Must see Friedman interview of Obama on April 4/15. He focusses on this deal and the Israeli perspective. Obama presents himself as Israel’s best friend.
Jewish Press summarizes:Obama Espouses his Iran Strategy: If, If, If and Blind Hope
VERIFYING IRAN NUCLEAR DEAL NOT POSSIBLE, EXPERTS SAY
By J.P. Golbert, AMERICAN THINKER
An interim deal has been made with Iran, ignoring the admonitions of Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu and capitulating to Iran on all important points. There has been much written about how Arab countries will respond but not much about the possible Israeli response.
The Obama administration had essentially two reactions to Netanyahu’s address to Congress: Netanyahu said nothing new and offered no alternative to the agreement being negotiated with Iran. The former is irrelevant; the issue is not whether Netanyahu said anything new. The relevant question is whether what he said is true. If so, then it bears repeating, because the Obama administration has lost sight of the goal, which was, ostensibly at least, to prevent Iran from achieving nuclear capability.
As to the latter, the Obama administration has a point, in a way. What Netanyahu said is the truth and nothing but the truth, but he did not tell the whole truth.
The administration maintains that there is no alternative to the agreement being finalized except war. Netanyahu said the alternative to this agreement is a better agreement, because the mullahs need the agreement more than the Americans.
On the other hand, Netanyahu pointed out that Iran has consistently cheated on its commitments and obligations, has lied and stonewalled the IAEA inspectors, and clearly cannot be trusted.
There is no reason to enter into a contract with someone who cannot be trusted. No lawyer in the world is smart enough to write a contract that will protect you against a scoundrel. The best that can be done is to give you a good case in court. But there is no court that can enforce Iranian compliance with the agreement. No international court has the military and economic means to coerce Iran to comply. The other parties to the agreement have to enforce the agreement. Ultimately, they must be ready to use force against violations.
How likely is that? If Iran is caught running too many centrifuges, will the 5+1 go to war? Certainly not. There might be some low-level sanction, which will not stop the centrifuges. Once the world is doing business again with a petroleum-rich Iran, reimposing real sanctions is not clearly doable in the present economic climate.
If the mullahs are caught developing weaponization technology, who will go to war? The U.S.? Obama will not send the U.S. military against Iran, and if the U.S. will not go, no one will. And the mullahs know that. They will not test the first nuclear “device” on Iranian soil. By the time they detonate a nuclear device in Iran (as opposed to North Korea or Pakistan), it will be too late. They will have already have put away a stockpile.
That being the case, why pursue a better agreement? In reality, the Obama administration is right in saying that the alternative is war. But the alternative to war is not an agreement. The truth is that the alternatives are regime change, war or capitulation to Iran. If Netanyahu were to tell the whole truth, he would have noted that the 5+1 do not seem to be engineering regime change, and he would have asked whether the U.S. and the rest of the 5+1 have decided to capitulate to Iran. If they have not, then would they prefer to go to war now or when Iran is armed with nuclear weapons?
In fact, it appears that Obama has decided to capitulate. There are reports emanating recently from Jordan that the U.S. has told Arab countries that Iran is to be America’s full partner in the Middle East and they will have to cultivate their relations with the mullahs. (See here, citing Oraib Rantawi, described as a “senior Jordanian commentator, close to the Royal Court.”) If accurate, the realignment of American policy is clearly the impetus behind the sudden Jordan-Iran alliance. It also means that Obama was lying all along about his commitment to prevent Iran from achieving nuclear capability and was in fact protecting the Iranian nuclear project, and that everything, including the sanctions on Iran, was only to forestall Israeli action against Iran.
This is consistent with reports that Obama also derailed an Israeli strike by publicly trumpeting intelligence that it would be launched from Azerbaijan and that, last year, he prevented Israel from mounting a strike by warning that the U.S. would shoot down Israeli planes en route to Iran – i.e., that the USA would act as Iran’s first line of defense against Israel.
That would also explain Netanyahu’s assertion that the days of Jewish helplessness in the face of genocidal hatred are over, and that if Israel has to stand alone, Israel will stand. Either that was a non sequitur for the purpose of bravado or it tells the world that it had better return the sanctions in order to deter Israel again. Sanctions will not stop the centrifuges, of course, any more than sanctions stopped the North Korean government from pursuing nuclear capability, even while the masses starved to death, quite literally. So why does it make sense to return full sanctions on Iran? It makes sense because the regime of the mullahs is unstable and vulnerable at this time, and sanctions, coupled with other stressful measures, might cause it to fall, unlike in 2009.
As noted, the question is not only about this agreement. Any agreement with Iran is worthless and is simply surrender with a fig leaf to hide America’s shame and the shame of the rest of the free world. Netanyahu surely knows that. If so, what did he want to accomplish with the speech?
