Proclaiming Zionism

Perusing my local bookstore, I found the shelves replete with anti-Israel books. Besides trashing Israel and its supporters, the basic idea of these books was that the concept of a Jewish state is illegitimate and that Zionism has no place in the modern world. Some even had the chutzpah to suggest that a Jewish state is against Jewish values!

Sadly, it is becoming increasingly commonplace among pseudo-intellectuals and supposedly liberal thinkers to question to right of the State of Israel to exist. Consider the recent conference at Toronto's York University, "Israel/Palestine: Mapping Models of Statehood and Paths to Peace", which, packed with anti-Israel speakers, based itself on the premise that Israel must be dismantled as a Jewish state and reconstituted as a bi-national one. In university campuses across the United States, Israel's Jewish character is constantly debated, condemned and defamed, returning us to the infamous 'Zionism = Racism' UN resolution.

Israel is the only country that 61 years after its founding, has its rights right to exist questioned. Similarly, Jews are the only people whose right to statehood and sovereignty is a matter for debate. The incredible irony is that of all the countries in the Western world, Israel is the only one that has the same people living in the same territory, speaking the same language, practicing the same faith, as it did 3000 years ago. No other country can boast anything similar. Long before Spain was Spanish and while Rome was still a collection of villages along the Tiber, Israel was Jewish and Jerusalem its capital and spiritual center. Jewish statehood and self-rule in the Land of Israel is completely natural, something that cannot be said about the other countries in the region. The modern map of the Middle-East was carved up by British and French imperialists after WWI, creating artificial countries such as Jordan (originally 'Transjordan'), Saudi Arabia, or Iraq. No Jordanian people appears in the annals of human history, having been invented when the British first carved up the Land of Israel in 1921. Iraq is simply the result of the British combining three distinct Ottoman provinces and forcing three separate ethnic and religious groups into an unwanted union.

Rather than combatting this dangerous historical revisionism, the Israeli government pursues policies that encourage, validate and exacerbate these beliefs. By dismantling outposts and evicting Jewish families from their hilltop homes in Judea and Samaria, the Israeli government sends the message that Jews are merely interlopers, with no real reason to be in Israel. As a result of Arab and Iranian propaganda, reinforced by President Obama's naivete, millions of Arabs and Muslims believe Israel to simply be the result of European guilt over the Holocaust and that it was simply luck that had the Jews set up a state in Israel rather than Uganda of Upstate New York. The Israeli government is unfortunately too blind to see that the key to peace is more, not less, Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria, and a recommitment to a Jewish presence there. This would force the Arab rejection of Jewish historical rights and peoplehood, which is the heart of the conflict, to end.

Our right to Maoz Esther and Alon Shvut is the exact same as our right to Tel-Aviv and Jerusalem. It is time for Israel's leaders to realize that in the eyes of even the "moderate" Arabs, both are illegitimate and that the only proper place for Israel in the Middle-East is in the sea. To combat the anti-Zionist zeitgeist sweeping the United States and Europe, Israel must unequivocally assert that the Land of Israel belongs exclusively to the Jewish people, by right of history, politics, conquest and divine bequeathal. Israel has no need to be ashamed of its Jewish characters. In a world of 22 Arab states, 57 Islamic states and several that define themselves as "Islamic republics", it is the height of hypocrisy to claim that a Jewish state is somehow racist. The charges of racism and apartheid have no grounding in fact but are a tool of Leftist and Islamic propaganda to defame and demonize Israel.

Israel is the nation-state of the Jewish people. There is no reason for its existence except as the homeland of the Jewish people. Zionism is the natural expression of two thousand years of Jewish longing to return home, to rebuild their country from which they were forcibly removed by Roman centurions and legionnaires. Israel has no need to apologize for this but must stand firm and proud at its incredible accomplishments. The point of Zionism was never really to end anti-Semitism but to be able to tell anti-Semites to bugger off. Israel must tune out the voices of hate and condemnation that echo from the farce that is the UN, from the despots and tyrants of the Islamic and Third-Worlds, from the Loony Left and Extreme Right. The Jewish people have come home, and nothing will change that.

Renewing the Dream

Once upon a time, an edifice stood in Jerusalem connecting heaven and Earth. The Temple was the symbol of G-d's presence on Earth, a place where the divine was tangible.

Our Sages relate that 10 miracles happened daily in the Temple, an obvious manifestation of G-d's dwelling among His people. 3 times a year, the entire nation would make pilgrimage to the Temple, to clearly see and feel the G-d of Israel, to learn His Torah and to better live by His laws.

Today is Rosh Chodesh Av, the beginning of an intense 9 days of mourning, marking the end of the 3 weeks since the 17th of Tammuz, culminating in Tisha B'Av, when we grieve the loss of our Temple. On the 9th of Av, G-d moved out of His house, and in a certain sense, left His people. While we are told that G-d's Shechina accompanied Israel into exile, we are now subject to hester panim, divine concealment, the result being millenia of persecution and oppression, pogroms and Holocausts. The pain and torture in exile all stem from this hester panim. All of the subsequent travails that have befallen Israel all have their root in the destruction of the Temple. Today's sufferings, the rioting and discord in Jerusalem, the international coalition to uproot and expel Jews from their homes, are all because G-d is hiding His face.

The dream of a rebuilt Temple gave Israel the strength to survive and persevere despite the most horrendous of circumstances, the most difficult of exile. It was this vision that allowed the Jew to withstand the crushing humiliation of the ghettos, juderias and mellah, the awful poverty and deprivation, the lowliness of exile, the various decrees and restrictions imposed on him, his home, his family, his livelihood and the numerous physical attacks. It was this dream that allowed the Jew to return to his land, to rebuild his desolate cities and to make the desert bloom. The dream of a rebuilt Temple gave him the strength the reestablish his homeland, to fight enemies far more numerous and powerful than him. It is the dream that still propels him to settle and build, to fight and survive. The majestic dream of G-d's House on Earth, of His dwelling-place among the multitudes of Israel, fights for the Jew in battle, goes along with him to every hill and valley that he rebuilds, to every school, hospital, synagogue and home that he establishes.

Today, the world bands against the nation plucked from the fires of Europe and conspires to evict him from his rightful home. In the midst of this, there are many among the nation of Israel who have forgotten the dream. There are those for whom the Temple is just that, only a dream that belongs to the past. Their hearts have grown cold to the searing pain of being separated from our Father in Heaven, have become numbed to the yearning and longing to see the Temple standing once again in Jerusalem, the heart of Israel and the world. It is time to wake up from our slumber and realize that no matter how many communities we build, how big and grand Jerusalem is, how powerful our state is, everything is incomplete without the Temple. Every single problem facing Israel today has its origin in the fact that G-d is not clearly among us, that man cannot see the diving plan or presence.

May we awaken in our hearts a true longing for G-d's Throne to be reestablished on Earth. We must demand of HaShem "enough! Enough concealment, enough pain, enough exile and hardship! Show yourself!. May Tisha B'Av be transformed from a day of sadness and mourning to one of joy, comfort and salvation. May it be HaShem's will that the Beit HaMikdash be rebuilt speedily in our days, and may we have a portion in His Torah, and may the offerings of Judah and Jerusalem be pleasing to HaShem as in days of old, as in former years.

On a brief hiatus... will post irregularly.

One Land for One People

At Bar-Ilan, Binyamin Netanyahu laid the foundations for a Palestinian state. Along with that, he unwittingly nullified the Jewish State. Netanyahu outlined his vision for the Middle East: "In my vision of peace, there are two free peoples living side by side in this small land, with good neighborly relations and mutual respect, each with its flag, anthem and government, with neither one threatening its neighbor's security and existence."

Netanyahu's speech detailed the deep Jewish connection to the Land of Israel and attempted to correct many of the fallacies and inaccuracies contained in Obama's Cairo address. To thunderous applause, Netanyahu proclaimed that "the connection of the Jewish People to the Land has been in existence for more than 3,500 years. Judea and Samaria, the places where our forefathers Abraham, Isaac and Jacob walked, our forefathers David, Solomon, Isaiah and Jeremiah, this is not a foreign land, this is the Land of our Forefathers... The right to establish our sovereign state here, in the Land of Israel, arises from one simple fact: Eretz Israel is the birthplace of the Jewish People." Yet for all the powerful and refreshing Zionist rhetoric, Netanyahu undermined all of this with his call for a Palestinian state east of the Jordan.

The very existence of a "Palestinian" people negates the basis of Zionism. The age-old Jewish dream of being a free people in its own land stands in stark contradiction to the claims of the "Palestinians". Either Israel belongs to the Jewish people or Palestine belongs to the Arabs. If the land is the historical birthplace of the Jewish people, promised to us by G-d and redeemed and rebuilt in recent generations through Jewish blood, sweat and tears, then no other people has a claim of ownership. On the other hand, if "Palestine" exists, then the Jews are invaders and usurpers, colonizing a foreign land which they have no right to. There can be no two sides in this conflict: either there is an Israel, or there is a "Palestine:".

From its very inception, Zionist leaders understood this. Only 30 years ago, Golda Meir argued that "there is no such thing as a Palestinian!" One of the early Zionist slogans was that Israel was "a land without people for a people without a land". Of course during the long two-thousand year exile when the majority of the Jewish people were prevented from returning home did foreigners come and settled in the land- but only as individuals, and never as a people. At no point before 1967 did the Arabs living in Israel consider themselves part of any people other than the greater Arab nation, and certainly not as a distinct "Palestinian" entity. Never was there an independent "Palestinian" state, nor was there ever a struggle or a demand for one, until Israel liberated Judea and Samaria. When Egypt and Jordan occupied Gaza, Judea and Samaria illegally for 19 years, there was no movement by the Arabs in these areas for a "Palestinian" state. In short, the concept of a "Palestinian" people is crock, a fallacy and a fraud, product of historical revisionism designed to demonize and delegitimize the Jewish state. By accepting, at least partially, the validity of "Palestinians", Netanyahu has unknowingly rocked the foundations of Israel.

Despite the majority of the Jews being carried off by the Romans, never did we relinquish our right or title to the Land of Israel. Jews maintained a constant presence in Israel since biblical times and in each subsequent generation, they sought to re-establish themselves there. No other people ever took roots or built a state in the land, and no other nation ever called out longingly and with intense yearning for two millenia, for her, saying "Next year in Jerusalem!".

The borders outlined for a "two-state solution" are purely artificial borders, created arbitrarily. Judea and Samaria have no special significance to the Arabs, yet it is the land where Abraham, Isaac and Jacob roamed, where David fought and conquered, and where Isaiah and Jeremiah prophesied. An Israel cut off from its biblical roots has absolutely no justification to exist. Without these lands, Israel will be a body, but devoid of a heart or a soul. The Arabs have been blessed with 22 states and vast wealth- let them create a 23 state for the "Palestinians" there. Jordan was originally part of the "Mandate for Palestine", and has a majority of "Palestinians". Therefore, it is fitting for "Palestine" to be created in Jordan, yet there is no justification for the Jewish people to surrender their homeland to create a country for a foreign nation of squatters.

"No Jew has the right to yield the rights of the Jewish People in Israel. No Jew has the authority to do so. No Jewish body has the authority to do so. Not even the entire Jewish People alive today has the right to yield any part of Israel.

It is the right of the Jewish people over generations, a right that under no conditions, can be cancelled. Even if Jews during a specific period proclaim they are relinquishing that right, they have neither the power nor the authority to deny it to future generations. No concession of this type is binding or obligates the Jewish People. Our right to the country - the entire country - exists as an eternal right and we shall not yield this historic right until its full and complete Redemption is realized."

It was Israel's first Prime Minister, David Ben-Gurion, who said this, because he understood that every single concession and territorial withdrawal meant that another nation had a claim on the Land of Israel. A "Palestinian" people negates and contradicts the Zionist dream, because it implies that some other nation established itself in the land of Israel. Only by virtue of our historical ties and divine promise can Israel exist, and if this is the case, there is no room for a foreign national movement in the Land of Israel. Either the Land is the eternal inheritance of the Nation of Israel, or it belongs to the Arabs, and specifically to the "Palestinians". Event as late as 2002, Netanyahu, speaking before the Likud Central Committee, recognized this. "Ultimately, the historical accounts are clear: Yes to a Palestinian state means no to a Jewish one. And yes to a Jewish state means no to a Palestinian one." Indeed, Mr. Netanyahu, indeed.

