tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9182232861420069962024-03-12T19:00:04.908-07:00Essays on the Arab Israeli ConflictJimmyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08561477444469851129noreply@blogger.comBlogger244125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-918223286142006996.post-75602631658123907772022-11-05T04:45:00.007-07:002022-11-05T05:00:03.274-07:00Elon Musk – Speech that incites violence is the line that cannot not be crossed<p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzWbk1YtFtixhU2hvB5iDY-kgXli4C_EEtL4_3FeOgz7kUNhl9nCPeX836rzXyxd-iCkesLTxUhpY7hg5lKun54wEpYRaz0I6FJKhTxV7Y-dZIkyeQSCNfecfDgeJN0qKvACAyIsnD8oczWHMqu8W_mwZ_DrjU3gFh7ecGJF-Q3l9RRQpq02ZC7hmoKw/s680/ye-racist-tweet.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="551" data-original-width="680" height="259" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzWbk1YtFtixhU2hvB5iDY-kgXli4C_EEtL4_3FeOgz7kUNhl9nCPeX836rzXyxd-iCkesLTxUhpY7hg5lKun54wEpYRaz0I6FJKhTxV7Y-dZIkyeQSCNfecfDgeJN0qKvACAyIsnD8oczWHMqu8W_mwZ_DrjU3gFh7ecGJF-Q3l9RRQpq02ZC7hmoKw/s320/ye-racist-tweet.jpg" width="320" /></a></p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><p class="MsoNormal">Hi Elon,</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I know you’ve got about a gazillion things going on now,
particularly since your takeover of Twitter, so I won’t take but a couple moments
of your time. But I feel this point is probably the most important aspect of
what you’re doing at Twitter. As we all know, you’ve acquired Twitter (and I’m
one of those who believe for the better). I like so many of millions have seen
how Twitter has been picking sides and censoring opinions they don’t agree
with. And I am a full believer that freedom of speech is the single more
important principle in an open, free and fair society. You can’t legislate out
hate, and can’t expect to silence the haters. I was always taught that light is
the best disinfectant in that situation. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">However, even free speech has to have its limits. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And that limit is that any speech which is a
clear, explicit call to violence against others, or that will clearly result in
violence against others is not speech that should be freely propagated. And
anyone that makes those calls, particularly, repeatedly, after warning should
lose their ability to reach a wide audience. Because that’s where free speech turns into violence. And
the Jews have been witness to this again and again. </p><p class="MsoNormal">If we look at Kanye’s tweet that started it all, he stated that he was going “death con 3 ON JEWISH
PEOPLE.” And so there is no doubt:<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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</p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span dir="LTR"></span>“Death con” = Death</li><li><span dir="LTR"></span>Defcon (used to denote the
US preparation for WAR) equals both a clear declaration of war as well as
threatening death</li><li><span dir="LTR"></span>And “Jews” are the target
of this declaration of war.</li></ul><p class="MsoNormal">A couple of short days after his tweet, a bunch of Neo Nazis were <a href="rcna53653">hanging a banner over
the highway</a> in LA claiming that Kanye was Right.</p><p class="MsoNormal"></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">We now see antisemetic hate speech skyrocketing as the
result. And while we have not seen a public violent action as of yet that can
be directly connected to Kanye’s words, its only a matter of time. In fact, just
a couple of days ago the <a href="https://twitter.com/FBINewark/status/1588246302189838337">FBI tweeted</a> that it has “has received credible
information of a broad threat to synagogues in NJ. We ask at this time that you
take all security precautions to protect your community and facility.”
</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">And something you’re likely less aware of, is that there
have been regular, escalating attacks against Orthodox Jews in Brooklyn and
greater New York over the past two years. There is no shortage of <a href="https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=attack+on+jews+in+new+york">videos
of these attacks on youtube</a>. In some of cases the violent attackers have quoted
the words of <a href="https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/minister-louis-farrakhan-in-his-own-words">Louis
Farakhan</a>, from the nation of Islam such as that Blacks are the Real Jews,
and calling Jews the Synagogue of Satan. Louis Farrakhan is not a marginal
personality but has a very large following, including Kanye. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">So much like you can’t yet fire in a crowded theater (read
about the <a href="https://www.mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/970/incitement-to-imminent-lawless-action">Clear
and present danger test</a><span class="MsoHyperlink">)</span>, you shouldn’t be
able to declare war on a minority in front of tens of millions of followers on
Twitter. The result will inevitably be innocent people being violently
attacked.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I sincerely hope you’ll take all of this into consideration
as you decide how to moderate content on twitter. As there of course will be
some level of moderation. Free speech is crucial for a functioning democracy,
and Twitter has become a critical platform in the dialog between Americans. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Its important to keep it free of censorship, partisanship,
and agenda. However its also important that it doesn’t become the Launchpad for
attacks against innocent people. There is a limit to free speech, and the clear
and present danger test is as good a place as any to start. Otherwise, realize that the blood of innocents that is spilled as the result of hate speech propagated on Twitter will be on your hands.</p><p class="MsoNormal">In summary, free speech might include hate speech, that's for each platform to decide. But speech that is an explicit call to violence or can directly result in violence should not be tolerated. Otherwise it will inevitably end up in bloodshee.<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p>
<p></p>Jimmyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08561477444469851129noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-918223286142006996.post-47383705713538049102021-05-22T09:08:00.007-07:002021-05-22T10:59:08.624-07:00End the JCPOA – Last Chance to Prevent the Next War against Israel<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dxIizE2c6Xrv8Crs7b1GpeU7XllWSOLz8-5qyIJNfLLV_knJNZc2d71BC-qxt7dVvav7uR5KT9YYTCw_buqWQ' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div><br /><i>Head of Hamas Ismael Hannieh thanking Iran for the Money and Weapons that enable them to fight the Gaza war.</i><br /><p></p><p>Living in Israel for more than 20 years now, and having blogged no less than 4 wars (yes this is the fourth war I’ve blogged), I’ve come to become familiar with the cycle. An enemy attacks us using whatever pretext they want (and the world always accepts it), we battle them. People die on both sides, and the other sides lives to fight another day. We won’t get into the whys here, but that’s it, the cycle. We currently have a few fronts, Gaza (less the West Bank), and Lebanon/Syria.</p>
<p>With this Gaza war apparently coming to an end, it matches the pattern above. Hamas is left surviving but weakened, and will now once again patiently rearm itself, learn lessons from this war, get money and weapons from Iran, and prepare for the next. And so the countdown has restarted.</p>
<p>There’s a war at least every five years. Having a child in this country means that eventually my child will become a soldier and go to war. If he’s 10 now, he’ll be 15 in five years, and 20 in ten. While it doesn’t necessarily mean he’ll be serving during one of the next wars, chances are he will. And as the pattern has shown us, by the time he’s in the army, and our enemies will have developed more advanced and deadly weapons. And they will threaten everybody in this country, soldier and citizen alike, just like today. And my child will very likely have to fight in that war.<br /></p>
<p>And then there’s the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of action), what is called the Iranian Nuclear Agreement. This is the nuclear agreement that President Obama and the international community signed with Iran that 1. enable them to continue and enrich uranium in a legal capacity (that would after it expires allow them to legally enrich for military purposes), and 2. empowers them to continue to wage war. </p>
<p>Iran oversees an umbrella of military proxies across the middle east which enables them to indirectly attack other countries without having to pay any real price. They bomb Saudi Arabia through their Houthi Proxy. They bomb Israel through their Palestinians (Hamas) and Lebanese (Hizbolla) Proxies. They oversee the Shiite militias and have been slowly overtaking Iraq. Using these militias to kill Americans and try to force the international community out of Iraq so they can take over. And there’s more.</p>
<p>Iran has sworn itself to the destruction of Israel. There’s no debate in that. They’ve publicly said time and time again they’re looking to see a world without Israel.</p>
<p>Back to the JCPOA, if President Biden and the international community sign this agreement, which in its implementation will lift military sanctions against Iran and allow it to buy weapons freely, and will together with that release to Iran tens, some estimate hundreds of billions of dollars, the agreement to prevent Iran from immediately gaining a nuclear weapon, will instead provide them with the money and international mechanism to escalate their wars across the middle east. </p>
<p>Particularly, as Hamas has just waged a terrorist war against Israeli civilians, while holding Palestinian civilians in Gaza hostage and using them as human shields. Signing the JCPOA will be giving tacit, no explicit approval to these methods, and to continue attacking Israel and the greater middle east through removing sanctions and giving it money the latest Gaza war was brought to an end. It will funnel money and weapons to fuel these conflicts into the foreseeable future, for example to rebuild Hamas’s arsenal and give them weapons.</p>
<p>President Biden seems like he’s a friend of Israel. And yet, he continues on to pursue an agreement that, as opposed to bring peace to the world, will itself fuel wars in the middle east, reaping death and destruction that will make the last century in the middle east seem like a school yard scuffle.</p>
<p>President Biden must #walkAway from the JCPOA. Put pressure on our allies not to sign it, reinstate the sanctions previously applied to Iran in their entirety, and bring Iran to the brink of collapse if needed, until they can wage war no more.</p>
<p>In addition, he needs to fully support the Abraham Accords. The result of brilliant thinking, that brought peace just when everyone thought it was impossible. Continue on making peace between Israel and Sunny states, cut Iran out of the dialog, and bring pressure down on Hamas via these Arab states until Hamas is cut off completely from Iran.</p>
<p>This is the only way, I repeat the only way to bring peace to the Middle East. Working with the moderate Muslim nations and Israel while choking Iran out of weapons and shutting down their militias.</p>
<p>Sadly I believe there is little chance of any of that happening. And if it doesn’t you can set your clocks right now and begin the countdown to the next war against Israel. Whether from Gaza, Lebanon, Syria or Yemen. Possibly from all of them.</p>
<p>President Biden, you must walk away from the JCPOA. Signing that agreement is signing a death certificate for millions of people. And if you don’t walk away, it is that which will be your legacy.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixhOXYHhrzXm-8qiGR1rYxr2p-oQOFgwLDpeGu9Ru_7b-ndqXozJwBulqwWNVKgGnfbqpfA6BHCGKyAFW1eTpMElWWAB16U8D68jenZ-nl3Pgjlh1LF8wcexU1RJNKnJscJYzFMIhiVVzH/s323/hannieh.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="266" data-original-width="323" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixhOXYHhrzXm-8qiGR1rYxr2p-oQOFgwLDpeGu9Ru_7b-ndqXozJwBulqwWNVKgGnfbqpfA6BHCGKyAFW1eTpMElWWAB16U8D68jenZ-nl3Pgjlh1LF8wcexU1RJNKnJscJYzFMIhiVVzH/s320/hannieh.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /> <p></p>
Jimmyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08561477444469851129noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-918223286142006996.post-21160674016823311352021-05-21T04:48:00.002-07:002021-05-21T04:48:11.392-07:00There's always a Pretext, and that Pretext is Grievance <p> </p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0dNM_VVtYhG0GRa5odWaehH2zkA0G0Kwmb-2tVX3-pTJlDewPEa0-Dtg1x8AIhLHQx5jCQgIowqLjHL_Wuj7bFgyWtzvxXsZsUW6lya93y92N2DijN9AgIXOb2w2gc7yn8vNTtVxpV2NT/s640/evilsupporters.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0dNM_VVtYhG0GRa5odWaehH2zkA0G0Kwmb-2tVX3-pTJlDewPEa0-Dtg1x8AIhLHQx5jCQgIowqLjHL_Wuj7bFgyWtzvxXsZsUW6lya93y92N2DijN9AgIXOb2w2gc7yn8vNTtVxpV2NT/s320/evilsupporters.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><p></p><p>They scream at us to stop killing Palestinians and we respond that we're reacting to terrorist missiles on our cities and children. Then they point to the police belligerently entering their Mosque and we respond that they were reacting to piles of rocks and Molotov cocktails stacked up in that mosque and being thrown at police and those praying below. </p>
<p>Then they move to accusing us of perpetuating apartheid and attacking Palestinians for years. And it goes on and on. There is always a pretext. There's always some grievance that people think gives them permission to attack us, to indiscriminately murder us and our children. That forgives their rage, violence and murder and places the blame on us. </p>
<p>They are never held responsible, never blamed. Having one standard for one, and a different standard for another has a name. And when it involves the Jewish people, that name is antisemitism. And its exploding all over the world. And sadly now that always accepted pretext is allowing them to attack Jews in America and Europe and silencing voices against that violence. Are the actions of Israel a valid excuse to attack random Jews in New York and Los Angeles? Definitely not, but much like here in the middle east, those perpetuating that violence will be given a pass. They will be understood and sympathized with. And few if any will speak up.</p>Jimmyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08561477444469851129noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-918223286142006996.post-37485069877744124592021-05-19T08:05:00.004-07:002021-05-19T08:05:49.949-07:00Cognitive Dissonance – You can condemn Hamas and still Support Palestinians<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjq923WJxjwss_iCdiYELVHv2aXP56yPOaM0-j54uPQfG2rmvur4IGzzFxPwLeD87Ix4sT2pPuHatFCqhwyOvINhYifRe5yoNG4S-3jd2pqV_uRBVdikTNeHzNuTG80pkwTZVb3TBs0ea9f/s1512/beach.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1512" data-original-width="1512" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjq923WJxjwss_iCdiYELVHv2aXP56yPOaM0-j54uPQfG2rmvur4IGzzFxPwLeD87Ix4sT2pPuHatFCqhwyOvINhYifRe5yoNG4S-3jd2pqV_uRBVdikTNeHzNuTG80pkwTZVb3TBs0ea9f/s320/beach.jpeg" /></a></div><i>Frishman Beach, empty on a Thursday afternoon. Few people willing to take a risk and go out.</i><br /> <p></p><p>The other day I had an exchange with a friend from years ago on Instagram. He has posted an article by Thomas Friedman who basically blamed Both Bibi (Netanyahu) and Trump for leading to this situation.</p>
<p>I immediately tried to set the record straight but pointing out to him that a terrorist organization, sworn to the destruction of Israel and murder of Jews, initiated and indiscriminately launched missiles at millions of innocent civilians. </p>
<p>He told me I was reading into his statement, and I told him there was no proper response other than stating that indiscriminately launching missiles against civilians is wrong and a crime, and the side doing that was wrong and must be stopped. And that I didn’t give a damn about Trump or Netanyahu, it was Hamas that was guilty here.</p>
<p>He said that he could carry 2 concepts at once (support Israel’s right to freedom, and not like the fact that its policies are damaging and destructive).</p>
<p>I replied that while he might be able to carry the 2 concepts at once, he apparently couldn’t distinguish between them. </p>
<p>And that’s the problem with so many that are torn at seeing innocent civilians caught in the middle (only in Gaza?) dying. That most don’t distinguish between Hamas, a terrorist organization sworn to the destruction of Israel and the death of Jews, to the general Palestinian population. Though it is important to remind everyone that through democratic elections sponsored and monitored by the west with the likes of Jimmy carter actually elected Hamas. So from that perspective they do have some responsibility for their own situation. Though of course not all Palestinians support Hamas, much like not all Iranians support the Ayatollah and not all North Koreans support Kim Jung Un. </p>
<p>Unfortunately those Palestinians in Gaza that don’t share the Jihad world view of Hamas have become hostages, being used as human shields as Hamas has launched now more than 3,000 missiles at Israeli population centers. Committing a double war crime, 1. By launching their missiles from behind their own civilians who they use as human shields, and by 2. Launching these missiles indiscriminately at Israeli population centers (also civilians). </p>
<p>And for g-d sake please be concerned about the Palestinians trapped in the middle, suffering, losing their houses and even getting killed, but assign responsibility where it is due, to Hamas. And understand that for this to stop, for it not to happen again, Hamas needs to be brought to an end. </p>
<p>It is important to recall that those that hold full responsibility for what’s currently happening is Hamas. There is no argument about this. You want to bitch about Bibi and can’t stand him? That’s your right. But there is an appropriate time and place for everything. And much like you wouldn’t talk about how your friend’s wife died in childbirth while visiting the hospital for your sister who in the process of childbirth you shouldn’t bitch and complain about Netanyahu or the Israeli government in the same breath when talking about what’s happening in Gaza today as if they’re partly responsible.</p>
<p>Not only did Israel fully withdrawal from Gaza years ago on the promise that the international community would support and protect them (they don’t), but Hamas has launched more than 3000 missiles from Gaza on the bogus claim that they’re “protecting Jerusalem.” A joke as the world knows Israel, and particularly Jerusalem are the only places in the middle east that actually do guarantee freedom of speech and protect and enable access to the holy sites of all religions.</p><p>
</p><p>Cognitive Dissonance is the inability of the mind to hold two separate ideas which can be true at the same time, but still distinguish between them. And that’s what so many suffer from today. But the problem is, without separating these two concepts, that Hamas is a terrorist organization responsible for the death and destruction we now see both in Gaza and Israel, and separately you might not like Israeli leaders or their policies, nothing will ever get solved. </p>
<p></p><p></p>Jimmyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08561477444469851129noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-918223286142006996.post-7969981475734899442021-05-16T07:40:00.007-07:002021-05-17T09:26:14.367-07:00What are Israel’s Options in ending the 2021 Gaza War, Really?<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOmPuPqkqzLwsrn8kDzX14_aeNRnNs0tDGzG38p3XGhyphenhyphen52xOInAw45gVGIKrMOjyawOW_o__ZOoCRaKQ8PRvgAZWMRvxbeGGR8EFvecarW4JeJtrYa486LHFa4735gFcdPMfnA7uR_T0mN/s1512/safe-room.jpeg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1512" data-original-width="1512" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOmPuPqkqzLwsrn8kDzX14_aeNRnNs0tDGzG38p3XGhyphenhyphen52xOInAw45gVGIKrMOjyawOW_o__ZOoCRaKQ8PRvgAZWMRvxbeGGR8EFvecarW4JeJtrYa486LHFa4735gFcdPMfnA7uR_T0mN/s320/safe-room.jpeg" /></a></div><i>Caption: An Israeli safe room (Mirhav Moogan). Double re-inforced concrete walls, Heavy steel door. Typically used as storage or a bedroom. Theirs was storage and now the parents and two kids need to squeeze in there.</i><p></p><p>What could really be an end here. What are Israel's options to come out of this conflict? Three are main possibilities as I see it:</p>
<p><b>Option 1: Israel forces Hamas to Collapse, then has to govern in Gaza</b>: Having complete control of Gaza would enable us to both control activity there and to seek and destroy remaining weapons. However Israel in no way wants to govern Gaza. We don’t want to govern the West Bank. </p>
<p><b>Option 2: Israel forces Hamas to Collapse, then the International Community comes in to govern Gaza</b>: This is a nightmare scenario. UN officials living in Gaza become defacto Human shields. And Yes Hamas and others terrorist groups would use them. Imagine Israel killing a number of Swedes, or Frenchmen by accident. Not only that, but their simple presence is deterrent. If Europeans (or Russians) got hurt, a witch hunt against Israel would be in full force. UN Resolutions condemning Israel, sanctions. European and international newspapers pumping out the editorials about how Israel has replaced Nazi Germany.</p>
<p>In either of the above cases, if Israel does a ground invasion, a lot of people will get injured and killed. Both Palestinian civilians and terrorists, and Israeli soldiers. No Israeli wants that to happen, some may think it’s necessary. The price of a ground invasion would be steep. And if we took over the whole strip, untenable.</p>
<p><b>Option 3: Israel presses on with the current response without a ground incursion. No conclusive end</b>. IN this case there will be a few more days, or week or two of fighting. Israel, whether due to pressure or otherwise will agree to a ceasefire. Hamas will try go let off one last attack. They’re likely saving missiles for this so they have enough to overwhelm defenses in central Israel. And Israel will unfortunately not respond.</p>
<p>Hamas survives plenty of weapons still intact. They have years and the patience to rebuild their military capabilities. It will build up its army using Iranian money and weapons, and will live to launch another war when instructed by their masters, Iran. Likely another 3-4 Years. Maybe even less.</p>
<p><b>What about Peace?</b></p>
<p>Well I have to write about it, even though it’s a joke. As long as Iranian money is sponsoring the weapons and rich leaders in Gaza, there will be no peace. Nothing Israel can do will get them to agree to live in Peace. Hamas doesn’t believe in a Palestinian state. They believe in the Muslim Ummah, the people. Just like Iran. Only difference is Palestinians likely have family living with them in Gaza. But no matter, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, they’ll never agree to peace. Any “peace talks” with the Palestinians are a joke because of this, as well as the fact that even their “moderate” leaders, will never recognize Israel. Not in this generation, and likely not in the next.</p>
<p><b>The Abraham Accords and the JCPOA</b></p>
<p>The Abraham accords could have eventually brought an end to the conflict. If almost every Arab Sunni state had peace with Israel, and wasn’t afraid of Iran. They’d put pressure on the Palestinians and stop supporting the terrorists. And eventually the Palestinians would be squeezed into it. Not by Israel, the US or EU, but by the Sunni Muslim world. As they understand Israel wants them no harm and the benefits of the peace.</p>
<p>Now with President Biden working to restart the JCPOA and make Iran rich by giving them tens if not hundreds of billions of dollars, as well as have the international nod to continue waging war against the entire middle east because let's face it. Coming to any agreement with Iran and removing sanctions in practice gives them the go ahead to carry on what they're doing, and more. If Iran is currently orchestrating a war against Israel, and the US and EU sign an agreement (even if it seems to be for a good objective), that is giving them the green light to rain hell on the middle east. All Muslim countries will cower as Iran belligerently increases its dominance and increases it ability to intimidate, and submit, everyone.<br /></p><p>These Muslim states who have already or might have been willing to make peace with Israel will backtrack and that channel will either sit quietly on the side, or eventually dry up. Only time will tell. But in my opinion, peace with Muslim countries that want or can be coaxed into it, sanctions against Iran (breaking them completely) and of course ending any discussions on the JCPOA is the only way to actually bring peace to the middle east. The Abraham Accords was the way. Now its back to the international community forcing Israel to let Hamas survive.<br /></p>
<p>Unfortunately, yet again it looks like they’ll go to option 3 above, an early end. Leaving Hamas alive to war again another day. It’s a quandary. And nobody knows how to break it. If this turns out to be the case, I’ll see you all back here in a few more years.</p>
Jimmyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08561477444469851129noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-918223286142006996.post-73495438441680533062021-05-12T03:05:00.004-07:002021-05-12T03:48:08.220-07:00Missiles in Israel, Iran and President Biden<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3BkSdypHxE3K_36tM9sf27P8aGjlpIhlIqf-GNJt807_e4bX-e0LrrB1K0qHqKlsMSrFlJRWOMrRCarqn0hViipuDxYC377LHFqs0GadRjG3gtTsaJK_7Jtd-iQnBhwg3b6T6cekQM6i-/s500/shelter.jpeg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="400" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3BkSdypHxE3K_36tM9sf27P8aGjlpIhlIqf-GNJt807_e4bX-e0LrrB1K0qHqKlsMSrFlJRWOMrRCarqn0hViipuDxYC377LHFqs0GadRjG3gtTsaJK_7Jtd-iQnBhwg3b6T6cekQM6i-/w256-h320/shelter.jpeg" width="256" /></a></div><br /><i>The indignity of getting caught in the shower by air raid sirens is better than the death of getting hit by a missile, especially for a 9 year old.</i><br /><p></p><p>By now everyone knows that Almost 1000 missiles have been indiscriminately raining down over Israeli population centers.