For one thing, he certainly wants to derail the agreement. With no agreement, it might be possible to get full sanctions reimposed. As it appears now, coercing Israeli inaction was the sole purpose of the imposition of sanctions – not deterring Iran from its imperialist and genocidal course, but to deter Israel from striking at the Iranian nuclear installations. It was Obama running interference for the mullahs by creating the pretext of a diplomatic process to compel suicidal Israeli inaction in the face of a genocidal threat. It also gave him time to pursue the hidden agenda of his radical reorientation of American foreign policy.
Another possible explanation is that Netanyahu’s purpose was to marshal support in the Congress for a pre-emptive Israeli strike, which might be extreme and might elicit extreme responses by Islamic terrorists all over the world against the West especially. I am not knowledgeable of the relevant military matters and I do not know what military options Israel might have. For all I know, it might be that the only way Israel has is to nuke Iran back to the Stone Age.If the Islamic Republic falls, that will not be necessary. Is that Netanyahu’s purpose? We don’t know.
The writer has practiced law in New York, California and Israel for a multi-national clientele including Israeli NGOs and was also a law professor in Los Angeles. He has practiced law in Jerusalem since 1986 and has contributed numerous opinion pieces to various media outlets.
@ bernard ross:
Sure. The U.S. admin is just trying to make us look bad and sound like wannabe killers. Hypocrites. Their Rules of Engagement for war is far less humane. Is G-d humane? Yes…..to a point. We are ‘chips off the ol block’ so of course that will be manifested. These idiots have not learned from history who or what they are messing with…..and NOW there is enough proof that it is not just going to affect the Jewish people…..but the whole world!!
Bennett is right…we will survive this. The world better hope that Hashem isn’t compelled to step in…..if Hashem does, look out! Even most of us will not want to watch…
Interest rates to rise?
Obama set to announce a big change for the better
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3029376/Russian-volunteer-head-transplant-operation-Valery-Spiridonov-says-no-choice-undergo-7-5million-procedure-controversial-Italian-surgeon-Dr-Sergio-Canavero.html
🙂
yamit82 Said:
hmmmmm?
One minute Obama is supposed to be fighting alongside Iran against the terrible IS, after all thats what the voters approved, and the next minute he is helping the GCC fignt Irans proxies
perhaps he is confused, has alzehemimers, lost his itinerary
looks like some of that shifting alliances and unpredictability you have been talking about, and yet I predicted it 🙂
(looks like materiel and resources are being assembled, perhaps a warning is being sent to Iran on the “deal”, e.g. the fighters might lose their way one night and bomb Iran instead)
@ dove:
even ehud barack is telling US to bomb Iran
@ bernard ross:
Glad to see that Bennett is still able to get the word out on Iran.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Q_uiiuoMCow
yamit82 Said:
Not really,I think that’s a red herring, appearances, distractions, a peanut shell game…. Its simple, its the sunnis against the shias… the rest is a con.
I never believed that the IS who is the only party making big gains for the sunnis was an enemy of the sunni arab states. alliances morphing back to their original and natural state. Why the con? because prior to the emergence of IS saudi spent a few months talking about being against terror. Why? because they knew that they could not be associated with the terror of IS which was the only way they could win. why the need for IS? Obama was originally slated to enter the war against Syria but the combination of disclosures at Benghazi and the debacle over who committed the chem attacks made him back out of overtly entering. He may also have made an agreement that neither the US or Russia would overtly enter but let the proxies fight it out.
yamit82 Said:
I believe his seeming unpredictability stemmed from the leash put on him by the arms running scandals at Benghazi and the false flag chem attacks in Syria. I think he was originally going to enter like in Libya but the Russians aced him with the false flag chem attacks. This changed the game plan but not the goal. Without Obama or the west entering the GCC proxies proved not to be sufficient and were losing therefore IS was groomed to reemerge with sadaam iraqi military leadership combined with terror, just like sadaam did under his rule. Furthermore, the supposed fight against IS especially from the arabs never really materialized but it did allow the assembly of materiel into the area under the flag of fighting IS. Suddenly we see the supposed unpredictability and shifting of alliances slowly remorphing back into their common sensical postions.
