Carter offers Jewish community ‘Al Het’

Recently former President Jimmy Carter "asked the Jewish community for forgiveness for any stigma he may have caused Israel." I am not really sure I buy this. Yes he made a public apology, but you cannot spend years influencing and inspiring the hearts and minds of millions of people into have a bias against Israel, and simply say 'al het' and make it go all away. One might argue is that not exactly what we ask H' to do every Yom Kippur? Perhaps it is. We are supposed to act as b'tzelem Elokeim but I would argue that as horrific as some of our sins might be, they probably did not influence millions (if not tens of millions) of people into believing a revisionist history that has an incredible impact on people's judgments and beliefs. I am referring of course to Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid not to mention the dozen of other brazen acts by this man.

Simple but powerful.

As posted by Hillary Lewin, this is a first Yartzeit video of the Holtzbergs who were victims of Islamist terorrism in Mumbai. Music by Warren Zevon

Click HERE

On Operation Cast Lead

GENEVA, October 16, 2009 -- Today's emergency UN Human Rights Council debate on the Goldstone Report predictably saw a line-up of the world's worst abusers condemn democratic Israel for human rights violations. In a heated lynch mob atmosphere, Kuwait slammed Israel for “intentional killing, intentional destruction of civilian objects, intentional scorched-earth policy,” saying Israel “embodied the Agatha Christie novel, 'Escaped with Murder'.” Pakistan said the “horrors of Israeli occupation continue to haunt the international community’s conscience.” The Arab League said, “We must condemn Israel and force Israel to accept international legitimacy." Ahmadinejad’s Iran said “the atrocities committed against Palestinians during the aggressions on Gaza should be taken seriously” and followed up by the international community “to put an end to absolute impunity and defiance of the law.”

What the world's assembled representatives did not expect, however, was the speech that followed (see text below), organized by UN Watch. We invited as our speaker a man who repeatedly put his life on the line to defend the democratic world from the murderous Saddam Hussein, Al Qaeda, and the Taleban. The moment he began his first sentence, the room fell silent. Judge Goldstone, author of the distorted report that prompted today's one-sided condemnation of Israel but not Hamas, had refused to hear Col. Kemp's testimony during his "fact-finding" hearings. But UN Watch made sure today that this hero's voice would be heard -- at the U.N., and around the world

Thank you, Mr. President.

I am the former commander of the British forces in Afghanistan. I served with NATO and the United Nations; commanded troops in Northern Ireland, Bosnia and Macedonia; and participated in the Gulf War. I spent considerable time in Iraq since the 2003 invasion, and worked on international terrorism for the UK Government’s Joint Intelligence Committee.

Mr. President, based on my knowledge and experience, I can say this: During Operation Cast Lead, the Israeli Defence Forces did more to safeguard the rights of civilians in a combat zone than any other army in the history of warfare.

Israel did so while facing an enemy that deliberately positioned its military capability behind the human shield of the civilian population.

Hamas, like Hizballah, are expert at driving the media agenda. Both will always have people ready to give interviews condemning Israeli forces for war crimes. They are adept at staging and distorting incidents.

The IDF faces a challenge that we British do not have to face to the same extent. It is the automatic, Pavlovian presumption by many in the international media, and international human rights groups, that the IDF are in the wrong, that they are abusing human rights.

The truth is that the IDF took extraordinary measures to give Gaza civilians notice of targeted areas, dropping over 2 million leaflets, and making over 100,000 phone calls. Many missions that could have taken out Hamas military capability were aborted to prevent civilian casualties. During the conflict, the IDF allowed huge amounts of humanitarian aid into Gaza. To deliver aid virtually into your enemy's hands is, to the military tactician, normally quite unthinkable. But the IDF took on those risks.

Despite all of this, of course innocent civilians were killed. War is chaos and full of mistakes. There have been mistakes by the British, American and other forces in Afghanistan and in Iraq, many of which can be put down to human error. But mistakes are not war crimes.

More than anything, the civilian casualties were a consequence of Hamas’ way of fighting. Hamas deliberately tried to sacrifice their own civilians.

