On Bringing Redemption

Rabbis: Abortion will delay the redemption - Jpost, Dec. 29, 2009, Matthew Wagner

Rabbi Metzger and Rabbi Amar (JewishPress)

Declaring that abortions "delay the redemption," Israel's chief rabbis have pledged to "strengthen" the work of an anti-abortion council in the rabbinate and urged state-employed rabbis to take other steps to reduce abortions.

In a letter sent out on Monday, Chief Rabbis Shlomo Amar and Yona Metzger encourage local rabbis to devote their Shabbat sermons to speaking against abortions, distribute anti-abortion literature to couples registering for marriage at religious councils, and work in coordination with the pro-life organization Efrat to encourage grassroots opposition to abortions.

It is indeed gratifying to find those all too few occasions where Jewish leadership draws a clearly demarcated line of separation where virtue of Torah supersedes political expediency. Cast within the announcement by the Chief Rabbinate that aborting the unborn will “delay the redemption” Chief Rabbis Amar and Metzger have revealed yet another disconnect between the Jewish liberalism espoused by mainstream non-Orthodox organizations at the will of their constituent’s and Torah values. It is cliché to point out that the desires and values reflected in the non-Jewish world of Edom are given favor by our non-Orthodox brothers and sisters at the expense of a Jewish world view.

The Rabbinate’s ruling is focused upon the misogynistic procedure known as abortion, {short for the aborting of a pregnancy, IE withdrawing through barbaric means, “potential” life called a fetus, from the womb of a female, (in the Jewish sense we must hold by halachic interpretation not conventional wisdom) and preventing it from attaining a full gestation at which time the fetus would leave the womb of the female carrying her, and attain rights under both halacha and US law as a live human.}

The act of destroying potential life is antithetical to Torah values. While our non-Orthodox brethren emphasize and focus upon the Torah’s imposition of financial remuneration for the miscarriage caused unintentionally by another Jew as the pivotal point in understanding what is perceived to be permission to destroy a fetus, those same Jews fail to continue the logic which follows when learning the din of the intentional act of causing an abortion, (see pg 2 Daf Digest) which reviews the Gemara in question and the response of R. Moshe Feinstein, (ZTL) to the idea that a Jew intentionally causing an abortion is viewed as a murderer.)

Having determined that the performance of an abortion by a Jew is murder, one must look with curiosity at the non-Orthodox heterim for abortion. All opinions that I could find in my review express a value statement upholding the sanctity of life within all of the opinions. However, strangely, this expression of sanctity gives way to what appears to be an equal or greater “right” of giving a woman “the choice” of withdrawing the potential life, IE the fetus from her womb with varying degrees of permissibility. The woman's right is usually based on an undefined “psychological” condition.

This wording of choice has always baffled me. What choice? The natural order of pregnancy is concluded by the female giving birth. This is how Hashem determined procreation should occur and gave a positive mitzvah to the Jewish male to have offspring. Mitzvah of procreation.

Tragically, miscarriages occur. Both the conception, pregnancy, delivery and even miscarriage when it occurs (it should be His will that they never occur) are acts of G-d. How does someone choose a different path? How can destruction of the fetus be considered a choice when it is the Aibishter that made the pregnancy possible?
We learn that jealousy is a great sin, less because the negativity it portrays but the fact that jealousy represents a denial of the existence of G-d's will. Who determines what should happen and how? Who is the rich man? (hint: look for the answer in Pirke Avos). The same goes with pregnancy. It is Hashem's will that pregnancy exists and his will who will become pregnant and who will not. We merely need to look no further than the early chapters of Sefer Bereshis and learn this from the matriarchs. So choice, does not represent what the modern American feminist says, a woman's control over her body but a denial of the G-d's order in the world. Only intentional disinformation bred of Edomite culture can interpret a blessing as a curse. Our poor brothers and sisters in the non-Orthodox world have adopted this twisted non-Jewish inspired kefira.

Now, there is a danger here of going too far. We must recognize that there are clear halachic grounds where destruction of the fetus is not only permissible but required most notably when the continuation of the pregnancy would be the direct cause of death to the mother – a rare occasion these days. In all of these situations, a competent halachic expert must be consulted. One Orthodox Rabbi once told me in fact that since the Pro-life movement could restrict halachic abortion as well as impermissible abortion that he was leery of the movement. However, given a choice between the two movements, one would have to conclude that Torah has more in common with the Pro-life movement than the alternative. If Jews were put in this world to bring the light of Torah to this dark place than we must emphasize the position which most reflects the Torah's perspective. Indeed, not only must we bring the light here but we must turn the darkness into light. One step in that process is for pulpit Rabbis to speak passionately on the theme suggested by the Chief Rabbinate and not shy away for political reasons from the truth. For bringing light into the darkness must start in the Jewish congregations.

Supporting articles

USCJ
Jewish Virtual Library Article on Reform Practices
Hadassah
Women's League of Conservative Judaism
Ask Moses Article on Abortion
JLaw Article on stem cell research which discusses life issues

Abbas's Newest Jew Murdering Martyrs

PA, Abbas Bless Rabbi’s Murderers as ‘Martyrs’

Abu Mazen gives thinking people another reason to pause and contemplate what futility it would be to engage in final status negotiations with the arabians known as "palestinians". Abu Mazen is no different than Arafat,YmSh except for the expensive suits he wears. The formula of duality-politics, giving red meat to arabians in their native language and for the English speaking, non-arabic speaking audiences - peace drivel has not changed an iota in decades. We have come to expect such arabian non-sense. Things that become a 'matter of course' also fall victim to the adage 'familiarity breeds contempt'. Except as it applies to Israel. It is Israel and the Jews to whom the contempt is focused and not the arabian antagonists.

It is most discouraging that in this day and age that the antiJews around the globe choose to encourage arabian foreign policy by deceptive behavior. Jews, on the other hand have no halachic or moral reason to give fatah or the PA any benefit of the doubt. To the extent that Bibi believes that it is a time to negotiate, one can only hope that he intends this call to be a ploy - giving the arabians another noose to hang themselves. With hamas re-gaining nerve and weapons, a new show down between fatah and hamas cannot be too far away.

Perhaps Bibi would be strengthened by reading the opinion piece which ran in the WSJ earlier this week Israel's Right in the 'Disputed' Territories written by Danny Ayalon, Deputy FM.

Rabbi Meir Avshalom Chai (H'Y'D), the father of 7 - murdered in a car for the "crime" of being a Jew by arabians on the payroll of fatah, was remembered by his 17 year old son, Eliyahu with these words, “The difference between us and them is that we are human beings. We won’t shoot them in the head for no reason. We are Jews, holy people, human beings.” Matzav.com story. This is as good a summary as any of the truth for why the world hates the Jews.

Palestinian Myth on Video

Appearing earlier this past summer, the video below of Azmi Bishara is being re-cycled by Israel National News in an attempt to publicize the fallacy and deception of the palestinian myth. The myth remains in the concealed cranial crevices of arabian leadership except during those moments of candor when the truth slips out exposed by ego trips in front of cameras and microphones.

Azmi Bishara: There is No "Palestinian" Nation. Never Was! - INN

Translation: “Well, I dont think there is a Palestinian nation at all. I think there is an Arab nation. I always thought so and I did not change my mind. I do not think there is a Palestinian nation, I think its a colonialist invention - Palestinian nation. When were there any Palestinians? Where did it come from? I think there is an Arab nation. I never turned to be a Palestinian nationalist, despite of my decisive struggle against the occupation. I think that until the end of the 19th century, Palestine was the south of Greater Syria.”

WeJew link

some backgrounders:
The No-State Solution

Palestinian problem: anti-Jewish racism

Rep. Ellison's "CAIR"ing for Congress

David Horowitz's excellent news blog, NewsReal blog posted an article today, Congressional Group Comes to CAIR’s Defense which sheds light into the dishonesty and purpose of Congressional leftists to sell out America through subterfuge.

The short version is that some Republican Congressmen are concerned that the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), with its history of supporting an agenda to Islamify America along with its agenda to support terrorists in their war against the west and Israel, (see more here) is advancing its cause in Congress through the auspices of Congressional interns and want an investigation into their activities. Well as the old saying goes, if you ain't done it you have nothing to worry about. In fact, if the parties under investigation are innocent, inviting a review of their activities would bring them additional credibility would it not?

Now for the subterfuge; Congressman Keith Ellison, (D,MN) America's Congressional voice for Islam is all in a huff over the idea along with allies from the Black Caucus, Hispanic Caucus, and Asian Caucus. In a fashion typical of Islam, which takes the truths of Torah and flips them on their head adding a uniquely Arabian twist to them (such as replacing Avraham and Yitzchak in the akeida narrative going to Har haMoriah, it is Ishmael going with Ibrahim to be bound and for which the Muslim holiday of Eid ul-Adha commemorates. The Torah of course, appeared well over one thousand years before the Koran, so go figure) Ellison uses an argument form which utilizes what is to be interpreted as value statements and positions them in support of his deceptive effort to defend what is indefensible. In contrast to Ellison's position, the logic pointed out above is a balanced approach to determine if the interests of CAIR's alleged and verified illegal activities are being represented in Congress.