Really??? Don’t you thing the spectre of the sunni gulf arabs fighting the sunni jihadis is odd? After all what is the difference between IS and the wahhabis?
yamit82 Said:
not really… each jihadi fool and group can have their beliefs but they are governed by their group heads and fatwas. think of it like this: A dog sitter walks a bunch of dogs on many leashes, each dog is different, different beliefs, characters, etc. each pulling their own way. the dogs probably dont even notice how their master guides them. But they all walk where the master guides them to walk. They are probably allowed some freedom but the group heads are probably controlled by who funds them and gave them their pretty uniforms and flags. Different levels of jihad, etc. but all end up taking territory for the sunnis. Its not rocket science to operate apparently disparate cells with different philosophies etc but guide and instructed to similar goals.
yamit82 Said:
How so? If BB lost then the left would implement the policies overtly and when the right gets pissed off, you give them BB to stall the right but move things left. Sort of like giving them Carter and when he screws it up you are only too happy to get reagan (who spent years being rejected for president) After everyone is sick of Obama I wonder who they will give us?
yamit82 Said:
Not if you keep your eye on the ball and the peanut. The goals and players are the same but they all wore different football shirts and looked like they were running all over the field. The smoke is clearing now.
yamit82 Said:
this is the bigger mystery but I remember reading how Morsi was not implementing the sinai war as the US wanted; The MB outside of saudi tends to be political and independent, perhaps morsi was too independent, reneged on a deal, or likely was sidling up to Iran when the saudis were trying to get Iranian influences out of gaza, sinai and everywhere. there is even talk that Morsi had something to do with Benghazi and that perhaps the Iranians and russians used proxies to unmask the benghazi op which was funneling arms to Syria against their interests. Morsis departure came after that and I suspect he was too close to Iran and/or involved in benghazi. Remember that when Morsi was deposed there was lots of talk that the US would need to cut off aid to Egypt; it is possible that rather than try to continue aid and have a fight, that the saudis simply took over the funding until the coast was clear again. Now the aid has fully returned
yamit82 Said:
If there were understandings it certainly would have been to Israels advantage for the GCC to weaken hezbullah, assad, hamas in cooperation with Israel if Israel was considering bombing Iran. POD’s only accomplishment was the targeted attacks on Iranian elements in gaza and hamas. Hamas would not want to kill their rown people in public. The peace talks allowed the pal issue to stay out of the arab street attention while the GCC recruited the jihadis worldwide to kill the shias as opposed to their greater enemy Israel. this was a sensitive accomplishment and Iran and assad kept trying to shift it back on israel. Only a prisoner release could convince abbas to risk his life knowing the faux peace talks were slated to just stall for time. I think it was originally expected that after 9 mos the attacks on Iran would begin. the 9 mos talks coincided originally with the iran talks.
yamit82 Said:
the shia sunni conflict is the narrative that enables the leaders to recruit the cannon fodder but I believe it is about interests. Just a few years ago the suni shia thing was creating no problems. Israel was the focus of all the muslims anger.
So far, my model is the only one I have seen which rationally and consistently explains all the weird behaviors of the parties over the last few years. the reliability of a model is its predictive ability. Far too many coincidences that fly in the face of commonsense, and the biggest coincidence is the sudden remorphing of the sunni factions into an overt unified whole again.
If you beleive what you beleive about BB then what I am saying is not far off. BB can be acting in Israels interests if he beleives that working clandestinely with the monarchs is in Israels best interests. Such a scenario would also explain why BB keeps aborting the really big guns of war in gaza twice. It would also explain BB’s YS agenda. He might beleive that he can get more out of the monarchs than out of the pals who need the monarchs money to continue their feeding troughs. Perhaps thats true.
@ mar55:
thank you Mar, glad to be back, but will be busy over the next month
@ bernard ross:
Too many uncontrollable players, shifting alliances, misapplied priorities, Obama’s unpredictability, Morsi/Sissi Gadaffi/ Isis,Russia/Pakistan/ Syria(Assad) assortment of rebels with different agendas also shifting, American retreat/prices of oil and gas/Kurds…. BB could easily have lost the election and then any presumptions re: agreements alliances and understandings would have been put in doubt.
Too many players to long a time line and chnaging circumstances on the ground make such coincidences more likely what they are. BB has acted as he always had, so nothing should be read into his moves except typical of how he has always acted and behaved in similar circumstances.
There maybe some understandings with the Saudis but I see them only in the context of iran and not in the context of Israel Arab dispute. It’s the Shia Sunni divide and conflict that is overriding and always takes a backseat to their hatred and war against Israel.
A lot more besides the above…
@ bernard ross:
Ah the lure of victimhood, now that “Rolling Stone” has run out of fake rape stories they’ll take up the Pals cause.
the pals always find a way to shove everyone else out of the limelight of attention…. PR is their big bucks
@ bernard ross:
I am destroyed, False prophet.
