Sefer Chabibi Deepest Torah: SHABBAT SHUVAH: ANSWER YOUR SOUL

Monday, October 3, 2011

SHABBAT SHUVAH: ANSWER YOUR SOUL

by Rabbi Baruch Binyamin Hakohen Melman 

The maftir reading which we read on Yom Kippur, taken from Parshat Pinchas, Numbers 29:7, says "u'be'asur lachodesh hash'viee hazeh mikra kodesh yih'yeh lachem VI'INITEM et nafshoteychem kawl melacha lo ta'asu." 

To wit: "the tenth day of this seventh month shall be a sacred holy day to you and: TYPICAL TRANSLATION: you shall afflict your souls and not do any manner of work."

Talmud Yoma (77a) dissects its meaning and comes to include all the prohibited behaviors of the day, noting that it especially means to fast. Hence we use the term TAANIT for connoting a fast day, such as Taanit Esther, which shares the same root. But perhaps an an alternative translation can offer a new insight: you shall ANSWER your souls! The infinitive verb form of the word LA'ANOT means "to answer." Note that the verb form is written in the PI'EL construct-VI'INITEM- which would serve to accentuate and emphasize its impact. REALLY ANSWER YOUR SOUL.

In Parshat Sh'mot, Exodus 1:12, we have the same verb- "vecha'asher y'ANU oto, ken yirbeh v'chen yifrotz... But the more they (the Egyptians) oppressed them, the more they (Israel) proliferated and spread."

So here it makes sense from the plain, peshat, meaning that it means "oppress," or "afflict." Now this is very deep. Usually when we answer someone we indeed end up afflicting them in some way. We often have some underlying need to dump on someone who genuinely needs help. As we have been dumped on all our lives by others, we sometimes have the urge to pass on the negativity of our own experiences onto others. Inquiry is seen as weakness, a seeming invitation for further oppression. Dialogue as weakness. Peculiar, yet the reigning motif of political conflict, especially in the MidEast.

In Exodus, the Israelites had just enjoyed generations of basking in the Egyptian goodwill stemming from Joseph's economic intervention which saved the country from utter ruin. Now they suddenly found themselves as slaves (ibid:8-11). Suddenly they were on the wrong side. Indeed overnight their whole world was turned upside down! They asked,"why?" and so "they answered them (read: oppressed them)..."

When one places suffering within a context of meaning it can be dealt with and tolerated. Many generations having lapsed, the new generation of Egypt lost the context for their suffering; their hardship became too much to bear. Meanwhile a prosperous Israel thrived among them in neighboring Goshen. The disparity aroused jealousy, another source of great psychic pain. Israel felt betrayed by the king and the society they had placed all their hopes in, indeed had staked their future upon. In whom should our trust really be placed?

Now in our parsha, Ha'azinu, we ask: what is the question and what is the answer? What pain has been inflicted on me, and how do I refrain from consciously or unconsciously passing it on to others? In this season of deepest reflection and self-accounting (cheshbon hanefesh), as we stand figuratively before the King of Kings, we ask, "why are we here? What is the ultimate purpose of our lives? What is the point of my life? What is the point of being Jewish?"

Not "why are we the eternal people," for that is a given, being that it is a Divine oath, but "what are we to do with this eternality?" Will we be IN the garden or OUT of the garden? In the Torah blessing we intone: "vechayey olam nata betochenu- and eternal life you hath planted in our midst." Will we seek shelter amidst the branches under the protective shade of the TREE of LIFE, which is Torah? Or will we we spurn this gift- the Torah, whose mitzvoth and teachings are literally the keys to our soul's eternal life?"

Ha'azinu hashamayim- Give ear O Heavens...vetishma ha'aretz- and Hear O Earth..."Heaven and Earth were the first born in Creation, partnering with G*d in the Creation of all that was to follow. Being the first of Creation they represent all that is potential. Humankind, being the last of Creation, represents the fulfillment of that potential. The Torah, the Sinaitic Revelation, takes us one step further and asks us to go BEYOND our potential.


And finally, the Messianic Age represents the fulfillment of that "going beyond." The Pagan Idea represented the eternal cyclicity of life. The Judaic Revolution realigned human consciousness to synchronize with the DNA blueprint, substituting the two dimensional pagan circle theory which has no sense of progression, with the three dimensional Hebraic spiral theory - G*d, Torah and Israel, which combines cyclicity with growth.

Forty represents transformation. The forty day period from Elul through Yom Kippur represents in miniature mankind's sojourn from Creation through Revelation and on to the Ultimate Redemption. The trumpets we blow on Rosh Hashanah symbolize the same trumpets we heard at Sinai, while the release from the obsessive burden of all bodily cares on Yom Kippur offers us a glimpse into the state of perfection of the Future World, when the soul and the body finally act in harmony instead of at cross purposes, when peace and justice is achieved for all. As such it is our day of greatest joy and celebration.

Shabbat Shuvah is the breather, the shabbat resting point, from which we symbolically catch our collective breath before we ascend to the peak of the Sabbath of Sabbaths, the Shabbat Shabbaton, which is Yom Kippur. The timeliness and concurrence of Haazinu with the Sabbath of Return- Shabbat Shuvah, is uncanny. We so often despair of our journey and grow weary of the effort just when the end is almost in sight. It's always darkest just before the dawn!

When we lose the connection to Sinai, we lose the compass pointing us to our ultimate destination. We are bidden by Moses for ALL generations to contemplate how and why we became prosperous in our land."Pay close attention to all the words through whichI warn you this day, so that you will be able to instruct your CHILDREN to keep all the words of this Torah carefully."

When Israel seeks to throw off the yoke of the Torah she is bending and distorting the spiral paradigm.

"Answer your souls' deepest yearnings- v'initem et nafshoteychem," and return to Hashem. If we make the Torah central to our lives we are indeed answering our soul's deepest desire, and INITEM is then translated as "answering our soul." But if we lose our center and allow centripetal forces to spin us around and bear down on us, thus losing the Torah as the guiding central moral force in our lives, then INITEM becomes translated as "afflict your souls."

So too with our redemption. It will either come gently if we are deserving, or not so gently, out of correction.

Which shall it be?

Shana Tovah. Ketivah vechatimah tovah!



© 2000 - 2011 by Rabbi Baruch Binyamin Hakohen Melman

Sefer Chabibi Deepest Torah: SHABBAT SHUVAH: ANSWER YOUR SOUL

Israel Matzav: IDF photo of the day

IDF photo of the day

Here's the IDF photo of the day:



It's an IDF Apache helicopter in the Greek hills. Maybe we should send it to Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

More here.


