Saturday 12 September 2009
Love of the Land: The Human Spirit: In Their Merit
The Human Spirit: In Their Merit
Barabara Sofer
JPost
11 September 09
That old cliche "everyone is replaceable" is wrong. No one is replaceable, not to his family or in this world. In this Hebrew month of Elul, when we traditionally engage in heightened retrospection and personal reckoning, we are exquisitely aware of the uniqueness of each person.
Still, we cannot help but rejoice as new life replenishes the old.
The final summer flight of Nefesh B'Nefesh, the organization founded in 2001, during the nadir of the intifada, landed at Ben-Gurion Airport last week. The number of immigrants this organization has brought is indeed impressive. This summer NBN reports 3,000 immigrants, among them 40 doctors and 32 families moving to the North through the new "Go North" program. Nefesh B'Nefesh has come up with bureaucracy-busting technology and human support to ease the aliya process so that if it's not exactly a glide path, at least it's a rose garden with most of the thorns removed.
NEFESH B'NEFESH means "soul for soul." In his grief over the murder of a relative in a terrorist bombing, Rabbi Yehoshua Fass conceived the idea of an organization that would streamline the aliya process and encourage more Jews to move to Israel.
The numbers tell only a small part of that soulful story. Let's take, for example, the story of two immigrant families who arrived this summer. Two years ago, Sabrina and Lloyd Ziff were living in Edgware, London. They were concerned for Israel, but they'd never brought their three daughters here for a visit. Sabrina was running a successful property management company and her husband Lloyd worked as a kosher poultry grower and distributor. Their daughters attended an excellent Jewish day school.
Then on July 2, 2008, a Palestinian terrorist driving a bulldozer plowed into cars and pedestrians on Jerusalem's Jaffa Road. Jean Relevy, 68, of Jerusalem was one of three persons murdered in that terror attack.
He was Sabrina's uncle.
Sabrina remembered him fondly, but she hadn't seen him for at least 15 years. He was the youngest of her father's siblings, one of seven children who'd fled with their family from Persia to India, and then eventually to Israel. Sabrina's parents had moved to England, where she grew up.
"I'm close with my father," said Sabrina, "And when I saw him weeping for the first time, something happened inside me." Like a seed germinating, an idea began to grow.
"I was always a Zionist, but I'd read the community news first in the Jewish Chronicle. Something shifted. Suddenly, I was on-line constantly at The Jerusalem Post site." The "oh, so you're Jewish" of people trying to figure out where her Mediterranean looks came from began to grate on her. The anti-Israel reaction in England to Operation Cast Lead began to sicken her. She marched in the pro-Israel rally in Trafalgar Square.
"I followed with great despair the failed efforts to free Gilad Schalit even though Israel was offering so much. Even though we lived far away, we always had a feeling in our family that we would be there for each other no matter what. I began asking myself what I was doing in England. Lloyd and I decided it was time to make a move." They wanted to come this summer. They phoned Nefesh B'Nefesh.
IN STATEN Island, New York, Yehudah and Aviva Zuller's family were undergoing a similar process. Three years ago, Yehudah was running a busy printing company and also collecting funds for terror victims in Israel. Aviva was pregnant with their fourth child. Then, on June 25, 2006 Gilad Schalit was kidnapped.
"I was caught up in the details of the story, checking the Web constantly," said Aviva. On July 1 their fourth child, a son, was born. In the delivery room, the doctor asked what they'd call their baby. Their older son Binyamin had been named for a grandfather who survived Auschwitz. "I have to consult with my wife, but I have a name in mind," Yehudah said. Aviva nodded to him. She'd guessed that he wanted to call their dark-haired baby Gilad. She liked the idea. Their baby, like the kidnapped soldier, would be Gilad ben Aviva.
Zuller sent Noam and Aviva Schalit an e-mail telling them of Gilad's birth, stressing that they'd named their son "in Gilad's honor, not his memory." "I was afraid he'd think - here's this guy from America who doesn't know me. What's he naming his son Gilad for?" But the Schalits wrote back warmly and the families have met numerous times since, both in the US and in Israel. "The strength of the connection intensified our back-burner desire to move to Israel." They wanted to come this summer. They, too, phoned Nefesh B'Nefesh.
The Zullers have settled in Ma'aleh Adumim. Their three older children have started school there. Gilad, three, is in nursery school, learning Hebrew fast. He tells other little kids that he was named "in honor of Gilad Schalit." "Each of his birthdays is bittersweet," said Yehudah. "We're delighted he's growing up so nicely, but increasingly sad that so much time has gone by since Gilad Schalit was kidnapped."
The Ziffs have set up home in Ra'anana. Daughters Natalya, nine, Tamara, six, and Stephanie, four, have begun the school year in a country they never visited until this summer.
"It's a bit of a challenge to be there by 8 a.m. and we're just getting used to school on Sundays," said Ziff. "But in my bubble back in England, I didn't realize people were living this incredible life here. I feel I'm living the Torah every day.
"When I landed I burst into tears, thinking that my parents had made a mistake by living in the Diaspora, and feeling I was fixing it by coming home. I looked up and said a few words to Uncle Jean. They killed you, Dear Uncle, but we're here now - all five of us, to replace you. More and more of us will come. It's in your merit."
Nefesh by nefesh, truly a soul for a soul.
Love of the Land: The Human Spirit: In Their Merit
Israel Matzav: When is a war crime not a war crime?
When is a war crime not a war crime?
I saw this post on Jules Crittenden's web site about an American medic killed in Afghanistan, which Crittenden implies is a war crime, and wondered the same thing. I knew that dozens of Israeli medics have been killed in battles and wondered: If killing an American medic is a war crime, why wasn't the killing of all those Israeli medics a war crime?Soccer Dad explains why:
In the case of Israelis though, since the ICRC won't give protection to the Mogen David Adom, it's not a war crime. So killing Yochai Porat wasn't a war crime.
Sgt.-Maj.(res.) Yochai Porat, who was on reserve army duty as a medic, was killed while trying to help his wounded comrades. Yochai was coordinator of the Jewish Agency's Foreign Volunteers Program, which is jointly run with Magen David Adom. The foreign volunteer program took on new impetus after Yochai became its coordinator. In this capacity, just a week ago he met Senator Hillary Clinton during her visit to Israel, and was excited to take a picture with her during the presentation of diplomas for volunteers from abroad.
Kiling Shmuel Akiva Weiss - a medic who was going to tend to Matanya Robinson wasn't a war crime.
Because Israeli army medics aren't afforded the same international protections granted every other mecical corps due to Islamic intolerance, the killings of Yochai Porat and Shmuel Weiss weren't war crimes. They were evidence of antisemitism and its acceptability on the international scene.
Huh? You might ask.... Well, here's the relevant paragraph from the Geneva Convention (which as far as I know has not been amended since the Red Cross sort of agreed to recognize Israel's Magen David Adom in 2006).
Medical personnel, including medical and dental officers, technicians and corpsmen, nurses, and medical service personnel, have special protected status when engaged exclusively in medical duties and may not be attacked. Possession of small arms for self-protection, for the protection of the wounded and sick, and for protection from marauders and others violating the law of armed conflict does not disqualify medical personnel from protected status. Medical personnel may not use such arms against enemy forces acting in conformity with the law of armed conflict. Chaplains attached to the armed forces are entitled to respect and protection. Medical personnel and chaplains should display the distinctive emblem of the red cross or red crescent when engaged in their respective medical and religious activities. Failure to wear the distinctive emblem does not, by itself, justify attacking a medical person or chaplain, recognized as such. Medical personnel and chaplains falling into enemy hands do not become prisoners of war. Unless their retention by the enemy is required to provide for the medical or religious needs of prisoners of war, medical personnel and chaplains must be repatriated at the earliest opportunity.
If you're wearing a Red Cross or a Red Crescent and you're killed, it's a war crime. If you're wearing a Red Star of David (as Israeli medics do), it's not a war crime.
Are you outraged yet?
Are you outraged yet?
Israel Matzav: When is a war crime not a war crime?
Israel Matzav: The Goldstone Commission: Biased from the outset
The Goldstone Commission: Biased from the outset
The Goldstone Commission, which was set up by the United Nations 'Human Rights Council' to 'investigate' Operation Cast Lead is due to issue its report soon - there were rumors before the Sabbath that it would come out today (Saturday) but so far no sign of it. In a post on Friday, Melanie Phillips described the inherent bias of the Commission. Here's its mandate: an urgent, independent international fact-finding mission, to be appointed by the President of the Council, to investigate all violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law by the occupying Power, Israel, against the Palestinian people throughout the Occupied Palestinian Territory, particularly in the occupied Gaza Strip, due to the current aggression, and calls upon Israel not to obstruct the process of investigation and to fully cooperate with the mission.