@ honeybee:
I did not see this coming:
😛 😛 😛
bernard ross Said:
What else do you predict , stocks, bonds, odds in Las Vegas? Could use some tips. What about romance??????
yamit82 Said:
Its a matter of whether you are able to see from the shoes of those to the left of Bennett. I think most Israelis prefer “peace” to YS, the mount or east arab jerusalem. I think most accept that the arabs will not be transferred and will remain at the mininimum in a & b. as it stands today the staus quo defacto is what it appears, with tweaks what will obtain with most of C given away. The longer both sides live with the staus quo the more likely it will remain, in terms of land it appears that Israel is administrating C on behalf of the pals and for security but not for the Jews to settle YS. All actions support that perspective. I expect more of bits of land handed over to the pals near densely populated pal areas in the future. Perhaps the GCC/pals are becoming accusotmed to sharing the land but need a lonng time to adjust their population to that fact. Everything with the pals is pride and ego, hence they get faux states, ICC etc but these things do not improve their position and the ICC will strengthen the leashing of the PA and hamas whereas Israel has already leashed itself.
I expect that we will see over time an eroding of positons to the left and right of the center in both the pals and Israelis. BB is in the position to carry forward this plan because he can sell it to the right while abbas can sell his position to his right. the taxes and ICC are part of this MO, keeps the dram moving for those who need it while little changes on the ground which does not facilitate those understandings.
For example, how successful will a boycott of Israeli goods by the pals be? In the end it is they who will likely want it removed. Therefore by ging them the boycott knowing they will want it removed it facilitates a moving to the center of their side. Each war less gazans want it.
yamit82 Said:
lots of coincidence in the predictions I made and the fact that most strange actions of BB are clearly explained with the model.
I thought you said once that there are no coincidences in politics?
Before BB and liberman were talking about understandings with the GCC I stated it based on the events occuring. when BB released Prisoners I said it made sense if he an Abbas knew it was not meant to go anywhere because Abbas would be assasinated without having made that gain. When POD suddenly aborted after targetting Iranian elements, amassing troops on gaza and the qatar truce was brokered I pointed out that perhaps it was meant to target Iranian elements in gaza and hamas for israel AND the GCC. when all the jihadis were brought to syria and most were speaking of a jihad on Israel I predicted that if they attacked Assad instead of thelittle satan it was a sign of an undersatnding. I predicted that if after that it continued to hezbullan and Iraq it was the sign of an understandings. When Turkey and the KUrds began to work together I said it was a sign of an overall understanig for the region. When the public quarreling began between Obama and Sisi I said it helped get sisi elected,that it avoided the issue tha US could not support him and I predicted that after the elections the US would resume the relationship. When BB did not go into gaza at PE I said it might be a sign of the same understanding and when it was followed up by the unprecedented cooperation of the now GCC proxy egypt I said it confirmed the understtanding. I predicted that Egypt was foreslated to become the hessian troops(mercenaries) for the GCC in the proxy war.
sorry too many predicted coincidences by that model. If my model is correct then it predicts a more leftward postion of BB than pretended but it also predicts an under the table scenario which might be more forthcoming from the GCC and the pals, their beggars. If my speculative model is crrect I expect rhetoric and noise on the surface but only actions on the ground in small steps. the actions of both sides might be to accomodate their constituents to future compromises through facts on the ground in a step by step fashion than through sudden noisy agreement. Another thing is that gaza and the PA might be dealt with as part of the egyptian and jordan treaties. Recently abbas said that Jordan must be included in any negotiations and we can see what is going on in gaza with egypt
@ yamit82:
Hi! yamit82. You have not been around as much as before. We miss you also and your wise comments.
@ bernard ross:
I don’t think anything is predetermined but ad-hock is the dominant feature. ME autocratic leaders are not suicidal they will do anything to protect their regimes. What may look to you like a predetermined grand design looks to me as a bunch of scared rabbits belatedly coming to grips with a reality they themselves had a hand in creating…Except for facilitating an Israeli attack on Iran I see nothing in it for Israel. I don’t believe BB will attack Iran, so then what’s in it for Israel for any concession they give to Israel they demand concessions from Israel towards the Palis.
That may be BB’s selling point when he sells us out????
@ bernard ross:
Welcome back. You have been greatly missed.
Glad to see you back.
hmmmm?
guess they didnt notice how they cuase the problem
@ yamit82:
have you noticed that my predictions are coming true:
*the return of qatar to the GCC, Egypt and dealing direct with Israel
*Obama resuming weapons deliveries to egypt
*the coalescing back of the sunni axis into their original alliance including turkey
( it was a red herring)
soon we will see all the assembly of materiel for IS turned on the iranian proxies and possible even Iran. the so called sunni arab nations war on IS is a fake.
also, did you notice the faux drama of the taxes and ICC?
Abbas just said he will enter peace talks without preconditions.
