EREV GOYISHE NEW YEAR -- DAY 1672 -- GILAD SHALIT REMAINS CAPTIVE, ALONE, UNSEEN, UNVISITED, UNHEARD OF, UNHEARD FROM....

AND FOR TWO WEEKS NOW THERE HAS BEEN ESCALATED VIOLENCE ACROSS THE BORDER FROM GAZA, INSTIGATED BY THE FIRING OF ROCKETS AND OTHER MORE ADVANCED WEAPONRY BY HAMAS INTO THE NEGEV. AND MAHMOUD ABBAS IS TODAY FOMENTING MORE ANTI-ISRAEL RESOLUTIONS IN THE U.N.

SHABBATH SHALOM....

EREV ROSH HASHANA 5771

PROMISES AND UNCERTAINTY ON DAY 1559 OF GILAD SHALIT'S CAPTIVITY. WILL ROSH HASHANA MARK DAY 1560?

Gilad Shalit is not yet free, remains unseen and unheard, there is no trustworthy witness to his being alive nor promise of his freedom....

Prime Minister Netanyahu now speaks of "The West Bank" and not of JUDEA-SAMARIA, and he shakes hands with Mahmud Abbas....

Hamas fires rocket after rocket into Israel and dances joyously en masse in the streets of Gaza (literally, not figuratively!) as five Jewish souls (two men and two women, one pregnant) fall victim to a rain of terrorist bullets in "The West Bank"....

Under Israeli protection the PAL prospers and the ghost of Yassir Arafat sits across the table from Prime Minister Netanyahu and is spoken to as a legitimate "partner in peace"....

This "spirit of reconciliation" occurs against the backdrop of the sounding of the morning Shofar throughout the month of ELUL, the month in which we seek to draw closer to HaShem, a month in which we recite Selichot, the month in which we examine ourselves in regards to the year that is nearly gone, the month in which we seek to transcend self-absorption and participate in acknowledging His Creation. We stand poised to ask HaShem that we be inscribed in the Book of Life for a happy, healthy, peaceful, prosperous, enlightened New Year. Will this Rosh HaShana mark captive day 1560 for Gilad Shalit?

May Gilad Shalit be free. May Jerusalem never again be divided. May Judea-Samaria be formally rejoined to Israel. May the ERUV RAV seek new homes elsewhere, and may all those, who truly remember and love Zion, find their way home.

B'SHANA HABA B'YERUSHALAYIM!

IS THE "RACHEL CORRIE" A PLANNED MARTYR SHIP? ONE STEP AWAY FROM WORLD WAR THREE!

A FEW YEARS AGO A YOUNG AMERICAN WOMAN WITH MISPLACED IDEALS, WHICH IDEALS WERE KNOWINGLY OR UNWITTINGLY EXERCISED IN SUPPORT OF HAMAS, PLACED HERSELF BETWEEN A MOVING ISRAELI BULLDOZER AND THE HOME OF A TERRORIST, WHOSE HOME THE BULLDOZER WAS THERE BY LAW TO DEMOLISH. RACHEL CORRIE GAVE AWAY HER YOUNG LIFE BEFORE THAT BULLDOZER, A GREAT PERSONAL TRAGEDY MOURNED BY THE ENTIRE WORLD. TODAY AN OSTENSIBLY HUMANITARIAN SHIP NAMED IN HER HONOR IS MAKING IT'S WAY TOWARDS GAZA, DOING SO JUST,BUT, NOT JUSTLY ON THE HEELS OF THE "AVI MAMARA" INCIDENT. THE OPERATORS OF THE VESSEL "RACHEL CORRIE" HAVE PUBLICLY STATED THAT THEY WILL NOT RESIST BOARDING BY THE ISRAELI NAVY AND WILL WILLINGLY BE REDIRECTED TO ASHDOD, ISRAEL.

LET US PRAY THAT THE "RACHEL CORRIE" REACHES SAFE HARBOR IN ISRAEL, AND THAT NO "INCIDENT" OCCURS THAT MAY BE BEYOND THE IMAGINATION OF THE WELL INTENDED, BUT, MISGUIDED HUMANITARIANS OF THE "RACHEL CORRIE".