Please note that Judge Goldstone has denied the charges of bias by claiming that he 'changed' the mandate to allow investigations into 'war crimes' by 'both sides.' That's why the Israeli government has not cooperated with this Commission. Its mandate was biased from the outset and it had decided before it heard a single witness that Israel was guilty of 'war crimes.'
Now let's look at the Commission's members.
Now let's look at the Commission's members.
Goldstone himself [pictured. CiJ] is utterly compromised by accepting the terms of this rigged mandate which is an affront to justice. As Eye on the UN reports, although he claims to have changed this mandate through informal conversations, this is a load of hooey:
Goldstone, a lawyer and former judge, knows full well that he has no jurisdiction or authority to change the mandate either alone or in informal conversation with anyone. His claims to the contrary, therefore, are a serious ethical and legal breach both to the critics who have accused him of assuming a position tainted from the outset, and to the Council itself.
Now look at the objectivity of the other members of the Commission. Like Goldstone, Ms Hina Jilani and Col Desmond Travers signed a letter last March stating that events in Gaza had ‘shocked us to the core’ and calling for an investigation into ‘crimes perpetrated against civilians by both sides.’ So all three have already declared Israel guilty of such crimes – and as for the other side, their abuses lie outside the Commission’s scope.
Now look at the fourth member of this objective ‘fact-finding’ Commission, Christine Chinkin, Professor of International Law at the London School of Economics.
Last January, she signed a letter in the Times which stated: ‘Israel's bombardment of Gaza is not self-defence - it's a war crime.’ It went on: ‘The rocket attacks on Israel by Hamas deplorable as they are, do not, in terms of scale and effect amount to an armed attack entitling Israel to rely on self-defence...Israel's actions amount to aggression, not self-defence’. Instead, ‘its invasion and bombardment of Gaza amounts to collective punishment of Gaza’s 1.5m inhabitants contrary to international humanitarian and human rights law’.
What do you believe the chances are that Israel would get a fair hearing from any of these four. I would say that they're somewhere between slim and none.
Bonus: Judge Goldstone was a member of the Board of Directors of Marc Garlasco's Human Rights Watch until he was called on it by NGO Monitor and resigned.
Fair hearing? I doubt it.
Bonus: Judge Goldstone was a member of the Board of Directors of Marc Garlasco's Human Rights Watch until he was called on it by NGO Monitor and resigned.
Fair hearing? I doubt it.
Israel Matzav: The Goldstone Commission: Biased from the outset
Israel Matzav: Human Rights Watch defends a Nazi fetish
Human Rights Watch defends a Nazi fetish
Shavua tov, a good week to everyone.NGO Monitor rips Human Rights Watch's defense of HRW investigator Marc Garlasco's Nazi fetish.
HRW’s defense seeks to justify Garlasco’s behavior by claiming, “many military historians including former and active-duty US service members, collect memorabilia from [the Nazi era].” But the collecting of Nazi memorabilia is not simply an innocent hobby engaged in by “students of military history.” It is highly controversial and in many European countries, it is illegal. Such trade is banned on many internet sites and from auction houses. Christies’ Chairman has stated that Nazi memorabilia, is “the only thing we categorically will not sell.” Writer Susan Sontag likens its collection to pornography and the Simon Wiesenthal Center notes it “glorifies the horrors of Nazi Germany.”
...
According to HRW’s response, “Garlasco’s own family’s experience on both sides of the Second World War has led him to collect military items related to both sides . . .” While Garlasco’s interest may have been a result of his family history, his hobby borders on the obsessive and is one-sided. He has posted thousands of comments on Nazi memorabilia sites including Germancombatawards (981 posts) and Wehrmacht-awards (7735 posts). In one post, he notes that he takes his collection of medals (many of which are swastika-adorned) out on a yearly basis to admire and photograph. He has even gone so far as to say he would “kill” to obtain a piece. [2] HRW claims Garlasco also collects US Airforce memorabilia. Research conducted by NGO Monitor could not find any evidence that Garlasco’s interest in US military memorabilia approaches the level to which he is devoted to Nazi paraphernalia.
HRW’s defense also claims that Garlasco collects “German Air Force medals and other objects (not from the Nazi Party or the SS, as falsely alleged).” Yet, Garlasco’s screen logo is a picture of a German badge with a swastika. In a 2005 comment, responding to a posting of a photo of a leather SS jacket, Garlasco wrote, “That is so cool! The leather SS jacket makes my blood go cold it is so COOL!” The jacket owner replies, “Great feedback mein Freund! . . . Gott mit uns [God is with us]!].
Most disturbingly, Garlasco’s screen moniker is Flak88. While this is the name of a German anti-aircraft gun (alarming on its own), the number 88 is a code for “Heil Hitler” and is used by neo-Nazis to identify themselves. The same screen name, Flak 88, was adopted by a poster at the white power website, stormfront.org. It is reasonable to conclude that Garlasco would have been fully aware of this symbolism when he chose this name. He even uses it on his license plate (a practice which is banned in Germany) and as a screen name on websites unrelated to his Nazi collection.
It is bizarre enough for a “human rights” activist to choose the name of a gun as an internet screen name and for his car license plate. Coupled with the neo-Nazi iconography, however, the adoption of “Flak88” as Garlasco’s alter ego is evidence at the very least of highly questionable moral judgment.
Read the whole thing.
The next time you read a Human Rights Watch report that is critical of Israel, please think about the chances that someone like Marc Garlasco is going to give Israel a fair hearing.
The next time you read a Human Rights Watch report that is critical of Israel, please think about the chances that someone like Marc Garlasco is going to give Israel a fair hearing.
Israel Matzav: Human Rights Watch defends a Nazi fetish
Israel Matzav: 9/11 celebration, Hezbullah style
9/11 celebration, Hezbullah style
Hezbullah is celebrating 9/11 by firing Katyusha rockets at Israel on Friday. Two rockets have landed in open areas in the western Galilee, one of them near Nahariya in Israel's northwest corner (Hat Tip: Mere Rhetoric). No casualties or damage were reported in the incident, which marked the fourth such attack this year.
IDF troops launched retaliatory artillery fire towards the source.
Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said that one of the rockets was located near Nahariya, and the IDF said that the rockets were apparently 122 millimeters in diameter.
A senior Lebanese military official said that the rockets were fired from the town of Qlaileh, near the Lebanese port city of Tyre.
No group took immediate responsibility for the cross-border attack, though radical Palestinian factions in Lebanon have been suspected of firing rockets into Israel in the past.
'No group took immediate responsibility my ***.' Hezbullah either did it or allowed someone else to do it.
It is likely that Israel did not respond disproportionately because it has bigger fish to fry and has no desire to get involved in a tit for tat rocket war with its neighbor to the north. Look for Hezbullah to try to ratchet up tensions in the coming months, both to take advantage of Israel's attempts to wait for the Americans to come on board against Iran and to try to goad Israel into getting involved with an action that will waste resources it needs for more important battles.
It may be interesting to see whether this comes up in the US State Department briefing later today and what is said. It will already be the Sabbath here when that briefing takes place, so I won't be able to check, but if any of you hear anything interesting and want to send it to me, please drop me an email and I will look at it on Saturday night.
It is likely that Israel did not respond disproportionately because it has bigger fish to fry and has no desire to get involved in a tit for tat rocket war with its neighbor to the north. Look for Hezbullah to try to ratchet up tensions in the coming months, both to take advantage of Israel's attempts to wait for the Americans to come on board against Iran and to try to goad Israel into getting involved with an action that will waste resources it needs for more important battles.
It may be interesting to see whether this comes up in the US State Department briefing later today and what is said. It will already be the Sabbath here when that briefing takes place, so I won't be able to check, but if any of you hear anything interesting and want to send it to me, please drop me an email and I will look at it on Saturday night.
Israel Matzav: 9/11 celebration, Hezbullah style
Israel Matzav: Eight years after 9/11, terror on America's doorstep
Eight years after 9/11, terror on America's doorstep
Two prominent mainstream media outlets focused this week on the connection between Iran and Venezuela, and between Iran and other Latin American countries, and what it means to the United States. While the Atlanta Journal and Constitution's article was an op-ed written by a Colombian professor who may or may not reflect that newspaper's view, the Washington Post went after the Obama administration with an editorial that wondered aloud whether the Obama administration appreciates the threat that is being placed on its doorstep.I'm going to start with the Journal and Constitution article because it sets out the background in much greater detail.
Israel Matzav: Eight years after 9/11, terror on America's doorstepThe most worrisome Iranian activity in Latin America, however, is the establishment of terrorist infrastructures linked to Iran. Tehran employs a combination of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) — Vahidi was the head of IRGC’s Quds Force — and the Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah in its covert operations. The presence of both organizations in Latin America has substantially increased in recent years.
