I*Consult

Responses to The New York Times' Nicolas Kristof

noreply@blogger.com (Lenny Ben-David -Director of I*Consult, Inc.) — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 13:41:00 +0000

Blogs serve an important purpose: Bloggers can blow off steam, particularly when it's so hard to get any column inches in the mainstream press. Another pressure valve is the "talkback" feature that follows many online newspaper items. Frankly, they're a waste of time and effort, but sometimes it's the only way to get something off your chest. Such is the case this week with many angry readers of The New York Times' Nicolas Kristof's column this week on the "Israeli colony" in Hebron.

I'm not the only one to use the blog and the "talk-back" feature to respond to Kristof. Read Prof. Gerald Steinberg's response on the NGO Monitor site. A particularly poignant response was written by Stephen Flatow, father of 20-year-old Alisa who was killed by a Palestinian bus bomb in 1995. There's also an important response by David Wilder, spokesman for the Jewish community in Hebron. Wilder revealed that while Kristof toured Hebron with B'Tzelem, one of the most vociferous and tendentious pro-Palestinian organizations in Israel, the columnist satisfied his "journalistic objectivity" by merely giving Wilder a phone call.

Below are excerpts from my own response to Kristof.

Mr. Kristof -- The Israelis you cite are either from the extreme left who deny any Jewish right to the Jewish historical sites in Judea/Samaria (the West Bank) or those on the right in Hebron who find themselves on the front lines. Their views are molded by the intense pressure of their lives.

Most Israelis, however, are anchored in the center, and that is certainly the case for the hundreds of thousands who, like myself, live in the post-1967 areas and for their extended families and friends in pre-67 Israel.

You find the idea of Jews living in their second holiest city, Hebron, illegal or “utterly impractical.” Sorry, Mr. Kristof, many Jews want the right to visit the Tomb of the Patriarchs, something denied to Jews after the 1929 massacre of Hebron’s Jews. Many of those closed shops you referred to were once Jewish properties.

Don’t apply the “utterly impractical” standard to Israel. The state never would have been founded in 1948 according to your standards.

You claim one-third of settlement land is privately owned by Palestinians. Not according to the Israeli Supreme Court — the paragon of justice, decency, fairness loved by Israel’s left — that allowed the construction of settlements on “state land.” When a settlement was built on private land, the court ordered it removed immediately. (The Elon Moreh case.)

The delay of sick Palestinians in ambulances at checkpoints is tragic, but the use of those ambulances to ferry explosives used by suicide bombers is lethal and criminal. I’m not surprised they get delayed at checkpoints.

Mr. Kristof, unless you parachuted into Hebron, you drove on Route 60 from Jerusalem. I use the road every day, and I share it with hundreds of Palestinian trucks, taxis and private cars. Many of them enter Route 60 from Bethlehem. At that intersection 10 years ago a Palestinian terrorist, driving a large stolen Israeli truck, rammed my son’s compact car with his four passengers. Miraculously they survived. The intersection was closed during the intifada, but it’s been open for a year. And my son drives past that spot every day on his way to a Jerusalem hospital where he treats Arabs and Jews. For better or for worse, most roads are open and most Palestinians can travel in the West Bank.

Your portrait of evil Israelis just can’t be complete without the canard of Israelis using five times more water than Palestinians. Sorry, it doesn’t wash, so to speak. A study produced by the U.S. National Academy of Sciences along with their Jordanian, Palestinian and Israeli counterparts ten years ago, found little difference between water consumption in Israeli and Palestinian urban areas. “Per capita water use for urban Palestinians reaches a maximum of 100 cubic meters a year, similar to Israeli use.” The study suggests that low figures for rural Palestinians “is likely to increase with improvement in the level of living.” More telling, however, is the report’s finding that “water losses unaccounted for [theft of leaks] in the [Palestinian] distribution network” reach 55 percent[!]

Lastly, all modern, developed 21st century societies use much more water than developing societies. “The United States and Canada are the highest per capita water users in the world,” according to the Commission for Environmental Cooperation, “…per person usage is more than 2.5 times that in Asia or Europe, and over six times that in Africa.” Cross the border into Mexico and per capita water usage drops by two-thirds.

Update on the LBJ "Righteous Gentile" Campaign

noreply@blogger.com (Lenny Ben-David -Director of I*Consult, Inc.) — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 09:54:00 +0000

Looking For Survivors --Click to read how you can help

Response from LBJ Library

Read About LBJ's Jewish Granddaughter

And Now Back to Lyndon B. Johnson -- Help Make the Case for the Title of “Righteous Gentile”

noreply@blogger.com (Lenny Ben-David -Director of I*Consult, Inc.) — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 18:08:00 +0000

The reaction to the original May 28 blog calling LBJ a “righteous gentile” has been very moving. The site continues to receive dozens of “hits” a day. And at the behest of several readers I began a dialogue with the Yad Vashem in Jerusalem to see if LBJ could be officially recognized as a “Righteous Gentile.”

Yad Vashem’s initial reaction was not very promising:

“The title of Righteous among the Nations is awarded by a special Commission … that operates according to a well-defined set of rules and criteria. The Righteous, as defined by the Yad Vashem Law enacted by the Israeli Knesset in 1953, are non-Jews who risked their lives to save Jews during the Holocaust. In some cases, the Commission also bestows the title on people who did not risk their lives, but took grave risks in order to assist Jews in danger of deportation and death. In latter cases it has to be shown that the nominated persons acted against the law [emphasis added] or contrary to their professional instructions, thus risking severe punishment. From what I could glean from the article, Johnson helped Jews who had managed to leave Europe in their attempts to get to the U.S. and settle there. Based on the article this proved to be an admirable attitude and may have greatly helped the Jews at their time of need, but it seems at first glance that this case is not in line with the program’s criteria. At any rate, in order for a file to be submitted to the Commission we need to have survivor testimony or archival documentation that attests to the nature of the rescue activity.”

In reaction to the Yad Vashem note, I began consultations with several eminent historians and LBJ scholars. Prof. Robert Dallek, author of Lone Star Rising: Lyndon Johnson and His Times, 1908-1960, gave me some valuable leads. After all, already in 1991, Dallek told a Time Magazine reporter, “During 1938 and 1939, Johnson secretly helped Jewish refugees from Europe enter the U.S., through Galveston. I don't know of any other Congressman who did that. Out of 400,000 constituents, his district had only 400 Jewish voters. Something deep in this man's psyche, probably harking back to his Texas hill-country boyhood, made him identify with the underdog.”

Prof. James Smallwood, whose research was vital to the first blog posting, responded, “It is correct that Johnson did not risk his life but he committed illegal acts to save the Jews. It can be proved that LBJ saved some 42 from the Nazis….Indirect evidence says he probably saved about 400. From my research, I agree with the larger number. However, there are problems, since much of what went on was illegal, Johnson knew better than to leave a ‘paper-trail.’”

To move forward on the campaign to get Lyndon Johnson recognized as a “Righteous Gentile,” I am launching a separate website, Lyndon Johnson and Israel. The site invites scholars, survivors and survivors’ children to submit historical accounts of LBJ's actions. We particularly invite the participation of the Texas Jewish community, the Houston Holocaust Memorial, and the Johnson Library. We will present the data to Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial, and with God’s help, provide the well-deserved recognition during the commemoration of Lyndon Baines Johnson’s 100th year, which begins August 27.

Incredible Reactions to the RFK Articles

noreply@blogger.com (Lenny Ben-David -Director of I*Consult, Inc.) — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 22:11:00 +0000

"I didn't know that about RFK!" has been the most common response to the blog and the Robert Kennedy and Israel website.

Make sure to check out Marty Peretz' blog over at The New Republic on the RFK letters and his assassination by a Palestinian terrorist.

