The Fires

Three days ago, a tragedy occurred here and in Israel. A young guy, two years older than me, from our shul died from prescription drugs, and a terrible fire started in northern Israel where 41 Israelis have already lost their lives.

I pray to G-d to give Israel the superhuman strength and ability to put out the fires and  my prayers go out to all the families who have lost someone. We have frequent fires in California, but Baruch Hashem, usually very few people, if any, die.

The Saga of the captured Hikers in Iran

Three American hikers: Sarah Shourd, Shane Bauer, and Josh Fattal all 'accidentally' crossed the border of Kurdistan into Iran. After over a year, The Iranians released one of the so called "enemy spies" Sarah Shourd, on humanitarian grounds plus $500,000 reported by ABC news about two months ago.

A dime should not be spent to free these morons. Sarah Shourd wrote an article sympathizing with Syrian attacks on Jews (http://news.newamericamedia.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=e276b8706a88aca9e3a98dbbd5526d1d)

All these far left loony terror lovers got a taste of their own medicine when they crossed into Iran.

I'll bet the first thing they asked after their arrest was; can I have my right to a phone call? Habeus Corpus? The authorities in Iran probably let them in on the fun after they had a few laughs.

Israel and the US may be far from perfect, but even at our worst, we have freedoms that are pretty enviable, ESPECIALLY to those who live in the mideast. Two of the hikers chose to live in Syria over the US.

We should let them fulfill their dream of co-existing in the Muslim Middle East. Too bad theyll be in prison doing it

Ground Zero Mosque Hypocrisy

How is it that the Islamic world can continue having zero tolerance for all other ideas and religions, reject freedom of speech when it comes to a cartoon of mohammed, but invoke "freedom of religion" when trying to build an Islamic Center near Ground Zero (site of the 9/11 attacks.) I find this tasteless at best and pretty offensive at worst. Shall we build a German restaurant right outside of The Museum of Tolerance? Technically its legal, but it would probably be in poor taste. 

Muslims want freedoms when it suits them. Muslims want freedom of religion to build minarets in Switzerland and Islamic centers near ground Zero. But go to A Muslim country. Their tolerance for all other customs and religions stops right when you get to the airport. Whether you're Hillary Clinton or Nancy Pelosi, you need to wear one of their rags over your head.  A woman who was a  british national was raped in Abu Dhabi and SHE was held in prison for unlawful fornication [according to the laws and customs of Islam]. Nope, no tolerance there. Yet these same Muslims cry "religious intolerance" when Americans have a problem with building a shrine to Islam right near a place where a mass murder of 3,000 took place in the name of Islam. Bill Maher points out this Muslim hypocrisy out very hilariously in his movie "Religilous"

The religous Imam who is behind this Islamic Center, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, was asked on live radio if he considered Hamas a terrorist organizaiton, a question which the Imam refused to answer.

Apparently suicide bombings on buses, cafes, and discotecs is not so cut and dry with Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf.

As for the issue itself, let the New yorkers decide.

But muslims need to understand freedom of religion and freedom of speech is a TWO WAY STREET.

Muslims MAY NOT ask for freedom of speech when no one can make a cartoon about Mohammed for fear for their lives.

Muslims MAY NOT ask for freedom of religion while all other religions are routinely persecuted, killed, or ethnically cleansed from virtually EVERY muslim country

They may be lucky in the US, where we allow this walking contradiction to continue. But the rest of the world wont be so tolerant. And after enough attacks by Islamic fanatics, I believe the USA will also end this pointless charade of appeasing the misogynistic, hateful culture of a religion which finds honor killings and public stonings of women to be 'holy.'

 

Dont Confuse the "US-Israel relationship" with the "Obama-Israel" relationship

The people of the United States and Congress are firmly behind Israel. When Bibi swung by a few months ago, political rivals John Boehner and Nancy Pelosi got together, side by side, with Netanyahu, for the cameras. As far as US citizens are concerned, its only a matter of nearly inconsequential degree concerning strong support for the Jewish State, and every time Al Queda or other assorted Islamic fascist mass-murderers strike, that support for the Jewish State only deepens in the US.

