“Obama will win the nomination but lose the election.”
By Ted Belman (first posted Feb 28/08)
I thought I would begin with a prediction. “Obama will win the nomination but lose the election.”
Fox News are on to him and all the arguments our “smear” campaign is making and for the most part it is running with them. Sean Hannity is the best.
Slowly, but surely Obama, is doing himself in. It is not just the company he keeps but also what he is now saying.
Ed Lasky, the News Editor of The American Thinker, reports on Senator Obama’s Coming Out Party in Cleveland. Ed does a brilliant job of ferreting out the true meaning of Obama’s remarks. But in my opinion he mis-states two things which I want to address first.
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“Most supporters of Israel now understand there will need to be a viable Palestinian state and that Israel will need to make territorial concessions.”
Recent polls disclose that 2/3 of Israelis are against dividing Jerusalem and retreating from Judea and Samaria and that is despite the fact the the entire world including the Government of Israel and its media have been embracing the two state solution.
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“Senator Obama also sought to dispel rumors of anti-Semitism within his church (American Thinker has never made this accusation; nor do we support this allegation).”
I submit that The American Thinker is wrong in taking this position. Organizations and individuals who take positions critical of Israel, which Obama’s church does, often cross the line into antisemitism. Lasky knows the difference between legitimate criticism and antisemitic criticism. Obama’s Trinity United Church of Christ surely fits the later category.
Bill Levinson posted two very important articles on Israpundit which can’t be ignored; Obama’s Church Connected to Sabeel, Naim Ateek and Obama’s Church and Black Liberation Theology Also remember the remark by Michelle Obama, namely, “for the first time in my adult lifetime I am really proud of my country. And not just because Barack has done well, but because I think people are hungry for change.” I believe such a comment reflects this theology.
The respected NGO Monitor had this to say about SABEEL’s Ecumenical Facade
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Reflecting its mission statement, Sabeel is active in promoting an extreme anti-Israel agenda in Protestant churches in both North America and Europe. Sabeel’s efforts have promoted the campaign to isolate and delegitimize Israel through the divestment campaign, which have recently been adopted by the World Council of Churches, the Anglican Church in Britain, the Presbyterian Church, and others.
What could be clearer? Now here is part of Lasky’s article.
[..] Nevertheless, other parts of his speech were far from reassuring, and once again cast substantial doubt on his views not just toward Israel but also specifically toward supporters of the America-Israel relationship here at home. Senator Obama believes words matter; it is a mantra of his candidacy. Therefore, it is only fair to look at the words he used in Cleveland to divine his views.
He seems to be addressing many supporters of Israel in America who have questions regarding his views and his plans. He finds fault with them:
“I think there is a strain within the pro-Israel community that says unless you adopt a unwavering pro-Likud approach to Israel that you’re anti-Israel and that can’t be the measure of our friendship with Israel”.
Senator Obama characterizes those who have concerns about policies he might follow as President as being Likud-supporters. This has been a charge propagated by the fiercest opponents of Israel, who have often slipped into conspiracy theories regarding American supporters of Israel. (Try googling Likudnik and “dual loyalty” or “conspiracy theory”; Likudnik has become a term of opprobrium. As David Berstein notes, “Likudnik has gradually become a general anti-Semitic term for Jews whose opinions one does not like.”
One wishes Senator Obama would be bit more sensitive going forward when he uses such a term. After all, the Likud Party has not been in power for years, and Americans should feel free to express their concerns without being characterized as that party’s supporters, with its suggestion of dual loyalty. The suggestion that supporters of Israel who express their concerns are subscribers to the view of the Likud Party of Israel is simply not grounded. After all, supporters of Hillary Clinton have also expressed qualms regarding Senator Obama’s views of Israel. Are they supporters of Likud, too?
Haaretz columnist Shmuel Rosner raises an additional reason to have qualms. Will a President Obama be supportive of an Israel headed by a Prime Minster who hails from the Likud party? Does this statement by Senator Obama risk interfering with Israeli politics?
It is important to note that Likud did give up the Sinai and that Ariel Sharon — a former Likud leader — did remove all the settlements from the Gaza Strip. So one wonders why Senator Obama is so anti-Likud to begin with? Does he not know the history of this volatile region? Who has he been his counsel when he chooses to use such a term?
Senator Obama also sought to distance himself from Zbigniew Brzezinski, whose anti-Israel views are well known. However, he made no mention of two other advisors with a long record of hostility toward Israel: Robert Malley and Samantha Power. Power, in particular, is very close to the Senator and is a key foreign policy adviser . Why the omission of any mention of both?
But in trying to disentangle himself from Brzezinski, Senator Obama engaged in some rhetoric that is unsettling:
“Frankly some of the commentary that I’ve seen which suggests guilt by association or the notion that unless we are never ever going to ask any difficult questions about how we move peace forward or secure Israel that is non military or non belligerent or doesn’t talk about just crushing the opposition that that somehow is being soft or anti-Israel, I think we’re going to have problems moving forward.”
Senator Obama apparently views Israel as a “belligerent” and perhaps wants to see America’s support for Israel’s military reduced. This is hardly reassuring. Israel is not a belligerent, it only defends itself. It is a tiny sliver of a nation of a few million people surrounded by 300 million people who have made quite clear over the past 60 years that they desire its destruction. Few supporters of Israel indeed think that the only way to bring peace to the region is for Israel to crush all the opposition. Israel herself, since her founding, sought — and sometimes fought — for peace. These steps did not involve crushing all the opposition. Israel has taken great risks in it steps towards peace (leaving Lebanon — which led to the rise of Hezbollah; leaving Gaza — which led to the rise of Hamas; allowing Yasser Arafat to come to the West bank, where he set up a terrorist regime and brainwashed Palestinian children to hate. A leading Presidential candidate all but accuses Israel of being “belligerent” — is that unsettling to anyone?
Also unsettling is the implication that may lie behind his statement that we are going to have “problems moving forward” if critics raise questions about his views. Is this a statement meant to forestall discussion? If so, it would be similar to the views expressed by Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer, who abhor the role that pro-Israel Americans (including Christians) sometimes play in the foreign policy discussion.
These statements are difficult to square with his position that he has a long record of support for Israel. If he is perturbed by critics and indicates questions may cause problems in the future regarding his policies and actions, then perhaps people have legitimate reasons to be concerned about the depth of his support for the America-Israel relationship and the role of Americans in the foreign policy discussion.
Senator Obama also said that supporting the view that only by defeating its Islamic foes can Israel enjoy any semblance of peace and security “can’t be the measure of our friendship with Israel.”. This is disconcerting. How firm and deep will President Obama’s support for Israel be when it comes to dealing with terrorists? Israel needs to defeat its Islamic foes who seek its destruction and who celebrate martyrdom for peace to reign. Even Palestinian moderates will feel constrained in making peace deals with Israel until these Islamic extremists are defeated. Wouldn’t Israel be justified in stopping Islamic foes that are calling for another Holocaust?
Would President Obama feel the same towards Islamic foes who target America?
Senator Obama also indicated that siding with those who seek the dividing of Israel does not make him anti-Israel. This is true. Most supporters of Israel now understand there will need to be a viable Palestinian state and that Israel will need to make territorial concessions. He stated that backing the Jews’ biblical, historical and legal claim to all of the land in question also can’t be the measure of our friendship with Israel. Of course, Israel has already made such concessions: the result is Hamasstan in the Gaza, which has become a center for terror directed daily against Israel. As Israel moved its forces out of the West Bank, those areas became centers of terrorist activity.
Senator Obama has already telegraphed his views regarding land, which seemed to prejudge the final outcome. But it might be wiser from a diplomatic point of view if he does not signal to opponents of negotiations his position if he becomes President. Also, violence has ensued when Israel voluntarily withdrew from lands; the world has remained silent and expresses very little sympathy for Israeli victims. Is counseling the division of land now something a friend would do?
Notably, the word “Jerusalem” is entirely absent from Senator Obama’s remarks. Surely that is not inadvertent. Does Senator Obama support or oppose the division of Jerusalem? Is Senator Obama aware of the destruction of Jewish and Christian religious sites when Jerusalem had been divided previously? Is he aware of how Jews were denied access to their religious sites when the city was divided? If Senator Obama does support the division of Jerusalem, how would it be divided? American Jews certainly cannot evaluate the Senator’s views on Israel when in a lengthy speech to Jewish leaders he keeps his views on Jerusalem to himself.
Senator Obama also stated that a full withdrawal from Iraq would strengthen America’s ability to deal with Iran. This logic is difficult to see. How would that happen? A precipitous withdrawal would embolden Iran. There would be no fear of American forces near its borders and its Shiite allies within Iraq would be strengthened. If anything, Iran would be empowered by such a retreat. How leaving would help us deal with Iran is opaque.
Senator Obama also sought to dispel rumors of anti-Semitism within his church (American Thinker has never made this accusation; nor do we support this allegation). Within the speech was this nugget:
“But I have never heard an anti-Semitic comment made inside of our church.”
And I suspect there are some of the people in this room who have heard relatives say some things that they don’t agree with. Including, on occasion, directed at African-Americans — that’s maybe a possibility that’s just, I am not suggesting that’s definitive.”
This is a Clintonesque statement if there ever were one. Senator Obama has never heard anti-Semitic statements “inside his church.” How about members who may have made such comments outside the church? How about his pastor’s relatively recent written anti-Israel statements that he excuses on the ground of Israel’s former relationship with South Africa. This also conveniently elides the fact that his Church’s magazine very recently gave an award to Louis Farrakhan, one of the most infamous anti-Semites in America.
In an attempt at self-justification, Senator Obama relegates his pastor, who is his spiritual mentor, and who inspired the title of his book The Audacity of Hope, as something like a crazy old uncle in the attic. Worse, he suggests that Jewish leaders may themselves have relatives who have made remarks that might be considered anti-African American. That is entirely irrelevant. There is a substantial difference between relatives who make private (or even public) comments that are disagreeable, and a relationship with a pastor that was sought out and supported, praised, and regarded as a mentor for two decades. Although one can distance oneself from relatives, it’s not so easy to resign from them. The same is not true of a pastoral affiliation.
Undoubtedly, the Jewish community would expect a presidential candidate to resign from a church whose pastor publicly supported David Duke and whose magazine gave him an award. The community would hope that Senator Obama would have taken such a step many years ago. Some may consider it disingenuous of the Senator to excuse his own voluntary association on the ground those Jewish listeners might have family members who harbor private prejudices.
Senator Obama’s speech occurred in the wake of comments made by Ralph Nader on Meet The Press. Nader claims that Senator Obama is too pro-Israel these days and remarked that the Senator was pro-Palestinian for years before he began his campaign for higher office. While some may view this as a reflection of Senator Obama’s evolving views (certainly his supporters will), others might question the coincidence of changing his views when he sought to garner support for his campaign.
Now that he has racked up a string of victories and vast amounts of financial support, he apparently feels comfortable in articulating some views regarding Israel and supporters of Israel in America that may give comfort to Ralph Nader but might leave others with even more questions than before.
Finally we can’t forget this quote from Obama’s book Audacity of Hope
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“I will stand with the Muslims should the political winds shift in an ugly direction.”
Whatever did he mean by that?
Obama is not legally African-American as he claims but Arab-American and Islam still considers him to be a Muslim. Surely Americans are entitled to take this into account when they are voting for the next President of America.
And lets forget Debbie Schlussel’s exclusive Obama’s Nation of Islam Staffers, Edward Said & “Inflexible Jews” Causing Mid-East Conflict: An Obama Insider Reveals the Real Barack
Atlas Shrugs recently posted Obama and Islam:The Third Rail in American Politics. This post has a great deal of new information on Obama’s past. So does her post Obama:The Audacity of Graft. Many people consider Obama’s dealings with Rezko to be his achilles heel.
Aaron Klein reported Obama raised funds for Islamic causes
No, Obama is going down and rightly so.
[...] What could be clearer? Now here is part of Lasky’s article. TO READ MORE: [...]
Pingback by Conservative Central,is a grassroots blog site,goal keeping Republican majority Congress,Republican President. » Blog Archive » » “Obama will win the nomination but lose the election.” — February 28, 2008 @ 8:15 am
[...] will win the nomination but lose the election.” Ron Paul Chronicles â?? wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptI thought I would begin with a [...]
Pingback by 2008 Election - 2008 Election » “Obama will win the nomination but lose the election.” — February 28, 2008 @ 8:49 am
Ted, I agree with all your points. Still, I don’t see how this will lead to Obama’s downfall, unfortunately. Fox News and our wonderful world of bloggers is not going to make the difference.
I hope I’m wrong.
Comment by Lori Lowenthal-Marcus — February 28, 2008 @ 9:06 am
Well, I know many supporters of Israel who do not believe that “… there will need to be a viable Palestinian state and that Israel will need to make territorial concessions.” The left in Israel used this same tactic when they were working for the destruction of Gush Katif. Fox News, BTW, is famous for making wrong predictions (as well as reporting old news).
Let’s be honest, Obama’s statement “I will stand with the Muslims should the political winds shift in an ugly direction,” is exactly what Bush has done, only he hasn’t said it.
(Your statement “Obama is not legally African-American” actually applies to a large percentage of blacks in the US …. but that is another story.)
Comment by LeeU — February 28, 2008 @ 10:00 am
First, let me state that I fully support Obama and do not for a moment believe he will be “bad” for Israel. That said, why bother to speculate on what is so clearly unknown at this point? guessing he will lose gives you a 50/50 shot.
Obama is of mixed parentage. He is not and has never been a Muslim. What your post now must do is deal with the issue that mcCain will soon face: he was born in the Panama Canal zone and may not be eligible to run!
Comment by davidstill — February 28, 2008 @ 10:18 am
[...] Read the rest of this great post here [...]
Pingback by Barack Obama News » Blog Archive » “Obama will win the nomination but lose the election.” — February 28, 2008 @ 10:22 am
Email
Obama may lose, but not for any reasons you outlined. US Jews will give him
a large majority of their votes, as usual - probably about the same
percentage as they would have given Hillary.
df
Comment by Ted Belman — February 28, 2008 @ 10:30 am
Email from a Christian friend
Good article Ted and right on.
Did you hear this one?
Last summer Chelsea was given a job as a journalist in training . The editor thought he would
create an interesting situation by sending her to interview a group of troops from the South transferring through the Washington airport on their way to Iraq.
She approached one soldier and asked him if he was afraid of going to Iraq to fight the Sunnis and the Shiites.
He looked at her and said,” No Mam.There are only three people in the world I am afraid of. Osama,Obama and yo Mama.”
All the best.
Mike
Comment by Ted Belman — February 28, 2008 @ 10:33 am
Email
Good Piece..
While I am happy that the late unravelling of Obama has finally begun, my concern is that once again, Jews will be blamed for it…
So be it…
Comment by Ted Belman — February 28, 2008 @ 10:37 am
Email
We have NO ONE for whom to vote …..
McCain is weak and a fool That incredibly stupid apology for using obama’s middle name showed us.
Somehow/ somewhere…..there MUST be someone…..but, where is HE ….?
I am a Tom Tancredo supporter…..unfortunately, he had no funding and is also not a strong speaker
He has been on the illegal immigrant issue for years…….
Comment by Ted Belman — February 28, 2008 @ 10:51 am
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good…he sure started stammering the other night didn’t he when the
moderator brought up his “pastor”…..
Comment by Ted Belman — February 28, 2008 @ 10:52 am
Email
WOW! THIS IS VERY INTERESTING!!!!
Comment by Ted Belman — February 28, 2008 @ 10:53 am
Whaa? It doesn’t matter where McCain was born. His parents are US citizens (at least I figure they are), so he could have been born in China or Russia; he would still be a US citizen.
I don’t believe that Obama will be good for Israel. Among other things, he made comments at a speaking engagement a few years ago that he sided with the Arabs in Israel. However, that said, I don’t believe that whoever the next President is (including anybody who isn’t running), will be good for Israel. I firmly believe that you’ll just keep seeing the presidents getting worse and worse (wow, worse than Bush???). When it comes down to it, the US only showed friendship to Israel because she was their eyes and ears in the Middle East and Russia; without Israel, the US would have lost the Cold War. The US always needed Israel, not the other way around. Now, the US has the 51st state of Iraq so they don’t need Israel anymore.
Comment by LeeU — February 28, 2008 @ 11:01 am
You assert that Israel is not a belligerent but only defends itself. These days, that is a pretty inaccurate statement. Israel does not defend itself. Kassam rockets fall daily but Israel does not act like any other sovereign nation would to destroy the attackers. Given the weak, supine posture of the Olmert regime, why should any supporter of Israel demand that an American President be more assertive in sticking up for Israel than Israel for itself. If you are so upset about American politicians being “weak” on Israel, I suggest it is because they are pretty much following the lead of a weak Israeli government.
Comment by Wombat5000 — February 28, 2008 @ 11:35 am
Email
A friend passed this filth of yours on to me. You make me ashamed to be a Jew. I support
Israel and I support Senator Obama. I am so sorry that your small brain can;t wrap itself
around this seeming contradiction. Stay on the narrow path with your narrow mind. Miss
everything that complex and interesting in this world.
Si se puede
Michael Singer
Comment by Ted Belman — February 28, 2008 @ 12:24 pm
The National “Jewish” Democratic Council is squealing like a stuck pig because the Tennessee GOP is tying Obama to anti-Semitism. I called the Tennessee GOP and told them that they could tie Obama to racism and hatred of Catholics as well, and I sent them the material with which to do it.
NJDC will squeal to high heaven in the next couple of months. I wonder how “Bubbie versus Christians, Ministers, Crosses, and Jesus” will go over with people in Tennessee.
Comment by Bill Levinson — February 28, 2008 @ 1:05 pm
psst, David, Panama, Iseman, such these things are trivia compared to other McCain flaws, keep looking. At one time, I thought if Huckabee doesn’t get the brokered convention I’m still hoping for (depends much on Texas), that I could vote for McCain, but after what I’ve learned, I just really trust him less on Israel than I trust Obama, which is like almost not at all. (I’m also hoping McCain might get kicked off the Ohio ballot altogether due to his seeming failure to comply with their laws, but realistically I don’t see that happening.)
Comment by soren — February 28, 2008 @ 1:18 pm
This incredible success Obama has to raise funds reminds me of the billions pumped in to bolster the moderate** Muslim, Abbas. It seems to me there are those who want Obama to win for the sake of their agenda, similar to the drive to divide Israel’s land, not for the benefit of the poor Palestinians, but to weaken Israel and to prevent her from becoming the super power the Bible says she would. Noah prophesied, “Japheth (Europeans, etc.) will live in the tents of Shem (the Jews).” Presently about half of the known Jews in the world live in the tents of Japheth, but that is going to change!
** A moderate Muslim is a bad Muslim not doing what the Koran commands.
Comment by zionsake — February 28, 2008 @ 1:51 pm
Obama and the Abdication of Reason
President Barack Obama sound good to you?
Comment by David BenAriel — February 28, 2008 @ 1:55 pm
Obama and the Abdication of Reason
Comment by David BenAriel — February 28, 2008 @ 1:57 pm
David Ben Ariel posted a link to “Obama and the Abdication of Reason.” The article’s thrust is that Obama’s candidacy is based upon rhetoric and not specific accomplishments. Hmm. Where have we seen this before? Ronald Reagan ran a campaign based on rhetoric and little emphasis on specifics. Whether one liked him or not, Reagan was one of the most successful Presidents of the last century. He was able to win support from big majorities of American voters and once in office, he achieved sweeping changes in both domestic and foreign policy. While Obama’s ideology is different from Reagan’s his approach to electoral politics is similar.
Obama’s success so far is not about his specific legislative achievements but his ability to make voters feel a sense of hope. That’s how Ronald Reagan won against more experienced opponents. That’s how John F. Kennedy won against a more experienced opponent.
Comment by Wombat5000 — February 28, 2008 @ 2:23 pm
The article’s thrust is that Obama’s candidacy is based upon rhetoric and not specific accomplishments.
Obama and the Abdication of Reason
Some might come to that conclusion, others would feel (pardon the pun) the article stresses the troubling mindset of his cult following…
Senator Obama’s success is spectacular not just for its scale, but for the means by which it has come about. The strategy employed by the Obama campaign, as commentators—including some on the liberal bench—have observed lately, has been one of substituting rhetoric for reason, and style for substance, in an effort to win the hearts of supporters with a syrupy message of change, hope and inspiration. It’s the same style as that adopted by many a Pentecostal preacher, and it seems to be having the same spellbinding results.
Reagan gave us hope, but such hope was based in reality - not merely wishful thinking.
Comment by David BenAriel — February 28, 2008 @ 2:34 pm
[...] will win the nomination but lose the election” “Obama will win the nomination but lose the election.” By Ted [...]
Pingback by “Obama will win the nomination but lose the election” « David Ben-Ariel — February 28, 2008 @ 2:39 pm
I can’t figure out something here, Ted. Periodically on this website there is a spate of opinion saying that Israel can, should, and must go it alone. The correlative to this thinking is: Israel is not a “client state” of the USA, and doesn’t need to listen to America’s plans and programs for the future of the Middle East.
If one actually believes that line of thinking — I don’t, but apparently a number of people on this blog do — then why do any of you who think Israel can go it alone care so much about the next President of the USA? You say Israel needn’t listen and shouldn’t listen to the USA, so why care about who is doing the talking? Israel should decide for itself and by itself what its strategies and tactics (not to mention ethics) should be, militarily, politically, and socially.
Either Israel can go it alone without concerning itself about America or anyone else, or it is a client state of someone, and if it is a client state of someone, that someone is the USA. If it is a client state of the USA, then Israel has legitimate concerns about who is sitting in the oval office, but it also ought to (and eventually must) do as it is told, or risk losing its status as a protectorate, financial beneficiary, and generally favored nation. However, if it ain’t a client state, then what is all the hubbub about?
An apparently growing number of people — including many who believe themselves to be “good Jews” and at least qualified supporters of Israel — are supporting Obama. After Clinton’s string of losses and failure to dent him in the Cleveland debate, I expect the acceleration is continuing. For the reasons Wombat5000 identified, Obama has been tapping into something that America hasn’t felt for more than a decade at least, but that they desperately want to feel. That something is “hopeful optimism.” Assuming he becomes the nominee for the Democratic Party, I expect I will be voting for him. Of course, I could vote for the best and most experienced candidate, who also happens to be Jewish. Ralph Nader, of course.
Comment by Jeremiah Wails — February 28, 2008 @ 3:03 pm
JW
No one suggests that there wouldn’t be fight as a result of Israe3l attempting to make its own decision. It is a matter of prudence to have a President who is less of any enemy or represents a constituency that is supportive.
I know you know all this.
Obama represents the extreme left whose policies are not favourable to Israel. It comes as no surprise that there are many “good” Jews in that camp. They don’t argue that Israel is a client state but rather that it is a pain in the ass.
No one disputes that Israel is a client state but some are not happy with that condition and want to break free. Whether that is possible remains to be seen but at least some of us want to try.
Comment by Ted Belman — February 28, 2008 @ 3:16 pm
Jeremiah,
Where did you hear that Ralph Nader is Jewish? It is my understanding that he is of Lebanese Christian background.
Comment by Wombat5000 — February 28, 2008 @ 3:17 pm
Nader is Christian Arab Lebanese.
Comment by Ted Belman — February 28, 2008 @ 3:19 pm
Israel’s reliance on American administrations is making it weak. See http://sabayeshayah.com/archives/001379.php
Comment by Wombat5000 — February 28, 2008 @ 3:23 pm
Ralph Nader is Lebanese Christian? Wow. I will have to go check this out. For at least 25 years I have believed him to be Jewish. I guess I thought he was Jewish because he’s so smart and does so much good. Apparently I will have to revise my thinking on the Lebanese.
Comment by Jeremiah Wails — February 28, 2008 @ 3:25 pm
Shalom Ted and friends
Ted, I appreciate your efforts to bring some sanity to Israel — and now, unfortunately, also to the United States.
I can see, from your photo, that you are a “baby boomer” like me or possibly (if you are well-preserved) a tad older. I imagine you’re Jewish; I’m not. I’m one of those “Heinz 57″ Americans — part Jewish, part American Indian, part East European, part Yankee: it’s a mix that makes Genealogy a fun hobby. What’s more, my wife is Swedish and English, and my daughter married a Chinaman.
I think it’s important to give my ethnic background, when talking about Obama. He certainly is a “new sort of creature” on the American political scene. I imagine that he is the embodiment of “honoring diversity”, the buzzword of the Leftist media and education system that prevails in our country. Is the man Christian? Moslem? Actually, he has a foot in both doors: contrary to the view of davidstill, he is most assuredly Moslem: He was raised Moslem, in a Moslem country; and according to Islamic doctrine, “Once a Moslem, always a Moslem”. He is also “Christian”, but of a curious kind: He belongs to the most “ecumenical” denomination in the United States, the United Church of Christ — a group so ecumenical, in fact, that his pastor is a strong supporter of bigoted, antiSemitic, hate-filled men such as Louis Farrakan.
Is Obama “African American”? Actually, he is, LITERALLY: His father is fully African, not a U.S. citizen (a Kenyan, to be precise), and his mother a white American; so he is “literally” African-American. Unfortunately, in these times of Newspeak, “African-American” doesn’t mean what it actually says: the term has taken on the meaning, in most peoples’ eyes, of a Black American whose black ancestors have been in the U.S. for many generations, and this definitely does NOT. “African-Americans”, in their ACTUAL meaning, are fully “native” Americans; but Obama is NOT: He is HALF native American (not to be confused with “Native Americans”, another politically correct but meaningless label) and half native African in parentage. He is a US citizen by virtue of his mother, but equally eligible for Kenyan citizenship because of his father. As for his upbringing, he was raised in the United States (in Hawaii, our ethnic “rainbow” state) and also in Indonesia.
So Obama is something of an “odd duck”, in a land that is increasingly becoming a COUNTRY of “odd ducks”. In that sense, one might suppose that his supporters come from the other “odd ducks” in this country, such as me. They do NOT: Catholics, both Latino and Anglo, have been voting nearly 2:1 AGAINST Obama. Children of East European immigrants are also overwhelmingly against him. Women also oppose him, in favor of Hillary. So many Americans oppose him, in fact, that I really had to scratch my head when I saw that the betting odds had turned in his favor for winning the election. WHO, I thought, supports this young, whippersnapper political neophyte with no military record — especially a man of truly Middle-American background AND politics, a war hero with decades of public service behind him (I mean, of course, John McCain)???
The American Blacks support him, by almost 90%, for obviously racist reasons.
The American Jews support him, by and large, because of their famous self-hatred.
Pagans support him; Atheists support him; Anti-Christians support him, and of course, Moslems overwhelmingly support him…
…and he is the absolute darling of lily-white, Northern Leftist “Liberals”.
All of the above could be expected. I was raised as a Roman Catholic, in an ethnic neighborhood in a big Midwestern city; and I can tell you that I would be amazed to learn about anyone in my extended family supported this alien kid, just out of diapers. Your’re Jewish, so you have a problem, a real problem. If Moses were alive today, I think the Catholics would follow him through the Sea of Reeds but the Jews woudl be in Pharaoh’s army, chasing after them! but as I say, that’s your problem.
