THE LAST THING ISRAEL NEEDS IS EHUD BARAK IN A LEADERSHIP ROLE

THE LAST THING ISRAEL NEEDS IS EHUD BARAK IN A LEADERSHIP ROLE

Dr. Aaron Lerner, 26-29-19

Ehud Barak was clueless on strategic matters and careless in decision making.

Dr. Aaron Lerner  and his late father Dr. Joseph Lerner founded the Independent Media Review and Analysis (IMRA) government accredited news organization in 1992, which provides an ongoing analysis of developments in Arab-Israeli relations.

The last thing Israel needs is a return of Ehud Barak to a leadership position.

Here are just a few examples of his past failures:

#1. Barak clueless of need for subs or second strike capability:

Excerpts from “A strategic navy in a nuclear Middle East” By Reuven Pedatzur – Ha’aretz 5 November 2000 (written when Israel took delivery of the last of the first three German made submarines specially fitted with launch tubes that could accommodate Jericho missiles):

"But the story behind the submarine project is to a large extent cause for concern. On the eve of the Gulf War, a decision to scuttle the project was taken at the IDF General Staff: that is, to leave the navy without any submarines at all. Only the stricken conscience of Helmut Kohl, the German chancellor, after the extent of German aid to the Iraqis became known, led to the decision to fund the submarines. Thus, it was German money that saved the submarine project.

"The General Staff’s decision is cause for concern because all those who took part in the discussion knew very well, based on intelligence estimates, that within a small number of years Israel would be threatened by nuclear weapons. It is difficult to fathom how those who are supposed to be familiar with and to understand strategic thinking in the modern era decided to give up the strategic potential inherent in submarines. There is no alternative but to question the judgment of the top brass, and this question deserves an answer. It is an interesting fact that the person who led the opposition to building the submarines in that discussion, and the person whose position prevailed in the end, was none other than the person who served at the time as deputy chief of staff, Ehud Barak."

#2. Gaza Coast Drilling Right Debacle:

The 1993 Oslo Accord assigned the Palestinians a 20-by-20-mile swath of sea for limited ”fishing, recreation, and economic activity,” but said nothing about resources beneath the Mediterranean. As prime minister, Ehud Barak unilaterally and without the receipt of any Palestinian concessions, effectively handed over exploitation rights for the Gaza coastal area to the Palestinian Authority, with the British BG Group signing an agreement with the PA on natural gas development off Gaza.

#3. Barak clueless of consequences of South Lebanon Retreat:

It would be bad enough that Ehud Barak’s hasty 2000 retreat was a planning fiasco with no provisions for the allied SLA forces and heavy weapons and other military equipment abandoned in Lebanon. More critical is that Barak failed to back up his warning that Israel would have zero tolerance for any cross border violations from Lebanon in the wake of the retreat.

Barak responded to the daily rock throwing and periodic fire bomb throwing by quipping that “a stone throne at a farmer in Metulah or a soldier does not justify a sharp response by the IDF that might heat up the area again.” (YNET – 11 August, 2000) which was followed by more serious attacks that also failed to get a serious response.

But that’s not the biggest problem with the retreat.

The top problem is that after the retreat Ehud Barak continues to confuse Hezbollah PATIENCE with Israeli DETERRENCE.

Hezbollah has patiently built up its first strike capability, now possessing over a hundred thousand rockets.

And now Hezbollah is patiently upgrading its missiles by attaching guidance kits flown into Beirut Airport.

Again: this is Hezbollah PATIENCE not to attack until it is ready – not Israeli DETERRENCE.

And this is critical to understand because this confusion can drive to dangerously wrong policy decisions.

EHUD BARAK IS THE LAST MAN TO BE ALLOWED TO MAKE THOSE POLICY DECISIONS.

THE NEXT LEBANON-ISRAEL WAR WILL BE UNLIKE ANY OTHER

By Barbara Diamond, TOI  JUNE 26, 2019  

https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/the-next-lebanon-israel-war-will-be-unlike-any-other/

When one attends the annual Shurat Ha Din conference on Law and War, it is a marathon of experts presenting their views on the International understanding of the protocols of fighting a war. It is an update on fighting international terrorist network funding. It is an opportunity to face uncomfortable truths and to digest sensitive new information which we had not heard before. One never knows what will stand out as life-changing information.

At the end of two days of seminars, military experts, politicians, international previous heads of State, technology experts and International leaders – new conclusions came upon me which I must now digest and share with you.

The first and most critical conclusion is quite simply that Israel will be at war with Lebanon in the not too distant future. It may be one year or two or three…but it is coming. It is really quite absurd as the Lebanese people have quite a good life and Israel makes no demands upon them and threatens them in no fashion. I am quite sure that the Lebanese people do not relish the idea of their homes being destroyed, family members dying and their way of life being decimated. But that is exactly what is waiting for them if there is no international attention, world-wide pressure and internal rebellion against Nazrallah’s leadership of Hezbollah.

The influence of Iran as the major player behind all that is evolving is beyond dispute. Whilst the world essentially is terrified of a nuclear capable Iran, they manage to avoid dealing with the reality that Iran is at the core of all of the previous and potential wars in the Middle East. When it was revealed that Lebanon has shored up its missiles to a whopping 140,000 units, it seemed an impossible number. Surely someone has made a mistake? Where did they come from? Who paid for them? Numbers are easy to dismiss … but facts are not.

The answers became clear over the past two days at the Shurat Ha Din conference. Iran has paid for it all and is using Hezbollah in Lebanon as its surrogate to “handle” the Israeli problem. The dots became connected when specialists on North Korea explained that country’s role in all that is developing. Whilst pretending to be interested in joining the “family of nations” North Korea is in fact not only selling Iran all the weapons It needs, but is setting up factories in Iran which are staffed with North Korean employees who make the weapons with the parts secretly shipped from North Korea on the open seas. According to the two experts, a ship from North Korea with contraband can change its flags and name on the outside up to twenty plus times in one journey in order to avoid international detection. That the dictator Kim Jae-ryong’s family is essentially evil and demagogic can be validated with the recent revelation that North Korean emissaries who were sent to meet with the U.S. negotiators returned to North Korea only to be assassinated for not bringing back the information the regime required as to what they considered the USA’s “true intentions.”