Here is an example of Ellison's end run from the story:

If anything, we should be encouraging all Americans to engage in the U.S. political process; to take part in, and to contribute to, the great democratic experiment that is America.

Of course. Who would argue with this? Who would discourage participation in the political process in America? Now, this quote was the end of the statement. It was proceeded by:

The idea that we should investigate Muslim interns as spies is a blow to the very principle of religious freedom that our founding fathers cherished so dearly.”

Hm - I don't get it. Has someone suggested that Muslim interns are not allowed to practice their Islam? Has someone suggested that Muslims cannot be interns? Is anyone insinuating that all Muslims are spies? Would the Founding Fathers have ignored a threat of spying because the accusation of such would anger the accused or the coreligionists of the accused? Is CAIR so firmly and fully ingrained into Muslim America that suspecting CAIR of illegal activity is off-limits?

The other quotes can be found in the original article. Ellison is clearly mis-leading the listener/reader to defend against even a fair investigative review of certain individuals actions. There is no Constitutional right to be a Congressional intern nor is there a right to represent the interests of organizations which are supporting terrorism and advocating policies which are detrimental to the interests of the United States.

Real Jewish Activism

The term "Jewish activism" can pass as many things. The nature of English as a language permits a deceptively common string of otherwise disparate entities or events to define the core nature of both entities. Jewish activism is a good case study of this trick. One might assume that Jewish activism must be both Jewish and be activist to warrant this description. As most readers already know, most Jewish activism has little to do with Judaism and is usually only called such merely by virtue of the fact that it is activism of Jews or by Jews but without a Jewish soul.

Two recent articles however define in my opinion what real Jewish activism is. The first found at Shmais.com comes from the United Kingdom where chairman of the Rabbinical Council of United Synagogue(RCUS), Rabbi Yitzchak Schochet is going the distance in the UK court system to defend the halachic definition of "Who is a Jew". The court case involves a child of a non-Jewish mother and Jewish father who sought to enroll their son into a school in London which requires it's students to be Jewish. Where the common "Jewish activist" sentimentalism and raw emotionalism would call for a decision to be made in a non-traditional way, over-ruling halacha for the family's sake (in the mode of the US Federations who adopt non-traditional Jewish break-away definitions to keep the money pie as big as possible), the RCUS and Rabbi Schochet are standing firm. Bravo, kol hakavod. This is real Jewish activism.

The second story comes from Jpost in the form of an editorial by David Weinberg calling out JStreet for what I would refer to it as (although I doubt this is original), the Yevsektsiya of American leftist politics, serving its masters at the DNC and the White House.

JStreet is holding its first ever "hug-in" as Weinberg calls it this week to discuss how to better re-define support for Israel by opposing Israel and to justify this opposition by calling it a Jewish thing to do. Weinberg says:

J Street is a new form of Jewish apostasy. Its adherents hasten to embrace their Jewishness (even if they don't really know much about authentic Jewish tradition and morality) in order to besmirch Israel and the mainstream Jewish community. They earnestly declare how "profoundly" Jewish they are, in order to engender a distancing in US-Israel relations.

Indeed, David Weinberg scores a full body blow in this editorial. And again, this is real Jewish activism, no apologies, no ill-will, just telling the truth, doing the right thing for the right reason, not looking back.

Both Rabbi Schochet and David Weinberg should be an example for American Jewry. We will never overcome the problems that endanger the survival of our community until we are willing to tell the truth about what ails us and speak up to defend our Torah, tradition and our Holy Land. Our common destiny awaits.

PSA - Lulav Ring Tying

ALSO:
A nice story and photo exhibit to bring you into the Sukkos mood, see A Growing Enterprise on Kingston, Lulav Rings!

PREVIEW:

Chag Sameach

Privacy Vs. Privacy

Below is an article printed in a recent "InformationWeek.com" reporting on a federal civil case involving a Wyoming bank and Google Inc. The core issue running underneath the case is the definition of a data breach and when it should be disclosed. The plaintiff, (Rocky Mountain Bank) wished to seal the court documents to prevent the publicizing of the breach.

A Rocky Mountain Bank employee inadvertently emailed a list of bank customers along with account information to a Gmail account belonging to an unknown party. The error was discovered the next day and the bank employee attempted to re-mediate the problem by recalling the email and then sending a follow up email informing the unknown recipient to delete the email and file immediately.

Question: Do the account holders of the 1,325 individual and business accounts that were breached in error, have an established right to notification before the bank can determine whether or not any illegality on the part of the recipient has occurred? The bank argued that there is no reason to panic. The court ordered otherwise. (a footnote to the denied order establishes that a breach occurred whether or not the data will be used for fraudulent purposes or with or without a determination on the active or inactive status of the account).

Question: Does Google have a mandate to inform the bank about the status of the email account and possibly additional contact information on file for the email account holder? What if that action could prevent the illegal use of the mistakenly sent data or does the privacy of the email account user force Google to maintain a policy of requiring a court order to take such action which would result in a significant delay by the custodian of the information in possibly seeking the assistance of law enforcement?

The court's denial of the request by the bank to seal the docket was made in deference to established precedent that court documents are public record and should be sealed only when absolutely necessary. Breaches, the court found - do not qualify as absolutely necessary. Google, for its part merely requested its procedures for release of information be followed. Wouldn't Google's pre-mature release upon request of an email holders name, while not qualifying as a "breach" of personally identifying information constitute a breach of trust? Email accounts are provided, as most software, with a fine print user's agreement.


However Google's privacy policy reads as follows:

Information sharing

Google only shares personal information with other companies or individuals outside of Google in the following limited circumstances:

· We have your consent. We require opt-in consent for the sharing of any sensitive personal information.

· We provide such information to our subsidiaries, affiliated companies or other trusted businesses or persons for the purpose of processing personal information on our behalf. We require that these parties agree to process such information based on our instructions and in compliance with this Privacy Policy and any other appropriate confidentiality and security measures.

· We have a good faith belief that access, use, preservation or disclosure of such information is reasonably necessary to (a) satisfy any applicable law, regulation, legal process or enforceable governmental request, (b) enforce applicable Terms of Service, including investigation of potential violations thereof, (c) detect, prevent, or otherwise address fraud, security or technical issues, or (d) protect against harm to the rights, property or safety of Google, its users or the public as required or permitted by law. Google Privacy Policy

It seems from their stated privacy policies that the request for a court order goes above and beyond what they state in their published privacy policy. Nowhere does it say "must" have a court order to release information. Therefore, if fraudulent activity does occur as a result of this breach, it is possible to hold Google, Inc. somewhat liable for delaying action which could have (possibly) prevented or limited the resultant fraud.

The trade-offs in this case are not pleasant. The email account that received that transmission may not have been logged into in many months and could have been a "throw away" email. Which group of people has the greater claim to privacy - the bank account holders or the Google email user?

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Lawsuit Tied To Bank Gmail Error Can't Be Secret, Judge Says

A lawsuit seeking to identify a Gmail user who accidentally received confidential bank information must proceed in public.


By Thomas Claburn, InformationWeek
Sept. 21, 2009
URL: article link


A bank's effort to prevent the disclosure of information about a data breach arising from an errant Gmail message has been rejected by a federal judge in San Jose, California.

On Friday, Judge Ronald M. Whyte of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, acting on behalf of another judge, denied a motion by the Wyoming-based Rocky Mountain Bank to seal its lawsuit against Google.

An attempt by a bank to shield information about an unauthorized disclosure of confidential customer information until it can determine whether or not that information has been further disclosed and/or misused does not constitute a compelling reason that overrides the public's common law right of access to court filings, the judge said in his ruling.

The lawsuit seeks to force Google to reveal information about a Gmail account holder who received a misdirected e-mail sent by a bank employee.

The message, intended for a bank customer, included an attachment that should not have been sent containing confidential customer information for 1,325 individual and business accounts, according to the court's summary of the case. The data is question is said to include names, addresses, tax identification numbers, and loan information.

According to the facts summarized in the judge's order -- the actual complaint has not yet been made available in response to the judge's ruling -- the bank employee attempted to e-mail loan statements to one of the bank's customers who had requested them. But the message went to the wrong person, with a confidential file.

After learning of its inadvertent disclosure of confidential customer information, Plaintiff tried to recall the e-mail without success, the court's summary states. It then sent another e-mail to the Gmail address, instructing the recipient to immediately delete the prior e-mail and the attached file in its entirety without opening or reviewing it. Plaintiff also requested that the recipient contact Plaintiff to discuss his or her actions. The recipient has not responded to Plaintiff's e-mail.

Representatives of Rocky Mountain Bank, based in Wilson, Wyoming, did not return repeated calls seeking either confirmation or denial of the bank's involvement in the lawsuit.

Neil Arney, an attorney for the plaintiff with the Denver, Colorado branch of law firm Kutak Rock, declined to provide any information about the case. Separately, a spokesperson for the firm said he had been instructed by attorneys working on the Rocky Mountain Bank case not to respond to media inquiries.

