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Keep pressure up on Iran

2012-01-24T09:05:00.001-08:00

EU Adopts Oil Embargo Against Iran
The EU's 27 foreign ministers, meeting Monday in Brussels, imposed an oil embargo against Iran and froze the assets of its central bank, ramping up sanctions designed to pressure Iranian officials into resuming talks on the country's nuclear program. In Washington, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner welcomed the EU decision, calling it "another strong step in the international effort to dramatically increase the pressure on Iran." The EU sanctions include an immediate embargo on new contracts for crude oil and petroleum products. Existing contracts with Iran will be allowed to run until July. (AP-Washington Post)

U.S. Sanctions Iran's 3rd Largest Bank - Jay Solomon
The Obama administration has sanctioned Iran's third-largest bank, Bank Tejarat. "Today's action against Bank Tejarat strikes at one of Iran's few remaining access points to the international financial system," said David Cohen, Treasury Undersecretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence. (Wall Street Journal)
See also EU Adds Iran's Bank Tejarat to Sanctions List (Reuters)

Britain, U.S. and France Send Warships through Strait of Hormuz - David Blair
Britain, America and France delivered a pointed signal to Iran, sending six warships led by a U.S. aircraft carrier through the Strait of Hormuz. The deployment defied explicit Iranian threats to close the waterway. The USS Abraham Lincoln joined another carrier, the USS Carl Vinson, which has been in the Gulf for several months. Each of these vessels carries a complement of fighter aircraft with more striking power than the entire Iranian air force. (Telegraph-UK)

Martin Luther King and israel

2012-01-21T06:52:00.001-08:00

January 16, 2012

MLK on Peace, Israeli Security and Anti-Zionism

In light of the tendency by some propaganda films and anti-Israel speakers to posthumously enlist Martin Luther King, Jr., for their attacks on the Jewish state, it's worth noting what the civil rights hero actually felt about Israel and its situation.
Those who knew King well have recalled his strong support for Israel, his understanding of the links between Israeli security and peace, and his opposition to anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism.
Rep. John Lewis, in his own right a leader in the civil rights movement, wrote an Op-Ed in 2002 describing King's "special bond with Israel":

During his lifetime King witnessed the birth of Israel and the continuing struggle to build a nation. He consistently reiterated his stand on the Israeli-Arab conflict, stating "Israel's right to exist as a state in security is uncontestable." It was no accident that King emphasized "security" in his statements on the Middle East.
On March 25, 1968, less than two weeks before his tragic death, he spoke out with clarity and directness stating, "peace for Israel means security, and we must stand with all our might to protect its right to exist, its territorial integrity. I see Israel as one of the great outposts of democracy in the world, and a marvelous example of what can be done, how desert land can be transformed into an oasis of brotherhood and democracy. Peace for Israel means security and that security must be a reality."
During the recent U.N. Conference on Racism held in Durban, South Africa, we were all shocked by the attacks on Jews, Israel and Zionism. The United States of America stood up against these vicious attacks.
Once again, the words of King ran through my memory, "I solemnly pledge to do my utmost to uphold the fair name of the Jews -- because bigotry in any form is an affront to us all."

The Op-Ed also pointed out that King was clearly against against attacks on Zionists. Lewis wrote that "During an appearance at Harvard University shortly before his death, a student stood up and asked King to address himself to the issue of Zionism. The question was clearly hostile. King responded, ‘When people criticize Zionists they mean Jews, you are talking anti-Semitism.'" (This is not to be confused with a widely circulated hoax letter said to be written by King.)

Clarence B. Jones, a friend and advisor to King, likewise recalled King's opposition to anti-Zionism. "I can say with absolute certainty that Martin abhorred anti-Semitism in all its forms, including anti-Zionism," he explained in a 2008 Op-Ed. Jones elaborated on that point in What Would Martin Say?, a book he co-authored with Joel Engel. Mainstream reporters, he argues, have given a pass to anti-Semitism by black leaders like Al Sharpton because they buy the rationale that Israel's existence is a provocation to Arabs. "Martin, for one, could see this coming after the Six-Day War in 1967, which is why he warned repeatedly that anti-Semitism would soon be disguised as anti-Zionism."

While King would surely support better circumstances for both Israelis and Palestinians, it seems clear that he was unambiguously opposed to the Israel-bashing that counts as pro-Palestinian advocacy today. His strong statement about Israel's right to exist suggests he recognized the centrality of this issue to the conflict. And judging by his views on anti-Zionism, he would be outraged by the idea that an avowed anti-Zionist like Omar Barghouti, who openly calls for replacing Israel with a state in which Jews will be a minority, pretends King would back boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel.

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Palestine was Jewish

2012-01-20T13:33:00.000-08:00

There was a Palestine. It was Jewish. here is a stock certificate from Palestine company in 1944 to my dad

and then the company changed its name to israel in 1948

iran's danger

2012-01-20T11:22:00.001-08:00

Reality Check: Shorter and Shorter Timeframe if Iran Decides to Make Nuclear Weapons - David Albright, Paul Brannan, Andrea Stricker and Andrew Ortendahl
Some have sought to downplay Iran's nuclear progress by emphasizing that Iran has not yet "made the decision to build a nuclear weapon." But this does not accurately portray the real concern about Iran's nuclear program and progress since Iran has already made a series of important decisions that would give it the ability to quickly make nuclear weapons.
Iran's strategy of "nuclear hedging," or developing the capability to rapidly build nuclear weapons under the cover of a civilian nuclear program, is laid out in the evidence of work on nuclear weaponization, particularly efforts to make specific nuclear components, contained in the November 2011 International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards report on Iran. If Iran's ability to quickly build nuclear weapons increases during the next few years, this will only shorten the period of time between taking a decision to build a bomb and constructing one. (Institute for Science and International Security)

The Mortal Threat from Iran - Mark Helprin
Without doubt, Iran has long wanted nuclear weapons - to deter American intervention in its and neighboring territories; to threaten Europe; to respond to the former Iraqi nuclear effort; to counter the contiguous nuclear presences in Pakistan, Russia and the U.S. in the Gulf; to neutralize Israel's nuclear deterrent; to lead the Islamic world; to correct the security imbalance with Saudi Arabia; and to threaten the U.S. directly. In the absence of measures beyond pinpoint sanctions and unenforceable resolutions, Iran will get nuclear weapons, which in its eyes are an existential necessity.
Accommodationists argue that a rational Iran can be contained. Not the Iran with a revered tradition of deception; that during its war with Iraq pushed 100,000 young children to their deaths clearing minefields; that counts 15% of its population as "Volunteer Martyrs."The writer is a senior fellow at the Claremont Institute. (Wall Street

media covers up Obama terrorist links

2012-01-20T07:45:00.001-08:00

Media covers up Obama's terrorist ties and anti Israel stance

January 20, 2012
A GOP Candidate's Bitter Ex-Wife Receives More Coverage Than a Video of Obama Dining with Terrorist-Supporters
By Lauri B. Regan

...However, of greater importance in my view is the silence, save for a few journalists and pundits on the right, regarding exposing a videotape recorded in 2003 of Barack Obama at the farewell dinner for terrorist-supporting Palestinian Rashid Khalidi. News of the videotape's existence came to light while Obama was a candidate, and the free pass given to him by the mainstream media was only just beginning to come to light when the enamored Chris Matthews' shared news of the tingle up his leg.
While the birthers' demands did draw some media attention, it was mostly negative and only made fun of the supposedly crazy loons on the far right who apparently were representative of all petty and irrational conservatives. No one seemed to notice that Obama had not written a single article while serving as editor of The Harvard Law Review, and no one pressed the issue of Obama's suppressed college and law school transcripts since it was a given that his brilliance was perhaps surpassed only by the likes of Albert Einstein.
But there is a videotape sitting in the vaults of the Los Angeles Times, and every American should be screaming from the rooftops for its release. In light of the Arab Spring, Obama's endless attempts to bully Israel into succumbing to all sorts of unprecedented and unsafe demands in the hopes that he would go down in history as the POTUS who made peace between the Israelis and Palestinians, and the administration's ineptness in addressing Iran's nuclear program and military threats, exposing this videotape is of utmost importance.
In April 2010, Roger L. Simon published an article on PajamasMedia entitled, "Why is the L.A. Times Burying the Obama/Khalidi Tape?" Of further consequence is why the media -- and Americans -- are not demanding that the L.A. Times immediately release the tape. Simon wrote:
The Khalidi tape could be of tremendous significance in revealing the provenance of Obama's views on the Middle East and the degree to which the public was misled on those views during the presidential campaign[.] ...
So what are we to think? We have an administration that not only ascribes most of the Middle East blame to Israel, but also has banned "Islamism" and all related words, even "Islam" and "jihad" from our national security documents. They're completely gone. Indeed, even the Fort Hood massacre, so clearly inspired by Islamic extremism, has now been shifted into the comfortable category of the lone, angry killer. Rashid Khalidi should be happy. And, in fact, he is.
Sometimes I want to yell and scream. What is wrong with the Los Angeles Times? Are they a news organization or the propaganda wing of some leftover unit of the IWW? No wonder subscribers are deserting them in droves.
While I am sure that Simon's questions were rhetorical, I will answer the obvious. Of course the paper is a propaganda tool. Were it not for the internet and cable television, true news organizations would no longer exist. It was recently reported that Jerusalem Post editor Steve Linde quoted Bibi Netanyahu calling The New York Times and Haaretz Israel's two main enemies because "they set the agenda for an anti-Israel campaign all over the world." Netanyahu denies making this exact statement, but there is no question that both papers' reporting reflects a bias that can be characterized only as anti-Israel propaganda. Taken a step further, there is no question that the mainstream media as a whole has become completely entrenched in propaganda, bias, anti-Israel and anti-American sentiment, and indoctrination based on liberal, progressive values that are completely out of the "mainstream."
The public will never understand that the Islamists taking over the Mideast are not moderate, will not promote democracy, are not friends of the United States, and wish the ultimate destruction of the West if the public reads and relies upon only The New York Times, L.A. Times, MSNBC, or similar tools of the left for its "news" and information. Americans will not understand the implications of four more years of a pro-Islamist president if they do not understand what Islamism is all about. And they will not know who is sitting in the White House making policy decisions based on personal biases if the media continues to promote Obama's agenda rather than investigate and report.
So why is the videotape of such paramount importance? Simon quotes from an article published in the L.A.Times discussing the tape and its contents:
[A] young Palestinian American recited a poem accusing the Israeli government of terrorism in its treatment of Palestinians and sharply criticizing U.S. support of Israel. If Palestinians cannot secure their own land, she said, "then you will never see a day of peace."
One speaker likened "Zionist settlers on the West Bank" to Osama bin Laden, saying both had been "blinded by ideology."
Furthermore, rumors abound regarding additional messages that may or may not have been openly shared at the dinner in Obama's presence. Ted Belman reported at Israpundit that he has a reliable source that "the audio tape clearly picks up the toast 'death to Israel'." Did Obama drink to the death of an American ally that he has been actively intimidating, browbeating, and dissing since he phoned Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on his first day in office? Does Obama liken Israelis living in the West Bank to Osama bin Laden, whose death he claims as his greatest foreign policy accomplishment?
Simon concluded his article with a request that readers send in suggestions on how to make the contents of the tape public. Apparently Donald Trump missed this request when he wasted the media's energy pushing for the release of Obama's birth certificate -- something with which Obama is still having fun as he mocked the birthers at the Golden Globe awards last week.
But I highly doubt that the POTUS, who had his worldview formed while sitting in the pews of Israel-bashing Jeremiah Wright and at the dinner table of anti-Semite Khalidi, will be mocking people who care enough to properly vet his credentials by urging the release of the tape. And I venture a guess that if the videotape is released, Barack Obama will be packing his bags at the end of this year. But that is a big "if" because until the media stops obsessing over the infidelities of the GOP candidates and starts doing its job, Barack Obama's chances of a second term continue to scare the living daylights out of those who understand its implications.
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Articles: A GOP Candidate's Bitter Ex-Wife Receives More Coverage Than a Video of Obama Dining with.

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As I watch the media circus surrounding Marianne Gingrich's interview regarding her relationship with her ex-husband and GOP candidate, Newt Gingrich, I am once again reminded of the double standard afforded to the Democrats and Barack Obama in particular. Coming on the heels of the Herman Cain mel...

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Obama's anti Israel friends

2012-01-18T08:47:00.001-08:00

NY Post: The WH Israel-bashing pals

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The White House’s Israel-bashing pals

By ALANA GOODMAN

Last Updated: 12:11 AM, January 18, 2012

Posted: 10:53 PM, January 17, 2012

Last December, a top anti-Semitism watchdog group accused the Center for American Progress, a prominent Washington think tank, of peddling anti-Israel and borderline anti-Semitic material on its Web site and Twitter feeds. Six days later, President Obama met for coffee with the man who oversaw the offending content — Faiz Shakir, the site’s editor-in-chief.

That the president met with Shakir amid the ballooning scandal illustrates just how close the administration is with CAP. Now that association may come back to haunt the White House, as three leading Jewish groups — the Anti-Defamation League, the American Jewish Committee and the Simon Wiesenthal Center — have accused CAP and its staff of publishing “anti-Israel,” “hateful” and “toxic anti-Jewish” material.

The Jewish organizations’ ire is directed even more strongly at Media Matters for America — another influential, activist liberal Washington group. But CAP’s failings are more significant, because it has been a revolving door to the administration.

CAP founder John Podesta piloted Obama’s 2008 presidential transition team and now holds a State Department advisory role; founding board member Carol Browner served as Obama’s energy czar. CAP Action Fund President Jennifer Palmieri just joined the White House as deputy communications director.

And Shakir has had multiple meetings with White House officials, including one last August with the National Security Council’s Quintan Wiktorowicz.

Making these close ties to the administration especially troubling is CAP’s intensely anti-Israel slant.

Speaking with the Jerusalem Post recently about CAP and Media Matters, the American Jewish Committee’s Jason Isaacson said, “Think tanks are entitled to their political viewpoints — but they’re not free to slander with impunity . . . References to Israeli ‘apartheid’ or ‘Israel-firsters’ are so false and hateful they reveal an ugly bias no serious policy center can countenance.”

The Wiesenthal Center found the writers “are guilty of dangerous political libels resonating with historic and toxic anti-Jewish prejudices.” The ADL noted: “Most of their blogs come from a perspective of blaming Israel for the lack of progress in Israeli-Palestinian affairs and minimizing or rationalizing the Iranian threat.”

The controversy reached a new height over the use of the term “Israel firster.” The phrase, popularized in White Power newsletters in the 1970s and ’80s, accuses American supporters of Israel of being more loyal to the Jewish state than to their own country. Later adopted by fringe pro-Palestinian groups, the slur has since become common on extremist white supremacist and anti-Israel Web forums.

Then it surfaced in writings put out by Media Matters and CAP. “Waiting 4 hack pro-Dem blogger to use this [link] 2 sho Obama is still beloved by Israel-firsters and getting lots of their $$” wrote Zaid Jilani, a reporter for CAP’s site, on Twitter last July.

At Media Matters, Senior Fellow MJ Rosenberg openly delights in using the term. “Cool. A major journalist, who I won’t name, gives me credit for making term ‘Israel Firster’ acceptable. I wish. But I’ll do my best,” he wrote on Twitter.

While Rosenberg continues to use the term, the uproar prompted CAP’s Jilani to apologize, saying he hadn’t realized the connotations. CAP’s blog avowed, “We don’t endorse the term ‘Israel firsters’ or demonize the Jewish state on ThinkProgress. Further, there is no anti-Semitic or anti-Israel ‘hate speech’ written anywhere on this blog.”

But American Jewish groups disagreed. The ADL pointed to a CAP article that suggested the Israel lobby had pushed America into war with Iraq. In another, its Middle East Progress director, Matt Duss, called “the entire Israeli occupation” of Gaza “a moral abomination” like the Jim Crow South.

The AJC noted the odious “Israeli apartheid” references, such as a Jilani tweet: “So DC ‘liberals’ are going to spend a lot of time defending Obama against the charge that he’s not supportive enough of Israeli apartheid.”

CAP hasn’t distanced itself from these comments or even acknowledged that they’re anti-Israel. If it deems them acceptable public comment, one wonders what the internal dialogue is like at the think tank — and among the alumni who have gone on to the Obama administration.

At a minimum, the controversy highlights how progressive groups are working to undermine traditional Democratic support for Israel. Whatever problems Republicans had with demagogues like Pat Buchanan back in the ’90s, such fringe ideas are increasingly unwelcome in the GOP. Will the Democratic Party similarly reject these ideas now — or tolerate anti-Semitic canards and the demonizing of Israel by its top institutions?

Alana Goodman is the assistant online editor of Commentary.

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Mortal threat from Iran

2012-01-18T05:32:00.001-08:00

WSJ: The mortal threat from Iran

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The difference between the NYT and the WSJ. Over the weekend, the Times ran two columns in their editorial section. One told Netanyahu not to strike Iran; the other said the situation with Iran can be resolved by having a nuclear-free zone in the Middle East (meaning Israel is stripped of its nuclear shield while its adversaries continue their programs in secret-much easier to do that in dictatorships and closed-societies).

The Mortal Threat From Iran

Iran can sea-launch from off our coasts. Germany planned this in World War II. If cocaine can be smuggled into the U.S. without interdiction, we cannot dismiss the possibility of an Iranian nuke ending up in Manhattan.

By MARK HELPRIN

To assume that Iran will not close the Strait of Hormuz is to assume that primitive religious fanatics will perform cost-benefit analyses the way they are done at Wharton. They won't, especially if the oil that is their life's blood is threatened. If Iran does close the strait, we will fight an air and naval war derivative of and yet peripheral to the Iranian nuclear program, a mortal threat the president of the United States has inadequately addressed.

A mortal threat when Iran is not yet in possession of a nuclear arsenal? Yes, because immediately upon possession all remedies are severely restricted. Without doubt, Iran has long wanted nuclear weapons—to deter American intervention in its and neighboring territories; to threaten Europe and thereby cleave it from American interests in the Middle East; to respond to the former Iraqi nuclear effort; to counter the contiguous nuclear presences in Pakistan, Russia and the U.S. in the Gulf; to neutralize Israel's nuclear deterrent so as to limit it to the attrition of conventional battle, or to destroy it with one lucky shot; to lead the Islamic world; to correct the security imbalance with Saudi Arabia, which aided by geography and American arms now outclasses it; and to threaten the U.S. directly.

In the absence of measures beyond pinpoint sanctions and unenforceable resolutions, Iran will get nuclear weapons, which in its eyes are an existential necessity. We have long known and done nothing about this, preferring to dance with the absurd Iranian claim that it is seeking electricity. With rampant inflation and unemployment, a housing crisis, and gasoline rationing, why spend $1,000-$2,000 per kilowatt to build nuclear plants instead of $400-$800 for gas, when you possess the second largest gas reserves in the world? In 2005, Iran consumed 3.6 trillion cubic feet of its 974 trillion cubic feet of proven reserves, which are enough to last 270 years. We know that in 2006—generation exceeding consumption by 10%—Iran exported electricity and planned a high-tension line to Russia to export more.

Accommodationists argue that a rational Iran can be contained. Not the Iran with a revered tradition of deception; that during its war with Iraq pushed 100,000 young children to their deaths clearing minefields; that counts 15% of its population as "Volunteer Martyrs"; that chants "Death to America" at each session of parliament; and whose president states that no art "is more beautiful . . . than the art of the martyr's death." Not the Iran in thrall to medieval norms and suffering continual tension and crises.

Its conceptions of nuclear strategy are very likely to be looser, and its thresholds lower, than those of Russia and China, which are in turn famously looser and lower than our own. And yet Eisenhower and Churchill weighed a nuclear option in Korea, Kennedy a first strike upon the U.S.S.R., and Westmoreland upon North Vietnam. How then can we be certain that Iran is rational and containable?

Inexpert experts will state that Iran cannot strike with nuclear weapons. But let us count the ways. It has the aerial tankerage to sustain one or two planes that might slip past air defenses between it and Israel, Europe, or the U.S., combining radar signatures with those of cleared commercial flights. As Iran increases its ballistic missile ranges and we strangle our missile defenses, America will face a potential launch from Iranian territory.

Iran can sea-launch from off our coasts. Germany planned this in World War II. Subsequently, the U.S. completed 67 water-supported launches, ending as recently as 1980; the U.S.S.R. had two similar programs; and Iran itself has sea-launched from a barge in the Caspian. And if in 2007, for example, 1,100 metric tons of cocaine were smuggled from South America without interdiction, we cannot dismiss the possibility of Iranian nuclear charges of 500 pounds or less ending up in Manhattan or on Pennsylvania Avenue.

The probabilities of the above are subject to the grave multiplication of nuclear weapons. Of all things in respect to the Iranian nuclear question, this is the most overlooked. A 1-in-20 chance of breaking a leg is substantially different from a 1-in-20 chance of dying, itself different from a 1-in-20 chance of half a million people dying. Cost drastically changes the nature of risk, although we persist in ignoring this. Assuming that we are a people worthy of defending ourselves, what can be done?

Much easier before Iran recently began to burrow into bedrock, it is still possible for the U.S., and even Israel at greater peril, to halt the Iranian nuclear program for years to come. Massive ordnance penetrators; lesser but precision-guided penetrators "drilling" one after another; fuel-air detonations with almost the force of nuclear weapons; high-power microwave attack; the destruction of laboratories, unhardened targets, and the Iranian electrical grid; and other means, can be combined to great effect.

Unlike North Korea, Iran does not yet possess nuclear weapons, does not have the potential of overwhelming an American ally, and is not of sufficient concern to Russia and China, its lukewarm patrons, for them to war on its behalf. It is incapable of withholding its oil without damaging itself irreparably, and even were it to cease production entirely, the Saudis—in whose interest the elimination of Iranian nuclear potential is paramount—could easily make up the shortfall. Though Iran might attack Saudi oil facilities, it could not damage them fatally. The Gulf would be closed until Iranian air, naval, and missile forces there were scrubbed out of existence by the U.S., probably France and Britain, and the Saudis themselves, in a few weeks.

It is true that Iranian proxies would attempt to exact a price in terror world-wide, but this is not new, we would brace for the reprisals, and although they would peak, they would then subside. The cost would be far less than that of permitting the power of nuclear destruction to a vengeful, martyrdom-obsessed state in the midst of a never-subsiding fury against the West.

Any president of the United States fit for the office should someday, soon, say to the American people that in his judgment Iran—because of its longstanding and implacable push for nuclear weapons, its express hostility to the U.S., Israel and the West, and its record of barbarity and terror—must be deprived of the capacity to wound this country and its allies such as they have never been wounded before.

Relying solely upon his oath, holding in abeyance any consideration of politics or transient opinion, and eager to defend his decision in exquisite detail, he should order the armed forces of the United States to attack and destroy the Iranian nuclear weapons complex. When they have complied, and our pilots are in the air on their way home, they will have protected our children in their beds—and our children's children, many years from now, in theirs. May this country always have clear enough sight and strong enough will to stand for itself in the face of mortal threat, and in time.

Mr. Helprin, a senior fellow at the Claremont Institute, is the author of, among other works, the novels "Winter's Tale" (Harcourt) and "A Soldier of the Great War" (Harcourt).

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even moderate palestinians as bad as nazis

2012-01-17T13:43:00.001-08:00

Fatah's Top Religious Authority Calls for Genocide of Jews

by Itamar Marcus and Nan Jacques Zilberdik
January 16, 2012 at 4:30 am

http://www.stonegateinstitute.org/2759/fatah-religious-authority-genocide

Last week, the principal Palestinian Authority religious leader, the Mufti Muhammad Hussein, presented the killing of Jews by Muslims as a religious Islamic goal. At an event celebrating the 47th anniversary of the founding of Fatah, he cited the Hadith (Islamic tradition attributed to Muhammad) saying that the Hour of Resurrection will not come until Muslims fight the Jews and kill them:

"The Hour [of Resurrection] will not come until you fight the Jews.
The Jew will hide behind stones or trees.
Then the stones or trees will call:
'Oh Muslim, servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him.'"

Click to view

Palestinian Media Watch reported regularly during the PA terror campaign (Intifada, 2000-2005) on the repeated use of this Hadith by PA clerics on official PA TV to motivate Palestinians to terror attacks, preaching that Muslims had an Islamic obligation to kill Jews. The fact that the Mufti quotes this now indicates that this may have remained part of the PA's religious establishment's teachings, even though it is less frequently promoted on PA TV.

The last time official PA TV broadcast a sermon during which this Hadith calling to kill Jews was quoted was in 2010.

The years of PA promotion of killing Jews and PA religious leaders' citing this Hadith to justify it, may have contributed to the high acceptance of it in PA society. A poll sponsored by the Israel Project last year found that 73% of Palestinians "believe" this Hadith. [July 2011, Greenberg Quinlan Rosner.]

The moderator who introduced the Mufti at the Fatah event last week reiterated another Islamic belief; that the Jews are the descendants of apes and pigs:

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Repatriate Palestinians to Arab lands

2012-01-08T19:21:00.000-08:00

Palestinian Refugees, were denied resettlement opportunities

Palestinian Refugees, unlike other refugees in the world, were denied resettlement opportunties, so that they could be used as political pawns. Over the last thirty-odd years, numerous projects have been proposed, international funds provided, studies undertaken, all indicating the benefits that could be derived by the Arab refugees from their absorption into the brethren cultures of the Arab host countries. Various international bodies and independent Arab voices over the years have clearly challenged as immoral the position of the Arabs in promoting the continued languishing of the Arab emigres who came within their borders; also deplored on occasion is the Arab states' departure from the free world's unvarying precedent: of granting to refugees around the world the dignity of resettlement within a compatible environment where they can become productive citizens. From the beginning, the Arab host governments were offered unprecedentedly broad opportunities based on the refugees' rehabilitation, which could help develop their countries' vast potential under the proposed aid programs.
International experts reported and published undisputed evidence that integration and resettlement of those who were refugees, when implemented by the community of Arab nations, would benefit not only the Arab refugees but also the underpopulated areas within the Arab world, which needed additional labor forces to implement progress. Iraq and Syria were judged by many specialists in the area to be ideal for resettlement of the Arab refugees." Among many such findings was the report by President Truman's International Development Advisory Board. Headed by Nelson Rockefeller, the board asserted that under proper development Iraq alone could absorb an Arab refugee population of 750,000. According to the report,

... Israel [which] in the three years of its existence has absorbed a Jewish refugee population, about equivalent in number to the Arab refugees; ... in flight from Moslem countries in the Middle East and North Africa, cannot reabsorb the Arabs who fled its borders, but it can and indeed has, offered to contribute to a fund for Arab resettlement. The exchange of the Arab population of Palestine with the Jewish population of the Arab countries was favored by the ... League of Nations as an effective way of resolving the Palestine problem. In practical effect, such an exchange has been taking place. The resettlement of the Arab refugees is ... much simpler ... in Arab lands.*1
Another of the authoritative studies reported:
Iraq could contribute most to the solution of the refugee problem. It could absorb agriculturists as well. This would benefit the refugees and the country equally.2
Pointing to Iraq's special availability for resettlement and countering the Arab argument that the Arab refugees were "unemployable"-the same study emphasized that
In the years 1950-51 100,000 Iraqi Jews left the country.... They left a big gap in the life of the city. Many of them were shopkeepers, artisans or white collar workers, while 15,000 belonged to the well-to-do. The gap could be ... filled. ... Again Iraq would also benefit....
The study concluded that "host countries should take over responsibility for the refugees at the earliest possible date," and that "redistribution of the refugees among these countries is a primary requisite."
According to yet another study, by S.G. Thicknesse,3 Iraq's were the "best long-range prospects" for resettlement of the Arabs from Palestine. Herbert Hoover suggested that "this would clear Palestine ... for a large Jewish emigration. . . ."4

El-Balad, an Arab daily paper in the Jordan-held "old city" of Jerusalem, stressed the value to the Arabs of the Jews' flight from Iraq, since "roughly 120,000" Jewish refugees had fled Baghdad for Israel, leaving all of their goods and homes behind them 5 Salah Jabr, former Prime Minister of Iraq and leader of Iraq's National Socialist Party had stated that

the emigration of 120,000 Jews from Iraq to Israel is beneficial to Iraq and to the Palestinian Arabs because it makes possible the entry into Iraq of a similar number of Arab refugees and their occupation of the Jewish houses there.6
A survey by the League of Red Cross Societies determined that thirty-five percent of the Palestine refugees were "townspeople" and could "easily fill the vacuum" left by the Jews.
... Their departure created a large gap in Iraq's economy. In some fields, such as transport, banking and wholesale trades, it reached serious proportions There was also a dearth of white collar workers and professional men.7
Syria was also proposed by many experts as an area with great potential for absorbing refugees: according to one report, Syria required more than twice as many inhabitants as its then-current population of a little more than two million (after World War II.)8 According to Arab Palestinian writer Fawaz Turki, Syria "could have absorbed its own refugees, and probably those in Lebanon and Jordan."9 The British Chatham House Survey10 estimated that, with Syria's agreement, "Syria might well absorb over 200,000 Palestine refugees within five years in agriculture alone." Chatham House also recommended that about 350,000 refugees could be resettled in Iraq, further noting that the refugees themselves would "not offer serious resistance" if they were encouraged to realize that their lives would become more productive.
In 1949 a newspaper editorial from Damascus stated that

Syria needs not only 100,000 refugees, but 5 million to work the lands and make them fruitful.11
The Damascus paper, earlier recognizing that Arab refugees were not to be "repatriated," suggested that the government place these "100,000 refugees in district[s] ... where they will build small villages with the money appropriated for this purpose." * 12
[* On June 27, 1949, Near East Arab Broadcasting, a British-run station, broadcast (in Arabic): "The Arabs must forget their demand for the return of all refugees since Israel, owing to her policy of crowding new immigrants into the country at such a rate that the territory she holds is already too small for her population, is physically unable to accept more than a small number of Arab refugees. The Arabs must face the facts before it's too late, and must see to the resettlement of the refugees in the Arab states where they can help in the development of their new lands and so become quickly assimilated genuine inhabitants, instead of suffering exiles." "Daily Abstracts of Arabic Broadcasts," Israel Foreign Office. Similar broadcasts were recorded on 10/31/50, 11/11/50, 11/29/50, 12/31/50.]