What’s really amazing to me is that so many white Americans, of Protestant Yankee stock, have gone over in such large numbers to someone who so obviously is NOT one of them. I can only see this as a white counterpart to Jewish self-hatred. I am awe-struck at the depth of this phenomenon.
Who will win the election? I don’t know — it really is in God’s hands. In 1992, we had a choice between a totally disgusting man (Papa Bush) and a complete disaster (Bubba Clinton), with a rich clown (Ross Perot) thrown in just for spice. It was a close call (I voted for the clown), which was amazing in itself because just the year before the election, Papa Bush had an 80% approval rating! What happened in one year, to cause him to plummet so? Bush’s ratings fell into the red when disastrous hurricanes slammed into the Alabama and North Carolina coasts. I don’t think it’s any coincidence that Bush Junior was made to look like a bumbling incompetent during the Katrina disaster last year. Hurricanes are “acts of God”, as even our godless lawyers admit.
Who knows what “winds of change” might happen between now and November. Am I concerned about it? Sort of — enough to remember to vote (for John McCain, of course). But I’m much more concerned about what’s been happening to my Yankee kinsmen. The Jews have been dealing with self-hatred since the “Enlightenment”; but this is a new phenomenon for Mainstream America. Clintons and Obamas will come and go; but they are only individuals: What I’m talking about, is the very soul of my countrymen and kinsmen. God forbid, that we should turn out like the Jews! My faith is in God: He will save us, and He alone; but it will be so sad for some! How long! How many innocents will suffer!
Thank you for your post, Ted. Kol tuv.
BlandOatmeal
Comment by BlandOatmeal — February 28, 2008 @ 3:33 pm
At the risk of being branded “simplistic”, the crucial issue is: one cannot be pro-Palestinian (in the common acceptation of the word) and pro-Israeli at the same time. One must take a clear stand. Everything else is rhetoric, politics and obfuscation, dear to those who believe that peddling abstractions makes them appear as profound thinkers.
Comment by salomon — February 28, 2008 @ 3:48 pm
Thanks for setting me straight on Nader. I like him more than ever. America should have an Arabic speaking President.
Compare his accomplishments with those of any of the three big name candidates — or of all of them put together.
This from Wikipedia:
Okay, I’m just having a bit of fun with this stuff about Nader. Ralph has about as much chance of becoming President as Joe Lieberman, which is too bad, because I think he would make the best President. Ralph that is, definitely not Joe.
More seriously, how does anyone here or anywhere else have enough information to call Obama “far left,” or even mildly left? He has been fantastically consistent at keeping his deep political preferences vague, and has been so for quite a while. I suspect that he’s planned on getting to the White House since the day he entered Harvard Law School, if not before. Being smart as well as ambitious, he recognized that being a policy wonk is good if you want most jobs in government, but not if you want to sit in the big chair. Frankly, I am not worried about his single-minded and Machiavellian approach to US politics. If it works, do it — that is the only rule in politics. Being vague works — or it has many times, and seems to be doing so again. I am more worried about the fact that neither he nor Clinton seemed to know what is happening in Russia. Perhaps because I live only about 1000 miles west of Moscow, what is going on in Russia worries me a great deal.
The most sophisticated commentators (not those on Fox News) I’ve read admit they have trouble categorizing Obama; but those who make the effort usually call him a centrist. Something I read recently (perhaps on Slate) referred to him as “left only in comparison to Clinton.” Whatever one wants to call Hillary Clinton, it should not be “leftist”. Her last mutterings in a leftward direction occurred during her husband’s first administration, and she failed so miserably and suffered so greatly from that incarnation, that she has become as conservative as her strongest constituency, blue-collar workers. In most countries, blue-collar workers can be counted as leftists, but in America, at least since Reagan, they are rightists.
So the election will be a “gut feeling” thing. Pretty scary, but it’s been working for quite a while. If we really wanted to know what our future presidents thought and what they were likely to do, we would demand more from them. For example, why do we let them get away with naming their cabinets AFTER they are elected, instead of demanding to know beforehand. And why not demand written policy papers from them on the big issues? It would not be impossible, but there seems to be no (or insufficient) desire for more clarity, transparency, and accountability. That, in my view, is tragic.
I would vote for anyone, Right, Left, or Center, who would actually bring about more clarity, transparency, and accountability in government. But no one wants to.
Comment by Jeremiah Wails — February 28, 2008 @ 4:05 pm
Oh Salomon, you are so simplistic!
I guess you missed your class in “game theory,” where they discussed the falacy of the zero sum game. You’ve heard of “win-win” situations? If ever there were the potential for a “win-win” on a large scale, then the Israel-Palestinian situation is it. In fact, it can be said that only if both groups win, will either of them win. The Israelis are not going to succeed in finding peace through military means, and the Palestinians are not going to find it through terrorist means.
Comment by Jeremiah Wails — February 28, 2008 @ 4:17 pm
Is Obama a Muslim? Check out this video. The text below is from the right side bar at that link.
Comment by Teshuvah — February 28, 2008 @ 4:57 pm
Tamar Yonah posted this video at her blog. It is entitled Diebold Accidentally Leaks Results Of 2008 Election Early and is by the Onion News Network.
Comment by Teshuvah — February 28, 2008 @ 5:07 pm
Well said, Brand Oatmeal
Comment by Ted Belman — February 28, 2008 @ 5:15 pm
Bland Oatmeal, not Brand Oatmeal. Ted, go find your glasses.
Comment by Jeremiah Wails — February 28, 2008 @ 5:18 pm
Well I make the accusation that obama’s church and obama himself are antisemitic and I stand by that. Prove me wrong. The church honored a vicious antisemite, that makes the church itself antisemitic.
A very ominous statement. This tells us all we need to know about senator obama. He is with our enemies. This obama boy is one of those far lefties who considers himself a citizen of the world. He is not a real American at all. He identifies with our muslim enemy. I don’t like his name, I don’t like his third world and possibly muslim background and I don’t want him as my president. The very basis of his campaign was on his supposed African American heritage, attempting to be America’s first black president. He has used that to rally black voters to his side and propel his campaign. It turns out even that is a fraud. Everything about this man is fake. He is the most dishonest, divisive, manipulative and dangerous politician in America and that is saying alot. This guy is indeed the manchurian candidate who I suspect has radical muslim groups and saudi money fueling his campaign.
Comment by Laura — February 28, 2008 @ 5:33 pm
I guess Laura doesn’t even think to ask whether “I will stand with the Muslims should the political winds shift in an ugly direction” is an accurate quotation, or what the context of it was. I don’t know myself, but it strikes me as completely inconsistent with the modus operandi of a man who has been accused (often, and mostly rightly) of saying and writing absolutely nothing that can be construed as a statement of policy. So I for one would like to see this quotation, if it is accurate at all, in its original context. I’ll settle for 300 words on either side of it.
If Obama isn’t a “real American” then who is? Bush can trace his family to the very earlier Colonial era — and a fat lot of good it’s done him or us. I believe the only requirement for being President is to have been born in the USA. He was born in Hawaii. Sounds good enough to me. He’s entitled by US and Kenyan law to have Kenyan citizenship in addition to his American citizenship, but does he? As for his third world background, that strikes me as a definite plus. Far too many Americans have no idea how people in other parts of the world live, so even though Obama’s experience is from his childhood, that’s far better than no experience at all.
“The very basis of his campaign was on his supposed African American heritage…” This is absolute rubbish. He didn’t play the race card, everyone else did. He certainly didn’t win in Iowa or most of the other states he has one in because he is “supposedly African American.” If anything, he won in spite of that. If all Obama had going for him were Black voters, he’d being doing about as well as Jesse Jackson and the Rainbow Coalition.
Now he may still be a fake and a fraud, and we still don’t know what his policies are. Then again, we don’t know what McCain’s are, or Clinton’s are, either. For obvious reasons, they don’t want to say — it’s been shown since Humphrey, if not before, that the less one says about matters of substance, the better one’s chance of being elected. Still, it’s a legitimate complaint. However, the only way to fix it, I am afraid, will be to actually require candidates to make policy statements, not simply wait for them to do so voluntarily.
But his race or mix of races, his father’s and mother’s religions, his religion…. These things are genuinely irrelevant to whether or not he can do the job of President. So far as I know, no one asked whether Joe Lieberman could have done the job (which as a Vice Presidential candidate he was automatically being considered for) since as an observant Orthodox Jew he was going to absent himself from the job for at least one day a week. By all accounts, it’s a 24/7 job, so it’s a bit hard to square it with a self-willed day off every week. People did ask if Kennedy could be a loyal American and loyal Catholic at the same time. He got elected. And while he was not a particularly great President by any measure other than the posthumous public relations campaign mounted on his behalf by men like Pierre Salinger and Arthur Slezinger, no one ever claimed to have heard him taking orders from the Vatican.
So, Laura, your position sounds more than a little cock-eyed and irrelevant — and if it doesn’t actually cross the line into racism, by bring up the issue at all, it comes damned close. Other than his race, and his experiences living abroad, what is it you think disqualifies him from the top job?
Comment by Jeremiah Wails — February 28, 2008 @ 6:55 pm
Email
What really concerns me is the Jewish voter who is a dyed in the wool Democrat but who wouldn’t vote for Hillary; therefore, his/her only other choice is Obama. Keep the words coming out about who Obama really is and what his world view really is. The final part of your message concerning the weird quote from Obama’s book should make Jews here in the States sit back and think — he may say he’s not a Muslim, but Islam still considers him a Muslim, and isn’t it interesting the number of financial supporters he has from the unindicted co-conspirators in the Holy Land Foundation’s trial?!? They think he’s their man because they believe he’s a Muslim…
Dore
USA / Israel
Comment by Ted Belman — February 28, 2008 @ 7:24 pm
I just ran this through Google. In I look at the first 60 listings before giving up. Everyone of them was a blog. Some were right wing blogs (Israpundit was high on the list — 14, if I remember correctly). Others were middle or even slightly left wing (Oprah’s blog was on there). But the sorts of sources in which would have expected to find a reference so incendiary — the New York Times, the Los Angeles Time, the Washington Post, the BBC, the AP, CNN, Slate — not a peep. Nothing even from Bill O’Reilly or Ann Coulter. Nothing from Fox News or any of the other Murdoch mud-slinging media. Nothing but a bunch of bloggers quoting each other.
So until someone can cite chapter and verse and can swear to me (and everyone else who read this) that he or she has seen this quotation with his or her own eyes, and is prepared to give me the context (300 words on either side), I am going to assume that this is right up there with the nonsense about Obama having taken his Senate oath on the Koran.
We can all agree that people who make up lies are morally repugnant and grossly irresponsible. What about people who pass them on without checking on them? In my view, also morally repugnant and grossly irresponsible.
Comment by Jeremiah Wails — February 28, 2008 @ 7:27 pm
Email
In addition to Obama’s ties with the church and what you have discussed, the fact that he chairs a subcommittee on Afghanistan affairs and has not presided over one meeting, his ties to a lobbyist who will be indicted next week and some other charges leveled by Nader. I also omitted from my piece the fact that Senator Obama was absent from one-hundred votes in the Senate. I saw an interview with Benjamin Netanyahu who does not appear to like the idea of presidential visits to certain regimes without preconditions.
Comment by Ted Belman — February 28, 2008 @ 7:33 pm
What am I reading: Senator Obama is to be held responsible for the utterences of his pastor? Am I then to be concerned about what is said by my bigotted Rabbi,who is regarded by most in my congregation as a complete asshole?
Obama’s Lineage, bloodline, religion,are being scrutinized just like in the grand old days of Nazi Germany. My Gd, it is most likely that he is also a leftist. I am getting the impression that most of you bloggers would find the writings of Julius Streicher (der Sturmer),and Geobbels, and Adolf Hitler himsef most congenial. You would find these works rife with anti-leftist, anti-liberal, anti-socialist comments. And where Jews are mentioned, you might just enter the prefex self-hating. And so this is the new fascism, Jewish style? Who would have thunk-it would have come to this?
Why am I so surprised? After all every group has their crazies. Why should not the Jews?
What bothers me is that so many of you out there are betting on his defeat? Just as you so intelligently bet on the war option in Iraq. And then he might remember the character assassins who so viciously attacked him. What then my friends, what then!!!
H. Peskin
Comment by h peskin — February 28, 2008 @ 8:02 pm
JW
You are right I should have confirmed that quote. I asked someone who read the book for the context but he hasn’t replied.
I received an email telling me of the quote and who announced it. I have written him for more specifics.
I will keep everyone posted.
Comment by Ted Belman — February 28, 2008 @ 8:38 pm
zionsake wrote: Noah prophesied, “Japheth (Europeans, etc.) will live in the tents of Shem (the Jews).” Presently about half of the known Jews in the world live in the tents of Japheth, but that is going to change!
Japheth is Asian, not European. Many of the white peoples of NW Europe and within the British Isles are Israelite. Many Jews are living among their British-Israelite and Euro-Israelite brethren, rather than following Judaism to the Jewish Homeland.
And BlandOatmeal wrote: What’s really amazing to me is that so many white Americans, of Protestant Yankee stock, have gone over in such large numbers to someone who so obviously is NOT one of them. I can only see this as a white counterpart to Jewish self-hatred. I am awe-struck at the depth of this phenomenon.
As I wrote in President Barack Obama sound good to you? -
I’m not some silly woman all googley-eyed over Barack Hussein Obama (sounds like Osama, doesn’t it?) or some self-hating or misguided white person who feels I must vote for the black man to prove to the racist PC masters I’m not racist. Ironically, if Obama wasn’t so light-skinned and handsome he wouldn’t have made it this far, thanks to Soap Opera conditioning. Just ask Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton or Alan Keyes.
This Jewish and Israelite self-hatred, self-destruction, is a curse.
Comment by David BenAriel — February 28, 2008 @ 8:45 pm
Jeremiah Wails comments: The Israelis are not going to succeed in finding peace through military means, and the Palestinians are not going to find it through terrorist means.
History strongly disagrees, as PEACE THROUGH STRENGTH is proven. Israel has never truly tried it yet, lacking proper Jewish leadership, and too many Israelis fail or refuse to live by biblical standards, forgetting the Law of Moses and so continue to suffer the escalating consequences of their sins that will result in German-EU occupation of Jerusalem (Dan. 9:11).
Israel must remove the threat. No Nazi Muslims (or those who aid and abet them), no terrorism. It really is that simple, so why should some continue to complicate it and enable Israel’s sworn enemies to spill more Jewish blood? Isn’t enough, enough?
Israel’s Betrayal of the Jews
Israel’s Only Way Out: Follow Kahane!
Comment by David BenAriel — February 28, 2008 @ 8:56 pm
HE MOST CERTAINLY DID PLAY THE RACE CARD! His wife said something to the effect that blacks would or should come to their senses and vote for him. Oprah Winfrey says to a black audience in the south “you should vote for obama, because he’s one of y’all”. Bill Clinton made a remark about obama’s stance on Iraq being a “fairytale” and the obama campaign cynically pretended it was a racist comment and thus was able to rally black voters and win SC. Black politicians and superdelegates are being threatened and intimidated into switching sides. Don’t tell me his campaign hasn’t used race. He has been riding on the idea of possibly being America’s first black president, so I think its quite relevant if in fact his supposed African American heritage is fake and his lineage is really Arab.
My opinion is as relevant as anybody else’s. And what else disqualifies obama is his total lack of experience and qualifications. And his far left views. So kiss my ass and go drink the obama kool-aid. Perhaps you get a thrill up your leg when listening to obama, the way the demented, vile chris matthews does. You and matthews probably get a hard-on as well.
Comment by Laura — February 28, 2008 @ 8:59 pm
For the record, I “denounce and reject” the theology of #45.
Comment by soren — February 28, 2008 @ 10:59 pm
soren comments: I “denounce and reject” the theology of #45
Exhibit A of either a self-hating Jew or Israelite, the curse I was referring to. Sad. Notice the glaring double standard and typical failure to “denounce and reject” the theology of Obamination’s black supremacist church and close associates. How revealing, eh?
Comment by David BenAriel — February 28, 2008 @ 11:08 pm
“If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, looks like a duck, it must be a duck”.
Well, if Barak Hussain Obama walks like a Leftist & qualks like a Leftist then …”
Listening to Barak Hussain Obama’s speech last week, one couldn’t fail to notice his openly Leftist agenda. Candidates are infamous for making all sorts of pro-Israel pronouncements in an attempt to capture the Jewish vote. Given his associations with pro-Arab/anti-Israel individuals & groups, what makes one think that despite his pre-electon statements regarding Israel, that if elected to the office of President, he won’t follow the leftist pro-Arab agenda visa vis Israel.
Comment by aitlaasot — February 29, 2008 @ 12:02 am
Soren (#48): What specifically do you denounce and reject? From David’s website and Amazon it appears he was kicked out of Armstrong’s church, has lived in Israel supporting Israel. Was kicked out of Israel, but from elsewhere I read that “Israel is persecuting the local Christians by not granting them visas to stay any more. They have driven about half of the long term Christians from the land so far.” GOI also persecutes the religious Jews in Israel but of course the GOI is globalist. If I recall the US State Department calls Kahane a terrorist as does Israel, and I think they are against British-Israel as well. They obviously are pro-Muslim and anti-Jewish and anti-Christian.
Comment by Teshuvah — February 29, 2008 @ 12:15 am
This comment is from a Christian living in Israel:
Also see Stan Goodenough’s Trusting in Princes.
Comment by Teshuvah — February 29, 2008 @ 12:32 am
#43 Hyman Peskin, you are the crazy. You refuse to draw appropriate conclusions from the facts. In fact you deny the facts.
Comment by Ted Belman — February 29, 2008 @ 12:35 am
Michael J. Gaynor writes:
America’s voters need to know why Louis Farrakhan, the head of the Nation of Islam, praised Barack Obama at the annual Nation of Islam conference as “the hope of the entire world that America will change and be a better place” and Mrs. Obama’s thesis suggests why.
More on Mrs. Obama’s Thesis
Comment by David BenAriel — February 29, 2008 @ 1:50 am
Teshuvah (#51), well, (1) seeing as how this is “Israpundit” I especially denounce and reject David BenAriel’s British-Israelism, that he considers himself an Israelite and the consequences that stem from it, and (2) seeing as how this article is about Obama and the issue of race politics has come up in the comments, I also feel compelled to especially denounce and reject the reverse-Farrakhanism (i.e., white supremacism) of David BenAriel that accompanies such cultic British-Israelism beliefs, supported by twisting scriptures (as he does in #45). BenAriel is not well, he thinks he’s of the so-called lost tribes of Israel and must unite with the Jews (means something different to him than to the average person) for endtimes reasons. Extremists like him give other professing Christians a very, very bad rep. I don’t care if someone believes different than me, even if it’s crazy, but in the same way that we expect Obama to distance himself from Farrakhan, I feel it’s prudent for me posting on this site while calling myself a Christian Zionist, to distance myself from the very atypical BenAriel since he calls himself a Christian Zionist as well. I don’t pretend to be an Israelite–ethnic and/or national, he does.
(David, I have denounced Obama’s church, more than once, elsewhere. I’m neither Jewish nor an Israelite.)
Comment by soren — February 29, 2008 @ 2:14 am
Sorry about the bold (not shouting, just forgot the end bold mark after “British-Israelism”).
Comment by soren — February 29, 2008 @ 2:15 am
Soren (#55): What scriptures in #45 did David BenAriel twist?
Comment by Teshuvah — February 29, 2008 @ 2:58 am
Reply to #33:
Jeremiah, you fit perfectly with the last sentence of my posting. It’s a pity you can’t see it.
And quoting you from another one of your postings on this page:
“We can all agree that people who make up lies [about the Palestinians] are morally repugnant and grossly irresponsible”
Comment by salomon — February 29, 2008 @ 3:19 am
Soren (#54): The study of Genealogy has really only taken off in the last 20 years with the widespread use of computers, precisely when G-d has been regathering the Jews to Israel. That regathering is Zionism. I suggest that heightened awareness is a calling by G-d for people to discover their roots, particularly their Jewish roots. Messianic Congregations have sprung up as a result of it, although many are too Christian in that they are Antinomian (against the Law, i.e. antichrists), rather than holding to Messianic Judaism.
Many people have thought they had a Jewish ancestor and have been studying their own lineage. Others feel compelled, as if by a scarlet thread, to find out. The Jews who escaped the Catholic Inquisition went to the Americas and became Converso or Sephardic Jews. Some “converted” to Catholicism but retained Jewish customs in secret. Eventually some forgot their Jewish heritage. If God can bring the Converso and Sephardic Jews back, He can also jog the memories of Christians who have a Jewish heritage. Even some the Scots and some North American Indians are descended from Jews, notably the Cherokee! If it is too far back not to count in the State of Israel, it at least gives one comfort to know they have an additional reason for support Israel. I have not seen any White Supremacism in my reading that you assign to David.
Yamit provided these and other links a few weeks ago:
Cherokee Jewish Indians
When Scotland Was Jewish
The Influence of Sephardic Jews and Moors on Southeastern Indian Cultures - by Donald Panther-Yates
Melungeons: The Last Lost Tribe in America
Melungeons.com - Jewish Indians
Comment by Teshuvah — February 29, 2008 @ 3:25 am
Teshuvah (#57), his whole comment is based on a mangling of scripture; first, note he says about Genesis 9:27 that “Japheth is Asian, not European,” note how he’s talking in the present tense–this presents another issue that I won’t digress much on, but let me say he’s living in the past–his theology views events of the Tanakh that in reality are historical as still yet to be fulfilled, and BenAriel views those he wrongly calls “Israelites” (Anglo-Saxons) as playing a role in fulfilling them. Noah’s 3 named sons are Shem, Ham, and Japheth, and the corresponding adjectives are semitic, hamitic, and japhetic. For the same reason it’s inaccurate to say Shem is Israeli (reading the present into the past), it’s inaccurate to say Japheth is Asian(and, btw, for space I’m not even getting into the historical fact that Europeans very much descended from Japheth, contrary to what BenAriel says, since it doesn’t fit in with his theological presuppositions). Correct biblical application to present reality and history would be to say, “most Israelis (as in national Israel) are semitic,” “many, probably most, Europeans (until recently) were japhetic,” and, “some Asians are japhetic.” BenAriel’s next statement is also based on a twisting, wresting, denying and perversion of the totality of scripture (seeing as how so much of it is about Israel): “Many of the white peoples of NW Europe and within the British Isles are Israelite.” You can’t just make Israel mean what you want (in his case, Anglo-Saxons), the name didn’t come out of a hat, but was the new name given to Jacob and from there used to refer to all descendants of Jacob and at times used to describe the northern tribes, as opposed to the southern tribes of Judah (the pretext for BenAriel’s cultic distinction between Israelites and Jews). It’s all a big hermeneutical disaster that needs some serious deprogramming and a start from scratch when it comes to the Bible.
Comment by soren — February 29, 2008 @ 3:45 am
Does anyone check these things?
A freshman senator chairing a senate subcommittee? I didn’t think so. So I went to see. http://obama.senate.gov/committees/
With the Internet, Google, and other search enginges, and only a little perseverance and a few seconds of effort, it is possible to check most of the assertions made about the presidential candidates, from so-called quotations to so-called committee memberships. It’s not about Obama, it’s about whether we want to know the truth about the three people likely to assume the Presidency, and thus make informed judgments, or whether we’ve already made up our minds (based one what?) and just want to confirm our decisions while attempting to get others to join us.
I have not actually made up my mind, and I would like the best person (from my moderately left-of-center, European-style Social Democratic viewpoint) to have the job. To do that, I need accurate information. Presumably, those of you right-of-center also want accurate information. Otherwise mistakes — very expensive mistakes — are sure to be made.
Remember all the flak and fluff about “compassionate conservatism” in 1998-99? People who believed it and voted according to their beliefs have had nearly a decade to repent their gullible natures. What about the traditional Republican core principles of small government, balanced budgets, and colleagial government? Anyone who voted for the so-called Republican, George W. Bush, in reliance on those core-principles (unchanged in decades of Republicanism) is now watching helplessly as his country’s reputation and influence in the world are eroded on all sides, as the economy crumbles under the weight of smoke-and-mirrors schemes of funding debt with more debt, rather than with taxes (the only legitimate way to finance them), and so on.
More of those sorts of surprises are not what is needed. So we had better work a little harder to get our facts straight. Because next November we can be absolutely sure of only one thing: America will have got the President it has earned.
Comment by Jeremiah Wails — February 29, 2008 @ 3:51 am
Soren (#60): One can have his DNA checked to see if he is a member of the Tribe. That scientific result should satisfy everyone. Simply because a prophetic event happened once doesn’t mean it can’t happen again, i.e. “Babylon is fallen, is fallen.” This shows it is going to happen twice, just for one example. The desecration and destruction of the Temple in 70 AD is another example.
I’ve read differing views on Japheth and as it can’t be known for a certainty at this point, I’ll let God decide. Here is a link about the basic Chinese language and its likely biblical background from Genesis. The true God worshipped by ancient Chinese.
From seeing many videos and information from Israel, although many are semitic, many others look as blonde and blue-eyed as any European or American.
Comment by Teshuvah — February 29, 2008 @ 4:12 am
Re. 47.
Obama is responsible for what his wife says? For what Oprah says? You seem to suggest that he’s responsible as well for what Bill Clinton says. No one held Ronald Reagan responsible for the inanities of his daft wife (Renmember “Just say ‘No’.”) Nor does anyone seem to remember that 18 months ago Laura Bush was loudly trumpeting the idea of Condi Rice becoming both the first woman and the first Black President. Talk about a non-starter. Oprah gets paid in direct proportion to her ratings, not her measured wisdom or political acuity. Same as Bill O’Reilly. Neither of them is demonstrably brighter than Sean Penn or Mia Farrow. If you care what any of them says, then shame on you for being so gullible.
I care about what Hillary says (not her husband, still less her daughter), about what McCain says (when one can make sense of it), and what Obama says (not his pastor, not his wife). The rest is just noise.
All this noise about experience, for instance. Hillary is in her 8th year as a Senator (in a seat handed to her on a silver platter), not exactly a lot of experience, not exactly a lot of hard work. Not when compared to the people I wish were running (Sen. Patrick Leahey, for example). Prior to that, her experience was either nil or negative. Every initiative she’s ever championed has been a failure. Her previous attempt at healthcare reform was such a disaster that it’s taken everyone more more than a decade to forget about it. John McCain is, frankly, a lightweight — a mental lightweight and despite his long service an experiential lightweight. He knows a lot about a few things, and nothing at all about a lot of things, including the economy. He looks smart and principled next to Dubbya, but not otherwise.
That leaves Obama. He’s definitely smart and well educated — but then so is Hillary. On the other hand, unlike Hillary he has not been investigated for his involvement in such smelly business as Whitewater, the White House Travel Office scandal, the dubious suicide of a chief aide, the deplorable association and friendship with Web Hubble, a completely unqualified boob whom she pushed in a Attorney General. Perhaps lack of experience is a good thing in this election. Everyone else has a smelly history.