A clerk for the court said that the case was still sealed until the parties responded to the judge's order and declined to provide further information. The judge has allowed the Gmail address of the accidental recipient of the bank's data to be redacted in court documents.

Rocky Mountain Bank filed its lawsuit because it asked Google to provide information about the account holder who received the errant message and Google declined to provide any information without a court order.

Google said that it is waiting for the bank to comply with the judge's order that it resubmit its filing before deciding on a response.

When Google receives legal process, such as court orders and subpoenas, where possible we promptly provide notice to users to allow them to object to those requests for information, a company spokesperson said in an e-mailed statement. In this case, RMB must comply with proper court process, and the court has required it to resubmit its papers. Once we have a chance to review these papers, we will determine our response.

The judge's ruling sets Monday, September 21, as the deadline for the plaintiff to resubmit the filing.

CARD Act of 2009 and Credit Fraud Risk

The Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility, and Disclosure (CARD) Act of 2009 became law in May. The provisions of the law address consumer protections, improved disclosures of credit contracts, gift cards, and of particular interest - regulations concerning the younger consumers and credit issuance.

The new law prevents consumers under the age of 21 from opening a new credit account

unless the consumer has submitted a written application to the card issuer that the meets the requirements of....the signature of a co-signer, including the parent, legal guardian, spouse, or any other individual who has attained the age of 21 having means to repay debts incurred by the consumer in connection with the account, indicating joint liability for debts incurred by the consumer in connection with the account before the consumer has attained the age of 21; or submission by the consumer of financial information, including through an application, indicating an independent means of repaying any obligation arising from the proposed extension of credit in connection with the account.

Also in the act is a provision which requires someone from the same list of parties above to increase an open credit line for an under 21 consumer. Other provisions include protecting young consumers from pre-screened offers of credit and for regulating, tracking, and reporting the activities of credit issuers involvement on campuses which includes prohibiting the offering of tangible gifts as an inducement to open a new credit account. The law also requires "credit card and debt education and counseling sessions" be provided to all new students of any institution.

While in particular the inducement restriction is a welcome regulation, there is reason to be concerned that a piece of this new law may increase identity frauds and scams. It will not take too long for 18 or 19 year olds who will not have co-signers to find co-signers when this law goes into affect, supposedly this upcoming winter.

The possibility for fraud is wide open. Some scam possibilities include offering to co-sign for a credit card in exchange for cash either as a residual or one-time fee without taking actual responsibility for the account. The "co-signer" may also be using stolen personal identifying information. What about the under 21 year old obtaining without authorization or buying an identity in order to create a co-signer? In the same way that 21 year olds and older buy alcohol for other students, it is a fair guess to say that irresponsible "adults" will co-sign for under 21 year olds. Just wait until we see fraternities and sororities offering credit backing as a fringe benefit of pledging or using it as an inducement for some other activity. This is merely the beginning. While this law is well-intended, I do not believe it was well thought out.

Israel's Greatest Adversary

"Right now, the Obama Administration is the strongest, if you will, and the greatest adversary that Israel has." Jay Shapiro Show - 12 July 09 'The Real US-Israel Relationship' - Israel National Radio

Increasingly, it is becoming apparent that the US President, Barack Hussein Obama no longer has any apprehension in hiding the fact that he is not a friend of Israel.

Monday's meeting with "Top Jewish Organizational Leaders" hand-picked for passivity, (as pointed out in the Leibler article below) further supports the notion that Obama is unashamedly and openly anti-Israel. Obama wants no opposition to his opinion that Yosh is the biggest obstacle to peace and wants support for that position by the lefties who voted for him. The idea that "settlements" are the biggest obstacle to peace also is a surrender to the false notion that Israel was required to withdraw from all of Yosh in any of the previous "negotiations" or treaties.

I am drawn to the words of Moshe Rabbenu in the first of this week's two parashios (Matos) after the leaders of the tribes of Reuven and Gad approach him to request that their inheritance be granted to them on the other side of the Jordan, in the lands of Sichon and Og. Moshe asks these leaders

32:6. [Thereupon,] Moses said to the descendants of Gad and the descendants of Reuben, "Shall your brethren go to war while you stay here? 7. Why do you discourage the children of Israel from crossing over to the land which the Lord has given them?

Moshe then goes on to remind these leaders why they were sentenced to die in and wonder in the wilderness - because the people angered G-d doing evil in His eyes. Then Moshe adds

14. And behold, you have now risen in place of your fathers as a society of sinful people, to add to the wrathful anger of the Lord against Israel. 15. If you turn away from following Him, He will leave you in the desert again, and you will destroy this entire people."

These lefties who nod in self-righteous approval of this administration are letting their brethren go to war for them and discourage the weak and dis-heartened of our people from "crossing over to the land" publically standing up to support their brethern in the land of Israel. Their actions are evil and contrary to the safety of the Jews in the land of Israel and places into jeopardy, all Jews collective inheritance of the land. These leftie Jews have "risen in place of their fathers" - (those who compensate them and pay their salaries and wish for these wayward Jews to nod on their behalf.)

Today's story in Ha'aretz suggests that the Obama team may make a superficial concession to allow construction projects underway in the "territories" to be completed, but nothing else. In return for this "favor", Obama will be calling for a "binding time-table" for completion of negotiations between the democratically elected government of Israel and the terrorists who stole the PA from other terrorists who actually were elected.

Below, Isi Leibler lays out a compeling case as to why Obama is causing significant damage not only to the US-Israel relationship but to Israel's security. By accepting arabian propaganda as truth, Obama has turned the tables on America's role in the world as the bearer of truth. Shameful.

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Candidly Speaking: The case against Obama

Jul. 15, 2009
Isi Leibler , THE JERUSALEM POST
Prior to the election, many traditional Jewish supporters of the Democratic Party were apprehensive of Barack Obama's initially negative attitude to Israel and his troubling association with people like PLO ideologue Rashid Khalidi and the anti-Semitic Rev. Jeremiah Wright. However after aggressively repudiating his earlier policies, Obama convinced most Jews that he would never abandon the Jewish state. Alas, recent developments suggest otherwise.

President Obama is adept at warming the cockles of the hearts of his Jewish constituents, many of whom seem as mesmerized by him as their forebears were by Franklin D Roosevelt. He repeatedly articulates his commitment to the welfare of Israel and admiration for American Jewry.

Yet if one probes beneath the veneer of bonhomie and analyzes the substance of his policies, they reflect an unprecedented downturn in relations towards Israel with hints of worse to come. This was reaffirmed by Obama in the course of his recent meeting with Jewish leaders (which included representatives of extremist fringe groups like Peace Now and J Street but excluded those likely to be critical of his approach). In an extraordinary patronizing manner with his Jewish aides beaming at him he told Israelis to "engage in self reflection" and made it clear that he believed he had a better understanding of what is best for them than their democratically elected government. Alas, with the exception of Malcolm Hoenlein and Abe Foxman, it appears that the majority of the others endorsed his position or remained silent. Yet only a few days earlier even a passionate Democrat like Alan Dershowitz had expressed concern "that the coming changes in the Obama administration's policies could weaken the security of the Jewish state".

THIS COLUMN is a response to American Jews devoted to Israel who remain under the charismatic spell of their president and challenged me to demonstrate how his policies are harming Israel.

President Obama's keynote Cairo address included effusive praise for Islam, highlighted Western shortcomings but omitted mention of global jihad and Islamic fundamentalism. It also legitimized the Arab narrative including its malicious and false historical analogies. By alleging that the State of Israel was a by-product of the Holocaust, the president of the United States denied 3,500 years of Jewish history and the central role of Jerusalem in Judaism. He endorsed the Arafat mantra that Israel had been inflicted upon the Arabs by the Europeans to compensate for the Holocaust, even hinting at equivalence between Jewish and Arab suffering. Obama ignored the rejectionism, ongoing wars and waves of Arab terror directed against the Jewish state since the day of its creation. He also compared the Palestinians to the US civil rights movement. When the president of the world's greatest superpower provides an imprimatur for such a false narrative it represents a major breakthrough for those seeking to delegitimize Israel.

Obama's Cairo address should be viewed as an extension of a calculated policy designed to appease the Arab world by playing hardball with Israel. Obama's response to the brutal Iranian regime's thuggish clampdown on its own people was inordinately restrained. He bowed and scraped to the Saudis, unconditionally renewed diplomatic relations with the Syrians and failed to respond to the latest brazen North Korean missile launches. His "engagement" and benign relationship with corrupt and despotic Arab regimes contrast starkly with the tough diktats conveyed to Israel.

The confrontation with Israel goes far beyond the vexed settlement issue which was wrongly linked with curbing Iran's nuclear ambitions and has been exaggerated totally out of proportion.