Israel Matzav: IDF photo of the day

Israel Matzav: Why not an anti-Turkey alliance?

Why not an anti-Turkey alliance?

Writing at Huffington Post, Sigurd Neubauer discusses Israel's booming alliances with Greece, Bulgaria, Cyprus and other Balkan countries. Neubauer attributes those ties to Israel's poor relations with Turkey that have forced it to seek alternatives. At the end, he comes up with this (Hat Tip: Joshua I).

While improved relations with Athens and Nicosia should be considered a significant foreign policy victory for Netanyahu, it remains unclear whether an alliance with Cyprus and the Balkan states can fully substitute for Israel's former strategic military partnership with Turkey. Given Greece's significant financial problems and Israel's own budgetary restraints, it remains also doubtful whether any of the two countries can "afford" prolonged military tensions presented by an (potentially) adversarial inclined Turkey. Additionally, unless a political solution is found to the 2010 Gaza-Flotilla, the Greek-Israeli military partnership could easily escalate into regional instability as maritime tensions in the eastern Mediterranean with Turkey could become inevitable. For those reasons, coupled with the current regional turmoil presented by the "Arab Spring," Netanyahu's diplomatic outreach to the Balkans and Cyprus should aim to maximize economic and military relations well short of establishing an "anti-Turkish" alliance.

Let's get this straight: Israel's relations with Turkey are over unless and until there is a significant change in the Turkish government away from Islamism and back towards secularism. At the moment, that is most unlikely for the foreseeable future. Israel must assume that its rift with Turkey is permanent, not temporary, and it must act accordingly. If forming an anti-Turkish alliance will keep Turkey in check, then by all means, let's do it. Maybe if Greece were not under constant threat from Turkey, it would not be such an economic basket case (admittedly, cleaning up Greece's taxation system would also help).

We have nothing to lose and everything to gain from entering into alliances with others who are the subjects of Turkish threats.

Israel Matzav: Why not an anti-Turkey alliance?

Israel Matzav: The Vatican submits to political Islam

The Vatican submits to political Islam

YNet publishes a deeply disturbing article by Italian journalist Giulio Meotti on the Catholic Church's submission to political Islam.

“The default positions vis-à-vis militant Islam are now unhappily reminiscent of Vatican diplomacy’s default positions vis-à-vis communism during the last 25 years of the Cold War,” writes George Weigel, a leading US writer about the Vatican. The Vatican’s new agenda seeks “to reach political accommodations with Islamic states and foreswear forceful public condemnation of Islamist and jihadist ideology.”

...

After Regensburg, the Vatican adopted an appeasement agenda. Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, who is known for having a pro-Islam position, was appointed by the Pope as the head of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue.

Indeed, Dialogue with Iran’s mullahs is pivotal in the new Vatican agenda. Recently, a delegation of clergy members of Iran’s Islamic Consultative Assembly visited the Vatican, meeting with top Catholic officials.

In June, the Vatican sent Archbishop Edmond Farhat, who is the official representative of Vatican politics, to Tehran to attend an “international conference on the global campaign against terrorism.” Last autumn, Vatican representatives met with Muslim leaders from around the world in Tehran for “a three-day interreligious dialogue.” In Tehran Cardinal Tauran praised Iran’s “spirit of cordiality” and “the friendly Ahmadinejad.”

Last month, the Vatican published a letter written by Tauran, addressing his “Dear Muslim friends.” In the letter, Tauran asked for Islamic help to form an alliance against atheism.

In 2008, the Vatican promoted “Love of God, Love of Neighbor,” the first three-day forum with Islamic leaders. The Pope agreed to meet one the most dangerous Islamist in the Western world, the grandson of Muslim Brotherhood founder Hassan al-Banna, Tariq Ramadan - the Swiss scholar who denies Israel’s right to life and who has been banned from entering the US because of his alleged association with extremists.

Last May, Bishop Mariano Crociata, secretary general of the Italian Episcopal Conference, announced that the Vatican is in favor of building new mosques in Europe. A month later the European Bishops met with European Muslims in Turin (Cardinal Tauran was also present) to proclaim the need for the “progressive enculturation of Islam in Europe.”

In Rimini, a seaside resort on the Adriatic coast, the Comunione e Liberazione movement, one of the most powerful in the Catholic Church, holds its massive annual “meeting” that usually draws some 700,000 people. The Catholic movement last month hosted the president of Al Azhar, the most important Islamic university in Cairo, and a senior leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, despite the fact that for the first time the US Commission on Religious Freedom recommended that Egypt be placed on a list of the “worst of the worst” countries for persecution of Christians.

Between 2006 and 2011, the Church has decided to avoid battles with political Islam. And guess who is paying the price....

The State of Israel is easily expendable in the new pro-Islam policy. In January 2009, thousands of Muslims marched in front of Milan’s Duomo to protest against Operation Cast Lead in Gaza. They burned Israeli flags and chanted anti-Jewish slogans. Joaquin Navarro-Valls, John Paul II’s spokesman for 22 years, defended the “freedom of expression” of the Muslims who burned the Star of David.

Months later, Pope Benedict visited Bethlehem, where the Christian population has dropped from a majority to less than 20%. Benedict delivered a message of solidarity to the 1.4 million Palestinians isolated in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip. He said nothing of the suffering of Gaza’s 3,000 Christians since Hamas took over that territory in 2007.

Benedict could have decried the bombings, shootings and other Islamist attacks against Gaza Christian establishments, the brutal murder of the only Bible-store owner of Gaza, or the regular intimidation and persecution of Christians there. Instead, the Pope stood beside Mahmoud Abbas as the Palestinian leader deceptively pointed to a concrete separation barrier in Bethlehem and blamed that barrier, as well as Israeli “occupation,” for the plight of Christians.

A few weeks later, the United Nations ran “Durban II” and on the first day of the conference, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the only head of state to attend, made a speech condemning Israel as “totally racist” and referred to the Holocaust as an "ambiguous and dubious question.” When Ahmadinejad began to speak against the Jews, all European Union delegates left the conference room. The Vatican delegation didn’t say a word.

But Israel is not the only victim. The Church has remained silent in the face of Islamic persecution of Christians - and not just persecution of the Copts in Egypt.

Over the past several years, Christians have endured bombings, murders, assassinations, torture, imprisonment and expulsions. The very roots of the Christian heritage in the Middle East are being extirpated. When last winter Christians were killed in Egypt, Cardinal Tauran and the Vatican foreign office requested to “avoid anger” and downplayed the Islamist role in the butchering.

