Abbas?
Abbas: "If All of You [Arab States] Will Fight Israel, We Are in Favor" - Itamar Marcus and Nan Jacques Zilberdik (Palestinian Media Watch)
The official Palestinian Authority daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida reported on July 6 that PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas supports negotiations with Israel today because it is the only option.
Regarding the military option, Abbas said: "If you [Arab states] want war, and if all of you will fight Israel, we are in favor. But the Palestinians will not fight alone because they don't have the ability to do it."
Hamas?
Hamas Leader: Our Plan Is to Have Palestine in Its Entirety
In an interview with the Egyptian opposition newspaper Al-Wafd on June 23, 2010, Hamas co-founder Mahmoud al-Zahar said that Hamas advocates the liberation of all Palestine, from the Dead Sea to the Mediterranean Sea. He said that Hamas' consent to a Palestinian state in the 1967 borders is part of a phased plan, the first phase of which is to liberate the West Bank and Gaza. (MEMRI)
Thursday, July 8, 2010
Continuing NYT lies about Israel
An Avalanche of Anti-Israel Propaganda
http://pajamasmedia.com/phyllischesler/2010/07/06/an-avalanche-of-anti-israel-propaganda/
July 6, 2010 - by Phyllis Chesler
Share |
Is The New York Times on The White House Payroll?
There is an avalanche of hatred bearing down on Israel. I fear it might be too late to stem this “blood-dimmed” tide and its fearful consequences.
The state of Israel was envisioned, not only as a way to rescue Holocaust survivors and Jews who were persecuted and endangered in Arab and Muslim countries, not only as a movement for national and religious sovereignty, but also as a way of protecting the lives of Jews elsewhere, everywhere. Now, the very existence of the only Jewish state is being used to justify attacks against Jews and Jewish holy sites all around the world, including within Israel itself. And, the entire world is, irrationally, heart-sickeningly, joining in the legal, cultural, military, propaganda, and economic lynching of Israel.
The propaganda war is, arguably, the hottest war. Today, on the very day that President Obama was due to meet with Prime Minister Netanyahu—guess what the New York Times prints? Before Bibi could even have breakfast, the paper was, no doubt, on his desk. The lead story, of nearly 5000 words is titled: “Tax-Exempt Funds Aid Settlements in West Bank.” The article is accompanied by no fewer than six photographs and a map of the so-called “illegal settlements” that is about six times larger than the entire map of Israel when viewed in situ, surrounded by its many Arab, Muslim neighbors. This is only the latest example of a long campaign at the Paper of Record to vilify the Jewish state and her supporters, especially Christian-Americans.
The Times article is propaganda and advocacy, not even-handed journalism. In my view, the Paper of Record is doing some crude heavy lifting for the White House. This piece—so prominent, so lengthy, so carefully timed– is yet another way to pressure Prime Minister Netanyahu even before he sits down with President Obama. Just as you’ve given up Gaza, give up the West Bank, give up East Jerusalem, accept the return of five generations of Palestinian “refugees,” give up control of Tel Aviv and Haifa–in short, do what King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia wants and then maybe, just maybe, we’ll let a remnant of Jewry live. True, only as second- or third-class citizens but if this means peace in the Middle East and an Arab world united with America against Iran, little enough to ask.
HonestReporting just filed a story on July 7th about this as well in which they confirm the involvement of the Israeli group, “Gush Shalom” in a public relations campaign which intended to target various tax-exempt American groups which raise money for Israeli projects which Gush Shalom deems both legal and “illegal.” CAMERA has also just weighed in (July 7th) with a long piece about the “non-story” which the Times featured so prominently. They document how little of importance is being shared and how many facts are wrong as well as biased.
Of course, I wrote a letter to the Gray Lady on July 6th about their lead article which—who knows?—they might print. It’s happened before. This time, I doubt it. But, what really needs to be said requires at least the same 5000 words that comprise this foul and misleading piece. And, it needs to be written by the most eloquent Israeli diplomats and by the world’s leading historians and Middle East analysts. I am only one Jew, crying out, dependent on what I read in the mass media and on the internet.
The New York Times is the true Bible for most liberal Jews. Fed today’s kind of steady propaganda, year in, year out, liberal and young Jews believe that what they read here is the whole truth—after all, they’ve read it in the Bible. Hence, they are far more comfortable, far more rewarded for attacking and critiquing Israel than for defending Israel from Big Lies—and for attacking, rather than respecting, Israel’s Christian-American supporters.
They may feel that doing so fulfills a Jewish “religious” obligation.
This article presents the settlements as “illegal,” “isolated” “outposts,” run by “militants” and supported by funds from abroad supplied by wealthy American Jews and by Christian Evangelical supporters of Israel. It’s all presented as a damning and dramatic expose of shady and nefarious characters.
“Illegal” and “militant” are an interesting choice of words for a newspaper which refuses to call Turkish assassins and mercenaries “terrorists,” but prefers to refer to them as “humanitarian activists or “divers;” that, over the years, refused to describe the dreaded Sudanese Janjaweed as “ethnic Arab Muslims” who were engaged in “genocidal aggression” towards black African Muslims, Christians, and animists.
First, this focus on what American dollars are buying abroad—the subject of this article–might be balanced by an equal examination of what Saudi funding and the Saudi Lobby, (funds which also emanate from abroad), are purchasing in America: real estate, universities, Middle East programming, the media—and mosques which preach hatred of infidels, and which raise funding for terrorist organizations such as the Muslim Brotherhood, Al-Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah, and for every conceivable Palestinian form of terrorism.
Second, after outlining the tax-exempt support for allegedly “illegal” settlements in the West Bank, the article utterly fails the most minimal standards for even handed reporting. It fails to mention the nearly half century-long funding of an Israel-hating, corrupt, terrorist and anti-Palestinian Palestinian leadership—by the United States, the United Nations, The European Union, and by the Arab and Muslim world.
Additionally, the article fails to note that there are as many foundations and NGOs who also use American tax-exempt status to defame and weaken Israel, both globally and within Israel proper. For example: The Ford Foundation, Open Society Institute, (that’s Soros’s baby), New Israel Fund, Palestinian Right to Return (Al-Awda), Friends of Sabeel, Middle East Children’s Alliance, Deir Yassin Remembered, Rachel Corrie Foundation, and Birthright Unplugged—to name only a few. My colleague, Professor Gerald Steinberg, has a much longer list of such NGOs.
Where is a comparable 5,000-word, front-page article about the Saudi Lobby and the NGO tax-exempt funding of every conceivable organization and project that demonizes and endangers Israel?
For a paper which prides itself on fairness, objectivity, even-handedness, why does this article quote only the Palestinian negotiator but not his Israeli counterpart?
Helen Freedman, the Executive Director of Americans for a Safe Israel, (AFSI), who is quoted in the article and whose picture is shown had this to say: “My advice to those worried about charitable funds going to support remarkable people who put their lives at risk for love of their country, is to read the factual history of the State of Israel. AFSI will be happy to supply copies of Battleground, free of charge, to all those who wish to learn the truth, rather than the hate-inspired myths regarding the biblical, historic, and legal claim of the Jewish people to the Jewish state.”
But America elected Obama President. Liberal Jews all voted for him too. Obama turned out to be a President who bowed down, quite low, to King Abdullah—but not to Queen Elizabeth; who has, explosively, told the head of NASA that NASA’s primary goal is to reach out to the Muslim world; and whose mentors include the Reverend Jeremiah Wright (“God damn America”) and The Nation of Islam’s Louis Farrakhan who, only recently, in a letter to American Jewish leaders, ranted against Jews. Minister Farrakhan accused Jews of having “an undeniable record of Jewish anti-Black behavior, starting with the horror of the trans-Atlantic slave trade, plantation slavery, Jim Crow, sharecropping…out history with you shows you have been our worst enemy.” Farrakhan ended his letter with a threat and a curse. If the Jews continue to “fight and oppose me rather than help me lift my people from their degraded state, Allah (God) and his Messiah will bring you and your people to disgrace and ruin and destroy your power and influence here and in the world.”
Farrakhan fails to mention the enormous role that Muslims played in the African slave trade—a point which Morton Klein, the President of the Zionist Organization of America makes. Klein has called upon our President to condemn Farrakhan’s letter, especially because the church which the President attended for twenty years recently honored Farrakhan.
Although I was a Hillary supporter, as an old civil rights activist I was also thrilled by the handsome and charismatic…stranger in our midst who rose to such great heights so quickly. For many, a vote for Obama proved they were not racists, that they rejected America’s history of slavery; voting for Obama meant that one was entitled to feel “cleansed” of the sin of racism.
I did not like how Obama’s Team cut Hillary out. (And no, I do not “like” Hillary, that is not the point). However, in the beginning, I though that America had simply hired the empty suit instead of the girl. On the other hand, I thought, perhaps we’ve hired a Muslim/Islamist Manchurian candidate.
Now, you tell me.
http://pajamasmedia.com/phyllischesler/2010/07/06/an-avalanche-of-anti-israel-propaganda/
July 6, 2010 - by Phyllis Chesler
Share |
Is The New York Times on The White House Payroll?
There is an avalanche of hatred bearing down on Israel. I fear it might be too late to stem this “blood-dimmed” tide and its fearful consequences.
The state of Israel was envisioned, not only as a way to rescue Holocaust survivors and Jews who were persecuted and endangered in Arab and Muslim countries, not only as a movement for national and religious sovereignty, but also as a way of protecting the lives of Jews elsewhere, everywhere. Now, the very existence of the only Jewish state is being used to justify attacks against Jews and Jewish holy sites all around the world, including within Israel itself. And, the entire world is, irrationally, heart-sickeningly, joining in the legal, cultural, military, propaganda, and economic lynching of Israel.
The propaganda war is, arguably, the hottest war. Today, on the very day that President Obama was due to meet with Prime Minister Netanyahu—guess what the New York Times prints? Before Bibi could even have breakfast, the paper was, no doubt, on his desk. The lead story, of nearly 5000 words is titled: “Tax-Exempt Funds Aid Settlements in West Bank.” The article is accompanied by no fewer than six photographs and a map of the so-called “illegal settlements” that is about six times larger than the entire map of Israel when viewed in situ, surrounded by its many Arab, Muslim neighbors. This is only the latest example of a long campaign at the Paper of Record to vilify the Jewish state and her supporters, especially Christian-Americans.
