The City's Not For Sharing

Today is Yom Yerushalayim, the 49th one since the miraculous day that the Master of the Universe smiled on our brave soldiers in 1967 and gave us the Old City which had been in enemy hands for almost twenty years.  It has become a tradition to publicly celebrate this momentous event in Jewish history and some of the events include a march through the entire Old City by Jews intent on reminding all its inhabitants that they live now and forever under Jewish sovereignty.
Naturally there are some people who are upset by that.  Of course  it's all in the good spirit of post-Zionist, Western-culture-hatred that these concerns are raised.  The same people who were barred from their holy sites for 19 years despite signed treaties guaranteeing them otherwise are not allowed to enjoy the fruits of their success.  This is intolerable, and of course, racist.
Now remember that the Left is actual quite racist but they cloak it under the guise of political correctness.  For Jews to talk about Jewish Israel is wrong.  For benighted Arabs to talk about an Judenrein state of Palestine is fine, a natural reaction to "the occupation".  So thus we have the Temple Mount, the Har haBayis, the site of the binding of our father, Yitzchak Avinu, a"h, but for them it's only one thing: the Dome of the Rock, a Muslim holy site.  Jews need not visit.  It'll just upset "the natives".  And beyond that we have Yerushalayim, the centre of the Jewish world for 3500 years but hey, don't say that out loud.  It'll just upset "the natives".  We can't talk about how the Temple Mount is the centre of our nation but they can shout about their exclusive rights on all their loudspeakers and that's okay.
The linked article is especially weak, though, since its title implies there are two legal Jewish arguments against Jews demonstrating that Yerushalayim is a Jewish city, Old City and all, and nothing else.  The first is taken from the Nevi'im and claims that the reason Babylon was punished for destroying Judah was because in addition to conquering our ancestors they humiliated us.  From this the author learns the classic liberal lesson: you can win a war but don't you dare act like it.  On most other days of the year there are multiple neighbourhoods in the Old City that Jews dare not tarry in or even enter.  On Yom Yerushalayim, one day out of 365, we do and this is too much for the liberal mind.  Sure we won a great victory, let's go somewhere else to celebrate.  We don't want to remind "the natives" they lost or interrupt any of their "Soon we will slaughter the Jews!" speeches.
The second argument is even weaker, based on a statement that makes no sense.  The author claims that the only time the word "degel" appears in Tanach is in Shir HaShirim.  Unless her use of the word "Tanach" specially excludes Torah, she clearly hasn't read the first few sections of Bemidbar in which the word repeatedly appears.  In that case the Degel is entirely about nationalistic identification since each tribe is assigned one so that everyone knows exactly where in the camp they are entitled to live.  The degel, in fact, proves the opposite of her point.  It is the degel of the State of Israel, the Jewish state of Israel, that flies over Yerushalayim.  We should make no apologies for that and the locals should know exactly what the implications of it are.
All this goes without reminding folks that Islamic claims of Yerushalayim as a holy city are based on rumour and myth.  The greatest proof is that even those that pray on the Temple Mount turn to face Saudi Arabia, the centre of their religion.  They love the Temple Mount because it's important to us, not them.
We must understand, of course, that our Final Redemption is only in its earliest stages and that during this time we have to expect a certain level of imperfection in our Land.  We are not at the point where we can simply expel all non-Jews who refuse to acknowledge Jewish sovereignty and enforce halacha as the law of the Land.  Only the coming of Moshiach Tzidkeinu can help us achieve that and frankly, he's nowhere on the horizon right now.  However, we can realize the this is the reason we share Yerushalayim with others, amongst them our enemies, not because it's a nice liberal politically correct, pro-diversity thing to do.  The march is a reminder that although we cannot have our ideal situation we are still in a position to remind the others that God has given us through His kindness control of our Holy City.

Does He Even Listen To Himself?

The Kingdom of Jordan has always been a peculiar entity.  It's ruled by a tribe, the Hashemites, who hail from Arabia and moved up to Israel's neighbourhood after World War I.  It's population is 75% so-called Palestinian yet until recently that group had little to say in how the country was run.  That's all changed as the current queen is a so-called Palestinian, yet no one suggests that Jordan is actually Palestine.
More importantly, it's a nearly landlocked country with minimal resources and, since the British left the region, a mediocre army.  It faces perennial hostility to its north from Syria and the east from Iraq.  In fact, its one secure border since 1967 has been its western one with Israel.  Israel has even stepped up to ensure that Jordan's borders were not violated by its brother Arab states over the years.  All this means that you'd think Jordan would be a friendlier place vis a vis Israel.
But no.  The current king of Jordan, Abdullah II, seems content to remind us from time to time that he blames Israel for all the region's problem as well as his own.  At a recent conference, like many times before, he used his opportunity at the microphone not to promote friendly relations between Israel and Jordan but rather to regurgitate the old Arab propaganda.  Any problem in the Middle East or North Africa is Israel's fault because it won't commit national suicide in order to create a new terrorist state on its eastern side.
It's almost comical at times, both because he says it and because others listen seriously.  Years ago when I was in undergraduate studies in university I came across an outdoor protest put on by an anti-Israel group, Canadians Concerned for the Middle East.  Feeling bold I began challenging them.  When they told me that all problems in the Middle East were due to Israel's "illegal occupation" I asked if the then-civil war raging in Yemen was because of Israel's occupation of its own land.  Was Saddam Hussein's (yes, it was that long ago) campaign of gassing the Kurds in northern Iraq related to Israel?  After raising another half dozen ongoing regional conflicts one of the protesters said "Hey man, you can set up a booth for the Kurds when we're done here".  To that I responded, "I'm not claiming to be concerned about the Middle East, you are but you don't seem to care about most of the region.  What's up with that?"
No one can really believe that ISIL, ISIS or whatever it's being called this month, is due to the Israeli-Arab conflict.  The Assad regime may have used Israel as an excuse to oppress its citizens but the collapse of Syria is entirely that government's fault.  No one connects the disintegration of Iraq to the Israeli-Arab conflict either.  Remember how that one started: with Iraq invading Kuwait many, many years ago.  Hard to see how Israel was to blame for that one. Perhaps Saddam was worried that we'd scoop up the Kuwaiti old fields and outflank him?
For those who hate Jews, no lie is stupid enough to be laughed at.  Perhaps that's the best response to these outrageous claims: not rebuttals, not facts, just laughter.

The True Palestinian State

Once upon a time Salim Mansur, a poli sci professor at the University of Western Ontario (go 'Stangs!), was a virulent critic of Israel, indistinguishable from the rabid Jew-haters that daily fill their air waves and media, both electronic and print, with their venom.  Somewhere along the line he had an epiphany and came to realize that Israel is not the evil entity he thought it was and began to write positive things about it.  Despite a strong backlash from his community and former "friends" he has continued to be a passionate advocate for peace in the Middle East along with supporting Israel.  His latest piece, written together with Geoffrey Clarfield, deserves to be widely read because it destroys one of the enduring myths that Jew haters around the world thrive on.
The thesis is quite simple and is uncontested history.  During the First World War Britain promised both the Jewish community of Israel as well as lots of local Arab tribes that it would assist their efforts towards self-determination if those groups aided British efforts againt the Ottoman Empire.  The Jews and Arab tribes complied and only later discovered that the British had promised the same patch of land to different groups. As the conventional history goes, Israel was promised to both the Israelis and the so-called Palestinians, setting up this endless conflict that serves only to cause death, misery and keep Tzipi Livni busy travelling around.
But the truth is quite different.  Yes, Britain promised Israel to both Jews and Arabs but what we are never reminded of is that Israel, or more specifically Mandatory Palestine, consisted of both what is Israel today (including Yesha) and the Kingdom of Jordan.  What's more, the Mandate was conferred officially by the League of Nations which meant that the building of a Jewish homeland on that land was the exclusive objective the British were supposed to be assisting.
Instead, as is well know, the British decided that their political needs outweighed their sense of honour.  In order to reward the Hashemi tribe of Hejaz (the western part of the Arabian penninsula) who were getting whupped by the Saudi tribe in a regional war they moved their allies up to Jordan, drew a border down the river and Aravah and created the kingdom of Transjordan (now Jordan).  What's more, in addition to betraying the terms of the Mandate they made sure the new kingdom would be Judenrein even as they encouraging the flooding of what was left of  "Palestine by Arabs and North Africans from across the Middle East in order to swamp the Jewish population and create a demographic situation in which they could credibly claim that there was no further point in encouraging the building of a Jewish state.
Mansur and Clarfield summarize this history admirably and then point out the blindingly obvious: Jordan is the real Palestine.  Demographically it's 75% or more so-called Palestinian.  The queen is a so-called Palestinian as well as the royal progeny.  Meanwhile the Hashemis are a distinct and foreign minority holding power only because, despite a rubber stamp parliament, Jordan remains a dictatorial monarchy.
As the authors point out:

The political and ethnographic disappearance of the Palestinian nature of the Arabs of Eastern Palestine (Jordan), has largely been a tactic used by the Arab League, and its allies on the left, to put Israel and its supporters on the defensive, for many Arabs have made public statements in favor of the Jordan-is-Palestine argument. They just happen to do so in a way that usually implies the destruction of the Jewish State.
For example, on Feb. 2, 1970. Prince Hassan of the Jordanian National Assembly said, “Palestine is Jordan and Jordan is Palestine: there is only one land, with one history and one and the same fate.” On March 14, 1977, Farouk Kaddumi, the head of the PLO political department told Newsweek, “There should be a kind of linkage because Jordanians and Palestinians are considered by the PLO as one people.”
Also in 1977, speaking to a Dutch newspaper, PLO representative Zouhair Muhsen said, “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.”
Perhaps the most revealing public quote by Muhsen was when he bluntly stated that “There are no differences between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. We are all part of one nation. It is only for political reasons that we carefully underline our Palestinian identity. … The existence of a separate Palestinian identity serves only tactical purposes. The founding of a Palestinian state is a new tool in the continuing battle against Israel.” (And this goes some way to explaining why Arab states rise and fall so quickly. They have little historical or ethnographic unity, with the exception of Egypt.)
Mudar Zahran is an Arab, Muslim, Palestinian Jordanian who has had to flee Jordan because he has told the truth to his fellow Arabs — that Jordan is a Palestinian State. In a recent article he has bluntly stated: “There is, in fact, almost nothing un-Palestinian about Jordan except for the royal family. Despite decades of official imposaition of a Bedouin image on the country, and even Bedouin accents on state television, the Palestinian identity is still the most dominant … to the point where the Jordanian capital, Amman, is the largest and most populated Palestinian city anywhere. Palestinians view it as a symbol of their economic success and ability to excel. Moreover, empowering a Palestinian statehood for Jordan has a well-founded and legally accepted grounding: The minute the minimum level of democracy is applied to Jordan, the Palestinian majority would, by right, take over the political momentum.”

This then is the ultimate proof of the supposed "I hate Israel but I love Jews" lobby.  There is a Palestinian state and it has the capacity to absorb the supposed Palestinian diaspora.  So why is it that we keep hearing about how Israel is occupying Palestine when it's really next door?

The Club We Don't Need To Be In

As a Religious Zionist I have always looked at Israeli sports with a mixed view.  On one hand there is the instinctive pride one feels in seeing Jewish athletes competing with and (sometimes) holding their own against the best of other nations.  On the other hand I always remember that what we as a nation need to strive for is not to be as good as the Gentiles at their own games but to emulate the holiness of the Creator in our daily lives through our observance of the mitzvos.  

So it was with mixed feelings that I followed the recent crisis in Israeli sports, the one caused by the Arabs attempting to have Israel's national team kicked out of FIFA.

To be fair I'm not sure what the overall impact of such a move would have been on Israel.  It's not like the Israeli team ever makes it anywhere near the World Cup and an expulsion wouldn't affect the thriving national league.  There would certainly be a blow to the country's sporting pride but are we still so insecure that we need the Gentile world's approval to feel good about ourselves?

Fortunately or not the motion was recently withdrawn.  This was no doubt a tactical move by the Arabs.  Perhaps they knew that the Israelis had enough supportive votes to cause the motion to fail and, instead of being humiliated in from of FIFA our enemies chose to be "magnanimous" and cease their efforts.

I think it's more likely that the recent scandal regarding corruption at the highest levels of FIFA (although not the president himself, oh no, not him!) was the guiding factor behind the withdrawal.

FIFA doesn't look terribly good in the eyes of the world right now.  Most people knew that, like the IOC, the executive of the organization is hopelessly corrupt.  They know that the 2022 Qatar World Cup effort is supported by slave labour and that Third World workers are dying on a daily basis to build the sheikhdom's stadiums.  They know decisions are made based on bribery and graft.  Even so, this scandal blows open any pretense FIFA's executive had about presenting themselves as even halfway decent guardians of "the beautiful game".

Imagine the response to a vote to expel Israel from FIFA at this time.  They're standing in judgement of us?  Crooks and thieves are deciding whether or not Israel is morally pure enough to remain in the club?

A club like that is not one that any decent person, especially a Jewish one, should be desperate to be a member of.  FIFA benefits by having the Israelis there and perhaps there was pressure on the Arabs to end their expulsion efforts because of that.

Why Newt Is Right

By now news of the controversial statement made by Republican presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich has spread around the world raising the kind of discussion and criticism its originator probably hoped it would.  For those late to the party, here's what he said:
. In fact, Gingrich is completely right.  Desepite attempts to rewrite history, there was never a state called Palestine.  There was never a Palestinian people before 1920 either.  Up until then the Arab residents in of the Ottoman Empire living in Israel were considered Syrians and part of that province.  It was really only in 1920 when the new French and British mandates in the area split the Syrian Arab population between French Lebanon and Syria and British Israel and Transjordan that a new national entity suddenly sprung into existence.  Cut off from their Syrian brethren and resigned to never reuniting with them, the Arabs in Israel suddenly became Palestinian.
The Arab population of Israel subsequently swelling through unrestricted immigration even as the British, may their island sink, sealed the borders of our land to us.  Most of the immigrants came looking for jobs but all they had to do was establish a mailing address and they became Palestinian from time immemorial.
This situation developed further after the 1948 War of Independence.  Despite the Arabs abandoning their supposedly ancestral homeland in large numbers, they created a new fiction - there had been a greaet and prosperous nation of Palestine which the Zionists had destroyed and replaced with the new Israeli state.  Curiously, the borders back then were what are now called pre-1967 Israel.  In 1964 the PLO was founded and given bases of operations in 'Aza and Yehuda/Shomron which, again quite curiously, were not part of ancestral Palestine - the Egyptians and Jordanians were having none of that - so that they could liberate ancestral Palestine, again: pre-1967 Israel.
It was only with Israel's stunning and miraculous victory in the Six Day War that the borders of this mysterious country of Palestine shifted and suddenly encompassed Yesha, along with pre-1967 Israel.  What kind of a country can't decide where its borders were?
Golda Meir famously said there was no such thing as the Palestinian people.  She was half-right.  There never was such a thing as the Palestinian people.  They are indeed a creation of the Arab propaganda machine, designed as part of the war to delegitimize and ultimately destroy Israel.  But they exists now.  The question is: does that matter?
What made Ronald Reagan the greatest president of the United States in the second half of the 20th century was his willingness to question what everyone considered conventional wisdom.  When he entered the Oval Office it was taken for granted that we lived in a world with two dominant superpowers and that every other country essentially had to pick a side, that the Cold War would last forever, that balance between the USA and USSR was part of the natural order of things.
Reagan refused to accept this.  The USSR wasn't a second superpower to him.  He was quite prepared to call it what it was: the Evil Empire, source of death and destruction and a powerful threat to freedom across the globe.  Its existence did not have to be tolerated.  It did not have to be a balance to the USA.  As a result he set out to end the existence of the USSR and within a decade he had done so, providing the US with its greatest chance to end much of the oppression in the world. (Not my fault they didn't).
What Gingrich's has done is thrown down the gauntlet to those that wish to defend Israel against its enemies.  By accepting the idea that there is such a thing as a Palestinian people with legitimate nationalistic aspirations one has already lost the argument over Israel's legitimacy since the whole essence of the so-called Palestinian narrative is: We were here first.  Gingrich takes the argument back to fairer ground: The Jews can prove they have been in the land for 3500 years.  What proof do you have that your existence as a people stretches back past 1920 other than invented histories and stories?
In effect, Gingrich's statement forces secular liberal Jews to take a position: either you accept the truth or you accept your enemy's version of history.  It's not someting many of them are ready to do.