Our Claim to Our Land

In a few short lines, Barack Hussein Obama did more to delegitimize Israel than all previous US previous in 62 years. In his speech, he effectively accepted the Arab Islamic narrative of Middle-Eastern history and painted Israel's existence as a Holocaust consolation prize.

He said: "America's strong bonds with Israel are well known. This bond is unbreakable. It is based upon cultural and historical ties, and the recognition that the aspiration for a Jewish homeland is rooted in a tragic history that cannot be denied. Around the world, the Jewish people were persecuted for centuries, and antisemitism in Europe culminated in an unprecedented Holocaust... Six million Jews were killed - more than the entire Jewish population of Israel today. Denying that fact is baseless, ignorant, and hateful." With these few sentences, Obama said that Israel's right to exist is based on anti-semitism and the Holocaust.

According to the anti-Zionist narrative, Israel is a colonialist state that has no place in the Middle-East. Following WWII, European powers, ridden with guilt over the Holocaust, allowed the Jewish people to set up a state in Israel, a land that the Europeans never had the right to give away. Based on this belief, we can see why Holocaust denial is an essential feature of Islamic anti-Israel discourse. If the Holocaust never happened in the first place, then surely Israel has absolutely no right to exist. Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad expresses this point well: "The West claims that more than six million Jews were killed in World War II and to compensate for that they established and support Israel. If it is true that the Jews were killed in Europe, why should Israel be established in the East, in Palestine?" "Moderate" Fatah leader, Mahmoud Abbas, wrote his Ph.D. thesis denying the Holocaust.

Only an ignoramus could claim that Jews are interlopers and settlers in Israel. Archaeology proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that the Jews are the indigenous people of the Land of Israel, maintaining a presence in the land from biblical times until today. The first Jewish commonwealth existed from 1200 BCE until the 6th century BCE, this period of Jewish independence lasting longer than the United States, Canada or any modern country has been in existence. After a brief hiatus of 70 years in Babylonian exile, Jews returned in large numbers to the land and following the Maccabee revolt in the 4th century, the Jews in Israel enjoyed another 100 year period of unbroken sovereignty. During all of these centuries, Jerusalem lay at the heart of the Jewish nation and served as its political, religious, spiritual and cultural center. Long before France was French or Britain was British, when Rome was still a collection of villages on the Tiber and the Greek barely began philosophizing, Israel was already firmly Jewish and Jerusalem its capital.

Although forcible exiled in 70 CE by the Romans, the Jews never forfeited their claims to the land. Although the Romans renamed the land "Palestinae" by the name of another invading tribe, the Philistines, in an attempt to sever the Jewish connection to the land, the Jew never stopped longing and praying for Zion. In his heart, he knew that the land was Israel, and that "Palestinae" was a fraud, never existed. Three times a day for 2000 years, from the four corners of the Earth, Jews turned towards Jerusalem and prayed, "May our eyes behold Your return to Zion in mercy" and "Return to Jerusalem Your city, as You have promised, and build it speedily in our days." After every single meal, Jews in Morocco and Poland, Persia and Russia, Spain and India concluded by thanking G-d " that You have bestowed on our forefathers the inheritance of the precious, good, and spacious land" and asking Him to "rebuild Jerusalem, the Holy City, speedily in our days." At every Jewish wedding, the groom would break a glass in remembrance of the destruction of the Temple and vow "If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, may my right hand lose its cunning." At the conclusion of every single seder all over the world, Jews declare with firm hope and faith "Next year in Jerusalem!" The Jew never forgot the dream of Zion, the beacon calling him home to his land.

In each successive generation, Jews strove to re-establish themselves in their ancient homeland. Writing in the 11th century, rabbi Yehuda Halevi wrote: "My heart is in the East, and I am at the ends of the West; How can I taste what I eat and how could it be pleasing to me? How shall I render my vows and my bonds, while yet Zion lies beneath the fetter of Edom, and I am in the chains of Arabia? It would be easy for me to leave all the bounty of Spain --As it is precious for me to behold the dust of the desolate sanctuary." The famed commentator, the Ramban, Nachmanides, re-established the Jerusalem Jewish community and the great sages, the Vilna Gaon and the Baal Shem Tov, sent their disciples to settle the land. In the 18th century, thousands of Eastern European Jews began to settle the land and the active return to Zion began.

To suggest that Israel is some sort of Holocaust consolation is not only obscene but anachronistic because the Balfour Declaration and the League of Nations in the 1920s recognized the Jewish claim to the Land of Israel and declared that Jewish settlements "are there as of right, and not sufferance". The State of Israel draws its legitimacy not from the ashes of dead Jews but rather from the Torah, from the deep and ancient Jewish connection to Israel. The modern State of Israel is but a continuation of the previous Jewish commonwealths, with a mere two thousand year gap in between. No other nation or people has any claim on the land of Israel, nor was there ever any other sovereign state, beside the Jewish ones, in the land. Israel exists by historic connection, by divine right, by the blood and sweat of Jews who built and toiled, defended and fought for this land.

A new president arose over the United States who did not know Joseph. The President said, "Who is G-d that I should listen to His voice and leave Israel alone? I do not know of G-d, nor will I leave Israel alone!" However, G-d has a different plan in mind. "Behold days are coming, says the Lord, that the plowman shall meet the reaper and the treader of the grapes the one who carries the seed, and the mountains shall drip sweet wine, and all the hills shall melt. And I will return the captivity of My people Israel, and they shall rebuild desolate cities and inhabit [them], and they shall plant vineyards and drink their wine, and they shall make gardens and eat their produce. And I will plant them on their land, and they shall no longer be uprooted from upon their land, that I have given them, said the Lord your God." (Amos 9:13-15)

The Cairo Obamination

Before the eyes of billions of people worldwide, the leader of the free world munched happily on Mohammedan tuches. In what is without a doubt the largest example of appeasement before terror and fascism since Chamberlain, Obama brought his message of love, peace and reconciliation to the Islamic world, in Cairo. Crying "peace, peace in our time", he repeated ad nauseum myths and revisionist history about "civilization's debt to Islam", his hope for peace between "all the children of Abraham", and apologized for America upsetting the Islamic world. This speech is extremely significant in light of the declaration of jihad against the United States and the Western world, since the victim of aggression cannot even recognize that he is at war. Here are parts of Hussein Obama's speech, with my comments interspersed.

I am honored to be in the timeless city of Cairo, and to be hosted by two remarkable institutions. For over a thousand years, al-Azhar has stood as a beacon of Islamic learning, and for over a century, Cairo University has been a source of Egypt's advancement.

Such higher learning is manifested in Al-Azhar's Grand Sheikh's approval of suicide bombings on Islamic grounds.

Together, you represent the harmony between tradition and progress. I am grateful for your hospitality, and the hospitality of the people of Egypt. I am also proud to carry with me the goodwill of the American people, and a greeting of peace from Muslim communities in my country: assalaamu alaykum.

We meet at a time of tension between the United States and Muslims around the world - tension rooted in historical forces that go beyond any current policy debate. The relationship between Islam and the west includes centuries of co-existence and co-operation, but also conflict and religious wars. More recently, tension has been fed by colonialism that denied rights and opportunities to many Muslims, and a cold war in which Muslim-majority countries were too often treated as proxies without regard to their own aspirations. Moreover, the sweeping change brought by modernity and globalization led many Muslims to view the west as hostile to the traditions of Islam.

Of course, the United States is to blame for the conflict. No mention of Islamic supremacist doctrine, of the teachings of violent jihad. There is no mention of the Qur'an injunction to "fight them until idolatry is no more, and religion is for Allah" (Q 2:193), or of Muhammad's deathbed last words that he "was commanded to fight until all men testify that there is no god but Allah". According to Obama, the West is guilty of antagonizing Islam, despite the fact that since its founding in the 7th century, Islam has never stopped aggressively expanding and conquering non-Muslim land. He ignores the traditional Islamic division of the world between Dar al-Islam, the House of Islam, and Dar al-Harb, the House of War.

Violent extremists have exploited these tensions in a small but potent minority of Muslims. The attacks of September 11 2001 and the continued efforts of these extremists to engage in violence against civilians has led some in my country to view Islam as inevitably hostile not only to America and western countries, but also to human rights. This has bred more fear and mistrust.

Again, Obama repeats the myth that the vast majority of Muslims reject terror, even though there is no basis for this claim. A 2007 CBC poll found that 12% of Canadian Muslims approved of suicide bombings and a foiled plot to behead the Canadian PM. 13% of American Muslims support suicide bombings and 40% do not believe that 9/11 was carried out by Muslims. 5% if U.S. Muslims support Al Qaeda specifically, although fully 25% refused to answer the question. 10% of British Muslims pro-actively support terror, while 20% sympathize while stopping short of actually blowing themselves up. 57% of Jordianians and 40% of Moroccans ("moderate" countries) condone or support suicide bombings. In addition to this, no mainstream major American, Canadian or European Muslim organization has unequivocally condemned or rejected the Islamic doctrine of jihad and repudiated the objective of replacing the secular constitution of Western states with Islamic sharia law.

So long as our relationship is defined by our differences, we will empower those who sow hatred rather than peace, and who promote conflict rather than the co-operation that can help all of our people achieve justice and prosperity. This cycle of suspicion and discord must end.

I have come here to seek a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world; one based upon mutual interest and mutual respect; and one based upon the truth that America and Islam are not exclusive, and need not be in competition. Instead, they overlap, and share common principles - principles of justice and progress; tolerance and the dignity of all human beings.

Does this include a rejection of the laws of dhimmitude, under which non-Muslims are second-class citizens, discriminated against and forced to conform to humiliating laws? Or that women are subservient and inferior to men (Q 4:34)? That "non-believers are the vilest of all creatures" (Q 8:51)? More likely, the "new beginning" that Obama would like to inaugurate will be one of American appeasement and apology, concession and retreat.

I do so recognizing that change cannot happen overnight. No single speech can eradicate years of mistrust, nor can I answer in the time that I have all the complex questions that brought us to this point. But I am convinced that in order to move forward, we must say openly the things we hold in our hearts, and that too often are said only behind closed doors. There must be a sustained effort to listen to each other; to learn from each other; to respect one another; and to seek common ground. As the Holy Koran tells us: "Be conscious of God and speak always the truth." That is what I will try to do - to speak the truth as best I can, humbled by the task before us, and firm in my belief that the interests we share as human beings are far more powerful than the forces that drive us apart.

Part of this conviction is rooted in my own experience. I am a Christian, but my father came from a Kenyan family that includes generations of Muslims. As a boy, I spent several years in Indonesia and heard the call of the azaan [the Muslim call to prayer] at the break of dawn and the fall of dusk. As a young man, I worked in Chicago communities where many found dignity and peace in their Muslim faith.

As a student of history, I also know civilization's debt to Islam. It was Islam - at places like al-Azhar University - that carried the light of learning through so many centuries, paving the way for Europe's Renaissance and Enlightenment. It was innovation in Muslim communities that developed the order of algebra; our magnetic compass and tools of navigation; our mastery of pens and printing; our understanding of how disease spreads and how it can be healed. Islamic culture has given us majestic arches and soaring spires; timeless poetry and cherished music; elegant calligraphy and places of peaceful contemplation. And throughout history, Islam has demonstrated through words and deeds the possibilities of religious tolerance and racial equality.

The idea that Islamic culture was once a beacon of learning and enlightenment is a commonly held myth. In fact, much of this has been exaggerated, often for quite transparent apologetic motives. The astrolabe was developed, if not perfected, long before Muhammad was born. The zero, which is often attributed to Muslims, and what we know today as “Arabic numerals” did not originate in Arabia, but in pre-Islamic India. Aristotle’s work was preserved in Arabic not initially by Muslims at all, but by Christians such as the fifth century priest Probus of Antioch, who introduced Aristotle to the Arabic-speaking world. Another Christian, Huneyn ibn-Ishaq (809-873), translated many works by Aristotle, Galen, Plato and Hippocrates into Syriac. His son then translated them into Arabic. The Syrian Christian Yahya ibn ‘Adi (893-974) also translated works of philosophy into Arabic, and wrote one of his own, The Reformation of Morals. His student, another Christian named Abu ‘Ali ‘Isa ibn Zur’a (943-1008), also translated Aristotle and others from Syriac into Arabic. The first Arabic-language medical treatise was written by a Christian priest and translated into Arabic by a Jewish doctor in 683. The first hospital was founded in Baghdad during the Abbasid caliphate -- not by a Muslim, but a Nestorian Christian. A pioneering medical school was founded at Gundeshapur in Persia — by Assyrian Christians.