The Times article is propaganda and advocacy, not even-handed journalism. In my view, the Paper of Record is doing some crude heavy lifting for the White House. This piece—so prominent, so lengthy, so carefully timed– is yet another way to pressure Prime Minister Netanyahu even before he sits down with President Obama. Just as you’ve given up Gaza, give up the West Bank, give up East Jerusalem, accept the return of five generations of Palestinian “refugees,” give up control of Tel Aviv and Haifa–in short, do what King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia wants and then maybe, just maybe, we’ll let a remnant of Jewry live. True, only as second- or third-class citizens but if this means peace in the Middle East and an Arab world united with America against Iran, little enough to ask.
HonestReporting just filed a story on July 7th about this as well in which they confirm the involvement of the Israeli group, “Gush Shalom” in a public relations campaign which intended to target various tax-exempt American groups which raise money for Israeli projects which Gush Shalom deems both legal and “illegal.” CAMERA has also just weighed in (July 7th) with a long piece about the “non-story” which the Times featured so prominently. They document how little of importance is being shared and how many facts are wrong as well as biased.
Of course, I wrote a letter to the Gray Lady on July 6th about their lead article which—who knows?—they might print. It’s happened before. This time, I doubt it. But, what really needs to be said requires at least the same 5000 words that comprise this foul and misleading piece. And, it needs to be written by the most eloquent Israeli diplomats and by the world’s leading historians and Middle East analysts. I am only one Jew, crying out, dependent on what I read in the mass media and on the internet.
The New York Times is the true Bible for most liberal Jews. Fed today’s kind of steady propaganda, year in, year out, liberal and young Jews believe that what they read here is the whole truth—after all, they’ve read it in the Bible. Hence, they are far more comfortable, far more rewarded for attacking and critiquing Israel than for defending Israel from Big Lies—and for attacking, rather than respecting, Israel’s Christian-American supporters.
They may feel that doing so fulfills a Jewish “religious” obligation.
This article presents the settlements as “illegal,” “isolated” “outposts,” run by “militants” and supported by funds from abroad supplied by wealthy American Jews and by Christian Evangelical supporters of Israel. It’s all presented as a damning and dramatic expose of shady and nefarious characters.
“Illegal” and “militant” are an interesting choice of words for a newspaper which refuses to call Turkish assassins and mercenaries “terrorists,” but prefers to refer to them as “humanitarian activists or “divers;” that, over the years, refused to describe the dreaded Sudanese Janjaweed as “ethnic Arab Muslims” who were engaged in “genocidal aggression” towards black African Muslims, Christians, and animists.
First, this focus on what American dollars are buying abroad—the subject of this article–might be balanced by an equal examination of what Saudi funding and the Saudi Lobby, (funds which also emanate from abroad), are purchasing in America: real estate, universities, Middle East programming, the media—and mosques which preach hatred of infidels, and which raise funding for terrorist organizations such as the Muslim Brotherhood, Al-Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah, and for every conceivable Palestinian form of terrorism.
Second, after outlining the tax-exempt support for allegedly “illegal” settlements in the West Bank, the article utterly fails the most minimal standards for even handed reporting. It fails to mention the nearly half century-long funding of an Israel-hating, corrupt, terrorist and anti-Palestinian Palestinian leadership—by the United States, the United Nations, The European Union, and by the Arab and Muslim world.
Additionally, the article fails to note that there are as many foundations and NGOs who also use American tax-exempt status to defame and weaken Israel, both globally and within Israel proper. For example: The Ford Foundation, Open Society Institute, (that’s Soros’s baby), New Israel Fund, Palestinian Right to Return (Al-Awda), Friends of Sabeel, Middle East Children’s Alliance, Deir Yassin Remembered, Rachel Corrie Foundation, and Birthright Unplugged—to name only a few. My colleague, Professor Gerald Steinberg, has a much longer list of such NGOs.
Where is a comparable 5,000-word, front-page article about the Saudi Lobby and the NGO tax-exempt funding of every conceivable organization and project that demonizes and endangers Israel?
For a paper which prides itself on fairness, objectivity, even-handedness, why does this article quote only the Palestinian negotiator but not his Israeli counterpart?
Helen Freedman, the Executive Director of Americans for a Safe Israel, (AFSI), who is quoted in the article and whose picture is shown had this to say: “My advice to those worried about charitable funds going to support remarkable people who put their lives at risk for love of their country, is to read the factual history of the State of Israel. AFSI will be happy to supply copies of Battleground, free of charge, to all those who wish to learn the truth, rather than the hate-inspired myths regarding the biblical, historic, and legal claim of the Jewish people to the Jewish state.”
But America elected Obama President. Liberal Jews all voted for him too. Obama turned out to be a President who bowed down, quite low, to King Abdullah—but not to Queen Elizabeth; who has, explosively, told the head of NASA that NASA’s primary goal is to reach out to the Muslim world; and whose mentors include the Reverend Jeremiah Wright (“God damn America”) and The Nation of Islam’s Louis Farrakhan who, only recently, in a letter to American Jewish leaders, ranted against Jews. Minister Farrakhan accused Jews of having “an undeniable record of Jewish anti-Black behavior, starting with the horror of the trans-Atlantic slave trade, plantation slavery, Jim Crow, sharecropping…out history with you shows you have been our worst enemy.” Farrakhan ended his letter with a threat and a curse. If the Jews continue to “fight and oppose me rather than help me lift my people from their degraded state, Allah (God) and his Messiah will bring you and your people to disgrace and ruin and destroy your power and influence here and in the world.”
Farrakhan fails to mention the enormous role that Muslims played in the African slave trade—a point which Morton Klein, the President of the Zionist Organization of America makes. Klein has called upon our President to condemn Farrakhan’s letter, especially because the church which the President attended for twenty years recently honored Farrakhan.
Although I was a Hillary supporter, as an old civil rights activist I was also thrilled by the handsome and charismatic…stranger in our midst who rose to such great heights so quickly. For many, a vote for Obama proved they were not racists, that they rejected America’s history of slavery; voting for Obama meant that one was entitled to feel “cleansed” of the sin of racism.
I did not like how Obama’s Team cut Hillary out. (And no, I do not “like” Hillary, that is not the point). However, in the beginning, I though that America had simply hired the empty suit instead of the girl. On the other hand, I thought, perhaps we’ve hired a Muslim/Islamist Manchurian candidate.
Now, you tell me.
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
why isn't Obama's anti-semitism czar condemning this?
Remember Obama attended Farrakhan’s Million Man March
OBAMA SHOULD CONDEMN FARRAKHAN’S NEW ANTI-SEMITIC LETTER/THREATS TO ZOA, AIPAC, ADL & OTHERS
The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) has urged President Barack Obama to condemn veteran Jew-hater, Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, for his latest outburst and threats against Jews in letters he sent to 14 American Jewish organizational leaders, including ZOA’s Morton Klein, ADL’s Abe Foxman, Conference of Presidents’ Alan Solow, AIPAC’s Lee Rosenberg, Jewish Federation’s Jerry Silverman, American Jewish Congress’ Richard Gordon and Hillel’s Wayne Firestone. The letter came enclosed with two volumes of hateful new works published by the Nation of Islam, The Secret Relationship Between Blacks and Jews, volume two; and Jews Selling Blacks: Slave Trade by American Jews. Farrakhan has also said that he has sent copies of the volumes to various media outlets and members of the Obama Administration.
In his letter to American Jewish leaders, Farrakhan accused Jewish leaders of using accusations of anti-Semitism as a means to hide the truth and to silence criticism “of what I and many others feel is Jewish behavior that has ill-affected Black people and others.”
Farrakhan’s letter claimed “… an undeniable record of Jewish anti-Black behavior, starting with the horror of the trans-Atlantic slave trade, plantation slavery, Jim Crow, sharecropping, the labor movement of the North and South, the unions and the misuse of our people that continues to this very moment … Armed with this knowledge from the pens of Jewish scholars, Rabbis and historians, we could now charge you with the most vehement anti-Black behavior in the annals of our history in America and the world. We could charge you with being the most deceitful so-called friend, while your history with us shows you have been our worst enemy.”
Farrakhan’s letter ended with a threat: “should you choose to make our struggle to civilize our people more difficult, then I respectfully warn you … that the more you fight and oppose me rather than help me lift my people from their degraded state, Allah (G-d) and his Messiah will bring you and your people to disgrace and ruin and destroy your power and influence here and in the world.”
Also, in a speech some weeks ago entitled ‘Who are the Real Children of Israel?,’ in which he said that he would be sending copies of the books to Jewish leaders, Farrakhan accused Jews of exploiting the talent and artistry of blacks. He said, “Today the Jewish people have developed a new strategy … They have always tied themselves to Black people. They attach themselves to our talent. They are the managers, the agents and they are the accountants and that’s why our black artists loved fame and got fame but died poor because somebody else got their money. No black man or woman becomes a multimillionaire without friendship in the Jewish community.”
President Obama’s former church in Chicago, Trinity United, which he, his wife and daughters attended for 20 years and whose former pastor, Jeremiah Wright, he called a “friend” and “mentor,” in 2007 awarded Farrakhan a Lifetime Achievement Award. Wright said of Farrakhan in the church’s magazine, Trumpet: “His depth on analysis [sic] when it comes to the racial ills of this nation is astounding and eye-opening … He brings a perspective that is helpful and honest” (Quoted in Ronald Kessler, ‘Obama and the Minister,’ Wall Street Journal, March 14, 2008). When this award came to the fore during the 2008 presidential campaign, the-Senator Obama falsely claimed that this award was given to Farrakhan for his work with black prisoners. President Obama helped organize and attended Farrakhan’s Million Man March. During the 2008 presidential election campaign, Obama denounced Farrakhan and, under public pressure from Hillary Clinton in a live TV interview, rejected statements Farrakhan made supporting his White House bid.
