Tired of Duplicitous Politicians

I am sick to death of the phony expressions of sorrow from President Bush, Secretary Rice and the other nations - while they send a king’s treasure to the terrorists, in addition to arming and training them. The first television coverage on March 6th (which was quickly terminated) showed the riotous celebrations in Gaza, with firing of weapons that sounded like firecrackers and handing out of candy (made with the sugar supplied in humanitarian shipments from Israel).

Even the be-suited Terrorist Mahmoud Abbas (aka Abu Mazen) condemned the "successful" Terrorist while his Fatah has major Terrorists operating under his banner - including Al Aksa Martyrs’ Brigade, Tanzim, PFLP, Islamic Jihad - with significant input by Hezb’Allah, Al Qaeda, the Muslim Brotherhood, among others. I expect Fatah and Hamas to re-united soon in their joint goal to wipe out the Jewish State.

But, Bush must have looked into Abu Mazen’s eyes and seen his soul - as he did with Putin, and saw nothing but good in his "Moderate" soul.

Condi’s condolences are not worth the price of an Email, given her deep antipathy for the Jewish nation, Israel, and her people. Condi says (she is still reliving her childhood) where the southern whites were savaging her black brethren. With all that bile souring her stomach, she had to regurgitate somewhere, so she picked on the Jews. In her warped psychology, Jews looked like her southern whites and the Muslim Terrorists became her blacks.

Condi, you had better keep your condolence babble inside your head rather than pretend you care about Jews being murdered by Islamic Arab Palestinians.

As fo the nations who haunt the U.N., better they also keep their condolences for the newspapers and TV. Their knee-jerk, pro-forma condolence cards have become like a Hallmark holiday greeting card because the Terror, Rocket and Missile attacks happen so often.

As for Israel, she should return their phony expressions of condolence, marked: "Return to Sender" and ask: "What are you going to do to stop the killings?"


Previously Posted On:
Gamla.Org

Posted By Michael Blackburn to IsraelAmerica at 3/31/2008 10:57:00 AM

A Tribute To The IDF

American Arms Firms Slipping?

Israel has decided against buying a U.S.-produced anti-rocket laser for the border with the Hamas-run Gaza Strip because of the device's poor performance in field tests, a top Israeli defence official said on Monday. Israeli state arms firm Rafael is developing Iron Dome, which is designed to shoot down Palestinian rockets from Gaza with miniature missiles, but that system is not expected to be operational before 2010. Seeking a stop-gap countermeasure, Defence Ministry director-general Pinchas Buchris flew to the United States last week to re-evaluate Nautilus, an Israeli-U.S. invention that uses a laser to blow up rockets and mortar bombs mid-flight. Israeli experts had previously written off Nautilus -- which is being upgraded under a new name, Skyguard -- as unreliable, and Israel's Army Radio said Buchris had found little improvement."Were we to order it as is, to protect Sderot, we would create two things," Buchris told the station, referring to an Israeli border town under frequent Gazan rocket barrages. "First, there would be the illusion, for Sderot residents, that it provides a response. Another thing, we would create a situation where Hamas felt it had scored an achievement in that ... we have no way of coping with the Qassams (rockets)."Israel has also been looking at Phalanx, an automated cannon made by U.S. firm Raytheon that shreds incoming shells. Rockets launched from Gaza -- which Israel quit in 2005, giving Hamas a major political boost -- cause relatively few casualties but have paralysed Sderot and other border towns.The salvoes have ramifications for Israel's peace talks with Hamas's rival, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. Barak would likely insist that any deal ceding the West Bank to Abbas be conditioned on deployment of a working anti-rocket apparatus.

Dan Williams

An Apology

My apologies to the family and friends and anyone else reading about the shooting of Officers Roy and Andy Garcia of the South Tucson and Tucson Police Depts.
I incorrectly identified Seargent Roy Garcia as being with the South Tucson Police Department.
He was in fact with the Tucson Police Department.
A link to the story, as corrected, is below.


Chapter One

Why Israel?

