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}

WAS THE MUCH TOUTED ISRAELI AIR RAID ON THE ALLEGED "SYRIAN NUCLEAR SITE" THE MANIFESTATION OF AN OLMERT HOAX?

There is only one lauded "success" in the entire history of the Olmert legacy: the annihilation of an alleged Syrian nuclear facility. This event recalled former Israeli glories in that it represented a daring, pre-emptive strike against an alleged nuclear threat and did so under the noses of Russian radar and Russian missile defense systems.

The alleged success of this air raid stands out in stark contrast to the great failures and disasters Israel has suffered ever since KADIMA took power. Here is a partial list of those failures and disasters:

* The unilateral GAZA surrender set an ugly historical precedent for ethnic cleansing in which Israel ethnically cleansed itself from GAZA.

* The GAZA surrender split Israel apart and demoralized Israel, as well as caused untold suffering to the Arabs living in Gaza, undermined Israeli sovereignty and security, undermined Israeli and Arab economics, destabilized Arab relations, led to the incessant daily missile firings terrorizing Sderot for years, and led to the captures of Israeli soldiers Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev (may they rest in peace) and Gilad Shalit (may he be returned home safely) and the disastrous 2005 Lebanon War.

* The 2006 Cossack-like police action against the Jews of Amona was unconscionable.

* The successes of Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon (under the "HECHSHER" of United Nations Security Forces) as they consolidate power with Syrian, Iranian, and Russian assistance "feather" Olmert's cap.

* There have been increases in bold terrorist actions against Israel, tunnelling infrastructures and advanced weapons smuggling throughout Gaza.

* There have been political and propaganda advances by the Arabs and their supporters towards chopping Israel into smaller pieces (talks already are aimed at extorting Israel to make certain "hard choices": surrender the strategic Shaba Farms to Syria, Lebanon, or to the U.N.; surrender the Golan to Syria; surrender Judea-Samaria to Fatah or to Jordan; surrender East Jerusalem to Fatah or Jordan or even to Hamas; surrender the southern border crossings to Hamas so that Hamas may overrun Israel).

* One project that deserves special note is the Red Sea - Dead Sea Canal Project the French have piloted (and pledged serious money towards building) jointly with Israel, Jordan, and with the Palestinian Arabs to create a corridor along the Dead Sea geological fault that will provide a channel on the Jordanian side of the Fault to replenish the Dead Sea with sea water from the Red Sea, to build a highway and a railway connecting Gaza with Jordan and with Judea-Samaria, and to build cities and hotels and tourist facilities along the way. This smacks of an expensive plan to build the Arabian equivalent of a "Security Fence" surrounding Israel.

* The Israeli poor have suffered greatly during the Olmert tenure, and corruption has flourished to unprecedented levels including the drive-by daytime murder of an innocent civilian on an Israeli beach this week (collateral damage of a botched mafia hit).

My point in bringing out the most salient failures and disasters occurring to Israel under Olmert's Watch as Premier is that the succession of failures calls into question the credibility of the aerial attack against the alleged Syrian nuclear threat. There is no question that both Israeli morale and Olmert's standing were bolstered -- for a short while. Yet, Israeli morale has not been high and Olmert has just today announced that he will resign in September (if he can be believed).

There is an ugly air of inevitability in the world and amongst many in Israel that sooner rather than later, Israel will lose the Shaba Farms, Golan, Judea-Samaria, and East Jerusalem to the Arabs, and that it is not a question of who will make the deal as it is a question of when the deal will be made. Looking to Kadima, Labor, Likud, or any other Party or movement to defy this sense of fatalism successfully at the ballot box and in the arena of international opinion has been stultifying.

IT IS MY CONJECTURE THAT THE ISRAELI AIR RAID ON THE ALLEGED SYRIAN NUCLEAR FACILITY WAS NOTHING BUT A PROPAGANDA STUNT OF SMOKE AND MIRRORS DESIGNED TO MAKE OLMERT LOOK LIKE THE WARRIOR HE IS NOT, TO CREATE A FALSE PERSPECTIVE OF STRENGTH IN OLMERT'S LEADERSHIP, AND TO FACILITATE ADDITIONAL CAPITULATIONS TO THE SYRIANS, THE LEBANESE, HEZBOLLAH, HAMAS, AND FATAH.

IT IS MY CONJECTURE THAT ISRAEL BOMBED NOTHING MORE THAN AN EMPTY WAREHOUSE IN THE MIDDLE OF SYRIAN NOWHERE -- A "PEACENIKS'S DREAM" -- TRICK THE WARRIORS INTO THINKING THAT APPEASERS ACTUALLY WAGED PRECISE, SUCCESSFUL, SURGICAL WARFARE, EVEN ON THE HEELS OF THE 2005 DISASTER OF THE LEBANON WAR; AND, MAKE POLITICAL MONEY IN THE PROCESS BY EXPENDING EXPENSIVE WEAPONRY THAT MUST NEEDS BE REPLACED, WITHOUT ACTUALLY KILLING ANY ENEMIES OR DESTROYING ANY ENEMY RESOURCES OF VALUE.

IT IS AS IF OLMERT HAD CALLED UP ASSAD AND SAID TO HIM, "LISTEN, BASHAR, I HAVE A GREAT IDEA; NO ONE HAS TO GET HURT AND WE CAN MAKE A LOT OF MONEY AND MAYBE EVEN WIN NOBEL PRIZES; YOU WILL LOOK SLIGHTLY EMBARRASSED IN THE MEDIA FOR A SHORT WHILE; BUT, IT WILL ALL WORK OUT AND THEN YOU WILL LOOK VERY GOOD. INTERESTED? TELL ME, DO YOU NEED A LITTLE DEMOLITION WORK DONE, THAT WE CAN DO FOR YOU FROM THE AIR AT NO CHARGE TO YOU? WE'LL GIVE OUR FLY BOYS A LITTLE EXERCISE, TARGET PRACTICE IN SYRIA, IF YOU WILL; WE'LL LEVEL WHATEVER SITE NEEDS LEVELING WITH A FEW WELL PLACED BOMBS, WE'LL INFLATE THE FACTS IN THE MEDIA TO SUGGEST THAT WE TOOK OUT A SECRET SYRIAN NUCLEAR FACILITY THAT WAS IN THE MAKING, ISRAELI'S WILL FEEL SO GOOD THAT THEY'LL BE READY TO GIVE YOU BACK THE GOLAN...."

IS BARRAK HUSSEIN OBAMA TOO GLIB , TOO PLAGIARISTIC, AND TOO DANGEROUS?

In Deutschland today Barrak Obama made a platitudinous speech drawing on the respective liturgies of Martin Luther King and Ronald Wilson Reagan, melding idealistic aspects of King's famous "I have a dream..." speech with Reagan's "Tear down these walls..." speech. Even as a metaphor, Obama's words about "tearing down of walls between peoples", including for example between Muslims and Jews, sent forboding chills up and down my spine, as I immediately thought of Barak Hussein Obama, sitting in the White House, pressuring Israel to tear down Israel's Security Fence, ushering in a new era of terror to the Holy Land.

Obama's speech-making in Europe ensues his week in Israel, where he visited with Israeli leaders and with Arab leaders, where he visited the Western Wall and Yad Vashem and Gaza, and where he of course did some speech-making. [If Obama visited in the Dome of the Rock, the press did not broadcast it loudly or ubiquitously.]

As Obama drew into his own speech-making from such illustrious sources as Reagen and King, we must ask two questions: 'Would either Ronald Reagan or Martin Luther King call for Israel to tear down the Security Fence? Would either Ronald Reagan or Martin Luther King analogize Israel's Security Fence to East Germany's Berlin Wall [even by inference]?'

Both Ronald Reagan and Martin Luther King would roll over in their respective graves, should anyone presume that they would answer those two questions in the affirmative!

Martin Luther King vociferously declared that those claiming to be anti-Zionist, anti-Israel, yet not anti-Jewish were in fact blatantly anti-Israel, anti-Israeli, and anti-Jewish. Reverend King would not have failed to distinguish between Israel's Security Fence, which was successfully built to dramatically decrease acts of terror against Israelis by Arabs, and the Berlin Wall, which was built by the Soviets with the intent to isolate and ghettoize West Berlin into submission, surrender, and incorporation into Soviet occupied East Germany (West Berlin was under Allied aegis after WW2). The famous Berlin Airlift maintained the freedom of West Berlin.

Ronald Reagan, too, would have understood that there was no similarity between Israel's Security Fence and the Berlin Wall. During the 'middle game' of the Cold War, an earlier American President, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, spoke famously in Germany, saying, "Ich bin ein Berliner!" ("I am a Berlin resident!"); years later President Reagan was able to challenge the Soviet leadership into the 'end game' of the Cold War, saying at his most famous speech in West Germany, "Mr. Gorbachev! Tear down that Wall!"

President Reagan's leadership led to the demise of the Soviet Union and to the tearing down of the Berlin Wall. The tearing down of the Berlin Wall harbingered Germany's reunification and symbolized the demise of the Soviet Empire. Tearing down Israel's Security Fence would not reunite a divided nation; but,it would dramatically facilitate a resurgence of violence against Israelis by Arabs from the geographical territories of Judea and Samaria.

