Iraq and radically shortening our time horizons in Afghanistan hardly lends credence to an Obama "commitment" to long-term containment. But even if, contrary to all the evidence, a nuclear Iran could be contained and deterred, that is still in­ sufficient. The nuclear threat doesn't stop with Iran. Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Turkey, and perhaps others in the region would get nuclear weapons if Iran did. Thus, in a relatively short period of time as these things go, five to 10 years, the volatile Middle East could have over half a dozen nuclear weapons states, an inherently dangerous and unacceptably risky outcome. And, of course, even regime change that results in representative government in Tehran will not allay fears of a nuclear Iran in Saudi Arabia or elsewhere. Their incentive to obtain their own nuclear weapons will persist, thus emphasizing the imperative of stop­ ping Iran from getting nuclear weapons in the first place. We are thus down to very unattractive options. Unfortunately, the choice is not between the world as it is today versus a world after a pre- emptive strike against Iran's nuclear infrastructure. That choice would be easy. Unfortunately, however, the world as it is today is disappearing, soon to be replaced by a world where Iran has nuclear weapons. The choice in reality, therefore, is between that nightmare world, and a world after a pre-emptive strike. As dangerous and hostile as the world after a strike might be, a world where Iran has nuclear weapons would be far more dangerous and hostile. Israel will soon have to make that choice, and America, either under Obama or under his successor, will have to deal with it. Time will tell -and time may well be growing short. John Bolton currently a senior fellow at AEI and a Fox News contributo

Holocaust message 2012

Observations: Holocaust Remembrance Day - 2012 - Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (Prime Minister's Office) Our enemies tried to bury the Jewish future, but it was reborn in the land of our forefathers. On this day, when our entire nation gathers together to remember the horrors of the Holocaust and the six million Jews who were murdered, we must fulfill our most sacred obligation. This obligation is not merely an obligation to remember the past. It is an obligation to learn its lessons, and, most importantly, to apply them to the present in order to secure the future of our people. This is especially true for this generation - a generation that once again is faced with calls to annihilate the Jewish state. Today, the regime in Iran openly calls and determinedly works for our destruction. And it is feverishly working to develop atomic weapons to achieve that goal. There are those who prefer that we not speak of a nuclear Iran as an existential threat. But those who dismiss Iran's threats as exaggerated or as mere idle posturing have learned nothing from the Holocaust. To cower from speaking the uncomfortable truth - that today, like then, there are those who want to destroy millions of Jewish people - is to belittle the Holocaust and ignore its lessons. The truth is that a nuclear-armed Iran is an existential threat to the State of Israel. The truth is that a nuclear-armed Iran is a political threat to other countries throughout the region and a grave threat to world peace. The truth is that Iran must be stopped from obtaining nuclear weapons. www.rabbijonathanginsburg.com