In sum, there was a time when it was indeed true that Islamic culture was more advanced than that of Europeans, but that superiority corresponds exactly to the period when Muslims were able to draw on and advance the achievements of Byzantine and other civilizations. But when the Muslim overlords had taken what they could from their subject peoples, and the Jewish and Christian communities had been stripped of their material and intellectual wealth and thoroughly subdued, Islam went into a period of intellectual decline from which it has not yet recovered. (From Jihad Watch)

Islam's history of racism is shocking. Today, the Arab trade of black slaves continues in Niger, Sudan and Mauritania. But, perhaps the most conspicuous example of overt racism in Islam is the genocide in present-day Sudan by the Arab-Islamic government and the refusal of Muslim organizations around the world to condemn it. Over two million black Africans have died from Arab aggression in the Christian south. And 200,000 more were killed by Arab militias over the last four years in Darfur. The Arabs are known for rampaging through villages and hacking black Africans to death in the name of Jihad while screaming things like, "Kill the slaves!"

I know, too, that Islam has always been a part of America's story. The first nation to recognize my country was Morocco. In signing the Treaty of Tripoli in 1796, our second President John Adams wrote: "The United States has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion or tranquility of Muslims." And since our founding, American Muslims have enriched the United States. They have fought in our wars, served in government, stood for civil rights, started businesses, taught at our universities, excelled in our sports arenas, won Nobel prizes, built our tallest building, and lit the Olympic torch. And when the first Muslim-American was recently elected to Congress, he took the oath to defend our constitution using the same Holy Koran that one of our founding fathers - Thomas Jefferson - kept in his personal library.

So I have known Islam on three continents before coming to the region where it was first revealed. That experience guides my conviction that partnership between America and Islam must be based on what Islam is, not what it isn't. And I consider it part of my responsibility as president of the United States to fight against negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appear.

Which wars have Muslims fought in (on the side of the United States)? "Won Nobel prizes" --- he should say "won A Nobel prize" (Ahmed Zewail is the only U.S.-based Muslim to have won a Nobel prize). Islam's largest contribution to American history is the smoking crater at Ground Zero in New York City.

Why is it the POTUS's responsibility to fight against negative stereotypes of Islam? What about negative stereotypes of Jews, or Christians, or Buddhists, or Hindus, or Shintos, or Californians, or vegetarians, or blue-eyed people, or redheads, etc.?

[...]

So let there be no doubt: Islam is a part of America. And I believe that America holds within her the truth that regardless of race, religion, or station in life, all of us share common aspirations - to live in peace and security; to get an education and to work with dignity; to love our families, our communities, and our God. These things we share. This is the hope of all humanity.

Unfortunately, Americans tend to project their values on others. In the words of Mr Inyadullah, one of Pakistan's largest Islamic fundamentalist groups, "Americans love Pepsi, we love death". Or to quote Osama bin Laden: “We love death. The US loves life. That is the difference between us two.” Islamic culture simply does not place the same value on life as Western culture does. One need simply think of Palestinian mothers sending their children out to suicide missions and then dancing, rejoicing and giving out candy when they hear that they have successfully blown up and murdered Jews in a Tel-Aviv cafe. This is a culture that wallows in death and hatred.

Of course, recognizing our common humanity is only the beginning of our task. Words alone cannot meet the needs of our people. These needs will be met only if we act boldly in the years ahead; and if we understand that the challenges we face are shared, and our failure to meet them will hurt us all.

For we have learned from recent experience that when a financial system weakens in one country, prosperity is hurt everywhere. When a new flu infects one human being, all are at risk. When one nation pursues a nuclear weapon, the risk of nuclear attack rises for all nations. When violent extremists operate in one stretch of mountains, people are endangered across an ocean. And when innocents in Bosnia and Darfur are slaughtered, that is a stain on our collective conscience. That is what it means to share this world in the 21st century. That is the responsibility we have to one another as human beings.

Yet no peep is heard about the genocide of hundreds of thousands in Darfur. If one fraction of the indignation and condemnation that was heaped on Israel when it had the gaul of defending itself from rocket attacks had been directed towards Khartoum, so many hundreds of thousands would not be dead.

[...]

The first issue that we have to confront is violent extremism in all of its forms.

Like Episcopalian extremism? Those nutty Quakers? Fundamentalist Seventh Day Adventists? Maybe he's talking about those Voodoist fascists? Radical Hindus? Or maybe Islam, the only religion that has carried out over 13 000 violent attacks since 9/11?

In Ankara, I made clear that America is not - and never will be - at war with Islam. We will, however, relentlessly confront violent extremists who pose a grave threat to our security. Because we reject the same thing that people of all faiths reject: the killing of innocent men, women, and children. And it is my first duty as president to protect the American people.

Islam condemns the killing of innocent civilians. Yet out definition and the Islamic definition of innocent may be quite different.

[...]

The second major source of tension that we need to discuss is the situation between Israelis, Palestinians and the Arab world.

America's strong bonds with Israel are well known. This bond is unbreakable. It is based upon cultural and historical ties, and the recognition that the aspiration for a Jewish homeland is rooted in a tragic history that cannot be denied.

Wrong! The aspiration for a Jewish homeland is rooted in the hundreds of years of Jewish sovereignty in Israel and in the thousands of years of an unbroken Jewish presence there. Israel does not derive its legitimacy from the ashes of murdered Jews, but rather from the Bible, from the historical fact that the Land of Israel belongs to the Jewish people, a fact which was recognized by the League of Nations in the 1920s, and then again by the United Nations, and is enshrined under international law.

Around the world, the Jewish people were persecuted for centuries, and antisemitism in Europe culminated in an unprecedented Holocaust. Tomorrow, I will visit Buchenwald, which was part of a network of camps where Jews were enslaved, tortured, shot and gassed to death by the Third Reich. Six million Jews were killed - more than the entire Jewish population of Israel today. Denying that fact is baseless, ignorant, and hateful. Threatening Israel with destruction - or repeating vile stereotypes about Jews - is deeply wrong, and only serves to evoke in the minds of Israelis this most painful of memories while preventing the peace that the people of this region deserve.

Obama apparently loves dead Jews much more than live ones. He has no qualms with forcing Israel back to the indefensible pre-67 "Auschwitz borders" and bringing every single major Israeli city within "Palestinian" rocket range.

On the other hand, it is also undeniable that the Palestinian people - Muslims and Christians - have suffered in pursuit of a homeland. For more than 60 years they have endured the pain of dislocation. Many wait in refugee camps in the West Bank, Gaza, and neighboring lands for a life of peace and security that they have never been able to lead. They endure the daily humiliations - large and small - that come with occupation. So let there be no doubt: the situation for the Palestinian people is intolerable. America will not turn our backs on the legitimate Palestinian aspiration for dignity, opportunity, and a state of their own.

The incredible chutzpah of implicitly drawing a comparison between Jewish suffering during the Holocaust and "Palestinian" self-inflicted suffering. The "Palestinians" are architects of their own demise. ("Palestinians" have not suffered for 60 years- since there haven't even been a "Palestinian people" for 60 years! The term "Palestinian" only began being used to refer to the Arabs of Israel after Israel liberated Judea, Samaria and Gaza in 1967.) If millions of Arabs would not have fled Israel at the behest of invading Arab armies in 1948, there would be no refugees. Before the founding of the State of Israel, close to a million Jews lived in Arab lands. They were expelled, losing billions of dollars of property, leaving behind homes in which they had lived for centuries or millenia. Israel did not allow them to languish in camps but took them in and integrated them. Somehow, the Islamic world, which stretches from Indonesia to Morocco and is rolling in petro-dollars, could not find place to settle a couple hundred thousand Arab refugees. Rather, they kept them in camps to be used as pawns against Israel, to flood the Jewish state and to destroy it demographically. THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A 60 YEAR OLD REFUGEE!!

For decades, there has been a stalemate: two peoples with legitimate aspirations, each with a painful history that makes compromise elusive. It is easy to point fingers - for Palestinians to point to the displacement brought by Israel's founding and for Israelis to point to the constant hostility and attacks throughout its history from within its borders as well as beyond. But if we see this conflict only from one side or the other, then we will be blind to the truth: the only resolution is for the aspirations of both sides to be met through two states, where Israelis and Palestinians each live in peace and security.

Arab rejectionism goes too deep. Both the "moderate" Fatah and Hamas have the elimination of Israel as its goals, as enshrined in their respective charters. The Arab goal has never been a "Palestinian" state but rather the destruction of the Jewish one. If that was the case, why didn't the "Palestinians" declare independence when Judea, Samaria and Gaza were under Jordanian and Egyptian control before 1967? Why did the Arabs reject the UN partition plan in 1947? Why did Yasser Arafat walk away from Ehud Barak's offer of a PA state in close to 99% of Judea, Samaria and Gaza, with a capital in East Jerusalem? Why didn't Abbas accept control of half of Jerusalem, when Ehud Olmert claimed to have offered him "even more than Barak ever did"?

That is in Israel's interest, Palestine's interest, America's interest, and the world's interest. That is why I intend to personally pursue this outcome with all the patience that the task requires. The obligations that the parties have agreed to under the road map are clear. For peace to come, it is time for them - and all of us - to live up to our responsibilities.

It is hardly in Israel's interests to set up a terror state a few miles away from Jerusalem and Tel-Aviv, to expel hundreds of thousands of Jews from their homes and to uproot Jewish communities. It is not in US interests to allow Iranian proxies a puppet-state which will be a base of terror and will destabilize the region. It is not in US interests to destroy the region's only democracy to set up a backwards Arab thug state. It is not in US interests to reward terror with independence and to give a state on a silver platter to the same people who danced when they heard the news that the US had been attacked on 9/11. As for "Palestine's" bests interests- they are as fictional as the best interests of Atlantis, El Dorado or Valhala.

Palestinians must abandon violence. Resistance through violence and killing is wrong and does not succeed. For centuries, black people in America suffered the lash of the whip as slaves and the humiliation of segregation. But it was not violence that won full and equal rights. It was a peaceful and determined insistence upon the ideals at the center of America's founding. This same story can be told by people from South Africa to South Asia; from eastern Europe to Indonesia. It's a story with a simple truth: that violence is a dead end. It is a sign of neither courage nor power to shoot rockets at sleeping children, or to blow up old women on a bus. That is not how moral authority is claimed; that is how it is surrendered.

The comparison between the "Palestinians" and American blacks is absurd and ridiculous. Israel is forced to implement these measures to protect its own civilians from being blown up in cafes, restaurants and buses. Clearly, an Arab's right not to be inconvenienced outweighs and Jew's right not to be blown to smithereens on a Jerusalem bus. As always, the poor Arabs are the victims, never responsible for their own choices, their rejection of Israel, their support of violence and hatred, their choice to go to war against Israel 7 times and to have lost each time.

Now is the time for Palestinians to focus on what they can build. The Palestinian Authority must develop its capacity to govern, with institutions that serve the needs of its people.

People have been calling upon them to do that for years. They have never heeded the call. Mortimer Zuckerman and others spent $14 million to give them Israeli greenhouses during the Gaza turnover, so they would have a way to make a living. They turned those greenhouses into weapons smuggling tunnels.

Hamas does have support among some Palestinians, but they also have responsibilities. To play a role in fulfilling Palestinian aspirations, and to unify the Palestinian people, Hamas must put an end to violence, recognize past agreements, and recognize Israel's right to exist.

Don't hold your breathe for Khaled Meshal to sing and dance kumbaya with Jews on the White House lawn.

At the same time, Israelis must acknowledge that just as Israel's right to exist cannot be denied, neither can Palestine's. The United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements. This construction violates previous agreements and undermines efforts to achieve peace. It is time for these settlements to stop.

Insane moral equivalence. Israel liberated Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem in a war which the Arabs initiated and lost. In the word of Yehuda Z. Blum, former Israeli ambassador to the UN, speaking in 1979: "Anyone who asserts that it is illegal for a Jew to live in Judea and Samaria JUST BECAUSE HE IS A JEW, is in fact advocating a concept that is disturbingly reminiscent of the 'JUDENREIN' POLICIES of Nazi Germany banning Jews from certain spheres of life for no other reason than that they were Jews. The Jewish villages in Judea, Samaria and the Gaza district are there as of right and are there to stay." There is no difference between saying that Jews cannot live in Hebron or Maaleh Adumim in Judea and Samaria, or saying that a Jew cannot walk on a certain sidewalk or sit on a specific bench in Germany or Poland.