There is no analogy between the Berlin Wall and Israel's Security Fence. But, in the context of Obama's visits to Israel and Gaza and then on to speech-making in Europe, one has to wonder, if Obama does not in fact falsely analogize Israel's Security Fence to the Berlin Wall. Setting aside the Obama glibness and his tendency to build up his own image by quoting truly great men [a form of 'name dropping' by which to gain favor by association with great men], the World must ask Obama, whether or not he is calling for the destruction of Israel's Security Fence. Unlike John McCain, who does not speak enigmatically and who speaks clearly and simply, Barrak Obama is given to puffery, ambiguity, and floweriness of speech; he does not like to be pinned down to specific views, to definite statements, to policy committments.

Yet, Obama is not without a record.... just go to "Google" and search "Obama, Israel Security Fence"; this one issue leads to many issues. As President, Barrak Hussein Obama is likely to be glibly dangerous to Israel, to Arabia, to Persia, to the USA, and to the World.

BONES, DRONES, DOMES, ROCKS, MISSILES, AND DRAMATIC BREAKTHROUGH OF ARAB-ISRAELI PEACE (SATIRE)

NEWS: And so the bones of Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser have been returned home to Israel, even as the bones of 200 Hezbollah/Lebanese are being returned to their homes for final rest, and a new round of wars can commence, once Gilad Shallit is returned home in one piece (happy, healthy, and alive?) to Israel from his captivity in Gaza by Hamas, may it be soon! Of course to make the deal for the dead with Hezbollah, Israel returned Samir Kuntar and four other Hezbollah terrorists alive and well to their homes. (The more things change, the more things stay the same....)

NUUUZZ: More miraculous is the Saudi sponsored "Religious Tolerance Conference" decision to build replicas of the Beth-HaMikdash and St. Peters Cathedral alongside the Kaba in Mecca and to invite viable communities of Jews and Catholics to move to Mecca and become full, equal Saudi Arabian citizens and to worship according to the Jewish and Catholic faiths in their respective new worship houses. In keeping with this extraordinary new initiative by the Arabs -- in particular by the Muslim Brotherhood with the full support of all the Muslim nations worldwide -- every capitol and major city in the Muslim world will do the same, inviting Jews they had expelled half a century ago to return, and setting up a compensation fund to make up for the hardship caused to these Jewish refugees, and committing to cease the present persecutions of Jews and Christians and Hindus and Buddhists, etc., to cease burning the holy texts of non-Muslims, and to allow the teaching and proselytization of other religions in accordance with democratic principles. Construction is to commence on 17 Tammuz this year and to conclude on 9AV next year (bli-neder).

Drone aircraft operated by the Allied Coalition Forces confirm that even in Iran all of these construction activities that indicate huge supply depots of anything and everything could well be intended for the Holy Construction Project.

Nu??

(And long may the Dome of the Rock look out in peace and harmony over all Israel....)

AS THE "THREE WEEKS" COMMENCE ....

As the "Three Weeks" commence upon Israel this coming Motzeh Shabbath, what can be said of the imminent prisoner exchanges with Hezbollah and Lebanon? That the hearts of Israel will be broken with tears of "closure", as the bones of soldiers are laid to rest in the Israeli homeland? And three weeks later will there be the rending of garments in joy, Gilad Shallit having been returned whole, healthy, and safely to his family, his home, and his country (even by Hamas)? Shall there be comfort in Menachem Av such that in Elul there will be reconciliations leading to Shalom v'Ahavas within Israel? Will there be a true peace between Israel and it's enemies? Or will these coming Three Weeks be laced with incomprehensible, evil, deadly "surprises"? Will the World press Israel into the "peace" of humiliation, territorial surrender, and even more advanced corruptions? When Israel blows the Shofar on Rosh HaShannah, what will The Holy One, Blessed Be HE, Write at the "Head of the Year"? Whom will HE inscribe in HIS Book of LIfe? How will HE Seal HIS Book on Yom Kippur?

IMMINIENT " PRISONER" EXCHANGES, FALSE IDEAS OF PEACE WITH SYRIA AND LEBANON, AND A CONSIDERATION OF STRATEGY WITH RESPECT TO IRAN'S NUCLEAR THREAT.

BONES AND BLOOD

There can be no doubt of the value of the prisoner exchange with Hezbollah that will return the bones of dead Israeli soldiers to Israel and to Lebanon. Even the handful of live enemies returned to Lebanon including Samir Kuntar do not mitigate the psychological and emotional need for closure with respect to the dead in both Israel and Lebanon. We may hope and pray that a successful exchange of bones and blood with Hezbollah will quickly inspire some good will in Gaza, despite the more immediately urgent strife and tension there. Perhaps in the workings of HaKadosh BaruchHu, the return of Samir Kuntar alive to Lebanon will result in the return of Gilad Shalit alive to Israel from Gaza. May it be so, and soon, and we may say, "AMEN".

HAR DOV (SHEBA FARMS), GOLAN - AND SINAI AND GAZA

Two articles in the July 12 issue of the Jerusalem Post address peace prospects with Syria and Lebanon and speak specifically to the return by Israel of Mount Dov (Shaba Farms) and the Golan, speaking even to the possibility of a promise of a warmer peace from Syria towards Israel (by return of the Golan) than the cold peace Israel has with Jordan and Egypt. Har Dov might conceivably be turned over to the United Nations according to a Plan conceived by the French. According to Nicholas Sarkozy, President of France, the UN would be Caretaker to this parcel until Lebanon and Syria settle their ownership dispute. Israel won this parcel from Syria during the famous Six-Day War of 1967, just as Israel won the Golan then in some of the bloodiest of necessary war. It is suggested that in following the French Plan Israel would send a positive signal to both Lebanon and Syria.

(Setting aside issues such as current Israeli settlements on Har Dov, whether or not it is Syria or Lebanon from whom Israel won Har Dov, how safe Israelis would be there if the UN became Caretaker, how quickly Hezbollah would infiltrate Har Dov....)

(Setting aside the ludicrous suggestion of warm peace with Syria overnight or anytime soon....)

The question must be asked, "When it comes to "land for peace", why is it that Israel, the perennial victim of Arab and Muslim aggression, must return parcels of land -- land that once belonged to Ancient Israel itself -- land won in our time in defensive warfare -- in order for a semblance of peace, warm, cold, or otherwise? When Israel returned the entirety of Sinai to Egypt, Israel won a cold peace with Egypt and set a precedent that Arabs and indeed Any Nation can wage war on Israel and expect no tangible consequences. This is the basis on which the lopsided, one-sided "land for peace" policy has dogged Israel for decades -- decades of decadence, violence, loss of face, loss of faith, loss of trust, and deep corruption. There is no greater example of this than the unilateral withdrawl from Gaza, which devastated the Jewish residents of Gaza, which set an additional precedent that ethnic cleansing against Jews is acceptable realpolitik, and which has led to incessant Intifada in Gaza and Judea-Samaria.

If Israel's enemies want a real and a warm peace with Israel, it is their turn to offer their land for true peace! If a precedent is necessary here, then let Egypt show the way by selling or even gifting ten percent of the Sinai to Israel! Let Syria offer to sell or gift the Golan to Israel! Let Syria and Lebanon together "settle" their own dispute over Har Dov by together either selling or gifting Har Dov to Israel! And this should not be perceived as a remarkable suggestion! If there is anything remarkable at all, it is the blinded eyes by which the World has brought so many, even in Israel, to find Israel to be at fault, Israel as Occupier, and Israel as Agressor -- all this, when History proclaims exactly that it is Israel that has fought again and again and again defensively for it's very life! That Israel transformed from Victim to Victor does not change the reality Israel fought defensively against massive aggression seeking to annihilate Israeli life from the face of the Earth. Nor does reasonable assertion of Victory by Israel make Israel the source of wrongdoing. Lebanon and Syria waged multiple wars on Israel, seeking Israel's destruction -- and they lost! Israeli victory was contingent on taking and holding specific strategic parcels of enemy territory, and there is no reason that any enemy should even have the chutzpah to think that such territory be returned! If Israel's "friends" favor such territorial returns, then Israel should question their alleged friendships! If Israelis favor that these strategic parcels be returned to Lebanon and Syria, then the drunken self-absorpiton of these Israeli's is no excuse for Israel itself to surrender!

IRAN'S NUKES: TO BOMB IRAN, OR NOT TO BOMB IRAN -- IS THAT THE QUESTION?

In another story in the July 12 Jerusalem Post it is pointed out that the video footage and photographs of this week's Iranian missle launching exercise were doctored, using "photoshop" or some such similar computer method, just as similar doctoring techniques were used by Hesbollah and Hamas to distort events within the past several years, such as the falsification of the reality of an Israeli aerial bombing in Beirut during the 2006 Lebanon War and such as the hoax at Netzarim Junction in Gaza in September of 2000, when the shooting death (allegedly by Israeli soldiers) of an Arab boy in the arms of his father proved in fact to be a fake and a fraud.

Despite Iran's military advancements, it is not yet likely that Iran is the threat it boasts itself to be. This cannot be taken for granted; but, it is the likely reality. One is reminded of the Israeli tactic during the 1947-48 War of Independence to bomb the Arab troops with empty coca-cola bottles from the handful of Piper Cub aircraft that made up the Israeli Air Force at that time of Israel's inception. It seems Israel's enemies have learned this tactic and has used it with extraordinary result in the media.

Not that real missiles equate to empty coca-cola bottles -- except to the extent that their capabilities are exaggerated and cause over-reaction of one kind or another, be that over-reaction fear and withdrawl, or fear and engagement.