On Bobby Kennedy's 40th Yahrzeit: Articles He Wrote from Palestine 60 Years Ago

noreply@blogger.com (Lenny Ben-David -Director of I*Consult, Inc.) — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 18:42:00 +0000

Jerusalem Post, June 5, 2008

Hillary Clinton's horrible gaffe several weeks ago about Robert Kennedy's assassination served as a reminder that RFK was gunned down exactly 40 years ago as he left a primary victory celebration in California. Bobby generated great hope and enthusiasm among America's young, especially those who were opposed to the Vietnam war - not unlike the campaign of a young Illinois Senator today.

RFK was a strong supporter of Israel, and that support was genuine, deep, and heart-felt.

And it cost him his life.

His oldest daughter, Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, told me on his 30th yahrzeit, "He was killed by an Arab terrorist [Sirhan Sirhan] because of his support for Israel."

Sirhan's motives - which were expressed in his diary and trial - were fueled by his anger over Israel's victory exactly one year earlier.

Ironically, June 5 is also another Kennedy anniversary. Sixty years ago, just weeks after Israel declared its independence, the Boston Post published a series of articles by the young college graduate who arrived in Palestine in late March 1948. Bobby's words still inspire:

"The Jewish people in Palestine who believe in and have been working toward this national state have become an immensely proud and determined people. It is already a truly great modern example of the birth of a nation with the primary ingredients of dignity and self-respect.

"From a small village of a few thousand inhabitants, Tel Aviv has grown into a most impressive modern metropolis of over 200,000. They have truly done much with what all agree was very little...

"The Jews point with pride to the fact that over 500,000 Arabs, in the 12 years between 1932-1944, came into Palestine to take advantage of living conditions existing in no other Arab state..."

RFK'S WORDS also serve as a rejoinder to anti-Israel propagandists today. Some revisionists claim that the Jews of the Yishuv outnumbered and outgunned the Arabs in Palestine. Kennedy's eye-witness account is different:

"When I was in Tel Aviv the Jews informed the British government that 600 Iraqi troops were going to cross into Palestine from Trans-Jordan by the Allenby Bridge on a certain date and requested the British take appropriate action to prevent this passage. The troops passed unmolested...

"I saw several thousand non-Palestinian Arab troops in Palestine, including many of the famed British-trained and equipped Arab legionnaires of King Abdullah. There were soldiers from Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Trans-Jordan, and they were all proudly pointed out to me by a spokesman of the Arab Higher Committee... Every Arab to whom I talked spoke of thousands of soldiers massed in the 'terrible triangle of Nablus, Tulkarm, Jenin' and of hundreds that were pouring in daily...

"When I was in Lebanon and asked a dean at the American University in Beirut if many students were leaving for the fight in Palestine he shrugged and said, 'Not now - the quota has been oversubscribed.' When journeying by car from Jerusalem to Amman I passed many truckloads of armed Arabs and even then Jericho was alive with Arab troops. There is no question that it was taken over by the Arabs for an armed camp long before May 15 [the British date of departure]...

"The inability [of the Haganah] to make any long-range military maneuvers because of the presence of the British has been a great and almost disastrous handicap to the Jews... If the Haganah had waited for May 15th and the withdrawal of British troops, there would be few alive in Jerusalem today. Strong units of that body had moved into the hills on either side of that strategic road and repelled Arab counterattacks long enough for several hundred truckloads to make the 40-mile trip into the city... The maneuvers had to take place and took place despite the British...."

IN ONE stirring passage, Kennedy joined with Haganah fighters and physically placed himself in danger.

"I have ridden in Jewish armored car convoys which the British have stopped to inspect for arms. As always, there were members of the Haganah aboard and they quickly broke down their small arms, passing the pieces among the occupants to conceal them so as to prevent confiscation... If the arms had been found and confiscated and Arabs had attacked, there would have been but a remote chance of survival for any of the occupants. There have been many not as fortunate as we...."

ROBERT KENNEDY'S affinity for American Jews and empathy for the Jews of Palestine was all the more remarkable considering his father's antipathy and the views of one of his father's friends, Lord Beaverbrook. As related by RFK's biographer, Arthur Schlesinger, Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr. opposed the United States's entry into the war against Germany, and in the summer of 1942 complained to his friend, Beaverbrook, "There is a great undercurrent of dissatisfaction with the appointment of so many Jews in high places in Washington..."

In March 1948, Bobby found himself on the Queen Mary sailing to England with Beaverbrook. Schlesinger relates, quoting from RFK's diary, that when the young Kennedy told Beaverbrook he was heading to the Middle East, the Englishman remarked that the United States was "a subjugated nation to a Jewish minority..."

Bobby Kennedy was probably one of America's most optimistic and forward-thinking politicians since Franklyn Roosevelt. His attitude is reflected in his famous quote (paraphrasing G.B. Shaw), "There are those who look at things the way they are, and ask why. I dream of things that never were, and ask why not?"

And that attitude was obvious already in 1948 when RFK wrote, "It is against all law and nature that this Jewish state should exist... The Jews believe that in a few more years, if a Jewish state is formed, it will be the only stabilizing factor remaining in the Near and Middle East... Vehemence and hatred between the Jews and Arabs increase daily. But in many cases Jews and Arabs work side by side in the fields and orange groves outside of Tel Aviv. Perhaps these Jews and Arabs are making a greater contribution to the future peace in Palestine than are those who carry guns on both sides..."

May his memory continue to be blessed.

Lyndon Johnson’s Historical Connection to Israel – Truly a Righteous Gentile

noreply@blogger.com (Lenny Ben-David -Director of I*Consult, Inc.) — Wed, 28 May 2008 19:45:00 +0000

The Associated Press published a few details on May 28 about LBJ’s “personal and often emotional connection to Israel.” Based on newly released tapes of the president’s conversations, the news agency pointed out that during the Johnson presidency (1963-1969) “the United States became Israel's chief diplomatic ally and primary arms supplier.” LBJ is quoted in one conversation, “"I sure as hell want to be careful and not run out on little Israel."

The news report does little to reveal the full extent of Johnson’s actions on behalf of the Jewish people and the State of Israel. Indeed, the title of “Righteous Gentile” is certainly appropriate in the case of the Texan. Most students of the Arab-Israeli conflict can identify Johnson as the president during the 1967 war. But few know about LBJ’s actions to rescue hundreds of endangered Jews 30 years earlier, actions that could have thrown him out of Congress and into jail.

The Texas congressman’s district had only 400 Jews, but clearly the Johnson family’s Christian teachings had given him a strong affinity for Jews and their return to the Holy Land.

Five days after taking office in 1937, LBJ broke with the “Dixiecrats” and supported an immigration bill that would naturalize illegal aliens, mostly Jews from Lithuania and Poland. In 1938, Johnson was told of a young Austrian Jewish musician who was about to be deported from the United States. With an element of subterfuge, LBJ sent him to the U.S. Consulate in Havana to obtain a residency permit. Erich Leinsdorf, the world famous musician and conductor, credited LBJ for saving his live.

Johnson Saved Hundreds of Jews

That same year, LBJ warned a Jewish friend that European Jews faced annihilation. Somehow, Johnson provided him with a pile of signed immigration papers that were used to get 42 Jews out of Warsaw. But that wasn’t enough. According to historian, James M. Smallwood, Congressman Johnson used legal and sometimes illegal methods to smuggle “hundreds of Jews into Texas, using Galveston as the entry port. Enough money could buy false passports and fake visas in Cuba, Mexico, and other Latin American countries. … Johnson smuggled boatloads and planeloads of Jews into Texas. He hid them in the Texas National Youth Administration…. Johnson saved at least four or five hundred Jews, possibly more..”

On June 4, 1945, Johnson visited the Dachau concentration camp. According to historian Smallwood, Lady Bird later recalled that “when her husband returned home, he was still shaken, stunned, terrorized, and ‘bursting with an overpowering revulsion and incredulous horror at what he had seen.’”