Arab? How did you reach that conclusion? His mother is a white Christian American. His father is a black Kenyan, not an Arab and not a Muslim. Kenyans are sub-Saharan Africans, not Arabs. A few of them are Muslims (not very many), but not all Muslims are Arabs. There would appear to be no more Arab blood in Obama’s viens than in yours. His mother, following divorce from his father, married a Muslim, not an Arab.
So, according to your groundless reasoning, not only is he guilty for Oprah’s beliefs, he is also guilty for those of his step-fathers? My step-father was a pro-Reagan Republican. I never understood how an educated person living in an enlightened liberal city like San Francisco could reach such absurd conclusions, but at the same time I never thought of his benighted views as any taint on me.
You really ought to check these silly things you write with such unfounded self-assurance before making such an open and incontestable idiot of yourself in public. You would save yourself much embarrassment and the rest of us a lot of time.
Comment by Jeremiah Wails — February 29, 2008 @ 4:57 am
Re. 47.
That’s an interesting proposition, but not an obvious truth.
In 1982 I moved from Chicago, where I had gone to law school, to New York, where I had taken a job. I wanted to see all the things NYC is famous for.
Among the notable sites I visited early in my life as a New Yorker were the Brooklyn Botonical Gardens.
There I was sitting with my girlfriend on a bench in the rose garden. A couple of rather rotund middle aged women came waddling by, not obviously mentally impaired and probably just as likely to vote as anyone else.
After a while of looking at the labels on the plaques next to the rose bushes, one of them said to the other, “Imagine that. Eleanor Roosevelt is buried here.”
At that very moment I began to think that the one-person one-vote “we all equal” version of democracy probably needed some tweaking. I still think so.
Comment by Jeremiah Wails — February 29, 2008 @ 5:52 am
It’s interesting that, here is a man that two years ago 95% of the nation had never heard of; now, many of you are defending him more rigorously than God Himself. You would think that someone said something about your mother. I believe it is true, Obama is a messiah … for the left. How does a man, whom nobody knew, suddenly become “loved” by millions? I’d call it demonic charisma, just like George W. Bush. Whoever gets elected you can bet that the US deserves him/her. Who knows what God has in store, He raise up whom He please, and crushes those He choses. Believe me, your vote doesn’t matter, one way or another. Has it made a difference in the past? Either God will choose the one He wants or He will allow the nation to have who it deserves.
An example: Bush spent the first four years of his presidency showing everyone how he was not accountable to anyone, and that he would decide the borders of Israel, not God. Then, four years later, the Christians (who “say” they love Israel) voted him back in, the lesser of two evils, they said. How screwed up is that? The lesser of two evils? Where does God say to choose the lesser of two evils? Evil is evil is evil is evil. The problem is that Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson and others deceived the Christians into believing that they HAVE to vote. Politicians are no different than whores, they both sell their bodies for money and power.
Comment by LeeU — February 29, 2008 @ 8:47 am
as A Jew, I am Ashamed of some of the hatred here expressed! That some members of Obama’s family might have or may still be Muslim means he can not run? But this iks not nazi Germany and Joe Lieberman a Jew can run? Oh, it is ok if he has Muslim members in his background but his church is….? in other words, whatever he is or does he is bad bad bad. Oh, not really African American? ok–back to Hitlers blood tests
You think he is all rhetoric? google his record then. You think he has not enough time in congress? the same exact amount as Lincoln when that guy became president.
Comment by davidstill — February 29, 2008 @ 9:17 am
Yes, but Lincoln didn’t have the same size country with the large population, nor the international events of today. There is no comparison whatsoever. That’s like saying that we are all are qualified because we have as much experience in the US government as George Washington. A little more complex today than in the time of Lincoln.
I do agree about the hatred, as well as some of the language.
Comment by LeeU — February 29, 2008 @ 9:25 am
Davidstill,
I concur that Obama’s familial background should not mean anything per se. Whether that background has influenced his thinking can only be discerned from his words and deeds. On that score, I have not seen much if anything.
As to his long and continued affiliation with the Chicago South Side Holy Trinity Church led by Pastor Jim wright Jr., who has certainly distinguished himself as being completely anti-Israel/pro-Palestinian and made the case with his words and deeds that he is a highly probable anti-Semite and anti-white racist, that is an entirely different matter.
Just as most people are judged in part at least by whom they associate with, so too should Obama. Obama says he against all forms of racism, including anti-semitism. In doing so, Obama’s thinking on the matter is only making him move his lips.
In such situation, Obama’s stance on racism and anti-semitism in particular would have been far more credible, had he long before entering this race to be the Democratic candidate for President in the upcoming election, moved his feet right out of his Church led by the highly probable bigot Jim Wright Jr.
As for his message of change, while it has inspired and captured the imagination of a nation so desperate for change for the better, Obama has failed to provide any clear message on how to effect that change, and what he has said to that end in terms of health care and in foreign policy, sure sounds lke a recipie for a change for the worse.
Comment by Bill Narvey — February 29, 2008 @ 9:51 am
Many of us here on Israpundit think the worst thing for Israel is to be a client state of America. I for one am in this camp. A lot of what has been posted here re: Jews in the negative can historically be substantiated, and that is why we have 14 million Jews in the world and not 500 million, pogroms and holocausts not withstanding. Jews who are really Jews are stalwart in their conviction to remain Jews no matter what the others will go. This has been the case through out our history, especially since the emancipation. Whoever gets the nod in the next presidential elections will in one way or another be bad for the Jews and especially for Israel.
Thus said I will offer a different take from our view here. I will assume Obama will be the worst for America and the Worst candidate for Israel or the worst of the worst options available assuming Blumberg doe not jump in at the last min.
I therefore proffer that we should advocate the worst apparent candidate who might force Israel off the American political umbilical cord since it appears none on our side is willing or capable of doing it voluntarily.
For Israel it will be harder psychologically more than any other tangible effect. We can whether that also in time. The big concern should be Americas but I am here now and not there so I primarily look to see what best for us first just like Americans do the same or at least should!
Obama is a Racist for sure thats America problem, No great public track record , Americas problem, Fuzzy positions on anything and everything again Americas problem.
If A president Obama turns out to be good for the Jews and Israel we would have lost nothing if as I suspect he will be the opposite than that would be the best thing that could happen to us since we invented CHICKEN SOUP(It would be as that I forgot his name said ) a win , win situation for Israel.
Do not fear it will force us to be practical, thrifty and aggressive. Unify the country and those of world Jewry that still care, find out if those Christian Zionists are really our friends,. Things might get so bad we decide finally to leave the UN which would take us out of the legalistic constraints of that August body of snakes and rats.
We could save billions in Hitec toys which we thought we needed to reduce enemy civilian casualties, and use Napham instead which should be enough against the Palis and if attacked by Arab armies just Nuke em. Since America seemingly won’t deny Iran her nukes we can do by using our own first . That should put the ball squarely in the Liberal Wuss court in America and the world. Israel alone can be a very worthy and dangerous enemy with a no choice situation.
Now: H Peskin and A.Hingston lets go at it fellas!
Comment by yamit82 — February 29, 2008 @ 11:24 am
My sentiments exactly. Well put, yamit82!
Comment by LeeU — February 29, 2008 @ 11:34 am
Stop drinking the kool-aid. He hasn’t been around long enough to be investigated. But make no mistake, this obama boy is as corrupt as they come. But its only a matter of time before his ties to the Syrian businessman, I can’t recall his name, comes to light. Oh, and your sqeaky clean boy obama sued to win his first election: http://www.houstonpress.com/2008-02-28/news/barack-obama-screamed-at-me/4
Comment by Laura — February 29, 2008 @ 12:05 pm
davidstil
We who express concerns about Obama have done our homework. You have not. You have to be willfully blind to ignore our facts and arguments. On the balance of probabilities our rejection of Obama is a no-brainer.
If you want to make your point you will have to address all our arguments rather than advance platitudes and know nothing thinking.
Either make a case or stop sliming.
Comment by Ted Belman — February 29, 2008 @ 12:14 pm
66 & 67 & a bit of 69 –
David Still, Good for you. A man who believes in something other than Israel. Not that you don’t believe in Israel — I hope you do — but just that you don’t appear to think that the ends justify the means. Thank you for standing up for principles that used to matter in America more than they seem to today. And thank you also for pointing out that Lincoln had had similar experience when he entered the Oval Office. Of course, Washington had had no political experience. The “experience” charade can be played every which way, and in the end character and convictions will matter more. Truman had had little real experience — Vice Presidents in his day had nothing, literally nothing, to do. Kennedy was in much the same position as Obama. Certain people grow into the job amazingly well. Bush didn’t, but others have.
As for LeeU’s apparent dismissal of the complexity of the country in the time of Lincoln, I can’t imagine how he came to the conclusion that Lincoln had an easier time of things that present day Presidents. There was a little matter of The Civil War, still by far the bloodiest military experience America has ever been in. (A single day in the worst Civil War battles saw more casualties than all of Iraq and Afghanistan put together. And they were all Americans.) Lincoln was faced not only with the worst domestic problems of any President to date, but also with plenty of foreign affairs problems — since half of Europe was willing to run the blockades that were part of his strategy for dealing the Confederacy. The country was smaller, also poorer, also at least as divided and quarrelsome and angry. The legal basis for the war was contested (sound familiar), and the President had for much of the war very little faith in his generals.
To suggest that Lincoln had an easier time of things that modern Presidents is so foolish a statement that I find it difficult to believe that someone could make it.
And then there is Yamit82, who simply likes to argue. He can argue the pants off McCain, Clinton, and Obama, and still have energy left for more. He can insist that black is white, and demonstrate why, and that Israel is a superpower in waiting, and that a country the size of a football field can and should take on the whole world if necessary.
I have an easier suggestion. The Jews should leave Israel, close up and give up, and return to the Diaspora. Bingo. No more problems. No more Qassams. No more suicide bombers. No more worries about Iran or Iraq or Syria or Hezbollah. No more Kadima. No more Likud. No more macho rhetoric. No more wasted money. Problem solved. Israel had a good chance, but then the Six Day War twisted its thinking, and the constant flow of American money spoiled it rotten. If it can be redeemed, that would be great. But it looks increasingly unlikely. Wait for the Messiah and try again. In the meantime, get on with life.
Comment by Jeremiah Wails — February 29, 2008 @ 12:29 pm
There was some mention of game theory here and for those who mentioned it superciliously I would recommend the following clip as it has much relevance I think to Israel and all those who may be for and against us.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJAFRF75OVA
Comment by yamit82 — February 29, 2008 @ 12:33 pm
You still don’t get it do you? Obama is the one using his supposed African American heritage to propel his campaign. This is why he is receiving greater than 80% of the black vote. If he is actually Arab, then that fact is relevant in this case. If he himself wasn’t using the race card, then it wouldn’t be an issue.
Comment by Laura — February 29, 2008 @ 12:54 pm
DavidStill wrote,
This is a straw man argument. The problem is not Obama’s religious identity or that of his family members, it is his promotion of anti-Semitic, racist, and anti-Catholic hate mongers. I encourage people to circulate the following as E-mail to friends and associates to help stop this phony smile on top of an empty suit.
Subject: Barack Obama Enables Racism, Hatred and Contempt for Jews and Catholics
In fairness to Barack Obama, I must say up front that I have never heard or read of him personally speaking a word against Jews, Catholics, or white people in general. It is his failure to understand, or more likely failure to care, that his public appearances with and endorsements of professional bigots and hate organizations enables racism, anti-Semitism, and anti-Catholicism that makes him unfit for any office of public trust or responsibility.
(1) Hillary Clinton (D-NY), Ronald Reagan (R-CA) and Lou Barletta (D-PA) were all offered endorsements by hate organizations (Independence Party, Ku Klux Klan). None of them had to be asked to reject these endorsements without hesitation, qualification, or equivocation. Barack Obama, in contrast, refused to use the word “reject” in connection with support from Louis Farrakhan, the racist and anti-Semitic leader of the Nation of Islam, until Tim Russert and Hillary Clinton cornered him like a rat during the February 26, 2008 Democratic debate. Only when they asked him three times to “reject” Farrakhan’s support did Obama, with obvious reluctance, do so. Farrakhan is on record as calling the Pope the Antichrist while saying that white people are “potential humans” who “haven’t evolved yet.”
(2) Barack Obama has made public appearances with, promoted, and endorsed Al Sharpton and his National Action Network. Sharpton’s long record of inciting hatred of white people and especially Jews includes the Tawana Brawley scandal (1988), Crown Heights riots (1991), and Freddy’s Fashion Mart incident (1995) in which one of Sharpton’s deranged followers burned a Jewish-owned store with the loss of seven innocent lives. In the latter incident, the National Action Network, which Obama praised in the highest terms, shouted epithets like “bloodsucking Jew” and “see that the cracker suffers,” to which Sharpton personally added “white interloper.”
(3) Barack Obama has solicited and received the support of MoveOn.org, which published not only a vicious insult to General David Petraeus but also a derogatory photomanipulation of Pope Benedict waving a gavel in front of the U.S. Supreme Court. This “Catholics are taking over America” picture was entirely consistent with the anti-Catholic, as well as anti-Semitic and anti-Evangelical, hate speech that MoveOn.org welcomed on its now disgraced Action Forum. Contrary to MoveOn’s assertions that the Action Forum was an “open forum” for whose content MoveOn was not responsible, MoveOn’s moderators were exercising complete editorial control by deleting material they found disagreeable. The hate speech against Jews, Catholics, Evangelicals, and others was allowed to stand, along with conspiracy theories that blamed the U.S. Government, Jews, and others for 9/11.
(4) Barack Obama is a member of an arguably racist church whose pastor, Jeremiah Wright, said “white America” got a “wake up call” on 9/11. Wright also accompanied Louis Farrakhan on a visit to Moammar Khadafy, and the church recently honored Farrakhan with a Trumpet Award.
Comment by Bill Levinson — February 29, 2008 @ 12:56 pm
Soren says: British-Israelism, that he considers himself an Israelite and the consequences that stem from it
I know I’m an Israelite, and unlike Israel that has practically begged for others to recognize them as an official state, I don’t feel the need for your approval. It appears you’re either woefully or willfully ignorant of the Israelite origins of the Anglo-Saxons and the Hebrew roots of many of the white peoples of NW Europe. Nothing new under the sun, as Joseph stood before his brethren and they were blind to his identity and it had to be revealed - as it has been again, as prophesied.
How has it been revealed? We the People (British-Israelites and Jews, NW Europeans) alone bear the many biblical birthmarks of fulfilled prophecies that none of the other claimants do.
Ever hear of Orde Wingate? He was a Christian-Zionist and also understood and embraced the fact that he was indeed a British-Israelite. Just think of the consequences the Jews would have suffered if they rejected his invaluable assistance because of his biblical beliefs concerning his people! Biblical beliefs that are being shared by a growing number of Jews, such as Torah-observant Yair Davidy of Brit Am Israel and Rabbi Avraham Feld - both of Jerusalem. You do realize, don’t you, there are Twelve Tribes of Israel?
What’s this got to do with the leftist, undoubtedly closet Muslim, racist Barack Hussein Obama (BHO)? For me, everything. Israelites are not to elect a Gentile leader to rule over them. Not only does BHO present a threat to the United States (Menashe ben Yosef), he would aid and abet the sworn Muslim enemies of Israel (Yehudah), and is a Gentile in every sense of the word.
You say of yourself, I’m neither Jewish nor an Israelite. You may still be lost to your possibly Israelite origins (the Danish are the tribe of Dan, in large part), wandering as a Gentilized Israelite, but some of us know who we are and won’t deny it to remain stuck in the muck of Babylon rather than return to Jerusalem. The truth has set us free.
Comment by David BenAriel — February 29, 2008 @ 1:02 pm
Soren is woefully or willfully ignorant of the Israelite origins of the West, the Hebrew roots of the Anglo-Saxon and white peoples of NW Europe. Nothing new under the sun, as Joseph stood before his brethren and they were blind to his identity!
Some prefer to deny their Hebrew roots that they may continue as Gentilized Israelites, wandering in their spiritual bewilderment, shamefully preferring Babylon to Jerusalem.
Orde Wingate was also a Christian Zionist who embraced the truth he was a British-Israelite. Imagine the consequences for the Jewish people, the Jewish Homeland, Israel, if Orde Wingate had been foolishly dismissed because of his biblical beliefs. Thankfully, reason prevailed and Israel and Judah worked together wonderfully and were blessed.
Comment by David BenAriel — February 29, 2008 @ 1:24 pm
Israels tactical goals should partially agree with a major aim of American anti-Semites: divestment from Israel. For utterly different reasons we, too believe that Israel must abandon the US aid and live on her own. This would force Israel to live according to her means and to become at last a frugal nation. This would demand a change of political system to accommodate the new realities, the return to Israel’s fundamental political doctrine: Only the IDF is responsible for Israel’s safety.
The US needs to show the Arabs that she controls Israel, and make us appear like poor beggars just for the fun of it: witness the American demand over a few dozen illegal caravans perfidiously dubbed “illegal outposts.” As if the Arab attacks on Israel from 1929 onwards have anything to do with unauthorized settlements and outposts built mainly because of the Oslo capitulation. American politicians betray our friendship to placate Arabs, such as resurrecting the peace process after they saw Iraq war going badly. The stupid American Presidents use Israel to vindicate their silly theories, or repay entities like the Saudis. Clinton pushed for the peace process to get the press off his ass over monica scandal. If not for US pressure, Israeli governments wouldn’t even think of giving the Arabs Judea and Samaria and partitioning Jerusalem.
From 1948 to 1972, Israel survived while having no Superpower Sponsor. We had a fexable foreign policy dealing in kind with France, Germany, America, even the Soviet front Romania, and survived quite well. Paying off International Blackmail to the Arabs is very expensive in more ways than one, many countries would find it cheaper to buy regional influence by aiding Israel than the Arabs. America aids Israel to control her, and to leverage that contro with the Arabs by extracting concessions from them. Aid to Israel is an excellent investment. Not only the US, but other countries, as well,who might realize that and would ally themselves with Israel. In the show of absurd loyalty, Israel sticks to America, even though America sells her out at every opportunity – for oil and other |Big business reasons. I do not rule out a degree of antisemitism here as well.
Russia cannot give Israel much aid, but can supply advanced weapons much cheaper than America, and provide excellent support in the UN. The Arabs fear the ruthlessness of the Russians more than the libral wusses who run America , so America is more vulnerable to Arab duplicity and attack than Russia.
There is also France, full of themselves with imperial ambitions but unable to pry the Arabs countries away from America. Through an alliance with France, Israel can extract diplomatic support and considerable aid from the EU.
China and India provide unlimited potential once outside of Americas constraints.
I still think Obama is the one to support for all of the above reasons.
Comment by yamit82 — February 29, 2008 @ 1:48 pm
Davidstil
Let me be perfectly clear. I do not oppose Obama because he is black or because he is Arab. I oppose him because of the people he surrounds himself with and because he is favourably inclined to the Palestinian cause and because he is favourably inclined to Islam.
Is that too difficult to understand.
Comment by Ted Belman — February 29, 2008 @ 2:59 pm
David BenAriel (#77,78), I’m actually an admirer and student of Orde Wingate despite his bad theology and am well aware of the British-Israelism adherents who 60-100 years ago were more benign than those who adhere to British-Israelism today and its various Christian Identity spinoffs–again, it’d be hypocritical to be pointing fingers at refusing to denounce Farrakhan while not distancing oneself from a white-Farrakhan like yourself, that’s one reason I denounced your theology–so no one could point to Israpundit and charge it w/hypocrisy for Obama/Farrakhan bashing while allowing a white racist cultist to post unchallenged. Fact is many people from your type of Armstrongism have taken your theology a step further and ended up supporting real apartheid in South Africa or ended up as neo-nazi Aryans…it’s just a step away. And, no, I’m not saying you’ll take that step, just pointing out that others have and do, and not only that, your fringe endtimes agenda-driven beliefs cause Jews to question the motives of Christians in general, who overwhelmingly consider British-Israelism to be a cult that’s long past having been refuted.
Comment by soren — February 29, 2008 @ 3:53 pm
Andrew you anti semitic, cwel,dupek,gowno, spierdalaj:
somethings black can never be made to be white like your mind. I would call it a black hole full of nothingness.
Judging from the quantity of your comments here it seems that it is you who enjoys the argument and the provocations you hope to elicit reactions too. It appears judging from the lack of response to you here that you have lost your general appeal as you are by now a known quantity and I guess most readers feel you are not worth the energy of a response. I am a bit quirky here in that I hate you, so I feel sort of a compulsion, to at least give you a response suitable to my feelings toward you. I never back away or back off especially from the likes of you. It isn’t every misfit American who would choose to live in that mecca of western civilization POLAND and then have the conjoles to belittle someone else for choosing to live in his cultural and historical homeland. There is a school of thought that a person can never feel really alive until his life is in mortal danger or if somebody is shooting at him in order to kill. Man it gets the adrenalin really perking believe me when I say that most of us are getting on with life and death as well.
Today even with our problems which I must admit we have an abundance of we can put Poland with a population 10 times ours in our hip pockets without a thought. I can tell you one thing , we won’t have to confront the world only those who wish us harm and we can take care of them. Its a matter of will and conception as well as belief in ourselves. You think otherwise fine so why concern yourself with Israpundit there are a myriad of forums that think just like you and you would fit in seamlessly? even with your large girth!
Comment by yamit82 — February 29, 2008 @ 3:59 pm
b”h
Before anybody gets mental orgasm’s at the prospect of a defeat of Barak Hussain Obama, we see situation where the current president, who had been 1000% behind Israel, now calls for the surrender of more land & the division of Jerusalem w/o evidence that peace will really take place. Just as important of who will be in the White House is who will be the Prime Minister of Israel. Unless Israel has a strong PM who can say “NO”, Israel willl be forced into more concessions w/o any peace.
Comment by aitlaasot — February 29, 2008 @ 4:09 pm
aitlaasot, shalom lecha: I believe leaders are less important that most of us might assume. Even seemingly mediocre leaders with small challenges may not rise above them but for big challenges sometimes rise to meet those challenges successfully. who can say? Toynbee likened history as a matter of challenge and response. I think there is much truth in this! Shas who gave us Oslo for a few silver shekels can still partially redeem themselves if not I can blame them more than even Rabin and Peres for the deaths of almost 2000 Jews. The stupid followers of R, Ovadia Yosef still do not connect and still think of him as a Gadol Hador, G-d help us all in that case!
Comment by yamit82 — February 29, 2008 @ 4:26 pm
Sure, there was a tremendous war on but if you think that the world today is much more simple than back then, you’re really out of touch with reality. It is far more complex. The US was not a world power back then and most of the world did not hate us; the economy of the US was not tied to the entire world; if the economy fell in another country it didn’t have 1/10th the impact it has today. The White House was still sitting in a swamp! Boy, it must be nice to think all is beautiful and the worst is over. I don’t know how one can possible think that, unles they live in a cave, deep in the woods somewhere. Wake up, man!
Comment by LeeU — February 29, 2008 @ 5:08 pm
A couple of comments by/for Jeremiah Wails:
Last things first. Jeremiah, you said:
The comment about Eleanor Roosevelt was made by two fat ladies who were visiting the park — ladies about whom you were forming opinions based on their fatness. From what you described about your first sight of them, you were apparently equating fatness with stupidity and inability to make proper voting judgments; but like a true “enlightened person”, you generously chose not to pass judgment. When the ladies made the “Eleanor Roosevelt” comment, you decided to abandon your enlightened generosity in favor of “rational judgment”.
But was your judgment rational? You said you were in the Brooklyn Bontanical Gardens — a lovely spot, it seems, since you visited it with your girlfriend. No doubt, its loveliness is also a draw for tourists, many of them fat ladies. Such fat female tourists no doubt would not confine their visits to New York City to places such as Brooklyn: They would likely have visited other points of interest as well, such as Hyde Park in Dutchess County — which, if you had done any careful research, you might know to be Eleanor Roosevelt’s final resting place.
Jeremy, you are a lawyer from Chicago, a Midwestern city boy who’s “done well”. I congratulate you on this — I also am from a big Midwestern city, and I only attained to a Master’s Degree, at the age of 58. I spent most of my younger years doing menial jobs — trying to support my small family, on the one hand, and a church that reached out to poor people on the other. I don’t regret the experience: I don’t have to go around looking for girlfriends, because my beautiful wife has been faithful to me for 34 year. So you see, I am a very happy man; but I am not what a Big City lawyer with a pretty girlfriend would call “successful”. Moreover, at 365 pounds, I am overweight for my 6′6″ frame — which means that you might consider me too fat to make sound voting judgments. I am also a genealogy nut; and if I ever found myself in the truly alien surroundings of New York City, I would give a great deal to be able to combine the trip with a visit to Hyde Park — where my distant cousin, Eleanor Roosevelt, is buried. She was a favorite of my aunt, you see, as she was of many common Americans.
Forgive me if I misread you, Jeremiah. All I had to go on was what you said; and by what you said, it seemed you needed an attitude adjustment. No doubt, you will repay me the favor in due course by correcting my own failings (which are many). But if what I’ve said has awakened your judgment a bit, it would be good to move on now to the next business at hand:
Ah yes, good old George! I must admit, that I never heard any comments about “compassionate conservatism”. My wife and I watch very little television; and I leave the newspaper reading to her, so we don’t miss important local news. For myself, I was surfing the internet for my news during the 2000 election year, news about Israel; and the presidential election was low on my agenda. Who ran against Bush? Let me see… ah yes, Al Gore. I had just gone through eight years of a corrupt Arkansas governor running the country. My daughter was a young adult at that time, working her way into the job market — a beautiful young girl, entering into a world run by lecherous men, abusing their positions of power to victimize their female employees. I didn’t know the “real” George Bush and I didn’t know the “real” Al Gore, any more than anyone here really knows beans about the hidden agendas of the candidates today. But I did know what the Democratic Party stood for, when poll after poll showed their support of Lecher Bubba actually INCREASING with every revelation of his debauchery. I am interested in politics; but far ahead of my political interests is my care for my family; and it sickened me to see a political party so insensitive to people like my daughter.
I voted for George W. Bush, therefore, because he was my only practical choice. When he assumed office in 2001, I hoped the best concerning him, just as I had in 1992 when Bill Clinton took office. I was amazed at his tepid response to the goings-on in Israel (I didn’t know, at the time, how much MORE tepid was the attitude of most Jews and even Israelis concerning the same!), and rather dismayed that he returned, much too soon after the pizzaria bombing in Jerusalem, to the insane line of “moral equivalence” being put forth by the press. When the UN convened the “Conference for the Promotion of Anti-Semitic Racism” in Durban in August of that year, I gave a sigh of relief that Bush showed some moral backbone and boycotted the meeting. Then came 9/11, and the unspeakable disappointment of seeing our President, while 3000 Americans were still awaiting proper burial because of an Islamic attack on New York, calling Islam a “religion of peace” and calling for the creation of a terrorist state in a dismembered Israel.
