Why Israel is Losing the War -- and How They Can WIN!
BY: Shmuel Sackett
International Director, Manhigut Yehudit
Manhigut-Yehudit@jewishisrael.org. July, 06, 2006

Ever wondered why the same Israeli army that defeated Egypt, Syria and Jordan in 1967 in just 6 days cannot end a 13 year Intifada?
Ever wondered how IDF commandos traveled thousands of miles to Uganda in 1976 to rescue hostages in Entebbe but can't figure out how to cross the street to save three soldiers?

Arab soldiers used to tremble when they saw a soldier. Now they laugh.

Arab pilots used to shake in fear at the thought of flying near the Israeli air force. Now unmanned drones, kassam missiles and katyusha rockets kill dozens of people.

What happened? When did the Arab world become so powerful and the Jews so weak?

You know when? When they switched the fight from "land" to "God".

In 1967 the secular Arabs fought the secular Jews over land. That's a war Israelis know how to fight. But for the last 13+ years the religious Arabs have been fighting the secular Jews over God. This war, is something the Israelis don't want and, frankly, don't know anything about.

Don't believe me? Let's examine some terMS:

Before every suicide bomber blows himself up -- in his attempt to take 20 Jews with him -- he screams "Allah Akbar". It means "God is great".

Yassir Arafat, of cursed memory, always used the term "Jihad". It means "Holy war".

The word "Hizzbolah" means "Army of God".

The fighting arm of the Fatah is called "The Al Aksa Brigade" named after their mosque on our holiest -- yet virtually forgotten -- site.

The Arabs know exactly what they are fighting for. They do not want land. The recent katyusha rockets on Tzefat is not because they want to move close to the holy Ari's ritual bath. The rockets on Meron are not because they want a good spot near the burial site of ancient Sage Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai. They are not interested in living in Tiberias, Carmiel or even Haifa.

The kassam missiles from Gaza are not because they want to occupy Sderot, Netivot or Ashkelon.

They are fighting God.

Read that line again. They are fighting God. The Creator Himself is under attack. Don't think the katyushas, which started on the 17th of Tammuz, was a coincidence. Hizzbolah knows exactly what they are doing. They are continuing the fight started by Titus. They are the Haman of today. They are Amalek. And the existing Israeli leadership doesn't have a clue...

What is needed to end this war and bring victory to the Jewish people is leadership that understands what the fight is all about. Israel needs leaders who are connected to God and who are willing to do whatever it takes to sanctify His great and holy Name.

The last thing Ehud Olmert and Shimon Peres want is a religious war against the Arabs. The last thing Defense Minister Amir Peretz understands is how to fight Arabs who are motivated by religious beliefs. These men know how to fight Jews who are spiritually driven but not Arabs. They had no problem supporting and orchestrating the betrayal of Jewish land a year ago and have sworn allegiance to the flag of disengagement. But fighting religious oriented Arabs? Admitting that this war is really against Islam and not just some crazy guys in Gaza and South Lebanon? Be willing to remove the desecration on the Temple Mount in response to missiles in Haifa? Enact communal punishment against the cheering, Hizzbolah flag-waving mobs in Ramallah and Jenin? Never! The Olmert-Peretz-Peres team will never do that. They would rather sacrifice pure, innocent Jewish soldiers in some crazy ground war than fight in the name of the God of Israel.

This is why we are losing. After 2,000 years God returned the Temple Mount to the Jewish People and we threw it back in His face. After 2,000 years God gave us back the entire Promised Land and we chose to remain in Teaneck, Cedarhurst and Beverly Hills. After 2,000 years God gathered the exiles from the four corners of the earth in order to build a Jewish State in Israel and we turned it into a European metropolis with bars, discos and MTV. This is exactly what the prophet JeremiAH: "I brought you into a fruitful land, to eat its fruit and bounty but you came and contaminated my land... My people have exchanged its glory for something of no avail... they have forsaken Me."

This is why the IDF has become a non-entity. This is why the Arabs are laughing at us. Little "Palestinian" kids throw rocks and soldiers run away. Young Arab men wrap their faces in kaffiyas and send chills down the spine of Israelis and some insignificant coward named Nassralah, who is "bravely" hiding beneath 50 tons of steel enforced concrete sends over 1,000,000 Jews running like mice into bomb shelters.

With God's help, this will all change very soon. New leaders will take over Israel who truly believe in "Hashem Tzevakot" (the name used to describe God with great military might). New leaders, whose every fiber of their being is used to sanctify His great and holy Name, will soon lead the country according to authentic Jewish values and finally, the old Jew will return to lead the IDF. This will be the Jew who fights like Moses, Joshua and King David. This Jew serves God, takes no prisoners and works tirelessly at permanently eradicating evil from the world.

When this happens... when Jews truly understand their place in the world and accept upon themselves the yoke of the Kingdom of Heaven, the famous verse from the Scroll of Esther will once again come to reality; "And the Jews struck at all their enemies with the stroke of the sword, slaughtering and annihilating, they treated their enemies as they pleased." May that great and awesome day happen soon. Am Yisrael Chai!

IDF now fighting to win - will override scheming politicians
imra@imra.org.il Daily digest - VoluME: 2 Issue: 1467 Wednesday, July 26, 2006
Our WorLD: From Beirut to Teheran
Caroline Glick, THE JERUSALEM POST Jul. 25, 2006
www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1153291988255&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

Today US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will meet with Prime Minister
Ehud Olmert. The press reports leading up to their meeting were full of
details about how European armies wish to send their forces to Lebanon. The
reports also noted that Israel will be expected to surrender the Shaba Farms
on Mount Dov to Lebanon in exchange for promises of security.