I ask myself that question.
Others ask it.
Another way that the question has been put is, why should Israel be Jewish?
Throughout all of recorded history, or at least back to biblical times, Israel has been Jewish, or has been home to Jews.
There has always been a Jewish presence in Israel.
Arabs arrived 700 years ago, so they are relative newcomers.
Throughout history, at least since the Diaspora, i.e., the dispersal of most of the Jews occuring after the Roman period, Jews as a people have been persecuted.
There really is only one place they are not persecuted, at least not by their government, and that is in Israel.
Israel must be Jewish since if it was not, there would be no homeland for the Jews, a right given to every other people.
The Arabs, for example, have over 22 countries that they may call their homeland.
To survive, the Jews need one.
To paraphrase Shai Ben Tekoa, the Arabs have land equal to the size of North America.
The Jews have a country equal to the size of Rhode Island.
The Arab complaint is that the Jews have too much land and the Arabs don't have enough.
The aim of Israel America is to attempt to help those who support Israel, and those who wish to learn about Israel to do so.
Please come back.

What To Do About Gaza: The Realistic Scenario

Barry Rubin
March 17, 2008
Not only is there no good solution to the Gaza problem, there's no "solution" at all, But in the Middle East, solutions are rare; what's needed is the best, imperfect, option among five alternatives:
Current policy. Israel absorbs damage and casualties in Sderot and some other places. Few are affected; almost all the country functions normally. International pressure and casualties are limited. Israel hits rocket launchers, terrorist bases, and leading terrorists periodically. Eventually, there will be an anti-rocket defense.
But aside from government's duty to its citizens, things will change. Hamas will produce larger and longer-range missiles against Ashkelon and eventually Ashdod.
Another problem with this strategy is that Western criticism defines even minimal self-defense methods as disproportionate. If you get slammed for taking punches you might as well fight back. Moreover, the West basically protects Hamas' rule in Gaza, despite sanctions and diplomatic isolation, neither of which might last. As Hamas grows more aggressive, Western policies might become more appeasing. Meanwhile, being "soft" on Hamas doesn't make peace talks work but does make Hamas look more effective than the less violent PA and Fatah.
Finally, public opinion presses government to change policy.
There are three proposals playing off a thirst for neat solutions. A ceasefire is an ideal dovish solution, overthrowing Hamas appeals to hawks, and giving the mess to an international force makes both philosophies happy. Unfortunately none of these ideas work.
A ceasefire is riddled with problems, paradoxically bringing even more violence. Hamas won't observe it, letting both its own members and others attack Israel while inciting murder through every institution. The ceasefire won't last long; Hamas would use it to strengthen its rule and army while demanding a reward for its "moderation": an end to sanctions and diplomatic isolation; even Western aid.
Re-occupy Gaza; Destroy Hamas. Sounds good. But how? Israel isn't being hit hard enough to make such a huge undertaking worthwhile. Troops would face constant attack from all directions. Once again, Israel would be involved in the daily rule of more than one million hostile people. Too many soldiers would be tied up to permit proper security in the West Bank and Lebanon border. It would be high-cost in casualties, money, and international friction.
And in the end Hamas will not be "destroyed." To defeat Hamas is not to eliminate it but to keep it as weak as possible (through military strikes, isolation, etc.) and limit its ability to hit Israel.
There's also the plan's second fallacy of turning Gaza over to a "moderate" Fatah and PA. There is no chance of their accepting this gift. In fact, Fatah would rather make a deal with Hamas than fight it. And why believe they'd do a better job than last time?
The International Solution. But there's a gimmick: the idea of turning Gaza over to an international force. This is a fantasy. Countries are not going to send forces into a war there to be attacked every day, nor will they brave criticism from Arab and Muslim states as well as terrorist attacks for no benefit.
Besides, what will the force do? Certainly not arrest thousands of Gazans, kill those trying to attack Israel, hold mass trials of terrorists and sentence them to long prison terms. Definitely not disarm Hamas or stop arms smuggling from Egypt.
And when rockets keep falling that force would block Israeli military action there. The option would also be a political disaster, with the sponsoring countries rushing to establish a Palestinian state and negotiate with Hamas. Finally, as noted above, the PA and Fatah won't take Gaza from an international force.
Push Hamas Back: What is needed is the most realistic option based on reality, not wishful thinking. Israel's interest is to minimize attacks on its soil and citizens while limiting the cost of the response needed to achieve that goal. This can be best done by combining a more active version of current policy and the creation of a security zone in the "northern" Gaza Strip to push Hamas and its allies out of range.
Such a zone could be made relatively secure because it would be on a narrow front, with flanks protected by the sea on the north and Israel proper on the south and east, with Israel controlling the airspace. This is an interim policy until anti-missile, anti-rocket defenses can be implemented, perhaps three years.
Of course, there is risk. Israeli forces will be attacked, yet they would be in a strong, fortified position and know they are protecting the civilians behind them. Some rockets will fall on Israel but the numbers would be far reduced and the area affected limited. Israel would continue to operate within Hamas-held Gaza as needed.
Will the world--which claims Israel is occupying Gaza already--do much if Israel temporarily takes back ten percent?
This issue will not be solved by negotiations, concessions, appeasement, force, or anything else. Defense Minister Ehud Barak is right: "It's not the end, the beginning of the end or the end of the beginning."
The same logic applies to Gaza as for the West Bank and Lebanon border. The main goal is for the army to minimize danger and damage so people can go about their normal lives and build up the country, protected by their soldiers.