Click here for an update on LBJ, the Righteous Gentile

As President, Johnson met with Israel’s Prime Minister Levi Eshkol and undertook to replace the recalcitrant France as Israel’s principal arms supplier, providing Patton tanks and Skyhawk jets and Phantom jets. (Pictured: Johnson greets Yitzhak Rabin in the Oval office.)

Soviet Premier Aleksei Kosygin once asked Johnson why the United States supported Israel when there are 80 million Arabs and only three million Israelis. “Because it is right,” responded the straight-shooting Texan.

Another event took place on Johnson’s watch

In 1965, some 100 kilo of highly enriched uranium went missing from the Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corporation, or NUMEC, in Apollo, Pennsylvania, a small fuel rod fabrication plant. Although investigated by the Atomic Energy Commission, the Central Intelligence Agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and other government agencies and inquiring reporters, no trace of the uranium was found. Some investigators suggested that Israel received the enriched uranium. According to a U.S. Air Force report, “In the 1990s when the NUMEC plant was disassembled, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission found over 100 kilograms of plutonium in the structural components of the contaminated plant,” casting doubt on the Israel conspiracy theory.

Carter's Big Mouth

P.S. In a recently de-classified memo to President Richard Nixon in 1969, National Security Henry Kissinger discussed the possibility of Israel having nuclear weapons. “There is circumstantial evidence,” Kissinger wrote, “that some fissionable material available for Israel's weapons development was illegally obtained from the United States about 1965," Kissinger wrote. When Jimmy Carter announced this week that Israel had 150 nuclear weapons, he was clearly violating American security policy. Back in 1969, Kissinger expressed the need to keep Israel nuclear issues secret, “While we might ideally like to halt actual Israeli possession, what we really want at a minimum may be just to keep Israeli possession from becoming an established international fact.”

Ain Breira, and There Ain’t No J Street

noreply@blogger.com (Lenny Ben-David -Director of I*Consult, Inc.) — Wed, 28 May 2008 02:51:00 +0000

Democracy is wonderful but sometimes it needs restraints. For years, Israel allowed every political party that secured one percent of the popular vote to send a representative to the Knesset. The low-priced entry ticket attracted some unusual and unsuccessful parties such as a Marijuana Party, a Taxi Drivers Party, and my favorite, a Convicts Party. You see, in Israel, unlike the United States, convicts do not lose their right to vote. This was truly a unique party where its politicians started their careers in prison.

Finally, Israel raised the “threshold” for securing a Knesset seat, but Israel still suffers from a plethora of small parties who often link their coalition support to partisan demands. Too much democracy can distort the public will and public interest – in the United States as well as Israel.

An example of such a distortion took place in a Senate Foreign Relations Committee some 30 years ago. Sen. George McGovern, never known for his affection for Israel, had invited two witnesses to testify on Middle East policy. They were seated side-by-side, given equal standing in the august hearing room. One witness was the Chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, the veteran and respected Jewish leader, Rabbi Israel Miller (pictured). Next to him sat a representative of “Breira,” a tiny fringe organization representing a few hundred leftist activists. The flash-in-the-pan organization arose to challenge the traditional pro-Israel consensus of the organized Jewish community, and McGovern sought to inflate their importance and amplify their message.

In Hebrew “breira” means “alternative.” Over the decades, Israel often defended itself against attackers, explaining, “ain breira” – it had no alternative. But along came these activists claiming, as explained by one of its founders, “our desires for an alternative to the intransigence of both the PLO and the several governments of Israel.” Putting Breira into a historical context, Breira was demanding negotiations with the PLO at the same time it was hijacking planes, launching rockets and terrorist raids from Lebanon against Israel’s north, and sending a pistol-packing Arafat to the United Nations.

As described by one of Breira’s chroniclers, the organization “seemed to thrive as an alternative to AIPAC,” and McGovern and some members of the press were eager to grant them that role. “What ultimately did the organization in,” the writer concluded, “were meetings that some of its members held with two Arabs who had ties to the PLO….. When the Jerusalem Post broke the story, Breira was finished.”

Today, many of the press paeans to the new “J Street Project” read like re-writes of the Breira accolades. The J Street Project, named for a non-existent street in Washington, is the underdog facing the “formidable” AIPAC lobby, according to the New York Times. Quoting one J Street fundraiser, the Times explained “the group’s aim was to undo the notion that ‘AIPAC speaks for American Jews on issues affecting Israel and the Middle East.’” J Street “will try to erode AIPAC's strength,” said a Ha’aretz report. J Street leaders said “the goal is to take on the pro-Israel giants, particularly AIPAC,” the JTA wrote.

Presumably, J Street will attempt to avoid some of Breira’s fatal mistakes. It will “rein in more dovish participants – a concern that led one pro-peace process group, the Israel Policy Forum (IPF), to maintain an arms length relationship with the new group,” according to one account. Billionaire critic of Israel George Soros was involved in “early talks about forming” J Street, according to the National Journal. But he “is reportedly no longer involved, in part, sources say, because of concerns that his participation might be a lightning rod for critics.”

Nevertheless, J Street is almost destined to fail. The straw men they sculpt and fight against do not exist. AIPAC, the organized Jewish community, and American Jews are not opposed to peace nor to a two-state solution. But they did learn the lessons of unrequited concessions to the Palestinians. They do not agree with J Street’s director who echoes the 30-year-old Breira line on the PLO when he says that there should be attempts “to engage Hamas and to find dialogue with them.”

An appeasement lobby will not succeed.

The New Republic’s James Kirchick recently pointed out just how out of touch “the miniscule group of writers and activists involved with J Street” are with the majority of American Jews. “Nearly three-quarters of American Jews” Kirchick wrote, “do not believe that Israel can ‘achieve peace with a Hamas-led, Palestinian government,’ as J Street's founder advocates. … A whopping 82 percent agree with the following statement: ‘The goal of the Arabs is not the return of occupied territories but rather the destruction of Israel.’”

The Breira historian cited “moderate American Jews” who resigned from Breira 30 years ago. One of them, a rabbi and son-in-law of Rabbi Mordechai Kaplan, explained in the pages of the Reconstructionist magazine, “There is a serious question whether safe and fairly prosperous American Jews, from their comfortable armchairs in the USA, have the moral right to urge policies upon Israelis which could well involve their lives and the life of the State.”

In the interest of Israeli democracy that’s a statement that many can subscribe to. And frankly, it makes no difference if the “safe and prosperous” American Jews come from the Appeasement Left or the Hard-line Right.

Guest Blogger - Avi Berkowitz

noreply@blogger.com (Lenny Ben-David -Director of I*Consult, Inc.) — Thu, 15 May 2008 16:53:00 +0000

Israel, Jews, Catholics and Evangelicals: A Political Perspective

Last month was a remarkable month in the history of Jewish-Christian relations. Pope Benedict XVI visited the Park East Synagogue, a modern Orthodox synagogue on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, during his trip to New York City. A few days later, Pastor John Hagee, founder and President of Christians United for Israel, convened a conference of American Evangelicals in Jerusalem in support of Israel’s exclusive right to its eternal capital. As reported in the Jerusalem Post (7/4/08) Rabbi Shlomo Riskin, the Chief Rabbi of Efrat, who attended the Jerusalem conference, declared that the rapprochement between Christians and Jews “is one of the miracles of the 20th century.” The Rabbi went on to explain that “the Christianity of Pastor Hagee and most evangelists today, is not the Christianity of persecution, intolerance, and Jew hatred.”

