Love of the Land: [Defeat for Radical Left] Supreme Court rules: Archaeological Research in the City of David is in the Public Interest

[Defeat for Radical Left] Supreme Court rules: Archaeological Research in the City of David is in the Public Interest

Press Release
Wednesday, September 23, 2009

In a Decision the High Court of Justice Handed Down Yesterday:
The Archaeological Research in the City of David is in the Public Interest

In the past week the Supreme Court, replying as the High Court of Justice,
dismissed two petitions that were submitted against the Israel Antiquities
Authority concerning the excavations the IAA is conducting within the
precincts of the "Walls Around the Old City" national park, at the City of
David in Jerusalem.

The petitions were submitted by residents who live near the place where the
excavations are being carried out, when in the opinion of the Israel
Antiquities Authority these residents are being incited by other factors
whose considerations are political and improbable.

One of the excavations is being conducted in an area known as the "Givati
Car Park", which is located south of the Old City's southern wall, adjacent
to Ophel Road. Numerous layers of antiquities were revealed in this
excavation. Among other things, a very impressive structure was found that
is probably a public building and dates to the Late Roman period. Remains
from the Early Islamic period were uncovered, as well as extraordinary
remains from the Second Temple period. All of the remains were
scientifically excavated, in meticulous work, whilst photographing and
documenting everything.

In the second excavation - for which a decision was handed down yesterday
(Monday) - a drainage channel structure from the Second Temple period was
exposed that extends over a distance of many dozens of meters. The drainage
structure is surprisingly well-preserved and one can walk through it
upright, for most of its length. The excavators were aware of the structure's
existence; nevertheless, the segment that was excavated was only recently
exposed.

The archaeological excavations that the Israel Antiquities Authority is
conducting in the City of David are exposing Jerusalem's magnificent past,
in all of the periods. These finds are of utmost importance to the Jewish
people in particular and world culture in general. The high court accepted
the position of the Israel Antiquities Authority pertaining to the great
importance of the excavations and the general public interest in uncovering
the antiquities.

Below is the concluding paragraph from the court's ruling issued by Justice
Edna Arbel: "The picture that was presented to us shows that the damage to
the property rights of the petitioners - as much as such damage does indeed
exist - is minor. As stated, the petitioners did not argue that any damage
was caused to their houses and the respondents explained that the activity
on the land is indeed underground, but does not extend as far as the houses
of the petitioners. Contrasting the asserted damage is the important public
interest in carrying out the work. Surely, revealing the secrets of the
past, which have been hidden for hundreds and thousands of years in the
bowels of the earth, is an essential part of the archaeologist's research.
From the standpoint of public interest, conducting this research is
multi-faceted, whether because of the contribution there is in understanding
the history of the country and the history of the Jewish people or because
of the contribution there is in understanding historic events that have
importance that is not just limited to the Jewish people and its history. In
this context I will refer to what I have already said in High Court decision
3702/05 - Ma'oz vs. Israel Antiquities Authority (unpublished, 11.106). It
is the legal position in the case that conducting an archaeological
excavation in a place where it benefits developing the infrastructure in the
region and improving the welfare of the residents is in the public interest.
This being the case, when the petitioners failed to point out real damage to
their property, it seems that there is no justification in harming or
restricting the public interest in conducting the excavation work on the
land. If my opinion will be heard, I will recommend to my colleagues that
the petition be rejected and the petitioners be required to pay the attorney
fees of each of the respondents for the sum of 10,000 NIS and court
expenses."

Love of the Land: [Defeat for Radical Left] Supreme Court rules: Archaeological Research in the City of David is in the Public Interest

Love of the Land: A Shot in the Air

A Shot in the Air

A Soldier's Mother

Paula R. Stern

22 September 09

Sometimes, you measure your progress in milestones, ones you knew would come but forgot you were expecting. Actually, in all likelihood, this latest milestone has come and gone (I'll have to ask), but this is the first time I'm hearing about it, so it is new to me.

I drove Elie to my office today, there to wait an hour until he could catch a bus to his base. He surfed the Internet and played games at the table in my office; I sat behind my desk answering emails and planning my week. It was quiet, but pleasant as the moments ticked away. We'd talked quite a bit over the long holiday weekend; sometimes the quiet is a comfort.

Too often on this winding street where my offices have been for the last few years, we hear a screech of brakes and wait. Sometimes we hear a thud; sometimes we don't.

Today we heard a thud, both going quickly to the windows that overlook the street. We saw a woman with her hands held to her head, obviously distressed, run around the car. She got into the driver's seat and sat there. She was fine. No injuries; but clearly she was upset and from all that we could see, it was her fault.