In the summer of 2010, Bishop Luigi Padovese, Vatican vicar for Anatolia and president of the Catholic Episcopal conference of Turkey, was slaughtered by Islamic fanatics in Iskenderun on the eve of the Pope’s trip to Cyprus. Vatican diplomacy did its part to convince the Pope to immediately and preemptively rule out the idea that this was a “political or religious” murder.

Elsewhere, the number of Christians in Turkey declined from two million to 85,000; in Syria, from half the population they have been reduced to 4%; in Jordan, from 18% to 2%; nearly two-thirds of the 500,000 Christians in Baghdad have fled or been killed; in Lebanon, Christians have dwindled to a sectarian rump, menaced by surging Shiite and Sunni populations, and in Saudi Arabia Christians have been beaten or tortured by religious police.

It’s an ethnic cleansing of monumental proportions that makes it clear why the Vatican’s submission to political Islam, along with its religious anti-Israel stance, will be remembered as one of the greatest moral failings of the 21st Century.

Will the Church be silent if Europe goes Muslim too? Read the whole thing.

Israel Matzav: The Vatican submits to political Islam

ROSH HASHANA: CHANGE YOUR HEAD

ROSH HASHANA: CHANGE YOUR HEAD

by Rabbi Baruch Binyamin Hakohen Melman

The word "shana" in Hebrew means many things. It is most commonly translated as year, but it also has many deeper related meanings. Shana also means "teach,"and the word "mishna," the oral teachings, comes from the same root. Shana also means "change" or "transformation." In Hebrew, "leshanot" is the infinitive form of the word meaning "to change." So when we teach we are exchanging ideas, both student and teacher changing in the process.

The word for teeth, "sheenayim," also derives from the same root. Our teeth begin the transformation process, begin the changing of inanimate food into the very energy which animates us. That which was once matter of a certain provenance from outside of ourselves, some "other," now becomes a part of our very essence.

The word for tongue, "lashon,"also hints at this idea. Not only does the tongue aid the teeth in the digestive process, whose taste buds help avoid the fetid, the putrid and the rancid, but so too does the tongue form words, helping to change ethereal thoughts into the realm of action- into words, which are the genesis of action. And in Hebrew, the word "shoneh" means "different," apart from the norm by dint of change. Rosh Hashana, then, is often given short shrift by being viewed solely as meaning the "head of the year."

Passover, falling in the month of Nisan, is explicitly enumerated in the Torah as being more properly known as the head of the year, calling her "the first month." Tishrei, the month of Rosh Hashana, is literally called "the seventh month." So what should it then be called? How do we tie all these meanings of shana together to form a coherent, organic whole?

Rosh Hashana should be called "the beginning of changing." Just as nature begins to change with the changing of the leaves and the change in the seasons, and school begins and new TV shows begin, so too should we learn to let go and to embrace a new beginning. Tishrei is the seventh month. Shabbat is the seventh day.

Shabbat, the seventh day, where we change into our heavenly spiritual garments, is mirrored in the seventh month, the month of spiritual transformation. All year long we are learning life's lessons. Each year we try to grow, becoming different and better people than we were the year before. We strive to accept change in life, in others and in ourselves. Only through forgiving ourselves and others can we take the first step in making these changes. Only through a renewed sense of responsibility to the covenantal idea, to the idea of mitzvah, can this change occur.

This responsibility to facilitate this process of change is the essence of the Torah's eternal challenge. But true change is very frightening. As they say, everyone wants progress, but no one wants to change. So the Creator Above understands this and helps us to change, giving us a forty day period from Rosh Chodesh Elul through Yom Kippur to help us to psychologically navigate the transformation. We cannot do it in one day.

The shofar we blow each morning during the month of Elul in this season of changing, itself epitomizes change. From originally being the instrument of animal warfare, of strife and contention, it will one day become the instrument through which we announce the Messianic Age, heralding the dawn of a new age of peace, love and brotherhood.

Shana Tova, the New Year greeting, does not only mean Happy New Year. On the deepest level it means, "Change for the Good." May we all change for the good, and choose life. Amen.

Shanah Tovah!

A Goot Yor!

© 2000 - 2011 by Rabbi Baruch Binyamin Hakohen Melman

These words of Torah are written in the merit of my beloved father, Israel J. Melman, obm, Yisrael Yehoshua ben Harav Ya'aqov Hakohen Melman, z"l and in memory of my beloved mother, Esther Melman, obm, Esther bat Baruch z"l.

ROSH HASHANA: CHANGE YOUR HEAD

RubinReports: Why Most of The Mass Media Can't Report Honestly on Israel—Or Other Middle East Issues

Why Most of The Mass Media Can't Report Honestly on Israel—Or Other Middle East Issues

By Barry Rubin

Underlying any other factor regarding attitudes toward Israel in the Media-University-Government (MUG) complex is the programmatic and ideological problem faced in honestly understanding and explaining Israel's behavior.

To report truthfully would require comprehending and communicating the following two paragraphs:

--Most Israelis believe, on the basis of their experience during the 1990s’ Oslo era and with the "peace process" generally, that Palestinian leaders cannot and will not make peace, and that most Arabs and Muslims still want to destroy Israel. As a result, they explain, past Israeli concessions have made Israel's situation worse, risks to show that Israel wants peace have not persuaded onlookers, withdrawals from territory have only led to that territory being used to launch attacks on Israel.

--In justifying their stance, Israelis cite the extremism of Iran; the advances of Hamas and Hizballah; the growing radicalism and Islamist influence in the Egyptian revolution, and other such factors. In addition, they worry that the Obama Administration policy is undermining Israel and enabling a growing extremism in the region. This is a prevailing viewpoint across the political spectrum.

I could have chosen to make additional points but this shows the main factors. Since the Israeli argument is so cogent and backed by facts and observable realities, it would be dangerously persuasive to those who actually get to hear it.

Instead, the muggers of MUG must insist:

Read it all:
http://pajamasmedia.com/barryrubin/2011/09/29/why-most-of-the-mass-media-cant-report-honestly-on-israel%e2%80%94or-other-middle-east-issues/



RubinReports: Why Most of The Mass Media Can't Report Honestly on Israel—Or Other Middle East Issues

RubinReports: Western Policy on Israel-Palestinian Peacemaking is Ludicrously, Totally Wrong and Will Produce Only Humiliating Failure

Western Policy on Israel-Palestinian Peacemaking is Ludicrously, Totally Wrong and Will Produce Only Humiliating Failure

By Barry Rubin
It’s truly remarkable about how international diplomacy on the Middle East, especially Israel-Palestinian issues, is so out of touch with reality. Consider the Quartet’s response to the mess at the UN.

