My reaction to President Obama’s response to the incidents in Egypt, Libya and elsewhere | Jerusalem Post – Blogs.

So now we have one of Iran’s top generals joining the president of Iran in calling for the destruction of Israel. The Iranian general threatens Israel’s total demise and destruction “if [Israel] or any other nation launches attacks against his country.” The Iranian president’s longstanding calls for Israel’s destruction have always been unconditional. Israel is normally referred to by Iranian government officials as the “little Satan” and the US as the “big Satan.”

You can be sure that if and when Iran develops a nuclear bomb and a rocket capable of reaching the US, we here in the US will be at risk simply because we exist. The fanatic Muslims engaged in jihad against Western civilization have as their goal the total destruction of Western civilization which they both envy and hate. Their ultimate objective is to convert the world to Islam.

There are very few Jews left in most Arab countries. In some countries, none. They were forced to flee after Israel became a state in 1948. Many Christian Arabs in Arab countries including those living under the Palestinian Authority on the West Bank, have left their homelands as a result of persecution by their Muslim countrymen. Neither Bethlehem nor Nazareth are cities with a Christian majority. The Arab Christian population of the Palestinian territories has dropped to just 2 percent. Many of those fleeing their countries have sought and found refuge in the US The Coptic Christians who remain in Arab countries, approximately 10 million in Egypt, live in great fear and have suffered pogroms at the hands of their Muslim neighbors. Christians are also in danger in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The recent attacks on American embassies in Egypt and Libya – including the deaths of Chris Stevens, the American Ambassador to Libya, and three other US diplomatic personnel in Libya – have been followed by anti-American demonstrations in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Lebanon, Tunisia, Yemen, Sudan, Nigeria, Iraq and Iran. Why should anyone be surprised? The Arab and Muslim countries hate the US, even those like Egypt, Libya and Tunisia, who have recently overthrown Arab despots during the so-called “Arab Spring,” with the assistance of the US and other Western countries.

Those who were helped by the Western countries to overthrow their despots immediately became Islamist states threatening the US In Afghanistan where we have spent billions in seeking to create a democratic government, the Afghan army and police of the government we are now supporting and defending against the Taliban are responsible for the killing of American and NATO soldiers training them. According to The New York Times of September 16, “[t]he six deaths [on Friday, September 14] brought to 51 the number of coalition service members killed this year in insider attacks. The toll has already well exceeded last year’s total of 35 killed in such violence.” Training the Afghan security forces is the publicly-sated reason of the US as to why we are remaining until 2014. We should evacuate all of our troops from Afghanistan immediately.

We know that when the President publicly stated Egypt was not an ally, he could have said the same about Iraq, Pakistan and Afghanistan. The Muslim world believes the US is not willing or able to use military action against Iran. It knows from the immediate and recent sacking of our embassies in both Egypt and Libya with the security forces in both those countries refusing to protect the American embassies, that the US is not prepared or willing to punish those countries. Normally in such cases, is it unreasonable to expect our Ambassadors — those still alive — to be recalled? Is it unreasonable to immediately cut off as much as remains of the $2 billion annual appropriation to Egypt and whatever we are providing Libya? Is it unreasonable to prohibit Americans from going to both Egypt and Libya as tourists because of the physical danger to them? Egypt’s economy depends on tourism to balance its budget.

President Obama on a number of occasions has publicly stated, “I have Israel’s back.” I don’t know what that means in practice. I believe he should publicly state, as Senator Daniel Inouye of Hawaii said back in January of this year that an attack by Iran on Israel would be considered an attack on the US that would elicit an immediate military response.

Former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said in February 2011, “Any future defense secretary who advises the president to again send a big American land army into Asia or into the Middle East or Africa should ‘have his head examined,’ as General [Douglas] MacArthur so delicately put it.” I agree with him, but that should not preclude our using our extraordinary airpower — rockets, planes and drones – our Navy and our stunning Special Forces where needed.

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‘The prophet’s defender’ – Israel News | Haaretz Daily Newspaper

Facing waning local support for his movement, pressure from Tehran and the potential dethroning of his Syrian patron, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah has emerged from his bunker with a burst of energy.

Posters depicting Bashar Assad and Hezbollah’s secretary general, Hassan Nasrallah, at a demonstration in Beirut this week. Photo by AFP

By Yossi Verter | Sep.21,2012 | 11:12 AM | 1

On Monday, Hezbollah secretary general Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah departed from routine and appeared in public, at a Beirut protest rally he staged to decry “Innocence of Muslims” – the film that has sparked a cascade of rage and opprobrium in the Muslim world. The Hezbollah chief blamed Israel and the United States for distributing the movie, and warned the Americans that the demonstrations against them around the world will escalate should they not pull the plug on it.