ZOA National President Morton A. Klein said, “Louis Farrakhan’s letter is not only vicious anti-Semitic nonsense but deliberately threatening. Basically, he is saying that unless American Jews cooperate with whatever scheme of ‘helping’ his movement that he may have in mind, Jews everywhere will be endangered. This is a veiled call for violence against Jews. As such, it deserves to be repudiated and condemned. Who better than to do that than a black president who has spoken about healing racial divides, including that between Jews and African-Americans, and reducing the anti-Semitism that comes from some sectors of the African-American community? As noted historian Paul Johnson wrote in A History of the Jews, ‘One of the principal lessons of Jewish history has been that repeated verbal slanders are sooner or later followed by violent physical deeds. Time and again over the centuries, anti-Semitic writings created their own fearful momentum which climaxed in an effusion of Jewish blood.’
OBAMA SHOULD CONDEMN FARRAKHAN’S NEW ANTI-SEMITIC LETTER/THREATS TO ZOA, AIPAC, ADL & OTHERS
The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) has urged President Barack Obama to condemn veteran Jew-hater, Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, for his latest outburst and threats against Jews in letters he sent to 14 American Jewish organizational leaders, including ZOA’s Morton Klein, ADL’s Abe Foxman, Conference of Presidents’ Alan Solow, AIPAC’s Lee Rosenberg, Jewish Federation’s Jerry Silverman, American Jewish Congress’ Richard Gordon and Hillel’s Wayne Firestone. The letter came enclosed with two volumes of hateful new works published by the Nation of Islam, The Secret Relationship Between Blacks and Jews, volume two; and Jews Selling Blacks: Slave Trade by American Jews. Farrakhan has also said that he has sent copies of the volumes to various media outlets and members of the Obama Administration.
In his letter to American Jewish leaders, Farrakhan accused Jewish leaders of using accusations of anti-Semitism as a means to hide the truth and to silence criticism “of what I and many others feel is Jewish behavior that has ill-affected Black people and others.”
Farrakhan’s letter claimed “… an undeniable record of Jewish anti-Black behavior, starting with the horror of the trans-Atlantic slave trade, plantation slavery, Jim Crow, sharecropping, the labor movement of the North and South, the unions and the misuse of our people that continues to this very moment … Armed with this knowledge from the pens of Jewish scholars, Rabbis and historians, we could now charge you with the most vehement anti-Black behavior in the annals of our history in America and the world. We could charge you with being the most deceitful so-called friend, while your history with us shows you have been our worst enemy.”
Farrakhan’s letter ended with a threat: “should you choose to make our struggle to civilize our people more difficult, then I respectfully warn you … that the more you fight and oppose me rather than help me lift my people from their degraded state, Allah (G-d) and his Messiah will bring you and your people to disgrace and ruin and destroy your power and influence here and in the world.”
Also, in a speech some weeks ago entitled ‘Who are the Real Children of Israel?,’ in which he said that he would be sending copies of the books to Jewish leaders, Farrakhan accused Jews of exploiting the talent and artistry of blacks. He said, “Today the Jewish people have developed a new strategy … They have always tied themselves to Black people. They attach themselves to our talent. They are the managers, the agents and they are the accountants and that’s why our black artists loved fame and got fame but died poor because somebody else got their money. No black man or woman becomes a multimillionaire without friendship in the Jewish community.”
President Obama’s former church in Chicago, Trinity United, which he, his wife and daughters attended for 20 years and whose former pastor, Jeremiah Wright, he called a “friend” and “mentor,” in 2007 awarded Farrakhan a Lifetime Achievement Award. Wright said of Farrakhan in the church’s magazine, Trumpet: “His depth on analysis [sic] when it comes to the racial ills of this nation is astounding and eye-opening … He brings a perspective that is helpful and honest” (Quoted in Ronald Kessler, ‘Obama and the Minister,’ Wall Street Journal, March 14, 2008). When this award came to the fore during the 2008 presidential campaign, the-Senator Obama falsely claimed that this award was given to Farrakhan for his work with black prisoners. President Obama helped organize and attended Farrakhan’s Million Man March. During the 2008 presidential election campaign, Obama denounced Farrakhan and, under public pressure from Hillary Clinton in a live TV interview, rejected statements Farrakhan made supporting his White House bid.
ZOA National President Morton A. Klein said, “Louis Farrakhan’s letter is not only vicious anti-Semitic nonsense but deliberately threatening. Basically, he is saying that unless American Jews cooperate with whatever scheme of ‘helping’ his movement that he may have in mind, Jews everywhere will be endangered. This is a veiled call for violence against Jews. As such, it deserves to be repudiated and condemned. Who better than to do that than a black president who has spoken about healing racial divides, including that between Jews and African-Americans, and reducing the anti-Semitism that comes from some sectors of the African-American community? As noted historian Paul Johnson wrote in A History of the Jews, ‘One of the principal lessons of Jewish history has been that repeated verbal slanders are sooner or later followed by violent physical deeds. Time and again over the centuries, anti-Semitic writings created their own fearful momentum which climaxed in an effusion of Jewish blood.’
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
dispicable J Street ad
By: Dan Halper
Weekly Standard
07/06/10 3:50 PM EDT
How does J Street welcome Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to town? By politicizing American support for Israel. In a new ad said to air nationally (on al-Jazeera English maybe?), the group makes a silly attempt to ‘juxtapose’ those who say ‘yes’ to peace with those who say….well, it’s tough to find anyone in the U.S. who opposes peace, so J Street just slanders staunch supporters of Israel whose staunch support offends their delicate sensibilities.
The folks J Street places in the two camps are predictable enough. President Barack Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and General David Petraeus are on the ‘yes’ team. (See? They even have a military guy on board!) As for the ‘no’ team, that would be Sarah Palin, Joe Lieberman, Congressman Mike Pence, and others.
Obama, who is quoted as saying, “Two states living side by side in peace and security,” represents the ‘yes’ team. But here’s the thing: Those named as part of the ‘no’ team are also in favor of a two state solution to end the conflict in Israel.
Here’s Lieberman’s position:
Advancing the Middle East Peace Process. Senator Lieberman believes that the United States should continue to take an active role in negotiating a peaceful resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Specifically, he maintains that a two-state solution – in which Israel lives side by side in peace with a democratic Palestinian state – ultimately provides the only appropriate framework for resolving this longstanding challenge.
Here’s Sarah Palin, from the 2008 vice presidential debate with Joe Biden:
PALIN: A two-state solution is the solution.
So, what we’re left with is a totally dishonest ad.
J Street’s agenda isn’t hard to see. As reported in today’s Washington Post:
Israeli Ambassador Michael B. Oren said some moves in recent months, including a letter critical of the Gaza blockade signed by 54 congressional Democrats, have left the impression that Israel is “becoming a partisan issue,” with Republicans being uniformly supportive where Democrats are not.
Who circulated this letter critical of the blockade of Gaza around the House? That would be J Street, of course.
One might also note that the team behind the ad includes Meretz U.S.A. – the American arm of the hippy-dippy left-wing eco-party that holds all of three seats in the Israeli Knesset. Other members of the “Yes Community,” according to J Street, are “Congress” and “American Jews.” Funny, then, that more than 327 members of the House signed a letter to the administration this spring urging Hillary Clinton to do precisely what J Street attacks Joe Lieberman for in the ad – to settle any differences “quietly, in trust and confidence, as befits longstanding strategic allies.”
But perhaps the most despicable element of this ad is the use of an image showing General Petraeus in uniform and implying that he somehow supports J Street’s anti-Israel positions. In the past, the left has gone nuts whenever images of Petraeus were used in political ads to imply his endorsement or support — and the Pentagon hasn’t taken kindly to it either.
Weekly Standard
07/06/10 3:50 PM EDT
How does J Street welcome Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to town? By politicizing American support for Israel. In a new ad said to air nationally (on al-Jazeera English maybe?), the group makes a silly attempt to ‘juxtapose’ those who say ‘yes’ to peace with those who say….well, it’s tough to find anyone in the U.S. who opposes peace, so J Street just slanders staunch supporters of Israel whose staunch support offends their delicate sensibilities.
The folks J Street places in the two camps are predictable enough. President Barack Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and General David Petraeus are on the ‘yes’ team. (See? They even have a military guy on board!) As for the ‘no’ team, that would be Sarah Palin, Joe Lieberman, Congressman Mike Pence, and others.
Obama, who is quoted as saying, “Two states living side by side in peace and security,” represents the ‘yes’ team. But here’s the thing: Those named as part of the ‘no’ team are also in favor of a two state solution to end the conflict in Israel.
Here’s Lieberman’s position:
Advancing the Middle East Peace Process. Senator Lieberman believes that the United States should continue to take an active role in negotiating a peaceful resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Specifically, he maintains that a two-state solution – in which Israel lives side by side in peace with a democratic Palestinian state – ultimately provides the only appropriate framework for resolving this longstanding challenge.
Here’s Sarah Palin, from the 2008 vice presidential debate with Joe Biden:
PALIN: A two-state solution is the solution.
So, what we’re left with is a totally dishonest ad.
J Street’s agenda isn’t hard to see. As reported in today’s Washington Post:
Israeli Ambassador Michael B. Oren said some moves in recent months, including a letter critical of the Gaza blockade signed by 54 congressional Democrats, have left the impression that Israel is “becoming a partisan issue,” with Republicans being uniformly supportive where Democrats are not.
Who circulated this letter critical of the blockade of Gaza around the House? That would be J Street, of course.
One might also note that the team behind the ad includes Meretz U.S.A. – the American arm of the hippy-dippy left-wing eco-party that holds all of three seats in the Israeli Knesset. Other members of the “Yes Community,” according to J Street, are “Congress” and “American Jews.” Funny, then, that more than 327 members of the House signed a letter to the administration this spring urging Hillary Clinton to do precisely what J Street attacks Joe Lieberman for in the ad – to settle any differences “quietly, in trust and confidence, as befits longstanding strategic allies.”