The proposal is for Israel-PA talks to start within a month, both sides to present proposals on borders and security within three months, and to reach a final agreement by the end of 2012.

This is insane. The premise here is that the PA is really eager to negotiate a compromise agreement with Israel. Everything that’s happened in the past three years—indeed the last 18 years since the Oslo agreement was signed—shows the exact opposite. The PA spent a year building its campaign for unilateral independence at the UN precisely to avoid negotiating with Israel at all.

Read it all:
http://pajamasmedia.com/barryrubin/2011/09/29/western-policy-on-israel-palestinian-peacemaking-is-ludicrously-totally-wrong-and-will-produce-only-humiliating-failure/


RubinReports: Western Policy on Israel-Palestinian Peacemaking is Ludicrously, Totally Wrong and Will Produce Only Humiliating Failure

RubinReports: Give the Status Quo Some Respect: All We Are Saying Is Don’t Make Things Worse

Give the Status Quo Some Respect: All We Are Saying Is Don’t Make Things Worse

This article was published in the Jerusalem Post. I own the rights and I've added more material here so read and link to this version!

By Barry Rubin

Many people are obviously and understandably frustrated that Israel is so badly treated by the Mug-gers (media, university, and government) complex in much of the Western world. One can fume endlessly against their behavior (double standards, falsified history) but that accomplishes nothing.

So the immediate alternative is to say what is needed is creative new ideas, with the assumption that these ideas will solve the problem or at least make things better. This is logical and fits many other situations but it usually doesn’t apply to Israel’s case. Why not?

The assumption is that if good actions are taken then they will be recognized and rewarded. If good things are said, they will be reported and praised in a meaningful way. But while Israel should always do and say the best things this mechanism doesn’t work. The good actions are ignored or reinterpreted; the good statements are just ignored.

And so the eternal last bastion of those who unintentionally make Israel’s situation harder and the Middle East worse is to say: Why don’t you propose something positive? What’s the alternative? The status quo is unsustainable!

Of course, all status quos are unsustainable in a sense since change is inevitable. But sometimes the status quo deserves to be kept around for a while until something better comes along or can be made to happen. The best alternative of all is not to make things worse than they already are. As for the cliché that the status quo is unsustainable, .that is usually followed by a plan that would make for a status quo even more unsustainable and negative.

There is a one-word description for the idea of the unsustainable status quo: defeatism. Mind you, I don’t mean that nothing should change and that one’s policy should be that of mindless reactionary intransigence. But one can also make one’s own strategy better rather than switching to another one.

The implication of an unsustainable status quo is that things are so bad that you better jump off the sinking ship into shark-infested waters before it is too late. It might be better to mobilize the crew, start pumping out the water, and steer a good course.

Consider past examples of the “status quo is unsustainable” nonsense:

The status quo is unsustainable so we must withdraw immediately from south Lebanon.

The status quo is unsustainable so we must have the Oslo accords.

The status quo is unsustainable so we must withdraw from the Gaza Strip.

And what has this done but produce what we are now called an “unsustainable” status quo” as opposed to all of those previous unsustainable situations of the past six decades.

Another thing left out by the unsustainable status quo school is to assume that any change must focus on making more concessions. One could alter the status quo, for example, by showing more strength and by inflicting higher costs on adversaries and sabotaging hostile acts. One can also be creative about defending oneself.

On top of all this, however, Israel has special problems. Here are three examples:

Turkey: In trying to deal with the current friction with Turkey, Israel’s government proposed that it express regrets about defending itself during the Gaza flotilla, not the defense but the resulting loss of life among Turkish jihadists come to create a confrontation. It offered to make donations to a humanitarian fund for the relatives of those killed.

The Turkish government responded that only a full apology, the payment of compensation (an admission of wrong and based on demands rather than the donors' judgment), and an immediate end of the Gaza blockade. The Turkish demand was ironic coming immediately after a UN commission declaring the blockade is legal.

So despite trying creative ways to end the conflict, Israeli officials could do nothing. Why? Because for its own reasons the Turkish regime doesn’t want to resolve the conflict. All Israel can do is to show its respect for the Turkish people and nation along with willingness to be flexible if the other side is reasonable.

Egypt: What is going to be determining the Egypt-Israel relationship in future is not Israeli actions or words since radical nationalists and Islamists in Turkey—even relative moderates—are so hostile. Israel’s creative alternative is to try to get along with the military junta and to avoid offending reasonable Egyptian pride and legitimate Egyptian rights. Once an elected government takes over, it isn’t going to be easy.

No verbal formula, no Israeli action will make the country popular among revolutionary Islamists and radical nationalists. This is different from normal international relations, where countries can make alterations in their words or policies to get credit for them and sooth disputes. That’s a point many in the West simply don’t understand.

Palestinians: What’s Israel to do on this issue? How about withdrawing from the Gaza Strip to show its good intentions? No, did that. Letting a couple of hundred thousand Palestinians return and establish their own government? Been there, done that. Letting them have guns and lots of money? Check. Offering, on almost a daily basis, to negotiate without conditions; to accept an independent Palestinian state; to return basically to the 1967 borders with some alterations and swaps? Ooops, done that, too.

And if after all that Western leaders and writers can still say that Israel hasn’t proven that it wants peace will the next change in the status quo change that? Of course, if Israel elected a left-of-center prime minister, the world would say nice things for a while even if they had the same basic policy and said the same words as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu does. Yet how long will that last? Don’t believe me? Three words: Rabin, Peres, Barak.

An outside observer who doesn’t understand any of this or who hasn’t been following events would think that obviously Israel can and should do more for peace. Let me put it this way: Why should we risk our lives just because you haven’t been paying attention?

Precisely at this moment I read an op-ed by a well-intentioned law professor who points out a “positive” aspect of Palestinian statehood. If Palestine becomes an internationally recognized state, it will be responsible—he explains—for actions taken by any group on its soil, say for example if a Palestinian group crossed the border and attacked Israel, killing Israeli civilians.

Professor, please note that by that standard Israel has no problem with Lebanon, for example, a country from which terrorists have often attacked Israel. Oh, by the way, the terrorists are now governing that country. Also, once Palestine becomes a country it is more likely that terrorists will attack Israel from its territory, Israel will retaliate, and the state of Palestine will go to the UN, where the General Assembly will then agree that Israel is the aggressor.