@ yamit82:
You’re the 10,000 year old man, you tell me?
@ honeybee:
Since when is being right divinity?
Amen
@ yamit82:
Ah you recognize my divinity.
@ honeybee:
Amen
yamit82 Said:
Nonsense, Bernard hasn’t lived long enough to be able to repeat ALL of your criticisms of BB.
@ bernard ross:
Welcome to my BB club you have just repeated basically all of my criticisms of BB since the year 2000.
Knowing how treacherous he is I also advised Bennett to get his deal written in stone before he indorsed BB for PM to he president.
@ bernard ross:
Long may they kill each other.
honeybee Said:
Actually I dont see what they are doing as the world coming to an end, but being grateful that all those nutter hyenas were focusing on killing each other at the moment rather than the Jews they would be killing if they weren’t killing each other. Hopefully, it will be a while before they return to their usual habits.
bernard ross Said:
Yes indeed, the World is coming to an end, but Happy Passover. you should live so long.
@ dove:
thanks dove for the great videos
I think we will see that all that military materiel assembled ostensibly towards a war with IS will somehow morph back into the war against Iran and its proxies with all the proxies, main players and allies reverting back to their original, clear roles as west, GCC, sunni(IS,NUsra, etc) against Russia, Iran,Assad, hezbullah, shia.
@ bernard ross:
Thanks bernard…..hope you had a good trip! Welcome back! Don’t forget……we still have a few more days. 🙂
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=tlMlxy_G0_A
Just in case you missed this one from the chemistry lab in Israel
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=baQfqoZrEvI
honeybee Said:
NO,
but now that you mention it I can see why you asked
I think it is really about the difference in political control. the MB and hamas seek political control whereas IS, etc will accede to clerical control of (Saudi, etc) clerics and fatwas. the Saudi brand of “islamism” does not accept political independence and ist therefore easier to control jihadis through their system towards their ends. fatwas can be issued from day to day to achieve opposite goals: its about following Isalmic law as interpreted and edicted by clerics and having those clerics under your thumb similar to the saudi wahabbi relationship.
Perhaps the GCC are sending hamas a message through both egypt and IS.
It will be interesting to see if this a a trial balloon to guage voters reaction. I have sat specualting in the past about BB but his coalittion, appointments, etc will decide my view.
Factually, BB has done nothing for the right, he has panicked voters into leaving the right to vote for likud which tends to be his rubber stamp. His past appointments appeared geared to stall any right wing agendas, his desire to keep Yaalon says that Yaalons policies in YS are what BB wish to continue.
So far I see no advancement on any right wing agenda under BB and his claim to being a rightist leader is based on this lack of advancement. His claim is that he has stalled against foreign pressure and held the fort. I see defacto that BB is the factor which has prevented any right wing advancement under his admin. Unless BB makes a paradigm shift I will have to conclude that he is a left wing foreign mole put in place to stall the right and make any peace deal acceptable if it is marketed by him to a right wing who accepts rhetoric and announcements over facts. In my view there is nothing right wing to the left of Bennet and likud is merely a rubber stamp of BB. Basically, BB’s presence as “leader of the right” has defacto diluted the power and strength of RW voters who put him to power. He cannot claim forever that his absence of RW action for jews in YS or Jerusalem is proof of his RW credentials. This would make his taking of bennett votes by a panicked right wing to be a fraud.
Now is the moment of truth, if he forms with the “zionist” coalition that signals to me an agenda to pursue more overtly a more leftist accommodation with the pals. If he installs the right wing in ineffective positions wrt advancing RW agendas again then I expect he is continuing a policy of issuing RW rhetoric and announcements followed by left wing actions on the ground.
If, as I have suspected, he has been “working” with the GCC in the peace talks, POD, PE, etc then this would require a more left position than his rhetoric infers.
bernard ross Said:
Was that sarcasm ????
the red herrings are disappearing, the original sunni GCC side is coalescing back into a single force, Obama is back to arming Egypt, Qatar is back to dealing directly with Israel for permission to deal in gaza, Turkey is in the coalition, GCC proxy Egypt chokes hamas in gaza and hamas has to deal with israel instead while GCC sunni proxy IS chops off hamas heads in Syria pal camps.
a good Pesach to all!
@ mar55:
Thank you, I sent the above to my friend. We both had a complete ” brain freeze”.
@ honeybee:
Madrid has many museums but the largest and oldest is:
“El Museo del Prado.” Also a newer one is the “Museum de la Reina Sofia.”
In the South there is a very small one in Cadiz that is a wonderful little jewel. When it comes to Murillo it has one of the greatest amount of Murillos. If you consider the amount of masterpieces in such a small museum it is really
unbelievable.