For example, the IRGC is cooperating closely with Venezuelan intelligence agencies. Tehran sent observers to military exercises organized by Caracas in 2008. Hezbollah has built a network of relations with Venezuelan citizens, making Caracas Hezbollah’s gateway into Latin America. As the U.S. Treasury Department denounced, one Venezuelan diplomat accredited in Beirut, Ghazi Nasr al Din, provided support to Hezbollah, including help with setting up its fund-raising apparatus in Latin America.
Hezbollah’s presence has been detected behind the proliferation of Shiite mosques in Ecuador. Hezbollah has been involved in the contraband of drugs in Colombia and in illegal immigrant traffic in Mexico. And the organization is expanding its presence in the region via proxies such as “Hezbollah Argentina” and “Hezbollah Venezuela.”
Tehran seeks to gain strategic advantages from its increased influence in Latin America in case its refusal to stop its nuclear program provokes a military confrontation with Washington or Jerusalem. Tehran wants to use the threat of retaliation by terrorist networks in Latin America under its control as a tool to dissuade the U.S. and Israel from launching an attack against its nuclear infrastructure.
In addition, the ayatollahs’ regime hopes its presence just south of the U.S. border forces Washington to pay more attention to the Western Hemisphere, leading to a reduction of America’s footprint in the Middle East.Read All at :
Israel Matzav: Russia says 'nyet' on new Iran sanctions
Russia says 'nyet' on new Iran sanctions
On Monday, Prime Minister Netanyahu disappeared for about ten hours. It now appears that Prime Minister Netanyahu traveled to Russia for an urgent meeting relating to Iran (Moscow is about a 3.5 hour flight from Tel Aviv), probably relating to the sale of anti-aircraft missiles to the Islamist regime. Israel Matzav: Russia says 'nyet' on new Iran sanctionsBut by Wednesday, Israel's largest daily, Yediot Ahronot, was reporting that Netanyahu had flown secretly to Moscow to voice concern over the possible sale of Russian anti-aircraft missiles to Iran. Other Israeli newspapers published similar accounts, saying Netanyahu had made the 15-hour trip on a private plane leased from a local business mogul.
People familiar with Netanyahu's movements said the plane belonged to Yossi Meiman, head of the Merhav Group, an Israeli conglomerate with energy and media interests. Netanyahu leased the plane - instead of using a government aircraft - to help ensure secrecy, they said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter. Merhav had no comment.
...
The Haaretz daily said Netanyahu discussed Russian arms deals with Iran and Syria, and that Israel presented evidence that Russian arms were making their way to Iranian-backed Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon. In another report, the paper said the talks were also focused on sophisticated anti-aircraft missiles that Russia has agreed to sell to Iran. The delivery of the S-300 missiles would make it much more difficult for Israel to carry out an attack on Iran.
The reported visit follows the hijacking last month of a freighter that was later intercepted by Russia off Cape Verde, thousands of miles from the Algerian port where it was supposed to have docked. A Russian maritime expert and the European Union's top anti-piracy official have suggested the Arctic Sea may have been carrying missiles bound for Iran. Israeli media have speculated the Mossad tipped off the Russians to the elicit cargo.
As the rumors swirled of clandestine talks, Russian officials remained silent. "We have seen these reports in various media, and you know that not all the details add up, but there is nothing more I can tell you," Foreign Ministry spokesman Andrei Nesterenko was quoted as saying Thursday.
The Russian daily Kommersant, citing a "highly placed source in the Kremlin," confirmed the visit and speculated the talks had been on an extremely urgent matter, "like Israel updating Russia on its intention to attack Iran."Read All at :
Israel Matzav: Iran's 'proposal' published; could have been written by Obama
Iran's 'proposal' published; could have been written by Obama
Iran's 'nuclear program proposal' has been published online. The original document may be found here. The buzzwords are peace, cooperation, respect, equality among nations, dignity and no more use of force. It says that some parts of the world need 'special priority' and of course the first part of the world that the document names is 'Palestine,' which needs a "comprehensive, democratic and equitable plan in order to help the people of Palestine to achieve all-embracing peace." Notice no mention of Israel there.The proposal lists seven 'international issues,' the first two of which are 'reforming' the United Nations and the Security Council (presumably so that the United States no longer gets a veto in return for paying 22% of the UN's budget every year) and global warming. I wonder if Ahmadinejad has ever considered what detonating a nuclear weapons will do to the environment.
The fifth issues calls for a "rule-based and equitable oversight" of the IAEA and the sixth calls for the universal application of the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty. I assume that the intention here is to bring about the disarmament of the United States and Israel.
There are also five economic issues.
What's missing is that there is no mention of Iran's own nuclear program, and of course, no mention of Israel.
ProPublica, which obtained a copy of the proposal and placed it online Thursday night, suggests that the Obama administration may agree to talk to Iran on this basis:
Read All at :
Israel Matzav: Iran's 'proposal' published; could have been written by Obama
Israel Matzav: Hamas: Women aren't to be seen, or heard either
Hamas: Women aren't to be seen, or heard either
Hamas has issued orders for women not to be heard talking or laughing in public in its Muslim Caliphate of Hamastan. According to a member of the Political Bureau of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Kayed Al-Ghoul, Hamas wants to limit women's freedom, prevent contact between men and women, and impose morality restrictions on men. Hamas's Morality Units prohibit women from laughing and talking in public, and want women to go outdoors only when accompanied by a male relative.
The following is from the article in the Palestinian daily, Al-Ayyam:Member of the Political Bureau of the Popular Front, Kayed Al-Ghoul:
"Hamas in Gaza today maintains a type of tyranny... and seeks, through undemocratic means of coercion and despotism, to enact laws that enforce their ideology and their party's world-view on the entire Palestinian population in the Gaza Strip...
Hamas enforces [wearing of] the headscarf and long gown (hijab and jalabiya) on female lawyers and students; it acts to separate the sexes in government departments by imposing a separation between the sexes in offices and waiting rooms, and it has prohibited mixed folk dancing. Most dangerous, it has established Morality Units, run jointly by the Ministry of the Interior and the Ministry of Religious Affairs, which ask couples who walk on the beach to present a marriage contract, and ask any woman walking alone on the beach to have an escort [male relative], and prohibit laughing and talking for women [in public], and have issued a religious ruling (fatwa) prohibiting men from swimming in shorts, with the rest of their bodies naked."[Al-Ayyam, Sept. 3, 2009]
And Fatah still dreams of regaining control of Gaza? Whom are they fooling?
Israel Matzav: Hamas: Women aren't to be seen, or heard either
Love of the Land: Obama's Impossible Ambition
Obama's Impossible Ambition
The US president's intention to bridge the divide between Israel and Palestine is bound to fail
Benny Morris
The Guardian
11 September 09
The Guardian
11 September 09
President Obama's efforts to revive the Middle East peace process are bound to fail because of the unbridgeable divide separating Israel's and Palestine's political goals. The minor problems are Israeli prime ministerBinyamin Netanyahu's unwillingness to partition Jerusalem and enable the Palestinians to constitute the eastern half of the city as their capital, and his reluctance to freeze the settlement enterprise in the West Bank. The major problem is that the two-headed Palestinian national movement is averse to sharing Palestine with the Jews and endorsing a solution based on two states for two peoples.
Hamas, which won the Palestinian national elections in 2006, says so bluntly. Its charter of 1988 explicitly calls for Israel's destruction and assures the believers that "Islam will destroy Israel". It repeatedly compares Israel to the medieval crusader kingdoms and states that its end will be identical. (This comparison, incidentally, has been a constant in Arab discourse on Zionism. In September 1947, the Arab League's secretary general, Abdul Rahman Azzam, told Zionist emissaries: "Centuries ago, the crusaders established themselves in our midst against our will, and in 200 years we ejected them.")
Fatah too has a constitution, never revised since the 1960s, which advocates Israel's destruction. During the 1990s, Fatah – then the leading component of the Palestinian national movement – agreed in negotiations with Israel to produce a revised Palestinian National Charterthat deleted the clauses calling for Israel's destruction. No such revised charter was ever produced, though these clauses were ostensibly revoked by a gathering of Palestinian notables in Gaza in 1998.
Fatah's head, the president of the Palestine National Authority,Mahmoud Abbas, in effect continues to promote the same rejectionist message. He publicly hails, to propitiate Washington, "the two-state solution", but when pressed declines to endorse it. Yes, one state for Palestinian Arabs and another for whoever lives in Israel, but not a "Jewish state". He seems to be hoping that Israel's 20% Arab minority, with birth rates double those of the Jews, will overtake the Jews demographically; or that Israel will accede to Palestinian demands to allow the return of refugees. There are around five million refugees (nine-tenths are the descendants of the 1948 refugees). Israel has 5.5 million Jewish citizens. A mass repatriation coupled with the incumbent Arabs would turn Israel instantly into an Arab-majority state. Hence Abbas's unwillingness to recognise Israel as a "Jewish state".