The US Republican presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich has declared that the Palestinians are an "invented" people who want to destroy Israel.
The Jewish Channel, a cable TV station, posted online its interview with the former US House speaker, who has risen to the top of Republican nomination candidates to challenge Democratic President Barack Obama in the November 2012 election.
Gingrich differed from official US policy that respects the Palestinians as a people deserving of their own state based on negotiations with Israel. "Remember, there was no Palestine as a state. It was part of the Ottoman Empire" until the early 20th century, Gingrich said.
"I think that we've had an invented Palestinian people who are in fact Arabs and who were historically part of the Arab community. And they had a chance to go many places, and for a variety of political reasons we have sustained this war against Israel now since the 1940s, and it's tragic," he said.

For liberal Jews in North America this outright rejection of over 60 years of Arab propaganda is quite disconcerting. For reasons of ethnic feelings of attachment many of them want to be pro-Israel. On the other hand, their secular post-nationalist sentiments demand that they feel sympathy for the perceived underdog in the ongoing clash in Israel, the Arabs. They want to proudly wave the blue and white but at the same time express, with all due seriousness, their desire for the creation of a new terrorist state, Palestine, because the so-called Palestinians deserve it as a matter of social justice or some other such nonsensical term. The outright rejection of the legitimacy of a so-called Palestinian people is beyond their conception and makes them very uncomfortable

Intentionally Mangling History

Eli Valley is a Jew-hating Jew. A cartoonist for the Forward, he is especially talented when it comes to attacking Orthodox or Zionist Jews.  Perhaps it's the secular liberal in him.  Perhaps it's a naivete that has led him to believe all the lies about Torah and Israel.  Perhaps he's just a hateful person, but his latest piece goes beyond hatred and misrepresenation and into outright lies.
The comic, which can regretfully be enlarged by clicking on it, starts with a fictional scene in the far future in which Israel has already become Palestine and then goes back through "history" to show how that happened.  Naturally every step of the way Israel has an opportunity to prevent this from happening by creating a two-state solution and makes the wrong decision each and every time.
Consider his contention that by 2022 the population west of the Jordan river will have an Arab majority.  It has been well-documented elsewhere that most Arab census numbers generated by the so-called Palestinian Authority and various UN agencies are completely fictional and greatly inflated.  It is unlikely that Israel, even with the Arabs of Yesha included, is closed to an Arab majority. (Besides, isn't the current bogeyman of the secular Jew-hating-Jew left a Chareidi majority, not an Arab one?)
His 201 box shows Netanyahu refusing to consider a two-state solution as Mahmood Abbas presents the idea at the UN.  Never mind that many countries including the United States decried the move and worked to prevent it.  Nope, in Valley's world it's Israel that's guilty and Israel alone at missing the opportunity.
But his 2009 box is the most egregious when it comes to historical facts.  The statement "They've accepted almost everything we've demanded" is more than just an opinion.  It is a lie, pure and simple.  Israel, after all, has had simple basic demands in the so-called peace negotiations.  One is that the Arabs recognize Israel as a Jewish state.  Another is no right-of-return for so-called Palestinian refugees.  When Ehud Olmert presented his peace plan to Abbas in 2008 the first of those two conditions was even waived.  It was Abbas that walked away from the table.  It has 100% of the time consistently been the Arabs who, when presented with a final status deal, scuttle the meeting.  Does Valley not realize this or has his hatred of his own people and Land twisted him so much?
I will go with the latter. His 2003, 1993 and 1975 boxes are straight out of the anti-Semitic press.  A German cartoonist circa 1937 could hardly have done better himself. 
Eli Valley and his ilk are not interested in a"just" solution to the Israel-Arab problem.  They are consumed by hatred of they own people and will do anything they can to harm them under the guise of being "enlightened".  We should shun them as the arses they are.

Always Moving In The Wrong Direction

For millenia Jews have been moving around the globe.  Our nation seems to have become permanently peripatetic since the destruction of the First Temple and certainly since the destruction of the Second (may they be speedily rebuilt as soon as the Leafs win the Cup or maybe sooner).  Whether due to hatred, violence or even just economic opportunity, Jewish communities have been rising, falling and relocating for a long time now.
What's changed in the last 60 years is that our Land of Israel has reopened as a destination for Jewish masses, a significant change from centuries past.  Unlike the various communities of European Jews 500 years ago who were exiled en masse from their homes, going to Israel is an option for brethren of ours who suddenly find themselves out of a home.
That a Jew would choose to go elsewhere during a time of exile is not surprising.  Yes, Israel is our Land but it is not an easy place to live.  In addition, family or cultural ties might lead a Jew elsewhere instead of home.  That's one reason I live in Canada, for example.  The idea of a Jew fleeing to North America instead of Israel is disappointing but understandable.
What I've never understood well is the idea that Jews want to go back to a place they've been kicked out of.  Yes, I know our history is replete with those kinds of examples as well.  Pretty much every western European country kicked out its Jews at one point or another and except for Spain those communities were eventually rebuilt.  But again, where else did they have to go at the time?
Seventy years ago the world watched as the Nazis, y"sh, and their allies destroyed Jewish life in central and eastern Europe.  In the aftermath of World War 2 there was little to nothing left of the established communities that had been there a few years earlier.  Yet even on this burnt soil a new crop grew.  Germany and Poland have two of the fastest growing Jewish communities in the world and there is even a limited revival going on in Russia of all places. 
Yet even this I can comprehend to an extent.  Today's central and eastern Europe are different from 70 years ago.  Anti-semitism, while still prominent, is not at 1930's levels and the current wave of secular post-nationalism sweeping over the continent seems content to keep it where it is.  Germany and Poland were once lands of misery for us, now they are allies of Israel and sources of economic opportunity for Jews living there.
What I cannot understand is those folks who, having been exiled from their "home" countries insist on returning there when the situation on the ground vis a vis the local Jewish community has not changed:
Had this gentleman stayed in Italy, it would have made sense.  A move to Israel would have been preferable but going to New York or Montreal would also have been understandable.  Exactly what was he expecting in returning to Libya?
How many times in history does the same thing have to happen?  The Jew fights for his country, the Jew builds up his country, the Jew sacrifices for his country and then when victory is achieved he is still branded as "the other"?
There is only one Land where this does not happen, where the Jew is nto the outsider.  If Gerbi wasn't happy in Italy but wanted a Mediterranean climate, he should have moved east to Israel.  Perhaps he yet may.

After the ugly spectacle of the grisly execution of Gaddafi, the world cheered when Mustafa Abdul Jalil, the chairman of the National Transitional Council, declared his country’s liberation on Sunday. But pro-democracy advocates of the Arab Spring were concerned at word that Islamic shariah law, not Western-style democracy, would serve as the “basic source” of legislation in the country.

In his historic speech Saturday in Benghazi, Jalil also urged Libyans to show “patience, honesty and tolerance” and shun hatred as Libyans look to the future.
He then knelt to offer a brief prayer of thanks. “This revolution was looked after by God to achieve victory,” he told the crowd.
And yet, for another native son, there is still no room in Libya for the prayers of the other sons of Abraham.
Dr. David Gerbi is a native of Tripoli, who, at the age of 12, was exiled, along with 38,000 other Jews, after Israel’s victory in the 1967 Six-Day War.
Gerbi may have left Libya for Italy, but Libya never left David. During two live interviews with him, I learned about his herculean efforts over the years to reconnect Jewish exiles with their native land. This included an ill-fated trip to Tripoli during the Gaddafi regime, which led to his arrest.
After the outbreak of the uprising against Gaddafi, Gerbi hooked up with the rebel forces of the National Transitional Council, the group that earned critical NATO backing and key financial support from democracies with the promise of a moderate Muslim society that would respect the norms of human rights.
On the eve of Rosh Hashanah, Dr. Gerbi decided to test the promise of religious tolerance by clearing the garbage surrounding Tripoli’s long-unused Dar Bishi Synagogue. “I cannot pray under the holy banner of ‘Shema Yisrael’ (Judaism’s most important declaration of faith) amidst the filth,” he said.
But when he returned the next morning, locals warned him about threats from extremists and urged him to flee. Instead of leaving, Gerbi remained at his hotel, hoping to convince the transitional government to allow him to restore the synagogue and the Jewish cemetery.
Last week we spoke again and David described a harrowing Yom Kippur, where the threatening chants of protesters outside his hotel 11 stories below echoed throughout the day. “No place for Jews or Zionists,” some declared. Eventually, a senior Italian diplomat convinced Gerbi to evacuate “liberated” Tripoli on an Italian military plane.
The outcome of David Gerbi’s quest for religious tolerance will go a long way to inform us just how different the new Libya will actually be from the dark days of the Gaddafi era. We hope Canadians will encourage Libya’s new leadership to go beyond words and walk the walk on the path towards true tolerance by symbolically restoring the respect for, and dignity of, their former Jewish neighbours.