It takes a certain amount of gaul for someone living on stolen Iroquois land to turn around and tell Jews that they cannot live in their biblical homeland.

Israel must also live up to its obligations to ensure that Palestinians can live, and work, and develop their society. And just as it devastates Palestinian families, the continuing humanitarian crisis in Gaza does not serve Israel's security; neither does the continuing lack of opportunity in the West Bank. Progress in the daily lives of the Palestinian people must be part of a road to peace, and Israel must take concrete steps to enable such progress.

Which humanitarian crisis?

[...]

Too many tears have flowed. Too much blood has been shed. All of us have a responsibility to work for the day when the mothers of Israelis and Palestinians can see their children grow up without fear; when the Holy Land of three great faiths is the place of peace that God intended it to be; when Jerusalem is a secure and lasting home for Jews and Christians and Muslims, and a place for all of the children of Abraham to mingle peacefully together as in the story of Isra, when Moses, Jesus, and Mohammed (peace be upon them) joined in prayer.

Only under Israel has freedom of religion in Jerusalem been guaranteed. During the 19 year illegal Jordanian occupation, from 1948 to 1967, every single Jew of the Old City was expelled, synagogues were desecrated and turned into warehouses, Jewish cemeteries paved over and used as latrines and Jewish prayer banned from the Western Wall. Jerusalem is Israel's undivided capital. When London was still forest and Rome still a collection of villages on the Tiber, Jerusalem had already been King David's capital for hundreds of years, seat of the Jewish kingdom, and site of the Holy Temple. It will never again be divided. I highly doubt that Obama would divide up Washington and offer it to al-Qaeda, no matter how strong his desire for "reconciliation".

[...]

Islam has a proud tradition of tolerance. We see it in the history of Andalusia and Cordoba during the Inquisition.

More historical myth. Even Maria Rosa Menocal, in her extended whitewash of Muslim Spain called The Ornament of the World, admits that the laws of dhimmitude were very much in force in the great Al-Andalus. She says: "The dhimmi, as these covenanted peoples were called, were granted religious freedom, not forced to convert to Islam. They could continue to be Jews and Christians, and, as it turned out, they could share in much of Muslim social and economic life. In return for this freedom of religious conscience the Peoples of the Book (pagans had no such privilege) were required to pay a special tax — no Muslims paid taxes — and to observe a number of restrictive regulations: Christians and Jews were prohibited from attempting to proselytize Muslims, from building new places of worship, from displaying crosses or ringing bells. In sum, they were forbidden most public displays of their religious rituals."

So much for that "proud tradition of tolerance." Also, historian Kenneth Baxter Wolf observes that “much of this new legislation aimed at limiting those aspects of the Christian cult which seemed to compromise the dominant position of Islam.” After enumerating a list of laws much like Menocal’s, he adds: “Aside from such cultic restrictions most of the laws were simply designed to underscore the position of the dimmîs as second-class citizens.”

If Muslims, Christians, and Jews lived together peaceably and productively only with Christians and Jews relegated by law to second-class citizen status, then al-Andalus has absolutely no reason to be lionized in our age. Obama should know that the laws of dhimmitude give his claim of a "proud tradition of tolerance" the same hollow ring as the stories of prominent American blacks from the slavery and Jim Crow eras: yes, Frederick Douglass and Booker T. Washington were great men, but their accomplishments not only do not erase or contradict the records of the oppression of their people, but render them all the more poignant and haunting. Whatever the Christians and Jews of al-Andalus accomplished, they were still dhimmis. They enjoyed whatever rights and privileges they had not out of any sense of the dignity of all people before God, or the equality of all before the law, but at the sufferance of their Muslim overlords. (From Jihad Watch)

[...]

It is easier to start wars than to end them. It is easier to blame others than to look inward; to see what is different about someone than to find the things we share. But we should choose the right path, not just the easy path. There is also one rule that lies at the heart of every religion - that we do unto others as we would have them do unto us. This truth transcends nations and peoples - a belief that isn't new; that isn't black or white or brown; that isn't Christian, or Muslim or Jew. It's a belief that pulsed in the cradle of civilization, and that still beats in the heart of billions. It's a faith in other people, and it's what brought me here today.

Suppress gag reflex...

We have the power to make the world we seek, but only if we have the courage to make a new beginning, keeping in mind what has been written.

The Holy Koran tells u: "O mankind! We have created you male and a female; and we have made you into nations and tribes so that you may know one another."

The Qur'an says a lot of things. Like "slay the idolaters wherever you find them. Arrest them, besiege them, and lie in ambush everywhere for them" (Q 9:5). Or that non-Muslims must be humiliated and made second-class: "Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, nor acknowledge the religion of Truth, (even if they are) of the People of the Book, until they pay the Jizya with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued." (Q 9:29)

The Talmud tells us: "The whole of the Torah is for the purpose of promoting peace."

Obama could very well be a Reform rabbi, choosing which parts suit him and lopping off the rest. Remember the part where G-d promised the Land of Israel to the Jews?

The Holy Bible tells us: "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God."


Jesus the Palestinian said that?

The people of the world can live together in peace. We know that is God's vision. Now, that must be our work here on Earth. Thank you. And may God's peace be upon you.

Barf...

Take the Quiz

The Hope Lives

World leaders goose-step zealously around the "two-state solution", hovering like vultures ready to carve up and divide Israel. Bibi just returned from Washington where he met with the chief supporter of this plot, President Obama. There, he was told in no uncertain terms that Jewish couples in Judea and Samaria cannot be allowed to have children or build homes, and that the US intends to negotiate with Iran, and not deal with the nuclear ayatollahs militarily. To his credit, Bibi did not fold under the intense pressure. One this is clear: the United States is preparing to sacrifice Israel as a scapegoat for "peace" and "reconciliation" with the Arab world.

The two-state solution is a Final Solution to the Zionist Problem. 80% of Israel's population is concentrated on the coastal plain. If Israel's frontiers would be reduced to the "Auschwitz lines" (as Abban Eban famously dubbed them), every single major Israeli city would be under the threat of rocket fire. The situation that was produced in Sderot following the 2005 Disengagement would repeat itself all over Israel as any new "Palestinian" state would quickly become a launching pad for Islamic terror. Dr. Yuval Steinitz, former Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee chairman, said that the idea of a two-state solution should be dead. “A Palestinian state in Judea and Samaria ,” he said, “would bring about Israel ’s demise. … Such a Palestinian state would immediately become an outpost for Iran ” (Jerusalem Post, September 14, 2008).

Besides the obvious strategic and military threat that a terror-state in the heart of Israel would pose, there is an even greater ideological danger inherent in a two-state solution. In essence, a two-state solution would mean the death of Zionism and the abandonment of the Jewish dream.

The Nation of Israel arose in the Land of Israel. The Bible provides the clearest proof that the Land of Israel belongs to the Jewish people and to no other nation. For hundreds of years, the Jews lived in the land, established a monarchy under King David and Solomon, and built the First Temple in the capital city of Jerusalem. When the first Jewish kingdom was destroyed by the Babylonians in the 6th century BCE, they razed Jerusalem, burnt the Temple and carried away the Jewish defenders into exile, in Babylon. The Bible records how the Jews bitterly mourned the loss of their independence and homeland, and resolved to return. "By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat, we also wept when we remembered Zion... If I forget you, O Jerusalem, may my right hand forget [its skill]. May my tongue cling to my palate, if I do not remember you, if I do not bring up Jerusalem at the beginning of my joy." (Tehillim 137). 70 years later, when the Persian emperor Cyrus allowed the Jews to return home, tens of thousands set out under the guidance of Ezrah the Scribe and Nehemiah. They rebuilt the desolate cities of Judea and reconstructed the Temple in Jerusalem. For centuries, the Jews lived semi-autonomously under Persian and Greek rule, until the Maccabbees revolted against Greek religious persecution. For another 100 years, the Jews enjoyed sovereignty under the Hasmonean dynasty. This independence was brought to an end with the Roman conquest and following several revolts, the Second Temple was burnt and the Jewish population carried into slavery and exile.

During the three millenia since Joshua first conquered the Holy Land until today, there was never another people that established a state in Israel. Never was there a sovereign nation by the name of "Palestine". The Arabs living in the Land of Israel never considered themselves to be part of a distinct "Palestinian" people. The only entity to ever have its independence in Israel was and remains the Jewish people.

Way back on March 31, 1977, the Dutch newspaper Trouw published an interview with Palestine Liberation Organization executive committee member Zahir Muhsein. Here's what he said:

"The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct "Palestinian people" to oppose Zionism.

For tactical reasons, Jordan, which is a sovereign state with defined borders, cannot raise claims to Haifa and Jaffa, while as a Palestinian, I can undoubtedly demand Haifa, Jaffa, Beer-Sheva and Jerusalem. However, the moment we reclaim our right to all of Palestine, we will not wait even a minute to unite Palestine and Jordan."

"Palestine is a term the Zionists invented.... Our country for centuries was part of Syria," remarked Arab leader Auni Bey Abdul-Hadi to the British Peel Commission in 1937. Certainly, Mr. Abdul-Hadi had the honesty to admit the fraud that is "the Palestinian people". Before the State of Israel was founded, Jews and Palestine were synonymous. Jews founded the Palestine Post, the Palestine Symphony Orchestra, the Palestine Electric Company. The Arabs were referred to as Arabs and not Palestinians. Only in 1964 was this bogus term invented when Gamal Abdl-Nasser created the phony nationalism of the Palestinians.

The differentiation between Israel pre-67 and beyond "the Green Line" is entirely arbitrary and simply reflects the armistice line at the end of Israel's War of Independence (a war initiated by 6 Arab countries with the intention of "throwing the Jews into the sea". There is absolutely no difference between the right of Jews to live in Tel-Aviv, Herzliah or Haifa and Hebron, Shechem and Beit El. In fact, Hebron was the first capital of the Jewish people under King David, while Tel-Aviv was only founded 100 years ago. Judea and Samaria are the heart of the Biblical homeland, where our Patriarchs walked, our Kings fought and conquered, our Prophets warned and proclaimed. A judenrein Judea and Samaria would be the greatest travesty of history and would undermine the entire basis of the dream of the return to Zion.

Palestinian Ambassador to Lebanon Abbas Zaki articulated quite clearly how a two-state solution would spell the end of Israel. He was speaking to the Arab media:

"With the two-state solution, in my opinion, Israel will collapse, because if they get out of Jerusalem, what will become of all the talk about the Promised Land and the Chosen People? What will become of all the sacrifices they made - just to be told to leave? They consider Jerusalem to have a spiritual status. The Jews consider Judea and Samaria to be their historic dream. If the Jews leave those places, the Zionist idea will begin to collapse. It will regress of its own accord. Then we will move forward."

For two thousand years, Jews dreamed of going home, of returning to the land of their forefathers and having their own country. Three times a day, observant Jews turn towards the East and beseech G-d: "May our eyes behold Your return to Zion in mercy". Jews declare at the end of every Passover seder and Yom Kippur fast: "Next year in Jerusalem!" The ties that the Jewish people have to Israel are deeper than those of any other people to its land, long preceding the creation of "Palestinians" in the 1960s, or even the birth of Muhammad and the spread of Israel. Before France was French and before Spain was Spanish, Israel was Jewish. When London was still forest and Rome was just a collection of villages on the Tiber, Jerusalem was already the capital and spiritual center of the Jewish people. Jews in the various exiles, Morocco and Poland, Iraq and Russia, Yemen and Greece, did not long for the Holy Land simply for it to be turned over to another people.

Friday marks 42 years since Judea, Samaria and Gaza were liberated and Jerusalem reunified under Jewish control. 800 Jewish soldiers gave their lives in defense of Israel against the Arab invaders during the Six Day War, and bravely liberated our biblical homeland. For 19 long years, the Jordanians illegally occupied Jerusalem, drove the Jews out of the Old City, desecrated synagogues and Jewish cemeteries and closed the Kotel to Jewish prayer. Hundreds of courageous Jews paid for Jerusalem with their blood and in June 1967, for the first time since the Romans destroyed Jerusalem, Jerusalem was reunited in Jewish hands. The sheer euphoria as it was proclaimed on the radio "the Temple Mount is in our hands!" was indescribable. Even the most secular soldier broke down in tears in front of the Western Wall, when he realized the momentousness of the battle.