I have in my files an interactive link to El Prado but there is no way I can send it to you. I tried but cannot
put it in the forum. I’ll ask somebody who knows more about computers than I do to see if there is a way I could send it.
@ SHmuel HaLevi 2:
From the Truth Provider
Passover’s Gift: The Promised and Undivided Land
BY VICTOR SHARPE
Millions, perhaps billions, of the world’s population still do not know the meaning of the towering festival of freedom and liberty known as Passover; a festival recognizing an event that has blessed the world for some 3,300 years.
The festival begins always on the 15th day of the Jewish month of Nissan. Jews and Christians know from the Bible the story of the Exodus and of the salvation of the Jewish people from centuries of slavery under the Egyptian pharaohs: This creation and deliverance of an entire nation.
Such a seminal event in humanity’s history became the foundation for freedom and liberty – created many centuries before democracy was first enunciated by Greek philosophers who nevertheless lived within a polytheistic society.
Many people know in varying degrees the Passover story and of the creation and birth of the Jewish people and of their undying faith in the One and Only God; invisible and indivisible.
Judaism has given the world monotheism in its purest and most undiluted nature. The Unity of God is what Jews have defended against all who attempted to suggest a plurality: even to enduring martyrdom.
The long suffering Jews under Egyptian bondage were led to freedom by the Jewish prophet, Moses, who brought them to their own very special and promised Land of Israel.
Moses spoke with God in Sinai and brought a wondrous divine gift to the Jewish people and through them to all humanity – the Decalogue; the Ten Commandments, and the basis of today’s laws of Western and Judeo-Christian civilization and jurisprudence. These ten brief commandments – a mere 120 Hebrew words – are written on the walls of synagogues and churches and found in secular establishments – often under attack from the American Civil Liberties Union ( ACLU).
But, as in all Jewish practice, Moses was never deified. He was shown in the Torah, the first five books of the Bible, as a man; nothing else. Indeed in order not to deify him or exalt him over others he is shown in the Holy Bible with human failings and his burial place remains unknown.
He sought the mountain top and beheld the Promised Land of Israel, yet was never to enter. In fact, in the Torah Moses is described merely as “the humblest and meekest of all human beings.” For in Judaism, only God is divine and besides Him there are none other.
Passover (Pesach in Hebrew) is the first of the Jewish holidays and festivals, coinciding with the coming of the Spring in the Jewish people’s ancestral, biblical and native land: the land given by God in an everlasting Covenant to the Jewish people; a land extending from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea and including Gilead (the possession of the tribes of Manasseh, Gad and Reuben) east of the river, in the present day state called Jordan.
The Passover festival precedes two other harvest festivals based upon the agricultural cycles of ancient and modern Israel. Next comes Succot, which is known as Tabernacles followed by Shavuot, Pentecost, which records and commemorates the giving to Moses of the Ten Commandments. Mankind was, and is, blessed through the Passover for it is a veritable gift to those who accept its divine message and perform the ritual meal, the Seder, recording the Exodus story.
But there is an evil in men’s hearts, and it is a profound evil, for those who hate and envy this God given Jewish gift to humanity with its message of freedom, liberty and foundational democracy. They have chosen since time immemorial to rise up to destroy all that it stands for and persecute those – the Jews – who received it from God and who have shared it with all humanity.
Let me recount what Mary Antin wrote in 1911about the horrors inflicted upon the Jews in Russia as they celebrated the festival of liberty in the Exodus story during the festive Seder meal. Ms. Antin wrote of what routinely took place at Passover and of how Russian neighbors reminded the Jews that for them it was another Egypt:
“. in Russian cities and even more in country districts, where Jewish families lived scattered, the stupid peasants would hear lies about the Jews, fill themselves with vodka, and set out to kill their Jewish neighbors.
“They attacked them with knives and clubs and scythes and axes, killed them or tortured them and burned their houses. This was called a pogrom.
“Jews who escaped the pogroms came with wounds on them and horrible, horrible, stories of little babies torn limb from limb before their mother’s eyes. Only to hear these things made one sob and sob and choke with pain.
“People who saw such things never smiled any more, no matter how long they lived and sometimes their hair turned white in a day and others went insane.”
In the Passover story, which is enshrined in the Haggadah, the book retelling the events of the Exodus and of the order of the Seder meal, there is a profound and millennial old passage: “Not one man alone has risen up against us to destroy us, but in every generation there have risen up against us those who sought to destroy us; but the Holy One, blessed be He, delivers us from their hands.” And so it was and still is.
We remember a family in the Jewish Israeli village of Itamar, in biblical and ancestral Samaria. They were slaughtered by Arab Muslims whose tracks led back to a nearby Arab settlement.