Is It Such A Surprise?

By now everyone is aware that Muammar Ghaddafi is dead, killed by the rebels that overthrew his government after 42 years of autocratic and despotic rule.  Two conflicting stories have emerged as to how his life ended.  The "official" version is that he was killed in a shootout.  (The fate of his Ukrainian nurse is unknown)  The unofficial version, supported by actual video footage, is that he was beaten until nearly dead and then shot in the head.
I can't say that I or many others will shed any tears for the monster of Tripoli.  Few will argue that the world is not a better place because of his passing and the American government can rest assured that it has one less major enemy in the world.
What is bizarre to me, however, is the reaction from human rights organizations.  If various reports I've read are to be believed, they are upset that Ghaddafi was killed by the rebels instead of being arrested, read his rights and then escorted to a comfy prison cell, there to await trial in either a Libyan or international court room.
Are they kidding?  Trials are for situations where the guilt of a person, while assumed or implied, is not absolutely proven.  Is that the case with Ghaddafi?  Here's a man accused of multiple crimes over the years like killing his own citizens, running a giant prison state and aiding international terrorists.  But there's a wrinkle: Ghaddafi freely admitted doing all those things.  In fact, he took great pride in them.  What purpose would a trial serve other than to give him one last platform to spew his venom from before taken off to prison or the gallows?
There is a certain naivete born of liberal idiocy combined with Hollywood idealism that seems to infect these groups.  They honestly want to believe that the rebels in Libya are budding democrats seeking to turn the country into a model of social democratic prosperity.  In reality the rebels are simply thugs little different from the thugs they've just removed from power with the help of NATO.  As a former American president might have said, "they're bastards but they're our bastards".
Except,  of course, they're not "our" bastards and the minute it becomes convenient to do so, they'll turn on NATO and treat it as enemy no. 1.  Will anyone with their heads crewed on straight be suprised when they do?
Sometimes I wonder if politicians actually believe the pronouncements they make or if they're just going through the motions because that's what diplomacy requires. 

Simple Logic

Spock: "The needs of the many outweight the needs of the few"
Kirk: "Or the one."                         (Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan)

The Jewish world is all a-twitter with the news that a deal has been arranged to have kidnapped Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit released in exchanged for 1027 Arab terrorists, many of whom are responsible for the murder of Jews.  For some this is a moment of euphoria.  After five years of what must have been brutal captivity, Gilad is coming home!  For others, a broader view of the situation seems to preclude celebrating.  I find myself in the latter group.
On one hand, I feel great sympathy for the Shalit family.  For five years they have been living a nightmare that I would wish only on my worst enemy.  Chazal tell us that when one loses a loved one for certain that the grief eventually passes but when one thinks a loved one is dead but really isn't the bereavement never ends.  We learn this from how Yaakov Avinu mourned for Yosef Hatzadik for 22 years.  For the Shalits, the grieving over the loss of Gilad, combined with the faint hope he might return safely to them one day must have been agonizing.
On the other hand, we have to ask if the terms of the deal are worth it.  One soldier for thousands of murderers and wanna-be murderers.  According to some reports I've seen the recidivism rate of released terrorists is about 60%.  It is almost guaranteed that hundreds of Jews will die over the next ten years as a result of this release.  And beyond that there is the suffering being caused to survivors of terrorist attacks and their families who thought their assailants were imprisoned for life and who now have to accept that those monsters will be loose to wreak havoc on them and their neighbours once more.  Yes, the pain of the Shalit family has to be considered but what about the pain of these other families?  Was it not taken into account?
In addition there is one basic problem with this deal: there is no confirmation that I am aware of that Gilad is alive save for the assurances of Hamas.  Not exactly the most reliable source, eh?  What happens if, at the prisoner exchange, the Arabs show up with Gilad in a box?  Does the deal get called off? 
I do not blame the Shalit family for one instant for protesting for the government to get Gilad back and applying the pressure they did.  I do blame the government for capitulating to them.  Bibi Netanyahu has to be concerned not just with the Shalit family but with the six million other Jews in Israel, many of whom will suffer if this exchange goes through.  Yes we all want to see the Shalit family happily and safely reunited but what about the cost to everone else?  Do their lives matter less?
To be blunt: If/when these killers murder more Jews, are the Shalits prepared to make a shiva call to each family and say "Well we're sorry about your loss.  Too bad but hey, we got Gilad back!"?
It is still my opinion that Gilad was killed by Hamas five years ago after they realized a quick prisoner exchange was not in the works.  I also don't doubt that they will not understand Israeli's reluctance to hand over 1027 murderers for his body.  The Arab world has had a long tradition of expecting Israel to fulfill its side of any deal without feeling any obligation to keep up its own end.
But I cannot put my mind at ease with the idea that one soldier, however loved by his family and friends, was made more important than six million other Jews.

Inventing History

It's a cryptic posuk in Ha'azinu.  "They have provoked Me with non-gods," says the Ribono Shel Olam, "so I will provoke them with a non-people."  Rashi ad loc identifies this non-people with the Chaldeans based on a relevant verse from Nach but then he had never heard of the so-called Palestinians.
If one comes to argue with anybody about whether or not the "Palestinians" deserve a state, one has already lost.  Even using the name is a loss for those who would defend Israel's legitimacy and Jewish rights in our land.  The only way to argue is to challenge the defender of the Arabs in Israel to explain exactly who these so-called Palestinians are and where they came from.
We need no reminder that the name "Palestine" is a Latinized version of "Philistia", chosen by the Romans to replace the title "Judaea" after the downfall of the Second Commonwealth and the destruction of our Temple (may it be speedily rebuilt).  One reason the name was chosen is because there were no Philistines.  It was a safe name to give the province since no ethnic/national group was likely to crop up and demand control of it.  \We also need no reminder that from the end of the Bar Kokhba revolt to the declaration of the State in 1948 there was never a minute in which Israel was ruled by a local government instead of by an imperial authority from afer.  There was never, ever a state called Palestine.  There has never been a Palestinian currency or national anthem used at official functions. 
Even the so-called Palestinians themselves are intruders in the area, leftovers from the Arab conquest of the MiddleEast and north African several centuries ago.  That is why it is so important for many of them to either deny the Jewish historial tie to Israel or to pretend that we are all descendants of Khazars and converts.  After all, admitting we are Jews and that we had a functioning kingdom there when the ancestors of the Europeans were still loincloth clad savages would mean they came second, that they are the real invaders while we are the real homeowners.
None of this seems to matter when it comes to attacking Israel.  Certainly truth is irrelevant or inconvenient.  The Arabs latest ploy, having had their attempts to declare a "state" delayed at the UN General Assembly, is to once again delegitimize Israel in the eyes of the world by severing our historical connection with our land.  The Arab bid to join UNESCO - something illegal under the UN charter but hey, why be a wet blanket? - and then declare all the places they can in Israel as their own "heritage" is but another attempt to attack our nationhood and replace truth with lies.

The Palestinians will seek World Heritage status for Bethlehem and its Church of the Nativity if the UN cultural agency admits them as a full member, and will then nominate other sites on Israeli-occupied land for the same standing, a Palestinian Authority minister said on Monday.

Hamdan Taha, a PA minister who deals with antiquities and culture, said UNESCO membership was the Palestinians' natural right. He described as "regrettable" the objections of some governments including the United States.
Aside from Bethlehem, the Palestinian Authority has listed ancient pilgrimage routes and the West Bank towns of Nablus and Hebron among 20 cultural and natural heritage sites which Taha said could also be nominated as World Heritage Sites.
UNESCO's board decided last week to let member states vote on a Palestinian application for full membership, seen as part of a Palestinian drive opposed by Israel and the United States for recognition as a state in the UN system.
"UNESCO membership carries a message of justice and rights. Why must the Palestinians be left outside the international system?" Taha said. "I see it as crowning long efforts over the past 20 years."
He said that after gaining full UNESCO membership, the Palestinians will revive their bid to secure World Heritage status for Bethlehem, which was rejected this year because the Palestinians were not a full UNESCO member.
"This is a simple example of how Palestine has not been able to preserve its cultural heritage through the tools granted to every state in the world," Taha said.