For their part, Israeli leaders from Olmert to Defense Minister Amir Peretz
to Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni have been demonstrating a disturbing lack of
resolve. Their statements expose a consistent watering down of the goal of
the IDF's mission in Lebanon - from destroying Hizbullah as a fighting force
to weakening it as a fighting force and "paving the way for a diplomatic
settlement" that will apparently include Hizbullah.

On the other hand, other voices make clear that despite the best wishes of
the government and the Israeli left-wing intelligentsia, it is far from
clear that the IDF will end its operations without victory achieved.

For instance, writing in The Sunday Times, former Conservative MP Michael
Portillo told his British countrymen that their hostility for Israel and the
US aside, "The bloody truth is that Israel's war is our war." Portillo went
on to argue that given the threat that Iran and Hizbullah pose to Britain
itself, "for us to turn against Israel and America would be perverse and
potentially suicidal."

STRENGTHENING the view that opposition to war against Iran and its proxies
is suicidal, it was reported Sunday that Bulgarian border guards along their
border with Romania had intercepted a British truck filled with radioactive
materials for building a so-called dirty bomb. The components, which
included dangerous quantities of radioactive caesium 137 and
americium-beryllium, were stored in 10 lead-lined boxes addressed to the
Iranian Ministry of Defense.

According to the Daily Mail, this was the second time in less than a year
that a British shipment of nuclear materials had been stopped by Bulgarian
border guards. Last August, Bulgaria stopped a shipment of zirconium
silicate, which can be used as a component of a nuclear warhead, at its
border with Turkey en route to Iran.

THE CURRENT campaign in northern Israel and Lebanon has brought into sharp
focus the major pathologies and strengths of the West in fighting the
Iranian-led jihadist axis. The British government's push for a cease-fire,
together with the enthusiasm of the UN and France for sending their own
troops to Lebanon to protect the Lebanese from the "disproportionate"
Israelis; the demand of Israel's radical Left that a deal be made with
Syria; and the demands of leftist ideologues in the US that an artificial
deadline be set for the conclusion of Israel's operations in Lebanon all
point to a similar pathology.

As a group, the ideological Left rejects the notion of victory in war for
Western forces (although it is fine for jihadists); rejects the notion that
there are enemies that are impossible to appease; and specifically rejects
the idea that Israel has a right to defend itself against its enemies, let
alone vanquish its foes.

LET US BE clear. The European foreign ministers and UN envoys who are
tripping over one another on their way to Jerusalem are the same European
foreign ministers and UN officials who brought about the misguided American
decision to throw out 27 years of US practice and officially engage the
mullahs in Teheran.

That is, the same European governments now jockeying for a place in an
international force that will protect Hizbullah from destruction are the
ones who have been stymieing American attempts to take concerted action
against Iran's nuclear weapons programs for the past three years.

This is the pathology of the West. For if one takes the ideology of
appeasing unappeasable foes to its logical conclusion, appeasing states will
eventually join forces with their enemies against themselves, or, as
Portillo put it, they will become suicidal.

AND SO, Britain's Department of Trade and Industry can give export licenses
to dirty bomb components en route to Iran.
And so American columnists named Cohen can tell the world that Israel's
existence is a mistake. And so, Javier Solana, the
EU's foreign policy chief, can refuse to acknowledge that Hizbullah is an
Iranian-run terrorist organization dedicated to Islamic world domination
even as its supporters throughout Europe hold mass demonstrations where they
hold signs calling for Europe's destruction at the hands of Hizbullah and
Iran in the name of Islam.

And so Yossi Beilin can say that Israel doesn't need to worry about the
repercussions of standing down while a fifth of its population sits in bomb
shelters, because Hizbullah is just a measly terrorist organization that
poses no real threat to the country.

On the other hand, events of the past two weeks have also shown some of the
West's greatest strengths in fighting the war so many of its powerful
citizens and statesmen refuse to acknowledge.

First of all, the IDF has discarded its dangerous delusions that it will be
possible to win this war by remote control. Today it fights like an army
that knows it is both at war, and at war with an enemy that needs to be
destroyed, whatever the price may be.

SEVERAL supporters of Israel were quick to write off the IDF in the wake of
unsupported statements by Chief of General Staff Dan Halutz and his generals
last week, in which they announced - based perhaps on the tonnage of
ordnance IAF jets dropped on Lebanon - that Israel had destroyed up to fifty
percent of Hizbullah's capacities.

"Israel is losing this war," these commentators moaned, not recognizing that
the IDF is capable of learning from its mistakes.

"Israel's intelligence services fell asleep on their watch," it was said.

But these eagerly defeatist voices do not recognize that the failure was not
one of intelligence, but of politics. Mesmerized by the dovish ideologies
propounded by three consecutive governments, it took the General Staff a
week to understand that Israel was at war.

BUT NOW they know. And now the IDF is fighting well, boldly and effectively
on the ground. Halutz initiated a rolling mobilization of the reserves, and
the IAF has pulled back to its proper supportive role.

As well, it is impossible not to recognize the Bush administration's
centrality in the current campaign. Not only is the US rearming the IAF with
bunker buster bombs, it is making certain that its own public and the
international community recognize that what is at stake here is far greater
than the well-being of Israel's citizens.

As President George W. Bush has made clear, this is not just Israel's war.
This is a campaign of the Iranian-led axis of jihad that seeks to dominate
the entire free world. And echoing Bush are voices like Portillo's that are
heard from Beirut to Sydney.

Moreover, by rising to the challenge Hizbullah, Syria and Iran have placed
before it, the entire Israeli public is setting an example for its army, its
government and the world to follow. Families in the North are stoically
accepting the around-the-clock bombardments and standing strong in their
demand for victory. Families in the rest of the country are opening their
homes to thousands of refugees from Haifa and Nahariya and Tiberias.