We looked to the second car and at the people around the street. No one seemed concerned; no one was racing to help; I could tell that Elie was trying to determine whether there was anyone injured. The other car door opened and a man stepped out. No injuries, a fender bender.

Elie stayed with me as we watched. The woman got out of the car, walked across the street...and put on her shoes that were on the sidewalk. Huh?

So, the best we could figure was that the woman had pulled up to the curb to buy something in the coffee shop on the ground floor of our building. She must have forgotten to put the car in park (did I mention that my street is a hill, gently sloped?). We assume her car began to roll backwards; she watched in horror as it slammed into the back of a car that had just passed in the opposite lane. In her haste to get to her car, she must have kicked off her open sandals. A mystery solved - not even 9:00 in the morning.

They exchanged information; the excitement was over, thankfully, no one was injured. Back to the computers for a few more minutes. All too soon, it was time for Elie to leave.

He picked up his heavy backpack and swung it onto his back. Without thought, I leaned over and picked up his gun to hand to him. It seemed silly for him to bend with the heavy backpack on his back.

"You aren't scared to hold it anymore?", he asked, clearly amused.

"Well, it's not like I'm firing it," I answered back.

"Not like me last week, huh?"

Okay, this was new. We'd just spent the last four days together and I hadn't heard anything. As calmly as I could, I asked him to explain. No big deal, an ordinary event, Elie said. Too ordinary, too common. An Arab approached the checkpoint and was asked for his identification. He handed it over and it was clear that it wasn't his; he'd stolen it and was trying to cross into Israel illegally for purposes unknown. It could have been to work...it could have been to steal, to harm, to kill. At that moment, it was anyone's guess...and you don't risk people's lives on a guess.

(Continue)

Love of the Land: A Shot in the Air

Love of the Land: Re: Re: What Price Photo Op?

Re: Re: What Price Photo Op?

Jennifer Rubin

Contentions/Commentary

22 September 09

Obama’s silly stunt to force a complete settlement freeze is essentially kaput. To avoid a huge humiliation, he dragged both Abbas and Netanyahu to a meeting to decide they are going to talk some more—without preconditions (i.e., no freeze)—and get back to him in a month:

There was general agreement, including on the part of the Palestinians, that the peace process has to be resumed as soon as possible with no preconditions,” the premier told reporters in New York City.

Earlier, US President Barack Obama expressed a similar sentiment, emerging from bilateral meetings with both Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas vowing to move ahead with the diplomatic process, while seeming to step back from his call for a total settlement freeze, saying that Israel now is discussing “restraining settlement activities.”

In other words, the “Cairo effect” boils down to the Obama administration picking up where George W. Bush left off after a cringe-inducing detour into Israel-bashing. Meanwhile, the Arab states have repeatedly rebuffed Obama, as Zvi Mazel reminds us:

In a recent visit to Washington and following a meeting with the secretary of state, the Saudi minister for foreign affairs stated that “incrementalism and a step-by-step approach” would not lead to peace. The problem was not what the Arabs would give to Israel, but what Israel was ready to give in return for the Arab initiative, he later stated — adding, in effect, that the Arabs had only normalization to offer Israel as an incentive, and if they gave it away while the territories were still under occupation, they would lose their only leverage.

According to American sources, Obama himself got a dusty answer when, on his first visit to Riyadh a few weeks after he assumed office, he asked the Saudi king for some small normalization steps.

Prior to a tripartite meeting with the Mideast leaders, the US president said that Special Mideast envoy George Mitchell will continue holding negotiations with both sides, and Israel and the Palestinians will send delegations to Washington next week for the talks. He gave mid-October as a deadline for reviewing the status of the situation.

Similarly frosty answers have come from Egypt, Morocco, and others:

If Obama thought his famed charisma and the kudos he received in the Arab world for his attempts at reconciliation with Islam, as exemplified in his Cairo speech in June, would stand him in good stead with Arab leaders and that they would lead them to unbend a little and help him promote his policy, he must have been sadly disappointed.

The overall response from the Arab world highlighted not only its stubbornness, but also, and more to the point, its visceral hostility toward Israel.

Well, perhaps after some “self-reflection,” Obama will rethink what the central stumbling block to peace really is. It isn’t settlements—the parties don’t need any more preconditions. It might have something to do with that “visceral hostility toward Israel.”

Related: What Price Photo Op? and Re: What Price Photo Op?

Love of the Land: Re: Re: What Price Photo Op?