The world is facing a new group of evil players who are not dissimilar to Adolph Hitler, to whom Alan Dershowitz referred when discussing the need for nations to face evil before it has a chance to fully evolve. Dershowitz explained that had Churchill attacked Hitler in the early days, a possible 100,000 Germans might have been killed. By waiting until Europe had no option but to go to war, the result was a death toll of fifty million people. It does seem that no one is capable of learning from the lessons of history…regardless of their enormity.

Until Naftali Bennett explained that Israel’s army will never again go into Lebanon to dismantle a missile as he did when he was a specialist in the Army during the Lebanon war in which he served, it was unclear what he was about to reveal. He reports that Israel now knows that 30% to 40% of the homes in Lebanon are built with a missile room as part of the residence. That room has a ceiling which can be opened electronically so the missile can be shot from the residence. This explains how 140,000 missiles can be out of sight to overhead surveillance. Large homes are actually built around the larger missiles as they would be too large to bring into a previously built structure. Lebanon is gearing up for war. Hezbollah is in control of Lebanon now. The government of Israel knows it. Now we know it.

The creativeness of this approach is the Arab mentality at its most vile. Because they trust that Israel will not fire upon civilian targets and will follow the rules of international warfare, they presume that they will have the upper hand. They think Israel will be so torn at the thought of killing innocents, that they will not be able to defend themselves swiftly. Experts believe that Hezbollah will open the next war with 3,000 to 4,000 rockets per day aimed at Israel. Divide that into 140,000 and you can imagine the potential length of the war. That of course presumes that Israel will be caught unaware. It will not be.

Naftali Bennett unexpectedly became the most interesting speaker of the two days…because although he did not reveal the Israeli security cabinet’s plan for reprisal, he made it clear that the laws which exist for international warfare are outmoded… and hence invalid. Warfare will no longer be man to man combat on the ground. Technology has taken warfare into a terrifying place and the law is lagging behind so severely as to be irrelevant in future conflagrations.

By definition, if one allows one’s home to host a missile, then the members of the family in that home are no longer innocent collateral damage, but part of the military force intent on participating in an all-out war. That changes all prior assumptions. The very same Israeli army which up until now discussed every detail with lawyers without making a military move, would now need to have carte blanche to destroy every home, hospital, mosque and school in defense of our Nation state. The laws on the books do not begin to deal with the new realities of potential combat here in the middle east.

It is certainly not for me to say that Israel would use an atomic bomb on Lebanon, but there may be no alternative.

Alan Dershowitz spoke to the conference with stunning information which I myself had missed somewhere along the line. He reports that the Grand Mullah of Iran claims that once they reach nuclear capabilities, it will take only one bomb to kill three million Israelis. When they are reminded that Israel has nuclear capabilities which could kill 20 to 30 million of their people, they shrug their shoulders and say…”that is fine with us. We will lose people but the Muslim faith will survive. “ Little wonder the people of Iran are terrified of the Mullahs. Rightly so. If the Iranian population does not wake up soon and depose them by force, their own nation could be decimated in this web of evil intent.

Professor Dershowitz discussed at great length the need for pre-emptive action. He explained that in International law, when there is clear evidence that an enemy plans to destroy another nation, that other nation has the right of first attack. Will Israel wait for the first three or four thousand missiles to rain down on it before it reacts ?

Iran has created an opportunity for their own people to survive unscathed by encouraging Hezbollah to do its bidding.

The Israelis who are angry at their Prime Minister for not destroying Gaza as Hamas sends hundreds of rockets toward our Southern towns are not looking at the entire picture. What we have not been privy to is the severity of the situation in Lebanon. If Israel begins another war with Gaza, it would be the perfect time for Hezbollah to garner the will to begin their own attack. This is not a war which will be fought on the ground. Our soldiers will not be going into the houses to find the missiles… drones will locate them and homes and families will be decimated. Preserving peace is a delicate balance.

The message given loud and clear at the end of the conference by Nitsana Darshan-Leitner  founder and president of the organization thirteen years ago, is that it is our individual obligation to let the entire world know -now … that in the next Lebanon war, all civilians will be considered combatants and will not be spared. If we share the message with clarity, there is actually a possibility that the Lebanese people who do not have the missiles in their homes will force Hezbollah out of their lives so that they will survive.

For the first time ever, I am taking pause to consider whether the time is right for an “Unity” government in spite of all the dis-unity we have witnessed. With our enemies taking themselves to a new level, we need to be cohesive as a Nation prepared to support one another rather than waste our efforts with petty deprecation.

Thus far Israel has taken the moral high ground in every war effort. How long will it be before that is no longer a viable option?

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Born in the Washington DC area, Barbara has been a pro Israel activist for over four decades, having had a radio show in Jerusalem called “Barbara Diamond One on One” , doing in depth interviews which aired in Israel and in the UK. She participated in missions to the USSR to meet with Refuseniks, to Ethiopia with a medical team to help the Jewish villages and to China to open up relations prior to China recognizing the State of Israel, She has been pro-active lobbying congress and helping to start a Pro Israel PAC in Los Angeles. She stays involved through the Jerusalem Press Club attending up to the moment briefings which she would like to share with the readers. Ms. Diamond is the 2018 recipient of the “StandWithUs”-Israel leadership award.

‘THE EVIDENCE ROOM’: WHEN SKILLS ARE USED FOR EVIL BY JORDAN SCHACHTEL

‘THE EVIDENCE ROOM’: WHEN SKILLS ARE USED FOR EVIL 

 BY JORDAN SCHACHTEL | JUN 26, 2019 | COVER STORY Jewish Journal of Los Angeles

https://jewishjournal.com/cover_story/300669/the-evidence-room-when-skills-are-used-for-evil/

When we learn about the Holocaust, we often hear stories about the evils committed by individuals and groups belonging to institutions of what we perceive to be of the highest moral order.

Ancient Greek physician Hippocrates instructed physicians, “First, do no harm.” Millions of doctors around the world sworn to uphold its principles in the Hippocratic Oath carry that directive in their hearts. However, infamous Nazi physician Josef Mengele and his colleagues at Auschwitz did not follow these principles. Instead, they used their advanced medical skills to conduct horrific human experiments and maximize human pain through torture and murder.