In 1951, Syria was anxious for additional workers who would settle on the land. An Egyptian paper13 reported,

The Syrian government has officially requested that half a million Egyptian agricultural workers ... be permitted to emigrate to Syria in order to help develop Syrian land which would be transferred to them as their property. The responsible Egyptian authorities have rejected this request on the grounds that Egyptian agriculture is in need of labor.*
[* 200,000 Arab "refugees" were languishing in Gaza, along with "80,000 original residents who barely made a living before the refugees arrived," according to the UNRWA report in 1951-52, yet a project with "hope" to accommodate "10,000 families" in the "Sinai area" was "suspended."]
Near East Arabic Radio14 reported that Syria was offering land rent free to anyone willing to settle there. It even announced a committee to study would-be settlers' applications.

In fact, Syrian authorities began the experiment by moving 25,000 of the refugees in Syria into areas of potential development in the northern parts of the country, but the overthrow of the ruling regime in August 1949 changed the situation, and the rigid Arab League position against permanent resettlement, despite persistence on the part of isolated leaders, prevailed.15

Notwithstanding the facts, 16 the Arab world has assiduously worked to build the myth that no jobs were available in Arab lands for Arab refugees in 1948 or since, and that the refugees had become surplus farm workers "in an era when the world at large and Arab countries in particular already has too many people in the rural sector."17

At around the same time, the Egyptian Minister for Foreign Affairs, Muhammad Saleh ed-Din, in.a leading Egyptian daily, demanded the return of the refugees:

Let it therefore be known and appreciated that, in demanding the restoration of the refugees to Palestine, the Arabs intend that they shall return as the masters of the homeland, and not as slaves. More explicitly: they intend to annihilate the state of Israel.18
Thus, while the "refugee" count kept growing, Arab leaders' confusion over "return" or "not return" had been more or less clarified: they proclaimed that the "refugees" must indeed "return," but not before Israel was destroyed.
The Lebanese paper AI-Ziyyad 19 anticipated a current expressed goal of the PLO charter, though it was less candid. In a sophisticated assessment, it suggested the recognition of Israel as a strategy that would accomplish the following results:

The return of all the refugees to their homes would be secured, thereby we should, on the one hand, eliminate the refugee problem, and on the other, create a large Arab majority that would serve as the most effective means of reviving the Arab character of Palestine, while forming a powerful fifth column for the day of revenge and reckoning.
Despite findings of the 1950 United Nations Palestine Conciliation Commission,20 which recommended "concentration on Arab refugees' resettlement in theArab countries21 with both the technical and financial assistance of the United Nations and coupled with compensation for their property," the Arab League22 insisted that
relief projects should not prejudice the right of the refugees to return to their homes or to receive compensation if unwilling to return...23
The Revue du Liban was among many dissenters who challenged the Arab League's position and discouraged Arab refugees from "return":
... it is a fact that many Arabs leave Israel today of their own free will.
The paper pointed out that "in the event of a return of the refugees they will constitute a minority ... in a foreign environment ... unfamiliar together with people who speak a language they do not understand." Also, the paper stated, the refugees would "encounter the economic difficulties of Israel," and
their settlement in Israel will cost much more than their absorption in the countries where they live today. After three years it is not human and not logical to compel them to wait without giving them concrete help. Syria and Iraq can easily absorb additional refugees.... They should form a productive force which might help to improve the economic conditions in the countries where they will be absorbed.24
Despite tacit recognition of the actual "resident"- as opposed to "refugee' - identity of so many of those involved, projects unparalleled for refugees else where continued to offer to facilitate the Arab world's resettlement of all it "refugees."25 Yet the Arabs rebuffed every effort to secure realistic well-being for their kinsmen. At a refugee conference in Homs, Syria, the Arabs declare that
any discussion aimed at a solution of the Palestine problem which will not based on ensuring the refugees' right to annihilate Israel will be regarded as desecration of the Arab people and an act of treason.26
In 1958, former director of UNRWA Ralph Galloway declared angrily while in Jordan that
The Arab states do not want to solve the refugee problem. They want to keep it as an open sore, as an affront to the United Nations, and as a weapon agains Israel. Arab leaders do not give a damn whether Arab refugees live or die.27
And King Hussein, the sole Arab leader who, for reasons that later become clearer, directed integration of the Arabs, in 1960 stated,
Since 1948 Arab leaders have approached the Palestine problem in an irresponsible manner.... They have used the Palestine people for selfish political purposes. This is ridiculous and, I could say, even criminal.28
Eleven years after the Arab leavetaking, the late United Nations Secretary General Dag Hammarskjbld reiterated that there were ample means for absorb ing the Arab refugees into the economy of the Arab region; he asserted furthe that the refugees would be beneficial to their host countries, by adding needed~manpower to assist in the development of those countries. Hammarskjbld detailed the estimated cost of the refugee absorption, which he proposed be financed by oil revenues and outside aid. But again, plans for permanent rehabilitation of the refugees were rejected by the Arab leaders, because such measures would have terminated the refugees' status as "refugees"; the Arab leaders reasoned that once the refugees accepted their new homes, they would eventually abandon their desire to "return" to former homes, as have other refugees. Such action would have resulted in the Arab world's loss of a weapon against Israel,29 and would have falsely implied acceptance of the Jewish state.
While the vast majority of refugees has now left the camps for greater opportunities among their brethren-many in the oil-rich Gulf states-most have been denied citizenship in the Arab countries to which they had moved. Regardless of their contributions as "law-abiding" citizens de facto, and regardless of their length of time there, they have largely been discriminated against. As one Palestinian Arab in Kuwait told Forbes editor James Cook in 1975,

They owe me citizenship. I've been here for nearly 20 years and I helped create this country's great wealth. I did. I haven't simply earned my citizenship, they owe it to me.30
This Arab refugee, whose plight is representative of so many, according to Cook, was "unlikely to get it," although it is said that some of the Arabs who left Western Palestine for Kuwait have finally obtained Kuwaiti citizenship. In Iraq, Palestinians have been "allowed to live in the country but not to assume Iraqi nationality," despite the fact that the country needs manpower and "is encouraging Arab nationals to work and live there by granting them citizenship, with the exception of Palestinians.31
In this endeavor, the Arab world has received inordinate support from the United Nations, as a candid former United Nations Palestinian Conciliation Commission official admitted in 1966. Dr. Pablo de Azcarate wrote:

...solemn proclamation [of the "right of the refugees to return . . ."] by the [General] Assembly and its incorporation into the text of the resolution of December 14, 1948, have had three results.
In the first place, a platform has been provided, of inestimable value to all those Arab political elements who are more interested in keeping alive the political struggle against the State of Israel than in putting an end, by means of a practical and reasonable compromise formula, to the tragic situation of the refugees. The truth is that since the resolution.... the Arab states, whenever the question arose, have done nothing but attack Israel....

The second result of the proclamation ... has been complementary to the first - to paralyze any possible initiative on the part of those who would have preferred to give priority, not to the struggle against Israel, but to the solution of the refugee problem by means of a reasonable and constructive compromise formula.

[And third,] the proclamation and the propaganda surrounding it have created a state of mind among the refugees based on the vain hope of returning to their homes, which has immobilized their cooperation.... an indispensable condition if a way is to be opened to a solution at once practical and constructive of their distressing problem....

... after years of effort, the sole achievement has been to feed and shelter the refugees in some sort of fashion, without taking a single step along the road to their economic and social rehabilitation.32

Arab propaganda has also managed thus far to direct all attention to one aspect of the Middle East refugee problem as if it were the only aspect of that problem, and thus to mask the overall reality. One crucial truth, among many that have been obscured and deprecated, is that there have been as many Jewish refugees who fled or were expelled from the Arab countries as there are Arab refugees from Israel, and that the Jews left of necessity and in flight from danger.

Palestinians burn effigy of Canadian minister

January 17, 2001
Reuters
Palestinians burned an effigy of Canadian Foreign Minister John Manley on Thursday in a protest against Canada's offer to accept Palestinian refugees as part of a Middle East peace plan. Hooded gunmen fired into the air during the protest in Balata refugee camp near the West Bank town of Nablus and hundreds of demonstrators shouted slogans demanding the right of return to former homes. "We refuse resettlement of refugees," they shouted.

Manley told the Toronto Star newspaper in an interview published on January 10, "We are prepared to receive refugees. We are prepared to contribute to an international fund to assist with resettlement in support of a peace agreement." Manley said there had been no discussion on the number of refugees to be resettled outside the Middle East.

Canada heads the multilateral Refugee Working Group, a committee charged with trying to resolve the plight of Palestinian refugees.

Arab League Summit in Beirut

28 March 2002
Reuters
Following is an official translation of the full text of a Saudi-inspired
peace plan adopted by an Arab summit in Beirut on Thursday...

The Arab Peace Initiative

The Council of Arab States at the Summit Level at its 14th Ordinary Session, reaffirming the resolution taken in June 1996 at the Cairo Extra-Ordinary Arab Summit that a just and comprehensive peace in the Middle East is the strategic option of the Arab countries, to be achieved in accordance with international legality, and which would require a comparable commitment on the part of the Israeli government...

1. Requests Israel to reconsider its policies...
2. Further calls upon Israel to affirm...

3. Consequently, the Arab countries affirm the following...

4. Assures the rejection of all forms of Palestinian patriation which conflict with the special circumstances of the Arab host countries.

5. Calls upon the government of Israel and all Israelis to accept this initiative...

Section 4 effectively continues the policy of forcing the Palestinian refugees to remain camps in Lebanon and elsewhere as political weapons rather than absorbing them.

1. International Development Advisory Board, Report, March 7, 1951.

2. F. T. Witcamp, The Refugee Aroblem in the Middle East (The Hague: Research Group for European Migration Problems, 1959), pp. 39-41.

3. S.G. Thicknesse, Arab Refugees: A Survey of Resettlement Possibilities (London: Royal Institute of International Affairs, 1949), p. 51.

4. Herbert Hoover, reported in the New York World Telegram, November 19, 1945.

5. EI-Balad, September 13, 19, 1951, cited in Joseph Schechtman, The Arab Refugee Problem (New York: Philosophical Library, 1952), p. 91.

6. Dewey Anderson et al., "Arab Refugee Problem and How It Can Be Solved," p. 39, citing EI-Balad (Jerusalem), September 18, 1951.

7. Schechtman, Apab Refugee Problem, p. 91; p. 94, n. 41.

8. Anderson et al., "Arab Refugee Problem and How It Can Be Solved," citing a report by Alexander Gibbs Co., "The Economic Development of Syria" (London, 1949).

9. Fawaz Turki, The Disinherited: Journal of a Palestinian Exile (New York and London: Monthly Review Press, 1972), p. 37.

10. Anderson et al., "Arab Refugee Problem," p. 50, citing a report by a study group composed of members and associates of Chatham House and members of the Royal Asian Society under the chairmanship of Sir Harold MacMichael on Arab refugee settlement possibilities. Arnold Toynbee was also a participant.

11. Editorial in al-Qubs (The Torch), Damascus, January 1949. Quoted on March 28, 1949, in az-Sameer, an Arabic paper published in New York. Cited in Schechtman, Arab Refugee Problem, p. 80.

12. al-Quk quoted in az-Sameer, March 28, 1949, cited in Anderson et al., "Arab Refugee Problem," p. 52.

13. Musamaret El Geib (Cairo), June 3, 1951, cited in Anderson et al., "Arab Refugee Problem," p. 50. See Chapter 18 for interview with Syrian official who expressed similar needs in 1977.

14. Near East Arabic radio, May 12, 1949, cited in Anderson et al., p. 51.

15. W. de St. Aubin, "Peace and Refugees in the Middle East," Middle East Journal, Washington, July 1949, pp. 359-60. According to Schechtman, Arab Refugee Problem, P. 81, "In March 1951, premier Khaled el-Azarn stated in connection with the visit to Damascus of UN Secretary General Trygve Lie, Syria would be willing to accept refugees provided they were paid compensation for their property in Israel." (Emphasis added.)

16. From 1949 until 1951 Egyptians were receptive to resettlement proposals. In September 1949, Egypt was planning to hire the refugees to dig wells in Gaza, conditional upon Israel's cooperation with irrigation methods, New York Times, October 1, 1949; in 1951, Egypt and UNRWA negotiated to resettle 50,000 refugees in the Sinai at one point, New York Times, August 18, 23, 1950, and March 23, 195 1; an additional 20,000 refugees were agreed upon for resettling in the same period, New York Times, December 26, 1950, Times, London, January 23, 1951.

17. John Davis, "Why Are There Still Arab Refugees?", Arab World, December 1969- January 1970. Also see data on Syria and on Libya, etc., in UNRWA Annual Report of the Director, July 1952 to June 1953, General Assembly, 8th Session, Supp. No. 12 (A/2470), pp. 10-11; in UN Resolution 513 (VI) the General Assembly adopted the Authorization to '~ransfer" UNRWA funds "allocated for relief' into funds for "reintegration, " dated January 26, 1952, item no. 10. An American representative in Lebanon, Ambassador Ira Hirschmann, submitted a comprehensive report to the Assistant Secretary of State re: "Arab Refugee Situation," April 6,1968, Hirschmann to William B. Macomber, Jr.

18. Dewey Anderson et al., "Arab Refugee Problem and How It Can Be Solved," p. 77, citing AbMisr4 October 11, 1949.

19. Ibid., citing Al-Ziyyad, April 6, 1950.

20. "General Progress Report of the United Nations Conciliation Commission for Palestine," covering the period from December It, 1949, to October 23, 1950 (pamphlet), General Assembly Official Records, 5th Session, Supp. No. 18 (A/1367/Rev. 1).

21. See UN Ad Hoc Committee Sessions, November 11, 29, 30, December 1, 1950, for positions of Denmark, Canada, Britain, Australia, Bolivia, Belgium, and Holland. Although giving perfunctory acknowledgment to the Arab position, a substantial bloc among the UN Ad Hoc Committee concluded that "the Arab refugees would have a happier and more stable future if the bulk of them were resettled in Arab countries."

22. League Resolution No. 389, October 10, 1951.

23. Mohammad lqbal Ansari, The Arab League 1945-1955 (Aligarh: Aligarh Muslim University, 1968), pp. 71-74.

24. Revue du Liban (French), May 12, 1951, cited by Anderson et al., "Arab Refugee Problem," p. 38.

25. For additional support of resettlement see Thicknesse, Arab Refugees~ pp. 38-58; Vahe Sevian, "Economic Utilization and Development of the Water Resources of the Euphrates and Tigris," E/Conf. 7/Sec/W.397, August 1, 1949, p. 16; Doreen Warriner, Land and Poverty in the Middle East (London and New York: Royal Institute of International Affairs, 1948), pp. 26-33, 75-80, 95.

26. Berlut al Massa (Lebanese daily), July 11-12, 1957, 'cited by Terence Prittie and Bernard Dineen, The Double Exodus. A Study of Arab and Jewish Refugees in the Middle East (pamphlet), (London: Goodhart Press, n.d.), p. 13.

27. Prittie, "Middle East Refugees," in Michael Curtis et al., eds., The Palestinians: People, History, Politics (New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Books, 1975), p. 71.

28. Ibid., citing Associated Press interview, January 1960.

29. See Robert MacDonald, The League ofArab States (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1965); also see Mohammad Khalil, The Arab States and the Arab League: A Documentary Record (Beirut: Khayat's, 1962), vol. 2, pp. 517-22, 9351f.

30. "Biggest Little Superpower in the World," Forbes, August 1, 1975; author's interview with Jim Cook, January 5, 1979.

31. Abbas Kelidar, "Iraq: The Search for Stability," Conflict Studies, No. 59, The Institute for the Study of Conffict, London, July 1975, p. 21.

32. Pablo de Azcarate, Mission in Palestine 1948-1952 (Washington, D.C.: Middle East Institute, 1966), p. 191. Resolution 194 (111) of the United Nations General Assernbly, which de Azcarate dates December 14, 1948, is generally recorded as December 11, 1948. The UN "proclamation" referred to by de Azearate includes the following: "Resolves that the refugees willing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbors should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date, and that compensation should be paid for the property of those choosing not to return, and for loss of or damage to property which, under principles of international law or inequity, should be made good by the Governments or authorities responsible; "Instructs the Conciliation Committee to facilitate the repatriation, resettlement and economic and social rehabilitation of the refugees and the payment of compensation, and to maintain close relations with the Director of the United Nations Relief for Palestine Refugees and, through him, with the appropriate organs and agencies of the United Nations."

This page was produced by Joseph E. Katz
Middle Eastern Political and Religious History Analyst
Brooklyn, New York
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Tenth Tevet Fast

2012-01-05T06:52:00.000-08:00

Today is fast day daylight hours mourning Jerusalem wall breach 2500 years ago by ancient Iraqis (Babylonia). This time the breach is happening through BDS Boycott Divest and Sanction and terrorism threats

Tenth of Tevet - Fast Day Marks Siege of Jerusalem
This Thursday, 10 Tevet, Jews fast in commemoration of the start of the siege of Jerusalem by Babylonian emperor Nebuchadnezzar.
By Hana Levi Julian
First Publish: 1/5/2012, 9:56 AM

Walls of Jerusalem at night
Walls of Jerusalem at night
Israel news photo: courtesy of Chabad.org

The supermarkets may still be full of shoppers preparing for the advent of the coming Sabbath on Friday, but Thursday is not going to be a day in which observant Jews will be filling the kosher restaurants -- at least, until after sundown.

On the Jewish calendar, this Thursday is the tenth day in the Hebrew month of Tevet -- the anniversary of the date on which the Babylonian emperor Nebuchadnezzar began his deadly siege of Jerusalem in the year 425 BCE. We mark the day by fasting from just before sunrise, until nightfall, and add the Selichot and other special supplements including a special Torah reading to the daily set of prayers. It is one of four fast days commemmorating the stages of the destruction of the First and Second Holy Temples.

Two other sad events were recorded by the Talmudic sages as having occurred on the tenth of Tevet, one the death of Ezra the Scribe who led the revival of Jewish adherence to the Torah when the Jews returned from Babylon to build the Second Temple. The other event is the translation of the Torah into Greek, known as the Septuagint, considered an event to mourn as well.

Israel's Chief Rabbinate connected current Jewish mourning to the date and designated the Tenth of Tevet to serve as a "general Kaddish day" for victims of the Holocaust, many of whom were murdered on dates lost in time, and whose day of martyrdom is thus unknown.

It took Nebuchadnezzar 30 months to breach Jerusalem's thick stone walls, but he finally managed it on the ninth day of the Hebrew month of Tammuz, in the year 586 B.C.E (some claim it was in 420 B.C.E).

Only one month later, on Tisha B'Av -- the ninth of Av -- the Holy Temple was destroyed for the first time, and the Jewish People were sent out into exile to Babylonia for the next 70 years. The prophet Jeremiah wrote Lamentations to memorialize the tragedy.

The Second Temple was built when the Jews were allowed to return by Cyrus the Great and destroyed in 70 C.E. by the Romans, also on the 9th of Av. Remnants of the Holy Temples still remain -- one outside retaining wall of the Second Temple is today referred to as the Western Wall, or the Kotel, or Wailing Wall -- the place where Jews weep for its destruction.

The Temple Mount, over which such controversy with the Waqf Islamic Authority has raged for so many years due to its unwillingness to allow Jews to even murmur a prayer on the grounds, is the site of the Temple and its "holy of holies," an area which only the High Priest could enter on Yom Kippur. There is ongoing controversy over where exactly on the Mount this was located, so that prominent rabbis, among them the late Chief Rabbi Avraham Cahane Shapira of Merkaz Harav Yeshiva, forbade ascending the Mount. Others, who feel the location is known, stress that it is important to show Jewish presence on the Mount.

The Islamic clerics who now inhabit the area, and deliver sermons in the Al Aqsa mosque built on the site, periodically express their intense fear of the day that a Third Holy Temple will rise from the site, and make enormous efforts to prevent at all costs the possibility that the Jews will help bring this about.

Words of inspiration and arousal to repentance are delivered on fast days by prominent rabbis in Jewish communities around the world. They urge their followers to reflect on the tragic events of our history and to be motivated, encouraged and inspired to improve their ways in order to shape events to bring a better future and the rebuilding of the Holy Temple in Jerusalem.

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Most important issue of the age-Iran and the election

2012-01-04T15:55:00.001-08:00

On the single most important issue of the age, Santorum is by far the best, Obama bad, Paul a nightmare-Iran and a nuclear weapon
Santorum On His Plan To Attack Iran: ‘We’re Trying To Prevent A War’

By Ben Armbruster on Jan 4, 2012 at 10:41 am

The GOP presidential nomination’s newest “not-Romney” alternative Rick Santorum said last Sunday that a military strike is part of his plan in how he’d deal with Iran and its nuclear program should he become president. “You would order air strikes if it became clear that they were going to [get nuclear weapons]?” NBC’s David Gregory asked. “Yes, that’s the plan,” Santorum said.

Glenn Beck yesterday on his radio show asked Santorum about that comment, seeming a little concerned. “There’s a strong part of me that says enough of the wars,” Beck said, saying he was “playing devil’s advocate.” But the former Pennsylvania senator said an attack on Iran would serve to prevent a war:

BECK: There’s a strong part of me that says enough of the wars. Enough of the wars. What are fighting, five wars right now?

SANTORUM: We’re trying to prevent a war. We’re trying to prevent the most nefarious regime in the entire world, you know this is the equivalent of al Qaeda, it’s maybe even worse than al Qaeda being in control of a country with enormous resources and capability.

BECK: This is Hitler.

SANTORUM: We’re trying to prevent them from having the fail safe so they can go out and rein terror around the world.

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Why the US Needs Israel www.rabbijonathanginsburg.com

2012-01-04T11:35:00.001-08:00

Commentary Dec 2011
How Israel's Defense Industry Can Help Save America
Arthur Herman — December 2011

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Kibbutz Sasa sits one mile from Israel’s Lebanese border. Founded in 1949, it is the site of the tomb of the second-century rabbi Levi ben Sisi. It hosts groves of fruit trees and a dairy farm and has 210 members. Kibbutz Sasa is also the home of the main factory of Plasan, a company that started out making hard plastic containers like garbage cans in 1985. For four years now, American soldiers have driven more safely in Iraq and Afghanistan, thanks to Kibbutz Sasa and Plasan’s CEO, Dani Ziv.

It was Ziv who, in the 1980s, urged the company to take up the manufacture of protective ballistic vests for soldiers and police. In 1989, Plasan won its first contract to make body armor for the Israel Defense Forces, and then for IDF vehicles. When war came to Afghanistan and then Iraq, orders went through the roof, especially from the United States. Plasan’s profits soared some 1,500 percent, from $23 million in 2003 to $330 million in 2007. Today they stand at over $500 million, with 90 percent of the company’s orders coming from Europe and the United States.

Plasan specializes in a very dense plastic composite product that affords ballistic protection without significantly adding to the weight of the vehicle. “Their work is exceptional,” says a senior Israeli defense industry executive about Plasan. “To convince the U.S. military that you are a reliable outfit is no mean feat. They did it all alone, without any help from a former ambassador or defense ministry director general.”

Plasan-armored mine-resistant ambush-protected vehicles (MRAPs) have been serving in Afghanistan since August 2009, and contractor Oshkosh Company has another 8,800 on order. In 2009 Plasan even opened a factory in Bennington, Vermont, to do the work for its American contract. But while the 350 or so workers there are American, the technology is decidedly Israeli.

That applies to an even smaller company in Netanya, Israel, called Camero. Its engineers have come up with a way to use ultra-wideband wireless transmissions to see through walls—literally—and detect armed men and explosives on the other side. The Xaver 400 is barely the size of a laptop computer, but it’s dramatically shifting the odds in urban fighting in favor of the technology user, whether he’s an IDF soldier or a United States Marine. Indeed, in December 2010, one of Camero’s top clients became the Department of Defense.

What’s happening at Plasan and Camero is part of a silent revolution sweeping the defense establishments of the United States and Israel. After decades of being the Pentagon’s dependent in terms of military technology, Israel’s defense industry is now gaining a competitive advantage over its overregulated, bloated and lethargic American rival. Indeed, the United States is becoming one of its best customers. Goliath is finding shelter under the shield of David.

This situation is fraught with irony. It’s not only that America is now fighting the kind of wars Israel has been fighting for decades—small-scale, low-intensity, against an elusive terrorist enemy—and needs the skills and equipment Israel has to offer, including remote-detection devices such as unmanned drones, an area in which Israel has been on average 10 years ahead of the curve. Nor is it simply the fact that as U.S.-Israeli relations have cooled during the Obama years, Israelis are realizing that a strong and independent high-tech defense sector may be more crucial to Israel’s future than relying on U.S. help.

The Israeli way of doing defense business is changing the shape of the military-industrial complex. Smaller, nimbler, and entrepreneurial, Israel’s defense industry offers a salutary contrast to the Pentagon’s way of doing things. With the spending and budget crisis in the United States already putting immense pressure on the Pentagon, with all-but-certain declines in the percentage of the U.S. economy that will be devoted to defense in the coming decade, a second “revolution in military affairs” is going to be necessary. We are going to have to get more for less—much less. Israel points the way.

A good example coming from the more expensive end of the military-technology spectrum involving high-tech missiles is Rafael Advanced Systems. They’re the Israeli makers of the Iron Dome missile defense system, built to protect Israeli towns from mortars, rockets, and 155-millimeter artillery shells. Each Iron Dome unit fires four to eight missiles and is equipped with a Battle Management computer system designed by another Israeli company, MPrest Systems. It’s an all-weather mobile system with a range of 70 kilometers (about 43.5 miles).

For the Pentagon, developing and deploying a major new system like this can take more than a decade. By contrast, the Israel Defense Ministry gave Rafael the contract for Iron Dome in 2007, and by March 2009 the system was fully ready for testing. The first true shoot-down test had to wait until July that year. More tests followed in 2010, and by March 2011 Iron Dome was declared operational and has been deployed in towns near the Gaza strip to protect against Hamas’s attacks.

To intercept bigger ballistic missile, Israeli Aerospace Industry (IAI) developed the Arrow antimissile system in cooperation with the United States as part of Ronald Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative. The agreement to build Arrow came in 1989. The first missile, the Arrow 1, got its first test launch in August 1990. Less than four years later came its first test interception.

Although Arrow began as an American-Israeli joint initiative, the irony is that Israel’s interest in developing Arrow sprang from the failure of American-made Patriot antimissile batteries to intercept Scud missile attacks during the First Gulf War. Arrow relies on a coterie of Israeli companies to provide the interception system’s components. Elta, a division of Israel’s biggest private arms firm, Elbit Systems, provides the Green Pine early-warning radar. Tadiran (another Elbit division) makes the Communication, Control, and Command center. IAI devised the Hazelnut launch controls. Altogether, they have constructed one of the world’s most sophisticated defense systems. In 1995 the Arrow 1 was replaced with an even faster, more lethal version, Arrow 2, which, according to its developer, Dov Raviv, has a 90 percent probability of knocking out a ballistic missile—and can tell a warhead from a decoy.

Meanwhile, the Pentagon’s Missile Defense Agency considers itself fortunate when it gets any successful missile shoot-downs from its land-based system. The first successful test interception from the American version of Star Wars came in August 2005—more than 10 years after the Israelis had done the same thing. Now Israel is looking to sell Iron Dome in the United States. And Rafael’s American marketing partner? Raytheon, the same company that developed the Patriot.

