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.