It is inevitable that many Arab countries will have nuclear capabilities in the next decade or two. European nations, especially France, are already engaging with Arab countries such as Egypt and Jordan to build nuclear reactors for the production of electrical power. We know Russia is behind the Iranian nuclear effort, which is the superpower thorn in the side of bringing about a regime change in Iran. And this is the truth of it! It is inevitable that, sooner or later, Iran will have a nuclear power capability. For that matter it is not at all unlikely that sooner or later Iraq will also have a nuclear power capability, either under American aegis or under European aegis.

So the Iran question really boils down to the need for regime change in Iran that will cease military nuclear objectives, and to the need for this regime change to occur quickly enough so that the nuclear capability and the missile capability are not sufficiently refined to be a real threat to the Middle East Region. This means Russia must be dealt with one way or another, not merely Iran....

SHOAH AND ANTI-SHOAH

On May 1 the Israeli Nazereth District Court granted permission for the Islamic Movement to use the Town of Nazereth Soccer Stadium for it's scheduled celebration of the birthday of the prophet Muhammed; to which this year the Islamic Movement has added for the first time the commemoration of AL-NAQBA. It is most perverse that in Israel there is no apparent law against the negative commemoration "Al-Naqba". "Al-Naqba" is the Arab formalized anti-recognition of the State of Israel.

The literal meaning of "Al-Naqba" is "The Catastrophe". "Al-Naqba" would be a suitable Arabic designation for the Shoah (The Holocaust). But it is not. If there does exist an appropriate word in Arabic for the Shoah, it has been flagrantly ommitted publicly in favor of the ubiquitous view amongst the Muslims that the Shoah was an invention of Jewish propaganda.

"Al-Naqba" would be a suitable name for a suicide/homicide bomber. It is instead the name for the Arab anti-celebration to "Israel Independence Day". It is flagrantly alien, treasonous, seditious, inciteful, rude, insulting, and disgusting that Israel's Muslims, as well as many secular Arabs, celebrate this anti-Israel Commemoration Day, which day could just as well be called "Anti-Holocaust Day". It seems to matter little to the Arab citizens of Israel that they disrespect the nation of their citizenship. That citizenship should be taken away from them, as should all the rights and priviliges they enjoy as citizens of Israel. Even then the reality of their lives would not begin to match the horrors they studiously portray to the world.

It is equally disgusting and perhaps even more alarming that Israel permits, approves, and encourages such "free speech". Israel would do well to take a lesson from the pages of American post-revolution history and enact suitable "Alien and Sedition" legislation. There is a difference between free speech and treason, between testy opinion and sedition. Israel had best learn and apply the difference, for therein lies the source of Israel's demographic problem. Israel has long had the legal and moral upperhand to annex Golan, Judea-Samaria, and Israel has already annexed all of Jerusalem. These are rights won in defensive war. How is it that Israel is loathe to exercise these universally recognized rights? How is it that Israel is not loathe to perceive the distincions of free speech v. treason, and exercize proper expulsion?

YOM HA SHOAH - HOLOCAUST REMEMBRANCE DAY

Today Israel marks "Yom Ha Shoah" (Holocaust Remembrance Day) and one wonders what, if anything, the world has learned since then, especially given the unrelenting battles against Holocaust Deniers. In a twisted way Jews and Israel are still in the practice of "collaboration" and at times the distinction becomes blurred between friends and enemies.

Gilad Shalit, Ehud Goldwasser, and Eldad Regev are observing Yom Ha Shoah in the captive arms of Hamas and Hezbollah or even from their graves. Sderot and the Negev are attacked daily by Qassam rocket fire from Gaza and Sinai. Hamas gains strength from across the Egyptian border. Hezbollah grows stronger in the south of Lebanon even in the face of UN observer forces. In the middle east neighborhood, Iraq is still a terrorist training ground, and all nations are torn by terror. And the public acknowledgments by Israel and the USA about the Septemeber destruction by Israel of a viable nuclear option in Syria may or may not harbinger a repeat in Iran sometime soon. (Not that there's anything wrong with that, and may Ahmadinijad be caught on site simultaneously....)

American Foreign Policy still states that a viable "Palestinian" state should be made manifest in Judea-Samaria and Gaza side by side in peace and harmony with a diminished Israel. One could capture such a cartoon with the song, "Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer true..." as the state of Israel and "Palestine" head off into the sunset on a "Bicycle Built For Two".

As we count the days from Pesach to Shavuoth, as we remember the preceding concealed miracles of Purim, let us hope that the time will come soon, that our captive Israeli soldiers are set free in great joy and in good health, that Sderot and the Negev see much rain and no more rockets, that Israel annexes Judea-Samaria, and that peace triumphs in a world that decides to remember and learn from the Shoah.

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.

GILAD SHALIT, SDEROT, EGYPT, U.N. SECURITY COUNCIL ....

In these past three weeks GILAD SHALIT'S name has been tossed about like a cheap chip on a poker table. SDEROT and other Israeli sites in the NEGEV have been hit repeatedly by Qassam rockets. Egyptian soldiers have aided and abetted terrorists, who have tunelled into Egypt in order to obtain weapons and to smuggle terrorists. Egypt has opened it's border willy-nilly to allow thousands of HAJ pilgrims (and not a few terrorists) into Egypt on their way to Mecca in Saudi Arabia. Tsipi Livni makes excuses at every opportunity for Israel's enemies, even stating that real time events such as the daily bombing, smuggling, captivities, hate propaganda, etc. should be disregarded and should be not be permitted to interfere with "peace talks". Presumably there should be no discussion of the ANNAPOLIS AGENDA until some rubber-stamp ratification time, at which time Israel would give away East Jerusalem, Golan, and Samaria-Judea.

All the while the more "peace" Israel makes, the more military necessity drives the reality on the ground. Even the air is related to the ground, if one considers that the September Israeli air raid into eastern Syria took out a facility [probably nuclear] that was located on the ground and not yet in the air. So the Syrian border is HOT, the Lebanese border remains HOT, and the GAZA border is a HEATED incessant "low-grade war" between Israel and the various terror groups operating in GAZA, including HAMAS and FATAH. The biggest money going into Israel now is less about investment in the future and more about imminent war.

Poverty and all the ills that come along with poverty are on the increase and have been for decades. National unity is on such a decline that civil war in Israel is not unthinkable. Certainly national pride has taken a tumble, as has Israeli esteem in the world. Israel should have a permanent seat on the UN Security Council; instead it is the only nation in the UN forbidden to serve on the UNSC, even while Israel's enemies rotate in and out of the UNSC. Israel should have permanent borders, which it should determine unilaterally on the basis of JUSTICE (and this means justice to the treatment of Jews for three thousand years, not the perversion of justice given to us by popular world opinion, which is largely based on ignorance, propaganda, and the romantic revolutionary fad of the moment). Israel should even consider retaking borders it has given away in the expectation of peace, having received only war and terror.

Israel must remind the world that Israel itself in our time is a nation of refugees - Jewish refugees from all over the world - and that today's so-called "Palestinian" people are not innocent in the history of the suffering of Jewish refugees. Until recently the term "Palestinian" referred as equally to Jews as to Arabs and others living in the land labelled "Palestine" by the historical Roman Empire.

Israel continues to be pushed into the Mediterranean; yet, the majority of Israeli''s today seem not to perceive this. In the media Israel has already been truncated back to 1947 borders; Israeli politics itself strokes this process! It is a process that commenced in the 1970's, when Israeli politics gave political credence and life to ideas such as a JUDENFREI state of enemy Arabs to be called "Palestine". This idea gained real flesh in 2005, when Israel abandoned GAZA. Jews can justify bigotry against Jews, even to the point of expelling Jews from their own historical land, land won once again after thousands of years of exile; yet, Jews will not expel the FIFTH COLUMN within the State of Israel that enjoys Israeli citizenship, but, which celebrates AL NAQBA ("The Catastrophe" of the creation of the State of Israel).

Israel may once have thought that, having made "peace" with Egypt and Jordan, PEACE with the remaining world of Islam would come easily by conceding to a "Palestinian" state, even a state run by such as Yasser Arafat. Israel still thinks even now that such a "peace" is so obvious that even the sworn enemies of Israel must see it too and must share the same vision with Israel, even against the tenets of the Muslim Faith! Israel, wake up! You are not at war with just a handful of Arafats; you are at war with all Islam! Islam recognizes no Israel and no Israeli border! Israel does not exist on the Islamic map of the world! It is an illusion to think the problem can be localized and dealth with locally by creating another Islamic state that will hate Israel! Enough! Enough! Enough!

H p p y C h n k h

Tonight is the first night of CHANNUKAH. There has been so much tumult the past few weeks pertaining to the Annapolis Summit, and CHANNUKAH commences earlier than usual (by the common calendar), that one may feel as though CHANNUKAH has crept up upon oneself and taken oneself by surprise. One may not even feel ready for CHANNUKAH. Yet, CHANNUKAH is here! CHANNUKAH in a sense is always here, as there has been an ongoing civil war between Torah Judaism and Greco-Judaism since the time of the MACCABEES. Our own individual hearts and minds may be torn between the call of each of these, just as our families may be torn between each of these. In our exile (which could also be spelled exhile), that is to say, in our GALUT, most of us are torn between the maelstrom of surviving in our respective host culture, while attempting to maintain our Judaism. It is never easy. However, concerned as we are about our own individual lives this CHANNUKAH, let us take a few moments, when we light our candles, to keep in mind the captive ISRAELI SOLDIERS, the unending rocketing of SDEROT, and the allignment of the world to isolate, shrink, and destroy ISRAEL. Just as it was the MACCABEES then, who defeated the Seleucids (Greco-Syrians), and who re-established the KEDUSHA of the BETH HAMIKDASH, may ISRAEL and JEWS everywhere be positively infected with the spirit of the MACCABEES, today, this holiday, in our time... may MASHIACH come, unite ISRAEL, and make ISRAEL One and inviolable. AND LET US SAY "AMEN".