Dont Confuse the "US-Israel relationship" with the "Obama-Israel" relationship. Presidents come and go, and between the way Obama has been handling BP and unemployment,

support for Obama is eroding, even among strong Obama supporters such as James Carville and Ed Koch. Israel should throw caution to the wind

in appeasing the Obama administration. US Support will never waver, the Islamists wont have it any other way.

 

What if Israel sent a flotilla to Turkey?

"What if Israel sent a flotilla to Turkey?"

OR

"The Kurds: Turkey's Palestinians"

What if Israel sent aid shipments to the Kurdish separatist groups in Turkey? How would Turkey respond to an attack on her sovereignty like that?

There is no way to know 100%, but Turkey is not exactly known for empathizing with its enemies. Despite facing a much smaller threat

from Kurdish separatists than Israel does from Hamas, Turkey fights these Kurds with a unique fierceness. From 1984 to 2008,

over 35,000 Kurds were killed by the Turkish military. In fact, one of the main reasons that Turkey is friends with Israel and 

WILL CONTINUE to be friends with Israel is because Israel supplies the secular, Turkish Army with invaluable high-tech

weapons with which to fight their own terrorists.

For those unfamiliar with Kurds:

Kurds are a distinct ethnic group of the Middle East (Do not call them Arabs.) They are overwhelmingly Sunni Muslims. They live in a state they call "Kurdistan" which is actually part of four other

border sharing Middle East states: Iraq, Iran, Turkey, and Syria. The only reason the Kurds in Iraq have a de-facto state is because the US

invaded Iraq in 2003 and liberated the Kurds. The Kurds in Iraq gained the most from the US war. However, the Kurds in Iran, Turkey, and Syria have not only

NOT been given a state by their Arab bretheren, they are routinly attacked and captured in military operations by Iran and Turkey.

Turkey and Iran love to whine about the Palestinian state, but dont you DARE ever mention "Freeing Kurdistan" the way the "Free Gaza"

flotilla did.

If there is one thing the Middle East is all about, its hypocrisy. Turkey and Iran whine about Israel not giving the Palestinians a state,

and keep Suppressing the Kurds. Syria whines about Israels military operation in Gaza, where maybe 1,200 were killed, when in 1982 Syria killed 40,000 of its own people

with cyanide gas to suppress a terrorist uprising by the Muslim brotherhood. One must look past the words of these Arab countries

and look to their actions.

We may never know how Turkey would react to Israel sending aid shipments to Kurds of Turkey, because Israel wouldnt infringe on

an ally's sovereignty like that. However, Turkey can not even come to grips with the Armenian genocide they presided over.

If you mention the Armenian Genocide in Turkey you can be killed, and many who have spoke out have been killed. Not a nation

that values tolerance. The only reason Turkey probably wouldnt cut off relations with Israel if they sent a flotilla to Kurdistan is

because as said, Turkey needs Israel's high tech military gadgets to fight their own bloodier war with terrorists than Israel conducts.

It would be funny if it wasnt the truth that Israel needs to deal with every day. Israel needs to stand strong and not accept any threats

to their sovereignty, especially in the realm of fighting terror. No one asked Turkey too.

The Flotilla Fiasco

The video says it all. Israeli naval commandoes boarding the flotilla, and as each commando was lowered from the boat, an onslaught of metal poles, knives, and beatings were meeting them. Some of the Israeli commandoes were thrown from the top to bottom deck by the activists. A journalist on CNN pointed out that if a US naval raid was met with that kind of violence, the activists would be very lucky if everyone on the flotilla was not killed. But somehow Israel loses the PR battle.

A little background on PR:

We learned that the founding fathers of the USA were the first innovators of Public Relations. A bunch of middle class merchants in colonies were not ready to fight a bloody battle with the British. So our founding fathers kicked it into high gear. The Boston Massacre took place, where colonists claimed a mass killing of colonists took place on behalf of the British. It turned out only 5 colonists had died, and those colonists were part of a crowd that was throwing projectiles at British Troops. However, the colonists got their story to the press first, and this "massacre" sparked the rebellion which culminated in the American Revolutionary War. 