Today, the battle for Jerusalem and for the Land of Israel continues. We must remember the bravery of Joshua, of David, of the Maccabees, of Bar Kochba and those who fought the Romans, and our modern day heroes of the IDF. We must have the courage to proclaim that the entire Land of Israel belongs to the Jewish people and that we do not recognize the legitimacy of the claims of any foreign entity on our land. The State of Israel only exists today because it is sitting on the shoulders of the generations of good Jews who, in all of their lands of dispersion, never forgot the dream, the two-thousand year old hope "to be a free people in our own land, the land of Zion and Jerusalem". A hope that overcame the Romans, the Crusades and Inquisitions, pogroms and persecution, Auschwitz and Treblinka, will certainly overcome the most nefarious plots of our enemies.

A Soldier and an Old Woman

From Aish by Ruchama King Feuerman

The Six Day War had ended. The generals assembled the commanders and foot soldiers for a customary review and analysis of the battle. After the military questions had been asked, and the investigative committee was about to disperse, a commanding officer pointed to one of the soldiers. "Wait a minute. I have a question for you. Yes, you, the soldier who put up the flag on the Temple Mount."

The soldier nodded.

"Where did you get an Israeli flag, and why did you put it up?"

The soldier spread out his hands and smiled, a gesture that indicated that here was more than just a one sentence response. He told the following story:

The night before the Old City was liberated, a contingent of soldiers fighting near the Old City took cover in a shelter in a Jerusalem neighborhood. Hordes of children, mothers, old men and women packed inside the bunker alongside the soldiers. People looked frightened and bereft. The government had imposed a news black-out so that the Arab countries wouldn't be able to figure out their positions. And the news -- originating from Jordan, Egypt and Syria -- was enough to induce hysteria: calls from Saudi King Faisal for the total elimination of Israel, calls from every Arab country to push the fledgling country into the sea.

Things looked so bad, Israelis famously converted public parks into mass graves, in preparation for the expected casualties. (Israel's Chief of Staff, Yitzchak Rabin, had even suffered a nervous breakdown.)

As the soldier sat there in the bunker, hopeless and uncertain, he saw an old woman slowly make her way over to him. "Excuse me," she said, standing at his side. She held a satchel in her arms.

He lifted his eyes. "Yes, Doda. Tell me, what is it?"

"Tomorrow you'll go to the Old City and you'll go to the Kotel."

He shook his head at the absurdity. He said, "No, we won't." There were no army plans to liberate the Old City. First, they were fighting just to hold their positions. Also, overtaking the Old City would entail hand-to-hand combat which was greatly feared: Many people would die. Moreover, any bombardment of the Old City might demolish even more of the holy sites than had already been destroyed by the Jordanians. He tried to explain all of this.

The old woman looked at him, steady-eyed. "No, you will go," she said, not as if she were trying to convince him, but as if relaying simple facts.

He shrugged. An old woman's delusions. He wasn't going to argue with her.

Before he turned away, she said, "I have a favor to ask you." She reached into her satchel and took out an Israeli flag. From the way she touched it, it was clear the flag had some personal meaning for her. Had she made it? Perhaps it had been draped over a loved one's grave? But what was she now saying? "When you go, please take this flag, and when you get to the Temple Mount, I want you to hang it up there." She held out the flag.

The soldier repeated, "We're not going into the Old City."

"You're going," she said. Again, she held out her arm.

A thought struck him. "I can't take it," he told her. "It's against army regulations."

"It'll be all right. Just take it."

"I'll get in trouble. You're only allowed to carry a few specified items."

Please," she said hoarsely. "Do me this favor."

He shrugged again. Why was he arguing with this old woman? Let him take the flag, let him make an old woman feel good. He could always get rid of it later.

The next day, the Israeli army, contrary to everyone's expectations, took the Old City. Sure enough, the soldier's unit ended up at the Temple Mount. As he and the other soldiers came close to the Western Wall, he suddenly remembered the flag and the old woman's words. Yes, he would do it, he would! He enlisted two buddies, and together they draped the flag over the grating on the upper left most side of the Kotel, and there they hoisted and hung the Israel flag.

The commanding officer conducting the investigation said to the soldier, "And what were you thinking when you put up that flag?"

The soldier said, "I was thinking that this was the answer to 2,000 years of Jewish suffering."

And so ends the story of the soldier, our hero.

But there's an unsung hero, too. What about the old woman who supplied the flag? One wishes the investigating officers had tracked her down. What did she have in mind as she entered a shelter with an Israeli flag in her satchel? And who was she, anyway? The only identifying feature is that she was old and carried a bag. But her advanced age already tells us plenty: that she knew something about Jewish history, probably having personally lived through it...World War I, Arab attacks, the Holocaust, the War of Independence, 1956. What hadn't she seen?

There, in Israel's darkest moment, outnumbered and surrounded by enemies, terrified that the next morning there will be no Israel, the old woman sees what no one else can see, what no one else is capable of conceiving. She insists on her vision, she practically browbeats the soldier into carrying out her plan. We'll never know how she knew, only that, like many Jewish women before her -- the Matriarchs, the midwives in Egypt, the righteous women in the desert -- she just knew. There are two kinds of prophecy. One that predicts the future, and one that makes the future.

Papal Bull

While the Pope's speech at Yad Vashem left much to be desired, he had no such restraint when speaking at a "Palestinian" refugee camp. Speaking before Israeli officials, government representatives and Holocaust survivors at the Yad Vashem memorial in Jerusalem, the Pope could not bring himself to mention the words "Nazis", "murdered" or "six million", nor did he apologize for the silence of the Vatican during the war, and its apathy to the plight of the Jews. The chairman of the Yad Vashem Council, Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau, who is a Holocaust survivor, expressed disappointment at the pope's speech, saying that "there certainly was no apology expressed here. Something was missing. There was no mention of the Germans or the Nazis who participated in the butchery, nor a word of regret," Lau said. "If not an apology, then an expression of remorse."

Despite this, the Pope did not hold back in his call for an Arab terror state in the heart of the land of Israel and the return of the Jewish people to exile. Speaking before Fatah arch-terrorist Mahmoud Abbas, the Pope declared his support for "a sovereign Palestinian homeland in the land of... [their] forefathers". He used the opportunity to criticize Israel over erecting a security fence designed to prevent Islamic suicide bombers from blowing up Jewish men, women and children in cafes, restaurants and discotheques, a security fence only made necessary by relentless Islamic terror. Abbas, who is constantly referred to as a "moderate" in the West, used the opportunity to lament "the Nakba [catastrophe] 61 years ago" ie. the founding of the State of Israel. Straight from Yad Vashem, the Pope allowed himself to be used as propaganda for those who seek to delegitimize and demonize the Jewish State. PA spokesmen used the Pope's visit to reiterate the Arab "right of return", the flooding of Israel by Arab refugees with the intention of demographically destroying the state.

The Pope's pilgrimage is a case study in hypocrisy, falsehoods and lies. The Pope may have cried crocodile tears at Yad Vashem but he is far from expressing remorse over the Holocaust. His Church has been consistent in whitewashing its wartime record, reinstating Holocaust-denying bishops, promoting ludicrous and obscene comparisons between the Nazis and the IDF, as well as supporting the Durban II conference, in which a Holocaust-denying and genocide-enabling leader was the keynote speaker. The Pope has launched a campaign to exonerate Pope Pius XII, the Pope who closed his eyes as the Jews of Rome were round up from beneath his window, without hurting Jewish sensitivities. The Pope caused a huge scandal when he lifted the excommunication against a bishop who stated that there is no proof that gas chambers ever existed, and only relented after international outcry. Cardinal Renato Martino, the head of the Vatican Council for Justice and Peace and a former Holy See envoy to the United Nations, provoked an uproar when he repeated the revisionist libel that Gaza today resembles a Nazi concentration camp. In addition to this damning record of Holocaust-denial, obfuscation and unwillingness to confront the past, he met with Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas, whose doctoral dissertation questions the veracity of the Holocaust and argues that Zionist leaders collaborated with the Nazis in the extermination of European Jewry. He writes in his thesis: "It seems that the interest of the Zionist movement, however, is to inflate this figure [of Holocaust deaths] so that their gains will be greater. This led them to emphasize this figure [six million] in order to gain the solidarity of international public opinion with Zionism. Many scholars have debated the figure of six million and reached stunning conclusions—fixing the number of Jewish victims at only a few hundred thousand."" This "moderate" Holocaust denier was also involved in the 1972 murder of Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics, and countless other terrorist attacks.

The Vatican has consistently promoted the internationalization of Jerusalem and taken a pro-"Palestinian" stance. It was only in 1993 that the Vatican recognized Israel. The reason for this hostility is that the State of Israel and Jewish sovereignty over Jerusalem poses a tremendous theological problem for Catholicism. Church doctrine taught for millenia that Jews were "the witness", cursed to wander without a home as proof of their rejection of Jesus, and that they would never return to Israel. In 1948, and then again in 1967, an enormous issue was raised for theologians. By expressing support for a "Palestinian" state in the "land of their forefathers", the Pope is continuing this same deadly replacement theology. One would think that the supreme pontiff of the Catholic Church would at least have a cursory knowledge of Scriptures, which says quite clearly that the Land of Israel belongs to the Jewish people. He must certainly be aware that there has never in history been a sovereign "Palestinian" state, nor was there ever a distinct "Palestinian" people, culture or entity. In fact, the "Palestinian people" were invented only in 1967 when it became apparent to the Arabs that a new strategy had to be devised to throw the Jews into the sea. Certainly the world's oldest people, with ties going back to the Bible, over 3500 years ago, should not be expected to give up its homeland to make room for the world's newest people, an artificial entity created 42 years ago. The people today referred to as "Palestinians" are squatters and invaders, having arrived in the 1900s from Jordan, Egypt, the Maghreb and Syria, attracted by the increased living standards caused by renewed Jewish settlement in Israel.

The Vatican has a lot of chutzpah. The original Jewish olim from Eastern Europe left for Israel because Church-taught hatred had made life so miserable for the Jewish people. During our entire sojourn in Catholic lands, we never had a moment of rest as we were persecuted and oppressed. The Church taught that Jews were wicked, sons of satan, and forced them to wear distinctive clothing and live in ghettos. Thousands of Jews perished at the hands of crusading swords or on the racks of the Inquisition. Entire communities in France and Germany were wiped out during the Crusades as mobs burst into Jewish homes and demanded: "Kiss the cross or kiss the sword!" The Holocaust, the most horrendous crime humanity ever committed, was only possible because of the two-thousand years of Christian anti-semitism. After watching the Oberammergau Passion Play in 1934, Hitler said out loud: "Perhaps I am rendering to Christianity the best service ever!" Having left, for the most part, Catholic lands for our own soils, the Pope has now followed us, demanding that we give up our land. Jews left Christendom yet Christendom has chased after us, pointing us back to the exile, to subjugation and lowliness.

I would like to point the pontiff to the Book of Joel. He would be wise to read and digest the fourth chapter, which speaks of the fate of those who divide up G-d's land. "For behold, in those days and in that time when I return the captivity of Judah and Jerusalem, I will gather all the nations and I will take them down to the Valley of Jehoshaphat, and I will contend with them there concerning My people and My heritage, Israel, which they scattered among the nations, and My land they divided... And Egypt shall become desolate, and Edom shall be a desert waste, because of the violence done to the children of Judah, because they shed innocent blood in their land. But Judah shall remain forever, and Jerusalem throughout all generations. Now should I cleanse, their blood I will not cleanse, when the Lord dwells in Zion." 61 years after the return of Jewish independence, and 62 after the liberation of Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria, the world still disputes our rights to our home. We must not fear since even when Edom ie. the Church and the West will be a "desert waste", "Judah will remain forever!" Pope may come and go, but the Jewish people are firmly planted in their homeland.

Clarity over Gaza

Note: I was asked to asked to justify Israel's operation in Gaza in January. My opinion on the operation can be found throughout my posts and articles. Rather than right an entire article, I thought that I would refute point by point the lies and misinformation disseminated by fellow blogger Young Activist. His article can be found in italics, with my commentary.