Love of the Land: the Goldstone UN Gaza Report

the Goldstone UN Gaza Report

From the ZOA press release response to the shocking UN Report:

"The very title of the Report - ‘Human Rights in Palestine and Other Occupied Arab Territories: Report of the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict’ – contains a falsehood – namely, that Gaza is “occupied” by Israel when, under Article 6 of the Fourth Geneva Convention on the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War, a foreign power is only considered an occupier “to the extent that such Power exercises the functions of government in such territory” – something Israel has not done since 2005."

And also:

"the Report claims that “The data provided by non-governmental sources with regard to the percentage of civilians among those killed are generally consistent and raise very serious concerns with regard to the way Israel conducted the military operations in Gaza.’ Yet, as British journalist Melanie Philips points out, Israel provided a detailed breakdown of the Palestinians killed in Gaza and stated that the vast majority of these were Hamas or other terror operatives. Even the UN eventually acknowledged that some 75% of the dead in Gaza were Hamas terrorists."

And:

"ZOA National President Morton A. Klein said, “The ZOA condemns this atrocious, new installment in the international effort to delegitimize Israel, using perverted and spurious norms of international law in order to invalidate Israel’s elementary, fundamental right and obligation to defend its territory and its citizens. It is nothing less than an anti-Semitic, Israel-bashing, immoral piece of trash. We are appalled that Justice Goldstone was willing to ruin his legal reputation by participating in this dishonestly-conceived and fraudulent investigation. Most serious, perhaps, is the fact that Richard Goldstone was willing to bend and pervert legal norms – such as the definition of occupation and of combatants – in order to pin non-existent legal responsibility on Israel for acts were both justified and indeed necessary in self-defense."

To read the complete Press Release from ZOA (America's oldest Zionist Organization) in response to this latest example of Jewish Defamation and UN anti-Israel bias, click on ZOA Press Release.

Love of the Land: the Goldstone UN Gaza Report

The Miracle That is Israel

The Miracle That is Israel

Back in the Old Days, before people decided transplanting European ideas into non-European climes was colonial, paternalist and just plain evil, the Zionist project was often held up as a shining example of what could be achieved by people determined to lift themselves by their boot straps. The fact the Zionists could be portrayed as fine socialists gave an added fillip to supporting them, though the reality was never so clear; most of the Jews were escaping persecution in Europe or the Arab world, or fulfilling an ancient dream, or both; socialism was a fetish of a small group - but it was the powerful, leading group.

For decades there was a fundamental alignment between what we might loosely call the Left and Zionism, even if it was based partially on images and impressions, and the reality was always more complex. Seen from this perspective, the end of the affinity was the result of the Left redefining it's Weltanschauung, not a change in Zionism.

In recent decades there's a growing affinity between Zionism and the free-market Right. This, too, can easily be taken too far, and like it's predecessor position, it's built partially upon a willful editing and simplifying of the complexity that is Israel. Still, just as the previous alignment was based on some factual fundaments, so is this one.

Here's perhaps the most lucid exposition of the new alignment I've seen in quite a while. It's an article by George Gilder in City, and seems to be a synopsis of his new book The Israel Test.

I recognize not everyone likes George Gilder. He's a ferocious capitalist, one of the formulators of supply-side economics. I'll bet he's not at all a supporter of Obamacare. He's a prophet of the entrepreneur class, and of the idea that human ingenuity, if given the freedom to succeed and fail unimpeded, will make for a better world, while government needs mostly to get out of the way.

His article, and apparently his book, see Israel as the single most important place in the world right now, perhaps alongside Silicon Valley, where human ingenuity is forging a better reality. He's not Jewish; he's not a Zionist; he seems not to have had any position on Israel at all for most of his life (he's almost 70). Like many a recent convert, he sees his new love in a better light than it deserves.

Having said all that, however, there's basically a lot of truth to his description - and of course, it's lots of fun to read. Most gratifying, and better than a month's worth of The Guardian or three months of Mondoweiss. Near the end, he waxes a bit poetical

During a trip to Israel in 2008, Fruchter, Amir Eyal, and Guy Koren of EZchip
took me out to dinner in Caesarea. The restaurant was on the Mediterranean
beach. Above the beach stood the ruins of Roman temples and terraces, theaters
and arches, all surfaced with golden sandstone and carefully refurbished and
illuminated. Shops and restaurants were decorously arrayed along the beach. The
rush of water on the sand, the scent of fish in the air, the glow of sunset, and
the lights on the Roman stone all lent the area a magical feeling of peace and
prosperity.

