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Tuesday, September 2, 2008

WHAT DO JOHN MCCAIN AND GILAD SHALIT HAVE IN COMMON?

John McCain was once a prisoner of war. Gilad Shalit is still a prisoner of war. Did you know this?

Different times, different wars, common reality -- and common source. That common source is Russia. Did you know this?

The singular greatest source of military, political, and economic aid to North Viet Nam during the Viet Nam War was Russia (the "Soviet Union"). When John McCain was shot down, imprisoned, and then tortured for six years by the North Vietnamese, he was therefore also a prisoner of Russia.

Today the greatest single source of military, political, and economic aid to Iran, Syria, Hezbollah, and Hamas is Russia. On the second anniversary of Gilad Shalit's capture by Hamas, friends and family held a gathering at the place where he was captured; the world barely noticed. Still in isolation in a Hamas dungeon, Gilad Shalit is already in his third year of captivity. HaShem alone knows what has been done to Gilad Shalit in all this time; HaShem alone knows what will yet be done to Gilad Shalit in his continued captivity.

This third day of ELUL -- ELUL being the month in which we seek to reconcile ourselves before HaKadosh BaruchHu just before RoshHaShannah and Yom Kippur -- began here in the USA with the relative satisfaction that Hurricane Gustav did not bring the devastation we remember of Hurricane Katrina, and then the humble convening of the Republican Party Presidential Nominating Convention.

Katrina commenced August 23, 2005 [18 AV] almost simultaneous to Israel's unilateral withdrawal from and succession of Gaza to Hamas [commencing MOTZEH TISHA B"AV]
in the summer prior to the Hamas raid in which Gilad Shalit was captured (leading into the 2006 Lebanon-Israeli War).

Is it only a mystical sense in which one perceives that, like the BRIS MILAH on the eighth day of a man's life, Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans coincidental to the eighth day of the forced expulsion from their Gaza homes of Jewish residents by decree of the Israeli Government? The winds of world opinion thought it was a great idea.! Yet, the world is not ignorant of history any more than today's meteorologists are ignorant of storm tracking. If the world was drunk then, one can only hope that the world has sobered up now and that it is prepared for further storms, even as the USA was prepared for Hurricane Gustav, which just hit New Orleans on Rosh Chodesh. One has to wonder, is there a spiritual link between Israel and New Orleans, and is it any more simple or more complicated than Mardi Gras? Such a BRIS... and hurricane season is by no means over!

Hurricane Katrina was to New Orleans what Nine-Eleven 2001 was to New York City and thus one sees as well that Israel's Gaza Withdrawal was Israel's Nine-Eleven. But Israel has failed to respond and instead it's Government has done everything it can to conciliate to it's enemies, leading to two conclusions: (a) Israel's Government is utterly cowardly and corrupt, and (2) Israel's Government is in the hands of the Russian Mafia and therefore in the hands of Russia. Gilad Shalit's imprisonment is a metaphor for Israel's de facto imprisonment.

Going one step further let us remember that on Nine-Eleven the USA experienced hits to it's financial brains (World Trade Center) and to it's military brains (Pentagon). Four years later Hurricane Katrina hit the USA's oil center (New Orleans). One has to wonder, if analogous to an Ian Fleming type novel, the Russians succeeded in developing deep ocean stations in the Atlantic and in the Caribbean off Cuba from which to create and hurl well-aimed hurricanes at the USA. The synchronicity of events is too compelling to ignore.

Before our thoughts get lost in the Bermuda Triangle, let us return to the present to John McCain and Gilad Shalit. Many have heard of John McCain's suffering and courage as a prisoner; few have heard the details. Former Senator Fred Thompson spoke eloquently to the Republican Convention and laid bare McCain's experience, courage, and character for all the world to "see through their ears"*. It was impossible to hear McCain's story and not think of Gilad Shalit.

[And so I found myself vicariously thinking that as President, the first thing that "I, John McCain" would do as President of the USA would be to send an aircraft carrier into the Mediterranean; as President, "I" would publicly announce to Hamas via the media that Hamas had 48 hours in which to return Gilad Shalit alive and well to Israel, on pain of annihilation of all of Gaza. Any peace talks of any kind and with any party would be contingent on the return of Gilad Shalit.]

Gilad Shalit is Israel in captivity. Israel must be freed. That is the whole of it. If the Israeli Government is corrupt and even operated by Russia, then the USA has moral, ethical, and national interest in freeing Israel from the captivity of such corruption. If the people of Israel were to experience the USA rescuing Gilad Shalit, then the people of Israel would know to whom to turn for help to "dry out the swamp"** of Russia's corruption of Israel.

Admittedly this is a speculation, that Israel's government is in the hands of the Russian Mafia or even Russia itself. But is it such a wild speculation? There is an old saying, "If it looks like a duck, walks like, and talks like a duck... then chances are that it's a duck." The present day POGROMS of Amona and of the Gaza Withdrawal should cause people to "hear with their eyes"*.

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{ * - refers to the TORAH passage in which Israel is said to have "heard through their eyes" and "seen through their ears"}

{ ** - refers to Fred Thompson's speech in which the Former Senator states that John McCain will "dry out the swamps" [of Washington, D.C.] and redirects the phrase towards the same need in Israel}