An Israeli intelligence officer acknowledged the IDF was targeting "both aspects of Hamas -- its resistance or military wing and its dawa, or social wing," Bombing schools, hospitals, universities, the water system, police stations, and other civilian infrastructure was entirely justified because, as NYT correspondent Stephen Erlanger makes clear, "in a war, [Hamas's] instruments of political and social control were as legitimate a target as its rocket caches." Of course, when Hamas acts on a smaller scale, but in a similar fashion, it must be denounced as terrorism.

My fellow blogger is making a false distinction between Hamas's military and "social" wings. They are both parts of the same entity, Hamas using its "social" wing to build schools that indoctrinate Arab children in hatred. Just as the Allies during WWII made no distinction between the Nazi Wehrmacht and the social centers built by the Nazi regime, so too this is completely irrelevant. The media has succeeded in portraying the Arabs of Gaza as poor victims of Israeli aggression. Such a characterization is demeaning and in fact bigoted, because it implies that the Arabs cannot be held accountable for their own actions, essentially infantilizing them. Israel withdrew its 7000 Jewish citizens from Gaza in 2005, in a bid to give the Arabs a chance at self-government and a better future. Israel poured aid into the Gaza and even left behind the greenhouses and agricultural infrastructure that had made the Jewish communities so successful. [1] While Israel extended the olive branch, they got terror in return. In the 2006 Palestinian elections, Hamas was elected with a clear majority of 74 of the 132 available seats. Hamas is recognized as a terrorist organization by the United States and the European Union. It was founded with an explicit dedication to the destruction of the State of Israel and has carried out hundreds of murderous suicide and other terrorist attacks against Jewish targets. Hamas' charter is based on rejections and says that "Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it." Lest anybody claim that Hamas makes a distinction between Jews and Israel, its charter declares its genocidal intent. "The Day of Judgement will not come about until Muslims fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Muslims, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him. Only the Gharkad tree, would not do that because it is one of the trees of the Jews." (related by al-Bukhari and Muslim)." Concerning this intended genocide, the charter promises that " the Islamic Resistance Movement aspires to the realisation of Allah's promise, no matter how long that should take." To claim that the Arabs who voted for Hamas as their legitimate representatives were not aware of their goals and aspirations is simply dishonest. The Arabs of Gaza must take collective responsibility for freely choosing Hamas as their government. During the past 3 years, there was not a single protest against Hamas using homes, schools, hospitals and mosques to fire rockets against Israeli civilians. The Arabs cannot allow Hamas to use their homes as rocket launch pads while at the same time claim innocence.

NYT correspondent Stephen Erlanger's statement reveals a dangerous lack of moral clarity and hypocrisy. There is no comparison between a terrorist organization attacking civilians and a sovereign state trying to protect its civilians. This is the same twisted mentality that would denounce both a robber and the law enforcement officer who tries to neutralize him.

If Israel's apologists are to be believed these actions, namely the firing of rockets, necessitated the bombing and subsequent invasion of Gaza. The attack was launched to save lives, Israeli lives that is, Palestinian blood is worthless. But even if we accept the premise that Palestinian deaths are of no consequence this justification quickly falls apart.

This last statement is mere rhetoric, intending to portray Israel as a racist state. The obligation and responsibility of the Israeli government is to protect Israeli citizens, just as it is Russia's duty to protect Russian citizens.

Six months before the offensive began in earnest Hamas and Israel signed a cease fire: both sides would halt their attacks and Israel would open the borders. Rocket attack essentially stopped, although a trickle of fire from dissident groups continued with no fatalities, but Israel refused to open the borders. Nonetheless Hamas was interested in a renewal of the cease fire before it expired, Israel repudiated this offer with violence. This was not the long term settlement endorsed by Hamas and the entire world save Israel and the U.S where Israel and Palestine would recognize each other on the June 1967 borders and all hostilities would cease, this was a short term agreement to end immediate attacks. Israel not only refused to renew the cease fire, it violated it with a Nov. 4 raid that killed several Palestinian fighters.

Hamas never abided by the truce for even a moment. Almost immediately after the truce was signed in June 2008, Hamas fired rockets into Israel. Despite such a flagrant violation of this truce, Israel promised "restraint" [2]. In fact, during the entire 6 month truce period, Hamas fired a total of 329 rockets at Israel [3].

Immediately, and predictably, Hamas responded with a barrage of rockets in what the MFA acknowledged was "retaliation" for Israel's violation of the cease fire agreement. If the sole objective of Israel's leaders was to save Israeli lives they would have pursued an extension of the cease fire. The attack, as predicted, resulted in more Israeli deaths. As it launched its offensive the IDF was preparing for scores of Israeli casualties, in the end only eleven Israeli soldiers were killed, several by friendly fire, but this was still many more than had been killed in the preceding six years by rocket fire.

Dozens of Israelis have been killed by Hamas rocket attacks. The small number of casualties has been nothing short of miraculous yet it is twisted thinking to argue that Israel should have waiting until a higher number of Jews had been killed before responding.

The air attacks began shortly before noon on the Sabbath, Dec. 27 just as children were returning from school and midday crowds were out on the streets. Within moments over two hundred people were dead. Israel's deterrent capabilities, terrorism is lay man's terms, were quickly reestablished to the applause of over 90% of the non-Arab population. One Israeli political analyst predicted that the parties of then Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's governing coalition would capture one additional seat in the upcoming Parliamentary elections for every forty Palestinians killed, a prediction that ultimately proved false but still reflected well on the mood of the country.

Israel's PR arm has claimed civilians were warned to leave by the world's most moral army before the fighting began, they couldn't leave the conflict zone through the sealed border crossing, but Israel nonetheless quickly absolved itself of all blame for deaths inflicted by its forces. Unfortunately civilians were not given an opportunity to flee, the result was nearly a thousand dead Palestinian non-combatants. Writing in the nation's leading newspaper Israeli intelligence analyst Reuven Pedatzur noted "[t]he IDF, which planned to attack buildings and sites populated by hundreds of people, did not warn them in advance to leave, but intended to kill a great many of them, and succeeded." Indeed, on one occasion Israeli soldiers ordered a family to evacuate the fighting to a shelter which they promptly bombed, killing scores of people.

Israel's army went to great lengths to prevent unnecessary civilian casualties, unfortunately often putting Israeli soldiers in harm's way. Following international allegations that Israeli soldiers acted immorally in Gaza, Israel's military launched an investigation into the matter. The military probe revealed that there was little truth behind the accusations. [4] Maj. Yehoshua Gurtler, a military lawyer, said that "these allegations were based on hearsay. They were not based on firsthand evidence. They were rumors. They did not reflect the operational circumstances which had actually taken place on the ground." We are still waiting for the NY Times and other news agencies to publicize the findings with the same zealousness with which they smeared the reputation of the Israeli army.

The IDF made little effort to distinguish between civilian and military targets, often it deliberately attacked civilian targets. It bombed a U.N school housing refugees killing scores of innocents claiming it was sheltering Hamas fighters, a claim the IDF was later forced to retract, it destroyed the warehouse of UNRWA on whom most Palestinians depend for sustenance, it used banned chemical weapons against civilians, it destroyed the al-Quds hospital where hundreds of terrified residents had taken shelter, it refused to allow emergency aid in, ramming and nearly sinking a relief vessel in international waters, and shooting at ambulances attempting to evacuate the injured during Israel's "three hour daily humanitarian cease fire". These reports come from Palestinians, the U.N, and those westerners in Gaza when the attack began, the IDF refused to allow foreign doctors or journalists into Gaza. Who did they want to die from lack of medical attention? What were they hiding? Perhaps the scale of the violence was too great even for Israel's well oiled propaganda machine to talk away. IDF soldiers, some of whom proudly dawned T-Shirts bearing images of a pregnant Palestinian women in a sniper's crosshairs with the words "1 shot 2 kills", killed even the animals at the Gaza zoo during their rampage through the coastal enclave.

Just as in the case of the case of the 2002 Jenin massacre that wasn't, Israel was falsely accused of crimes against humanity. rael faced a similar rush to judgment after reports of an Israeli attack on January 6, 2009 on a UN-run school in Jabalya. The building was not being used as a school at the time but was sheltering Palestinian noncombatants. Initial reports said at least 30 (the figure was later revised to 43) Palestinians were killed and UN officials claimed they had given Israeli forces coordinates of this building and others that they said were not associated with Hamas. The incident was immediately portrayed as a deliberate Israeli attack on innocent people.

Israel maintained that the building was being used as a shelter and that Israeli forces fired in the direction of the building because they were attacked by Hamas terrorists launching mortars from the area. Israel later identified two of the casualties at the site as Imad and Hassan Abu Asker, who served as heads of the Hamas mortar units in Gaza. A witness from Jabalya said that he had seen Abu Asker in the area of the school right before the attack when he answered a call for volunteers to pile sand around the camp “to help protect the resistance fighters.” [5a] In addition, two residents of the area near the school told the Associated Press they had seen a small group of terrorists firing mortar rounds from a street close to the school. [5b]

Journalists who investigated the incident and spoke to eyewitnesses, including a teacher who was in the schoolyard at the time of the shelling, concluded that no one in the school compound was killed. “The 43 people who died in the incident were all outside, on the street, where all three mortar shells landed.”[5c] As the Globe and Mail noted, this is very different than the UN’s allegation that the IDF had fired into a schoolyard crowded with refuge-seekers.

Nearly a month after the incident, following the publication of accounts discrediting UNRWA’s story, Maxwell Gaylord, the UN humanitarian coordinator in Jerusalem, was forced to admit that Israel’s account was true after all, that the IDF mortar shells fell in the street near the compound, and not on the compound itself. Gaylord said that the UN “would like to clarify that the shelling and all of the fatalities took place outside and not inside the school.” [6]

One explanation for the inflated civilian casualty figures is that Hamas routinely hides among civilians, since more Arab dead is better for their propaganda purposes. Hamas has stored weapons in schools, mosques and hospitals, and used them as bases for rocket attacks. United Nations Humanitarian Affairs Chief John Holmes told the UN Security Council, “The reckless and cynical use of civilian installations by Hamas and indiscriminate firing of rockets against civilian populations are clear violations of international humanitarian law.” [6a]

Norwegian Mads Gilbert, one of only two western doctors on hand for much of the conflict, estimated half of the casualties were woman and children and almost all casualties in Israel's "[a]ll out war against the civilian population of Gaza," were civilian. But perhaps the onslaught was justified, because as the Jersusalem Post noted one Sephardic Rabbi wrote to the Prime Minister that there is "absolutely no moral prohibition against the indiscriminate killing of civilians during a potential massive military offensive on Gaza aimed at stopping the rocket launchings," Perhaps the only fault in killing over 1,300 people, mainly civilians, was that it did not go far enough in reestablishing Israel's deterrent and it failed in returning Kadima to power. Perhaps a 100:1 kill ratio was just not good enough. Perhaps what Israeli commentators frequently refer to as the "Palestinian peace offensive" was not sufficiently thwarted. As for the official pretense, the attack was, as predicted by Israeli officials, counterproductive to its declared aims. When the fighting subsided thirteen Israelis were dead and Hamas remained in power in Gaza, more popular than ever.

Pure anti-Israel rhetoric. Official Israeli statistics put 300 of the 1200 casualties as civilians [7]. This amounts to one-third, not the two-thirds Arab propagandists claimed. This is a much lower rate of civilian casualties than the United States in Iraq or Afghanistan, Russia in Chechnya or NATO in the Balkans. It is despicable to argue that Israel's operation was not justified because a fair or equal amount of Jews hadn't been killed. Close to 100 000 civilian have been killed by violence in Iraq [8]. When Operation Enduring Freedom began in 2001 in Afghanistan, the US launched an indiscriminate bombing campaign. Two US jets accidentally killed 100 people and wiped out an entire village in Eastern Afghanistan. [9] The high number of civilian deaths have led Afghan President Hamid Karzai to complain to the US. [10] To combat Chechnyan terror, the Russian army essentially decided to level Grozny, killing over 200 000 people since 1994 [11]. Of course, only Israel, the one country that went to pains not to harm civilians (and had a relatively low percentage of civilian deaths) is singled out for abuse, condemnation and vilification.

Hamas also bears direct responsibility for civilian casualties in Gaza because it is a violation of international law to launch attacks from civilian infrastructure. According to the Geneva Conventions and other laws of war, civilians are to be protected and distinguished from combatants. This protection extends to civilian areas to minimize harm to innocents. Hamas provoked return fire on civilian areas by launching attacks from densely populated areas and, specifically, from inside and the vicinity of private homes, schools, mosques, and hospitals. In a report to the Israeli cabinet, Israeli intelligence chief, Yuval Diskin, indicated that the Gaza-based leadership of Hamas was hiding in an underground bunker beneath Shifa Hospital, the largest in the Gaza Strip. [11a] Hamas also endangered civilians by ordering its forces to discard uniforms and dress in regular clothes that made them indistinguishable from the civilian population.