Anti Israel congressmen including Jews

74 Anti-Israel Democrats Posted by Ben Shapiro Bio ↓ on Apr 19th, 2012 Comments ↓ 58 Print This Post A A A One of the favorite myths of the left is that the right is the source of all anti-Semitism. To be sure, there are anti-Semites on the right – much of the constituency of Ron Paul is deeply anti-Semitic, as is the Pat Buchanan crew. But while many conservatives sympathize with Ron Paul’s small government program, both Paul and Buchanan are considered fringe characters on the right overall. The same is not true for the left. Mainstream figures on the American left rub elbows with anti-Semites on a regular basis. Many of them embrace the anti-Semitic program of forcing Israel into concessions to terror groups like Hamas. And many of them sit in Congress. Even as Israel faces attack from Iran, Egypt, and Gaza, 74 House Democrats joined J Street, the radical front group for George Soros that essentially advocates for the destruction of the State of Israel. J Street, as Breitbart.com editor-in-chief Joel Pollak has pointed out, has supported the morally depraved Goldstone Report and opposed sanctions against Iran. J Street has purportedly backed off of some of these positions, likely at the behest of the Obama administration, which has been feeling so much heat from the Jewish community that it reportedly asked Media Matters to dump its in-house anti-Semite, M.J. Rosenberg. The newest J Street initiative is the Cohen-Yarmuth-Connolly letter, named after three members of Congress: Steve Cohen (D-TN), John Yarmuth (D-KY), and Gerry Connolly (D-VA). The letter itself pushed the Obama administration to take a harsher role in the peace process, effectively forcing Israel into concessions to terror groups. Here’s a full list of the signatories to J Street’s letter: Steve Cohen (TN-9) Gerald Connolly (VA-11) John Yarmuth (KY-3) Tammy Baldwin (WI-2) Earl Blumenauer (OR-3) Suzanne Bonamici (OR-1) Bruce Braley (IA-1) Lois Capps (CA-23) Michael Capuano (MA-8) Andre Carson (IN-7) Hansen Clarke (MI-13) William Lacy Clay (MO-1) Emanuel Cleaver II (MO-5) John Conyers, Jr. (MI-14) Jim Cooper (TN-5) Danny Davis (IL-7) Susan Davis (CA-53) Peter DeFazio (OR-4) Diana DeGette (CO-1) Rosa DeLauro (CT-3) John Dingell (MI-15) Lloyd Doggett (TX-25) Mike Doyle (PA-14) Donna Edwards (MD-4) Keith Ellison (MN-5) Anna Eshoo (CA-14) Sam Farr (CA-17) Chaka Fattah (PA-2) Bob Filner (CA-51) Charlie Gonzalez (TX-20) Raul Grijalva (AZ-7) Luis Gutierrez (IL-4) Martin Heinrich (NM-1) Maurice Hinchey (NY-22) Rush Holt (NJ-12) Jesse Jackson, Jr. (IL-2) Eddie Bernice Johnson (TX-30) Hank Johnson (GA-4) Ron Kind (WI-3) Barbara Lee (CA-9) John Lewis (GA-5) Dave Loebsack (IA-2) Stephen Lynch (MA-9) Edward Markey (MA-7) Betty McCollum (MN-4) Jim McDermott (WA-7) Jim McGovern (MA-3) Brad Miller (NC-13) George Miller (CA-7) James Moran (VA-8) Eleanor Holmes Norton (DC) John Olver (MA-1) Ed Pastor (AZ-4) Chellie Pingree (ME-1) Jared Polis (CO-2) David Price (NC-4) Charles Rangel (NY-15) Laura Richardson (CA-37) Lucille Roybal-Allard (CA-34) Bobby Rush (IL-1) Jan Schakowsky (IL-9) Kurt Schrader (OR-5) Louise Slaughter (NY-28) Adam Smith (WA-9) Pete Stark (CA-13) Mike Thompson (CA-1) John Tierney (MA-6) Paul Tonko (NY-21) Nydia Velazquez (NY-12) Chris Van Hollen (MD-8) Melvin Watt (NC-12) Henry Waxman (CA-30) Peter Welch (VT-AL) Lynn Woolsey (CA-6) There are a number of prominent Jewish congresspeople on this list. There’s a reason for that: one of the great goals of the Obama administration has been the mainstreaming of J Street. AIPAC’s supporters have largely turned on the Obama administration, seeing it as a force hostile to Israel; J Street was an attempt to build a counterweight to AIPAC that could sucker Jews into supporting the Democrats no matter how anti-Israel they became. One crucial factor in accomplishing that goal was creating the perception that Jews in Congress, who just must be pro-Israel since they’re Jewish, back J Street. That effort, unfortunately for the left has failed. J Street remains an extremist organization, and one dedicated to harming Israel. And the Congresspeople who signed onto this letter – with a few exceptions — are generally no friends to Israel. Chris Van Hollen, for example, urged the Bush administration to back a ceasefire during the Israel-Lebanon war that would have protected Hezbollah; Jim McDermott, when he wasn’t spending time flacking for Saddam Hussein, was voting against a House Resolution supporting Israeli action in Lebanon. The list goes on and on. The Democratic Party is the new home of anti-Semitism and anti-Israel sentiment. Their association with J Street cements that status.