The Rabbi could not be more right, and not just about the Christianity practiced by Pastor Hagee and most of his fellow American evangelicals. After all, Evangelical Christians are part of the broader Protestant movement, indeed, its most recent wave, and Protestantism, at least in its post-Lutheran phase, never really indulged in “persecution, intolerance and Jew hatred.” Instead, wherever Protestantism took root, Jews were generally welcome, and more often than not, permitted to build strong and prosperous communities. Such was the case during Protestantism early days, when there was a flourishing Jewish community in the Netherlands, and when Oliver Cromwell invited the Jews back to England. And such, of course, is the case in the United States of America, whose Protestant ethos has made it possible for the Jews to flourish as never before.

To be sure, when it comes to anti-Semitism Protestantism is not a panacea, and its record is far from perfect. One only needs to remember that Germany was also a Protestant country, although rooted, of course, in Lutheranism. And yet, the remarkable affinity between Protestantism and Judaism, or at least between Protestants and Jews, needs to be understood, especially in light of the incontrovertible fact that Christian Zionists in the United States are, in the words of former Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, “Israel’s best friends in the world.” Baldly stated, should we be concerned that our new best friends come from a tradition that is not only philo-Semitic but also dedicated to proselytizing? Is Christian Zionism a gigantic ruse, calculated to lower our guard in order to ensnare us in yet one more conversion scheme?

The answer to these questions is a resounding no, and here is why. Protestantism is animated by a spirit of sectarianism. At the level of theology, the spirit of sectarianism stimulates endless splits and rifts among the believers, who soon part company from each other, dividing into their own denomination. Between and among the various denominations, there is a healthy spirit of competition but also the capacity for cooperation. In many ways, it is this capacity for cooperation which distinguishes Protestantism from Catholicism. Because Catholicism possesses a universal theology, it has great difficulty managing relationships with members of other faiths.

Now, let us apply Protestantism’s sectarian ethos to the political level. In politics, or at least in modern international politics, the rule of territorial boundaries captures the Protestant spirit of denomination. In the first place, territorial boundaries separate the nations into sovereign states even as they integrate the nations into a single international political system. In other words, not only do territorial boundaries stimulate competition and sometimes even conflict between and among the nations of the world, they also facilitate international cooperation. More to the point, the political history of the United States of America testifies with great eloquence to the connection between the sectarian ethos and the rule of boundaries. After all, during the great Western expansion, driven, of course, by the Protestant ideal of manifest destiny, the American Protestants drew boundary lines around each particular territory that they conquered and pacified, creating, ultimately, 48 separate – and at least until the Civil War – semi-sovereign juridical domains. In this way, the American Protestants aligned their political and territorial accomplishments with their religious ideals.

Israel, of course, is a sovereign state, albeit one whose boundaries have not yet achieved international recognition. As such, from the Protestant perspective, our community, the Jews of Israel, is different from any other Jewish community with whom Protestants, or indeed, Protestantism, has previously interacted. In some respects, we have the political status of being a legitimate “denomination.” And beyond that, we are the genuine inheritors of a legitimate religious alternative to the faith which they uphold. Either way, from their point of view, our community is safely ensconced within its proper territorial boundaries and must be respected for its belief code. And who knows. Maybe, with their help, those proper territorial boundaries will be extended all the way to the Biblical borderlines.

Rabbi Dr. Avi Berkowitz teaches at Young Judaea Year Course in Jerusalem and is the Rabbi of Bet Knesset Ma'ayan in Efrat.

Prouty and Spinelli Verdicts: A Fine, a Commendation, and a Walk

noreply@blogger.com (Lenny Ben-David -Director of I*Consult, Inc.) — Wed, 14 May 2008 15:18:00 +0000

The verdicts are in from Federal Court on former FBI and CIA agent Nada Nadime Prouty and her roommate (and one-time sister-in-law) Marine Corps Capt. Samar Spinelli. The two Lebanese citizens were involved in citizenship fraud. Prouty also peeked into secret files on Hizbullah.

Prouty: No jail time, $975 fines and fees, and no deportation (the Feds requested no deportation because she knows too much about American intelligence agencies).

Spinelli: No jail time and a $500 fine.

Federal Judge Avern Cohn blasted media coverage of the case and added that the women had served their country (the U.S.) with distinction. Bloggers, including this one, pegged her as a potential Hizbullah mole.

As usual, the best coverage of the case is David Ashenfelter's in the Detroit Free Press.

On Zero Population Growth, Condi & Condoms

noreply@blogger.com (Lenny Ben-David -Director of I*Consult, Inc.) — Wed, 14 May 2008 06:20:00 +0000

THE JERUSALEM POST

Take your favorite houseplant and do something stupid: put it in the freezer. Within two hours it will be irreversibly dead.

Like plants, human communities and families grow, flower, reproduce and spread their roots. Unless someone does something stupid and attempts to "freeze" them.

On May 2, four ministers of the "Quartet" - comprised of U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, and representatives from Russia, the United Nations and the European Union - expressed "deep concern at continuing settlement activity and called on Israel to freeze all settlement activity, including natural growth."

Rice and her partners are opposed to all settlement activity, not just the planting of a rickety caravan on some wind-swept hilltop in Samaria. They are opposed to building in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Har Homa, to new apartments in the city of Ma'aleh Adumim, or new housing in the Gush Etzion town of Efrat. They do not give any dispensation to Jerusalem's new neighborhoods. They are opposed to construction in settlement population centers despite President Bush's assurances of April 14, 2004 when he wrote: "In light of new realities on the ground, including already existing major Israeli populations centers, it is unrealistic to expect that the outcome of final status negotiations will be a full and complete return to the armistice lines of 1949 [the 1967 lines]."

How serious is that Bush commitment? National security adviser Stephen J. Hadley admitted in a January briefing that Bush's 2004 letter was aimed at helping prime minister Ariel Sharon win domestic approval for the Gaza withdrawal. "The president obviously still stands by that letter of April 2004, but you need to look at it, obviously, in the context of which it was issued," he said. Is the "context" of 2004 different from the context of 2008?

The Quartet makes clear that the "natural growth" of Jewish communities is taboo. That means Zero Population Growth, or even negative population growth. It is a call for no new apartments for growing families and no construction of health clinics, kindergartens or schools. What would that mean for the ultra-Orthodox Jews in the burgeoning West Bank towns of Betar Illit and Kiryat Sefer, where children under 17 comprise two-thirds of the population? The "knitted kipa" national religious communities are not too far behind in the size of their families. Shas politicians could never accept such a diktat.

ZPG = Zionist Population Growth

How does the Quartet plan to stop the natural growth of these Jewish communities? With procreation police? Campaigns advocating birth control? "Sorry," the religious Jews will respond, "we gave at the ovens." In their case, ZPG stands for "Zionist Population Growth."

A few years ago, an imprudent ad agency placed posters of bikini-clad models at bus stations in ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods. Within hours the stations and posters were toast. A few months later, an anti-AIDS poster campaign was launched with a picture of a condom. Incredibly, the posters in the ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods were left unscathed. Why? Probably because the residents had no clue what the product was. These are neighborhoods where televisions are banned and late-night activities do not include watching Jay Leno.

Large families mean larger apartments. Married children mean a demand for nearby housing. The ultra-Orthodox community of Mea She'arim was visited recently by US Ambassador Richard Jones, who showed just how much he was out of touch with his audience when he expressed concern "about where things are built in Jerusalem... Sometimes people do have to move to a different location. They cannot always stay close to their families." Would an American ambassador ever make such a statement in an Arab society where sons traditionally stay close to their fathers and clans?

Incredibly, it is a tragic fact that the government of Israel actually approved the Quartet's road map in 2003, with its restrictions on settlements and natural growth. The Israeli government, which at the time included several right-wing ministers, expressed 14 "reservations," but they have no standing in talks with the US government or the other members of the Quartet. And not one of those reservations included opposition to the "natural growth" restriction.