Science has tremendous virtue. Individuals in the hard sciences have touched the lives of billions, helping the human race live more healthy, fruitful lives through scientific discoveries and advancement. But Nazi scientist and chemist by trade Bruno Tesch invented the gas Zyklon B, which originally was used as a pesticide, and weaponized it for the explicit purpose of exterminating human beings. Some 3 million victims of the Holocaust died from exposure to Zyklon B. The Nazis enlisted willing scientists and used their inquiring minds to find ways to supplement and advance genocide.

Architecture embodies the spirit of innovation and design. “Architecture is my delight, and putting up and pulling down, one of my favorite amusements,” Thomas Jefferson, who has been described as the “father of” American architecture, commented on his passion. Architects are both creative and extremely technical. Their problem-solving skills have been utilized to overcome incredible challenges. Architects, too, can use this skill set to commit unspeakable evil.

Nazi architects used their hybrid abilities of crafting innovative plans and ensuring technical perfection to assist in the Holocaust. Without the murderous innovations Nazi architects created and refined, the Nazis would never have been able to design and advance the world’s most ruthless killing machine, the concentration camp, and use it in an attempt to exterminate the Jewish race. The Holocaust took the lives of 6 million Jews. Without architects, that number undoubtedly would have been far fewer. The sad truth remains that at the time of Nazi rule, no group within German society was short of individuals more than willing to use their skill set to advance Nazi causes.

In 1993, Emory University professor Deborah Lipstadt wrote “Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth and Memory.” The no-holds-barred exposé tackled what Lipstadt identified as the key motives behind Holocaust denial. She determined that the world’s high-profile Holocaust deniers largely are a mixture of anti-Semites and second-rate pseudo-historians. Three years later, infamous British Holocaust denier, racist and anti-Semite David Irving, whom Lipstadt named in the book as a Holocaust denier, sued Lipstadt and her publisher for libel, claiming the label was false and his reputation as a legitimate historian had suffered as a result.

In the English courts system, public figures such as Irving receive much more robust protection from open, public scrutiny than in the American system. On top of that, libel laws benefit the person bringing the case. In U.S. courts, the burden of proof lies with the plaintiff. But in the U.K., the burden of proof lies with the defendant.

One of Irving’s key contentions was that there were no mass-extermination gas chambers at Auschwitz — where more than 1 million Jews were killed — or any other death camps. He said it was a giant Jewish deception, adding there were “logistical and architectural impossibilities” for such a high casualty toll. Irving claimed the gas chambers were not killing machines, but merely used to spray for pesticides.

During the winter of 1945, as the Nazi war effort was crumbling, SS chief Heinrich Himmler ordered his troops to bomb the gas chambers and crematoria at Auschwitz. Before fully abandoning Auschwitz, the Nazis did their best to rapidly dismantle and destroy the evidence of their crimes against humanity. Holocaust deniers, ignoring thousands of witness testimonies about the horrific brutality at Auschwitz, often have pointed to the lack of clear physical structures at the concentration camp.

To succeed in defending Lipstadt from the lawsuit, her legal team had to provide definitive proof the Holocaust did happen. Luckily, the Nazis ultimately were unsuccessful in covering up their crimes. Throughout the years, independent investigators have pieced together blueprints, photographs and other pieces of evidence to back up witness testimonies about the Holocaust, leading to a definitive understanding of the largest genocide in human history.

The exhibits in “The Evidence Room,” currently on display at the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, D.C., largely are based on architectural designs that were brought to light during that landmark 2000 case, Irving v. Penguin Books and Deborah Lipstadt. Historian Robert Jan van Pelt, who testified as an expert witness during the case, had in his possession a series of letters and blueprints that displayed the formation and continuing improvement of these architectural killing machines.

“The Evidence Room” installation originally was commissioned for the 15th Venice Architecture Biennale in 2016. A team from the School of Architecture at the University of Waterloo in Canada designed and built the project. Van Pelt and a handful of professional architects led the team. 

“It is a profound experience for all of us,” van Pelt said in a statement upon its original commission, “and, in design terms, a radical, unprecedented investigation into the possibility to represent something unrepresentable: the architectural evidence of a factory of death.”

“The Evidence Room” features three architectural reconstructions of the Auschwitz concentration camp in Nazi-occupied Poland.

The Door

Nazi architects designed the entrance to the gas chamber with two goals: maximum “security” and maximum killing speed and efficiency. The door to the gas chambers simultaneously acted as an impenetrable jail cell and as a key component of a rapid extermination machine.

The gas-tight door was modified so it opened out, rather than in, so guards could more efficiently retrieve corpses. A latch further reinforced the door. The door had a peephole so guards could observe the swift deaths of everyone inside. The victims’ side of the door was fitted with a mesh wiring surrounding the peephole to prevent prisoners from attempting to break the glass.

The Wall Hatch and Ladder

This system was designed so guards could lob Zyklon B, the human-killing pesticide, into aboveground gas chambers. Nazi troops would climb a ladder and toss gas cannisters into an open hatch, leaving locked-in victims with nowhere to go. This type of killing machine could take out an estimated 1,000 innocent lives per day.

The Gas Column

Architects designed the floor-to-ceiling column to double the killing speed of the ladder system. The column system allowed Nazis to lower Zyklon B through an airtight hatch, then remove the gas cannisters in an expedited manner, freeing up the gas chambers for more rounds of extermination. Nazis used the gas column to kill as many as 2,000 people at once.

In addition to the three constructions, the white walls are lined with blueprints and letters of correspondence between Nazi architects.

I visited “The Evidence Room” on the day it opened. Why did a memorial to the Holocaust end up at the Hirshhorn and not, say, a Jewish museum or a Holocaust museum?

“‘The Evidence Room’ reaches even beyond those particular connections. Of course, it is a Holocaust memorial. But at the same time, it’s unlike any other Holocaust memorial,” Alan Ginsberg, executive director of The Evidence Room Foundation, told the Journal. Ginsberg’s foundation is responsible for owning, maintaining and exhibiting the artwork.