For decades Israel has been seen as the United States’ junior partner in all matters military and strategic. American defense companies were the unquestioned leaders in developing sophisticated modern weaponry, while Israelis focused on more standard items such as small arms (the classic Uzi) or weapons built to suit their unique battle conditions (the Merkava tank). The Patriot missile deployment in the First Gulf War only reinforced the perception that Israelis needed American military technology, and American military aid, in order to survive. Now it may be Israeli technology, in the shape of Iron Dome and Arrow, that ends up defending American cities instead.

The changing situation has also affected the American attitude to technology transfers between the two allies. General Uzi Eilam, former head of the Israeli weapons research-and-development agency MAFAT, remembers that when F-15s and F-16s from the United States arrived in Israel, “they came with systems in locked boxes, which we were not allowed to open.” The rule was, the closer the Israelis were to attaining the same technical breakthrough, the more willing the United States would be to share the technology. Today the Pentagon is speeding up the cooperation process, if only to prevent Israeli advances from heading them off at the pass.

It is striking how the Israeli defense sector keeps steadily leapfrogging from one challenge to the next. This is especially true for the acid test of any strong defense industry: foreign sales. Ten years ago Israel ranked 15th. In 2007 it surpassed the United Kingdom to rank fourth, behind the United States, Russia, and France. The day when it takes France’s place is not far off.

This is a remarkable achievement for a country of some six million people that is treated as a virtual pariah by much of the world. But virtual is the mot juste—for even though Turkey virtually froze relations with Israel two years ago, it’s still among Elbit’s best customers.

Of course, it will be a long time before America’s defense establishment, with its huge government-supported research-and-development resources and armies of engineers, will be outmatched by Israel’s. It is also true that Israel’s military doesn’t use big-ticket items like aircraft carriers, stealth aircraft, and nuclear submarines that are the major money pits of Pentagon procurement; nor does it maintain the kind of global presence that requires them. Israel also spends much more of its GNP on defense (roughly 6.7 percent), and having a conscript army avoids the high personnel cost problems that are the fastest growing expense of our all-volunteer force. Nor can it be denied that much of Israel’s high-tech weapons success has come with America paying a large portion of the research-and-development bill, as with both Iron Dome and Arrow. Still, that money is looking less and less like a way to prop up a beleaguered ally, and more and more like a capital investment in future systems for ourselves.

How the Israeli defense industry, with a fraction of our capitalization and far fewer workers and engineers, has managed to move ahead at a time when our biggest defense contractors seem stalled offers some important lessons for a Pentagon beset by cost overruns and shrinking budgets. Indeed, learning from the Israeli way of doing things just might make the difference between a leaner, meaner U.S. military and hollowed-out collapse.

_____________

Israeli defense companies owe their success to a combination of extrinsic and intrinsic factors. Having to fight for survival has always tended to focus Israeli energies and concentrate efforts. Terrorist-launched missiles raining down on civilian neighborhoods remain merely a conjectural possibility in the United States, but not in Israel. There is little margin for error in making major decisions about what kinds of weapons to develop and invest in, and even less for needlessly dragging out the timeline for the development of weapons systems that may be vital to national existence.

Another advantage is that virtually everyone working for an Israeli defense firm has served in uniform. As Dan Senor and Saul Singer note in their book Start-Up Nation, thanks to military conscription, the Israeli Defense Forces—-“particularly elite units in the air force, infantry, intelligence, and information technology arenas”—have been the spawning ground for a myriad of Israeli technological companies. And the IDF experience has also led some of Israel’s best minds toward designing and developing military technologies.

Indeed, it’s difficult to find a defense engineer or executive who doesn’t have some battlefield experience to draw upon. “We know what it means to sit in a military vehicle,” a Plasan employee told a reporter in 2008, “what it’s like to hit an explosive device or take a burst of gunfire.” It’s not unusual for a defense company engineer called up for reserve service to find himself at the controls of a weapons system he himself designed.*

Other habits from the IDF experience rub off as well. One is its bias against hierarchy. In sharp contrast to the Pentagon, junior officers enjoy more responsibility and feel free to challenge their superiors. As Senor and Singer note, that makes for a chain of command flexible enough to adapt to unexpected changes and opportunities, whether it’s on the battlefield or in the boardroom.

Another is a bias toward improvisation. Virtually every piece of equipment purchased from the United States, from F-16 fighter planes to Blackhawk helicopters, goes through immediate changes by its personnel and crews to fit Israeli battle conditions. When this happens in the American military (as when American soldiers in Iraq began self-armoring their thin-skinned Humvees), the result is confusion and panic. But accepting the reality of on-field modification means Israeli designers don’t have to worry about a weapon system that anticipates every contingency. They know the users will take care of minor problems along the way, which speeds up both development and deployment time—and gives important feedback for future improvements. It also reduces learning curves and provides unexpected opportunities for making lemonade from lemons.

A good example is the Lavi in the 1980s. Israel’s Air Force was determined to get its own attack fighter after years of modifying American or French planes. Jointly funded by the U.S. and Israeli governments, produced by defense giant IAI and nicknamed the Lavi, the plane took four years and billions of dollars to develop—until the program was cancelled in 1987, in large part because the Pentagon became worried that it was funding a plane to rival its own top export fighter, the F-16.

The cancellation sent shockwaves through the Israeli Defense Ministry: Some still say the decision was a mistake. But “the project drove the whole industry towards the cutting edge of technology,” notes defense analyst Yiftah Shapir, no fan of the Lavi. “We still sell the sub-systems that were developed [specifically] for the Lavi,” especially in computer avionics (some of them are in the unmanned airborne vehicles, or UAVs, Israel makes for customers such as India, China, and Turkey). In addition, the 1,500 engineers working on the sophisticated Lavi systems soon found jobs in other Israeli defense companies, taking their experience and expertise with them.

In short, what would have seemed a failure and giant waste of money to a risk-averse Pentagon and its congressional overseers became the springboard for still bigger advances, including, in 1988, the launching of Israel’s first communications satellite in space.

The Lavi project and the space shot set the stage for the next major step for the Israeli defense industry, its radical reorganization in the 1990s. A combination of downsizing, deregulation, and privatizing forced the country’s major defense contractors to start thinking about new ways to make money, as well as weapons, and to see the high-tech frontier as an opportunity to get the jump on big international competitors, including the United States.

_____________

As the 1980s ended, the Israeli defense industry found itself bloated, overregulated, and too costly, like the rest of Israel’s economy. The end of the Cold War forced change. Foreign buyers had liked Israeli defense products because they had been battle-tested against the Soviet-built systems of Israel’s Arab antagonists. With the end of the Soviet threat, that marginal advantage vanished. Israeli companies saw American defense firms, flush from the success of Desert Storm, grabbing those contracts instead.

From 1985 to 1995 Israel’s defense spending fell by 37 percent. Declining global demand was matched by falling domestic demand, while a dysfunctional corporate culture made it hard for Israel’s major government-owned firms to adjust. If Israel’s ability to develop and produce its own weapons was to survive, a drastic change in how companies operated and what they made had to take place.

Major firms had to downsize their workforce and excess capacity; many smaller companies disappeared in a wave of consolidations. Elbit Systems emerged as a major contractor after absorbing smaller high-tech rivals like Elisra and Tadiran and old-line companies like Soltam Systems (founded in 1950), which made advanced artillery and mortars.

As part of a larger shift of Israel’s economy to a more deregulated model, there was also a wave of privatization of government-owned enterprises. Rafael Advanced Systems, which had been a research lab working at the behest of the Israeli Defense Ministry, spun off as a private company. Other government-owned companies like IAI were encouraged to spin off separate commercial projects from their defense units, even when the research and development had begun in those divisions. After some false starts, most of those spin-offs have done well; and as defense exports rose, the commercial exports of spin-offs rose even faster.

This was the other leg of the 1990s reorganization. It became clear that while Israel defense companies would continue to make Israel-specific weapons systems, there was a real future for the Israeli defense industry in the global marketplace, especially in the high-tech area that included retrofitting and upgrading older platforms built by the Cold War giants, Russia and the United States. Having a diversity of customers, beyond the IDF, would not only lower production costs and enhance economies of scale, it would also stimulate more technical innovation and more opportunities to sell Israeli products.

The result was a steady climb in Israeli exports, starting in 2000 and then breaking through in 2007, when Israeli arms sales abroad passed the $4 billion mark. Elbit, the maker of the Arrow, saw a 38 percent growth in revenue in that year alone. In 2009, Israel’s defense exports reached $6.9 billion; in 2010, $7.2 billion. With defense budgets declining worldwide in 2011, those numbers may be hard to surpass. But the Israeli way of doing defense business is here to stay.

Reorganization did not come cheap. In the end, Israeli taxpayers had to put up some $3 billion, the equivalent of one-third of the 2001 defense budget, to pay for the overhaul. The investment paid off. As Giora Eiland, one of Ariel Sharon’s national-security advisers, puts it, Israel found the right balance between, on the one hand, government support and oversight and, on the other, private creativity and incentive, including encouraging independent research and development. When the country needs big conventional platforms like planes and helicopters and submarines, it buys overseas and then modifies the purchases to fit IDF systems and battlefield profiles. When the IDF needs high-tech weaponry, Israelis develop it themselves with an eye toward commercializing it abroad.

That has caused some friction with Israel’s big brother. The United States views the advance of the Israeli David with some trepidation, especially when sales might mean transfers of sensitive technology. When Israel tried to sell four $250 million Phalcon early-warning systems to China, the Pentagon and Congress blocked the sale. When Israel agreed to upgrade the Harpy UAVs it had sold Beijing back in the 1990s, the United States retaliated by downgrading Israeli participation in the F-35 program.

On the other hand, American defense companies are increasingly seeing cooperation with Israel as the key to their own future. In addition to Iron Dome, Raytheon has signed on with Rafael Advanced System for development of another antimissile missile, the so-called Magic Wand or David’s Sling. A two-stage interceptor, the Magic Wand is designed to take out the long-range rocket and cruise missiles possessed by Hezbollah. To Raytheon, the Israeli technology is helpful for its own future systems; for Rafael, the deal with Raytheon is largely a way to get U.S. funding. The technology they have; it’s the money and customers they need.

One of those customers is the United States. Elbit makes 80 percent of the IDF’s UAVs and trails behind only the United States in the global marketplace for the craft we now all know as drones. Israel is not a player in the U.S. market—yet. “I don’t know why they don’t simply import UAVs,” says Elbit CEO Joseph Ackerman, including, of course, his own.

It seems a good question. And since the United States has emerged as Israel’s single biggest arms customer in the last decade, with systems like Iron Dome and David’s Sling on the way, surely drones won’t be far behind.

_____________

So does the future of American security have “Made in Israel” stamped on it? In one sense, it already does. At the Plasan plant in Kibbutz Sasa, the hallways are covered with poster-size copies of thank-you notes from American GIs. One of them is signed by Brian, an Army sergeant serving in Afghanistan who wrote that the Plasan armor saved him from a bullet that would have blown off his head if it had gone through the door.

“American soldiers come up to us at exhibitions, and tell me that they won’t get into any vehicle that’s not been armor-protected by Plasan,” a Plasan employee says. To date, there’s not been a single soldier killed by fire while in a vehicle that we armor-protected.”

The idea of Americans protected by Israel, however, may have broader applications than vehicle armor or antimissile defense, or even weapons systems in general. It could extend to the entire way Israeli military contractors give far more bang for the buck—and all with a Defense Ministry supervisory force of fewer than 300 people. Our Pentagon, by contrast, relies on some 30,000 bureaucrats to do the same oversight—the equivalent of two full Army divisions.

Of course, Israeli companies take advantage of their niche selection and their concentration on the high-tech sector, with its relatively expensive development curve but low production costs, and ability to skip the big-ticket platforms. But can anyone doubt that if Dani Ziv or another Israeli defense contractor were asked to build the next-generation aircraft carrier, it would cost far less than the $1.3 billion currently slated—and be delivered much more quickly? With the final cost of our coming fleet of F-35 fighters approaching $1 trillion, it seems a highly relevant question.

While the number of Pentagon bureaucrats continues to grow, the number of American students graduating with engineering degrees is steadily falling to less than 5 percent of the world’s total (China graduates more than half). Right now America’s leading defense contractors spend twice as much on lawyers than they do on research. There is a very real danger that in the next decade, if they are asked to arm America for the next major strategic challenge, as they did in the 1980s and again after 9/11, U.S. defense contractors will be unable to meet it. It’s time for the Pentagon and the American defense industry to develop a new way of doing business. They must look to Israel.
Footnotes

* Streamlining that process is the Israeli Defense Ministry’s Talpiot unit, which targets very talented youths, some when they are in high school, for training in both high technology and military science, and on the necessary connections between them, before putting them into service with the IDF. Talpiot creates “a group unmatched anywhere in the world,” George Gilder writes in The Israel Test—with “its students designing [weapons] systems for 10 years before entering college” and with its former alumni serving as an unprecedented talent pool for Israel’s own defense companies.
About the Author

Arthur Herman, a visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, is the author of Freedom’s Forge: How American Business Built the Arsenal of Democracy that Won World War II, which will be published by Random House in April.

phony Palestinians

2012-01-04T09:44:00.001-08:00

A Stateless Palestinian People is a falsehood

January 3, 2012 | Eli E. Hertz

Historically, before the Arabs fabricated the Palestinian people as an exclusively Arab phenomenon, no such group existed.

Countless official British Mandate-vintage documents speak of 'the Jews' and 'the Arabs' of Palestine - not 'Jews and Palestinians.' Ironically, before local Jews began calling themselves Israelis in 1948 (the name 'Israel' was chosen for the newly-established Jewish state), the term 'Palestine' applied almost exclusively to Jews and the institutions founded by new Jewish immigrants in the first half of the 20th century, before Israel's independence.

Some examples include:

• The Jerusalem Post, founded in 1932, was called the Palestine Post until 1948.

• Bank Leumi L'Israel was called the "Anglo-Palestine Bank, a Jewish Company."

• The Jewish Agency - an arm of the Zionist movement engaged in Jewish settlement since 1929 - was called the Jewish Agency for Palestine.

• Today's Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, founded in 1936 by German Jewish refugees who fled Nazi Germany, was called the "Palestine Symphony Orchestra," composed of some 70 Palestinian Jews.

• The United Jewish Appeal (UJA) was established in 1939 as a merger of the United Palestine Appeal and the fundraising arm of the Joint Distribution Committee.

Encouraged by their success at historical revisionism and brainwashing the world with the 'Big Lie' of a Palestinian people, Palestinian Arabs have more recently begun to claim that they are the descendants of the Philistines, and even the Stone Age Canaanites. Archeologists explain that the Philistines were a Mediterranean people who settled along the coast of Canaan in 1100 BCE. They have no connection to the Arab nation, a desert people who emerged from the Arabian Peninsula.

As if that myth were not enough, Arafat claimed that "Palestinian Arabs are descendants of the Jebusites" displaced when King David conquered Jerusalem. He also argued that "Abraham was an Iraqi." One Christmas Eve, Arafat declared that "Jesus was a Palestinian." Here, he was correct, but left out a very important part - Jesus was a Palestinian Jew!

Contradictions abound, Palestinian leaders claim to be descended from the Canaanites, the Philistines, the Jebusites and the first Christians. They also co-opt Jesus and ignore his Jewishness, at the same time claiming the Jews never were a people and never built the Holy Temples in Jerusalem.
The problem is that a stateless Palestinian people is a fabrication. The word Palestine is not even Arab

www.rabbjonathanginsburg.com

Obama, Iran Israel

2011-12-28T11:06:00.001-08:00

U.S., Israel Discuss Triggers for Bombing Iran’s Nuclear Infrastructure
Dec 28, 2011 4:45 AM EST
The Obama administration is trying to assure Israel privately that it would strike Iran militarily if Tehran’s nuclear program crosses certain “red lines”—while attempting to dissuade the Israelis from acting unilaterally. Eli Lake reports exclusively.

When Defense Secretary Leon Panetta opined earlier this month that an Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities could “consume the Middle East in a confrontation and a conflict that we would regret,” the Israelis went ballistic behind the scenes. Michael Oren, Israel’s ambassador to Washington, lodged a formal diplomatic protest known as a demarche. And the White House was thrust into action, reassuring the Israelis that the administration had its own “red lines” that would trigger military action against Iran, and that there is no need for Jerusalem to act unilaterally.

Panetta’s seemingly innocent remarks on Dec. 2 triggered the latest drama in the tinder-box relationship that the Obama administration is trying to navigate with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government. With Republicans lining up to court Jewish donors and voters in America in 2012, Obama faces a tricky election-year task of ensuring Iran doesn’t acquire a nuclear bomb on his watch while keeping the Israelis from launching a preemptive strike that could inflame an already teetering Middle East.

The stakes are immensely high, and the distrust that Israelis feel toward the president remains a complicating factor. Those sentiments were laid bare in a speech Netanyahu’s minister of strategic affairs, Moshe Ya’alon, gave on Christmas Eve in Jerusalem, in which he used Panetta’s remarks to cast doubt on the U.S.’s willingness to launch its own military strike.

Ya’alon told the Anglo-Likud, an organization within Netanyahu’s Likud party that caters to native English speakers, that the Western strategy to stop Iran’s drive for nuclear weapons must include four elements, with the last resort being a military strike.

“The fourth element of this combined strategy is the credible military strike,” Ya’alon said, according to a recording of the speech provided to The Daily Beast. “There is no credible military action when we hear leaders from the West, saying, ‘this is not a real option,’ saying, ‘the price of military action is too high.’”

US President Barack Obama shakes hands with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during a bilateral meeting September 21, 2011 at the United Nations in New York City., Mandel Ngan, AFP / Getty Images

The lack of trust between the Israeli and American leaders on Iran has been a sub-rosa tension in the relationship since 2009. Three U.S. military officials confirm to The Daily Beast that analysts attached to the Office of the Secretary of Defense are often revising estimates trying to predict what events in Iran would trigger Prime Minister Netanyahu to authorize a military attack on the country’s nuclear infrastructure. Despite repeated requests going back to 2009, Netanyahu’s government has not agreed to ask the United States for permission or give significant advanced warning of any pending strike.

The sensitive work of trying to get both allies on the same page intensified this month. Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak visited Washington last week to go over Iran issues; and the undersecretary of state for political affairs, Wendy Sherman, and a special arms control adviser to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Robert Einhorn, were in Israel last week to discuss Iran as well. Panetta for his own part has revised his tone on the question of Iran’s nuclear program, telling CBS News last week that the United States was prepared to use force against Iran to stop the country from building a nuclear weapon.

The new diplomacy has prompted new conversations between the United States and Israel over what the triggers—called “red lines” in diplomatic parlance—would be to justify a pre-emptive attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities.

Matthew Kroenig, who served as special adviser on Iran to the Office of the Secretary of Defense between July 2010 and July 2011, offered some of the possible “red lines” for a military strike in a recent Foreign Affairs article he wrote. He argued that the U.S should attack Iran’s facilities if Iran expels international nuclear weapons inspectors, begins enriching its stockpiles of uranium to weapons-grade levels of 90 percent, or installs advanced centrifuges at its main uranium-enrichment facility in Qom.

In an interview with The Daily Beast, Kroenig also noted that Iran announced in 2009 that it was set to construct 10 new uranium enrichment sites. “I doubt they are building ten new sites, but I would be surprised if Iran was not racing to build some secret enrichment facilities,” Kroenig said. “Progress on new facilities would be a major factor in our assessment of Iran’s nuclear program and shape all aspects of our policy towards this including the decision to use force.”

www.rabbijonathanginsburg.info

The lying deceitful Palestinians

2011-12-28T11:02:00.001-08:00

The Palestinian deception
Op-ed: Palestinians speak language of peace to West, preach hate and war in Arabic
Yochanan Visser, Sharon Shaked
Published: 12.28.11, 11:10 / Israel Opinion

Eighteen years have passed since the signing of the Oslo accords, and it seems justifiable to reach the conclusion that there will be no final-status agreement that will solve the Arab Israeli conflict in the foreseeable future.

The recent reconciliation between the Palestinian Authority and Hamas – including the announcement that Hamas will join the PLO - is further evidence that Mahmoud Abbas was never sincere in pursuing a peace agreement with Israel.

New Mideast?
Hamas is changing / Raphael Mimoun
Op-ed: Israel should consider new strategy towards increasingly pragmatic Hamas movement
Full story
Now that the chimera of a “peace process” has been exposed, the time has come to finally face the truth.

The Palestinian leadership has deceived Israel and the international community by speaking the language of “peace” to Western English-speaking audiences, while continually preaching hate and war to their own people in Arabic.

Duplicity and deceit have long concealed the true intentions of the Palestinian Authority, but its most recent actions and rhetoric have definitively revealed that it is not truly interested in peace and reconciliation with the Jewish state.

'Intelligent resistance'
A recent example of Palestinian deception is the manner in which the PA officially explains its refusal to negotiate with Israel.

The decision not to negotiate has been presented as a result of the Israeli insistence on building in the settlements while, in reality, the deadlock is the result of a revised policy that the PA adopted more than two years ago.

This revised policy was discussed by the Palestine Strategy Group and formed the basis for the 13th program of the Palestinian Authority published in 2009.

The program calls for "intelligent resistance" – meaning law fare, boycott campaigns and propaganda – as a means of continuing the struggle against Israel.

While terror has always been the main Palestinian weapon against Israel, under Abbas’ leadership the strategy changed, and political warfare has proven to be more successful in winning over the international community to the Palestinian cause.

But there is more. Other factors, which were not openly discussed by the Palestinians, contributed significantly to the failure of the peace process.

The absence of truth in Palestinian politics and society is one of those factors. Jihad or Ribat (a religious war for Allah), and Islamic anti-Semitism (including incitement against Jews and Israel) are the others.

Confusing the world
Ever since the establishment of the Palestinian Authority in 1994, deception has been a tactic to confuse Israel and the rest of the world.

Conflicting reports about the meaning of Hamas’ membership in the PLO issued recently by Fatah and Hamas leaders are the latest example of this tactic of deception, which is called al-Taqiyya and is primary based on the Koran.

According to the authoritative Arab text, Al-Taqiyya Fi Al-Islam, “Taqiyyah (deception) is of fundamental importance in Islam. Practically every Islamic sect agrees to it and practices it…Taqiyyah is very prevalent in Islamic politics, especially in the modern era.”

Muhammad first practiced Taqiyyah during the Battle of the Trench (627AD,) which pitted his army against several non-Muslim tribes known as “the Confederates.”

Arafat referred repeatedly to the use of Taqiyyah by Muhammad when he spoke about the Oslo accords to Islamic audiences.

'We will drive them out'
Fatah leader, Abbas Zaki, has repeatedly revealed the duplicity of the PA leaders.

On April 9th 2008 he told NBN TV the following: “The PLO has not changed its platform even one iota….The PLO proceeds through phases…..Allah willing we will drive them out of all of Palestine.

The same Zaki said the following this year on Lebanon TV: “When we say that the settlement should be based upon these (1967) borders, President (Abbas) understands, we understand, and everybody knows that the greater goal cannot be accomplished in one go. If Israel withdraws from Jerusalem, evacuates the 650,000 settlers and dismantles the wall – what will become of Israel? It will come to an end."

He then said: "It is not acceptable policy to say that we want to wipe Israel out. Don’t say these things to the world, keep it to yourself."

Mahmoud Abbas is less outspoken but is no less involved in deceiving the international community. Take for example an interview with European reporters about the unity agreement with Hamas two weeks ago, in which he said the following:

"We set the agreement's pillars, and Hamas agreed with us that resistance will be popular and adopt peaceful ways, rather than military resistance.” Peaceful resistance?

Well, when Hamas celebrated its 23th anniversary in Gaza the same week, Hamas PM Haniyeh called upon the Muslim Brotherhood to start a war to liberate Jerusalem He also said the following:

“We affirm that armed resistance is our strategic option and the only way to liberate our land, from the (Mediterranean) sea to the River (Jordan.) God willing, Hamas will lead the people… to the uprising until we liberate Palestine, all of Palestine”.

Water issues
Deception and incitement have also been the hallmark of the way Palestinians inform the world about the day-to-day situation in the West Bank and in Gaza.

This summer our organization, Missing Peace, revealed that the PA continually lies about water issues in the West Bank in order to advance the narrative of Israeli repression and Palestinian victimhood.

Additionally, the PA has actually failed to implement approved water projects and ignored undeniable evidence of Palestinian water theft.

Reports by individual Palestinian citizens or Palestinian NGOs often contain similar false claims.

Meanwhile, Palestinian Media Watch just published a book titled Deception, which documents the hate, incitement and promotion of violence by PA officials and media.

The book also demonstrates how the Palestinian public, and especially children, are brainwashed into believing the most outrageous lies about Palestinian history, Israel and the Jews.

The book also recounts a meeting between Mahmoud Abbas and president Obama in the White House on June 9, 2010. During that meeting Abbas said:

“And I say in front of you, Mr. President, that we have nothing to do with incitement against Israel, and we’re not doing that.”

Until now, large parts of the international community have ignored the evidence about the Palestinian deception and insist that the conflict is about territorial claims. Yet it is not. This conflict is about the existence of a Jewish state in the Dar al-Islam (territory of Islam).

The EU even raised its contribution to the PA by €100 million for 2012 and keeps admonishing Israel for building activities in the West Bank and Jerusalem.

If foreign interlocutors like the EU are serious about ending the conflict they should first insist that the PA end incitement and confront the clear pattern of deception by Palestinian leaders.

Yochanan Visser is the Director of Missing Peace Middle East News and writer of 'Israel indicted' a recently published book about the cognitive war against Israel (Dutch language) www.missingpeace.eu

www.rabbijonathanginsburg.info

Don't believe lies that hamas will accept Israel www.rabbijonathanginsburg.com

2011-12-27T11:16:00.000-08:00

Hamas leader Haniyeh:
Goal is destruction of Israel in stages

Abbas:
Hamas agrees to '67 borders
http://palwatch.org/main.aspx?fi=157&doc_id=6024

by Itamar Marcus and Nan Jacques Zilberdik

At a ceremony marking the 24th anniversary of the founding of Hamas, Hamas leader in the Gaza Strip Ismail Haniyeh said that Hamas may work for the "interim objective of liberation of Gaza, the West Bank, or Jerusalem," but that this "interim objective" and "reconciliation" with Fatah will not change Hamas' long-term "strategic" goal of eliminating all of Israel:

"The armed resistance and the armed struggle are the path and the strategic choice for liberating the Palestinian land, from the [Mediterranean] sea to the [Jordan] river, and for the expulsion of the invaders and usurpers [Israel]... We won't relinquish one inch of the land of Palestine."

Click to view

In his speech, Haniyeh also promised that Hamas will "lead Intifada after Intifada until we liberate Palestine - all of Palestine, Allah willing. Allah Akbar and praise Allah."

Two days later, contradicting Haniyeh's statements, PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas said that Hamas leader abroad Khaled Mashaal had agreed that:

- "There will be no military resistance."
- "The permanent solution is on the '67 borders."

According to Abbas, Hamas agrees to a permanent solution on the '67 borders. However, Haniyeh said that Hamas agrees to a temporary solution on the '67 borders as a first stage only.

For many years, the PLO promoted a "stages plan" that would first create a Palestinian state on the 1949 - 1967 armistice lines, and then work from that position to destroy Israel.

Senior Fatah official Abbas Zaki recently stated that this remains the goal for Fatah as well, but that "you can't say it to the world. You can say it to yourself."

Click to view

The following are longer excerpts of the statements mentioned above:

Speech by Ismail Haniyeh, head of Hamas at ceremony marking 24th anniversary of the founding of Hamas:
"We welcome you today, on this anniversary of the founding of the Islamic Resistance Movement - Hamas, as you renew the promise and oath of loyalty with Allah, with His Messenger and with His believers; you are renewing the loyalty to the blood of the Martyrs and the path of resistance and Jihad upon the blessed land of Palestine...
We say today, explicitly, so it cannot be explained otherwise, that the armed resistance and the armed struggle are the path and the strategic choice for liberating the Palestinian land, from the [Mediterranean] sea to the [Jordan] river, and for the expulsion of the invaders and usurpers [Israel] from the blessed land of Palestine. The Hamas movement will lead Intifada after Intifada until we liberate Palestine - all of Palestine, Allah willing. Allah Akbar and praise Allah. We say with transparency and in a clear manner, that Palestinian reconciliation - and all sides must know this - cannot come at the expense of [our] principles, at the expense of the resistance. These principles are absolute and cannot be disputed: Palestine - all of Palestine - is from the sea to the river. We won't relinquish one inch of the land of Palestine. The involvement of Hamas at any stage with the interim objective of liberation of [only] Gaza, the West Bank, or Jerusalem, does not replace its strategic view concerning Palestine and the land of Palestine."