SUCCESSFUL AND SAFE ARRIVAL OF THE "RACHEL CORRIE" TO ASHDOD, AND THE TRANSFER OF HUMANITARIAN GOODS BY THE ISRAELIS INTO GAZA ON THE BEHALF OF THE HUMANITARIANS OF THE SHIP (LESS THE BUNKER BUILDING CONCRETE), WILL DO MUCH TO HONOR THE MEMORY OF RACHEL CORRIE AND WILL MITIGATE MUCH OF THE ANGER, ANGUISH, AND BLOTTED HUMANITARIANISM OF THE SAD INCIDENT IN WHICH RACHEL CORRIE GAVE HER LIFE AND WILL DO THE SAME WITH RESPECT TO THE SIMILAR RESULTS WE HAVE JUST SEEN AS INITIAL CONSEQUENCES OF THE "AVI MAMARA" INCIDENT.

MISGUIDED IN THEIR CONSCIOUS OR INADVERTENT SUPPORT OF HAMAS, THE HUMANITARIANS OF THE "RACHEL CORRIE" MISSION MAY FACE MORE RISK THAN THEY MAY IMAGINE. SUPPOSE SOME JIHADIST TERRORISTS HAVE HIDDEN A BOMB ABOARD SHIP AND SET IT TO EXPLODE IN INTERNATIONAL WATERS, IN ISRAELI WATERS, OR EVEN IN THE PORT OF ASHDOD; SUPPOSE THERE IS A SECRET OPERATION ABOARD SHIP INVOLVING JIHADIST MARTYR BOMBERS (BE THEY HAMAS, HEZBOLLAH, I.R.A., AL-QUAEDA, SOLIDARITY, ROTE ARMEE FAKTION, OR WHOMEVER), OR ANY SIMILAR SUCH SECRET OPERATION FROM OFF SHIP (SUCH AS JIHADIST OPERATIVES DISGUISED AS ISRAELI NAVY MEN), OR ANY TYPE OF SUCH SINISTER EVENT DESIGNED TO CAST BLAME ON ISRAEL AND TO ENFLAME AND INCITE WORLD OPINION AND WAR: SUCH AN EVENT COULD BE ANALOGOUS TO THE ENTIRE WORLD STEPPING ONTO A LANDMINE IN ONE ILL FATED MOMENT....

LET US PRAY FOR THE SAFETY OF THE "RACHEL CORRIE" FROM ANY ACCIDENTAL OR INTENDED HARM!

TODAY IS DAY 1469 SINCE GILAD SHALIT WAS KIDNAPPED AND MADE CAPTIVE IN GAZA BY HAMAS. SHABBATH SHALOM.

S.N.A.F.U.

(SNAFU -- SITUATION NORMAL, ALL MESSED UP....)

IT WAS IN THE YEAR TWO-THOUSAND AND SIX THAT I WAS KIDNAPPED,
WHEN OUT OF THE GROUND UNDER THE GAZA BORDER.
JIHADIST TERRORISTS, WHO MURDERED MY COMRADES,
THEN DRAGGED ME BACK WITH THEM THROUGH THEIR TUNNEL INTO THE BOWELS OF GAZA.

THE FOURTH ANNIVERSARY OF MY ILLEGAL CAPTIVITY DRAWS NYE.
HAMAS SENT A 'PRESENT' TO MY FATHER AND MOTHER AND HOMELAND:
A VIDEO CARTOON IN WHICH MY FATHER SEARCHES FOR ME IN VAIN, ONLY TO FIND MY CASKET....
AND THE WHOLE WORLD IS SILENT, THE MEDIA IS BUT A CHOIR FOR JIHADIST TUNNEL RATS!

HOW CAN THE WORLD BE SO BLINDLY HEARTLESS?
IS THIS THE CONSCIENCE OF THE NEW WORLD ORDER?
IS THIS THE BEST THE WORLD CAN DO?
DOES THE ENTIRE WORLD NOW BOW DOWN TO GAZA, MECCA, AND TEHRAN?

EVERYTHING IS IN ORDER, ALL MESSED UP.
I AM CAPTIVE IN AN HAMAS PRISON CELL.
NO ONE HAS PERMISSION TO VISIT ME --
NOT MY MOTHER, NOT MY FATHER, NOT EVEN THE RED CROSS!