“In Washington, D.C., it’s at the National Museum of the Contemporary Arts of the United States. It’s architecture, it’s history, and it’s contemporary art,” he said. “That decision was deliberate. It was not an accident. It brings the exhibition to a much bigger, much different audience. It’s, of course, about the Holocaust, but it’s more than that. And the Hirshhorn is absolutely the perfect venue for this, for its debut in the United States.”

In an exhibition-accompanying book of the same name, contributor Anne Bordeleau, one of the four principles behind the project (and a registered architect), discusses the potential effect the all-white exhibition at the Hirshhorn museum will have on visitors.

“The room asks for a pause, questioning our relation to time and history,” Bordeleau wrote. “It offers a significant gap in time that for a split second might disrupt our obsession with the now and the future. It does not explain, nor elucidate. It merely poses a question that comes to its fullest answer when one effectively experiences the casts in their mute, fragile, ghostly, and yet indubitable presence.”

“The Evidence Room is a visual testament to the truth of the Holocaust,” reads a plaque at the entrance of the exhibition. “The Evidence Room serves as a space for contemplating and remembering the horrors of the past so that the testimony of Holocaust survivors will not die with them.”

Political pundits and university academics often claim we live in a “post-truth” world; that nothing can be entirely ruled out; that everything should be placed in a gray area. With that standard, Holocaust denial cannot be ruled out. With that standard, sitting members of Congress, without batting an eyelash, can forcefully declare there are concentration camps near the U.S. southern border akin to those Nazi Germany used to kill six million Jews.

“The Evidence Room” reminds us that objective realities remain part of this world. It also is a testament to how forensics and a worthy investigative effort can uncover undeniable truths. There are many gray areas in our society, and some issues rife for a worthy debate and discovery. But just as one cannot deny the laws of thermodynamics, the same truths apply to the realities of the Holocaust.

“It has much more universal context. There are some things that are simply irrefutable. We live in this world of postmodernism, subjectivism, relativism and, of course, there’s value in interpretation. But it can be taken to an irrational extreme,” Ginsberg said. “There’s a universal essence of this work of art. Some events absolutely happened. Some things are just objective truths. If you say this didn’t happen, that’s not your opinion. That’s just wrong.

“It’s very disorienting, this discourse that we have culturally today, to suggest that almost nothing is real, that everything is subjective,” he added. “I think it’s time to tilt the swing a little bit back, to temper this subjectivism with reality.”

“The Evidence Room” is on display through Sept. 8.

Jordan Schachtel is a national security analyst and investigative journalist. He is an advisory board member of the Gross Family Center for the Study of Anti-semitism and the Holocaust. He can be reached on Twitter @JordanSchachtel

The Volunteer - by Jack Fairweather

The Volunteer 

by Jack Fairweather

“Superbly written and breathtakingly researched, The Volunteer smuggles us into Auschwitz and shows us—as if watching a movie—the story of a Polish agent who infiltrated the infamous camp, organized a rebellion, and then snuck back out. We are squarely confronted with the other human truth: ordinary people will happily risk their lives to help others. Fairweather has dug up a story of incalculable value and delivered it to us in the most compelling prose I have read in a long time.” —Sebastian Junger, bestselling author of The Perfect Storm and Tribe

The incredible true story of a Polish resistance fighter’s infiltration of Auschwitz to sabotage the camp from within, and his death-defying attempt to warn the Allies about the Nazis’ plans for a “Final Solution” before it was too late.

To uncover the fate of the thousands being interred at a mysterious Nazi camp on the border of the Reich, a thirty-nine-year-old Polish resistance fighter named Witold Pilecki volunteered for an audacious mission: assume a fake identity, intentionally get captured and sent to the new camp, and then report back to the underground on what had happened to his compatriots there. But gathering information was not his only task: he was to execute an attack from inside—where the Germans would least expect it.

The name of the camp was Auschwitz.

Over the next two and half years, Pilecki forged an underground army within Auschwitz that sabotaged facilities, assassinated Nazi informants and officers, and gathered evidence of terrifying abuse and mass murder. But as he pieced together the horrifying truth that the camp was to become the epicenter of Nazi plans to exterminate Europe’s Jews, Pilecki realized he would have to risk his men, his life, and his family to warn the West before all was lost. To do so, meant attempting the impossible—an escape from Auschwitz itself.

Completely erased from the historical record by Poland’s post-war Communist government, Pilecki remains almost unknown to the world. Now, with exclusive access to previously hidden diaries, family and camp survivor accounts, and recently declassified files, Jack Fairweather offers an unflinching portrayal of survival, revenge and betrayal in mankind’s darkest hour. And in uncovering the tragic outcome of Pilecki’s mission, he reveals that its ultimate defeat originated not in Auschwitz or Berlin, but in London and Washington.

Facebook conspires to put the Western Journal of business

Dear Western Journal reader, During the wonderful election year of 2016 our publication, The Western Journal was seen in the Facebook news feed 11 Billion times. I liked to think of us as candidate Donald Trump's go-to media. While the mainstream media was slashing and burning candidate Donald Trump, here at The Western Journal we were giving him a fair shake. We covered his generous advocacy for the hurting and downtrodden. We covered his special and unique family. We even held an election night livestream viewed by 11 million people where we declared him the winner (based on our analysis of the election returns over two hours ahead of the mainstream media, even FoxNews.) I tell you this because Facebook has determined to put The Western Journal out of business. They have waged a war against us, and they launched it six weeks after Donald Trump's historic victory. As we prepare for coverage of the 2020 election, Facebook has limited the ability of our over 40 million followers to see our unbiased and straightforward coverage of politics and President Trump. We estimate in 2020 we will be seen in the Facebook news feed less than 100 million times. This is a drop in Facebook reach of 90%. That is why you are so important. As one of our loyal readers, I need you to consider taking a step to keep our content current and accessible to everyone. While many publishers have used the marketplace changes we have seen to place content behind a paywall, here at The Western Journal, we are committed to reaching everyone. We don't want to launch a paywall. That is why I want you to consider a voluntary subscription gift equivalent to a dime a day. This would be a one time gift of $36.50. If this is more than you can provide, we understand and would accept your voluntary subscription of any amount over $1.00. If your send $36.50 for the next year, I want to send you a free T-shirt to say thanks. Your shirt will say: "I am an honorary Publisher of The Western Journal." If you would consider twenty cents a day or $73.00 for the next year, I will also send a signed copy of my soon to be released hardcover book, Big Tech Tyrants, as an additional thanks. Most importantly, you will be funding news which doesn't have an anti-Trump, anti-conservative, anti-Christian bias. You will be keeping The Western Journal from having to erect a paywall and keeping our best content from Conservative Tribune, Liftable and Herman Cain behind a paywall. Thank you for seriously considering our request. As I watched President Donald Trump and Vice President Pence launching the 2020 campaign from Florida, I thought it was important to keep the media that gives him a fair shake alive and reporting. Don't let Big Tech suppression of The Western Journal knock us out of business. With your help, The Western Journal will continue to be the go-to news organization for 2020 coverage of the most important campaign in any of our lifetimes. Yours truly, Floyd Brown Publisher, The Western Journal

