TU B'AV - A SOLITARY SIX-DAY "WAR" SINCE TISHA 'B'AV WITH NO VICTORY OF RELEASE FOR GILAD SHALIT.

THE GOOD NEWS IN THE PAST FOUR WEEKS IS, THAT ON 17 TAMMUZ, ISRAEL'S NAVY TOOK CONTROL OF THE SOLITARY SEA-GOING VESSEL OF THE SO-CALLED "GAZA FLOTILLA 2". It seems that the world has come to understand and find fault with such provocative propaganda exercises as the "Gaza Flotilla". Even the Turks, Greeks, and Cypriots have cooperated in restraining the "Gaza Flotilla 2", so that only the symbolic passage of one vessel has taken place, and that vessel has been peacefully intercepted. And within the next week it is anticipated that the U.N. report on the "Mavi Mamara" incident (Gaza Flotilla 1) will favor Israel's action in self-defense.

No doubt the "Arab Spring" is making "waves" of a different kind. Uprisings throughout the Arab world, the downfall of Egypt's Mubarak, NATO's effort at Libyan regime change leading to the apparent alliance of Libya's Qadaffi with Al-Quaeda, repression in Assad's Syria and calls for Syrian regime change -- all of this is occurring widely and on such a large scale that the world must realize that there are more causative factors in the world of the Arabs than tiny Israel. Europe has seen horror in Norway (a "Christian" fascist massacre), the end of Holland's liberal attitude towards "multiculturalism", and a similar reconsideration of "multiculturalism" in France. It seems that Europe has had enough of "multiculturalism" (read: "Islam").

May this month of Menachem Av bring harbingers of peace to the world. May this coming month of Elul bring reconciliation between man and man and between man and HaShem. May Rosh HaShana see Gilad Shalit home, healthy, safe, and secure in the arms of his mother, father, sister, and brother. V'omerim, "Amen".

One Jerusalem

IN THE ABSENCE OF A WORLD CLIMATE RESPECTFUL OF ISRAEL AND IN THE PRESENCE OF A WORLD CLIMATE THAT ROMANCES JIHADIST TERRORISTS, NEITHER THE CURRENT INTERNATIONAL COURT NOR THE U.N. MAY BE REGARDED AS PRACTICAL, MORAL, ETHICAL, NOR JURISDICTIONAL. IT IS INCUMBENT UPON ISRAEL TO ACT UNILATERALLY TO PASS HISTORICAL NEW LAW REITERATING THE ANNEXATION OF JERUSALEM AND DECLARING IMMEDIATE ANNEXATION OF JUDEA-SAMARIA, GOLAN, AND SHEVA FARMS. THIS NEW LEGISLATION SHOULD BE NAMED TO HONOR GILAD SHALIT AND ALL THE DISAPPEARED ISRAELI SOLDIERS. JERUSALEM MUST REMAIN ONE CITY, AS ISRAEL MUST REMAIN ONE NATION.

It should be noted that Netanyahu announced this week that Israel was considering legislating a severe reduction of the rights and privileges that now exist for prisoners in Israeli jails. This is not a constructive response to the Gilad Shalit matter (not to the contemporary matter of the mocking video cartoon produced and distributed by Hamas, nor to the extended horror of Gilad Shalit's continued Captivity, which today numbers Day 1432). Israel's moral stance as regards treatment of prisoners ought not fall victim to the cartooning of terrorists nor to their behavioral depravity. [In relation to this issue, please review the April 25 posting to which non-trivial after-content has been added.]

The Democratic World ought to consider the creation of an Organization of World Democracies independent of the U.N. The U.N. may be intended to foster democracy in the world eventually; however, it should be clear that it is not a democracy despite it's appearance to democracy. It is today in effect a mob of Third World Nations biting the hands of those, who feed them. The U.N. has largely been co-opted by dictatorships, including those such as the government of Iran, which is a dictatorship in democratic clothing. Their combined treatment of Israel ought to be understood by the democratic world as an harbinger. If the democratic world fails to stand by Israel and if the democratic world fails to strengthen itself and it's values, then the democratic world will fall by the wayside and party to the ushering-in of a New Dark Ages.