</p><p><b>The Back Story</b></p>
<p>The missiles were launched by terrorist organizations including Hamas and Islamic Jihad. It’s been a scene which has been unfolding over the course of the past few weeks. The violence first it started with a TikTok challenge of Arab Israelis attacking Jews weeks ago. The first instance we saw of this was the head of a Yeshiva (religious Jewish school), <a href="https://www.jewishpress.com/news/local/hesder-yeshiva-head-beaten-in-jaffa-attackers-then-post-photo-to-social-media/2021/04/18/" target="_blank">being violently beaten in Jaffa</a>. And in the following weeks many more videos would be shared. </p>
<p>Next they said the Arab street was angry due what they claimed was Palestinians being kicked out of their homes in a place called Sheik Jarrah. These people were not yet evicted, but there was a court case that was the culmination of 40 years of due process coming to a conclusion. In this case Jews owned the property almost 150 years ago. They were forced out during the war of Independence in 1948 and Jordan took control of Jerusalem. When Israel took back control of East Jerusalem after the six day war the Palestinians continued to live in this house. A court case started in the 80s to evict them as the original owners brought proof of ownership. And the court case mentioned was to make a final judgement which would likely be to evict this family You can read more about that <a href="https://www.jewishpress.com/news/local/hesder-yeshiva-head-beaten-in-jaffa-attackers-then-post-photo-to-social-media/2021/04/18/" target="_blank">here</a>. </p>
<p>From there Palestinians used this potential eviction as an excuse to start rioting on the temple mount, the holiest place in Judaism where Islam decided to build two mosques in honor of a dream Muhammad had of him ascending to heaven on a horse. The rioters regularly use the mosque as a launch pad for attacks. Store up stones and other weapons. Then attack the police and Jewish parishioners down below at the wailing all.</p>
<p>Israel restricted Muslims from going up to the temple mount (and entered the Mosque to get the rioters to stop), which was an excuse to incite the masses and the pretext for Hamas launching missiles at Jerusalem, and all of Israel. Hamas <a href="https://nationalpost.com/pmn/news-pmn/hamas-issues-ultimatum-to-israel-after-israeli-palestinian-clashes-in-jerusalem" target="_blank">gave Israel an ultimatum</a> to stand down its forces in Jerusalem or Israel would “pay the price.” Israel didn’t stand down and Hamas began to indiscriminately rain missiles across Israel, more than 1000 of them so far. Forcing millions of Israeli men, women and children into bomb shelters.</p>
<p>And of course what does a sovereign nation do to protect its citizens and stop the missiles, strike back. So now Gaza is being targeted by in an attempt to destroy these missiles and other weapons and other terrorist infrastructure. Israel uses highly accurate missiles in an attempt to avoid civilian casualties as much as can be done when terrorists build their military infrastructure into population centers.</p>
<p><b>Iran – the unseen hand behind these Attacks</b></p>
<p>Those people that know the middle east know that Hamas and the other Palestinian terrorist entities don’t fund and train their soldiers by themselves. They have a sponsor. And that sponsor is Iran. Iran operates multiple proxy militias which it uses to attack and control populations across the middle east. They have Hamas and Islamic Jihad in Gaza. They have Hezbollah in Lebanon and Syria (in which they were party to the murder of more than a half million Syrians during the Syrian civil ). They have the Houthis in Yemen, which launches attacks against Saudi Arabia and others. They have Shiite militias in Iraq that attack US and other troops, and oppress the local Sunnis</p>
<p>Have no doubt, the events we’ve seen unfold over the past few weeks were planned and orchestrated, in advance, by Iran, together with their proxy armies. The missiles raining on Israeli cities are Iranian funded and built with their expertise.
</p><p>There are many reasons why Iran chose this time to launch these attacks:</p>
<p><b>The Renewal of the JCPOA – Nuclear Agreement</b></p>
<p>The renewal of the Iranian Nuclear agreement with the international community. Iran is working hard to restart the nuclear agreement that would allow Iran to enrich nuclear materials at the behest of the international community, while removing sanctions and bringing Iran back to the group of nations. President Trump had cancelled this agreement. Restarting this agreement will provide Iran tens if not hundreds of billions of dollars to continue to wage their proxy wars, not to mention give them a horizon for creating nuclear weapons with the unofficial approval of the international community</p>
<p>As part of this, it is their upmost priority to keep Israel away from the American administration and others party to the negotiations. To distract Israel and keep it otherwise occupied. So it can’t put pressure on President Biden and the international community to scrap the agreement. This is a central objective to what’s taking place now, as we’ll see father down.</p>
<p><b>The legitimization by President Biden and the internal community of allowing Iran to continue to wage war across the middle east</b></p>
<p>With the signing of this agreement with President Biden and the international community, Iran will have obtained tacit approval to continue with the belligerent acts of violence we’ve witnessed across the middle east in Syria, in Yemen, in Saudi Arabia in Israel, against the US in the straights of Hormuz over the past few years. Remember, the nuclear agreement is not just about nuclear enrichment or weapons. Regular bullets and missiles kill too. And if Iran is already waging war and the international community agrees to remove sanctions, free up hundreds of billions of dollars and open the Iranian economy when they’re already waging war under sanctions. Nothing will stop them when those sanctions are lifted. Quite the contrary, they will be emboldened and enriched to carry out their violent oppressive agenda.</p>
<p><b>The death of the Abraham Accords and end of reconciliation between Muslim countries and Israel</b></p>
<p>Another target of Iranian actions is the disintegration of the Abraham Accords, a monumental achievement by the Trump administration that saw a warm peace created between Israel and multiple Muslim countries including the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan, a warming of relations between Israel and additional Muslim countries, and for the first time optimism that maybe peace in the Middle East could be obtained. But there’s one road block, and that road block is Iran, a violent, abusive Shiite country that all of the aforementioned Sunni countries are afraid of.</p>
<p>And they and Iran now smell blood. They all see that President Biden is set on reinstating the JCPOA at almost any cost, and is selling them all out to Iran. These countries are afraid of Iran, and separately, even with the peace agreements their populations were still raised on a steady diet of Israel (and Jew) hatred. So the escalation clearly led by Iran leading to missiles across Israel yesterday also target relations between those countries and Israel. And with an empowered Iran with hundreds of billions of dollars from a renewed JCPOA and the support of the international community, all of these countries will be afraid to take risks to continue to build bridges with Israel. Not to mention will now need to fight growing internal pressure among their own populations set off by incitement from Iran around the Temple Mount and now the sad state of Palestinian life in Gaza further deteriorating due to Hamas attacks and Israeli response.</p><p>
</p><p><b>The end of rapprochement between Israel and Saudi Arabia</b></p>
<p>As part of the above mentioned impact on the Abraham Accords, warming relations we saw under President Trump between Saudi Arabia and Israel (there were rumors that Saudi Arabia was the next to sign a peace agreement with Israel), have come to a halt. Public attacks by the Biden administration against Saudi Arabia (which some believe justified), as well as Saudi Arabia’s fear of the United States and the international community giving Iran billions as well as political backing, have all but likely killed any chance of reproach between Saudi Arabia and Israel. Much like Israel, Saudi Arabia has also been under assault by Iranian proxies, specifically the Houthis, over the past couple of years. With hundreds if not thousands of armed drone attacks against their airports, oil infrastructures, and even cities.</p>
<p>The Biden administration is encouraging rapprochement not between Israel and Saudi Arabia, which would be a peaceful rapprochement build on building a future of coexistence, but between Iran and Saudi Arabia built upon the premise of Saudi Arabia submitting to Iranian dominance in the middle east (the hope of avoiding the wrath of Iran), and fostering further war and suffering for people across the middle east.</p>
<p><b>Sticking it to Netanyahu</b></p>
<p>Of course we can’t ignore the Netanyahu factor. Probably Iran’s biggest foe. And currently a Prime Minister who didn’t clearly win an election and can’t build a government under current circumstances (at least up until now, that just might change following Iran and Hamas’ declaration of war against Israel). Netanyahu is weak, Iran smells blood. They’ve been preparing this escalation for months, maybe even years. And this was their time to get back at Netanyahu for all the humiliation from Israeli attacks he led that killed Iranians in Syria, to attacks against Iranian oil and weapons ships, secret attacks against their nuclear infrastructure and much, much more that we’ll only learn of in the coming years.</p>
<p><b>Why Does President Biden insist of a Renewal of the Nuclear Agreement?</b></p>
<p>And why does it seem that President Biden, just like President Obama before him, is dead set on bringing a violent, belligerent Iran back into the warm embrace of the international community, and both legitimizing and funding its violent actions across the middle east?</p>
<p>This is somewhat of a mystery. Some would say it was President Obama’s worldview that Iran should be the most powerful nation in the middle east, maybe because he thought Iran was the only country powerful enough to finally force calm (through violence), that they should be supported?</p>
<p>Some say that he (and now the Biden administration), had another agenda that has Iran being the dominant force in the middle east.</p>
<p>Maybe it’s strictly an issue of money. Besides oil (which itself is core to this discussion), Iran has one of the most pent up economies in the world. Its economic potential is huge, probably larger than almost any other nation on earth at this time. After at least a decade of sanctions under which Iran has strained and been constrained, taking them out from the cloud of sanctions and away from the status of being an international pariah would lead very quickly to probably the fastest growing and eventually most successful economy in the world. And particularly these days that no small advantage.</p>
<p>Other reasons? There must be a dozen conspiracies out there and even more reasons for President Biden and the international community to bring Iran back to the family of nations. </p>
<p><b>So what can you do if you want to support Israel?</b></p>
<p>No doubt this post has the potential to rile up literally a billion anti-Semites and Israel haters (or as they call themselves “antizionists). But if you’re one of those people that believe that Israel is no worse (or better) than any other nation on earth. You have an affinity for Israel and believe that the moral equivalency the world has built by default between a sovereign Israel protecting its citizens, and a terrorist Hamas (and Iran) indiscriminately launching missiles on Israeli population centers is wrong, and that the Israeli government has the responsibility to protect Israel and that Hamas is a terrorist organization that targets innocent Israelis via its actions, you must speak up.</p>
<p>What do I mean by speak up? While of course sharing supportive posts on the social media is always heartening to Israelis, particularly in the face of the nasty attacks we face both on our homes and our Facebook pages. But if you really want to make a difference then <b>you.must.stop.the.renwal</b> of the JCPOA and otherwise passive support of Iran by the Biden Administration. The renewal of the JCPOA must be stopped. In any possible form it might realistically result in, it will be a catastrophe to the middle east.</p>
<p>If it is signed not only will Iran get a free hand to develop nuclear weapons, as problematic if not more is they will get hundreds of billions of dollars and the legitimacy to take over the middle east and continue to wage war across three continents and dozens of countries. They will continue to pay the wages of their mercenaries in Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis (and more), they will have a full bank account to arm and train these organizations and continue their attacks from Egypt to Israel, across Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and much more.</p>
<p>You must write your congress people and the white house to demand that President Biden stop pandering to Iran and stop the renewal of this agreement. You must speak to your congregations and communities, be vocal, a voice of reason and support. </p>
<p>For as we saw with the Abraham Accords, it is only through peaceful agreement and coexistence across nations in the middle east, and not through funding and giving a terrorist nation the moral right to continue to wage war, can we ever hope to come to peaceful resolution.</p>
<p>We were so close, most all of the Sunni countries across the middle east understand Israel is not a threat and want to partner and make pace with it. But if they are threatened by Iran they will not follow through. They will fall back on past patterns, and the one peace that President Trump actually managed to bring to the world (yes), peace in the middle east, will have been wasted. And millions will die and tens of millions will suffer in the coming years as a result.</p>
<p>Contact your congressman. Contact the white house. Speak to your congregations and friends, talk to likeminded individuals, please. It may be your last chance to make an impact.</p>
<p></p><p></p><p></p>Jimmyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08561477444469851129noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-918223286142006996.post-11593001422695391882020-04-08T11:04:00.001-07:002020-04-09T00:02:58.787-07:00A Special Passover in the time of Coronavirus 2020 - Israel<div style="height: 0px;">
The holiday of Passover celebrates the Jewish exodus from Egypt and the obtaining of freedom after years of slavery. The word Passover itself comes from the time of Moses, which g-d waged on the Egyptians to convince Pharaoh to free the Jewish slaves. In the last of the<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plagues_of_Egypt" target="_blank"> ten plagues</a>, Jews were commanded to lock themselves in their homes, and paint the thresholds to mark Jewish homes. So that death would "pass over" them and their firstborns be saved.<br />
<br />
"This is what the L<span class="smallcaps" style="font-size: 83%;">ORD</span>
says: "About midnight I will go throughout Egypt. Every firstborn son
in Egypt will die, from the firstborn son of Pharaoh, who sits on the
throne, to the firstborn of the slave girl, who is at her hand mill, and
all the firstborn of the cattle as well. There will be loud wailing
throughout Egypt—worse than there has ever been or ever will be again."<br />
<cite>Exodus 11:4–6</cite><br />
<cite><br /></cite>
<cite>And then it states "</cite>Before this final plague God commands Moses to tell the Israelites to mark a <a class="mw-redirect" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domestic_sheep" title="Domestic sheep">lamb</a>'s
blood above their doors in order that Yahweh will pass over them (i.e.,
that they will not be touched by the death of the firstborn). Pharaoh
orders the Israelites to leave, taking whatever they want, and asks
Moses to bless him in the name of the Lord."<br />
<br />
So doorposts were marked so when death came through, it knew to bypass that home. The 10th plague took the lives of the first born males. And the death of Pharaoh’s first born son is what finally led him to let the Jews go.<br />
<br />
In Passover 2020, in Israel, the government of the Jewish people have commanded all Israeli citizens to stay indoors to protect them from Coronavirus. A full curfew has been put into place. And the people have been commanded to stay inside, only to venture outside for the bare essentials like walking the dog. For the next 48 hours, the country is in lockdown, roadblocks have been put in place, and travelling is permitted for only emergencies. Thousands of years after the 10th plague, it revisits us, in a different form. And once again, on this holy day Jews are told to stay inside, their doors marked with Mezuzot. This time, hopefully, all the people of Israel, both ancient and modern, will be protected as the angel of death passes. And may the rest of the world pay the same heed as they see fit, and may the angel of death pass them over, so we may all live to celebrate another year of live, and freedom.<br />
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Jimmyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08561477444469851129noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-918223286142006996.post-89038083428494720552018-11-02T03:29:00.002-07:002018-11-05T00:44:20.502-08:00The Enemy of my Enemy – the Schism Dividing Global Jewry<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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The Enemy of my Enemy, this age old saying, is the epitome of the schism that is dividing American and Israeli Jews.<br />
<br />
Israel is a strong country, a Jewish country, where Jews are the majority, not minority. White supremacy doesn’t threaten its existence, and doesn’t exist inside its borders. What does threaten Israel: Radical Islam. Israel is surrounded by Muslim nations that have and continue to wage wars against it, kill its children on a weekly if not daily basis, and that are attempting to obtain weapons of mass destruction to eliminate its existence. It sees the flood of Muslim economic immigrants (not necessarily the actual refugees from the Syrian war which are only a small part of the influx of immigrants flowing into Europe), as a threat to European and Israeli Jews, if not to the West itself. It sees its allies in this fight countries that demand Palestinians be held accountable for their actions, and leaders who also see the threat radical Islam is bringing into their nations. They see Donald Trump, a loud mouth, inarticulate in your face leader, whose daughter converted to Orthodox Judaism and has shown nothing but support for the Jewish nation, as a staunch ally. Much like the belligerent Ariel Sharon, Donald Trump is a figure that may not be lovable, but is a man of action that gets things done and in word and action shows his support for the Jewish nation.<br />
<br />
American Jews don’t live in a Jewish nation. They live in a multicultural nation whose modern form was born in Christianity. They are one of hundreds of ethnic groups in the US. A minority (successful as they may be). They are vulnerable in an ever more polarized America that is breaking down into ethnic groups, the result of divisive identity politics which, as opposed to the trend of the past half century of turning a blind eye to a person's color, religion or race and judging one by the quality of their character, has decided to emphasize a person’s ethnic background and judge them upon it. American Jews are ever more vulnerable in this devolving war of ethnicity which is being fueled by identity politics. Just attacked by White Supremacy and Neo-Nazis, parents and grandparents murdered in their house of prayer.<br />
<br />
American liberal Jews see their allies as the other minorities, identify with minorities and refugees, and hold a liberal world view as the ideal, open borders and multiculturalism. Those that are the target of white supremacists. When they hear nationalist they think of white nationalism. When they see Donald Trump they see a racist blowing dog whistles calling upon the masses of racist haters across America, fanning the flames racial violence targeting Jews. They see their allies in the movements of multiculturalism such as the Woman’s March. Led by leaders such as Linda Sarsour, an American of Palestinian decent who wages war against anyone who voices support for Israel and warned against humanizing “Zionist” Jews, who stands by Hamas and call for Jihad targeting and murdering Israeli Jewish children, and who proudly supports Rasmea Odeh, convicted of murdering two Israelis at Hebrew University. A person who is proud of her support of racist Louis Farrakhan who blamed Zionist Jews for 9/11 and called the Jewish prayer house the “Synagogue of Satan,” and that just yesterday (Nov. 5, 2018) <a href="https://www.algemeiner.com/2018/11/04/renowned-antisemite-louis-farrakhan-chants-death-to-america-on-solidarity-trip-to-iran/" target="_blank">in a solidarity visit to Iran</a>, Israel's arch enemy, himself chanted the words "Death to America" and "Death to Israel."<br />
<br />
Then there are those in between, the European Jews, who are experiencing skyrocketing anti-Semitism from both fronts. From the Muslim migrants taught to hate Jews in their home countries across the middle east and Africa, through Neo-Nazi movements, and including none other than the leader of the British Liberal Party Jeremy Corbyn who has over the years vocally supported Muslim terrorists that target “Zionists,” who no less than 39% of the British Public believe is openly anti-Semitic, and who very possibly may become the next Prime Minister of England. Who is causing British to ask <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/uk-jewish-leader-asks-is-the-world-changing-for-diaspora-jewry/" target="_blank">if the World is Changing for Diaspora Jewry</a>.<br />
<br />