TAKE THE PALESTINIANS’ ‘NO’ FOR AN ANSWER

Eugene Kontorovich  Wall Street Journal   6-23-19

https://www.wsj.com/articles/take-the-palestinians-no-for-an-answer-11561316980?mod=itp_wsj&mod=&mod=djemITP_h

They’ve rejected every peace initiative. Their no-show this week in Bahrain should be the last.

This week’s U.S.-led Peace to Prosperity conference in Bahrain on the Palestinian economy will likely be attended by seven Arab states—a clear rebuke to foreign-policy experts who said that recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and the Golan Heights as Israeli territory would alienate the Arab world. Sunni Arab states are lending legitimacy to the Trump administration’s plan, making it all the more notable that the Palestinian Authority itself refuses to participate.

The conference’s only agenda is improving the Palestinian economy. It isn’t tied to any diplomatic package, and the plan’s 40-page overview contains nothing at odds with the Palestinian’s purported diplomatic goals. Some aspects are even politically uncomfortable for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Given all that, the Palestinian Authority’s unwillingness to discuss economic opportunities for its own people, even with the Arab states, shows how far it is from discussing the concessions necessary for a diplomatic settlement. Instead it seeks to deepen Palestinian misfortune and use it as a cudgel against Israel in the theater of international opinion.

This isn’t the first time the Palestinians have said no. At a summit brokered by President Clinton in 2000, Israel offered them full statehood on territory that included roughly 92% of the West Bank and all of Gaza, along with a capital in Jerusalem. The Palestinian Authority rejected that offer, leading Israel to up it to 97% of the West Bank in 2001. Again, the answer was no. An even further-reaching offer in 2008 was rejected out of hand. And when President Obama pressured Israel into a 10-month settlement freeze in 2009 to renew negotiations, the Palestinians refused to come to the table.

After so many rejections, one might conclude that the Palestinian Authority’s leaders simply aren’t interested in peace. Had they accepted any of the peace offers, they would have immediately received the rarest of all geopolitical prizes: a new country, with full international recognition. To be sure, in each proposal they found something not quite to their liking. But the Palestinians are perhaps the only national independence movement in the modern era that has ever rejected a genuine offer of internationally recognized statehood, even if it falls short of all the territory the movement had sought.

The best example is Israel itself, which jumped at a 1947 United Nations proposal for a Jewish state, even though it was noncontiguous and excluded Jerusalem and much of its present territory. The Arab states rejected the proposal, which would have also created a parallel Arab country.

India and Pakistan didn’t reject independence because major territorial claims were left unaddressed. Ireland accepted independence without the island’s six northern counties. Morocco didn’t refuse statehood because Spain retained land on its northern coast.

While there have been hundreds of national independence movements in modern times, few are fortunate enough to receive an offer of fully recognized sovereign statehood. Including 1947, the Palestinians have received four. From Tibet to Kurdistan, such opportunities remain a dream.

Several lessons must be drawn from the Palestinians’ serial rejection of statehood—and this week, even of economic development. First, the status quo is not Israeli “rule” or “domination.” The Palestinians can comfortably turn down once-in-a-lifetime opportunities because almost all Palestinians already live under Palestinian government. Since the 1993 Oslo Accords, they’ve enjoyed many of statehood’s trappings, particularly in foreign relations. Israel undertakes regular antiterror operations, but that’s different from overall power. For instance, the U.S. doesn’t “rule” over Afghanistan.

Second, statehood and a resolution to the conflict is not what the Palestinians truly seek. This is what economists call a “revealed preference”: To know what consumers truly want, look at what they choose. The Palestinians have repeatedly chosen the status quo over sovereignty.

Finally, throw out the assumption that when Palestinians reject an offer, it stays on the table and accrues interest. If offers will only improve with time, the Palestinians have an incentive to keep saying no.

The Palestinian Authority cannot be forced to accept a peaceful settlement, and Israel doesn’t wish to return to its pre-Oslo control over the Palestinian population. But rejectionism, culminating this week in Bahrain, must have consequences.

For more than 50 years, the future of Jewish communities in the West Bank—and the nearly half a million Jews who now live there—has been held in limbo pending a diplomatic settlement. While the authority rejects improved hospitals, port arrangements and employment centers, many of the benefits for Palestinians could still be achieved by locating them in parts of the West Bank under Israeli jurisdiction. But to do that, the question mark over these places, which include all of the Jews living in the West Bank and a much smaller number of Palestinians, must be lifted. Washington should support Israeli initiatives to replace military rule with civil law in these areas, normalizing their status. The Palestinians’ no-show in Bahrain should end their ability to hold development and growth hostage.

Mr. Kontorovich is director of the Center for International Law in the Middle East and a law professor at George Mason University, and a scholar at the Kohelet Policy Forum.

Trump Dodged An Ambush By Avoiding War With Iran

Kurt Schlichter Town Hall 6-23-19

Posting note: We post this article because we find it very interesting. Postal does not mean  endorsement nor agreement. 

 Appending this note. does not imply disagreement.

https://townhall.com/columnists/kurtschlichter/2019/06/24/trump-dodged-an-ambush-by-avoiding-war-with-iran---p--n2548787?utm_source=schlichterdaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl&bcid=9930c656b2212929c884960baf64bc5a&pid=b8b16dfe-99b6-4391-8b93-c70c673bf076

Assuming nothing happens between the time I write this and the time you read it, it appears that Donald Trump has refused to take the sucker’s bait and engage us in open war with Iran. And while I remain more hawkish than many of my fellow supporters of the Trump Revolt against the garbage liberal elite, it’s pretty clear that Trump was right. Some quality conservatives disagree with me in good faith, but whatever makes Fredocons like Bill Kristol upset is presumptively a good idea.