“The world must realize that our rage will not subside. This is just the start of a wave of global protest sponsored by all the Muslim peoples. The aim will be to defend the Prophet Mohammed’s name,” Nasrallah told the masses, who marched through Hezbollah stronghold in southern Beirut.

“They didn’t understand,” he continued, “that the way they depicted the Prophet would insult us. They need to realize that on behalf of Mohammed, we will spill our blood.”

The Hezbollah leader also found a symbolic way to demonstrate his own willingness to sacrifice himself for Mohammed. After shunning public appearances for years, due to personal security concerns, he chose to appear at this rally (this was only his fifth public appearance in six years). To some extent, the moment Nasrallah decided to stage the protest and manifest what he called “our commitment to the prophet,” he didn’t have much choice and was compelled to leave his bunker. He knew that were he to issue such forthright declarations and warnings while in hiding, he would be scorned by critics in Lebanon.

Nasrallah became Hezbollah’s secretary general in 1992, after being appointed directly by Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. He succeeded Abbas al-Musawi, who was assassinated by Israel, and, at 52, is one of the youngest leaders in the Middle East today. In recent weeks, Nasrallah has confronted unprecedented criticism of his organization, which challenges his leadership and undermines its status.

Calls to disarm

Like Nasrallah, in 1992 Hezbollah also became a central player in Lebanese society and politics. Indeed, Nasrallah managed to turn Hezbollah into an integral part of Lebanon’s reality. No longer was it an organization that merely represented the state’s weakest minority, the Shi’ites. Today, the Shi’ite Party of God is represented in the country’s parliament and cabinet; it controls key appointments in the army and helps choose the prime minister.

Nasrallah’s current predicament is related to the fact that his ally and second patron – after Khamenei – Syrian President Bashar Assad, is liable to be ousted in the near future. While the implications of regime change in Damascus are unclear, there are signs that the awe in which many Lebanese once held Syria and Hezbollah is steadily eroding. It could all but disappear if and when Assad loses power in Damascus.

Signs of such change can currently be seen on Lebanon’s sociopolitical landscape. Lebanon’s March 14 coalition is calling for Hezbollah to be disarmed. In tandem, that alliance is urging President Michel Sleiman to call on the UN Security Council to deploy UNIFIL peacekeeping forces as a buffer along the country’s northeastern border. The consequences of such a deployment could be grave for Hezbollah, since the area serves as the conduit through which the organization receives most of its firearms.

For Nasrallah, this is also a year of decision, owing largely to his dependence upon Iran and its leader, Khamenei. Top figures in Iran are eager to use Hezbollah as a proxy to fight Tehran’s battles in a scenario in which Iran is attacked by Israel. Under such circumstances, Iran’s leadership would likely expect that the Lebanese Shi’ite organization fire its arsenal of missiles against Israel.

Meanwhile, Mohammad Ali Jafari, head of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, has announced that operatives from its Al Quds force are operating in Lebanon.

Thus, after cultivating for 20 years an independent “Lebanese” profile, Nasrallah now finds himself hedged in publicly by Tehran, and forced into the role of Iran’s possible defender. In view of very explicit statements made on this subject – and also Hezbollah’s total economic dependence upon Tehran – Nasrallah will have little option other than attacking Israel under a scenario of a Netanyahu-precipitated strike on Iran’s nuclear installations. Any such Hezbollah attack would jeopardize the Shi’ite organization’s survival, and also drag Lebanon into an arduous war that could ultimately undermine the stability of the country’s fragile government.

Nasrallah is responding to the pressures with a burst of energy. He makes countless speeches and issues incendiary threats, hoping to come across as the “defender of Lebanon” in the eyes of the country’s non-Shi’ite population. He is likely to step up this speechmaking in coming weeks. He has apparently taken on the role of “the Prophet Mohammed’s defender,” to reinforce his organization’s public status. Yet it appears that verbal attacks leveled by Hezbollah critics will escalate – it’s possible that Hezbollah could even end up in a violent engagement with extreme Sunni forces in Lebanon.