The pro-Palestinian and pro-Arab media are very savvy concerning public relations. They always get their twisted side of the story out first, and by the time the Israeli (most often the most truthful) side gets out, opinions have already been formed. Jenin is another excellent example of this. The fact that the Arabs got their side of the story out so quickly created a reality where some still believe to this day that Israel committed a massacre in Jenin against unarmed civillians. Also, many people dont know that the US's involvement in liberating Kuwait was directly due to Hill & Knowlton, then the world's biggest PR firm. They sold a whole story of Iraqi soldiers take Kuwaiti babies and leaving them outside to die. It turned out the whole story was a lie, and the sobbing girl who told it, a 15 year old girl named Nayira, was actually a daughter of a high-ranking Kuwaiti diplomat.

Its not about right and wrong.  Its a battle of information. Things can go very well or very wrong simply due to the Public Relation techniques (or lack thereof) employed. Arabs have been fantastic with PR for decades. If Israel just puts a little bit of thought and time into it, the dividends paid will be HUGE.

Lightning out of Lebanon

When I took my 2nd College Poli Sci class, in summer school, we were told to read this book called "Lightning out of Lebanon" (by Barbara Newman and Tom Diaz) in addition to our textbook.This book really opened my eyes to the threat we face from Hezbollah. 

Some people think Hezbollah is an Israel problem,not our fight. To them I would say, Hezbollah killed more Americans than any other terror organization up until 9/11.

Besides that though, Hezbollah is a much more organized and intelligent terrorist organization than Al Queda. This is directly due to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard sending 2000 of its own members to start Hezbollah and continuing to support them

with finance and manpower to this day. This book tells the story of Hezbollahs sleeper

agents in the USA who are just waiting for the order to kill and maim Americans, Hezbollah's bases in South America from which they launched attacks at Jewish

targets,their fundraising efforts in the US, and about a Hezbollah affiliated shopkeeper in Baja California who crossed the border into the USA and checked 

himself into a Chula Vista hospital for RADIATION POISONING. Chula Vista is right around the corner from where I live. Evidence suggests he may have been poisoned by a dirty bomb, perhaps of his own creation.

Israel deals with an unusually potent threat from Hezbollah, and now, 10 years later, Israeli newspapers are abuzz of whether or not then Prime Minister Barak pulling out 

of South Lebanon in 2000 made sense,

considering now Hezbollah's arsenal of rockets is more deadly than ever, and the fact that after the pullout Hezbollah kidnapped and killed Israeli soldiers twice, once in 

2000, which Israel did not respond to, and in 2006, which was the impetus to the well known Second Lebanon War of 2006. Conventional (and maybe seemingly logical)

wisdom in 2000 was that Hezbollah was created because Israeli occupied some land in Lebanon, i.e. No Occupation= No more Resistance= No more Hezbollah. 

How wrong this turned out to be. When we have terrorists like Hamas and 

Hezbollah organized and funded by outside states like Iran, occupation is no more than a pathetic excuse. They exist not because of an occupation, but because their

Iranian masters oblige them too.

There really is only one way out:Unfortunately, Israel will be pushed and will finish the job (alone as usual), while the rest of the civilized world comes along kicking and 

screaming. Hamas and Hezbollah must go the way of the Tamils in Sri Lanka and Blue Star in India. Every freedom & peace loving Westerner should thank Israel for always being on the front lines of most anti-democratic, anti-liberal values such as gender equality and human rights, evil, murderous

people on earth today. Thank You Israel!

NOTE:

Also, Over that summer Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won the Iranian Presidential "election", back when Ahmadinejad was still fairly unknown, and our teacher warned us that this 

guy could be trouble.

However, Ahmadinejad is only a symptom of the disease. All the Iranian clerics, even ones such as the more "moderate" Hashemi Rafsanjani, have made inflammatory

threats about using nuclear weapons against Israel. When this is the "moderate" viewpoint, regime change is in order. Everybody thanked Israel years after they

bombed Saddams nukes, but right after it happened, Israel was condemned, even by her allies. Maybe the world wont get so lucky this time. Israel may deem a strike on Iranian nuclear facilities too costly. And then what will we do? Iran is a threat

to Israel, yes, but nuclear proliferation in the Middle East will be EVERYONES problem. Just wait. 20 or 30 years down the road, US scholars and pundits will be lamenting 

that we should have done more to halt Irans nuclear program. I pray that I am wrong.