I AM GILAD SHALIT, TOTALLY ALONE, CAPTIVE IN THE BOWELS OF GAZA!
I AM GILAD SHALIT, TOTALLY ALONE, CAPTIVE IN THE BOWELS OF GAZA!
I AM GILAD SHALIT, TOTALLY ALONE, CAPTIVE IN THE BOWELS OF GAZA!
I AM GILAD SHALIT, TOTALLY ALONE, CAPTIVE IN THE BOWELS OF GAZA!
I AM GILAD SHALIT, TOTALLY ALONE, CAPTIVE IN THE BOWELS OF GAZA!
I AM GILAD SHALIT, TOTALLY ALONE, CAPTIVE IN THE BOWELS OF GAZA!
I AM GILAD SHALIT, TOTALLY ALONE, CAPTIVE IN THE BOWELS OF GAZA!
I AM GILAD SHALIT, TOTALLY ALONE, CAPTIVE IN THE BOWELS OF GAZA!

=============================================
=============================================

Today is Rosh Chodesh Sivan in the year 5770.
Today is Day 40 of the Omer counting.
Today is Day 1435 in the Captivity of Gilad Shalit in the Bowels of Gaza.

BIDEN AND THE COMING THIRD INTIFADA

BIDEN AND "THE LAW OF UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES".

Two examples in recent Israeli history can tell us much about "unintended consequences": The Gaza Withdrawal, and the Gilad Shalit Kidnapping.

Despite legitimate rights to live in Gaza, the State of Israel imposed a forced withdrawal of every Jew from Gaza, expecting that Gaza would be a peaceful neighborhood that would soon along with the "West Bank" become a Palestinian [Arab] State. Instead, Israel has suffered repeated terrorism from Hamas controlled Gaza, terrorism including ten-thousand Qassam rockets fired into Israel for years, which not so long ago caused Israel to finally respond in the form of a forceful invasion of Gaza. Many had warned the Sharon/Olmert government that withdrawal from Gaza would have only negative effects. Sharon and Olmert did not listen. What happened in Gaza is clearly an unintended consequence of the Olmert/Sharon decision to withdraw from Gaza.

Who would have thought that a simple, daring kidnapping would lead to a full scale war? And yet such was the unintended consequence of the kidnapping of Gilad Shalit. Tomorrow will mark the 1400th day of Gilad Shalit's captivity. In a daring raid via tunnels dug underground across the Israeli border from Gaza, Arab terrorists attacked and murdered most of Gilad Shalit's unit and took Gilad Shalit captive. In the north Hezbollah sought to mimic this act, killing several Israeli soldiers and capturing Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev, whom they later murdered. Attacked from south and north by Hamas and Hezbollah, including the daily barrage of Qassam rockets from Gaza targeting Sderot and then more advanced rockets from southern Lebanon that could reach as far as Haifa, Israel found itself embroiled in a full scale war with Hezbollah in Lebanon, known as the Second Israel-Lebanon War. That war may or may not have been inevitable. It is not likely that this War was an intended consequence of the kidnapping of Gilad Shalit.

Simultaneous to the visit of Vice-President Biden to Israel barely three weeks ago, Israel announced construction plans for 1600 housing units adjacent to the Arab Quarter of Jerusalem on an undeveloped hillside. Biden condemned this announcement, as if it were a deadly terrorist attack, taking personal offense, taking offense on behalf of the Obama Administration, and thus lighting a fire of such condemnations around the world. A diplomatic response could have finessed even the appearance of insult and lent focus on the purpose of the Biden Peace Mission. Instead Israeli-American relations have become strained, the Peace Mission has been set back, and America's Image has weakened in the world, while traction has been given to the world image of America as Bully. Arab militants now have propaganda ammunition by which to justify stepped up terrorism against Israel. In the past two or three weeks such stepped up terror has cost the lives of Israeli Soldiers and Arab Terrorists. The Arabs have resumed the firing of Qassam rockets from Gaza into southern Israel, and Israel has responded with air attacks into Gaza. A Third Intifada is a real possibility, perhaps an unintended consequence of the failure of Vice-President Biden to respond with positive diplomacy to the surprise Israeli Construction announcement.

Vice-President Biden went to Israel, ostensibly on a Peace Mission.

Nothing Vice-President Biden did or said furthered peace, nor did anything he said or did lead to the release of Gilad Shalit. Perhaps this too is an unintended consequence of Vice-President Biden's lack of diplomacy.

Israel has just celebrated Pesach (Passover), which Holiday Commemorates Liberty from the Slavery of Ancient Egypt, which Holiday concludes on Tuesday Evening, which would be Day 1402 of Gilad Shalit's Captivity. Let Gilad Shalit Go! Set Gilad Shalit Free!

