THE MORE THINGS CHANGE, THE MORE THEY STAY THE SAME

Subsequent to the recently gained freedom of Gilad Shalit...

* ILAN GRAPEL IS FREE FROM HIS CAPTIVITY IN EGYPT;

* TWENTY-FIVE ARAB CRIMINALS ARE NOW FREE IN EXCHANGE FOR ILAN GRAPEL'S FREEDOM;

* DISGRACING ITSELF AND THE WORLD, U.N.E.S.C.O. HAS VOTED TO RECOGNIZE AND GIVE MEMBERSHIP TO THE P.A.L.;

* THE U.S.A. WILL HONOR IT'S LEGISLATION REQUIRING THAT THE U.S.A. CUT OFF IT'S SHARE OF FUNDING FOR U.N.E.S.C.O. [OR ANY OTHER U.N. BODY THAT MAY GIVE SIMILAR RECOGNITION AND MEMBERSHIP TO THE P.A.L. PRIOR TO A NEGOTIATED PEACE BETWEEN ISRAEL AND THE P.A.L.];

* A BRIEF YET DEADLY PERIOD OF CROSS-BORDER ROCKET-FIRE FROM GAZA INTO ISRAEL AND AIRSTRIKES IN RESPONSE FROM ISRAEL HAS COME AND GONE ;

* WAR AGAINST IRAN IS A CRISP NIP IN THE MEDITERRANEAN AIR, MUCH AS WINTER IS ALREADY A CRISP NIP IN THE NORTH AMERICAN AUTUMN AIR ;

* AND TWO "FREEDOM FLOTILLA" VESSELS ARE NOW MAKING THEIR WAY ACROSS THE MEDITERRANEAN FROM TURKEY TOWARDS ISRAEL IN AN ATTEMPT TO VIOLATE ISRAEL'S RIGHTFUL BLOCKADE OF GAZA, SEEKING PERHAPS TO PROVOKE ISRAEL INTO VIOLENCE.

There must be a joke in all this somewhere, but, I sure don't see it....

NOW IS THE TIME FOR ISRAEL TO FORMALLY AND PUBLICLY ANNEX (OR, REAFFIRM ANNEXATION OF) THE GOLAN, SHEVA FARMS, JUDEA-SAMARIA, AND JERUSALEM.

THESE ANNEXATION ANNOUNCEMENTS SHOULD BE GIVEN BEFORE THE UNITED NATIONS GENERAL ASSEMBLY BY PREMIER BENYAMIN NETANYAHU THIS COMING TUESDAY, APRIL 5, WHICH IS ROSH CHODESH NISSAN 5771, AND SHOULD BE ANNOUNCED IN HONOR OF GILAD SHALIT, WHO HAS BEEN IN SOLITARY CAPTIVITY BY HAMAS NOW FOR 1,769 DAYS. THE DECISION TO PROCEED WITH THESE ANNEXATIONS SHOULD BE A PRE-EMPTIVE RESPONSE BY ISRAEL PRECIPITATED BY THE APPARENTLY INEVITABLE DECISION COME THIS SEPTEMBER BY THE UNITED NATIONS GENERAL ASSEMBLY TO RECOGNIZE A "STATE OF PALESTINE" INCLUSIVE OF JUDEA-SAMARIA, EAST JERUSALEM, AND GAZA (AS REPORTED TODAY IN THE THE NEW YORK TIMES).

By ganging up on Israel, resolution after resolution, decade after decade, the UN has already waged war de facto on Israel; any decision by the UN to recognize a State of Palestine would represent an utterly outrageous, provocative, precipitous additional act of de facto war by the UN against Israel.

The United Nations presumes to act as a World Government. This is not it's purpose nor mandate. Similarly, the World Court presumes to world jurisdiction, which is also not it's mandate, nor is it so recognized, certainly not by the USA nor Israel. World Court decisions against Israel declaring the Security Fence illegal and defining specific territories as "Palestinian lands under Israeli occupation" form pretexts that favor Israel's enemies; these World Court decisions have no sustaining legal basis, nor do they serve the purpose of peace.

May Israel have the foresight, integrity, strength, and endurance to withstand the evils of the United Nations. May the USA and all free nations of the world come to full sensibility and means by which to return the United Nations to the mandate of it's chartered purpose: the encouragement between nations of civil discourse and of civil problem resolution.

IT IS VITAL TO THE WORLD, NOT ONLY TO ISRAEL, THAT JERUSALEM REMAIN UNIFIED AND AN ISRAELI CITY.