Muslims students stop free speech

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Never again evidently not serious

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Just take abuse?

So pro palestinian provocateur strikes IDF soldier with stick, breaks 2 fingers, and then the world gets mad that the soldier struck back. Jews are just supposed to take abuse lying down.

Sanctions won't work

Barak: Sanctions Won't Halt Iran's Nuclear Bid Defense Minister Ehud Barak admits deep misgivings about Western sanctions and upcoming nuclear talks with Iran and the P5+1 By Gabe Kahn First Publish: 4/9/2012, 11:04 PM Ehud Barak Flash 90 Defense Minister Ehud Barak on Sunday expressed deep misgivings about upcoming talks between Iran and the so-called P5+1, and the efficacy of sanctions on Tehran. "It is clear that the depths of the sanctions is different for what we had in the past, and it has its impact both the closing of the swift clearing system as well as the sanctions on the oil export and, of course, the coming negotiations that will probably encourage them to move," Barak told CNNs Fareed Zakaria during a lengthy interview. "But to tell the truth, we hope for the better, but I don't believe that this amount of sanctions and pressure will bring the Iranian leadership to the conclusion that they have to stop their nuclear military program," he added. During the interview Barak told Zakaria in no uncertain terms what Iran would have to agree to in order to avert an Israeli strike on its nuclear facilities. "We are not against any kind of effective and urgent sanctions, not even against negotiations. But we told our American friends as well as the Europeans that we would have expected the threshold for successful negotiation to be clear, namely that the P5+1 will demand clearly that, number one, no more enrichment to 20 percent," Barak said. "All the already enriched 20 percent material out of the country to a neighboring trusted country. Then all the material enriched to 3.5 percent, probably except for a few hundred kilograms, should be taken out of the country, once again, into a neighboring trusted country. "Number three, the installation in Fordo near Qom under the ground should be decommissioned in order not to enable them to resume enrichment to 20 percent, and tight inspection by the IAEA, according to protocol 3.1, should be imposed. "If all these are met, even if they get in exchange fuel rods for their TLR, their research reactor and so on, that could be OK. It would be a different regime," Barak explained. However, Barak was also clear that Iran's current proposal of merely halting the enrichment of uranium to 20% would be unacceptable to Israel. "But if the P5+1 will settle for a much lower threshold, like just stop enriching 20 percent, it means that basically the Iranians, at a very cheap cost, bought their way into continuing their military program, slightly slower, but without sanctions. That will be a total change of direction for the world. "I really see it as a major change for the whole world. I really see it as a critical time for the rest of the world as well. And I really think that the tightest possible sanctions and steps against Iran should be ratcheting in a way that will effectively corner it," Barak said. Later, Barak concluded the interview saying Israel was in a unique and dangerous position on the world stage, and stood with a sword in one hand and an olive branch in the other. "We realize we are living in a tough neighborhood, no mercy for the weak and no second opportunity for those who cannot defend themselves. We want to be strong, ready to protect ourselves, under whatever kind of threat, but at the same time, stretching out our hand to make peace with any neighbor who is ready for it," Barak said.