Israel endorsed the road map and Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu unequivocally undertook to freeze settlement expansion in areas other than within the settlement blocs which the Bush Administration had implicitly agreed should remain under Israeli sovereignty. Even in these areas Netanyahu undertook to limit growth to "enabling normal life." But either disregarding or cynically abrogating understandings by the former administration, Obama's demands exceeded even those of Arafat's when the 1993 Oslo Accords were negotiated.

Today, no city outside the Islamic world denies Jews the right of residence. Yet Obama is demanding that for the first time since 1967 Jews will no longer be entitled to build a single home beyond the old armistice lines, including Jewish sections of Jerusalem and adjacent areas like Ma'aleh Adumim. No Israeli government of any political composition could conceivably accept such a demand which even opposition Kadima spokesmen condemned as outright "extortion."

NOT SURPRISINGLY, the Palestinians and Arabs are delighted with Obama's humiliation of Israel. Saeb Erakat, the chief PA negotiator, proclaimed that the Palestinians need make no concessions because the longer the process extended, the more they would benefit from further unilateral Israeli concessions. Washington Post journalist Jackson Diehl, not renowned as a pro-Israel supporter, observed, "[Obama] revived a long-dormant Palestinian fantasy: that the United States will simply force Israel to make critical concessions whether or not its democratic government agrees, while Arabs passively watch and applaud."

The reality is that Arab concerns are not related to settlements or boundaries. Both Arafat and Mahmoud Abbas rejected offers to return virtually all territories Israel gained in the 1967 war - a war initiated by the Arabs to destroy the Jewish state. "The gaps were too wide" said Abbas, after Olmert offered him the equivalent of all territories beyond the Green Line, including joint control of the Temple Mount. They adamantly demand the right of return for Arab refugees, which would effectively bring an end to the Jewish state. Clearly, the overriding objective for the PA, no less than Hamas, remains, not two states but two stages leading to the demise of the Jewish state. In recent weeks there was a spate of Fatah statements on official PA-controlled media brazenly describing the negotiations as a vehicle to destroy Israel. "Peace is a means not a goal. Our goal is all Palestine," said Fatah activist Kifah Radaydeh on PA TV and also affirmed that "armed struggle" is still on the cards.

If Obama was genuinely even-handed, he would urge the "moderate" Palestinians to recognize Israel as a Jewish state. He would make it clear that the US would never support the repatriation of the descendents of the Arab refugees to Israel. Obama would call on Abbas to stop sanctifying martyrs and naming streets, sports teams and other projects (some of which are sponsored by the US) after Palestinian suicide killers and murderers and would monitor anti-Semitic incitement in PA media, mosques, schools and kindergartens. And most importantly, before demanding that Israel remove barriers and downgrade security in Judea and Samaria, the US would insist that the PA curb its military wings and cease all acts of terror.

But as of now, Obama's policy can be summarized as "Israelis should give and Palestinians should take." It amounts to appeasing the Arabs, humiliating Israel and in the process, undermining the security of the Jewish state.

ISRAEL IS not a superpower and needs to retain the support of the United States, in the absence of which the United Nations, Europeans and the entire international community would gang up against the Jewish state. It is no coincidence that Javier Solana, the retiring EU foreign policy chief, has urged the UN to determine the final borders, the status of Jerusalem and resolution of the refugee problem and impose their solution. That the British government has just announced what amounts to a partial arms boycott against Israel is another example.

Netanyahu is doing his utmost to achieve a compromise and has already offered to totally freeze all settlement activity beyond Jerusalem and the major settlement blocs, which the vast majority of Israelis agree must be retained. But if the Americans remain bloody-minded and refuse to compromise, Netanyahu will stand firm on this issue and will be overwhelmingly supported by the people who are outraged by the double standards applied against them.

In the meanwhile, the public reprimands and humiliations already underway are eroding the US-Israel relationship and impacting on American public support for Israel, which polls indicate is plummeting.
American Jews who voted overwhelmingly to elect Obama should not remain silent. They are entitled to press him to adhere to his commitment and treat the Jewish state in an even-handed manner. Together with other friends of Israel they should discourage their president from offering Israel as a sacrificial lamb on the altar of Arab appeasement. In urging Obama not to abandon Israel, they would also be promoting the US national interest. History cannot point to a single instance in which appeasement of jihadists or tyrants has ever borne fruit.

Comments to Isi Leibler

Dangers of Social Networking - Real Dangers

If there ever was an object lesson in the dangers posed by wreckless social networking, just ask incoming MI6 head Sir John Sawers.  Sawers wife Shelley, a Facebook user missed the tutorial about securing the access to her account and keeping her private information, private. In the process, she has put the lives of her husband, family and friends into jeopardy.

previous Social Networking safety posts by APRPEH:

• Dangers of Social Networking Sites


• More Dangers of Social Networking


• Social Networking III - Lives of the Happy Holiday Hackers

At this time, her actions could be forcing many people to change domiciles, mailing addresses, schools, and plenty of other everyday routine schedules.  For instance imagine how useful it would be to know where the head of MI6 has tea and where he meets his friends, where his children live or go to school, when they are dropped off and picked up, at which home he may be attending a party, etc?   One can only imagine the potential damage which could have been done to British national security had this story not broken.

Everyone needs to use the security settings on whatever site they are using.  They should not reveal information that could be personally or professionally damaging. And that includes pictures of middle aged men in bathing suits in the way Ms. Sawers has done.


It is very hard to think of someone as SIR John Sawers after seeing him playing on the beach.

coverage from TimesOnline

Phillips vs. Dershowitz

Melanie Phillips highlights troubling contradictions contained within Alan Dershowitz's Wall Street Journal editorial. To use the proverbial "canary in the mine shaft" description of Dershowitz would be generous. Coming from a professor of law (wasn't Obama supposedly a professor too or so he told us?) of his stature one would hope for more than a wishful thinking op/ed on his part.

Dershowitz has for the record though, pinned himself into red-lines which he says should be watched for intrusion by Obama. Should one of those red-lines be breached however, we can be certain that Dershowitz will explain in the most elegant terms why what we see isn't really what we see. Ah, the benefits of a good legal education.

Melanie Phillips below explains the contradictory nature of Dershowitz's positions although she seems uncertain whether wishful thinking on his part or a pre-meditated attempt to create history the way he thinks it should be written is his goal.

Briefly, one of her points is that Dershowitz sails into the waters of moral equivalency (between Israel and the arabians), something that lefties cannot avoid without betraying their most core belief. Another point is how Dershowitz explains away the evidence of Obama's dislike of Israel by setting up the above mentioned red-lines as distant excuses permitting observers to ignore the strain in the relations between the US administration and Israel.

The honest approach here (based on Dersh logic) followed to its logical conclusion is "wait until things really get bad". Dersh starts with how some Jews saw clearly (those who could see beyond the DNC's talking points) that Obama during his life has run with the anti-Jew crowd - but still dismisses those observations as less relevant than campaign rhetoric - (rhetoric for which he should claim conflict of interest). Like a trial attorney is apt to do, Dersh brushes these justified fears under the carpet. History shall play no part in his equation of Obama and his Israel policy, only the future. We could have avoided this problem of course if Jews like Dersh would have used their superior intellects to make reasoned analyses of why NOT to vote for Obama - (my attempt - APRPEH: Barack Obama - Myths, Facts, and Obfuscating (Bloggers Beware)) but that is after all water under the bridge. Dershowitz is the friend who supports you provided you agree to his terms. And those terms are written by the White House.

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July 6, 2009 / 14 Tamuz 5769

Dershowitz doesn't get it/By Melanie Phillips

A sobering view by one of Britain's most respected columnists

Jewish World Review | Alan Dershowitz is one of the most prolific, high-profile and indefatiguable defenders of Israel and the Jewish people against the tidal wave of anti-Israel and anti-Jewish feeling currently coursing through the west. So a piece by him in the Wall Street Journal giving expression to the rising anxiety being felt about Obama by American Jews naturally arouses great interest.

But just like the majority of American Jews, getting on for 80 per cent of whom voted for Obama, he is a Democrat supporter who is incapable of acknowledging the truth about this President. For most American Jews, the horror of even entertaining the hypothetical possibility that they might ever in a million years have to vote for a Republican is so great they simply cannot see what is staring them in the face — that this Democratic President is lethal for both Israel and the free world. And in this article Dershowitz shows that he too is just as blind.

Acknowledging the anxiety among some American Jews about Obama's attitude to Israel, Dershowitz concludes uneasily that there isn't really a problem here because all Obama is doing is putting pressure on Israel over the settlements, which most American Jews don't support anyway. But this is totally to miss the point. The pressure over the settlements per se is not the reason for the intense concern.

It is instead, first and foremost, the fact that Obama is treating Israel as if it is the obstacle to peace in the Middle East. Obama thus inverts aggressor and victim, denying Israel's six-decade long victimisation and airbrushing out Arab aggression. The question remains: why has Obama chosen to pick a fight with Israel while soft-soaping Iran which is threatening it with genocide? The answer is obvious: Israel is to be used to buy off Iran just as Czechoslovakia was used at Munich. Indeed, I would say this is worse even than that, since I suspect that Obama — coming as he does from a radical leftist milieu, with vicious Israel-haters amongst his closest friends — would be doing this to Israel even if Iran was not the problem that it is.