To use a rabbinic term, the restriction is a gezera (decree) that the community cannot bear.

So why did Israel's leaders accept such a decree?

Perhaps the answer lies in the fact that government leaders who supported the road map live primarily in the tony coastal plain, have few children, or have children living on the West Bank of the Hudson, the Rive Gauche of the Seine, a government-granted homestead in the Negev, or eventually in a state correctional facility.

Compare those leaders with two gentlemen very dear to me who passed away last week. Joseph Black, my father-in-law, made aliya at the age of 92 and moved into our home in Efrat. (Is that defined as "natural growth?") When he died at the age of 97, we were comforted by his six grandchildren (our children) and seven great-grandchildren, all of whom live in relatively new homes nearby. Our neighbor, Ernie Alexander, died at age 85 while we were still sitting shiva. His tribe numbers some 60 children, grandchildren and their offspring.

Virtually all live in Israel, and most live "over the Green Line." They prove that "natural growth" is an irrepressible and irresistible force.

Fascinating and Thought-Provoking Article: Why Israel Is the World's Happiest Country

noreply@blogger.com (Lenny Ben-David -Director of I*Consult, Inc.) — Mon, 12 May 2008 11:43:00 +0000

"Spengler" is the pen name of a columnist published in The Asia Times. He is a conservative writer with an incredible grasp of theology and history. Who is he? What is his nationality, religion, occupation? Nobody knows. But some of his essays, such as this one, are extraordinary. I don't want to run afoul of copyright laws, so I present here only a few excerpts. Click on the title for the full article:

Why Israel Is the World's Happiest Country

By Spengler

Envy surrounds no country on Earth like the state of Israel, and with good reason: by objective measures, Israel is the happiest nation on Earth at the 60th anniversary of its founding. It is one of the wealthiest, freest and best-educated; and it enjoys a higher life expectancy than Germany or the Netherlands. But most remarkable is that Israelis appear to love life and hate death more than any other nation....

Can it be a coincidence that this most ancient of nations, and the only nation persuaded that it was summoned into history for God's service, consists of individuals who appear to love life more than any other people? As a simple index of life-preference, I plot the fertility rate versus the suicide rate of 35 industrial countries, that is, the proportion of people who choose to create new life against the proportion who choose to destroy their own. Israel stands alone, positioned in the upper-left-hand-quadrant, or life-loving, portion of the chart....

In a world given over to morbidity, the state of Israel still teaches the world love of life, not in the trivial sense of joie de vivre, but rather as a solemn celebration of life.....

Israel is surrounded by neighbors willing to kill themselves in order to destroy it. "As much as you love life, we love death," Muslim clerics teach; the same formula is found in a Palestinian textbook for second graders. Apart from the fact that the Arabs are among the least free, least educated, and (apart from the oil states) poorest peoples in the world, they also are the unhappiest, even in their wealthiest kingdoms. The contrast of Israeli happiness and Arab despondency is what makes peace an elusive goal in the region....

In the modern world, where fertility reflects choice rather than compulsion, the choice to raise children expresses love of life. The high birthrate in Arab countries still bound by tradition does not stand comparison to Israeli fertility, by far the highest in the modern world. The faith of Israelis is unique. Jews sailed to Palestine as an act of faith, to build a state against enormous odds and in the face of hostile encirclement, joking, "You don't have to be crazy to be a Zionist, but it helps."...

My suspicion is that Israel's happiness is entirely unique. It is fashionable these days to speculate about the end of Israel, and Israel's strategic position presents scant cause for optimism. Israel's future depends on the Israelis. During 2,000 years of exile, Jews remained Jews despite forceful and often violent efforts to make them into Christians or Muslims. One has to suppose that they did not abandon Judaism because they liked being Jewish.... If the Israelis are the happiest country on Earth, as the numbers indicate, it seems possible that they will do what is required to keep their country, despite the odds against them. I do not know whether they will succeed. If Israel fails, however, the rest of the world will lose a unique gauge of the human capacity for happiness as well as faith. I cannot conceive of a sadder event.

Update on Possible Hizbullah Mole:Despite Guilty Plea, Will She Get Off with a Slap of the Hand?

noreply@blogger.com (Lenny Ben-David -Director of I*Consult, Inc.) — Sun, 11 May 2008 13:06:00 +0000

Since November 2007, this blog has been following the security ramifications of Nadia Nadime Prouty’s arrest. The Lebanese national fraudulently obtained U.S. citizenship and used it to secure employment in the FBI and CIA. Her two sisters also obtained citizenship through sham marriages, and one later married a Detroit restaurateur suspected of fundraising for Hizbullah. He fled to Lebanon before his arrest.

According to the U.S. Justice Department, NNP pleaded guilty at the time to “charges of fraudulently obtaining U.S. citizenship, which she later used to gain employment at the FBI and CIA; accessing a federal computer system to unlawfully query information about her relatives and the terrorist organization Hizbullah; and conspiracy to defraud the United States.”

Prouty’s sentence will be handed down on May 13.

Last week, in an effort to knock down Prouty’s sentence to probation, her lawyer presented to a federal judge a pre-sentencing memo detailing some of her activities in the CIA and FBI. He claimed that she was involved in the investigation of the bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen in October 2000 and the investigation of the assassination of U.S. diplomat Lawrence Foley in Jordan in 2002. The next year, the lawyer claimed, she joined the CIA and worked in Baghdad. His memo also reveals that Prouty worked in Islamabad Pakistan as a legal attaché.

Imagine the access NNP had to top-secret intel working in the FBI and CIA headquarters and then in the various epicenters of Islamic terror.

According to Detroit Free Press reporter, David Ashenfelter, who has been following the case from its start, Prouty “likely will be allowed to stay in the U.S. because of the jobs she held at the FBI and CIA, authorities said.” Read Ashenfelter’s “Fake citizen worked on major terror cases.”

Despite her confessing to accessing files on Hizbullah and her family ties to a Hizbullah fundraiser, NNP could get off and her deportation could be cancelled. Amazing.

What’s Really behind the Screaming Headlines about the Arrest of an Octogenarian Spy for Israel?

noreply@blogger.com (Lenny Ben-David -Director of I*Consult, Inc.) — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 01:51:00 +0000

American engineer Ben-Ami Kadish was arrested on Tuesday for allegedly providing to an Israeli “handler” classified data on nuclear weapons, F-15 fighter jets, and the Patriot missile air defense system.

A few important points of perspective are vital: Kadish is 84 years old. The alleged crime took place some 25-30 years ago (!), between 1979 and 1985. Today Mr. Kadish lives an open, active life in a New Jersey retirement village where, according to a community newspaper, he and his wife open their sukka every year to raise money for local charities and for Magen David Adom.
According to the New Jersey Jewish News, “Ben-Ami grew up in what was then Palestine and fought with the Hagana. He also served in both the British and American military during World War II and is an ex-commander of the Jewish War Veterans Post 609 in Monroe.”

News accounts suggest that Kadish’s handler was the same man who directed Jonathan Pollard. Probably to avoid any issue of statute-of-limitations, the indictment alleges that this Zayde maintained ties to his handler until last month.

Why now?

Do federal prosecutors really see octogenarian Kadish as a major criminal? More likely, Kadish is being used by American officials as a means to loosen support for Israel as the two countries enter a tenacious period of negotiations. This is a pattern of American pressure that repeats itself. The tactic is geared to embarrass American supporters of Israel, particularly Members of Congress, who oppose weapons sales to Israel’s foes, dangerous concessions to the Palestinians, or the abrogation of previous commitments to Israel.