Let’s clarify some things. Iran is our enemy – the notion that we might wish to avoid being drawn into open conflict today does not mean these mullah bastards don’t deserve to be hanged from the very cranes they use to murder gays, women who refuse hijab oppression and people who like freedom. We have been at covert war with them for four decades, and they’ve murdered our people from Lebanon to Iraq and elsewhere. We are morally justified in wiping out Iran’s scummy leadership and using as much force as we choose to prevent their obtaining the bomb that Obama and his coterie of collaborators tried to hand it. Don’t confuse the fact that it is not to our advantage to openly attack Iran (or at least its rulers) right this minute with the mistaken idea that Iran is not our enemy. We have every moral right to inflict ruthless payback.

Let’s clarify another thing. Iran and our liberal elite both seemed eager for open war. Since when did either want what was best for Trump, which means what is best for America? Napoleon allegedly said, and I’m paraphrasing, “Don’t do what your enemy wants you to do.” Sun Tzu advised readers to irritate a temperamental enemy into mistakes. This is what they were doing. The Iranians hit those tankers, and their denials were baloney. The Iranians shot down our unmanned drone, and their claim it was in their territory was baloney too. Why would they do that? Drones and recon aircraft had flown that path for decades. Why now?

They wanted to be attacked. 

There’s no other reasonable explanation. And these attacks were the perfect provocation because they were not that provocative. No Americans were killed, and we know the Iranians have no qualms about murdering Americans – they were responsible for hundreds of American deaths in Iraq. An attack may have cost them a couple radar sites and missile batteries, but so what? With the sanctions strangling their economy, and the Persian people restless from four decades chafing under these fanatics’ rule, this would be a great way to unify the country against an outside attacker and seize the moral high ground while splitting the US off from its allies and undercutting Trump’s rule.

And our elite also wanted Trump to attack. Why?

Some are legit patriots who recognize Iran is a threat and want it erased – with them, this is a reasonable disagreement on strategy and tactics. Save your criticisms of Mike Pompeo and John Bolton for someone else – I’m glad they’re in place even if I may not agree with their strategic assessment of this situation. They are doing what they think is good for America, and we can work with that. 

But others are more cynical, and less patriotic. They recognize that another war – over a robot plane – would undercut Trump’s own legitimacy with his base, maybe fatally. Trump was hired in significant part because Normal Americans were sick and tired of having their kids sent off to fight wars that our garbage elite has no intention of winning – and we had no intention of winning one with Iran. That means invading and occupying – no dice. This would be more inconclusive Mideast skirmishing. The Democrats would have loudly and proudly opposed this new war and, if they had their way, it would have defined Trump’s presidency like Vietnam did LBJ’s, or Iraq did Bush 43’s.

“Hey, wait,” one might ask. “Weren’t we just talking about one airstrike and that’s it?” Well, the advocates in DC were, but Iran might have had other ideas. After all, the enemy gets a vote, and it could have voted to massacre Americans still in Iraq or elsewhere. Once you jump into war, you lose the ability to jump out when things get ugly.

Let’s talk conspiracy theories. Is it possible that the John Kerry/Ben Rhodes Iranophile faction, still stinging because Trump binned their disastrous Iran Deal and exercising their liberal free pass on the Logan Act, told the mullahs to provoke Trump with some non-fatal pokes in order to weaken him domestically and help restore the rule of people who always put American interests last? 

That is, Democrats. 

I don’t know, but can we really rule that out? We keep hearing from these people about how Trump is an existential threat to America, and if they really believe that, is it so nuts to think they might canoodle with Tehran to defeat him? If you had told me a few years ago the entire senior DoJ and FBI would conspire to pull off a soft coup to undo an election, I might have advised you to take a deep breath and chill. But then I watched it happen.

So, I don’t know if it this is what went down, but no one can say you’re insane for thinking it could. And that possibility had to enter into Trump’s calculations.  

Couldn’t you just feel the disappointment out there in the garbage mainstream media when Trump saw the ambush and decided, at the last minute, not to walk into the kill zone? They spent all day nailing together their cross and he decided to skip the crucifixion.

And what if the Iranians were ready and waiting for us and shot down a bunch of our planes? Can you imagine the hit Trump would have taken? Even if no one tipped them off that we were coming – it’s horrible to even write that, but can we be absolutely confident no one might think the sacrifice worthwhile if it dealt a defeat to The Donald? – there is nothing publicly disclosed about the plan Trump scrubbed that could not be guessed by a half-way competent major.

But leaving aside the politics, which adults understand you cannot do, was this a bad purely strategic decision?

At the Army War College, before it disgraced itself by cowering before SJWs and when we weren’t reading Clausewitz, we learned about the elements of national power: DIME – diplomatic, information, military and economic. There are lots of tools in the toolbox. The Iranians publicly shot down a US drone, which was a military action but was arguably more of an information (i.e., propaganda) operation. Why do we have to reply in kind? No practical military option exists to defeat the mullahs, since we’re not marching into Tehran unless Max Boot and Bill Kristol start getting their phone calls returned by the White House again. So, an attack would have been a one-time punch to show our resolve with no lasting effect on their strategic capabilities. In other words, an information operation, and not much of one since no one actually thinks Trump won’t unleash hell if the baddies do something really bad.

If you want to hurt the mullahs – and I do – you use the tools that they can’t match even as you mercilessly disembowel them. Diplomatic: Let’s help the Iranian resistance, as opposed to the Obama policy of propping up the Imam-ocracy. Let’s make them chase their own tail trying to snuff out internal opposition so they can’t cause mischief around the region and the globe.

Economic: Impose more sanctions. If the choice is doing biz with the US or Iran, Iran loses every single time. And we should leverage this crisis to our own advantage to help America prosper. The Far East (China, Japan and South Korea) gets most of its oil from the Persian Gulf. Hey, didn’t Trump just make the US a net exporter of petroleum products by undoing the Obama oil exploration self-castration rules? Asia can buy from us instead, or they can go defend their own sea lanes. Choose.