Obama disaster Iran

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Romney Netanyahu close

A Friendship Dating to 1976 Resonates in 2012 By MICHAEL BARBARO The two young men had woefully little in common: one was a wealthy Mormon from Michigan, the other a middle-class Jew from Israel. But in 1976, the lives of Mitt Romney and Benjamin Netanyahu intersected, briefly but indelibly, in the 16th-floor offices of the Boston Consulting Group, where both had been recruited as corporate advisers. At the most formative time of their careers, they sized each other up during the firm’s weekly brainstorming sessions, absorbing the same profoundly analytical view of the world. That shared experience decades ago led to a warm friendship, little known to outsiders, that is now rich with political intrigue. Mr. Netanyahu, the prime minister of Israel, is making the case for military action against Iran as Mr. Romney, the likely Republican presidential nominee, is attacking the Obama administration for not supporting Mr. Netanyahu more robustly. The relationship between Mr. Netanyahu and Mr. Romney — nurtured over meals in Boston, New York and Jerusalem, strengthened by a network of mutual friends and heightened by their conservative ideologies — has resulted in an unusually frank exchange of advice and insights on topics like politics, economics and the Middle East. When Mr. Romney was the governor of Massachusetts, Mr. Netanyahu offered him firsthand pointers on how to shrink the size of government. When Mr. Netanyahu wanted to encourage pension funds to divest from businesses tied to Iran, Mr. Romney counseled him on which American officials to meet with. And when Mr. Romney first ran for president, Mr. Netanyahu presciently asked him whether he thought Newt Gingrich would ever jump into the race. Only a few weeks ago, on Super Tuesday, Mr. Netanyahu delivered a personal briefing by telephone to Mr. Romney about the situation in Iran. “We can almost speak in shorthand,” Mr. Romney said in an interview. “We share common experiences and have a perspective and underpinning which is similar.” Mr. Netanyahu attributed their “easy communication” to what he called “B.C.G.’s intellectually rigorous boot camp.” “So despite our very different backgrounds,” he said through an aide, “my sense is that we employ similar methods in analyzing problems and coming up with solutions for them.” The ties between Mr. Romney and Mr. Netanyahu stand out because there is little precedent for two politicians of their stature to have such a history together that predates their entry into government. And that history could well influence decision-making at a time when the United States may face crucial questions about whether to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities or support Israel in such an action. Mr. Romney has suggested that he would not make any significant policy decisions about Israel without consulting Mr. Netanyahu — a level of deference that could raise eyebrows given Mr. Netanyahu’s polarizing reputation, even as it appeals to the neoconservatives and evangelical Christians who are fiercely protective of Israel. In a telling exchange during a debate in December, Mr. Romney criticized Mr. Gingrich for making a disparaging remark about Palestinians, declaring: “Before I made a statement of that nature, I’d get on the phone to my friend Bibi Netanyahu and say: ‘Would it help if I say this? What would you like me to do?’ “ Martin S. Indyk, a United States ambassador to Israel in the Clinton administration, said that whether intentional or not, Mr. Romney’s statement implied that he would “subcontract Middle East policy to Israel.” “That, of course, would be inappropriate,” he added. Mr. Netanyahu insists that he is neutral in the presidential election, but he has at best a fraught relationship with President Obama. For years, the prime minister has skillfully mobilized many Jewish groups and Congressional Republicans to pressure the Obama administration into taking a more confrontational approach against Iran. “To the extent that their personal relationship would give Netanyahu entree to the Romney White House in a way that he doesn’t now have to the Obama White House,” Mr. Indyk said, “the prime minister would certainly consider that to be a significant advantage.” It was a quirk of history that the two men met at all. In the 1970s, both chose to attend business school in Boston — Harvard for Mr. Romney, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for Mr. Netanyahu. After graduating near the top of their classes, they had their pick of jobs at the nation’s biggest and most prestigious consulting firms. The Boston Consulting Group did not yet qualify as either. Its founder, Bruce D. Henderson, was considered brilliant but idiosyncratic; his unorthodox theories — about measuring a company’s success by its market share, and dividing businesses into categories like “cash cows” and “dogs” — were then regarded as outside the mainstream of corporate consulting. As Mr. Romney recalled, the faculty and students at Harvard Business School routinely mocked the firm’s recruitment posters. “Boston Consulting was at the time a firm that seemed somewhat under