During the last 30 years, particularly, in times of tension, American officials claimed that Israel stole plans for the Sidewinder air-to-air missiles, diverted nuclear material from a U.S. plant in the 1960s, illegally obtained krytron triggers for nuclear weapons, pilfered computer components from Patriot missiles, and used American technology on the Lavie aircraft that was later transferred to China. The 2005 arrest of two AIPAC staffers is more of the same, and they were charged under the creaky 1917 Espionage Act statute older than Kadish. For years, unnamed American spy-hunters have been looking for an accomplice to Jonathan Pollard. Leaks on these stories almost always took place on the eve of some contretemps with the U.S. State Department.

Today’s case against 84-year-old Kadish reflects more the impatience of the U.S. Secretary of State with Israel’s decision to continue building in Jerusalem and in settlement blocs and to retain security roadblocks. To push ahead in the illusionary Annapolis process at all costs, the State Department must de-emphasize President Bush’s letter to Prime Minister Sharon stating that it is “unrealistic” to seek a “full and complete return to the armistice lines of 1949.” With President George Bush on his way to Israel to celebrate Israel’s 60th anniversary, what better way to deflate the goodwill and cut-down the gifts the President is supposedly bringing?

Lastly, in the twilight of George Bush’s administration, a presidential pardon for Jonathan Pollard is again being discussed, at least by Jewish and Israeli sources. Disclosure of another Pollard-like spy would be an effective tool to keep Pollard locked up for good.

The Iran-Gaza Axis Is Not New

noreply@blogger.com (Lenny Ben-David -Director of I*Consult, Inc.) — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 16:58:00 +0000

Iran attempted to establish a beachhead in Gaza much before Hamas and Ahmadinejad.

A new study published today shows that Hamas “is engaged in the broadest and most significant military buildup in its history with help from Syria and Iran,” in the words of the New York Times.

Kudos to the Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center for their new study, Hamas’ Military Buildup in the Gaza Strip.

But analysts err when they focus only on Hamas; Iran deserves the main spotlight. Iran sees itself as a growing regional superpower. As the American military learned in Iraq, Iran will use whatever proxy is available in order to attack Western interests in the region. In the case of the Palestinians, the Islamic Republic worked closely with Yasser Arafat for decades, particularly after the Oslo agreements granted Arafat a foothold in the Palestinian territories. Arafat’s relationship with Ayatollah Khomeini predates the 1979 Iranian revolution.

Former CIA senior officer Robert Baer details the Iranian-Palestinian relationship in See No Evil, The True Story of a Ground Soldier in the CIA’s War on Terrorism. “Arafat had put his entire worldwide terrorist network at Iran’s disposal,” Baer pointed out. “Having been forced out of Beirut in 1982 by the Israelis, he had handed it over lock, stock, and barrel to the Iranians for safekeeping.”

The liaison between Arafat and Iran was none other than master terrorist Imad Mughniyeh, a former member of Arafat’s Force 17, the mastermind of anti-American bombings in Lebanon, the man behind the bombings of Israeli and Jewish institutions in Argentina, and the alleged chief planner for the Hizbullah war against Israel.

Once Arafat established his beachhead in Gaza, Mughniyeh set about to arm it with Iranian weapons – seven years ago.

Click here to look at the invent o ry of the Santorini and Karine-A ships captured by Israel in 2001 and 2002, respectively. It includes the same weaponry smuggled into Gaza over the last year and now being used against Israeli civilians. Pay particular attention to the Grad 122 mm rockets and the 120 mm mortars. Those were fired against Ashkelon last month. And don’t ignore the shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles and the anti-tank Saggers which are presumably now in the Palestinian arsenal and will be used sooner, rather than later.

Israel’s vigilance in 2001 and 2002 blocked the delivery of the weapons to Arafat’s forces. The surrender of the Philadelphi route between Sinai and Gaza two years ago opened the gates above and below ground for the weapons to flood in.

On Cue: UNHCR Settles Palestinian Refugees ... in Chile

noreply@blogger.com (Lenny Ben-David -Director of I*Consult, Inc.) — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 07:54:00 +0000

Sunday's blog posting on the failure to resolve the Palestinian refugee problem compares the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA)'s abysmal performance to that of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

As if on cue, the UNHCR resettled the first contingent of 117 Palestinian refugees in Chile this week. As explained in this AP report, "The refugees had spent months stranded at a desert camp on the Iraqi-Syrian border. They were the first of 117 Palestinians whom the Chilean government has agreed to receive under a plan coordinated with the Catholic Church and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. The refugees will live in La Calera, a city northwest of the capital, Santiago, that has a strong Arabic community."

In other words, these Palestinians never fell under UNRWA's corrupted and corrupting care. They were refugees from the Iraq war, not from the Arab-Israeli wars of 1948 and 1967. As a result, they are not being forced into the anti-Israel UNRWA stage production that keeps refugees in their poverty-ridden state of suspended animation.

Thousands of Palestinians have fled Baghdad in recent years. As explained by the UNHCR, "Under the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq, the [Palestinians] received protection and assistance and enjoyed a relatively high standard of treatment that some segments of the Iraqi population considered unfair. Soon after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, the Palestinians were targeted with forced eviction, death threats and killings in Baghdad. Many sought refuge in neighboring Jordan and Syria but became stranded in desolate border camps."

In September 2007, Brazil accepted some 100 Palestinians who were stranded for over four years in Jordan's Ruweished camp.

Looking for a Solution to the Palestinian Refugee Problem? Close UNRWA

noreply@blogger.com (Lenny Ben-David -Director of I*Consult, Inc.) — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 10:03:00 +0000

The UN Agency does more to perpetuate refugees’ status than any other factor

The cramped house in the teeming Palestinian refugee camp of Daheisha is a hot piece of property. The 60-year-old structure inside Bethlehem is actually worth more than the houses 200 yards away outside of the camp. The house’s occupants are not even refugees from the 1948 war or the children or grandchildren of refugees. What makes the property so valuable, deep in the crowded warren, is the fact that the 12,804 residents of the semi-autonomous Daheisha camp pay no taxes to the Palestinian Authority.
They, like millions of Palestinians, including the children, grandchildren, and even great-grandchildren of 1948 refugees, are the wards of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) and the recipients of free food, health care and schooling. No group of refugees in the world was ever granted the largess the Palestinians receive and for so many decades and generations.

One of the most intractable issues in the Arab-Israeli conflict is the Palestinians’ claim to a “right of return” to homes and properties inside the 1949-1967 boundaries of Israel. 1,327,772 registered Palestinian refugees live in refugee camps in the West Bank, Gaza, Lebanon, Syria and Jordan, according to UNRWA’s annual report. They are a fraction of the purported 4.5 million UNRWA-registered refugees.

For almost 60 years world leaders have grown so accustomed to Palestinians living in refugee camps that they fail to ask two obvious questions: Why are millions of other refugees from historical conflicts like the Indian-Pakistan wars or the more recent Iraq war resettled rather than left to fester in refugee camps? And why in the world are there Palestinian refugee camps inside Palestinian-controlled areas such as Gaza and towns on the West Bank?

Cynics say that the Palestinian refugee camps remain as a perpetual demographic and propaganda tool against Israel. Palestinians are taught in schools and in their media that they will return one day to their purported properties in Haifa, Jaffa and Ashkelon. The mega-cynics claim that the UNRWA structure, with its $500 million annual budget (and hundreds of millions more in “emergency programs” -- $600 million in pledges between 2000 and 2006) and 24,324 employees (teachers, health service, administrative and support staff), is dedicated first and foremost to its own existence and perpetuation.

At what point will the UN appoint and fund an UNRWA office for the commemoration of UNRWA’s centennial?

By comparison, the parallel organization, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees handles millions of refugees at the annual cost of $1.3 billion. One of the UNHCR’s primary goals is resettlement, not the perpetuation of refugee status. “Following World War II, hundreds of thousands of Hungarian, Chilean, Ugandan, Vietnamese and Bosnian refugees have been resettled in a succession of large operations” UNHCR reports. “The ability to resettle refugees in need remains an effective way of offering refugees both protection and a lasting solution to their dilemma… In more than 50 years the UN High Commission for Refugees UNHCR has helped an estimated 50 million people restart their lives. Today, a staff of around 6,289 people in 111 countries continues to help 32.9 million persons.”