And as a sovereign state it is free to go to Egypt or other Arab or Muslim-majority states, import weapons and even ask for military advisors. So when Israel retaliates, it is better-armed and more likely to inflict casualties on Israeli forces. If foreign advisors are killed, that country may declare the death of its citizens to be an act of war by Israel (as Turkey’s prime minister has done regarding the Gaza flotilla clash). Or the government of Palestine can ask other countries to rush in forces and weapons to fight the Israeli “aggression.”

Please, all you professors and “experts” and politicians and journalists out there: Consider the consequences of your schemes on the real world. Before you criticize Israeli leaders as fools who don’t know what’s good for their people or Israelis in general as evil and short-sighted people who don’t know what’s good for themselves, it’s a good idea to understand the situation they face and the experience they have lived through.

So let me say something nice about the status quo. Given the alternatives, Israel is relatively secure and prosperous. When you are the stronger party who is benefiting more, you can afford to wait until the other side makes you an offer so that changing the status quo would benefit you even more. Israel is not the—supposedly—desperate party that—supposedly—suffers from “occupation,” and that groans under the yoke of settlements—though if it makes a peace deal these will be dismantled.

The new idea needed at a time when the regional situation is deteriorating badly because of external factors is how better to defend yourself. There’s a lot of behind-the-scenes contacts with the Palestinian Authority and others to ease the situation as much as possible, including the promotion of Palestinian prosperity.

Winston Churchill knew something about real-world politics and “unsustainable” status quo situations. He was, after all, prime minister at a time when the Nazis ruled virtually all of Europe and German planes nightly bombed British cities.

Asked once what it was like to be ninety. Terrible, he said, but consider the alternative! What about democracy? The worst of all political systems, Churchill replied, except for all of the others.

So I’m all for creativity and new ideas, as well as flexibility, but anyone who doesn’t understand Israel’s special situation and history in that regard understands nothing. There’s a reason why every concession, risk, and new idea Israel tries out doesn’t create a “sustainable status quo” and that reason is: the fault does not lie with Israel.

Finally, if the status quo is so horrible, say, for the Palestinians then let them make a deal for a stable, two-state solution peace with Israel to change the situation rather than public relations' campaigns at the UN and patiently waiting another few generations in the hope that violence, martyrs, intransigence, and an Arab or Islamist war against Israel to bring them total victory. .

RubinReports: Give the Status Quo Some Respect: All We Are Saying Is Don’t Make Things Worse

Israel Alone...With G-d - Op-Eds - Israel National News

Op-Ed: Israel Alone...With G-d

The Jews have been counting time for nearly 6,000 years. I believe that we shall continue to do so.

And now it seems as if I am standing still while the years quickly swirl round me like autumn leaves, like diamond snowflakes. As one ages, time seems to gather speed.

Paradoxically, this particular moment in history seems to be taking place in slow motion. It seems we have been here before—but really, it is always new, always happening as if for the first time.

There is every reason to be pessimistic. Truth has been banished from the historical stage, jihad is fully underway, the Four Horsemen ride again, the poisoned words, like poison darts, have already struck their mark, the rockets have been raining down on Israel, many more, based in Iran, are almost poised to strike the Middle East, Europe, and America. The Ottoman Empire is back, demanding tribute; it competes with Iran for the Caliphate.

The United Nations crowd has just roared it’s approval for the destruction of Israel. They were joined by Islamists everywhere and cheered on by educated Westerners, including Jews.

Those who view themselves as the best among us are hopeless dreamers, stuck in amber, stuck in time, they are idealists who are more committed to fighting for the rights of fundamentalists than they are committed to fighting for the survival of the West and its values.

Nevertheless, it is also the eve of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. We are ushering in the year 5,772. The Jews have been counting time for nearly 6,000 years. I believe that we shall continue to do so.

I believe that Israel and the democracies will, once again, at great cost—always at cost--win against the forces of barbarism and evil that are seeking to wipe us out, to render the entire Muslim world “judenrein.” And also free of Christians, Hindus, Bah’ai, Buddhists, Zoroastrians—all the infidels whom are despised and endangered in Muslim lands.

As Jews and as Israelis, we must set the standard for taking the offense. Israel knows more about terrorism, more about the difficulties of asymmetrical and urban warfare, more about diabolical “Big Lie” propaganda than any other country on earth.

Israel can no longer afford to remain on defense. Now is the time for truly bold acts of sanity and truth-telling.

Israel is surrounded and Israel is alone. Therefore, appeasement is no longer an option. Illusions are far too dangerous to hold. We must, yet again, become heroes.

It only seems that Israel is alone. Yes, we are alone—but G-d is with us. We must act, we must do all that we can in order that G-d may join us.

This time: As below, so above.

Let us praise all our heroes who have been fighting for Israel’s survival and good name especially for the last eleven years. May this new year bless us with the return of both Gilad Shalit and Jonathan Pollard. May our wounded soldiers and civilians be healed, may the families of those who have fallen in battle be consoled, may all our agunot (chained wives) be freed, may our allies continue to grow.

Shana Tova u’metukah, a happy, and very sweet New Year to you.

Israel Alone...With G-d - Op-Eds - Israel National News

Israel Matzav: The best of Abu Mazen

The best of Abu Mazen

President of the Palestinian National Authority Abu Mazen pretends to want peace with Israel. There is a difference between his spoken words and true beliefs. Watch a collection of the best sentences of Mahmoud Abbas against Israel.

Let's go to the videotape.




Israel Matzav: The best of Abu Mazen

Israel Matzav: Oops! Obama calls poor people 'do nothings'

Oops! Obama calls poor people 'do nothings'

How's this gaffe by The One at the Congressional Black Caucus dinner on Saturday. Stay alert around the 35-second mark (nothing to do with Israel except for our interest in seeing Obama defeated).

Let's go to the videotape (Hat Tip: Will).



The truth rises to the top?


Israel Matzav: Oops! Obama calls poor people 'do nothings'

Israel Matzav: The New York Times bows to political correctness

The New York Times bows to political correctness

And you never thought the New York Times would slam one of their own. Well, they have, but for the wrong reasons.

A week ago, I wrote a post criticizing self-hating Jew Max Blumenthal for writing an article in the Columbia Journalism Review castigating New York Times Jerusalem Bureau Chief Ethan Bronner (pictured) for alleged improprieties relating to speaking engagements. For that piece, Blumenthal referred to me as an 'anonymous Israeli extremist.' (I expect to be called an extremist by people who get drunken kids to ham it up for the camera so that he can present them as 'extremists').

Incredibly, the Sunday Times says that their own reporter did nothing wrong, but it doesn't look right.