Yes, I was disappointed with Bush; but it wasn’t because I had expected some sort of “compassionate conservativism”. I grew up in a city that had Socialist mayors for 60 years, living with a “pink collar” mother and a blue collar step-father — both of them union members. I am well aware that the unions have been raped by administration after administration since those days, and that jobs have fled America as our economy has “globalized”. I voted for Ross Perot in 1992, because he was the ONLY candidate actually addressing this issue. When Bubba came into office, he sent out the call to “Let the good times roll” for CEOs around the country who were getting increasingly wealthy while American college graduates had to settle for jobs at taco stands. I knew there was no “compassionate conservatism” at work, when both my children went to live in China because there were no job opportunities for them in America. I love my country — my family roots here literally go back thousands of years — so don’t think for a moment that this didn’t hurt.
Presidents don’t make economies; these things are caused by other factors. Since the 1960s, the conditions or ordinary workers in our have been on a steady decline through both Democrat and Republican administrations. Moreover, Herbert Hoover did not create the Great Depression, nor was Franklin D. Roosevelt responsible for getting us out of it: it kept dragging on for years, and it took a war economy to get us out of it. But FDR did something that Hoover, who had an excellent humanitarian record to his credit, was unable to accomplish: The great optimist on crutches gave Americans hope in the midst of their trials; and when they had put their trust in him, he didn’t disappoint them. This is the place and responsibility of an American President.
In the current election, I favor John McCain because he has proven loyalty to America, and has demonstrated unwavering leadership ability in crisis. In my years of ministering to desperately poor, homeless people, I got to know a man who had been a POW in Cambodia for several years. Of dozens of inmates who came into the camp, whose screams my friend had to endure night after night, as they were tortured, only seven men escaped. Of these, my friend was the only one left, in the late 1990s, who had not committed suicide because of the continuing nightmares of their ordeals. He died a few years ago, after having been driven from his homeless camp by a coalition of big businessmen and environmentalists. John McCain has my deepest respect, because he endured something few of us can even imagine, and continued in a career of decades of public service. Do you think I would want to throw away a chance at such a leader, in favor of young junior senator of questionable background?
So you are correct, Jeremiah, that we should not be thrown by campaign slogans: We need to consider the depth of character of the candidates, their leadership abilities, their attitude toward Israel and the Jewish people, and their party’s track record. Whether they are women or blacks or whites or skinny or fat are red herrings that lead many voters astray, clouding their judgments. In this time of war against Islamic fanatics, it IS prudent to consider whether their loyalty is divided between Christianity and Islam, or between America and Africa. It is also prudent to look for age and experience. But depth of character, PROVEN character, ought to be the bottom line.
I could say more, but I may have said too much already. You’re still a big city Midwestern boy who’s made good, Jeremiah, and you have my respect for it. I hope you will indeed look deeply into the candidates in this election, as you have so wisely advocated that we do; and I wish you every happiness.
Shalom shalom
Comment by BlandOatmeal — February 29, 2008 @ 5:29 pm
Soren says he “admires Orde Wingate despite his bad theology,” when it is precisely such excellent theology - embracing the Israelite origins of the West, the Hebrew roots of British-Israelites - that inspired Orde Wingate to act on behalf of our Jewish brethren.
Your vain attempt to falsely associate all those who know there are 12 Tribes of Israel, and that the Anglo-Saxons are the Tribe of Joseph, with a minority who are the black sheep of the family, and dishonestly compare us to Nation of Islam, isn’t very Christian of you. Such folks, the ones who give British-Israelites a bad name (as liberal and self-hating Jews give Judah a bad name), also profess to be Christians. Will you throw out the baby with the bathwater and condemn Christianity too?
Torah-observant Israelis like Yair Davidiy, founder of Brit Am Israel, and Avraham Feld, a rabbi, expose how careless such hateful assumptions are against those who recognize Joseph.
The plain truth remains that the Anglo-Saxons and white peoples of NW Europe alone bear the biblical birthmarks of fulfilled prophecies whether some remain in denial of this fact or not, often due to their idolatrous traditional Christianity that prefers to associate with Babylon rather than Jerusalem, unlike Herbert W. Armstrong and the Sabbath-keeping Church of God.
David Ben-Ariel Faces the Aryan Nations
Comment by David BenAriel — February 29, 2008 @ 6:24 pm
Your (#87) outreach/e-vangelism to the Aryan Phineas Priesthood guy proves my point on your being a white-Farrakhan by the commonalities you mentioned w/the Aryan–racism. You said:
But my comment in #81 in light of your own link (thanks for the back-up), speaks for itself, that I was fair and not falsely accusing in recognizing both the differences as well as the similarities between your Armstrongism version of British-Israelism and that of the neo-nazis. It most certainly is Christian to fulfill the biblical command to warn and expose unsound doctrine and false teachers. I have nothing more to say, but will provide the ADL link that explains British-Israelism/neo-nazi/Christian Identity connections.
Jeremiah Wright or David Duke, skin color no matter, I’m an equal opportunity racist exposer.
Comment by soren — February 29, 2008 @ 6:57 pm
Soren you shamefully continue to use your broad brush to paint all who acknowledge the Israelite origins of the West, our Hebrew roots, as Nazis and such, when clearly Brit Am, founded by Torah-observant Israeli Jews, and Herbert W. Armstrong - friend of every Israeli prime minister from Golda Meir to Yitzhak Shamir, as well as Mayor Teddy Kollek (who had a banquet for him in Jerusalem, presenting him with an expensive Israeli sculpture of David fighting Goliath, appreciating Mr. Armstrong considered himself a descendant of King David through his descent from the British Royal Family) - and Orde Wingate, among many others, prove otherwise for those truly interested in the facts.
Such a false assertion against Bible-believers is as dishonest as those who condemn all Jews as liberals or Khazars, and isn’t Christian, but then the plain truth is you’re an idolatrous traditional “Christian” anyway, something completely foreign to the early Church of God.
Misguided (at best) folks like you, undoubtedly consider the ethnocentric Bible, any mention of the Promised Land of ISRAEL (not Ishmael or Esau), the prophets and patriarchs, as “racist” too. Regardless of those shackled on the PC plantation, I’m as “racist” as the Bible teaches me to be.
Barack Hussein Obama isn’t fit to be president in any manner, shape or form, due to his race and his religion (which includes his left-wing politics), as the Bible commands Israelites to only elect one of our own to rule our country. If you have a problem with that, it’s your problem. I seek to please God, not those who try to be more righteous than Him.
FYI the Danes are primarily of the Tribe of Dan.
Comment by David BenAriel — February 29, 2008 @ 7:23 pm
Re. 86 –
A study in unjustified assumptions.
BlandOatmeal, The content of your message cannot be judged, because the methods underlying it are so backasswards that you ought to go back to school — perhaps to law school, where such sloppy thinking will be drummed out of you in short order.
Lesson 1. Never put words in someone else’s mouth. If you are criticizing a person for what he has said or written, use that person’s words and no others. I never called the women in the BBG fat. I used the much less pejorative term rotund. I merely wanted to give some sort of visualization to the story. I knew that I was making, depending on the mind of the reader, that had socio-economic implications, but I left that up to the reader. You chose to draw meaning from those implications, while other may not have. But I only used the word “rotund” — all the rest you spun out for yourself. By the way, I left out that these women spoke with strong Brooklyn accents and were black. Had I included them, your thesis about tourists would have evaporated, but you would, I am sure, drawn out silly and unfounded stories about my obvious racism. Hyde Park is a long, long way from the Brooklyn Botantical Gardens — I hope someday you are able to visit both.
Lesson 2. “he [Bush] was my only practical choice.” Odd how many people think that the two biggest parties are the only two parties. There are dozens. They don’t get elected, but as often as not they aren’t setting out to get elected. They set out to put items on the agenda, to force the more likely candidates to take positions on tough issues. It’s the small parties that, historically, have led, while the large ones (cautious by nature) have followed. Small parties, unelectable but noisy and persistent, have led on some of the most important issues: abolition of slavery, minority rights in general, women’s voting rights and women’s rights in general, limits on campaign finance, freedom of information. In each case some scrappy “crank” stood up amidst howl of ridicule and made a point. Eventually people heard that point; sometime after than they were pursuaded by it; and eventually it became the law of the land. Between Bush and Gore, you saw only two choices. I voted for Nader, unashaedly, and I still think I was right. Fortunately, I did so in California, where it didn’t matter. Gore won California without breaking a sweat.
Lesson 3. Midwestern city boy? Moi? I spent 3 and a half years in Chciago at the University of Chicago Law School. I flew into Chicago from Paris, France, where I had been living before then, and I flew out to New York City, where I began my practice of law. I felt no love for the Midwest while I was there. I might feel differently now, but since I never go back, I don’t know. As an aside and in Chicago’s favor, I loved Harold’s Fried Chicken, which kept us law students going through many a long winter. I also loved the Lyric Opera, the Chicago Symphony (at the time probably the best in the country), Buddy Guy’s Checkerboard Lounge, the Art Institute, and the “shotgun” or “railway” style apartments — based on a long corridor with all the rooms branching off it. I went to the University of Chicago Law School because it was small (only 150 students in a class), controversial, was ranked Number 2 (at the time Yale was first, and Harvard, Stanford, and Chicago were all co-ranked second, and most decisive of all, because it gave me a very sizable scholarship. I long considered myself “bi-coastal” living either in New York or in California at various times. Then I moved to the UK, of which I am a citizen thanks to my father. My feelings for America began to change, darken, become more critical. Now I live in Central Europe — western Poland, which is probably as much German as Polish, though one can be shot for saying so — where I practice US immigration law, run a small foundation dedicated to the preservation of an historically important local sysnagogue (www.pozsynpro.org) and generally make a nuisance of myself.
Anyway, BlandOatmeal, I hope you get the point. Don’t take small bits of information and spin out of control with them. If you want to make assumptions (it’s unavoidable at times), then test them with as much rigor as you can. And force yourself to start reading newspapers — read them online if you must. They are still the best source of reliable news. Blogs, on the other hand, are the best source of hearsay, speculation, misinformation, misquotation, and generally harebrained conspiracy theories. Read blogs for amusement. Read newspapers for information. I recommend the New York Times, the [London] Telegraph, the [London] Times, the [UK] Guardian, the Los Angeles Times, Slate [online newspaper founded by Bill Gates but now owned by the Washington Post]. If you haven’t time for a newspaper everyday, then read The Economist once each week — by far the most reliable source of well-written and well-analyzed news avaiable in English.
I think your assumption that I am somehow successful (at least in terms of money) is perhaps the most misguided of all. I am a lawyer for the poor, not the rich. I was once a lawyer for the rich, but now I am deliberately and consciously atoning for the “sins” I committed while that was true.
I will probably vote for Nader again, which indicates how much I like both the Republican and the Democratic candidates on offer. In the UK, where I am also allowed to vote, I consistently vote for the Liberal Democratic Party. So I guess one could say I am a Third Party sort of guy, never happer with the conventional choices.
Comment by Jeremiah Wails — March 1, 2008 @ 5:35 am
Jews Cannot Afford Not To Support Obama
OBAMANISM IS THE CURE FOR CLINTONITIS AND MIDDLE EAST STRIFE.
Obamanism is the cure for Clintonitis that has devastated America and I hope Jews all over US rally around Obama and support him to win both the nomination and the Presidency because after he wins, he would help the Jews and Israel as well as settle the Middle East problems.
However, if Jews betray Obama and he loses, Africans worldwide would consider it a betrayal to the whole African people and will never forgive world Jewry.
In retaliation, (eye for eye, remember!) Africa would consider expelling all Jews from Africa who have been mining African Gold and Diamond and enriching themselves for many centuries.
It was African gold and diamond that built international finance, trade and banking that the Jews (Rothschild, Warbug, Rockefeller and others) dominate.
It was African gold and diamond that built Jewish banks and wealth worldwide.
Thousands of years ago, when Jews were starving and nearly perished in Palestine, they took refuge in Egypt, Africa.
If Egypt and Africa did not feed the Jews, perhaps there would be no Jews today.
Jews also took all Egyptian and African science, technology and religious knowledge that have helped them to develop themselves and to get to where they are today: on top of most of the industries and corporations all over the world.
Jews owe Africa and Africans everything they have today because if Africa did not shelter them when they were homeless and starving, they would not be here today.
If Africa did not give them their religion, Judaism and science and technology of the ancient astronaut Anunnaki’s gods, they probably would have not prospered.
If Jews betray Africans by betraying Obama, there would be grave consequences that would shake the foundation of Earth.
Let Jews remember who their best friend is!
Hundreds of years ago during the Inquisition in Europe, the Catholic Church slaughtered Jews in Spain and all over Europe and forced most of them to convert to Christianity to stay alive.
Moreover, during World war 2, Hitler and his Nazi regime gassed and slaughtered them too.
When they escaped to America, they met opposition and discrimination everywhere.
They had to hustle to survive.
Again, Africa helped them by allowing them to continue mining all their gold and diamond.
African gold and diamond are the foundation of the wealth of world Jewry.
Abraham Foxman, we hope you remember that!
The only people who have been nice to Jews have been Africans.
It is now payback time and Africans hope you would not bite the hands that fed you and made you rich and the envy of the world today.
Billary is divisive, cannot beat senator McCain!!!
During their 30 yrs in Politics, they never solved even one single problem despite all their experience and slick Willie’s ingenuity.
The best things that they gave America were endless scandals and the destruction of American reputation all over the world.
(Sex and drugs in the White House)
This empowered terrorists to attack America because they felt America had become weak and an easy target.
Does anyone still remember 9/11???
McCain is a nice man. Great man. War Hero! Very respectable and likable man.
But he is too old. He has no juice or fire. He has no agenda to fix American problems.
The only issue he is passionate about is Iraqi war and he plans to keep America in Iraq for 100 yrs, while American economy and Americans keep suffering and languishing, as India, China, Japan, Korea and Singapore keep progressing and are now manufacturing and exporting all the consumer goods needed in America.
It is an outrage that America is now being forced to borrow money from Communist China to buy oil from Saudi Arabia.
Almost all American banks are controlled by Saudi Arabian money invested there.
If they pull their money out, American banking system and economy would collapse.
And Hugo Chavez would party all day and night.
America is slowly becoming a nation of consumers and sliding into a third world status.
Osama Bin Laden is still free roaming the world.
They have not arrested him. Why?
But they feel fine squandering trillions of dollars in Iraq while Iran works hard daily to acquire nuclear weapon that they plan to use to wipe Israel out.
Something is very wrong and dreadful with the priorities of American foreign policy.
Billary is part of the problem, not the solution and her presidency will be a continuation of her husband’s presidency that was scandal ridden.
She is just a well informed candidate who is capable of crying to get sympathy and votes.
If America puts her in White House, whenever there is a crisis, she would be crying instead of using her brains to figure out the solution.
Can America afford a President who melts down and cry like a 16 yrs old girl, when she is faced with a challenge?
Being the President of America is the most challenging job in the world!!!
America would lose complete respect and it would amount to an open invitation to world terrorists to hit America more.
Has Americans not learned any lessons? Has America not suffered enough?
Does America need more terrorist attacks because their enemies perceive them as weak by putting a crying President in the White House?
She will not have any nerve or ability to solve one problem in America because she is part of the problem, part of Washington gridlock, with a lot of obligations to special interests and PAC.
Billary have been in politics for 30 yrs.
They should retire because their brains are old and dried up and devoid of any new and fresh ideas.
If they could not help America for 30 yrs that they were in office, they will never do it now they are older and getting senile.
Enough is enough.
America has suffered enough of Clintonitis.
Americans have spoken loud and clear: they do not want political business as usual that Clintonitis represent.
They want change and they want it fast.
They have chosen and anointed Obama as the agent of change.
He is the new political Messiah who shall continue where JFK stopped.
Americans seem to be in slumber and in complete denial of the present dangerous and volatile world situation.
This is where Jews can help.
By supporting Obama to win, they would cure America of Clintonitis and thereby be able to find a permanent solution to the Arab-Jewish problem in the Middle East.
Jews must support Obama or face grave consequences. You cannot afford not to.
Africans have been nice and helped Jews for more than 2000 yrs.
Now, I say to Jews all over the world, it is time to show your gratitude.
secret33.com
Comment by scogostology.com — March 1, 2008 @ 7:03 am
Re. Number 91…
Wow, and I thought Yamit82 was a nut.
I hope this catches on. Anyone, anything but Hillary Rodham Clinton. No more political dynasties in America.
Comment by Jeremiah Wails — March 1, 2008 @ 9:03 am
I continue to look for confirmation of the above quote from The Audacity of Hope. In checking it out,I came upon the following
This post was dated long before I wrote my article. It also paints a picture of Obama and his anti white views that support his liberation theology.
Comment by Ted Belman — March 1, 2008 @ 12:43 pm
It is amazing to me that there is such an outcry regarding Obama’s meeting with such anti-semites as Farrakham. And nothing of course with respect to the very close business and social contacts that the Bush/Cheney family have with the Saudi Royal family and the Saudi oil tycoons. You could not possible get more anti-semitic than these guys and nary a peep from the Jewish-American community. Perhaps a liberal “schvatse” is held to a much higher standard.
Several weeks ago there was a very good doc on P.B.S. relating to the Jewish history and experience in the U.S. It mentioned a very prominent Jewish family living in Alabama. On Passover, the evening seder was held commemorating the freeing of the children of Israel from slavery in Egypt. And ironically the sumptious meal for the seder was being served by black domestics who just happened to be slaves owned by the very same family.
This might illustrate the type of hypocrisy that governed and still governs the relationship of Jews with Blacks in America.
And for your information I am a Jew living in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
H. Peskin
Comment by h peskin — March 1, 2008 @ 2:04 pm
peskin our comments and ref to Bush and the Saudis have been a never ending subject here on Israpundit hardly a week goes by where it has not been dissected evaluated gurgitated and regurgitated. we are now onto the coming primaries and the Nov. elections with emphasis as to who will be best and worst for the Jews and of Course Israel. This is an Israel advocacy blog I believe. Notice I did not say good just best. A mans race should not be the reason for or against but it does matter even in our enlightened day and times. A mans religion should matter as it defines him as well as his beliefs. We the public would like to know, what the leaders we chose believe! A person’s beliefs may determine how and what we might expect from him or her after we elect them. If I can get his h.school transcripts and college transcripts why not his religious transcripts so to speak? A persons beliefs in total are what defines them, we have a right to know as much about those who seek out votes as possible. Not a perfect system but thats what we got right now! My suggestion is that you quit that cold place and move to warmer climate like Israel it is never boring here.
Comment by yamit82 — March 1, 2008 @ 3:05 pm
Yep, h peskin, and by extension the close connections of McCain with those presently advancing Bush/Cheney policy…but for whatever reason Israpundit’s focused on Obama for now–maybe because they see the GOP race as locked up already, having fallen for the whole “presumptive nominee” and “mathematical impossibility” line–though, there’s still one decent chance for Huckabee this Tuesday to turn things around and perhaps take the GOP to a brokered convention (please!).
Anyway, Obama’s already denounced Farrakhan, and anti-Israel, anti-America Jeremiah Wright is now Obama’s ex-pastor, having resigned a week or so ago, but I have to wonder what it says about Obama that he chose to feed his mind with this hate and ignorance for 20 years.
Comment by soren — March 1, 2008 @ 3:13 pm
Jeremiah (#90): Only a fool or a communist who loves totalitarianism would make a main course of the news sources you favour along with anything on television. Absolutely the worst source for news is the mainstream media particularly the globalist papers you listed. They are liberal, pro-globalist, pro-Muslim, anti-Jewish and anti-Christian. Lastly, I have no idea why Ted allows you to continue to post on this board as there isn’t a liberal cause you don’t hold.
Comment by Teshuvah — March 1, 2008 @ 4:58 pm
Teshuvah,
I am surprised: you managed to get through a posting without a Biblical citation of some kind. Bravo.
The news is the news. What I mean is this: the mainstream media define what is news, and also what is not news. What is written in the NYT is important simply because it appears in the “paper of record.” Fortunately, there are standards, ethics, guidelines. Not all papers follow them, but all those I mentioned do.
For those who care about Israel enough to devote a lot of time to the details, I would gladly add to my list Ha’aretz, by far the more interesting and challenging of the two main Israeli papers in English.
Anyone who believes the Telegraph is a liberal paper by any measure is a fool. Ditto for The Economist. Both are generally considered Right Wing, at least in the Thatcherite, free-market sense of the term. Of the papers I listed, only The Guardian is clearly a liberal or left-wing paper, and even then only sometimes. It was once the paper of the Labour Party, but that has not been true for at least 20 years. It has been consistently critical, often highly critical, of the New Labour governments of Blair and Brown. It’s coverage of world news, like the coverage of world news in most British newspapers, is excellent. No American paper comes close. I expect this is a holdover from the days of Empire, and a result of the influx of Commonwealth citizens into the UK starting in the 50s. Worldly people want world news.
If you aren’t reading the mainstream news, you aren’t reading the news. The mainstream news media define the issues, frame the debate, and ultimately steer the ship. If you want to clutter your mind with conspiracy theories and crackpot nonsense, no one will stop you, but if you want to make informed decisions about the things that matter, then start with the mainstream press, and if you have time and energy read the fringe press afterward.
A communist? Moi? I am a Benthamite — a Utilitarian, one guided by Bentham’s views on the Greatest Good for the Greatest number. I am a strong believer in Free Markets, including Open Immigration, an obsessive defender of the Freedoms of Speech and Association, a devout atheist (because anything else strikes me as stupid, parasitic, and a waste of time). I am politically a Social Democrat in the European tradition. I think the most admirable countries in terms of striking a reasonable balance between individual rights and societal needs are the Scandanavian countries, Canada, Holland, and the UK. At one time Israel would have been included in that group, but then along came Likud and turned a great country into a snarling, grasping, corrupt and duplicitous one. A country that put Begin, Shamir, Sharon, and Netanyahu into office deserves its fate, which I suspect will be oblivion. Fortunately, the Jews will not come to an end when Israel comes to an end. Jews will have another chance to get things right. But for now it seems the Zionists have botched their opportunity this time around.
As for you Teshuvah, I have no idea why Ted permits you to post on this blog either, for, as Ted himself once wrote to me, “Andrew, your problem with Teshuvah is that you bother to read what he writes.”
So much for the esteem in which you are held — even though you are a Right Winger.
– Good night and good luck.
Comment by Jeremiah Wails — March 1, 2008 @ 5:38 pm
Comment by LeeU — March 1, 2008 @ 9:56 pm
To Jeremiah Wallis #90
Thank you for your response. I always like to see the personal touch in places like this. You certainly have lived an interesting life; and I’m sorry I can’t claim you as a fellow Midwestern expatriate. You are so very different from me in so many ways (with the BIG exception, that we both love to toot our horns). I really do think you’ve “done well”, by making it through law school while you were still young — not because you may have made good money at it, but simply because you were savvy enough to make good use of your talents in a timely way. The fact that you are dedicating your later years to helping the poor is also commendable.
As for those fat ladies you mentioned (”rotund” means exactly the same thing as “fat” — I just like to call a spade a spade, not a “hand-held excavation tool”), I make no apologies: It is true, that I was not on the spot to make a “perfect” judgment of what you said; but whether those women were black or white, tall or short, fat or skinny, locals or tourists, the fact remains that you judged them hastily, without really getting to know them (interestingly, the very things you have accused me of doing) and made a very wrong assesment of our democratic system as a consequense. I knew I was opening myself up to accusations in this area, and I don’t suppose you’re finished upbraiding me on the issue. In the best of worlds, we will both be more careful to get our facts straight; but don’t waste your time building a legal case with me: I’m more interested in where your heart is, than with what sort or “brief” you can prepare against what I say.
This thread is quickly getting old, so I suppose we’ll meet next on another. Again, the best of wishes to you.
Shalom shalom
BlandOatmeal
Comment by BlandOatmeal — March 1, 2008 @ 11:17 pm
Andrew:
Jeremy Bentham was a philosophisical garbage collector of all concepts based on ideas and laws contrary to human nature. Thats why he and you were and are both failures! His advocacy of the legalization of Homo rights I expect explains why you have gravitated to his ideas and pseudo philosophy. I do however agree with is efforts re: animal rights though but not yours. As I would not know how to classify one who is neither human nor animal.Lets just say that some things are not important enough to contemplate.
Comment by yamit82 — March 2, 2008 @ 3:50 am
Now that we have turned Obama into a virtual Hitler and condemned him to eternal damnation, I reflect how eager we are to eulogies our heros and satanize ( if there is such a word ) our real and perceived enemies. Case in point Chemical Ali.Few will shed a tear upon hearing his coming execution- for gassing all those Kurds.
Winston Churchill on the other hand remains our iconic hero. His inspirational leadership saved the allied cause during the second world war. Moreover he was a friend of the Jews.he warned us of the evils of Communism well before anyone else in the west. I was therefore a bit disturbed while reading an obscure footnote in one of Martin Gilbert’s biography on this great man
Winston Churchill’s Secret Poison Gas Memo
[stamp] PRIME MINISTER’S PERSONAL MINUTE
[stamp, pen] Serial No. D. 217/4
[Seal of Prime Minister]
10 Downing Street, Whitehall [gothic script]
GENERAL ISMAY FOR C.O.S. COMMITTEE [underlined]
1. I want you to think very seriously over this question of poison gas. I would not use it unless it could be shown either that (a) it was life or death for us, or (b) that it would shorten the war by a year.
2. It is absurd to consider morality on this topic when everybody used it in the last war without a word of complaint from the moralists or the Church. On the other hand, in the last war bombing of open cities was regarded as forbidden. Now everybody does it as a matter of course. It is simply a question of fashion changing as she does between long and short skirts for women.
3. I want a cold-blooded calculation made as to how it would pay us to use poison gas, by which I mean principally mustard. We will want to gain more ground in Normandy so as not to be cooped up in a small area. We could probably deliver 20 tons to their 1 and for the sake of the 1 they would bring their bomber aircraft into the area against our superiority, thus paying a heavy toll.
4. Why have the Germans not used it? Not certainly out of moral scruples or affection for us. They have not used it because it does not pay them. The greatest temptation ever offered to them was the beaches of Normandy. This they could have drenched with gas greatly to the hindrance of the troops. That they thought about it is certain and that they prepared against our use of gas is also certain. But they only reason they have not used it against us is that they fear the retaliation. What is to their detriment is to our advantage.
5. Although one sees how unpleasant it is to receive poison gas attacks, from which nearly everyone recovers, it is useless to protest that an equal amount of H. E. will not inflict greater casualties and sufferings on troops and civilians. One really must not be bound within silly conventions of the mind whether they be those that ruled in the last war or those in reverse which rule in this.
6. If the bombardment of London became a serious nuisance and great rockets with far-reaching and devastating effect fell on many centres of Government and labour, I should be prepared to do [underline] anything [stop underline] that would hit the enemy in a murderous place. I may certainly have to ask you to support me in using poison gas. We could drench the cities of the Ruhr and many other cities in Germany in such a way that most of the population would be requiring constant medical attention. We could stop all work at the flying bomb starting points. I do not see why we should have the disadvantages of being the gentleman while they have all the advantages of being the cad. There are times when this may be so but not now.
