Ehud Barak, Wrong Again. "Brave Decisions" Don't Bring Peace

We must destroy that dangerous myth.  It's a two-headed monster, a monster with the potential of, G-d forbid, destroying us.

1. Peace is up to Israel
2. We must be "brave" or take "risks" for peace

How many of our precious soldiers died either in vain or because their safety was considered secondary to that of possible Arab civilians?  And talking about Arab civilians and dying in vain, don't forget terrorism, Arab terrorism against innocent Jews.


Israel's Defense Minister and former Chief of Staff Ehud Barak just doesn't get it.  In Butch Cassidy and the Sundance  Kid, it's a "brave decision" to jump, and since it's a movie, they survive.  In real life they'd be dead, and in real life, Barak's suggestions will bring more terrorism.  It's a "no brainer." I've seen that movie before, done that, been there and was injured in a terror attack, too.

Simply Mysterious Havel Havelim

Simply Jews presents a simply mysterious Havel Havelim offering tempting titles, leaving the curious to check out the posts without a clue of the jblogger, except for the occasional pronoun.  Take a look and visit the posts.

49 Years Later Castro Still Rules Cuba

I remember hearing about the failed Bay of Pigs United States invasion of Cuba to stop Castro.  It was forty-nine years ago.  The United States has blinked many time since then.  That's the example I frequently give as to why Israel should ignore American pressure.

Castro's resignation from the Presidency of Cuba was due to health problems.  He currently serves as First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba, a position he has held since its inception in 1965.

Push comes to shove and the United States is no more than a "paper tiger."  It is true that pragmatic capitalism rules Communist China, and the USSR has collapsed, but none of those changes is due to anything the U.S. did to those countries.  Human nature is capitalist, not communist (socialist.)  All the Utopian, socialist experiments die out, because they just don't work.  And the countries ruled as socialist/communist were havens of hypocrisy, because the leaders lived in a life-style well above the ordinary citizen.

The Jewish People is one of the world's most ancient nations.  We've outlived all of our former enemies, Greeks, Romans, Persians etc.  Unlike any other nation/people, we're both a religion and a nation/people.  Our history, as written in the Bible, is well documented and recognized by others, at least in theory.  The Modern State of Israel, which is celebrating sixty-two years of independence, does not need international approval.  Craving such approval weakens us.

It's time for us to shed that dangerous mind set.  Being independent means that we ignore pressure from others and we stop trying to get international approval.  For the sake of our children, grandchildren and continued existence we must be truly and proudly and confidently independent.

Being A "Real Israeli"

One of my pet peeves, those things people say which press the "wrong button" is when I hear "olim," immigrants, and "Israelis" referred to as two different categories of people here in Israel.  I first heard it about thirty years ago from an Abie Nathan groupie when some friends and I were demonstrating against his hunger strike.

The groupie began calling out to passersby:

"Don't listen to them; they're not real Israelis."

I was outraged and marched into Nathan's tent to ask him if he thinks Israelis with accents (obvious immigrants like myself) aren't real Israelis.  He seemed genuinely upset by what the young groupie had done.  Making aliyah, choosing to live one's life in Israel should be considered on a higher level than those who were just born here, like an accident of fate.

Here I am decades later still with accented Hebrew.  We'll soon be celebrating forty years in Israel, though I may not sound very Israeli. 

Many people say that there's an "express lane" to being an Israeli.  It's not a pleasant road.  This week we'll be celebrating Israeli Independence Day which is preceded by Soldiers and Terror Victims Memorial Day.  Losing a family member or close friend in war, army action or terror attack introduces us to a different level of the Israel experience.

Taking Down the Caravilla

Taking Down the Caravilla*
by Sara Layah Shomron





My caravilla has been dismantled and trucked out of Nitzan now that my family has moved into a real house with real walls.

At first glance, the pre-fab factory built caravillas at the various Gush Katif DP camps look attractive on the outside complete with stylish terra-cotta red tile roofs, exterior yucko-stucco pre-fab walls, and lawns. They are tucked away into secluded neighborhoods. But a second look indicates it is all cosmetic.

They are powerful reminders of government deception.




Let’s look at the guts of the 90 meter caravilla*






*my camera’s dates were not properly set and are not accurate.

Let's Wait A Generation or Two

Trying to "make peace" with today's Pseudostinian AKA Palestinian sic leadership is like trying to use a manual typewriter for word processing.  The recent execution by Hamas of two Arabs for "aiding" Israel is just another of the long list of reasons proving how unready and unwilling the Arabs  are for peace with Israel.