Good choice. Welcome to Texas.

We win, Iran loses. We prosper, Iran sinks into economic chaos, and eventually its people get sick of misery and those murderous Khomeinist creeps swing.

War is what the mullahs wanted because they know they can’t lose strategically in a military context – only Trump can. But they can only lose strategically to our diplomatic and economic power – if we choose to ruthlessly employ it.

Oh, the military option is still there. And the patience to await the right time to use it instead of reacting precipitously is a combat multiplier. We need to set the timetable, not our opponents. 

It’s clear that Iran and certain domestic political actors – the Democrats – share a common interest in seeing Trump defeated politically. Their interests were therefore aligned in favor of the strike Trump called off. Why again would we do what our opponents want?

The nice thing about Trump is that he has no intention of being played for a sap.

If Trump gets talked into yet another unnecessary war – the “unnecessary” qualifier is important because a justifiable war won’t hurt him – then it’s pretty clear he loses in 2020 and we would then start down the slope toward the nightmare I write about in my action-packed yet super-snarky novels about the United States’ split into red and blue countries, People's Republic, Indian Country and Wildfire. Not surprisingly, liberals and the sad Loser Boat crew from the failed Weekly Standard hailed my novels as “Appalling.” So, declare war on those goofs and check out my books.

AN ASSUMPTION OF DIGNITY Tabitha Korol 5-20-19 Published on Arutz Sheva, Israel National News

AN ASSUMPTION OF DIGNITY 
Tabitha Korol  5-20-19

 Published on Arutz Sheva, Israel National News

...

Rashida Tlaib, the Muslim congresswoman who proclaimed that she feels more Palestinian than American in Congress, and wrapped herself in a Palestinian terrorist flag at her victory party on Friday, May 10, proudly declared, “There’s always kind of a calming feeling, I tell folks, when I think of the Holocaust.”  We were deeply offended but not surprised as she had already revealed her lack of empathy for the tragic suffering of so many millions of innocents because she was  raised in a culture of disrespect, contempt, bloodshed and death. The Hebrew Commandments mandate respect and reciprocity (The Golden Rule), and the Hebrew and Christian Bibles were able to humanize the savages that had existed previously, while the Koran commands that Muslims torment and kill Jews, Christians, and others unless they convert to Islam (2:120; 3:56; 3:85; 3:118; 3:178; 5:14; and more).  Tlaib added, “When I think of the Holocaust, and the tragedy of the Holocaust, and the fact that it was my ancestors — Palestinians — who lost their land and some lost their lives, their livelihood, their ‘human dignity,’ their existence in many ways, have been wiped out, and some people's passports." 

Clarification is required here.  The “tragedy of the Holocaust,” in her view, is that there were sufficient Jews who survived the Holocaust to re-establish their ancient homeland, Israel!  As for the Arabs who “lost their land and livelihood,” they left their homes based on a hollow promise that they would return when the five Arab armies defeated and eliminated the Jews.  Life presents choices, and the Arabs who chose to leave (fewer than 750,000) not only forfeited their homes but were also treated as outcasts by their own brethren, never being absorbed into the huge Islamic land mass.  They were also held as bargaining pawns, neglected by their own so that the United Nations took on the responsibility of their subsistence  The Arabs who stayed in Israel are the grandparents of today’s Arab Israeli citizens.  Unlike their Arab counterparts, the Jews (~850,000) who fled persecution in Arab lands were welcomed and absorbed, primarily into Israel, but also into Europe and the US.

                      

So, the “outcast” Jews and the “outcast” Arabs had the same time, land and climatic conditions to create a home where they were, but the difference is “inherent dignity.”  Out of malarial swamp land and desert, the Jews worked tirelessly to build a successful, thriving country, today among the most advanced in the world, whereas the Arabs, now-named “Palestinians,” continue to this day to wallow in victimhood and world pity, teaching their children to do the same, and extending their hands for additional “humanitarian” aid. Dignity is inherent, or it is not.    

          

Let’s correct some intentional misinformation.  The Jews are the indigenous people in what is now Israel.  Israel became a nation in 1312 BCE, two thousand years before the rise of Islam, and two decades after the establishment of the modern Jewish State of Israel (1948).  The Hebrews conquered the land in 1272 BCE and held dominion over it for a thousand years with a continuous presence for the past 3,300 years.  Arab refugees in Israel began identifying themselves as Palestinians in 1967, after losing yet another aggressive war against Israel and needing a fallacious narrative on which to establish a tie with the land.

              

Arabs dominated the land for only 22 years, their brutality and persecution so severe as to force the Jews to flee.  The Arabs refused to absorb or integrate Tlaib’s people; they desecrated Jewish holy sites and the ancient Jewish cemetery on the Mount of Olives; destroyed 58 Jerusalem synagogues; and enforced an apartheid-like policy against the Jews, until they once again attacked and lost to Jewish determination.

               

Israel’s area is about 0.18% and its population about 2.5% that of Arab countries.  Had the Palestinians the quality of inherent dignity, the Arabs would have also accepted the Mandate of Palestine with the opportunities of establishing a viable, humane, literate, prosperous, happy country.  They had the same climate, soil, and time that the Jews had, and Israel offered them more opportunities than were ever bestowed on them by an Arab ruler. They chose continuous war instead.  The “Palestinians” didn’t lose dignity; they refused dignity.

                    

Human dignity is defined as the right of a person to be valued and respected for his/her own sake, and to be treated ethically.  It is of significance in morality, ethics, law and politics.  It is also used to describe personal conduct, as in “behaving with dignity,” and it cannot be taken from anyone  To Tlaib, it means self-absorption; to the Western world, it is moral, ethical conduct.  To Tlaib, it is something that gives one a right to demand one’s own way, regardless of actions; to the other, it is a responsibility that demands appropriate actions. 