7. I quite agree that it may be several weeks or even months before I shall ask you to drench Germany with poison gas, and if we do it, let us do it one hundred per cent. In the meanwhile, I want the matter studied in cold blood by sensible people and not by that particular set of psalm-singing uniformed defeatists which one runs across now here now there. Pray address yourself to this. It is a big thing and can only be discarded for a big reason. I shall of course have to square Uncle Joe and the President; but you need not bring this into your calculations at the present time. Just try to find out what it is like on its merits.
[signed] Winston Churchill [initials]
6.7.44 [underlined]
Source: photographic copy of original 4 page memo, in Guenther W. Gellermann, “Der Krieg, der nicht stattfand”,
Item 2
BACKGROUND: In 1917, following the defeat of the Ottoman Empire, the British occupied Iraq and established a colonial government. The Arab and Kurdish people of Iraq resisted the British occupation, and by 1920 this had developed into a full scale national revolt, which cost the British dearly. As the Iraqi resistance gained strength, the British resorted to increasingly repressive measures, including the use of posion gas.] NB: Because of formatting problems, quotation marks will appear as stars * All quotes in the excerpt are properly footnoted in the original book, with full references to British archives and papers. Excerpt from pages 179-181 of Simons, Geoff. *IRAQ: FROM SUMER TO SUDAN*. London: St. Martins Press, 1994:
Winston Churchill, as colonial secretary, was sensitive to the cost of policing the Empire; and was in consequence keen to exploit the potential of modern technology. This strategy had particular relevance to operations in Iraq. On 19 February, 1920, before the start of the Arab uprising, Churchill (then Secretary for War and Air) wrote to Sir Hugh Trenchard, the pioneer of air warfare. Would it be possible for Trenchard to take control of Iraq? This would entail *the provision of some kind of asphyxiating bombs calculated to cause disablement of some kind but not death…for use in preliminary operations against turbulent tribes.*
Churchill was in no doubt that gas could be profitably employed against the Kurds and Iraqis (as well as against other peoples in the Empire): *I do not understand this sqeamishness about the use of gas. I am strongly in favour of using poison gas against uncivilised tribes.* Henry Wilson shared Churchills enthusiasm for gas as an instrument of colonial control but the British cabinet was reluctant to sanction the use of a weapon that had caused such misery and revulsion in the First World War. Churchill himself was keen to argue that gas, fired from ground-based guns or dropped from aircraft, would cause *only discomfort or illness, but not death* to dissident tribespeople; but his optimistic view of the effects of gas were mistaken. It was likely that the suggested gas would permanently damage eyesight and *kill children and sickly persons, more especially as the people against whom we intend to use it have no medical knowledge with which to supply antidotes.*
Churchill remained unimpressed by such considerations, arguing that the use of gas, a *scientific expedient,* should not be prevented *by the prejudices of those who do not think clearly*. In the event, gas was used against the Iraqi rebels with excellent moral effect* though gas shells were not dropped from aircraft because of practical difficulties [.....]
Today in 1993 there are still Iraqis and Kurds who remember being bombed and machine-gunned by the RAF in the 1920s. A Kurd from the Korak mountains commented, seventy years after the event: *They were bombing here in the Kaniya Khoran…Sometimes they raided three times a day.* Wing Commander Lewis, then of 30 Squadron (RAF), Iraq, recalls how quite often *one would get a signal that a certain Kurdish village would have to be bombed…*, the RAF pilots being ordered to bomb any Kurd who looked hostile. In the same vein, Squadron-Leader Kendal of 30 Squadron recalls that if the tribespeople were doing something they ought not be doing then you shot them.*
Similarly, Wing-Commander Gale, also of 30 Squadron: *If the Kurds hadn’t learned by our example to behave themselves in a civilised way then we had to spank their bottoms. This was done by bombs and guns.
Wing-Commander Sir Arthur Harris (later Bomber Harris, head of wartime Bomber Command) was happy to emphasise that *The Arab and Kurd now know what real bombing means in casualties and damage. Within forty-five minutes a full-size village can be practically wiped out and a third of its inhabitants killed or injured.* It was an easy matter to bomb and machine-gun the tribespeople, because they had no means of defence or retalitation. Iraq and Kurdistan were also useful laboratories for new weapons; devices specifically developed by the Air Ministry for use against tribal villages. The ministry drew up a list of possible weapons, some of them the forerunners of napalm and air-to-ground missiles:
Phosphorus bombs, war rockets, metal crowsfeet [to maim livestock] man-killing shrapnel, liquid fire, delay-action bombs. Many of these weapons were first used in Kurdistan.
H PESKIN’s comment
SO MUCH FOR OR GREAT HEROS AND VILLIANS
Comment by h peskin — March 2, 2008 @ 1:00 pm
Peskin: War is hell ain’t it? Better them than us! Last man standing wins and gets to write the History< aint’t that a bitch?
Comment by yamit82 — March 2, 2008 @ 1:12 pm
All this is rather fun, but let’s get back to Ted’s initial assertion: Obama will win the nomination for the Democrats, but will lose the election.
That sounds like IsraPundit wishful thinking to me.
As my perennial favorite, Ralph Nader, put it succintly enough in an interview with the BBC: “I am no threat to the Democrats this time. If the Democrats can’t win this election by a landslide, then they ought to wrap up, close down, and reconstitute themselves as something else.”
Ralph’s right. The current President is the least popular in living memory, perhaps in all time. Inevitably, both his own philosophy of “Big Government” conservatism, and the Republican Party, have been badly tarnished by his decisions, the ways he implemented them, and the ways in which they are coming home to roost.
He has lied to the American people on more occasions and about more subjects than Clinton or any other Democrat (including FDR and LBJ, both of whom were liars par excellence) ever dreamt of doing. He took us into a needless and unjustified war (for which he fabricated a need and a justification) that he and his Secretary of Defense assured Americans “would cost 50-60 billion dollars and would largely pay for itself by our access to increased oil revenues.” That “cheap and easy” war has so far cost at least 1 trillion dollars (one Nobel Prize winning economist has just published a book explaining why he thinks the number is actually more than 3 trillion), and it will be paid for almost entirely NOT by the generation that decided to go to war, but by future generations, since it has been funded by debt, which is what happens when you go to war while lowering taxes. As the Nobel Prize winner put it: “The only honest way to wage war is by paying for it in the same generation that chose to go to war, which inevitably means by raising taxes to pay current expenses. Waging war on credit is the worst way to do it. It makes war seem free or cheap, distorting the decision-making processes by under-counting the true costs, and it means that people who had no say in the matter must eventually pay the price. Furthermore, it substantially increases the costs, as anyone who has bought anything on credit should know.”
Add to that the fact that the Republican field has winnowed itself down to the man who is, I suggest, probably the Democrats’ dream choice for the Republic nomination. McCain is perceived even by many Republicans to be too old. The Christian Right don’t like him. He has said some pretty daft things in his time, for which he is going to have to come up with explanations. And by his own admission he knows almost nothing about economics at a time when most Americans can tell you what matters most to them in four words: “It’s the economy, stupid.”
Finding Osama bin Laden is yesterday’s project. “Winning” the war in Iraq is yesterday’s project. These are continuations of policies that people no longer get worked up about. Call it short memories, if you like, but that’s how it is. The average American does not feel personally threatened by terrorism. He does not hate or fear Arabs. He’s pretty sure that no one is going to make him or his children convert to Islam. He does feel threatened by falling house values, fewer jobs, expensive gas, a weak dollar, Asian manufacturing, and so on.
The fact that IsraPundit sees fervent anti-terrorism and winning in Iraq as policies benefiting Israel is just dandy, but most people in America don’t vote based on what benefits Israel, nor is IsraPundit going to convince them that they should. They want what benefits them, not what benefits Israel, and though you can argue that they are the same thing, you aren’t going to convince many people. Israel, too, is yesterday’s project. Most Americans are tired of hearing about a country that can’t manage without Uncle Sam’s constant contributions of money and armaments. John McCain is not going to convince anyone that he can fix the economy. If he can’t convince them of that, he won’t win.
After 4 March we should know a lot more — but if I were a betting man, I’d be betting that Clinton, even if she wins in both Texas and Ohio, will not do so by a wide enough margin to turn her campaign around and regain the momentum. If she can’t do that, then she won’t attract sizable amounts of money, and she will eventually have to call it quits. She has already had to lend $5 million of her own money to her campaign. She and her husband are rich, but not Mitt Romney or Dick Cheney rich. They might lend the campaign another $5 million, but that will be it. Ten million is a lot to spend on losing.
So it will come down to Obama versus McCain. No matter how many faults and gaffs and Muslim costumes people find between now and November, there is simply no way that John McCain can beat Barrak Obama unless al Quaida manage to bomb the Hoover Dam or blow up Microsoft’s Headquarters, or something equally spectacular. And why would al Quaida do that now? It would only help McCain, and they have no interest in doing that.
I think IsraPundit and Israel itself had best get ready for Obama in the White House. Personally, I still prefer Nader, but I am starting to see Obama as nearly invincible. I don’t find that so bad. Even if he’s bad, he ain’t half as bad as Clinton.
Comment by Jeremiah Wails — March 2, 2008 @ 3:52 pm
Yambo, your capacity for subtlety of thought and expression never fail to impress me. Perhaps it’s time for you to consider retirement…in someplace relatively safe, like Miami Beach.
Comment by Jeremiah Wails — March 2, 2008 @ 4:00 pm
Miami Beach is like Israel without the problems. What’s not to like?
Comment by Jeremiah Wails — March 2, 2008 @ 4:01 pm
#104
I see it as not “wishful thinking” but as a self fulling prophecy.
Comment by Ted Belman — March 2, 2008 @ 4:06 pm
My dearest Yambo,
I lived in Miami Beach for about 7 months in the late 1980s, where I was part of a team of lawyers from New York investigating large real estate frauds for General Electric Credit Corp, which had made the mistake of investing in a number of dodgy office and condominium developments. Except for the weather, which is too hot and humid for me, and the occasional hurricane, which is an even nastier experience than the occasional earthquake I suffered in San Francisco, I quite liked Miami Beach. Like Polend, full of beautiful girls.
Poland is a pit, I agree. But then Israel is a pit as well. Both are deeply corrupt countries, well behind the West in development and standards of living. Both are democracies only if one ignores the details. Both allow (even encourage) religion to have far too much influence in politics and daily life. Both are paranoid, racist societies. And both consider themselves far more important than they really are. So there isn’t much difference between them.
I just happen to have landed in Poland and been fascinated by it and its Jewish history, willing to accept the daily challenges that being in Poland involves, while you landed in Israel, whose Jewish history is older but perhaps not really so interesting (being based on myth as much as fact) and did the same where you are. Who knows why one is drawn to certain places? — I can’t explain it. Most people I know would rather live in San Francisco than in either Poland or Israel. Most people are not idealists.
One big difference — though it is hard to say how much it really means — is that Poland has not illegally occupied large parts of its neighboring territories nor sought to colonize them in the name of … what shall we call it? Is there a better terms for it than Lebensraum? I can’t think of a more accurate description. Nor has Poland gone to war with anyone in the last 60 years. I imagine the Poles know they can’t win such wars, and prefer instead to do what they can to win the diplomacy. They aren’t very good at that, either, but at least no one is being killed for no good reason . Israel hasn’t even tried diplomacy yet — so it’s difficult to predict what the results of it might be.
Comment by Jeremiah Wails — March 3, 2008 @ 2:33 am
What you did with Teshuva was inexcusable, a breach of trust and etiquette. Remind me never to recommend you as a lawyer to anyone I like. That was the 2nd time I saw you do that.
”
Comment by yamit82 — March 3, 2008 @ 11:16 am
Who in hell is Morris Bernstein? I will have to go Google his name.
Inexcusable? What I did with Teshuvah was long overdue. An idiot savant is more idiot than savant — knowing the scriptures backwards and forwards, but having no capacity for thinking. I hope he crawls into his Holy Land hole, and remains quiet for a long time to come. Ted was not my client, and I owed him no pledge of confidentiality. He said something. I quoted him correctly. I imagine he didn’t mind or I would have heard from him directly. These bizarre “Christian Israelites,” as they style themselves, are a menace to us all. They ought to go back to Appalachia and handle snakes.
Comment by Jeremiah Wails — March 3, 2008 @ 2:03 pm
Well that didn’t help. Morris (or Maurice) Bernstein is a name like John Smith. There have been many, and the one who make it to Google all have something interesting about their lives. So, may I ask, which Morris Bernstein did you mean?
Comment by Jeremiah Wails — March 3, 2008 @ 2:08 pm
Ted do you concur with Andrew?
Comment by yamit82 — March 3, 2008 @ 4:26 pm
Yamit
I am not sure what you are asking but if you want my confirmation that I wrote something to the effect what he quoted me as saying, the answer is “yes”. He referred to it once before but didn’t come out as clearly as to who said it. I thought then of him negatively. Even more so, now.
Now the context. He was going on with a complaint about Teshuva and I in a joking manner suggested his problem is that he reads him. In others words if he didn’t wanted to be worked up about his remarks he shouldn’t read them. I thought it was it was a clever retort never intending it as an insult to teshuva.
I did nothing to Teshuva and my remark was not public. It was in an email to Andrew. It is Andrew who made it public doing both Teshuva and me a disservice.
Now Teshuva says what he wants here with one exception. I have admonished him not to attack Christian beliefs because I didn’t want Israpundit to be a home for such attacks. I have also admonished Andrew from time to time and even banned him temporarily because I felt his criticism of Israel was too odious. He knows I am watching what he posts.
As much as some think me too far to the right, I am very much a liberal. I tolerate all kinds of people and ideas but I do have my limits. If I wasn’t a liberal, Andrew wouldn’t be allowed to post here.
Another complaint I had with Andrew’s posts and to some extent with Teshuva was that they shifted the focus from the issues I want discussed here.
They are both very intelligent as are you.
Comment by Ted Belman — March 3, 2008 @ 4:56 pm
Andrew here is the link. http://www.jewishmag.com/99mag/billythekid/billythekid.htm Read the story carefully with as much expansion of brain matter as you can muster and then think on it. I am trying to be a s subtle as I can here. in any event I enjoyed the story.
Have a wonderful day
Comment by yamit82 — March 3, 2008 @ 5:19 pm
Yamit and sundry others.
I keep hearing the constant whine: Why can’t the world or merely just America allow Israel to win this incessant war decisively. a la world war 11. No concern for casualties, total war with total destruction. End it once and for all with the final result, a complete peace. Of course it is not only America that is the problem, but rather Israel itself.
For in warfare and international affairs, as in sex, size counts. Example using the 2nd world as a model, Israel can with its huge superiority in military prowess destroy the Syrian military and create havoc in the country. The next necessary step would be to pacify the countryside , install a friendly goverment, deploy a large occupying force,for an indefinite period of time, infuse large sums of capital into the country and proceed to rebuild the destroyed infrastructure, feed and house the population, TELL ME YOU YOKELS, IS IT NECESSARY FOR ME TO GO ANY FURTHER. YOU ARE ALL LIVING IN NEVER, NEVER LAND> must watch my blood pressure. Only step 1 is possible. Israel is a small country with a small standing army, limited resources, a small population , politically weak with few friends. IT CAN’T BE DONE!!!!
I am very sorry, I am shattering all your illusions but this is finally the time for reality therapy. It had to be done.
Comment by h peskin — March 3, 2008 @ 8:03 pm
I for one am not whining nor do I have any positive expectations one way or another re: the nations of the world. I couldn’t care less. My concern is what we do or not do and that for me is all encompassing. What I can’t control I ignore.I do not believe in peace especially when the term as is commonly used is really meaningless!
A New Definition of ‘Peace’
by Michelle Nevada
Frankly, I’m a bit tired of the word.
There has been a lot of talk of “peace” lately. It seems the word is everywhere. There are rock concerts and congressional hearings and meetings and protests for “peace.” But I doubt people have even taken the time to define what they think “peace” is. After all, if
Humanity is incapable of this miracle of peace.
you look up the word “peace” you are likely to find at least five, if not twenty-five, different definitions of the word - everything from “agreements to end hostility” to “silence.”
Frankly, I’m a bit tired of the word. It has been greatly overused as some type of panacea for every problem in the world. “Peace” is an abstract, a generalization. Telling people you are in favor of “peace” is very popular, it will probably get you elected, but it really isn’t saying anything at all. With so many definitions to play with, I think I could say with great certainty that we are all in favor of peace. For example, I would greatly treasure a moment of peace (quiet) away from all these people promoting the vacuous and empty idea of “peace.”
Lake Superior State University, a small college in Michigan, publishes a “Banned Words” list every New Year. The words included on the list are, according to their website, a “Words Banished from the Queen’s English for Mis-Use, Over-Use and General Uselessness.” I think I shall suggest “peace” as a word that should definitely be banned for next year. Meanwhile, I want to share my definition of “peace” with you, and the reasons behind my thinking.
Peace, in my opinion, is something that encompasses almost all meanings of the word - an absence of conflict or struggle, a great quiet, and everything in harmony, etc. I’m sure that this is the idea behind so many politicians’ and activists’ words. They want a world where all people can be at “peace.” It’s a nice idea… or is it?
In a religious sense, I think it is a nice idea. If one has great faith and an understanding of an all-knowing, all-seeing, infinite and just G-d, one can believe that there will be, at some time, through the intervention of G-d, a perfect peace. But this is something only G-d can bring. Humanity is incapable of this miracle of peace.
After all, life, as we know it, is a potpourri of conflict, struggle, noise and dissonance. To live life to its fullest, we must make our way through a long list of treacherous and dangerous decisions; we must make sacrifices and ask others to sacrifice; we must compromise and ask others to compromise; we must argue, yell, laugh and make mistakes; we must add spice to our food, our lives and our loves; and we must be demanded of and be demanding. Life is never a place of “peace.” Life is messy, and painful, and beautiful.
Likewise, in order for nations to exist, those nations must fight for their right to exist. Nations must insist upon their own borders, their own laws, their own values, and they must work for the betterment of their own population. There are always challenges to a nation’s sovereignty, and I don’t think there was ever a time when any nation has existed for even a moment without some challenge from inside or outside their borders. A nation cannot hope to have “peace” unless the nation ceases to exist.
To exist, people and nations must fight to survive. If we fail, we die - and only in death do we have “peace.”
So, as I read news stories and hear the speeches of politicians and activists who are promoting “peace,” I can’t help but say to myself, “They are not G-d, the only peace they can offer is the peace of non-existence, the peace of death.”
This new definition of peace is one that has clarified my understanding.
This new definition of peace is one that has clarified my understanding of a great many things that used to be perplexing to me. For example, when US Secretary of State Rice, or Prime Minister Olmert, or our new President Peres say they will make “peace” with our Arab neighbors by sacrificing large swaths of land, and providing our enemies with money, weapons, power and energy, I understand exactly what the are saying. When activists protest and say we need to embrace “peace” instead of building a separation fence between Israelis and terrorists, I clearly understand. When Israel reaches an agreement to release 250 terrorists for the purpose of “peace,” I no longer question what they are saying.
No wonder politicians and activists have never wanted to define the word. If we truly understood what they had been saying all these years, maybe we would have opted for conflict instead.
3 Av 5767 /
Being a small country has all the disadvantages you mentioned and more, But it has made us the most innovative country in the World and the most flexible. Even with all our problems in the Global Economy We thrive and America and Canada are sinking pretty rapidly. We have in spite of all the 2nd or 3rd most dynamic economy in the world. 3 years running I might add. Foreign investment is breaking records. our cash reserves would make you blush in embarrassment, all this with massive tax evasion, corruption, and heavy political waste. I see what is and I also see what might be and that is the challenge of living here we are a life and nation building project in progress,. While all you realists can be and rightly so Cassandra’s, I am an unabashed optimist, and I am not ashamed or embarrassed by it either. I rembeember what was here when I first came to Israel and I see it now, Its like we bridged all of Canadian or American History in 30 years.
Comment by yamit82 — March 4, 2008 @ 3:45 pm
Once again in response to the punk jeremiah, although barrack obama can’t control what Oprah and his wife says, he could have repudiated their racially inflammatory remarks, which he chose not to do and has actually benefited in this election from those around him playing the race card. Just as he CHOOSES a friendship with the racist and antisemitic jeremiah wright and CHOOSES to remain a member of his racist, antisemitic church. Stop making excuses for obama already.
Comment by Laura — March 4, 2008 @ 5:02 pm
It’s a curious thing about politicians. They need to be elected before they get the job, and to be elected they must appeal to as many people as possible.
This is a flaw in democracy — and was recognized as such as long ago as Plato. Most voters don’t do their homework. Most are not naturally inquisitive. Most aren’t particularly well educated. They vote how their friends vote or, at best, they take their clues from some newspaper, blog, or website. But if they are 18 or over, and haven’t been convicted of a felony, chances are they can vote with the same weight as someone who has a Nobel Prize. Go figure.
Still, I fail to see how being Black in America today is a plus, except with other Blacks, who constitute only just about 12.4% of the nation. Hispanics don’t feel solidarity with Blacks; neither do Asians. So being Black helps you in South Carolina, but what explains Iowa or Washington or the other White states that seem to find something in this Black man. Going out of one’s way to court the Black vote should be a net vote loser, not a vote getter.
I don’t think it’s that he’s Black that is getting him votes. I think it’s that he isn’t Hillary. I have been a life-long Democrat. I voted for Bill both times, and I have never voted for a Republican in a Presidential election. But I would shoot myself before voting for Hillary. So it’s either Obama or Nader for me. Obama if I want to vote for a winner or Nader if I want to vote for someone whose views I share.
Furthermore, I don’t actually care who Obama is photographed with or who speaks out for him. That’s part of getting elected, I’m afraid. Politics makes strange bedfellows. This is not news.
I care who his cabinet are likely to be, and what his actions are likely to be. I have heard nothing from HIM (as opposed to the desperate people who write for IsraPundit) that worries me. I have been very impressed by the quality — both breadth and depth — of his advisers. Some will carp that they are not pro-Israel enough. I don’t care. They are not pro-British enough either. I don’t see why the President of the United States and his Cabinet are supposed to be pro-some other country. Bush was long considered the most pro-Israel President of all time. He is also widely considered (and not just among hard-core liberals like me) the worst President of the last 100 years, and possibly the worst President of all time. So anyone who stands up and says “I hate Bush and everything he has done in the last eight years” is going to get a lot of votes, no matter what color he or she is.
I’ve been to the website of Obama’s church. Nothing on it scared me. I saw nothing anti-Semitic, nothing anti-White, nothing pro-Islam. I found a rather old-fashioned-sounding (meaning sounding like the early 70s) Black church advocating Black confidence, Black enterprise, and Black pride. Big Whoop. Jeremiah Wright is not the Grand Ayatollah. All this talk of racism and anti-Semitism appears to be nothing but anti-Obama rhetoric.
Finally, it should be clear to everyone who isn’t sniffing glue that whoever the Democrats put forward is very likely to win in November by a large margin. It has nothing to do with Obama or Hillary or McCain — and everything to do with Bush, Chaney, Rumsfeld, and Rice. Americans are tired of the Republicans, their economics, their war, their lies, their corruption, their support for daft policies in far away places (Pakistan, Colombia, Poland, Iraq, and, not least, the Middle East). As Ralph Nader rightly put it: if the Democrats can’t win this election by a landslide, they ought to fold up, turn out the lights, and reconstitute themselves as something else. Nader’s right. It’s going to take a lot more than what McCain can offer to give the Republicans a third consecutive term in the White House.
Comment by Jeremiah Wails — March 4, 2008 @ 7:42 pm
I quoted from your post about Obama’s statement in his book “I will stand with the Muslims should the political winds shift in an ugly direction.” Readers are having a hissy fit because they can’t find it in the book, they want a page number or they won’t believe it is actually there. Can you please provide that? Thank you so much.
Debbie Hamilton
Right Truth
http://www.righttruth.typepad.com
Comment by Right Truth — March 4, 2008 @ 7:54 pm
Dear Yamit –
I knew about the corruption, and could have assumed the heavy political waste and tax evasion (they happen everywhere), but the other things surprised me. So I went looking for some confirmation. And I couldn’t find any. The USA is generally regarded as still the most innovative country in the world, though there is no very clear way to measure innovation. Registration of international patents is at best a clue — but the USA outstrips everyone by a long mile. How measure a country’s “flexibility,” assuming you even know what it means. Israel certainly hasn’t show any flexibility in dealing with the 800 pound gorilla in its living room. Part of the problem of proportional voting systems is that they commonly lead to weak coalitions. Israel is no exception. Weak coalitions are not “flexible,” just the opposite. They can’t take risks, for fear of bringing down the coalition. Israel’s economy is growing — at about 5% per annum, which would be great for Western economy — but for a developing country, which is what Israel is, it is hardly spectacular. As for “most dynamic economies” — there are no clear measures, but there are rankings, and I couldn’t find Israel listed in any top ten, let alone top three. First is conceded to be China, Second is usually India, and third is usually Brazil — there are differences between lists. Foreign investment is breaking records — records for Israel, but not records for anywhere else. Inward investment per annum is now about 6 billion dollars a year. About the same as the annual interest on Bill Gate’s personal fortune.
In sum, I think it’s fair to say that Israel produces more hot air than anything else, and that without substantial foreign aid from the USA and elsewhere its economy would slow down quite quickly. So keep praying that the IDF doesn’t go too far in its pursuit of collective punishment and reprisal. Because if the tipping point is reached, America will turn on Israel just as it turned on George Bush.
Comment by Jeremiah Wails — March 4, 2008 @ 8:01 pm
Debby Hamilton.
You won’t find the quote in question because it aint there,
nuff said
Comment by h peskin — March 4, 2008 @ 8:11 pm
Debby try this:
http://www.google.com/search?q=%E2%80%9CI+will+stand+with+the+Muslims+should+the+political+winds+shift+in+an+ugly+direction.%E2%80%9D&start=0&start=0&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&client=mozilla&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:unofficial
Comment by yamit82 — March 4, 2008 @ 8:19 pm
sorry too long to post link. i will try to break it up
Comment by yamit82 — March 4, 2008 @ 8:20 pm
Debby.drop that phrase in quotes into Google and hit return. 74 hits. Someone can track it to the source.
Comment by yamit82 — March 4, 2008 @ 8:26 pm
Ted.
Methings that Yamit82’s description of myself as an “anti-semite’s wet dream”, has probably overstepped the boundary of acceptable free speech. What say you. How about a 2 minute penalty, or something.
Comment by h peskin — March 4, 2008 @ 8:39 pm
HP I agree. Yamit tone it down. I don’t want personal insults here stick to the arguments and stop name calling.
JW.
You cause me unecessary work. Not only did I immediately give the background to the suspect quote to alert every one that I couldn’t confirm and I at5tempted to get confirmation.
I then found a post which predated mine that said the same thing and added quotes from his other book. Here is the url http://www.israpundit.com/2008/?p=370#comment-3751
The fact that confirmation was need was contained in the first comment.
So when you say the following you are being a pain in the ass and you are attacking me personally.
You have crossed the line so don’t post for two weeks because I will not approve them.