siege,” he said. But the company’s status as a pioneering upstart, nipping on the heels of bigger blue-chip firms like McKinsey and Booz Allen, fostered a deep camaraderie among its young employees, who traveled around the country advising clients like General Foods and the Mead Corporation. Even in a firm of 100 M.B.A.’s, Mr. Romney and Mr. Netanyahu managed to stand apart, as much for their biography as for their brainpower. Mr. Romney’s father, a former governor of Michigan, had sought the Republican presidential nomination a few years earlier. Mr. Netanyahu had his own exotic résumé: he had just completed a tour of duty in an elite special forces unit of the Israeli military. “Both clearly had an aura around them,” said Alan Weyl, who worked at the firm from 1975 to 1989. Although they never worked closely on a project together, Mr. Romney and Mr. Netanyahu, competitive by nature, left deep impressions on each other, which appear to have only grown. Mr. Romney, never known for his lack of self-confidence, still recalls the sense of envy he felt watching Mr. Netanyahu effortlessly hold court during the firm’s Monday morning meetings, when consultants presented their work and fielded questions from their colleagues. The sessions were renowned for their sometimes grueling interrogations. “He was a strong personality with a distinct point of view,” Mr. Romney said. “I aspired to the same kind of perspective.” Over dinner years later, aides said, Mr. Netanyahu would reveal the depth of his own scorekeeping, when he quipped, with mostly playful chagrin, that Mr. Romney had been “Henderson’s favorite.” “His star,” the prime minister said of Mr. Romney’s time at Boston Consulting, “had already risen.” Mr. Romney worked at the company from 1975 to 1977; Mr. Netanyahu was involved from 1976 to 1978. But a month after Mr. Netanyahu arrived, he returned to Israel to start an antiterrorism foundation in memory of his brother, an officer killed while leading the hostage rescue force at Entebbe, Uganda. An aide said he sporadically returned to the company over the rest of that two-year period. Mr. Romney later decamped to Bain & Company, a rival of Boston Consulting. They did, however, maintain a significant link: at Bain, Mr. Romney worked closely with Fleur Cates, Mr. Netanyahu’s second wife. (Ms. Cates and Mr. Netanyahu divorced in the mid-1980s, but she remains in touch with Mr. Romney.) The men reconnected shortly after 2003 when Mr. Romney became the governor of Massachusetts. Mr. Netanyahu paid him a visit, eager to swap tales of government life. Mr. Netanyahu, who had recently stepped down as Israel’s finance minister, regaled Mr. Romney with stories of how, in the tradition of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, he had challenged unionized workers over control of their pensions, reduced taxes and privatized formerly government-run industries, reducing the role of government in private enterprise. He encouraged Mr. Romney to look for ways to do the same. As Mr. Romney recalled, Mr. Netanyahu told him of a favorite memory from basic training about a soldier trying to race his comrades with a fat man atop his shoulders. Naturally, he loses. “Government,” Mr. Romney recalled him saying, “is the guy on your shoulders.” As governor, Mr. Romney said, he frequently repeated the story to the heads of various agencies, reminding them that their job as regulators was to “catch the bad guys, but also to encourage the good guys and to make business more successful in our state.” A few years later, Mr. Romney had dinner with Mr. Netanyahu at a private home in the Jewish quarter of the Old City, in central Jerusalem, where the two spent hours discussing the American and Israeli economies. When Mr. Netanyahu informed Mr. Romney of a personal campaign to persuade American pension funds to divest from businesses tied to Iran, Mr. Romney offered up his Rolodex. Before he left Israel, Mr. Romney set up several meetings with government officials in the United States for his old colleague. “I immediately saw the wisdom of his thinking,” Mr. Romney said. Back in Massachusetts, Mr. Romney sent out letters to legislators requesting that the public pension funds they controlled sell off investments from corporations doing business with Iran. Even as Mr. Netanyahu, a keen and eager student of American politics, has tried to avoid any hint of favoritism in the presidential election, friends say he has paid especially close attention to Mr. Romney’s political fortunes in this campaign season. And the prime minister keeps open lines of communication to the candidate. When it was Mr. Gingrich’s turn to leap to the top of the polls, Mr. Netanyahu was startled in January by an article exploring why Sheldon Adelson, a billionaire casino executive and outspoken supporter of Israel, was devoting millions of dollars to back Mr. Gingrich. It described Mr. Netanyahu and Mr. Adelson as close friends. Mr. Netanyahu’s office quickly relayed a message to a senior Romney adviser, Dan Senor: the prime minister had played no role in Mr. Adelson’s decision to bankroll a Romney rival. And then there is Barack Obama and Rashid Khalidi, Pastor Jeremiah Wright, Bill Ayres, Samantha Power…etc.