A close examination of the facts leads me to conclude that the case for an actual conflict of interest is slender. But the appearance of a conflict clearly exists, and that is a problem in and of itself. The Times’s “Ethical Journalism” guidelines state that staff members “may not accept anything that could be construed as a payment for favorable coverage or as an inducement to alter or forgo unfavorable coverage.”

Mr. Bronner has now severed his ties to the public relations firm. “In my view, it is all about appearances,” he told me. “I am not denying they matter. There is nothing of an actual conflict.”

The matter revolves around Mr. Bronner’s engagement, beginning in 2009, with Lone Star Communications, a firm operated by Charley Levine, a prominent public relations executive in Israel. Mr. Levine added a speakers bureau to his firm that year, and Mr. Bronner signed on to be represented by him.

The core of Mr. Blumenthal’s critique was that Mr. Levine is a figure of the Israeli right, who counsels prominent Zionists and serves as a reservist in the Israeli Defense Forces Spokesperson’s Unit. Mr. Blumenthal, a writing fellow at the Nation Institute, said it was improper of Mr. Bronner to have a business relationship with Mr. Levine while covering stories that Lone Star promoted.

In The Columbia Journalism Review article, Mr. Blumenthal never explicitly accused Mr. Bronner of providing favorable coverage as a quid pro quo for receiving speaking engagements from Mr. Levine’s firm. He objected that Mr. Bronner “takes paid speaking engagements from a firm that also pitches him stories.” Elsewhere in the article, he wrote: “On the one hand, it might be hard to cover Israel without stumbling across Lone Star’s many clients. On the other, however, that might be a good reason not to have a business relationship with the firm.”

As I noted in my original post, everyone who writes gets pitched stories. I get pitched stories and I will bet that Ethan Bronner gets pitched more stories and better stories than I do. But the standard they are espousing is unrealistic. If Bronner is not going to talk to people who do reserve duty in the army, he can't talk to anyone under the age of 45 who isn't a draft dodger. The army is part of our society. How is Bronner supposed to cover it without taking stories from our reservists?

But to see just how much of a tempest in a teapot this is, look at the story that Blumenthal pitched to the Times.

Mr. Blumenthal’s article enumerated six cases in which Mr. Bronner had written about, or at least mentioned, Lone Star clients. Mr. Bronner walked me through those cases. Of the six, he said, only one involved an instance in which he had received a pitch from Lone Star and, on that basis, decided to write about it. The article concerned the Jewish National Fund and was about a fortified play area for children in the Israeli border town of Sderot.

In the rest of the cases except one, he said, he did not receive a pitch from Lone Star and was unaware that the story involved a Lone Star client. The exception involved Danny Danon, a conservative member of the Israeli Parliament. Mr. Bronner said he has covered Mr. Danon but the coverage decisions were influenced not by Lone Star but by the prominence of Mr. Danon, who is deputy speaker of Parliament and chairman of World Likud.

What a terrible thing - Bronner wrote a story about Sderot, which, except according to Abu Mazen and Co. is not even 'disputed territory.'

/sarc

The fact that the Columbia Journalism Review would publish Blumenthal's piece in the first place speaks volumes to the bereft state of American Journalism and of Bir Zeit on the Hudson.

As to the Times, we've known for a long time that their ethics are crooked.

Israel Matzav: The New York Times bows to political correctness

Israel Matzav: Hmmm....

Hmmm....

A report in Lebanon's Naharnet claims that Israeli commandos helped a Hezbullah minister to escape to Israel last month, implying that the man was an Israeli spy.

An Israeli commando force helped a top Hizbullah official escape to Israel a month ago, An Nahar said Sunday under the daily's 'Secrets of the Gods' tidbit but without saying that he is a member of the Shiite party.

“Abou Abed Ismail’s rank is similar to a Minister of Infrastructure in his party,” it said without mentioning Hizbullah. “The commando force helped him escape from Lebanon a month ago after meeting him at a border village.”

No other elaboration was made by the newspaper.

But on Friday, An Nahar quoted informed sources as saying that a man named Abou Abed Salim escaped to Israel a few days after Hizbullah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said in a speech in June that CIA members at the U.S. embassy had recruited at least two Hizbullah members and the group was investigating whether the intelligence agency or another foreign agency recruited a third.

The sources said the third person is Ismail.

Hmmm.


Israel Matzav: Hmmm....

Israel Matzav: Could Obama pull out of Presidential campaign?

Could Obama pull out of Presidential campaign?

Could Barack Hussein Obama become the first American President since 1968 not to run for reelection? Yes, says Democratic strategist Dick Morris.

As bad news piles up for the Democrats, I asked a top Democratic strategist if it were possible that President Obama might “pull a Lyndon Johnson” and soberly face the cameras, telling America that he has decided that the demands of partisan politics are interfering with his efforts to right our economy and that he has decided to withdraw to devote full time to our recovery. His answer: “Yes. It’s possible. If things continue as they are and have not turned around by January, it is certainly possible.”

Just looking at Michelle Obama’s unsmiling face during her husband’s recent speech to Congress triggered an insight: These folks aren’t having fun anymore.

...

Obama’s historic race to the top in 2008 was animated by huge margins and turnouts among four key groups: African-Americans, Hispanics, Jews and young voters. New polling data and the results of the Brooklyn-Queens Turner-Weprin elections suggest that his base is decaying, chunk by chunk.

· An analysis of the past three Fox News surveys indicates that Obama’s job approval rating among voters younger than 30 has declined to 44 percent. By combining the past three surveys, Fox News was able to accumulate data on 600 under-30 voters indicating a sharp decrease in the president’s approval from his former supporters.

· According to Gallup, Obama’s approval among Hispanics has also dropped to 44 percent. Aggregating data from recent polls, as Fox News did, Gallup concluded that the president’s ratings among Hispanics were not much higher than among the general electorate.

· The election of Republican Bob Turner in the single most Jewish district in America — one that had not gone Republican since the 1920s — shows the decay in Obama’s Jewish support. Alienated by his perceived anti-Israeli bias, Orthodox, Conservative and Reform Jews voted in massive numbers for Turner. Results in heavily Jewish areas reflected his desertion. But even such neighborhoods as Forest Hills, Queens, populated by Reform and Conservative Jews, showed the candidates running almost even.

Only the African-Americans remain of Obama’s 2008 coalition. Surveys show his approval among blacks at higher than 80 percent, indicating no diminution of his enthusiasm there.

Yet the entire campaign strategy of the Obama people is to move to the left, fanning class warfare, to elicit strong liberal support. Rather than compensating for his loss of liberals by reaching out to independents and traditional swing voters, he just doubles down on his appeal to the left, further alienating the middle.