Comment by Ted Belman — March 4, 2008 @ 9:01 pm
Israel’s Economic Boom: Billons of Dollars Being Invested
Note: Israel’s economy is growing rapidly and gaining billions of dollars from international investors. In the next two weeks, I will provide examples of this. It is quite a story and yet another incentive for Israel to get the Palestinian situation behind them (if only it were so easy).
Former Israeli Official Yoram Ettinger Wrote on Feb. 9, 2007:
Morgan Stanley, Jan. 10, 2007: “Foreign capital flows to Israel surged from $3.2BN in 2002 to $11.6BN in 2005 and a record level of $23.4BN last year … The shekel is fundamentally undervalued against the dollar and even more so against the euro … Despite geopolitical constraints and indeed the eruption of a guerilla war in Lebanon, the Israeli economy has continued to grow at a robust pace …
Israel’s economy has the strength to withstand a global slowdown … The Bank of Israel has opted for monetary easing and lowered short-term interest rates even below those in the U.S. … Consumer price inflation declined from 3.8% in April to minus 0.3% in November …
Budget deficit [was reduced] from 5.4% of GDP in 2003 to 0.9% last year… The current account surplus is not just a cyclical phenomenon. Israel’s current account balance moved from a deficit of 0.5% of GDP in 2002 to a surplus of 2.9% in 2005 and about 6% [surplus] last year …” (Globes, Jan. 11, 2007).
ISRAEL RANKS 3RD IN THE WORLD ($1.4BN) — behind California ($12.4BN) and Massachusetts ($2.8BN), ahead of New York ($1.3BN) and Texas ($1.2BN) — in the level of 2006 high tech investments, according to Ernst Young.
The 2006 high tech investment in Israel increased 13% over 2005. According to Israel’s IVC, 2006 totaled $1.6BN, compared with $1.3BN — 2005, $1.5BN — 2004, $1MN — 2003, $1.1BN — 2002, $2BN — 2001, $$3.1BN — 2000 and $1BN — 1999 (The Marker, Jan. 23).
Citigroup — Israel’s CEO, Ralph Shaaya: Israel has become a technological giant, and therefore should expect a growing wave of overseas direct and financial investments (The Marker, Nov. 6).
The Economist Magazine: Israel is the fifth emerging market in terms of growth, following Singapore, Taiwan, South Korea and Hong-Kong (Globes, Dec. 18).
Accel’s Managing Partner, Joe Schoendorf: “Israel, China and the Silicon Valley are the focus of future technologies…Over 50% of the $400MN invested by us since 2001, have been invested in 20 Israeli companies … Exacerbated security threats have enhanced technological innovations” (The Marker, Jan. 25).
Motorola’s Chairman and CEO, Ed Zander: “Our investment in Israel (initiated with a 1972 R&D center) is, undoubtedly, one of the best we ever made! Motorola-Israel sells $1BN out of Motorola’s annual $40BN global sales … $450MN is exported annually …
Israel has the world’s greatest per capita number of engineers, scientists and doctors … While the U.S. spends 2.7% of its GDP on R&D, Israel spends 4.7% … Israel’s competitive edge is primarily in optical, wireless communications, broadband, chips, software, security, military, sensors and biotech products …”
Israel’s Exports grew by $3.7BN, while imports increased by $2.7BN. Exports to the US (excluding diamonds) — $9.6BN, Germany — $1.7BN, England — $1.4BN, Holland — $1.3BN, France — $1BN (The Marker, Jan. 18).
A 20% rise — and an all-time high — in the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange since the July 2006 war against Hezbollah. The war is construed as another bump — as were previous wars — on the way toward further economic growth (Globes, Nov. 1, 2006).
Warren Buffett defines his $4BN investment in Israel’s Iscar, located next to the Lebanese border, as “the highlight of the year.” He added that “at Iscar, as throughout Israel, brains and energy are ubiquitous.” (Annual letter to stockholders of Berkshire Hathaway, New York Sun, Mar. 2).
Comment by yamit82 — March 4, 2008 @ 9:15 pm
HP and Ted I thought I was being meticulous in not name calling my ref: was that based on his views where antisemites would or could use them as a weapon against Jews and Israel. I do apologize to Hp and you if I was misconstrued. In this case my comment was directed at the viewpoint and not the person.
Comment by yamit82 — March 4, 2008 @ 9:31 pm
Yamit82 wrote:
Now while we are not a real theocracy Try to get married without the Israeli Rabbinates approval? where you going to get buried when the time comes? who will give and recognize your divorce? All laws re: individual and family status are under the jurisdiction and control of the rabbinate. If you happen to not be a Jewish (mother father is irrelevant ) try getting a residency visa Ha Ha? If you were converted but are now a Jews for Jesus freak or worse, they may not let you in at all lest you contaminate we pure of heart Jews who are very emotional where it concerns our beliefs/ You see we unlike you are not embarrassed about our primitivski religion as it is pretty natural.
MY REACTION IS ONE OF PURE SHOCK: I THOUGHT YOU WERE AN ISRAELI XENOPHOBE AND HERE YOU ARE WRITING A STRONGLY NEGATIVE DESCRIPTION OF THE LACK OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY IN ISRAEL-WHICH ALSO HAPPENS TO BE ABSOLUTELY CORRECT.AS A MEMBER OF A REFORM CONGREGATION IN MONTREAL, I ENJOY FULL RELIGIOUS RIGHTS, TO BE MARRIED, BURIED IN THE REFORM TRADITION. NOT SO IN ISRAEL.
BUT HERE IS THE REAL SHOCKER, AS A REFORM JEW, AND I KNOW YOU DON’T APPROVE OF US, I HAVE GREATER RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN TERMS OF GOVT RECOGNITION ( NOW HOLD YOUR BREATH, YAMIT) IN IRAN THAN I DO IN ISRAEL.
AND THAT HAPPENS TO BE TRUE. NOW YOU MAY CALL ME AN ANTISEMITE’S WET DREAM IF YOU LIKE, JUST AS YOU HAVE IN THE PAST
Comment by h peskin — March 4, 2008 @ 10:06 pm
Nader is a Lebanese Christian but an Arabist like his right wing political friend, Pat Buchanan.
Anyone who can write that Obama is anti-Israel with a straight face yet be an apologist for Regan-Bush Inc., needs to read more.
There was not a more Jew hating bunch then them, yet some Jews are irrational enough to still believe they were good for Israel and friends of Jews.
Reagan, Baker, North, and Bush had their heads so far up the Arab terrorist’s butt, they could taste their hummus.
The largest private owner of FOX is a Saudi terrorist financier. One of the most powerful Republican conservative lobbyists and puppet masters in DC is an Arabist terrorist financier. His name is Grover Norquist.
Hannity is not a great American nor is his trabant Ollie North who trained the mujahaden and whose boss in the white house trained Bin Laden in CIA techniques.
Will Hannity ever admit this about FOX and friends? Of course not — you need a spine to tell the truth, but apparently those who believe Reagan-Bush, Inc were good for Israel and Obama is bad do not want to know the truth either.
Reagan-Bush Inc. BAD.
If this is too complicated to understand, maybe someone from Good Morning America could explain in it words no bigger than found in USA Today.
Comment by rote — March 5, 2008 @ 1:16 am
HP How you doing . I want to address your comment of#130, but seriously without getting into a slugging match as the subject is maybe no less important if not more than our existential security threats. First I will say that I am not a religious practicing Jew and I will not be the spokesman for any denomination of Judaism. I will attempt to show a few facts and then we might discuss them if you wish do do so.
You are correct Jews have limited freedom if you are not Orthodox or oppose their hegemony. Muslims Christians and other religions have virtually total freedom. Orthodoxy only seeks to protect itself so it built a wall of restrictions. Just like Democracies have or will in facing Islamic threats.
Classical Jewish Concepts that have been corrupted by the Diaspora which can be seen clearly in the reform movement: THE JEWISH PEOPLE IS UNLIKE ANY OTHER. It is a Divine, special, holy and different
nation, chosen by the Al-Mighty at Sinai to live a specific life under Jewish law and
commandments. THE JEWISH PEOPLE WAS MADE TO BE DIFFERENT, SEPARATE, set apart from all the
others. Not assimilation or amalgamation or integration with the nations is the Jewish role
but rather the creation of a separate people, living in a separate state, and building a
separate and special society. That is the Jewish injunction and that is the true meaning of
the Jews as “a light unto the nations”. The Jewish people must, thus, be isolated from
foreign cultures that corrupt and destroy the authentic Jewish Idea.
LOVE OF JEW FOR JEW. The Jewish nation is one. There are no boundaries that separate
the Jews and the pain of one is the pain of all. There is an obligation to rush to save
oppressed and suffering Jews, wherever they may be and in whatever way is necessary. The
weak Jew who is threatened must be rescued by the Jew of strength. Jewish power, in such
a case, is an obligation.
It is unacceptable to speak of internal affairs of any country in which Jews are threatened.
In particular, while Jews remain in the Exile and are endangered by Jew-haters, it is the
role of the State of Israel to do all in its power to defend them and to put an end to attacks
on Jews. Israel was established as the Jewish State, as the trustee and guardian of Jews all
over the world. It must live up to that obligation.
For the Jew, there are no permanent allies except the Jew himself and the Al-mighty. For
the Jew, Jewish interest comes first, for who will care about him, if not himself? Public
Jewish funds must stop going to non-Jewish causes. NO GUILT. To be Jewish is to be the Chosen of the L-rd and Jews must rid themselves of
the guilt, self-hate and inferiority that grip so many today. Not guilt but pride; not self-hate
but intense love; not inferiority but the knowledge that Jews have been chosen from all the
nations upon the face of the earth to receive the Divine truth. Jewish pride! But combined
with the humility of bowing to the will of G-d.
What is moral and ethical, what is just and merciful, must be based not on western and
gentilized concepts but on Divine values that can be derived only from the sources of Jewish
Law. The concept of the yoke of Heaven must be accepted and must be the only yardstick
for Jewish values regardless of how they differ from western and gentile ones.
http://www.jewishmag.com/9mag/PLAUT/plaut.htm Read this excellent!
Jewish condition: my opinion-Liberalism =Reform Judaism with holidays!
The fight for rights in the Diaspora is an illusion and a distraction. It is planning for the present. If we want to view matters from a practical point of view, we must always remember that the Torah says: “Among the nations you will know no rest….” meaning, that in the Diaspora, things are going to be bad.
The disaster resulting from the Emancipation was the division between the Jewish and human aspects of a Jew. This is the reverse of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai’s clear and brilliant formulation: “You are called man, and the nations of the world are not called man.” Note: the first word, “you,” in the Hebrew is atem, not atah - it is in the plural. “You” means the whole nation as a collective. The term “humanity” is a foreign word. In Hebrew we say umot haoloam, the “nations of the world.” The abstract concept “humanity” is Platonic; it is an abstract idea. It doesn’t exist in original Hebrew texts, where we encounter only the nations of the world. Unlike “humanity,” the “nations of the world” is a limited concept; according to the Jewish worldview, nothing abstract exists.
Until the Emancipation there was no spiritual crisis in Judaism, because there was no crisis in the self-awareness of the Jews, who knew who they were. Even though there were conflicts and differences of opinion concerning various commandments, or over whether to give precedence to one’s intention or to fulfilling the letter of the law, or whether to try to hurry the Messianic era, there was still a clear feeling of being part of a collective and of a continuum. The basic question: Who are we? was not a problem. This problem arose when we left the ghetto. When the Jew had to answer the question: Are you a Jew or a Frenchman? What are you? - if you want equal rights in France.
The Torah does not have commandments that are Jewish and others that are human. What laws for human beings are not already found in our Shulchan Aruch, the Code of Jewish Laws? Judaism did not leave a vacuum that needed to be filled with “humanity,” where a person acts as a person rather than as a Jew. Judaism is total. Judaism includes the whole person and Jew. It is the union of person and Jew. Judaism was not a religion, but a complete way of life. It included all of life. Any phenomenon that was new to man, was included by Judaism in its commandments. Judaism gave the world Bereshit, Genesis, the “beginning,” with which the Torah opens. This is the first concept of limits in space and time. Thought is by nature circular, without beginning. The Torah opens with the letter bet, not with a definition of God. We know God only from His creation. The land was chaos, and God set limits: oceans, order, instead of infinity. There is an order and an intention in history. If the world had been created by accident, it would have no meaning. But if it has a beginning, a creation, it is no accident, rather an intention, with purpose. This direction is another basic concept, in addition to limits. No history of any other nation is as clear and defined as ours. Everything that happens to us already appears in regard to our three Patriarchs.
Plato divided the world into the world of ideas and the world of being. There is no connection between the world of metaphysics and the world of physics. Jesus divided the authority of Caesar from the authority of God. Judaism stands under the banner of unity, of the One, and the ladder symbolizes this. Non-Jewish philosophy is metaphysics. It begins by defining the concept God. Jacob’s ladder is planted firmly in the ground, with angels ascending and descending on it; first, they ascend. Tradition tells us that the entire land of Israel was enfolded under Jacob when he slept and dreamed, and the stones he set under him became one as well. The Hebrew word for “ladder” is sulam. In Hebrew, sulam is an anagram of semel, the word for symbol; and it has the same numerical value as Sinai.
Comment by yamit82 — March 5, 2008 @ 5:35 am
The subject of weapons of mass destruction is of special interest to Israelis because of the first Gulf war experience and its possible use in future conflicts.
Compiled by A.Herzberg, H.Peskin
RICIN- Weapon of Mass Destruction ?
R. Baker
57-year-old graphic designer and pizza deliveryman, Roger Von Bergendorff, remained in a coma in a Las Vegas-area hospital March 5, nearly two weeks after he apparently inhaled ricin powder, a biological toxin that later was found among his belongings. The FBI is investigating the case to determine how the potentially deadly substance came into Von Bergendorff’s possession — and, more important, what he planned to do with it.
Von Bergendorff was admitted to the hospital Feb. 14 after complaining of respiratory stress. On Feb. 26, police were summoned to the hotel where Von Bergendorff had been staying after the manager reported having found four firearms in Von Bergendorff’s room. While retrieving the firearms, police also discovered what they called an “anarchist-type” book, which had been marked at a page addressing ricin. Two days later, Von Bergendorff’s cousin notified authorities after he discovered yellowish powder in a vial and a plastic bag, some hypodermic needles and numerous castor beans (from which ricin is derived) while cleaning out Von Bergendorff’s room.
Von Bergendorff’s cousin, the hotel manager and the police who responded to the calls to the room showed no signs of ricin poisoning, and the room was declared clean. Police and investigators also searched the cousin’s Utah home, where Von Bergendorff had lived for some time, as well as storage units rented by Von Bergendorff. Initial reports suggest no further sign of ricin or its manufacture have been found, and authorities have said they are fairly certain that they have contained the ricin and that no residual environmental contamination has occurred.
What Von Bergendorff was doing with ricin and the syringes — and whether he manufactured the substance himself or acquired it — is unknown at this time. Because he remains in a coma, he is unable to answer questions. His respiratory condition is the likely result of inhaling ricin powder, though doctors have yet to confirm the cause. According to the Centers for Disease Control, there is no cure for ricin poisoning, but victims who do not die in the first five days after poisoning normally recover and survive. Authorities have said the case does not appear related to terrorism, though ricin is considered a potential terrorist tool, given its ease of manufacture and the deadly nature of the toxin.
The Castor Bean
Ricin, a toxin derived from the readily available castor bean (the plant is even used as an ornamental), is a by-product of the process used to extract castor bean oil, which is used in foods and various lubricants. However, those who choose to experiment with the beans for nefarious purposes would find it relatively simple to extract low-grade — though still potentially fatal — ricin.
Ricin acts against cells’ ribosomes, preventing the cells from producing proteins and thus leading to cell death and possibly organ failure and death. It normally is found in powder or pellet form, but it also can be suspended in liquids. Touching ricin might cause a rash, but is rarely fatal. However, when ingested, ricin can cause vomiting, bloody diarrhea, dehydration, a drop in blood pressure, organ failure and death. When inhaled, ricin causes respiratory distress and can lead to a build-up of fluid in the lungs, a drop in blood pressure, and respiratory failure and death. Injection is the most dangerous method of ricin poisoning, given that a dose as small as 500 micrograms — about the size of the head of a pin — is sufficient to begin shutting down cellular and organ functions. Because there is no cure for ricin poisoning, treatment focuses on addressing the symptoms and, if possible, flushing the ricin out of the system.
Ricin as a Weapon
Due to its ease of manufacture and its potency, ricin often is cited as an ideal terrorist weapon. But we take issue with that point of view, given that militants generally are looking for the biggest bang for their buck. This is not to say that recipes for making ricin and directions for deploying the agent have not appeared in al Qaeda training manuals. They have — specifically in Afghanistan. In addition, in 2003 several suspected Islamist militants were arrested in North London, where traces of ricin were found in their apartment.
However, in our experience, ricin most often has come into play as a method of targeted killings. Perhaps the most notorious attack using ricin occurred in London in 1978, when Bulgarian writer and dissident Georgi Markov was injected with a small pellet of ricin from the modified tip of an umbrella. Also, the suspects in the North London case were believed to have been planning to use ricin for assassination, possibly of the prime minister.
In the United States, ricin has been used in attempted and successful criminal assassinations and in suicides (including a suicide in Las Vegas in 2003). In the 1980s and 1990s, numerous cases came to light in which the suspects were found to have acquired or attempted to acquire ricin for targeted killings of spouses and family members, government and law enforcement officials or coworkers. In the early 1990s, several members of the Minnesota Patriots Council, a radical antitaxation group, acquired ricin and were accused of plotting to use it against federal officials. And in 1998, three members of the North American Militia in Michigan, who were indicted on weapons and conspiracy charges, were found in possession of videotapes explaining the process of extracting ricin from castor beans.
The problem with using ricin as a weapon of mass destruction is that, despite the small dose necessary for it to be lethal, delivering it on a wide scale is not a simple task. Inhalation and ingestion toxicity requires a higher dose than injection. And then there is the question of how to administer it. We have heard that thought has been given to soaking shrapnel from conventional explosives in ricin to add to the lethality of fragments, but the explosion itself would likely cause more damage than the ricin. If Von Bergendorff was preparing ricin for use as a weapon in a lone-wolf attack — and there is no confirmation that he was — he likely would have had better success using the four firearms he had in his hotel room.
However, ricin’s effectiveness as a discrete weapon of targeted assassination does raise potential concern for highly visible individuals such as political leaders, businesspeople and celebrities. As demonstrated in the Markov case, a handheld device such as an umbrella, a needle or a modified ring can be used to inject a small pellet of ricin into a target. This could be done in any number of situations, including in a receiving line or while the target is “pressing the flesh” on the campaign trail. In such a situation, the target would likely feel the injection and thus recognize the attacker immediately. So if the attacker is willing to get caught, ricin or other biological or chemical agents can be administered in public while the target interacts with a crowd.
Mass Destruction or Mass Disruption?
There is a great deal of concern about the potential for a biological attack inside the United States. However, although it is possible for nonstate actors to develop and deploy biological agents and toxins, they are more likely to employ relatively simple and proven methods of attack — using firearms and explosives — than some exotic weapon. Manufacture of biological agents using low technology most often yields small amounts and minimally potent products. Truly weaponized biological agents produced and prepared in quantities great enough for deployment as a weapon of mass destruction require much more sophisticated labs and weaponization facilities than most nonstate actors or lone wolves can or will ever create in their garages or storage sheds.
There is, however, the psychological component to consider — and biological agents indeed are effective weapons of mass disruption. The 2001 anthrax letters exemplify that point. Although the death toll from those letters was very small, the impact on the postal service and on government and corporate mail-handling procedures was massive. The letters resulted in the complete rewriting of the processes for handling and screening mail, triggered numerous hoaxes and false alarms, and shut down government and private facilities for weeks for decontamination. In other words, the disruptive effect of the anthrax letters was much more significant than the death toll, and the lasting impact on mail handling was much greater than the mail bombs of the Unabomber and others.
One of the most successful biological weapons attacks in the United States in recent history occurred in Oregon in 1984, when members of the Bhagwan Shri Rashneesh cult sprinkled salmonella bacteria on produce in grocery stores, on salad bars in local restaurants and on door handles around town. The attack, which left 751 people ill, was intended to prevent certain citizens from getting to the polls to vote for the competitor of a cult follower who was running for a judgeship. As in the anthrax attack, this caused a significant amount of disruption, though no fatalities.
Infectious diseases are even harder to culture and distribute in a mass attack. With many diseases, their slow progress makes them better incapacitants and disruptors than true weapons of mass destruction. To a great degree this is why, despite some tests by various nonstate militant groups, few biological attacks have been attempted.
In addition, the money, resources and effort that go into a biological program can be more cost-effectively spent on training and supplying fighters with conventional weapons. The train bombings in Madrid and London, as compared with the attempted sarin attack by the Aum Shinrikyo cult in Tokyo, clearly demonstrate that conventional explosives have been more effective than homemade biological or chemical agents.
This is not to say that militants will stop trying to develop and experiment with biological agents. From a purely psychological perspective, these agents can have a significant impact, not to mention they can be quite effective as a tool of assassination and disruption. But to deploy a true biological weapon of mass destruction takes the resources of a state. Militant groups, given their limited resources and personnel, and often their space and time constraints, are more likely to focus on improving upon the tactics they already know.
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Comment by h peskin — March 5, 2008 @ 7:18 pm
NEW YORK TIMES ARTICLE
By GERSHOM GORENBERG
Published: March 2, 2008
One day last fall, a young Israeli woman named Sharon went with her fiancé to the Tel Aviv Rabbinate to register to marry. They are not religious, but there is no civil marriage in Israel. The rabbinate, a government bureaucracy, has a monopoly on tying the knot between Jews. The last thing Sharon expected to be told that morning was that she would have to prove — before a rabbinic court, no less — that she was Jewish. It made as much sense as someone doubting she was Sharon, telling her that the name written in her blue government-issue ID card was irrelevant, asking her to prove that she was she.
Sharon is a small woman in her late 30s with shoulder-length brown hair. For privacy’s sake, she prefers to be identified by only her first name. She grew up on a kibbutz when kids were still raised in communal children’s houses. She has two brothers who served in Israeli combat units. She loved the green and quiet of the kibbutz but was bored, and after her own military service she moved to the big city, which is the standard kibbutz story. Now she is a Tel Aviv professional with a master’s degree, a job with a major H.M.O. and a partner — when this story starts, a fiancé — who is “in computers.”
This stereotypical biography did not help her any more at the rabbinate than the line on her birth certificate listing her nationality as Jewish. Proving you are Jewish to Israel’s state rabbinate can be difficult, it turns out, especially if you came to Israel from the United States — or, as in Sharon’s case, if your mother did.
In recent years, the state’s Chief Rabbinate and its branches in each Israeli city have adopted an institutional attitude of skepticism toward the Jewish identity of those who enter its doors. And the type of proof that the rabbinate prefers is peculiarly unsuited to Jewish life in the United States. The Israeli government seeks the political and financial support of American Jewry. It welcomes American Jewish immigrants. Yet the rabbinate, one arm of the state, increasingly treats American Jews as doubtful cases: not Jewish until proved so.
More than any other issue, the question of Who is a Jew? has repeatedly roiled relations between Israel and American Jewry. Psychologically, it is an argument over who belongs to the family. In the past, the casus belli was conversion: Would the Law of Return, which grants automatic citizenship to any Jew coming to Israel, apply to those converted to Judaism by non-Orthodox rabbis? Now, as Sharon’s experience indicates, the status of Jews by birth is in question. Equally important, the dividing line is no longer between Orthodox and non-Orthodox. The rabbinate’s handling of the issue has placed it on one side of an ideological fissure within Orthodox Judaism itself, between those concerned with making sure no stranger enters the gates and those who fear leaving sisters and brothers outside.
Seth Farber is an American-born Orthodox rabbi whose organization — Itim, the Jewish Life Information Center — helps Israelis navigate the rabbinic bureaucracy. He explained to me recently that the rabbinate’s standards of proof are now stricter than ever, and stricter than most American Jews realize. Referring to the Jewish federations, the central communal and philanthropic organizations of American Jewry, he said, “Eighty percent of federation leaders probably wouldn’t be able to reach the bar.” To assist people like Sharon, Farber has become a genealogical sleuth. He is the first to warn, though, that solving individual cases cannot solve a deeper crisis.
Judaism, traditionally, is matrilineal: every child of a Jewish mother is automatically considered a Jew. Zvi Zohar, a professor of law and Jewish studies at Bar-Ilan University, told me that in Judaism’s classical view of itself, Jews are best understood as a “large extended family” that accepted a covenant with God. Those who didn’t practice the faith remained part of the family, even if traditionally they were regarded as black sheep. Converts were adopted members of the clan. Today the meaning of being Jewish is disputed — a faith? a nationality? — but in Israeli society the principle of matrilineal descent remains widely accepted. Sharon’s mother was Jewish, so Sharon knew that she was, too. And yet it seemed impossible to provide evidence that would persuade the rabbinate.
Sharon left the office infuriated. Her mother was Jewish enough to leave affluent America for Israel; her brothers had fought for the Jewish state. Now, she felt, she was being told, “For that you’re good enough, but to be considered Jews for religious purposes you’re not.”
Sharon’s mother, Suzie, is 66, a dance therapist, even tinier than her daughter, a flurry of movement in the living room of her kibbutz bungalow. Suzie’s maternal grandfather, David Ludmersky, was born in Kiev. When he was drafted into the czar’s army, he deserted, fled to America and worked to send a ticket to Rose, the girl he left behind. The Merskys (an Ellis Island clerk shortened the name) moved to the small Wisconsin town of Wausau, where their daughter, Belle (Suzie’s mother), was born. Suzie has heard that they didn’t like the place, that they consulted a fortuneteller, that she told them to move west to Minneapolis. There David Mersky indeed made his fortune, working his way from peddling fruit to owning one of the city’s first supermarkets.
recount this family history because of its pure American Jewish normality. In Minneapolis, Belle Mersky married Julius Goldstein in a Conservative ceremony. This, too, was typical: Conservative Judaism was the common choice for American Jews leaning toward tradition. Julius’s brother became a Conservative rabbi. Belle and Julius raised their family on Minneapolis’s North Side, “a totally Jewish neighborhood then,” Suzie recalled. She went to Sunday school at Beth El Synagogue, a Conservative congregation.
Suzie began college at the cusp of the 1960s, attending the University of Minnesota, rooming with a friend from a Zionist summer camp. Her uncle, the Conservative rabbi, paid for her to go to Israel one summer on a student tour. When she returned to Israel after graduation, even the motor-scooter accident was practically part of the standard restless-youth experience. She broke her foot, put off her plan to join a dance company and took a room in a Tel Aviv rooming house. “I was sitting there with my foot up, crutches in the corner, and this handsome guy came in,” she told me. He was British. He and his best friend were living in Holland, “wanted to go somewhere” and drove overland to Israel.