Preserve its "cultural heritage"?  How can a "people" with a non-existent history prior to 1919 have a heritage?  Other than through the deluded ramblings of Islamic preachers, does the Arab world have any tie to the tombs and sites in Israel?  Was Rachel Imeinu a Muslim?  Was Avraham Avinu a so-called Palestinian?  What claim do they have to an inch of our land?  None except those claims which have arisen in their fertile imaginings.
Why have the so-called Palestinians been left outside the international system?  Because they are not a nation but a weapon, created by the Arab League and maintained by the PLO and Hamas in the Muslim world's ongoing war against Israel.  Weapons do not have heritages or holy sites.

The Coming Storm

Liberal Jews in the west (and a good number of conservative ones too) like to believe that anti-Israel sentiment and Jew-hatred are separate things, that the anti-Israel protester who rabidly calls for the desetruction of our State with saliva spraying from his mouth would not hate them personally as Jews as long as they didn't say something malicious like "I believe Israel has a right to exist" or some other hate-filled line.
There is, of course, good reason for this.  The same psychological backlash from World War 2 that killed nationalism in Europe also made public Jew-hating statements unfashionable.  No one with their head screwed on straight ever believed that the world hated the Jewish nation any less after the details of the Holocaust came out but for several decades it was decidedly impolite to state it openly. 
This situation was a change from what had been common practice in the Western world up until the war.  For people raised in the last two generations who think that the world the way it is now is how it always was, this is the norm.  For those of us who know history, this is a vacation from business as usual. 
And the vacation is coming to an end.
One might point to the UN vote supporting the partitioning of Israel into Jewish and Arabs states in 1947 as evidence of the world's new-found love for Jews.  For those who have watched the UN in action ever since that vote seems less like a gift and more like an attempt to allow the Arabs their own chance to perpetrate a Holocaust, seeing as how they mostly missed out on the European one.  Indeed, the State of Israel's greatest crime in the eyes of the world is its victory in 1949 over the enemy when it was supposed to be wiped out, simultaneously assauging the guilt of the Western world (well we tried to give them a country) and satisfying their darkest dreams (we're finally rid of them!).
Since that time the world has not stopped working towards the end of Israel.  Whether it was openly supporting our enemies (the Russians and their allies) or quietly helping to build the anti-Israel narrative (Western Europe by accepting the Arab lies about Israel) there has been an ongoing attempt by the international community to delegitimize Israel.
In 1993 this effort, along with Shimon Peres' incredible naivete and lust for a Nobel peace prize, resulted in the Oslo Accords.  Israelis saw it as a chance for true and lasting peace but the rest of the world saw it for what it really was: Israel's first admission that it was the criminal in the ongoing conflict and that it was have to make all the sacrifices from then on.
Look at Israel's opening positions back then versus those of the Arabs.  Now look at the positions today.  Israel has moved miles in order to accomodate the Arab demands alongside the request for appeasement by the West.  The Arab demand, however, have not changed one iota - one iota! - since opening day and can be simply summarized as "Please commit national suicide and we'll sign the deal."
Now it would seem we are rapidly approaching the endgame.  This week terrorist Mahmood Abbas, a man with a PhD in Holocaust denial, will stand before the world community and demand that his so-called people be given a state.  Is there any doubt that the General Assembly that once voted that Zionism was racism will easily approve this move?  Is there any doubt that they will clap loudly for him once he is done his speech?  Even if the Security Council rejects the GA's recommendation, either through a vote or veto the damage will be irreversable.  The international community will recognize the existence of a new state of Palestine regardless of whether the UN rules say it should or shouldn't.  What are rules when there is history to be made and Jews to be killed?
And for the record here is the state they will be endorsing:
1) Its first president is a Holocaust denier.
2) Jews will be forbidden by law from living in Palestine.  Not Israelis.  Jews.
3) So will homosexuals, by the way.
4) It will also deny citizenship to those Arabs currently living in UN refugee camps.  Yes, they will deny citizenship to their own people and continue to demand their return to pre-1967 Israel.
Imagine that.  The governments of the so-called civilized world, governments that view Jew-hatred and homophobia with disgust and disapproval, that opine about justice and rights, will gather together to help create a state where the antitheses of these values are official policy.  They will smile, speak about how they have done and great thing and then avert their eyes when things get nasty.
They are not interested in the life of the average Arab in Israel, including Yehuda and Shomron, just as the government of the so-called Palestinian authority is not interested.  They couldn't care less about the well-being of the average Arab, his right to live a life of dignity or his freedom of expression.
This is the message that we must get across: A vote for Palestine is a vote in favour of Jew hatred.  Pure and simple.  If Bolivia or Germany vote in favour of Palestine they are saying "We so hate Israel we are prepared to facilitate the creation of a terrorist state whose values we abhor just to push the end of that State closer to reality".  We must say it clearly and without shame so that those people who still live in the illusion that being anti-Israel and being a Jew-hater are separate things are permanently disillusioned.

A Slice of Turkey

There are two ways to become famous.  The first is to achieve fame through acts of greatness.  The other is to attack someone famous repeatedly in the hopes that proximity brings notoriety.  This approach relies on the "any advertising is good advertising" philosophy and while it might turn the attacker into a villainous figure in the eyes of many it does accomplish its goal of achieving fame.

The temptation to achieve fame seems strongest in those who once possessed it and seek to regain it.  Look at all the efforts that former movie and music stars make to attract the press and regain their former celebrity status in the absence of any new significant positive accomplishments.  If that doesn't convince you, look at Turkey.

Once upon a time, Turkey was the Ottoman Empire, the centre and jewel of the the Muslim world.  It held that status for centuries until finally corruption, institutional decay and World War I brought it crashing down leaving it a second world power named after a noisy bird.

In recent years memories of that glory seem to have become prevalent in the upper echelons of Turkish society.  As a result what was once a staunchly secular country is now sliding back into Islamist territory and reverting from its attempt to be an advanced Western democracy into a pseudo-theocratic state.

Along with this change the memories of glory have led the leadership to attempt to assert Turkey's perceived role as the leading country in the Muslim world.  Unfortunately for the Turkey, there are other contestants for that role.  Egypt has, for decades, seen itself as the leading Muslim/Arab power and in the last several years Iran has made no secret of its desire to wear that mantle.  How is a country named after a tasty sandwich supposed to complete?

Well by taking advantage of the region's scapegoat for all their problems: Israel.

Has anyone missed Turkey's ongoing obsession with Israel over the last few years?  Has anyone really understood why Turkey, a country which has benefited tremendously over the last two decades from its economic and military ties with Israel, has decided to shred all those connections as angrily and noticeably as possible?  

No matter what happens in the region one can be sure of one thing: every day the newspaper will contain reports of yet another attack by the Turkish government against Israel.  Recently there was the kerfuffle over the Palmer report, the results of a UN investigation into the Freedom Flotilla incident last year which outrageously determined that Israel has a legal right to blockade 'Aza and that Turkey should have done more to stop the flotilla from leaving.  Turkey's response was to do everything short of cutting off all ties with Israel, something completely illogical consider they were the guilty party in the report!  Now Racep Erdogan, prime minister of the country named after the common term for a fool, is in Egypt looking for support in his anti-Israel efforts and inventing charged of war crimes Israel never actually committed in order to bolster his claims.  What can he possibly be thinking?

Here's what I think is going on.  As I noted, there are two ways to achieve fame.  Acts of greatness are fine but they take time and effort.  As folks like Perez Hilton can tell you, achieving fame on the backs of others by relentlessly attacking the already famous is a lot easier.

Turkey could achieve greatness in the Muslim world by building a first class economy, sending aid to its impoverished Muslim brethren, and acting as a source of success and inspiration.  It's far easier to attack Israel considering its part of a society where piety is measured by the level of one's Jew-hatred.  And that's the road Erdogan has chosen to take.

How should Israel respond?  There are a few ways.  As I've mentioned before, they could play up an alliance with the Armenians and offer them assistance in making the genocidal slaughter they endured more known to the world. They could develop ties with the Greek half of Cyprus and talk about the island's Hellenist heritage.    More could be done to point out that the bird people have no problem slaughtering their Kurds even as they condemn Israel for blockading terrorists.  They could even sponsor organizations to explore Constantinople's Chrisian heritage.

But there's one surefire way to properly respond to Turkish hostility.  Turkey is constantly goading Israel, much like Gamal Nasser, y"sh, used to do in the 1960's in order to provoke a response and then claim "victim" status.  For Nasser this tactic resulted in the Six Day War.  Israel is unlikely to repeat that miracle with Turkey so this is not a viable option.