In any event, the double standard is egregious. Obama has torn up his previous understandings with Israel over the settlements while putting no pressure at all on the Palestinians, even though since they are the regional aggressor there can be no peace unless they end their aggression and certainly not until they accept Israel as a Jewish state, which they have said explicitly they will never do. On this, Obama is totally silent. So too is Dershowitz. That's some omission.

Next, Obama is pressuring Israel to set up a Palestine state — within two years this will exist, swaggers Rahm Emanuel. But everyone knows that as soon as Israel leaves the West Bank, Hamas — or even worse — will take over. The only reason the (also appalling) Abbas is still in Ramallah, enabling Obama to pretend there is a Palestinian interlocutor for peace, is because the Israelis are keeping Hamas at bay. Yet Dershowitz writes:

There is no evidence of any weakening of American support for Israel's right to defend its children from the kind of rocket attacks candidate Obama commented on during his visit to Sderot.

So what exactly does he think would happen if Israel came out of the West Bank and the Hamas rockets were down the road from Jerusalem and Tel Aviv (literally: many in the west have absolutely no idea how tiny Israel is). It's not a question of Israel's 'right to defend its children'. If Obama has his way, Israel would not be able to defend its children or anyone else, because Obama would have removed its defences by putting its enemies in charge of them. It is astounding that Dershowitz can't see this.

Then there was Obama's appalling Cairo speech in which he conspicuously refrained from committing himself to defending Zionism and the Jewish people from the attacks and incitement to genocide against them, but committed himself instead to defending their attackers against 'negative stereotyping'. On this, Dershowitz has nothing to say.

Worse still, by falsely asserting that the Jewish aspiration for Israel derived from the Holocaust, Obama effectively denied that the Jewish people were in Israel as of right and thus endorsed the core element of the Arab and Muslim propaganda of war and extermination. On this, Dershowitz has nothing to say.

Obama drew a vile — and telling — equivalence between the Nazi extermination camps and the Palestinian 'refugee' camps. On this, Dershowitz has nothing to say. Obama's statement that the Palestinians 'have suffered in pursuit of a homeland' was grossly and historically untrue, and again denied Arab aggression. On this, Dershowitz has nothing to say. Equally vilely, Obama equated genocidal terrorism by the Palestinians with the civil rights movement in America and the resistance against apartheid in South Africa. On all of this, Dershowitz has nothing to say.

Dershowitz also grossly underplays the terrible harm Obama is doing to the security not just of Israel but the world through his reckless appeasement of Iran. In the last few weeks, this has actively undercut the Iranian democrats trying to oust their tyrannical regime, and has actually strengthened that regime. All the evidence suggests ever more strongly that Obama has decided America will 'live with' a nuclear Iran, whatever it does to its own people. Which leaves Israel hung out to dry.

But even here, where he is clearly most concerned, Dershowitz scuttles under his comfort blanket — Dennis Ross, who was originally supposed to have been the US special envoy to Iran but was recently announced senior director of the National Security Council and special assistant to the President for the region. It is not at all clear whether this ambiguous development represents a promotion or demotion for Ross. Either way, for Dershowitz to rest his optimism that Obama's Iran policy will be all right on the night entirely upon the figure of Dennis Ross is pathetic. Ross, a Jew who played Mr Nice to Robert Malley's Mr Nasty towards Israel in the Camp David debacle under President Clinton, is clearly being used by Obama as a human shield behind which he can bully Israel with impunity. American Jews assume that his proximity to Obama means the President's intentions towards Israel are benign. Dazzled by this vision of Ross as the guarantor of Obama's good faith, they thus ignore altogether the terrible import of the actual words coming out of the President's mouth.

The fact is that many American Jews are so ignorant of the history of the Jewish people, the centrality of Israel in its history and the legality and justice of its position that they probably saw nothing wrong in Obama saying that the Jewish aspiration for Israel came out of the Holocaust because they think this too. Nor do they see the appalling double standard in the bullying of Israel over the settlements and what that tells us about Obama's attitude towards Israel, because — as Dershowitz himself makes all too plain — they too think in much the same way, that the settlements are the principal obstacle to peace.

Many if not most American Jews have a highly sentimentalized view of Israel. They never go there, are deeply ignorant of its history and current realities, and are infinitely more concerned with their own view of themselves as social liberals, a view reflected back at themselves through voting for a Democrat President.

Whatever else he is, however, Dershowitz is certainly not ignorant. Which makes this lamentable article all the more revealing, and depressing.

another related commentary at American Thinker

Fred Thompson Explains the Truth About the Palis

Hear Fred Thompson in his "Winners and Losers" segment cheerleading for Bibi Netanyahu. Fred understands Israel's situation better than most Israelis and explains it in a way in which only, well Fred could. FRED THOMPSON SHOW

Show date 22 June 2009

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Will The Jews Choose Obama Over Israel?

Many readers will not like this post. I am not sure I like this post. Yet, it has to be written. Riding the coattails of APRPEH's last post American Jews: Obama or Torah, today Jeffrey Goldberg of the Atlantic has made his prediction as to which choice will be prevail. It is not a satisfying answer. American Jews and Settlements: A Divorce in Progress - Jeffrey Goldberg - The Atlantic - 18 Jun 2009 01:28 pm

Goldberg's article based mostly on an earlier article by Samuel Freedman claims that American Jews will pick Obama. Both writers believe that American Jews see Yehuda and Shomron, (aka "The West Bank" or more accurately the "West Bank of the Jordan River") as not only an obstacle to peace but an obstacle to a belief in the "rightness" of Israel on moral and democratic grounds.

Goldberg goes further and warns the mainstream Jewish organizations (specifically pointing at Malcolm Hoenlein of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations) that they are out of touch with the Jewish voters of America who in overwhelming numbers voted for B. Hussein Obama.

The rationale is that American liberals view the territories in the biblical heartland of Israel the same way as the Arabians who have been calling them 'obstacles to peace' for years. By implication, he asserts that Al-Baraq Hussein Obama has given the Jewish left the confidence to boldly step forward and oppose Jewish land rights in Yehuda and Shomron (a Jstreet fantasy), a position which they should know in their heart is truthfully a great aveira/sin. What is even more ridiculous is that to even hold the "obstacle to peace" position, one must not give much weight to the more historically factual argument that the conflict has never been about land at all but the failure of the Jews to simply go away. The arabians simply do not want us around. To arabs and muslims, we Jews are the obstacle to their religious credibility. Islam cannot be a replacement of that which came before it when the holy Torah of Israel stands in its way, countering its would-be desert modification replete with stolen and maligned stories from the Torah, known as the Koran.

The very idea of supporting a policy which feeds upon Jews as pawns to justify denial of Jewish property rights in the biblical heartland of Eretz HaKodesh must be strongly opposed with all available resources by all Jews who still hold that the Torah is true and HaShem is the G-d of Israel. Now, if that means finally coming out to further distance Torah Judaism from the apostasy and antiJew non-Torah yet still Jewish (for now) cults which are lead more by political allegiances than Torah allegiances, than it is time to begin this process.

I say this with the deepest regret and fear. We must NEVER have any negative and hateful feelings towards fellow Jews. We must, however consider them as desperately in need of teshuva. Sometimes, distance can be a positive force for change.

Political arguments amongst Jews over common preferences of one philosophy or another as it relates to the economy, health care and many other domestic and foreign policy issues as within the context of America's role and direction in the world, although at times heated, are normal and represent no intrinsic threat. They should never, chas v'sholom, serve as a foot in the door for manipulation by the goyim to divide the people of Israel into camps supporting the belief's of one group of goyim vis a vis another group of goyim. All the more so, in terms of the land of Israel there should never be two camps, one of which supports Jewish inheritance rights in the land of Israel and one which follows a non-Jewish, non-Torah outlook seeking to strip the holy land from its rightful owners.

I pointed out in my previous post (see above) that based upon the Torah and Rashi's explanation, supporting non-Jewish rights to the land of Israel is an aveira (IMO).

One could easily conclude from these comments that any Jew who supports the idea of any other nation having any property rights in Eretz Hakodesh is in simple and plain violation of the Torah and thus the will of the Holy One, Blessed be He.

Jews who wish to strengthen their commitment to the wishes of this one-term president and his antiJew friends over the objections of their eternal divine Torah, do so not only at their own peril, but the peril of all Jews. Not only does this policy cause greater conflict amongst the not yet fully Torah observant Jews and Torah observant Jews on the one hand, but it will underpin actual conflict amongst Jews in a physical sense as the Israeli security forces will eventually be called upon to uproot more of their brethren from land they are rightly living upon. In a greater sense, since all Jews share One unique source which binds each soul together, collectively the Jewish people will suffer from such misguided beliefs. A foot cannot be removed without the rest of the body suffering.

As for Goldberg and Freedman, Jews who wish to bring Moshiach will ignore them in deference to that small voice inside, reminding them who they are and why were put on this planet.