UNHCR estimates that 4 million Iraqis were displaced by the Iraq war. More than one million are in Syria; an estimated 750,000 are in Jordan. But, unlike UNRWA, no mechanism is being considered to perpetuate the Iraqi refugee problem – not for a year from now and certainly not for 60 years.

If the UNRWA monopoly were broken, the resettling of Palestinians living in West Bank and Gaza camps could be done immediately on land controlled by the Palestinian Authority – the land called “Area A.” It does not require the formal establishment of a Palestinian state. Large tracts can be purchased from Arab landowners for the construction of major housing projects. Thousands of Palestinian workers can be employed, especially those who used to work in Israel before borders were closed to keep suicide bombers out.

Employing local workers in construction in one small U.S. AID project two years ago provided a major boom to one Gaza neighborhood. Some two million dollars in home improvement loans were provided to 380 families, improving the lives of 1,900 Palestinians, and generating 56,076 person-days of employment, according to the U.S. agency.

By the way, newspaper accounts frequently refer to Gaza as one of the densest populated areas of the world (4,818 residents per square kilometer). Check the stats for Hong Kong (6407 residents per sq. km.) and Singapore (6369). Their population densities are greater than Gaza, but neither country is on the international dole. And if comparing figures, thanks to UNRWA’s health benefits, the Palestinians are among the healthiest and most literate in the Arab world. According to the CIA’s Factbook, life expectancy in Gaza and the West Bank stands at 73 years; in Egypt and Morocco 71 years; in Yemen 62 years. The Palestinians owe UNRWA for their 92 percent literacy. In Egypt literacy stands at 71 percent, Morocco 52 percent, and Yemen 50 percent.

Once Palestinian families can be moved out of the refugee camps into new homes, the ramshackle housing in the Palestinian territories can be razed, making available more land for Palestinian refugees from other countries who may want to resettle in the event that a Palestinian state is formed.

Billions of dollars for the Palestinian Authority were raised by the countries who met in Annapolis in November 2007. What better way to spend that money than putting Palestinians to work building their own housing in their own towns.

U.S. Army Analysis of the Lebanon War:Not Easy Reading, but It Helps Explain What Happened

noreply@blogger.com (Lenny Ben-David -Director of I*Consult, Inc.) — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 18:28:00 +0000

Some Israelis remain angry over the conduct of the Lebanon war in 2006. Reservists believe they were poorly equipped, trained and led. Residents of the north felt they were abandoned and believe today that they’re still not protected from Hizbullah rockets. Many Israelis were hoping that the Winograd Commission report on the Lebanon war would give voice to their concerns. But the Winograd report was so sidetracked by domestic Israeli politics and publicists’ spin that relatively little was distilled from it.

A new study by the U.S. Army's Combined Arms Center, We Were Caught Unprepared: The 2006 Hizbullah-Israeli War by Matt M. Matthews, helps provide a clear picture of what led to the war and of its failures. Matthews also presents his study as a warning to the U.S. Army [blue sections below are excerpts from Matthews’ study]:

After years of conducting successful counterinsurgency operations against the Palestinians, the Israeli military encountered substantial problems in shifting its focus to major combat operations against Hizbullah. As with the IDF prior to the 2006 war, the U.S. Army, at least for the last three years, has focused almost exclusively on irregular warfare. For the IDF, these operations seriously dulled ground maneuver combat skills, particularly among tank crewmen.

Matthews presents analyses of Hizbullah’s development, Israel’s hasty retreat from Lebanon in 2000, and Hizbullah’s planning for the 2006 war. One section cites Hizbullah’s “13 principles of war,” revealed over a decade ago by veteran Israeli analyst Ehud Ya’ari. They were relevant in Lebanon in 2006; they’re relevant today in Gaza, too.

Hizbullah’s principles of war were specifically designed to defeat a relatively fixed, technologically advanced enemy:

1. Avoid the strong, attack the weak—attack and withdrawal!
2. Protecting our fighters is more important than causing enemy casualties!
3. Strike only when success is assured!
4. Surprise is essential to success. If you are spotted, you have failed!
5. Don’t get into a set-piece battle. Slip away like smoke, before the enemy can drive home his advantage!
6. Attaining the goal demands patience, in order to discover the enemy’s weak points!
7. Keep moving; avoid formation of a front line!
8. Keep the enemy on constant alert, at the front and in the rear!
9. The road to the great victory passes through thousands of small victories!
10. Keep up the morale of the fighters; avoid notions of the enemy’s superiority!
11. The media has innumerable guns whose hits are like bullets. Use them in the battle!
12. The population is a treasure—nurture it!
13. Hurt the enemy and then stop before he abandons restraint!

Matthews describes the incredibly complex and unrealistic defense doctrine, “Effects-Based Operations (EBO),” adopted by chief of staff and former Air Force commander Dan Halutz. The doctrine confused Israeli commanders and led inevitably to battlefield failures.

According to [Israeli reserve officer] Ron Tira, the new doctrine inflated the “focus on the cognitive side of war and the media war. Instead of killing the bad guys like in the good old days, they wanted to create a ‘consciousness of victory’ on our side and ‘cognitive perception of defeat’ on the other side.” Commanders need to speak in a simple accessible manner, composed essentially of two things: what do we occupy and what do we blow up. This is understandable.

One of the major problems within the IDF, Tira explained to Matthews, was “the over-zealous embrace of the American effects-based operations (EBO) idea. EBO’s aim is to paralyze the enemy’s operational ability, in contrast to destroying its military force. This is achieved by striking the headquarters, lines of communication, and other critical junctions in the military structure. EBO [was] employed in their most distinct form in the Shock and Awe campaign that opened the 2003 Iraq War. However, the Americans used EBO to prepare the way for their ground maneuvers, and not as an alternative to them.”

Matthews details the massive Hizbullah construction of 600 bunkers across Lebanon. North Korean engineers were involved in the construction, Matthews writes, a possibility suggested by this author last October in a Jerusalem Post article, Mining for Trouble in Lebanon.

Although the Israeli intelligence community believed Hizbullah’s defensive network was based on “Iranian military doctrine,” another source suggests the elaborate system was based on “a defensive guerrilla force organized along North Korean lines.” In fact, the same source concluded that “all the movement’s underground facilities, including arms dumps, food stocks, dispensaries for the wounded, were put in place primarily in 2003–2004 under the supervision of North Korean instructors.” Evidence further suggests that the Iranian Revolutionary Guard was also heavily involved in the construction effort. Intelligence sources concluded that Hizbullah was “believed to be benefiting from assistance provided by North Korean advisers.

It is very apparent that the new Israeli Chief of Staff, Gabi Ashkenazi (pictured), retains much of his tough Golani Brigade esprit de corps. That means he sees the battlefield with boots-on-the-ground and not just from 30,000 feet. Israel’s defense minister and former IDF chief of staff, Ehud Barak, also knows the smell of cordite. Infantry and armored corps reservists are once again being equipped and trained.

Have Israel’s other politicians learned the lessons of the Lebanon war? The on-and-off operations against Hamas in Gaza do not yet provide a clear answer.

Shiite Happens in the West Bank and Gaza

noreply@blogger.com (Lenny Ben-David -Director of I*Consult, Inc.) — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 11:47:00 +0000

Israeli forces killed four top terrorists in Bethlehem yesterday, including Mohammed Shahade (pictured), a senior leader of PIJ – the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Get this straight: While Hamas receives Iranian support, PIJ is in effect Iran’s militia among the Palestinians -- just as Hizbullah serves Iran in Lebanon.