Barry Rubin is Director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center, Interdisciplinary Center university. His latest book, The Truth about Syria was published by Palgrave-Macmillan in May 2007. Prof. Rubin's columns can be read online at: http://www.gloriacenter.org/index.asp?pname=submenus/articles/index.asp.

The Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center

Interdisciplinary Center (IDC) Herzliya P.O. Box 167 Herzliya, 46150 Israel
Email: info@gloriacenter.org Phone: +972-9-960-2736 Fax: +972-9-956-8605

“Comparing contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis is increasingly commonplace." By Barry Rubin

My sincere thanks to Professor Rubin for this excellent piece of scholarship.
MFB

“Comparing contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis is increasingly commonplace." --U.S. State Department report on antisemitism, 2007.
Let’s talk about the Nazis. There should have already been more than enough discussion about this in the more than half-century since Adolf Hitler’s bunker fell in 1945. There have been hundreds and thousands of books, articles, speeches, and so on about what is commonly known as the Holocaust.
But apparently it hasn’t been enough, or well enough understood.
The Nazis were not just mean people. They had an explicit doctrine of being superior human beings and of the Jews and others (especially Slavs and non-white peoples, except for their ally, Japan,) of being sub-humans who should be wiped out. Homosexuals and Gypsies would all be killed. Germany would rule the world.
This does not resemble Zionism. To put it bluntly, Zionism as an ideology has absolutely no interest in the world as a whole. It focuses only on building a Jewish state in the land of Israel. It has no interest in defining any other group of people, no global perspective. It has never even argued that Jews are better but only that Jews are a people with the same rights as other peoples. The concept is on asserting Jewish equality, not superiority.
There is, however, an ideology which does have a lot in common with Nazism, though there are also of course differences. Radical Islamism claims that other religions are inferior, that the people who hold them are evil, that Jews and Christians are evil, and that Islam should rule the world. The Hamas Charter quotes a source on this point: “You are the best community that has been raised up for mankind….Ignominy shall be their portion” of non-Muslims unless they convert to Islam.”
If it doesn’t seek the extinction of all Jews in the world, it favors the elimination of at least half (those in Israel) and the large part of the other half that supports Israel. The Hamas Charter says that only by killing all the Jews can the messianic era come and that Jews are the cause of all the world’s problems. Oh, yes, and it also calls Israel a “Nazi-like society.”
Mind you, these are the people controlling the Gaza Strip, firing rockets daily at Israel, teaching their children by television and in the classroom that killing Jews is their highest duty and honor, sending gunmen to murder Jewish students deliberately, and then celebrating that fact.
Let’s return, however, to the original and self-described Nazis to get a sense of what it means to have a Nazi policy.
My father’s family comes from the village of Dolginov which was in Poland, a few miles from the Russian border. Most of the inhabitants were Jews. By 1941, there were nearly 5,000 Jews there, about half of them refugees from the part of Poland already under German rule. On June 22, 1941, the Germans invaded the USSR and they entered Dolginov six days later. No one in Dohinov had a gun. No one fired a single shot at a German soldier.
What was the Nazi policy? All the Jews were forced into a ghetto. On March 3, 1942, the Germans murdered the rabbi and 22 other men. On March 28, about 800 Jews were killed. Between April 29 and May 1, all the rest of the Jewish inhabitants, except for a few who were kept temporarily as workers, were shot and thrown into a big ditch. The rest were murdered on May 21. Of 5,000 Jews then living into town, 96 percent were killed deliberately and systematically. And if the Nazis had their way it would have been 100 percent.