All the calls by U.S. President Obama and others to "rush, rush, rush" are worse than false alarms.  They want us to jump out of a high window, calling "fire" without providing a safety net.

When the Arabs are ready for peace, the genuine article, we won't need anyone to mediate.  So, please, let the world butt out and let nature take its course.  I have patience.  I don't want false peace.  It would be more dangerous than those fake pharmaceuticals that bargain hunters get killed by.  And remember, you can't cut glass with a rhinestone, only genuine diamonds do the trick.

Adoptions, Not Simple and Rarely Idyllic

There has been news recently about an American mother who returned her adopted son to Russia.  The headlines make her sound worse than Cinderella's evil step-mother, but I have no doubt that the situation is much more complex.

A few months ago, the news was full of condemnation of the Toyota Car Manufacturers for selling faulty cars.  Everybody's sympathy was with the car-purchasers.  Now, granted that a child isn't a car and a car isn't a child, but these foreign adoptions do have a connection to a buying  a car or any other large major  purchase.  There's marketing, and lots of money changes hands.  The "product" is a child, and the adoptive parents, like any other wise consumer, do their best to investigate the health and condition of the child.

In recent years it's very difficult to find a normal healthy baby, from a healthy mother, to adopt.  Desperate parents to be end up having to accept toddlers and even older children, or no child at all.  The older the child is, the more difficult it will be for the child to adjust to the parents' life-styles.  As a mother of adult children, I must certainly admit that my and my husband's biological children chose their own ways.  We had them from day one and nine months of pregnancy.  So imagine how hard it is to take a child who has already adjusted to the norms of an orphanage and have a totally unknown genetic and nutritional background.  The lawyers, agents, orphanage administrators etc can and do sign whatever they need to give the child to wealthy foreigners.  Of course, not all the adoptive parents are wealthy by the standards of their home society, but if they have enough money to privately adopt a foreign child, they look plenty rich when they visit that orphanage.

When people first receive their child behavioral problems are usually excused by language difficulties, different foods, customs and other perfectly acceptable reasons.  As time goes on and parents have their children examined and assessed by experts they're unpleasantly surprised to discover that their children have major and incurable conditions.  In some cases they never would have adopted the children.

They're all human beings, the parents and the children.  The children aren't guilty, but sometimes the parents just can't handle the burden, and neither can the community.  You don't keep a problematic child in a cage.  And if the child suffers from a neurological condition, she/he's always able to control behavior.

It may be easy to tell adoptive parents that they must accept the child, just like a parent whose child is born with serious problems or suffers as the result of an accident or illness.  That's not really fair nor accurate, because in today's world, doctors and society encourage the abortion of imperfect fetuses.

Adoption is very risky.  Children aren't like new cars and washing machines which can be sent back to the factory.  They're more like "used cars" which frequently come with unpleasant surprises.  Don't be naive.

Dem's Dirty Tricks Plus

Hat tip: Rush's daily email

When it comes to politics and dirty tricks, there's the subtle, sneaky, very upfront and all shades in between. The popular new American grassroots Tea Party movement must be pretty easy to infiltrate, so it's no surprise that it has been.  It brings me back decades to when Rabbi Meir Kahane started the Jewish Defense League.  That, too, was heavily infiltrated.  Friends who were sincere, honest followers complained that Kahane was very poor at distinguishing friend from FBI.  I'm certainly not saying that the FBI is infiltrating Tea Party, but don't be surprised at absolutely any revelations.  No doubt that there will be numerous "tell all" articles and books pretty soon about "crazy events" and "scandals."

As easy as it is for anyone to infiltrate the Tea Party movement, Obama kept totalitarian control over his Nuclear Conference.  Journalists had extremely limited access.  I'd say that Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu was wise not to show personally for many reasons.  I'm sure that Dan Meridor was the right person to be there.

I can't stop wondering who is really controlling Barack Hussein Obama...

Russian Orthodox in Israel strive to resurrect “Church of Zion”

Posted by Jewish Israel

It’s no secret that myriads of Russian Christians (hundreds of thousands?) were able to “make aliyah” via Law of Return loopholes, forged documents, or simply because they have authentic Jewish credentials but secretly identified with the Russian Orthodox Church or messianic Christian groups.