As a friend put it the other day, "Halutz has no choice but to win. Israel
is a country with five million chiefs of staff and they are
all breathing down his neck."

FINALLY, the campaign in Lebanon is indeed the opening salvo of Iran's war
against the free world. But this works both ways.

Iran and Hizbullah believe that the ferocity of the attacks against Israel
will deter us all from taking action against Iran's nuclear facilities. But
by giving the West the opportunity to fight it first in Lebanon, Teheran is
providing the US, Israel and others with critical intelligence about its own
installations. The subterranean bunkers in south Lebanon that IDF ground
forces are now conquering were built by Iranian Revolutionary Guards units
and designed by Iranian engineers - the same forces that conceived and
constructed Iran's nuclear installations.

IN 1982, when Israel destroyed the Syrian Soviet-made and trained air force
in Lebanon, it was able to provide the US with critical information about
the Soviet Air Force and its air defense systems that enabled the US to
outstrip both in a manner that all but sealed the fate of the evil empire.
Today, by fighting Iran's proxy, Hizbullah, Israel is amassing information
that will be critical for planning a successful strike against Iran's
nuclear installations.

It is impossible to know what will actually be discussed today as Olmert
meets with Rice. But it must be hoped that now that the US, Israel and other
Western states are acknowledging the true nature of the war against Israel,
they will abandon their suicidal demons and use this campaign as a stepping
stone for neutralizing its chief instigatOR: The Islamic Republic of Iran.

Dump Condi - backlash of diplomacy rethoric
benefit enemy
Filed undER: Front Page, USA, Israel, Palestinians, Hezbollah, Lebanon
Foreign policy conservatives charge State Dept. has hijacked Bush agenda
July 25, 2006
INSIGHT MAG

Conservative national security allies of President Bush are in revolt against Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, saying that she is incompetent and has reversed the administration's national security and foreign policy agenda.

The conservatives, who include Newt Gingrich, Richard Perle and leading current and former members of the Pentagon and National Security Council, have urged the president to transfer Miss Rice out of the State Department and to an advisory role. They said Miss Rice, stemming from her lack of understanding of the Middle East, has misled the president on Iran and the Arab-Israeli conflict.

"The president has yet to understand that people make policy and not the other way around," a senior national security policy analyst said. "Unlike [former Secretary of State Colin] Powell, Condi is loyal to the president. She is just incompetent on most foreign policy issues."

The criticism of Miss Rice has been intense and comes from a range of Republican loyalists, including current and former aides in the Defense Department and the office of Vice President Dick Cheney. They have warned that Iran has been exploiting Miss Rice's inexperience and incompetence to accelerate its nuclear weapons program. They expect a collapse of her policy over the next few months.

"We are sending signals today that no matter how much you provoke us, no matter how viciously you describe things in public, no matter how many things you're doing with missiles and nuclear weapons, the most you'll get out of us is talk," former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said.

Miss Rice served as Mr. Bush's national security adviser in his first term. During his second term, Miss Rice replaced Mr. Powell in the wake of a conclusion by the White House that Mr. Bush required a loyalist to head the State Department and ensure that U.S. foreign policy reflected the president's agenda.

"Condi was sent to rein in the State Department," a senior Republican congressional staffer said. "Instead, she was reined in."

Mr. Gingrich agrees and said Miss Rice's inexperience and lack of resolve were demonstrated in the aftermath of the North Korean launch of seven short-, medium-, and intermediate-range missiles in July. He suggested that Miss Rice was a key factor in the lack of a firm U.S. response.

"North Korea firing missiles," Mr. Gingrich said. "You say there will be consequences. There are none. We are in the early stages of World War III. Our bureaucracies are not responding fast enough. We don't have the right attitude."

Several of the critics have urged that Mr. Bush provide a high-profile post to James Baker, who was secretary of state under the administration of Mr. Bush's father. They cited Mr. Baker's determination to confront Iraqi strongman Saddam Hussein in 1990.

A leading public critic of Miss Rice has been Richard Perle, a former chairman of the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board and regarded as close to Mr. Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Mr. Perle, pointing to the effort by the State Department to undermine the Reagan administration's policy toward the Soviet Union in the late 1980s, has accused Miss Rice of succumbing to a long-time State Department agenda of meaningless agreements meant to appease enemies of the United States.

"Condoleezza Rice has moved from the White House to Foggy Bottom, a mere mile or so away," Mr. Perle wrote in a June 25 Op-Ed article in the Washington Post that has been distributed throughout conservative and national security circles. "What matters is not that she is further removed from the Oval Office; Rice's influence on the president is undiminished. It is, rather, that she is now in the midst of-and increasingly represents-a diplomatic establishment that is driven to accommodate its allies even when (or, it seems, especially when) such allies counsel the appeasement of our adversaries."

Mr. Perle's article was said to have reflected the views of many of Mr. Bush's appointees in the White House, Defense Department and State Department. Mr. Perle maintains close contacts to U.S. ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton, Undersecretary of State for Arms Control Robert Joseph, Deputy National Security Advisor Elliot Abrams and Mr. Cheney's national security adviser, John Hannah.

A major problem, critics said, is Miss Rice's ignorance of the Middle East. They said the secretary relies completely on Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns, who is largely regarded as the architect of U.S. foreign policy. Miss Rice also consults regularly with her supporters on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Chairman Richard Lugar and the No. 2 Republican, Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska.

The critics said Miss Rice has adopted the approach of Mr. Burns and the State Department bureaucracy that most-if not all-problems in the Middle East can be eased by applying pressure on Israel. They said even as Hezbollah was raining rockets on Israeli cities and communities, Miss Rice was on the phone nearly every day demanding that the Israeli government of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert exercise restraint.