During similar predicaments in the past, Nasrallah attempted to extricate himself from public pressure by ratcheting up border tensions with Israel, sometimes via military actions such as kidnapping Israel Defense Forces soldiers (for example, the events of July 2006 which precipitated the Second Lebanon War ). This year, and not necessarily as a result of the leader’s connections with Tehran, Hezbollah could try to deflect the public pressure it faces in Lebanon by directing energy against the “Zionist enemy” in the south.

In coming months, Nasrallah will be the figure who decides Lebanon’s fate, and whether it will be one of quiet or war.

Déjà Vu All Over Again? | JewishPress.

U.S. President Lyndon Johnson and Israeli Prime Minister Levi Eshkol at Randolf Airbase, Texas, June 1, 1968.
Photo Credit: David Elfan/Government Press Office

The current clash between President Obama and Prime Minister Netanyahu over U.S. policy regarding Iran’s efforts to secure a nuclear capacity calls to mind the contretemps between President Lyndon Johnson and Israeli Prime Minister Levi Eshkol in 1967.

At that time the disagreement was over the proper response to Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser’s threats to close the Straits of Tiran and the Suez Canal to Israeli shipping – a crippling blow to Israel’s economy – and to attack Israel from the Sinai in a war of policide against the Jewish state.

Then too, a U.S. president told Israel to rely on the international community and resist going to war. In the end, Israel acted on its own as it became clear that international efforts were not succeeding. The risks became intolerable and what became known as the Six-Day War ensued.

Despite the virtual certainty that sanctions against Iran are not deterring its nuclear development, President Obama still wants more time. This even though there are numerous loopholes in the sanctions and Russia and China are not cooperating in any event. Indeed, Iran just recently demonstrated that it is hardly isolated in the international community when it hosted a conference attended by most of the nations of the world.

The president has given no quarter to Israel, refusing to concede that maybe Israel has a point that the sanctions approach has failed.

In 1967 Israel from the start was prepared to go it alone but was accused of seeking to push the United States into war. This time, even more so than in 1967, careful deliberation is needed – by Mr. Netanyahu no less than Mr. Obama. Because the notion that the U.S. is being drawn into war by Israel is an incendiary one in a war-weary America and fraught with a danger all its own.

The New York Times spelled it all out, in blatantly incendiary fashion, in a September 4 editorial titled “No Rush to War”:

Amid the alarming violence in the Arab world, a new report about the costs of a potential war with Iran got lost this week. It says an attack by the United States could set back Iran’s nuclear program four years at most, while a more ambitious goal – ensuring Iran never reconstitutes its nuclear program or ousting the regime – would involve a multiyear conflict that could engulf the region.The significance of the report by The Iran Project is not just its sober analysis but the nearly three dozen respected national security experts from both political parties who signed it: including two former national security advisers, Brent Scowcroft and Zbigniew Brzezinski; former Undersecretary of State Thomas Pickering; and the retired Gen. Anthony Zinni.

Yet Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel is trying to browbeat president Obama into a pre-emptive strike. On Tuesday, he demanded that the United States set a red line for military action and said those who refuse “don’t have a moral right to place a red light before Israel.” Later, Mr. Obama telephoned him and rejected the appeal. On Friday, Mr. Netanyahu suggested in an interview that Israel cannot entirely rely on the United States to act against Iran’s program.

Leaders need flexibility and ambiguity, not just hard and fast red lines. And it is dangerous for Mr. Netanyahu to try to push the president into a corner publicly and raise questions about Washington. Is that really the message he wants to send to Tehran?

There is no reason to doubt president Obama’s often repeated commitment to keep Iran from having a nuclear weapon. But 70 percent of Americans oppose a unilateral strike on Iran, according to a new poll by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, and 59 percent said if Israel bombs Iran and ignites a war, the United States should not come to its ally’s defense.

So there you have it. Despite the fact that by any measure there is no apparent prospect that the sanctions are working or will work, the Times has the audacity to charge Prime Minister Netanyahu, whose country is at greater risk from a nuclear Iran than any other country and who only asked that the U.S. not stand in its way, with “trying to browbeat President Obama into a pre-emptive strike” and “push[ing] the president into a corner publicly….”

This past Sunday, a veteran Times columnist went even further with the theme of an Israel bent on pushing America into war against its own interests. In a disturbing column titled “Neocons Slither Back,” Maureen Dowd invoked several infamous stereotypes in making her case.

The title itself is revealing. In the George W. Bush years, the term “neocons” came to be, in all too many cases, code for “Jews,” especially when certain critics of the Iraq war tried to make the case that some sort of nefarious cabal had hijacked American policy.