Hobby or Necessity?

Mr. Thomas Friedman wrote an article for the New York Times last month saying, for Israel, pursuing peace was more of a "hobby" than necessity.

(Thomas Friedman is a well known pundit in the USA and is often thought of as 'middle of the road' and a voice of reason on a variety of subjects and issues. I happen to agree, but not on Israel. No one with a pair of eyes and ears could agree with this assessment)

-Ask the 9,000 Jewish folks who were kicked out of their homes in Gaza in 2005 to make way for Arabs how much of a hobby peace has been for them. (Most of them have not been resettled into permanent residences)

-Ask the cities of Sderot and Ashkelon, bombarded by rockets with even more intensity starting in 2005 after Israel disengaged for peace. A grand total of over 5,700 rockets and 4,000 mortars have been fired at these desert communities. Ask their maimed children, dead spouses, or the hordes of little children forced to live in (or at all times be within 8 seconds of) bomb shelters about Israel's peace 'hobby.'

-Ask the Jews around the world who have felt a surge of Judeophobic violence since Operation Cast Lead in 2009. (Cast Lead was an operation by the IDF which was executed to stop the rocket fire from Gaza, the same Gaza Israel unilaterally withdrew from in 2005)

-Ask Ehud Barak, Prime Minister of Israel in 2000 and current defense minister, who with President Bill Clinton, offered the Palestinians 92% of the West Bank, all of Gaza,  a capital in East Jerusalem, as well as an internationally funded (including Israel) aid package for the Palestinians to build their state. Arafat turned down this generous offer WITH NO COUNTEROFFER!!

-Ask Mahmoud Abbas, The Prime Minister of the Palestinian Authority. Mr. Abbas told the Washington Post (Abbas's Waiting Game, by Jackson Diehl) that former Prime Minister of Israel, Ehud Olmert, offered him an even more generous offer than Arafat got in 2000, with a whopping 97% of the West Bank offered to the Palestinians. Abbas turned it down, he didnt like the borders.

In an effort to be Politically Correct, and using some kind of backwards moral equivalency, Mr Friedman doesnt see that it is plainly the Palestinians (or their leaders, more specifically) who treat peace as a hobby, if that.

SIDE NOTE:

The difference between the Palestinians and Israel: The Palestinians are not DESPERATE ENOUGH for their own state. The desperate post-Holocaust Jews even accepted a non-contiguous state in Palestine in 1948. Arabs chose war. This plays out over and over and over and again through history, with the Jews going to the table, and making sacrifices, with Arabs not even making the slightest of sacrifices, like ending the practice of naming Palestinian Streets after terrorists who committed attacks with civillian death tolls as high as 37.

If the Palestinians were desperate for independence like the Jews were, there would have been a state in 1948. Or 2000. Or in Gaza in 2005. Or with Olmert in 2009. Or after 1967, Or 73. The list goes on and on.

Salman Rushdie and Christopher Hitchens making Mos Def look idiotic about Iran

 Mos Def- you are a brilliant rapper, but anything that comes out of your mouth resembles the substance i have to pick up after my dog every morning

Obama strikes new tone on terrorism, bans Islam, jihad from security terminology-

"You take a country where the overwhelming majority are not going to become terrorists, and you go in and say, 'We're building you a hospital so you don't become terrorists.' That doesn't make much sense," said National Security Council staffer Pradeep Ramamurthy.

If you build Israel a hospital, you are a hero to Israelis, no matter what disingenuous intentions lie within the philanthropic act itself (case in point; the donations to Israel from Christians who actively convert Jews in America). If you build a hospital for a Muslim country, its a spit in the face. What is with the hostility of the Muslim world? What is notable is that Obama employs a similair type of hostility when dealing with Israel.