The rage over the T-shirts worn by Israeli soldiers highlights the selective anger of the world. While many brimmed with righteous indignation about these T-shirts, nary a word has been said about Hamas' explicit genocidal statements and the constant and deadly anti-semitic and murderous incitement in Arab culture. Some might argue that Hamas does not have the capacity to carry out these threats. However, when these threats are coupled with the proclamation of "wiping Israel off the map" by Hamas's Iranian puppet-masters, the situation becomes frightening. Former Canadian Justice minister, member of the Canadian Parliament and expert on international law, has said that Hamas is a "case study per excellence in war crimes" [12].

Finally, Hamas is in violation of the prohibition against using child soliders. Hamas regularly indoctrinates children in anti-semitic, anti-Israel hatred and the glorification of "martyrdom". [13]

We are told if there were no rockets than Israel would not have been compelled to massacre Gaza, but in the West Bank there are no rockets, but there are land seizures, there are checkpoints, there are regular IDF kidnappings, there are daily incursion into Palestinian communities, there are Jewish only roads, there are illegal settlements, there are attacks on peaceful demonstrations, and there is still the occupation. If peace is what Israel wants than it will engage the Arab world with words and not weapons.

In typical anti-Israel fashion, history began yesterday. The Arab assault on Jews in Israel has continued unimpeded for over a hundred years. In 1920-21, 1929 and the 1930s, Arabs rioted and massacred hundreds of Jews in Jerusalem, Jaffa, Hebron, Safed, etc. This was before there was a state, let alone an "occupation" or checkpoints. When Israel declared its independence in 1948, its was attacked by a million Arab soldiers from 7 different countries. Again in 1967, Israel was threatened and attacked, before any "settlements". Israel has offered the Arabs peace numerous times. Former Israeli PM Ehud Olmert recently announced that he offered the PA more than even Ehud Barak did [8]. Barak offered Yasser Arafat practically 95% of Judea, Samaria and Gaza, with a capital in East Jerusalem and control over the Temple Mount. In typical Arab fashion, Arafat wanted everything and walked away. "At one point, I put everything on the table and offered Abu Mazen [PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas – ed.] an offer that had never been made before, that touched on the core of the conflict and the most heavily emotionally charged issues, the rawest nerves, the historical baggage,” Olmert said, recalling his negotiations with Abbas. “I told him, 'Come on, sign.' That was half a year ago, and I'm still waiting,” he added. I wouldn't hold my breath.

The Loyalty Fallacy

In the recent Israeli elections, Avigdor Lieberman's party, Yisrael Beiteinu, won 15 seats in the Israeli Knesset. The party slogan of "no citizenship without loyalty" resounded with Israelis after they saw Israel's Arab citizens cheering on Hamas during the latest conflict in Gaza. Lieberman capitalized on the treasonous words and actions of "Israeli"-Arab MKs and on the general perception of Israel's Arab population as a fifth column. Speaking about Arab MKs, among them one who fled to Syria trying to escape charges of treason, Hamas and Fatah supporters and sympathizers, and several who have repeatedly met with Israel's enemies, while receiving salaries from the state, he said:"At the end of the Second World War, not only criminals were executed in the Nuremberg trials, but also those who collaborated with them. I hope that will be the fate of the collaborators in this house."

Every year, as Jewish Israelis take to the streets to celebrate their Independence, Israel's Arab commemorate "Nakba" (Disaster) Day. On this day, they mourn, condemn and resolve to eliminate the state in which they are living and which gives them full democratic rights. Jewish Israelis are angered when they see people who are given more rights and privileges than any other Arabs in other Arab countries opposing the state. While there is certainly no reason to allow "Nakba" commemorations on Israel's Independence Day, it is quite hypocritical for Jewish Israelis to expect Arabs to dance and celebrate on Yom HaAtzmaut. It was recently reported in the newspaper that an Arab minister refused to sing Israel anthem, "HaTikvah". Understandably, Jews were furious that a minister in the government would refuse to sing the national anthem yet it seems unreasonable to expect an Arab to sing of the continuation of the 2000 year old hope, beating in "the Jewish soul", "to be a free nation in his land, the land of Zion and Jerusalem".

No state is under any obligation to support and allow a fifth-column in its borders and I have no sympathies for the Arab citizens of Israel who took to the street to proclaim their admiration for Hamas. After a several terrorist attacks in Jerusalem, such as a massacre of yeshiva students and several bulldozer and vehicle attacks, by Arab residents of east Jerusalem, which were greeted by jubilation and rejoicing by the Arab citizens of Israel, few would argue that the Arabs are loyal citizens. In the words of "Israeli"-Arab protesters at Hebrew University: "we are all Palestinians now". There are no questions as to the identity of Israel's Arabs. Nonetheless, I feel that Lieberman's slogan misses the point. An even greater threat, in may ways, to Israel's continuity as a Jewish state, than the Arabs are the hundreds of thousands of Russian goyim brought from the former Soviet Union. Many of them are proud citizens, serve in the army, pay their taxes and support the state. Yet, despite all of this, they are not Jewish. Many of Lieberman's constituents are Russian immigrants who are not Jewish according to Jewish law. To appease them, some of his policies advocate a quickie conversion process, civil marriages, increased public transportation on Shabbat and allowing the sale of pork, all things that would hurt the Jewish character of the state. The loyalty of these Russian goyim cannot be questioned (excluding the neo-Nazis, I suppose) but they still cannot be considered full citizens since they are not Jewish. Liberman's proposal implies that Russian goyim, Arabs, Bedouins or Druze, if they sign a declaration of loyalty to the state, will be no different than other Israel. That is, in effect, a recipe for assimilation.

Israel was founded to be a Jewish state, to provide a homeland for the Jewish people. While Israel is a democratic country, to qualify as a Jewish state, it must have some sort of Jewish character. This includes the public celebration of Jewish holidays, stores and transportation closing on Shabbat, restrictions on the sale of pork, and the Rabbinate's control over the Jewish life cycle, such as wedding, births, funerals and burials. Around the world, Jewish communities are withering up and dying, with the exception of religiously-committed Jews, due to a frighteningly high intermarriage rate. Israel is (with the exception of Canada and Germany) the only Jewish community that is growing because of a normal and healthy birthrate. Judaism is blossoming and undergoing a revival in Israel, its birthplace. Lieberman's suggestions that being Israel simply depends on allegiance to the state are very, very dangerous for Israel's Jewish nature. He will import the Diaspora assimilation catastrophe to the Holy Land.



An Arab cannot feel loyalty to the state that officially calls itself "the Jewish state", whose flag has a Jewish star at its center, whose anthem speaks of "the Jewish soul yearning". He cannot celebrate on the day which he was defeated, on which he feels (wrongly) that his land was taken away from him. To demand for him to give up his national pride and aspirations and sign a declaration of allegiance is simply condescending. The plans and attempts to turn Israel into a Western Hellenistic country and to divorce it from its Jewish heritage must be rejected. No matter how loyal a Druze or a Russian goy is, they are not Jewish and cannot marry a Jew. If the condition for "Israeli-ness" is mere loyalty, it will break down all boundaries between Jews and non-Jews, the boundaries that prevent intermarriage and guarantee Jewish survival. I do not argue with the truth that the Arabs must go, that Israel cannot allow a growing and hostile minority to attack Jews, aid Islamic terrorists and plot our destruction from within. The essential is to return to our Jewish roots, to realize that by running away from Judaism, we run away from Zionism. There is only one justification for building a Jewish state in the heart of the Arab world, in the middle of a billion Muslims. Why suffer and fight for this little piece of land if all we want is a good quiet life, to go to the beach, to shop, club and enjoy? There are close to a million Israelis living in NY, LA, Florida or in other warm places. The only reason for the state is Judaism: to build a Jewish country in its ancient homeland. Israel is both Jewish and democratic, but both of these are not of equal importance. The world has many liberal, multicultural, secular democracies. Creating another one is not sufficient cause to antagonize half of the world's population. Israel's basis is firmly rooted in Judaism. Judaism demands separation from the nations, not to allow ourselves to assimilate and disappear. Lieberman's plans remove any concept of Torah or mitzvot from being a Jew, or being an Israeli. They are in fact suicide for Israel. A far better slogan would be: "The Nation of Israel, in the Land of Israel, according to the Torah of Israel."

Yom HaAtzmaut -- Israel is 61!

On the 5th of Iyar, 5708 (1948), G-d's Name was sanctified. For the first time in two thousand year, the Jewish people had a state in their homeland. Two millenium after the Roman emperor Hadrian burnt our Temple, razed Jerusalem, sold the Jews into slavery and arrogantly declared 'Judea capta! (Judea is captured), the Third Jewish Commonwealth was established. After centuries of oppression and persecution, Crusades and pogroms, Inquisitions and Holocausts, the Jewish people had finally returned home to the land of their forefathers.

When the Romans crushed the Jewish rebellion in 70 CE and destroyed the Temple, they carried out the majority of the Jews into exile. They built a huge victory arch in Rome showing the Temple utensils being taken as spoil. The Romans minted coins depicting a conquered a mourning Jewess, along with the words 'Judea capta'. In their minds, the Jewish people had been crushed. The Roman Catholic Church, which became the official religion of Rome, taught as doctrine that the Jews had been replaced and rejected by G-d, never to return to Israel. The Church, along with the scholars of Islam, mocked the Jews and taunted them over their abasement, claiming that their continued exile was proof of their replacement in G-d's eyes. Incredibly, while the Roman empire today is nothing but dust, Jews are once again living in the Jerusalem, the city of King David, in Judea and Samaria, where the Patriarchs lived and in the Galilee, where Bar Kochba and his brave Zionist rebels fought for liberty.


"A song of ascents. When the Lord returned the captivity of Zion, we were like dreamers. Then our mouths were with laughter and our tongues with songs of praise; then they will say among the nations, "The Lord has done great things with these."" (Tehillim 126) Truly, we were like dreamers. Is there any clearer proof of G-d's sovereignty and majesty, of His guiding hand in history, than in the survival of the Jewish people in graveyards of the exile and in our return to the Land of Israel? Has there ever been such a thing in the entire annals of mankind, for a nation to have survived the sword and the stake, the racks of the Inquisition and the Crusading lance, the Cross and the Crescent, the killing fields and the gas chambers, to be returned home? Only by the might and mercy of G-d, through the brave pioneers and committed Zionist leaders, were we able to revive our ancient language, Hebrew, to re-settle the desolate cities, drain the swamps and make the deserts bloom. "For the Lord shall console Zion, He shall console all its ruins, and He shall make its desert like a paradise and its wasteland like the garden of the Lord; joy and happiness shall be found therein, thanksgiving and a voice of song." (Yishayahu 51:3) The land, empty and desolate, bereft of her children, which called out longingly for them for over two thousand years, now blossoms and is settled. For too long did Zion cry out for her sons and daughters in captivity, trampled on by a foreign oppressor.

From the four corners of the Earth, the Jews have begun to return home. "Fear not for I am with you; from the east I will bring your seed, and from the west I will gather you. I will say to the north, "Give," and to the south, "Do not refrain"; bring My sons from afar and My daughters from the end of the earth."" (Yishayahu 43:5-6) Out of the mellahs of Morocco and Tunisia and the shtetls of Russia and Poland, Jews came home. The same Jews who declared year after year their fervent hope and desire of 'Next Year in Jerusalem!' were privileged to see their dream become a reality. From the farthest and most remote reaches, the Land of Israel beckoned Jews home. Jews from Yemen and Ethiopia walked thousands of miles, trekked through dangerous deserts and hazardous terrain, braved intense dangers because they senses the impeding Redemption. When the Iron Curtain fell, the cry of 'Let my people go!' saw fruition as millions of Russian Jews fled the prison that was the Soviet Union and came to Israel to live lives of dignity and freedom. The Ingathering of the Exiles has begun as Jews from Iran and Turkey, Greece and Lithuania, Ukraine and Hungary, India and Afghanistan now live, mix and mingle, in peace together in the State of Israel.