Such critics would cite by name Jewish administration insiders like Richard Perle, Elliott Abrams, Scooter Libby, Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith, usually ignoring the non-Jewish officials – including, of course, President Bush himself – who actually were responsible for the decision to invade Iraq. Depicting Jews as manipulators of pliant and trusting gentiles has not been uncommon in anti-Semitic literature.

Ms. Dowd railed against the influence on “neophyte” vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan of Jewish adviser Dan Senor, whom she described as “the neocon puppet master.” She went on: “Before he played ventriloquist to Ryan, Senor did the same for Romney, ratcheting up the candidate’s irresponsible bellicosity on the Middle East.”

She alluded to a potential attack on Iran as the neocons’ promoting an American sense of “duty to invade and bomb Israel’s neighbors,” something she described as “all ominously familiar,” harking back to the Iraq war. She even said the neocons,“abetted by Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld,” prodded “an insecure and uninformed president into invading Iraq.”

Imagine, the real driving force was the Jewish cabal, with even such notoriously hard-boiled types as Mr. Cheney and Mr. Rumsfeld assuming the role of mere pawns.

As if there were any doubt about her message that only those with an agenda not in sync with true American interests could support Israel’s position on Iran, she referred to “Netanyahu’s outrageous demand for clear red lines on Iran.”

Outrageous? Not even an arguable position?

This is serious stuff. And the Obama campaign has circulated the Dowd column via Twitter.

We suggest that President Obama take a deep breath and consider where this sort of thing could easily lead. Especially since Israel only seeks to act, unimpeded, in its own security interests.

Rushdie lashes out against Islam: interview.

Friday, 21 September 2012

Author Salman Rushdie said his years fleeing the 1989 fatwa from Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini had forced him to pay close attention to a radicalization of the Muslim world. (Reuters)

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British author Salman Rushdie, who lived in hiding for nine years under a death sentence from Iran’s supreme leader, said in an interview published on Thursday that something had gone wrong at the heart of Islam.

Rushdie told Le Monde newspaper that his years fleeing the 1989 fatwa from Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini had forced him to pay close attention to a radicalization of the Muslim world.

“Something has gone wrong at the heart of Islam. It is quite recent. I remember when I was young, many cities in the Muslim world were cosmopolitan cities with a lot of culture,” he said in an interview published in French.

The fatwa, in response to his 1988 novel “The Satanic Verses”, made Rushdie synonymous with the tussle between freedom of expression and the need to respect religious sensitivities.

The interview was conducted on September 12, just as a film mocking the Prophet Mohammad sparked violent protests across the Islamic world. These included a deadly attack in Libya which killed the U.S. ambassador and three embassy staff.

The California-made film, and a series of cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad published by a French satirical weekly on Wednesday, have revived international debate over free speech, religion and the right to offend. Many Muslims consider any representation of Allah or the Prophet Mohammad blasphemous.

“There is a limit beyond which you cannot blame the West any more,” Rushdie told Le Monde. “Having said that, if there was the slightest sign that Muslim society was able to create an open democracy, I would change my opinion.”

The Lawgiver: A Novel: Herman Wouk: 9781451699388: Amazon.com: Books.

( I am proud of and deeply love my father, so… – JW )

Coming November 13, 2012

For more than fifty years, legendary author Herman Wouk has dreamed of writing a novel about the life of Moses. Finally, at age ninety-seven, he has found an ingeniously witty way to tell the tale in The Lawgiver, a romantic and suspenseful epistolary novel about a group of people trying to make a movie about Moses in the present day. The story emerges from letters, memos, e-mails, journals, news articles, recorded talk, Skype transcripts, and text messages.

At the center of The Lawgiver is Margo Solovei, a brilliant young writer-director who has rejected her rabbinical father’s strict Jewish upbringing to pursue a career in the arts. When an Australian multibillionaire promises to finance a movie about Moses if the script meets certain standards, Margo does everything she can to land the job, including a reunion with her estranged first love, an influential lawyer with whom she still has unfinished business.

Two other key characters in the novel are Herman Wouk himself and his wife of more than sixty years, Betty Sarah, who, almost against their will, find themselves entangled in the Moses movie when the Australian billionaire insists on Wouk’s stamp of approval.

As Wouk and his characters contend with Moses and marriage, and the force of tradition, rebellion, and reunion, The Lawgiver reflects the wisdom of a lifetime. Inspired by the great nineteenth-century novelists, one of America’s most beloved twentieth-century authors has now written a remarkable twenty-first-century work of fiction.

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