OBAMA SQUANDERS OPPORTUNITY IN EGYPT, DRIVING WEDGE BETWEEN USA AND ISRAEL

It is no longer possible to anticipate positive Presidential foreign policy towards Israel and Middle East -- nor towards the world at large -- from our newly sitting President. This President has squandered the opportunity afforded by his name and privilege and driven a huge wedge between America and Israel, while kowtowing to Muslim propaganda equating the suffering of Arab Palestinians to the suffering of Holocaust Jews. And his timing for doing this is extraordinary in it's contempt for Israel and for Jewry. Less than a week after Shavuos (the "book-end" holiday to Passover), when Israel celebrates the Feast of First Fruits and the ancient historical issuance by The Almighty of the Ten Commandments on Mount Sinai -- and, incidentally, the day preceding Israel's famous contemporary pre-emptive start to the Six Day War -- Barak Hussein Obama spoke of "Palestine" -- a new state of "Christian Palestinians and Muslim Palestinians" -- as an existing entity, and pressed Israel to cease all settlement activity in "Palestine". President Sarkozy of France wasted no time in chiming in his support for Obama's call for Israel to cease settling in "Palestine". True, this has been the undesirable direction of American Policy, strengthened by former President Bush in his call for a two-state solution. Yet, each time one hears strong policy statements that would deny Jews the right to settle in their historical homeland, it is more salt poured and rubbed into the ancient wound.

When will the world open it's eyes and see that there is no equivalence of any kind between the circumstances of the Christian and Muslim Arabs in Israel (Palestine) and in the world versus the circumstances of Jews in the world?

Can anyone name one Muslim nation in which there are surviving Jews living in safety and security and equal status before the law?

Can anyone name one Muslim nation that did not rape, rob, murder, and exile it's Jews in the mid-20th Century?

Can anyone deny that before and during World War Two the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem publicly allied himself with the Nazis, dined with and was guest to Adolph Hitler, was armed and fueled by the Nazis and Nazi sympathizers, and excoriated the Arab Palestinian population to hatred of and violence against the Jews of Palestine, some of whom were refugees from Hitler's Europe?

None of this, nor American attitude, informed President Obama in his speeches in Saudi Arabia and Cairo. Did he look out eyeball-to-eyeball into the audiences and say to them directly, "On September 11 of 2001 ninteen of your citizens murderously hijacked American commercial jets and flew them into the World Trade Center's Twin Towers, annihilating them both, and into the Pentagon; three-thousand souls of all races, creeds, nationalities, and religions were lost that day in this act of war against the USA; and the world was plunged into an economic recession it still feels today. Are you in Saudi Arabia and Egypt doing enough to fight for freedom? Or is this Terrorism the face of Islam, which you desire to project into the world?" Instead of using his Muslim name to reach out and educate and motivate the Muslim audience in the fight for democracy and freedom, he used his Muslim name to reach out and placate that audience. And his visit to Buchenwald afterwards can only be said to have made a mockery of his grandfather's witness to the Holocaust.

A similar wedge into weakening America is his call to close Guantanamo's detention center, which together with his overtures to Castro, can only be seen as precursors to total closure of the American Guantanamo Naval Base. This would be consistent with the retreat from Latin America that commenced with Jimmy Carter's presidency and was completed during the Clinton Administration with the handing over the Panama Canal. The Panama Canal, which America originally built after French failure, is now operated by the Chinese (kinda sounds vaguely similar to Viet Nam, doesn't it?). It is true that Venezuela began nationalizing it's oil industry during the Nixon Administration, which Administration was wrought with scandals and burdened with the Viet Nam War and covert activities throughout Central and South America; it is in our time now, contemporary to the Hugo Chavez leadership in Venezuela, that we see supersonic Russian bombers and fighters based in Venezuela, and joint military operations of the Russian and Venezuelan navies in the Carribean.