The only way to deal with a bully you can't beat the daylights out of is to deny him the attention he wants.  Turkey craves the status within the Islamic world that open enmity with Israel will provide.  So far Israel's response has been picture perfect: unremitting expressions of friendship which is exactly what it should be doing.  All we should be hearing from the Israeli government is reminders of the strong military, economic and cultural ties that bind the two countries together along with the hope that this friendship and alliance will remain strong and untainted for decades to come.

That should be enough to drive Erdogan into a nervous breakdown!

The Right Way To Apologize

Despite serving as the launching pad for a group of terrorists disguised as do-gooders during last year's attempt to break the legal Israeli blockade of 'Aza, Turkey continues to preen its Islamic pride and demand an apology from Israel for daring to defend itself from folks determined to cause it harm.  The most recent provocation from the country named after a tasty bird is the recall of its ambassador and the official downgrading of relations with Israel in both the military and political spheres.  The idea that Israel must apologize for protecting itself has become an obsession with the Turkish government.  Even the boycott-breakers have moved on after the failure of a second flotilla to even leave port in an organized fashion but the Turks continue to pound away at Israel, especially after the Palmer report which allocated blame in the incident, was published.
And one wonders why the Turks care so much.  After all, the Palmer report should have been a clue to the them to back off.  After all, if a UN report actually manages to not blame Israel 100% for some international incident that should be a clear signal that Israel was actually in the right.  Yet the insistent demand for an apology keeps coming.
Therefore it would seem to me that Israel does indeed need to provide an apology to Turkey.  The most appropriate site for such a ceremony would be somewhere in the part of Cyprus illegally occupied by those same Turks.  In addition to a senior Israeli minister, like the one for sport or the environment, showing up, there should be a representative of the Israeli Armenian community.  You remember the Armenians, right?  The people that the Turks took to massacring a little over one hundred years ago and still have not shown any regret?
The Israeli representative should, with a great smile, indicate his intention to fully apologize for his country's insistence on defending itself from attack but say this in the interest of historical continuity the Turks should first apologize to the Armenians for trying to wipe them out.  After all, that did happen before the Marmalade debacle last year.
After all, if the Turks are big on apologizing, should they start by cleaning their own house instead?

The Hypocrisy of the Left

As I frequently note, Chazal have opined that hatred disrupts normal protocol.  The classic example is Bilaam HaRasha who was so eager to curse our ancestors that he saddled his own donkey even though he was a rich man and had plenty of servants to do it for it.
The current classic example seems to be the liberal left in the West.  It's the only explanation for the following:
The liberal left believes in democracy, equality for all under the law, protection for minorities, women and homosexuals
Israel is the only country in the Middle East that is a democracy, offers equality for all its citizens under the law and has legal protections for minorities, women and homosexuals.
Therefore the liberal left hates Israel.
Yes, they cloak their hatred in high sounding statements of righteous concern but the bottom line, as Robert Fulford brilliantly points out in this column from The National Post is that they are nothing but Jew-hating hypocrites:

In the five months since the demonstrations began, the government has killed about 2,000 citizens. The official view is that the state is saving Syria from vicious gangs of criminals. State television reports that events are proceeding as they should.

Even Saudi Arabia and the Arab League have criticized Assad’s use of force. Barack Obama wants him to resign. So far, however, he remains committed to the homicidal style that kept his father’s Baath government in office for 29 years.
Last Saturday about 40 people with anti-Assad banners held a peaceful demonstration outside the embassy of Syria in Ottawa. They all appeared to be Syrians, according to the Ottawa Citizen reporter. They were talking about the monstrous government that’s ruling their homeland and the attempts by pro-Assad operatives in Canada to intimidate them.
But on that occasion, where were all the Canadian-born experts on the Middle East, those vociferous and self-righteous moralists, who come out of the woodwork every time Israel appears to be in violation of some UN resolution or strikes back against an outrage like the killing of the bus passengers on Thursday near Eilat?
Where, during the Syrian protest, were the massed student armies from York University and Concordia and the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education? Where were the legions of academics and trade unionists who are always ready to declare what policy should be followed by the wise and the virtuous? Where, for that matter, were Dykes and Trans People for Palestine, who make such a great noise in Toronto and whose website proudly declares they support everyone’s rights?
It happens that the answers to these rhetorical questions are the same in each case: They were all at work on their next Israeli Apartheid campaign. The truth is that leftish Canadians have only one interest in the Middle East, the struggle between Palestinians and Israelis. That appears to be their entire foreign policy. They insist they are not prejudiced; they are devoted to human rights, nothing more.
But when they consider the world beyond Canada, and choose which cause deserves their energy, they usually select the Palestinians. Their chronically narrow focus on a single conflict is self-blinding. It produces a weird aberration of opinion.
When conflict appears elsewhere on the planet, whether it’s in Tibet or Sudan or Syria, our left-wing morality police go limp. They exhibit passion on one issue only. How can they be taken seriously?

As Fulford notes in a different column from a few weeks back, the Jew-hatred that characterizes these so-called enlightened groups is not limited to gentiles:

Among the multitude of insults that float around my world, there’s one I always find disturbing and a little mystifying: “Self-hating Jew.”
It’s been in the air for decades, but now appears more often than in the past. It shows up in letters from my readers and in casual conversations. On the Internet, we can find Steven Spielberg and Hannah Arendt, Jon Stewart and George Soros, all described as self-hating Jews, for various reasons. It was applied to the late Tony Judt, an otherwise much-admired historian, after he became a critic of Israeli policy. It occurs most often in discussions of Israel, but the term is at least a generation older than Israel itself.
The definition varies with the people using it, but generally it means a Jew who holds anti-Semitic beliefs or supports anti-Semitic causes (though many Jewish critics of Israel will argue that they are its best friends, urging it toward a higher moral position)...

Now there really is no such thing as a self-hating Jew.  These folks love themselves a great deal.  Its their fellow Jews who still take pride in their Jewishness and refuse to play the eternal suffering martyr that they despise.  They are, as I have labelled them before, Jew-hating-Jews and their hypocrisy is an affront to intelligent folks everywhere.
All this is, of course, a terrible shame.  There is no flotilla to save the citizens of Syria from their despotic rules.  As Egypt slides back into the same old military dictatorship it was before the Tahrir Square protests, none of these modern day flower children seem to care.  No one is calling for a boycott of Saudi Arabia which beheads homosexuals whenever given the chance.  It's only about Israel.
The real sickness of all this is seen when these dictators are given a bye.  Innocent people who want to live with freedom and dignity are killed with impunity because the liberal left is too busy worrying about wait times at Israeli roadblocks.  That is the most pathetic aspect of them.

Close To Getting It

In his latest column on the Morethodoxy Blog, Rabbi Asher Lopatin makes an excellent point that is worth repeating: the Israeli-Arab conflict is not the only source of trouble in the world and it is nowhere close to being the most important.  The anguish he is feeling comes through loud and clear:
How can anyone excuse talking about the plight of anyone in the world – whether it is the Palestinians or anyone else – when there are 400,000 women being raped in one area in one year. Shameful! We are spending hundreds of millions of dollars on helping a unknown group of rebels in Libya while we are ignoring millions of women being raped, and thousands of men, women and children being killed,per year?
If you are Jewish, whether on the Left or the Right, you have every right to obsess on Israel – that is your religious, cultural and national obligation. And if you are Palestinian, by all means you can complain about Israeli checkpoints which are forcing people to spend hours in traffic getting to work, or a security fence which is separating you from your friends and relatives. But if you are not either Israeli, Jewish, Arab or Palestinian, then you have no right to focus on Israel and Palestinians or even Libyans or Syrians or Bahrainis while hundreds of thousands are experiencing death and rape and genocide in sub-Saharan Africa. It is morally repugnant for our first African American president to be ignoring the worst humanitarian crises in our world, simply because the Arab world and the Palestinians, and many Jews, are “dreying his kup” – are distracting him – for their own interests. President Obama needs to set the moral agenda of America and prioritize the areas that truly need our humanitarian attention: Sub-Saharan Africa, Sudan – not Israel or the Middle East.
I don't know if Rabbi Lopatin knows the obvious answer to his question as to why President Obama hasn't done anything about Darfur but I'll state it quite easily: No Jews Involved (NJI).
See, when it comes to how high a news story should rank or how seriously the US State Department should take a disturbance somewhere in the world, problems get divided into to categories: Either Jews are involved or it's NJI.  If it's the former, that seems to automatically vault the story or issue to the top of the priority list.  If it's a NJI story then it drops further down. 
Did some Arabs get delayed for an hour or two in the hot sun at an Israeli checkpoint?  Top of the list.  So-called Palestinian suffering!  Outrage!  A vote to condemn from the United Nations and reports on all major Western TV networks with the newscasters taking care to frown extra hard while reciting the story of Israel's latest "crime against humanity". 
Did a thousand black women get raped in the middle of the southern Sudanese desert by Arab tribesmen?  Yawn.
Chazal tell us that Eisav hates Yaakov.  On the other hand, he doesn't seem to care a bit about Cham.  This pattern is clearly seen over and over again.  How else to explain that while the Syrian government is mowing down its own citizens while the Bahrain and Yemenite governments teeter on the verge of collapse, the press seems more interested in Mahmood Abbas' repetitive statements about how Israel is all at fault for the collapse of the "peace process"?  Because Yemen, Bahrain and Syria are NJI issues.  Once again: Yawn.
Rabbi Lopatin's final jab, however, is his best:
And to the Jewish community I have a message: If we want the Administration to continue to obsess on Israel-Palestinian peace, we just need to remember that we are being selfish; we need to remember that for every hour Obama has to meet Netanyahu to pressure him, that is an hour that hundreds of more women are being raped in the Congo and another hour closer to finishing the genocide in Darfur.  We may feel that getting Israel out of the West Bank is worth it, or ending the occupation for West Bank Palestinians is worth it, but when the tally of deaths and rapes in Africa is taken, I hope it is not on our heads that the leader of the free world ignored his own homeland and left them to continue living in a hell of rapes, killings and destruction.
It's about time someone told Peace Now, J Street, the New Israel Fund and all the other Jew Hating Jews out there what their priorities should be and that if they truly value their credentials as secular Western Liberals then it's time the took up the causes they profess to care about.
Unfortunately it's far more likely that they'll act like the hypocrites they really are.