But the kind of enthusiasm Obama kindled in 2008 cannot be ignited easily by negative appeals. Particularly if the Republicans nominate a more moderate candidate such as Mitt Romney, Obama will not be able to rely on partisan animosity to succeed where job approval has failed. And, given all that, he might not even run.

Hmmm.

Israel Matzav: Could Obama pull out of Presidential campaign?

Israel Matzav: John Mearsheimer comes out of the closet

John Mearsheimer comes out of the closet

John Mearsheimer, one of the co-authors of the notorious book The Israel Lobby, has come out of the closet and declared himself an anti-Semite. Jeffrey Goldberg is in shock.

Gilad Atzmon is a jazz saxophonist who lives in London and who has a side gig disseminating the wildest sort of anti-Semitic conspiracy theories. He is an ex-Israeli and a self-proclaimed "self-hater" who traffics in Holocaust denial and all sorts of grotesque, medieval anti-Jewish calumnies. Here is a small sample of his lunatic thoughts.

...

Atzmon also believes that the Jews persecuted Hitler:

...

He has also suggested that Jews specialize in the trafficking of body parts.

...

Atzmon is quite obviously a twisted and toxic hater. His antisemitism is so blatant that activists of the so-called BDS movement (boycott, divestment and sanctions), which seeks the elimination of Israel, refuse to have anything to do with him. But Atzmon still has at least one friend among anti-Israel activists: The R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago, and co-author of "The Israel Lobby," John J. Mearsheimer.

Rather unbelievably (or believably, depending on where you sit) Mearsheimer has written an endorsement of Atzmon's new book, "The Wandering Who?" Here is what Mearsheimer says about Atzmon:

Gilad Atzmon has written a fascinating and provocative book on Jewish identity in the modern world. He shows how assimilation and liberalism are making it incredibly difficult for Jews in the Diaspora to maintain a powerful sense of their 'Jewishness.' Panicked Jewish leaders, he argues, have turned to Zionism (blind loyalty to Israel) and scaremongering (the threat of another Holocaust) to keep the tribe united and distinct from the surrounding goyim. As Atzmon's own case demonstrates, this strategy is not working and is causing many Jews great anguish. The Wandering Who? Should be widely read by Jews and non-Jews alike.'

In this new book, Atzmon suggests, among other things, that scholars should reopen the question of medieval blood libels leveled against Jews-- accusations that Jews used the blood of Christian children to make matzo, and which provoked countless massacres of Jews in many different countries.

One of my contacts in England writes that Goldberg has given too much credit to the local BDS movement.

Although Goldberg points out that the BDS movement coldshoulders Atzmon because of his antisemitism, there are elements within the UK BDS movement that have failed to do so. The Reading Palestine Solidarity Campaign website in the UK regularly links to Atzmon's articles in its sidebar - there's one on there at this moment. That PSC group has a standing link to the Redress site, where Atzmon's articles often appear - Redress is notoriously antisemitic, yet the Reading PSC (and by extension the Aberystwyth PSC, which shares its webspace) blatantly pimps it.

Read the whole thing.


Israel Matzav: John Mearsheimer comes out of the closet

Israel Matzav: Bill Clinton reinvents history again

Bill Clinton reinvents history again

Former National Security Council member Elliott Abrams blasts former President Bill Clinton for reinventing history again (Hat Tip: Dan F).

As he did last year, Clinton once again offered his vulgar, pop sociology explanation of Israel: “you've had all these immigrants coming in from the former Soviet Union, and they have no history in Israel proper, so the traditional claims of the Palestinians have less weight with them. The most pro-peace Israelis are the Arabs; second the Sabras, the Jewish Israelis that were born there; third, the Ashkenazi of long-standing, the European Jews who came there around the time of Israel's founding. The most anti-peace are the ultra-religious, who believe they're supposed to keep Judea and Samaria, and the settler groups, and what you might call the territorialists, the people who just showed up lately and they're not encumbered by the historical record.”

Natan Sharansky, one of those Soviet immigrants “who just showed up lately” and who Clinton presumably thinks does not want peace, said in response: “I am particularly disappointed by the president's casual use of inappropriate stereotypes about Israelis, dividing their views on peace based on ethnic origins.” Presumably, if you disagree with Clinton over the necessary preconditions for peace, you are against peace entirely—and you need to be denounced. The implication that someone like Sharansky, because he is an immigrant from the USSR, is “not encumbered by the historical record” and is indifferent to Palestinian claims requires no refutation; Clinton should be ashamed of himself. Unlike Clinton, whose most frequent foreign visitor to the White House (13 times!) was Yasser Arafat, Sharansky has stressed the importance of human rights and democracy as a prerequisite for a Palestinian state. Clinton was apparently quite ready to allow Arafat to create a terrorist satrapy.

Clinton also spouts off about the 2002 “Arab Initiative,” saying, “The King of Saudi Arabia started lining up all the Arab countries to say to the Israelis, ‘if you work it out with the Palestinians ... we will give you immediately not only recognition but a political, economic, and security partnership.’ … This is huge.... It's a heck of a deal."

That “deal” was adopted at an Arab League summit attended by only 10 of the 22 Arab leaders of the day, and among those not in attendance were the king of Jordan, the president of Egypt, and Yasser Arafat—suggesting that support for this proposal may have been quite limited. Moreover, it was a take-it-or-leave-it offer, never proffered as a basis for negotiation. This “heck of a deal” required “Complete withdrawal from the occupied Arab territories, including the Syrian Golan Heights, to the 4 June 1967 line and the territories still occupied in southern Lebanon.” In other words, go back to the indefensible 1967 borders, give up every settlement bloc, and give up every square foot of Jerusalem, including the Western Wall. Not quite as “huge” an offer as President Clinton recalls.

“The two great tragedies in modern Middle Eastern politics, which make you wonder if God wants Middle East peace or not, were Rabin’s assassination and Sharon’s stroke,” Clinton said. I can think of some others: The fact that a terrorist and thief, Yasser Arafat, led the Palestinian people for decades; the fact that he turned down Israeli peace offers at Camp David; the fact that the Palestinians turned down Ehud Olmert’s even more generous peace offers in 2008; the fact that thousands of Israelis were wounded or killed in the first and second intifadas; the fact that no Palestinian leader has ever spoken with candor to the Palestinian people about the compromises they will need to make in any peace agreement; the fact that for the last two and half years the Palestinian leadership has adamantly refused to come to the negotiating table.

Read it all.