"Rice attempted to increase pressure on Israel to stand down and to demonstrate restraint," said Stephen Clemons, director of the American Strategy Program at the New America Foundation. "The rumor is that she was told flatly by the prime minister's office to back off."

The critics within the administration expect a backlash against Miss Rice that could lead to her transfer in wake of the congressional elections in 2006. They said by that time even Mr. Bush will recognize the failure of relying solely on diplomacy in the face of Iran's nuclear weapons program.

"At that point, Rice will be openly blamed and Bush will have a very hard time defending her," said a GOP source with close ties to the administration.

Is Lebanon another ''Amona'' for Olmert to show how tough he is? The illogical frenzy to support the attack on Lebanon

Zionsake Editor July 20, 2006


I fail to comprehend the logic of the present frenzy to support the Olmert government's attack on Lebanon as if they know what they are doing, as we clearly saw they don't, from their failure to deal with the rocket attacks from Gaza. The government is known to consist of schemers and opportunists who do things for other reasons than for the good of Israel, so why not stop for a moment to assess whether the way they tackled the Hizb'Allah problem is actually going to achieve anything!

From the start PM-by-default Olmert correctly pointed out that Syria is actually the root of the problem, but that it is up to the international community to deal with the Assad regime. Which international entity would actually have an interest in dealing with Damascus, even though the Assad regime needs to be dealt with? It is yet again a manifestation of the lame Israeli policy to entrust others who don't have Israel's best interest at heart, to take care of security on her behalf, like the PA and Egypt.

To now destroy Lebanon in an effort to get at Hizb'Allah because the Lebanese government failed to disarmed them, is rediculous! How could they have done it with Syria controlling Lebanon with an iron fist the last twenty years? Hizb'Allah flourished with Syria being their link for support from Iran, which is even more reason to deal with Syria to cut off their support to Hizb'Allah before dealing with the latter. The reason for Olmert not to deal with Syria is simply cowardice; fearing what Iran would do and what Washington would say. Meanwhile the IDF has for a long time been ready to deal with Iran - especially to make sure that they don't acquire nuclear capability.

Prophetically, however, there is a rationale in this attack on Lebanon in that it might prepare the way for Israel to extend her kingdom northwards as in the days of kings David and SolomON:
...Solomon rebuilt Gezer.) He built up Lower Beth Horon, 18 Baalath, and Tadmor in the desert, within his land, 19 as well as all his store cities and the towns for his chariots and for his horses-whatever he desired to build in Jerusalem, in Lebanon and throughout all the territory he ruled. NIV 1 Kings 9:17-19

Also posted at Zionsake Blog

Is Lebanon another ''Amona'' for Olmert to show how tough he is? The illogical frenzy to support the attack on Lebanon

Zionsake Editor July 20, 2006


I fail to comprehend the logic of the present frenzy to support the Olmert government's attack on Lebanon as if they know what they are doing, as we clearly saw they don't, from their failure to deal with the rocket attacks from Gaza. The government is known to consist of schemers and opportunists who do things for other reasons than for the good of Israel, so why not stop for a moment to assess whether the way they tackled the Hizb'Allah problem is actually going to achieve anything!

From the start PM-by-default Olmert correctly pointed out that Syria is actually the root of the problem, but that it is up to the international community to deal with the Assad regime. Which international entity would actually have an interest in dealing with Damascus, even though the Assad regime needs to be dealt with? It is yet again a manifestation of the lame Israeli policy to entrust others who don't have Israel's best interest at heart, to take care of security on her behalf, like the PA and Egypt.

To now destroy Lebanon in an effort to get at Hizb'Allah because the Lebanese government failed to disarmed them, is rediculous! How could they have done it with Syria controlling Lebanon with an iron fist the last twenty years? Hizb'Allah flourished with Syria being their link for support from Iran, which is even more reason to deal with Syria to cut off their support to Hizb'Allah before dealing with the latter. The reason for Olmert not to deal with Syria is simply cowardice; fearing what Iran would do and what Washington would say. Meanwhile the IDF has for a long time been ready to deal with Iran - especially to make sure that they don't acquire nuclear capability.

Prophetically, however, there is a rationale in this attack on Lebanon in that it might prepare the way for Israel to extend her kingdom northwards as in the days of kings David and SolomON:
...Solomon rebuilt Gezer.) He built up Lower Beth Horon, 18 Baalath, and Tadmor in the desert, within his land, 19 as well as all his store cities and the towns for his chariots and for his horses-whatever he desired to build in Jerusalem, in Lebanon and throughout all the territory he ruled. NIV 1 Kings 9:17-19

Also posted at Zionsake Blog

Had demographics been a reason, why block aliyah?
How Olmert justifies failure
Filed undER: Front Page
Caroline Glick, THE JERUSALEM POST Jul. 6, 2006

...LEAVING aside the military consequences of the government's plans for Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem, the question arisES: Is the government working to enhance Israel's demographic stature and strengthen its democratic system?
The Olmert government bases its claim that Israel's demographic standing is in need of immediate enhancement on a census carried out by the Palestinian Authority in 1997. That census claims there is near numerical parity between the Arab and Jewish populations west of the Jordan River.

Yet a study published in January 2005 by a group of independent American and Israeli researchers who examined the PA population data proved that that data was fraudulent. The researchers, who presented their findings to the government and the Knesset, showed that the PA's numbers were inflated by some 50 percent, or up to 1.5 million people.

After the study was published, Prof. Arnon Sofer - Israel's loudest demographic alarmist - quietly reduced his Palestinian population data by one million. Last month, in an interview with Hadassah magazine, Prof. Sergio Della Pergula, Sofer's colleague, reduced his Palestinian population estimate by some 900,000.