PRESIDENT BARAK HUSSEIN OBAMA CAN STAND UP AND SET HISTORICAL PRECEDENT WITH THE NAME HIS FATHER GAVE HIM.

FIRST, CORRECT THE LEXICON IN THE CONTEXT OF WHICH THE ARAB-ISRAELI CONFLICT IS DISCUSSED; THEN, REALITY MAY HAVE SOME CORRESPONDENCE TO THE TERMS OF DISCUSSION. BOTH JEWS AND ARABS ARE PALESTINIAN. IT IS JUST PLAIN WRONG TO EXCLUDE JEWS FROM THE PALESTINIAN IDENTITY. SIMILARLY IT IS JUST PLAIN WRONG TO DEFINE THE CONFLICT AS AN “ISRAELI-PALESTINIAN” CONFLICT, WHEN IN FACT IT IS AN “ARAB-ISRAELI” CONFLICT.

Once the terms are properly defined, once the distortion of incorrect ‘prescription glasses’ is removed, the reality of the conflict may come into focus. That reality has far greater implications than the world conversation has embraced in the past several decades. Ever since the decisive wars of 1967 and 1973, the world has believed that the scale of the Arab-Israli Conflict no longer ranged outside Israeli controlled borders and that therefore a final peace with the local Arab population could only be a few moments away. The world chose to call the Arabs within Israeli controlled borders “Palestinian”.

“Palestinian” is a term given by the Ancient Roman occupation of the middle east to all the inhabitants of that geography — Israeli, Arab, and everyone else. The British and French and Germans (Modern Romans) applied this Roman lexicon to the middle east, when in modern times they themselves occupied these lands and subjugated these middle eastern Peoples. There never existed a People or a State called “Palestine” except as a subjugated territorial entity of the Romans and the Modern Romans. [Today's Arabs from that geographical area are not identifiable with the "Philistines", although it has been a convenient myth with which the Arabs and Jew-haters propagandize in order to falsely claim an historical claim to Gaza.]

Jews have lived in Israel/Palestine dating back to the times of ancient Egypt. There has been continuous Jewish life in Israel/Palestine throughout history, even during the most decimating occupations by Assyrians, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Arabs, Crusaders, Turks, Modern Romans….

The vast majority of Arabs are Muslims, not Christians, and if at street level most people are not motivated by militancy, there are two powerful minorities that are married to militancy. These are the Jihadists, who wage their terrorist utopian Holy Wars; and then there are the Governments of the many Islamic nation-states, who rule by terror and by diversion of attention away from their own repressions by scapegoating Jews and the West; too often they find common cause with the Jihadists.

Israel has no peace with the Arab population within Israeli controlled borders because the Arab Governments don’t want peace with Israel and to this day refuse to make peace with Israel, the well-paid semi-exceptions being Egypt and Jordan. When the world at large understands that the Arab-Israeli Conflict is like a giant iceberg, and that the localized violence that is visible in Israel is visible in the same way that the tip of an iceberg is visible, perhaps then the world can become constructive in the seeking of real solutions. Denial just means ’shipwreck after shipwreck’ and a steady rise in ‘maintenance and insurance costs’.
If President Obama has the courage to stand up to reality, and not just be team leader in a never ending Washington game of “Capture The Flag”, he may make the most of the name his father gave him, declare himself to be the first American Muslim to be President of the USA, and establish a worldwide Muslim precedent demanding worldwide recognition of the State of Israel inclusive of Judea-Samaria (commonly referred to as the “West Bank”); he should suggest the creation of a world fund to support the voluntary emigration and resettlement from Israel of all willing Arab residents living within Israeli controlled borders, who cannot stomach the idea of living in a Jewish State, to the nations of their choice.

More than 1500 years of Muslim expansion in the world has created no shortage of possible destination homes for the Arabs today living within Israeli controlled borders; by nation of origin they may be identified in fact as mostly Egyptian, Saudi, Jordanian, Syrian, Lebanese, Iraqi, Iranian, and Turkish.

All should remember not only the decimations of Hitler; Hitler had many allies including the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem and a Muslim world that raped, murdered, and exiled Jews all the way from Afghanistan to Africa and from Russia to Iran. Israel remembers, and yet despite this history 20% of Israel’s voting citizens today are Arabs…. At what point must Israel’s idealism gove way to Israel’s survival needs as a tiny ‘island’ Jewish State in a vast ’sea’ of Muslim States?