The members of the Fogel family were sleeping in their tiny home on the Sabbath when Palestinian murderers entered and knifed to death the father, mother, and three children, including a little baby girl only three months old.
Mary Antin spoke about unspeakable horrors inflicted on Jewish families in Russia; atrocities which had been repeated time after time throughout Europe and the Islamic world for 2,000 years or so.
Those relentless persecutions, pogroms and the shattering genocide perpetrated against the Jews in the Holocaust by Nazi Germany, in which a third of the world’s Jewish population was exterminated, were done when the Jews were still living in the long night of statelessness after Rome had destroyed Jewish Judea in 135 AD.
Yet today, since the modern miracle in 1948 of Israel’s rebirth and reconstitution as a sovereign, independent nation, restored again to its aboriginal, ancestral and biblical homeland, an Israeli government – despite all the overwhelming and empirical evidence of implacable Arab and Muslim refusal to ever accept it as a Jewish state – pleads for peace.
It is offered again and again to the Arabs, those who call themselves Palestinians, and again and again rejected by them. Yet still Israeli leaders make unheard of and suicidal offers of “land for peace.”
This may seem to many observers as an aberration, an illogical and deeply naive offer in the face of so much evidence of antipathy and loathsome hatred exhibited towards the Jewish state by the Arabs who call themselves Palestinians.
What nation would accept such Arab and Muslim barbarity and withstand so many Palestinian crimes against its civilian Jewish population – and still hope for peace? What nation would continue, despite the rain of thousands of missiles launched from Hamas occupied Gaza upon Israeli women and children, to hold out the hand of peace to a people who display such cruelty and human rights abuses?
What nation, after seeing the horror in the Fogel home, would still harbor hopes of a peaceful Palestinian state living side by side with Israel? What people would still entertain the insanity of dividing up the tiny land under the fatal rubric of a “two-state-solution?”
But to give away one inch of the land is a profound rejection of the Covenant made between His people and Almighty God. It is also a strategy of national suicide.
As Passover approaches again, Hamas, the branch of the Muslim Brotherhood that occupies the Gaza Strip, ceaselessly calls for the extermination of the Jewish state. So does its enabler, the Islamic Republic of Iran as it hurtles towards obtaining the Bomb and inflicting nuclear Armageddon. Remember the words: In every generation.
An Arab terrorist who once planted a bomb in Jerusalem has now become a passionate supporter of the Jewish state. Walid Shoebat stated to a Jewish audience in America the following:
“Americans need to start looking at what really happens in Israel. They don’t see what happens in their media. They don’t see what happens to the religious places in Judea and Samaria or what the world calls the West Bank.
“They have never seen what has happened to Joseph’s tomb. They have never seen every single holy place, Jewish and Christian, in Judea desecrated by the Palestinian Muslims.
“Americans need to see the reality on the ground and what happened to two Jews who got lost in the streets of Ramallah in the Palestinian Authority. If they did they would see the frenzy, the demonic frenzy of the Palestinian Arab population of Ramallah. How they tore out the human hearts, lungs and kidneys of the hapless Israeli victims.
“The media in America and around the world must show the reality of how the Jews suffer and of how the Jew cannot go from his home to worship in Joseph’s tomb or worship on the Temple Mount.”
Shoebat also stated that the worst possible mistake Israel ever made was inviting Arafat and his terrorist cronies to end their exile in Tunisia and set up their new headquarters in Judea – Israel’s biblical heartland.
This decision by the left-wing Israeli government of Yitzhak Rabin led to Arafat and his terrorist gang gaining international acceptance, the so-called Oslo Peace Accords, which in time became the Oslo War in which thousands of Israeli civilians were murdered and maimed by Palestinian terrorists and suicide bombers.
Walid Shoebat concluded that he sees the Jewish people are afraid of the Arab Goliath. But he, Shoebat, born a Muslim and now a Christian, knows full well the death sentence imposed upon him under Islamic Sharia law. He is not afraid of Goliath.
Neither should Israel be afraid, for in truth it is the David, the tiny Jewish state of only 6,500,000 Jews within a tiny land no larger than New Jersey, confronting Goliath, the enormous Arab and Muslim world of one and a half billion straddling a land mass greater than America plus most of Europe.
And Israel should no longer seek to placate those Europeans and the present U.S. Administration that remorselessly calls for a “two-state- solution, which would reduce the Jewish state at its most populous region to a width of only nine miles: yes, only nine miles wide: A sure and certain recipe for self-destruction within the Middle East, arguably the most evil neighborhood on planet Earth.