So today, Israel's two most prominent demographic sirens admit that, far from approaching numerical parity, Jews make up approximately two-thirds of the population of Israel, Judea and Samaria.

The government may well believe that a two-thirds majority is not enough. But expelling up to 100,000 Jews from Judea and Samaria and partitioning Jerusalem will not add one Jew or detract one Arab from Israel's population rolls.

The fact of the matter is that if the government was truly concerned about Israel's demographic balance, it would be working tirelessly to bring every possible Jew to Israel. Yet, not only is the government not doing this, it is subverting the rule of law to prevent Jews
from coming here.

Last month, Immigration Minister Ze'ev Boim broke the law in order to block the aliya of 218 Jews from India who have been waiting, suitcases packed, for nine months to come. These Jews, members of the Bnei Menashe community, underwent conversion under the auspices of
Israel's Rabbinate nine months ago. As Michael Freund related in Thursday's Post, the community's more than 7,000 members were recognized as "descendents of the Jewish people" by Sephardi Chief Rabbi Shlomo Amar in March 2005.

One thousand community members, fully converted, are already living in Israel. All the rest, including the 218 who have completed the conversion process, want to come. But rather than helping to facilitate the aliya of the members of one of the 10 Lost Tribes who after nearly 2,800 years miraculously found their way back to their people, the government of Israel
prefers to make a mockery of the rule of law.

Boim claims that he decided to violate the Law of Return and block the aliya of the 218, whose status as Jews is not in dispute, in order to consider how to best deal with the Bnei Menashe as a group. And how is the government now dealing with Bnei Menashe as a group? By freezing all of their conversion activities until further notice.

In a similar vein, today some 20,000 members of the Falash Mura community in Ethiopia are living in a refugee camp in Addis Ababa, waiting to make aliya. The conditions in their camp are reportedly unspeakable. These same Falash Mura have relatives in Israel who have been waiting for 15 years to be reunited with them.

In January 2005, the government decided to double the monthly quota of Falash Mura allowed to enter Israel, from 300 to 600. It then proceeded to do nothing. In September 2005, camp residents opened a hunger strike in hopes of forcing the government to implement its own decision, but to no avail.

Last month, the ministerial committee charged with handling the Falash Mura canceled the 2005 decision. Committee chairman Interior Minister Roni Bar-On justified the move by claiming that Israel lacked the money to bring them and that even if Israel had the funds, the Falash Mura would cause social problems once here.

No one seems to have thought of asking the Falash Mura whether they would prefer to come to Israel and forgo welfare assistance or remain in the camp in sub-Saharan Africa. Moreover, Diaspora Jewry has already raised the money to bring 600 Falash Mura a month to Israel. The government simply refuses to use it.

Then there is the government's discriminatory policy towards New York's Yeshiva University. A year ago, it came to light that the government does not recognize bachelors degrees from YU. As a result, graduates of the Orthodox university's undergraduate program who live in Israel and work in government jobs are paid as if they only graduated from high school, even if they went on to receive advanced degrees and now work as heart surgeons in government hospitals.

A year ago, the Education Ministry promised to end this discriminatory practice. Yet the government has done nothing. As Richard Joel, president of YU, put it to New York's Jewish Week, "On the one hand, Israel is saying we want everybody to make aliya and build the
state, and on the other hand it is actively discouraging people from thinking that way by engaging in outrageous minutia. We all spend such energies encouraging people to make aliya, we can't have the State of Israel fighting us."

THE GOVERNMENT'S behavior indicates that it does not give a hoot about demography. But what about strengthening Israeli democracy? Is strengthening Israeli democracy an aim of the Olmert government?

Israelis only free to do what the government permits
How Olmert justifies failure
Filed undER: Front Page
Caroline Glick, THE JERUSALEM POST Jul. 6, 2006

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's secret visit to Sderot Tuesday morning was met with snorts of disgusted laughter. When the prime minister of Israel treats a visit to a city in Israel as a military secret on the order of an American presidential visit to Baghdad, the message he sends is cleAR: Israel's withdrawal from Gaza last summer was a national security disaster - and he knows it.

... Last month the government submitted to the Knesset a bill to change the sections of the criminal code relating to the crime of incitement. In the bill's explanatory notes, the government claims that there is a need to broaden the scope of the statute to "prevent the 'pollution' of the public debate." The government also claims that freedom of speech must be constricted "to prevent an atmosphere that threatens the members of society and its leaders [and so prevents] them from forming their views and expressing them freely."

Dr. Avi Bell, a constitutional law expert from Bar-Ilan University's Law School, explains that the explanatory note reveals the amendment's anti-liberal intentions. "Rather than adopting the liberal assumption that people should be free to do whatever they want unless there is a compelling reason for the government to abridge their freedom, it adopts the anti-liberal assumption that people are free only to do what the government permits them to do, and, in this case, the government should not permit them to speak in a way that produces a 'violent' and 'polluted' public discourse."

The same anti-liberal tendencies are evident in a bill the government pushed through a first reading in Knesset on Wednesday that would make it illegal to publish opinion polls in the three weeks leading up to national elections. Here too, the government's claim to champion democracy is undermined by its actions. Indeed, its actions empty the term "democracy" of
all meaningful content.

The government's illiberal tendencies were similarly exposed by its decision this past month to restrict the freedom of movement of more than 20 citizens in Judea and Samaria. According to the Attorney General's Office, although none of these people have been indicted on any charges, they are all "dangerous."

All these citizens live and work in Judea and Samaria, and so the consequence of the restraining orders issued against them is that they are prohibited from living in their homes, seeing their families or going to their jobs. While the government does not have enough evidence to arrest any of these supposedly dangerous people for any crime, by issuing the restraining orders, the police are free to arrest them if they dare to enter their own homes.

No self-respecting liberal democracy would accept this sort of behavior, yet in Israel, the government justifies its trampling of democratic norms in the name of democracy.

An Israeli government that was interested in strengthening Israel's Jewish majority and its democratic system would be making use of the ample and readily available opportunities for doing both. Rather than doing so, the Olmert government is ignoring and indeed undermining these opportunities while, in the name of democracy and demographic stability, it is advancing a policy that will turn Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Netanya, Ra'anana, Kfar Saba, Afula, Hadera and Tiberias into frontline communities just like Sderot and Ashkelon.

Reasons for expelling settlers altogether false!
How Olmert justifies failure
Filed undER: Front Page
Caroline Glick, THE JERUSALEM POST Jul. 6, 2006

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's secret visit to Sderot Tuesday morning was met with snorts of disgusted laughter. When the prime minister of Israel treats a visit to a city in Israel as a military secret on the order of an American presidential visit to Baghdad, the message he sends is cleAR: Israel's withdrawal from Gaza last summer was a national security disaster - and he knows it.

Olmert said he hid his plan to visit Sderot because he didn't want to give the Palestinian Authority a special reason to launch rockets against the city. That statement, like the government's decision to retake the destroyed communities of Dugit, Elei Sinai and Nisanit in a bid to halt the Palestinian rocket offensive, is a clear admission that the IDF is incapable of defending southern Israel from outside the Gaza Strip.

That is, it is a clear admission that the government lied last year when it said the IDF was in Gaza just to "protect the settlers." If anything, the Gaza settlers, by providing a friendly base of operations, protected the IDF. And just as opponents of the retreat warned, the removal of both endangered Israel's national security.

So now that the consequences of last year's retreat are clear, how is the Olmert government defending its goal of compounding the failure 20-fold in Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem?

The government's line is that the withdrawal from Gaza wasn't supposed to make Israel more secure, and therefore the deterioration of the security situation in the South doesn't mean that the withdrawal was a strategic blunder.

As Yonatan Bassi, the outgoing head of the government's so-called Disengagement Authority, explained, "From a security point of view, I never thought things were going to be better" after Israel left Gaza. In an interview with The Jerusalem Post on Thursday, Bassi claimed that the retreat was important for strengthening Israeli democracy, which is "better. now than it was a year ago."

Amplifying Bassi's line are government ministers who claim that what is happening in Gaza is irrelevant to the government's plan to retreat from Judea and Samaria and to partition Jerusalem. Internal Security Minister Avi Dichter explains that the failure of the withdrawal from Gaza is immaterial to Judea and Samaria because there the IDF will remain in place.

According to Dichter, all the government wants to do is to orchestrate mass expulsions of Israeli citizens from their homes and to destroy their communities. The IDF, he promised in an interview Thursday with Ha'aretz, will stay where it is. The removal of the Israelis, Dichter says, will be undertaken to strengthen Israel's demographic balance and to enhance Israeli
democracy. Dichter's assumption that it is possible to expel tens of thousands of Israelis from their homes and to destroy their communities while leaving the IDF deployments in the areas untouched is delusional. The Israeli Left, on whose support the government depends for survival, and the Europeans, on whom the Israeli Left depends for survival, will not back the retention of IDF forces in Judea and Samaria in the wake of the planned mass expulsions.

BUT LEAVING aside the military consequences of the government's plans for Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem, the question arisES: Is the government working to enhance Israel's demographic stature and strengthen its democratic system?

The Olmert government bases its claim that Israel's demographic standing is in need of immediate enhancement on a census carried out by the Palestinian Authority in 1997. That census claims there is near numerical parity between the Arab and Jewish populations west of the Jordan River.

Yet a study published in January 2005 by a group of independent American and Israeli researchers who examined the PA population data proved that that data was fraudulent. The researchers, who presented their findings to the government and the Knesset, showed that the PA's numbers were inflated by some 50 percent, or up to 1.5 million people.

After the study was published, Prof. Arnon Sofer - Israel's loudest demographic alarmist - quietly reduced his Palestinian population data by one million. Last month, in an interview with Hadassah magazine, Prof. Sergio Della Pergula, Sofer's colleague, reduced his Palestinian population estimate by some 900,000.

So today, Israel's two most prominent demographic sirens admit that, far from approaching numerical parity, Jews make up approximately two-thirds of the population of Israel, Judea and Samaria.

The government may well believe that a two-thirds majority is not enough. But expelling up to 100,000 Jews from Judea and Samaria and partitioning Jerusalem will not add one Jew or detract one Arab from Israel's population rolls.

Bombing Hamas out of Damascus and Syria the only answer


Zionsake EditOR: PM-by-default Olmert keeps on saying that the Hamas leadership in Damascus is really behind the kidnapping of the IDF soldier in Gaza. Instead of going after them in Damascus, however, the IDF keeps on hitting easy targets in Gaza (from the government's target bank as Dr. Aaron Lerner of IMRA.org.il likes to explain). That is cowardly and doesn't take care of the problem. Just overflying Pres. Assad of Syria's holiday home on the coast with fighter jets to send him a message, is still not very brave. The brave thing to do would be to bomb Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other (so-called) Palestinian Arab Moslems terrorists out of Damascus and Syria. Only that will give the message that Israel is not be messed with and that she cares for the lives of her Jews and others sojourning in her land - including Arabs!

It might force Syria to unleash its missiles on Israel, but that will also be a good thing since it would give Israel the excuse to take out Damascus (as is prophesied in Isaiah17). It will immediately break Iran's connection via Syria to Hisb'allah, Palestinian terrorists, Iran's frontline along the Golan, etc. Hisb'allah will, of course, also enter into the battle, but it won't be too difficult to deal with them in their vulnerable deployment along Israel's (temporary) northern border - that PM Ehud Barak has enabled them to do.

Only such bold action will bring peace because it will make Israel too strong to be messed with - also by the State Department, the E.U. and whoever else tries to side with the Moslems against Israel.

Olmert's plan crowds Arabs, other foreigners into Jerusalem
Mood:  incredulous
Topic: Israeli Politicians
Column One: Olmert's plan for Jerusalem
Caroline Glick, THE JERUSALEM POST Jun. 15, 2006
www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1150355504853&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

During his tour this week of European capitals, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert
announced that in addition to Judea and Samaria, he plans to transfer a
number of neighborhoods in Jerusalem to Hamas. In his words, "Not all the
Arab neighborhoods will be part of the city in the future."
Olmert claims that taking these Arab neighborhoods out of Jerusalem's
municipal boundaries will strengthen the city. From a security perspective
this makes no sense since transferring Tzur Baher, Jebl Mukaber and Isawiya
to the Hamas-Fatah-Islamic Jihad-al-Qaida-Hizbullah-led Palestinian
Authority will place all the remaining neighborhoods in the city within
enemy rocket, mortar and even rifle range.

Olmert apparently thinks that partitioning the city will secure the Jewish
majority of the city. Yet, taking these neighborhoods out of the city will
actually endanger that majority.

Over the past few months, a team of American and Israeli researchers
conducted a demographic study of Jerusalem and its environs. Last year the
same researchers - Bennett Zimmerman, Roberta Seid, Michael Weiss and Yoram
Ettinger - conducted the first independent study of the Palestinian
population data published by the PA's Central Bureau of Statistics in 1997.
Their study exposed that the PA had inflated the number of Palestinians in
Judea, Samaria and Gaza by some 1.5 million or 50 percent. Olmert and his
colleagues in Kadima and the Labor Party have justified their plan to
surrender Judea and Samaria to Hamas on the basis of these inflated numbers
which falsely project that by 2015 there will be more Arabs than Jews
between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.

The team's research methods and their findings were reviewed by the leading
American demographer Nicholas Eberstadt from the American Enterprise
Institute in Washington, DC. At the Herzliya Conference in January,
Eberstadt praised the team's research methods and stated that their
conclusions were "not only plausible but quite persuasive."

Their study showed that today Jews comprise 59 percent of the overall
population of the areas that include sovereign Israel, Judea and Samaria and
Gaza and 67 percent of the population of Judea, Samaria and sovereign
Israel. Far from becoming the minority by 2015, the group's projections show
that in 2025, Jews will comprise between 56-71 percent of the overall
population of Judea, Samaria and sovereign Israel. In other words, the team
showed that there is no demographic threat to Israel's Jewish majority.

The team began examining the demographic situation in Jerusalem and its
environs after Olmert first expressed his plan to partition the city as part
of his unilateral retreat policy. The team noted at the outset that Olmert's
claim - that by placing Arab neighborhoods outside the municipal boundaries
he would be reducing the Arab population of the capital by tens of
thousands - ignores the fact that Arabs can move. As legal residents of
Jerusalem these Arabs are under no obligation to remain in the neighborhoods
slotted for transfer to Hamas.

Indeed, since the government's intention to partition the city was made
clear by the route of the security fence, thousands of Arabs with Jerusalem
ID cards who had previously lived in Judea and in neighborhoods set to be
placed outside the city's boundaries started converging on the city.
Residents of Pisgat Ze'ev and Neveh Ya'acov relate that Arabs are moving
into their neighborhoods in droves. This is also the case in the city's Arab
neighborhoods not set for transfer to Hamas such as Beit Tzafafa, Wadi Joz
and Abu Tor. Rather than reduce the number of Arabs in the city, Olmert's
plan is just crowding the city's population into shrunken boundaries. At the
same time, by giving up all the reserve open lands around the city, he is
blocking all chance of municipal growth.
As Zimmerman and his team members note, in Jerusalem's current municipal
boundaries, 487,000 Jews make up 68% of the population and 231,000 Arabs
make up 32%. Fertility rates of the two populations are nearly identical,
with a Jewish fertility rate of 3.8 and an Arab fertility rate of 4.1 per
woman.

The team checked what would happen if, rather than partitioning the city,
Israel were to expand the boundaries of the city. They found that if Israel
were to extend the borders of the capital to include the Adumim bloc, the
Etzion bloc, the Adam bloc, the Givon bloc, Mevasseret Zion and its
satellite neighborhoods, the Tekoa area, Abu Dis and Bir Naballah and
incorporate all these communities' Jewish and Arab residents into the city,
Jerusalem's demographic balance would remain the same. The enlarged city
would have 704,000 or 68% Jewish residents and 335,000 or 32% Arab
residents.

The enlarged capital would have plenty of land reserves on which to build
new housing for both its Jewish and Arab residents. Retaining Israeli
control over the areas around Jerusalem's current boundaries would also
protect Bethlehem's status as a Christian city while Olmert's plan, which
places these areas under terrorist control, guarantees that Jesus's birth
city will become a Muslim majority city with all the religious and political
consequences that such a religious transformation would involve for the
Christian world. The study shows that the number of Arabs that would be
incorporated into the city if it were to expand its borders is smaller than
the number of Arabs incorporated into the city with its unification in 1967.
And it goes without saying that an enlarged Jerusalem would be safer than a
partitioned city with its removed sections under terrorist control.
In light of the study's findings, and given the deterioration of Israel's
national security situation in the wake of its retreat from Gaza last summer
and the recent reports of al-Qaida cells operating in Jerusalem, it is
impossible to avoid the conclusion that in configuring his retreat and
partition plan for the country's capital city, Olmert did not consider its
devastating repercussions on Jerusalem itself.
SO IF Olmert's planned retreat harms Jerusalem, what purpose does it serve?
The sole goal that Olmert's partition plan advances is that of attempting to
appease racist, anti-Jewish radical Islamic forces that claim that Jews have
no rights in Jerusalem. Indeed, at its core, Olmert's plan internalizes this
jihadist view by completely ignoring the security, municipal and demographic
concerns of the city's Jews and non-jihadist Arabs.

This Israeli internalization of the jihadist view of Jews in Jerusalem also
pervades the government's treatment of Jewish land purchases in eastern
Jerusalem. Last week Ha'aretz reported that a month ago the State's
Attorney, Eran Shendar, asked Police Inspector Yohanan Danino to undertake a
covert investigation of Ateret Cohanim - a non-profit organization that
works to bypass the Palestinian Authority's policy of defining land sales to
Jews as a capital offense for which dozens of Arabs have been murdered since
1994.

Shendar's instructions came after an Arab Jerusalemite named Muhammad
Marageh, who in the past worked for Ateret Cohanim, offered to attempt to
criminally implicate the organization in exchange for receiving state's
witness protection and, perhaps, money from the state. The Ha'aretz report
makes clear that Israel's chief prosecutor is so convinced that there is
something wrong with willing Arab sellers selling land to willing Jewish
buyers that apparently, without being presented with any evidence of
wrongdoing, he ordered the police to begin a secret criminal investigation
of the Jews.

This anti-Jewish view is similarly manifested in the police's indifference
to the fates of Arab land sellers. On April 12, the eve of Passover,
Jerusalem resident Muhammad Abu Al Hawa was tortured and murdered in Jericho
for the "crime" of selling a building in Abu Tor to Jews. The week before
his murder Israel's Channel 10 led prime time news broadcasts, on two
consecutive nights, with hysterical reports about the land sale. The reports
were precipitated by a court order for the police to evict illegal squatters
from the building to enable the legal owners to take possession of their
property - an eviction which Channel 10 filmed.

As I reported at the time, sources in Abu Tor stated that after the Channel
10 expose, it was only a question of time before Hawa was murdered. Those
sources also said that far from protecting Hawa, the police were suspected
of tipping off Channel 10's reporter on the scheduled eviction. This week,
the spokesman for the police's Samaria and Judea District responsible for
investigating Hawa's murder did not respond to repeated requests for
information on the status of the investigation.

THE GOVERNMENT'S treatment of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate similarly
exposes its internalization of the anti-Semitic view that Jews have no
rights in eastern Jerusalem. Today there are two Patriarchs of the Greek
Orthodox Church: the legal Patriarch Irineos and the illegal de facto
Patriarch Theophilos. Last summer Ma'ariv reported that Irineos leased two
hotels near the Old City's Jaffa Gate to Jews. The story caused an uproar in
the Church, the PA and among Israeli Arabs. In its wake, Irineos was
illegally ejected from his position and his life has been under constant
threat.

The Church, together with Jordan's King Abdullah and PA Chairman Mahmoud
Abbas, selected Theophilos to replace him. Ahead of his appointment,
Theophilos promised Abdullah that he would operate in accordance with
Jordanian rather than Israeli law, meaning that he would uphold the
Jordanian legal prohibition of conducting land deals with Jews. Attorneys
and others involved in this issue claim that Theophilis also pledged to
Abbas that he would cancel the lease agreement for the hotels at the Jaffa
Gate.

In an interview with Al Quds newspaper on May 18, Theophilos said that he
was unable today to fulfill his pledges because the Israeli government has
yet to approve his appointment.

To force Israel's hand, Theophilos filed a petition with the Supreme Court
demanding that the government approve his appointment. The Supreme Court is
scheduled to hear the petition on July 19. The Jews involved in the Jaffa
Gate lease agreement and in other land agreements with the Greek Orthodox
Church, which owns vast landholdings in Jerusalem and throughout the
country, are deeply concerned about the government's likely response to the
petition. The government did nothing when Irineos was sacked although it is
legally bound to protect him and his position. Indeed, Israel has allowed
Theophilos to act as the de facto Patriarch.

The government's acceptance of the jihadist view that denies all Jewish
rights to Jerusalem is nowhere more evident than on the Temple Mount, which
since 1995 Israel has abandoned to the control of the PA's Mufti Ikrameh
Sabri. Sabri preaches the "rights" of Arabs to eradicate the Jews whom he
refers to as "pigs and monkeys." And with the backing of the Israeli
government, he ensures that the police enforces his ban on Jewish and
Christian worship on the Temple Mount.

Moreover, under the impotent eye of the government, for the past decade
Sabri has overseen the commission of one of the most heinous archaeological
crimes in human history. While denying the Judeo-Christian sanctity of the
site, since the mid-1990s the Islamic Wakf on the Temple Mount has been
systematically destroying Jewish and Christian relics hidden inside the
mountain that date back to the time of Solomon's Temple, in an attempt to
erase the historical record. Sabri and his colleagues further exploit their
control of the Temple Mount to incite Muslims to attack Jews for imagined
crimes relating to the so-called "Judaization" of Jerusalem.

In answer to reporters' queries, this week Olmert repeatedly stated that he
would never give up the Temple Mount. But his statements are meaningless.
You cannot give up what you already surrendered. No, Olmert is not giving up
the Temple Mount. Olmert is giving up all of Jerusalem.
Dr. Aaron Lerner, Director IMRA (Independent Media Review & Analysis)