Sadly all of this is indisputably dividing global Judaism. We must find a way to rise above the misunderstanding and our own contexts, understand that each lives in its own context, in its own reality, and find ways of supporting the other. No doubt its hard watching the other courting or at least not calling out their enemies. When it comes down to it, the enemy of each Jewish community is the enemy of all Jews. Unfortunately, the world is not simple place, and even with a strong Jewish nation, Jews continue to be murdered in cold blood, in Pittsburg, in Tel Aviv, in Paris, and around the world. It’s time we stop with the mutual recriminations and understand the complicated situation we all live in, and start to try and understand how best we can help each other. As the Hebrew expression goes:<br />
<br />
כל ישראל ערבים זה בזה - All of Israel Are Responsible for One Another.<br />
<br />
Let us remember this brotherhood, and realize that by being divided we become vulnerable. We must be united in love and understanding, and do our best to help eachother.<br />
<br />Jimmyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08561477444469851129noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-918223286142006996.post-22410119686481845612018-10-26T03:27:00.000-07:002018-10-26T04:18:12.823-07:00A Different Perspective on the Liberal American Jewish / Israeli Relationship<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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This post was written for Rabbi Weinberg, on his appointment as <a href="https://www.jpost.com/Diaspora/US-Reform-movement-to-bolster-Israel-education-570150" target="_blank">Vice President for Israel and Reform Zionism</a>, congratulations Josh. Depending on what your role actually includes, you no doubt have no small challenge ahead of you. The #JFNAGA conference last week, and more specifically the resulting chatter shows just how challenging it will be. <br />
<br />
Your leadership keeps hammering home the point that you think Israelis aren’t taking into consideration the liberal Jewish worldview in Israel, and most are suggesting that due to this insensitivity or unwillingness to do so, Israel is losing the support of the American Jewish community. <br />
<br />
And perhaps they’re right, but not necessarily for the right reason. We’ve known each other for years. I was your counselor way back when at camp. And since the age of Facebook we’ve reconnected and I’ve seen how you’ve grown. And you seem like a good guy with a head on your shoulders. Subsequently I’m sure you wouldn't mind some food for thought. <br />
<br />
As someone who was born and raised in the liberal Jewish milieu in the 70’s and 80s, and who has now fully lived and worked in Israel and built a life as a secular Jew for approaching 20 years, I like to believe I have a pretty comprehensive view of the relationship American Jewish / Israeli relationship. <br />
<br />
I am in most ways like all our mutual friends. Grew up in a Jewish household. Where we were high holiday Jews and went to Jewish summer camp for 13 years (my grandma was one of our synagogue's founders). Two of my three siblings intermarried (the third didn’t marry at all). In fact I even officiated at my sister’s wedding because at the time (10 short years ago), no reform rabbi we know (and you know I know a lot of them), was willing to officiate at the ceremony. <br />
<br />
And the thing is, the JFNAGA conference got me thinking. Reading all the talking heads, the tweets, the articles. Seeing your mentor Rabbi Rick Jacob’s piece in Haaretz. What it seems is that the American Jewish leadership seems to think there is something that Israelis can do to help the American Jewish / Israeli relationship, and that reversing the trend of what Haaretz calls <a href="https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-poll-shows-support-for-israel-plummeting-among-u-s-liberals-millennials-and-women-1.6594182" target="_blank">plummeting support for Israel among American Jews</a> is mostly in Israeli hands. <br />
<br />
However I’d have to disagree. In order for non-Israelis to feel an affinity with Israel, it’s not a matter of Israel adopting the liberal Jewish agenda like giving residency to all the African Refugees, or forcing acceptance of LGBT community on those who refuse to accept them (mostly orthodox or conservative jews), even or finishing the mixed prayer area by the Western Wall. <br />
<br />
For from my perspective, its not really what Israel is doing (or becoming) to the ever more liberal American Jewish community ,(as much as those would definitely make liberal American Jews less critical), but it’s the type and level of that community’s identification with what we might refer to as traditional Jewish culture and ritual. <br />
<br />
You see, as I’m sure you’re aware of yourself after having lived in Israel for periods and even if I’m not mistaken having served in the army, you don’t have to be orthodox or practicing to feel Jewish in Israel. As a matter of fact the only time I go to synagogue is for our relatives bar mitzvahs. But just living in Israel, surrounded by Jewish tradition has made my identification with Judaism that much stronger (not to mention Israel), so much more than any liberal values ever could have done so. <br />
<br />
Our holidays are Jewish holiday, we speak Hebrew. My son celebrates and learns in depth about every Jewish history, in public school. And even in our liberal and mostly anti-religious enclave of Givataim, he's now learning the Old Testament. We light candles every Shabbat and say the prayers over the wine and bread. We celebrate the holidays and the occasional Shabbat at my wife’s family (who by the way are traditional but not orthodox Jews). We’re surrounded by Judaism, immersed in it, whether or not we think about it or make an effort. <br />
<br />
Now I know you’re also the son of a Rabbi and that also gives you that advantage over others that aren’t. Though as mentioned above the vast majority of our friends are intermarrying, and they’re level of practice at home is dwindling. I’m making no judgement, just an observation, after all, I'm fully secular too. But the obvious result of that means that their children feel that much less Jewish, and less identify with acts of Jewish tradition than we did growing up. And if they don’t go to synagogue, or don’t have bar or bat mitzvas, well then that shared identification of what is being Jewish between American liberal and Israeli Jews becomes even less. <br />
<br />
And as its seems most are blind to it. Jewish affinity with Israel comes from one place and one place only, feeling Jewish. So as the Reform and Conservative communities move further and further away from a practicing religion where Jewish custom is being replaced by a generic fight for being good (even if they give it a Hebrew Name - Tikkun Olam), one of the unfortunate results is that children who grow up in that community, with less Jewish ritual, results in those same children feeling less connected with the Jewish state. And no amount of Israeli’s trying to bridge the gap by adopting liberal policies will change that fact. <br />
<br />
So, as a secular liberal Jew I can understand where it can be frustrating that a vibrant Israel with a range of not only religions, but the gamut of Jewish practice from secular to extremely orthodox doesn’t see the world the same way as the liberal American Jewish leadership sees it. But as you also likely know, Israelis are busy living their lives and are more concerned about Grad missiles and incendiary kites from Gaza, Palestinians running around trying to stab and kill us for no reason than they have been taught to hate us (they really have), Iran entrenching itself on our northern border, and just trying to build a life than being worried how we live and vote doesn’t match the worldview of Rabbi Rick Jacobs and those that insist if we don’t take up the banner of his agenda the schism will continue to grow. <br />
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As much as I understand this is a contentious, divisive time in America; the Liberal America Jewish Leadership (you), would likely have better success in healing the rift (as the talking heads in the press insist on calling it), if the American Jewish leadership would make the return of practicing Jewish rituals, even basic ones, which would be a shared experience between our communities, their main priority. And not, as it would seem, to be calling Israelis who are busy living their own lives, to adopt American liberalism. <br />
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Even if that were to happen (and quite honestly, there’s just not the consensus to make it happen), it wouldn’t change the dwindling affinity of today’s Jewish children feel for the Jewish state, if the gap between how each community believes makes them Jewish continues to grow. Bringing more liberalism to Israel won’t change that. The only thing that might would be bringing more historic Jewish ritual to the ever more secular American Jewish community, that are slowly but consistently dropping aspects of Jewish ritual from their lives. <br />
<br />
And while I know that if someone would have said this to me 25 years ago before I lived in Israel, I probably would have told them to f*ck off, how I practice is my decision.<br />
<br />
Though there’s no denying that when you slowly remove the Jewish ritual and responsibility of some level of practice out of Judaism, the affinity of those that grow up in a less ritual based environment, will have less in common with those that live in the one and only Jewish state. <br />
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I love my community and friends back home (you all know I do). And I know that the acrimonious political environment has poisoned everyone, though I also know most of them still have that affinity for Israel, in spite of its flaws. But as for their children, besides a cherished few (and you know who you are who insist on keeping that connection to ritual Judaism), I’m not so sure. <br />
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So good luck on your endeavor Josh, and godspeed.
Jimmyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08561477444469851129noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-918223286142006996.post-8381250778148844432018-04-20T12:12:00.001-07:002018-04-20T12:12:29.792-07:00Dear Natalie,<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I really didn’t want to write this. I stopped blogging. It’s too hard for me. The emotional strain, on top of just having to live life. Life is great here, in Israel. But like everywhere else, it has its good and bad sides. The bad side, well you just nailed it. Living in a neighborhood where all hell has broken loose over the past 7 years. And yet, were still around. We’re battered, as usual, because we’re forced to fight all the time, and be on guard, and justify our actions, and investigate ourselves, every.single.time the Palestinians wish to show us how much they hate us and want to kill us. <br />
<br />
Sure it’s not all of the, but do that doesn’t really matter. The tragedy that is happening before your eyes, that tears you apart, is the consequence of nothing more or less than our existence, and them not wanting us to be here. You can define “them” however you want, in percentages, good and bad, it’s all correct. But it doesn’t really matter.<br />
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You see, we’re a decent country, and a decent people, as you well know. Like America or anywhere else in the world we have our good traits and our bad. Luckily, for America, they don’t have Gaza on their border, they have Mexico and Canada. But in Israel, we’re stuck with a people that refuse to recognize us and constantly are trying to kill us. You’ll recall Israel pulled out of Gaza, with the guarantee that if anything was to befall us from there we’d have carte blanche to put it in order.<br />
After leaving Gaza Hamas took over, and turned it into a launchpad for attacks, launching missiles into our cities and building tunnels under our communities with the express purpose to kidnap and kill. All this you know, in your heart of hearts is true. It’s also true that many people have been killed in the past few weeks on the Gaza border, all Palestinian.<br />
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And it is for them your heart bleeds, and we understand you. You’re a good hearted person, and its heart to see people die, and feel that someone has to be responsible for the death, or to try to call everyone to their senses. You see, the other side, they don’t care. The tens of thousands of people protesting in Gaza and backed and organized by Hamas. You know what that means. They are making themselves tools of a violent battle. And are on our border, trying to break through, wreak havoc and kill us. <br />
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Israelis live in those border communities, good people who just want to live their lives and watch their children grow up. And yes, there may be some people, even many people like that on the other side of the border, but they are being controlled by others, who have no regard for their lives. That is something that Israel doesn’t control. We can’t influence them, they want us dead and don’t care about their own people.<br />
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Once again, all of this you know. And it’s not clear why you cancelled your receiving the genesis prize, you say because you don’t feel you can appear in public here. Everyone assumes it’s because you feel ashamed, as if Israel is doing something wrong, as if you think it could be done better, or easier. But you’re there, not living in a border community in Gaza. The raging masses on the Palestinian side are a fact, as are the burning tires they light to hide their actions and increase as much as possibly both their chance to break through and kill one of us, and the chances that we’ll end up killing one of them.<br />
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Sadly those are the facts we have to live with in Israel. Do I protect my child with all my power at the risk of hurting someone else’s? Or do I risk my own child getting hurt or killed. That’s something that every Israel has to live with, and I’m sure deep inside you you know that too.<br />
<br />
We don’t want this, we want peace, we want to be left alone. Really, but not at all costs. If you have suggestions for a better way, and those tasked with the security of this country and their people are convinced it will work, then come over and discuss it with them. Spend that two million dollars you were just given as part of the Genesis prize to help us figure out just how that is possible. Come and spend time in the communities that live literally hundreds of meters away from the raging masses that are hungry to get at their families and children. The Palestinians might be protesting their conditions, but their organized protests, organized by the exact same people that keep them in that condition. Isn’t time to throw the blame to them? What do you honestly expect us to do?<br />
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I know it’s a lot of pressure for you. But to just pull out and like that and not can’t come tells us you don’t understand any of that. The Palestinians in Gaza are screwed, and their dying, and it might sometimes be due to an Israeli bullet, but the real cause is the conditions and their treatment are their own leadership who not only don’t worry about their safety, but put that safety in jeopardy on purpose to try to scare and harm us. And our leadership, the government of the state of Israel’s task is to worry about our safety.<br />
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You may remember a few months ago on a winter's day there was a ceremony for <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/gaza-rockets-apparently-target-ceremony-for-captured-soldier/" target="_blank">Oron Shaul, a soldier killed during the Gaza war who Hamas is holding his remains</a> (watch the video). On this specific Friday in the middle of the ceremony, just as all the kids in the Gaza area in Israel were coming home from school, sirens went of and rockets were incoming. Imagine Friday afternoon as you know your 8 year old children are walking home from school missiles are being. That's life here.<br />
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And while we mostly feel safe (or pretend we do), we fear for the future, and are waiting war at this very moment from the North. Maybe it will come, and maybe it won’t. But if it does, it will make what’s happening on the Gaza border look like a kiddie game. And we, the people of Israel, would expect you to understand that and understand we do the best under the circumstances.<br />
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I’d like to continue to believe you understand that. If not, well then do as your conscience tells you. But we’re not willing to risk the lives of our neighbors, co-workers and children. Our children’s lives are more important than our conscious that we might harm another’s child in protecting ours from them. That’s the situation we have to live with every day. <br />
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And only those that understand that, can understand they sadness you’re choice has made all of Israel. You were our child, our sister, our friend. Someone that understands us. Apparently if your ambiguous statement meant what most think, then not any more. But better to live with another supporter lost, than the loss of our children, our spouses and our parents.Jimmyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08561477444469851129noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-918223286142006996.post-91813072024462940182017-12-01T22:42:00.004-08:002017-12-02T04:28:48.108-08:00The Most Divisive President in History<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I was at an American friends for a belated Thanksgiving dinner (we're expats) the other night. And of course, inevitably politics came up. My friend asked me what I thought about Donald Trump, and I told her that while I'm not a big fan, my real problem is with the legacy of the Obama administration and Hillary Clinton. I told her that Trump is the result of an 8 year Obama policy, not the cause of all the division and invective permeating Amercian society today.<br />
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My friend cordially disagreed with me. She believes that the real reason, was that Barack Obama is black, suggesting as we so often hear today that it is racism and intolerance that lead to Donald Trump’s rise, and not as I suggested, a divisive Obama term.
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But that’s easy enough to disprove. One only needs to look at American Jews and Israel. Jews have never been so divided as they are now. Support of Israel among American Jews have become a point of contention, not unity. And it is the result of a calculated strategy by President Obama to put a wedge between American Jews and Israel, to isolate Israel, for the goal of putting pressure on Israel and forcing them to make peace with the Palestinians at any cost.<br />
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He regularly and repeatedly attacked Israel and its leadership in the global media, and on every platform, while slandering any American Jew that dared to voice support Israel as a "right-wing fanatic" who didn't want peace. He even explicitly stated in public that Israelis don't want peace, ignoring the elephant in the room that it was the Palestinians that refuse to negotiate with Israel and continue to slaughter Israeli men, women and Children at every opportunity. But his attacking Israel publicly while slandering all Americans that didn't support his agenda in Israel is only one example of how he was divisive. And it had nothing to do with him being black.<br />
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President Obama’s strategy to obtain his goals with Israel was to divide and conquer among Jews. He used divisiveness. And his strategy among the American public was identical. He emboldened those that supported and loved him and the values he was promoting, while alienating anyone that disagreed with him. He governed based on values he promoted. Liberalism, socialized heath care, gender fluidity, and opening American borders. If you supported those positions, then he was your president. A great uniter, much like we can see with intersectionality uniting minorities with different battles. If you didn’t, then you were excommunicated, denigrated, made a target and shut down.
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He wasn’t a great uniter, a builder of bridges. If he was then he really would have healed the wounds of racism, and reached out to all of Americans, not only those that shared his values. No, as the title of this post suggests, he was divisive, the most divisive President in History.
He was never everyone’s president, except maybe at the beginning of his first term. Along the way he used identity politics to boost his supporters, those who support his world views, while at the same time alienating everybody else. Labeling them as haters, old fashioned, even racists. That is not the way of a president that unites, but of one that divides.
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In a free society, everybody has the right to believe what they want, and can say what they want. Yes, as many today refuse to acknowledge, they even have the right to hate. But not in Obama’s America. The only ones that have the right to hate are the ones who’s hate is righteous, those that were on President Obama’s side, against those who didn’t share his values. And that’s how the “deplorables” were born. Perhaps not a term coined by him, but he is definitely the father of the term.
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Trump is the result. The result of a divisive and acrimonious 8 years of Obama in the white house. The result of half the American population feeling alienated, feeling slandered, feeling that Obama wasn’t their president. And it’s not because they are racist and President Obama was black (even if there may have been a handful of those). It’s because Obama as part of a calculated strategy to forward his liberal agenda attacked Christians, attacked Israel supporting Jews, attacked bread basket Americans who lost their jobs, and anybody who stood to slowdown or prevent his agenda from moving forward. That is not the mark of a great president, but of a divisive president.