For clarification as to the religious aspects of the land of Israel and the Jew's obligation to it see here.

American Jews: Obama or Torah?

I am not one to quote Shmuley Boteach. I am less than enamored with his interest in becoming the Jewish icon to the goyim. But he is dead on the money in his Jpost column The coming storm: Obama and American Jewry.

APRPEH's last post concerning Jeremiah Wright and his message to B. Hussein Obama and subsequently to anyone else who was paying attention, drew a conclusion that Wright (who knows Obama as well, if not better than most people) seemed to be surprised and disappointed that Barry was concealing his true self. This conclusion should be in mind to read the remainder in context.

Boteach seems to expect that the organized Jewish community will have to make a choice between its insatiable appetite for supporting democrats and liberals and its Torah based commitment to defend the very soil of Eretz HaKodesh and the blood of Israel as this administration and its policies of foisting an a non-peace agreement on Israel are played out.

Many Jewish liberals are liberal on everything but Israel's security. This group is further broken down into full fledged Israel hawks to those who mistakenly believe that a 2 state solution will bring peace in our time but have little to no understanding that the 2 state solution has become the coat-rack to hang hopes of an eventual 1 state solution where arabians come to the land in mass numbers and overwhelm the rightful Jewish settlers, (yes all Jews are "evil" settlers in the land of Israel since it was none other than G-d, 'May His Name be Blessed' who settled Jews in this land) and set the world back further from the time of Moshiach. In a more physical sense, the emergence of a unified state arising from what was Israel sets back the path to a just world birthing yet another backwards arabian country.

The knowledge that B. Hussein and his antiJew friends cannot be successful in dragging Israel into the sewer of perpetual strife brought own by indefensible borders and hordes of barbarians flooding through the gates of civilized and modern Israel is brought down in the first Rashi of Chumash, go and learn it. This same theme is relevant to this week's parasha (chutz l'aretz) Shlach.

This is the first commentary in my weekly study of the parashah in Vedibarta Bam - Rabbi Moshe Bogomilsky

"Send forth men, if you please, and let them spy out the Land of Canaan that I am giving to the Children of Israel." (13:2)

QUESTION: Why is it necessary to mention the name of the land and the fact that Hashem is giving it to the Jewish people?

ANSWER: The Gemara (Sanhedrin 91a) relates that the people of Canaan once took the Jewish people to court before Alexander the Great. They demanded that Eretz Yisrael be returned to them because it was originally owned by their ancestor Canaan. Gevihah ben Pesisa argued that Canaan was the son of Cham and was cursed by Noach to be a servant to his brothers, Shem and Yafet. According to halachah (Pesachim 88b), whatever a slave acquires belongs to his master. Thus, the Canaanites had absolutely no claim to the land, and through their ancestor Shem, the Jews were the rightful owners. The plaintiffs were dumbfounded and ran away leaving their fields and vineyards to the Jewish people.

In the beginning of Bereishit, Rashi explains that Torah starts with the narrative of creation because if the world accuses the Jews of illegally taking away Eretz Yisrael, they can respond, "Hashem created the entire world and it belongs to Him. With His will He took it away from them and gave it to us."

In preparation for the Jewish people's first encounter with Eretz Yisrael, Hashem emphasized: "This is the land of Canaan, which according to halachah belongs to the Jewish people since its original owner Cham became a slave to your ancestor Shem. Moreover, it is the land that 'I am giving to the Children of Israel' and as Master of the world I have the right to take it from whomever I want and give it to whomever I wish."

One could easily conclude from these comments that any Jew who supports the idea of any other nation having any property rights in Eretz Hakodesh is in simple and plain violation of the Torah and thus the will of the Holy One, Blessed be He. Would it be too much to ask Rahm Emanuel to learn this Torah with Barry on Shabbos?

This brings us to Bibi Netanyahu and his Bar-Ilan speech. I have much sympathy for Bibi and do not envy the difficulty of the task before him. Many of the most faithful to the land of Israel have been critical of Bibi (seemingly justifiable) for words which "superficially" call for a Pali state. One must always point a wary eye at Bibi. He can be unpredictable at times and all too predictable other times. After all, this is the same Bibi who would not meet with Arafat either. Don't judge him by what he says.

But this time Bibi is the best equipped to walk the tightrope of Israel's security interests on one side and meeting US benchmarks without actually following through on any of them on the other.

I see it like this. Bibi basically needs to successfully manage this non-process-process for 2 years until the mid-term elections. By that time, either enough pro-Israel, Republican Congressmen will be elected that Obama will have too much on his plate to worry any further about peace-legacy building or his own pre-election campaign will advise him to lay off this issue for a variety of policy and political purposes.

Bibi has laid the ground work quite nicely for arabian non-compliance with his pre-requisites. On this point, I refer the reader to the second half of the second hour of the Fred Thompson show of 15 June (download). Fred lays out the Bibi case better than I. While I continue to hope that the land of Israel loyalists keep up the pressure on the PM to keep him sort of honest, I also am somewhat confident knowing that Bibi is doing what PM's of Israel always do intentionally or unintentionally which is to give the arabians enough rope to hang themselves.

The hollering from the arabian world is a collective cry of foul. Bibi told the truth about Jewish heritage and cast dispersion on the arabian myth of victim hood at the hands of the evil Zionists. Bibi challenged the phony conventional wisdom which the arabians have been spreading for decades, calling Jews land grabbers and thieves (when in reality it is Ishmael who is the thief) and burst the Obama balloon (see Two Campaigns, Two Candidates, One Israel)of Israel existing merely as a refuge foist into the heart of arabia after World War II because the arabians were powerless victims of colonialism and could not prevent her establishment. For these achievements, Bibi deserves praise. American liberal-loving Jewry would do well to read Bibi's remarks. American Jews should use this opportunity to tell the truth about Israel even if it means not hiding behind DNC membership cards, and even if it means no longer nodding their heads approvingly to the rhythm of the false messiah at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

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The coming storm: Obama and American Jewry - Shmuley Boteach, THE JERUSALEM POST, Jun. 15, 2009

There's a storm coming. It will pit a well-organized community of substantial resources but also substantial insecurity - particularly when it comes to charges of dual loyalty - against a popular president of considerable eloquence but misguided policies that identify Israeli settlements as the main obstacle to Middle East peace. The inevitable clash will separate sunshine Jewish patriots who back Israel when convenient against those who stand with Israel even when it means losing their invitation to the White House Hanukka party.

The bogus issue of settlements is already being swallowed whole by many well-meaning Jews. Last week Dan Fleshler, a leader of Americans for Peace Now, wrote in the New Jersey Jewish Standard that Obama has no choice but to pressure Israel because "it is fruitless for a well-armed, occupying power to negotiate the terms of a viable settlement with an almost defenseless occupied people unless a third party mediates and presses both sides."

In reading Fleshler one wonders whether he has been himself occupied with building a settlement on the moon with no knowledge of events on Earth. Is he seriously suggesting that the thousands of Katyusha rockets and nonstop suicide bombers that have killed more than a thousand Israelis (the equivalent of 30,000 dead Americans) have come from a "defenseless" foe? Would Fleshler likewise argue that the US ought to have pressure from, say, Russia or China to make peace with the terrorists in Afghanistan, seeing that America now represents a "well-armed, occupying power" against the comparatively defenseless Taliban? Or is it only Israel that is forbidden from defending itself.

Sorry Mr. Fleshler, but Jewish values do not dictate that the only moral Jew is a dead one who refuses to fight in the face of a 60-year terror onslaught.

Any return to the 1967 borders, which is what Obama's attack on the settlements represents, is simply suicide for Israel. The borders are utterly indefensible. The Arabs know it, which is why they press for it. Had Israel not dismantled its settlements in Gush Katif, Gaza would not have become a terrorist state ruled by Hamas, an organization that kills even more Palestinians than it does Israelis.

BUT MISGUIDED Jewish apologists aside, are the rest of us prepared to speak up against the policies of the administration? By this I do not mean the drunken racist rants of the American Jewish hooligans who got attention disgracing themselves on YouTube last week; their bigoted drivel against our democratically elected president represents an abomination to Judaism. I have already written several columns lamenting how a small minority of the large and praiseworthy contingent of Jewish youth who go to Israel from the US after high school ostensibly to study in yeshivot end up instead hanging out on Rehov Ben Yehuda making asses of themselves. That they have no proper supervision and that they are allowed to go through their year in a drunken stupor is an outrage that must be finally addressed by the institutions which host them.

Rather, I mean courageous and intelligent criticism that accepts the president's praiseworthy efforts in making peace but decries his soft posture on tyranny when he bows to an Arab potentate who oppresses women and warmly embraces the dictator of Venezuela.

Asher Lopatin was one of the first students I met at Oxford and the university's first Orthodox Rhodes scholar. Today he is the successful rabbi of one of Chicago's most youthful congregations. He is also Rahm Emanuel's rabbi. But that did not stop him from criticizing the White House chief of staff in Newsweek for his unfair pressure on Israel. Lopatin could easily have basked in the aura of being rabbi to one of the most influential men in the world. Instead, he spoke truth to power.