IF THE WORLD HAS A STAKE IN POLITICAL AND RELIGIOUS FREEDOM, THEN IT CANNOT BE DENIED THAT THE RECOGNITION AND PRESERVATION OF JERUSALEM AS AN ENTIRELY ISRAELI CITY IS VITAL.

It is an interesting conundrum at the core of the creation of the United Nations, that the United Nations is body for the meeting of all member nations, and that despite the democratic appearance of the United Nations, not all member nations are required to be nor assumed to be democratic nations. Hence many nations are members of the UN, and yet are not democracies or are democracies in name only. Hence there are nations, such as Russia and China and Iran and Syria, which are UN members and which are not democracies or are democracies in name only.

It is well known that in recent years the UN has become increasingly anti-West as a body and in it's body of decision making.

It is well known that for many decades the UN has been decidedly biased against Israel, passing resolution after resolution without fairness or factual basis against the State of Israel.

It is not so well known, that as a matter of UN Law, Israel is prohibited to serve on the UN Security Council, even as it's enemy nations (e.g. Syria, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Jordan, Saudia Arabia, Libya, Sudan, etc.) may and do serve on the UN Security Council. Imagine! These nations, famous for human rights abuses, serve on the UN Security Council! Oy, Vey!

When Jerusalem was under Arab hegemony, Jews were denied the right to pray at the Western Wall [commonly called the "Wailing Wall"]. This was also true and remains true, even within Israeli controlled borders, where in Arab "territories" of Israel, the State of Israel bows to local control, even when that means that Jews may not visit Holy Sites. Most famous of these are such places as the Machpellah Cave [Tomb of the Patriarchs] in Hebron, and Joseph's Tomb and Jacob's Well, both adjacent to each other on the outskirts of Nablus. Joseph's Tomb was desecrated by Arab Terrorists during the 2003 Intifada. Jews attempting to visit the Machpellah Cave are always at risk of stoning or riot or worse, and are prohibited from the Machpellah Cave most of the year. The Machpellah Cave is under the administration of the Waqf, which is the Arab religious authority, the same authority that oversees the famous Dome of the Rock Mosque. [The present Israeli Government recently announced that it intends to include the Machpellah Cave and Rachel's Tomb in a national heritage sites protection and rehabilitation plan.]

Under Israeli rule religious freedom is held as a sacred right for all including the Muslims as well as Christians, Bahai, Buddhists, Hindus, etc. This respect is taken to the incomprehensible conclusion that excludes the Waqf from showing all but the most minimal level of respect for Jewish worship at Jewish Holy Sites under Waqf hegemony. At this very moment the Waqf is well under way in it's excavations and construction of an huge Mosque directly below the present Al-Aqsa [Dome of the Rock] Mosque! This has been going on for years with the willing participation of the previous conciliatory Israeli Government, despite the rampant destruction of Israeli archaeological history resulting from the digging out of the rock.

There is a double standard in the world, that somehow it is okay for Arabs to disrespect the inherent religious right of any human being to worship as they choose, and that other religious bodies must disrespect themselves in favor of Muslim religious sensibilities. Israel is the proverbial "canary in the coal mine" in this respect.

It is disgusting enough that in the name of "peace", the Israeli government enforceably supports the Waqf in the denial of religious rights to Jews. One can see that today the Waqf barely allows or protects Jews with respect to visiting Jewish Holy Sites under Waqf administration. It is obvious that tomorrow, if statehood is granted to the Arabs of Judea-Samaria (commonly called the "West Bank"), the consequence will be that Jews will be denied access altogether.

Until recently East Jerusalem and Arab East Jerusalem and The Arab Quarter of Jerusalem were synonymous. Now the media speaks of "Illegal Israeli Occupied East Jerusalem" -- as if it were somehow illegal for a Jew to live there. In the mind of much of the media, the Arab Quarter is already the Capital of "Palestine" -- a political State that does not exist, at least not yet! And according to that same mentality, Jews have no right to live in the Arab Quarter, and the Arabs have the right to deny any such right to Jews, as they do most everywhere else under Arab or Muslim hegemony! Double standard? At least! There is no shortage of Arabs freely living in Jerusalem, who do not live in East Jerusalem. If an Arab chooses not to live in East Jerusalem and to live elsewhere in Jerusalem, it is not against the law. Nor is it against the law for a Jew to live in the Arab Quarter!