“He ended up being my husband,” Suzie said with a laugh. He wasn’t Jewish, a twist in the story line. They left Israel together to wander through Europe and married in a civil ceremony in England. Those details would later loom immense: Had he been Jewish, had they married in Israel, she would have had a ketuba, or religious marriage contract issued by the rabbinate, for her daughter to show years later. In the excitement after Israel’s victory in the Six-Day War in 1967, they decided to return to the country. “He always wanted to live here,” she said, and “we were adventurous.”
Fast forward: Sharon, on her 38th birthday, took the day off from work to make wedding arrangements. First stop was the Tel Aviv Rabbinical Court.
The rabbinic courts are an arm of the Israeli justice system. Formally, the judges — rabbis with special training — are appointed on professional grounds. In practice, positions in the courts and in the state rabbinate are parceled out as patronage by religious political parties. The main function of the rabbinic courts is divorce, also a purely religious process in Israel. A secondary function is providing judicial rulings on whether a person is Jewish. For that, the main clientele is immigrants from the former Soviet Union. A fairly standard procedure exists for them. It includes examining Soviet-era documents, like birth certificates, that list a citizen’s nationality. (In the Soviet system, “Jewish” was a nationality, parallel to “Russian” or “Uzbek,” listed in everyone’s official papers.)
At the court, Sharon told me, the clerk who opened her file told her to bring her mother’s birth certificate and her parents’ marriage certificate. “I said: ‘But my mother’s birth certificate doesn’t say “Jewish.” It’s from the United States. They don’t write that. And the marriage license — they had a civil wedding.’ ” After she waited hours to see a judge, he told Sharon to return with “any document that would testify to her mother’s Jewishness.” She asked a court official if a letter from a Conservative rabbi would solve the problem. Her mother has a cousin in Florida who is a rabbi, son of the uncle who originally sent Suzie to Israel. No, the official said, “that won’t help. It has to be someone Orthodox.”
“When Sharon called me, she was crying,” Suzie told me. Her daughter said the court wanted testimony from an Orthodox rabbi who had known Suzie all her life. “Even if there was such a thing, he would be dead by now,” Suzie said. Lacking an official document labeling her a Jew and without a childhood connection to Orthodoxy, Suzie was again a typical American Jew. Nonetheless, she got on the phone. Her cousin in Florida told her to phone a colleague from Israel’s small movement for Conservative Judaism. He, in turn, said Seth Farber would help her. He was right.
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Comment by h peskin — March 5, 2008 @ 8:08 pm
HP. #133-134 The Joys of RICIN or I never liked Castor Oil as a Child! Whats YOUR point? we got it and so does everybody else. It’s difficult to weaponize and control there are better alternatives for mass killing, also what we call deseigner strains to which we know the enemy will have no antidote
re: Rabbinate: I already said previously that this was the case. The reform who have always been anti Zionniost at least until recently and have always opposed a Jewish state should not cry when the problem they themselves have created comes back to haunt some of the adherents of the reform movement plus other. Because of the reform the Rabbinate looks with a microscope on any Jew without obvious proofs. The Conservative movement has gone so far to the left today that they are largely discounted as Jews here. All this has brought up the old question as to who is a Jew. Halacha Orthodox obedience to Torah Law states any one born to a Jewish mother or convert(Orthodox conversion) is a Kosher Jew. Religious piety does not even count here except for the convert. The problem with the Rabbinate is that assimilation is so pandemic in America that which once might have been acceptable (declaration by the applicants based on good faith has been killed firstly by all the non Jews brought here by the Jewish agency all the lies ans forged documents presented etc.) It is the Americans in particular that has aroused the ire of the Orthodox in that in rejection of Judaism that has been the rock under which Jews have survived for 2000 years in a few short generation, what are in the eyes of the Orthodox Apostate cults, want both recognition and parity of status here in Israel. Believe me when I tell you there will be a real civil war before that happens. But not to worry there are not enough reform Jewish advocates and practitioners here to seriously challenge the orthodox hegemony on family status matters. American and Canadian Pluralism om religious question can be likened to Anarchy, no central authority ea. Rabbi a Law unto himself and ea individual deciding for himself what is Jewish and what it means to be Jewish.
YOU REAP WHAT YOU SOW! The sheer Chutzpa of the reform who are more Christianized than Jewish , well at least some of them anyway, want parity of recognition of status with classical Judaism based on numbers and popularity, and threaten Israel with sanctions if Their demands are not met. Its like a family black sheep long divorced and separated from any family contact coming back only to claim the family inheritance when the parents are gone and he is sick and needs his family’s support. CHUZPA is a mild word. b The Orthodox takes the position of welcome back as ews but first Jettison the Apostate Reform malignancy. Or prove Your mother was Jewish.
Comment by yamit82 — March 6, 2008 @ 2:52 am
Perskin you cut the bal. of the article which is the most important part! I suggest any one interested to log on to the full article. Link to long to post here. as well as the full article. Peskin to cherry pick just part of the article to justify your position is ingenious it shows where you are really coming from and reinforces my original instincts about you.
Comment by yamit82 — March 6, 2008 @ 4:23 am
Yambo baby, luvs yuh, you are interesting,colourful and totally meshuggah ( trust and pray you don’t understand yiddish). Unlike yourself , who is well organized and sticks to the topic, I tend to ramble and digress.Thanks for keeping me focussed.
Let me explain why I included the Ricin article , You might remember, then again you probably forgot, the fact that Israelis were provided with gas masks during the 1991 Gulf war. That is because there is a special fear that at some time poison gas and other chemical and bio weapons will be used against Israel. Ricin comes under the broad category of bio agents.And that is Why it is pertinent to the Israeli situation.
Re reform Jews. If you excommunicate all Reform, Conservative, Reconstruction, and any other non- orthodox Jewish congregations, who in heaven’s name do you have left? Are we so numerous that we can afford to toss people out. As a matter of fact, given the Jewish demographic crises in effect world wide, might it not be an idea to proselytise others to join the faith? But than again that is against tradition or worse still heresy. Yambo dearest, I have taken enough of your precious time.
Comment by h peskin — March 6, 2008 @ 4:28 pm
Shalom HP.
I wonder how long we’ll continue on this thread… another year? Who knows. I thought it was all over with, but then you and Yamit keep talking about these interesting topics. I wanted to post just one last time, though, to let you know that for once I agree with you and not with Yamit. You said
I assume the “heresy” remark was sarcasm. I actually believe that it WOULD be a good idea for Jews to prostlytize. There is certainly nothing in Tanach forbidding this; and in places like the US and Canada, it is really the only option Jews have for survival.
Yamit, you said a few things that are flat-out dishonest, and you should be taken to task on them. First of all, you said that Judaism is
“the only pre-Christian to survive”.
This is pure baloney: Hinduism has been around far longer than Christianity, along with its daughter religion, Buddhism. Even the Zoroastrians live on as the Parsees, though in much smaller numbers. I love Judaism, and I believe it is superior to those other faiths; but I love truth even more. We don’t need to lie, to make ourselves look good: We have the true revelation of God, who IS good.
Later on, you said,
“Classical Jewish Concepts that have been corrupted by the Diaspora which can be seen clearly in the reform movement”.
Yamit, open your eyes. “Classical” Judaism is the Judaism of Nineteenth-Century Russia. It was founded in the Diaspora, by Jews of the Diaspora, for Jews of the Diaspora. There is nothing inherently superior in the opinions of Nineteenth-Century Polish rebbes (namely, “Orthodox” Judaism) over Nineteenth-Century German rabbis (namely, “Reform” Judaism). If you want truly ancient and “classical” Judaism, you need to get rid of ALL the rabbinical opinions of the past 1900 years, back to when Judaism was truly the religion of the Jewish people in the Jewish homeland (not of expatriates in Polish streimmels who can’t let go of their Ashkenazi, foreign roots). You obviously aren’t prepared to do that, and this is your right. But you do not have the right to browbeat your fellow Jew because you consider the POLISH Judaism of the Chief Rabbinate to be superior to the GERMAN Judaism of the Canadians and Americans: Neither one is more “classical” or “ancient” than the other, except in your own narrow mind.
There, HP. I’ve done it. Yamit already knows what I believe on these matters; and I generally don’t bring them up, because I think we have other important things to talk about. But when I see a Jew like Yamit trying to insult and exclude a fellow Jew over such nonesense, I need to speak up.
Shalom Shalom
BlandOatmeal
Comment by BlandOatmeal — March 6, 2008 @ 6:30 pm
Here in a few well chosen words is why the U.S.WILL NOT attack Iran anytime soon.
News Releases Articles Editorials Reports Books Maps Forums Letters Search Permissions Services Links Contact
Iran and U.S. Head for Talks on Iraq
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Posted GMT 3-6-2008 0:33:17
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TEHRAN — Iran and the United States will hold the fourth round of talks about Iraq’s security situation in Baghdad on Thursday, the head of Iranian negotiating delegation Reza Amiri-Moqaddam said on his arrival at Baghdad on Wednesday.
The fourth round of tripartite talks will be held at the request of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to Iran, Amiri-Moqaddam stated.
Iran is deeply concerned about the security crisis in Iraq, and is trying its utmost to bring peace to the country, he noted.
Delegations from Iran, Iraq, and the United States will hold the negotiations at the expert level.
The Islamic Republic and the U.S. have already had three rounds of talks on Iraq on May 28, July 24, and August 6, 2007.
The new meeting was scheduled for December; however, it was postponed due to technical reasons.
Iranian president Mahmud Ahmadinejad had a landmark two-day visit to Iraq this week where he met Iraqi leaders as part of efforts to boost bilateral ties.
Comment by h peskin — March 6, 2008 @ 6:47 pm
Peskin in a pinch we can go after some tribes in India who believe they are lost Jews from biblical times, some are already here others are learning Hebrew and Torah and Jewish traditions. In the first instance we can have with some effort 2 million but they have a potential of 50 million souls. Then there are large tribes in Africa ditto them as they with some DNA evidence can claim Jewish roots. The we have some Black Heb’s in Chicago and other communities who believe they are the authentic Jews. We could like you guys invite all outsider Homos to Join the tribe , we will even call them Rabbis if it gets us another few thousand members. You seem to favor quantity over quality, The idea Pesky is to have both but the reform is a cult with fringe Jewish trappings, I prefer the Karates over reform. at least they believe in God and the divinity of the Torah. The Samaritans as well.
Comment by yamit82 — March 6, 2008 @ 7:19 pm
Yambo wrote
Peskin in a pinch we can go after some tribes in India who believe they are lost Jews from biblical times, some are already here others are learning Hebrew and Torah and Jewish traditions. In the first instance we can have with some effort 2 million but they have a potential of 50 million souls. Then there are large tribes in Africa ditto them as they with some DNA evidence can claim Jewish roots.
Yambo, with all due respect , may I humbly suggest that you undertake a forensic psychiatric assessment. You probably are not a danger to yourself or others, but whom I to say-I’m no shrink- but why take chances.
Comment by h peskin — March 6, 2008 @ 7:43 pm
Email from a blind apologist for Muslims and Obama. Must be a liberal Jew.
I have never seen so many speculations and twisting of meanings to justify a preconception. You are obviously a Republican and are determined to “prove” your point even if you have no proof.
Granted, his Minister thinks highly of Farrakhan and Barack thinks highly of his Minister. Unfortunately for you, that does not mean that Barack agrees with him about his anti-Israel or anti-Semitic feelings or that he supports Farrakhan in any way. Barack has separated himself from Farrakhan and dismisses, as you noted, his Minister’s support for Farrakhan.
By the way, while Barack has rejected Farrakhan and dismissed his own Minister’s support for Farrakhan, John McCain has embraced an anti-Jewish, anti-Catholic, anti-everyone preacher - The Rev. John Hagee. Will you be writing articles about what this means for America and Israel. You know, of course, that Hagee wants to gather Jews together in Israel to bring about the apocalypse and convert or kill all the Jews. Hagee has enormous influence in his world. Hagee is also like David Duke. I presume you used Duke as an example of something you don’t like. So, again, does that mean you are prepared to slam McCain for EMBRACING Hagee?
Anyway, back to your article. Let’s take the Likud remark issue for a prime example. I don’t support the Likud - and neither did Ariel Sharon. He left that party to form a new one. I don’t think it is anti-Semitic to say he wants the freedom to take different views than Likud promulgates. It is also not anti-patriotic to differ with the GOP here and the right wing that wants to strip America of its civil rights (all except the right to shoot people) in order to “protect” us.
His Muslim remark was clearly about preventing violence to Muslims in America by citizens who are upset about 9/11. I’m sure you know that and your willingness to twist that speaks volumes. Do you want to promote violence to Muslims? Tell me true. What would you say and do if people in our nation started doing violence to random Muslims?
Do you dare to be fair and not attack him via guilt by association and judge him on the real meaning of his words?
Finally, Barack Obama has said clearly on TV that he is not, nor never has been, a Muslim. If you continue to claim he is in order to scare those people who do fear or hate Muslims, what do you think that makes you?
At long last, Ted, have you no shame?
Comment by Ted Belman — March 6, 2008 @ 8:48 pm
Pesky,I can’t call you a antisemite but you can call me crazy it doesn’t seem fair?
Rabbi backs India’s ‘lost Jews’
Inside the Manipur synagogue
Bnei Menashe say they are one of the 10 lost tribes of Israel
One of Israel’s chief rabbis has recognised an Indian tribe as lost descendants of ancient Israelites.
The Chief Rabbi of the Sephardic Jews, Shlomo Amar, has informed members of the 6,000-strong Bnei Menashe community in India’s north-east of his decision.
The ruling will ease the tribes’ emigration to Israel from the states of Manipur and Mizoram.
Bnei Menashe members welcomed the announcement, saying they could now “go to the Promised Land”.
‘Detailed investigation’
The chief rabbi is now planning to formally convert the Bnei Menashe members to Orthodox Judaism.
Lalrin Sailo, convenor of the Singlung-Israel association, an organisation representing the “Jews of Mizoram” said: “We have always said we are descendants of Menashe (son of Joseph) so it is great to hear our claims have been authenticated.”
Elizabeth Zodingliani, right
Elizabeth Zodingliani, right, wants to settle in Jerusalem
According to the community, the Bnei Menashe are one of the lost 10 tribes of Israel who were exiled when Assyrians invaded the northern kingdom of Israel in the 8th Century BC.
The community’s oral tradition is that the tribe travelled through Persia, Afghanistan, Tibet, China and on to eastern India.
The Bnei Menashe represent only a tiny fraction of India’s north-eastern Christian community.
Lalrin Sailo told the BBC’s Subir Bhaumik in Calcutta that the chief rabbi had made his ruling after “detailed investigations” lasting several years.
A team of rabbinical judges will now be sent to north-east India to formally convert the tribes to Orthodox Judaism.
Once converted, the Bnei Menashe can apply for immigration to Israel under the Law of Return, without needing authorisation from the country’s Interior Ministry.
Elizabeth Zodingliani, who edits Israel Tlangau (Israel News) in Aizawal, capital of India’s north-eastern state of Mizoram, said: “We will now all go to the Promised Land, to Israel. I hope we can settle down in Jerusalem.”
DNA tests
A key date in the recent history of the Bnei Menashe was 1951, when a Pentecostal minister named Tchalah, acting he said on a prophecy from God, called for a return to the Holy Land. However, the links were not then approved.
Jews in Mizoram
Studies brought up similarities with Judaism
In the 1970s, when the Bible was translated into the local language, similarities with the customs and practices of Israeli people were noticed, Bnei Menashe members say.
A researcher of the Mizo tribe, Zaithanchuungi, developed the lost-tribe claims in 1981 and presented papers to various seminars in Israel.
Some Israeli groups like the Amishav, now known as Shavei, which helps Jews move to Israel, supported the claim and says it has brought 800 people from the Bnei Menashe to Israel.
Other Israeli groups have dismissed the claim as “historically untenable.” DNA studies at the Central Forensic Institute in Calcutta suggest that while the masculine side of the tribes bears no links to Israel, the feminine side suggests a genetic profile with Middle Eastern people that may have arisen through inter-marriage.
Israeli social scientist Lev Grinberg told the BBC last year that right-wing Jewish groups wanted such conversions of distant people to boost the population in areas disputed by the Palestinians.
http://www.bneimenashe.com/
http://www.kulanu.org/india/telugu_jews.html
http://www.npr.org/templates/dmg/dmg.php?prgCode=DAY&showDate=24-Dec-2003&segNum=4&NPRMediaPref=WM
These are a drop in the bucket same thing happening with conversos or morranos in Spain and portugal, S, America and southern USA
Comment by yamit82 — March 6, 2008 @ 9:17 pm
author h peskin
All indicators point to today’s attack on Jerusalem Yeshiva as a retaliatory strike in response to the assasination of Hezbollah chief terrorist Mughniyah in Feb 08. See intel reprt made several days after event.
Following the Feb. 12 assassination of Imad Mughniyah, one of Hezbollah’s top military commanders, many threats and warnings have been issued concerning a retribution attack against Israel, which has been blamed for — or credited with — the attack. The threats have come from Hezbollah and Iranian leaders, while the warnings have come from the Israeli and U.S. governments.
Although the unfolding story continues to make headlines, the warnings we have seen have not included any time frame. This means that most of the people concerned about them will be on alert in the near term but will, as is human nature, begin to relax as time passes and no retaliatory attack materializes. Organizations such as Hezbollah, however, typically do not retaliate immediately. Even in a case of a government with a professional and well-armed military, retaliatory strikes take time to plan, approve and implement. For example, nearly two weeks passed before U.S. cruise missiles struck targets in Afghanistan and Sudan following the Aug. 7, 1998, al Qaeda bombing of the U.S. Embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.
Even an organization such as Hezbollah that has created contingency attack plans needs time to dispatch operatives, conduct surveillance, gather materials, construct a bomb and then employ it. Indeed, a review of Hezbollah’s past retaliatory attacks demonstrates a lag of at least a month between the causi belli and the retaliatory attacks. In our estimation, therefore, any Hezbollah retaliatory strike will occur in mid-March at the earliest, though Hezbollah sympathizers not acting as part of the organization could respond more rapidly with attacks that require less planning and preparation.
Because of the lag time, by the time the real period of danger approaches, many of the deterrent security measures put in place immediately after the warnings were issued will have been relaxed and security postures at potential targets will have returned to business as usual. This natural sense of complacency will greatly aid Hezbollah if and when it decides to retaliate.
With this in mind, let’s examine the recent threats and warnings and compare them against Hezbollah’s historical retaliatory strikes to determine what a Hezbollah retaliatory strike might look like.
Threats and Warnings
Israeli sources have said the Israeli government placed its diplomatic posts on higher alert Feb. 13 following threats of retaliation over the Mughniyah assassination. Israeli officials believe Hezbollah is unlikely to launch attacks within Israel, but rather is more likely to attack Israeli diplomatic posts.
Inside the United States, the FBI has put its domestic terrorism squads and joint terrorism task force agents on alert for any threats against synagogues and other potential Jewish targets in the United States. The FBI and Department of Homeland Security also have sent a bulletin to state and local law enforcement authorities advising them to watch for potential retaliatory strikes by Hezbollah, and the bureau has made contact with potential domestic targets to convey this warning. The FBI also is stepping up its preventative surveillance coverage on known or suspected Hezbollah operatives in an attempt to thwart any plot inside the United States.
Many state and major local police agencies also have issued warnings and analytical reports pertaining to a potential Hezbollah retaliatory attack. These departments obviously take the threat very seriously and believe their warnings are highly justified.
Although the attack against Mughniyah raised the possibility of retaliatory strikes, much of the concern is the result of the response to the killing from Hezbollah and its sponsors. For example, when Hezbollah Secretary General Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah spoke at Mughniyah’s funeral, he said Mughniyah’s assassination is a further incentive to proceed with the jihad against Israel and that the timing, location and method of Mughniyah’s assassination indicate that the state of Israel (referred to as Zionists by Nasrallah) wants open war. Nasrallah then said, “Zionists, if you want this kind of open war, let the whole world listen: Let this war be open.”
Hezbollah lawmaker Ismail Sukeyir said, “Hezbollah has the right to retaliate anywhere in the world and in any way it sees fit.” Hezbollah leader in South Lebanon Sheikh Nabil Kauk is reported to have said, “It won’t be long before the conceited Zionists realize that Imad Mughniyah’s blood is extremely costly, and it makes history and brings about a new victory.”
Hezbollah was not the only organization to make threats. Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) commander-in-chief Gen. Mohammad Ali Jafari reportedly noted in a condolence letter to Nasrallah, “In the near future, we will witness the destruction of the cancerous existence of Israel by the powerful and competent hands of the Hezbollah combatants.” Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said in Damascus on Feb. 15 that Mughniyah’s death had breathed new life into Islamic resistance and vigilance.
Although Hezbollah has not conducted an attack outside of the region in many years, it possesses the infrastructure, capability and talent to do so today. As we have said, we believe that Hezbollah is a far more capable and dangerous organization than al Qaeda at the present time. That said, Hezbollah has changed considerably since the 1980s. It no longer is just an amorphous resistance organization. Rather, it is a legitimate political party and a significant player in Lebanese politics. Some believe this change in Hezbollah’s nature will change its behavior and that it will not conduct retaliatory strikes as it did following the 1992 Israeli assassination of Hezbollah Secretary General Sheikh Abbas al-Musawi. However, Hezbollah and its supporters have issued nearly continuous and very vocal calls for retribution for the Mughniyah assassination. Some U.S. counterterrorism sources have even characteriz ed these cries as “unprecedented.” Certainly they are more strident and numerous than those following the loss of any Hezbollah cadre member in recent memory.
Such an outcry is significant because it places a considerable amount of pressure on the Hezbollah leadership to retaliate. Indeed, Hezbollah may be concerned that it is now has infrastructure that can be attacked, but its survival of sustained airstrikes during the 2006 conflict with Israel could lead it to believe its infrastructure can weather Israeli retaliatory strikes. However, we believe it is unlikely at this point that Hezbollah will do anything that it calculates will precipitate another all-out war with Israel.
In addition to the pressure being created by the cries for retribution, another factor, reciprocity, will help to shape Hezbollah’s response. Although reciprocity generally relates to diplomatic relations and espionage/counterespionage operations, the concept will figure prominently in any strikes to avenge the death of Mughniyah.
Perhaps one of the best historical examples of reciprocity is the response to the Feb. 16, 1992 al-Musawi assassination. Following a 30-day mourning period, Hezbollah operatives destroyed the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires with a vehicle-borne improvised explosive device (VBIED) on March 17, killing 29 people and injuring hundreds. The team that conducted the attack was assisted by the Iranian Embassy, but reportedly was directed by Mugniyah, who was an early pioneer in the use of VBIEDs and a master of their construction and deployment.
Another case of reciprocity began June 2, 1994, when Israeli forces, responding to an increase in Hezbollah ambush activity along the border, launched a major airstrike targeting Hezbollah’s Ein Dardara training camp in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley. The strike destroyed the camp and reportedly killed 30 to 50 Hezbollah personnel. That raid came two weeks after Israeli forces abducted Mustafa Al Dirani, a leader with the Hezbollah-affiliated Amal militia and the person who allegedly provided the intelligence Israel needed for the Ein Dardara strike.
Comment by h peskin — March 6, 2008 @ 10:41 pm
Hi, Ted.
This thread is like the Energizer(R) Bunny — it keeps going and going!
According to your Moslem/ Obama apologist emailer,
I was shocked and dismayed
that there was a man of “enormous influence” going around, planning to “convert or kill all the Jews”, so I Google(R)ed “‘John Hagee’ Jews”. The first hit was
http://www.pfo.org/jonhagee.htm, which reads:
THE OTHER GOSPEL
OF JOHN HAGEE
CHRISTIAN ZIONISM AND ETHNIC SALVATION
by G. Richard Fisher
“An astonishing and horrible thing has been committed in the land; The prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests rule by their own power; And my people love to have it so. But what will you do in the end?” (Jeremiah 5:30-31).
“For I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek” (Romans 1:16).
So much for Hagee’s planning to “convert” the Jews. If our emailer is correct, then, Hagee must be planning to kill them all — using, no doubt, his “enormous influence”! If you come across something in your research that shines light on how he plans to do this, please let me know so I can notify Mossad. With all Hagee’s “enormous influence”, no doubt he plans to bombard Israel with asteroids, while causing the Sun and Moon to stray from their courses.
I am eagerly awaiting further word on this shocking revelation :-O .
Distressingly, Shock-and-Awedly yours,
BlandOatmeal
Comment by BlandOatmeal — March 7, 2008 @ 12:46 am
shalom Oat,I would expect you to stick up for the reform as they are almost indistinguishable from some denominations of Christianity. As A matter of fact Most Christians would feel much at home with nuance in a reform Temple. that sid I can’t follow all your criticisms without specific ref, as I am too tired now to go through every thing I wrote. that said when I mention classic Judaism I am referring to Judaism before the emancipation which is only around 300 years plus minus. There are many cultural traditions in Judaism depending on the country I have no quarrel I feel more comfortable in some congregations and less so in others but there is a larger degree of commonality among them than with the reform which like Christianity jettisoned anything that they felt was cumbersome and a hindrance to assimilation in the majority culture. Classical Judaism whether Ashkenazim or Sephardi A- believe in God B Believe the the Torah was given at Sinai by God the Jewish people Through revelation and the Reform do not.C-Classical Judaism is based on the covenant of Abraham, Isaak and Jacob the Reform is of the Mosaic, tradition. Big difference here. Reform Judaism emphasizes ethical Judaism as opposed to faith and belief in God, Everybody got ethics and Jewish ethics hold no greater value than most other belief s and religions, What set Judaism apart as you know is the Jews
willingness to take on the Yoke of Torah and keep the commandments and to love God, The reform does not even recognize the concept of God and the divinity of the law therefore I say that they ae Jews ony in the national sense but not in the religious. They are the major cause of assimilation today of American Jews. contrary to common perception most Jews to not convert to Christianity Buddhism is number 1 choice of young Jews.
As a person of faith JC aside for the moment you accept I believe the Tanach and accept the basis of the divinity of the Torah. The Reform either do not or are very vague about it, most think it a folk tale, so you and I may have more in common with you than I do with a reform Jew at least in the belief part. But as I said Judaism is not a religion per se it is a way of life the gives a guide which is all encompassing as to how one lives his life. its not an easy task. But you know all of this ?
Tell me are the Mormons Christians? are seventh day adventists Christian? I know pretty much what most denominations think about those two sects and for us Reform Judaism is viewed in a similar manner. We are willing to accept deviations in form but not of substance (conflict of form over substance)Reform Changed Substance. Judaism is not democratic it is quite dictatorial but allows ea. of us free will to do or not to do. Our position is If you want to change then Change but don’t call it Judaism!