The Jewish national movement, Zionism, and the Palestinian Arabs' national movement enjoyed common starting points but, over time, followed radically different trajectories. Both initially sought to establish a state of their own over all Palestine. This was the Zionists' aim from the movement's inception in the early 1880s until the late 1930s. All of Palestine, the ancient land of Israel, rightfully would be theirs.
But the Arab revolt of 1936-39 and the resurgence of antisemitism in Europe persuaded the Zionist leaders that they would have to make do with only part of Palestine. They accepted, in principle, the 1937 Peel commission partition proposal and, a decade later, the UN General Assembly partition resolution; thus, since the 1990s, they have reaffirmed the principle of two states for two peoples.
But from the beginning, the Palestinian national movement saw the struggle as a zero-sum game. As Palestinian notables told the King-Crane commission in 1919, "We will push the Zionists into the sea, or they will send us back into the desert"; there could be no partition.
This was to be the stance of the Palestinian national movement's first major leader, Haj Amin al-Husseini, and of its second, Yasser Arafat. (His only concession to the realities of power was that Israel would have to be destroyed not in one fell swoop but in stages.) And this remains the goal to this day. The rejection of Israel as "a Jewish state" and the unwavering insistence on the refugee "right of return" are the "tells".
Obama will press Netanyahu on settlements and achieve some sort of freeze. But once the negotiations begin, the issue of Jerusalem will loudly surface. And then the refugees. And Israel will insist that Abbas – who does not represent Hamas and perhaps only a minority of Palestinians – accept the Clinton-Barak formulation of an "end to the conflict" and an "end to all claims". And Abbas will demand Israeli acceptance of the "right of return" – the demographic battering ram designed to subvert Israel's Jewish character and existence. And the talks will founder, possibly followed by a new round of violence.
I fear that history is against Obama.
Love of the Land: Obama's Impossible Ambition
Love of the Land: Having One's Enemy And Eating It Too
Having One's Enemy And Eating It Too
Surveying today's myopic Middle East on the eighth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks
Caroline Glick
JewishWorldReview.com
09 September 09
There has been much talk in recent months about the prospect of Syria bolting the Iranian axis and becoming magically transformed into an ally of the West. Although Syria's President-for-life Bashar Assad's daily demonstrations of fealty to his murderous friends has exposed this talk as nothing more than fantasy, it continues to dominate the international discourse on Syria.
In the meantime, Syria's ongoing real transformation from a more or less functioning state into an impoverished wasteland has been ignored.
Today Syria faces the greatest economic catastrophe in its history. The crisis is causing massive malnutrition and displacement for hundreds of thousands of Syrians. These Syrians - some 250,000 mainly Kurdish farmers - have been forced off their farms over the past two years because their lands were reclaimed by the desert.
Today shantytowns have sprung up around major cities like Damascus. They are filled with internally displaced refugees. Due to a cataclysmic combination of irrational agricultural policies embraced by the Baa'thist Assad dynasty for the past 45 years which have eroded the soil, and massive digging of some 420 thousand unauthorized wells which have dried out the ground water aquifiers, Syria's regime has done everything in its power to dry up the country. The effects of these demented policies have been exacerbated in recent years by Turkey's diversion of Syria's main water source, the Euphrates River, through the construction of dams upstream, and by two years of unrelenting drought. Today, much of Syria's previously fertile farmland has become wasteland. Former farmers are now destitute day laborers with few prospects for economic recovery.
Imagine if in his country's moment of peril, instead of clinging to his alliance with Iran, Hizbullah, al Qaida, and Hamas, Assad were to turn to Israel to help him out of this crisis?
Israel is a world leader in water desalination and recycling. The largest desalination plant in the world is located in Ashkelon. Israeli technology and engineers could help Syria rebuild its water supply.
Israel could also help Syria use whatever water it still has, or is able to produce through desalination and recycling more wisely through drip irrigation - which was invented in Israel. Israel today supplies fifty percent of the international market for drip irrigation. In places like Syria and southern Iraq which are now being dried out by the Turkish dams, irrigation is primitive — often involving nothing more than water trucks pumping water out of the Euphrates and driving it over to fields that are often less than a kilometer away.
Then there are Syria's dwindling oil reserves. No doubt, Israeli engineers and seismologists would be able to increase the efficiency and productivity of existing wells and so increase their output. It is certainly not beyond the realm of possibility that Israeli scientists and engineers could even discover new untapped oil reserves.
But of course, Syria isn't interested in Israel's help. Syria wants to have its enemy and eat it too. As Assad has made clear repeatedly, what he wants is to receive the Golan Heights - and through it Israel's fresh water supply - for nothing. He wants Israel to surrender the Golan Heights, plus some Israeli land Syria illegally occupied between 1948 and1967, in exchange for a meaningless piece of paper. In this demand, Assad is supported by none other than Turkish Prime Minister Recip Erdogan whose country is drying Syria out. It is Erdogan after all, who mediated talks aimed at convincing then Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to give up the Golan Heights for nothing and it is Erdogan today who is encouraging the Obama administration to pressure Israel to surrender its water to Syria for nothing.
Read All at :
Love of the Land: Having One's Enemy And Eating It Too
Love of the Land: Hatred of Israel is a European Pathology — My Op-ed in the Jewish Chronicle
Hatred of Israel is a European Pathology — My Op-ed in the Jewish Chronicle
Robin Shepherd
Think Tank Blog
11 September 09
How and at what point do isolated events start to form a pattern? Hold that thought as you consider the following examples.
On August 18, the Guardian ran a commentary by the Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Zizek which argued that Israel was attempting to eradicate Palestinians from the West Bank. In a clearly calculated attempt to Nazify the Jewish state, the writer used, and the Guardian editorial team allowed, the word “Palestinian-frei” — a blatant inversion of the Nazi term Judenfrei.
In the same week, Sweden’s top-selling newspaper, Aftonbladet, ran a two-page spread in its “culture” section alleging that soldiers of the Israeli Defence Forces routinely kill Palestinian children and harvest their bodily organs for sale on the black market. The allegations were juxtaposed with reports of an American Jew who had been arrested on charges of trafficking a human kidney.
Later in August, Virgin boss Richard Branson visited Israel and chided his hosts in the following manner: “After the Second World War,” he said, “the world had enormous sympathy for the Jewish people. Over a number of decades, that sympathy has been lost.” Last week in Spain, the newspaper El Mundo hosted Holocaust-denier David Irving as part of a series of interviews with “experts” on the Second World War.
Again, how and at what point do isolated events start to form a pattern? Four egregious instances in as many weeks may not make the grade for some. So, in my recently published book, A State Beyond the Pale: Europe’s problem with Israel, I have included dozens of such examples from the past 10 years to prove a point that I do not believe can now sensibly be denied. Vigorous and unremitting hostility to Israel has become part of mainstream discourse right across western Europe. Israel has become a pariah. Why?
Antisemitism is part of it, to be sure. But the deepest and most convincing explanation of what is going on centres on the nature of contemporary Europe itself: its civilisational weaknesses and pathologies; its post-imperial, post-Holocaust guilt complexes; its inability to see totalitarian ideologies for what they are; its propensity towards pacifism and appeasement; its relativism; its lack of self-belief.
Project such values and characteristics onto a discussion of Israel’s predicament, redouble the intensity with a legacy of antisemitism stretching back centuries, and you get a pretty good understanding of what this dispute is really about.
As for the human rights argument, it is simply not credible and adds the sin of hypocrisy to the larger charge sheet. Hostility to Israel cannot conceivably be part of a broader concern for human rights since the violations of so many other countries are routinely ignored.
Nor have opinion formers in Europe taken against the Jewish state due to a simple misunderstanding here or a gap in the historical knowledge there. Stories about Jews engaged in trans-continental conspiracies to sell human organs or comparisons with Nazi Germany have not entered the mainstream because someone has made an honest mistake. It is happening because the culture and values of modern Europe make it possible to happen. And it is here precisely, I’m afraid, that one begins to understand how and at what point, isolated events start to form a pattern.
Robin Shepherd’s book, ‘A State Beyond the Pale: Europe’s Problem with Israel’, has just been published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson. The author is director, international affairs, at the Henry Jackson Society
This piece was published in today’s Jewish Chronicle.
To read the Jewish Chronicle online, click here:
Love of the Land: Hatred of Israel is a European Pathology — My Op-ed in the Jewish Chronicle
Love of the Land: Four Left Wing Myths About Israel
Four Left Wing Myths About Israel
Sultan Knish
10 September 09
10 September 09
Myth 1: "Israel was created because Europe felt guilty about the Holocaust."