ANNAPOLIS SUMMIT

In less than eight hours the formal Annapolis Middle-East Summit talks commence. The significance of this Summit is to be understood in terms of who is there, and who is not there.

Significantly appearing at Annapolis is Syria. Significantly absent is Iran, as well as Hezbollah and Hamas. As we hear talk of the potential high costs to Israel -- Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and Golan -- there is yet the potential to turn Syria away from Iran and to pressure Hezbollah and Hamas. Establishing a separation between Syria and Iran would mean a profound change in the "flavor" of the region and would be a major political coup for the Bush Administration in Washington, DC.

Many uncertainties exist. Regardless of anticipated minimalism in terms of documented agreements to result from the Summit, Israel is the party at the Summit with the most to lose. If history is at all an indicator, then Israel should anticipate being called upon to sacrifice far too much, far too soon, and to receive a "thank you" in the form of a Fourth Intifada. This writer says "Fourth Intifada", as Israel is even now engaged by a Third Intifada (though this Intifada has not been so named) ever since Israel unilaterally surrendered Gaza.

A little history:

The First Intifada followed Israel's "shotgun wedding" of dubious peace with Egypt (and later with Jordan) a few years after the Yom Kippur War. The Second Intifada followed Ehud Barak's unilateral withdrawl from southern Lebanon and the ensuing failure of the Arafat-Barak talks at Camp David in the last year of the Clinton Administration. And, as we speak, the Third Intifada progresses with each Qassam rocket fired into Sderot from Gaza, with each attempt to infiltrate murderous "martyrs" into Israel, with every day Gilad Shalit (and all Israeli MIA's) remains in captivity; and this Third Intifada is not separate from the recent Second Lebanon War....

Now, Camp David is where President Jimmy Carter twisted Menachem Begin's arm to cause Israel to concede far more than Israel should have: in returning the entirety of Sinai to Egypt, a precedent was set to all Arab nations, that they would risk no permanent territorial losses by waging their wars of extinction against Israel.... Camp David is where President Bill Clinton pressed Yasser Arafat to accept a deal only delusional persons could believe that Arafat would accept (delusional in that any expectation of Arafat as a partner in peace could only be delusional)....

Of the many uncertainties about this Summit there is symbolism in the location by which one obtains hope: Annapolis is not Camp David! Camp David, in Maryland's mountains, formally known as the "Naval Support Facility Thurmont", as a Presidential Retreat had it's origins as "Shangri-La" during the administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt, and was later renamed "Camp David" during the Eisenhower Administration in honor of Ike's grandson.

Annapolis, Capitol of the State of Maryland, can trace it's origins to 1649, and is the home of the US Naval Academy. Annapolis became the temporary Capitol of the USA in 1783 after the signing of the Treaty of Paris, and is where George Washington resigned his commission as Commander-in-Chief of the US Army on December 23, 1783, almost to the day seven years earlier, when after midnight on Christmas of 1776, he and his men famously crossed the frozen Delaware River and in a surprise attack, routed the Hessian mercenary army, giving the American Revolution it's first military victory.

One hopes the associations that come to mind in the choice of Annapolis as conversational locus, rather than "Shangri-La", will give the Summit a depth of possibility that has not here-to-fore existed.

Jews and Judaism have important roots in the American Revolution and in the American Military and especially in the US Navy. In fact the Jewish Chapel and Religious Center of the Naval Academy at Annapolis is named for Commodore Uriah P. Levy, veteran of the War of 1812, and who famously put an end to the naval punishment of flogging in 1850; at the US Naval Station at Norfolk, Virginia, there is also a Synagogue named for him; it was Commodore Levy and his descendents, who restored and preserved Monticello (historic home of President Thomas Jefferson) during the period 1834 through 1923, when the private non-profit Thomas Jefferson Foundation bought the property.

Commodore Levy should be a great symbol for Israel and for America today. Commodore Levy himself experienced great anti-semitism in the US Navy from the age of fourteen and throughout his career. Yet he rose to the top, the rank of Commodore (then equivalent to today's Admiral).

By analogy, after more than two-thousand years of exile and profound anti-semitism, Israel is a leading nation in the modern world.

It is unconscienable that there are scores of nations in the world today, who refuse to recognize Israel's existence and existential right. It is unconscienable that these very nations rotate in and out of the United Nations Security Council, even as Israel is the only member of the United Nations singled out to be denied the right and responsibility to serve on the UNSC. This status quo is not tolerable. If anything, Israel ought to be a permanent member of the UNSC.

The enemies of Israel have only one thought for Israel -- Israel's destruction. No matter what Israel justly regains, Israel is asked to surrender; whatever Israel surrenders or generously gives, Israel is answered in return by evil, not by goodness. If there is no shame in Israel's enemies, is there at least the possibility of shame among Israel's supposed allies?

And now, a less mundane perspective on the Summit:

For those readers of Christian Faith, consider and ask yourselves, even if for just a moment, can you possibly consider Ancient Israel as a metaphor for Christ? Can you then possibly regard today's State of Israel as a metaphor for the Second Coming? One stretches this analogy before you to ask, "Is there any Christian theology that calls for a Second Cruxifiction?"

Again, for those readers of Christian Faith, who perceive in today's world events such portents as to indicate that the world now faces the End of Days and all that entails: do you not recall the words from the Sermon on the Mount of Olives, when your Saviour was asked, when he would return, and he said, "Only the Father knows...." Do you then presume to know, what only "the Father" can know?

One knows that there is no Christian doctrine of a Second Cruxifiction. As well, one knows that it is presumptious for any human being to speak or promulgate the End of Days, lest one be guilty of the great Sin of Idolatry. Any policy that is designed to weaken Israel and bring about Armageddon, be it based on Idolatrous Theology, can only have as a consequence a "Second Cruxifiction" of Israel.

[Actually, historically, such an Holocaust to Israel today could be regarded as one of many such "Cruxifictions" (consider the Hitler persecutions during WW2, the Soviet persecutions, the preceding Russian and Polish pogroms, the Inquisition....)]

The point of this aspect of conversation is that, even in our democratic, largely Christian, but, religiously pluralistic America, there are various undercurrents of Christian fundamentalism, some of which are as virulent in their anti-Judaism as is the Jihadism of the Muslims with whom the War on Terror is now being waged. If our American Government is persuaded by any Christian fundamentalism of idolatrous character, believing to know with certainty, that which "only the Father" can know, then, instead of being a place, where America's highest values can be expected to be upheld in our time, Annapolis and the American Tradition embodied by Annapolis through American history could be betrayed.

This writer cannot presume to know the mind of the Government, let alone the Mind of the Lord Above. This writer can only hope and pray, as an American and as a Jew, that our Government does not and shall not presume to be the Lord Above or to know His Mind, and that as decent human beings - perhaps even as great human beings in the best traditions of Washington, Jefferson, and Levy - that human dignity and rights will win out in any discourses pertaining to peace and war, and that Israel will not be sacrificed to any mad illusions of "The Rapture" in our time....

TUESDAY'S RALLIES FOR THE RELEASE OF ISRAEL'S SOLDIERS FROM ENEMY CAPTIVITY

Earlier this week rallies occurred worldwide calling for the release of Israel's soldiers, who have been tortured and held in captivity for no less than a year and for more than twenty years, not even allowed visits by the Red Cross!

Hillel was a key organizer and participant in these rallies, and is to be commended. (May these rallies this past Tuesday be only the first of many, and as the word gets out, may the size and media coverage expand exponentially.) There should be a permanent rally spot outside the UN building in NYC, calling attention to this issue every day!

Sunday, November 11, is simultaneously Rosh Chodesh KISLEV, Veteran's Day (USA), and Remembrance Day (Canada). This next coming Sunday, November 11, would be a fitting day for more rallies! We could call for the return of all MIA's and all captive soldiers throughout the world! Much good can come as a consequence of mutual worldwide recognition!

CONSPICUOUS BY HIS ABSENCE: MID-EAST ENVOY TONY BLAIR....

There is so much activity this week in the news that making sense of it is not just a challenge, it's a necessity. Sometimes a name not in the news can be more telling than a name actually in the news. But, before speaking to the conspicuous absense of Mideast Envoy Tony Blair....

KARACHI, PAKISTAN was the site on Thursday, October 18, of an horrific deadly double-bombing that took the lives of well over a hundred Pakistanis greeting former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto on her return from eight years of exile. Our hearts go out to the freedom loving people of Pakistan, who are threatened by the same mentality and terror groups that hate Israel. One can only hope that this horrible act of terror will strengthen the developing bonds between President Pervez Musharraf, Benazir Bhutto, and all the forces in opposition to Al-Quaeda, the Taliban, and other extremist groups in Pakistan.

WASHINGTON, D.C. was the site of ceremony and respect given by President Bush to the Dalai Lama of Tibet. Our best wishes to the Dalai Lama and to the invaded of Tibet, may the "Mandalla" be beautifully and speedily rebuilt in our times!

In the meantime two names have been in the news of late as regards Israel, those names being our Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, and presidential hopeful Senator Sam Brownbeck. Secretary Rice is engaged in urgent flurries of shuttle diplomacy seeking to bring about the "end game" in terms of realizing a two-state solution to the Israel v. "Palestinian" problem. Senator Brownbeck meanwhile has endorsed Israel MK Benny Elon's "peace plan" calling for involvement of the Jordanians and calling an end to the "land for peace" doctrine and practice.