In promoting the new translation of his Hebrew prayer book, British Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks constantly reminds us that he studies Bible with the prime minister of the United Kingdom. That's nice. But a few years ago Sacks spoke out publicly against Israel, telling London's Guardian newspaper, "There are things that happen on a daily basis which make me feel very uncomfortable as a Jew."

Sacks is a brilliant man but with a long history of pandering to whatever audience he happens to be addressing. He would do well to remember the admonishment of Mordechai to Esther on the responsibility of being close to political power: "If you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance will arise for the Jews from another place."

But while Europe and the UK are significant, the main battle lines will be here in the US and now is the time for American Jewry to organize. From schools to universities to synagogues and JCCs, we must make it clear that when 78 percent of Jews voted for Obama and filled his campaign coffers with cash it was not in the expectation of biased policies against Israel. We're upset, disappointed and we won't take it. We'll march in the streets, write op-eds and blogs, and publish ads making it clear that America should be standing with the Middle East's only democracy and America's most reliable ally.

As Charles Krauthammer pointed out, our president undermines his moral authority when he pledges that henceforth America will "forge partnerships as opposed to simply dictating solutions," but then only applies that pledge to Iran, Syria, Cuba and Venezuela, but not to Israel.

Last year, right after Obama captured the democratic nomination, I received a phone call from his campaign asking if I would serve as one of the national chairs of "Rabbis for Obama." It was a tempting offer. I was moved by the candidate's remarkable personal story, his iron discipline, his soaring oratory and, most of all, the fact that his victory would be the culmination of my hero Martin Luther King's dream of a man being judged by the content of his character rather than the color of his skin. In the end I declined because I feared that Obama would draw a moral equivalence between Israel and the Palestinians and pressure the former to appease the latter. But even I never suspected that it would happen so quickly and so lopsidedly.

The writer is the founder of This World: The Values Network. His upcoming book is The Blessing of Enough: Rejecting Material Greed, Embracing Spiritual Hunger

Wright Warns Obama to be Himself

By now everyone has heard the comments from Obama's (former) Reverend, Jeremiah Wright blaming the Jews for his own isolation from his student (Obama) whom he married and who's children he baptised. So far, most of the reporting on this story is merely focused upon Wright and his blatant anti-Semitic ranting and antiJewism. The comments were played out in the context of his ridiculous accusations against the "Zionist's" and make believe ethnic cleansing of Gaza, an area ruled by Hamas and from where Israel withdrew in 2005.

What has not received as much attention is what is running between the lines of the Wright rant.

The reporter, David Squires of the Daily Press speaking to Wright after the 95th annual Hampton University Ministers' Conference asked Wright what he would tell Obama, if his access were not cut off. Wright said he would tell him what he has told him all along (paraphrasing) that Obama should not let politics change who he is as a person. He counseled Obama to not let "policies and the people around him" change what he believes with the core and "fiber of your being". Wright concluded that if Obama compromised his beliefs he would turn into a puppet of a political machine and would no longer be himself. Incidentally, when Wright made his 'Jews around him' comment, Squires, the reporter, snickered. Whether that was an approving snicker or an embarrassed one is a question for Squires. Interestingly, the audio found at the Daily Press (Squire's newspaper) website cuts out the snicker. But the audio at Real Clear Politics does not cut out the snicker. David any comment?

When all of this is taken in context, Wright, arguably someone who knows B. Hussein Obama better than most, is describing him as a comrade who is in danger of losing touch. The question which should be asked is, what is Wright worried that Obama will forget? Dare we pose the question?

Today, no one doubts that Wright believes in layer upon layer of Jewish conspiracy theories of Jews running the government, controlling the Presidency, Zionists ethnically cleansing arabians from Gaza and all and all making life difficult for honest folk like himself. But what does he expect Obama to say? More importantly, what does Wright mean when he talks about Obama forgetting what he believes?

The hardest pill to swallow is when a close, personal, confident and protege, someone you placed great faith and, well, hope in, turns his back on you - shuns you. Wright is clearly bitter in a personal way. But he also expresses anxiety that his cause has been denied one of it's budding stars; at least for the time being. After all, Wright believes Obama will come back to the fold when he is a lame duck.

What beliefs, theories and conspiracies does/did Obama buy into during the height of his activity at Trinity? The vast overwhelming body of evidence would be convincing to anyone when not obscured by a political campaign and the mark of Democrat next to his name on the ballot intervening between common sense and hysteria. As APRPEH pointed out in the past, one must work very hard indeed to assemble as many antiJews as friends, advisers and colleagues as Obama assembled over the previous decades. That so many Jews not just fail, but refuse to look objectively at this fact is a sure sign of the weariness of exile, a luxury not afforded to Bibi Netanyahu and Israel who are beginning to understand with whom they now must deal.

Lifelock's Lost Combination

Court: Lifelock Using 'Unfair Business Practice' -The Red Tape Chronicles

Back in April 2008, APRPEH posted: Lifelock Getting Picked. At that time, Lifelock and its over-exposed CEO Todd Davis was at the beginning of a slew of legal issues. Well finally, the Experian case may have hammered the first nail into the coffin of Lifelock. According to the above story, Lifelock's procedure of proactively placing fraud alerts is an "unfair business practice". U.S. District Judge Andrew Guilford of the Central District of California ruled that

"Experian clearly incurs costs each time it must process a fraud alert made by LifeLock. These costs include the costs of allocating Experian’s electronic resources and employee time, plus the maintenance costs of Experian’s toll-free telephone number and Web page used to accept fraud alert requests," he said. "Experian also incurs postage and printing costs in mailing disclosure letters to each consumer on whose behalf a fraud alert is requested."

As was pointed out in the article, Lifelock will continue to place 90 day security alerts either with Trans Union or Equifax which pursuant to the Fair Credit Reporting Act, will also be automatically activated with Experian too. The big question is whether or not Trans Union and/or Equifax will press the issue and request Lifelock to stop automatically placing and renewing security alerts as well. Or, will either Trans Union or Equifax cut a deal with Lifelock? If I were forced to guess on this, I would expect both Equifax and Trans Union (which has worked with Lifelock in the past) to cut a deal provided there is adequate financial reason for the bureaus to do so. Lifelock claims that if they are prevented from performing their primary offering of automatically renewing security alerts they will continue to provide other services.

Lifelock's other services, besides the security alert include an internet privacy scan service and "Wallet Lock" which amounts to someone asking you, with apologies to Capital One, "Whats in your Wallet?" in the event you lose it and "help you contact each credit card, bank or document issuing company, cancel your affected accounts and complete the paperwork and steps necessary to replace your lost documents, including your credit/debit cards, driver's license, social security card, insurance cards, checkbook - even travelers checks...". Plenty of other companies offer internet scans and I suppose if you are not near a computer it is helpful to have someone look up telephone numbers and possibly conference call you in to the customer service of your credit card issuer.

Despite Lifelock's tremendous advertising effort, the product has always been lacking substance. As a result of this, Lifelock entered the business world with a guarantee and promise which they could never keep. While the product expectations, after much criticism were finally revised to more realistic levels, the question of why purchasing the coverage remained. The question now is still pressing. While the bureaus may force Lifelock from performing automatic security alert renewals, the bureaus would most certainly fail in an attempt to prevent consumers from doing the same proactively. Why continue to pay $10 a month for internet scanning and "Wallet lock"?

What is true is that other companies in the business of providing security services to consumers, those who provide honest and useful services to consumers, will read this story with a smirk. Lifelock's history of high-flying promises and service guarantee, both of which have been, in my opinion a stain on the industry coupled with the high profile advertising, - are not enviable but embarrassing. The most important question is what will all of our favorite radio talk shows do if Lifelock stops its radio advertising campaign?

Obama Pal Ayers Defends Ward Churchill

Terrorists and terrorist sympathizers always stick together. Unfortunately for America, at least one William Ayers and by extension, his friends are stuck to the President. The views of Bill Ayers have been well vetted and shown to be as radical today as when he was building bombs as a Weather Underground terrorist. Ayers, as all now know, shared an office with the President and as the USA Today article reminds us served alongside the President on the board of the Woods foundation funnelling money into community enterprises intent on building up future socialist activists disguised as supporting public education. None of this means Obama is tied to Churchill directly, but by extension are removed by barely a separation. Obama tied to both to Ayers and Rashid Khalidi, pali activist, complete a triangle of friendship and radicalism.

Certainly, Ayers must know that Churchill's views peg him as a Holocaust questioner if not denier, and most certainly antiJew. (this is of course sarcasm. Ayers views on Israel are harder to deduce but the fact he sympathizes with Israel's enemies is pretty straightforward).

Ayers: Colo. professor was fired in 'witch hunt' - USA Today

(excerpt)In an essay and a follow-up book, Churchill argued that the attacks {9-11}were a response to a history of U.S. abuses. He said the victims of the World Trade Center collapse were "little Eichmanns," referring to Holocaust organizer Adolf Eichmann.