But perhaps the most despicable element of this ad is the use of an image showing General Petraeus in uniform and implying that he somehow supports J Street’s anti-Israel positions. In the past, the left has gone nuts whenever images of Petraeus were used in political ads to imply his endorsement or support — and the Pentagon hasn’t taken kindly to it either.
Thursday, July 1, 2010
apologize Tom Friedman
Op-Ed: Tom Friedman must apologize for slandering Israel
By Shmuley Boteach · June 30, 2010
NEW YORK (JTA) -- I don’t often read Tom Friedman in The New York Times. True, he is one of the most lucid writers in America, and his crystal-clear prose helps in understanding some of the world’s most intractable conflicts. He can also be repetitive, tiresome and a little too in love with his own ideas.
As a triple winner of the Pulitzer Prize, Friedman is a man of considerable influence. But he is always lecturing Israel. If only the Jewish state would listen to his recurring advice, manna again would rain from the heavens, the dead would be resurrected and the Arabs would welcome Israel with daises and lilies.
Friedman certainly is entitled to his view. But he is not entitled to slander Israel, and last Sunday he did so with relish.
In words that blur the line between commentary and defamation, Friedman wrote of the “brutality of Israel’s retaliations” against Hezbollah and Hamas, and how Israel “chose to go after them without being deterred by the prospect of civilian casualties.” He then crossed a line of common decency when he irresponsibly accused Israel of using “Hama rules” in its war against the twin terror groups.
“Hama Rules,” he explained, “are named after the Syrian town of Hama, where, in 1982, then-President Hafez el-Assad of Syria put down a Muslim fundamentalist uprising by shelling and then bulldozing their neighborhoods, killing more than 10,000 of his own people.”
This is a straightforward blood libel. To accuse Israel of indiscriminately murdering thousands of civilians the way the butcher Assad did in Hama is to equate a democratic state whose actions are open to international media and scrutiny and constant judicial review with a bloodthirsty dictator and tyrant who held on to power without any restraint of law.
In his book "From Beirut to Jerusalem," Friedman himself writes that he had heard through friends that Assad’s brother, Rifaat al-Assad, had boasted that the Syrian government had killed 38,000 people in Hama. Is he seriously suggesting that Israel has ever been guilty of anything remotely approaching such wholesale slaughter?
In accusing Israel of the murderous immorality of Syria, Friedman has severely compromised his credibility and objectivity as an honest and fair-minded journalist. He is being dishonest and he knows it.
Israel is at the forefront of world militaries in trying always to diminish the civilian casualties of war. When it came to Hezbollah and Hamas, Israel endured years of provocation as both terrorist groups fired thousands of rockets at hospitals, schools and homes before Israel decided that no nation could long endure with its civilian population living amid such staggering death and fear. Only then did Israel invade.
Even then, while Hezbollah and Hamas launched their rockets from nurseries and infirmaries, Israel behaved with unparalleled restraint, doing everything in its power to warn civilians of coming offensives and then using state-of-the-art munitions with laser-like precision to reduce, as much as humanly possibly, collateral civilian casualties.How does Friedman propose Israel fight Hezbollah and Hamas, two of the world’s most bloodthirsty terrorist groups, who pride themselves on dismembering innocent civilians?
The United States rains hellfire missiles on Taliban and al-Qaida leaders in Afghanistan on a regular basis, blowing them to smithereens along with their wives and children. On May 21, U.S. airstrikes killed Mustafa Abu al-Yazid, the No. 3 leader of al-Qaida. His wife and three children were killed with him. Friedman never condemned the attack.
Perhaps it is because he sensibly understood that terrorists purposely travel with civilians and have contempt for the lives of even their own children. Yazid knew he was a marked man; he could have left his children in safety. But he banked on the belief that the United States would not touch him as long as his kids were around. President Obama rightly understood, however, that in this case it was a choice between his children and American children, that if this terrorist continued to live, Americans would continue to die.
I believe that you will never see Friedman pen a column suggesting that America is an immoral power because it attacks terrorists undeterred by considerations of civilian deaths because he knows that there would be hell to pay, even for the New York Times readership. But like so many Jewish apologists who are ashamed of what the tiny Jewish democracy must do in order to simply survive, he judges Israel by impossibly high, and usually double, standards.
Want to talk about brutal? In Operation Gomorrah of July 1943, the U.S. Air Force and Britain's Royal Air Force carpet-bombed Hamburg, killing some 50,000 civilians and practically destroying the entire city. The bombing created a whirling updraft of super-heated air, bringing about a 1,500-foot-high tornado of fire that incinerated thousands of civilian noncombatants.
In February 1945, when Hitler and Germany were headed to certain defeat, the U.S. Air Force and the RAF sent 1,300 heavy bombers over Dresden, dropping 3,900 tons of high explosives that destroyed nearly the entire city center and killed approximately 250,000 civilians. Six months later, on Aug. 6 and 9, President Truman ordered the atomic destruction of two Japanese cities, killing 90,000 to 166,000 people in Hiroshima and 60,000 to 80,000 in Nagasaki.
Where is Friedman’s column condemning Roosevelt, Truman and Churchill as monsters who ordered attacks on Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan “without being deterred by the prospect of civilian casualties”? If Friedman ever writes the column I’ll eat my yarmulke. That triumvirate today are regarded as three of the greatest statesmen of the 20th century.
Why would highly moral men have ordered the indiscriminate destruction of so many innocent lives?
It was because they were fighting an evil that had no precedent, and they had to make a terrible choice between the lives of their own countrymen and those of the civilians of enemies sworn to the destruction of Western democracy. They put their own countries and the freedom of the West first.
Israel, possessed of nuclear weapons and one of the most powerful air forces in the world, has never even contemplated carpet bombing any Arab city, irrespective of the horrendous civilian losses it has endured from 60 years of nonstop Arab aggression. It continues to bury a steady steam of civilians and soldiers when, if it truly wished to employ Hama rules, the war in the Middle East would have ended long ago.Friedman can do better than this, and he owes Israel an apology. He should be man enough to write it.
(Rabbi Shmuley Boteach hosts "The Shmuley Show" on WABC-770 AM in New York City. His most recent book is “Renewal: A Guide to the Values-Filled Life.”)
By Shmuley Boteach · June 30, 2010
NEW YORK (JTA) -- I don’t often read Tom Friedman in The New York Times. True, he is one of the most lucid writers in America, and his crystal-clear prose helps in understanding some of the world’s most intractable conflicts. He can also be repetitive, tiresome and a little too in love with his own ideas.
As a triple winner of the Pulitzer Prize, Friedman is a man of considerable influence. But he is always lecturing Israel. If only the Jewish state would listen to his recurring advice, manna again would rain from the heavens, the dead would be resurrected and the Arabs would welcome Israel with daises and lilies.
Friedman certainly is entitled to his view. But he is not entitled to slander Israel, and last Sunday he did so with relish.
In words that blur the line between commentary and defamation, Friedman wrote of the “brutality of Israel’s retaliations” against Hezbollah and Hamas, and how Israel “chose to go after them without being deterred by the prospect of civilian casualties.” He then crossed a line of common decency when he irresponsibly accused Israel of using “Hama rules” in its war against the twin terror groups.
“Hama Rules,” he explained, “are named after the Syrian town of Hama, where, in 1982, then-President Hafez el-Assad of Syria put down a Muslim fundamentalist uprising by shelling and then bulldozing their neighborhoods, killing more than 10,000 of his own people.”
This is a straightforward blood libel. To accuse Israel of indiscriminately murdering thousands of civilians the way the butcher Assad did in Hama is to equate a democratic state whose actions are open to international media and scrutiny and constant judicial review with a bloodthirsty dictator and tyrant who held on to power without any restraint of law.
In his book "From Beirut to Jerusalem," Friedman himself writes that he had heard through friends that Assad’s brother, Rifaat al-Assad, had boasted that the Syrian government had killed 38,000 people in Hama. Is he seriously suggesting that Israel has ever been guilty of anything remotely approaching such wholesale slaughter?
In accusing Israel of the murderous immorality of Syria, Friedman has severely compromised his credibility and objectivity as an honest and fair-minded journalist. He is being dishonest and he knows it.
Israel is at the forefront of world militaries in trying always to diminish the civilian casualties of war. When it came to Hezbollah and Hamas, Israel endured years of provocation as both terrorist groups fired thousands of rockets at hospitals, schools and homes before Israel decided that no nation could long endure with its civilian population living amid such staggering death and fear. Only then did Israel invade.
Even then, while Hezbollah and Hamas launched their rockets from nurseries and infirmaries, Israel behaved with unparalleled restraint, doing everything in its power to warn civilians of coming offensives and then using state-of-the-art munitions with laser-like precision to reduce, as much as humanly possibly, collateral civilian casualties.How does Friedman propose Israel fight Hezbollah and Hamas, two of the world’s most bloodthirsty terrorist groups, who pride themselves on dismembering innocent civilians?
The United States rains hellfire missiles on Taliban and al-Qaida leaders in Afghanistan on a regular basis, blowing them to smithereens along with their wives and children. On May 21, U.S. airstrikes killed Mustafa Abu al-Yazid, the No. 3 leader of al-Qaida. His wife and three children were killed with him. Friedman never condemned the attack.
Perhaps it is because he sensibly understood that terrorists purposely travel with civilians and have contempt for the lives of even their own children. Yazid knew he was a marked man; he could have left his children in safety. But he banked on the belief that the United States would not touch him as long as his kids were around. President Obama rightly understood, however, that in this case it was a choice between his children and American children, that if this terrorist continued to live, Americans would continue to die.
I believe that you will never see Friedman pen a column suggesting that America is an immoral power because it attacks terrorists undeterred by considerations of civilian deaths because he knows that there would be hell to pay, even for the New York Times readership. But like so many Jewish apologists who are ashamed of what the tiny Jewish democracy must do in order to simply survive, he judges Israel by impossibly high, and usually double, standards.
Want to talk about brutal? In Operation Gomorrah of July 1943, the U.S. Air Force and Britain's Royal Air Force carpet-bombed Hamburg, killing some 50,000 civilians and practically destroying the entire city. The bombing created a whirling updraft of super-heated air, bringing about a 1,500-foot-high tornado of fire that incinerated thousands of civilian noncombatants.