The only survivors were about 200 people who had fled into the forest, wandered for days, and finally had the luck to meet up with a Red Army patrol. They were taken to safety in Siberia for the rest of the war. Virtually all of them came to Israel, where they rebuilt their lives.
Today, these people and their descendants have the privilege of being compared to the Nazis by large parts of the world, including many who enjoy privileged lives in democratic countries.
This is my great aunt’s family on my grandfather’s side. Haya Doba Rubin, her husband Aharon Perlmutter, and their two sons, Haim who was 12 years old and Jacob who was 10 years old were murdered. No survivors.
This is my great uncle’s family on my grandmother’s side. Samuel Grosbein married Rivka Markman and they had two children, Leah Rivka, 18 years old, and Lev, 23 years old. All of them were murdered on the same day. No survivors.
Here is the family of my great aunt on my grandmother’s side. Rahel Grosbein married Yirimayahu Dimenshtein and they had two children, Moshe, 21 years old and Tova, 16 years old. The first three were murdered on the same day. Only Tova survived because she had fled into the forest.
That is what a Nazi policy is like. Multiply that by six million for the Jews alone and more for the Poles, Gypsies, homosexuals, and others.
Let’s compare this with a conventional Western democratic war-fighting policy. The goal here is to defeat the enemy army but it has been permissible to strike against the economy and infrastructure as well. There is no intent to kill civilians but they may be hit by accident. During World War Two, U.S. and British warplanes engaged in carpet bombing of German and Japanese cities as well as factories where civilian workers were employed. Tens of thousands of French civilians were killed in raids on occupied France.
To my knowledge, no Allied soldiers were punished for killing civilians by accident or through carelessness. Nobody was court-martialed for shooting prisoners.
Israeli policy is far more careful to avoid injuring civilians. Most airstrikes are against specific buildings or even individual automobiles. Civilian bystanders have been killed yet far fewer proportionately than has been true for, say, the U.S. or French armies. Soldiers have been tried and punished for actions which, at least in the recent past, would have been ignored in Western armies.
There is no instance I know of in which Israeli units opened unlimited fire on a crowd, even when rocks were being thrown or shots fired against them. Individual targets were picked out. Unarmed people were killed but not deliberately and in small numbers. If Israelis were as their enemies picture them to be, there would be hundreds of Palestinians killed in a single day, tens of thousands in a year.
Thus, even if Israel has been held to a double standard, its record has been better than that of even Western counterparts. Only by lying about that record—the norm in the Arabic-speaking world and all-to-common in the Western one—can it be made to seem terrible.
We need only remember what the Nazis believed and did, what Israelis believe and do, and what their enemies believe and do. It should not be so hard to understand the distinctions.

Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center http://www.gloriacenter.org and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs Journal http://meria.idc.ac.il. His latest books are The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan) and The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley).


GloriaCenter.Org

Professor Barry Rubin,
Director, Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center
Editor, Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal
Editor, Turkish Studies

Obama In Trouble?