The times Vs Israel The Jewish Week

2011-12-25T12:57:00.001-08:00

The Times vs. Israel?
11
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Tuesday, December 20, 2011
We have a long history of defending The New York Times in the face of criticism from many in our community that the paper of record has an anti-Israel bias. We have decried boycotts against the Times as foolhardy and ineffective, and in public panels and lectures we have sought to point out the distinctions between reporting that doesn’t conform to Jerusalem’s version of events and outright bias.
But in recent months it has become difficult to ignore a disturbing pattern on the Times’ editorial and op-ed pages, one that blames Israel consistently, and sometimes exclusively, for the Mideast impasse.
Editorials on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict often call out Benjamin Netanyahu as the leader at fault. In doing so, the Times seems to dismiss the fact that the Israeli prime minister has repeatedly called for a two-state solution and the immediate resumption of peace talks, neither of which Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has agreed to.
The long-simmering concern about the Times’ tilt came to a head publicly last week when a letter surfaced that was written by Ron Dermer, a senior adviser to Netanyahu, to a New York Times op-ed page editor. In it Dermer declined a Times offer to publish an essay in the paper by the prime minister.
Dermer said the Times “failed to heed the late Senator Moynihan’s admonition that everyone is entitled to their own opinion but that no one is entitled to their own facts.”
He cited historical inaccuracies published in a Times op-ed last May by Abbas, pointing out that the Palestinian Authority president failed to note that it was the Arabs who rejected the 1947 United Nations partition plan and launched the war against the new Jewish state in 1948.
Further, Dermer charged that 19 of the 20 op-eds about Israel in the Times and International Herald Tribune in the last three months were negative, with the one exception an essay by Richard Goldstone, author of the controversial Goldstone Report for the UN, defending Israel against the charge of apartheid. (Dermer adds that the Times earlier turned down a Goldstone essay backing off of allegations that Israel committed war crimes during the fighting with Hamas in Gaza. It was published in The Washington Post.)
Perhaps most upsetting was a charge made by Times columnist Tom Friedman in his Dec. 13 column that the standing ovation Netanyahu received in Congress this year “was bought and paid for by the Israel lobby.”
Reflecting the anger of many Jewish leaders, David Harris, executive director of the American Jewish Committee, wrote in his blog that Friedman “crossed a line” with the Israel lobby statement, which he called “inaccurate and shockingly insidious,” conjuring up “the ugliest anti-Semitic stereotypes.”
In an interview with The Jewish Week on Tuesday, Friedman said: “In retrospect I probably should have used a more precise term like ‘engineered’ by the Israel lobby — a term that does not suggest grand conspiracy theories that I don’t subscribe to,” he said. “It would have helped people focus on my argument, which I stand by 100 percent.”
That argument was about the need to distinguish between American and Israeli interests at times, and to note that many American Jews “are deeply worried about where Israel is going today.” He cited a number of examples of acts and statements that suggest disturbing political and cultural shifts in Israeli society.
Friedman has often written of his support for the State of Israel, despite his sometimes sharp criticism of Jerusalem’s policies. His was a lonely voice of support for Israel in the mainstream press during the Israeli army’s military campaigns against Hamas and Hezbollah.
Many of us share at least some of the concerns Friedman and others express. But we worry that too often criticisms of Israel are leveled without an appreciation for its struggles to survive and thrive as a vibrant democracy in a sea of hostility, amid a world obsessed with the Jewish state’s every flaw and perceived flaw.
We expect no more from the Arab states and the UN; we do expect more from The New York Times.

www.rabbijonathanginsburg.com
www.rabbijonathanginsburg.info
www.rabbijonathanginsburg.net
www.converttojudaism.net

Insanity of Israel's conversion policies

2011-12-18T19:43:00.001-08:00

Israel says people converted by Chassidic Rabbis are not real Jews.

Published On Sunday, December 18, 2011 01:01:29 AM Yourjewishnews.com/Forward

Within the next few weeks Martina Ragachova could be deported from Israel — for being too frum.
Prague-born Ragachova, 37, moved to Israel a decade ago, and in 2004 converted to Judaism in the Bnei Brak rabbinic court of Nissim Karelitz, one of the world’s best-respected and most stringent Haredi rabbis. Karelitz was so moved by the genuineness of her commitment to Judaism that he knelt before her by way of congratulation.

Prior to this ultra-Orthodox conversion, Ragachova had applied to become Jewish in the modern-Orthodox state-run conversion courts. But they did not accept her application. So she took the private Haredi track.

She now has a conversion certificate that is accepted by virtually every rabbi in the world, in contrast to the state conversion she originally applied for, which is viewed with skepticism by large sections of the Orthodox community. But because she took her conversion into her own hands, Israel’s state rabbinate and Interior Ministry insist that she is not Jewish.
This means she cannot marry in Israel. When it comes to weddings performed in-country, the government recognizes only religious marriages. And for Jews, this means weddings officiated by Orthodox rabbis between individuals the government recognizes as Jews.

More immediately, it means that she could be deported because the Interior Ministry doesn’t consider her Jewish and will not grant her citizenship.

Until now, Ragachova has avoided deportation thanks to an injunction she obtained by going to court. Early next year, the Supreme Court will hear her case along with those of others in her situation.

If the court forces the state to recognize her conversion, as she is asking, the state’s monopoly on conversion will be over. If she is deported, there will be outrage in the Haredi community, which will see the ruling as an insult to one of its leading scholars.

“The conversion I passed is acceptable in every country in the world apart from Israel. It’s an absurd situation,” Ragachova told the Forward. She complained that she has been in limbo since her conversion due to her lack of citizenship. Until the court first considered her case in November, her lack of citizenship prevented her from working under the law. The temporary injunction she obtained now allows her to work during her case’s legal proceedings.

Ragachova’s case highlights a strange situation that has come about in Israel: Haredi conversion has become a relatively easy option for some who are prepared to follow an extra-stringent observant lifestyle.

Eleven years ago, the government faced resistance from within the rabbinate over its efforts to facilitate conversion for thousands of Russian immigrants and others who enjoy citizenship under Israel’s Law of Return on the basis of their Jewish family background — but who are considered non-Jews under Orthodox Judaic law. In response, the government set up a separate conversion operation under the Office of the Prime Minister to streamline their conversion.

These immigrants, for the most part, sought to become Jewish in order to become full-fledged members of Israel’s Jewish society, able to marry other Jews, be buried in Jewish cemeteries and enjoy full social acceptance. Under the plan, this new conversion body, which employed more lenient standards, was granted a monopoly over conversions for individuals living in Israel.

But this left out many individuals living legally in Israel on a long-term basis who, for one reason or another, are not citizens. These residents are barred from conversion unless they obtain special permission from an “exceptions committee” that meets rarely and gives no public account of its activities. Some people have not received a reply from the committee after a year after applying.

Having a Jewish partner makes applying via the Conversion Authority harder, not easier. The non-Jewish partner of a Jew, whether that Jew is Israeli born or an immigrant, cannot apply to the exceptions committee until he or she has been married to the Jewish partner for a year-and-a-half or in a relationship for four years. Of course, the couple cannot get married in Israel unless they are both Jewish to begin with.

“I have 10 cases of people who want to convert and start a Jewish family, but they have to wait, and some are in their 30s and say their biological clocks are ticking,” said Seth Farber, a Modern Orthodox rabbi who is director of the nonprofit organization ITIM that advocates on behalf of conversion candidates.

By contrast, the conversion process under Karelitz is straightforward, and open to anyone he deems serious about becoming Jewish. Prospective converts study, according to an aide to Karelitz, until they know more Jewish law “than even the average yeshiva or seminary student.” When Karelitz finds them ready, he converts them.

The Beth Din Tzedek religious court in Bnei Brak, which Karelitz chairs, was converting only a handful of people when Ragachova turned to it. Last year, it converted more than 250.

The trend disheartens Farber. “It is unfortunate and ironic that more and more people are coming to us to help them go through ultra-Orthodox conversions because the bureaucracy is preventing them from converting through the State of Israel,” he commented.

If the prospect of deportation is daunting for Ragachova, it is terrifying for Raisa-Haya Sonin, 74, Israel’s most Haredi gentile. Sonin dresses and practices religion the way Haredi women do, and is very much part of the Orthodox community in the Orthodox stronghold of Bnei Brak. But the state and its official rabbinate consider her non-Jewish because she converted with Karelitz after moving to Israel from the Former Soviet Union. Because of this, the state also does not recognize her marriage. “It’s hard from a spiritual point of view,” said her husband Ilya Sonin, 76, who was born Jewish. “We are old, not strong, and I worry about what will happen if I die first, about her status here.”

Sonin knows that under Israeli law, she can stay in the country living with the
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man whom the state regards as her Jewish civil partner only as long as he is alive. But she cannot apply for citizenship herself. And if he were to die, she could be deported.

Asked about its position on private conversions and the forthcoming court case, the Interior Ministry gave a brief answer: “The principal position of the State of Israel in all these cases is not to recognize any private conversion that takes place in Israel.”
The Conversion Authority did not respond to requests for information on its position.

The religious-Zionist camp is watching the Ragachova case closely. Observing the popularity of Karelitz’s court, some prominent Zionist rabbis have started converting. Yisrael Rosen, a Conversion Authority judge until his retirement in June and a founder of the state conversion courts, opened a conversion court of his own in August. The court converts an average of one person a week — unrecognized by the state.

Farber said: “It is unjust that someone can convert overseas and be recognized by the Law of Return, but if they convert in Israel, the center of Jewish world, they cannot.”

Obama's continuing betrayal of Israel

2011-12-17T11:50:00.000-08:00

http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/emergency-committee-israel-will-continue-tell-it-it_613442.html

'The Emergency Committee for Israel Will Continue to Tell it Like it Is'
Daniel Halper
December 16, 2011 6:04 PM

Barack Obama, in a speech today at the Union for Reform Judaism convention:
"I am proud to say that no U.S. administration has done more in support of Israel's security than ours. None. Don't let anybody else tell you otherwise. It is a fact." -- President Obama, Friday, Dec. 16
Bill Kristol, in his capacity as chairman of the Emergency Committee for Israel:
"President Obama protests too much. It is not a fact that his administration has been strong in support of Israel. It is a fact that in the past month alone, Obama administration officials have blamed Israel for the failure of the peace process, blamed Israel for fraying relations with the increasingly Islamist governments in Egypt and Turkey, compared Israel to Iran, and blamed Israel for Muslim anti-Semitism in Europe. The president hasn't clarified or repudiated any of these remarks. Israel's security doesn’t come from campaign-season platitudes delivered to Jewish audiences. Israel’s security depends on an American president who stands with Israel all the time, in public and private, before audiences foreign and domestic -- and whose administration's first instinct isn't to blame Israel first. The president's wishes to the contrary notwithstanding, the Emergency Committee for Israel will continue to tell it like it is." -- William Kristol, Friday, Dec. 16

Gingrich points out FALSE narrative of Palestinians

2011-12-17T11:43:00.001-08:00

The Gingrich Syndrome

By: Yedidya Atlas

In 1949, Princeton University Press, published the Fifth Revised Printing, of the original 1943 history book “The Arabs: A Short History” by Professor Philip Khuri Hitti, Professor of Semitic Languages and Chairman of the Department of Oriental Languages at Princeton University. Credited with almost single handedly created the discipline of Arabic Studies in the United States, Hitti, born in Ottoman Syria (now modern day Lebanon), was the preeminent scholar of Islam and the Arab world of his day.
It seems that some people (including some in the media) have short memories...
Ilana

A proponent of the Arab cause against the Jews and Zionism, Hitti was the first Arab to testify against the Partition Plan at the 1946 Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry, where he took Ben-Gurion to task for his testimony about “Palestine” (referring to the Jews). Hitti declared: “There is no such thing as ‘Palestine’ in history, absolutely not.” And in fact, in the aforementioned “The Arabs: A Short History” there is no mention of whatsoever of an Arab “Palestinian People” even though the particular volume in this writer’s possession was printed in 1966. Despite its numerous revisions, including after the founding the 1948 founding of the State of Israel, Professor Philip K. Hitti, a world renowned spokesman for the Arab cause for many years, made no revision to include the now oft-mentioned Arab “Palestinian People” in later editions of his book on Arab history.

In fact, the name “Palestine”, or “Palaestina” in Latin, originated in the second century C.E., after the Roman occupiers crushed the Jewish revolt of Bar Kochba. In an effort to subsequently wipe out Jewish connection to the Land, the Romans renamed the occupied Jewish Land of Israel as“Syria Palaestina” (after “Philistina” – the land where the Philistines, ancient enemies of the Jewish People, had dwelled in what is today Israel’s coastal plain and Gaza) and considered southern Syria, ruled by a Roman Governor in Damascus. Jerusalem was renamed “Aelia Capitolina”, Shechem, which had, like Jerusalem, been burnt to the ground and rebuilt by the Romans was renamed “Neapolis” (or “the New City” in Latin). Owing to the lack of the letter “P” in Arabic, “Palestine”, is today referred to by Arabs as “Filastin”, and the Arab name for Jewish Shechem, “Nablus” was another Arab mispronunciation of the Roman name Neapolis.

In brief, the name of the nationality of the so-called Arab “Palestinian People” is not even derived from their own language, Arabic. They have no distinctive national history, culture or even cuisine that distinguishes them from other Arabs in Syria, Lebanon, Jordan or Egypt. No one can name the first, last, or any Arab Palestinian king, during the long centuries they falsely claim to have existed prior to the return en masse of the Jews to the Biblical Land of Israel in the past 200 years. Hence, Arab Palestinian national existence is demonstratively a recent development at best.

So the responses to the recent remarks of former speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives and current Republican presidential candidate, Newt Gingrich, regarding the historical bona fides, or lack thereof, of the “Palestinian People” is more telling than the actual remarks.
After all, what did he say?
“Remember, there was no Palestine as a state. It was part of the Ottoman Empire until the early 20th century. I think that we've had an invented Palestinian people who are in fact Arabs, and who were historically part of the Arab community. And they had a chance to go many places, and for a variety of political reasons we have sustained this war against Israelnow since the 1940s, and it's tragic.”
Mr. Gingrich, who has a PhD. in history and taught it at the college level for a number of years prior to his decades long political career, has sufficient academic credentials for one to assume he has read at least a few serious books in his life on the subject, and can easily document the accuracy of his declaration. Moreover, as proven above, he didn’t say anything all that earth shattering per se.
The Palestinian Arab leadership, of course, challenged the veracity of the Gingrich remarks with the usual oft-repeated falsehoods:
"Our people have been here since the very beginning and are determined to stay on their land until the very end." And that Gingrich was “denying historical facts.” (Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad)
Also, of course, they labeled Mr. Gingrich, as “ignorant and racist” for challenging the politically correct albeit false Palestinian narrative.
Unsurprisingly, some media outlets attempted to undercut the historical accuracy of the Gingrich remarks. The Reuters report included the following paragraph:
“Most historians mark the start of Palestinian Arab nationalist sentiment in 1834, when Arab residents of the Palestinian region revolted against Ottoman rule.”
The key words being, of course, “most historians” in an effort to convince the reader that Gingrich’s statement was really just politically motivated and not a well documented historical fact. In reality said “most historians”is really the politically correct wishful thinking of two of Israel’s leftist “new historians” Baruch Kimerling and Joel Migdal in their book “The Palestinian People: A History” (Harvard University Press, 2003). There they write:
“The tough rule and new reforms led to the 1834 revolt’s outbreak in the heart of the country, uniting dispersed Bedouins, rural sheiks, urban notables, mountain fellaheen, and Jerusalem religious figures against a common enemy. It was these groups who would later constitute the Palestinian people.” (pp.3-20, p.7)
The “common enemy” was the Egyptian forces led by Ibrahim Pasha that had conquered much of the country in 1830 from Ottoman rule. The baseless assertion that “these groups who would later constitute the Palestinian people” is vacuous at best, if not deliberate false propaganda to lend credence to the “Palestinian People” myth propagated by Israel’s enemies in an effort to challenge the well documented Jewish connection to the Land. And although even Kimmerling and Migdal don’t buy into the official false history of today’s Palestinian Arab propaganda machine, their book nonetheless, achieved its purpose since it gives Reuters and other media outlets the “academic” basis to muddy the waters of historical accuracy and give the false impression that these issues are in dispute and Mr. Gingrich and anyone who agrees with his statement is in the minority and assumedly with a politically motivated bias against the “poor Palestinians.”
Much has been written in the past week or so in defense of Mr. Gingrich’s historically accurate assertions by top columnists in both Israel and theUnited States, but what no one discusses is the “true sin” of Mr. Gingrich. It is not merely that he has publicly noted that the “Palestinian Arab emperor” has no clothes, but that he, who may well be the next president of the United States, has, in essence, argued that documented truth, and not a politically correct false version of a so-called narrative, should be the basis of the reality upon which negotiations take place. In brief, that the so-called “Israel-Palestinian Conflict” is not a level playing field with equal moral and historical claims to a “disputed” Land.
He didn’t challenge the rights of the parties to negotiate a solution acceptable to both parties. He simply asserted that truth counts in policy making. What a remarkable idea!
The criticism leveled at Mr. Gingrich by even his fellow Republican contenders is that by speaking the truth about an important subject, it is making today’s realpolitik approach to Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, for example, more difficult – even for Israel! As if the Israeli position would not be strengthened by an American administration that would reject the false narrative of its enemies. Thus far, administrations that accept the Palestinian “Big Lie” invariably pressure Israel to make tangible and irrevocable concessions that threaten her very existence.

The logical extension of Mr. Gingrich’s “sin” is that not only should truth and morality be factors in making national policy, next he might suggest that political leaders should face reality and deal with it accordingly instead of making policy on delusional wishful thinking. Who does he think he is?
**************************************
The author is a veteran journalist specializing in geo-political and geo-strategic affairs in the Middle East. His articles have appeared in such publications as The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Times, Insight Magazine, Nativ, The Jerusalem Post and Makor Rishon. His articles have been reprinted by Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and in the US Congressional Record.

www.rabbijonathanginsburg.com
www.converttojudaism.net

Nonsense from Deborah Lipstatdt

2011-12-16T15:40:00.001-08:00

Here is the jist of what was reported she said
(from Haaretz.com)http://www.haaretz.com/blogs/west-of-eden/top-holocaust-scholar-blasts-holocaust-abuse-by-u-s-israeli-politicians-1.401821

"Renowned Holocaust historian Deborah Lipstadt says that American and Israeli politicians who invoke the Holocaust for contemporary political purposes are engaging in “Holocaust abuse”, which is similar to “soft-core denial” of the Holocaust.In a hard-hitting interview with Haaretz, Lipstadt also lashed out at the "over-the-top pandering" of Republican presidential candidates, describing their fawning support for Israel as "embarrassing" and "unhealthy." Of last week’s appearance of the top Republican candidates at a Washington forum organized by the Republican Jewish Committee, she said: “It was unbelievable. It made me cringe. I couldn’t watch it.”...
“You listen to Newt Gingrich talking about the Palestinians as an ‘invented people’ – it’s out-Aipacking AIPAC, it’s out-Israeling Israel,” she said. .”There’s something about it that’s so discomforting. It’s not healthy. It’s a distortion,” she said.
The New York-born Lipstadt said that President Barack Obama’s “flatfooted” handling of Israel at the beginning of his term “gave an opening to Republicans in America and to ‘Republicans’ in Israel.” She said that “more and more Jews are scared and here’s someone [the Republicans, CS] who is going to protect them. It’s so over-the-top irrational.”

I say Thank God for these Republican candidates and their concern about Israel.

Why is this nonsense?
1. Obama is one of, if not, the worst president's ever in regardf to uisrael, endangering her security in many ways, including"
a. Pressuring only Israel about failure of the Palestinians to return to the table
b. saying zero about their continuing anti_Israel and anti Jewish efforts
c. Undermining Mubarak so now Egypt will turn anti Israel and jihadist
d. humilated Netanyahu then tried to sandbag him about indefensible borders
e. sends surrogates out to attack Israel etc
f. Wasted 2 years trying to talk to Iran aboutt heir nuclear weapon dresire, then has stalled on aggresive sanctions, and allowed Iran to capture our most sophisticated drone

Many very rationale Jews understand the stakes, and how dangerous another Obama term would be, and it is NOT irrational to use Holocaust imagery when talking about Iran nuclear bombs aimed at 6 + million Jews.

As for Gingrich and Invented Palestinians, everyone else has to be PC but someone has to tel the truth. Everyone tiptoies about, afraid to speak the truth and the result? Absolutly zero evidence the Palestinians want any form of peace with a Jewish state,'
Lisptadt, for all her Holocaust knowledge, seems to have failed to learn the key lessons about paying attention when nazis say they want to kill you

Rabbi Jonathan Ginsburg
www.rabbijonathanginburg.com

Obama pulling us out of Iraq hurts Israel

2011-12-16T13:13:00.001-08:00

Obama pulling us out of Iraq hurts Israel

By Gabriel M. Scheinmann - JINSA Visiting Fellow

[Iran-Israel Map]On October 21, President Obama announced the impending end of U.S. military operations in Iraq, ordering the complete withdrawal of American forces by the end of 2011. Unable or unwilling to strike a deal to secure a long-term military presence, the President confidently declared that "Iraqis have taken full responsibility for their country's security" the United States is leaving Iraq behind at a precarious period when it is not yet able to defend itself.

American allies, such as Israel, are similarly nervous about the precipitous departure. A weak and America-less Iraq will have demonstrably negative consequences for Israel's security environment. First, no country with an American military presence has attacked Israel. U.S. forces stationed in Turkey, Egypt, and the Gulf States have deterred or prevented those states from embarking on military action. In fact, the presence of U.S. forces has generally signaled the strategic orientation of those countries, first as anti-Soviet and now as anti-Iranian.

reaction to the invented palestinians

2011-12-14T06:28:00.001-08:00

Our World: Gingrich’s fresh hope
By CAROLINE B. GLICK
12/12/2011 23:20

Gingrich's statement about the Palestinians was entirely accurate. That is, the Palestinian people were invented 91 years ago.

Talkbacks (100)
Last Friday, the frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination, former speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, did something revolutionary. He told the truth about the Palestinians. In an interview with The Jewish Channel, Gingrich said that the Palestinians are an “invented” people, “who are in fact Arabs.”

His statement about the Palestinians was entirely accurate. At the end of 1920, the “Palestinian people” was artificially carved out of the Arab population of “Greater Syria.” “Greater Syria” included present-day Syria, Lebanon, Israel, the Palestinian Authority and Jordan. That is, the Palestinian people were invented 91 years ago. Moreover, as Gingrich noted, the term “Palestinian people” only became widely accepted after 1977.

As Daniel Pipes chronicled in a 1989 article on the subject in The Middle East Quarterly, the local Arabs in what became Israel opted for a local nationalistic “Palestinian” identity in part due to their sense that their brethren in Syria were not sufficiently committed to the eradication of Zionism.

Since Gingrich spoke out on Friday, his factually accurate statement has been under assault from three directions. First, it has been attacked by Palestinian apologists in the postmodernist camp. Speaking to CNN, Hussein Ibish from the American Task Force on Palestine argued that Gingrich’s statement was an outrage because while he was right about the Palestinians being an artificial people, in Ibish’s view, Israelis were just as artificial. That is, he equated the Palestinians’ 91-year-old nationalism with the Jews’ 3,500-year-old nationalism.

In his words, “To call the Palestinians ‘an invented people’ in an obvious effort to undermine their national identity is outrageous, especially since there was no such thing as an ‘Israeli’ before 1948.”

Ibish’s nonsense is easily dispatched by a simple reading of the Hebrew Bible. As anyone semi-literate in Hebrew recognizes, the Israelis were not created in 1948. Three thousand years ago, the Israelis were led by a king named David. The Israelis had an independent commonwealth in the Land of Israel, and their capital city was Jerusalem.

The fact that 500 years ago King James renamed the Israelis “Israelites” is irrelevant to the basic truth that there is nothing new or artificial about the Israeli people. And Zionism, the Jewish national liberation movement, did not arise in competition with Arab nationalism. Zionism has been a central feature of Jewish identity for 3,500 years.

THE SECOND line of attack against Gingrich denies the veracity of his claim. Palestinian luminaries like the PA’s unelected Prime Minister Salam Fayyad told CNN, “The Palestinian people inhabited the land since the dawn of history.”

Fayyad’s historically unsubstantiated claim was further expounded on by Fatah Revolutionary Council member Dmitri Diliani in an interview with CNN. “The Palestinian people [are] descended from the Canaanite tribe of the Jebusites that inhabited the ancient site of Jerusalem as early as 3200 BCE,” Diliani asserted,

The Land of Israel has the greatest density of archeological sites in the world. Judea, Samaria, the Galilee, the Negev, the Golan Heights and other areas of the country are packed with archeological evidence of the Jewish commonwealths. As for Jerusalem, literally every inch of the city holds physical proof of the Jewish people’s historical claims to the city.

To date, no archeological or other evidence has been found linking the Palestinians to the city or the Jebusites.

From a US domestic political perspective, the third line of attack against Gingrich’s factual statement has been the most significant. The attacks involve conservative Washington insiders, many of whom are outspoken supporters of Gingrich’s principal rival for the Republican presidential nomination, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney.

To date, the attackers’ most outspoken representative has been Washington Post blogger Jennifer Rubin. These insiders argue that although Gingrich spoke the truth, it was irresponsible and unstatesmanlike for him to have done so.

As Rubin put it on Monday, “Do conservatives really think it is a good idea for their nominee to reverse decades of US policy and deny there is a Palestinian national identity?” In their view, Gingrich is an irresponsible flamethrower because he is turning his back on a 30- year bipartisan consensus. That consensus is based on ignoring the fact that the Palestinians are an artificial people whose identity sprang not from any shared historical experience, but from opposition to Jewish nationalism.

The policy goal of the consensus is to establish an independent Palestinian state west of the Jordan River that will live at peace with Israel.

This policy was obsessively advanced throughout the 1990s until it failed completely in 2000, when Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat rejected then-prime minister Ehud Barak’s and then US president Bill Clinton’s offer of Palestinian statehood and began the Palestinian terror war against Israel.

BUT RATHER than acknowledge that the policy – and the embrace of Palestinian national identity at its heart – had failed, and consider other options, the US policy establishment in Washington clung to it for dear life. Republicans like Rubin’s mentor, former deputy national security adviser Elliott Abrams, went on to support enthusiastically Israel’s surrender of Gaza in 2005, and to push for Hamas participation in the 2006 Palestinian elections. That withdrawal and those elections catapulted the jihadist terror group to power.

The consensus that Gingrich rejected by telling the truth about the artificial nature of Palestinian nationalism was based on an attempt to square popular support for Israel with the elite’s penchant for appeasement. On the one hand, due to overwhelming public support for a strong US alliance with Israel, most US policy-makers have not dared to abandon Israel as a US ally.

On the other hand, American policy-makers have been historically uncomfortable having to champion Israel to their anti-Israel European colleagues and to their Arab interlocutors who share the Palestinians’ rejection of Israel’s right to exist.

The policy of seeking to meld an anti-Israel Arab appeasement policy with a pro-Israel anti-appeasement policy was embraced by successive US administrations until it was summarily discarded by President Barack Obama three years ago. Obama replaced the two-headed policy with one of pure Arab appeasement.

Obama was able to justify his move because the two-pronged policy had failed. There was no peace between Israel and the Palestinians. The price of oil had skyrocketed, and US interests throughout the region were increasingly threatened.

For its part, Israel was far more vulnerable to terror and war than it had been in years. And its diplomatic isolation was acute and rising.

Unfortunately for both the US and Israel, Obama’s break with the consensus has destabilized the region, endangered Israel and imperiled US interests to a far greater degree than they had been under the failed dual-track policy of his predecessors. Throughout the Arab world, Islamist forces are on the rise.

Iran is on the verge of becoming a nuclear power.

The US is no longer seen as a credible regional power as it pulls its forces out of Iraq without victory, hamstrings its forces in Afghanistan, dooming them to attrition and defeat, and abandons its allies in country after country.

The stark contrast between Obama’s rejection of the failed consensus on the one hand and Gingrich’s rejection of the failed consensus on the other hand indicates that Gingrich may well be the perfect foil for Obama.

Gingrich’s willingness to state and defend the truth about the nature of the Palestinian conflict with Israel is the perfect response to Obama’s disastrous speech “to the Muslim world” in Cairo in June 2009. It was in that speech that Obama officially abandoned the bipartisan consensus, abandoned Israel and the truth about Zionism and Jewish national rights, and embraced completely the lie of Palestinian nationalism and national rights.