The last time the Jews tangled with the Romans, the Jews came out a very sorry second best. Yet the Romans are long since gone, very long; the Jews, meanwhile, have set up snazzy restaurant's on their ruins and are peering around the corner to see how much of late 20th century technology they can make obsolete by the end of next year.

Originally posted by Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations

Maybe the Locals Aren't as Stupid as Expected

Maybe the Locals Aren't as Stupid as Expected

I have nothing original or particularly interesting to say about the photo-op Obama had yesterday with Abbas and Netanyahu. The Obama team seems slowly to be understanding (or not) that there's a reason the Arab-Israeli conflict is so long-running and intractable, and it's not that the players can't see what's so glaringly obvious from afar. On the contrary: us locals, we've long since covered all the options that seem so obvious to the novices, and we understand fully why they're not real. It's our lives, and we're not novices.

The clischee about how we've forgotten more about the matter than the newcomers may ever know is reality, not platitude.

Originally posted by Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations

The Torah Revolution: "The Great MiddleEast Tragedy Apology" is actually a sin

The Torah Revolution: "The Great MiddleEast Tragedy Apology" is actually a sin

DoubleTapper: Separated at Birth IDF Edition

DoubleTapper: Separated at Birth IDF Edition

RubinReports: France throws a Pie in Obama's Face: The Increasingly Obvious Failure of Obama's Middle East Policy

France throws a Pie in Obama's Face: The Increasingly Obvious Failure of Obama's Middle East Policy

By Barry Rubin

It’s a development of shocking proportions if properly noticed and evaluated. President Barack Obama’s entire Arab-Israeli and Iranian policies are miserably failing, though partly concealed by theatrical events and media protection.

Here's the latest development. French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner arriving at the UN General Assembly session, stated that he doesn’t favor blocking the export of refined oil products to Iran, the keystone of the new sanctions proposed by Obama.

The New York Times reported this story but grossly underplayed its implications:

“But if France is to come out against fuel sanctions analysts said, they will most likely be off the table as an option for increasing the pressure on Iran.”

Ha! If France does so it will be the end of Obama’s whole strategy against Iran. For Tehran, it will be a straight, largely untroubled stroll to nuclear weapons, unless derailed by an Israeli attack.

“I think this is a bit dangerous,” Kouchner said about the proposed sanctions. Would that be more dangerous than Iran getting nuclear weapons? But Kouchner didn't make clear to whom or in what way it's dangerous. He did say, however, that it would mostly harm “poor people” in Iran.

[An aside: This is the kind of phony “humanitarian” considerations that paralyze Western policy today. Sure, there is some patriotic reaction against foreign pressures in places like Iran, but do the millions opposing that regime as a repressive dictatorship really want the West to coddle and court their oppressors? Do Gazans favor Western actions ensuring Hamas remains in power? Do Iraqis retrospectively curse Western sanctions against Saddam Hussein’s regime?

[Can the West fight no war because there will be civilian casualties; can it not preserve its freedoms because Muslims or others might be offended? Is the “zero-harm” approach an effective way for policy to be conducted, or even for democracies to survive at all?]

Of course, French President Francois Sarkozy may reverse his foreign minister’s stance. Yet it is extraordinarily significant that a major ally supposedly wowed by Obama’s charisma and popularity, can publicly do the equivalent of throwing a pie into the president’s face with no consequences.

And there's a virtual parade of pie-throwers. Obama’s Arab-Israeli policy was derailed by similar responses. Israel refused to bow to American demands stated in the most extreme, public, peremptory manner and Obama gave in. Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and other Arab states all publicly made clear that they would defy the president and reject the confidence-building measures with Israel he request. Obama smiled and thanked them for their help.

Then the same thing happened with his Iran policy. First, Russia and China rejected his efforts to get their agreement to increased sanctions. Now, France may be doing the same thing. In between, the White House accepted an insulting Iranian message for talks.

Could it be any more obvious? Obama’s salient international characteristic is not popularity but weakness. Already, Obama has been defied or has buckled under to a long list of countries including: China, Egypt, Iran, Israel, North Korea, Pakistan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Venezuela, and now perhaps France.

That's why the conspiratorial notion that Obama aims to sell out Israel is wrong. He will back away if anyone stands up to him. The risk posed by administration policy is not to Israel but to U.S. interests altogether as he refuses to confront radical anti-American forces.

A strong argument could be made that the United States should boycott meetings with Iran altogether. After all, even if the Tehran regime wasn’t working on nuclear weapons, the mere fact that it is a dictatorship that has just stolen an election, repressed a peaceful opposition, put on trial many dissident leaders, and appointed a wanted terrorist as defense minister should be sufficient to inspire such a boycott.