This left wing myth has been widely repeated, most recently by Desmond Tutu. While blatantly false on a level that even the most serious anti-Israel historian can recognize, it persists because its function is to delegitimize as the product of post-war colonial guilt, rather than longstanding Israeli national aspirations.
Israel was not created in 1947. By 1947, Israel already was a functioning country with a language, culture, agriculture, universities, newspapers and military forces which proved capable of defending against the armies of several Arab nations. The only thing that happened after the Holocaust was a UN vote in 1947 was for a partition plan that was never implemented because the Arab world instead chose to try and destroy Israel. Israel however would have declared independence and fought for its own survival, with the same exact outcome, regardless of UN Resolution 181. This vote is often described as creating Israel, but it was more accurately an attempt to settle the borders of Israel that failed because of Arab genocidal hostility that expressed itself not only toward Israel, but toward the Jews living in Arab lands.
Nor did post-war European colonialism create Israel. Britain, which was the colonial power in the region, was against Israel's independence and abstained in the UN vote. The majority of votes for Resolution 181 came from non-European countries, primarily in Latin America and Eastern Europe, such as Bolivia, Brazil, Panama, Peru and Poland, Ukraine and the Soviet Union. 7 European countries voted Yes, most of them Northern European states such as Sweden and Denmark, which experienced only a limited impact of the Holocaust. 12 Latin American countries voted Yes. Twice the number. And all of them countries that had their own national aspirations and had fought against colonialism.
Post-Holocaust guilt was not the reason Resolution 181 passed. Less than a third of the 33 votes came from countries where the Holocaust had taken place. The reasons were varied and different. Some Latin American countries identified with Israel's national aspirations and some sought economic ties. Truman was influenced by the desire for Jewish votes in an upcoming election. The Soviet Union wanted to sabotage Britain's colonial program. The motives of different countries were varied and complex. Iran for example voted against the resolution and yet became the second country to recognize the new State of Israel.
Left wing activists may insist that Resolution 181 was a racist act, but in fact half the countries who voted for it were non-white, and most of the countries who voted for it were non-European. Therefore the myth that Israel was created after the Holocaust by guilty Europeans, a myth that has been bandied about by everyone from Desmond Tutu to Wallace Shawn to Barack Obama is just that, a myth. Israel would have existed regardless of the Holocaust or UN Resolution 181, which was voted for primarily by non-European countries in any case. Those who repeat the myth are therefore demonstrating either extreme ignorance or extreme deceptiveness.
Nor did post-war European colonialism create Israel. Britain, which was the colonial power in the region, was against Israel's independence and abstained in the UN vote. The majority of votes for Resolution 181 came from non-European countries, primarily in Latin America and Eastern Europe, such as Bolivia, Brazil, Panama, Peru and Poland, Ukraine and the Soviet Union. 7 European countries voted Yes, most of them Northern European states such as Sweden and Denmark, which experienced only a limited impact of the Holocaust. 12 Latin American countries voted Yes. Twice the number. And all of them countries that had their own national aspirations and had fought against colonialism.
Post-Holocaust guilt was not the reason Resolution 181 passed. Less than a third of the 33 votes came from countries where the Holocaust had taken place. The reasons were varied and different. Some Latin American countries identified with Israel's national aspirations and some sought economic ties. Truman was influenced by the desire for Jewish votes in an upcoming election. The Soviet Union wanted to sabotage Britain's colonial program. The motives of different countries were varied and complex. Iran for example voted against the resolution and yet became the second country to recognize the new State of Israel.
Left wing activists may insist that Resolution 181 was a racist act, but in fact half the countries who voted for it were non-white, and most of the countries who voted for it were non-European. Therefore the myth that Israel was created after the Holocaust by guilty Europeans, a myth that has been bandied about by everyone from Desmond Tutu to Wallace Shawn to Barack Obama is just that, a myth. Israel would have existed regardless of the Holocaust or UN Resolution 181, which was voted for primarily by non-European countries in any case. Those who repeat the myth are therefore demonstrating either extreme ignorance or extreme deceptiveness.
Myth 2: "European Nations Gave the Jews a Land Already Inhabited by a People."
This is one of the more common myths that seeks to strike at the legitimacy of the creation of the modern state of Israel, and treats the Jews as a foreign body within the land. This is a continuation of the anti-semitic stereotypes of the Jews as eternal wanderers and eternal foreigners.
The fact of the matter is that Jews had an ongoing presence in the land going back thousands of years, that was only interrupted by massacres and expulsions, after which the Jews population would once again attempt to reestablish itself. Greek, Roman, Arab and Ottoman colonialism expelled Jewish populations and attempted to replace them with their own populations in order to gain a foothold in the land. Unlike them however the Jews remained the land's indigenous population.
Throughout history Jews struggled to achieve independence with armed revolts from Roman and Byzantine rule. The last such revolt took place somewhat more than a thousand years before the creation of the modern State of Israel, rather than two thousand as most people believe. Jewish attempts to revive the State of Israel were repeatedly and brutally suppressed, in at least one case by outright genocide. Nor was that the only genocide that Jews in Israel experienced.
Read All at :
Love of the Land: Four Left Wing Myths About Israel
Love of the Land: Weekly Commentary: Many Unanswered Questions About Freeze
Weekly Commentary: Many Unanswered Questions About Freeze
Dr. Aaron Lerner
IMRA
10 September 09
It would be a terrible mistake to dismiss the debate over the settlement freeze as simply ideological.
The issues and concerns associated with the freeze should raise questions in the minds of those who entertain the possibility of "territorial compromise" just a much as for those who rule out any deal.
At this stage there is a lot we don't know. And it's far from clear just how much we may end up knowing should the freeze be implemented.
Is the freeze open ended? First there was talk about limiting the freeze to a specified period of time, but now we are hearing that the freeze would continue indefinitely if the Arabs keep their side of the "gestures for freeze" deal.
If that is indeed the case then what kind of "gestures" are we talking about? After all, a collection of gestures that might justify a 6 month freeze (that Israel may feel is necessary because of various other considerations) would hardly justify a permanent one.
What's the freeze exit strategy? What's to prevent our finding ourselves in a worse situation in the world after ending a freeze than if we never started one in the first place?
Will there be transparency regarding the Israel-US freeze understanding, or will we be told to rely on our Government to let us know the score.
Will Israel determine if there is Arab compliance or are we to rely on the honesty of third parties (hint: American officials lied for years about Palestinian compliance during Oslo because they believed it served their interests).
Yes there are a lot of questions.
And if there is one thing we have learned here in Israel - it's that the answer that "I rely on the Government" simply won't suffice.
Love of the Land: Weekly Commentary: Many Unanswered Questions About Freeze
Love of the Land: Those Children of Israel
Those Children of Israel
The phenomenon of Jews joining in on the demonization of Israel is astounding! From Israeli professors to Jewish reporters they are active in the defamation and delegitimizing of the Jewish State. Sometimes they are called "self-hating" Jews. I prefer to use "Jewish Defamers" (I don't think that for a moment that they "hate themselves").
On September 29th, The day after Yom Kippur, I'll be flying off to the States to do a cross-country speaking tour called "The Latest News and Other Jokes" which will feature a bird-watchers guide to these "Cuckoos in our Nest".
Stay tuned for further developments!
Love of the Land: Those Children of IsraelSefer Chabibi Deepest Torah: NITZAVIM VAYELECH: CONTEMPLATION AND ACTION
NITZAVIM VAYELECH: CONTEMPLATION AND ACTION
by Rabbi Baruch Binyamin Hakohen Melman
Nitzavim means "are standing." Who is standing? The Jewish people in Deuteronomy at Moses' farewell to arms? Who else might be standing?
Rosh Hashana is a traditional time of visiting the matzevah, the burial place of our loved ones. A matzevah is literally the memorial stone, the headstone that contains our essential data. We are to pause before it, we, the survivors, and contemplate the life of the one whose resting spot is marked by the stone.
We are, all of us, survivors on this anniversary of 9-11 from eight years ago. Eight is like the Bris, held on the eighth day, beyond nature, which is symbolized by cycles of seven. Eight is beyond this world. They say all our nerves are replaced after seven years. Now we have new nerves with which to feel the pain of 9-11.
But do we? Do we still feel the pain of that day? When did it already become history? History is when we no longer feel the pain. Yes, some of us still do. For some of us the pain and trauma is as real as yesterday. But for many of us, I suspect not as much.
The towers that fell on that day were the matzevahs themselves, placed there in advance of their own falling! It's like the man who knows, who has the strongest premonition that he is going to die, and makes sure he says kaddish for himself, as he knows no one is living who will be saying kaddish for him! In fact I read a story about such a man who himself perished on 9-11.