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Trump was elected by the alienated to give them a voice. Those who believe that America has a right to enforce its sovereignty. Those who’s religious values believes that homosexuality is wrong and that a person is the gender into which they are born. You may not agree with those values, and that’s absolutely fine. People in society aren’t uniform, they have some values which may be shared, and some which are not. But you cannot bully or legislate people to believe what you want. You cannot force people to be nice, you cannot force people to hate the different, or the other. Even if you believe it’s a supreme value. A society that tries to do so is called a dictatorship, rules by fascism. That was the society being created by President Obama. The expression the road to hell is paved with good intentions never rang more true.Jimmyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08561477444469851129noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-918223286142006996.post-35944796700300424692017-08-18T09:06:00.002-07:002017-08-27T11:51:22.895-07:00Let’s talk about Racism<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Emotions are flying, and the American population is hysterical. The Neo-Nazi march that took place in Charlottesville was another divisive, violent event in an increasingly explosive atmosphere. Plenty of good people came to stand up to the ugly, racist white supremacists. And yes, there were others there too, who arrived to create chaos.<br />
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But this post isn’t about the events in Charlottesville, it’s about racism. And not that clearly on display by the neo-nazis that were marching against Jews, but about how anybody not publicly condemning that march, or not publicly condemning the neo-nazis, and Donald Trump, (myself included), are being slandered as supporters of racists and fascists.<br />
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Following the march, someone very dear to me shared a photo on Facebook showing American soldiers storming the beach at Normandy during WWII with the title “Anti-Fascists Disturbing a large gathering of White Supremacists.” I made the comment that the antifascists in the photo from 1942 aren’t the antifascists that were in Charlottesville. That those antifascists (antifa), weren’t allies of Jews or Democracy, and that people should be careful of thinking they were.<br />
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My friend got very upset apparently. We had an exchange, and in the end he deleted the post. Shortly after, I posted a link to <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/09/the-rise-of-the-violent-left/534192/" target="_blank">this article</a> on the rise of the violent left. Which then opened another thread of back and forth with two of my childhood neighbors. One that commented “So anti-fascists are the real fascists? Sounds like some right wing rhetoric to me.” He stated that neo-nazis in Charlottesville were chanting “hail trump,” then said “let that sink in.”<br />
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On came the next, who started ranting about Trump, quoting inaccuracies such as that “the man in the White House is so hell bent on making sure no Muslims enter the country because they're out to kill us all.” And with that comment it became clear to me that all of this anger is really only for one purpose, to attack Trump. And I get that, he’s an ass, often incoherent and doesn’t often do the right thing, particularly for a President of the United States. I’m not a Trump supporter, but I don’t attack Trump. I don’t call him a racist. And I often make comments about events without commenting about him. In this case, I commented about antifa and didn’t condemn the neo-nazis. <br />
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Why? Because I focus on what I think is important. Neo-nazis are bad, and so is fascism, but I think that antifa who have participated in countless violent demonstrations shutting down free speech across America and violently attacking police and anyone they don’t agree with, are a bigger threat.<br />
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While Trump may be a bumbling fool, and it shouldn't have been elected president (you can blame 8 years of poor policy for that), I’m not willing to call him a racist. He plays politics, sometimes in an ugly way. And yes, he sometimes encourages the haters, even the neo-nazis, and the fascists by what he doesn’t say. But for me, I haven’t seen enough proof that he’s racist. We’ll look at what racism is shortly.<br />
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And apparently to all those that know me, as the girl who I grew up next to from birth until leaving the house at 18 said I “come across as this all out right-wing, Trump loving hooligan.” To me, that’s just one hair short of racist. Its barely any different than accusing me of supporting the neo-nazis. And I have to ask, for real? I’m Jewish. Went to synagogue all my life, and live in Israel.<br />
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So what exactly makes me “right-wing?” The fact that I don’t condemn Trump, don’t publicly criticize him, and don’t call him a racist? Or the fact that I believe every country has a right to sovereign borders, to vet immigrants and keep those out that may pose a risk. One only has to look at <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2017/08/17/europe/barcelona-las-ramblas-van-hits-crowd/index.html" target="_blank">what took place in Spain yesterday</a> to understand why. But I’ll be accused of racism for pointing that out too, right?<br />
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And what makes me a hooligan? The fact that I dare to speak my mind? To use my mind, to examine the situation, and make decisions for myself as opposed to being swept up with the hysterical mob who today apparently paints anybody who doesn’t publicly condemn Trump a Trump supporter? A “right-wing, Trump loving hooligan?”<br />
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Well I think there is something that should be made clear here and now. A racist is someone with a specific set of values (or lack thereof), that believes other races are inferior. Or as defined <a href="https://www.google.co.il/search?q=define%3Aracist&rlz=1C1GGRV_enIL751IL751&oq=define&aqs=chrome.0.69i59j69i57j69i60j0l3.1311j0j4&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8" target="_blank">here</a>, “a person who shows or feels discrimination or prejudice against people of other races, or who believes that a particular race is superior to another.”<br />
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A racist is not someone who doesn’t condemn racists. And yes, a racist is not someone who voted for Trump, even though I’m sure there were plenty that did (as I also know for sure there are plenty who voted for Clinton – yes Islamic Preachers calling for <a href="http://www.timesofisrael.com/us-islamic-preacher-calls-on-allah-to-annihilate-the-jews/" target="_blank">the Annihilation of Jews</a> are racist , and so are “<a href="https://twitter.com/EylonALevy/status/898454444471328768" target="_blank">anti-zionists</a>”). <br />
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I’m Jewish, married to a dark skinned Jewish girl that’s half Yemenite and half Iraqi. So where exactly does my racism come in? Maybe I’m racist against non-Jews? I know people were claiming that Donald Trump is a white supremacist neo-nazi because he didn’t immediately call out the Neo-Nazis at Charlottesville. So if that’s the case, maybe this Jewish boy is also a closet neo-nazi. Or maybe my female, childhood LGBT neighbor thinks I’m prejudice against gays? Is that it?<br />
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But no, I know all my old friends and neighbors know much better than that. It’s a case of cognitive dissonance, they just can’t reconcile a nice liberal Jewish boy who refuses to publicly condemn the clearly racist, intolerant, homophobic president.<br />
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As she further said, “It truly boggles my mind at the person you come across in your postings. Several of us who grew up with you just don't get where you're coming from, or what may have happened in your lifetime to make you come across this way.”<br />
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What way, opinionated, loudmouthed? hell, even arrogant? I can own up to that. But just how does that translate into “this <u>all out</u> right-wing, Trump loving hooligan?”<br />
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Now I’m not picking on her, as I have no doubt that likely quite a number, if not a large majority of my old friends and acquaintances think the same thing. And I know its coming from a good person, and a good place, with good intentions.<br />
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But I can guarantee that I have never, ever posted a xenophobic or racist statement in my life, anywhere. The closest I may have come at being upset at the Palestinian Muslims who are indiscriminately targeting and murdering innocent Israelis.<br />
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The real issue here isn’t what I’ve become, it’s that they have been so blinded by having been led on. Unquestioning and certain that there was no way Donald Trump could win the elections (they were lied to), and when he did, something just broke. And today, furthering that same frame of mind, they now think that the only way Donald Trump could have won was if he cheated (colluding with the Russians), or that half of Americans really are racist (they’re not. They just don’t have the same world view as you do). <br />
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They simply can’t comprehend that half of Americans voted for Trump. And they have been told that refusing to join the public lynching of a man who is unsympathetic, bumbling , and the most inarticulate politician in the history of the world, a “racists” “White supremacist,” defacto means that person themselves sympathize, neigh hold those same racist, white supremacist views.<br />
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And I’m here to remind you that is a bunch of hogwash.<br />
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Sadly I’ve seen the distancing of the great majority of my liberal Jewish friends as well as those I’ve grown up with, because I speak up, and because they just don’t know how to reconcile me and my opinions with what they're being told or how they think the world should be. They know I’m not a bad person, but me taking positions and making statements like “even neo-nazis have the right to free speech too, as long as it isn't a call to violence or murder” are just too much for them to process.<br />
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But isn't that the bedrock of democracy? Sadly those who I thought understood democracy way better than the very same conservatives they're slandering today for their support of Trump, don't want to remember what democracy means, and seem to think that people aren't entitled to their opinions if their opinions are offensive, hateful, and yes, even racist.<br />
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So remember, someone that doesn’t agree with you isn’t a racist. And neither is someone who thinks that people with unpopular, even dangerous opinions have the right to free speech, as long as it isn't a call to violence or murder (isn't that what we've all been taught?). That's why they gave the neo-nazis a permit to march in the first place. And if they cross that line, then they should be prosecuted for breaking the law. That's how free speech works. I don't defend what they say, obviously, but if it’s within the limits of the law, they have the right to say it. <br />
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As I told one of my neighbors in that same thread, neither you or I get to decide if something is legal or illegal, or get to "<a href="http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/punching-nazis/" target="_blank">punch a Nazi</a>," or punish someone we don't agree with. That's why there are laws and courts, and judges who understand the law and enforce it. And when people start to take the law into their own hand, silencing people they don't agree with, attacking people for one reason or another, that's when society is really in trouble, that's the real facism. And that, is sadly, what is taking place today.<br />
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And if all this makes me a racist, so be it. If because of that the people who have known me for years don’t want to talk to me, or are ashamed to be associated with me, then so be it. My conscience is clear, as are my thoughts. I’ve been blogging about politics and morality for years. Label me, excommunicate me, be ashamed of me as you wish. But just realize if you’re shutting the door to debate and discussion with someone that you know, your shutting the door to reason. You’re locking yourself in Ben Rhodes famous echo chamber. And you’re poisoning society for yourself and your children by doing so.Jimmyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08561477444469851129noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-918223286142006996.post-87048056968294743662017-07-24T10:48:00.002-07:002017-07-24T11:16:48.271-07:00What Frustrates me Most as an Israeli<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMZd0_wXArQcpSGBCTg9-LWG-Glx-Qgv5FmhsoHSaJnvJIok9quqUIdNKrk0G9D4kc84jYNOJ22EQ931qEf59RHL560RfUGcjQZhvr36MJFE_e-gaJ4wxnq3fraFHykTpPAR9RZ8m4TW9L/s1600/frustrated.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="194" data-original-width="259" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMZd0_wXArQcpSGBCTg9-LWG-Glx-Qgv5FmhsoHSaJnvJIok9quqUIdNKrk0G9D4kc84jYNOJ22EQ931qEf59RHL560RfUGcjQZhvr36MJFE_e-gaJ4wxnq3fraFHykTpPAR9RZ8m4TW9L/s320/frustrated.jpg" width="320" /></a><br />
Wow, there are just so many things that frustrate me as an Israeli. If I was to provide a full list it would never stop. Whether it be Israelis just not knowing how to stand in a line, give right of way, or their inability of being aware of their surroundings (think being surrounded by a bunch of Hindu cows), there is just so much. <br />
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But what’s most frustrating isn’t what I experience living my life in Israel (having been born and raised in the US), it’s that the outside world isn’t willing to even begin to grasp the hate, violence and injustice perpetrated upon Israelis, regularly, and repeatedly, for violence sake. <br />
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The current events in Israel is the perfect example. A week ago three Arab Israelis smuggled weapons into the Temple Mount (known as Harm al Sharif - Islam's third holiest site and Judaism's most holy site) above the Wailing Wall (the closest that Jews are supposed to get by Jewish law to the Temple Mount. They launched an attack and killed two Israeli policemen (who happened to be Arab). As a result, Israel installed metal detectors at the entrance to the compound, and the Arab world went nuts. <br />
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Forget the fact that all entrances to the wailing wall, where Jews pray, have required all visitors to go through metal detectors for decades, or that every major Islamic compound in the world requires its visitors to go through metal detectors upon entering. Israel is installing metal detectors to protect its citizens from terror attacks now being launched from inside the Dome of the Rock, the holy mosque on top of the Temple Mount.<br />
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And for that, Palestinians, Israeli Arabs, and Global Islam have decided to declare holy war on Israel (and Jews). Now recall, it wasn’t even Palestinians that launched the first attack, it was Israeli Arabs (Arabs that live in Israel and are Israeli citizens). And not only that, but their political leadership, <a href="http://www.jpost.com/Arab-Israeli-Conflict/Israeli-officials-accuse-The-PA-Wakf-are-inciting-Palestinians-to-murder-500423" target="_blank">Arab members of Israel’s parliament</a>, have instead of condemning the attack, incited the Arab population to riot and commit violent acts. It goes without saying that the Palestinian Prime Minster Mahmud Abbas has also been pouring gasoline on the fire. Calling for all muslims to come to Jerusalem to “protect the Mosque” from Israel (seriously). <br />
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In addition to intense riots taking place every since, this incitement led to a Palestinian <a href="http://www.timesofisrael.com/terror-at-halamish-when-a-familys-shabbat-celebration-turned-into-a-bloody-massacre/" target="_blank">entering a jewish community of Halamish with a knife and massacring a family</a> that was celebrating the Sabbath together with the birth of a new grandchild. The Palestinian knocked on the door, the man of the house opened the door, thinking it was someone coming to wish them well with the new birth. The rest is tragically predictable, the Palestinian terrorist stabbed the man to death. This man was a grandfather, with his wife, three children, and grandchildren in the house. <br />
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The terrorist then continued into the kitchen in his frenzy and stabbed to death two of this man’s 30 year old children, and severely injured his wife. Meanwhile, the wife of the son that was murdered rushed her 5 children upstairs where they hid quietly as they heard the screams of their family being murdered. Luckily for them an alert neighbor saw what was happening and shot the terrorist, injuring (but not killing) him. <br />
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This terrorist is now in the hospital obtaining top rate health care. He’ll be released to jail, earn a university degree while being incarcerated, and receive payment for the rest of his life for the vital role in Palestinian society of having butchered three defenseless, innocent people. He’ll then likely be released as part of some prisoner deal in the next 15 years and who knows, get the chance to kill more. It’s happened literally dozens, if not hundreds of times before. <br />
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As if that’s not enough, Arab masses around the middle east are going ape shit. In Turkey they’re attacking synagogues. In Jordan, a Jordanian a/c tech was visiting the apartment of an Israeli embassy guard when the technician <a href="http://www.timesofisrael.com/israeli-stabbed-at-embassy-in-jordan-attacker-shot-dead/" target="_blank">pulled out a screwdriver and started stabbing the embassy worker</a>. The guard pulled out his weapon and shot the man, and apparently another man (the building manager?). Now Jordan is going nuts calling to kill Jews. They're also <a href="http://www.timesofisrael.com/fuming-family-of-jordanian-stabber-demands-death-penalty-for-israeli-guard/" target="_blank">demanding the death penalty</a> for the Israeli guard who shot the terrorist in self defense. They diplomatic staff is in lockdown unable to leave the embassy. A number of Hassidic jews touring the country has been threatened, with all their religious items taken away. <br />
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The media, they just can’t get the story right, or they don’t want to. They speak about body counts on either side. As if three family members being butchered in their kitchen celebrating the Sabbath as their grandchildren hide upstairs is the equivalent of three Palestinian rioters killed by Israeli security forces while violently rioting throwing rocks and Molotov cocktails. <br />
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And through all of this, the world just remains silent, or worse, demand that we give in, that we remove the metal detectors that are there needed to protect our prayer space, our people, as clearly the Arabs need no protection, at least in the state of the Jews, how ironic. <br />
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The world’s silence is deafening. Can’t someone stand up and say listen, this isn’t right? Its wrong. Can’t they tell the Palestinians and the Muslims in the world that they’re wrong, and that Israel has every right to install metal detectors at the temple mount. <br />
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Can’t someone note the offensive racism and incitement to murder being propagated by everybody from Arab ministers in the Israeli government, to the Prime Minister of the Palestinians, and demand it stop? Has the West lost its fucking mind? Its ability to see right from wrong, to speak up to defend their values? For if the context above doesn’t clearly show Western values under threat, then what does? What can be simpler? Israel has the right to protect its citizens, in their homes and at their holy sites, including using metal detectors. And to defend themselves. And those calling to kill Israelis, and Jews, and to liberate the Mosque from the “Pigs and Apes” as the Muslim world so often likes to call Jews are in the wrong, no? <br />
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And let’s even give a pass to the world, what about Jews? Have they lost their voice? Do they really not care any more about Israel? And do they really not understand that everything that is lab tested in Israel ends up on their doorstep? <br />
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Is there no sanity? No clear moral voice in the world? Nobody that can unabashedly declare that the whole situation is an abomination of our values? That Israel being forced to not protect themselves will lead to Israelis being murdered by a rioting, hate filled murderous mob? Do you not understand that if you don’t put a stop to it here, it will come to you, as we’ve clearly seen repeatedly in Euorpe? <br />
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Do you really not care about justice and values in the world, or has someone convinced you that Israelis deserve it? Seriously world, what is it? You’ve lost it, the moral compass, the moral clarity, and your voice. Preaching nice-isms and love is great. Maybe it helps you feel good, but it won’t do much good when the hatred shows up in your city and starts attaching people in your streets, maybe even your kids. <br />
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It’s fucking frustrating being an Israeli. Not because of the Israeliness, and trust me, that’s pretty fucking frustrating in itself. It’s that all the self-righteous indignation burning in the world, in the bigger picture, is reserved for the little things. And that the world remains silent afraid to criticize the burning hatred consuming the Middle East and spreading across the world. Do you really not see it? <br />
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Israel is the beaten wife of the Arab world. Every time their pride is injured or they have to show their manhood, they have to lash out, physically harm us. They have to kill our fathers, wives and children, wherever they can. They make those that do heroes, celebrate the murder of innocent people by handing out candies in the streets to their children, and teach their children that the Jews deserve it. They have to try and scare us, its in their pathology, to scream Allah Alkbar when they attack, to instill fear, its clear for anyone to see. <br />
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But we’re here ,and we’re used to it. We’ll manage to get through, bruised, some broken and murdered, and we’re not going anywhere. But as the silence in the world reigns, the voices of justice and morality are silenced, so increases the risk of this abomination from affecting more and more leverage over the world.Jimmyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08561477444469851129noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-918223286142006996.post-30363812906871463412017-01-28T12:23:00.001-08:002017-01-28T12:23:27.457-08:00Ambassador Dan Shapiro, a Critical Retrospective<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Many if most in Israel are at least familiar with Dan Shapiro. He was appointed by President Obama as the American Ambassador to Israel. The end of the Obama administration, and the swearing in of Donald Trump at the 45th president of the United States represents the end of the Ambassador's term, and it’s an important time of reflection.<br />
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There can be no doubt, Ambassador Shapiro has received high marks pretty much across the board, from fellow politicians in the US, and his peers here in Israel. Outside of the handful of hateful internet trolls, there is literally almost no negative feedback for the Ambassador that one can find.<br />
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However, no good civil servant, no matter how good, has nothing to improve on. And in fact, Mr. Shapiro, as good natured, and well-endowed with social skills, had at least a handful of problematic incidents which we would be derelict in not reviewing.<br />
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As Jewish Ambassador to Israel, he has shown to execute his office with full faith to the President of the United States. In this article, we’ll look at four events that took place during the term of Ambassador Shapiro that show points of criticism those looking at the Ambassador in the future should note.<br />
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<b>Pot Calling Kettle: Two Standards for Which two Peoples?</b><br />
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As an example we will first look at a statement made by the Ambassador, which could be called “Pot calling Kettle.” On Jan. 18th, 2016 the Ambassador said during an address at the annual Institute for Strategic Studies Conference in Tel Aviv <a href="http://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Politics-And-Diplomacy/US-envoy-to-Israel-expresses-concern-about-2-standards-of-law-in-the-West-Bank-441942" target="_blank">that </a>“Too much vigilantism goes unchecked, and at times there seems to be two standards of adherence to the rule of law, one for Israelis, and another for Palestinians.” While in <a href="http://anothermudpit.blogspot.co.il/2016/01/ambassador-dan-shapiro-and-unaccountable.html" target="_blank">this blog post</a>, I noted that the Palestinians don’t even arrest their citizen terrorists after murdering Israeli citizens. <br />
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Israelis arrest and prosecute their citizens that attack Palestinians, as we saw with the horrific murder of Mohammed Abu Khdeir and <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2016/02/04/middleeast/israeli-teens-sentenced-palestinian-death/" target="_blank">the sentencing of his Israeli murderers</a>. But when was the last time the Obama Administration, including the Ambassador held the Palestinian Authority publicly accountable for the enforcement of law among their own population? The answer? Never.<br />
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As I stated before, seems like President Obama and Ambassador Shapiro had “One law for Jews, another for non-Jews." It should be pretty clear to everyone that’s a double standard, propagated by none other than the Ambassador himself.<br />
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<b>Palestinians Not Accountable for their Actions?</b><br />
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Then there’s of refusing to hold the Palestinians accountable for incitement and murder. It happened so often one might almost assume it was a permanent agenda item of the Obama administration much like the UN Human Right Council has a permanent agenda item known as <a href="http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/unhrc-agenda-permanent-item-7-calls-to-action/" target="_blank">Permanent Item 7</a> to always criticize Israel, only in this case, the action item is to keep the team in line and verify that no American representative criticize the Palestinians in any way or hold them accountable. <br />