Just this week, there are reports leaked by U.S. military officials—frustrated at White House policy?—that Iran’s Qods force (whose former head is now Iran’s defense minister) is training and arming Taliban gunmen in Afghanistan. The official spin is that this poses no current threat to American forces there. Right. Only when the Taliban soldiers finish their training and go out to kill Americans will there be an immediate threat. Already, though, the same Qods force has been involved in helping to kill Americans in Iraq, according to U.S. intelligence reports.

Instead of action, the administration delivers the photo op of a meeting between Israeli and Palestinian leaders in New York that will enable Obama to portray himself as a great success in peacemaking. In fact, what he has “accomplished”—a meeting of the two leaders—would have happened months ago if Obama’s injection of the construction freeze issue had not given the Palestinians a rationale for suspending talks.

[After I wrote this article, I heard National Public Radio's report on this event. It explained clearly the main problem clearly as Israel not wanting to freeze construction and the Palestinians not wanting to negotiate unless that was done. But it never mentioned that the whole problem arose because Obama made the issue the central factor. In other words, this conflict didn't just arise from Israel or the Palestinians but is all Obama's fault. This is rather typical of how most of the media has dealt with the administration's mistakes.]

[And the AP coverage was equally wrong:

"Despite months of effort, the sides remain far apart on a staunch Palestinian precondition for talks: that Israel halt all construction of Jewish settlements in Palestinian territory. Obama has publicly echoed that demand to Israeli leaders...."

Echoed? The Palestinians got the idea from Obama! Before he got started there were no Palestinian preconditions about meeting Israeli officials.

Continuing with the kind of insanity that seems to seize many reporters when they cover Obama, the AP story continues:

"Bristling with impatience, President Barack Obama sternly prodded Israeli and Palestinian leaders to relaunch Mideast peace negotiations Tuesday, grasping a newly personal role in their historic standoff."

How patronizing can you get? This is a man whose role in dealing with the conflict goes back about six months meeting two leaders who have been coping with it for more than thirty years. It is as if the Israeli and Palestinian leaders are schoolchildren, as if their duty was not to their own people but to satisfy Obama. With an attitude like this--arrogance plus weakness--he can expect no success in this part of the world.

Nahum Barnea, arguably the Israeli left’s most distinguished writer, who backs a complete settlement freeze and would like to support Obama, wrote the get-together at the UN meeting, “Is a joke at the expense of an American president who tried to get involved in Middle East politics and was stung….The Americans,” Barnea continued, “discovered that they want an Israeli-Palestinian agreement more than the leaders of both sides desire one.”

Precisely. And in this regard nothing has changed much since 2000 when the Palestinian leadership rejected peace. That reality should have been clear to the Obama Administration from the beginning rather than its attitude of bravado about how it was going to hit the ground running and solve the conflict very fast.

Barnea concluded: Obama “is cool….Yet the U.S. president is not Brad Pitt or George Clooney. He’s supposed to bring results.”

Well-put. While American opinion-makers continue to focus on Obama’s “coolness” and Western Europeans cheer him—what’s not to cheer in an American president who let’s you do whatever you want?—the world is giving him the cold shoulder.

RubinReports: France throws a Pie in Obama's Face: The Increasingly Obvious Failure of Obama's Middle East Policy

RubinReports: Avoiding the Unthinkable: Missile Defense is Israel’s “Secret” Weapon Against Iran’s Nuclear Weapons

Avoiding the Unthinkable: Missile Defense is Israel’s “Secret” Weapon Against Iran’s Nuclear Weapons

By Barry Rubin

Remember the name Uzi Rubin because he might emerge as the most important individual in the issue of Iran’s nuclear weapons drive. Rubin is the former head of Israel’s missile defense program and now a defense consultant. He has developed the best alternative (or supplement) to blocking the dangers of a radical Islamist, genocidal-oriented, terrorist supporting, antisemitic regime having nuclear-tipped missiles pointed at Israel.

Briefly, Rubin and his colleagues have been developing a multi-layered defense system consisting of long-range Arrow missiles (developed in cooperation with the United States), medium-range David’s Sling interceptor missiles, and the short-range Iron Dome system aimed against the kind of rockets being fired by Hizballah and Hamas. By the time Iran gets nuclear weapons, and in some cases well before, these systems will all be operational.

None of these systems are perfect. For example, Iron Dome will not protect small areas of Israel closest to the Gaza border but will shield more populated places deeper inside Israel.

For those actually facing attack by rockets or missiles, what is most important is that the number of incoming warheads—and hence both casualties and damage--be reduced to the minimum possible number.