So we approach the Passover festival, which brings light and blessings to all humanity but which also brings the maniacal threats of genocide against the Jewish people by those who would bring unutterable terror and who, like the evil Iranian mullahs, spew hideous ravings and shameless libels against the ever suffering Jews.
A brave and highly principled British journalist, Melanie Phillips, has suggested that Israeli leaders should finally tell the European and American leadership how they are guilty of double standards, moral equivalence and a bias against Israel which is shameful in the extreme. Here are some of her words:
As Caroline Glick reminds us, Israel is not alone. There are millions of Americans – the vast majority – who support Israel and want to fight for her in the media and in the political realm against grievous pressure from the Obama Administration but are waiting for Israel to give them the reason to do so.
So these timely thoughts and questions must be urgently considered before, during and after the time of Passover for it surely is humanity’s moral barometer.
As the great Rabbi J.H. Hertz wrote in 1935:”Though man cannot always even half control his destiny, God has given him the reins of his conduct altogether into his hands.”
May Prime Minister Netanyahu and his potential new government take to heart the pleas of Melanie Phillips, Walid Shoebat, and the millions of Jews who yearn for a principled and resoundingly firm response from him to the ever humiliating demands upon the Jewish state from the Obama Administration, the State Department, and all the flawed Chanceries of Europe and beyond.
And it would not go amiss to remind the Godless European Union of Passover’s gift to the Jewish people: The promised and undivided land.
Victor Sharpe is a freelance writer and author of Volumes One, Two and Three of Politicde: The attempted murder of the Jewish state.
@ mar55:
I was telling my friend from Uruguay about you, but neither if us could remember the name of the art museum you visited in Madrid. She also saw the movie “Goya Muse”.
@ mar55:
Happy Pesach mar55!
Pending coalition negotiations, we may well see quiet but solid actions to follow. I hope that Netanyahu does not try again going behind the voters call…
It looks like the V 15, NIF columns and millions from US State Department and other such sources used to bribe and subvert will be cut out. I venture to say that the “UN” bases here may well be ordered out as well.
IRAN: Netanyahu cannot afford to turn tail and tell us that “we have to learn to live with a nuclear Iran”. If he tries that, he will not just be razed politically but likely expelled from Israel.
Islam is being in some fashion set upon and it is intrinsic to that bestial aggregate to fade into the sands.
@ SHmuel HaLevi 2:
You are right about the tactics and taquiya practiced by the folowers of Islam. Here is an interesting article about reforming Islam. I do not think it is possible. They do not understand reason. The only language they understand
like the communists.
Bomb the daylights out of the fanatical assassins groups and when
they see their numbers are decimated, that, they understand.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/a-reformation-for-islam-1426859626
What if Iran starts new facilities can not be sure anyone will see this. They can actually create nukes in North Korea and ship the nukes to Iran. The money will there because the sanctions most of them will be removed quickly upon a signature.
Obama thinks that the Iranians are like western liberals and really do want to join him for a round of golf. He is so naive it is mind boggling.
@ SHmuel HaLevi 2:
I think you and I are more or less on the same wavelength regarding a long-term solution to the Iran problem. Namely, go for their weakest point. And it should be plain that the weakest points are not a scattered bunch of deep-underground and presumably hardened sites, attempting to destroy what may be thousands of nuclear enrichment centrifuges. I am sure you have read my recent comments on this. Hopefully you will see what I consider to be a logical strategy. On the other hand, you may be factually aware of some single and accessible system component, the degradation or destruction of which would effectually terminate a nuclear weapons development process.
But all things considered, and especially in the Middle East, the easiest way to change a country’s policy is to take steps to overthrow and replace their government. Get the right kind of government empowered, and they probably can be induced or maybe just bribed to get rid of their own threat to create a nuclear arms race in the most unstable of all parts of the world, which is where they are all more or less constrained to live, work, and raise their own families.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
Netanyahu and all other previous PM/s never had a strategy concerning Islam. Our people and equally, other states leaders, do not understand in the least the Muslim basic strategic principles and consequently fail to confront those strategies and practices at their level.
When “negotiating” with Islam in any of its branches one has to surpass their Quran ordered practices.
In a short hand fashion those are:
TAQIYA (H). Religious deception.
KITMAN: Concealment, disimulation.
HIYAL: Legalistic deception.
Our teams, if at all willing to engage Islam on negotiations of any kind resulting on agreements that will be invariably violated by Muslims, must at least engage on the same tactics above.
Now, Mr. Hussein Obama is a Muslim by birth, his further claims follow TAQIYAH directions.
Further.
Israel must, if any leader is charged with the task, attack Iran at their weakest points, not the nuclear installations to start with. Only completely incompetent strategists would telegraph in advance which those objectives are. And… under no circumstances must Israel inform any “allies” in advance.