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The most glaring case of this must have been the day that a 17 year old Palestinian boy broke into a house, entered the room of 13 year old Hallel Yaffa Ariel, then continued on to slit her throat and stab her in the head repeatedly while she lay in bed barely waking up for the morning of her first day of summer vacation. <br />
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It was one of the most gruesome attacks on record. An innocent 13 year old Israeli girl being massacred as she slept. And as we can read <a href="http://anothermudpit.blogspot.co.il/2016/07/the-lost-moral-authority-of-obama.html" target="_blank">in this piece</a>, an aid to PA President Abbas, had justa few days earlier called to slit Israeli’s throats wherever they seem them. Following the murder, the mother declared “My son is a hero. He made me proud. My son died as a Martyr defending Jerusalem and the Al-Aqsa Mosque.” And what did we hear from the good Ambassador on this horrific event? Crickets. Not a word of condemnation of the PA. Only paying lips service by making general statements of condemnation “of the murder,” while once again, as always, not holding the Palestinians accountable for their actions. The exact opposite they’d do with the Israelis.<br />
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<b>The Hanukkah Fib – the Gift that Will Keep on Giving</b><br />
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In the weeks leading up to the infamous UN Resolution 2334 which made Jewish houses in the Old City of Jerusalem war crimes, <a href="https://worldisraelnews.com/us-ambassador-israel-oppose-unilateral-resolution-un/" target="_blank">Ambassador Shapiro stated</a> that “the US has” always opposed unilateral propositions. This is a long-term policy. If there will ever be a unilateral proposal, we have opposed it in the past and will do so in the future.”<br />
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This was a direct quote from the Ambassador. Note that he used the word “we,” meaning he was fully vested as a part of this statement, and not just “the President,” or “the Administration.” <br />
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But President Obama’s final parting Hanukkah gift to the Jews of Israel (and the world) was no less spitting on the location where the story of Hanukkah itself originated; the temple mount where the miracle of the oil actually took place. By the Obama Administration abstaining, and not vetoing this abomination of a resolution, it made Ambassador Shapiro a liar (on the day of the good Ambassador’s daughter’s bat mitzvah). Almost as if on purpose, by not vetoing that resolution, it actually made the very spot where the story of Hanukkah originated, illegal for Jews to be present or build. It transformed Israel defacto overnight by international law into war criminals for daring to light that first Hanukkah light.<br />
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And even though the Ambassador was conveniently absent the day of the vote, no doubt having turned off all devices to stifle the cries of our Jewish forefathers and mothers in their graves as just before the first day of Hanukkah the Template Mount was declared illegally occupied by the Jews, he was still an integral part, by his words, which are his bond, to the historic betrayal of the Jewish people (and I’m not a religious man).<br />
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<b>Paying Palestinian Terrorist Salaries</b><br />
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I admit, this last example is borderline, as the last sands of the hourglass of the Obama administration slowly spilled out, President Obama and John Kerry <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/us-221-million-palestinians-obamas-hours-44992868" target="_blank">transferred no less than $221 million dollars</a> to the Palestinian Authority which the GOP had been blocking.<br />
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Officials in the Obama administration reportedly sent a written notification to the Republican-majority Congress that it would spend the funds only hours before Trump took his oath. This was the last act of the Obama Administration. And anybody that knows the Palestinian Authority knows that they pay terrorists and their families salaries. The size of those salaries depends on how many people were injured and killed, the more people injured and killed, the larger the salary. <a href="http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/patrick-goodenough/expert-abbas-pa-spends-10-its-budget-paying-families-jailed-and" target="_blank">Its estimated that 10% of PA budget</a> goes to pay terrorist salaries. So as one last fuck you to the Israeli people, the President just paid 22 million dollars down towards the future murder of Israeli citizens.<br />
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That’s a whole lotta jewish blood for your buck. And while the Ambassador wasn’t (at least publicly) involved with this transfer. There can be no doubt he’s well aware of the PA paying these salaries, and likely also played as a mediator in the last hours of this administration to get this money transferred over.<br />
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<b>In Closing</b><br />
<br />
I know everybody loves the Ambassador. Hey, I loved him too. I worked with him one summer for a couple of months, a really great guy. That’s no doubt why he got the job. In Israel, all you read are positive comments from anybody that’s ever had contact with him. But you know, that’s their job. Everyone’s a politician, everyone’s looking for something. Back scratching, networking. And if the guy is genuinely a good guy as he is, then why not give him some credit. I get that.<br />
<br />
But I also believe that we all need to be accountable for our words and actions. And as Mr. Shapiro will no doubt further pursue a life in politics, that we recall those problematic events that he was involved in. Those times when he took a stand, for his President and attacked a sovereign nation, its leadership, and yes, even its people, as he remained silent in the face of a two year long terrorist attack by bus, machete and knife. Never once holding the Palestinians accountable for sending their children out to murder ours, for celebrating the death of Israelis, for paying terrorist salaries.<br />
<br />
That is the Ambassador’s legacy, much like his bosses' remaining silent in the face violence and bloody murder refusing to hold the Palestinians accountable, while constantly criticizing Israel; contributing to what is no doubt <a href="http://anothermudpit.blogspot.co.il/2015/03/anti-semitism-in-time-of-44th-president.html" target="_blank">the largest spike in anti-Semitism in recent history</a>, as experience during the time of the 44th president.<br />
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With that, I’d like to say no hard feelings Mr. Ambassador, but even that is difficult, living as an Israeli constantly under attack by your administration, and at times yourself. <br />
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Good luck to you in your future endeavors.<br />
<br />Jimmyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08561477444469851129noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-918223286142006996.post-22906702819171275552016-10-21T13:33:00.003-07:002016-10-21T14:39:40.566-07:00What Hillary Got Wrong about Jobs in the Third Presidential Debate<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCTx5WQekLhfqSnimwU-PRSmqRebRDZwuVWF0-XyFixBXf8b00jr6Gb68ZqWQzi0mJnJN0OmVkcisvXJWRNtN8R83A65UEdV2IIJ3Is0yMO1z_2oQWoIf4Y6p1hw9mcsbL9IDf6gAfOItD/s1600/debate.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCTx5WQekLhfqSnimwU-PRSmqRebRDZwuVWF0-XyFixBXf8b00jr6Gb68ZqWQzi0mJnJN0OmVkcisvXJWRNtN8R83A65UEdV2IIJ3Is0yMO1z_2oQWoIf4Y6p1hw9mcsbL9IDf6gAfOItD/s320/debate.jpg" width="320" /></a>The nice thing about living in the modern age, is that even
though the Presidential Debate is on at 3:00 in the morning our time, I can
come home at my convenience and pop it up on YouTube. Not so urgent I can’t
watch it in my spare time.<o:p></o:p></div>
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I have to say, if there’s one thing the election has done,
it’s given some perspective on Israel. Watching the train wreck of an election
campaign, the ultimate reality TV show, makes one feel that Israel isn’t so bad
after all. Trump accused of sexual harassment, while the string of Bill
Clinton’s sexual indiscretions are paraded out for the world to see. At least
our sexual offenders are in prison. Our President (a more symbolic post than an
American president), it sitting in jail for rape. Our ex-Prime Minister is
sitting in jail for corruption. And there’s no few Israeli government officials
now sitting in prison. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Indeed, living in Israel one often feels that we live under
a microscope, and that the world watches with their judging eye, as if we don’t
live up to their standards, or expectations. And here is the greatest show on
earth, the American Presidential Election, literally becoming a circus. It’s
a spectacle, watching the debate is like that morbid impulse of looking at the
bodies on the ground as you’re driving by a car accident. You can’t turn
yourself away no matter how much you try. Your shocked at the bluntness of the
statements, the bile, the attacks, on both sides (yes, from both sides). I’m
sure no few people caught themselves with their mouths dropping open during the
debates. Sadly that jaw dropping shock became a knowing sneer, as this is
what we’ve all come to expect with the election of the President of the United
States. <o:p></o:p></div>
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So I was watching the third debate and had a couple of
observations. When discussing how they were going to create jobs, Hillary spoke
about the need to educate our workforce. <a href="http://fortune.com/2016/10/19/presidential-debate-third-transcript/" target="_blank">Shesaid</a>:</div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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---<o:p></o:p></div>
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“I feel strongly that we have to have an education system
that starts with preschool and goes through college. That’s why I want more
technical education in high schools and in community colleges, real
apprenticeships to prepare young people for the jobs of the future. I want to
make college debt-free and for families making less than $125,000, you will not
get a tuition bill from a public college or university if the plan that I
worked on with Bernie Sanders is enacted.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b><br /></b></div>
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<b>And we’re going to work hard to make sure that it is,
because we are going to go where the money is. Most of the gains in the last
years since the Great Recession have gone to the very top. So we are going to
have the wealthy pay their fair share. We’re going to have corporations make a
contribution greater than they are now to our country.<o:p></o:p></b><br />
<b><br /></b></div>
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<b>That is a plan that has been analyzed by independent
experts which said that it could produce 10 million new jobs. <o:p></o:p></b></div>
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---<o:p></o:p></div>
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However every single adult American can have a college
degree, but just educatingkk people doesn’t create jobs. I also don't understand how having the wealthy "pay their fair share," is going to create jobs. Just by her saying
that her plan “could produce 10 million new jobs,” doesn’t mean it will. It doesn't sound like a plan, it sounds like populism. There’s
no sense to her logic. How does educating people create jobs? It doesn’t.<br />
<o:p></o:p></div>
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Quite the opposite. The job market, like any market, is one
of supply and demand. Educating people doesn’t create more jobs (supply). If
anything, it creates more demand for higher quality, well paying jobs. And in this economy where only part time, low quality, and low paying and low skill jobs are created, it just doesn't make sense. That’s not to say that education isn’t important.
For it is, or that helping people get an education isn’t important, for it is. <o:p></o:p></div>
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But just giving people an education does not in itself create
jobs. And I challenge anybody to provide a concrete argument to the contrary. What creates jobs are entrepreneurs,
investors, people that open businesses or expand their existing businesses. When
businesses have more money to invest, they can build factories and
open more branches. When they have less money, they don’t expand. If the financial
advantage of taking the risk to open and operate a business isn’t present,
then those risks won’t be taken. And if business owners are burdened by increasing
costs and don't make a profit, then they won’t create jobs. Productive
jobs, sustainable jobs. <o:p></o:p></div>
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As much as Mrs. Clinton's assertion would seem to contradict it, you can’t create economic prosperity only by
giving people an education. She may not trust big business, but dispute as you
may we need them to create jobs. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Mrs. Clinton would seem to have had a response to this. She said
“I want us to do more to help small business. That’s where two- thirds of the
new jobs are going to come from.” <o:p></o:p></div>
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However small businesses are started and run by the middle
class. This same middle class which both sides agree are under assault. And it
is now an undisputed fact that Obamacare is playing a key role in destroying
the middle class. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Even Bill Clinton in a campaign appearance for his wife said
that Obamacare was “<a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2016/10/04/politics/bill-clinton-obamacare-craziest-thing/" target="_blank">the craziest thing in the world</a>.” His
exact words were: "So you've got this crazy system where all of a sudden
25 million more people have health care and then the people who are out there
busting it, sometimes 60 hours a week, wind up with their premiums doubled and
their coverage cut in half. It's the craziest thing in the world,"<o:p></o:p></div>
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The average healthcare premium under the Affordable Care Act
(ACA) – AKA Obamacare, <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/theapothecary/2016/07/28/overwhelming-evidence-that-obamacare-caused-premiums-to-increase-substantially/#425c0446e3ce" target="_blank">have increased 49%</a> . This year some states residents will see their premiums
increase by as much as 67%. As one gentlemen put it, this year’s increase will take his
health care bill from 1237 dollars a month to 1873 dollars a month. He was
looking to buy a $400,000 home, but to do so he’d require a mortgage which
would cost him in the neighborhood of $1,800 plus, approximately the same as his health insurance. So now he gets to choose, <a href="http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-10-15/obamacare-gives-middle-class-choice-buy-house-or-get-health-insurance" target="_blank">pay for health care or buy a home</a>.<o:p></o:p></div>
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But there’s more. Obamacare isn’t just a yoke around the
neck of the average middle class family due to skyrocketing premiums, it is
also a very significant factor in the creation of the very same jobs Hillary Clinton claims will lead the recovery. Small and medium
business owners are themselves typically middle class, granted perhaps upper
middle class, but middle class none the less. And this same gentleman mentioned above who
may have to choose between a mortgage for his house (or loan for his business),
very might well himself be a small businessman.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Furthermore, according to the Obamacare <a href="http://obamacarefacts.com/obamacare-employer-mandate/" target="_blank">Employer Mandate</a><span class="MsoHyperlink">,</span> it is “a requirement that all businesses with 50 or
more full-time equivalent employees (FTE) provide health insurance to at least
95% of their full-time employees and dependents up to age 26, or pay a fee by
2016.<o:p></o:p></div>
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This means that the moment a small business crosses that
threshold, their expenses are going to skyrocket. As it is small businesses
have a hard time making a profit. In the suburb where I come from, small
businesses have been closing at an accelerated pace over the past six months.
But let’s say you’re a restaurant, and you want to expand, and you’re already
at 40 or 45 employees. Renting that additional space next door, doing the
required construction and hiring on another dozen employees is going to cost
you a lot of money. That business owner now has some not so attractive choices,
both as regarding their business, and regarding the well-being of their
employees. Their choices include:<o:p></o:p></div>
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</div>
<ul>
<li>Not growing at all (nor
creating any new jobs), as the additional cost involved with making that jump
are too prohibitive</li>
<li>Only hiring part time
employees. This avoids the issue. Or alternatively transitioning full time
employees to part time. Forcing them to have to go out and get a second job. Both of these options are very negative for jobs and the economy. Also note
that this has been the primary driver of the jobs “recovery.” People that once
had a single full time, well-paying job can no longer can survive and must work multiple jobs.</li>
<li>Taking that risk and
expanding, taking a huge risk in a bad economy.</li>
</ul>
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In this stagnant economy, where the GDP is growing by an
anemic 1% and interest rates are zero, or close to zero, most business owners
will choose either option 1 or 2. Neither is good for the economy, their employees
or job seekers. About the only people it
benefits are the senior citizens, who after 8 years of zero percent interest
rates and almost no return, don’t have enough to retire. They do, however have Medicare
and Medicaid, so a part time job to supplement their income is just what they
need.<o:p></o:p></div>
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In fact almost all jobs created since the start of the great
recession 7 years ago have gone to those 55 and older. In June of this year
(2016), <a href="http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-07-08/90-june-job-gains-went-workers-55-and-older" target="_blank">90%of all new jobs went to 55 and older</a>. Our parents no longer have the luxury
of retiring, they have to work until they die and even with that, we still have to help them.<o:p></o:p></div>
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But to get back to our subject, if Hillary Clinton’s promised
job recovery is dependent upon small and medium businesses, then it’s just not
going to happen. Certainly not under the current circumstances. Not in a
situation where small businesses are punished for growing, and where the
entrepreneurs whose are members of the middle class themselves are getting hit
with the double whammy of skyrocketing private health care costs for their own families, and having the sword of the ACA Employee Mandate threatening them if
they grow their business, all but guaranteeing they won’t be creating many
jobs, and what jobs they do create will be part time, poor quality and little
paying.<o:p></o:p></div>
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In short, Hillary’s plan for kick starting the economy is
dead before it even got off the ground. If she’s depending on the same middle
class being decimated by skyrocketing health care costs to create more jobs,
she’s sorely mistaken. She doesn’t trust the wealthy or large companies to
create jobs, fine. Then she better do something to reverse death knell slowly
killing the middle class, otherwise, there will be no new jobs, and her
presidency will continue to see the American Middle Class moving back to their
parents houses, renting houses from the same bankers that caused the financial crisis, and slowly sinking into the swamp of poverty with no hope in sight.</div>
Jimmyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08561477444469851129noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-918223286142006996.post-58865336428361959642016-07-03T04:32:00.000-07:002016-07-03T04:58:41.505-07:00The Obscene Moral Breakdown of the Obama Administration<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdv7auHGBDT8AUWHOhXmhep6h2WeEvprrPFEvAnNSpV3FaH-ODfRp5425IY2ScOYFtO-c9BsX7Ngx8ML5UoeSLNyAApV8Ngkwc1L0a7ViDYLos_jKanUC2iFe465kcSu3iQk1KBMDMatuO/s1600/Obama-Abbas620.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="235" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdv7auHGBDT8AUWHOhXmhep6h2WeEvprrPFEvAnNSpV3FaH-ODfRp5425IY2ScOYFtO-c9BsX7Ngx8ML5UoeSLNyAApV8Ngkwc1L0a7ViDYLos_jKanUC2iFe465kcSu3iQk1KBMDMatuO/s320/Obama-Abbas620.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
The morning of June 30, 2016, a 17 year old boy broke into a house, entered the room of 13 year old Hallel Yaffa Ariel, <a href="http://www.timesofisrael.com/two-seriously-hurt-in-west-bank-shooting-attack/" target="_blank">then continued on to slit her throat and stab her in the head repeatedly</a> while she lay in bed barely waking up for the morning of her first day of summer vacation. The girl’s father arrived at the scene too late, breaking into her room with two security agents and neutralizing the murderer. <br />
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A few days earlier, aid to Palestinian Authority President Mahmud Abbas and Fatah official Sultan Abu al-Einein told Palestinians view news site Donia-al-Watan “‘<a href="http://www.timesofisrael.com/abbas-aide-wherever-you-see-an-israeli-slit-his-throat/" target="_blank">wherever you see an Israeli, slit his throat</a>.’ We can see clearly his message was heard loud and clear. <br />
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After the killing, media outlets affiliated with the Palestinian Authority and Fatah <a href="http://www.timesofisrael.com/abbas-aide-wherever-you-see-an-israeli-slit-his-throat/" target="_blank">granted the honorary title of Martyr</a> to the 17 year old killer. Furthermore, the official Facebook page of PA President Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah faction <a href="http://www.palwatch.org/main.aspx?fi=157&doc_id=18302" target="_blank">promptly posted a picture of Taraiyre and declared him a “shahid” — martyr</a>. De facto transforming him into a national hero, and holding him up to all Palestinian boys and girls as a model of what they should become. Not only that, but terrorist families actually <a href="https://www.algemeiner.com/2016/05/05/abbas-admits-to-norway-that-pa-still-paying-palestinian-terrorists-salaries/" target="_blank">receive a salary</a>. the more murder and mayhem they commit, the longer the sentence, the larger the salary. And if they're killed, their families get a grant. How's that for encouraging murder.<br />
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Additionally, following Hallel’s murder, the <a href="http://www.israeltoday.co.il/NewsItem/tabid/178/nid/29527/Default.aspx" target="_blank">terrorists’s mother proudly proclaimed</a> “My son is a hero. He made me proud. My son died as a Martyr defending Jerusalem and the Al-Aqsa Mosq ue.” <br />
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And with all of this, the Obama Administration White House, the State Department, and the American Ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro have still, to this day not condemned the Palestinian Authority for glorifying the murderer of a child in her bed in such a gruesome and abhorrent manner. As sadly we’ve seen across the literally hundreds of terror attacks since the start of October 2015, the Obama administration once again refuses to hold the Palestinian Authority publicly accountable, keeping true to their <a href="http://anothermudpit.blogspot.co.il/2016/01/the-obamas-administrations-conspiracy.html" target="_blank">conspiracy of silence</a>. <br />
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And yet just a year and a half ago in the last Israeli elections, when incumbent Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu made a public statement shortly before the polls were to close that “Arabs are going to the polls in droves,” the White House Publicly and sharply rebuked him. <br />
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So when Netanyahu makes what some construe as a xenophobic statement (but not preventing that public from voting) in order to get his voting public to the polls the Obama Administration calls him out and berates him publicly hinting at the darkest of turns in Israeli society, but when the President of the Palestinian Authority glorifies a child murderer who horrifically murdered a 13 year old girl in her own bed while sleeping, just two days after the Palestinian government itself called on Palestinians to “slice the throats of Israelis, we hear a deafening silence. <br />
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So the leader of the Palestinian people is glorifying the heinous murder of an 11 year old girl in her bed at home as the ideal for Palestinian society, of what all Palestinian children should do and become. And the White House, including its representatives in Israel have nothing to say about his? The White House can't publicly condemn the Palestinian authority of hoisting a child killer on a pedestal and making him a martyr? Is this the policy that represents the Obama administration, its values? The Obama administration has lost every shred of moral authority it’s ever had, the ongoing silence is both intolerable and despicable. This administration has absolutely no more legitimate role to play here in peace talks or what happens between Israelis and Palestinians. It is shameful, a complete and total disgrace. <br />
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One need not go far to understand just how far this administration will go to avoid publicly criticizing the Palestinians. Just last week Palestinian Authority President Mahmud Abbas himself gave a speech at the European Parliament <a href="http://www.algemeiner.com/2016/06/26/us-state-department-refuses-to-condemn-abbas-blood-libel-in-european-parliament-speech/" target="_blank">during which he accused</a> “Rabbis” of instructing the poisoning of Palestinian drinking water to kill Palestinians, a statement which is the epitome of anti-Semitic blood liable. Matt Lee, an AP reporter challenged White House spokesman John Kirby , asking him if the white house thought this wasn’t clear incitement. The result was a shameful dance by Mr. Kirby trying in every way to skirt the issue. You can see this theatre of the absurd in a video at the <a href="http://www.algemeiner.com/2016/06/26/us-state-department-refuses-to-condemn-abbas-blood-libel-in-european-parliament-speech/" target="_blank">bottom of this article</a>, starting a the 9-minute mark. <br />
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This is how low the Obama administration has fallen. Doing everything possible to avoid publicly criticizing the Palestinians, even when the most racist of remarks is made by its leadership in front of none other than the European parliament. <br />
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This is how far American policy has sunk under President Obama. His supporters should all be ashamed. And if they had any integrity, they’d demand a condemnation of the glorification of child murder by the Palestinian leadership. They’d demand the President demand an end to incitement.Jimmyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08561477444469851129noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-918223286142006996.post-13755632599190481072016-06-15T04:59:00.001-07:002016-06-15T04:59:16.204-07:00The Winds of ChangeAs I sit here and write this, the world is in utter chaos. Its falling apart, the US economy while likely already in recession, is on the brink of it officially. Millions of intolerant refugees from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan are flooding the European continent. The Middle East “Arab Spring” turned into an Arab Winter, and 8- month reign of teen terror has plagued Israel with Palestinian kids as young as 12 years old rampaging and stabbing innocent men, women and children. The shit has quite literally hit the fan.<br />