Both Rubin and Abrams, as well as Romney, justified their attacks on Gingrich and their defense of the failed consensus by noting that no Israeli leaders were saying what Gingrich said. Rubin went so far as to allege that Gingrich’s words of truth about the Palestinians hurt Israel.

This is of course absurd. What many Americans fail to recognize is that Israeli leaders are not as free to tell the truth about the nature of the conflict as the US is. Rather than look to Israel for leadership on this issue, American leaders would do well to view Israel as the equivalent of West Germany during the Cold War. With half of Berlin occupied by the Red Army and West Berlin serving as the tripwire for a Soviet invasion of Western Europe, West German leaders were not as free to tell the truth about the Soviet Union as American leaders were.

Today, with Jerusalem under constant political and terror threat, with all of Israel increasingly encircled by Islamist regimes, and with the Obama administration abandoning traditional US support for Israel, it is becoming less and less reasonable to expect Israel to take the rhetorical lead in telling important and difficult truths about the nature of its neighbors.

When Romney criticized Gingrich’s statement as unhelpful to Israel, Gingrich replied, “I feel quite confident that an amazing number of Israelis found it nice to have an American tell the truth about the war they are in the middle of, and the casualties they are taking and the people around them who say, ‘They do not have a right to exist and we want to destroy them.’” And he is absolutely right. It was more than nice.

It was heartening.

Thirty years of pre-Obama American lying about the nature of the conflict in an attempt to balance support for Israel with appeasement of the Arabs did not make the US safer or the Middle East more peaceful. A return to that policy under a new Republican president will not be sufficient to restore stability and security to the region.

And the need for such a restoration is acute. Under Obama, the last three years of US abandonment of the truth about Israel for Palestinian lies has made the region less stable, Israel more vulnerable, the US less respected and US interests more threatened.

Gingrich’s statement of truth was not an act of irresponsible flame throwing. It was the beginning of an antidote to Obama’s abandonment of truth and reason in favor of lies and appeasement. And as such, it was not a cause for anger. It was a cause for hope.

caroline@carolineglick.com

www.rabbijonathanginsburg.com
www.converttojudaism.net

Newt being criticized because he is right

2011-12-12T12:47:00.001-08:00

Melanie Phillips

US presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich (whose Lazarus-like trajectory to the Republican nomination I flagged up here a month ago) has recently demonstrated yet again Melanie's First Rule of Modern Political Discourse - the more obvious the truth that you utter, the more explosive and abusive the reaction.

For Gingrich said the Palestinian Arabs were 'an invented people' - and the world promptly started hurling execrations at him, as if such a statement proved beyond doubt that Gingrich was indeed a dangerously extreme individual who, when it came to political positioning, was just off the graph altogether.

So just what did he say? This:

' "Remember, there was no Palestine as a state - (it was) part of the Ottoman Empire. I think we have an invented Palestinian people who are in fact Arabs and historically part of the Arab community and they had the chance to go many places..." '

But of course, he is absolutely correct. As Elder of Ziyonpointed out, the Arabs who lived in Palestine were a disconnected bunch of tribes who had nothing in common with each other except that they were Arabs. They never were, are not and never will be a Palestinian people (the claim that they are now just because they say they are is risible and would be dismissed out of hand if applied to any other self-defined grouping). There is not and never has been any 'Palestinian' Arab culture, language, religion or national identity separate from that of the wider Arab nation.
'Palestinianism' was invented solely to destroy Israel. The one and only characteristic of this 'national' identity is the aim of destroying another -- authentic -- national identity.

The Arabs have themselves repeatedly admitted this over the years.Auni Bey Abdul-Hadi, the Syrian Arab leader told the British Peel Commission in 1937:

"There is no such country as Palestine. 'Palestine' is a term the Zionists invented. There is no Palestine in the Bible. Our country was for centuries part of Syria. 'Palestine' is alien to us. It is the Zionists who introduced it."

At the United Nations in 1956, the Saudi representative stated:

"It is common knowledge that Palestine is nothing but Southern Syria."

And after the 1967 war Zuheir Muhsin, then military commander of the PLO and member of the PLO Executive Council, said helpfully:

"There are no differences between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. We are all part of one nation. It is only for political reasons that we carefully underline our Palestinian identity... yes, the existence of a separate Palestinian identity serves only tactical purposes. The founding of a Palestinian state is a new tool in the continuing battle against Israel."

The agenda of 'Palestinian rights' is, however, now so deeply rooted in western discourse and diplomacy - and even in Israeli leftist discourse - that Gingrich has found himself under attack for talking rubbish. But it is his attackers whose arguments are jaw-droppingly absurd.

For example, a Fatah Revolutionary Council member claimed that Gingrich was 'racist' and 'ignorant' because the Palestinians had descended from the 'Canaanite tribe of the Jebusites'. But as Elder of Ziyon comments in a further hilarious posting, there are one or two, ah, obstacles in the way of this particular claim:

'The only confirmed mention of the historic Jebusites is in the Hebrew Bible. That's the only source that says that the Jebusites lived around Jerusalem. This exact same source says that one of their leaders, Araunah, offered to give the Temple Mount to King David; David insisted that he pay for it, and he did - for the amount of fifty silver shekels. So if you believe that the Palestinian Arabs are actually Jebusites, you must believe that they sold the Temple Mount to the Jews in a legal transaction.

'... There is another problem, though. The Constitution of Palestine refers numerous times to the "Arab Palestinian people" and that "Palestine is part of the large Arab World, and the Palestinian people are part of the Arab Nation." The PLO Charter similarly states "Palestine is the homeland of the Arab Palestinian people; it is an indivisible part of the Arab homeland, and the Palestinian people are an integral part of the Arab nation."

'But Jebusites were not Arabs. They were not even Semites! No self-respecting Jebusite (if any had still existed) would identify with the Arab hordes who overran his homeland in the seventh century. He would probably want to behead the infidel invaders.

'Is the constitution and charter wrong? When they call themselves Arab, are they all lying? Perhaps "Palestine" should quit the Arab League and re-assert its nebulous Jebusite ancestry.'

Next, herewas Israeli revisionist historian Tom Segev:

'"There is no intelligent person today who argues about the existence of the Palestinian people," Segev said. "Nations are created gradually. I don't think the Palestinians are less of a nation than the Americans," he added.'

There is no intelligent person today who would compare like with unlike in this shallow way. Americans became a nation solely because they created, lived in and governed America. The Jews were the nation who created, lived in and governed Israel. The Arabs were among waves of colonisers who took their national homeland away from them. The Americans did not base their entire claim to nationhood on the big lie that they were the original inhabitants of the land. The Palestinian Arabs do just that.

Daniel Greenfield, aka Sultan Knish, rips the American analogy apart and goes on:

'Palestinian identity is just so much gibberish. The official definition of that identity encompasses only those parts of the Palestine Mandate which Israel holds today.
'The people who live on the parts of the Palestine Mandate that were turned into the Kingdom of Jordan in 1921 are not Palestinians. There is no call to incorporate them into a Palestinian state. The people who lived in the parts of Israel that were captured by Jordan and Egypt in 1948 weren't Palestinians, and there was no call to turn the land that today comprises the so-called "Occupied Territories" into a state. But in 1967 when Israel liberated those areas-- only then did they magically turn into Palestinians. How is anyone supposed to take this nonsense seriously?

'Suppose I were to tell you that there were an ancient people known as the Floridians whose land was seized from them to make resort hotels and orange groves. What would be your first clue that there was something wrong here? Florida is a Spanish name meaning flower. Palestine, which is a Latin name applied by its ancient conquerors, derived from the Greek, has the same problem.

'When the Jews rebuilt their country, they did not call it Palestine, that was the name used by European powers. They called it Israel. The local Arabs who had come with the wave of conquests that toppled Byzantine rule had no such history and no name for themselves. Instead they took the Latin name used by the European powers and began pretending that it was some ancient tribal identity, rather than a regional name that was used by the European powers to describe local Jews and Arabs.

'... This bloody circus has been going on for way too long. Enough that the Arab states and the local clan leaders have managed to turn out generations of children committed to killing in the name of a mythical identity for a state that they don't really want. The call for a Palestinian state was a cynical ploy for destroying Israel. It's why the negotiations never go anywhere, they're not meant to go anywhere.'

Exactly. Which is why Gingrich's remark goes to the very heart of the issue; and it is the fact that so many in the intellectual, political and diplomatic world - including in Israel itself - find what he said so outlandish that goes a long way to explain why there is still no peace in the Middle East.

Gosh - a presidential candidate who actually understands what's going on in the Middle East and speaks the truth about it! No wonder they're so desperate now to stop him.

How Israel's Defense Industry Can Help Save America

2011-12-12T12:28:00.001-08:00

Observations:
How Israel's Defense Industry Can Help Save America - Arthur Herman (Commentary)
Kibbutz Sasa is the home of Plasan, which makes body armor for the Israel Defense Forces and for IDF vehicles. Today 90% of the company's orders come from Europe and the U.S. Plasan specializes in a very dense plastic composite product that affords ballistic protection without significantly adding to the weight of the vehicle.
Plasan-armored mine-resistant ambush-protected vehicles (MRAPs) have been serving in Afghanistan since August 2009, and contractor Oshkosh Company has another 8,800 on order. In 2009 Plasan opened a factory in Bennington, Vt., that employs 350 American workers.
An Israeli company called Camero came up with a way to use ultra-wideband wireless transmissions to see through walls - literally - and detect armed men and explosives on the other side. In December 2010, one of Camero's top clients became the U.S. Department of Defense.
Ten years ago Israel ranked 15th in foreign defense industry sales. In 2007 it surpassed the UK to rank fourth, behind the U.S., Russia, and France. The day when it takes France's place is not far off. This is a remarkable achievement for a country of some six million people.
At the Plasan plant in Kibbutz Sasa, the hallways are covered with poster-size copies of thank-you notes from American GIs. One of them is signed by Brian, an Army sergeant serving in Afghanistan who wrote that the Plasan armor saved him from a bullet that would have blown off his head if it had gone through the door.

The writer is a visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.
www.rabbijonathanginsburg.com

Was Newt right about the "invented peole"

2011-12-12T07:12:00.001-08:00

WAS NEWT RIGHT about the invented people?
Jewish World Review
The Year the Arabs Discovered Palestine
By Daniel Pipes
(From our Sept. 14, 2000 issue)

http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | Today is the day when a Palestinian state was nearly declared - for the third time.
On October 1, 1948, the mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin Husseini, stood before the Palestine National Council in Gaza and declared the existence of an All-Palestine Government.
In theory, this state already ruled Gaza and would soon control all of Palestine. Accordingly, it was born with a full complement of ministers to lofty proclamations of Palestine's free, democratic, and sovereign nature. But the whole thing was a sham. Gaza was run by the Egyptian government, the ministers had nothing to oversee, and the All-Palestine Government never expanded anywhere. Instead, this fa�ade quickly withered away.
Almost exactly forty years later, on November 15, 1988, a Palestinian state was again proclaimed, again at a meeting of the Palestine National Council.
This time, Yasser Arafat called it into being. In some ways, this state was even more futile than the first, being proclaimed in Algiers, almost 3,000 kilometers and four borders away from Palestine, and controlling not a centimeter of the territory it claimed. Although the Algiers declaration received enormous attention at the time (the Washington Post's front-page story read "PLO Proclaims Palestinian State"), a dozen years later it is nearly as forgotten as the Gazan declaration that preceded it.
In other words, today's declaration of a Palestinian state would have retreaded some well-worn ground.
We do not know what today's statement would have said, but like the 1988 document it probably would have claimed that "the Palestinian Arab people forged its national identity" in distant antiquity.
In fact, the Palestinian identity goes back, not to antiquity, but precisely to 1920. No "Palestinian Arab people" existed at the start of 1920 but by December it took shape in a form recognizably similar to today's.
Until the late nineteenth century, residents living in the region between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean identified themselves primarily in terms of religion: Moslems felt far stronger bonds with remote co-religionists than with nearby Christians and Jews. Living in that area did not imply any sense of common political purpose.
Then came the ideology of nationalism from Europe; its ideal of a government that embodies the spirit of its people was alien but appealing to Middle Easterners. How to apply this ideal, though? Who constitutes a nation and where must the boundaries be? These questions stimulated huge debates.
Some said the residents of the Levant are a nation; others said Eastern Arabic speakers; or all Arabic speakers; or all Moslems.
But no one suggested "Palestinians," and for good reason. Palestine, then a secular way of saying Eretz Yisra'el or Terra Sancta, embodied a purely Jewish and Christian concept, one utterly foreign to Moslems, even repugnant to them.
This distaste was confirmed in April 1920, when the British occupying force carved out a "Palestine." Moslems reacted very suspiciously, rightly seeing this designation as a victory for Zionism. Less accurately, they worried about it signaling a revival in the Crusader impulse. No prominent Moslem voices endorsed the delineation of Palestine in 1920; all protested it.
Instead, Moslems west of the Jordan directed their allegiance to Damascus, where the great-great-uncle of Jordan's King Abdullah II was then ruling; they identified themselves as Southern Syrians.
Interestingly, no one advocated this affiliation more emphatically than a young man named Amin Husseini. In July 1920, however, the French overthrew this Hashemite king, in the process killing the notion of a Southern Syria.
Isolated by the events of April and July, the Moslems of Palestine made the best of a bad situation. One prominent Jerusalemite commented, just days following the fall of the Hashemite kingdom: "after the recent events in Damascus, we have to effect a complete change in our plans here. Southern Syria no longer exists. We must defend Palestine."
Following this advice, the leadership in December 1920 adopted the goal of establishing an independent Palestinian state. Within a few years, this effort was led by Husseini.
Other identities - Syrian, Arab, and Moslem - continued to compete for decades afterward with the Palestinian one, but the latter has by now mostly swept the others aside and reigns nearly supreme.
That said, the fact that this identity is of such recent and expedient origins suggests that the Palestinian primacy is superficially rooted and that it could eventually come to an end, perhaps as quickly as it got started.

Backing up Newt on the Invented palestinian people

2011-12-10T16:03:00.001-08:00

Sunday, September 11, 2011What Palestine?
Is the world just plain stupid?
An interesting questionnaire for Palestinian Advocates

By Yashiko Sagamori

If you are so sure that "Palestine, the country, goes back through most of recorded history," I expect you to be able to answer a few basic questions about that country of Palestine:

1. When was it founded and by whom?

2. What were its borders?

3. What was its capital?

4. What were its major cities?

5. What constituted the basis of its economy?

6. What was its form of government?

7. Can you name at least one Palestinian leader before Arafat?

8.. Was Palestine ever recognized by a country whose existence, at that time or now, leaves no room for interpretation?

9. What was the language of the country of Palestine?

10. What was the prevalent religion of the country of Palestine?

11. What was the name of its currency? Choose any date in history and tell what was the approximate exchange rate of the Palestinian monetary unit against the US dollar, German mark, GB pound, Japanese yen, or Chinese Yuan on that date.

12. And, finally, since there is no such country today, what caused its demise and when did it occur?

You are lamenting the "low sinking" of a "once proud" nation.. Please tell me, when exactly was that "nation" proud and what was it so proud of?

And here is the least sarcastic question of all: If the people you mistakenly call "Palestinians" are anything but generic Arabs collected from all over -- or thrown out of -- the Arab world, if they really have a genuine ethnic id! entity that gives them right for self-determination, why did they never try to become independent until Arabs suffered their devastating defeat in the Six Day War?

I hope you avoid the temptation to trace the modern day "Palestinians" to the Biblical Philistines: Substituting etymology for history won't work here.

The truth should be obvious to everyone who wants to know it. Arab countries have never abandoned the dream of destroying Israel; they still cherish it today. Having time and again failed to achieve their evil goal with military means, they decided to fight Israel by proxy. For that purpose, they created a terrorist organization, cynically called it "the Palestinian people" and installed it in Gaza, Judea, and Samaria. How else can you explain the refusal by Jordan and Egypt to unconditionally accept back the "West Bank" and Gaza, respectively?

The fact is, Arabs populating Gaza, Judea, and Samaria have much less claim to nationhood than that Indian tribe that successfully emerged in Connecticut with the purpose of starting a tax-exempt casino: At least that tribe had a constructive goal that motivated them. The so-called "Palestinians" have only one motivation: the destruction of Israel, and in my book that is not sufficient to consider them a nation" -- or anything else except what they really are: A terrorist organization that will one day be dismantled.

In fact, there is only one way to achieve peace in the Middle East. Arab countries must acknowledge and accept their defeat in their war against Israel and, as the losing side should, pay Israel reparations for the more than 50 years of devastation they have visited on it. The most appropriate form of such reparations would be the removal of their terrorist organization from the land of Israel and accepting Israel's ancient sovereignty over Gaza, Judea, and Samaria.

That will mark the end of the Palestinian people. What are you saying again was its beginning?

Can this story be presented any more clearly or simply?

Truth about Peace process

2011-12-09T05:25:00.001-08:00

Truth about the WEST BANK

2011-12-09T05:18:00.000-08:00

Israeli population from Richard Baehr

2011-12-08T12:38:00.001-08:00

Some very good news: The Jewish birth rate in Israel is now so high, that Jewish births as a percentage of all births in the country has risen by 7 % , from 69% to 76% in just a few years. The Arab birth rate continues to drop within Israel and the actual number of babies born to Israeli Arabs is also declining. The spurt in the Jewish birth rate is among all sectors of the population . Non-Orthodox Jews now have an average birth rate of 2.6 per woman of child bearing age, about a third higher than in any other developed nation. The overall birth rate is now just shy of 3. So much for the "demographic nightmare that Israel supposedly faces, that would force it to give up the West Bank.
http://tinyurl.com/7uw4p4a
The PA also grossly overstates their population in the West Bank and Gaza for political purposes. Yoram Ettinger , who knows a great deal about all of this demographic detail, will be in Chicago soon to speak on this.

www.rabbijonathanginsburg.info

Repub candidates blast Obama on Israel

2011-12-07T15:41:00.000-08:00

http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-pn-romney-rjc-20111207,0,7383740.story
By Michael A. Memoli
December 7, 2011, 8:45 a.m.
Mitt Romney on Wednesday urged Republicans to choose their nominee carefully in 2012, saying Americans will want more than just a chance to unseat President Obama.

Speaking at the Republican Jewish Coalition Forum in Washington, Romney lambasted the incumbent for adopting a foreign policy of "appeasement" that "betrays a lack of faith in America."

"Obama doesn't understand America," Romney said. "This president appears more generous to our enemies than he is to our friends. Such is the natural tendency of someone who is unsure of America's strength – or of America's rightful place in the world."

Romney did his part to accuse the administration of undermining Israel, and said he had "immeasurably set back the prospect of peace in the Middle East." But he acknowledged he would not be the only candidate making that case before the hawkish, pro-Israel crowd.

A new obama admin. low-joining UN "Human Rights Council"

2011-12-07T08:42:00.000-08:00

http://www.weeklystandard.com/print/blogs/rumors-un-s-benefits-have-been-greatly-exaggerated_611677.html?page=2

Rumors of the U.N.’s Benefits Have Been Greatly Exaggerated

Anne Bayefsky

December 7, 2011 10:01 AM

Portraying President Obama’s U.N.-centered foreign policy as consistent with American values or pro-Israel has become increasingly difficult for administration officials. The result has been a steady stream of inaccurate accounts of goings-on at the organization.

On Friday, December 2, the Obama administration made another attempt to justify its decision to join the disreputable U.N. Human Rights Council. The Council had just followed a discussion on Syria with a resolution promising to appoint a human rights investigator – four months from now, in March 2012 and rejected calls to seek the involvement of the Security Council and the International Criminal Court. – U.S. ambassador to the U.N., Susan Rice tried to praise the body’s toughness: “No nation has been the subject of more than one special session, let alone three, in such a short amount of time.”

In fact, while the Council held three special sessions on Syria between April and December 2011, it has held six special sessions on Israel and three of those occurred in a shorter amount of time, namely, between July and November 2006.

Rice continued: “I applaud the Council for holding its third special session on Syria since April, with a record 29 co-sponsors.” The state department press release claimed that 29 countries was “by far the largest number of co-sponsors for any special session since the Council was created.” In fact, five other Council special sessions had more co-sponsors, including a session on Israel and the infamous Goldstone operation that had 33.

These aren’t the only factual inaccuracies being thrown around to shore upU.S. support for the Council, a body known to be no friend of Israel’s.

Esther Brimmer, assistant secretary of the bureau of international organization affairs at the State Department, is frequently trotted out to sell the Obama administration’s U.N.-bond, and to cover-up the body’s anti-Israel results. In a speech on February 1, 2011 to the Brookings Institution, Brimmer said: “Since the United States joined the Human Rights Council, it has not held a single special session on Israel.”

Except that the U.S. took its seat on the Council on September 14, 2009. The Council held its sixth special session on Israel on October 15 and 16, 2009 – an unforgettable session in which it endorsed the notorious Goldstone Report. And 8 months later, in June 2010, the Council, with slightly modified lingo, held an “urgent debate” – the first and only one of its kind – to condemn Israel’s lawful effort to stop Turkish-backed terrorists from breaking the Gaza blockade.

Slip of the tongue by Brimmer? Here she is repeating the same false claim again on September 1, 2011 at the University of Nevada: “Though the Human Rights Council held five special sessions on Israel in the three years before the United States took our seat, there have been none – none – in almost two years.”

With unnerving regularity, key members of the Obama administration misstate the facts on what happens at the U.N. and, hence, draw unsubstantiated conclusions about America’s best interests.

Speaking of the Human Rights Council, Rice told a House Appropriations Subcommittee on April 6, 2011: “The results there were worse when America sat on the sidelines…Israel was relentlessly bashed…U.S. engagement and leadership are paying dividends.” In fact, just two weeks before her statement the Council concluded its March 2011 session by adopting more resolutions bashing Israel than at any other session in its history.

Brimmer told an audience at the University of Nevada on September 1, 2011: “I am pleased to report that the Human Rights Council has fundamentally changed over the past two years as a result of U.S. engagement.…[W]e have seen a dramatic improvement in that body’s effectiveness.”

Dramatic improvement? Canada, the country with the closest voting pattern to the U.S., was on the Council prior to U.S. membership for 11 sessions. When it came time for voting, Canada lost 88 percent of the time. Since the U.S. has been a member, there have been 7 regular sessions of the Council and 50 up or down votes. The Obama administration has lost 42 of them – 84 percent of the time.

Brimmer told the United States Institute of Peace (USIP) on September 7, 2011: The Human Rights Council is a “serious human rights body.” There are no membership qualifications to serve on the U.N.’s lead human rights body, which therefore includes such human rights exemplars as Cuba, China, and Saudi Arabia. The standing agenda of the Council has one item devoted to criticism of Israel alone and another for all other 192 U.N. members. Forty-four percent of all the condemnations of specific states made by the Council have been directed to Israel.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Rice announced on March 31, 2009 that the Obama administration would seek to join the Council because it “is scheduled to undergo a formal review of its structure and procedures in 2011, which will offer a significant opportunity for Council reform.” U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Human Rights Council Eileen Donahoe said in the New York Times on September 13, 2010: “[I]f we do not sit at the table with others and do the work necessary to influence the process, U.S. values and priorities will not be reflected in the outcome.”

The Council “reform” process ended on June 17, 2011. Of the 42 proposals put forward by the American delegation, only three—all on minutiae—were accepted. The agenda item on Israel remained exactly the same. No criteria for membership on the Council were instituted and yet the sham review resolution passed the General Assembly with flying colors. After the vote the Syrian delegate summed up what really went down: “Warmest thanks…Our efforts were crowned by arriving at the document before us today…The objective of our work was not reform…”

Clinton addressed a letter on October 12, 2011 to Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs in which she said: “The United States strongly supports serious, sustained reform of the United Nations….We will…sustain our vigorous and principled push for fair treatment of Israel.”

Vigorous push? In March 2011, months before the Human Rights Council “reform” finally crashed and burned, and a year before any decision needed to be made, the administration formally announced that it would seek a second term on the Council—jettisoning the only bargaining chip for reform it might have had left either then or now.

The Obama administration’s story telling goes beyond the Human Rights Council.

Clinton told Reuters on October 11, 2011: “[W]ith respect to…UNESCO, we are legally prohibited from continuing to fund organizations that accept the Palestinians as members…I am strongly making the case to Members of Congress that at some point we need some flexibility because pretty soon, if we don’t pay into these organizations, we lose our right to participate and influence their actions.”

Failing to pay dues to U.N. bodies eventually results in the loss of voting privileges, but it does not result in the loss of a right to participate. In fact, on November 2, 2011, two days after the State Department indicated that U.S. funds to UNESCO would be stopped following the Palestinian move in accordance with U.S. law, the United States was reelected to serve on UNESCO’s executive board.

When it comes to the U.N. role on the big-ticket items that go to the heart of American national security interests, the misinformation campaign is also in full gear.

Rice told a House Appropriations Subcommittee on April 6, 2010: “[T]he U.N. helps halt the proliferation of nuclear weapons.” Brimmer similarly told the U.S.I.P on September 7, 2011: “[T]he International Atomic Energey Agency…has been invaluable in sounding the alarm on illicit nuclear activities in Iran [and] Syria…”

Actually, for twenty years under the stewardship of Egyptian Mohamed El Baradei the IAEA delayed supervision of Iranian behavior, lobbied against sanctions, and withheld damning information, drastically reducing the available strategies today for preventing an Iranian nuclear bomb. The Security Council is still twiddling its thumbs. U.N. “alarm-sounding” on Syria started 10 months after Israel destroyed its nascent nuclear reactor. North Korea, which has twice tested nuclear weapons and is developing missiles to carry them, was appointed in June to chair the U.N. Conference on Disarmament for its meetings this past summer.

Brimmer told USIP in September: “On counterterrorism, U.N. bodies are uniquely important.” And Rice told the House Committee on Foreign Affairs in April: “the U.N. helps isolate terrorists.” To this day the United Nations has no definition of terrorism because Islamic states insist on exempting preferred targets like Israeli and American “occupiers.” The Security Council has the representative of a terrorist organization as a full member, namely, Hezbollah-controlled Lebanon. The U.N.’s central Counter-Terrorism Committee has still never named a single terrorist, terrorist organization, or state sponsor of terrorism. And on November 11, 2011, for the first time in 15 years, the General Assembly decided to cancel the spring session of the committee charged with drafting the first comprehensive convention against terrorism because U.N. states are deadlocked on what they are against.

The Obama team’s erroneous and exaggerated accounts of the pluses of the United Nations are increasingly disgraceful, as they are detrimental to both Israel and the United States. Not surprisingly, they have been unable to defend the indefensible with the facts.

2011-12-07T08:21:00.001-08:00

Obama the anti_israel president

2011-12-07T06:24:00.001-08:00

Obama piling on Israel through surrogates www.rabbijonathanginsburg.com

2011-12-06T11:25:00.000-08:00

Has Obama Destroyed the Alliance?

Jonathan S. Tobin | @tobincommentary 12.06.2011 - 12:34 PM

It’s been a difficult week for Israel. A trifecta of attacks on the foundation of the ties between the United States and the Jewish state in the past few days have exposed the ambivalent feelings of top Obama administration officials. If you add together recent statements by Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and U.S. Ambassador to Belgium Howard Gutman, it’s hard to blame Caroline Glick for claiming that “under Obama, the U.S. is no longer Israel’s ally.”
But it’s worthwhile pointing out that despite these ominous signals and the failure of the administration’s promises to stop Iran’s nuclear program, Obama is still operating under constraints that will make it difficult for him to further weaken the bonds that unite Israel and the United States. The offensive words uttered by Panetta, Clinton and Gutman, as well as previous actions by Obama, point more to their frustration with a situation in which they know they cannot teach Israel’s government the rough lesson they believe it deserves than anything else.
As Obama learned to his dismay this past spring when his intended ambush of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on a visit to Washington backfired on him, the alliance with Israel isn’t a function of the whims of an individual president. From the first day he took office, Obama has been open about his goal of creating more distance between the U.S. and Israel than existed under his predecessors. That’s been a dangerous mistake that has destroyed what was left of the peace process and encouraged Israel’s foes to think its alliance with the United States is crumbling. That’s made the Middle East an even more dangerous place than it already was. But at the same time, due to the demands of Congress and key constituencies within the Democratic Party, the president has always been forced to maintain the security alliance that exists between the two nations. And in spite of Obama’s desire to help the Palestinians and his evident distaste for Israel, the so-called “diplomatic tsunami” that a Palestinian independence push at the United Nations was supposed to cause has fizzled.
To note these facts is not to dismiss the damage the fights picked by Obama (as well as Panetta’s attempt to blame Israel for its isolation by Islamists and Clinton for her slurs on Israeli democracy) have caused. But it must be understood their bristling resentment of Israel and Netanyahu is heightened by the fact that they know if they go further, there will be a terrible political reckoning. That’s why even as he chips away at the alliance, Obama must pay it homage and even be forced to claim, as he did last week, he is a good friend to the Jewish state. Such claims may be disingenuous, but like all forms of hypocrisy, they are, as the saying goes, the tribute that vice pays to virtue.
The reason why the pro-Israel consensus in the United States is so strong is that its roots are deep in our political culture and broader than just the Jewish vote or AIPAC. That’s what drives critics of the relationship like the Israel Lobby authors Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer crazy. And it’s also why Obama administration officials who are for their own ideological reasons unhappy about having to help Israel despite their strong desire to smack it around, sometimes give vent to statements that would lead you to think the alliance is doomed.
It is true a second Obama administration would have considerably more freedom to apply pressure on Israel than it has had the last three years. That is something that should give Israeli leaders who are pondering their options on Iran as well as American supporters of the Jewish state something to think about. But as bad as things seem right now, it should be remembered that no matter what Obama, Panetta, Clinton and their underlings may think about Israel, they are keenly aware a full break with Israel is not something they can get away with.

long term good news about freeing ourselves from foreign energy

2011-12-04T16:36:00.000-08:00

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204479504576638731600191382.html?mod=WSJ_hp_MIDDLENexttoWhatsNewsSecond

Big Oil Heads Back Home

Energy companies are shifting their focus away from the Middle East and toward the West—with profound implications for the companies, global politics and consumers

For decades, its main stomping grounds were in the developing world—exotic locales like the Persian Gulf and the desert sands of North Africa, the Niger Delta and the Caspian Sea. But in recent years, that geographical focus has undergone a radical change. Western energy giants are increasingly hunting for supplies in rich, developed countries—a shift that could have profound implications for the industry, global politics and consumers.
· .