The towers were their OWN matzevahs, paying it forward, in a sense. We are to contemplate by them, but they are not there for the contemplation. So it is their absence we are contemplating,
not their presence. Like a loved one who lived among us in our world, but is no more of our world, we feel their absence keenly. And as Rosh Hashana approaches, and with it, the sounds of the Unetaneh Tokef prayer hauntingly remind us of our own mortality with its words: Who shall live and who shall die? Who by fire? Who by earthquake? Who by violence? Indeed.
So as a nation, have we forgotten the pain of that day? Have we lost sight of what we stand for as a nation and as a civilization? Have we lost our moral bearings? Are we still in a war, eight years later, in Afghanistan? Are we still fighting the war over there? Or are we just going through the motions?
As a nation, what happened to the sense of unity and common purpose which we all felt on that cloudless day in September eight years ago? How much have we become divided since then?
As individuals, who among us was not touched by the recordings and the stories of husbands and wives making that last phone call home, as the flames drew nearer, and heard the screams as the fires consumed them? How we shook our heads in recognition of the sadness when that last phone call went to an answering machine instead of to a live person. For the deceased it was sad.
For the survivors they could replay and replay their final words over and over again every day, wishing they had been there by the phone to answer the call.
As individuals, who was not touched by the fact that if you didn't kiss your spouse and hold her tight when you left for work in the morning, it might be the last chance ever!
But how long did that last? How soon after, did we all fall back into the routines we take for granted? How soon after do we find ourselves, "just going through the motions?"
But the name of the second half of our double parsha is vayelech - he went. There is a time for contemplation. But now it's time to get moving. Now it's time to act. Now it's time to remember the closeness and unity we all felt on that day- as a nation, as a family, as a human race even, and act once again to recreate that feeling. No, we should not pray for a disaster to happen to recreate that feeling, G*d forbid. Rather, the challenge is to recreate that feeling out of love for our fellow man, not out of fear in the wake of a disaster.
On Rosh Hashana we are reminded that there are two ways to serve G*d: Out of love and out of fear. Most serve G*d out of fear- fear of punishment, fear of what the neighbors might think. But the highest level is to serve G*d out of love! When we do that it is said that all our previous sins are then turned into merits. If we do teshuvah from a place of fear, then our sins are merely cancelled. But if we do teshuvah out of love, then all our past sins are actually turned into merits!
Last week my car door hit a stranger's car door in the parking lot and scratched it accidentally. Because I am a member of a club called Judaism which teaches that we have to live lives of integrity and act ethically in the street and in the marketplace, I resisted my urge to ignore the infraction and I wrote a note, leaving my name and number. I soon got a call, and then the estimate. $365. 94. One dollar for each day of the year. The benefits of doing the right thing were many. It taught someone that there are those who try to do the right thing. The next time they are in that situation they might also consider doing the right thing. No longer can they say, "well...everybody else does it."
It taught a non-Jew that despite the headlines, there are Jews who try to do the right thing. I said to him on the phone, when he expressed amazement that anyone would leave a note in this day and age, "I truly didn't want to leave that note. I truly wanted to walk away. But the Torah made me do it!" You see, it's perfectly human and normal to wrestle with the challenge of acting morally. If it wasn't a challenge, then what would be the point? There would be no pleasure in the thought that you overcame the temptation to shirk responsibility to do the right thing. The name Israel that was given to Jacob after wrestling with the angel means, "Wrestles with G*d." We do not submit to G*d, as in Islam. We wrestle with G*d! We challenge G*d, as did Abraham when G*d said he would destroy the evil cities of Sodom and Gemorrah, if there might be righteous people among them!
To do the right thing is to perform a Kiddush Hashem, a sanctification of the name of G*d. To give in and surrender to the comfortable conformity of moral lethargy is its opposite- a chilul Hashem, a desecration of the name of G*d. And by doing it out of my love for G*d and His Torah, I reversed the sins committed on those 365 days of the year! Each sin committed on that day has now been turned into a merit! And I only knew it when the estimate came in the mail and it said $365. One dollar for every day of the year!
The challenge is to love G*d in a world of sadness and tragedy and evil. The challenge is to love people in a world of crooks, cheats and con artists. Despite the evil, despite the dishonesty, despite the cowardice and moral failures of others, let us take this moment to stand tall and proclaim that we will love G*d and bring Him into our lives all the more, in a world that needs Him even more. I will bring G*d back into my life, because I have a void that can simply not be filled by anything other than G*d and goodness. And I will love my neighbor as myself, simply because G*d asks me to. And in a world such as ours, it's better to have a good neighbor than a bad one! Because goodness is ultimately it's own reward. Because it's the right thing to do.
Shabbat Shalom!
© 2000-2009 by Rabbi Baruch Binyamin Hakohen Melman
Nitzavim means "are standing." Who is standing? The Jewish people in Deuteronomy at Moses' farewell to arms? Who else might be standing?
Rosh Hashana is a traditional time of visiting the matzevah, the burial place of our loved ones. A matzevah is literally the memorial stone, the headstone that contains our essential data. We are to pause before it, we, the survivors, and contemplate the life of the one whose resting spot is marked by the stone.
We are, all of us, survivors on this anniversary of 9-11 from eight years ago. Eight is like the Bris, held on the eighth day, beyond nature, which is symbolized by cycles of seven. Eight is beyond this world. They say all our nerves are replaced after seven years. Now we have new nerves with which to feel the pain of 9-11.
But do we? Do we still feel the pain of that day? When did it already become history? History is when we no longer feel the pain. Yes, some of us still do. For some of us the pain and trauma is as real as yesterday. But for many of us, I suspect not as much.
The towers that fell on that day were the matzevahs themselves, placed there in advance of their own falling! It's like the man who knows, who has the strongest premonition that he is going to die, and makes sure he says kaddish for himself, as he knows no one is living who will be saying kaddish for him! In fact I read a story about such a man who himself perished on 9-11.
The towers were their OWN matzevahs, paying it forward, in a sense. We are to contemplate by them, but they are not there for the contemplation. So it is their absence we are contemplating,
not their presence. Like a loved one who lived among us in our world, but is no more of our world, we feel their absence keenly. And as Rosh Hashana approaches, and with it, the sounds of the Unetaneh Tokef prayer hauntingly remind us of our own mortality with its words: Who shall live and who shall die? Who by fire? Who by earthquake? Who by violence? Indeed.
So as a nation, have we forgotten the pain of that day? Have we lost sight of what we stand for as a nation and as a civilization? Have we lost our moral bearings? Are we still in a war, eight years later, in Afghanistan? Are we still fighting the war over there? Or are we just going through the motions?
As a nation, what happened to the sense of unity and common purpose which we all felt on that cloudless day in September eight years ago? How much have we become divided since then?
As individuals, who among us was not touched by the recordings and the stories of husbands and wives making that last phone call home, as the flames drew nearer, and heard the screams as the fires consumed them? How we shook our heads in recognition of the sadness when that last phone call went to an answering machine instead of to a live person. For the deceased it was sad.
For the survivors they could replay and replay their final words over and over again every day, wishing they had been there by the phone to answer the call.
As individuals, who was not touched by the fact that if you didn't kiss your spouse and hold her tight when you left for work in the morning, it might be the last chance ever!
But how long did that last? How soon after, did we all fall back into the routines we take for granted? How soon after do we find ourselves, "just going through the motions?"
But the name of the second half of our double parsha is vayelech - he went. There is a time for contemplation. But now it's time to get moving. Now it's time to act. Now it's time to remember the closeness and unity we all felt on that day- as a nation, as a family, as a human race even, and act once again to recreate that feeling. No, we should not pray for a disaster to happen to recreate that feeling, G*d forbid. Rather, the challenge is to recreate that feeling out of love for our fellow man, not out of fear in the wake of a disaster.
On Rosh Hashana we are reminded that there are two ways to serve G*d: Out of love and out of fear. Most serve G*d out of fear- fear of punishment, fear of what the neighbors might think. But the highest level is to serve G*d out of love! When we do that it is said that all our previous sins are then turned into merits. If we do teshuvah from a place of fear, then our sins are merely cancelled. But if we do teshuvah out of love, then all our past sins are actually turned into merits!
Last week my car door hit a stranger's car door in the parking lot and scratched it accidentally. Because I am a member of a club called Judaism which teaches that we have to live lives of integrity and act ethically in the street and in the marketplace, I resisted my urge to ignore the infraction and I wrote a note, leaving my name and number. I soon got a call, and then the estimate. $365. 94. One dollar for each day of the year. The benefits of doing the right thing were many. It taught someone that there are those who try to do the right thing. The next time they are in that situation they might also consider doing the right thing. No longer can they say, "well...everybody else does it."