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However, as we approach the November elections in the US, and President Obama and his grossly failed policies come closer to an end, we can see a sea change in the world already taking place, particularly as regards Israel.<br />
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Last week, there was a horrific terror attack in which two Palestinians stood up at a restaurant in an outdoor mall and started shooting everyone within reach. The result was 4 dead and a dozen injured. Sadly this is nothing new in this conflict. It was one of the more successful attacks since the Palestinians began their latest round of violence in September last year, but not that much “out of the ordinary.” Though what was out of the ordinary was the world’s reaction to it.<br />
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For the first time since the current round of violence, <a href="http://www.jpost.com/Arab-Israeli-Conflict/UN-Security-Council-condemns-Tel-Aviv-attack-for-the-first-time-since-current-terror-wave-456426" target="_blank">the UN actually condemned the attack</a>. Now considering there were literally hundreds of attacks with dozens of innocent Israelis murdered and hundreds injured. <br />
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Then there’s the curious case of the media, who over the past few years have turned reporting of attacks on Israelis into a matter of guess the victim/perpetrator. Refusing to call Palestinians that murder Israelis terrorists, and blaming Israeli policies for the murder of innocent Israeli civilians. With the latest attack in Tel Aviv mentioned below, CNN use the word “terrorist” in quotes, which has become common nomenclature for international media reporting on the events in Israel. And as usual, there was fury and an outcry from Israel about this horrific practice (because Palestinians that clearly murder Israelis aren’t terrorists?). And yet, with no more pressure or public outcry than usual, for the first time we saw <a href="http://www.jpost.com/Arab-Israeli-Conflict/Outrage-at-CNN-for-biased-Tel-Aviv-terror-attack-title-456343" target="_blank">CNN apologize for their biased reporting</a>.<br />
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For the first time in years, we are starting to see pushback against the BDS movement. Just last week Governor Cuomo of New York <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/gov-andrew-cuomo-if-you-boycott-israel-new-york-state-will-boycott-you/2016/06/10/1d6d3acc-2e62-11e6-9b37-42985f6a265c_story.html" target="_blank">pass a law outlying the boycotting of Israel</a> stating “If you Boycott Israel, the State of New York will boycott you. We’ve seen <a href="http://www.jpost.com/Diaspora/Major-victory-against-BDS-as-Spanish-court-bans-citywide-Israel-boycott-455752" target="_blank">boycotts of Israel declared illegal in France in Spain</a>, and most significantly last <a href="http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/CENTER-FIELD-The-McGill-model-for-fighting-BDS-456185" target="_blank">week McGill University in Canada decide against BDS motions</a>, in which “the board reasoned that “any motion that specifically targets one nation and compels SSMU to actively campaign against that country, such as the BDS Motion, is unconstitutional,” violating SSMU’s “Equity Policy.”<br />
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It’s not by chance that all these events are happening. The real reason the happened in the first place is because President Obama created an atmosphere in which it was legitimate to criminalize Israel in the public sphere and stifle any democratic debate about the middle east conflict. He has time and again painted Israel as the aggressor and the Palestinians as helpless victims, constantly slamming Israeli policies and indirectly Israelis “will for peace” while remaining silent in the face of Palestinian murder of Jews, the official incitement peddled by the Palestinian Authority, and the culture of martyrdom, hate, rejection of Israel’s right to exist and even intolerance.<br />
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Through his policy of peace at any price, even the death and targeting of Israelis for wholesale slaughter by Palestinians, he has cultured an atmosphere that is hostile to Israel and Israeli supporters, ignored the simple truth that almost all Muslims in the Middle East hate Israel and don’t distinguish between Israelis and Jews, and tried to wield the growing threat to global Judaism ( of which he is the cause) as a tool to try and force Israel into making one sided concessions in a joke of a peace process in which the Palestinians had to give nothing (not even recognizing and accepting Israel), and the Israelis had to give everything.<br />
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Israelis have dodged bullets and the UN for years while President Obama pursued his policy of reconciliation with the Islamic world, including giving the world’s largest sponsor of terror Iran, 140 billion dollars to buy more weapons and fund more terror wars, while not even getting a real mechanism in place that can guarantee the Iranians aren’t developing the bomb.<br />
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He has presided over the largest refugee crisis the European continent has seen, with millions of intolerant Syrians, Iraqis and Afghanis, hundreds of thousands fighting age men, flood the European continent. And yes, this too is his fault. The President clearly stated that if it was proven the Syria was using chemical or biological weapons, that the United States would act to stop it. That day came, the UN verified that indeed those weapons were being used, and as opposed to taken action as promised, the President tossed it to Congress where he knew it would get bogged down. The millions of Syrian refugees waiting in Turkey to return to their homes realized there was nothing more to wait for, the President wasn’t going to stand by his word and intervene, and they began sailing to the European continent.<br />
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And now, the world has had enough. They see the president has now become a lame duck. They see the tragedy and destruction his policies have wrought onto the world, and understand that the winds are changing. That no matter which President is elected, whether Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump, the bash Israel at every opportunity and tolerate the intolerant, whether they be Palestinians or ISIS supporters, will not be tolerated much longer. The world is readjusting itself, repositioning itself, following 8 years of catastrophe. And as part of that, its attitude of tolerance of terror against Israel and for Palestinian intolerance is slowing down, maybe even, to a degree, reversing course.<br />
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The hugely tragic events of the past day in which the United States saw the deadliest shooting in its history with more than 50 murdered in cold blood, 50 more injured in Orlando Florida, and a potential second attack prevented at the Gay Pride Parade in San Diego, will likely give impetus to this. <br />
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It is hard to deny the president has, for years, tolerated intolerance. He may not have tolerated that hatred and intolerance with which he disagreed, but that’s only half the picture. He has tolerated the intolerance of Palestinians against Israelis and Jews. He has stood silent in the face of Iranian threats to destroy Israel while negotiating the nuclear agreement (seriously?). In fact, he refuses to acknowledge intolerance as it exhibits itself in Islam. But the public, tired and freighted will have it no longer. How many times can you witness mass murder due to intolerance and pretend that intolerance and hatred that were the prime motive the crime didn’t exist?<br />
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And it is due to this that people have lost faith in the President and his poor leadership. It’s great to speak pretty words of love, but ignoring the hate that doesn’t suit your agenda is inviting it into your home, and sadly that is what has happened.<br />
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The world is in the throes of violent change and upheaval, and none of it good. And for the poor choices we have for President, maybe, just maybe whoever gets elected, could surprise us and bring to order what after 8 years of mismanagement (or 20 or 30), has led to such a desperate situation. Because if not, then g-d save us all.<br />
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<br />Jimmyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08561477444469851129noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-918223286142006996.post-23777968893354719612016-04-28T10:50:00.001-07:002016-04-28T11:01:47.347-07:00Increasing Anti-Semitism in the Global LeftKen Livingstone ex-Mayor of London stated Thursday morning: “Let’s remember when Hitler won his election in 1932, his policy then was that Jews should be moved to Israel. He was supporting Zionism – this before he went mad and ended up killing six million Jews.” He made this statement while defending another British MP who had said that Israel should be "moved" from the mideast, suggesting ethnically cleansing Israel of Jew by moving them to the US, and her facebook page was littered with hateful invective.<br />
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Ken Livingstone is a well-known “anti-Zionist.” AKA anti-Semite who hide behind a very general concept of “anti-Zionism.” Watch <a href="https://youtu.be/AW5IujnSLU8" target="_blank">this 1 minute video</a> where John Mann confronts Ken Livingstone, then continue with the blog.<br />
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This is what has become of the British left. We can see how Mr. Livingstone tries to tie Zionism to Nazism, as if there was a pact between them. What the son of a bitch doesn’t want to acknowledge that Jews had no choice. If they didn’t negotiate with the Nazis then they would have all been murdered, which is pretty much what happened in the end anyway. They had no choice but to try and convince a man with murderous hatred to let some of them go.<br />
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But the way that Ken Livingstone states it, it’s as if it’s a conspiracy, that the Jews secretly worked with the Nazis because what, they wanted to what, be moved? wanted to die? wanted a State of their own? And that’s what he’s suggesting, that Jews are so utterly disgusting that they conspired with the greatest criminal of all time to murder them.en masse just so they could have a state of their own.<br />
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This is the British Left, and this is the direction of the American Left, in fact, it’s already well on its way. Just ask Jews studying at institutions of higher learning. In the UK its infected the highest levels of government who have populated their ranks with similar minded people.<br />
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The Muslim vote is what they’re looking for and they’re more than happy to sacrifice the Jews to keep them in power. Ken Livingstone is pandering to a constituency. Though apparently it helps that he seems to feel the same way about the Zionists (AKA Jews) as his Muslim constituency. <br />
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That may be the one difference between the UK and US for now. The UK is chock full of Muslims from Pakistan and other far east countries. Let’s be honest, most have been raised on a steady diet of Israeli hatred, only problem is most don’t distinguish between Israelis and Jews. That’s where the “Zionist” slander comes in. They use it to attack Jews but claim they’re really only criticizing Israeli policies.<br />
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Though this latest video of Ken Livingstone shows he’s not just criticizing Israeli policies. He’s going beyond Israel, he’s blaming Jews. He’s blaming Jews of conspiring with Hitler. And that’s what they call removing the mask. All these anti-Israel activists, there’s all too often more behind it that just Israel. It easily slides to something more sinister.<br />
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And as the UK has absorbed large number of Muslims that have been raised to hate Israel, and these people are now in the government on the left, their values and worldview had been pedaled and tolerated as legitimate criticism of Israel. We now can see how it’s more than that, even if Ken Livingstone himself isn’t Muslim.<br />
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And US leftists should take note, particularly if you’re Jewish. This shift is happening in the US as well. The catalyst for it was President Obama and his habit of leveling one side criticism and condemnation against Israel while remaining silent as Palestinians murdered Israelis. Never a single time in his entire two terms as president publicly criticizing them. That led the way for what we see happening in the world today. Where Jews are under attack, in Europe by ISIS, in the European street (although the flooding of Europe with intolerant Muslim and Arab refugees probably moderated that to a degree).<br />
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The US is well on its way. Bernie Sanders would have been the nail in the coffin. His one sided criticisms of Israel defending itself bore very dark times. We finally see Europe starting to fight back. In the UK the anti-Semitism canard has been let out of the bag, Labor under Corbyn seems to have been too much. And finally, something is being done about it following decades of hate being preached in British squares and mosques.<br />
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We also see countries now prosecuting those that use hate and boycotts to target Israel as it’s a crime. It’s happening in France, and it’s happening in Spain. The boycott, divestment and sanctions movement is, if not being shut down, at least put down.<br />
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And yet at this very same time, President Obama makes a strange claim that the very same law that was created to prevent Arab countries from boycotting Israel, can be used to boycott Israeli goods if they come from disputed territories.<br />
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The US has a much smaller ratio of Muslims and Arabs in government as opposed to the UK. While much of British immigration came from Pakistan and the East, much of US immigration came from South America (Christian) and far East (non-Muslim). Say what you want, but this means the process that we see in the UK being infected with racism will be slower in the US. But make no mistake, it is happening. And if the liberal left doesn’t wake up to this soon and stop it, in a few short years they’ll find themselves in a similar situation.<br />
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And that should cause all liberals, particularly Jews, to think about it. Currently there’s little action being taken to confront this hatred, and its multiplying. It’s only in your hands.<br />
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Let’s hope that it’s not too late in the UK, France, Spain and the rest of Europe to stem the tide of this vile hatred infecting their societies Let’s also hope that it’s not too late in the US.<br />
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<br />Jimmyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08561477444469851129noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-918223286142006996.post-55189556278011244792016-03-12T07:30:00.002-08:002016-03-12T07:30:47.340-08:00How Voices are Delegitimized in the Current Political Atmosphere<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I was having a heated discussion today on the events in Chicago where a Donald Trump rally was cancelled after intense protests. I had commented that it’s the mirror image of what happens to Israeli speakers on US college campuses. They are shouted down, they are called names, they are delegitimized and told that because of this they have no right to speak. They’re called child killers and murderers, and for the most part, young impressionable kids don’t know the difference, and assume its correct. And why shouldn’t they if the voices meant to tell them otherwise are silenced?<br />
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This is a microcosm of what is happening in the US. Voices have been silenced, an entire population feel disenfranchised, that the democratic administration has ignored their impressions, their believes, even delegitimized them, and through the power of the administration, left this populous feeling frustrated, without a voice, and yes, even persecuted.<br />
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This was followed by a call with my parents in which we started discussing what happened. They started telling me about <a href="http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/tent-city-jail-where-prisoners-wear-pink-and-swelter-in-120-degree-heat/article/2546924">the tent city of Joe Arpaio</a> in Arizona. They started telling me about how they created this tent city for punishment where it can get to be 104 degrees. That they have different areas for illegal immigrants. <br />
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It automatically made me think about both college campuses, and to a degree the media and how they talk about Israel. When protesters attack Israel they accuse it of apartheid, of discrimination, of murdering innocent Israelis.<br />
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Some of these accusations may be to a degree correct, others completely false. But all together they paint Israel as a society of intolerant racists that only want war. Nobody tries to understand what’s going on. Why on earth might there be discrimination in a place where two people are at conflict, one openly trying to murder the other in the streets. With the Palestinians its a racial and religious, those on the rampage are trying to kill Jews and Israelis. Is it all Palestinians? Perhaps not, but that doesn't comfort you when you see someone getting on the bus and wonder if they might try to stab you. Does that make one racist? It doesn't and anyone telling you it does doesn't live in a place of conflict and doesn't understand the real world.<br />
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But none of this matters, because those “with a good heart,” the Palestinians are the oppressed, they need to be made equal in negotiations with Israel. In fact, they need to get a Palestinian state at any cost. And anybody that sympathizes with the Israeli oppressors is called a right wing fanatic.<br />
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And I have to wonder to myself, if the world media spins the events in Israel, and is only portraying a side which seems to match a specific agenda (in which Israel is the problem), why can’t it be happening in America itself. And if they’re willing to silence support for Israel by slandering those that support her as a racist intolerant war monger, even when its not even close to being true, then I can understand how it can happen in America. And how the American right is feeling. <br />
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Its not a debate of a single person calling another person names, it starts all the way at the top with the Administration who sets the tone, then its supporters in the media, and finally and a private level. The President himself never utters something insulting, he has his administration do it.<br />
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And the digital and social media have also contributed to the era of mocking as a political tool. The memes, the shares, the images and twitter insults. The belittling, the mocking, finding justification to silence the other side.<br />
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Yes, you have a right to free speech, but so does the other. And all to often on college campuses one side uses their right to silence the other by screaming, shouting and even using a little intimidation. And I’m not talking about the right. I’m talking about the anti-Israel protesters who are, you guessed it, left. But what does it matter?<br />
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So the media is now reporting on all conservatives like they report on Israel. Taking a few aspects of what they are, and only portraying those aspects without context, without balance, to portray them as racists and insinuate that their belief systems is hateful. And maybe to a degree that may be right. But hating someone isn't a crime. Harming someone is a crime. And I'd even argue, silencing someone's right to express their opinion may also be a crime.<br />
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But these days, all gloves are off. There is no etiquette, there are no rules. Its black or white in every sense of the word. Its Hitler vs. justice, and nothing in between. As I wrote about years ago, the world has lost its ability to make critical moral judgement. Everything has become binary, yes or no. No need to listen to the other side, no reason to dare to think that, just maybe, you're wrong.<br />
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<br />Jimmyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08561477444469851129noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-918223286142006996.post-47994479372959436522016-03-11T06:06:00.001-08:002016-03-11T08:21:06.691-08:00President Obama’s Israel LegacyAs an American that lives in Israel, the President’s relationship with Israel plays a role in how I perceive his performance, his words, and his actions. Its no secret the animosity that’s grown over the years between President Obama and the Israeli administration. Though all too often that is attributed to the Israeli leadership, such as in<a href="http://www.timesofisrael.com/obama-sees-netanyahu-as-most-disappointing-of-all-mideast-leaders-report/"> this most recent interview</a> where President Obama, for the umpteenth time bashes Israel’s Prime Minister claiming he was the “biggest disappointment of all Middle East leaders."<br />
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Meanwhile just a few years earlier the President was sending his representatives trying to bring Syria back into the fold, a country who’s leader Bashar Assad has since ruled during a five year civil war that has cost more than a half million lives, mostly innocent, and led to an exodus of Syrians who are now flooding the European mainland, itself causing significant upheaval. In fact, it could be said that the President himself created a larger refugee problem than the Palestinian. 700 thousand or so arabs who became Palestinians were considered refugees after Israeli independence, while millions of Syrians have now been uprooted and left the country, most likely never to return. Will they be given the same grievance right as the Palestinians?<br />
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The President had drawn a red line a few years back saying that if its shown Syria has used chemical or biological weapons, he’ll take action. Instead once that use came to pass and was acknowledged by the international community, instead of taking action he tossed it into the trash can of American democracy, the government for them to approve talking action. And its there where it died, exactly as he intended.<br />
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Arguably, if President Obama would have taken action at that point the middle east wouldn’t be in meltdown. But that, together with his backing down in Ukraine, showed the ugly world nations that they can do what they want, and nobody will really stop them. And ISIS flourished and Russia bombed.<br />
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However, we don’t need to go that far to truly understand President Obama’s Israel legacy, and just what its done to the middle east and the world. On the day of Vice President Biden was in Israel, visiting the Peres Center for peace in Jaffa, a single terrorist rampaging with a knife ran along the cars on the boardwalk plunging his knife into the chest of any passenger that happened to have his window open. He then ran down the boardwalk itself continuing his rampage, killing an <a href="http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/my-friend-taylor-force-is-dead/">Taylor Force</a>, American citizen and stabbing 11 in all, 4 critically.<br />
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The Vice President was two blocks away and could hear the sirens. His family was on the beach at a restaurant, likely not far away and possibly witness. This is the reality that Israel deals with every day. Palestinian men and women, and mostly children between 13 and 17 who are rampaging killing innocent Israelis at every opportunity, because that is what they are taught to do, and encouraged to do. That is what's glorified in their community, the killing of Israelis and Jews, with little distinction between them. This last round has been going on now for almost 6 months, since last October 2015. Hundreds of innocent Israelis have been stabbed, run over, shot, beaten. Up until today, 29 have died.<br />
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On the other hand, the Palestinian Authority honors the murderers as martyrs, glorifying them as an example of what every Palestinian should be and do. On the same day as the attack described above, Palestinian Prime Minister <a href="http://www.timesofisrael.com/abbas-lauds-martyr-who-tried-to-kill-idf-soldiers/">Mahmud Abbas lauded the young girl, “martyr”</a> who tried to run over and kill Israeli soldiers. Praising the attackers parents. <br />
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And then that same day, President Biden chided the international community for not “Condemning the Terror attacks” that took place in Israel that day.<br />
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So here we have Palestinian citizens running around murdering people in the streets daily, regularly, the Vice President Himself practically a witness to one of these attacks. On the other hand the Palestinian Authority glorifying the attackers, And the best the Obama Administration can do is chide the international community for not condemning? Is this for real?<br />
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He not only can't call out the Palestinian Authority for nurturing and contributing to a culture of death and martyrdom among their population, which in itself is the real cause the these horrific attacks, but he can't even call out Palestinian President Mahumud Abbas or the Palestinian Authority, for not condemning the attacks.<br />
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In other words, Palestinian men women and children daily attempt to murder Israeli men, women and children, the Palestinian Authority encourages it, and all the President can do is call out Prime Minister Netanyahu for being the "biggest disappointment." Talking about living in bizarro world. Is this the legacy he's living for our children?<br />
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And don’t be fooled, the poor President understands but won’t admit that the Palestinians will never make peace, they don’t want it, and they will never stop with the violence. Not as long as they're no accountability? Not as long as President Obama has one set of rules for Israelis holding all Israel accountable for every discriminatory expression, on the other end of the spectrum he remains silence in the face of on-going murder of Israelis by Palestinians. What a great friend to the Israeli people.<br />
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Not only that, but as discussed in a <a href="http://anothermudpit.blogspot.co.il/2016/01/the-obamas-administrations-conspiracy.html">prior blogpost</a>, he leads a conspiracy of silence in which it is forbidden to ever criticize the Palestinians Authority or Palestinians people publicly.<br />