It looks like Obama may be in trouble.
His Minister's comments are the talk of interactive media these days.
My personal objection, at least my strongest objection is to Rev Wright saying that the U.S. practiced genocide in "Palestine".
Obama needs to distance himself from this individual, but fast.

There is nothing to fear but fear — and gullibility — itself.

Hello.
I originally posted this article by Barry Rubin on IsraelAmerica, but it is so important that i'd like to share it with you all here. Sometimes I ponder what to say here, and lately I have been wondering how to address the seeming gulliblity of otherwise fair-minded people when it comes to Israel and the Arab criminal gangs.
I take my hat off to Barry Rubin for this eloquent introduction to the
dilemma.



Radical forces in the Middle East have rewritten the international rulebook in a way designed so they can't lose. That is, there is no easy response to their behavior and strategies. Even more worrisome is the widespread failure in the West even to realize this is happening.
Hamas and Hizbullah fire from among civilians and use civilian homes for military purposes; Syria or Iran deploy disinformation; radical regimes pretend moderation, and there are plenty of suckers to take the bait.
Extremism makes many believe that kind words and concessions can transform them; intransigence produces the response that if they won't give up, we must do so.


HERE ARE some new rules in which "we" represents such disparate forces as Hamas, Hizbullah, Iran, Iraqi insurgents, al-Qaida, Syria, the Taliban and others, including radical Arab nationalists.
These forces are not all alike or allied, but do often follow a parallel set of rules quite different from how international affairs have generally been conducted.
1. We'll never give up. No matter what you do, we will continue fighting. No matter what you offer, we will keep attacking you. Since you can't win, you should give up.
2. We're indifferent to any pressure you put on us. We will turn this pressure against you. Against us, deterrence does not exist; diplomacy does not convince.The carrot cannot buy us off, nor the stick make us yield. There are no solutions that can end the conflict. You cannot win militarily, nor make peace through diplomacy.
3. If you set economic sanctions, we'll say you are starving our people in an act of "collective punishment." Moreover, sanctions will cost you money and generate opposition among those who lose profits.
4. In response to military operations, we'll attack your civilians. Casualties will undermine your internal support. We will try to force you to kill civilians accidentally. We won't care, but will use this to persuade many that you are evil. Thus we will simultaneously murder your civilians and get you condemned as human rights violators.
5. If you try to isolate us we will use your own media and intellectuals against you. At times, we will hint at moderation and make promises of change. We won't do so enough to alienate our own followers, but enough to subvert yours. They will demand you engage us, which means you making concessions for nothing real in exchange.
6. Talking to our own people, we will foment hatred and demonize you. Speaking to the West, we will accuse you of fomenting hatred. We will hypocritically turn against you all the concepts you developed: racism, imperialism, failure to understand the "other," and so on. These concepts, of course, describe what we are doing, but your feelings of guilt, ignorance about us, and indifference to ideology will make you fail to notice that fact.
7. We will claim to be victims and "underdogs." Because you are stronger and more "advanced," that means you are the villains. We are not held responsible for our deeds, or expected to live up to the same standards. There will be no shortage of, to quote Lenin, "useful idiots" in your societies to help echo our propaganda.
8. Since our societies are weak, undemocratic and have few real moderates, you will have to make deals with phoney moderates and dictatorial regimes weakened by corruption and incompetence.
9. Even the less radical regimes, often our immediate adversaries, partly play into our hands. Due to popular pressure — plus their desire to mobilize support and distract attention from their own shortcomings — they trumpet Arab and Islamic solidarity. They denounce the West, blame all problems on Israel and revile America, even as they accept your aid. They glorify interpretations of Islam not too far from ours. They cheer Iraqi insurgents, Hizbullah, and Hamas. They don't struggle against Iran getting nuclear weapons. They lay the basis for our mass support and recruits.
10. There is no diplomatic solution for you, though you yearn to find one. There is no military solution for you, whether you try that or not. You love life, we love death; you are divided, we are united; you want to get back to material satisfaction, we are dedicated revolutionaries.
We will outlast you.
Finally, our greatest weapon is that you truly don't understand all the points made above. You are taught, informed, and often led by people who simply don't comprehend what an alternative, highly ideological, revolutionary world view means.
In effect, we will try, and will often succeed, to turn your "best and brightest" into the worst and dimmest who think you can persuade us, who blame you for the conflicts, or expect that we will alter our course. We will use those mistakes against you.