In February 1945, when Hitler and Germany were headed to certain defeat, the U.S. Air Force and the RAF sent 1,300 heavy bombers over Dresden, dropping 3,900 tons of high explosives that destroyed nearly the entire city center and killed approximately 250,000 civilians. Six months later, on Aug. 6 and 9, President Truman ordered the atomic destruction of two Japanese cities, killing 90,000 to 166,000 people in Hiroshima and 60,000 to 80,000 in Nagasaki.
Where is Friedman’s column condemning Roosevelt, Truman and Churchill as monsters who ordered attacks on Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan “without being deterred by the prospect of civilian casualties”? If Friedman ever writes the column I’ll eat my yarmulke. That triumvirate today are regarded as three of the greatest statesmen of the 20th century.
Why would highly moral men have ordered the indiscriminate destruction of so many innocent lives?
It was because they were fighting an evil that had no precedent, and they had to make a terrible choice between the lives of their own countrymen and those of the civilians of enemies sworn to the destruction of Western democracy. They put their own countries and the freedom of the West first.
Israel, possessed of nuclear weapons and one of the most powerful air forces in the world, has never even contemplated carpet bombing any Arab city, irrespective of the horrendous civilian losses it has endured from 60 years of nonstop Arab aggression. It continues to bury a steady steam of civilians and soldiers when, if it truly wished to employ Hama rules, the war in the Middle East would have ended long ago.Friedman can do better than this, and he owes Israel an apology. He should be man enough to write it.
(Rabbi Shmuley Boteach hosts "The Shmuley Show" on WABC-770 AM in New York City. His most recent book is “Renewal: A Guide to the Values-Filled Life.”)
Why are we selling weapons to Saudis when they want to wipe Israel off the map?
Why are we selling weapons to Saudis when they want to wipe Israel off the map?
from the daily alert July 1
Despite the differences of opinion, the report said Washington and Riyadh were in talks towards the signing of an extensive weapons deal, in which the Saudis are to purchase two squadrons of F-15 fighter jets, as well as maintenance and development services for similar products acquired in the past, at a cost of $20 billion. (Ynet News)
See also Report: Saudi King Abdullah Wants to Wipe Israel and Iran Off the Map - David Kenner
On June 5, Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah reportedly told French Defense Minister Herve Morin that "There are two countries in the world that do not deserve to exist: Iran and Israel." Georges Malbrunot, a French journalist with Le Figaro, said two sources have confirmed the story. (Foreign Policy)
from the daily alert July 1
Despite the differences of opinion, the report said Washington and Riyadh were in talks towards the signing of an extensive weapons deal, in which the Saudis are to purchase two squadrons of F-15 fighter jets, as well as maintenance and development services for similar products acquired in the past, at a cost of $20 billion. (Ynet News)
See also Report: Saudi King Abdullah Wants to Wipe Israel and Iran Off the Map - David Kenner
On June 5, Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah reportedly told French Defense Minister Herve Morin that "There are two countries in the world that do not deserve to exist: Iran and Israel." Georges Malbrunot, a French journalist with Le Figaro, said two sources have confirmed the story. (Foreign Policy)
amazing israel
Author is Australian who converted to Judaism and is passionately pro-Zionist. Has a different prospective on what Israel must do to change perceptions and that Israel needs to be more assertive.
...................................................................................................................
Towards a fully sovereign Israel
Imagine ....
Just imagine for a moment that there was a nation upon which the world depended for its future prosperity more than any other; a nation that held the world's largest concentration of the natural resource most crucial to the economic development of the world.
Imagine that this nation had one of the fastest growing economies in the western world and was the only advanced economy without the serious demographic problem of below replacement level birth rates and a rapidly aging population.
Imagine also that this nation had the most powerful and technologically advanced military in three continents and sat astride the world's most important trade routes with the ability to turn off the world's fuel supply at will and bring all other advanced economies to their knees, yet was not itself heavily dependent on this fuel supply.
This imaginary nation is also the world leader in inventing and producing the most advanced military technologies which are changing the face of warfare. Of course it also boasts a powerful nuclear deterrent, its people having been the ones that invented nuclear technology in the first place.
In this imaginary world such a powerful and important nation would be respected, and a little feared, by all the other nations of the earth. Its sovereignty would be sacrosanct and other nations wouldn't dare to interfere in its domestic affairs or publicly criticise its dealings with its internal challenges but would instead admire its achievements and seek to emulate them.
If this imaginary nation were attacked by terrorists who slaughtered thousands of innocents simply because they were citizens of this great nation, the nations of the world would rally around and pledge their allegiance and support to whatever action was needed to defeat the terrorists.
Now you may be asking yourself, what nation am I talking about? Does this imaginary nation really exist? Is it the United States? China? Japan? India? Or perhaps an asian tiger: Singapore, Korea Taiwan?
What if I told you that this nation was actually the Jewish State - Israel?
I know many readers are scoffing, but before you dismiss my claim, lets examine the facts, one by one.
The most crucial natural resource
The natural resource most crucial to the economic development of the world is not oil; after all it is merely a popular fuel. Oil use is crucial to the current lifestyle of the citizens of most advanced economies but it does not create economic development. Indeed the countries with the greatest amount of oil are often the least economically advanced countries, as its possession facilitates autocracy and dictatorship and its boom-bust cycles starve other economic sectors of capital.
Nor is this natural resource any other base commodity that is dug out of the earth or harvested from plant or animal. No this resource is the most advanced product of the highest life form that graces our planet. It is human genius, distilled as the innovation, entrepreneurship and scientific leadership with which the Jewish people have blessed the world for over a century and which today has its greatest concentration in the Jewish State.
"[T]he achievements of modern science are largely the expression of Jewish genius and ingenuity. If 26 percent of Nobel Prizes do not suffice to make the case, it is confirmed by 51 percent of the Wolf Foundation Prizes in Physics, 28 percent of the Max Planck Medailles and 38 percent of the Dirac Medals for Theoretical Physics, 37 percent of the Heineman Prizes for Mathematical Physics, and 53 percent of the Enrico Fermi Awards." George Gilder, The Israel Test (Richard Vigilante Books, 2009)
"[K]ey economic metrics demonstrate that Israel represents the greatest concentration of innovation and entrepreneurship in the world today." Dan Senor & Saul Singer, Start-up Nation: The story of Israel's Economic Miracle, (New York, Hachetter Book Group, 2009)
"Since 1990 Israel has become the most important center for high technology innovation in the world with the highest density of start-up companies, the largest number of NASDAQ listed companies (outside the US), the highest civilian R&D expenditure, 31% of global VC expenditure (and by far the highest per capita)." Dan Senor & Saul Singer, Start-up Nation: The story of Israel's Economic Miracle, (New York, Hachetter Book Group, 2009)
Moreover Israel is "mission critical" to the continued economic success of the brand name American high-tech companies whose products underpin our modern technological existence.
"Multinationals have set up shop in places like India and Ireland, too. "But we don't set up our mission critical work in those countries," an American executive from eBay told us. "Google, Cisco, Microsoft, Intel, eBay . . . the list goes on. The best-kept secret is that we all live and die by the work of our Israeli teams. It's much more than just outsourcing call centers to India or setting up IT services in Ireland. What we do in Israel is unlike what we do anywhere else in the world.""
Dan Senor & Saul Singer, Start-up Nation: The story of Israel's Economic Miracle, (New York, Hachetter Book Group, 2009)
"The [real] case for Israel [is] as the leader of human civilization, technological progress, and scientific advance." George Gilder, The Israel Test (Richard Vigilante Books, 2009)
"On a planet where human life subsists upon the achievements of human intellect and enterprise, Jews are crucial to the future of the [human] race." George Gilder, The Israel Test (Richard Vigilante Books, 2009)
Economics
As a result of this technological and entrepreneurial leadership, Israel has been the second fastest growing western economy since 1990[1] < http://bl149w.blu149.mail.live.com/mail/RteFrame_15.1.3059.0405.html?pf=pf#_ftn1> (behind Ireland) and one of only two OECD economies (the other Australia)[2] < http://bl149w.blu149.mail.live.com/mail/RteFrame_15.1.3059.0405.html?pf=pf#_ftn2> to record growth in 2009. Unlike some of its competitors in the economic growth stakes, Israel's growth rate has proved resilient through numerous economic crises (including the tech wreck of 2000/01 and the 2009 global financial crisis) two wars (Lebanon 2006 & Gaza 2009) and terrorism.
It is telling that the growth of other countries which exhibited high growth over the last 20 years (eg Ireland, Greece, Iceland and Dubai) has collapsed into near national bankruptcy as the artificiality of their debt based economic model was exposed by the global financial crisis. Only innovation and entrepreneurship can create strong, sustainable economic growth over the long term.
Demographics
Israel is the only advanced economy with a healthy demographic profile and fertility rate of 2.9 births per woman, well above replacement level of 2.1 births per woman. The next closest country, the United States, has a sustainable if slightly below replacement level fertility rate of 2.04 births per woman. Australia, New Zealand, Ireland and France maintain fertility rates between 1.8 and 1.9 births per woman which are economically sustainable only while high immigration rates can be maintained[3] < http://bl149w.blu149.mail.live.com/mail/RteFrame_15.1.3059.0405.html?pf=pf#_ftn3> . After that the fertility rate of all other advanced economies falls away to levels that are economically and demographically unsustainable.[4]
These other advanced economies face bankruptcy, then extinction, with fertility rates so far below replacement level (1.1 - 1.5 births per woman) that an ever decreasing tax base of working age citizens will be called upon to support an ever increasing proportion of pensioners as well as maintaining an expensive infrastructure designed for a larger population. Already in Japan, Italy, Russia, Germany, South Korea and Singapore the situation of four grandparents, two parents and one grandchild is the norm. Their populations are on track to halve every generation with devastating consequences for their economies and ultimately the extinction of the native people of these countries and their replacement by sub-cultures (often Muslim immigrants) with a much higher birth rate.