                

We see dignity in the Israelis who have to reverently gather body parts after a Palestinian blows himself up in a crowd and in the first responders who rush to help countries deal with natural disasters.  It is found in researchers who dedicate their lives to advances that benefit mankind (of the 900 Nobel prizes awarded, at least 20% were presented to Jews, although Jews comprise a mere 0.2% of the world’s population.) it is found in people who lovingly tend sick animals, and in the Israeli surgeon who performs his best, whether for an Israeli or Palestinian patient.  And it is in the President of the United States, President Trump, who visits or calls to offer condolences and compassion to parents of a victim of terrorism.  Dignity is not the rants of disdain by an ungracious congresswoman against the country that gave her refuge from tyranny and poverty or against its President who was enthusiastically and legally voted into that office.  Authentic dignity cannot be found in shari’a-ruled regimes because the Koran denies full dignity to at least 50% of their population for no other reason than that of gender.   

             

There is no dignity in those who burned acres of land and wild life in Israel; who created the dangerous no-go zones of Paris; who burn cars and destroy property in Malmo, Sweden; who attack Jewish pedestrians and mass-rape girls and women in Germany; who massacred fisherman and farmers in Nigeria; who slaughtered villagers in Chad; who killed Christians in Syria.  There were 133 attacks, 822 killed, 1374 injured, 16 suicide blasts in 24 countries in April alone!  Seventy-five attacks, 348 killed, up to the 14th day of Ramadan; nine hundred sixty million murdered over 14 centuries.  When Tlaib and others demand their right to dignity, they are simply insisting that we respect the Indignity that they feel free to heap upon the rest of us.  No deal. 

            

Islamic contempt for certain groups did not begin with their treatment of non-Muslims, but among their own people.  Girls are forced to undergo Female Genital Mutilation and forced into a marriage with older men; women are treated as having half the value of men, and are subjected to stonings, beatings and acid attacks if they are suspected of “sullying” a man’s “honor” or “dignity.”  Where is the dignity and morality in intentionally po‎sitioning women and children at rocket launchers to increase the body count for world pity?  What other culture teaches their young to behead small animals so that they may later behead humans without hesitancy, and sends them on suicide missions?  

         

Rashida Tlaib is a jihada, raised to disrespect all life, and that calming feeling that she feels when she hears of the Holocaust reflects the exposure to violence and criminal be‎havior inbred since her toddlerhood.  Since the 1970s, researchers have begun reporting that childhood cruelty to animals is the first sign of delinquency, violence and criminal be‎havior, and Muslims continue the unimaginable torture and cruelty to livestock as the animals are brought to slaughter for the Islamic holiday of Eid al Adha – further proof that their ideology has produced a society that is on the opposite end of the be‎havioral spectrum to ours.  Apparently, in this case, the dignity of human beings gives them the right to be cruel to animals that, in their philosophy, lack dignity.  For the record, Judaism demands kindness and sensitivity to animals, to prevent suffering, to feed them before we feed ourselves, and to allow them a day of rest in the week (the Sabbath).     

                  

The raison d’etre of Palestinians is, in fact, not to have their own state, but to have the entirety of Israel as their own state, with shari’a as the law of the land.  It carries on the conquests of Mohammed, just as we see Muslims gaining control of cities and parcels of land in Southeast Asia, Canada, England, France, Germany, Sweden, and the United  States, aided by the Marxist left.  Tlaib’s purpose, along with Omar and others in office, is to gradually impose shari’a law here, with the not-so-subtle coercion from the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR).  The background of centuries of violence, conquest, beheading, bloodshed, and enslavement is what drives Tlaib’s lack of dignity, empathy, compassion and respect for the suffering of others.  In reality, disrespect is the cornerstone upon which Islam in general, and the Palestinians in particular, have founded their existence.      

ews in Arab countries suffered unbearable discrimination. Why do our stories remain untold?

Jews in Arab countries suffered unbearable discrimination. Why do our stories remain untold?

By Miriam Shepher

JTA - Thursday is World Refugee Day. And according to the United Nations page devoted to this commemoration, every minute 20 people leave everything behind to escape war, persecution or terror.

I am one of those people.

In 1948, when I was 6 months old, my mother risked everything to escape Tunisia with my siblings and me in search of a better life. My father stayed behind until he could meet us years later at our final destination. We crammed into a ship called the Negba and endured a difficult journey to France. We waited for a year until it was our turn, at last, to enter the land that my mother had always considered our home: Eretz Israel.

I am just one of 850,000 Jewish refugees from Arab countries and Iran who left, fled or were expelled from the countries where they had lived, in many cases, since the Babylonian period. In the years that followed the independence of the State of Israel, Jews in Arab countries suffered unbearable discrimination and acts of violence that led to their forced expulsion. Jews were forced out of Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Iraq, Yemen, Turkey, Lebanon, Syria and later Iran. They left behind their property and belongings, carrying only necessities as they escaped to safety. Entire Jewish communities were wiped out, and centuries of religious customs, traditions, culture and music vanished from the Middle East and North Africa.

Like my family, nearly half of these refugees settled in Israel.

Our stories remain largely untold. Many still do not know of our collective trauma.

I carried my roots with me, even as I grew up in Israel. My life changed at the age of 11 when I was given the opportunity to live on a kibbutz. My father had since passed away in Israel, and my mother was struggling to provide for us.

It was on this kibbutz where my life as an Israeli really began and where I discovered a true sense of family. I learned about the land and people of Israel, and came to understand that I was blessed to live in a time where the centuries-old dream of the Jewish people was a reality. I fell in love with my country.

My family s path has led us to America, where my husband and I have raised our children, but I have never forgotten where I come from.

Yet it seems that to international bodies and human rights organizations, we are invisible. Aren t we just as deserving of global sympathy as any other refugees?

Beginning in 2014, the State of Israel sought to correct this injustice by passing into law a memorial day to commemorate the tragedy of these Jews who were forced to flee their homes. Now, every year on Nov. 30, my story and the stories of hundreds and thousands of other Mizrahi Jews are honored.

But if we aim to recognize every refugee story on World Refugee Day, this story must also be told today.

In Tunisia, the Jewish community was repressed. Today I have many privileges that my family in Tunisia did not. I am blessed to engage in work through the Israeli-American Council that strengthens Jewish identity, bridges Israeli Americans and Jewish Americans, and ensures the continuity of the Jewish people.

There is no greater way to pay tribute to my past than by ensuring that this history is present for our future generations. That is how I answer those who sought to erase my history.

Miriam Shepher is a member of the National Board and Los Angeles Council Chairwoman Emeritus of the Israeli-American Council.