Israel Matzav: Bill Clinton reinvents history again

Israel Matzav: Erdogan gets his apology

Erdogan gets his apology

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan finally got his apology. But not from Israel. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon apologized for a violent assault on Erdogan by a UN security officer who attempted to keep the Turkish Prime Minister out of Abu Mazen's UN speech.

"I'm afraid there was an unfortunate incident," the Turkish prime minister was quoted as saying by Ankara's daily newspaper Sabah. Erdogan did not elaborate on the incident, saying only that he was kept out of the General Assembly Hall during Abbas' speech by security guards.

The Turkish media underscored the fact that Ban offered his personal apology to Erdogan for the incident because his assailant was a UN Guard officer.

Minister of Diplomacy and Diaspora Affairs Yuli Edelstein, who witnessed the attack, described it as a "very violent incident. Like a scene out of a movie."

Boo hoo. The Turkish Prime Minister was not hurt.

The rumor going around Manhattan on Friday was that someone tried to kill Erdogan. Not quite. But what a whiner.

Israel Matzav: Erdogan gets his apology

To Those Always Wrong About the Middle East and Who Never Lose A Gram of Arrogance or A Moment of Sleep Over the Tragedies They Create

To Those Always Wrong About the Middle East and Who Never Lose A Gram of Arrogance or A Moment of Sleep Over the Tragedies They Createhttp://rubinreports.blogspot.com/

By Barry Rubin

On the occasion of your supporting Palestinian unilateral independence despite the dangers this presents for Israel while simultaneously criticizing Israel for not giving massive concessions in exchange for nothing. On the occasion of the world groveling before Mahmoud Abbas, a ruler of a mere one million people who is in partnership with an explicity genocidal terrorist group, is dependent on Western hand-out, refuses to negotiate or compromise, and has cancelled elections at a time when democracy is supposedly the big thing in the Middle East.    

On the occasion of your ignoring the fact that Turkey is ruled by an Islamist party engaged in massive repression and the transformation of the country into a dictatorship, holding that regime up as a model for other Muslim-majority states as it arrests dissidents on a massive scale and keeps them under lock and key while threatening war with Israel.  The U.S. government chooses this regime as its co-director in the most important new international counter-terrorist initiative and as its manager of the political transition in Syria. 

On the occasion of your whitewashing revolutionary Islamism andglorifying anti-Western forces that will yield a harvest of bloodshed and misery in future.

And most of all on the occasion of your ridiculing, censoring, or ignoring far more accurate assessments of the situation.   

Here’s the record

 1970s

You were wrong about Iran’s revolution.

You were wrong about Saddam not invading Iran.

  1980s

You were wrong about Saddam becoming moderate and wrong about him invading Kuwait.

 1990s

You were wrong about the 1990s peace process (me, too, but I learned real fast in 2000).

You were wrong about the unilateral withdrawal from southern Lebanon.

You were wrong about the promise that you’d support Israel if it took risks for peace and then things got bad.

  Early 2000s

You were wrong about the rise of a stealth Islamist regime in Turkey.

You were wrong about Islamist terrorists attacking America (ridiculing the idea before September 11)

You were wrong about Iran’s nuclear program (during the initial years, you said it wasn’t happening when Israel was warning about it).

You were wrong about letting Hamas participate in the Palestinian election even though it didn’t qualify.

You were wrong in thinking Fatah would win the Palestinian election.

You were wrong in not supporting moderate force in Lebanon and strenuously opposing the power of the Iran-Syria-Hizballah alliance there.

You were wrong in encouraging or even participating in a massive campaign of slander against Israel.

You were wrong in encouraging or even participating in a massive campaign of slander against the United States.

  Obama Era

You were wrong about the Egyptian revolution.

You were wrong about Turkey (being Islamist).

You were wrong about Iran again (engagement).

You were wrong about Syria (being winnable from Iran).

You were wrong about Lebanon (not being taken over by Iran, Syria, Hizballah).

You were wrong about Obama (sorry, I only get 800 words total here).

You were wrong about Israel, (a country you never understand).

You were wrong about Islamism (understanding what it’s all about—revolution, not hurt feelings).

You were wrong about Pakistan (helping in a war against terrorism when it sponsors terrorism).

You were wrong about Obama’s policy in the Middle East making America popular there.

You were wrong about flattering Islamists into becoming moderate.

You were wrong about the whole settlement freeze mess (including the wrong claim that it would win moderate gestures from the Arab world).

You were wrong about throwing a tantrum regarding east Jerusalem construction which you’d already agreed was okay to continue.

You were wrong in not throwing a tantrum about the Turkish regime’s sponsoring terrorists on the Gaza flotilla, sabotaging sanctions on Iran, an creating a virtual state of war with Israel.

You were wrong in opening the door to the Taliban in Afghan politics.

You were wrong in opening the door to the Muslim Brotherhood in Egyptian politics (saying the United States had no objection to its being in government without anyone even askin).

You were wrong about moving away from Israel making Arabs and Muslims more moderate and pro-American.

You were wrong to waste almost a year by not dealing with the Palestinian unilateral declaration of independence strategy.

You were wrong in sabotaging any possibility of America becoming more energy independence.

You were wrong in not pressuring the Palestinian Authority to negotiate seriously with Israel.

You were wrong in not giving Israel strong support when it has faced broken agreements, a massive terrorist onslaught, and the rejection of peace in response to its concessions.

 That’s just a partial list.

And now you want Israel to risk its future existence on the basis of your advice, leaving aside also the fact that you’ve never confessed error, rethought the basis of these mistakes, and then formed an alternative policy and worldview?

You dare to suggest that you know better the interests of Israel and how it will survive than its people, voters, and leaders?  And yet you are ignorant about Israel itself, its experiences in the last two decades, and the situation it faces! 

 Then your smug media, your arrogant false experts, call us dummies and ridicule our arguments—acts and arguments you don’t dare to confront directly in serious debate? We’re supposed to be impressed? Persuaded? Ashamed? Americans in general and Jews in particular are supposed to ignore the people who have actually lived the experience, know the facts, fought the wars, and taken the risks?

And besides, what about the people  of Turkey, Lebanon, Syria, and Iran who are horrified by their current governments yet who can expect no real help or understanding from you.  How about Saudi Arabia and Jordan, whose strategic plight you ignore. How about the people of Egypt and very possibly Libya and Tunisia who may be facing a tidal wave of repression, economic disaster, and shattered hopes partly due to your mistakes?

The answer is, “No, thanks.”

 All I can add is, Take it away, Bob Dylan:

 “I just want you to know
I can see through your masks….
You play with my world
Like it’s your little toy….
Then you set back and watch
When the death count gets higher….”

–Bob Dylan, “Masters of War”