This so-called "New Beginning" of American-Muslim relations harkens a reactionary future, as it is based on taking anti-Israel propaganda and incorporating it into American Policy, dividing Israel from America. And it is a wedge in tandem to the Carribean wedge, that would further shrink America's ability to defend and project American values and power. The apparent goal is an attempt to befriend everybody and to fund American corporate and domestic needs at the expense of the American military. One might label the Obama Foreign Policy as the "Ostrich Strategy of Foreign Relations".

One must wonder how the various political blocks in Sudan view the Obama Presidency at this moment. There is no nation that Obama has more in common with than Sudan. Sudan is a nation ruled by Arab Muslims, which for decades has alternately been engaged in de-facto or de-juree warfare with it's southern Christian population, and which is famous now in the 21st Century as well for it's rape, murder, and persecution of the Negro Muslims of Darfur. From Khartoum's point of view (Khartoum beint the capital of Sudan), the southern Arabs are Christian or Black and therefore neither Muslim nor Arab enough, and the Darfurians may be Muslims, but, they are Black and not Arab enough. Obama is born of a White, American mother and a Muslim, African father; as an adult, Obama proclaims himself to be a Christian. It is curious that President Obama's first priorities, instead of vigorously demanding a speedy and forceful resolution of the horrors in Darfur and throughout Sudan, is instead destroying what little civility remains between American/Israeli relations, while simultaneously reaching out to weaken America in the Carribean.

A word about the alleged "horrors" at the GITMO detention center (by analogy):

Once there was a man, who was married to the most beautiful woman in the world. This woman had a facial birthmark, however, which existence over time began to command more and more of his attention to the point that he could no longer tolerate this "blemish" to the perfection of his beautiful wife. He went from surgeon to surgeon, who advised him that they would not perform the surgery to remove the birthmark, as to do so would likely cause the death of his wife. Finally, he came across an unscrupulous surgeon, who told the man what he wanted to hear. Hence came the surgery on his wife, who of course died as a result thereof.

Just as this man became obsessed with the birthmark on his wife, we and the world have become obsessed with inflated tales of wrongdoing at the Guantanamo detention center, and, to save the "face" of America, may close it down without appreciating the cost.

Has the world shown similar obsession to see towards the release of Gilad Shalit from his imprisonment by Hamas in Gaza? Whatever alleged tortures may have occurred in GITMO to the Al-Quaeda terrorists incarcerated there, those "tortures" will never compare to what has been done to Gilad Shalit, may he somehow miraculously be yet alive and in good health, and may he be released whole to return home to his family, as if this was the One Commandment given with the strength of Ten this Shavuos, "Thou Shalt Not Covet...."

CHOICE OF LANGUAGE, PART TWO: OF WAR CRIMES, COLLATERAL DAMAGE, HOLOCAUST, AND MARTIN LUTHER KING

Today is Martin Luther King Day in the USA, as well as it is the eve of the inauguration of Barak Obama as President of the USA. On the eve of the terrible day of his assassination in 1968, Martin Luther King called out to the world, saying, "I may not get there with you; but, I have been to The Mountain Top and I have seen The Promised Land...." May we all hope and pray that President Barak Obama does not suffer the same fate of assassination that met Martin Luther King, Bobby Kennedy, John Kennedy, and many other leaders of our nation in historic times.

Repeatedly in his life Martin Luther King spoke of equality for all people, be they "Christian, Atheist, Jewish, Muslim, or Gentile...." One expects, or at least hopes, that President Obama shares Martin Luther King's view. President Obama can take office tomorrow, knowing that the current Gaza crisis is not likely to demand his immediate or priority attention amidst the panorama of world affairs crises that he will face. President Obama will have a unique opportunity to give new ear to the Arab-Israeli Conflict, one hopes from a genuine, objective, egalitarian view.