Contrast this with the norm in Israel of four grandparents, six parents and nine grandchildren and the Jewish ultra-orthodox norm (fertility rate of 8 births per woman) of four grand parents, sixteen parents and sixty four grandchildren and it is easy to see which countries and cultures have a future and which do not.
These demographic profiles also critically affect the ability of countries to produce the innovation and entrepreneurship that is essential to economic growth because young people are the only ones who have the energy, motivation, lack of baggage and fresh perspective to take risks and try new things. Equally, the dramatic reduction in the number of military age citizens each generation will have a severe adverse affect on these nations' ability to defend themselves against external and internal threats. Pensioners do not make effective front line soldiers or police.
Military Strength
According to the most comprehensive publicly available analysis of the strength of the world's military forces, Israel has the most powerful conventional land forces (including air force) not only in the Middle East but in Europe (including Russia) and Africa as well.[5] < http://bl149w.blu149.mail.live.com/mail/RteFrame_15.1.3059.0405.html?pf=pf#_ftn5> Israel can field a highly trained, combat experienced army of around 600,000 men (and women) and over 10,000 armoured vehicles equipped with with the most advanced military technologies available on 72 hours notice.
This is four times the size of the current American forces in Iraq, the deployment of which has stretched US ground forces to the limit. Its is also twice the strength of the UK's land forces, three times that of France and four times that of Germany. When I visit Yad Vashem I'm somewhat comforted that Hitler would be turning in his grave in the knowledge that the Jews he tried to exterminate now possess military forces four times larger than his beloved fatherland!
The Israeli Air Force (IAF) is also one of the largest in the world with pilots and planes who regularly defeat the best US pilots and planes in training exercises and whose combat record is unparalleled. From the complete destruction of the air forces of Syria & Egypt in a few hours in June 1967 through the destruction of the Syrian airforce without the loss of a single plane in the 1980s[6] < http://bl149w.blu149.mail.live.com/mail/RteFrame_15.1.3059.0405.html?pf=pf#_ftn6> , the destruction of the Iraqi nuclear reactor in 1981 and the recent destruction of the Syrian nuclear reactor accompanied by electronically crashing of the entire Syrian air defence network for 12 hours in 2008[7] < http://bl149w.blu149.mail.live.com/mail/RteFrame_15.1.3059.0405.html?pf=pf#_ftn7> , the IAF is by far the most accomplished air force in the world.
Israel leads the world in developing the defence technologies that are changing the face of warfare: robotic planes (UAVs), robotic ground vehicles, robotic stealth boats, robotic defence towers, anti-missile defence systems for vehicles (Trophy & Iron Fist), ships (Barak) cities & bases (Iron Dome) and countries (Arrow II & III).
The Israeli Merkava IV tank was already considered the best in the world[8] < http://bl149w.blu149.mail.live.com/mail/RteFrame_15.1.3059.0405.html?pf=pf#_ftn8> even before the installation of the Trophy Active Defence system made it impervious to ranged attack (including from other tanks' main guns)[9] < http://bl149w.blu149.mail.live.com/mail/RteFrame_15.1.3059.0405.html?pf=pf#_ftn9> . The concept of a tank that can shoot down anything fired against it from infantry, tank or aircraft and then return a devastating counter-attack within a fraction of a second is a complete game-changer in armoured warfare.
Israel is the only country with active missile defence systems protecting its cities and strategic sites from short and long range missile attacks and the only western country with a real civil defence system to protect its citizens from harm. Israel's speedy and effective response to the Haitian earthquake (in contrast to that of other nations) has again demonstrated that it is the only country that knows what to do when disaster strikes.
Location
As any property investor knows the most important thing in real estate is "location, location, location" and military force is only effective if it can be brought to bear in strategic locations. Despite the tiny size of the country, Israel has access to both the Mediterranean and Red Seas which are so crucial for Europe's trade and has over 60% of the world's oil reserves within range of its prodigious air-force.[10]
Of course Israel has never sought to exercise the military power it possesses to shut down Europe's economy overnight and probably never will. But perhaps Europe would be a bit more circumspect about funding Israel's enemies and interfering in Israel's internal affairs if it contemplated what an angry Israel could do.
Equally, other major powers, especially China, should consider, in deciding whether to get serious about sanctioning Iran, what will happen to their economies should Israel decide to destroy Iranian oil production along with the nuclear facilities with which Iran has promised to destroy Israel. Such action by Israel would be completely justified by the need to deprive Iran of the financial means of rebuilding its nuclear facilities.
Energy Independence
Significantly, Israel itself is far less oil dependant than all other advanced economies and will, as a result of the recent massive natural gas finds off Haifa and the conversion of its transportation infrastructure to electric vehicles, shortly be energy independent.
For historical reasons Israel has always sought to reduce its dependance on the oil produced by its Arab enemies and has implemented alternative energy as a national security imperative. With the world-first completion of Project Better Place's electric vehicle infrastructure in Israel in 2011[11] < http://bl149w.blu149.mail.live.com/mail/RteFrame_15.1...3059.0405.html?pf=pf#_ftn11> and the suitability of Israel to electric vehicles, the country will be the first in the world to convert from oil based to electric vehicles, thus severing Israel's last reliance on imported oil in favour of electric produced from its own gas fields.
While Israel is heavily dependent upon exports, like most other advanced economies, its exports are predominantly the unique high tech products of Jewish genius & innovation that cannot be obtained elsewhere.[12] < http://bl149w.blu149.mail.live.com/mail/RteFrame_15.1...3059.0405.html?pf=pf#_ftn12> These high-tech products generally do not rely on oil (or any other imported resource) and indeed in some senses compete with it and would benefit from an oil crisis. After all, if you can't afford to fill your car with petrol to get to work or the shops you'll be forced onto the internet to work and shop, will start considering a Project Better Place electric car and look at alternative energy options for your household energy needs. If physical goods & services become more expensive because of increased transportation costs, digital goods & services will become more attractive to consumers. All this would increase the demand for Israel's high tech exports.
Consequences
So if Israel is indeed the imaginary powerful and essential nation I described at the beginning of this essay, why is the world's behaviour towards Israel the exact opposite of the respect, fear and admiration which such a nation should engender? And more importantly what can be done about it?
Anti-semitism clearly plays a role in the world's shabby treatment of Israel, and vast libraries have been written on the subject. However it is not the only factor, nor the one which is most amenable to change. While anti-semitism should clearly be confronted wherever it is found, it seems clear now that this 3000 year old hatred cannot be completely eliminated and indeed arises partly from jealously of the very excellence and genius which has made Israel great.[13]
I believe that the most significant factor in the world's failure to accord Israel the respect it deserves is that Israel and Jews worldwide have failed to recognise, comprehend and internalise the true centrality and power of Israel in the world today. While this is quite understandable given the rapidity of Israel's transformation over the last 25 years and the previous 1900 years of exile and persecuted minority status, it needs to change. After all, if you don't believe in something yourself, how can you expect anybody else to.
Israel does not necessarily need to exercise its power in any direct way to change the world's treatment of it. It just needs to internalise the facts of its centrality and power and begin to communicate them to the world, both directly and by simply acting as a powerful sovereign state which will not brook any interference in its internal affairs.
. US defence aid (75% of which must be spent in the US) disadvantages Israeli defence companies in bidding for IDF contracts often causing the IDF to purchase inferior US systems rather than superior Israeli ones[15] < http://bl149w.blu149.mail.live.com/mail/RteFrame_15.1...3059.0405.html?pf=pf#_ftn15> and allows the US to block Israeli defence contracts worth far more than the value of the aid.[16]
While $2.55 billion defence aid may sound like a lot of money, in 2009 Israel's GDP was $207 billion[17] < http://bl149w.blu149.mail.live.com/mail/RteFrame_15.1...3059.0405.html?pf=pf#_ftn17> growing at a 4.4% annualised rate in the last quarter of 2009. This means that Israel would make up for the loss of US defence aid in only 3 months of GDP growth. Moreover the removal of the US's effective veto over Israel's foreign defence sales would very quickly recover amount of aid forgone in increased defence exports.
The nature of the US -Israel alliance needs to change from the current client-state relationship to the respectful partnership which characterises the US's alliance with the UK and Australia, taking into account the fact that Israel is far more militarily powerful and economically important to the US than either of those nations.
Relationship with Europe
Israel also needs to re-cast its relationship with European countries to properly reflect the realities of Israel's vibrance, fertility, centrality and power compared to Europe's dim economic and demographic future, military weakness and energy vulnerability.
Israel should politely make it clear to the European Union that its considers all matters to do with the Palestinians and the "peace process" to be off-limits to European involvement and interference as these matters are the internal affairs of the sovereign Israeli state. Israel should indicate that it considers matters to do with the Palestinians the same as China considers matters to do with Tibet or Russia considers matters to do with Chechnya and that it will consider EU funding of Palestinian organisations or Israeli political NGOs as a hostile act.
Israel does not need to threaten Europe militarily to get Europe to respect its sovereignty. It merely needs to make it clear that Europe's future prosperity depends on Israel's high tech innovation while the manner in which Israel deals with its oil producing enemies[18] < http://bl149w.blu149.mail.live.com/mail/RteFrame_15.1...3059.0405.html?pf=pf#_ftn18> will determine whether or not Europe's economy collapses from another oil shock.
For those worried about Europe's reaction to Israel asserting its sovereignty one only need to remember back to Europe's weakness when confronted with Russian threats to its gas supply in 2008 & 2009 to understand that Europe will quickly realise that its not worth the risk to Europe's already weak economy to defy Israel on the issue.
Equally, concerns about possible sanctions or boycotts are completely unfounded. Most of Israel's exports are unique high tech products for which there is no cost effective alternative and which confer competitive advantage on those using them. Thus those groups imposing sanctions just hurt themselves and benefit their competitors who don't sanction. Europe's lack of unity in relation to attempts to impose meaningful sanctions on Iran shows how powerful economic self interest is even when the economic opportunities are not unique.
Historically sanctions have only ever been effective on commodity exporting nations (like South Africa, Iraq or Iran) whose products can easily be obtained elsewhere at little additional cost. Moreover it is impossible to prevent the cross border transfer of the digital information which comprises much of Israel's exports without completely shutting down the internet.