Why does Churchill single out Eichmann from a long list of potential Nazi "bureaucrats"? Because Eichmann was caught and executed by Israel, by those Jews. That, of course is merely my opinion. Churchill, of course in the view of academics is the lowest of scum, stealing the work of others to claim it for himself. The "witchhunt", however convenient doesn't cover up for the fact that plagiarism likely runs rampant, intended or accidental in "academia" but that is a story for another day. The fact of the matter is that the entire process of tenure in academia is arcane. Churchill was a detriment to the university and was fired as a result. Employees who disgrace a company lose their jobs.

The leftist-socialist agenda needs the protected status of holier than thou university tenure. The same protected, can't be assailed self-righteousness is not however extended to those opposing the leftists academicians. Conservative opinion and pro-Israel opinion is constantly under attack in American universities as not being 3rd world enough, not underdog enough, too main stream to be acceptable. Israel after all, is now the aggressor and conservative Americans, lap puppies of the Israel lobby. The leftists have convinced themselves and seek to convince others that justice requires always taking the side of those who do not fit into the main stream, the oppressed, the threatened.

Who the threatened party is, remains in the eye of the beholder. Whoever is not "mainstream" becomes the threatened party. Despite the fact that the well-being of Israel and worldwide Jewry teeter-toter's on the ever present but mostly below the surface yet nonetheless explosive anti-Jewism, any party on the opposite side of the now "mainstream" Israel wins the leftists affection and support being the non-conventional party. It's Israel's fault that all those arabians wish her dead.
Blaming the Jew for the hate of the Jew becomes a simple matter of political theory.

JCPA Against Liberty for DC

Maybe we need a regular column to examine the leftie Jewish organizations fulfilling the will of their leftie masters at the DNC. On the heels of the APRPEH post, Cashing in on Obama which discussed the immigration reform advocacy of the JCPA, today we look at the JCPA's intervention in the District of Columbia's firearms policy.

Below, the JTA reported that the JCPA opposed a Senate amendment offered by Sen. John Ensign to comply with the new legal realities in the US post District of Columbia v. Heller.

The JCPA opposed Any attempt to "undermine" Washington's ability to regulate firearms reasoning that the District's right to regulate firearms would be impacted. Well, it occurs to me that the Supreme Court took care of the impeding of the District's firearms laws in Heller.

The Supremes in a 5-4 vote upheld a Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit finding that the 2nd Amendment actually means what it says and that the District needs to pay attention.

My question to the JCPA would be, "To what regulations are you referring? Those that were struck down by the courts?". The lefties in control in the District do have the right to regulate firearms, but within reason. They cannot prevent firearm ownership or make it close to impossible for legal firearm ownership and commerce. The JCPA seems to be opposed to legal firearm ownership and trade of firearms. Once again, we see the left campaigning against laws and court findings which uphold Liberty and law against the tyranny of the left. Be on guard, freedom loving Americans, more of this is coming during the Obama years.

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Interfaith letter opposes effort to ‘undermine’ D.C. gun laws - JTA

February 26, 2009

WASHINGTON (JTA) -- Any attempt to "undermine" Washington's ability to regulate firearms should not be included in the District of Columbia's voting rights legislation, an interfaith coalition said.

In a letter to the U.S. Senate, the 31-member group, organized by the Jewish Coalition for Public Affairs and including more than a dozen Jewish organizations, said that "though proponents of such legislation claim it would restore Second Amendment rights in the District of Columbia, in actuality it prevents the 600,000 District of Columbia residents from enacting comprehensive, constitutional, common-sense regulations to reduce gun violence and ensure their community's safety."

On Wednesday, Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.) introduced an amendment that would repeal all of the district's gun laws enacted since the Supreme Court overturned Washington's law banning handguns last year.

The Senate could vote on a final version of the voting rights bill this week after a cloture vote limiting debate on the bill succeeded Tuesday. The legislation would permanently add two seats to the U.S. House of Representatives, one to the heavily Democratic District of Columbia and the other to Republican-leaning Utah until reapportionment in 2012. Utah had narrowly missed acquiring an additional seat after the last reapportionment in 2002.

In addition to JCPA, Jewish signatories include the American Jewish Committee, the Anti-Defamation League, Hadassah, the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington, Jewish Women's International, Jews United for Justice, the National Council of Jewish Women, Na'amat USA, the Union of Reform Judaism, the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, Women of Reform Judaism, Women's League of Conservative Judaism and Workmen's Circle/Arbeter Ring.

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WTOP coverage (less bias)

Avigdor Lieberman - From Kingmaker to Deal Breaker

No I am not surprised. Avigdor Lieberman saying I also advocate the creation of a viable Palestinian state is proof he was infected some time ago with the disease of conventionalism. When politicians are on the cusp of power but not sensing victory they grasp for support. Lieberman needed to reach a wider audience to win. The path was to secure the land of Israel loyalists yet also win over those sort of pragmatic folks who don't yet see or understand the nature of the divine in the land of Israel. Lieberman went wobbly - his biography title: From Bar Bouncing to Policy Bouncing.

Lieberman's move was predictable. As a leader of a non-religious party, (also calling for civil marriages) Lieberman is not held to the standard of consistency (to be fair much of the Israeli political world can not be measured by this indicator either- contradiction is the life force that makes Israeli governments). The YNET article below characterizes Lieberman's opinion of the peace process, negotiations and Pali Independence as based upon false assumptions. Then, he was not a kingmaker. Now, he can own the peace process, the prestiege, the White House visits, the constant attention - so it makes sense to him. Today, Lieberman has revised his assumptions. No doubt many of his voters from a mere few weeks ago are revising their own assumptions, wishing they had voted for National Union. And as measured by the world media's own conventional wisdom, I bet many are scratching their heads this morning. (see below)

I could be cynical and conspiracy minded enough to say that Lieberman stands accused with Sharon, Olmert, and Livni of sacrificing the policies of the country and the trust of the voters as leverage for political gains and/or posturing in light of pending criminal investigations. But that maybe going to far. Maybe.

While many in Israel and around the world are questioning Lieberman's inconsistency, Aryeh Eldad, speaking for the frustrated around the world summed it up “Only ostriches and illiterates should be surprised. Throughout the campaign we said that Lieberman is not the true Right.

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Nationalists Blast Lieberman’s ‘Palestinian State’
Adar 3, 5769, 27 February 09 12:08by Gil Ronen(IsraelNN.com) Yisrael Beiteinu leader Avigdor Lieberman’s article supporting the creation of a ‘Palestinian state’ was ill-received in the nationalist camp, with some accusing Lieberman of deserting his former positions on the subject and carrying out an about-face.

The ‘Mattot Arim’ action committee reacted by saying that had Lieberman made the statements in support of a ‘Palestinian’ state before the elections, “the Yisrael Beiteinu party would have gone down from 15 mandates to 9.” [Yisrael Beiteinu went up to 15 mandates from 12 in the last Knesset. -ed.]

Mattot Arim clainmed that before elections were held, Yisrael Beiteinu gave them a written, clear-cut statement that opposes the establishment of a ‘Palestinian’ state.

The group noted that Lieberman made that commitment public in several ways, including a full-page advertisement in the Jerusalem Post. “In addition, at least three party candidates confirmed before the election that the party opposes a Palestinian state: Danny Ayalon, Uzi Landau and David Rotem,” according to Mattot Arim, which also cited similar statements on the Yisrael Beiteinu website and in the media.

Terror Victims’ group Almagor said that “nothing has improved since Lieberman cooperated with the terror victims on explaining the dangers” of such a solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict.

MK Aryeh Eldad (NU) said, however, that “Only ostriches and illiterates should be surprised. Throughout the campaign we said that Lieberman is not the true Right. His diplomatic plan includes transferring sovereign parts of the State of Israel to the Palestinian.

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Hardline populist Lieberman could be surprise kingmaker in Israeli election - hit piece from Guardian

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Israel election: profile of 'kingmaker' Avigdor Lieberman - Telegraph

Mr Lieberman thinks that what we call the "peace process" has been a mistake from the start. Put simply, Mr Lieberman rejects every facet of President Barack Obama's thinking on the Middle East. When the nationalist leader has real power in Israel, the country could find itself on a collision course with America's new administration.

The Palestinians and their Arab brethren are determined to destroy Israel, he believes. Giving them a state along the 1967 borders that used to contain Israel would only whet their appetite for more.

Instead of leading to a settlement, the peace agreement that America and Europe would foist on Israel would only weaken the Jewish state and embolden its Arab neighbours to fulfil their destiny and eradicate the "Zionist Entity".

"The peace process is based on three false basic assumptions," Mr Lieberman has explained. "That the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the main fact of instability in the Middle East, that the conflict is territorial and not ideological, and that the establishment of a Palestinian state based on the 1967 borders will end the conflict."

Lieberman: Territorial concession concept failed - YNET

"Israel needs to explain that the demand for an independent Palestinian state and the refugees' right of return is a cover for radical Islam's attempt to destroy the State of Israel," he stated in the document.

Lieberman OpEd - IMRA