Using the game of chess as an analogy to the current flurry of moves, then Israel can be viewed as being "forked" by two choices: "Land for Peace" a la Secretary Rice or "Land for Peace" a la Tony Blair. Admittedly this latter view is a reasoned speculation; but, consider: it was the British, who renegged on Balfour, leading to the Jordanian annexation of Judea and Samaria in 1947. In the past few months Tony Blair has graduated from Prime Minister of Britain to Mideast Envoy of the Quartet. Simultaneously various Israeli leaders have commenced to talk about involving Jordan in a solution to peace. Therefore the following caution must be issued to Israelis: any solution involving Jordan may inevitably lead to the loss of Judea and Samaria and an inevitable bloodbath of "Palestinians".

The plan of MK Benny Alon and even Sam Brownbeck may well intend to keep Judea and Samaria in Israeli hands and may even intend the annexation of these Biblical Lands to the modern State of Israel. Israelis may find this idea logical and attractive, as it is indeed logical and attractive. However, the world at large seeks to sever these lands from Israel, and the world at large cannot conceive of a peace plan that does not place Judea and Samaria in non-Jewish hegemony. It does not matter that, as in 1970 during the reign of the preceding King Hussein, the Jordanians necessarily massacred tens of thousands of rebellious "Palestinians" and would likely have to do it again on perhaps an even larger scale; the world at large would wash it's hands of the matter, look the other way, and say, "It's Arab business...." Israel should not give the world the pretext for such a massacre by - even with the best of intentions - suggesting Jordanian hegemony over those "Palestinians" still in Israel's charge today. Indeed, a Jordanian return to the Kotel might not bode well for the present King Abdullah II, whose great-grandfather and namesake King Abdullah I was murdered by "Palestinians" on the very steps of the Al-Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, while on his way to Friday prayers.

Now is not the time to involve Jordan in an Israeli peace solution, although it is the time to involve Jordan in heightened security actions. Jordan already has a million refugees from Iraq, and therefore needs help to deal with that reality. Clearly, it is not the time to ask them to accept responsibility for an additional million "Palestinians" (even if these "Palestinians" are well reimbursed). Nor is it time to place the Temple Mount or any Israeli Biblical Land this side of the Jordan River into Jordanian [nor "Palestinian"] rule. Did Israeli soldiers fight their bloody way into the Holy City in 1967, so that forty years later, the Kotel should be gifted back from whence it was won, thence to be trampled on? Has Israel lost it's mind and it's honor? It is utterly amazing and disgusting to hear talk of turning hegemony of Judea, Samaria, East Jerusalem, and the Temple Mount over to the Jordanians!

Conspicuously absent in the news even more than Tony Blair are the names of the eight Israeli captive soldiers, be they living or be they dead. Their absences should speak to all of us louder than all the other news, and should cause us to resolve ourselves not to fall prey to Trojan Horses, nor to be distracted by the compelling scent of Scrambled Eggs. The underbelly of Jordanian involvement would mask great bloodshed and destruction; the recent Israeli bombing in Syria made possible by the evasion of Syria's Russian radar may sizzle; but, it isn't steak....

AHMADINIJAD WOULD BE FUNNY (IF HE WEREN'T SO SERIOUS....)

Tonight begins the first night of SUKKOTH. Our eight Israeli MIA's are neither at home, nor making kiddush in a SUKKA. Such respect and courtesy will not come from their captors. Here in the USA, America has been treated to the visit of IRAN's Ahmadinijad. According to Ahmadinijad all the problems in the MIDDLE EAST including America's warring are caused by the influence of "The Zionist Entity" and the "American Jewish Zionist Lobby". This would be funny, if it weren't so serious. The PROTOCOLS OF THE ELDERS OF ZION is the most popular book in the Muslim world (next to it's predecessor, the KORAN, of course). Jimmy Carter's version of the Protocols (his recent PALESTINE: PEACE, NOT APARTHEID) puts him square in the company of Ahmadinijad. Being a peanut farmer, perhaps Mr. Carter will consider manufacturing his own brand name peanut butter, naming it "AHMADINIJAD - The Peanut Butter of Jihadi's Everywhere, Even on the Sunni Side of the Street", and featuring a photo of Ahmajinidad embracing Hezbollah's NASRALLAH and Hamas's HANIYEH in a Three Stooges theme of some sort, tinkering with a nuclear warhead, perhaps. It would all be so funny, if it weren't so serious....

MOTZEH YOM KIPPUR - "I HAVE POURED OUT MY HEART...."

Yom Kippur services conclude with the repeated plaintive cry, "I have poured out my heart...." Although any one individual may or may not feel that they themselves have in fact poured out their heart, as all are one, and as there are those, who without a doubt have poured out their hearts almost to the point of expiration, it is not dishonest to say that in participating in a Yom Kippur service, one has poured out one's heart. And one may in fact have poured out one's heart in a non-traditional way. One may or may not have fasted, one may or may not have attended a formal service.

In June of 2006 Gilad Shalit, Ehud Goldwasser, and Eldad Regev were kidnapped into captivity by HAMAS and HEZBOLLAH. These Israeli soldiers are still in captivity, and their captivity is still fresh in our minds. Not quite so fresh are the memories of Zvi Feldman, Zachary Baumel, and Yehuda Katz, missing since the Battle of Sultan Yacoub in Lebanon in 1982. Missing as well is Ron Arad, since 1986, captured in Lebanon by AMAL, a Shiite Militia answering to IRAN. Missing too is Guy Hever, who mysteriously disappeared in 1987, last seen in the Golan at Katzabiya Junction near the Syrian-Israeli border.

This Yom Kippur we remembered all eight Israeli soldiers during our services. This BLOG will correct a sin of omission and will remember all eight from now on. It is more than a year since the most recent kidnappings occurred. These most recent kidnappings are no longer "fresh"; they are "rancid". The previous five captivities have lost their "scent" and yet they still stink, as the enemies of Israel do stink, who keep the nation of Israel in a state of alarm, making war on Israel every day, and personalizing this war of annihilation against Israel by artfully managing the power and secrecy of these captivities.

In a few days the seven day festival of SUKKOTH will commence, capped off by SHEMINI ATZERET and SIMCHATH TORAH. It is the custom of Israel to remember the USHPIZIN on SUKKOTH in fact entering the SUKKAH each day and performing the special BRUCHA "SEDER USHPIZIN", as each day we name all the USHPIZIN and each day, according to MINHAG, is specifically associated with one of the seven USHPIZIN. This year this writer will remember the eight captive Israeli soldiers, incorporating their remembrance into the SEDER USHPIZIN. [May these eight men be immediately released and therefore make such a remembrance unnecessary.]

SPLITTING THE "BABY" - MINISTER RAMON TO GIVE AWAY YERUSHALYIM

So finally it is public - a Minister of the Government of the State of Israel is publicly floating the idea of splitting Jerusalem, relinquishing hegemony of East Jerusalem into the hands of the Palestinian Authority. Presumably Minister Ramon is the mouthpiece of a hidden "genius", who doesn't realize, that it is only the careless harlot, who agrees to split the "baby"....

If the USA is forcing this dilemma, presuming to be Shlomo HaMelech... THEN HOW STUPID IS ISRAEL TO EVEN MOMENTARILY THINK TO AGREE TO SPLIT THE "BABY" !!!!!!!!!! If Israel agrees to split the "baby", then the Arabs take Yerusalayim either way - by insisting on having the whole, or by refusing the split and then receiving the Eir HaKadosh by their demonstration of moral superiority over Israel (their moral superiority is a fundamental belief of Islam). [Of course some of Christian theology requires that Yerushalyim be split and fall into bloody warfare at the bloody expense of the Jews in order for the Christian Messiah to come [again]....]

Or is the Israeli Government attempting to somehow be both the careless harlot and yet be Shlomo HaMelech simultaneously? By broaching the idea itself, as if Israel itself were agreeable, is Israel anticipating that the Arabs will agree to this split, proving themselves in fact to be the careless harlot? Fantastic! Then the world has two bonifide careless harlots, and control of Yerushalayim can be relinquished to the International Community to operate as an International City! Why, then the United Nations could be moved to Yerushayim! Wonderful!

As the Qassam rockets harass Sderot, as 67 Israeli recruits contemplate their injuries from Qassam's, as GILAD SHALIT and EHUD GOLDWASSER and ELDAD REGEV contemplate their own individual captive terrors -- has it even entered their thoughts that at this very moment, Israel is apparently ready and willing to give away Yerushalayim? And if their freedom would be bought by such a deal, would they say to Israel, "Give away Yerushalayim! It means nothing!" This writer doubts it....

ISRAEL'S HIGH COURT SUBVERTS THE I.D.F.

Last week Israel's high court ordered the military to move a one-mile section of the SECURITY FENCE, which separates and protects Israeli settlements from the Arab village (and surrounding land) of BIL'IN. As an American, raised in a governmental culture premised on a separation of powers into three governmental branches - executive, legislative, and judicial - it is difficult to stomach that the Israeli military will respect and accomodate this ruling. Just as in America it is repugnant, when Congress presumes to legislate strategy and tactics to the military; so it ought to be repugnant in Israel, when a court gives a ruling that usurps strategy and tactics from the military. On what basis does the Israeli high court presume to know more about realizing Israeli security requirements than the military? The time for the luxury of a civilian ruling, about the SECURITY FENCE in terms of the rights of Israel's enemies, should be after the achievement of the cessation of terror against Israel, not before. The Israeli military is insane to accomodate such a self-destructive ruling! The people of Israel should find a way to overturn or stay or otherwise mitigate this destructive court ruling!