In addition Israel has been subject to a boycott from the Arab world since its founding. It has clearly been a complete failure that has only served to hamper Arab economic development and spur Israel to greater innovation and focus on its inherent strengths in boycott proof innovation industries.
Conclusion
The transformation of Israel over the last 25 years into a military, economic and demographic powerhouse crucial to the world's future prosperity is a miracle on par with the original founding of the State.
Just imagine for a moment a world where Israel is respected and admired by the world for its achievements, power and central place in the future of the human race. Israel could then truly be a light unto the nations and fulfil its historic and biblical destiny.
This world is within our grasp if we can only recognise and internalise Israel's true significance in the world. If we will it, it is no dream.
Andrew Hamilton
Jerusalem, Israel
March 2010
Book overview
The Israel Test
Israel is the crucial battlefield for Capitalism and Freedom in our time. George Gilder's global best-seller "Wealth and Poverty" made the moral case for capitalism. Now Gilder makes the case for Israel, portraying a conflict of barbarism and envy against civilization and creativity. Gilder reveals Israel as a leader of human civilization, technological progress, and scientific advance. Tiny Israel stands behind only the United States in its contributions to the hi-tech economy. Israel has become the world's paramount example of the blessings of freedom. Hatred of Israel, like anti-Semitism through history, arises from resentment of Jewish success. Rooted in a Marxist zero-sum-game theory of economics, this vision has fueled the anti-Semitic rantings of Hitler, Arafat, Osama, and history's other notorious Jew haters. Faced with a contest between murderous regimes sustained by envy and Nazi ideology, and a free, prosperous, and capitalist, Israel--whose side are you on?
...................................................................................................................
Towards a fully sovereign Israel
Imagine ....
Just imagine for a moment that there was a nation upon which the world depended for its future prosperity more than any other; a nation that held the world's largest concentration of the natural resource most crucial to the economic development of the world.
Imagine that this nation had one of the fastest growing economies in the western world and was the only advanced economy without the serious demographic problem of below replacement level birth rates and a rapidly aging population.
Imagine also that this nation had the most powerful and technologically advanced military in three continents and sat astride the world's most important trade routes with the ability to turn off the world's fuel supply at will and bring all other advanced economies to their knees, yet was not itself heavily dependent on this fuel supply.
This imaginary nation is also the world leader in inventing and producing the most advanced military technologies which are changing the face of warfare. Of course it also boasts a powerful nuclear deterrent, its people having been the ones that invented nuclear technology in the first place.
In this imaginary world such a powerful and important nation would be respected, and a little feared, by all the other nations of the earth. Its sovereignty would be sacrosanct and other nations wouldn't dare to interfere in its domestic affairs or publicly criticise its dealings with its internal challenges but would instead admire its achievements and seek to emulate them.
If this imaginary nation were attacked by terrorists who slaughtered thousands of innocents simply because they were citizens of this great nation, the nations of the world would rally around and pledge their allegiance and support to whatever action was needed to defeat the terrorists.
Now you may be asking yourself, what nation am I talking about? Does this imaginary nation really exist? Is it the United States? China? Japan? India? Or perhaps an asian tiger: Singapore, Korea Taiwan?
What if I told you that this nation was actually the Jewish State - Israel?
I know many readers are scoffing, but before you dismiss my claim, lets examine the facts, one by one.
The most crucial natural resource
The natural resource most crucial to the economic development of the world is not oil; after all it is merely a popular fuel. Oil use is crucial to the current lifestyle of the citizens of most advanced economies but it does not create economic development. Indeed the countries with the greatest amount of oil are often the least economically advanced countries, as its possession facilitates autocracy and dictatorship and its boom-bust cycles starve other economic sectors of capital.
Nor is this natural resource any other base commodity that is dug out of the earth or harvested from plant or animal. No this resource is the most advanced product of the highest life form that graces our planet. It is human genius, distilled as the innovation, entrepreneurship and scientific leadership with which the Jewish people have blessed the world for over a century and which today has its greatest concentration in the Jewish State.
"[T]he achievements of modern science are largely the expression of Jewish genius and ingenuity. If 26 percent of Nobel Prizes do not suffice to make the case, it is confirmed by 51 percent of the Wolf Foundation Prizes in Physics, 28 percent of the Max Planck Medailles and 38 percent of the Dirac Medals for Theoretical Physics, 37 percent of the Heineman Prizes for Mathematical Physics, and 53 percent of the Enrico Fermi Awards." George Gilder, The Israel Test (Richard Vigilante Books, 2009)
"[K]ey economic metrics demonstrate that Israel represents the greatest concentration of innovation and entrepreneurship in the world today." Dan Senor & Saul Singer, Start-up Nation: The story of Israel's Economic Miracle, (New York, Hachetter Book Group, 2009)
"Since 1990 Israel has become the most important center for high technology innovation in the world with the highest density of start-up companies, the largest number of NASDAQ listed companies (outside the US), the highest civilian R&D expenditure, 31% of global VC expenditure (and by far the highest per capita)." Dan Senor & Saul Singer, Start-up Nation: The story of Israel's Economic Miracle, (New York, Hachetter Book Group, 2009)
Moreover Israel is "mission critical" to the continued economic success of the brand name American high-tech companies whose products underpin our modern technological existence.
"Multinationals have set up shop in places like India and Ireland, too. "But we don't set up our mission critical work in those countries," an American executive from eBay told us. "Google, Cisco, Microsoft, Intel, eBay . . . the list goes on. The best-kept secret is that we all live and die by the work of our Israeli teams. It's much more than just outsourcing call centers to India or setting up IT services in Ireland. What we do in Israel is unlike what we do anywhere else in the world.""
Dan Senor & Saul Singer, Start-up Nation: The story of Israel's Economic Miracle, (New York, Hachetter Book Group, 2009)
"The [real] case for Israel [is] as the leader of human civilization, technological progress, and scientific advance." George Gilder, The Israel Test (Richard Vigilante Books, 2009)
"On a planet where human life subsists upon the achievements of human intellect and enterprise, Jews are crucial to the future of the [human] race." George Gilder, The Israel Test (Richard Vigilante Books, 2009)
Economics
As a result of this technological and entrepreneurial leadership, Israel has been the second fastest growing western economy since 1990[1] < http://bl149w.blu149.mail.live.com/mail/RteFrame_15.1.3059.0405.html?pf=pf#_ftn1> (behind Ireland) and one of only two OECD economies (the other Australia)[2] < http://bl149w.blu149.mail.live.com/mail/RteFrame_15.1.3059.0405.html?pf=pf#_ftn2> to record growth in 2009. Unlike some of its competitors in the economic growth stakes, Israel's growth rate has proved resilient through numerous economic crises (including the tech wreck of 2000/01 and the 2009 global financial crisis) two wars (Lebanon 2006 & Gaza 2009) and terrorism.
It is telling that the growth of other countries which exhibited high growth over the last 20 years (eg Ireland, Greece, Iceland and Dubai) has collapsed into near national bankruptcy as the artificiality of their debt based economic model was exposed by the global financial crisis. Only innovation and entrepreneurship can create strong, sustainable economic growth over the long term.
Demographics
Israel is the only advanced economy with a healthy demographic profile and fertility rate of 2.9 births per woman, well above replacement level of 2.1 births per woman. The next closest country, the United States, has a sustainable if slightly below replacement level fertility rate of 2.04 births per woman. Australia, New Zealand, Ireland and France maintain fertility rates between 1.8 and 1.9 births per woman which are economically sustainable only while high immigration rates can be maintained[3] < http://bl149w.blu149.mail.live.com/mail/RteFrame_15.1.3059.0405.html?pf=pf#_ftn3> . After that the fertility rate of all other advanced economies falls away to levels that are economically and demographically unsustainable.[4]
These other advanced economies face bankruptcy, then extinction, with fertility rates so far below replacement level (1.1 - 1.5 births per woman) that an ever decreasing tax base of working age citizens will be called upon to support an ever increasing proportion of pensioners as well as maintaining an expensive infrastructure designed for a larger population. Already in Japan, Italy, Russia, Germany, South Korea and Singapore the situation of four grandparents, two parents and one grandchild is the norm. Their populations are on track to halve every generation with devastating consequences for their economies and ultimately the extinction of the native people of these countries and their replacement by sub-cultures (often Muslim immigrants) with a much higher birth rate.
Contrast this with the norm in Israel of four grandparents, six parents and nine grandchildren and the Jewish ultra-orthodox norm (fertility rate of 8 births per woman) of four grand parents, sixteen parents and sixty four grandchildren and it is easy to see which countries and cultures have a future and which do not.
These demographic profiles also critically affect the ability of countries to produce the innovation and entrepreneurship that is essential to economic growth because young people are the only ones who have the energy, motivation, lack of baggage and fresh perspective to take risks and try new things. Equally, the dramatic reduction in the number of military age citizens each generation will have a severe adverse affect on these nations' ability to defend themselves against external and internal threats. Pensioners do not make effective front line soldiers or police.
Military Strength
According to the most comprehensive publicly available analysis of the strength of the world's military forces, Israel has the most powerful conventional land forces (including air force) not only in the Middle East but in Europe (including Russia) and Africa as well.[5] < http://bl149w.blu149.mail.live.com/mail/RteFrame_15.1.3059.0405.html?pf=pf#_ftn5> Israel can field a highly trained, combat experienced army of around 600,000 men (and women) and over 10,000 armoured vehicles equipped with with the most advanced military technologies available on 72 hours notice.
This is four times the size of the current American forces in Iraq, the deployment of which has stretched US ground forces to the limit. Its is also twice the strength of the UK's land forces, three times that of France and four times that of Germany. When I visit Yad Vashem I'm somewhat comforted that Hitler would be turning in his grave in the knowledge that the Jews he tried to exterminate now possess military forces four times larger than his beloved fatherland!