Driving the change is the boom in unconventionals—the tough kinds of hydrocarbons like shale gas and oil sands that were once considered too difficult and expensive to extract and are now being exploited on an unprecedented scale from Australia to Canada.
The U.S. is at the forefront of the unconventionals revolution. By 2020, shale sources will make up about a third of total U.S. oil and gas production, according to PFC Energy, a Washington-based consultancy. By that time, the U.S. will be the top global oil and gas producer, surpassing Russia and Saudi Arabia, PFC predicts.
That could have far-reaching ramifications for the politics of oil, potentially shifting power away from the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries toward the Western hemisphere. With more crude being produced in North America, there's less likelihood of Middle Eastern politics causing supply shocks that drive up gasoline prices. Consumers could also benefit from lower electricity prices, as power plants switch from coal to cheap and plentiful natural gas.
And the change is reshaping the oil companies themselves, as they reallocate their vast resources to new areas and new kinds of fuel. Working in the rich world—with its more predictable taxes and investor-friendly policies—removes some of the risks about the big oil companies that worry investors, making them less vulnerable to the resource nationalism of petrostates like Russia and Venezuela.
"A company like Exxon Mobil can eliminate the technological risk" of developing unconventionals, says Amy Myers Jaffe, senior energy adviser at Rice University's Baker Institute. "But it can't eliminate the risk of a Vladimir Putin or a Hugo Chavez."
This new way of looking at risk is at the heart of the transformation. International oil companies traditionally face a choice: They can either invest in oil that is easy to produce but located in politically volatile countries. Or they can seek opportunities in stable countries where the oil is hard to extract, requiring complex and expensive production techniques.
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Bloomberg News (2); AFP/Getty Images (2)
Now, in a sense, the choice has been made for them. Big onshore fields in the world's most prolific hydrocarbon provinces are increasingly the preserve of national oil companies, state-owned behemoths like Saudi Aramco and Russia's OAO Rosneft and OAO Gazprom. For foreign majors like Royal Dutch Shell PLC and BP PLC, their former heartlands in the Gulf sands are now largely off-limits.
Shut out of the Middle East, they have responded with a huge push into new areas, both geographic and technological. Over the past few decades, they have built vast plants to produce liquefied natural gas, or LNG. They have drilled for oil in ever-deeper waters, ever farther offshore. They have worked out how to squeeze oil from the tar sands of Alberta. And they have deployed technologies like hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, and horizontal drilling to produce gas from shale rock.
Wood Mackenzie, an oil consultancy in Edinburgh, says that more than half of the international oil companies' long-term capital investments are now going into these four "resource themes"—a huge shift, considering how marginal the companies once considered them.
There are also drawbacks to the new focus on nontraditional kinds of hydrocarbons. Environmentalists strongly oppose shale-gas extraction due to fears that fracking may contaminate water supplies, the oil-sands industry because it is energy-intensive and dirty, and deep-water drilling because of the risk of oil spills like last year's Gulf of Mexico disaster.
There are financial considerations, too. While conventional assets are relatively easy to develop and historically have offered good returns, projects in some more technically difficult sectors—like deep-water and LNG—typically take longer to bring on-stream, and are higher cost, meaning returns are lower.
But there is an upside for the majors. "The silver lining is the shape of the profile of these projects, which is different than conventional ones," says Simon Flowers, head of corporate analysis at Wood Mackenzie. LNG ventures, for example, can deliver contract levels of gas at a steady rate over 20 years. "So the returns may be lower, but overall you have a more dependable cash-flow stream," he says.
By pursuing these nontraditional fuels, the oil companies are committing themselves ever more deeply to the wealthy nations of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Wood Mackenzie says $1.7 trillion of future value for all the world's oil companies—52% of the total—is in North America, Europe and Australia. The consultancy has identified a "significant westward shift" in oil-industry investment, away from traditional areas like North Africa and the Middle East "towards the Brazilian offshore, deepwater oil in the Gulf of Mexico and West Africa and unconventional oil and gas in North America." And then there's Australia, far out east, "which is in the early stages of a spectacular growth phase."
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Consider Shell. Seven years ago, the oil giant, synonymous with turbulent hot spots like Nigeria, decided to shift resources to more-developed nations that offered a friendly environment for investors and predictable tax regimes. Shell used to split spending on the upstream—the basic business of exploring for and producing oil and gas—roughly 50/50 between nations in the OECD and those outside of it. It's now 70/30 in favor of the OECD, with the bulk going to Canada, Australia and the U.S.
"The risks in OECD are technical, but they're easier to manage than political risk," says Simon Henry, Shell's chief financial officer. "In the OECD, you have more control of your operations."
With the new turf comes a new focus: Shell will soon be producing more natural gas than oil. That might have scared investors a decade or two ago. But with gas demand set to grow strongly, especially in Asia, the future for gas-focused companies is looking increasingly rosy—especially after the Fukushima disaster, which prompted a rethinking of nuclear power in Japan and elsewhere.
Entrenching Its Position

Like Shell, Exxon Mobil Corp. is entrenching its position in the Americas, home to just over half its resource base. Its unconventional resources have grown by almost 90% over the past five years to 35 billion oil-equivalent barrels—partly thanks to its 2010 acquisition of XTO Energy, a big shale-gas player. Exxon's U.S. unconventional production alone is expected to double over the next decade.
Some giants are looking further afield. Chevron Corp.'s three focus areas—the parts of the world that account for the bulk of its exploration budget—are the U.S. Gulf of Mexico, offshore West Africa and the waters off western Australia.
In particular, the company has staked out a huge position in Australian natural gas; its Gorgon LNG project in Australia is one of the world's largest. The push is based on expectations of surging demand for the fuel in Asia, largely in China, which wants to improve air quality in its heavily polluted cities by switching from coal to gas in power generation and running more commercial vehicles and buses on natural gas.
It "wasn't a conscious decision" to move into the OECD, says Jay Pryor, head of business development at Chevron. The company doesn't decide what projects to pursue based on where they are in the world, but on the quality of the resource, the commercial terms and the geopolitical risk. "The best rocks with the best terms are going to get the quickest investment," he says. Money has flowed into the U.S. and Australia because they offer the best incentives to oil companies, he says.
In recent years, Chevron has also expanded into another promising part of the OECD—Europe, which some estimates suggest has shale-gas reserves comparable to those in the U.S. Chevron has picked up millions of acres of land in Poland and Romania, where it will soon be drilling for shale gas. That's part of a wider trend: Dozens of companies are now exporting to Europe technologies used to open up shale deposits in the U.S.
Holding Back

Not all oil companies have piled into unconventionals the way Shell and Chevron have. BP, for one, has far fewer investments in tar sands and shale gas than its peers, though it has an unrivaled position in deep-water oil. That means it has less of a presence in the OECD than Shell: Its biggest projects are in poorer countries like Angola, Azerbaijan and Russia, and in recent years it has won a string of licenses and contracts in India, Iraq, Egypt and Jordan.
Yet even BP has been bolstering its position in the OECD. It said recently it was pressing ahead with a £4.5 billion ($7 billion) investment in the North Sea's Clair oil field, part of a five-year, £10 billion program.
Still, being in the OECD doesn't guarantee oil companies an easy ride. Operators in the North Sea were shocked earlier this year when the U.K. government suddenly increased taxes on oil producers. In France, authorities recently banned hydraulic fracturing. And in the U.S., the drilling moratorium in the Gulf of Mexico, imposed after the Deepwater Horizon blowout, threw many of the majors' plans into disarray.
But still, for the most part, the risks are much greater in the non-OECD. "The majors went to Venezuela and lost their property," says Ms. Myers Jaffe of the Baker Institute. "They went to Russia and had to whisk their CEO off to a safe house. They went to the Caspian and realized they couldn't get the oil out. I for one would much rather invest in a company that had 70% of its spending in the OECD

obama and Israel

2011-12-04T07:09:00.000-08:00

Obama's full court anti-Israel press. Having his surrogates do his dirty work
Obama tells rich stupid Jews at a fundraiser that no Prsident has ever done more for israel. What a crock! then
1 just reported .U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Saturday lamented Knesset attempts to restrict left-wing groups and expressed concern over the status of Israeli women.
2. yesterday US Def. Sec Panetta blasts Israel for failed palest talks
3. yesterday Jewish US AMB to Belgium who got the job as payoff for raising money for Obama blames European anti semitism on Israel's failure to solve Palestinian issue
is anyone so stupid they can't see what is going on/

Egypt turns Jihadist www.rabbijonathanginsburg.org

2011-12-01T05:34:00.001-08:00

Thanks you Obama for knocking off our ally Mubarak and giving Israel a new Jihadist neighbor in Egypt
From today's Daily Alert
Early Results in Egypt Show a Mandate for Islamists - David D. Kirkpatrick
Islamists claimed a decisive victory on Wednesday as early election results put them on track to win a dominant majority in Egypt's parliament. The party formed by the Muslim Brotherhood appeared to have taken about 40% of the vote. But analysts said the ultraconservative Islamist Salafis could take as much as a quarter of the vote, giving the two groups combined control of nearly 65% of the parliamentary seats.
The new majority is likely to increase the difficulty of sustaining the U.S.' close military and political partnership with post-Mubarak Egypt. (New York Times)
See also U.S. Congratulates Egypt on Election (DPA)
Obama -either incompentent or playing for the other side

Nov 29 1948 resolution today at play

2011-11-29T08:44:00.001-08:00

Nov 29 1948 resolution today at play
The Palestinians Resurrect the Partition Plan - Dore Gold
UN General Assembly Resolution 181 - the famous Partition Plan - was approved on Nov. 29, 1947. In 1999 the Palestinians were to claim that, according to Resolution 181, "both parts of Jerusalem - west and east - are occupied territory." However, Resolution 181 proposed internationalizing Jerusalem only as an interim measure, for ten years, after which there was to be a referendum. Given the Jewish majority in Jerusalem, it was expected that the city would then be annexed to the Jewish state.
It is also important to recall that UN General Assembly resolutions are only recommendations and do not bind member states under international law. Moreover, the Arab states rejected Resolution 181 in its entirety, especially its call for establishing a Jewish state.
Israel's first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, understood the moral importance of Resolution 181 because of its recognition of the right of the Jewish people to a state. But on Dec. 3, 1949, at the end of Israel's War of Independence, Ben-Gurion told the Knesset he opposed calls for Jerusalem's internationalization: "We can no longer regard the UN Resolution of 29 November as having any moral force. After the UN failed to implement its own resolution, we regard the resolution of 29 November concerning Jerusalem to be null and void."
Furthermore, it was not the UN that legally created the Jewish state with Resolution 181, but rather Israel's own declaration of independence in 1948. (Israel Hayom)

Obama's perfidity against Israel

2011-11-28T06:26:00.000-08:00

from World jewish Digest today 1. Egypt is the most populous Arab state and has long dominated the culture and politics of the Arab world. It is an oft-mentioned truism that as Egypt goes, so goes the rest of the Middle East.
One might expect Israel, which has long harbored pipe dreams of a more liberal and democratic Middle East, which might be more accepting of a Jewish state in its midst; but this is not the case. While publicly endorsing Egypt's democratic process, Israel has made no secret of its concerns that it may lead to an Islamic takeover of its powerful neighbor, with whom it has enjoyed a stable peace since 1978
There are disturbing indications that Israeli concerns are not unfounded. "The Muslim Brotherhood," notes the Times,the group that defined Islamist politics, is poised to win a dominant role in the Parliament of the country that for nearly six decades was the paradigmatic secular dictatorship of the Arab world.

2. from today's Daily Alert
U.S. Urges Egypt's Military to Yield Power - David D. Kirkpatrick
The White House on Friday threw its weight behind Egypt's resurgent protest movement, urging for the first time the handover of power by the interim military rulers. "The United States strongly believes that the new Egyptian government must be empowered with real authority immediately," the White House said. The statement is a significant escalation of the international pressure on the generals because the United States is among the Egyptian military's closest allies. (New York Times)

This comes after Obama aided and pushing Mubarak out and aiding these jihadists in their takleover of Egypt, and betray America's best and only real arab ally Mubrack, but did NOTHING to help the revolutionaries overthrow the jihadists terrorists leaders of Iran.

This story is repeating itself in Tunisia, Libya, now soon Jordan and Morroco,
Gaza democratically went from Assad who was bad enough to Hamas,(Iranbian stooge) Lebanon fell to Hezbollah, (iranian stooge) Obama pulls us out Iraq which will thenm fall to iran's orbit

Obama did nothing but try and talk Iran out of nuclear weapons for two years and now delays all serious sanctions.

Isn't it obvious what he is trying to do? Which side is he playing for? Come up with a different explanation. www.rabbijonathanginsburg.info

Prepare to bomb www.rabbijonathanginsburg.info

2011-11-27T16:11:00.001-08:00

Bachmann: Pentagon should prepare war plan with Iran

By NBC's Jamie Novogrod

November 21, 2011
NEW YORK -- On Sunday, Michele Bachmann urged the Pentagon to develop a war plan “immediately” that would evaluate ways to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon.
"We must accelerate our covert operations and our cyber operations in Iran, and order ... the CIA director to take all means necessary to stop Iran from getting the bomb before it’s too late," said Bachmann, a member of the House Intelligence Committee.

“And the Pentagon should prepare a war plan immediately to tell us what to do to prevent Iran from gaining those nuclear weapons,” she continued.
But these remarks, which came during a speech at the annual dinner of the Zionist Organization of America, a pro-Israel group, stopped short of calling for immediate military action against Iran.
“I do not take lightly the prospect of committing the United States troop to stop Iran,” Bachmann said. “Only a fool would ever wish for war."
Bachmann repeated that theme during a press conference following her speech, telling reporters it would be “foolish” to rush into war, before adding,: “We must be prepared to do whatever is necessary to stop Iran. They are the threat to Israel, they are the threat to the United States.”
Iran's nuclear program, though long a concern inside conservative circles, is again in the spotlight since a United Nations report released earlier this month showed Iran has made further steps toward achieving a nuclear weapon.
Finding a medium between “wishing for war” and being “prepared” could mark a new way Bachmann will talk about managing the threat -– allowing her to strike hawkish and practical tones in equal measure on the issue that has become the centerpiece of her foreign policy agenda.
It also sets her apart from Republican opponents who draw a harder line on both sides of the issue. Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum has called for a joint American-Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities. Herman Cain has said he doesn’t support the idea of military action against Iran.
Bachmann called on Sunday for a variety of measures against Iran that stop short of military action, including public support for Iranian dissidents, a naval blockade, and a regime of “crushing” economic sanctions that would seek Russia and China’s aid in shutting down Iran’s central bank. (Both countries have financial relationships with Iran.)
Election politics also made a brief appearance Sunday, when Bachmann was forced to address her work as a young lawyer at the IRS.
ZOA’s president, Morton Klein, had woven that biographical detail into his introduction, setting off boos in the crowd.
“To everyone that was mortified in this room to learn that I was a tax lawyer and worked with –- on behalf of –- the IRS,” Bachmann said, “I actually wore a white hat and was trying to be an advocate for lower taxes in that position, not for higher taxes. “
It was a unique reference to her former employer, which Bachmann often eludes mentioning by describing herself as a “former federal tax attorney.”
Bachmann wasn’t the only high-profile speaker Sunday. Glenn Beck received a “defender of Israel” award from the group, delivering a speech that included teary tributes to leaders of the resistance against the Nazis, and a sweeping reproach of the American political left.
“I’ve said George Soros is no friend to Israel,” Beck said, referring to the prominent liberal philanthropist who is Jewish. “Let me add to it: neither is this administration.”

Obama and the world www.rabbijonathanginsburg.com

2011-11-24T11:39:00.001-08:00

When Obama took over, Turkey, Egypt, Jordan all had good relations with Israel, and Iran was 4 years away from nuclear bombs. Libya was ruled by a madman but who had given up nuclear ambition. Russia was at least on reasonable terms with us. Egypt and libya will soon turn over to Muslim Brotherhood terrorists and worse, Turkey has turned into Islamic anti Israel nation, Jordan is going that way and Iran is very close to nuclear bombs if not already has them. A Russian newscaster gave a literal middle finger to a newscast to Obama the other day, which is what their president basically did in response to our missile plan. He betrayed our one solid ally i the Arab world-Mubarak. Israel feels betrayed by him. Obama has done much to accelerate this anti-Israel development among these important nations and destroying our relations with many nations, while drawing closer to anti-American leaders like Chavez and Assad. Is he just incompetent or purposely doing this? You'd have to try really hard to to blow things this much.

More half-measures from Obama administration on Iran www.rabbijonathanginsburg.com

2011-11-23T05:56:00.001-08:00

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/more-half-measures-from-obama-administration-on-iran/2011/11/22/gIQADXxLmN_story.html

More half-measures from Obama administration on Iran

By Editorial, Published: November 22

THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION pledged that Iran would suffer painful consequences for plotting to assassinate the Saudi ambassador in Washington and for refusing to freeze its nuclear program. Key European allies and Congress — not to mention Israel — are ready for decisive action. But on Monday the administration unveiled another series of half-steps. Sanctions were toughened on Iran’s oil industry, but there was no move to block its exports. The Iranian banking system was designated “a primary money laundering concern,” a step U.S. officials said could prompt banks and companies around the world to cease doing business with the country. But the administration declined to directly sanction the central bank.
The result is that President Obama is not even leading from behind on Iran; he is simply behind. At the forefront of the Western effort to pressure Tehran is French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who issued a statement Monday calling on the European Union, the United States, Japan, Canada and “other willing countries” to “immediately freeze the assets of Iran’s central bank” and suspend purchases of Iranian oil. France rejects the Obama administration’s view that these steps would cause a counterproductive spike in oil prices. In any case, higher oil prices are preferable to allowing an Iranian bomb — or having to take military action to stop it.
Congress is ahead of Mr. Obama, too. It’s likely that large bipartisan majorities will support legislation mandating sanctions against the central bank; in the Senate’s case it could be attached to the defense authorization bill. Another comprehensive sanctions bill, targeting both Iran and its ally Syria, could be brought to the Senate floor within a couple of weeks.
The administration’s slowness to embrace crippling sanctions is one of several persistent flaws in its Iran policy. Another is its continued insistence on the possibility of “engagement” with a regime that has repeatedly rejected it while plotting murder in Washington. “The United States is committed to engagement,” Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton asserted Monday. Some European officials say they are concerned by the concessions the administration appears prepared to offer Tehran if there are new talks. (my comment: what does it say that Europe is concerned about US policy? Sarkozy, in particular, wants to make more aggressive steps regarding Iran’s Central Bank)
By now it should be obvious that only regime change will stop the Iranian nuclear program. That means, at a minimum, the departure of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who has repeatedly blocked efforts by other Iranian leaders to talk to the West. Sanctions that stop Iran from exporting oil and importing gasoline could deal a decisive blow to his dictatorship, which already faced an Arab Spring-like popular revolt two years ago. By holding back on such measures, the Obama administration merely makes it more likely that drastic action, such as a military attack, eventually will be taken by Israel, or forced on the United States.

Stopping Iran www.rabbijonathanginsburg.com

2011-11-22T13:04:00.001-08:00

Who’s best to take on Obama on Iran?
By Jennifer Rubin

The Huffington Post’s Jon Ward reports that the Mitt Romney campaign “recently decided to make Iran the centerpiece of their foreign policy strategy, believing it to be the most sensible point of attack, as well as a potent counterpoint to the inevitable Obama campaign boasts about bin Laden and Libya.”

Ward observes:

Romney’s Iran strategy clearly depends on sending a message to Tehran that, if elected president, he would not shrink from using military force to destroy their nuclear weapons program.
“Mitt Romney will make clear to the Iranian regime through actions — not just words — that a military option to deal with its nuclear program remains on the table,” the campaign said in a recent release detailing the steps Romney would take to put additional pressure on Iran. “Only if Iran understands that the United States is determined that a nuclear-armed Iran is unacceptable will there be any possibility that Iran will give up its nuclear aspirations peacefully.”

Romney further points out, correctly, that Russia’s foot-dragging on Iran sanctions is further evidence (in addition to a worsening human rights record, involvement in bombings in Georgia, etc.) that the Obama administration’s Russian reset policy is a bust.

Dan Senor, a principal adviser to Romney on foreign affairs, told me this afternoon that the opportunity for sanctions to be effective is passing. He explained, “The administration’s sanctions policies are unlikely to stop Iran’s progress toward acquiring a nuclear weapon. Iran is unlikely to enter serious negotiations toward a resolution of this problem. As we’ve learned from the IAEA report, the overall trajectory will almost certainly not change. And the Russian response, which was to dismiss the IAEA report and any possibility of further sanctions, highlights the failure of Obama’s ‘reset.’ Moreover, we have evidence that Iran is getting more, and not less, aggressive.”

Senor added, “The failed attempt to assassinate the Saudi ambassador in Washington, in an operation that could have killed scores of Americans, is a significant ratcheting-up of Iranian terrorist activities. It is not the first such attempt on American soil, but it is by far the most ambitious. It makes clear that as Iran moves closer to possession of nuclear weapons, it is also becoming bolder in the use of terrorism against targets in the U.S. The combination is a nightmare scenario.”

Our actions in Iraq and our stance toward Syria have only made things worse, Senor told me: “The Obama administration’s precipitous and unexpected total withdrawal of American forces from Iraq has given Iran an enormous opportunity in that key neighboring state. The entire region views our pullout as an American defeat and an Iranian victory, which has shaken the confidence of our allies. The fact that Obama made this decision within days of the revelation of the Iranian terrorist plot is especially damaging.”

And as for the butcher of Damascus, Senor warned that “getting our Syria policy right is crucial because [Bashar al-]Assad’s regime is Tehran’s only Arab-world ally; it’s Tehran’s only port on the Mediterranean; and it’s Tehran’s path to arming Hezbollah. The fall of Assad would be a strategic blow to Tehran. So Syria is important not only because of the human catastrophe, but also due to the strategic imperative of setting back Iran.”

At the debate tonight, we will see other candidates’ views on Iran. Rick Santorum has also offered a comprehensive approach to Iran. The issue for voters will be to determine who has the determination, the judgment and the smarts to construct a foreign policy that effectively disarms Iran. Rhetoric is nice, but it is much harder to discern who is most capable.

To Romney’s credit, he’s already revealed the sorts of people he’d select as advisers on foreign policy. (His foreign policy team includes serious voices, such as Senor, Eliot Cohen, Robert Kagan and Michael Hayden.) Part of Romney’s argument for his own candidacy is that — in contrast to President Obama, who selected feckless aides (retired Gen. James Jones, among them) and fell down in executing an effective policy — he will have a capable team, experienced in national security and with clear direction. (Contrast the Romney team with the hodgepodge of odd voices assembled by Newt Gingrich, including Robert McFarlane, whose claim to “fame” was the Iran-contra debacle and was part of a team assembled to push for an imposing a peace plan on Israel.)

But ultimately we don’t know for certain how a candidate will react under pressure in a foreign-policy crisis. Few expected that George W. Bush would become a wartime president. Jimmy Carter boasted Navy credentials but turned into a wet noodle in office. It’s perhaps the most important element in electing a president and the one which is arguably the toughest to assess. We’ll get at least some insight tonight.

http://www.americanthinker.com/printpage/?url=http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/../2011/11/iran_policy_the_problem_is_obama.html
Iran Policy: The Problem Is Obama

By Ed Lasky
Iran is well on its way to developing nuclear weapons. Years of sanctions have not stopped them, and now President Obama will not use his most effective tool short of acts of war.
The administration opposes new sanctions on Iran's Central Bank, despite the overwhelming support that measure (spearheaded by Illinois Republican Senator Mark Kirk) enjoys on both sides of the aisle in Congress. The administration says such a measure would lead to a spike in oil prices and harm the world economy. That is speculation.
What is not speculation is that sanctions on the Central Bank would impose crippling costs on a weak Iranian economy and be an effective measure to help dissuade Iran to end its nuclear weapons program. Iran's Central Bank plays a crucial role in Iran's economy. Sanctioning the Central Bank makes it difficult for companies to pay for oil purchases -- and oil sales represent 50-75 percent of the government budget.
Many Iranians are disgusted with the economic stewardship shown by the theocrats and terrorists running the nation. Any additional sanctions that are actually enforced would exacerbate the tensions within Iran and widen the schisms between merchants and mullahs.
Not only does the Obama team oppose this type of sanction, but they have inverted, twisted, and perverted the logic of its proponents.
In the past few days, a Treasury official, Adam Szubin, testified before Congress that sanctions on Iran's Central Bank would actually help Iran and therefore should not be passed. Huh? His reasoning is that it may lead to a spike in oil prices.
A milder version of an amendment promoted by Senator Robert Menendez (Democrat-New Jersey) would give Barack Obama broad waiver authority to give a pass to central banks of other nations that continue to do business with Iran's Central Bank.
This is a classic "national security" loophole that often allows presidents to blithely ignore the legislation Congress has passed. Of course, Barack Obama is wont to do this anyway, but the loophole allows him a fig leaf of legality. The stronger Kirk Amendment does not contain this broad waiver authority and would make it far tougher for President Obama to evade the intent of the law.
If the measure does pass with a national security waiver, no one can rest assured that the waiver will be used. The Obama team clearly did not want to cut off American money to UNESCO in the wake of its admission of the Palestinians as a member. However, the legislation governing this issue was passed years ago without the waiver loophole, so the administration was forced to stop funding UNESCO (it has subsequently tried to enlist businesses in trying to get Congress to eliminate the waiver, an effort that is dead on arrival).
Where is the logic, then, of the administration periodically trotting out the statement that "all options are on the table"? This is a codephrase for a military option. It is also used to try to garner support among supporters of Israel in America. It is a campaign slogan and political strategy; it is not a real threat, and the Iranians know this fact. Why some Americans are gullible enough to believe Obama's latest campaign slogan is the topic of another column.
If the White House will not impose legal sanctions on the Central Bank because of putative economic concerns, how likely is a military strike against nuclear installations? It has a zero likelihood of happening.
That is a certainty. The Iranians know this logic, know Obama will do nothing, and know they can act with impunity -- as they have for years, 　murdering our soldiers in Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and Afghanistan. Most recently, they have stepped up their game and tried to bring terrorism to our nation's capital (plotting to murder the Saudi and Israel ambassadors and any innocent Americans who happened to be near them).
The Iranians can see the Obama administration's clear resistance to more potent sanctions. They can reasonably assume that stronger actions -- such as a military strike -- are definitely off the table. In fact, they were never on the table.
If Obama won't impose sanctions on Iran's Central Bank, he certainly won't order military strikes on nuclear installations.
Furthermore, President Obama said he wants a "common response" to Iran's nuclear program with Russia and China. Since Russia has dismissed the IAEA report as "biased and unprofessional," that common response would be the "lowest common denominator" response -- meaning little or no response. The best that can be hoped for is the steady drip, drip, drip of individual small companies or individuals being named as subject to sanctions. In other words, more of the same weak measures that have failed to work in the past and will fail to work now and in the future.
We periodically hear that President Obama signed the strongest Iran sanctions legislation of any U.S. president. Of course, the passage of that legislation took quite a long time to pass through Congress -- as it met resistance from certain quarters allied with Barack Obama.
Furthermore, legislation is merely a scrap of paper if the sanctions are not enforced by the Executive Branch. The Obama administration has been all but feckless in enforcing the existing sanctions on Iran. There are reasons why so many members on both sides of the aisle signed onto the Kyl-Menendez letter calling on the administration to actually enforce the legislation Congress already passed. A House letter (spearheaded by Illinois Congressman Dan Lipinski) also called on the Executive Branch to enforce the sanctions on Iran.
We have a president overseeing a policy that is bankrupt, feckless, weak, and immoral.
Meanwhile, the centrifuges are not the only things spinning these days...so is the Obama administration when it comes to Iran. Richard Grenell writes in the Wall Street Journal of "Obama's Failing Diplomacy":
On Nov. 13, President Obama made some remarkable statements. "When I came into office," he said at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting in Honolulu, "the world was divided and Iran was unified around its nuclear program." Now, he said, "the world is united and Iran is isolated. And because of our diplomacy and our efforts, we have, by far, the strongest sanctions on Iran that we've ever seen." Mr. Obama added, "China and Russia were critical to making that happen. Had they not been willing to support those efforts in the United Nations, we would not be able to see the kind of progress that we've made."
This was pure spin. The United Nations Security Council actually began instituting resolutions and sanctions in 2006, agreed to and voted on by all 15 members, that called upon Iran to stop enriching uranium.
In its nearly three years in office, the Obama administration has helped pass just one of those resolutions -- in June 2009. Only 12 of the 15 members of the Security Council voted in favor of it. Brazil, Turkey and Lebanon did not.
The simple fact is that the world is less unified on Iran now than it was under President George W. Bush. True enough, Mr. Obama may hear fewer complaints about hard-charging U.S. foreign policies than his predecessor. But silence is not cooperation.
The Bush administration got five Security Council resolutions passed on Iran starting in 2006. Three were sanctions resolutions. The Security Council was unanimous on two of the votes and lost only one country's support (Indonesia) in the third vote in 2008. In total, the Bush team lost the support of one country in its three sanctions resolutions while the Obama team lost the support of three countries in one resolution.
Ultimately, President Bush got five Security Council resolutions passed on Iran, and Obama has had one. Granted, Bush's were done over a two-term period, but the threat is even more critical now, and certainly more actions at the Security Council could have been taken had there been the will in the White House.
Lest we forget, the mullahs loathe America as much as they hate Israel and have boasted of their desire to destroy the United States. They are possessed of an apocalyptic vision that nuclear war will bring about the return of the "Twelfth Imam" and millennial bliss (for those few left).
The problem is that there is no will to stop them. The problem is Obama.