The following audio tapes explain it much better than a non observant sinner like me but all the basics and principles I believe are included here. These are for HP as well.let me know your critique and or criticism after you listen to them.
mms://stream.simpletoremember.com/simpletoremember/misc/Rational_Approach_Divine_Origin_Torah.mp3
http://www.simpletoremember.com/audio/anti-missionary-mp3s.htm
mms://stream.simpletoremember.com/simpletoremember/misc/Rational_Approach_Divinity_Oral_Tradition.mp3
http://www.simpletoremember.com/audio/index.htm
Comment by yamit82 — March 7, 2008 @ 12:54 am
mms://stream.simpletoremember.com/simpletoremember/misc/Rational_Approach_Divinity_Oral_Tradition.mp3
mms://stream.simpletoremember.com/simpletoremember/misc/Rational_Approach_Divinity_Oral_Tradition.mp3
Comment by yamit82 — March 7, 2008 @ 1:03 am
BlandOatmeal and HPesky
The path to Orthodoxy is long and labyrinthine. Does G-d exist? Did He give the Torah? Did He also provide an oral tradition? Like many Jews rediscovering their heritage, I had to confront and resolve each of these challenges. Eventually, we pre-ba’alei tshuva arrive at the denominational crossroads. Convinced of the Torah’s Divine origin and aware that, to be decipherable, the Pentateuch must have been given with an oral explanation, I sought the Jewish movement in possession of that ancient Mesorah.
Identifying the Historical Trunk
Working chronologically, I began with the Orthodox. About two thousand years before the Reform and Conservative movements arrived on the scene, Orthodox sages recorded the claim that the oral tradition was received from G-d at Sinai in 1312 B.C.E. and passed down intact to the sages of the Mishna.[1] Later talmudic texts affirm belief in a G-d-given oral tradition[2], as do the writings of medieval and post-medieval Orthodox scholars.[3] Although the Sadducees and Karaites rejected the oral tradition of the Orthodox, secular scholars concur that these groups were short-lived splinters off the historical mainstream of Orthodoxy.[4] Until today, Orthodoxy claims, the oral tradition has been passed intact, parent-to-child and teacher-to-student.[5] Theoretically, the Orthodox could possess the original oral tradition.
The Reform Branch
The second-oldest extant Jewish movement is Reform. The grandfather of Reform was Moses Mendelssohn (1729-1786). Although Mendelssohn never publicly rejected the Torah’s or the oral tradition’s Divine origin, perhaps portentously, four out of six of Mendelssohn’s surviving children converted to Christianity.[6] In a parallel event, one of Mendelssohn’s greatest students, David Friedlander (1765-1834), wrote to Pastor Teller, Counsellor of the Prussian Ministry of Religion, on behalf of himself and several other Jewish householders, offering to join the Lutheran Church. Only after Pastor Teller rejected Friedlander’s request for conversion did this student of Mendelssohn set himself to the task of reforming his own religion.[7]
What Mendelssohn hesitated to say publicly about Mesorah, Abraham Geiger (1810-1874), the most influential of Reform’s second generation, boldly proclaimed. In 1837, Geiger called the first Reform rabbinical conference in Wiesbaden, Germany, and declared: “The Talmud must go, the Bible, that collection of mostly so beautiful and exalted human books, as a divine work must also go.”[8] With this declaration, Reform became the first known group in more than 3,100 years of Jewish history to deny the Torah’s divine origin.[9] The Reform rejected the Mesorah.
Shortly after Geiger organized German Reform, his American counterpart, Isaac Mayer Wise (1819-1900) launched the movement in the New World. In an 1850 debate at the Charleston synagogue, he declared that he didn’t believe in a personal messiah or in bodily resurrection[10], both of which were pillars of the Jewish oral tradition.[11] In 1857, Wise published a new prayerbook which omitted the traditional prayers for a return to Zion, the rebuilding of the Temple, etc., paving the way for Reform’s official declaration of anti-Zionism in the Pittsburgh Platform of 1885.[12] Wise went on to found the Reform seminary, Hebrew Union College; and at their first graduation ceremony in 1883, Wise served “Little Neck Clams, Fillet de Boef, Salade de Shrimps, Grenouiles (frogs legs) a la Creme, and Ice Cream.”[13]
In mid-November, 1885, Dr. Kaufman Kohler convened the Pittsburgh conference of Reform leaders, hoping to formally establish official Reform positions on a range of subjects. Kohler attempted to set the conference’s tone and direction with statements like, “We consider their [the Holy scripture’s] composition, their arrangements and their entire contents as the work of men, betraying in their conceptions of the world shortcomings of their age;”[14] and “We must discard the idea as altogether foreign to us, that marriage with a Gentile is not legal.”[15] In his opening statement to the conference, Kohler told the assembly:
I do not for a moment hesitate to say it right here and in the face of the entire Jewish world that… circumcision is a barbarous cruelty which disfigures and disgraces our ancestral heirloom and our holy mission as priests among mankind. The rite is a national remnant of savage African life… Nor should children born of intermarriage be viewed any longer exclusively by the primitive national standard which determines the racial character of the child only by the blood of the mother… I can no longer accept the fanciful and twisted syllogisms of Talmudic law as binding for us… I think, if anywhere, here we ought to have the courage to emancipate ourselves from the thralldom of Rabbinical legality.[16]
With few modifications, the conference unanimously adopted Dr. Kohler’s proposed Pittsburg Platform. The Reform movement thus accepted “as binding only the moral laws” of Judaism, rejecting, “all such as not adapted to the views and habits of modern civilization.” The Platform swept away Jewish dietary laws because “they fail to impress the modern Jew.” Kohler was then selected to be President of the Hebrew Union College, and a year later he declared, “There is no justification whatsoever for… the most precious time of the student to be spent upon Halakhic discussions… [and] the inane discussions that fill so many pages of the Babylonian Gemarah.”[17] Under Kohler, the HUC preparatory department required no Talmud study, although students were asked to take courses in New Testament and Koran.[18] Kohler referred to Reform Jewry as “We who are no longer bound to the Shulhan Aruk.” [19] Within Reform circles, the Mesorah was then not only lost; it was anathema.
By 1972, Reform had drifted to the extreme. A survey commissioned that year by the Central Conference of American [Reform] Rabbis, reported that “Only one in ten [Reform] rabbis states that he believes in G-d ‘in the more or less traditional Jewish sense.’”[20] The remaining ninety-percent classified their faith with terms like: “Agnostic;” “Atheist;” “Bahai in spirit, Judaic in practice;” “Polydoxist;” “Religious Existentialist;” and “Theological Humanist.”[21] During the 1990 Central Conference of American [Reform] Rabbis’ debate on the ordination of professed homosexuals, an HUC professor reminded the committee that Leviticus 18 calls homosexual acts an abomination; but a member of the majority easily disposed of his objection, saying, “It’s pretty late in the day for scripture to be invoked in CCAR debates.”[22] The same year, about 25 percent of Reform leaders under age 40 had married gentiles.[23] By 1991, the overall intermarriage rate among Reform Jews had topped 60 percent.[24]
The Conservative Sub-Branch
A debate had long raged among Reform activists over the pace at which Judaism should evolve. While Abraham Geiger felt reformers should actively lead the community away from outdated beliefs and practices, his colleague Zacharias Frankel, whom many cite as the Conservative movement’s intellectual ancestor, felt that progressive leadership would build resentment and stimulate rebellion, and that therefore “the reformer’s task was simply to confirm the abandonment of those ideas and practices which the community had already set aside.”[25] Thus Frankel wrote:[26]
The means [of transformation] must be grasped with such care, thought through with such discretion, created always with such awareness of the moment in time, that the goal will be reached unnoticed, that the forward progress will seem inconsequential to the average eye.
This in-house debate continued through the period of the Hebrew Union College banquet and publication of the Pittsburgh Platform. Reform’s accelerating leaps away from Jewish tradition jarred those who preferred Frankel’s more subtle approach, and these conservatives branched off to form a new movement – Conservative Judaism. In 1886, they founded the “Jewish Theological Seminary of America,” named for Frankel’s Jewish Theological Seminary of Breslau.[27] An article printed in the new institution’s magazine declared that JTS would steer a course between “stupid Orthodoxy and insane Reform.”[28]
As a branch off of Reform, the new Conservative group possessed no more affinity for the Mesorah than their parent movement. Solomon Schechter (1849-1915), who took over JTS in 1902, violated the Sabbath publicly[29] and wrote that “the three r’s” stood for “rotten ranting rabbis.”[30] Conservative historians say that Schechter’s successor, Cyrus Adler (1863-1940) “shared the anticlerical bias.”[31]
Reform scholars laud the next head of the Conservative seminary, Louis Finkelstein (1895-1991), for creating “a new willingness on the [Jewish Theological] Seminary’s part to apply [secular] critical method to the study of Humash.”[32] Under Finkelstein’s guidance, JTS organized an essay competition in 1959 on the theme “The Traditions in Genesis 1:1-25:17 – Resemblances to, Dependencies Upon, and Contrasts With Traditions of Other Peoples;”[33] and by 1970 Finkelstein had introduced an advanced Bible seminar whose course description promised “an analysis of the various sources of the Pentateuch.”[34] Finkelstein’s progressive approach to the Pentateuch had instant practical consequences: Despite the Biblical prohibition on lighting fires on the Sabbath[35], the Rabbinical Assembly issued a paper permitting driving automobiles to Sabbath services.[36] Just as its Reform ancestor had, Conservative “Judaism” was unraveling.
Finkelstein’s wife entirely repudiated her faith and dropped all Jewish observances.[37] Finkelstein’s own attitude toward halakha might best be illustrated by his approach to the mitzvah of pikuach nefesh (saving human lives) during World War II. In the period beginning in 1938, when many young German Jews applied to JTS to get visas to America, Finkelstein refused to issue letters of acceptance.[38] According to the Seminary history, published recently by JTS itself:[39]
The plight of ordinary Jews in Eastern Europe did not occupy Finkelstein’s attention… There is no doubt that Seminary leaders, faculty and students knew of Nazi atrocities against the Jews during World War II. As a member of the American Jewish Committee and the Joint Distribution Committee, Finkelstein regularly received reports about Nazi atrocities… Although moved by the plight of European Jewry, he nevertheless neither responded to direct appeals to participate in protest actions on their behalf nor involved the Seminary in any public activity about the Holocaust.
The JTS document states, “There is no evidence that the Seminary tried to raise money in order to rescue German Jews by admitting them as students.”[40] Indeed, money was not the obstacle: In 1938 Finkelstein found all the funds necessary to launch the Seminary’s Institute for Interdenominational Studies, which “brought together Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish clergy and scholars for courses on the various religious traditions,”[41] and “during the war Finkelstein sought to expand the Institute, raising money from Littauer, the Warburgs, and other Seminary contributors, and obtaining a $20,000 grant from the New York Foundation.”[42] Finkelstein succeeded in opening branches of the Institute in Chicago (1944) and Boston (1945).[43] In 1943, when asked why he was diverting critical resources to interfaith dialogue while European Jewry was being exterminated, Finkelstein explained that the Interfaith Institute “has evoked such high praise in many quarters, and has done such effective work, that I am sure all of us agree it must be kept open and expanded at all costs.”[44] When the Holocaust ended, Finkelstein’s interest in international affairs was suddenly kindled. Citing a letter he wrote to the New York Times on 11 August 1945, the Seminary history boasts that “Finkelstein’s concern for brotherhood and democracy prompted him to extend sympathy also to the Germans, and he urged the Allied occupation forces to treat them benignly.”[45]
Gerson Cohen (1924-1991), Finkelstein’s successor, spent most of his career fighting for the ordination of women rabbis. Cohen was initially opposed to such a radical departure from tradition[46]; but when a JTS-commissioned survey found that synagogue members favored women’s ordination, Cohen did an immediate about-face.[47] Cohen was initially stymied by the opposition of the entire JTS Talmud staff; but he dealt with this problem by creating an independent commission to decide the issue and awarding only one (of fourteen) commission seats to a JTS Talmud staff member.[48] Half the commission seats were given to laypeople.[49] Cohen confided to friends that he would “try to ram the commission’s report down the Faculty’s throats.”[50] HUC’s Ellenson and Bycel observe that “The [Jewish Theological] Seminary – in deciding to ordain women as rabbis – broke dramatically with whatever remnant remained of its Orthodox roots.”[51]
Ismar Schorsch, JTS’ current Chancellor, admitted in 1986 that all of the Conservative clergy’s ties to the past, to the Mesorah, have been broken: “There is almost no common denominator between the profession of the modern [Conservative] rabbi… and the religious leadership of the Middle Ages.”[52] David Lieber, once President-Emeritus of the JTS branch in Los Angeles and President of the international association of Conservative rabbis, offers these (by now trite) confessions: “I do not believe in the literal divine authorship of the Torah,”[53] and “I do not believe the law and its details to be of divine origin.”[54] JTS Professor of Jewish Philosophy Neil Gillman describes the movement’s position more eloquently: “The biblical account of revelation is classic myth… Torah then represents the canonical statement of our myth.”[55]
And, again, disconnection from the Mesorah has practical consequences. At the 1980 convention of Conservative rabbis, Harold Kushner, one of the movements most influential leaders, offered these sober observations:[56]
Is the Conservative movement halakhic? Not “Should it be halakhic?,” not “Would the world be better, would my job be easier, more gratifying if it were?” But “Is it?” And the answer is that it obviously is not. Conservative Judaism is not halakhic because Conservative Jews are not halakhic, and increasingly even Conservative rabbis are not halakhic.
Although it often takes time, lack of Mesorah eventually corrupts observance; and lax observance stimulates spiraling assimilation. In the Conservative movement today we see the beginnings of the spiritual and demographic unraveling that rips apart any Jewish movement disconnected from Mesorah: One study found that four percent of Conservative Jews rediscover Orthodoxy each year, 13 percent move into Reform, and 35 percent drop all Jewish affiliation; another found that 37 percent intermarry.[57]
Conservative Offshoots
The Conservative movement splintered twice, spinning off the Reconstructionist Rabbinical Seminary in 1968 and the Institute for Traditional Judaism in 1985. Reconstructionists, led by JTS professor Mordechai Kaplan, broke off to the left, jettisoning belief in the supernatural altogether.[58] The Institute for Traditional Judaism, led by JTS professor David Weiss Halivni, broke off to the right, arguing that G-d had given something to Moses at Sinai, but that that original revelation had been corrupted and lost during the Babylonian exile.[59] According to Weiss Halivni, the Torah represents only a sixth-century B.C.E. manmade guess as to the original material’s form and content. According to both groups, we do not possess a G-d given Torah, let alone a Divine oral tradition explaining the Pentateuch.
The Final Portrait
Analysis complete, I stepped back to witness Orthodoxy flowing straight through history, reiterating in each generation its ancient claim to a Divine Torah and oral tradition. Reform branched off two centuries ago and immediately confessed that it possessed no Mesorah. Indeed, it intended to reform what it had received. Reform passed its lack of Mesorah to Conservative, who bequeathed the same to its left-wing and right-wing splinter groups.
Today, not only does Orthodoxy claim to possess the G-d-given solution, their demographic performance attests to it. Even in the midst of the worst assimilation in recorded Jewish history, today’s Orthodoxy produces the lowest intermarriage rate (2%) and boasts not only the highest day-school enrollment rate, but also the largest adult enrollment in rabbinical seminaries (over 10,000).[60]
Moreover, I saw that even Orthopraxy-without-Mesorah – Jewish learning and mitzvah observance conducted without intimate connections to the previous generation’s sages (Mendelssohn-style) – eventually decays, producing increasingly assimilated “movements,” until nothing is left physically and spiritually of Judaism and its carriers.
Today, I realized, there are only two groups: Orthodox who possess Mesorah, and everyone else who doesn’t.[61]
Finally, perhaps crucially, I permitted myself a personal immersion in the world of Mesorah. I entered the community of sages and detected what thousands before me found: a profound sincerity that even the leaders among the non-Orthodox admit they cannot replicate. HUC Professor of Jewish Religious Thought, Eugene Borowitz, thus offers this confession[62]:
When the Bible was G-d’s book and the Oral Torah had been given by G-d to Moses on Mount Sinai, there was no question why one should give them reverent attention. They were God’s own communications and, in a time when there no longer was prophecy, the best way one could be in touch with the Divine. When Reform Judaism insisted that the various books of the Torah tradition were largely human creations, that had the advantage of allowing unprecedented innovation. It also devalued the old texts and made them less sacred. A simple experience brought the point home to me tellingly. I was teaching a group together with… an Orthodox scholar. After reading a rabbinic passage to the group he put his book down on a desk, but so near the edge that it became unbalanced and fell off. He quickly retrieved it, kissed it, and put it more carefully on the desk, not stopping in the development of the theme he was presenting. Kissing books, particularly when they have fallen, is a nice old Jewish custom which reflects very much more than respect for authors and publishers. It is related to our belief that our books derive ultimately from G-d – that in loving G-d one loves G-d’s words, the Oral and Written Torah. I wonder if liberal Jews with their sense of the humanity of our sacred literature could ever come to such regard for Torah that – leaving aside their sense of propriety – they could ever think of kissing one of its volumes.
I cried the first time I saw a yeshiva daven ? ordinary, but sincere people pouring forth their hearts in whispered praise and pleas, the way their teachers and teachers’ teachers had for centuries. I was dumbfounded watching Orthodox businessmen arrive in the beis hamidrash at 5:00 AM to pore over the daf hayomi – a feat many non-Orthodox rabbis are incompetent to perform ? and touched when I found that they also returned after work each evening to prepare with their rebbe for the next morning’s class. I remember vividly the first time I accompanied Tomchei Shabbat ? an unlikely conspiracy of teenagers, young professionals, and elderly sages ? on their way to furtively deliver crates of challahs, grape juice and chicken to the community’s needy erev Shabbat; and I recall trembling when I discovered that such an organization exists (and has always existed) in Orthodox communities around the world. I will never forget the intense concern that filled my teacher’s bright eyes when, stroking his white beard, he read to me the Talmudic passage, “If a man masters the entire Bible and Talmud, but fails to make intimate connections with the previous generation’s sages, he forever remains an ignoramus.”[63] I will never forget how he held my hand and whispered, “You must always have a rebbe.” It was with this portrait before me that I returned to Orthodoxy, to Mesorah, and to a world of promise and awe – a world in which my children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren will touch Divinity and, with reverence and passion, lovingly kiss their sefarim.
Comment by yamit82 — March 7, 2008 @ 3:09 am
Shalom Yamit.
Were those URLs for my benefit? Don’t waste your mp3s — I’m a hopeless case. I accept the value of tradition, and I love the traditional service; but to my mind, the Orthodox are living in a fairy tale, thinking that all those contrary opinions of argumentative rabbis were handed down by Moshe Rabinu on Sinai.
Look at it this way: I can pick up TaNaKh, and read it plainly enough — in English, in Hebrew, you name it. But the Orthodox say, that’s no good — I have to read Mishnah to understand TaNaKh (now, Mishnah was written about 200 CE). So I got me a translation of Mishnat, and have fought off drowsiness enough to even read part of it. But even if I were to read it many times over in Hebrew, having become expert in that tongue, the Orthodox would say that I didn’t understand anything unless I read the Gemarah.
And should I deign to read the Gemarah, in Hebrew, as it was finally compiled in the Late Middle Ages, this would not be enough; for reading is not accepting; and as a Jew, you ought to understand that one cannot automatically accept everything one reads: I would have to follow the opinions of later rabbis, to decide which tractates to understand this way or that, which to accept completely and which to reject… and so it would be not only with the Gemarah, but with Shulchan Aruch, with the Zohar and with all the other writings which one party or another considers authoritative (not to mention the fact, that the Ashkenazi Galut follows an entirely different Gemarah from the S’fardi Galut).
In the end, my Jewish doctrine would not be considered “true”, unless I accepted the opinions of very recent rabbis, some of them still living. So you see, the Judaism you would have me accept as “Oral Tradition, handed down from Moshe Rabinu”, is nothing more than the opinions of some rabbis alive today! So tell me, what do you Orthodox have to offer that the Reform and Conservative Jews do not? If you truly respected the ancient customs, you would stop at Tanakh — or at the very most, at Mishnah. You claim that “Oral Torah” was handed down in perfection, from mouth to ear, for over a thousand years? Then why did it yet need clarification and refining in Mishnah? And if understanding had fallen to such a low point among the sages that it needed to be written down in 200 CE, where did this great understanding come from that enabled later rabbis and geniuses, some over 1000 years later, to be able to say what their earlier counterparts REALLY meant? Friend, I am respect community and tradition; but why do you take me for a fool? Do you think so lowly of me? You yourself give lip-service to “Oral Torah”, but by your own admission, you don’t practice it. Why should you expect me, a goy by birth and upbringing, to fall for such a farce?
So I appreciate your attempts to convert me to your way of thinking, and you have already explained your motive: You say that by rejecting the Orthodox twist on traditions, the door is open to “anarchy”. I have a saying from my own personal “tradition” — namely, “A lie stands on one foot; but the truth stands on two.” If you try to avoid anarchy by promoting a lie, the order you hope to maintain will topple when the lie is revealed; but if you speak the truth, every lie in the world can assail it, yet it will still stand — it will not lead to anarchy. Tanakh is truth: It does not require a “hedge” about it, neither Christian nor Jewish, to make it stand; it stands on its own; and after all the ignorant men in the world have assaulted it, it will still stand. “Oral Torah” has been in a constant flux for over 3000 years, and it will continue to be in flux.
If a Reform rabbi feels it should turn one direction, and an Orthodox rabbi feels it should turn another, should I prefer one over the other? I say, let them both follow their own inclinations, and let’s see where they end up. And if they do not end up accepting one another as brothers, equally capable of hearing from God, then I won’t follow either of them — for what it’s worth; because as it stands, neither of them really want me to follow them anyway; and neither are you following them.
So much for religion, for now. Good night, good buddy.
Shalom shalom
Comment by BlandOatmeal — March 7, 2008 @ 3:16 am
Shalom Yamit
I see we’ve taken to writing treatises. It takes so long to compose one of these things; that before I’ve finished mine, you’ve cranked out one yourself! I’d like to just quit this thread and move on, but what you say is interesting, so I’m stuck here for a while. Let’s see…
I take this to mean that you were once a halachic Jew, then became religious? But now you say you’re not religious, so it’s hard for me to figure you out. As for Torah having to be “deciphered”, we are light years apart. To me, TaNaKh is plain as day; and all attempts I’ve seen at “deciphering” it, be they Jewish or Christian, have just turned the simplest thing in the world into a bunch of esoteric gobbledegook. If you wish to go the Orthodox route, and devote your life (literally) to years of meaningless study of commentaries of commentaries of commentaries of commentaries, you are welcome to it; but from what you have said in other posts, in which you claim not to be “religious”, it appears you haven’t done this — which, as I said, makes you a little hard to figure out.
I won’t bother going in to this stuff. Correct me if I’m wrong, but this is just a logical progression of the “Oral Torah” argument. Let me just tell you my observation of the “oral transmission” method — it isn’t very good. At best, it remains accurate for a few generations, after which it completely falls apart. The Jews are real amateurs at oral transmission, compared with the American Indians. The Indians did not have television, nor even the distractions of the urban Jewish society of B.C.E. The “entertainment” for young girls consisted of memorizing speeches of the leaders. These would go on for hours, and the girls used to compete with one another to see who could do the best at remembering them, word for word. Yet when it comes to the simplest matters, namely, remembering one’s own family tree, I can’t find one that was accurately remembered for more than five generations or so. By comparison, of course, the Jews cannot compete. It’s been four generations since my ancestor moved from the shtetl in Galicia to become an assimilated itinerant worker in Slovenia. Though my Christian third cousin in Slovenia, who pored over the church records there, I was able to get the name of my gggreat-grandparents — shown on their son’s marriage record. Through JewishGen, the Ellis Island records, etc., I have mapped out the entire clan and gotten in touch with many relatives (we know we’re related, because our ancestors all came from the same shtetle and we have a truly unique surname); but I’ve found that among all the branches of the family, all of which except mine remained Jewish, I am the only one who was able to trace the record back as many generations as I have (and that, through Roman Catholic records!) This is all the more remarkable, since part of the family are cohens and have kept “HaKohen” as a middle name.
I don’t dispute this: Geiger’s was the most extreme position ever taken by a reformer, and his words have been used ever since by the Orthodox to create “straw man” arguments against anyone who doesn’t slavishly follow the dictates of their own personal rebbes. I doubt that there’s a Reform congregation anywhere that fully embraces Geiger’s doctrine, and the Conservative Movement was formed as a Torah-based reaction to that very sort of thinking. What you neglect to note, in all this, is how drastically the Orthodox have strayed from the simple, straightforward teachings of TaNaKh — how, for instance, they have changed the commandment “not to boil a young goat in its own mother’s milk” into a commandment not to eat cheese and chicken in the same meal. Tell me, how can you boil the milk of a chicken’s mother? And even if you could, do you normally boil things in your mouth when you eat? And even if you could, I would be awestruck to see a hunk of cheese start to boil! Note that I’m not criticizing some marginal practice of Orthodox Judaism here — I’m talking about the very focal point of their everyday living. The Orthodox have taken Torah and turned it into nonesense! Can anything the Reformed or Conservative movements have done compare with the Orthodox in sheer absurdity?
OK. You continue along the historical track, then relate your personal experience. As I said, you are welcome to it; yet I don’t see how you call yourself “non-religious” after saying all that.
As for myself, I am completely non-religious. Up until last summer, I attended a Conservative shul regularly for a year of Saturday services; but since I am not Jewish, I never became a member. The rabbi dropped me from the conversion program, because some people in the congregation complained against me about some cultural, non-theological issue (I dared to mention the Shoah without kissing the ground and blessing myself three times, or whatever it is they expected). I have some friends who are “Messianic” Christians, and they’ve invited me to some potlucks and Torah studies. I go to one every other month or so, but refuse to participate in leading b’rachot, etc. I think the last time I fully participated in any religious group was in 1990, though I did visit churches as recently as 1997. I also gave a eulogy at my best friend’s funeral a few years ago; that’s about it. I read the Bible often, of course, and love to read with others and discuss what it says; but I run from organized studies faster than someone fleeing from a rabid dog.
That’s what I call “non-religious”. Is that your own level of observance?
You said somewhere that you were getting tired. So am I — I’m going back to bed.
Shalom shalom
Comment by BlandOatmeal — March 7, 2008 @ 11:26 am
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To respond to several of the above comments, if McCain truly was born in the Panama Canal Zone and is not a citizen, he wouldn’t have been allowed to serve in the US military nor would he be able to run for office. DUH!
Also, it really makes me chuckle how Obama has a hard time admitting that he has white roots and he “identifies” with his African American father who in fact was a Muslim. But isn’t that funny how he is quick to say “I am a Christian” (as was his mother and grandmother) and “I am not a Muslim” (as his father was)…so WHO exactly does he identify with? Muslim, Christian, White or Black? If he is that confused then I don’t want him running our country. He talks a good talk but still talks out of two sides of his mouth.
Bottom line, in GOOD Christian, Godly conscience, I will not vote for ANY candidate that supports the killing of innocent babies. Democrat, Republican or Independent, Black, White, Yellow, Brown or Pink with purple polka dots, I don’t care about any of that…..if they are not pro life then they do not have my vote! For if we are truly “Godly” people we must vote the way God would expect us to vote…that is….PRO-LIFE!
Biden should be ashamed of himself for claiming to be Catholic, receiving Holy Communion at Mass and then standing side by side to Obama, his running mate, who supports infanticide.
WAKE UP GOOD PEOPLE! Evil always masks itself as something very very good….don’t be duped!
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