Finally Some Red Lines Of Our Own

As opposed to many who were disappointed or enraged by President Obama's recent MiddleEast policy speech, I took the part about the Israeli-Arab conflict with a grain of salt.  For one who has been paying attention since the late 1970's, there was actually very little in his speech that came as a surprise.
For example, there was much a-twitter about his mentioning of the 1967 armistice lines as the basis of a border for a 23rd Arab state but is this really so new?  Let's say that the nationalist aspirations of the Arabs of Yesha were legitimate and not the product of the Arab League's desire to create a fifth column against Israel on truly Israeli land.  Well then, if you wanted to come up with borders where would you start from?  Given that you've already accepted the fiction of the existence of a Palestinian people then you probably also believe that the borders of this "Palestine" were something along the 1967 lines. (You'd be completely ignorant of history but there's no shortage of that to go around unfortunately)  Therefore if you're starting history from 1967 it makes sense to use that border as your starting point.
In addition, Obama specifically mentioned the possibility of land swaps.  Again, this is nothing radical.  Ehud Barak and Ehud Olmert (no more prime ministers with that first name please!) both proposed exactly what Obama said in his speech - a 23rd Arab state roughly based on the 1967 borders but with modifications to include densely populated Jewish areas in Yesha within Israel and densely populated Arab areas within Israel but near the border within the new state.  Both Israeli prime ministers were prepared to publicly sign such a deal so why are people outraged when Obama says it?
Having said that, Binyamin Netanyahu's speech (you can find it on Youtube or here) really brought me to my feet cheering.  For far too long, Israeli prime ministers and their representatives have hemmed and hawed when it came to defining Israel's inviolable needs in the so-called peace process.  I recall listening to a radio debate six or seven years ago between the local Israeli consul-general and an Arab speaker from the local Palestine House.  The Arab was well-versed in his talking points and quite articulate.  The Israeli?  Not so much.  While the Arab pounded away with his accusations and fabrications, the Israeli generally responded with "Emm, well, emmm, we know we want to share the land, emmm, we want peace".  It was so frustrating that the host of the debate, a well-known pro-Israel celebrity, finally jumped in and said "I can't take this anymore!" and started attacking the Arab speaker on all his points.  How embarrassing!
But not this time. Not since Menachem Begin told an American senator that Jews do not bow to world opinion but to God alone has a Jewish leader stood up in the face of tremendous adversity and stated "Ad kahn!  Until here and no further no matter what!"
Really, this was a tremendous opportunity that Bibi could not let go to waste.  The glow from the execution of Osama bin Laden has already started to fade in the face of widespread condemnation of America's actions not just from its expected enemies but from many of its allies in Europe.  Bibi was therefore able to emphasize the "we're just like you!" angle when it comes to fighting terrorism.  In addition, the Congress is extremely pro-Israel in its composition right now as well as ticked off at Obama for not asking its permission to go to war in Libya.  If Bibi was hoping to walk into a situation where he could tell off the president of the US and expect the rest of the government to back him up publicly, he couldn't have asked for a better set of cards than this.  And he played those cards expertly.
Look at this red lines and you can see how he chose each to emphasize Israel's vulnerability and its reasonableness in demanding them: no retreat to the 1967 borders because of security and demographic concerns, no negotiating with a government that includes terrorists that condemned America for killing Bin Laden, and no swamping of Israel with descendants of bogus refugees.  One by one he went through each point and emphasize "It's not going to happen!" with the same firmness the Arabs use in insisting that the clock can easily be turned back to 1966 without any major inconveniences.  None of his points were surprising.  We who support Israel have been saying them for years but finally an Israeli prime minister has stood up in the face of the most hostile US president since Jimmy Carter and said "Screw off!  We're not committing national suicide because they want us to."
I don't know if Israel is any safer this morning because of Bibi's forthrightness but at least now the world has more grist to grind their teeth in frustration over.  If they thought that Israel could be bullied into unilateral surrender of its safety, they have to wait a while longer year.
Kol hakavod.

The Useful Idiot Wisens Up

From the start it was obvious that Judge Richard Goldstone's condemnation of Israel's 'Aza operation a couple of years ago was an anti-Israel joke.  Long on lies and short on facts, it became the paper hammer which the Jew-haters of the international community used to bash Israel with in response to its legitimate right to defend its citizens.  That the author was a prominent Jewish figure only made the report that much more valuable to them.  An Arab or European writing the same thing could easily be attacked as anti-Semitic but how could the same accusation be labelled against a liberal Jew?
Yet recently the news has broken that Judge Goldstone, after a couple of years of condemnation by his kinfolk, has finally come to his senses and realized that he was used by the international community to attack his own people.  Yes, while the rest of us always knew that Israel had the right to attack those who were pelting its citizens with rockets and missles, the intellectual Goldstone took his time to come to the realization that he was, in VI Lenin's classic phrase, an useful idiot.
This admission will, of course, not make the major Western or MiddleEastern news outlets, you know the ones that still talk about the "Jenin massacre" and how the Arabs were "driven out" by the Zionists in 1948.  They will continue to use the Goldstone report as a cornerstone in their ongoing attacks on Israel.
No, the real frustration is going to be for those of us on the right.  Once again we have an example of how leftist self-delusional dreams are just that: nocturnal fantasies.  The idea that there is a peace partner on the other side, that its suffering is not self-inflicted, that Israel is the big bag ogre of the region, has once again been proven to be the rantings of a cabal of Jew-haters.  The left is wrong, their ideals are misplaced and their understanding of what is happening in and to Israel is based on misunderstanding and falsehood.  And once again we on the right are forced to listen to their bafflegab as they attempt to talk their way out of this.
That's the frustrating part - that Goldstone was wrong and only now after having done so much damage does anyone on the left realize this.