He blew Iran www.rabbijonathanginsburg.com

2011-11-17T12:01:00.001-08:00

HE MAGAZINE Weekly Standard
Obama’s Iran Failure
Israel turns up the heat.
NOV 21, 2011, VOL. 17, NO. 10 • BY LEE SMITHSingle PagePrintLarger
The Obama administration’s Iran policy rested on three pillars—the peace process, engagement, and containment. The first would win the newly elected president credit with the Arab people of the Middle East and empower the Arab states to gather in a robust coalition against Tehran. As for the second, even if engagement failed to bring Iran back into the community of nations, it would prove to Washington’s European allies and, more important, to Russia and China, that the Obama White House had gone the extra mile, which would, in turn, make containment possible.

All three efforts have now failed, which may explain why recent Israeli news reports suggest Jerusalem is moving toward a decision about a military strike of some sort against Iran’s nuclear program.

After more than half a year of relative quiet as the Arab Spring rolled through the Middle East, the Israeli government has helped shift the regional conversation back to Iran. It’s hardly surprising that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak are reportedly in favor of a strike since their historical legacies might rest on how the Iranian issue is resolved. However, the fact that Israel’s president Shimon Peres now calls military action “more and more likely” suggests that, regardless of the eventual decision, Israel has embarked on a public diplomacy campaign intended to seize international attention.

WHO IS SERIOUS about Iran? www.rabbijonathanginsburg.com

2011-11-17T06:34:00.001-08:00

Stop Iran from getting nuclear bombs
GOP hopefuls challenge Obama on Iran
By BRADLEY KLAPPER | AP – Wed, Nov 16, 2011
WASHINGTON (AP) — Republican presidential hopefuls are focusing on Iran as a weak spot in President Barack Obama's foreign policy record, and they're reviving many of the arguments that neoconservative proponents of armed intervention against Tehran lost in the latter years of George W. Bush's presidency.
Spurred by a recent United Nations report on Iran's nuclear weapons research, the leading GOP candidates are presenting themselves as hawkish alternatives to Obama and his administration's two-track policy of pressuring and engaging the Islamic republic. They propose more drastic approaches to prevent Iran from developing an atomic bomb — from funding armed rebel movements to launching military attacks.
"If we re-elect Barack Obama, Iran will have a nuclear weapon," Mitt Romney said during Saturday's foreign policy debate in South Carolina. "If you elect me as the next president, they will not have a nuclear weapon."
The former Massachusetts governor and Republican front-runner said the U.S. should be "working with the insurgents in the country to encourage regime change." But, if "there's nothing else we can do besides take military action, then of course you take military action."
"There are a number of ways to be smart about Iran and relatively few ways to be dumb, and the administration skipped all the ways to be smart," former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said at Saturday's debate. He called for "maximum covert operations to block and disrupt the Iranian program" and backed Romney's call for possible military action. If "the dictatorship persists, you have to take whatever steps are necessary to break its capacity to have a nuclear weapon."
Seeking to one-up Gingrich, longshot candidate Rick Santorum said there "isn't going to be enough time" for tougher sanctions on Iran and more support for pro-democracy groups. He acknowledged the Obama administration's possible involvement in some of the covert attacks on Iran's nuclear program.
But he suggested an even tougher approach alongside Israel to strike Iran's nuclear facilities pre-emptively — similar to the operations the Jewish state conducted against Iraq in 1981 and Syria four years ago.

For all the early talk of engagement, Obama has stuck largely to the Bush administration's latter-year policies of negotiations with Iran alongside international pressure — without the inflammatory rhetoric such as accusations of Tehran's membership in an "axis of evil."
Republicans see the policy nevertheless as a failure and seem to be harkening back to the hard-line American posture taken after U.S. troops toppled Iraq's Saddam Hussein in 2003 and many conservative foreign policy thinkers made Iran's regime the next bogeyman that needed to be taken out.
Then, as now, the argument held that a nuclear-armed Iran would be a mortal threat to U.S. forces in the region and to U.S. ally Israel, whose U.S. backing is wide and deep. Then, as now, the more hawkish voices said time is running out for talking and the U.S. must make clear to Iran that it will use its overwhelming military advantage.
The most likely strategy would be a missile strike on one of Iran's known nuclear facilities, or sabotage from within the country.
Either is clearly within U.S. power, but Obama's calculation has thus far been the same as Bush's: A strike isn't yet worth the risks it carries. Iran could retaliate against U.S. interests or allies, and the Pentagon assesses that if Iran is bent on acquiring a nuclear weapon, a strike would delay but not prevent it.
GOP candidate Herman Cain said he wouldn't pursue a military conflict.
"The only way we can stop them is through economic means," he said.
Libertarian Ron Paul also held back, saying war powers were vested in Congress.
Over the weekend, Obama argued that U.S. and international sanctions against Tehran have had "enormous bite" and said he'd consult with other nations on further efforts to stop Iran from acquiring an atomic weapon. Without specifically mentioning military action, he insisted, as Bush always did, that U.S. officials "are not taking any options off the table."

Connect the dots

2011-11-14T08:26:00.001-08:00

Connect the dots

Israel: Iran Closer to Atom Bomb than IAEA Report Indicates
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday the full extent of Iran's nuclear program was not reflected in a recent UN report, which said that Tehran appeared to have worked on designing an atomic bomb. "Iran is closer to getting an (atomic) bomb than is thought," Netanyahu said in remarks to cabinet ministers, quoted by an official from his office. "Only things that could be proven were written (in the UN report), but in reality there are many other things that we see." At the start of the meeting, Netanyahu repeated his call for the world "to stop Iran's race to arm itself with a nuclear weapon before it is too late." (Reuters)

Yesterday The president says sanctions are having a big impact, but all options remain on the table.
Either he is willfully and naively optimistic about the sanctions, which have not stopped Iran, or he is just plain lying and wants Iran to get nuks.

Romney said in the debate on Sat night that under Obama, Iran will get nuks. He is obviously right.

http://schnellmann.org/a-time-to-betray.html
(book) "A Time To Betray" --- CIA Spy Reza Kahlili: Iran Will Use Nukes Against Israel

My question: This is a desperate time. Why are Jewish organizations silent about pressuring the USA to bomb Iran’s nuclear plants. This is not Israel’s job to do. It si the USA’s, as leader of the free world.
They have to know the sanctions are a joke. This is 1938 all over again and Jewish organizations are timid. It is a nightmare. What is the point of Jewish power if we can’t even open our mouths to try and do what we can to stop Iran?

www.rabbijonathanginsburg.com

Time to bomb Iran wwwrabbijonathanginsburg.com

2011-11-12T19:44:00.001-08:00

THE IRANIAN NUCLEAR MAZE by Ambassador (ret.) YORAM ETTINGER
forwarded by Gail Winston, Middle East Analyst & Commentator
THE IRANIAN NUCLEAR MAZE by Ambassador (ret.) YORAM ETTINGER, "Second Thought" "Israel Hayom" Newsletter,November 11, 2011
http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=811

The assumptions that tougher sanctions could deny Iran nuclear capabilities,
could pacify Iran's nuclear programs, and could produce a regime change in
Teheran, defy reality. These assumptions and the suppositions that Mutually-Assured-Deterrence (MAD) would enable the Free World to co-exist with a nuclear Iran, and that the cost of a military preemption would be prohibitive, reflect a determination to learn from recent history by repeating – and not by avoiding – critical errors; a victory of delusion over realism.

US and UN sanctions against North Korea – which were initiated in 1950 - failed to prevent the nuclearization of Pyongyang. Sanctions could not abort the development of impressive North Korean weapons of mass destruction
capabilities and its exportation – along with terrorism - to Iran, Egypt, Syria, Asia, Africa and the American continent. Sanctions have not toppled the Kim Jong-il regime and haven't ended its relentless pursuit of the takeover of South Korea.

Sanctions against North Korea instilled a false sense of success, relieving Western policy-makers of taking tougher action, thus facilitating Kim Jong-Il's attainment of nuclear power. While sanctions brought down the comfort-driven White regime of South Africa, they generally do not deter rogue repressive Third World regimes, such as North Korea, Saddam's Iraq, Cuba and Burma, which has been targeted by US sanctions since 1990.

US and UN sanctions against Iran have been ineffective for 16 years! US sanctions were initially legislated in 1995, and UN Security Council sanctions were initially approved in 2006. They intended to end Iran's nuclear program and its support of Islamic terrorism and to bolster the Iranian opposition. Additional US legislation has tightened the sanctions and intensified punitive policy towards violators. However, systematic non-compliance has been demonstrated by Russia and China, as well as by Turkey, Pakistan, Malaysia, India, Japan, South Africa, Venezuela and some of the European countries.
Disengagement from delusions and engagement with realism constitute a prerequisite for averting Iran's nuclearization, which constitutes a clear and present danger to the US, then to NATO, Saudi Arabia and Iraq, as well as to Israel and to global sanity. Therefore, the prevention of a nuclear Iran should constitute a top US national security priority.
In other words, Iran's mega-goal, since the 7th century, has been the domination of the Persian Gulf, irrespective of the Palestinian issue, Israel's policy or Israel's existence. Iran's mega-hurdle has been the US and NATO presence in the Gulf. Therefore, the development of Iran's mega-(nuclear) capability is primarily designed to force the US evacuation of the Gulf and the Indian Ocean, through deterrence and intimidation in the Gulf region, through beachheads in Latin America and the US mainland. Iran's mega-capability would allow it to occupy Iraq – its arch rival since the 7th century – and Saudi Arabia, which Iran considers an apostate regime. All Gulf States are perceived by Iran as key prizes, required to control the flow and the price of oil and to bankroll Teheran's megalomaniac regional and global aspirations.

Iran's geo-strategic goals are energized by its current Islamic zeal, viewing Jihad (Holy War) as the permanent state of relations between Moslems and non-Moslems, while peace and ceasefire accords are tenuous. Iran demonstrated its zeal to obtain the mega-goal at all cost, sacrificing some 500,000 people on the altar of the 1980-1988 War against Iraq, including approximately 100,000 children who were dispatched to clear minefields. Moreover, Teheran’s Mullahs are emboldened by the pending US evacuation of Iraq, which they consider an extension of the US retreats from Lebanon (1958
and 1983), Vietnam (1973) and Somalia (1993).

An Iranian nuclear cloud, hovering above the US and Israel, would not require the launching of nuclear warheads, in order to acquire significant extortion capabilities and produce economic, social, moral and national security havoc. Therefore, one cannot afford to await a smoking nuclear gun in the hand of Teheran; one must prevent the nuclear gun from reaching Teheran's hand. That excludes the options of deterrence, coexistence and retaliation. It highlights the option of a swift and a disproportional preemptive military operation, whose cost would be dwarfed by the cost of inaction.

The Iranian nuclear challenge constitutes the ultimate test of leadership. Will the US and Israel be driven by long-term conviction and realism, or will they succumb to vacillation, oversimplification and short-term political convenience, thus facilitating the surrender of Western democracies to rogue Islamic regimes!?

Ambassador (ret.) Yoram Ettinger, "Second Thought: US-Israel Initiative",

2011-11-11T14:32:00.001-08:00

Where is the pressure from Jewish Organizations?

2011-11-10T15:42:00.001-08:00

No can pretend anymore that Iran is not building nuclear weapons. Obama stupidly first tried to talk them out of it. Then he stalled on sanctions. Then signed some that Congress pushed and now is stalling on them again. Anyway they are a JOKE. Iran is laughing at our feeble sanctions efforts. This is 1938 right now all over again. So where are the Jewish organizations? Jewish organizations have been beating the drums on Iran for a decade but now when push comes to shove, NO PRESSURE on Obama to stop them militarily. Only the Repub candidates (except Paul) understand this but by Jan 2013 it may be too late. This is the most important issue in the world today and silence from Jewsh organizations except me about militarily stopping them. Iran can fit a nuke in a suitcase. They have Hezbolah agents coming across the Mexican border all the time. Obama can care less, I get that. But where are the Jewish organizations? Israel is obviously maneuvering to pressure the USA to act. Why don't we help them out. The ONLY WAY to stop Iran is the USA to bomb their 37 sites with our heavy bombers and bunker busters. What good will it do after the nuks go off to say :I told you so?" STOP THEM!! Jewish organizations, where are you? why are you silent on this?

Caroline Glick THE OBAMA administration's stubborn refusal

2011-11-09T10:27:00.001-08:00

...THE OBAMA administration's stubborn refusal to acknowledge the obvious fact that a nuclear armed Iran constitutes a far greater danger to US interests than an Israeli military strike to deny Iran nuclear capabilities is in line with the administration's consistent refusal to treat Israel as an ally. Its unserious handling of Iran is of a piece with its gentle policies towards Hamas and Hezbollah, its refusal to call Fatah on its bad faith, its blindness to the threat emanating from Islamist movements in Turkey and North Africa, and its consistent pressure on Israel to appease its enemies. The administration's apparent antipathy for Israel has played a significant role in causing it to underestimate the threat that all these forces pose not only to Israel but to the US and to international security in general.
And Israel is not the US's only Middle Eastern ally that has suffered from its strategic myopia. Iran's pro- American Green Movement was betrayed by Obama's decision to side with the regime against the Green Movement in 2009. Iraq's pro-American political forces will be harmed if not destroyed in the aftermath of the administration's planned withdrawal of US forces from Iraq.
Then there are the Sunnis. Under Obama, the US betrayed its most important Arab ally when it called for then-Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak to resign in response to the anti-regime demonstrations in Cairo. America is supporting the Muslim Brotherhood takeover of Tunisia, Libya and Egypt. It supports the Muslim Brotherhood-dominated, Turkish organized Syrian opposition to Assad's regime. It upholds Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Islamist, anti-Semitic and anti-Western regime as the US's greatest regional ally.
With its dismal track record, it is far from clear that Israel is well-served by pressuring the Obama administration to take action against Iran. On Sunday, British military commentator Con Coughlin noted in theSunday Telegraph that in recent years, the "only measures that have had any demonstrable effect on slowing Iran's nuclear progress have been undertaken by Israel, via a skillful combination of targeted assassinations and cyber-warfare."
So Israel's low-key, tactical operations against Iran have been effective while all of Obama's high-profile strategic operations have empowered Israel's enemies.
True, Obama has not yet taken any operational steps to attack Iran's nuclear installations. But the dire implications of his track records cannot be ignored.
At least until the US presidential elections next year, Israel's best bet may be to simply step up its covert efforts to sabotage Iran's nuclear program.
The goal of these efforts should be to slow down Iran's nuclear progress sufficiently to prevent it from developing a nuclear arsenal or moving its nuclear project to hardened locations until after the US presidential elections. In the meantime, Israel should continue to develop its independent capacity to attack Iran. It should also take military action to weaken Iran's terror proxies in order to limit their capacity to wage war against Israel in the aftermath of an eventual, post-presidential election Israeli or US strike against Iran's nuclear facilities.
Obviously, it would be a mistake to assume that Obama will lose his reelection bid. But even if he wins, as a lame duck, second term president, he will have less power to harm Israel than he will as a first term president poised for reelection.

www.rabbijonathanginsburg.com

Obama willfully allowing Iran to go forward

2011-11-09T09:27:00.000-08:00

http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/192447-white-house-iaea-report-raises-concerns-about-irans-nuclear-program

Ah..that all purpose “raises concerns”….

Spinning like centrifuges….”sporadic”, “report certainly doesn’t assert that Iran has mastered all the necessary technology [to make a weapon] and we agree with that”, “no evidence”, “does not draw any conclusions” etc.

I guess the “smoking gun” that seems to be required will have to be a “ mushroom cloud”.

Now comes the “consulting with the international community” but don’t worry:

Administration officials said Obama expects Iran “to respond to this report by demonstrating to the world the peaceful nature of its program by answering the questions that are raised, very directly, by this IAEA report.”

Hasn’t this been going on for years now? Hasn’t Iran been asked constantly to demonstrate the peaceful nature of its program and to answer questions. The IAEA report itself brings up the fact that Iran has REFUSED to answer many questions. Did the WH even read the IAEA report?

Tick..tock..tick tock…

From ed Lasky

Stand With Us Itamar Marcus Nov 15 7:30 Chicago

2011-11-07T10:16:00.000-08:00

UNESCO vote anti Israel

2011-11-07T10:02:00.000-08:00

Yesterday's overwhelming vote by UNESCO to recognize Palestine as a full member was far more than a symbolic diplomatic defeat for the United States and Israel.
*The UN culture and education agency was immediately defunded by the US, which was due to contribute $80 million to the organization this year, a little more than one-fifth of the UN body's budget. The Obama administration's decision was triggered by a 1994 US law that requires financial ties to be cut with any UN agency that accords the Palestinians full membership.

On its face, this may not seem a big deal for America. Ronald Reagan pulled the US out of UNESCO in 1984, and the country only rejoined in the fall of 2002 under George W. Bush, as his administration was courting UN support for military action against Iraq.

RELATED Palestinian UNESCO membership: What it means for 4 key players

But the law that saw the US pull out of UNESCO would apply equally to any other UN agency – whether the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which plays a key role in monitoring nuclear proliferation in states like Iran, or the World Health Organization, where the US and other states intensively coordinate international efforts to deal with public health threats.

And under UN rules, membership into the World Intellectual Property Organization would be more or less automatic at this point if the Palestinians pursue it. The WIPO has been strongly supported by the US, seeking to curb piracy of US movies and software.

Palestinian leaders say they're methodically seeking to enter other UN agencies, though are likely to go slowly in the coming weeks. The probable next target would be the WHO.

“We are working on it, one by one," said Ibrahim Khraishi, a Palestinian official at the UN in Geneva, in remarks quoted by the Associated Press today. "It’s now precedent that we are a full member in one of the biggest and one of the most important UN agencies, UNESCO. So it will open the door for us now to go further.”

l of this puts the United States in a bind. Though the State Department said it wants to continue to work with UNESCO, even as it cuts funding, it's hard to see how. The Obama administration is expected to reach out to Congress to find a way both to continue to funding UNESCO, and give the US government flexibility if

Whether it will get very far in that appeal is another matter. A number of pro-Israel congressmen and congresswomen have publicly backed the cut-off of aid, and called for further steps to punish the UN for the voting patterns of its members and the Palestinians for seeking membership.

Kay Granger (R) of Texas, who chairs the House Appropriations Subcommittee on State and Foreign Operations, said in a letter that she will seek to cut off aid to the Palestinians if they seek to join more UN bodies and implied that more UN funding could be cut as well.

"I have made it clear to the Palestinian leadership that I would not support sending US taxpayer money to the Palestinians if they sought statehood at the United Nations," she wrote. "Making a move in another UN agency will not only jeopardize our relationship with the Palestinians, it will jeopardize our contributions to the United Nations.”

Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R) of Florida, who chairs the House Foreign Affairs Committee, was scathing in a brief statement yesterday that was quoted by the Washington Post. "Today’s reckless action by UNESCO is anti-Israel and anti-peace,” she said. “It rewards the Palestinian leadership’s dangerous scheme to bypass negotiations with Israel and seek recognition of a self-declared ‘Palestinian state,’ and takes us further from peace in the Middle East.”Given the overall pro-Israel mood in Congress, it will be interesting to see if the legislation's requirements will be eased. Israel has been furious over the UNESCO vote. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government described the 107-14 vote in favor of UNESCO membership (with 52 abstentions) as a "unilateral" and destabilizing move, and his cabinet is considering responses today, which might include cutting off the flow of tax revenue that Israel collects on the behalf of the Palestinian Authority.

Options on Iran

2011-11-07T09:47:00.000-08:00

Obama Still Has Options on Iran
Seth Mandel | @SethAMandel 11.07.2011 - 11:50 AM

The Washington Post’s write-up of the upcoming report from the UN’s nuclear watchdog confirms the two key elements of Iran’s nuclear program: they have “mastered the critical steps needed to build a nuclear weapon, receiving assistance from foreign scientists to overcome key technical hurdles,” and the Iranians intend to use this capability for “weapons-related” purposes.
None of this is particularly shocking, nor is the Iranian government’s yawn in response: “Let them publish and see what happens.” As Jonathan noted yesterday, sabotage (either through the Stuxnet worm or assassinations of nuclear scientists) were never considered a silver bullet to stop the Iranian program; sanctions that would do the trick will be blocked by Russia and China; and sanctions targeting the Central Bank of Iran would be helpful but not conclusive. So what should President Obama do? He has three options.
First, he should take action that could collapse the Central Bank of Iran anyway. It’s true this is not going to stop the program, but it would help and it would send a message. If the U.S. cannot effectively sanction the Iranian Central Bank, it will have no credibility to enact tougher sanctions. The Republican currently holding Obama’s old Senate seat, Mark Kirk, has been pushing the president on this and called a press conference today to continue doing so. Kirk and Charles Schumer have been rallying their respective caucuses behind the effort, and a letter calling for such action received the signatures of 92 senators in August. The purpose of Kirk’s press conference today is to outline an amendment to the Foreign Operations Appropriations bill under consideration this week. “We have to use the strongest non-military means available to reduce the coming danger to America, Saudi Arabia, and Israel,” Kirk said.
Second, the U.S. should stop pretending it has no leverage over Russia. The last hurdle to Russia’s entry into the World Trade Organization–Georgian opposition–has been cleared. But the U.S. can still block it. If Obama wants an indisputable success with regard to the “reset,” getting Russia to stand down and allow real sanctions on Iran would be an especially good place to start. Of course it benefits the American economy to have Russia in the WTO, but so does doing business with Iran. So far, the U.S. has wrung zero concessions from Vladimir Putin over Russia’s long-awaited accession to the WTO, and in fact has ignored its illegal behavior toward Georgia in order to welcome Russia to the club. Iranian sanctions wouldn’t be too much to ask from an authoritarian country looking to join a global organization dedicated to ethical trade practices.
Third, Obama should keep the pressure up on Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad any way he can. He should start by figuring out what can be done to stop the American and European companies currently outfitting the Syrian regime with surveillance equipment to help their brutal crackdown on Syrian opposition and civilian protesters, as Bloomberg Businessweek reported a few days ago. Every Iranian ally in the Middle East relies on Syria as well in some form or another, most notably Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza. And those allies are key to Iran’s deterrent capability, through its terrorist proxies with thousands of missiles aimed at Israel in case of attack. Any weakening of that nexus will weaken Iran.
Obama cannot stop the Iranian nuclear program with any of these measures, but they will all do more than simply describing the news as “unhelpful” and changing the subject, as this administration likes to do.

He forgot to add

Obama could order a month long sustained bombing campaign targeting all known sites
:-)

Jonathan Ginsburg

www.rabbijonathanginsburg.org

a nightmare President for World, USA and Israel

2011-11-04T13:01:00.000-07:00

Obama nightmare President for World, USA and Israel
Rabbi Jonathan Ginsburg

\
USA Economy
1. 9 percent unemployment, stagnant growth and ruinous deficits as far as the eye can see so Obama blames everyone but himself for his incompetence http://rabbisagainstobama.blogspot.com/2011/10/scapegoat-strategy-charles-krauthammer.html
2. Nearly three years since his election and more than two years since the economic recovery began, Mr. Obama has enacted myriad policies at great expense to American taxpayers and amid political rancor. An interim evaluation is in order.

And there's plenty to evaluate: an $825 billion stimulus package; the Public-Private Investment Partnership to buy toxic assets from the banks; "cash for clunkers"; the home-buyers credit; record spending and budget deficits and exploding debt; the auto bailouts; five versions of foreclosure relief; numerous lifelines to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac; financial regulation and health-care reform; energy subsidies, mandates and moratoria; and constant demands for higher tax rates on "the rich" and businesses.

Consider the direct results of the Obama programs. The failed stimulus bill cost an astounding $280,000 per job—over five times median pay—by the administration's inflated estimates of jobs "created or saved," and much more using more realistic estimates.

Cash for clunkers cost $3 billion, just to shift car sales forward a few months. The Public-Private Investment Partnership, despite cheap federal loans, generated 3% of the $1 trillion claimed, and toxic assets still hobble some financial institutions. The Dodd-Frank financial reform law institutionalized "too big to fail" amid greater concentration of banking assets and mortgages in Fannie and Freddie. The foreclosure relief program permanently modified only a small percentage of the four million mortgages the president promised. And even Mr. Obama now admits that the shovels weren't ready in all those "shovel-ready" stimulus projects.

Perpetually overpromising and underdelivering is not remotely good enough, not even for government work. No corporate CEO could survive such a clear history of failure. The economic records set on Mr. Obama's watch really are historic. These include the first downgrade of sovereign U.S. debt in American history, and, relative to GDP, the highest federal spending in U.S. history save the peak years of World War II, plus the highest federal debt since just after World War II.

The employment picture doesn't look any better. The fraction of the population working is the lowest since 1983. Long-term unemployment is by far the highest since the Great Depression. Job growth during the first two years of recovery after a severe recession is the slowest in postwar history.

Moreover, the home-ownership rate is the lowest since 1965 and foreclosures are at a post-Depression high. And perhaps most ominously, the share of Americans paying income taxes is the lowest in the modern era, while dependency on government is the highest in U.S. history.

That's quite a record, although not what Mr. Obama and his supporters had in mind when they pronounced this presidency historic.

Enlarge Image

President Obama constantly reminds us, with some justification, that he was dealt a difficult hand. But the evidence is overwhelming that he played it poorly. His big government spending, debt and regulation fix has clearly failed. Relative to previous recoveries from deep recessions, the results are disastrous. A considerable fraction of current joblessness, lower living standards, dependency on government and destroyed savings is the result. Worse, his debt explosion will be a drag on economic growth for years to come.

Mr. Boskin, a professor of economics at Stanford and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, chaired the Council of Economic Advisers under President George H.W. Bush http://rabbisagainstobama.blogspot.com/p/us-economy.html

USA Foreign Policy
1. Done virtually nothing to stop Iran http://rabbisagainstobama.blogspot.com/2011/10/obama-responds-limpedly-about-iran.html a http://rabbisagainstobama.blogspot.com/p/iran.html

2. Barry Rubin “Destroying Western Interests in the Middle East, Helping Destabilize the Region, and Putting Millions of Lives in jeopardy” ”http://rabbisagainstobama.blogspot.com/2011/09/i-accuse-president-barack-obama-of.html
3. http://rabbisagainstobama.blogspot.com/p/incompetent-foreign-policy.html
4.