The Israeli Air Force (IAF) is also one of the largest in the world with pilots and planes who regularly defeat the best US pilots and planes in training exercises and whose combat record is unparalleled. From the complete destruction of the air forces of Syria & Egypt in a few hours in June 1967 through the destruction of the Syrian airforce without the loss of a single plane in the 1980s[6] < http://bl149w.blu149.mail.live.com/mail/RteFrame_15.1.3059.0405.html?pf=pf#_ftn6> , the destruction of the Iraqi nuclear reactor in 1981 and the recent destruction of the Syrian nuclear reactor accompanied by electronically crashing of the entire Syrian air defence network for 12 hours in 2008[7] < http://bl149w.blu149.mail.live.com/mail/RteFrame_15.1.3059.0405.html?pf=pf#_ftn7> , the IAF is by far the most accomplished air force in the world.
Israel leads the world in developing the defence technologies that are changing the face of warfare: robotic planes (UAVs), robotic ground vehicles, robotic stealth boats, robotic defence towers, anti-missile defence systems for vehicles (Trophy & Iron Fist), ships (Barak) cities & bases (Iron Dome) and countries (Arrow II & III).
The Israeli Merkava IV tank was already considered the best in the world[8] < http://bl149w.blu149.mail.live.com/mail/RteFrame_15.1.3059.0405.html?pf=pf#_ftn8> even before the installation of the Trophy Active Defence system made it impervious to ranged attack (including from other tanks' main guns)[9] < http://bl149w.blu149.mail.live.com/mail/RteFrame_15.1.3059.0405.html?pf=pf#_ftn9> . The concept of a tank that can shoot down anything fired against it from infantry, tank or aircraft and then return a devastating counter-attack within a fraction of a second is a complete game-changer in armoured warfare.
Israel is the only country with active missile defence systems protecting its cities and strategic sites from short and long range missile attacks and the only western country with a real civil defence system to protect its citizens from harm. Israel's speedy and effective response to the Haitian earthquake (in contrast to that of other nations) has again demonstrated that it is the only country that knows what to do when disaster strikes.
Location
As any property investor knows the most important thing in real estate is "location, location, location" and military force is only effective if it can be brought to bear in strategic locations. Despite the tiny size of the country, Israel has access to both the Mediterranean and Red Seas which are so crucial for Europe's trade and has over 60% of the world's oil reserves within range of its prodigious air-force.[10]
Of course Israel has never sought to exercise the military power it possesses to shut down Europe's economy overnight and probably never will. But perhaps Europe would be a bit more circumspect about funding Israel's enemies and interfering in Israel's internal affairs if it contemplated what an angry Israel could do.
Equally, other major powers, especially China, should consider, in deciding whether to get serious about sanctioning Iran, what will happen to their economies should Israel decide to destroy Iranian oil production along with the nuclear facilities with which Iran has promised to destroy Israel. Such action by Israel would be completely justified by the need to deprive Iran of the financial means of rebuilding its nuclear facilities.
Energy Independence
Significantly, Israel itself is far less oil dependant than all other advanced economies and will, as a result of the recent massive natural gas finds off Haifa and the conversion of its transportation infrastructure to electric vehicles, shortly be energy independent.
For historical reasons Israel has always sought to reduce its dependance on the oil produced by its Arab enemies and has implemented alternative energy as a national security imperative. With the world-first completion of Project Better Place's electric vehicle infrastructure in Israel in 2011[11] < http://bl149w.blu149.mail.live.com/mail/RteFrame_15.1...3059.0405.html?pf=pf#_ftn11> and the suitability of Israel to electric vehicles, the country will be the first in the world to convert from oil based to electric vehicles, thus severing Israel's last reliance on imported oil in favour of electric produced from its own gas fields.
While Israel is heavily dependent upon exports, like most other advanced economies, its exports are predominantly the unique high tech products of Jewish genius & innovation that cannot be obtained elsewhere.[12] < http://bl149w.blu149.mail.live.com/mail/RteFrame_15.1...3059.0405.html?pf=pf#_ftn12> These high-tech products generally do not rely on oil (or any other imported resource) and indeed in some senses compete with it and would benefit from an oil crisis. After all, if you can't afford to fill your car with petrol to get to work or the shops you'll be forced onto the internet to work and shop, will start considering a Project Better Place electric car and look at alternative energy options for your household energy needs. If physical goods & services become more expensive because of increased transportation costs, digital goods & services will become more attractive to consumers. All this would increase the demand for Israel's high tech exports.
Consequences
So if Israel is indeed the imaginary powerful and essential nation I described at the beginning of this essay, why is the world's behaviour towards Israel the exact opposite of the respect, fear and admiration which such a nation should engender? And more importantly what can be done about it?
Anti-semitism clearly plays a role in the world's shabby treatment of Israel, and vast libraries have been written on the subject. However it is not the only factor, nor the one which is most amenable to change. While anti-semitism should clearly be confronted wherever it is found, it seems clear now that this 3000 year old hatred cannot be completely eliminated and indeed arises partly from jealously of the very excellence and genius which has made Israel great.[13]
I believe that the most significant factor in the world's failure to accord Israel the respect it deserves is that Israel and Jews worldwide have failed to recognise, comprehend and internalise the true centrality and power of Israel in the world today. While this is quite understandable given the rapidity of Israel's transformation over the last 25 years and the previous 1900 years of exile and persecuted minority status, it needs to change. After all, if you don't believe in something yourself, how can you expect anybody else to.
Israel does not necessarily need to exercise its power in any direct way to change the world's treatment of it. It just needs to internalise the facts of its centrality and power and begin to communicate them to the world, both directly and by simply acting as a powerful sovereign state which will not brook any interference in its internal affairs.
. US defence aid (75% of which must be spent in the US) disadvantages Israeli defence companies in bidding for IDF contracts often causing the IDF to purchase inferior US systems rather than superior Israeli ones[15] < http://bl149w.blu149.mail.live.com/mail/RteFrame_15.1...3059.0405.html?pf=pf#_ftn15> and allows the US to block Israeli defence contracts worth far more than the value of the aid.[16]
While $2.55 billion defence aid may sound like a lot of money, in 2009 Israel's GDP was $207 billion[17] < http://bl149w.blu149.mail.live.com/mail/RteFrame_15.1...3059.0405.html?pf=pf#_ftn17> growing at a 4.4% annualised rate in the last quarter of 2009. This means that Israel would make up for the loss of US defence aid in only 3 months of GDP growth. Moreover the removal of the US's effective veto over Israel's foreign defence sales would very quickly recover amount of aid forgone in increased defence exports.
The nature of the US -Israel alliance needs to change from the current client-state relationship to the respectful partnership which characterises the US's alliance with the UK and Australia, taking into account the fact that Israel is far more militarily powerful and economically important to the US than either of those nations.
Relationship with Europe
Israel also needs to re-cast its relationship with European countries to properly reflect the realities of Israel's vibrance, fertility, centrality and power compared to Europe's dim economic and demographic future, military weakness and energy vulnerability.
Israel should politely make it clear to the European Union that its considers all matters to do with the Palestinians and the "peace process" to be off-limits to European involvement and interference as these matters are the internal affairs of the sovereign Israeli state. Israel should indicate that it considers matters to do with the Palestinians the same as China considers matters to do with Tibet or Russia considers matters to do with Chechnya and that it will consider EU funding of Palestinian organisations or Israeli political NGOs as a hostile act.
Israel does not need to threaten Europe militarily to get Europe to respect its sovereignty. It merely needs to make it clear that Europe's future prosperity depends on Israel's high tech innovation while the manner in which Israel deals with its oil producing enemies[18] < http://bl149w.blu149.mail.live.com/mail/RteFrame_15.1...3059.0405.html?pf=pf#_ftn18> will determine whether or not Europe's economy collapses from another oil shock.
For those worried about Europe's reaction to Israel asserting its sovereignty one only need to remember back to Europe's weakness when confronted with Russian threats to its gas supply in 2008 & 2009 to understand that Europe will quickly realise that its not worth the risk to Europe's already weak economy to defy Israel on the issue.
Equally, concerns about possible sanctions or boycotts are completely unfounded. Most of Israel's exports are unique high tech products for which there is no cost effective alternative and which confer competitive advantage on those using them. Thus those groups imposing sanctions just hurt themselves and benefit their competitors who don't sanction. Europe's lack of unity in relation to attempts to impose meaningful sanctions on Iran shows how powerful economic self interest is even when the economic opportunities are not unique.
Historically sanctions have only ever been effective on commodity exporting nations (like South Africa, Iraq or Iran) whose products can easily be obtained elsewhere at little additional cost. Moreover it is impossible to prevent the cross border transfer of the digital information which comprises much of Israel's exports without completely shutting down the internet.
In addition Israel has been subject to a boycott from the Arab world since its founding. It has clearly been a complete failure that has only served to hamper Arab economic development and spur Israel to greater innovation and focus on its inherent strengths in boycott proof innovation industries.
Conclusion
The transformation of Israel over the last 25 years into a military, economic and demographic powerhouse crucial to the world's future prosperity is a miracle on par with the original founding of the State.
Just imagine for a moment a world where Israel is respected and admired by the world for its achievements, power and central place in the future of the human race. Israel could then truly be a light unto the nations and fulfil its historic and biblical destiny.
This world is within our grasp if we can only recognise and internalise Israel's true significance in the world. If we will it, it is no dream.
Andrew Hamilton
Jerusalem, Israel
March 2010
Book overview
The Israel Test
Israel is the crucial battlefield for Capitalism and Freedom in our time. George Gilder's global best-seller "Wealth and Poverty" made the moral case for capitalism. Now Gilder makes the case for Israel, portraying a conflict of barbarism and envy against civilization and creativity. Gilder reveals Israel as a leader of human civilization, technological progress, and scientific advance. Tiny Israel stands behind only the United States in its contributions to the hi-tech economy. Israel has become the world's paramount example of the blessings of freedom. Hatred of Israel, like anti-Semitism through history, arises from resentment of Jewish success. Rooted in a Marxist zero-sum-game theory of economics, this vision has fueled the anti-Semitic rantings of Hitler, Arafat, Osama, and history's other notorious Jew haters. Faced with a contest between murderous regimes sustained by envy and Nazi ideology, and a free, prosperous, and capitalist, Israel--whose side are you on?
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