This would undermine the strategy used by Hizballah against Israel in 2006 and Hamas from the Gaza Strip more recently of mass rocket attacks as a means of sowing terror among civilians, disrupting life in Israel, and gaining strategic leverage. In addition, if Israel ever does attack Iran’s nuclear installation, these systems will reduce the effectiveness of retaliation by Iran’s client groups.

In addition, missile defense is part of a triad of ways to counter Iran, along with diplomatic efforts plus sanctions (sadly lagging) and a direct attack on Iran’s facilities. Since even an effective attack would only slow down and not completely stop Tehran’s efforts, missile defense may emerge as the most important of these three factors.

Obviously, of course, there is a problem with nuclear threats that doesn’t exist with rockets: even if one or two get through the results would be catastrophic. Uzi Rubin has a detailed answer that goes something like this:

For Iran to attack Israel with nuclear missiles, any even marginally rational commanders know they need to knock out Israel’s air force bases lest an Israeli second strike devastate Iran. To feel at all secure, Iran needs to launch a minimum of three missiles simultaneously against each airfield. Missile defenses, however, keep pushing up that number to the point where an Israeli second strike becomes unavoidable. Thus, any attack on Israel is clearly suicidal. This makes such an attack less likely.

But, you can say, it is a mistake to regard the Iranian regime as purely rational. This is far truer of the regime today than it was a year ago. And even then it is far truer of elements in the regime, including those who will have actual possession of the nuclear weapons.

How often do you see the point made in the Western media that the missiles and atomic bombs will be controlled by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the part of the regime closest to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the institution that is gaining growing power over Iran, and the one with the closest ties to terrorists abroad?

True as this is, missile defense becomes all the more important by providing protection against an “irrational” attack. Combined with direct air strikes on Iranian launchers, this becomes an impressive defensive system. The maximum possible deterrent gives the maximum possible protection and the greatest possible discouragement for Iran from starting a war.

Remember, too, that the number of atomic bombs Iran can build is going to be relatively limited in number, while the number which can be launched simultaneously (especially very fast) is even fewer.

Finally, there is more than one way to "use" nuclear weapons which involves flourishing rather than firing them. Much of the Iranian regime bluster about attacking Israel is designed to give Tehran greater leverage in the region. Israel can defend itself; Iran's Arab neighbors cannot and must depend on the United States--not the greatest assurance nowadays--to counter Iran's influence and power. Given their weakness and vulnerability to internal subversion, Arabic-speaking states are more likely to be the main target where Tehran regime's threats can achieve results.

In short, missile defense in combination with other efforts cannot necessarily provide perfect defense but it can provide the best possible defense. It is far more likely to be effective than the sadly weak diplomatic-sanction defense offered by divided and timid Western countries. Indeed, it might not be long before some of these are buying Israeli made systems, which the U.S. military is reportedly already planning to deploy.

RubinReports: Avoiding the Unthinkable: Missile Defense is Israel’s “Secret” Weapon Against Iran’s Nuclear Weapons

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UNIVERSAL TORAH: HA-AZINU

UNIVERSAL TORAH: HA-AZINU

By Rabbi Avraham Greenbaum

Torah Reading: HA-AZINU, Deuteronomy 32: 1-52

THE SONG OF G-D'S JUSTICE

Some songs are happy, some are sad. Some are for entertainment. Some come to tell a story or teach a lesson. Some express the inner heart and soul. Unique among all songs is the song of Moses in our parshah. HA-AZINU is the song of G-d's perfect Justice -- the ultimate reproof to man.

The Hebrew word for song, SHIRAH, is related to the word SHER, which means a chain or necklace. A song is a chain, thread or structure that connects various particulars together in order to make a meaningful order. As the very climax of the Torah, Moses' song of HA'AZINU gives order and meaning to the history of the people of Israel with its great highs and terrible lows. Everything comes to show the faultless, inexorable justice of G-d. "The Rock -- His work is perfect, for all His ways are Justice, the G-d of faithfulness in Whom there is no wrong, He is righteous and straight!" (Deut. 32:4).