It can be no coincidence that Israel has chosen today as the day to commence cessation of it's recent incursion into Gaza, to commence withdrawal from Gaza, and to commence it's unilateral ceasefire - unilateral in that Hamas has declared it's own unilateral one-week ceasefire "to give Israel a week to get out of Gaza". It is good politics and good timing of that politics in that the IDF has devastated Hamas and has set their terror clock back at least a year or two, if not more. Israel has defended itself and Sderot in particular. The suffering in Sderot has no longer been in vain.

It is now up to the Palestinian Arabs to again decide their future: Hamas and Hamas ideology, or an alternative of Palestinian Arabs accepting of Israel's right to a peaceful coexistence?

Where one would hope that the United Nations would keep a neutral stance, reality shows the same face of the UN on the ground that it shows in the General Assembly and to a large degree as well in the Security Council: an anti-Israel bias that is pervasive, obvious, unhidden, public, and disgusting to anyone with conscience, clarity of mind, and knowledge of history.

The likes of Christopher Gunness -- by no means restricted to Christopher Gunness -- waste no time, neither from the commencement of Israel's defensive incursion till now, and no doubt as well in the days ahead, to accuse Israel of having committed war crimes. This is a profound UN failure on two counts. Firstly, the UN and it's representatives and agents on the ground in Gaza ought not to be choosing sides or acting as an outlet of propaganda and demagoguery for terrorist groups such as Hamas. Secondly, even in appropriate venues, to assign language such as "war crimes" to the actions of the Israeli army is incendiary and biased and reflects no conscience in choice of language.

There is a difference between "collateral damage" and "war crimes". Although, for those living in a fantasy world in which they presume to speak for the "underdog" (e.g. in their view, Hamas is the underdog) there is no difference between war crimes and collateral damage, and the latter in their view is merely a euphemism for the former.

These types will never see suicide/homicide bombings, the imprisonment of Gilad Shalit, nor the incessant rocket terror of Sderot as the War Crimes that they are; like a mule wearing blinders, they will see narrowly, viewing such violence as the righteous outrage of "revolutionary" groups such as Hamas.

They make no distinction at all between the willful intent of Hamas to murder Israelis and to annihilate the State of Israel versus the inevitable accidental death of Gazan civilians, where the combat circumstance is such that Israel's tormentors mix in among the civililian crowds and use hospitals, mosques, schools, and homes as military bases and as arms storage and arms deployment depots. Nor does it seem to bother these self-proclaimed persons of worldwide conscience that where Israel clearly distinguishes between military and civilian targets, Hamas defines all Israelis, be they old man, woman, or child, as a combatant.

Where Israel shows grief at the suffering of it's enemy, which it defines as a human enemy, Hamas rejoices in the suffering of Israelis, whom it refers to in it's political and religious liturgy as monkeys, pigs, and dogs, seeing no common humanity with Israelis, and defining as well an ethos of cruelty to animals (Why isn't PETA crying out in defense of Israel? Oh, right, PETA is too busy expressing it's "humanistic" bigotry against Jews by decrying painless Kosher animal slaughter for food).

Hamas does not acknowledge Israel's existential right nor Jewish identity in the family of humanity. By Hamas definition, all of it's combatants are civilians; by Hamas definition, all of Israel's civilians are combatants. As the world looks on at the rubble of architecture that Israel has just destroyed in Gaza -- destruction made necessary by Hamas's misuse of civilian property for military purpose -- it is not trivial that the world understand that the hospitals, school, homes and mosques that the world funded for civilian use and humanitarian purpose was co-opted by Hamas' insane and Hitleresque agenda.

Neither is it trivial to associate the actions and ideology of Hamas with Hitlerism, so let's take a look....

World War One was not the Holocaust. Nor was World War Two the Holocaust. The Holocaust was one huge and indistinguishable aspect of WW2. WW1 and WW2 involved many of the same nations in world war, especially in Europe and Africa and the MIddle East. Yet with respect to all the horrors similar to both of those wars, the Holocaust is singled out as historically unique and historically unrivaled. Why? Tens of millions of people died horribly on a scale unrivaled in world history in both events. Why are they not also Holocausts?