“Muhammad Shahade and the Islamic Jihad in Bethlehem were in direct contact with the Islamic Jihad leadership in Syria from which they received operational orders,” according to the IDF spokesman.

In this case, “leadership in Syria” means Iran.

Shahade was so close to Hizbullah that he was wrapped in a Hizbullah flag at his funeral. Veteran Israeli analyst Ehud Ya’ari reports that Shahade had converted to Shiite Islam. That’s an important development.

Palestinians are traditional Sunni Muslims. For many years suicide was not a prominent factor or religious element in the PLO’s terror war against Israel.

Ironically, Israel itself helped push the Sunni fundamentalist Hamas organization to adopt the Shi’ite Hizbullah’s suicidal and homicidal methods. In 1992, Israel deported some 400 Hamas members to Lebanon. There they were welcomed by Hizbullah who shared their theology as well as their expertise in constructing car bombs and deploying suicide bombers. Under international pressure and after a UN Security Council denunciation, Israel permitted the Hamas terrorists back into the territories after several months, and the Palestinian terror campaign took a more vicious turn.

The Mercaz Massacre -- Three Thoughts

noreply@blogger.com (Lenny Ben-David -Director of I*Consult, Inc.) — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 07:37:00 +0000

1. Pity the poor police patrolman who was one of the first to arrive at Yeshivat Mercaz Harav but failed to engage the terrorist. The inexperienced cop stood at the Yeshiva’s doorway with his handgun drawn, apparently frozen with fear. What dread he must have felt hearing the hundreds of shots from inside, listening as the terrorist executed his victims one-by-one. Maybe the cop reflects Israel’s national leadership, frozen by fear and inexperience when terrorist rockets fell on the citizens of Israel’s north during the 2006 Lebanon war or as rockets rain down today on civilians in Sderot and Ashkelon.

2. Virginian Tech student Seung-Hui Cho was undeniably mad and deranged. His bloody shooting spree through the halls of the university last April had no rational rhyme or reason. Only rage and madness. For the parents, friends and families of the 33 victims of the massacre, the grief is compounded by the unanswerable question, “Why?”

No one needs to ask why Alaa Abu Dheim massacred eight young Jewish students last Thursday night in Mercaz Harav Yeshiva in Jerusalem. Abu Dheim apparently went from one wounded victim to the next to shoot them in the head to “confirm the kill.” Unlike the Virginia Tech parents, the relatives of the Mercaz students know exactly why their loved ones were killed: Pure hatred drove Abu Dheim, not madness. Hatred is not a mental disease; nor is it readily curable, especially when it is a decades-old hatred of Jews and Jewish sovereignty fed by poisons imbibed in great quantities in Palestinian mosques, schools, radio, newspapers and TV. We are reluctant to call this hatred “Palestinian mothers’ milk,” but when Palestinian children in nursery school exalt suicide bombers and babies are dressed as bombers, perhaps the description is suitable.

Greg Sheridan, the foreign editor of The Australian, has an important conclusion that few journalists have realized: “In recent months Hamas has shown how willing it is to sacrifice its own people in order to pursue its war against Israel. However, it is wrong to imagine that Hamas is in any sense a mad group. Its strategy is rational. It is also difficult for the Western mind to grasp because of two elements: its genuinely religious foundation, and its willingness to inflict any suffering not only on its enemies, but on its own people.”

It is certainly no “comfort” for the families and friends of the Mercaz eight to know why they were killed, but the knowledge that a determined and murderous enemy is behind the massacre may provide them a fortitude and strength to fight and vanquish the forces of hate.

3. The doors. It always seems like the final defense against terrorists takes place at the doors. Virginia Tech professor Liviu Librescu, an Israeli and Holocaust survivor, blocked the doorway to his classroom to keep the gunman from entering. He died in the struggle, but his students fled out of windows and survived. In 1972 in Munich, Israel’s Olympic wrestling coach Moshe Weinberg and weightlifter Joseph Romano were killed as they bravely fought armed terrorists at the door, thus allowing other Israeli athletes to escape. And on a Friday night in December 2002, 23-year-old Noam Apter was doing kitchen duty in the Otniel Yeshiva when terrorists entered the kitchen. Under fire, Noam ran to the door separating the kitchen from the dining room, locked it and hid the key. By locking himself in with the terrorist he saved 100 students on the other side of the door, but he died in the struggle.

Why was there no fight at Mercaz Harav’s door? Perhaps it was carelessness that there was no private guard stationed at the school. The fact is, however, that hundreds of nurseries and schools in Israel cannot afford to post guards.

So why didn’t the policeman engage the terrorist at Mercaz? Like the planners of the Summer 2006 Lebanon War, maybe he thought the Israeli Air Force would handle the problem.

More from Jimmy Carter: Pays for Students’ Trip to “Occupied Territories” and Preaches Pure Anti-Semitism in Church

noreply@blogger.com (Lenny Ben-David -Director of I*Consult, Inc.) — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 01:13:00 +0000

Did anyone notice that 11 Brandeis students took up Jimmy Carter’s challenge to ““visit the occupied territories for a few days to determine whether I have exaggerated or incorrectly described the plight of the Palestinians?” To top it off, Carter reportedly picked up a large chunk of the trip’s $28,500 cost.

The students’ itinerary was published in the Brandeis “community newspaper,” The Hoot: “The delegation spent their first three days in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, where they toured Mt. Zion, the Jewish Quarter, and the Armenian Quarter, and visited Brandeis’ sister school, Al-Quds University and its Center for Political Prisoners’ Affairs. Continuing through Bethlehem, Hebron, Mas’ha, and Ramallah, the delegates then slept with host families in the Deheisheh refugee camp and met with Palestinian Authority presidential runner-up Dr. Mustafa Barghouti, Amal Jadou, the U.S. foreign policy advisor to PA president Mahmoud Abbas, and Omar Barghouti and Jamal Juma, both involved in the Palestinian boycott/divestment campaign. The trip concluded with a two-day stay in Neve Shalom, a mixed Jewish-Arab border community called the ‘Oasis of Peace.’”

Carter’s Center is known as the recipient of millions of dollars from the governments of Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, and Oman and from several prominent Arab leaders, foundations and families, including the “Saudi BinLadin Group.” Did Carter really shell out for the trip, or did he ask one of Saudi buddies to spill out some pocket change?

Carter’s Church Preachings against the Pharisees, Israelis, Jews and Israelites

Carter’s infamous book Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid generated widespread debate on whether Carter was an anti-Semite. His anti-Semitism and anti-Israel credentials are now proven in the recently released CD audio series Sunday Mornings in Plains: Bible Study with Jimmy Carter. Published by Simon and Schuster, the CD records Bible lessons over the last 10 years. In a S & S video promo, Carter explains that his lessons relate current events to the Bible.

The following is a recent press report with Carter’s quotes:

“So with impunity, and approved by the Pharisaic law, they [the Pharisees] could avoid taking care of their needy parents by a trick that had been evolved by the incorrect and improper interpretation of the law primarily designed by religious leaders to benefit whom? The rich folks. The powerful people.”

During another Bible lesson Carter discussed the Jewish attitude toward non-Jews. “[‘Uncircumcised’] was an epithet, a highly discriminatory phrase… How would you characterize from a Jew’s point of view the uncircumcised? Non-believer. And what? Unclean. What? They called them dogs, that’s true.”

Michael Miller, a former activist for the Anti Missionary Institute, found that at times Carter actually conflates ancient and modern Jewish history by mistakenly calling Israelites Israelis or Judea Israel. In one example, Carter says, “God would save the Israelites, they would sign a firm commitment or contract or covenant. The Israelis would what? Violate the covenant, break their promises to God. They would be punished.”

More analyses of Carter’s preachings, including his references to Jews killing Jesus, can be found here.