It taught a non-Jew that despite the headlines, there are Jews who try to do the right thing. I said to him on the phone, when he expressed amazement that anyone would leave a note in this day and age, "I truly didn't want to leave that note. I truly wanted to walk away. But the Torah made me do it!" You see, it's perfectly human and normal to wrestle with the challenge of acting morally. If it wasn't a challenge, then what would be the point? There would be no pleasure in the thought that you overcame the temptation to shirk responsibility to do the right thing. The name Israel that was given to Jacob after wrestling with the angel means, "Wrestles with G*d." We do not submit to G*d, as in Islam. We wrestle with G*d! We challenge G*d, as did Abraham when G*d said he would destroy the evil cities of Sodom and Gemorrah, if there might be righteous people among them!
To do the right thing is to perform a Kiddush Hashem, a sanctification of the name of G*d. To give in and surrender to the comfortable conformity of moral lethargy is its opposite- a chilul Hashem, a desecration of the name of G*d. And by doing it out of my love for G*d and His Torah, I reversed the sins committed on those 365 days of the year! Each sin committed on that day has now been turned into a merit! And I only knew it when the estimate came in the mail and it said $365. One dollar for every day of the year!
The challenge is to love G*d in a world of sadness and tragedy and evil. The challenge is to love people in a world of crooks, cheats and con artists. Despite the evil, despite the dishonesty, despite the cowardice and moral failures of others, let us take this moment to stand tall and proclaim that we will love G*d and bring Him into our lives all the more, in a world that needs Him even more. I will bring G*d back into my life, because I have a void that can simply not be filled by anything other than G*d and goodness. And I will love my neighbor as myself, simply because G*d asks me to. And in a world such as ours, it's better to have a good neighbor than a bad one! Because goodness is ultimately it's own reward. Because it's the right thing to do.
Shabbat Shalom!
© 2000-2009 by Rabbi Baruch Binyamin Hakohen Melman
Originally posted by :
Sefer Chabibi Deepest Torah: NITZAVIM VAYELECH: CONTEMPLATION AND ACTION
RubinReports: September 11, No Commemoration in this School
September 11, No Commemoration in this School
By Barry Rubin
I remember vividly watching the World Trade Center afire eight years ago on American television, sitting at my desk in Tel Aviv. At one point the television announcer said: “Nothing will ever be the same.”
At that moment, I spoke back to the TV (actually it was my computer screen) by saying: “I don’t believe that at all.”
And indeed since then we’ve seen all too many examples of how things are the same, or worse; how lessons have been forgotten or turned into their opposite; how terrorists and their ideology and their supporters have been, shall we say, sanitized or ruled off-limits to criticism; and in some cases victims have been demonized.
Today, my ten-year-old son, Daniel, who is going to a Maryland public school for this year noticed that no mention was being made of the anniversary of the attacks that killed about 3,000 Americans, including some local residents who were on planes or were working at the Pentagon. He said the class should discuss it and the teacher replied they would do so at the end of the day.
I remember vividly watching the World Trade Center afire eight years ago on American television, sitting at my desk in Tel Aviv. At one point the television announcer said: “Nothing will ever be the same.”
At that moment, I spoke back to the TV (actually it was my computer screen) by saying: “I don’t believe that at all.”
And indeed since then we’ve seen all too many examples of how things are the same, or worse; how lessons have been forgotten or turned into their opposite; how terrorists and their ideology and their supporters have been, shall we say, sanitized or ruled off-limits to criticism; and in some cases victims have been demonized.
Today, my ten-year-old son, Daniel, who is going to a Maryland public school for this year noticed that no mention was being made of the anniversary of the attacks that killed about 3,000 Americans, including some local residents who were on planes or were working at the Pentagon. He said the class should discuss it and the teacher replied they would do so at the end of the day.
Read All at :
RubinReports: September 11, No Commemoration in this School
RubinReports: Iran Outmaneuvers U.S. Government: Obama Scores Three "Own Goals"
Iran Outmaneuvers U.S. Government: Obama Scores Three "Own Goals"
By Barry Rubin
President Barack Obama didn’t understand how quickly and easily his diplomatic “generosity” and readiness to make concessions becomes a trap or also how his self-professed reluctance to do anything tough turns into a terrible vulnerability. Now he faces being outmaneuvered by Iran.
The Tehran regime took three of Obama’s policies—engagement with enemies, global nuclear disarmament, and partnership over leadership—and has turned them against the U.S. government.
The score today is Iran: 3, United States; 0. And all three of Iran’s scores were actually U.S. “own goals.” For non-football—or if you wish soccer--fans, that’s when you kick the ball into your own goal scoring a point for the other team.
First, Obama has talked a great deal about engaging Iran, claiming this would show the world America’s good intentions and thus clear the way for tougher sanctions. By the time sanctions are raised, if they are, the Obama administration will have wasted all of 2009 on this process.
But guess what? The Iranians can play that game also. At the last minute, Iran came up with an offer to meet, obviously just a stalling tactic. Some in the American media fell for the trick, with the Los Angeles Times saying that it didn’t matter if the ploy was a trick the United States had to play along. Now that’s judo in action.
There’s more, however. Second, the Iranian regime said that it wouldn’t talk about its own nuclear program but proposed instead that all nuclear weapons in the world be eliminated.
Now where did they get this idea? Why, from Obama himself of course! He proposed this in his Cairo speech (and forgive me for reminding you I warned that this would happen) and he is about to chair a UN session on this very point. In fact, at Obama’s request, the session he’s running was changed from a debate focussing on immediate nuclear weapons' threats (Iran and North Korea to a general one about ridding the world of nuclear weapons. The Iranians will have a field day outmaneuvering him on this issue at the UN session.
And that’s not all! For this credibility through engagement thing works both ways. When Obama says the United States must show the world that it tried to engage Iran, he’s being not just Eurocentric but Western Eurocentric. There’s a flip side. Now Iran is offering to talk and the United States is refusing. This will make the United States look quite worse, very hypocritical in the Muslim-majority world and other places outside of Western Europe.
Third, the Russians accepted it. Jumping at the chance for an excuse not to raise sanctions, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said there won’t be any new sanctions because he thinks the Iranian proposals are just dandy and more time should be spent (wasted) in more meetings.
President Barack Obama didn’t understand how quickly and easily his diplomatic “generosity” and readiness to make concessions becomes a trap or also how his self-professed reluctance to do anything tough turns into a terrible vulnerability. Now he faces being outmaneuvered by Iran.
The Tehran regime took three of Obama’s policies—engagement with enemies, global nuclear disarmament, and partnership over leadership—and has turned them against the U.S. government.
The score today is Iran: 3, United States; 0. And all three of Iran’s scores were actually U.S. “own goals.” For non-football—or if you wish soccer--fans, that’s when you kick the ball into your own goal scoring a point for the other team.
First, Obama has talked a great deal about engaging Iran, claiming this would show the world America’s good intentions and thus clear the way for tougher sanctions. By the time sanctions are raised, if they are, the Obama administration will have wasted all of 2009 on this process.
But guess what? The Iranians can play that game also. At the last minute, Iran came up with an offer to meet, obviously just a stalling tactic. Some in the American media fell for the trick, with the Los Angeles Times saying that it didn’t matter if the ploy was a trick the United States had to play along. Now that’s judo in action.
There’s more, however. Second, the Iranian regime said that it wouldn’t talk about its own nuclear program but proposed instead that all nuclear weapons in the world be eliminated.
Now where did they get this idea? Why, from Obama himself of course! He proposed this in his Cairo speech (and forgive me for reminding you I warned that this would happen) and he is about to chair a UN session on this very point. In fact, at Obama’s request, the session he’s running was changed from a debate focussing on immediate nuclear weapons' threats (Iran and North Korea to a general one about ridding the world of nuclear weapons. The Iranians will have a field day outmaneuvering him on this issue at the UN session.
And that’s not all! For this credibility through engagement thing works both ways. When Obama says the United States must show the world that it tried to engage Iran, he’s being not just Eurocentric but Western Eurocentric. There’s a flip side. Now Iran is offering to talk and the United States is refusing. This will make the United States look quite worse, very hypocritical in the Muslim-majority world and other places outside of Western Europe.
Third, the Russians accepted it. Jumping at the chance for an excuse not to raise sanctions, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said there won’t be any new sanctions because he thinks the Iranian proposals are just dandy and more time should be spent (wasted) in more meetings.
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RubinReports: Iran Outmaneuvers U.S. Government: Obama Scores Three "Own Goals"
RubinReports: How the West's Enemies Are Saving It
How the West's Enemies Are Saving It
By Barry Rubin
When people are very pessimistic, I say to them: Don’t worry our enemies will save us.
By that I mean that the enemies of peace, progress, and democracy—Islamists and radical Arab nationalists, terrorists and silly people in the West alike—are so intransigent, obviously lying, and dangerously wrong about society that they will convince and force most people to reject and combat them.
Even when thrown lifelines, even when confronted with naiveté, they reject concessions, turn up their nose at compromise, go too far, and make their nonsense so illogical and apparent, as to either teach the naïve in political and intellectual power or persuade others push them aside in order to survive.
Today offers some examples of this idea:
The presidency of Barack Obama and the relatively soft stands of European states have given Iran a great opportunity. Tehran could have made a show of flexibility, a strong pretense about being cooperative, and met with Obama. This would have forestalled a higher level of Western sanctions, while Iran could still work secretly on nuclear weapons.
After all, even after a virtual coup by the most hardline faction, the stolen election, the strong repression, the show trials of dissidents, and the appointment of a wanted terrorist as defense minister [that’s a pretty amazing list, isn’t it?], the West was still willing to deal with the regime.
Instead, Iran produced an “offer” to negotiate so minimal that even the Europeans rejected it. While this doesn’t mean all is well—Russia and China will block and sabotage even moderate sanctions; the West Europeans will oppose really strong ones—at least Iran’s last-minute effort to derail the process altogether will fail.
Imagine what the Iranian regime could have done if the ruling establishment had let someone less extreme than Mahmoud Ahmadinejad get elected, then claimed this showed what a moderate and democratic state they were running. A charm offensive could have defused the nuclear controversy and the sanctions would have fallen away. Iran would have been set loose and a few years from now could have finished its nuclear program in a relaxed manner.
But no!
Turn to Lebanon. The Syrians were riding high. A new government was going to be set up in Lebanon with their clients have both thirty percent of the cabinet seats and veto power over all government policies. But when the March 14 coalition, which won the recent elections, presented its own list of ministers, the Syrians and their Hizballah allies rejected it: not subservient enough. March 14, which has been giving ground steadily, was pushed so hard that it dug in its heels and rejected the Syrian demands. The negotiations will now have to start all over again.
Syria could have gotten back around 80 percent of its former total power over Lebanon in one day, but that wasn’t enough for Damascus.
The same applies to U.S. attempts to engage Syria. The Obama Administration was eager for progress, but the Bashar al-Assad dictatorship would even give an inch to gain a yard. The talks have been frustrating for Washington. The Syrians weren’t willing even to deescalate the terrorism in Iraq for a while.
Syria could have gotten out from under U.S. sanctions, reestablished normal relations with Washington, and have the Obama Administration turn a blind eye to its sponsorship of terrorism and subversion throughout the region.
But no!
The same applies to Hamas. It tried a little to pretend to moderate and already Western suckers were swallowing the bait, but it couldn’t—and wouldn’t –sustain the pretense very long. It couldn’t resist going back to its super-hardline statements and actions.
But the Palestinian Authority (PA) offers an even clearer example. Imagine how much it could have obtained if it played along with the U.S. president’s eagerness to help. A show of flexibility, an eagerness to negotiate, and an effort to get a Palestinian state on something approaching reasonable terms real fast probably would have brought success.
Atmost, there could have been a Palestinian state within 18 months on pretty favorable terms for the Palestinians. Or should one say, at most the PA could easily—and I mean easily—engineered a U.S.-Israel conflict unseen in the history of the Jewish state. But from the start PA leader Mahmoud Abbas made it clear that he was asking for everything and giving nothing. His best chance is already past.
And similar things can be said about various Arab countries regarding the Arab-Israeli conflict specifically and also getting in good with the president.generally. They could have rushed to make minor, meaingless gestures toward Israel in exchange for U.S. support on their broader demands.
Can I have a “But no!”?
One more, historic example: Remember Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein? In late 1990 or early 1991 he could have cut a very favorable deal which would have left his country with part of Kuwait, billions of dollars, and the Saudis trembling at his every command. Instead, he refused any deal, kept his army in Kuwait, and suffered a military defeat.
He did the same in the 2000-2003 period when he could have made some kind of bargain for stopping his nuclear program in exchange for all sorts of concessions. Instead, he did the opposite: he pretended to keep up the program even when he cut it back.
It is very important to understand why this kind of thing happens repeatedly and, though ultimately disastrous for Saddam, usually works out pretty well for the dictators or the leaders of powerful opposition movements.
First, all these forces really are radical and extremist. They don’t want a deal; they want total victory, all the disputed land, total rule, complete dictatorship, the expulsion or extinction of their adversaries. And they can also rightly argue: these methods got me this far.
When people are very pessimistic, I say to them: Don’t worry our enemies will save us.
By that I mean that the enemies of peace, progress, and democracy—Islamists and radical Arab nationalists, terrorists and silly people in the West alike—are so intransigent, obviously lying, and dangerously wrong about society that they will convince and force most people to reject and combat them.
Even when thrown lifelines, even when confronted with naiveté, they reject concessions, turn up their nose at compromise, go too far, and make their nonsense so illogical and apparent, as to either teach the naïve in political and intellectual power or persuade others push them aside in order to survive.
Today offers some examples of this idea:
The presidency of Barack Obama and the relatively soft stands of European states have given Iran a great opportunity. Tehran could have made a show of flexibility, a strong pretense about being cooperative, and met with Obama. This would have forestalled a higher level of Western sanctions, while Iran could still work secretly on nuclear weapons.
After all, even after a virtual coup by the most hardline faction, the stolen election, the strong repression, the show trials of dissidents, and the appointment of a wanted terrorist as defense minister [that’s a pretty amazing list, isn’t it?], the West was still willing to deal with the regime.
Instead, Iran produced an “offer” to negotiate so minimal that even the Europeans rejected it. While this doesn’t mean all is well—Russia and China will block and sabotage even moderate sanctions; the West Europeans will oppose really strong ones—at least Iran’s last-minute effort to derail the process altogether will fail.
Imagine what the Iranian regime could have done if the ruling establishment had let someone less extreme than Mahmoud Ahmadinejad get elected, then claimed this showed what a moderate and democratic state they were running. A charm offensive could have defused the nuclear controversy and the sanctions would have fallen away. Iran would have been set loose and a few years from now could have finished its nuclear program in a relaxed manner.
But no!
Turn to Lebanon. The Syrians were riding high. A new government was going to be set up in Lebanon with their clients have both thirty percent of the cabinet seats and veto power over all government policies. But when the March 14 coalition, which won the recent elections, presented its own list of ministers, the Syrians and their Hizballah allies rejected it: not subservient enough. March 14, which has been giving ground steadily, was pushed so hard that it dug in its heels and rejected the Syrian demands. The negotiations will now have to start all over again.
Syria could have gotten back around 80 percent of its former total power over Lebanon in one day, but that wasn’t enough for Damascus.
The same applies to U.S. attempts to engage Syria. The Obama Administration was eager for progress, but the Bashar al-Assad dictatorship would even give an inch to gain a yard. The talks have been frustrating for Washington. The Syrians weren’t willing even to deescalate the terrorism in Iraq for a while.
Syria could have gotten out from under U.S. sanctions, reestablished normal relations with Washington, and have the Obama Administration turn a blind eye to its sponsorship of terrorism and subversion throughout the region.
But no!
The same applies to Hamas. It tried a little to pretend to moderate and already Western suckers were swallowing the bait, but it couldn’t—and wouldn’t –sustain the pretense very long. It couldn’t resist going back to its super-hardline statements and actions.
But the Palestinian Authority (PA) offers an even clearer example. Imagine how much it could have obtained if it played along with the U.S. president’s eagerness to help. A show of flexibility, an eagerness to negotiate, and an effort to get a Palestinian state on something approaching reasonable terms real fast probably would have brought success.
Atmost, there could have been a Palestinian state within 18 months on pretty favorable terms for the Palestinians. Or should one say, at most the PA could easily—and I mean easily—engineered a U.S.-Israel conflict unseen in the history of the Jewish state. But from the start PA leader Mahmoud Abbas made it clear that he was asking for everything and giving nothing. His best chance is already past.
And similar things can be said about various Arab countries regarding the Arab-Israeli conflict specifically and also getting in good with the president.generally. They could have rushed to make minor, meaingless gestures toward Israel in exchange for U.S. support on their broader demands.
Can I have a “But no!”?
One more, historic example: Remember Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein? In late 1990 or early 1991 he could have cut a very favorable deal which would have left his country with part of Kuwait, billions of dollars, and the Saudis trembling at his every command. Instead, he refused any deal, kept his army in Kuwait, and suffered a military defeat.
He did the same in the 2000-2003 period when he could have made some kind of bargain for stopping his nuclear program in exchange for all sorts of concessions. Instead, he did the opposite: he pretended to keep up the program even when he cut it back.
It is very important to understand why this kind of thing happens repeatedly and, though ultimately disastrous for Saddam, usually works out pretty well for the dictators or the leaders of powerful opposition movements.
First, all these forces really are radical and extremist. They don’t want a deal; they want total victory, all the disputed land, total rule, complete dictatorship, the expulsion or extinction of their adversaries. And they can also rightly argue: these methods got me this far.
Read All at :
RubinReports: How the West's Enemies Are Saving It