When Hatred Triumphs Wisdom

For such a small country, Israel has never had trouble producing excellent literature, both fictional and otherwise.  Like other Western countries, however, the literary gliterati are often given over to feelings of loathing for the society that gave them the opportunity to become well-known and successful.  Just as one can find plenty of writers in Western Europe and North America who despise capitalism, freedom of speech and traditional liberal values, one can easily learn that Israel has its own share of writers that hate the Jewish state's existence and see making common cause with the enemy as a standard of personal virtue.
The major difference, of course, is that in North America the enemy is not at the border waiting for a chance to come across and destroy the country.  In Israel, this is the daily reality which the post-Zionist crowd prefers to ignore.
When I was in high school, a friend of my parents gave me a book to read on the Zionist history of Israel by Amos Oz.  Raised in a home in which the State of Israel was often presented in an almost mythical fashion and with a father who was well educated as to the truth of the so-called Palestinian hoax, it was quite a shock to come across left-wing Zionist literature.  Mind you, in those days post-Zionist self-loathing was much more muted.  Stuff like the trash that comes out of Israel nowadays about the false origins of the Jewish people or narrative histories that show only the inaccurate Arab side of events weren't yet acceptable in those days.  Despite the limitations of the times, Oz still managed to convey his view that Zionism had been a mostly negative event.  The usual canards were all present, such as the early settlers not knowing about the indigenous population or not caring, the explusions of locals and all the other lies that the Arab propaganda machine has inserted into history since then.  It was quite a sobering view for a formerly naive Zionist and had I not already received a decent history education from my father I might have not stayed a firm Zionist much longer after that.
Time has passed and as with all things, the situation has clarified itself from its previous mannered murkiness.  Israeli "intellectuals" now no longer bother wrapping themselves in the flag before criticizing their country for crimes imagined and invented.  Nowadays they straight out stomp all over it.  In their assimilated desire to show they are good members of the Western liberal secular crowd they rush to be more Jew-hating than their non-Jewish counterparts.  In their desperation to be welcomed into the salons of those who despite us, they in turn do what they can to strengthen the will of our enemies.  And what better example of this than good ol' Amos Oz?
Israeli authors have never been shy. They have always commented on their governments and always speak about politics in their novels. But the best-selling Israeli writers are now captives of a dangerous syndrome. One can legitimately criticize Israeli governments, their errors and deafness. But a dark malaise is now driving these authors to toe the line with the worst emotions of global public opinion. 
This is the same public opinion that in essence boycotted the tragic news about a large, beautiful and caring Jewish family destroyed in a minute, when terrorists burst into their home in Itamar with one aim in mind: To murder as many Israelis as possible.
There is now a deep chasm between the pretension of the "good conscience" of these writers and the crude realism of history. This is even sander and more significant because we are not talking about writers who hate Israel or novelists who pontificate against the Jewish State from abroad, but rather, about locals.
Amos Oz and David Grossman, Israel’s most popular authors, have a track record of genuine Zionist endeavor. But Oz just got in touch with Marwan Barghouti, the Palestinian terrorist leader convicted of murdering five Israelis and planning several terrorist attacks. The Israel Prize recipient sent the Palestinian prisoner one of his books with a personal inscription wishing him a speedy release from prison: “This story is our story. I hope you read it and understand us better, as we attempt to understand you. Hoping to meet soon in peace and freedom.”
Sometimes intellectuals, convinced of their personal superiority, are the stupidest people in room.  In this case, they are also dangerous.  It is one thing to criticize Israel on legitimate grounds, quite another to lionize those whose careers are built on the murder of Jews and the destruction of Israel.  Oz and his ilk cannot be part of Zionist project any longer and the sooner Israeli society rejects them for the Jew-haters they are, the better.

Our Legacy, Not Theirs

We are all very familiar with the story of the Akeidas Yitzchak.  It is the climax of Avraham Avinu's life, the greatest test he undergoes to demonstrate his belief in God and an example of self-negation that we can only yearn to emulate in our own lives.
Yet it is important to remember that there are two versions of the Akeidah floating around there.  There is ours and their is theirs.  In ours it is Yitzchak Avinu that is laid down on the altar on Mount Moriah.  In theirs it is Yishmael.  In both the father is about to sacrifice the son when God prevents him.  In both, the son becomes the founder of the future nation.
There's a billion of them and only a few million of us.  How do we know our version is correct?  After all, there are no corroborating accounts.  Avraham Avinu and his son stood alone on the mountain on that day.  Whose version is true?
Ours.
The Akeidah is often presented as an example of a test which Avraham had to undergo but what we often forget is that Yitzchak Avinu was tested just as much.  As the Chazal and commentators remind us, Avraham was already an old man at the time while Yitzchak was still in his physical prime.  Had the son wished to prevent the father from fulfilling God's command he easily could have done so. But in the story there is not even a hint of a disagreement.  Yitzchak accepts what God has seemingly preordained for him and lies down on the altar.
Honestly, could one imagine Yishmael doing the same thing?  This is the man decribed by the Torah as pere adam, a wild ass of a man who would perpetually live in conflict with all his neighbours.  Could one imagine Yishmael meekly following Avraham Avinu's instructions and lying down on the altar without so much as a squack?
The answer might be: well since the story is there and they claim it's about Yishmael, then obviously he did.  But by remembering that the second test of the Akeidah was on the son, one can now easily rebut this.
The purpose of Yitzchak Avinu's quiet surrender to God's will was to instill a trait into our nation.  We have always been a people willing to end our lives to sanctify God's divine and holy name.  We have far too often, most recently last week in Itamar, demonstrated this.
Look at them now. They too have a trait instilled in them, it seems, quite similar to ours.  They have always been a people willing to end our lives to sanctify God's name.  This is not a nation that ever had the lesson of the Akeidah instilled within in.  There is no trace of the bravery of Yitzchak and the kindness of Avraham Avinu in them.
The Akeidah and its awe-inspiring lessons are our legacy and ours alone.  No amount of lies will ever change that or diminish the greatness of those kedoshim who have endured their own version of that event.

Don't Change The Subject!

As I noted a few days ago, it must be frustrating for Jew haters, both Jewish and gentile, these days.  Despite 24 hours attempts to villify Israel and, by extension, any Jew that does hate his heritage and homeland, world events seem to conspire to keep them off the front page.  In their mind, there is only one story: Israel is slaughtering the so-called Palestinians and stealing their land.  Darfur?  Don't want to talk about it.  Tibet?  Where's that?  Japan?   Don't want to talk about it.  Don't you understand, they shreik.  Only attacking Israel matters!
As a result, as hundreds of thousands still languish homeless and on the verge of starvation in southern Sudan, as the Japanese face the very real prospect of an unprecedented radioactive disaster on top of thousands dead and tens of thousands of lives ruined, on top of North Korea's ongoing provocation of South Korea and all the outrages being perpetrated throughout south Asia and the Middle East, this lobby always wants to bring the focus back to Israel, and only Israel.
How else to explain that, as the world struggles to cope with the disaster in Japan, the UN is obsessed with showing an anti-Israel film that would have made the Nazis proud?

Such was the case Monday night when the U.N. played host to the U.S. premiere of director Julian Schnabel's new film "Miral," which follows a Palestinian girl's relationship with terrorism and Israel after the 1948 war for Israeli independence. The screening was met with protests from Israel's delegation to the U.N. as well as prominent U.S.-based Jewish groups including the American Jewish Committee and the Anti-Defamation League, which were outraged that the world body would open its doors to a film that even its Jewish American distributor, Harvey Weinstein, describes as "pro-Palestinian."

In a letter to the world body, AJC Executive Director David Harris said showing the film in the U.N. General Assembly hall would "only serve to reinforce the already widespread view that Israel simply cannot expect fair treatment in the U.N." In particular, Jewish groups have objected to the film's portrayal of the Israeli army and what they say is a lack of context for some of the soldiers' more extreme actions.

Get it?  Even as dozens if not hundreds of crises demand its attention, even as Jews are being massacred in their homes by the enemy, the UN has one interest from which it will not be distracted.  One wonders what would happen if a member of the rebel army in Libya somehow made it to the UN's headquarters and demanded to address the General Assembly?  "Well unless you're going to blame Israel," he'd be told, "we don't have a interest in hearing what you have to say."
This, of course, is nothing now.  Other than liberals who have their heads in the sand there is no doubting that the social taboo that public Jew hatred acquired in the wake of the Holocaust has disappeared.  Not that the world ever stopped hating us but now it's fashionable to say it publicly again, as Caroline Glick notes.

Netanyahu directed most of his words to the hostile world. He spoke to the leaders who rush to condemn Israel at the UN Security Council every time we assert our right to this land by permitting Jews to build homes. He demanded that they condemn the murder of Jewish children with the same enthusiasm and speed.

He shouldn't have bothered.

The government released the photos on Saturday night. Within hours, the social activism website My Israel posted a short video of the photographs on YouTube along with the names and ages of the victims. Within two hours YouTube removed the video. What was Netanyahu thinking? Didn't he get the memo that photos of murdered Jewish children are unacceptable? If they're published, someone might start thinking about the nature of Palestinian society.

After all, the real outrage about Itamar is Israel announcing plans to expand "settlements" in Yehuda and Shomron.  How dare Israel date build homes for its people on land it controls?  Why, that would give it the same rights as every other country in the world and we can't have that!
We must be strong as a people in defending out land and our heritage from those who would try to steal the former and defame the later.