The historical behavior of the Arabs and the Waqf makes clear that if Jerusalem and/or Judea-Samaria become a world-sanctioned political hegemony, Jews will altogether be excluded and discriminated against. Whatever may come out on paper in terms of rights of Jews in a new "Palestine", the reality will be that Jews will be excluded and discriminated against. Pogroms against Jews are not unique to the history of Europe. The history of anti-Jewish pogroms by Palestinian Arabs is not a recent phenomenon of alleged Israeli "occupation". No paper agreement with any Arab authority will survive the bigotry or the Waqf or the Arabs themselves.

Europe and Russia are already so heavily populated with Muslims that Europe is often referred to as "Eurabea". Will the European nations divide themselves each in half, as they desire Israel to do, so that we will soon see, e.g. England alongside Saudia-England with capital cities London and London-Riyadh, e.g. France alongside Syria-France with capital cities Paris and Paris-Damascus, e.g. Germany alongside Iraq-Germany with capital cities Berlin and Berlin-Baghdad? Will we soon see Russia do the same, e.g. Russia alongside Iran-Russia with capital cities Moscow and Moscow-Tehran? Will we one day say Wahabi-Washinton, D.C. alongside our nation's Capitol?

Besides the simple fact that today's Eurabeans [not a coffee blend (please forgive the humor)] are in the majority not of Arab Palestinian extraction; it should be obvious, even to Europe, that the policies, history, and demographics of Europe today are as much the direct consequence of The Holocaust, as is Israel's existence as we know it today. Europe itself not only rolled over for Hitler; Europe actively aided and abetted the Nazis, as did Poland and parts of Russia such as the Ukraine, as did the Palestinian Arabs, all having bloody histories of hatred of Jews. So, now Europe and Russia, having largely ethnically cleansed themselves of Jews (even though today there are special protections for the few Jews remaining or returning), now face the Eurabea problem.

Europe and Russia, hammer-locked by increasing Muslim population growth, are caught between the extreme pressures to ethnically cleanse themselves of Muslims, and by their own pathetic politically correct rhetoric about democracy and equality even as they commit suicide! Symbolically resisting the suicide by enacting restraining laws against Muslims, one after another European State has already established new Law: restraining Muslim immigration into Holland, prohibiting the wearing of the "hajaf" [head scarf] by Muslim women in public in France, and prohibiting the construction of minarets on mosques in Switzerland.

One cannot help but think that Europe and Russia blame Israel for their ubiquitous Arab populations, as if somehow these Arabs are all "Palestinians" with a right to return to "Palestine" and that once an hypothetical new State of Palestine comes into being, all these "Palestinians" will happily and speedily leave their respective European and Russian host countries to return "home"!

Russia and Europe are mentally unstable to begin with; and, given their history of the past century and their current demographic dilemmas, Europe and Russia should profoundly re-examine their attitudes and policies towards the Arab-Israeli Conflict.

Russia and Europe will not find their increasing Muslim populations to be either democratic or tolerant of democracy. Russia and Europe inevitably must realize that the demands of democracy will require that they draw a line against Islam -- or die. They will have to limit their Muslim populations, just as Israel will, or enact segregation laws to enable peaceful co-existence. (Such an idea may fly in the face of the American mind in particular, as the word "segregation" has a loaded pejorative content with respect anti-Negro racism in America. There may be some similarities of context; but, in the largest context, America's struggle with racism is a different thing than facing the religious warfare of Islam, which is antithetical to democracy.)

As to the guilt of Russia and Europe for The Pogroms and The Holocaust: there is no theological or ethical axiom, nor democratic value, that demands Europe to seek out Muslims as the "Hand of God" in Punishment. Nor is there any similar democratic value or religious value that demands that democracies must allow anti-democracies to flourish in their midst to the point of the death of democratic hosts.

The sooner Israel formally annexes the disputed territories, and the sooner the world recognizes such annexation by Israel -- including Israel's 1967 annexation of Jerusalem -- the sooner Europe and Russia may grant themselves permission to be functional democracies and deal with their own demographic issues with Muslims -- lest they be guilty of causing their own ethnic cleansing at the hands of the Muslims.

No democratic impulse can support the division of the Arab Quarter from Jerusalem, nor Jerusalem from Israel, just as no democratic impulse can support the creation of another bigoted, anti-democratic, anti-Israeli, Arab State. Any such policy held and put forth against Israel, be it a long-standing policy or a new policy, must needs be oxymoronic in the eyes of Lady Liberty.

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...."