This may be easy to say, but it is very hard to actually know and believe in our heart of hearts. Nevertheless Moses challenges us to join him in this song of testimony, so that we too will know and declare G-d's justice. The song is "interactive": Moses chants, calling upon us to respond. "For I will call upon the Name of HaShem -- ascribe greatness to our G-d" (ibid. v. 3). This verse is the Torah source for the prayer leader's call to prayer and the congregational response, both in the synagogue -- BAR'CHU -- and at the table introducing the blessings after eating bread -- NEVORECH (Brachos 45a). HA-AZINU challenges us to respond: to wake up, see and acknowledge G-d's truth and justice, and to respond in the proper way, by repenting. HA-AZINU is such an important expression of the essence of Israel's faith and destiny that some communities had the custom of reciting it daily in the morning prayers together with SHIRAS HAYAM ("Song of the Sea") (Rambam, Laws of Prayer 7:13). In the Temple, successive portions of HA-AZINU were read every Shabbos in a six-week cycle as part of the service accompanying the Shabbos additional offering (Rambam, Temidim Umusafim 6:9).

"Listen, O heavens, and I will speak. Hear, O earth, the words of my mouth" (Deut. 32:1). Moses calls upon the heavens and earth, G-d's impassive, unwaveringly obedient servants, as his witnesses. For mortal man is too devious and full of ploys to be a valid witness -- he has a vested interest: he wants to justify himself. "Why did this happen to me? It isn't fair." Moses confronts us -- the latter generation that he is addressing -- with independent testimony that cannot be denied: the actual history of the people of Israel from the very beginning to the very end, for it is all encapsulated in HA-AZINU. "Remember the days of the universe, understand the years of generation after generation; ask your father and he will inform you, your grandfather and they will tell you..." (v. 7). What has happened in the past and what is happening now to Israel is of significance to the entire world. For Israel is at the very center. "When the Supreme gave the peoples their inheritance, when He spread out the children of man, He established the boundaries of the nations according to the number of the Children of Israel..." (v. 8).

The history of Israel is the history of Adam writ large. Adam was created out of dust and nothingness and placed in G-d's sublime garden, but he quickly rebelled and sinned, causing G-d to punish and chasten him, in order to make him repent and to cleanse him. Similarly, G-d "found" the Children of Israel in a wild, desolate land and built them into a nation, giving them to ride on the high places of the earth -- the land of Israel and Jerusalem. But their very good fortune and prosperity became their undoing. "And Yeshurun became fat and he kicked" -- causing G-d to let loose all the evils and terrors of persecution and oppression that have plagued the people of Israel for thousands of years. Only when we internalize the message that rebellion leads to nothing but pain in the end, and that we have no recourse except in G-d -- only then will G-d relent and swing everything around to goodness and blessing -- VE-ZOT HABRACHAH (the closing parshah of the Torah).

* * *

G-D ALWAYS HAS THE UPPER HAND

We cannot escape from G-d and His Covenant, with its privileges, responsibilities and its terrible sanctions. The stark severity of the message of HA-AZINU may cause discomfort among those in today's obese, irreverent world who seek a sweet, undemanding spirituality that complements and enhances contemporary lifestyle without causing any radical upsets. People are bewildered by the war, terror, crime, disease and other scourges afflicting us, but would like to see them as mere aberrations that should be able to be eliminated if only we could apply sufficient human ingenuity. HA-AZINU teaches the futility of trying to overcome these G-d-sent scourges without confronting the rebelliousness and deviousness in our own hearts. For G-d always has the upper hand. "For I am He, and there is no god with Me: I kill and make alive, I struck the blow and I will heal, and none can save from My hand" (v. 39).

"If only they would be wise and apply their intelligence to this, and understand their latter end. How could one chase after a thousand and two put ten thousand to flight if not because their Rock sold them and HaShem delivered them?" (vv. 29-30). How could it be that small groups of Nazis were able to uproot thousands from their homes and towns and lead them literally like lambs to the slaughter? How could it be that today a people that is not a people have the whole world dancing to their tune, while small cells of terrorists torment and demoralize the entire population? How can this be if not that it is G-d's doing?

If it is true that our sins as a nation have brought us great suffering, it must also be true that the stirrings of Teshuvah in our hearts will also prove to be the channel for abundant blessing and peace. Rabbi Nachman of Breslov taught that when Israel accepted the Torah, their essential wisdom lay in their willingness to throw away their own sophisticated wisdom and humbly submit themselves completely to G-d's superior wisdom. Rabbi Nachman brings proof from Onkelos' Aramaic translation of the verse in HA-AZINU: "O foolish people and not wise" (Deut. 32:6) -- "O nation that received the Torah and were not sophisticated" (see Likutey Moharan I:123).