President Barak Hussein Obama can make a profound difference and set positive democratic precedents in the solution of the Arab-Israeli Conflict. Israel is already a democracy with two-million Arab citizens. This reality can be preserved and can be a precedent towards liberalization of Arab States to become inclusive and tolerant of non-Muslims. Anything less is a profoundly anti-Israeli, anti-democratic double standard that the world must reject on principle.

IT IS STRIKING TO SEE THE SAFETY IN WHICH THE ARABS PROTEST THE ALLEGED "HOLOCAUST" AGAINST THEM.

Despite an official Israeli limitation on the freedom of news media in Gaza during the current action, there is no shortage of images and reporting. Amazingly, while the Israel Defense Forces are skillfully focused on destroying military targets and limiting civilian casualties, the Arabs are out on the streets freely protesting what they call "Israeli Occupation of Palestine", demanding that the World "Stop the Holocaust in Gaza". These Palestinian Arabs, who were wedded to Adolf Hitler during WW2, deny The Holocaust and yet pretend to an holocaust against Palestinian Arabs, all the while referring to Palestine as if it were an historical State occupied by a foreign power [Israel], when in fact "Palestine" is the name given to Israel by Ancient Rome during the Roman Occupation, and then again by Britain during the British Occupation (1917 - 1947). Photo upon photo taken in the past 24 hours portrays Palestinian Arabs engaged in burning the Israeli Flag - metaphor for their own twin goals to destroy and occupy Israel. "Free Palestine"? "Palestine" is already free, finally free, after thousands of years of exile and holocaust, free enough to go by it's own name "Israel". "Occupation?" Subsequent to 15 centuries of "Jihad" (Holy War) marked by a credo of "convert or die" fully one fifth of the entire world (population and land) is now Muslim. If there has been a holocaust, it has certainly not been perpetrated by Israel, nor against Arabia. It has been perpetrated by Arabia against the rest of the world....

TU B'SHEVAT 5768 -- BITTER FRUIT

Today the world saw the reason that Isael never should have withdrawn from Gaza in 2005: the brink of war and a potential new refugee crisis. Caught between the Israeli army in the north and the Egyptian army in the south, many of the Arab population of Gaza pressed against the southern border crossing, trying to make their way into Egypt only to be repulsed.

The proximal reason for this: Israel turned off power and water to Gaza as a response to the incessant Qassam missile barraging of southern Israel. In this past week alone 150 Qassams barraged the town of Sderot. Even today, when Israel eased off on the power and water blockade, 19 missiles were launched into Israel by Hamas.

Although there is reason to be glad that the Israeli Government has finally taken action to help the town of Sderot, there is more reason to be angry with the Israeli Government, which Government created this unnecessary reality, which it caused by unilaterally withdrawing from Gaza. Many, many persons (including myself, well before I commenced this Blog) wrote in 2004 and in 2005 that the inevitable result and consequence of such a withdrawl, beyond the obvious insult to the lives of the Jews then living in Gaza on land bought and paid for prior even to the 1948 War of Independence, would be (1) the setting of a precedent for ethnic cleansing in the form of making Gaza free from Jews, (2) the pitting of Arab against Arab in civil and political war, (3) the inevitability of security issues to Israel, most especially in the form of the launching of Qassam rockets into Israel by various terrorist groups, and (4) risk to the 'peace' with Egypt, however cold and fragle that "peace" may be.

Much has come to pass, including the (a) capture of Gilad Shalit into Gaza, (b) the captures of Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev into Lebanon, and (c) the now infamous Second Lebanon War. Now, Gaza is on the verge of out and out civil war, war with Israel, and perhaps even war with Egypt - unless Egypt desides to war on Israel.

Sooner or late and probably sooner, the Arab populations of Judea-Sumaria will rise up in arms to support their brethren in Gaza. They will vote en masse with rocks, bullets, Qassams, and Katyushas. All the world of Islam will support them, as will Europe and much of the Third World. So too will the Arab citizens of Israel, more than a million of whom blatantly celebrate "Al-Naqba" (the Catastrophe of the Existence of the Jewish State of Israel) on Israel Independence Day.

Surely this was all forseen, and Israel and the world chose the evil path that has led us to today's bitter fruit.

This bitter "fruit" does not appear to be fruit upon which the "SH'HECHIANU" blessing is deserved.

May HaShem come speedily in our days and rebuild the Beth HaMikdash.