THE ABOVE analysis seems pessimistic, but is actually the opposite. Most of this strategy's power is based on spreading illusions, depending on gullibility. Much of the rest relies on the enemy's psychological weaknesses.
In a sustained conflict, the radicals' technological and organizational weaknesses, along with their mistaken assessments and unrealistic ideology, will bring inevitable defeat. They will lose even if they never surrender. They can kill people, but not overcome societies determined to grow, prosper, and survive.
The keys to a successful response are steadfastness and understanding. To paraphrase Francis Bacon and Franklin Roosevelt, there is nothing to fear but fear — and gullibility — itself.

Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center, Interdisciplinary Center, and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs. His latest book is "The Truth About Syria".




Global Research in International Affairs
(GLORIA) Center


Middle East Review of International Affairs
(MERIA) Journal

Elliot Spitzer

Too sad.
Elliot Spitzer has done what millions of Americans have done, but he got caught.
Remember that song, "The Fire down Below."?
The chorus was, "They only got one thing in common, they got the fire down below."
There are prostitutes on almost every corner in the "red light districts" of most major cities in America.
Everyone pays for sex, one way or the other.
There is always a quid pro quo.

Spitzer's major error was arranging for the interstate transportation of the lady in question, which makes it a felony and a federal offense under the Mann act, (the statute that was used to destroy that "uppity" black heavyweight champion, Jack Johnson.)
Someday the state will be barred from people's sex lives, but until then, normal sexual behaviour is a crime, a Federal crime, no less.

The hypocrisy of those who are hounding Elliot Spitzer is sickening.

Palestinian Child Abuse

When is the world going to call for an end to the horrific child abuse being perpetrated against the children of the Palestinians?
Hamas-controlled television has introduced a series of death-glorifying, bloodthirsty children's characters on "Tomorrow's Pioneers." They include Farfour, a Mickey Mouse look-alike who is seen dancing "with an imaginary gun in his gloved hands and encourages kids to drink milk, study hard -- and engage in violent acts of 'resistance' against their Israeli neighbors and America."
Farfour was martyred last June after trying to liberate the land "from the filth of the criminal, plundering Jews," only to be replaced by Nahoul a bee who wants to follow Farfour's path "of heroism, of martyrdom, and of the muijahideen." Nahoul's death was shown to Palestinian children last month, a result of the blockade on Gaza.
He was replaced by a rabbit named Assud, who tells children "I, Assud, will get rid of the Jews, Allah willing. And I will eat them up, Allah willing, right?"
Then there's "The Gifted, a back-to-school program that showed a small boy, identified as a 2-year-old, skulking around in military garb and aiming an assault weapon "at the occupying terrorists."
"We'll wear the battle-vest of self sacrifice and follow the path of the Shahids," a child narrator says as the younger boy, his face hooded, stoops down with his weapon.
Showcasing these indoctrinations of hate and death, the duplicity of groups like CAIR in standing by Hamas, often brings back accusations of bigotry. And the death toll climbs.
Over 1000 missiles have rained upon S'derot since Israel left to give Palestinians the freedom to show the world that Palestinians can build, not just destroy.
What have they built?
The Palestinians destroy their own children's lives, and murder Israeli children outright.
Recently, Condi Rice called upon Israel to end the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
In what perverted sense is the humanitarian crisis Israel's responsibility?

Shalom Chaverim and Chavera

Hello, everyone.
Things are going well.
IsraelAmerica is alive and well.
Israel survives in spite of the discrimination to which the Jews have always been subjected.
Israel and the Jews will always survive.
L'Chaim!!!