We cannot redeem ourselves with sophisticated ploys but only through taking the ancient, unglamorous path of Teshuvah -- honest self-scrutiny, remorse, contrition, owning up to the foolishness and evil in our own hearts and taking ourselves in hand in order to better fulfill G-d's commandments. HA-AZINU calls to repent with all our hearts and come home to G-d as we stand before Him in prayer during these Days of Awe. Repentance -- Teshuvah -- is the hallmark of the true savior, Melech Mashiach, as personified in David, the messianic king of Israel. David came to complete the work of Moses in rectifying the original sin of Adam. The striking fact about David is that he sinned. His greatness lay in the fact that he had the courage to acknowledge it, and to repent. The true messiah is not a flawless, superhuman saint who rides on clouds of glory. He is one who -- on his level -- knows sin and knows the devices of man's heart. And he knows that only G-d can rectify.

"Cleanse me of my sin and purify me from my transgression... O G-d, create in me a pure heart and renew within me a proper spirit... I will teach sinners Your ways and transgressors will return to You" (Psalm 51).

As soon as we learn that there is no other way but to repent, we will be redeemed. And then: "Sing aloud -- O you nations -- of His people, For He does avenge the blood of His servants and render vengeance to His adversaries, and will make atonement for the land of His people."

Shabbat Shalom! Shanah Tovah! Gmar ChaTimah Tovah!

Avraham Yehoshua Greenbaum

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AZAMRA INSTITUTE
PO Box 50037 Jerusalem 91500 Israel
Website: www.azamra.org

ADL: Email - Farouk Hosni Defeated!

ADL: Email - Farouk Hosni Defeated!

Coal to Newcastle

Coal to Newcastle

Israel is exporting snow to the Alps.

Honestly. Not a joke. Really. It even says so in the newspaper.

For the Hebraically challenged, here's the story. An Israeli company called IDE started by desalinating sea water, then turned its technology to large cooling installations used in mines, and from there it was a short step to producing large quantities of ice or snow. Of course, the ski resorts in the Alps have been using artificial snow machines for years (decades?), but some recent years have been uncommonly warm, and there's a growing demand for a longer ski season, while energy is capped (or not). The new Israeli contraption gives more snow for 20% of the energy.

The base prices of such a toy is $3,000,000, and it will give you 950 cubic meters of snow daily, so if you want one for your back yard feel free to contact me and I'll help you with the deal (reduced commissions for readers of this blog).

Or you might wish to boycott Israel and stop skiing. That's also an option.

Originally posted by Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations

Did Israel Win?

Did Israel Win?

Politics makes for strange bedfellows. Jeffrey Goldberg and the Powerline guys don't agree on many things, yet they've joined in linking to the Jackson Diehl column at the Washington Post, Israel's Gaza vindication.

The point, however, is that Israel has bought itself a stretch of relative peace
with Hamas, just as its costly 2006 invasion of Lebanon has produced three years
of quiet on that front. From the Israeli perspective, a respite from conflict is
the most that can be expected from either group -- or from their mutual sponsor,
Iran.

Actually, as I've described in the past, the reprieve may prove to be more than merely a lull in violence. Israel's various anti-missile systems are all approaching the point of operative depolyment. Should they succeed at the task they were designed for, Hezbullah and Hamas may have whiled away their chances to inflict serious harm. I'm not saying they won't devise new ways - of course they will. They're miserable at giving their people better lives, but they'll always figure out innovative ways to hit Israel. Still, each week of calm is a week closer until those systems are deployed.

It's nice the Israeli perspective is gaining traction at the Washington Post.

Originally posted by Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations

Is the Boycott Movement Gaining Traction?

Is the Boycott Movement Gaining Traction?

Gal Beckerman at the Forward thinks it is.

Yet note that his article, like most pieces that seek confirmation that the boycotters are beginning to hurt Israel, never gives numbers. Ultimately it's an economic matter, after all: can Israel be made to hurt so badly that it makes a difference. So you'd think the boycotters would have a big chart with numbers: the size of Israel's economy, stats on various segments of it, targets that need to be reached so as to make a difference - that sort of thing.

But of course there is none of this. As even Beckerman sort of admits, the boycott movement is fundamentally about having a world without Israel; if that's the goal, the boycotters might note that the Jews have faced much worse foes in the past, and from abysmally worse starting positions.

So far, 2009 is proving less of a problem for Israel's economy than for most developed countries. (See the various financial and economic indicators of The Economist).

Then, of course, you've got the ludicrous aspects of the movement:

Ironically, Barghouti, who appears to be one of the movement’s chief strategists, is currently in a master’s degree program in philosophy at Tel Aviv University — even though he is one of the founding members of the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel. He has been one of the activists strongly pushing the greater BDS movement in the direction of opposing any institution associated with Israel. Asked about his affiliation with an institution he wants boycotted, Barghouti declined to discuss his personal life.

Originally posted by Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations