Stan Laurel's Smile

by Sarah Honig, The Jerusalem Post

Finally, after so much philosophizing, pondering, studying and speculating, the mystery is solved. At last I see the light from DC and realize what 4,000 years of Jewish suffering were for, more particularly why Zionism arose, why Israelis struggled for self-determination and why we keep sacrificing. Our raison d'etre is to not let America down and to make the patron from Washington proud of his pesky protege from Jerusalem.

Click to read more ...

by Caroline Glick, THE JERUSALEM POST

One of the foundations of the free market is rational choice theory. That theory assumes that private individuals generally make decisions that maximize their profits and utility and do so far better than any collective organization or bureaucracy. Rational choice theory stands or falls on the availability of information. Without the free flow of information, people are unable to make rational choices.

In Israel, as the country's steady economic growth and high placement on just about every significant global economic index shows, the economic liberalization reforms enacted by former prime minister and finance minister Likud Chairman Binyamin Netanyahu have been a complete success. The Israeli economy is the envy of a Europe that suffers from stagnation and decline.

Click to read more ...

by R. James Woolsey
Wall Street Journal 5/23/2006

What does one say to a good ally who seems determined to reinforce failure? That the U.S. will pay for the undertaking?

Israel's Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is in Washington, where he will be asking for advice and assistance in financing the withdrawal of 50,000 to 100,000 Israeli settlers from 90% to 95% of the West Bank and major portions of Jerusalem, and for the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) to be repositioned largely near the security barrier Israel is constructing. Most Americans are inclined to believe that such disengagement may be a reasonable step toward toward a two-state solution, even if some territorial disputes remain to be negotiated. It is also widely assumed that Palestinian hostility to Israel is fueled by despair that can only be reduced by Israeli concessions. Those assumptions, however, may be fundamentally flawed.

The approach Israel is preparing to take in the West Bank was tried in Gaza and has failed utterly. The Israeli withdrawal of last year has produced the worst set of results imaginable: A heavy presence by Al Qaida, Hezbollah, and even some Iranian Revolutionary Guard units; street fighting between Hamas and Fatah; and now Hamas assassination attempts against Fatah's intelligence chief and Jordan's ambassador; rocket and mortar attacks against nearby towns inside Israel; and a perceived vindication for Hamas, which took credit for the withdrawal. This latter almost certainly contributed substantially to Hamas' victory in the Palestinian elections.

The world now needs to figure out how to keep Palestinians from starving without giving funds to a Hamas government in Gaza resolutely focused on destroying Israel. Before his massive stroke last year, Ariel Sharon repeatedly said he would not replay the Gaza retreat in the West Bank. With good reason: Creating a West Bank that looks like today's Gaza would be many times the nightmare.  How would one deal with continuing launches of rockets and mortars from the West Bank into virtually all of Israel? (Israel's Arrow missile defense will probably work against Iranian medium-range ballistic missiles but not against much-shorter-range Katyushas.)

A security barrier does no good against such bombardment. The experience in Gaza, further, has shown the difficulty of defending against such attacks after the IDF boots on the ground have departed. Effective, prompt retaliation from the air is hard to imagine if the mortar rounds and Katyushas are being launched, as they will be, from schools, hospitals and mosques.

Israel is not the only pro-Western country that would be threatened. How does moderate Jordan, with its Palestinian majority, survive if bordered by a West Bank terrorist state? Israeli concessions will also make the U.S. look weak, because it will be inferred that we have urged them, and will suggest that we are reverting to earlier behavior patterns--fleeing Lebanon in 1983, acquiescing in Saddam's destruction of the Kurdish and Shiite rebels in 1991, fleeing Somalia in 1993, etc.

Three major Israeli efforts at accommodation in the last 13 years have not worked. Oslo and the 1993 handshake in the Rose Garden between Yitzhak Rabin and Yassir Arafat produced only Arafat's rejection in 2000 of Ehud Barak's extremely generous settlement offer and the beginning of the Second Intifada. The Israeli withdrawal from Southern Lebanon in 2000 has enhanced Hezbollah's prestige and control there, and the withdrawal from Gaza has unleashed madness. These three accommodations have been based on the premise that only Israeli concessions can displace Palestinian despair. But it seems increasingly clear that the Palestinian cause is fueled by hatred and contempt.

The Folly of Disengagement

Israeli concessions indeed enhance Palestinian hope, but not of a reasonable two-state solution--rather a hope that they will actually be able to destroy Israel.

The Iranian-Syrian-Hezbollah-Hamas axis is quite explicit about a genocidal objective. When they speak of, "ending Israeli occupation," they mean of Tel Aviv. Under these circumstances, it is time to recognize that, sadly, the Israeli-Palestinian issue will likely not be the first matter settled in the decades-long war that radical Islam has declared on the U.S., Israel, the West and moderate Muslims--and will more likely be one of the last.

Someday, a two-state solution may become possible, but it is naive in the extreme to believe that this can occur while the centerpiece of radical Islamic and Palestinian agendas is maximizing Jewish deaths. A durable compromise will only be achievable when we no longer, to borrow from Daniel Patrick Moynihan, "define deviancy down" for the Palestinians.

Today we cannot envision the 250,000 Jewish settlers who live outside Israel's pre-1967 borders being permitted to live at all, much less live free and unmolested, in a West Bank-Gaza-Palestinian state. But some 1.2 million Arabs, almost all Muslim, today live in Israel in peace among some 5 million Jews--about double the percentage of Jews now in the West Bank as a share of the Muslim population there. Israel's Arab citizens worship freely--one hears muezzins calling the faithful to prayer as one walks around Tel Aviv. They vote in free elections for their own representatives in a real legislature, the Knesset. They give every evidence that they prefer being Arab Israelis to living in the chaos and uncertainty of a West Bank after Israeli withdrawal.

A two-state solution can become a reality when the Palestinians are held to the same standard as Israelis--to the requirement that Jewish settlers in a West Bank-Gaza Palestinian state would be treated with the same decency that Israel treats its Arab citizens. Until then, three failures in 13 years should permit us to evaluate the wisdom of further concessions.

Mr. Woolsey, a former director of Central Intelligence, is co-chairman of the Committee on the Present Danger.

WASHINGTON – I have a reputation as one of Israel's staunchest supporters.

That reputation is due to several factors:

    * As an American journalist of Arabic heritage, I have done my best over the last 20 years to shatter the myths surrounding the Arab-Israeli conflict – misperceptions based largely on effective lies, purposeful distortions and relentless propaganda efforts by Arab and Muslim regimes and their apologists among haters of America and Israel throughout the world.

    * As a freedom-loving Christian American journalist who had the opportunity to put my own boots on the ground in the Middle East, it is obvious that the Arab and Muslim world is dominated by tyranny, fascism and anti-Semitism – hardly a world we should want to see expanded.

    * As a journalist, I found that Israel was the only country in the Middle East that respected the free press. This again became obvious recently to us at WND when our own Jerusalem bureau chief, Aaron Klein, was prevented from traveling to Syria because he is Jewish.

    * The Jews, a people who have survived the deaths of many empires that tried to destroy them – including but not limited to the Egyptians, Romans, Babylonians, Persians – have only one homeland, Israel, continuously occupied by them for 4,000 years and never a nation-state belonging to any others.

Yet, despite all this, I am through defending Israel – at least the regime currently in power in Jerusalem, this useless coalition seemingly hell-bent on committing national suicide.

Joseph Farah is founder, editor and CEO of WND and a nationally syndicated columnist with Creators Syndicate. His latest book is "Taking America Back." He also edits the weekly online intelligence newsletter Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin, in which he utilizes his sources developed over 30 years in the news business.

“We are tired of fighting, we are tired of being courageous, we are tired of winning, we are tired of defeating our enemies.”

So said Israel’s Ehud Olmert in New York City at the Waldorf Astoria hotel on June 9, 2005.

Now Prime Minister Olmert is due to arrive in the U.S. by the end this month (May 2006). He is asking for 10 billion American dollars to help finance his surrender plan.

Olmert’s retreat plan will make internationally important religious sites (Hebron, Shiloh, Shechem, parts of Jerusalem) both unsafe and "Judenrein" (German word for "free of Jews").

Olmert’s retreat plan is an existential danger to Israel. The mountain ranges and 40% of Israel’s fresh water supply will be in the hands of terrorists. Olmert’s retreat plan will strengthen the world axis of Mideast terror and make Israel a defense burden instead of a defense asset.

The countries of Jordan and Egypt have publicly opposed Olmert’s retreat plan.

Olmert’s retreat plan is estimated to cost 25 billion dollars. 60% of the 9,000 Jews forcibly ejected from Gaza and Northern Samaria are still unemployed; the plan calls for 80,000 more Jews to be forcibly deported.

Olmert’s retreat plan is not the consensus in Israel. Only about 15% of the Israelis voted for the plan (a record low of 62% of Israelis voted, of whom less than ¼ voted for Olmert).

Olmert’s retreat plan will eventually be defeated in Israel, UNLESS President Bush endorses it. President Bush will decide whether or not to endorse this terrible plan by counting phone calls, faxes, and emails. MAKE SURE HE COUNTS YOURS!!!!

Fellow citizens, please contact President Bush and say: “President Bush, Please Oppose Olmert’s Dangerous Retreat Plan!” Call 202-456-1111. (You will be asked what state you are from.) Fax the president at 202- 456-2461.

Each of us has the power of ten to affect this situation, by communicating with our own "circle of influence," as well as with the president. There are plenty of people who are willing to participate in this type of campaign, if asked by you, their friends, neighbors, colleagues, relatives--but only if asked. Ask ten people – then thank them.

• Copy this message and e-mail it to your entire electronic mailing list.
• Print this message out and hang it in your school, synagogue, church or organization, or pass out copies to others.
• Call friends who don’t have e-mail.
• Send this e-mail to your synagogue or church religious leader.

Stop Israel’s drift towards unconditional surrender. Don’t let Olmert “sell” his retreat plan to President Bush.

Love of the Land,

Ed Banyai

From a video on the Hamas website: 

"My message to the loathed Jews is that there is no god but Allah, we will chase you everywhere! We are a nation that drinks blood, and we know that there is no blood better than the blood of Jews. We will not leave you alone until we have quenched our thirst with your blood, and our children's thirst with your blood. We will not leave until you leave the Muslim countries."

Naomi Ragen

I  dropped off some clothes at the dry cleaners in Davidka
Square, and then crossed the street and started walking
towards the shuk.  As I walked, I looked at the people
around me: an older couple speaking French,
an Ethiopian mother, swathed in white, her face decorated by
traditional facial tattoos, holding her child in her arms as
she waited for the bus.  A young couple, very trendy and
lean, speaking an animated Russian. Israeli soldiers.  A
very, very elderly man in a colorful embroidered Bukharin
skullcap. A young Muslim woman, swathed in a headcovering
and long dress in a lively blue, standing on line waiting to
buy a falafel.

Click to read more ...

My wife of 33 years accepted God's invitation to join Him in heaven last Wednesday. I am so happy that she is out of pain, even as I miss her. For more information, see www.nomiorr.com.

Joel Orr, A.I.S.H. webmaster 

From: Yekutiel Ben Yakov <mishallyisrael@yahoo.com>
To: A.I.S.H.

Date: Thu, 30 Mar 2006 16:58:58 -0800 (PST)
Subject: Help sponsor dogs to stop terror in Israel

 
Urgent Appeal: Help IBF Save Lives in Israel
 
Tonight another 4 Jews were murdered in Israel by an Arab terrorist suicide bomber, who boarded a Jewish car disguised as a Jewish hitchhiker.
 
Our sincere condolences must be extended to the families of the victims. At this time, all of us must make a commitment to do everything within our power to stop such heinous attacks in the future.
 
I.B.F. – Israel's Best Friend is a unique life-saving association that sponsors special bomb detection and patrol dogs, as well as their volunteer handlers to help detect terrorists and their deadly bombs in Israel.
 
The sponsorship and training of a team consisting of a dog and handler cost 10,000 dollars. IBF has already sent dozens of dogs and handlers to Israel and has already helped prevent at least 4 terrorist attacks by assisting the Army and local security patrols in early detection of terrorist movement or by assisting the IDF in tracking after fugitive terrorists.
 
IBF has now embarked upon a unique breeding program and has imported a new breed of tracking dog to Israel, known as the Plot hound. The maintenance and training of these dogs is a costly venture.
 
IBF is currently financing a medical response vehicle that will transport medics, dogs and handlers quickly onto the scene of attacks where they can be extremely useful in treating the wounded as well as tracking down terrorists before they murder more innocent people. IBF volunteers have already arrived on the scene of such attacks on many occasions before other medical units have arrived. In a recent attack, near Migdalim, Tal, a young volunteer medic arrived on the scene together with his dog that was trained by IBF trainers and helped treat the wounded, arriving before anyone else.
 
We have brave and courageous wonderful volunteers and we have the expertise to train these special anti-terror canines. Please help us sponsor more dogs and handlers.
We urge you to make a generous contribution to IBF – Israel's Best Friend.
If you can't afford to sponsor a team for 10,000 dollars then send whatever you can afford. We desperately need your help and we are grateful for any and all help you can offer us.
 
You can call Jack Bender for more information: 1- 888 663 9297
You can also call Ed Banyai for more information: 1- 757 857 4708
 
Your 501c3 tax deductible contributions can be sent now to
Americans and Israelis Strength and Honor - A.I.S.H.
6839 Woodridge Drive
Norfolk Virginia 23518

A.I.S.H. works closely with Israel's Best Friend, a non-profit organization dedicated to providing guard dogs for those who need them in Israel. Our president, Ed Banyai, is on their board

The IBF kennel, based in Tapuach, Israel, has not had a safe vehicle for transporting the dogs, and also for use as an emergency ambulance for people, for some time. "When they picked me up from my hotel in Jerusalem to take me to Tapuach," said the A.I.S.H. attorney, NK, "I could smell a dangerous level of exhaust fumes - bad for people and dogs."

The team has located a used vehicle - a 2001 Toyota - in excellent shape. They've put a deposit on it, but need $5000 more to make the acquisition.

If you can help with any amount, please call Ed at 757-857-4708 and let him know. He will tell you where to send your check. A.I.S.H. is an IRS-approved non-profit charity; all gifts are tax-deductible, and we will issue you a receipt.

Please help! Call Ed: 757-857-4708.