The Obama Administration makes no attempts to pull punches aimed at Israel, yet at every turn Obama feels that the way we should treat the Muslim world is the way bad parents treat a spoiled kid, so careful not to anger them, never asking for even the smallest of concessions, quick to allay any percieved discomfort, no matter how trivial, while at the same time using a much harsher set of standards when dealing with others. The Obama administration refuses to name Radical Islam by name, although Radical Islamists kill our troops and civillians, but has no problem perpetuating the hideous myth that building in Jerusalem puts our troops in danger.

Obama met with Afghanistan's President Karzai after Karzai welcomed dubiously elected Iranian President Ahamadinejad in his country and gave him a platform to spew his Anti-American drivel. Despite this slap in the face to America, Obama flew to Afghanistan to have a public, camera-filled dinner with the corrupt Karzai, in stark contrast to the private, 'no cameras allowed' meeting Obama had with Netanyahu. Obama also kept Netanyahu waiting an hour and a half after meeting with him for 30 minutes to have dinner, a dinner Netanyahu was not invited to. Obamas treatment of Israel makes me want to puke, and the sad thing is, he is giving ammunition to all the voices who said he would be against Israel because of the Anti-Semetic vitrol he sat through for 20 years listening to Revered Wright. I consider myself extremely liberal on nearly all fronts, my vote in the primaries went to Hillary. The only thing that held me back from giving Obama my vote was the fear that Obama would give the Iranian wolves the keys to the Jewish henhouse, together with the fear that Obama would push Israel into more unilateral concessions in return for terror, even more so than his predecessors because of his Muslim heritage.

(SIDE POINT: Obama is a Muslim. This might be the un-PC thing to say, but he is a Muslim as much as my father is a Jew. In Islam, the father determines the religion, in Judaism, the mother. If my grandmother gave birth to my father, and afterwards promptly converted to Catholicism and raised my father as a Catholic, my father would still be considered a Jew by even the most stringent Jewish authorities. As I said, even if Obama doesn't consider himself a Muslim, the Muslim world does, and he is well aware of this.)

To take a page from the Reverend, Obama's chickens will 'come home to roost' if he doesnt stop this ill treatment of Israel. The American people are behind Israel, Congress is overwhelmingly behind Israel (Nancy Pelosi and John Boehner got together for some snapshots with Netanyahu during his visit here). Israel is an integral part of the USA's national security strategy, and together with Obama's percieved appeasement of Radical Islam, will create a picture for Obama's political foes that he is soft on terror. Perhaps they are right.

With all of George W's shortcomings, and the fiasco of Iraq, he had one thing right; we shoudlnt wait to be attacked. Obama is fine with fighting in Afghanistan, because 3,000 Americans were butchered by the Taliban's designs. 

Shall we wait to be murdered in our sleep/leisure time for the next time we fight back?

Frightening Distinctions of the Islamic Republic of Iran

Frightening Distinctions of the Islamic Republic of Iran

by Josh White

March 12, 2010

Ancient Persia (Iran) was home to the first human rights charter penned by Cyrus the Great. The current ruling mullahs (clerics) of Iran could not have fallen farther from the tree. Modern day Iran is a place where women can be raped, and if reported to authorities, in all likelihood will end up as a ruling of “fornication” against the rape VICTIM, a crime usually punishable by death.

Besides this, Iran has earned many frightening distinctions as a country where human rights are routinely suppressed and people are routinely beaten, raped, murdered, and controlled, simply for practicing things like freedom of speech, freedoms that Westerners generally take for granted.

The illegal government of Iran also uses rape as a weapon against its own people in a very horrifyingly unique way. When virgin girls, often political protesters, are given death sentences, they cannot technically be carried out because a virgin will go straight to heaven according to Islam. Accordingly, the soon-to-be executioner is required to rape this virgin on death row to prevent her passage to heaven. The families of fallen Iranian girls have to face the two-fold misery of losing their daughter and knowing her last moments involved being subjected to a frightening rape. 

(http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/12/17/former-iranian-basij-mili_n_395943.html)

Israel, in stark contrast, has no death penalty, and certainly never sanctions rape against suspected terrorist women it imprisons for security purposes. Some of the worst female allegations against the Israeli justice system I’ve read include Arab women being forced to be strip searched by female officers. Many of these strip searches have uncovered suicide bombs that have saved not only Israeli lives, but even the suicide bomber's life as well at times. Being strip searched is not a fun experience for an innocent person, but in Israel it is necessary, but nothing even close to judicially sanctioned rape and execution.