Mr. President, Israel had no choice apart from defending its people, to stop Hamas from attacking them with rockets.

And I say this again: the IDF did more to safeguard the rights of civilians in a combat zone than any other army in the history of warfare.

Thank you, Mr. President.

UN Watch Oral Statement
Delivered by Colonel Richard Kemp
UN Human Rights Council
12th Special Session, 16 October 2009
Debate on Goldstone Report

The decade in 7 minutes...

This is absolutely incredible. I would say it is a couple months early considering we do not know what the next two months will hold but nevertheless, this will blow your socks off.

A Must See

Michael Fulop sent this to me, and it is a must watch. At the 92nd Street Y Alan Dershowitz and Dennis Prager discuss support, or lack of support for Israel in this country. Is it just conservatives, is that a good thing, etc. It is not that long, you can listen to it in the background, I assure you. But either way, it is a very must watch in order to get a better idea of the state of affairs beneath the radar.
PART 1:


PART 2:

The stimulus that works and the stimulus that doesn't

This morning, I saw this article about positive effects the stimulus money is having: hot meals for seniors. Something just feels good inside when you discover that some of your tax money is going to feeding senior citizens instead of adding to the billions in government waste. One of the things I do like about the Democratic party is that they are usually the ones to spend more money on social-economical programs such as this. The billions in bailout and TARP money that went to all the financial institutions feels a lot more republican. I think both are important, but let's be honest, using money for old people is the 'feel-good' kind of government spending and fixing our financial institutions feels a lot more cold, and removed. Of course, regarding the latter, the Obama admin totally missed the boat on how to fix the economy. Turns out you can't throw billions of dollars at a problem with no regulations and expect it is blossom into a booming economy. As Josh Gottleib said at a Shabbos meal one time, 'If they had given all the money to the banks and said, 'Here is the money-now go use it! Lend it out to the American people, let them buy homes and fix their credit and get their mortgages adjusted into something can afford." then we would be in much better shape." But instead, the banks took the money and put it into their savings (or holdings, etc.) and are just sitting on it. And of course, the government, who are leaders in arrogance can not and would not go back to the financial institutions with egg on their face and say, 'Oops, we messed up, we failed to stimulate the economy. Can you please give us our money back, or, rather we demand that you lend it all out." To which they will receive an emphatic: "NO."

Obama simply does not like Israel

This evening I learned that the ZOA is asking Obama rescind his recent appointment of retired Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) to chair the President's Intelligence Advisory Board. This is a senator with a consistent anti-Israel voting record. To view the story and several examples of Hagel's voting record, check HERE

With the amount of people in Israel, the U.S. and several other communities throughout the world questioning Obama's support for Israel why in the world would he appoint someone who is so anti-Israel, other the obvious conclusion: President Obama does not like Israel. Of course, who could blame the guy; he sat listening to Rev. Jeremiah Wright shout hate speech for almost a decade. But seriously, one has to ask some tough questions. If you already know your support is in question and your sincerity is in doubt why would you continue to appoint such people?

Obama/Rahm v Israel...What a sad state of affairs.

Recently, Rahm Emanuel gave Israel an ultimatum, "move forward with peace talks with the Palestinians for a two-state solution, or we will stop putting pressure on Iran. www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1239710862759&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull I would first have to ask, "What pressure?" Iran is moving forward full speed ahead. So basically Rahm is asking the Israeli public a simple question: Would you like to die by the hands of Palestinian Hamas or Iranian Hamas? Great options. The ongoing situation between “Palestinians” and Israelis has gone on for decades. And here we have a leader who in one breath says he dreams of a world with Israel wiped off the map, and in the next breath consults with his science department to learn how close he actually is to being able to do it. Now combine that with all of the terrorist groups surrounding Israel, threatening their existence on a daily basis. And as the United States government, who do you put the pressure on? Israel. That is just perfect. They do not have enough pressure on them, and now their virtually only ally is going to turn their back on them as well. I have a lot more to say on this. To be continued, oh and for a quick read, you should check out Newt's take on the situation: http://www.facebook.com/ext/share.php?sid=86674144973&h=C2YFd&u=oCNUp