Will subverting the IDF (Israel Defense Force) by such a court ruling hasten the day that fewer terrorist actions will occur against Israel? Will subverting the IDF by such a court ruling bring home Gilad Shalit, Ehud Goldwasser, and Eldad Regev even one day sooner? Will subverting the IDF by such a court ruling end the Qassam rocket attacks against SDEROT? Will subverting the IDF by such a ruling inspire HAMAS, FATAH, and HEZBOLLAH to make peace with Israel? Will subverting the IDF by such a ruling inspire IRAN, SYRIA, and LEBANON to make peace with Israel?

SELICHOT

This week of SELICHOT the news is all a-buzz about the daring Israeli Airforce, which bombed nuclear facilities in Syria on September 6, one week before 9/11. This was smart timing: hit the terrorists before the 9/11 anniversary date, and making clear that all versions of Islamic Terror ultimately mean the same thing to ISRAEL and to the civilized world. This is the kind of action that necessarily puts the world on alert.

The obviously justifiable action, both in terms of preventive action against SYRIA and in terms of sending a "message" to IRAN [and to KOREA, the nuclear supplier], is the kind of action that puts SYRIA in a position of needing to make some kind of face-saving response. As well, the entire MUSLIM world, SUNNI and SHIITE, can be expected to be grumbling, cursing, and planning against ISRAEL.

To those, who live in a media dreamworld, ISRAEL was on the brink of peace with the PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY. How will this excursion of the Israeli Airforce impact this dreamworld? What will CONDOLEEZA RICE be saying at the SUMMIT? To those, who pay attention to the facts on the ground, ISRAEL is always on the brink of war in every direction, outwardly and inwardly, the "canary in the coal mine" in the defensive war against Islamic Terror.

In this never ending war there are at least three Israelis still captive for more than a year: Gilad Shalit, captive and alone in GAZA; Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev, captive in Lebanon. In SELICHA 81, line LAMED, the author says, "HASHEM - kidnap me from the captivity of my oppressors...." May HASHEM hear these words and save alive and bring home these three young Israeli men, speedily, soon, even in time to break the hearts of ISRAEL with tears of joy before YOM KIPPUR.

THE WEEK BEFORE YOM KIPPUR 5768

In this week before YOM KIPPUR we remember that in the previous week leading into ROSH HASHANNAH the big news stories in ISRAEL did not include the release of Gilad Shalit, Eldad Regev, and Ehud Goldwasser; nor was there a cessation to the QASSAM rockets hitting SDEROT and other locations in the NEGEV. In fact there were 67 new Israeli army recruits wounded by such a QASSAM attack hitting an Israeli military base (first reports were that 40 were injured). But also in that week an important senior HAMAS official was captured by ISRAEL; a gang of Israeli NEO-NAZI's was exposed and captured (if awards were given for oxymoronic realities, surely "Israeli neo-nazi's" would win that award); and SYRIA was hit by the Israeli Airforce, as ISRAEL took out a Syrian nuclear installation. It is good to see that ISRAEL is not doing nothing. As we prepare to Fast this coming YOM KIPPUR SHABBATH, let us hope that this is the week that the three kidnapped Israeli soldiers will miraculously be returned safely home to ISRAEL.

EREV ROSH HASHANNAH AND 9/11 IN THE U.S.A. AND IN ISRAEL

It is EREV ROSH HASHANNAH. The day leading into EREV ROSH HASHANNAH was 9/11. We commemorated the terrible destruction in 2001 of lives on this infamous day due to terrorism. In ISRAEL on 9/11/2007, as we commemorated 9/11/2001, forty new recruits to the IDF were wounded by QASSAM rockets launched jointly by ISLAMIC JIHAD and at least one other terrorist group. It is reported that there is a buildup of weaponry in GAZA supplied to the terrorists by IRAN through EGYPT, a weapons buildup the likes of which has not been seen before. It looks as though the new year will bring war to ISRAEL. This buildup of weapons amongst the terrorists should ring bells throughout the world, that the daily "relatively harmless" terror of QASSAM rockets launched at SDEROT from GAZA has not been "merely an irritant" nor an indicator of pathetic weakness of both mind and technology in GAZA. The QASSAM rockets are a strategy, saying to ISRAEL, "Sooner or later, we are going to get you...." HAMAS is quoted to have said about this 9/11/2007 wounding of forty young ISRAELI's, "This is a wonderful thing that ALLAH has done this day." [This "quote" is a paraphrase of a news report heard 9/11 on the CBN News.]

At this moment, GILAD SHALIT is sitting in a tiny basement cell in an undisclosed location in GAZA, prisoner for more than a year to these same terrorists.... if he is still in fact even alive... and in what condition is he? And EHUD GOLDWASSER and ELDAD REGEV are in the hands of HEZBOLLAH still in LEBANON or SYRIA or even in IRAN perhaps?

May HASHEM have mercy on us all this New Year....

BLOW THE SHOFAR SOFTLY...?

In eight days it will be ROSH HASHANNAH and our three soldiers are not home, nor has the rocketing of SDEROT come to an end; if anything, as ROSH HASHANNAH approaches, there has been a slow, steady crescendo of more rockets into ISRAEL. Just yesterday a SDEROT schoolyard was directly hit, and today the children will be kept home from school. What does it take for ISRAEL to perceive that it has been subjected to an act of war - again, and again, and again, and again!

Of course it can also be said that there has been a stady crescendo of Israeli action in GAZA....

In the past week HAMAS stated that negotiations to free Gilad Shalit broke down due to ISRAEL's failure to release 350 HAMAS prisoners from ISRAELI jails. ISRAEL responded that many of the 350 on the HAMAS list were guilty of direct, terrible violence against ISRAEL. Let us analyze the salient details:

(1) HAMAS could have freed Gilad Shalit unconditionally and thus made either (a) a profound symbolic statement of good will towards ISRAEL, or, (b) an humanitarian gesture towards ISRAEL [while continuing to ask the world for humanitarian gestures favoring GAZA].

HAMAS failed on both accounts.

(2) Israel could have unilaterally released 350 HAMAS prisoners to GAZA to match the 350 EL FATAH prisoners that ISRAEL released to SAMARIA/JUDEA, and in so doing, could have chosen to release to HAMAS only the least murderous; ISRAEL could have done so, thereby making a profound gesture of good will towards HAMAS [upon the announcement by HAMAS seeking to arrange for Gilad Shalit's release in the same way British journalist Alan Johnston was released].

ISRAEL did not and therefore failed as well on both possible accounts of simple good will and simple humanitarianism.

Now both HAMAS and ISRAEL can go on blaming each other!!

Or, perhaps in the mirroring of each other, HAMAS and ISRAEL can perceive the potential for positive communication!!

On ROSH HASHANNAH all ISRAEL should loudly blow the SHOFAR. There are eight days yet, till then. Much can happen.... Does ISRAEL have a reason to blow SHOFAR this year? There are four reasons ISRAEL should perhaps blow softly or not at all: SDEROT, GILAD SHALIT, EHUD GOLDWASSER, and ELDAD REGEV. On the other hand if ISRAEL resolves to do what is good to justify blowing the SHOFAR, then let ISRAEL blow loudly, and seal it's intentions on YOM KIPPUR!!

SHAKEN, BUT, NOT FORSAKEN (one hopes and prays)....

On this ninth day of ELUL the SHOFAR will sound briefly at SHACHARITH, reminding us that ROSH HASHANNAH is only three weeks away, even as it is three weeks since my last posting to this site. This three-week posting-lag has in common that there has been virtually nothing in the news about Gilad Shalit, Ehud Goldwasser, or Eldad Regev. The world races quickly towards the starting gate of ROSH HASHANNAH. Have our three soldiers been forgotten and left behind? Within the past forty-eight hours a school in SDEROT suffered a direct hit from a QASSAM rocket only two weeks before school starts. No one was hurt, fortunately, this time. In the past three weeks these QASSAM gifts from GAZA have steadily "arrived", shall we say "airway, parcel-post delivery"? This, despite IDF activities in GAZA. With each QASSAM do we think of our three missing soldiers? Are not these two matters -- our three missing soldiers, and the rockets hitting especially Sderot -- are not these two matters ONE, as are the leg and the roof/leg creating the letter BETH ??

HAS ANYBODY SEEN OUR THREE MISSING SOLDIERS?

We enter Shabbath once again without Gilad Shalit, Eldad Regev, and Ehud Goldwasser. We have heard nothing this week of Gilad Shalit. Of Eldad and Ehud, we have heard from an anonymous German that one might be alive and one might be dead. Nasrallah of Hebollah has communicated his extortion demands to the French and advised the French to reveal no details. The Israeli government is bargaining to give away much of Israel; meanwhile an apartment complex for housing Holy Jews is bankrupt and Jews are are suing eachother. Israel and Egypt and Saudi Arabia are to be recipients of huge increases in military assistance from the USA, including what amounts to a new air force for Saudi Arabia. Shimon Peres, Tony Blair, Condoleeza Rice, and Tzipi Livni have huge smiles on their faces. All of these billions of dollars for blood! What about our three missing soldiers....

SET THEM FREE!

As I write this Sunday night, it is already early Monday morning in Israel, Shacharit Tu B'Av. Tu B'Av is defined to be a day of love and joy. Where are Eldad, Gilad, and Ehud? Set them Free! If you love HaShem, if you love HaShem, if you love HaShem...
Set them Free!