In fire and blood Judea fell and in fire and blood Judea arose. In 1948, and again in six spectacular days in 1967, the myth of the passive Jew whose life was cheap and blood was the gentile's for the taking, was forever crushed. The nation that for so long had been associated with sheep to the slaughter, with massacres and weakness, had arisen like a lion and fought for its life. In 1948, one million crack Arab soldiers, dedicated to driving the Jews into the sea and destroying the fledgling state, were attacked the 600 000 inhabitants of the Jewish yishuv. Just as in the days of David and Goliath, the defenders drove the enemy out. The defenders were outnumbered, farmers and citymen, Holocaust survivors given a rifle as they got off the boat. Some come with horses and some come with chariots but we invoke the name of HaShem our G-d! As the ovens and furnaces of Europe were still giving off their horrible stench, as the smoke was still emerging from the chimneys of Auschwitz, the Jewish state had arise with strength and power. The dry bones that had been murdered and annihilated in Europe had been reborn in the Land of Israel. ""Son of man, these bones are all the house of Israel. Behold they say, 'Our bones have become dried up, our hope is lost, we are clean cut off to ourselves.' Therefore, prophesy and say to them, So says the Lord God: Lo! I open your graves and cause you to come up out of your graves as My people, and bring you home to the land of Israel. Then you shall know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves and lead you up out of your graves as My people. And I will put My spirit into you, and you shall live, and I will set you on your land, and you shall know that I, the Lord, have spoken it and have performed it," says the Lord." (Yechezkel 37:11-14)


61 years after the awesome day in Tel-Aviv, we can sit back and feel pride over our many accomplishments. The Jewish language, Hebrew was revived, a feat never before accomplished. Cities and settlements were created. A vibrant and modern democratic state was built. Israel has one of the best and most powerful armies in the world. Close to half of the world's Jewish population now lives in the Jewish state. Israel is a world leader in science and technology and contributed a disproportionate amount to high-tech, medicine and science worldwide. Despite all of Israel's many problems, it has accomplished more in its mere 61 years of existence than most other countries around the world. The State of Israel is far from the fulfillment of the Prophets and there is a long journey to the Ultimate Redemption. Yet, in the words of Herzl: "If you will it, it is no dream." Just as it seemed impossible for there to be a sovereign Jewish state, as it seemed impossible for Jerusalem to be reunited as the capital of the Jewish people, so too will we reach all of our goals. A nation that waited two thousand years to return home is not afraid of a long and difficult struggle.

"Behold days are coming, says the Lord, that the plowman shall meet the reaper and the treader of the grapes the one who carries the seed, and the mountains shall drip sweet wine, and all the hills shall melt. And I will return the captivity of My people Israel, and they shall rebuild desolate cities and inhabit [them], and they shall plant vineyards and drink their wine, and they shall make gardens and eat their produce. And I will plant them on their land, and they shall no longer be uprooted from upon their land, that I have given them, said the Lord your God." (Amos 9:13-15) May we see the complete fulfillment of the Jewish Dream, of the Prophets of Israel, of a world where "out of Zion will go forth Torah, and the word of HaShem from Jerusalem", very soon. May we merit the day when "nations will not lift up swords against each other, neither shall they learn war anymore". May the Complete and Final Redemption come speedily in our days, in mercy and love, amen!

Am Yisrael remembers its heroes

On this day, we pause to remember the 22, 570 Jewish soldiers who have fallen in the defense of the State of Israel and the Jewish people since 1860, the year the first Jews built neighbourhoods outside of the walls of the Old City of Jerusalem. Only in the merit of the sacrifice of these brave soldiers can we have a state. Their courage and self-sacrifice is testimony to the strength of the Jewish people. We bought this land with blood and fire.

When HaShem promised our Father Avraham the Land of Israel, he asked G-d: Ba'meh eda ki erashena - How will I know that I will inherit it?. HaShem answered: bazeh, with this- sacrifices. Thousands of soldiers gave their lives to liberate this land and protect their people. 61 years after the re-establishment of the State of Israel, we continue to fight and struggle. The Eternal Nation is not afraid of a long journey.
***

The Silver Salver
"A State is not handed to a people on a silver salver"
Chaim Weizmann, first President of Israel The Earth grows still.

The lurid sky slowly pales
Over smoking borders.
Heartsick, but still lving, a people stand by
To greet the uniqueness
of the miracle.

Readied, they wait beneath the moon,
Wrapped in awesome joy, before the light.
-- Then, soon,
A girl and boy step forward,
And slowly walk before the waiting nation;

In work garb and heavy-shod
They climb
In stillness.
Wearing yet the dress of battle, the grime
Of aching day and fire-filled night

Unwashed, weary unto death, not knowing rest,
But wearing youth like dewdrops in their hair,
-- Silently the two approach
And stand.
Are they of the quick or of the dead?

Through wondering tears, the people stare.
"Who are you, the silent two?"
And they reply: "We are the silver salver
Upon which the Jewish State was served to you."

And speaking, fall in shadow at the nation's feet.
Let the rest in Israel's chronicles be told.

O G-d, full of mercy, Who dwells on high,
grant proper rest on the wings of the Divine Presence -
in the lofty levels of the holy and the pure ones,
who shine like the glow of the firmament -
for the souls of the martyrs of the Israel Defense Force,
who gave up their lives
for the Sanctification of the Name
and the Conquest of the Land,
because, the entire Nation of Israel mourns for them.
May their resting place be in the Garden of Eden -
therefore may the Master of Mercy
shelter them in the shelter of His wings for Eternity;
and may He bind their souls in the Bond of Life.
Hashem is their heritage,
and may they repose in peace on their resting place.

Now let us respond: Amen.


We cannot fathom the magnitude of the loss. I would like to remember one soldier in particular, Dvir Emanuelof, the first IDF casualty to fall in Gaza. Fighting there as a staff sergeant in his infantry unit, the elite Golani brigade, he was felled by Hamas mortar fire. Though Israel has a conscript army, Dvir did not have to be in Gaza, as he had received high marks as instructor of a squad leader course, was asked to go to officer school, and would still have been in training had he accepted; he deferred, however, saying he would not be fit to command until he had first fought alongside his comrades. In fact, Dvir did not have to be in any front-line position: His father Netanel had died of cancer at age 46, shortly before Dvir's service began; as an only son in a single-parent family, Dvir was exempt under IDF rules from combat duty. Before accepting him to Golani, his commanding officer visited Dalia and asked if she acquiesced in her son's opting for a dangerous path he was not obligated to choose. Her answer: "If this is how Dvir wants to serve his country, then this is what he will do." Two days before entering Gaza, Dvir had called home and said: "Mom, I have to fight. I have to be there." He fell defending the Jewish Nation in Gaza.

May his memory, and those of all of the fallen heroes of Israel, be a blessing.

The Real Meaning of Never Again

"We, pilots of the Israeli Air Force, flying in the skies over the extermination camps, arose from the ashes of the millions of victims, carrying their silent cries, saluting their bravery, and vowing to be a shield to the Jewish Nation, and to its Land, Israel."

An oft-repeated cliche repeated by both Jewish leaders and the international community is that of "never again". Presidents and Prime Ministers visit Yad VaShem, pay tribute at Holocaust Memorials and shed crocodile tears over the Jews murdered in the Holocaust, while proceeding to condemn and attack Israel. The same leaders that stood silently in commemoration of the Holocaust denounced Israel with the most hateful vitriol during its moment of greatest need, as it was fighting to defend itself and its citizens. Never again, they pledged. Never again? Is that really so?

The Holocaust teaches many universal messages. It teaches mankind to be ever vigilant against the forces of hatred and intolerance, whenever they arise against any people or group. It warns us never to allow bigoted speech and ideas fester and grow. It shows the ease with which an entire nation can descend to the depths of depravity and immorality. Yet, for the Jewish people, the Holocaust has one sharp and poignant message: Never again to be weak.

Since the destruction of the Second Temple, for two millenia, Jews lived as strangers in foreign lands, minorities under the rule of others. In Christendom and in Islamic lands, Jews were forced to lived in ghettos, mellahs or juderias, to wear distinctive and humiliating clothing, had restrictions on their professions and employment and endured severe discrimination. Jews were at the mercies of the lords of the land and had to comply with their wishes, whether it be being forced to hear a conversionist sermon delivered by a priest in a synagogue on Shabbat, or to pay a jyziah tax in a debasing ceremony to their Muslim overlords. Jews were spat upon and cursed, beaten and abused at will. The two thousand years of Jewish life in Europe and the Middle-East, with the exception of occasional periods of prosperity and tranquility, was marked with constant fear and insecurity. Ravaged by pogroms and Crusades, Inquisitions and forced conversions, massacres and jihads, Jews lived with their lives always hanging in a narrow balance. A new king or pope, ruler or clergyman, could put the Jews in peril.

In this climate of ingrained loathing and despising of the Jews, Hitler came along. He used the traditional anti-semitic motives of the Catholic church as well as new anti-semitic racial theories to stir up the people's hate. The policies of the Nazi Regime, even before the Final Solution to the Jewish Problem was implemented, were designed to crush and dehumanize the Jews. The Jew looked in trepidation at the Nazi brownshirts, Gestapo and SS, unable to defend or stand up for himself. Like animals, Jews were crammed into cattle cars, suffocated in gas chambers and burnt in ovens. The Nazi beasts could not have accomplished their genocide without the help of their Polish, Lithuanian, Ukrainian, Hungarian, etc. collaborators and executioners. Nor could they have managed without the world's silent approval. The Pope looked away when the Jews of Rome were rounded up from under his very window. Roosevelt, Stalin and Churchill all knew about the death camps, about the killing fields and mass graves in the Ukraine, about the gas chambers and crematorium in Poland, yet closed their doors to Jewish refugees. Allied bombers flew over Auschwitz but the military didn't see the use of bombing the train lines. As Jews needed a place to flee to, the British, at the urging of the Arabs and the Nazi-collaborator Haj Amin al-Husseini, may his name be accursed, prevented Jewish aliyah to the Land of Israel, and even sent refugees back into the hands of the Nazis.

Just yesterday, on Holocaust Memorial Day, a group of partisans who fought the Nazis in the forests of Europe, visited an IDF air force base. One woman asked an officer in our air force if our pilots could reach Iran. "They can reach anywhere," he answered. This answer, powerful and moving for its simplicity, conveys the true meaning of never again. Never again will we wait in vain for Allied planes to bomb the gas chambers. Never again will we wait for world aid which did not come. Never again will we allow ourselves to be weak, to be victimized, to be powerless. Never again will we accept any conditions on where we can live, what we can wear, on our professions or possessions. Never again will we be at the mercies of the gentiles, begging for our lives. This pilot was saying that we may have been 60 years too late for the Jews of Europe, but we were not too late for the Jews of Yemen or Ethiopia. Never again will we be too late! We may not have been able to save the Jews of Warsaw, but our planes reached Iraq and Entebbe. Our planes can fly to Lebanon or Gaza, and they may yet fly to Iran, destroying the enemies of the Jewish people. We will not stand idly by our brothers blood, whether they are being rounded up and deported to annihilation, living under constant bombardment and rocket attacks or in the shadow of a nuclear attack. We know that the world abandoned the Jews to their fate, that deals were not made and safe havens closed off. Today, we can reach anywhere.

Another survivor made her own request of the air force of Israel, "What I ask of you is to make sure that there will not be another Holocaust." As long as brave Jewish men and women don the uniform of the Israeli Defense Force and protect the Jewish people from on land, sea and air, there can never be another Holocaust. We have learnt the terrible price of being weak. Being defenseless and without a homeland came at the horrendous cost of a third of our nation. The hatred of the world for the Jews has not diminished one iota since the trains came to a halt and the crematoriums stopped giving off their accursed smoke. Across Europe and North America, in public forums and university campuses, the Jewish State is being delegitimized and marked as a pariah. We must not heed the words of these haters for we know too well how dearly we pay without a state of our own. The only thing that stands between us and Auschwitz-Birkenau are the soldiers of the IDF. Those who condemned the army going in to Gaza must know that they only went in there to protect and defend the Jewish people. They are what keeps us from the narrow brink, from the mound of ashes at Majdanek, from the halls of shoes and piles of hair. To the Jews of Europe, massacred because of the world's apathy and our own weakness, scattered in the forests of Teblinka, the fields of Birkenau or the mass graves of the Ukraine, we promise never again to be weak, to allow ourselves to be bullied and beaten. For this is the true meaning of "Never Again".



Cross-posted to Stop Raping Israel