Iran has earned the distinction of leading the world in executing children according to Human Rights Watch. Even the notorious capital punishment practices of China forbids against the death penalty being used on convicts under 18 (http://www.cecc.gov/pages/newLaws/criminalLawENG.php). Even with China's well known frequent use of the death penalty, Iran still executes more prisoners than China on a per-capita level.

Another disgusting practice of Iran brings to mind the controversial comparison between modern day Iran and Nazi Germany, besides the dehumanization of Israel/Jews. The illegal government of the Islamic Republic has practiced mass murder against homosexuals practically since its inception in 1979. 

Many will argue that many Arab/Muslim nations in the Middle East have the death penalty as a punishment for homosexuals. However, the BBC (“Iran ‘must stop youth executions’") clearly states “Homosexuality is illegal in almost all Muslim countries, and punishable by death in many of them. But gay and human rights groups say Iran's record is particularly shocking, having executed possibly thousands of gay men since the Islamic revolution.”

Israel, in stark contrast to Iran, has the most developed Lesbian. Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender rights in the Middle East. Even controversial Gay Pride marches are not uncommon occurrences in the holy land. Rule of law rules Israel, not religion.

Furthermore, religious Jews in Israel (and abroad) do not execute homosexuals. Once again, the death penalty is strictly forbidden in Israel (except in the Palestinian territories where Palestinian ‘collaborators’ with Israel are executed routinely on little to no evidence, many times to settle personal scores.)

On January 6, 2010, the Media Line announced that Iran currently earned the distinction of being the worlds biggest journalist prison. Until now, Iran was ‘merely’ the biggest prison for the press in the Middle East (not known for being a beacon of journalism rights already), as reported by Reporters Without Borders in 2007.

In 2007, Eritrea and North Korea still held more journalists in prison than Iran, leaving Iran ranked as number 166 out of 169 countries for Reporters Without Borders in 2007. No longer. As said, Iran has passed the former threshold, now with a total of 42 journalists imprisoned, a higher number than anywhere else in the entire world.

Over 60 years since Israel's inception, and not only does the country still fight for legitimacy, it finds itself thrown against the Islamic Republic of Iran; a repressive, hate-filled enemy that denies the Holocaust while energetically in a race to make nuclear weapons to create another Holocaust. The people of Iran aren't bad, many are friendly to Jews and Israel. However, they are held hostage by leaders who hate Israel for no tangible reasoning. Israel has never attacked the Islamic Republic, and has only acted to defend itself in wars provoked by Arab aggression, be it 8,000 rockets or the closing of the Suez, or whatever else the terrorists/tyrants are up to again.

Unfortunately, there is no shortage of violent, despotic regimes in the world today. However, there are a certain few that stand out because of the extreme brutality, repression, and inhumane methods used by the government to suppress their people. Outside of regions currently engaged in Genocide, like Darfur, it could be safely said the Islamic Republic of Iran is the biggest threat to world peace. Allowing a belligerent, dangerous country like the Islamic Republic, the perfecter of the suicide belt, to acquire nuclear weapons will go down as one of the biggest catastrophes in human history. 

 

I think Alan Dershowitz agrees with me..

Double Standard Watch: For bigots, Israel can do no right. 

Alan M Dershowtiz 

Sunday Jan 24th, 2010

  "Even The New York Times, in an otherwise thoughtful analysis of the controversiality of the aid among some Israelis, failed to note the difference between Israel sending its limited resources to faraway Haiti and to nearby Gaza.  

 Haiti is not at war with Israel. Haiti has not pledged itself to Israel's destruction. Haiti has not fired 8,000 rockets at Israeli civilians. Gaza, on the other hand, has a popularly elected government that has done and continues to do all of the above. Moreover, there is no comparison between the tens of thousands of Haitians who have died from a natural disaster, and the people of Gaza who suffer far less from what is, essentially, a self-inflicted wound."