SEEKING AN ACT OF KINDNESS ON TISHA B'AV

In the past two weeks we have heard about everyone and everything except Gilad Shalit, Ehud Goldwasser, and Eldad Regev.

We have heard about the Israeli incursion into Gaza....
We have heard about Qassam rockets again hitting Sderot these past few days....
We have heard that Hezbollah is ready to take on Israel at any time....
We have heard that the UN forces in southern Lebanon would fire on Israel to "stop a war"....
We have heard of the release of 256 FATAH members, gifts to Abu Mazen (a.k.a. Mahmud Abbas)....
We have heard about sexual scandals and financial scandals in Israel's Government....
We have heard emphatically that Olmert will not leave Government....
We have heard that now is the time to negotiate "peace" with FATAH, and with Syria, too (ergo, it is time to surrender Golan, Samaria, Judea, and East Jerusalem)....
We have heard about the attempted theft of Ismail Haniyeh's shoes during prayer in a Mosque....
We have heard Israel spurn overtures from Ismail Haniyeh of HAMAS....
We have heard about Tony Blair's arrival in Israel, intending to operate from the Government House (from which the British ruled 'Palestine' before WW2)....

MAY TONY BLAIR BE ENLIGHTENED to seek more suitable quarters than Government House or the King David Hotel, neither of which recall wonderful memories of British Occupation. If a message of "occupation" is what Tony Blair has in mind (implying that just as Israel hates occupation, so do the 'Palestinians'), then it is at best an oblique message and at worst it is an insinuating, insulting way of pushing a highly loaded, controversial agenda and viewpoint (which agenda and viewpoint lack controversy only to those, who hold to that particular bias, which Mr. Blair is presumably in Israel to represent).

MR. BLAIR, when on July 25 the SUMMIT commences, place one and only one item on the agenda - that Gilad Shalit, Eldad Regev, and Ehud Goldwasser be released from their nightmare of captivity!

MR. ISMAIL HANIYEH, I offer myself in place of Gilad Shalit, that Gilad Shalit be returned home to his mother and father....

MAY THE ONE GOD BLESS AND INSPIRE ISMAIL HANIYEH to a simple and great act of kindness, as we of Israel enter the Fast of Tisha B'Av, and release Gilad Shalit (and even inspire Nasrallah of Hezbollah to release Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser).

MAY GOD HAVE MERCY on Gilad Shalit, Eldad Regev, Ehud Goldwasser, and on all Benei Ismail and Benei Itzak.

*****************************************************

07/24/07 - ADDENDUM TO ABOVE POST

Today is Tisha B'Av. In Israel Tisha B'Av is already almost concluded as I write. In the USA there is much of the day yet to go. Those are fasting, who can, and who in addition to the Beth HaMikdash, have the names Gilad Shalit, Eldad Regev, and Ehud Goldwasser in mind.

May the captors of these men immediately show at least the great mercy of proof beyond doubt that all three men are alive and well and that their imminent freedom is not even a question! May there be peace and not war, even for one day!

May this day conclude with happy miraculous news!

SUMMIT

Moving into this Shabbath there is good and not-so-good to consider with respect to developments in Israel on so many fronts. It is important to remember that Israel is surrounded and has so many elements to consider in all directions. In the north the situation is tense, yet, said to be stable. In the east FATAH is hugely deflated by it's loss of power to HAMAS in Gaza. A landmark Israel/ArabLeague summit in Israel may bolster FATAH. HAMAS is engaged in talks with Israel, and one hopes [per HAMAS initiation] those talks will lead to the release of Gilad Shalit. Yet, due to efforts to root out terrorists in Gaza, especially against those launching Qassam rockets into Israel, the IDF (Israel Defense Forces) is necessarily engaged in Gaza. To quote a popular and appropriate metaphor, "It is some "chullent"...."

(Perhaps during the Three Weeks a special chullent recipe might include chunks of leftover matzah-shmurah, maror, karpas, no salt, no pepper....)

Just as stress tends to create a behavior cycle of overeating, just as trying to serve too much all at once can only lead to an indigestible menu, the agenda at the Summit ought to be narrow, and the narrower the better.

This is the time for small, but, non-trivial victories of good will - the release of Gilad Shalit, Eldad Regev, Ehud Goldwasser, the cessation of Qassam rockets into Israel from Gaza, the release of un-bloodied 'Palestinians' to their families.

Discussions beyond these timely and focused affairs can only serve to create an overly heavy agenda in which nothing but "schinat-chinom" [ill will, needless hatred] is the inevitable result. As hosts to the Summit, Israel sets the "table". Israel can set that table to focus on these few acts of profound kindness, acts which can make the difference between hope and despair for everyone in the region. (May peace come speedily in our times.)

MAY HASHEM GUIDE ISRAEL BETWEEN THE 'STRAITS' IN THESE THREE WEEKS....

As the week begins and as the release of 250 prisoners to FATAH is on the Israeli decision table, now is a time to extend good will northwards and southwards, as well as eastwards. The intent to release 250 un-bloodied prisoners eastwards to FATAH was in the air prior to the HAMAS takeover of Gaza and and the speedy release of Alan Johnston.

Simultaneous to the release of Mr. Johnston, HAMAS spokesman Ismael Haniyeh stated his hopes that a deal with Israel leading to the release of Gilad Shalit could become a reality soon (see the BBC news story "Alan Johnston is Released". July 4, 2007).

While keeping in mind the negative remarks about Israel by Syrian HAMAS leader Khaled Mashaal in British Newspaper THE GUARDIAN (as reported in the Jerusalem Post story "Hamas takes credit for Alan Johnston's release", July 8, 2007), one must ask, "Is it Khaled Mashaal, or is it Ismail Haniyeh, who has his hand on the HAMAS pulse in Gaza?"

An opportunity in real time may exist with Ismail Haniyeh, that may not exist with other HAMAS leadership. Ismail Haniyeh was prominent in the release of Alan Johnston, and it is likely that he would be prominent in any release of Gilad Shalit. Israel should waste neither time nor opportunity to speak to Ismail Haniyeh, to arrange for the release of Gilad Shalit, as well as to arrange a conduit (even through HAMAS) to arrange with HEZBOLLAH for the release of Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev.

If it means that Israel releases 250 un-bloodied prisoners to FATAH, as was already in the air, as a pure gift to Mahmoud Abbas; if it means that Israel release an additional 250 un-bloodied prisoners to HAMAS (or some type of equivalent) and an additional 500 un-bloodied prisoners to HEZBOLLAH (or the equivalent); now is the time for Israel to carefully consider every open window for opportunities to see to the safe return of the three Israeli soldiers. Neither can the good will that Israel can extend to the 'Palestinians' be underestimated at this time.

Yet, Israel is not and cannot be naive; an open window can easily be slammed shut on a careless, unprotected, outstretched neck! Nor can Israel allow itself to be distracted from it's exercises in the Golan or it's anti-Qassam work in Gaza. May HaShem guide Israel between the 'Straits' in these Three Weeks....

GREATEST HOPE FOR PEACE MAY BE WITH HAMAS

The greatest hope for peace in Israel and indeed in the Middle East may in fact depend on the example and precedent that HAMAS now has the opportunity to establish. Indeed HAMAS has already established a precedent and set an example by freeing BBC Reporter Alan Johnston. If this leads as hoped to the freeing of Gilad Shalit, 'Palestinian' prisoners, and perhaps even to the freeing of Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev by HEZBOLLAH; if as well the launching of Qassam rockets are stopped from within Gaza by HAMAS; then fertile ground should exist for a real peace deal with Israel.

WHAT CONSTITUTES A REAL PEACE DEAL?

Rather than lauding the lowest common denominator, which would be nothing more than a sustained state of ceasefire, there is an optimal possibility that can have profound influence worldwide in terms of relations between the Jewish, Muslim, and Christian worlds.

As a Jew, this writer is accutely aware of his "second class" status in both the Christian and Muslim worlds. In the Christian world the Jew is ambivalently regarded as having lost the favor of the Lord, as responsible for the Death of the Messiah, and is paradoxically to be scurged in exile and yet to be coddled as His Chosen People; and so there is the ignominious history of Jewish ghetto life, which still exists in loose form in today's world, even where the majority of Jews were annihilated during World War 2 and in Soviet Russia. In the Muslim world the Jew is classified as "Dhimmi" - as indeed also is the Christian - the taxed and oppressed second class in the world of Islam (see the adjacent LINK).

It is highly symbolic, according to social and political interpretation, that the Dome of the Rock mosque on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem is located high above any synagogue or church. By Dhimmi Law no synagogue or church may be larger or higher or more impressive than the nearest mosque or most mosques in the same town. Denied statehood and the right to own land for millenia, only in the last sixty years has Israel re-established itelf in it's own homeland as a Jewish political (and in this era, democratic) State. So Christians and Moslems in today's democratic Israel have equal status, at least in the sense that there is no law defining the Muslim and Christian citizens of Israel as "second class", nor are there any laws of the modern State requiring the destruction or modification of the churches and mosques to be "lesser" than the synagogues.

After millenia of subjugation, Israel has not subjugated Muslim or Christian, although by psychological projection based on the Hammurabi interpretation of the "eye for an eye" biblical injunction, the Muslim may (incorrectly) only think in the literal interpretation, contemplating destruction to be their "inevitable" destiny under Israeli hegemony. Hence again Muslim devotion to the destruction of Israel, even amongst the 1.2-million strong Muslim citizenry of Israel proper, who vote in Israeli elections, yet celebrate "Al Naqba" (The Catastrophe [of the existence of a Jewish State]).