Connecticut?

Do you know anyone in Connecticut? Please do whatever to defeat this anti israel lady running for Demo Senate candidate. Imagine her replacing Lieberman!
"The battle over the Democratic nomination for Connecticut’s US Senate seat got ugly late Thursday when one candidate called another a “whore” during a heated debate on live television. Greenwich author Lee Whitnum ripped Congressman Chris Murphy over his pro-Israel stance.

“I’m dealing with a whore here who sells his soul to AIPAC [The American Israel Public Affairs Committee], who will say anything for the job,” Whitnum said.

Tom Friedman pro murderer of Israelis

Friedman's Clueless Middle East Advice - Jonathan S. Tobin
After so many years of being wrong about the Palestinians being ready to make peace with Israel, it is difficult to take New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman's Middle East advice columns seriously. But his latest effort contains some whoppers. He starts out with praise for imprisoned Palestinian terrorist Marwan Barghouti as an "authentic leader." But what makes Barghouti "authentic" to Palestinians is his role in the murder of Israeli civilians (for which he is currently serving five life sentences).
Let's remember that Barghouti's mass murder spree took place in the immediate aftermath of an Israeli peace offer that was not much different from the scheme Friedman now thinks the Palestinians will accept. PA leader Yasir Arafat turned down Ehud Barak's offers of a state in 2000 and 2001 and answered it with a terror war that cost more than 1,000 Israelis their lives courtesy of killers like Barghouti. Arafat's successor Mahmoud Abbas walked away from another such offer in 2008.
Unlike Friedman, Israelis aren't prepared to ignore the results of two decades of Middle East peace processing during which they have traded land and received terror instead of peace.
Netanyahu has already said he'd accept a two-state solution and the vast majority of Israelis would support him if he were presented with a deal that ended the conflict. Just as in 1977 when Egypt's Sadat went to Jerusalem, the Israelis are ready to deal. The problem is that, unlike Sadat, the Palestinians aren't actually willing to live in peace alongside the Jewish state. (Commentary)
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Iran war aims vs Israel

Iran Lists War Aims Against Israel

Michael Rubin |

Last year, I visited Mlitta, a town in southern Lebanon which Hezbollah has turned into its version of an evil Disneyworld. One of the displays featured huge poster boards sporting Google Earth images of “the next targets.”
In his Alef article, Ali Reza Forqani, an ally of Iran’s Supreme Leader, goes further. After justifying a war against Israel, Ali Reza Forqani delves into how Iran should conduct its war:
Israel must come under heavy military strikes from the first blows until the last. The first step of the first stage of Iran’s military attack on Israel must lead to the annihilation of ground zero points in Israel. Iran can use its long-range missiles to accomplish this task. The distance from Iran’s eastern most point to western most point of Israel is about 2,600 kilometers. The Israeli targets deep inside Israeli territory are well within the reach of Iran’s conventional missiles.
Lest anyone misread Iran’s intent, in a section subtitled “People of Israel must be Annihilated,” Forqani outlines how to conduct genocide:
The residents of Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and Haifa can be targeted even by Shahab-3 missiles. These three areas which are located very close to each other are very densely populated and the population there accounts for about 60 percent of Israel’s entire population. Therefore, it is possible to use Sajjil missiles to target the infrastructures in this area including power plants, fuel and energy installations, water and sewage treatment facilities, transportation and communication infrastructures; and in the next stage Shahab-3, Ghadr and Ashura missiles can be used to target and strike residential areas in the cities until the final annihilation of the people of Israel.
He then outlines Iran’s missile capability, explaining how Iran could best exploit each missile in its arsenal and bragging that used properly, “Iran Could Destroy Israel in Less Than Nine Minutes.” That the Iranians might soon be able to fit the Sajjil with nuclear warheads should only heighten concern.
Iran may be lots of things; deterrable does not appear to be one of them.

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