Israel
1. Manifestations of hostility in recent months include Obama’s renewal of pressure on Israel to accept the indefensible 1949 armistice lines (with swaps agreed to by the Palestinians) as the opening basis for negotiations; his renewed condemnation of construction in Jewish Jerusalem; the recent State Department challenge of West Jerusalem’s legal status as being Israeli; efforts to bludgeon Israel into apologizing to the bullying Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan; the disastrous outcome of simplistic US support for the Arab Spring; Obama’s recent 9/11 speech, in which he notably omitted Israel when enumerating countries suffering terrorism; the leak from Richard Gates (retired secretary of defense) castigating Netanyahu for being “ungrateful” for America's largesse. These and other similar provocations have created a maelstrom within the Jewish community, convincing many that their president was excessively hostile and biased against Israel. http://rabbisagainstobama.blogspot.com/2011/09/jews-moving-from-obama.html

2. Dan Senor -February 2008: When running for president, then-Sen. Obama told an audience in Cleveland: "There is a strain within the pro-Israel community that says unless you adopt an unwavering pro-Likud approach to Israel that you're anti-Israel." Likud had been out of power for two years when Mr. Obama made this statement. At the time the country was being led by the centrist Kadima government of Ehud Olmert, Tzipi Livni and Shimon Peres, and Prime Minister Olmert had been pursuing an unprecedented territorial compromise. As for Likud governments, it was under Likud that Israel made its largest territorial compromises—withdrawals from Sinai and Gaza.

• July 2009: Mr. Obama hosted American Jewish leaders at the White House, reportedly telling them that he sought to put "daylight" between America and Israel. "For eight years"—during the Bush administration—"there was no light between the United States and Israel, and nothing got accomplished," he declared.

Nothing? Prime Minister Ariel Sharon uprooted thousands of settlers from their homes in Gaza and the northern West Bank and deployed the Israeli army to forcibly relocate their fellow citizens. Mr. Sharon then resigned from the Likud Party to build a majority party based on a two-state consensus.

In the same meeting with Jewish leaders, Mr. Obama told the group that Israel would need "to engage in serious self-reflection." This statement stunned the Americans in attendance: Israeli society is many things, but lacking in self-reflection isn't one of them. It's impossible to envision the president delivering a similar lecture to Muslim leaders.

• September 2009: In his first address to the U.N. General Assembly, President Obama devoted five paragraphs to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, during which he declared (to loud applause) that "America does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements." He went on to draw a connection between rocket attacks on Israeli civilians with living conditions in Gaza. There was not a single unconditional criticism of Palestinian terrorism.

• March 2010: During Vice President Joe Biden's visit to Israel, a Jerusalem municipal office announced plans for new construction in a part of Jerusalem. The president launched an unprecedented weeks-long offensive against Israel. Mr. Biden very publicly departed Israel.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton berated Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on a now-infamous 45-minute phone call, telling him that Israel had "harmed the bilateral relationship." (The State Department triumphantly shared details of the call with the press.) The Israeli ambassador was dressed-down at the State Department, Mr. Obama's Middle East envoy canceled his trip to Israel, and the U.S. joined the European condemnation of Israel.

Moments after Mr. Biden concluded his visit to the West Bank, the Palestinian Authority held a ceremony to honor Dalal Mughrabi, who led one of the deadliest Palestinian terror attacks in history: the so-called Coastal Road Massacre that killed 38, including 13 children and an American. The Obama administration was silent. But that same day, on ABC, Mr. Axelrod called Israel's planned construction of apartments in its own capital an "insult" and an "affront" to the United States. Press Secretary Robert Gibbs went on Fox News to accuse Mr. Netanyahu of "weakening trust" between the two countries.

Ten days later, Mr. Netanyahu traveled to Washington to mend fences but was snubbed at a White House meeting with President Obama—no photo op, no joint statement, and he was sent out through a side door.

• April 2010: Mr. Netanyahu pulled out of the Obama-sponsored Washington summit on nuclear proliferation after it became clear that Turkey and Egypt intended to use the occasion to condemn the Israeli nuclear program, and Mr. Obama would not intervene.

• March 2011: Mr. Obama returned to his habit of urging Israelis to engage in self-reflection, inviting Jewish community leaders to the White House and instructing them to "search your souls" about Israel's dedication to peace.

• May 2011: The State Department issued a press release declaring that the department's No. 2 official, James Steinberg, would be visiting "Israel, Jerusalem, and the West Bank." In other words, Jerusalem is not part of Israel. Later in the month, only hours before Mr. Netanyahu departed from Israel to Washington, Mr. Obama delivered his Arab Spring speech, which focused on a demand that Israel return to its indefensible pre-1967 borders with land swaps.

Mr. Obama has made some meaningful exceptions, particularly having to do with security partnership, but overall he has built the most consistently one-sided diplomatic record against Israel of any American president in generations. His problem with Jewish voters is one of substance, not messaging. http://rabbisagainstobama.blogspot.com/2011/09/why-obama-is-losing-jewish-vote.html

3. Trying to Separate Jerusalem from Israel;
Richard Baehr “ American Jews born in Jerusalem, believe they were born in a country, namely Israel. . Aligned against them: Barack Obama, and Hillary Clinton.”: http://notopalestine.blogspot.com/2011/11/american-jews-born-in-jerusalem-believe.html
4. Supports Turkey enemy of Israel; Barack Obama went to the G-20 meeting, and there were a lot of handshakes. But one leader got the warm hugs, Turkey's Recep Erdogan. Maybe it is because Erdogan gets to channel the inner Obama with regard to Israel:
http://tinyurl.com/3c69y7p
5. Obama aids jihadists growth in Israel’s neighbors by forcing out the old leadership to be replaced by much much worse http://rabbireflects.blogspot.com/2011/11/obama-aids-jihadist-and-islamitization.html and http://rabbisagainstobama.blogspot.com/p/aids-arabmuslim-extremism.html

6. Apologizes for helping Israel Unesco fiasco http://israelgreatest.blogspot.com/2011/11/obama-aplogizes-hor-helping-israel.html

Obama apologizes for helping Israel

2011-11-04T09:30:00.000-07:00

Obama's UNESCO Fiasco

By Robert M. Goldberg on 11.2.11 @ 6:07AM
A reluctance to defend Israel against the latest pro-Palestinian Authority power grab.
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) claims it "works to create the conditions for dialogue among civilizations, cultures and peoples, based upon respect for commonly shared values." In fact, as Monday's vote to make the Palestinian Authority a UNESCO member suggests, UNESCO views its primary mission as a cultural change agent to be consistent with its half-century campaign to marginalize Israel.
The Obama administration voted against the Palestinian application because it was another effort to create a Palestinian state using the land, borders, resources and capital city of another country without asking for it. Instead of proudly defending Israel against UNESCO's power grab, however, the administration was nearly apologetic. David Killon, the U.S. representative to UNESCO, pledged to "find ways to support and strengthen the important work of this vital organization." State Department Spokesperson Victoria Nuland stated, "Not paying our dues into these organizations could severely restrict and reduce our ability to influence them, our ability to act within them, and we think this affects U.S. interests."
There is concern the Palestinians will go through the UN Directory and apply for membership to every other agency the UN operates, including the World Health Organization, the World Intellectual Property Organization, and the International Atomic Energy Agency and B'nai B'rith. (OK, I made the last one up.) The law requiring that we not fund the UN organization that grants the Palestinians membership applies to all of the above agencies. So the goal is to pressure and isolate America so that it will support or not oppose Palestinian membership in the UN General Assembly.
But the claim that standing up to such tactics undermines American interests has to be weighed against two other considerations. First, the only thing that gets UNESCO's or the UN's attention is cutting of its allowance. Second, it's the only tool short of resigning membership that seems to stop UNESCO from pursuing anti-American and anti-Israel activities. The only way to avoid a UNESCO fiasco is to stop underwriting such activities no matter what the agency.
In 1974 UNESCO voted to exclude Israel from its European regional group for engaging in archeological exploration and construction. This anti-Jewish ostracism was not abandoned until 1978, after the United States withheld $40 million in payments from the organization in protest.
In 1984, the Reagan administration (along with Britain and France) stopped funding UNESCO because the agency was sponsoring programs, proposals and materials that were hostile to the idea of freedom (and enthusiastic about Soviet-style government) and was particularly critical of Israel. It worked for a while. But as soon as the U.S. resumed making contributions to UNESCO in 2002, efforts to isolate Israel increased.
Since 1967, Arab states have tried to portray Israel as the usurper of Arab lands. Denying historical Jewish ties to Israel is part of that campaign, one that UNESCO has financed and participated in. UNESCO has called for financial sanctions against Israel and passed hundreds of resolutions criticizing Israel's efforts to restore historic and holy sites in Jerusalem. When the UN celebrated its 50th anniversary, UNESCO refused to mention the Holocaust in its World War II resolution, intentionally ignoring Israel's request to include a specific reference to the destruction of European Jewry.
In 1989 UNESCO stated, "Israel's occupation of Jerusalem" was destroying the holy city by "acts of interference, destruction and transformation." UNESCO claimed in 1974 that Israel's control over a united Jerusalem was a "cultural crime against humanity." In 1996, UNESCO organized a symposium on Jerusalem at the body's Paris headquarters. But no Jewish or Israeli groups were invited. Maybe the invitation got lost.
Over the past decade UNESCO has worked with Arab organizations to deny Jewish claims to religiously important historical sites in Israel. In 2010 UNESCO declared that Rachel's Tomb in Bethlehem is a mosque and claimed the Tomb and the Cave of the Patriarchs were Palestinian sites and "an integral part of the occupied Palestinian Territories."
In 2009, UNESCO designated Jerusalem as a "capital of Arab culture," working with Palestinian Authority officials and key Arab figures to protest against what they described as "the Israeli occupation of Holy Jerusalem."
These actions helped UNESCO with its other major responsibility: the development of curriculum and textbooks in Palestinian and Arab communities. As UNESCO eliminates Jewish historical ties to Jerusalem and holy sites, Palestinian textbooks have been revised accordingly. Textbooks have erased Jewish claims to the Western Wall and Rachel's Tomb. For example, National Education, a textbook for seventh-graders published in 2010, refers to the Western Wall as the "Al-Buraq Wall," and to Rachel's Tomb as "Al-Bilal Mosque."
The Obama administration voted against UNESCO's latest effort to isolate Israel and then nearly apologized for it. That's less than enough, since it must do what is necessary to stop the madness from spreading. It has to take a stand, in other words. Leading from behind won't cut it.

NYT continues to smear Israel www.jonathanginsburg.com

2011-11-04T09:29:00.001-07:00

The Times’ Anti-Israel Smear Campaign

Evelyn Gordon | @evelyng1234 11.03.2011 - 9:06 AM

Reading the New York Times op-ed pages recently, one can’t help thinking the paper has launched a deliberate smear campaign against Israel. Consider just two examples:
This week, it published a piece called “In Israel, Press Freedom Is Under Attack” by Israeli journalist Dimi Reider. Reider lambastes the 4.5-year sentence a court just imposed on Anat Kamm, claiming the former soldier has been punished “for leaking documents containing evidence of what she suspected might be war crimes committed by her commanders.” Since journalists worldwide rely on whistleblowers, he charged, this undermines press freedom:
The verdict sends several chilling messages. To young soldiers it says: shut up, even if you suspect your commanders of violating the law; they will go unpunished and you will go to jail if you leak. To the source it says: no one will protect you; don’t be a self-sacrificing fool. And to the journalist it says: know your place; cover what we tell you to cover, print our news releases, and keep within your bounds.
But here’s what the court said actually happened, as reported by the very newspaper to which Kamm gave the documents: Over the course of her army service, Kamm betrayed her oath as a soldier by “systematically” stealing everything she could get her hands on – 2,085 documents in all, including “plans for military operations, information on troop deployments, summaries of various internal discussions, military targets and intelligence assessments.” For similar crimes in America, WikiLeaks source Pfc. Bradley Manning now faces life in jail.
She then gave 1,500 documents to Haaretz journalist Uri Blau, who sorted through and found a handful that, in his opinion, showed the army was violating Israeli Supreme Court guidelines on assassinating terrorists. But as Reider himself admits, Israel’s attorney general – presumably a greater legal expert than journalists Reider and Blau – reviewed the material and concluded otherwise.
All this was widely reported in Israel’s English-language media, so the facts were easily checkable. But the Times preferred printing an anti-Israel smear.
Two months earlier, the Times published an op-ed by Israeli professor Carlo Strenger entitled “Netanyahu’s Partners, Democracy’s Enemies.” Strenger accused the Knesset of having “proposed and passed laws that seriously endanger Israel’s identity as a liberal democracy,” including “a law forbidding public commemoration of” the Nakba (literally, “catastrophe,” the Palestinian term for Israel’s establishment) and a “demand for all new Israeli citizens to swear a loyalty oath to a Jewish and democratic country.”
I’ve argued before that the proposed loyalty oath is no different than the pledge of allegiance required of American immigrants. But in any case, the bill died in the Knesset: Lacking a parliamentary majority, it wasn’t even brought for a vote.
As for the Nakba proposal, the Knesset itself concluded (correctly) that the original bill was undemocratic. Hence the law actually passed merely prohibited state funding for public commemorations of the Nakba. And while democracies must permit offensive speech, no democratic principle requires a state to finance public calls for its demise.
Again, all this was widely reported in Israel’s English-language media, so the facts were easily checkable. But the Times preferred printing an anti-Israel smear.
There’s been much talk lately about liberal American Jews “distancing” themselves from Israel. But that’s really not surprising when you consider that most liberal American Jews get their (dis)information about Israel from The New York Times. Hence American Jewish leaders concerned about this trend must start challenging the Times on these smears. And they must also start educating their public not to believe everything they read in its page

Hamas murderers www.jonathanginsburg.org

2011-11-03T05:34:00.000-07:00

ANOTHER ROUND OF WAR by Rachel Saperstein, Neve Dekalim/Nitzan

Over forty rockets have fallen in the south this past weekend. The shooting began Wednesday and intensified on Friday night, a favorite time for Arabs as they know it will destroy our Shabbat rest. The sirens wailed and the loudest, closest explosions were heard at 11:20pm. Our sleep was over.

Palestinian monsters glorify terror www.jonathanginsburg.org

2011-11-02T04:30:00.000-07:00

Bulletin
Nov. 1, 2011
Click here to view PMW's website
Abbas glorifies terrorist prisoners
http://palwatch.org/main.aspx?fi=157&doc_id=5794

by Itamar Marcus and Nan Jacques Zilberdik

Since the release of Palestinian prisoners in exchange for the Israeli hostage Gilad Shalit, Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas has repeatedly honored and glorified the released prisoners.

On the day of their release, Abbas greeted each one at a general ceremony in Ramallah and has since then publicly praised and honored them.

In this picture, Abbas is seen with released prisoner Amal Jum'a. Jum'a was arrested with explosives in May 2004, the day before her planned suicide bombing in a Tel Aviv market. Abbas is holding a representation of the PA map of "Palestine" that includes Israel and the PA areas. A poem glorifying Martyrdom death is written on the map:
"Mother, death has come. Prepare the death shroud. Mother, to my death I march. I do not hesitate."

Abbas met with Jum'a at one of the Fatah Revolutionary Council's meetings, which was dedicated to the released prisoners. (See further details below)

In his speech after the release of the prisoners, Abbas praised them, referring to their prison terms as:
"...enforced absence which was imposed on you because you are people of struggle and Jihad fighters for Allah and the homeland... Your sacrifice and your effort and your actions were not in vain. You acted and struggled and sacrificed."
[PA TV (Fatah), Oct. 18, 2011]

Abbas has responded to the prisoners' release saying that he hopes for freedom for the rest of the prisoners and that he will continue to demand their release. Twice Abbas has singled out terrorists who are serving life sentences for murder: Marwan Barghouti, serving five life sentences for orchestrating suicide terror attacks against Israeli civilians, and Ahmad Sa'adat, who planned the murder of Israeli Minister of Tourism, Rehavam Zeevi. Abbas also specifically mentioned Abbas Al-Sayid, who is serving 35 life sentences and 150 years for planning suicide bombings, including the Passover Seder bombing that killed 30, and Ibrahim Hamed, who planned the Hebrew University, Cafe Moment and Cafe Hillel suicide bombings, among others.

This week, the official PA daily reported that the Fatah Revolutionary Council dedicated one of their regular meetings to the released prisoners to honor them. At the head table with Abbas, the PA Mufti and the Minister for Prisoners' Affairs sat two terrorists who had been serving life sentences before their release, Akram Mansour and Fakhri Barghouti. Several other released prisoners attended the meeting as well.

In his speech at the event, Abbas said that the prisoners are "holy to us and we must exalt them":

"Yesterday, in a ceremony that took place in the presence of [PA] President Mahmoud Abbas at the President's headquarters in Ramallah, the Fatah Revolutionary Council honored the prisoners released from the occupation's prisons... He [Abbas] said, 'We will not rest until all of our sons and daughters are released from the occupation's prisons, as well as the [imprisoned] leaders like Marwan Barghouti and Ahmad Sa'adat. Every prisoner from every faction is holy to us and we must exalt them.'"
[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Oct. 29, 2011]

Shortly after the prisoners' release, the PA decided to allocate $5 million for a "Presidential gift as token of honor to prisoners." PA Minister of Prisoners explained that the PA would award "monetary release grants to all the released prisoners, without exception, both to those released to their homes and to those who were expelled." The grants would be "disbursed by his honor, the President [Abbas]," said the Deputy Minister of Prisoners.

The following is from Abbas' speech on the day of the prisoners' release as broadcast on PA TV:

"In the name of Allah, the Merciful, the Compassionate. We thank Allah that [you have returned] in peace, that you have returned safe and sound to your families, to your brothers, to your communities, after the enforced absence which was imposed on you because you are people of struggle and Jihad fighters for Allah and the homeland. We ask of Allah, may He be exalted, to fulfill our wish to see the rest of our brothers and sisters released like you, at this plaza, Allah willing. Your sacrifice and your effort and your actions were not in vain. you acted and struggled and sacrificed, and in the future you will see the results of your struggle in the independent Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital. Brothers and sisters, your cause was and still is in our hearts and our thoughts, in our consciousness wherever we have been, in every Arabic or international forum. We were concerned only for our prisoner brothers and sisters, and we now see some of the most prominent among them. In the future, Allah willing, in the very near future, we will see here our brother Marwan Barghouti and our brother Ahmad Sa'adat, to whom we wish a speedy recovery. And we want to see, Allah willing, Ibrahim Hamed and Abbas Al-Sayid, and every male and female prisoner, returning, released, to the homeland, Allah willing."
[PA TV (Fatah), Oct. 18, 2011]

Marwan Barghouti - serving five life sentences for orchestrating suicide terror attacks against Israeli civilians. After he was convicted and imprisoned, he was re-elected member of the Palestinian Authority parliament.

Ahmad Sa'adat - serving life sentence for murdering Israeli Minister of Tourism, Rehavam Zeevi

Ibrahim Hamed - Hamas military leader who orchestrated many suicide attacks and bombings in Israel, including the suicide bombings in the Hebrew University cafeteria, Café Moment, Café Hillel, Zion Square in the center of Jerusalem, and others.

Abbas Al-Sayid - sentenced to 35 life sentences and 150 years for planning the suicide bombing at the Jewish Passover Seder in Netanya in 2002 in which 29 Israelis were killed, and another suicide bombing in Netanya in which 5 were killed and 100 wounded in 2001.

The following are statements from the PA Minister and Deputy Minister of Prisoners' Affairs announcing the grant of 5 million US dollars to the released prisoners:

PA TV program interviews Deputy Minister of Prisoners' Affairs, Ziad Abu Ein:
"We, as the Ministry of Prisoners' Affairs, have begun - and there is a gesture on the part of the honorable President [Abbas], approved by the Palestinian government, and Prime Minister Salam Fayyad hurried to implement it: There is a grant, a 'release grant', a grant from the President [Abbas] to all the released prisoners, whether they are in the Gaza Strip, in Turkey, in Egypt, or in Syria. Starting yesterday [Oct. 21, 2011] we began distributing [the grants] to the released prisoners in order to help meet their expenses. This grant is around $5 million, disbursed by his honor, the President [Abbas], to be distributed to the [released] Palestinian prisoners inside [the PA] and outside of it."
[PA TV (Fatah), Oct. 23, 2011]

Headline: "Presidential gift as token of honor to prisoners"
"[PA] President Mahmoud Abbas issued a directive today that monetary gifts be awarded as a token of honor to the prisoners released in the exchange deal. Minister of Prisoners' Affairs, Issa Karake, said in a telephone conversation with WAFA [Palestine News and Information Agency] that the Ministry of Prisoners' Affairs, in cooperation with the district governors and the national institutions, began today awarding monetary release grants to all the released prisoners, without exception, both to those released to their homes and to those who were expelled."
[WAFA, Oct. 20, 2011]

Israel true ally www.jonathanginburg.org

2011-11-01T10:57:00.001-07:00

Observations:
Israel: A True Ally in the Middle East - Robert D. Blackwill and Walter B. Slocombe (Los Angeles Times)
Israeli contributions to U.S. national interests cover a broad spectrum. Through joint training, exercises and exchanges on military doctrine, the U.S. has benefited in the areas of counter-terrorism, intelligence and experience in urban warfare. Increasingly, U.S. homeland security and military agencies are turning to Israeli technology to solve some of their most vexing technical and strategic problems.
This support includes advice and expertise on behavioral screening techniques for airport security and acquisition of an Israeli-produced tactical radar system to enhance force protection. Israel has been a world leader in the development of unmanned aerial systems, both for intelligence collection and combat, and it has shared with the U.S. military the technology, the doctrine and its experience regarding these systems. Israel is also a global pacesetter in armored vehicle protection, defense against short-range rockets, and the techniques and procedures of robotics, all of which it has shared with the U.S.
Israeli-developed defense equipment, some of which benefited from generous U.S. aid, is now used by the U.S. military including short-range unmanned aircraft systems that have seen service in Iraq and Afghanistan; targeting pods on hundreds of Air Force, Navy and Marine strike aircraft; a revolutionary helmet-mounted sight that is standard in nearly all frontline Air Force and Navy fighter aircraft; lifesaving armor installed in thousands of MRAP armored vehicles used in Iraq and Afghanistan; and a gun system for close-in defense of naval vessels against terrorist dinghies and small-boat swarms. Moreover, U.S. and Israeli companies are working together to produce Israel's Iron Dome - the world's first combat-proven counter-rocket system.
Counter-terrorism and intelligence cooperation is deep and extensive, with the United States and Israel working to advance their common interest in defeating the terrorism of Hamas, Hizbullah and al-Qaeda and its affiliate groups, and preventing nuclear proliferation in the region. There are joint Special Forces training and exercises and collaboration on shared targets.
In sum, we believe that Israel's substantial contributions to U.S. interests are an underappreciated aspect of this relationship and deserve equal billing to shared values and historical responsibility as rationales for American support of Israel.

Robert D. Blackwill, deputy national security advisor for strategic planning in the George W. Bush administration, and Walter B. Slocombe, undersecretary of defense for policy in the Clinton administration, are authors of the new report Israel: A Strategic Asset for the United States (Washington Institute for Near East Policy).

Goldstone says no apartheid in Israel www.jonathanginsburg.info

2011-11-01T10:52:00.000-07:00

t may be a Pyrrhic victory, but it is a small victory for Israel nonetheless.

Writing in the New York Times, Judge Richard Goldstone, principal author of the hugely damaging "Goldstone Report" that investigated Israel's conduct during its 2009 war with Hamas, forcefully rejects the claim that Israel is an "apartheid" state.

This is an especially relevant topic for Goldstone, a judge who served in apartheid South Africa.

While anti-Israel groups regularly trot out the canard that Israel is an apartheid state, writes Goldstone, the claim is in fact a libel.

In Israel, there is no apartheid. Nothing there comes close to the definition of apartheid under the 1998 Rome Statute: “Inhumane acts ... committed in the context of an institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group over any other racial group or groups and committed with the intention of maintaining that regime.” Israeli Arabs — 20 percent of Israel’s population — vote, have political parties and representatives in the Knesset and occupy positions of acclaim, including on its Supreme Court. Arab patients lie alongside Jewish patients in Israeli hospitals, receiving identical treatment.

In the West Bank, writes Goldstone, the situation is more complex, but still "there is no intent to maintain 'an institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group.' "

Arguing like someone who has finally come to his senses, Goldstone further states that the so-called "apartheid wall" that Israel has erected to separate Israel from Palestinian communities in the West Bank is nothing of the sort. Indeed, as Israel and pro-Israel supporters have long argued, the wall's only intent is to prevent Palestinian terrorists from entering Israel and carrying out their murderous attacks.

Those seeking to promote the myth of Israeli apartheid often point to clashes between heavily armed Israeli soldiers and stone-throwing Palestinians in the West Bank, or the building of what they call an “apartheid wall” and disparate treatment on West Bank roads. While such images may appear to invite a superficial comparison, it is disingenuous to use them to distort the reality. The security barrier was built to stop unrelenting terrorist attacks; while it has inflicted great hardship in places, the Israeli Supreme Court has ordered the state in many cases to reroute it to minimize unreasonable hardship. Road restrictions get more intrusive after violent attacks and are ameliorated when the threat is reduced.

The Goldstone report, which found Israel guilt of "war crimes" and was roundly condemned by legal scholars worldwide, was nonetheless a libel against the Jewish state akin to the United Nations' 1975 "Zionism is racism" resolution. Judge Goldstone's comments are of course welcomed, but he will have to do more than write one column defending the Jewish state to rehabilitate his reputation among Israel supporters who rightly viewed his report as a betrayal.

New Syria nuk plant? www.jonathanginburg.com

2011-11-01T10:47:00.001-07:00

AP Exclusive: New signs of Syria-Pakistan nuke tie

ShareThis PrintE-mail
By GEORGE JAHN
The Associated Press

WASHINGTON — U.N. investigators have identified a previously unknown complex in Syria that bolsters suspicions that the Syrian government worked with A.Q. Khan, the father of Pakistan's atomic bomb, to acquire technology that could make nuclear arms.

This Aug. 14, 2011, satellite image provided by GeoEye, shows a facility in Al-Hasakah, Syria. Invesigators at the U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Agency have asked Syria about this complex, in the center of the image, in the country's northwestern city of Al-Hasakah because they believe it closely matches plans for a uranium enrichment plant sold by the father of Pakistan's nuclear bomb A.Q. Khan. (AP Photo/GeoEye Satellite Image)
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The buildings in northwest Syria closely match the design of a uranium enrichment plant provided to Libya when Moammar Gadhafi was trying to build nuclear weapons under Khan's guidance, officials told The Associated Press.

Don't let Obama off the hook by silencing dissent on Israel

2011-10-29T15:45:00.001-07:00

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

latest on Israel bombing Iran

2011-10-29T15:39:00.000-07:00

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.

Learn Our Narrative about Israel-the facts

2011-10-28T13:31:00.000-07:00

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.

Absurdity of unialteral Palestinian effort Krauthammer

2011-10-28T13:27:00.000-07:00

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.

Obama losing battle vs Islamic fantaticism www.rabbijonathanginsburg.com

2011-10-27T17:41:00.001-07:00

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.

Libya fooled us www.rabbijonathanginsburg.info

2011-10-27T17:39:00.000-07:00

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.

Conservative Rabbi students far left wingers on Israel

2011-10-24T09:16:00.001-07:00

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?

More reason not to get complacent re Iran www.rabbijonathanginsburg.org

2011-10-21T10:38:00.001-07:00

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)

repub candidates need to hire me as their argument maker

2011-10-19T14:01:00.000-07:00

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)

Why Israel made the Shalit deal www.rabbijonathanginsnurg.org

2011-10-17T04:54:00.001-07:00

· 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).

why no conversation? www.rabbijonathanginsburg.com

2011-10-16T19:50:00.001-07:00

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

2011-10-16T14:53:00.001-07:00

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.

Caroline Glick Bad Shalit Deal www.rabbijonathanginsburg.org

2011-10-16T09:39:00.001-07:00

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A pact signed in Jewish blood

October 13, 2011, 6:23 PM
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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.

Santorum willing to go to war to stop Iran www.rabbijonathanginsburg.info

2011-10-13T16:05:00.001-07:00

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."

http://www.jewishcommunityheroes.org/nominees/profile/jonathan-ginsburg

2011-10-13T11:51:00.000-07:00

Thanks to whomever nominated me for Jewish community Hero. See it at
http://www.jewishcommunityheroes.org/nominees/profile/jonathan-ginsburg