The answer is that an Holocaust is defined by more than just the propagandistic demagoguery of war in which enemies are demonized and dehumanized in cartoons and in rhetoric. An Holocaust is defined by the systematic and concerted efforts of public education, national law, and boots on the ground to define a specific sub-group of humanity, be it on the basis of race, religion, or creed, to in fact not be human, to be non-redeemable as human, to be endemically evil, and to necessarily require extermination from all existence. This was the distinguishing aspect of Hitler's Third Reich, and it is the distinguishing aspect of groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah. It is not accidental that during WW2 they were allies with Hitler (the predecessors of these groups existed then, most notably the Grand Mufti Amin Al-Husseini of Jerusalem). To see a photographic history of this relationship, see website WWW.TELLTHECHILDRENTHETRUTH.COM.

For current proof of Hitler's Legacy in the Muslim World, just look at the current reality in Muslim nations: (1) with few exceptions there are no Jews, as a million or more Jewish residents of Muslim countries were murdered, raped, robbed, and exiled contemporary to WW2, (2) in Gaza today, where Israel made a gift of Gaza to the Palestinian Arabs, there is neither Jewish Life nor sign of previous Jewish existence, as even functioning farms, greenhouses, industry, and empty Synagogues were annihilated by such as Hamas; the only sign of Jewish Life in Gaza today is the current departure of Israeli Defense Forces, they having just dismantled and stunned Hamas' capability to wage war on Israel; (3) there are more than twenty Muslim nations today that continue to refuse to recognize Israel's right to exist and in fact they are still in a 'de juree' state of war with Israel, (4) in many of these nations Christians and other minority religious groups such as Buddhist or Bahai or Druse are persecuted relentlessly. It is not at all inappropriate to suggest that The Holocaust in fact did not end with the official end of WW2, but, that it continues on today throughout the world, and the primary perpetrator of Holocaust is the world of Islam.

Israel has committed neither war crimes nor holocaust in Gaza. The UN ought to sanction these glib UN agents and representatives, who do suggest that Israel has committed war crimes. Given the level of embedding of UN agents and representatives in Gaza, these agents and representatives ought to be sanctioned as well for the many years they have provided safe cover to terrorist operatives in facilities constructed by both the UN and by other world NGO's for the provision of humanitarian relief to Gaza. Or does the UN officially or even unofficially have the same policy as Hamas -- that all Hamas persons and activities are civilian in nature, even if they are involve illegal engagement in the smuggling and storing of weapons, and in the commission of terror, murder, and destruction.

The incessant missile attacks on Sderot, the kidnapping and captivity of Gilad Shalit, the constant threat of suicide/homicide bombings, and the never-recanted Hamas policy calling for the annihilation of Israel, of Jews, of Christians, and of all non-Muslims they call Pigs, Dogs, and Monkeys -- if this is not behavior characteristic of Holocaust, then what is???

One need look no further than Hamas to find real origin of War Crimes. Yet, it is necessary to look further to Hezbollah, to Syria, to Iran, to Russia, and to China to see the most prominent superstructure of War Crimes and Holocaust today. One must not rule out the twenty-some Arab nations, who have yet to officially cease their state of war with Israel and to acknowledge Israel's right to exist. And Holocaust does not end their. Look to Sudan and the Janjaweed, engaged in Holocaust against the Muslims of Darfur, who are Negro and who therefore are "not Muslim enough", and against the Christians in the south, who are not Muslims....

Let us hope that on this eve of a new Presidential era in the USA, that no assassination plunge this USA into civil war, that the ceasefire in Gaza will grow like a beautiful flower, and that Hamas will free Gilad Shalit and signal that hope and peace may be realized. Amen.

THE HOLOCAUST SUFFERED BY GILAD SHALIT - DISAPPEARO....