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He has bashed Israel for these last 7 years of his administration, again and again. In his two terms global anti-antisemitism, typically shielded as anti-Israel sentiment has moved like wildfire across the globe, read more about <a href="http://anothermudpit.blogspot.co.il/2015/03/anti-semitism-in-time-of-44th-president.html">that here</a>.<br />
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Jews feel less safe everywhere, and Israeli is fighting to be able to protect itself from its enemies, as its so called friend bashes and attacks us.<br />
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President Obama’s Israel Legacy? Why it’s the same as much of the rest of the world, a catastrophe. But Israel will outlive this presidency, we’ll fight for our right to be here, and live our lives. While he’ll go down as one of the most divisive, unsuccessful presidents in history. <br />
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<br />Jimmyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08561477444469851129noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-918223286142006996.post-12581990533006003812016-01-23T04:07:00.002-08:002016-01-23T05:08:51.447-08:00The Obama’s Administration’s Conspiracy of Silence Anybody that follows the news knows that according to the Obama administration, when it comes to peace Israel is the obstacle.<br />
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Over the course of the past seven years President Obama and his representatives have placed the onus for a lack of development in the peace process on Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, the ongoing construction in the disputed territories, and what the Obama administration would portray as Israel’s intransigence.<br />
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Along the way, President Obama and his administration have drafted the Europeans into his battle to force Israel, at any cost, to give the Palestinians a state, and to stop, at all costs the Israelis from continuing to build in Judea and Samaria, with no demand from the Palestinians to reciprocate in any way shape or form, recognize Israel, or stop violent attacks.<br />
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The latest chapter in this escalating saga is a claim by American Ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro that “at times there seems to be <a href="http://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Politics-And-Diplomacy/US-envoy-to-Israel-expresses-concern-about-2-standards-of-law-in-the-West-Bank-441942">two standards of adherence to the rule of law</a>, one for Israelis, and another for Palestinian.” The claim was made on Martin Luther King Day, something we can all be certain is no coincidence. It’s yet another attempt to frame Israel as the oppressor of human rights.<br />
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And once again the Obama administration and its representatives, in this case Ambassador Dan Shapiro use obfuscation and spin to frame Israel as a country for all practical purposes, practicing apartheid and oppressing the Palestinians, while letting Israelis run amok.<br />
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What they don’t tell you, and what the majority of those uninitiated in the intricacies of Palestinian society is that the Palestinians <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_legislative_election,_2006">held democratic legislative elections in 2006</a>, supervised and verified by the Western World, including the US and Jimmy Carter. <br />
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And the choice of the Palestinians of who to govern them was none other than Hamas, a terror organization that straps bombs to Palestinian children and sends them into pizza parlors and busses to murder Israeli children, that builds launch pads for missiles in school yards and residential neighborhoods as they indiscriminately launch missiles into Israeli population centers to try and murder as many innocent people as they can, that kidnap and murder Israeli children, then wage war from Gaza to cover their atrocities.<br />
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Yes, the Palestinians democratically elected this terrorist organization to govern them. The Palestinians have their own police force, and they are (theoretically) responsible for the governing and policing of their own people. But instead of policing their own people, as opposed to arresting those that murder Israelis and then take shelter in Palestinian controlled territories, as opposed to condemning the murder of innocent Israelis, they protect these murderers, actually <a href="http://www.palwatch.org/main.aspx?fi=1005">pay Palestinian terrorists that were killed or in jail for committing terror and their families salaries</a>, the larger the success of their murderous enterprise the larger the salary, and celebrate the Palestinian terrorists that manage to murder Israelis as martyrs by, for example, naming streets after them.<br />
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<b>The Double Standard</b><br />
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And as <a href="http://anothermudpit.blogspot.co.il/2016/01/ambassador-dan-shapiro-and-unaccountable.html">this short blog post</a> notes, there is irony, even hypocrisy in Ambassador Shapiro’s claim of “two standards of adherence to the rule of law, one for Israelis, and another for Palestinians.”<br />
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For while Israel is a state of law, even in how it handles the disputed territories, the Palestinians who have their own democratically elected government and its own police force, don’t enforce the rule of law, at all.<br />
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The shocking fact is that the Ambassador doesn’t demand the Palestinians themselves enforce the law, in some bizarre spin of the foundations of jurisprudence, as opposed to demanding that the Palestinians enforce the law themselves, stop glorifying Palestinians, start arresting and prosecuting Palestinian terrorists he criticizes the way that Israel enforces the law on Jewish “vigilantes” who are mostly responding to attacks on Israelis. And while I have no qualms with demanding that Israel stop vigilante attacks and prosecute law breakers, doing so in a vacuum, with no mention what so ever that the Palestinians don’t enforce the law at all and if they did Israel wouldn’t have to do it for them, raises the most important question of all.<br />
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<b>Why has President Obama, Ambassador Dan Shapiro and other Obama administration representatives, constantly, over the last seven years remained silent in the face of Palestinian incitement, lack of willingness to enter into peace negotiations with Israel (while blaming Israel for no progress in the peace process), and remain silent in the face of anarchy in the Palestinian authority which is the result of the Palestinian Authority refusing to enforce the law?</b><br />
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Why do they never, ever publicly criticize the Palestinian authority, or society, or hold them accountable for a clear cult of death and martyrdom that thrives there, and that the Palestinian Authority itself encourages. <br />
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There can only be one answer. That there is a standing order among the Obama administration and its servants to never, ever publicly criticize the Palestinians or the Palestinian authority.<br />
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<b>The Conspiracy of Silence</b><br />
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Looking over the past seven years, I am hard pressed to find to recall a single statement by President Obama, Ambassador Shapiro, or any other of the Obama administration’s representatives that publicly and clearly criticized the Palestinian Authority, or expressed concern at the incitement, violence and cult of martyrdom burgeoning in Palestinian society. And this in the face of the regular and repeated slamming of Prime Minister Netanyahu and Israel for any number of reasons.<br />
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I myself have commented on this any number of times, and have never gotten a response. Israel agreed to freeze building in the settlements for six months, the first time in the history of the Palestinian Israeli conflict, under the intense pressure of John Kerry and the Obama administration, to encourage the Palestinians to return to negotiations. And what happened? Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas sat on his hands and refused to return to negotiations, and when the six months was up, he demanded Israelis freeze construction again. And the Obama administration blamed Israel for a lack of peace, and lack of will for negotiations. Not a word of criticism of President Abbas, no acknowledgement that Abbas showed no will to negotiate, and apparently isn’t interested in peace. <br />
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This policy of the Obama administration, of refusing to publicly criticize the Palestinian Authority while having no problem repeatedly criticizing not only the Israeli Prime Minister but suggesting that the Israeli people themselves don’t want peace has a number of unfortunate consequences.<br />
<ul>
<li>It reinforces the biased opinion of the world that Israel is the aggressive, belligerent party in the Palestinian Israeli conflict and the Palestinians are innocent victims </li>
<li>Creates the incorrect impression that Israelis are the ones that don’t want peace. In his speech to over 100,000 Israelis that came to show support for peace, President Clinton declared “Israelis must decide if they stand for peace.” When was the last time you heard of Palestinians protesting for peace? And how is it that he decided to put the onus on Israelis, at a peace protest, to decide if they stand for peace, its beyond absurd</li>
<li>It contributes to anti-Israel and even anti-Semitic sentiment that since President Obama having taken office seven years ago, have reached heights in Europe not seen since the Nazis in WWII and is now infecting university campuses across the US. For more information on this, read about <a href="http://anothermudpit.blogspot.co.il/2015/03/anti-semitism-in-time-of-44th-president.html">Anti-Semitism in the time of the 44th President </a></li>
<li>It is promoting the agenda of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanction movement who’s goal isn’t two states for two peoples, it’s the right of return of all Palestinian refugees in the world to Israel and then creation of a single state including Israel, Gaza and the West bank ruled by the majority. Something that would defacto become an Arab Palestinian majority and destroying the only Jewish safe haven in the world. </li>
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But while it’s clear the consequences of this policy of silence of the Obama administration in the face of Palestinian violence, lawlessness, incitement, and refusal to negotiate, what’s less clear is the motivation.<br /><ul>
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On that, we can only speculate. But it’s no big secret President Obama’s world view, champion of human rights and the oppressed. And in his eyes, the Palestinians are the oppressed, and the Israelis are the oppressors. <br />
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To him it doesn’t matter the real context of the Palestinian’s plight. The Arab Israeli conflict, the many wars waged by Arab States against Israel that led to Israel taking over the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The money, weapons and training flowing to Palestinians from countries such as Iran. The Palestinians repeatedly walking away from peace offers (3 times), their targeting, kidnapping and murdering Israeli civilians. <br />
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In fact, one has to wonder, if Israel never won the West Bank and Gaza Strip as part of the defensive 1967 war if there would be a demand by the international community for a Palestinian state at all. If the West bank was still under the control of Jordan, would the President today be demanding that Jordan give them independence? I dare say not.<br />
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The real reason for this silence is apparently the President’s agenda to give the Palestinians a state at any cost. In 2010 the President <a href="http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/report-obama-promised-abbas-a-palestinian-state-within-two-years-1.287415">Promised Abbas a Palestinian state within two years</a>. And while he’s running late, we can be sure he won’t neglect this promise. <br />
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Today we understand the conspiracy of silence dictates that not only are the representatives of the Obama administration (or those of the media that align themselves with the president) are never to criticize the Palestinians publicly. They’re also never to address those that question why that is. It’s always about the Israelis, that’s the bottom line. That keeps the Palestinians safe and the President’s agenda on the burner. Someone like me or you note that the Palestinians are inciting? The response will inevitably be deflection, perhaps an observation on Israeli vigilantism, or the settlements.<br />
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But never are they to acknowledge, no less address the Palestinians role in any of this. <br />
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And for now on, when you read the news on Israel, when you hear President Obama speaking or Ambassador Shapiro, or John Kerry, look for it, listen for it. Judge for yourself. Do you see any word critical of the Palestinians? Or is it all about Israel.<br />
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In short order, the answer will be clear.<br />
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And demand, from the Obama administration to know, why isn’t the Palestinian Authority being held accountable for the violence, the incitement, and the murder. And demand to know, why is there a conspiracy of silence surrounding Palestinian culpability. For until we do, until it starts to be discussed, there will never be justice or accountability. There will never be peace.<br />
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<br />Jimmyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08561477444469851129noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-918223286142006996.post-69406947761042866012016-01-18T10:14:00.001-08:002016-01-18T10:14:55.242-08:00Ambassador Dan Shapiro and the Unaccountable<div style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.32px; margin-bottom: 6px;">
Today <a href="http://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Politics-And-Diplomacy/US-envoy-to-Israel-expresses-concern-about-2-standards-of-law-in-the-West-Bank-441942">it was reported </a>that the American Ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro expressed sharp criticism of Israel's "legal standards."</div>
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Specifically he noted “Too much vigilantism goes unchecked, and at times there seems to be two standards of adherence to the rule of law, one for Israelis, and another for Palestinians,” he asserted.</div>
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Two standards definitely hits the nail on the head. I wonder when was the last time the Palestinian authority arrested one of its citizens for any crime against an Israeli. A<span class="text_exposed_show" style="display: inline;">nd when was the last time the Obama Administration, including the Ambassador held the Palestinian Authority publicly accountable for the enforcement of law.</span></div>
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For the Palestinian Authority is the governing body of the Palestinian people (they even had democratic elections and elected a terrorist organization Hamas to govern them). And yet, with the daily gruesome attacks against Israeli men, women and children, our pregnant wives, and our mothers over the past four months, Ambassador Shapiro and the Obama Administration still call out Israel and its government for not enforcing the law and continue to remain silent regarding the Palestinian Authority's complete lack of will to do the same.</div>
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I wonder just why that is. Why it is that there is one rule for the State of the Jews, and another for the Palestinian Authority. Why is Israel regularly held to account for every single action of its government, of its people, and not once in all the years President Obama has been in the white house, has it every, a single time held the Palestinian Authority, or people, accountable.</div>
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One law for Jews, another for non Jews. What do they call that again?</div>
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Jimmyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08561477444469851129noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-918223286142006996.post-57450017128051486202015-11-07T12:53:00.003-08:002015-11-08T02:05:24.336-08:00The Importance of the Jewish WordWhat you say, how you say it, and where you say it matters.<br />
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OK, I broke my promise. At least to myself. I prayed my last post would be my last. But this subject is just too important not to write about.<br />
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In my <a href="http://anothermudpit.blogspot.co.il/2015/11/an-american-in-israels-disenchantment.html">last blog post</a>, I spoke of my disenchantment with the Reform Jewish Leadership.<br />
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Specifically, I mentioned numerous times my consternation as to how the few Jewish leaders (Rabbis) that I see sharing and liking articles about Israel or making statement almost always only share or like articles that are critical of Israel in some way or another, or making a comparison of Israeli actions to Palestinian actions that completely remove circumstance and intent turning it into a moral equivalence between their actions. While at the same time there being a deafening silence about anything Palestinian that doesn’t have to do with their victim-hood and how they deserve to be masters of their own fate. No calling out their incitement, no being appalled at their worshiping martyrdom and death, no being appalled at statements by their leadership praising the spilling of innocent blood, no shock and horror of 15 year old children killing Israelis and then being made heroes by Palestinian society.<br />
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Let’s look at some facts, a single post on twitter can reach billions of people instantly. There are currently 1.57 billion Muslims in the word and 57 nations in the OIC (Organization of Islamic Conferences). There are an estimated 14 million Jews in the world, and there is one Jewish state. There are 120 non-aligned nations with two billion more people (mostly third world), the majority of which support the Palestinian cause.<br />
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Now with all that said, we can see there are already very few Jews in the world comparatively and of the population that is not Jewish, the vast majority sympathize with the Palestinian cause and not with Israel or the Jews.<br />
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And yet, as we mentioned above, the majority of Reform (Liberal) Jewish leaders statements that are made in the media regarding Israel, the articles they share with their friends in the social media (arguably the most important channel of influence and the means they share with the congregants and other acquaintances outside of their synagogues, and most significantly Facebook) are critical of Israel. And from my unscientific estimate (and I am Facebook friends with a few dozen Reform Rabbis), the few that share anything about Israel are almost always articles that are critical, and at best balanced.<br />
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Almost never in the years I’ve been on Facebook and friends with these people do I see a simple, unconditional statement of support for Israel (there are a couple and you are appreciated). No, positive statements have to be “balanced” with concern about Israel’s growing intolerance, or its burgeoning ultra-orthodox, its “racism” against Ethiopians, or its "illegal" building.<br />
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Now let’s talk about the President. The President Himself rarely has anything good to say about Israel. Usually his only words beside empty declarations of "undeniably" being the protector of Israel’s security consist of demands and expectations that Israel will do this or not do that. And at the same time, just as I indicated with the Reform Jewish leadership, he never, not a single time, made a direct critical remark at the Palestinian leadership, or the Palestinian people. I challenge anybody to find something and prove me wrong. He might make very general statements criticizing their incitement, but never forceful, and never anything specific.<br />
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So, if the President doesn’t make any positive statements about Israel, and on the contrary often makes critical, often disingenuous statements that show “concern” for Israel’s democracy and lack of tolerance or will for peace (and undeniably the president’s words are carried by the media around the world on TV and the social media and have an impact as to the world’s attitude towards Israel). And, media outlets have no problem propagating lies by anti-Israel actors, Arabs, and Muslims such the recent claim that Israel is conducting extra-judicial killings of Palestinian children and then harvesting their body parts, and then on top of that, the few Liberal Reform leadership that do speak about Israel on their Facebook pages, on Twitter, and in public conferences typically share articles that, like the president are critical of Israel, its democracy, and rarely ever have anything good of real substance to say about Israel, then what kind of message does that send to the world?<br />
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When Rabbis are quoted censuring and criticizing Israel but never holding the Palestinians to account for their incitement and horrific culture of hate and cult of death, what kind of message does that send to the world? <br />
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When the president only criticizes Israel’s actions but never holds the Palestinians accountable for anything, what kind of message does that send to the world?<br />
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And when the few statements of support by Liberal Jewish leadership are punctuated by criticism, and at times bordering on moral equivalency between Palestinians and Israelis, what kind of picture does that create?<br />
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There are literally billions of people standing up for the Palestinians, even as they indiscriminately murder Israeli civilians, and there is literally nobody standing up for Israelis, who do have a vibrant democracy, who have already proven time and again they want peace (in the face of refusal by the Palestinian leadership to even negotiate).<br />
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It seems there’s a conspiracy of silence surrounding the Palestinians. The president refuses to hold them accountable or call them out. And so does this very same Liberal Jewish leadership that supposedly supports Israel. It seems that their support is conditional on Israel behaving how they think they should behave. On Israel giving the Palestinians the freedom to ship weapons into the West Bank and murder Israelis on a large scale (that’s what would happen if Israel is forced into a unilateral “peace” agreement where the Palestinians don’t have to accept Israel or make any commitments).<br />
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You cannot make every supposed statement of support contingent upon a similar statement of criticism. For my friends, one cancels the others out. And when you do that, the haters, those that want to kill us, they only hear the criticism.<br />
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You do not have to balance your statements. You can and should make unilateral statements of support for Israel, if you really support Israel. By trying to be “balanced” you are not going to get the world to listen to your support of Israel, they will only hear your criticism, together with that of 1.57 billion Muslims on the social media, the President, the media, and the members of the 120 non-aligned nations.<br />
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You are isolating Israel, not helping it. You are putting our lives in danger. You want to criticize Israel? Go ahead? Do it in your congregations. Speak about it with your congregants. Come to Israel and discuss it with Israelis. But don’t broadcast it day and night in the social media creating the impression that you really don’t support the real Israel, only the Israel of your dreams, which let’s face it, doesn’t exist.<br />
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Israel isn’t an ideal, it’s a real heart and soul, flesh and blood country that bleeds much more than you do, ignore it all you want. And to expect it to live up to your standards which aren’t maintainable in the US where there are no real wars, well, that’s not just unrealistic, it’s damaging.<br />
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The Reform Jewish leadership has a serious problem. They don’t understand the power of the social media. They don't realize that they're contributing to a one sided portrayal of Israel, that its the one in the wrong and needs to change.<br />
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They don’t seem to really care about Israel. They seem to care more about their vanity. Of proving they’re a better person than the other Rabbi across the way. They seem to need to prove their objective by criticizing Israel, much more than voicing their support. And the real tragedy is that they use the social media in their chest beating of whose the better, nice, more upstanding and caring individual. Of who’s the bigger mensch.<br />
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They need to outdo themselves of being more humane. They need to sympathize with the Palestinians plight more than that of the Israelis. Because the Palestinians are the underdogs, right? In a middle east with hundreds of millions of Muslims, surrounded by nations that have been waging war on them every other year, including the democratically elected government of the Palestinians. But no matter. Support the President in giving the Iranians 150 billion dollars to fund more incitement, hate and war, it will still be the Israelis fault.<br />
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And the world will agree with you. Because that’s what they believed anyway, and you’re just validating all of their deepest hatreds. Because if the Liberal Jewish leadership is criticizing Israel and making every statement of support continent upon a statement of criticism, then there must be something to it. Because besides a small handful of brave individuals, there’s nobody to speak up for Israel. Not in public anyway, not on Facebook, not on twitter. And the world will continue to be validated in their hatred and criticism by the very same people that when convenient claim their support but really just voice criticism. Maybe, just once, you should try making a unilaterally declaration of support for Israel, warts and all, without the criticism. Save the criticism for discussions with your congregants, debates in Sunday school and summer camp, with your Jewish friends, and your visits to Israel.<br />