While the trend of messianic Russian congregations is well known, it appears that non-Jewish Jews and “Jewish believers in Jesus” are now filling the pews in what’s reported to be a spiritual revival of the Russian Orthodox Church in Israel.

To understand the magnitude of the problem, it’s essential to recognize that many “Christian Zionist” and messianic Christian groups continue to actively evangelize Jewish and Christian aliyah candidates in the former Soviet Union.

While in Russia or enroute to Israel, assistance in the aliyah process includes “spiritual guidance”, “intercession” and exposure to Christian scripture. Missionary efforts and Christian indoctrination continue for the immigrants once here in Israel, with a number of Russian Jews embracing Christianity post-aliyah.

In this must read post, Jewish Israel takes our readership on a whirlwind “fishing” expedition through some chilling waters “from the land of the North” – and our report is just the tip of the iceberg...
more

It's Not Enough To Buy The Book; You Have To Read It

Hat tip AJG

When I was an EFL English Teacher, I was always reminding my students that touching a list of words translated from English to Hebrew wasn't going to make them automatically transferred to their brains.  They had to work hard and study the material.

Now, when I read all these optimistic, self-congratulatory articles about Obama's healthcare bill being passed, Americans who are expecting their medical care to now be easily affordable and available to all...  It's like those kids thinking that the necessary English vocabulary would magically go from paper to fingers to brain.

Americans, you don't know if the healthcare bill will do the job, or just end up being modern snake oil.  Even though the long convoluted bill does include a schedule of stages, just like any major government project, there will most likely be delays and cost-overruns.  The public and politicians will discover that passing the bill was the easy part.

Wait before blowing up the balloons and partying.

The Kam Case: Freedom of Expression or Freedom of Baloney?

The following is my translation of an editorial which appears in today’s Yisrael HaYom [link below] newspaper in Hebrew.

The Kam Case: Freedom of Expression or Freedom of Baloney?
by Uri Heitner, Yisrael HaYom

Immediately upon exposure of the Kam affair, it was clear that for certain groups in Israeli society, a new hero was born. I knew that Kam would be portrayed as a heroine: a knight of freedom of expression, freedom of the press, freedom for the struggle against the ‘corrupt occupation’ and so forth.

Indeed, since publication of the affair, we’ve read dozens of articles about an important journalist who sits in detention because she revealed the war crimes of Israel. The second journalist involved, Uri Blau, has informed us, without the least bit of modesty, that he did not struggle at all on his own behalf, rather but on behalf of Israel.

Articles of support maintain that the great sin of Kam amounts to the fact that she has a world-view that led her to reveal illegal acts of Israel. Or, alternatively, some argue that she just did her duty of conscience, and that the problematic factor here is the IDF, whose injustices she has exposed.

Well, even if we are a ‘baloney-ridden’ State, such a concentration of nonsense has not been seen here in a long time. Then there is nothing further from the issue of freedom of expression and freedom of the press than this case.

The "journalist" that was arrested, is rather an Internet website gossip columnist. There is no connection at all between her vocation and her arrest.

After all, she was not arrested for her work as a ‘journalist’, but for what she did as a soldier. As a soldier, she stole classified documents, kept them, and passed some on. This is the truth under the false code of "free press".

To understand the significance of the act, one should just remember the Jonathan Pollard affair.

Pollard copied several documents and passed them on to a party to which he not authorized. And although this was not a party hostile to the United States, and it is clear that Pollard did not want to harm US interests, he was convicted of espionage and betrayal and sentenced to life imprisonment. He’s been sitting in solitary confinement since, for 25 years already. And remember, that’s the US, the world democratic power. But when Israel wants to defend itself, it is immediately compared to Iran.

Kam stole thousands of secret documents, even top secret ones, from the Army [IDF] while taking advantage of the trust placed in her. Is it possible to exaggerate the severity of this crime?

Whether she did it for ideological reasons, wanting to harm State security, or for personal reasons, is an important but secondary question. The real question is whether there is a connection, even the slightest connection between this serious story and the freedom of the press. Indeed, with regard to the freedom of press, security officials have been strict with themselves to maintain it, in terms of Uri Blau and the documents in his hands.

Only after it became clear that he violated the agreement he signed and continues to hold, illegally, confidential documents (and so far, I have not heard from him a denial of this claim) – did he become a wanted person.

The public should not be captivated by the charlatans who blast the sirens of harm to the freedom of the press. This is an offense against security laws, and in a State of law, violation of the law requires that such offenses be prosecuted.