The fact that so many Israelis are advocating medical and other assistance to Gaza, certainly supports this latter theory. Has any other country in the history of the world ever provided medical and other assistance to a people with whom it is at war - to people who continue to support rocket attacks and other forms of terrorism against its own civilians? Again, a double standard. 

article from JPost

Encountering Peace: Israel - a leader among the community of nations

Jan. 18, 2010
Gershon Baskin , THE JERUSALEM POST

Humanitarian disasters around the world bring out the best in Israel and in Israelis. The horrific devastation caused by the earthquake in Haiti and the scenes of unbearable human suffering brought about an immediate enlistment of both civilian and public efforts to come to the aid of the poorest nation in the Western hemisphere.

The sight of the El Al jet laden with medical aid and almost 200 IDF and civilian personnel brought pride to each and every Israeli and to Jews all over the world. Israel is on the ground in the heart of the disaster and we are making a difference. Our experience and capabilities in providing the world's best humanitarian aid in times of real crisis is something that we can certainly be proud of.

Unfortunately our skills and expertise were gained in having to rescue the casualties of terrorism in our own streets and homes. But from that need and from the darkness of those experiences, we spread our goodwill to thousands of innocent victims of nature's mysteries in lands far away where we have no military, strategic or economic interest.

This is truly tikkun olam in its purest form. We are there because we are Jews, we are there because we are human beings and we are there because we are a responsible member of the community of nations.

----------------------------

This is the essence of Israel.

You can find the rest of this article at Jpost.com..  I don't really like what the author of this article goes on to say, comparing Gazans to the people who suffered from this horrific earthquake in Haiti. The people of Haiti were terrorized by a brutal dictatorship for decades, and are the victims of terrible disasters such as the recent one that we've all heard about.

The only disasters the people of Gaza are victims of are self-imposed. The people of Gaza have certain things the suffering people of Haiti never did: choices and chances. Each time when offered a chance or a choice, the Palestinians have consistently chosen misery over prosperity, war over peace, time after time. 

The people of Gaza have not been terrorized by a bloody dictatorship either. They have been at the hands of many changing governments (normal protocol for a democracy) and each have reached out a number of different hands to the Palestinians in the territories, with the Palestinians patented 'clenched fist' given in return.

 In the 2000 Camp David Accords, Arafat failed the Palestinians by rejecting a most generous offer of Israel (East Jerusalem, 92% of the West bank, all of Gaza, international aid) curiously, without even giving a counter-offer. After this the second Intifada started.

The Palestinians have also failed themselves. The Palestinians used their chance of democracy in 2006 to elect the genocidal terrorist organization Hamas. We held the German people accountable for electing Adolph Hitler (see Dresden), why should Gaza be any different?  The organization of Hamas, so bent on murder & power, even violently ousted the marginally different terrorist organization of Fatah, to keep its grip on power and to control Gaza's borders. Would the Palmach violently oust the Haganah, with methods including throwing them off buildings, leaving them so fearful that many dressed in womens clothing to escape alive? This is what Hamas did to Fatah in Gaza. 

Since then, Egypt has enacted a complete blockade with its border of Gaza, while Israel has enacted only a partial blockade of Gaza. Gaza recieves food, medicine, water, gasoline and other types of energy from Israel. The only thing Israel blocks from Gaza are materials that are commonly used to fashion rockets to maim, kill and terrorize the Israeli civillian population.

The US and the UK firebombed a full city of its enemy civillians in Dresden, Israel supplies its enemy in Gaza, what other country in the world would ever do that? Would Russia supply the civilians of Georgia, or Chechnya? 

 (The answer is no, but that doesnt stop Russia from holding chairs on both the Security Council and the Human Rights Commission of the UN, a weapon of delegitimization of Israel through disproportionate amounts of dubious 'human rights resolutions' while conveniently ignoring Chinas repression against its own people and Tibet, and Russia's repressive regime and its bloody wars against Chechnya with civilian casualties astronomically higher than any Palestinian deaths caused by Israel, but thats a different post!) 

There are many people suffering on the planet, but the people Haiti and Darfur do not have choices, and are not living in a condition that is self-imposed. The 'suffering' people of Gaza are.

There is NO comparison!!

G-d bless Israel

G-d bless Haiti