For communication to take place words must have meanings that are shared and understood universally. One word that has suffered great degradation in the past several decades has been the word "holocaust". In the pantheon of language there are many words that are applied to describe violence. There are many different types of violence, many different scales of violence, many different reasons for violence, and overlapping phenomena of violence. There is murder, group murder, massacre, mass murder, carnage, mass annihilation... and there is holocaust. So what is the difference? What is the difference whether one or several or many or an entire nationality or race of people suffer deliberate extinction by planned, rationalized human violence?

The Arab media would have the world believe that Arabia is experiencing an holocaust at the hands of the "Little Satan" and the "Big Satan". The "Little Satan" is of course Israel and the "Big Satan" is of course the USA. In Gaza Hamas has been receiving a deserved and vehement retribution from Israel. Military targets are being destroyed by Israeli aerial and artillery bombardment. And yet the streets in many areas are safe enough for Gaza residents to gather in protest, bearing placards that read "Stop the Holocaust Against Gaza". Similar protests occur throughout the world.

Approximately 1.5 million Gazans are alive and well. The Israeli targeted bombings have killed maybe 400 Gazans so far, most of them Hamas military and political leaders and policemen. The physical infrastructure of Hamas is being leveled to the ground. Tunnels used for smuggling terrorists and weapons are being destroyed.

Is this an holocaust? No it is not! It is a military action against a military dictatorship sworn to the annihilation of Jews and Israel. It is a military action in which profound caution is paid to the humanitarian crisis of even such a dedicated and hateful enemy, whose sworn public policy is in fact to perpetrate an holocaust against Israel.

Hamas is experiencing a limited and well deserved massacre, brought on to itself by it's deliberate seven-year campaign of Qassam rocket terrorism and by it's intransigent devotion to the annihilation of Israel. If Hitler and his Brownshirts had been massacred early on in the development of The Nazi Movement, perhaps The Holocaust might never have occurred. The World should remember History and expect Israel do everything in it's power to see that It doesn't happen again.

And what of Gilad Shalit? How can the kidnapping, captivity, depravation, torture, loneliness, isolation, mental suffering, and possible death of one man be referred to as an "holocaust", as in the title of this article? Is it not a stretch to do so, when 400 massacred Hamas operatives cannot be defined as having suffered an holocaust?

Gilad Shalit is a Disappearo and a victim of Holocaust, a human being targeted for annihilation because he is of a People, whose enemies would annihilate that People from all existence. The Hamas credo makes the captivity of Gilad Shalit a flesh and blood personification of Israel in Hamas hands.

Think of it for a moment.... Is Gilad Shalit alive or dead, and how can we know? In violation of international law the Arabs refuse to permit even the Red Cross to visit him. (Arab prisoners in Israel can count on visits by the Red Cross and other humanitarian groups as well as their families.)

Think of it for a moment.... For all intents and purposes Gilad Shalit is a "disappeared one" -- and not the only one to suffer so in the hands of Arab terrorists and governments. (Humanitarian circles throughout the world should be ringing major bells of alarm, remembering that the creation of Disappearos is normal only for totalitarian dictators, rogue militias, criminal cartels, and terrorists.)

Disappearance and Holocaust....

Until and unless Israel and the larger World comprehend this, there will continue to be semantic failures in reasoning and in discussion of the Arab-Israeli Conflict and of the Muslim-World Conflict. Israel and the World will continue to appease an unappeasable enemy by virtue of a failure to perceive and root out their respective fifth columns.

Not all Arabs are evil terrorists -- not by a long shot. There is no joy in seeing the suffering of so many human beings, whether or not they are terrorists. That said, it is long overdue for enemies of peace and for those who acquiesce in the dominion of sadists to be reminded that a desire for Peace is not at all the same thing as conciliation and appeasement. Freedom in it's true sense is being fought for by Israel in Gaza today, and the World should herald this fight and decry the terrorism that made it necessary.

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....