Yet, herein lies the fulcrum of hope for peace in the Middle East, as the conflict is essentially a Jewish v. Muslim conflict: if the religious definition of the Jew as Dhimmi, only and always, can be surmounted, even as the Catholic Church (officialy) no longer holds Jews and Judaism damnable for the "Messiah's Death", that is to say: if as a matter of doctrine, Muslims can accept Jews (and Christians) as equals and not as definitively subservient, then an entirely new mentality can exist in the world between Muslims, Christians, and Jews. Jews and Christians, vastly outnumbered in the Middle East, Africa, Asia, East Asia, and Indonesia, could look upon the Dome of the Rock and not feel oppressed; and Muslims should no longer feel irrationally threatened that at any moment the Dome of the Rock will inevitably be blown up. Indeed Israel has permitted expansion of the Islamic religious facilities on the Temple Mount (a new and larger subterranean mosque is being constructed as we speak under the Al Aqsa mosque, which is the second mosque on the Temple Mount), and at great and unintended cost to Jewish arhaeological heritage (yes, there is a deliberate and conscious and active effort to destroy as much Jewish archaelogical heritage by the Muslims as possible in order to deny Jewish rights and claims to the Temple Mount).

If HAMMAS, which is a Muslim organization, can find a way to establish that Jews need not eternally be regarded as definitively subservient and definitively undeserving, if HAMMAS can find it's way on such a basis to accept the existential right of a Jewish State, if HAMMAS can accept the existing State of Israel today, then a peace precedent can ripple profoundly throughout the Muslim world, and terrorism take a holiday.

IDF, HAMAS, BUFFER ZONE, PRISONERS, QASSAMS

On the heels of the still fresh release of BBC Reporter Alan Johnston from captivity in Gaza, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) are busy at the work of establishing a one-kilometre buffer zone in northern Gaza, which (hopefully) means the re-establishment of a small portion of the one-kilometre "Oslo Security Perimeter". This may be much better than the 300-metre buffer zone of military speculation, spoken of earlier in the week, unless it should be merely a tiny strip one-kilometre in length and 300-metres deep; but, is it enough of a buffer zone to put the Qassam rockets out of range of Israel?

One hopes that simultaneous to this necessary Israeli action in northern Gaza, it will still be possible for Israel to secure the release of Gilad Shalit. HAMAS has spoken to the world, that it hopes to succeed the release of Alan Johnston by releasing Gilad Shalit in a deal with Israel. One hopes as well that HAMAS will dramatically reverse it's policy of denial of the right of Israel to exist. The existential right of Gilad Shalit and the existential right of Israel and one and the same. If there is a window of opportunity to have a sincere bargaining partner in HAMAS, Israel should seize that opportunity and run with it.

Precedent and policy go against HAMAS as a possible partner. Yet, we are in the season of potential for the birth of MASHIACH. Let us be sensitive to the spiritual possibility of TESHUVAH, even from HAMAS. (Not blind, not stupid - just, if there is a sea-change in HAMAS's air, may Israel remain open to the possibility.)

JULY 4, 2007: INDEPENDENCE DAY IN THE U.S.A., RELEASE OF B.B.C. REPORTER ALAN JOHNSTON FROM CAPTIVITY IN GAZA, CONTINUED CAPTIVITY OF ISRAELI SOLDIER

... GILAD SHALIT IN GAZA, CONTINUED CAPTIVITY OF ISRAELI SOLDIERS ELDAD REGEV AND EHUD GOLDWASSER IN LEBANON, TENTATIVE OFFER LAST WEEK BY ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER EHUD OLMERT TO RELEASE 250 'PALESTINIAN' PRISONERS, PUBLIC STATEMENT BY HAMAS THAT THE RELEASE OF ALAN JOHNSTON FROM CAPTIVITY SHOULD LEAD TO PRISONER EXCHANGES WITH ISRAEL....

"Mr. Haniya... said he hoped a deal could now be reached for the release of the Israeli Corporal, Gilad Shalit, who has been held in Gaza since being seized in a border raid by three militant groups a year ago." (quoting: BBC News / Middle East / BBC's Alan Johnston is released / July 4, 2007)

After 114 days in captivity in Gaza by the Dughmush Clan, BBC News Reporter Alan Johnston was released from his ordeal by the intervention of HAMAS, the jihadist terrorist organization, which in just this past weak has taken control of Gaza from the Palestinian Authority after a prolonged skirmish between HAMAS and FATAH, FATAH being the predominant terrorist wing of the Palestinian Authority.

Is it accidental, that Alan Johnston's release was accomplished on July 4, which is Independence Day in the USA? None of the news stories I have yet read or heard has reported of any direct connection with respect to the timing of the release of Alan Johnston and the simultaneous annual celebration of July 4th in the USA. It can be lost on no American that today on July 4, 2007, British BBC News Reporter Alan Johnston was granted his freedom from captivity [ergo, his "... life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness..." (see the American "Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776")].

Is this timing coincidental? If it was deliberate, was it a pure message or a double edged sword? America won it's freedom from Britain, so in the return to safety of Brittisher Alan Johnston, is Hamas seeking to divide the USA from Britain, or to reach out in a positive way to both Britain and the USA?

Without getting carried away with such speculation, let's take at face value this positive gift of life, even by Hamas! And let's also take at face value the positive statement of HAMAS Spokesman Ismael Haniya, quoted above, saying he hoped a deal can now lead to the release of Israeli Gilad Shalit. As well, given the dispute between HAMAS and FATAH, that lead to the current forceful assumption of power in Gaza by HAMAS, and which in February meant the resignation of Ismael Haniya from his elected position as Prime Minister of the Palestinian Authority, let no disrespect be read into the fact that I refer herein to Mr. Haniya as "HAMAS Spokesman". May Mr. Haniya's word's ascend to Heaven, that the release of Alan Johnston shall also lead to the release of Gilad Shalit! As well, may Alan Johnston's life and liberty also lead to life and liberty for Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser, who are currently held captive by HEZBOLLAH in Lebanon. There is still a common Syrian connection between HAMAS and HEZBOLLAH. It is not illogical to suppose that this Syrian connection can bring about the release of the Israeli captives.

Of course Israel must be wary of this Syrian connection. There is much talk lately of a deal with Syria involving the return of the Golan Heights to Syria. Can Israel afford such as strategic loss of territory to Syria, even if Syria does finally recognize Israel?

In keeping with the original call in my first posting to this blog for " ... Peace and Rest to the Town of Sderot ..." [from the incessant onslaught of Qassam rockets fired into Israel from Gaza], may it also be heard in Heaven, that the release of Alan Johnston from his captivity shall lead to the similar release of Gilad Shalit, Eldad Regev, Ehud Goldwasser, as many 'Palestinian' captives in Israel as are deserving to be released, and the unconditional and absolute cessation of the aerial Qassam rocket bombardment of Israel by Gaza!

AND, HAVING COMMEMORATED THIS JULY 4TH, LET THE WORLD REMEMBER THAT, AT THIS VERY MOMENT, FREEDOM IN THE WORLD STILL HAS IT'S HOME IN THE U.S.A., EVEN AS THE BEST MEN AND WOMEN OF LADY LIBERTY ARE POSTED AROUND THE WORLD, AT RISK TO LIFE AND LIMB IN THE NAME OF FREEDOM, EVERYWHERE! "OH, SAY... [WORLD] CAN YOU SEE ??"

A BUFFER ZONE CAN BRING PEACE TO SDEROT

One kilometre east of the northeastern corner of Gaza is the Israeli town of Sderot. Sderot has always been a risky location. The daily barrage of Qassam rockets that Sderot suffers today began long before the unilateral Israeli "disengagement" from Gaza. Israel's ignominious withdrawl from Gaza, far from bringing peace to Israel, has caused far more suffering for Israelis and for non-Israelis. Certainly the withdrawl has made it much easier for Qassams to be launched over the border into Israel.

Adjacent to this post is a link to a wonderful map of Gaza and neighboring Israel. A look via this link shows the pre-existing and inadequate one-kilometre "Oslo Security Perimeter". One can see the outline of the beautiful farms that Israel created in the desert just beyond Gaza.

There are two photos I may at another time succeed in making available by link or post; for the moment I will do my best to describe them. First, imagine a green-colored Qassam rocket stuck nose first into a cratered Sderot street; with it's finned tail sticking up, it calls to mind a potted plant! Second, imagine a long, low pile of spent Qassam rocket shells, piled up like firewood against someone's wall.... The crater in the street may seem like a flowerpot and the green missle almost like a small tree due to the color and fins. But, it is not any kind of tree, nor flower, nor potted plant of any kind. And the spent shells lined up against a wall are not firewood....

Day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year the residents of Sderot have no peace and no rest. Israel has it within it's power to make peace and rest possible for Sderot. It is quite simple: create a six-kilometre buffer zone in the northeastern corner of Gaza! Any peace gesture from Israel is taken to be an encouragement to wage war even harder with Israel. So Israel is within it's rights to defend itself. The most simple and obvious defense is to require the residents of northeastern Gaza to relocate southward for failing to prevent various terror groups from launching missles and raids into Israel. Israel can then enforce the buffer zone without harming innocent civilians.

I look forward to reading your e-mails regarding this simple idea, and I intend within these three weeks to establish proper protocols to establish this Foundation as a way to fund a lobby in Israel to work towards implementation of a buffer zone as a matter of policy.