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Always remember, the Jewish Word, it’s the most important of all when speaking about Israel. And if all you’re doing is contributing to an inaccurate picture that paints Israel in the wrong and the Palestinians as just innocent victims of Israeli actions, hinting Palestinian actions just might be justified, then you’re not part of the solution, your part of the problem.<br />
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<br />Jimmyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08561477444469851129noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-918223286142006996.post-77000081752959137202015-11-06T05:59:00.000-08:002015-11-06T08:07:09.776-08:00An American in Israel’s Disenchantment with the Reform MovementThis past week Rick Jacobs, the head of America’s Reform Jewish movement, spoke at the URJ Biennial conference, a get together of leaders from the Reform movement. I wasn’t at the biennial, nor have I ever been active in the movement beyond going to one of its flagship summer camps for 13 years (5 years as staff, and that was 25 years ago). But reading through an article published at the <a href="http://www.timesofisrael.com/reform-leader-urges-support-for-israel-criticizes-its-west-bank-policies/">Times of Israel</a> Reinforces the feelings that have been growing years now, being that the Reform movement's attitude to Israel mirrors that of the President (who has silenced all that don't agree with his policy), in that Israel is becoming an intolerant, xenophobic country that oppresses the Palestinians and doesn’t want peace.<br />
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Quotes from Rabbi Jacob's speech like “our unconditional love for the Jewish state was a badge of pride for us” could have come out of the mouth of the President himself. The president has reiterated time and again that he “has Israel’s back” and that “Israel’s security is sacrosanct.” Yet his actions prove to Israelis otherwise. After almost seven years serving, the President has been a catastrophe to Middle East, and Israel, and has regularly and repeatedly attacked Israel in public forums, while never once, not a single time, ever personally publicly criticizing the Palestinian leadership, not even after he said ‘<a href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/abbas-we-welcome-every-drop-of-blood-spilled-in-jerusalem-1445209820">We Welcome Every Drop of Blood Spilled in Jerusalem</a>.” <br />
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And much like how the President’s declarations of support and love for Israel and its security seem like empty words, so do Rabbi Jacobs.<br />
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In fact, reading the article once gets the sense that the majority of the time the good Rabbi is voicing more criticism, not support of Israel. And sadly enough, that seems to be the state of almost all public expressions by the Liberal Jewish movement’s leadership.<br />
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Another quote from the article says “At the same time, Jacobs suggested that Reform Jews should understand the errors — and victims — on both sides of the conflict.<br />
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With the Rabbi quoted as stating: “We mustn’t remain silent when ‘price tag’ (hate crime) attacks kill innocent Palestinians,” he declared. “Neither can we stand by when our Jewish family are victims,” <br />
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And yet, with my hundreds of Facebook friends, all who I love dearly, most of which are Jewish and many of which are Reform Rabbis and Jewish educators (leaders of the Jewish community), except for a blessed few, the only thing you hear from them most of the time are the criticisms, the declarations of offensive and disgust when Israel doesn’t live up to their high moral standards. For example, when a group of people who were just victims of a terrorist attack attacked someone who they thought was the attacker. I don’t defend these people. I think its absolutely horrible that an innocent man was beaten to death.<br />
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But can you really blame the those people, who thought the person who stood before them was trying to murder them? Its nothing like the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2000_Ramallah_lynching">2000 Ramallah lynch</a> of two innocent Israeli soldiers who did nothing more than make a wrong turn. And yet just using the word "Lynch" makes a moral equivalnce between a mob who killed two men because they were Israelis vs. a mob who attacked a man that they thought just tried to murder them.<br />
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Think about it, you’re an Israeli, over the past few weeks have been living under constant attack by men, women and children, getting stabbed walking through the mall, getting run over on purpose waiting for the bus. An attacker walks in and starts shooting up the place. Do you, an American or Canadian living in the safety of your cities really understand the fear and anger? Can you not understand the feelings of these people? <br />
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And yet the loudest message we hear in Israel from those like Rabbi Jacobs is anger at our “Intolerance.” A similar message, I have to say, we never hear from those same people towards the Palestinians, even though they are murdering us regularly. the only time its mentioned is in the Rabbi defending his credentials as being pro-Israel, and almost at no other time. At least in the press and in the publiv.<br />
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Jacobs noted that “many Jews, especially younger ones, feel that Israel has become too intolerant not just of Arab citizens of Israel, but also of non-Orthodox Jews, Ethiopian Jews, LGBT,” while expressing concern over “the weakening of democratic institutions like the Supreme Court as a result of constant attacks by the ultra-Orthodox and far right. <br />
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Let me tell you something about living under constant siege, under a state of round robin war, where Arabs in Lebanon try to kill you, Arabs in Gaza try to kill you, Arabs in the West Bank try to kill you, and some Israeli Arabs join in sometimes too. For some, it builds a feeling of hatred for, wait for it... you guessed it, Arabs. But who’s really the intolerant ones here. Those launching missiles attacking our women and children in the streets and declaring their lust for our blood? Or the Israelis who have had to put up with this for what seems like forever. <br />
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For Christ sakes, the Palestinians <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_legislative_election,_2006%20Mahmud%20Abbas">democratically elected Hamas</a> in 2006 to govern them. While the current Palestinian Prime Minister’s PhD Dissertation was a classic work of Holocaust denial titled “<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Other_Side:_The_Secret_Relationship_Between_Nazism_and_Zionism">The Other Side: the Secret Relationship Between Nazism and Zionism,</a>“ seriously can you believe that? (and he’s never recanted it) and now he’s praising the spilling of Jewish blood in the streets, and you don’t think that’s going to impact how Israelis feel about them? And even moreso, you're still only criticizing the Israelis?<br />
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Tell me, how tolerant are Americans? And I’m not talking about Liberal Reform Jews, I’m talking about the average American, city dweller, southerner, Texan? How tolerant were Americans of Japanese in WWII? They weren’t. They rounded them up and put them in concentration camps for the duration of the war. And you’re calling Israel, who has had a war every two to three years over the past 15 years intolerant for being afraid or not waiting to mix with Arabs? And the Ethiopians? Because there's no racism against blacks in the US? LGBT? Let me tell you about LGBT. Israel isn’t America. That large population of Orthodox religious, mostly they don’t accept them. They’re conservative, they always have been. Do you really think you can force your world view on an ultra-conservative population that lives half way around the world? One which represents 30 percent of the population in this country?<br />
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The settlements. I don’t like them, most Israelis don’t like them. But quite honestly, they’re the only leverage Israel has left, against the President, in negotiations against the Palestinians. You may think they do more damage than good. But with President Obama having completely adopted the Palestinian position, even to the point where many mainstream folk say his demand on freezing settlements when the Palestinians weren’t, pretty much destroyed any chance of negotiating a peace settlement (because the President can’t be more Palestinian than the Palestinians), what leverage is left for Israel?<br />
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Go ahead and rant and rave how the religious are taking over Israel. I’ve been hearing that since I immigrated in 1995. I voted for Rabin and the left wing for Meretz, while the religious parties took 33 seats out of 120 in the Knesset (Israeli parliament) in that election. When I first came to Israel in 1992 and went to stay in Jerusalem over the weekend, there was one store, a single kiosk in all of central Jerusalem that was open on Shabbat, no more! That was it.
Today there are shops open left and right, a brand new state of the art movie theater is now open in Jerusalem on Shabbat. Back then if you wanted pork in a restaurant you had to whisper to the waiter you wanted “white steak.” Today restaurants left and right serve every type of pork you can imagine, even on Shabbat!<br />
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So when they tell me Israel is less tolerant and is becoming more religious, I respond that you don’t have a clue what you’re talking about.<br />
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So apparently there is a crisis in the Israeli American Reform Jewish relationship. The only time the majority of the Reform movement’s leadership says anything publicly about Israel, its usually to criticize it, not defend it.<br />
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The reform movement is becoming more liberal by the day (moving further way from Judaism’s law based origins), while Israeli Jewry, even the secular, are more aligned to traditional patriarchal Judaism (is it really that shocking?).<br />
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The Reform Jewish leadership expects Israel, a country that is undeniably under siege from every side, and those sides are being funded, armed and trained by Iran, who President Obama has just adopted as his new best friend, granting them 150 billion dollars to indoctrinate more Palestinian into a culture of hate and buy more missiles for Hamas and Hezbollah, to live up to the pristine values of Reform Judaism even as we get slashed and slaughtered in our streets by Palestinian men, women and children. <br />
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The Reform Leadership shares articles about statement from past and present Presidents who declare things like "Israelis must decide if they stand for peace." And this is EXACTLY what I’m talking about. Everybody I know in Israel grew up singing songs of peace. I used to go to rally’s with more than 100,000 people to support peace. We voted peace, taught our children to desire peace. Worked for peace.<br />
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President Clinton who made the above statement wasn’t at a rally with a 100,000 Palestinians that were protesting for peace, no, he was at a rally of Israelis. While at the same moment the Palestinian leadership was inciting its people to murder and the Palestinian people were cheering every “martyr” that died while stabbing 15 year old boys and 80 year old women.<br />
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And the same leader who posted the link I just described almost never, ever on his Facebook page condemns these actions. But he sure shares a lot of links about how to “improve” Israel. Maybe he can start by trying to exhibit disgust at the killings and murders of Israelis and sympathize with Israel as opposed to accusing Israelis as being the ones that have to “decide if they stand for peace.” <br />
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I’m just so sick of it all. Not of Israel, or Israelis voting for Bibi, or Israeli “intolerance,” but the reform Jewish leadership's intolerance for Israel and incapability to understand just how absurd they are. Of expecting us to live up to some moral ideal while we’re being attacked by knives, bombs, missiles, cars, rocks by Arabs (yes Arabs), then not understanding how some Israelis hate Arabs. I mean seriously.<br />
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Get your act together. You want to make a change? Don’t keep telling Israelis how intolerant they are, tell the Palestinians how intolerant they are, and while you're at it, to stop murdering us. Because if there’s one thing I can guarantee you, as long as the attacks go on, as long as Palestinians are completely and utterly incapable of admitting culpability and show no desire or capability to accept Israel and Israelis and stop MURDERING OUR CHILDREN, the settlement construction will go on, and there will never be peace.<br />
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We pulled out of Gaza, you see how well that went. Why do we have to expand settlements? We don’t. But as long as we’re being murdered and attacked, I and many Israelis I know aren’t going to give a rats ass if the government doesn’t freeze settlements. Yizhak Rabin didn’t do it, why would we do it now? Now that it’s the only leverage left after Israel having been made the abused wife to President Obama, brutalized in public, and delegitimized worldwide. Not because we didn’t want peace, but because the Palestinians refuse to even talk to us and the President has chosen his side.<br />
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Like I said, I’m so sick of it all. Every time I swear to myself this is it. I’m so tired of the bitching. I’m so tired of criticizing the President and the Reform Jewish leadership. I honestly don’t care anymore. I don’t care if they don’t have enough money to operate synagogues and they have to do everything in their power to keep their community cohesive. Maybe the Chabad have something after all. They don’t have that problem. The Reform Jewish leadership apparently just can’t bear to admit, that they’re doing something (many things?) seriously wrong. And that’s why their numbers are dwindling. And just maybe it has something to do with them not standing by Israel, but instead taking the President's position. Maybe those who grew up Jews don't understand why their leadership is no longer willing to vocally support Israel. And their constituency is less and less from a Jewish background and didn't grow up loving Israel.<br />
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If you’re a friend of mine that belongs to this community I apologize if I’ve upset you. I still love you as a person and friend. But the Reform Leadership’s movement’s approach to Israel? Its broken, and its backwards. Its been corrupted by the influence of President Obama, who let’s be honest, when it comes to Israel, is probably the greatest catastrophe that’s ever happened. Even worse than the six day war. Even worse than Hamas and Iran. Why? Because he’s enabling and empowering each of these organizations who in the next wars will kill thousands if not tens of thousands of Israelis. These groups have never been more powerful, are are about to get lots more money and arms because of the deals he’s making, while the President is only demanding that Israel be held accountable.<br />
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G-d willing, may this be my last post.
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<br />Jimmyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08561477444469851129noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-918223286142006996.post-76645468965512453002015-10-17T11:47:00.003-07:002015-10-17T12:34:26.971-07:00What’s Really Going on in Israel?There’s much happening in Israel today, and even many of those who keep up with Israel and are versed on the Palestinian Israeli conflict are confused. This relatively short post will hopefully provide some clarification as to the violence taking place today in Israel.
Over the past few weeks we’ve seen multiple, daily stabbing and other attacks by Palestinians against Israelis. The attacks are grotesque, targeting any Israeli (typically Jewish) for the sole fact that their vulnerable.<br />
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The bottom line is this: The Palestinian Leadership, for whatever their reasons, have been riling up the Palestinian and Israeli Arab population (Palestinians are Arabs that live in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, Israeli Arabs are Palestinians that live in Israel and have Israeli citizenship) by claiming that Israel is going to “change the status quo” on the temple mount. <br />
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In short, besides the existence of Israel itself, the temple mount is the heart of the Arab Israeli conflict. It’s the location where the two holy temples of the Jews stood more than two thousand years ago and which held the remnants of the Ten Commandments given by g-d. Today all that’s left of the Jewish holy temple is the Western Wall, which was a retaining wall for the Temple Mount. It is Judaism’s holiest site, where Jews come to from around the world to pray.<br />
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In 705 AD, shortly after Islam was created, Islamic Leaders it built a mosque on top of the temple mount, a location from which they claim that their prophet Muhammed flew to heaven in a dream on a winged horse, supposedly making it the closest place to heaven in Islam and Islam’s third holiest place. It should be noted that Muhammed never actually ever stepped foot in Jerusalem.<br />
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After the six day war in 1967 Israel was attacked by surprise, fought back the Arab armies and gained control over the old city. At that time Israel’s minister of defense decided to let Arab leadership continue to maintain control over the temple mount, what has become known as “preserving the status quo,” even though the temple mount is the holiest place in Judaism.<br />
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Every couple years or so when the Palestinian leadership wants to fire up the masses they start screaming that Israel is about to end the “status quo,” and kick out the Arabs from the temple mount, take control, build a third temple in its place, or any number of other similar claims. All of which are code words for the Palestinians to run amok and kill Jews.<br />
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It was claimed that the second Intifada was triggered by then Prime Minister Ariel Sharon walking on the temple mount. A claim which was refuted by none other than Sufa Arafat, who admitted in an interview the outbreak of violence was planned and his walk was chosen as the catalyst to begin the violence.
So this time around the Palestinian Prime Minster Mahmud Abbas, weeks ago, again began claiming that Israel was about to disturb the “status quo,” calling on Palestinians to guard Al Aqsa mosque with their bodies and blood. When in fact, as with the dozens of other times this claim was made, there was no change, no indication of change.<br />
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And yet, even the President of the United States Barack Obama’s administration demands Israel preserve the status quo, and stop inciting the Palestinians.
The president is high, he literally must still be smoking some good weed, because again, there is absolutely no proof that Israel has done anything to change the status quo.<br />
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He ignores heinous attacks like <a href="https://www.facebook.com/StandWithUs/videos/10153260486352689/?pnref=story">this one in which a Palestinian drove a car into innocent Israelis</a> waiting for a bus, then got out and hacked at the survivors with a butcher knife (warning – graphic).<br />
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But even worse, the President insists on remaining ambiguous, refusing to attribute blame, making an equivalence between the Israelis and the Palestinians, even in the face of relentless knife, car and stoning attacks against innocent Israeli civilians, multiple times a day, in the face of ongoing incitement both by the Palestinian leadership, and in the social media which calls on Arabs to knife and murder Jews. He even <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rwY5OzOoot4">refused to condemn the wave of Palestinian terrorism</a> until he couldn’t publicly deny it any longer.<br />
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In the face of multiple horrific stabbing attacks being perpetrated against Israeli civilians by Palestinian men, women and children, the result of them being raised in a culture of hate that is taught to worship the murder of Jews as heroic and dying while killing a Jew as an act of heroism, the president still refuses to attribute blame and demand the Palestinians just stop the attacks and killing. For a partial list of attacks that occurred in just the last five days, see <a href="http://www.wnd.com/2015/10/massive-partial-list-of-palestinian-attacks-in-just-5-days/">this link</a>.<br />
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The Western Media has been complicit with the Palestinian incitement, following the President’s lead in refusing to call out the Palestinians and demand they stop knifing Israeli men women and children. Three days ago two Palestinian boys aged 13 and 17 attacked two Israelis, one a 13 year old boy. The Palestinian Prime Minister went on television accusing Israel of cold blooded murder of one of the Palestinian boy stabbers, shortly afterwards Israeli press published a video of this same boy who was hit by a car running from the police recovering in the hospital.<br />
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An Arab Commentator on CNBC who was an eye witness to one of the stabbings <a href="http://jewishstandard.timesofisrael.com/watch-journalist-caught-in-anti-israel-lie-on-live-tv/">lied to the public and was corrected during a live broadcast</a> by his producer.<br />
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Media outlets lie or obfuscate the facts to suggest that Palestinians terrorists that were killed after trying to kill Israelis were innocent bystanders with headlines that obfuscate facts like this one:
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Of course the above doesn't mention under what circumstances these Palestinians were killed, most of which were killed while stabbing and trying to kill Israelis or participating in riots attacking Israeli police and army personnel.<br />
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Or this one:
<a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/israel-unrest-seventh-palestinian-killed-by-security-forces-after-jerusalem-stabbing-as-wave-of-a6688781.html">A 16-year-old Palestinian boy was killed by Israeli police this morning</a><br />
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By the title you’d have no idea this Palestinian was a terrorist stabbing people indiscriminately in the old city of Jerusalem. But no matter, if you’re like 98% of readers out there who only scan the headlines, then Israeli murdered an innocent 16 year old boy.<br />
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And while Americans are being told that #BlackLivesMatter because in places like Ferguson and Phoenix, American police officers are being accused of shooting unarmed black men, try to imagine what would have happened if those kids were holding a knife, stabbing innocent men, women and children in the neck, back and head. What would the reaction of an American policeman be if those teenagers were knifing innocent people on the street. Would they restrain themselves? And what would the reaction of the public be to the policemen's actions? Would they be accused of excessive force, or would they be heroes for stopping a horrific crime <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/oct/16/james-vernon-75-year-old-veteran-saves-16-children/">like James Vernon</a>, who saved 16 children from a demented pedophile in n Illinois Library.<br />
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However, in the current wave of terrorism in Israel, the American State Department has concluded that there are "some reports of what many would consider excessive use of force [by Israel],"<br />
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Some examples:<br />
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<ul>
<li>A 16-year-old girl coming out of school in Jerusalem, a knife in her bag, ran across the street and plunged it straight to an officer's neck. She was shot and suffered only moderately injured .The security Forces in that incident shouting "do not shoot", but the American State Department has found credible evidence of excessive use of force against Palestinians.</li>
<li>An Israeli citizen, working in the country's largest telecommunications company, runs over innocent civilians with his company car and beats them brutally with an ax. Only after three rounds, when there was no other option, he was shot and killed; But the American State Department has found credible evidence of excessive use of force against Palestinians. Are you serious?"</li>
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And most absurdly, the #BlackLivesMatters movement just recently <a href="http://www.haaretz.com/news/world/1.680642">teamed up with these same Palestinians</a>. Really? Is this what you want your movement associated with?</div>
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The above section was partially taken from and inspired by <a href="https://www.facebook.com/ofer.hadad/posts/10153537206070380">a facebook post</a> of Ofer Hadad. </div>
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And it goes on, the Palestinians are taking it a step further with a demand from the UN to r<a href="http://www.timesofisrael.com/palestinians-seeking-to-claim-western-wall-as-part-of-al-aqsa-mosque/">ecognize the Western Wall as part of the Al Aqsa Mosque complex</a>. <br />
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What’s the reason Mahmud Abbas wants to inflame tensions and incite Palestinians to kill Israeli Jews and even burn holy places? We can’t really know. Perhaps its that he’s losing his relevance and wants to incite the street to violence, then be the one to bring it under control to show he still is relevant. Perhaps it has to do with Iran in Syria and a power play against their Sunni foes Saudi Arabia and others.<br />
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But no matter what the reason, it must stop. The president of the United States Barack Obama and his spokesman John Kerry, Dan Shapiro, John Earnest and others must come out and unequivocally attribute blame for the current tensions to the Palestinians, who are clearly the ones running rampant stabbing and murdering Israelis wherever they find them. <br />
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And by not doing so, the President show’s he’s got an agenda that has nothing to do with peace, that has nothing to do with human rights, and show’s he’s spinning events to once again put pressure on Israel, most likely to get Israel to comply with his plan, being the complete capitulation to Palestinian demands.<br />
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Israel won’t do it, we won’t let the UN send monitors to the temple mount, and we will not submit to terror and the murder of innocent Israelis. All blood spilled is on the hands of the Obama Administration. They have the ability to stop it, and don’t.<br />
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Jimmyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08561477444469851129noreply@blogger.com0