Where are we now???

Supposedly the war is over. Hamas has declared a ceasefire, but rockets continue to fall in Southern Israel from Gaza, and there has been continued sniper fire that have hurt our dear soldiers.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,486345,00.html

Earlier in the conflict a word coming out of Gaza from Abu Obeida, the leader of Hamas’ military wing, has reported the Islamists would kill Jewish children anywhere in the world in revenge for their own young who have died in the devastating assault.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article5454204.ece

Originally we heard outrageous reports regarding the number of Gazans killed in the conflict.
The reports included more than 1,000 killed including 355 children.
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-01/17/content_10673025.htm

But new word is creeping out of Gaza.
An Tal al-Hawa resident told the newspaper's reporter, "Armed Hamas men sought out a good position for provoking the Israelis. There were mostly teenagers, aged 16 or 17, and armed. They couldn't do a thing against a tank or a jet. They knew they are much weaker, but they fired at our houses so that they could blame Israel for war crimes."
"The number of deceased stands at no more than 500 to 600. Most of them are youths between the ages of 17 to 23 who were recruited to the ranks of Hamas, who sent them to the slaughter," according to the newspaper article....
http://www.honestreporting.com/articles/45884734/critiques/new/Gaza_Doctor_Says_Death_Toll_Inflated.asp

And then we have former President Jimmy Carter making inflamitory statements regarding the conflict in an interview on the Today show just last week. He advised that Hamas was justified in it's conflict because Israel was refusing aid to the Gazans. That Hamas is only considered a terrorist group by some, [obviously not himself]. He claims that we should trust Hamas & in his newest book advocates for the release of Marwan Barghouti as a possible partner for peace.

Currently Barghouti is serving 5 consecutive life sentences for the murder of Israeli citizens, and was named as a suspect in the murder of 33 others - though the charges had to be dropped for lack of specific evidence against him. Marwan Barghouti was serving as senior Fatah leader in the West Bank at the time of the murders.

And anyone who is really wanting the facts of the matters regarding the supply of aid to Gaza from Israel, can find that Israel has continually supplied medical aid, food, water and other supplies in spite of the constant rockets coming across the border.
http://outtamymindwithworry.blogspot.com/2009/01/humanitarian-aid-to-gaza-fact-vs.html
Many thanks to the blogger above for her marvelous post and great references!

One wonders why Egypt does not provide aid to their brothers... since they have such a porous border with Gaza.. if arms can flow so freely why cannot aid? In fact - why doesn't the entire Muslim world band together to provide aid that is shuttled thru the Egyptian border. Where is the humanitarian response from that side of the conflict? Doesn't anyone recognize the absurdity that Israel has to provide her enemy with food and aid???!!!!

On the political front here in Israel we are gearing up for national elections. Bibi Netanyahu (Likud) has publicly delared if elected he will do everything in his power to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. http://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/ml_israel_politics/2009/01/31/177143.html

Olmert and Livni (Kadima) who are currently in power have both declared that Israel will continue to retaliate to any new rocket attacks from Gaza - but there has been no response to the continued attacks since the "ceasefire".

Obama is now president of the United States. His repeated rhetoric claims that the reason attempts to reign in Iran's nuclear arms ambitions have failed was because of President Bush's unwillingness to talk directly with Iran. He has proclaimed his desire to sit down at the negotiating table and talk to the terrorist Ahmadinejad. Of course, Ahmadinejad's response has been to call for an official U.S. apology for past U.S. crimes against Iran. I'm not suprised. Obama's policy is seen as a sign of weakness by the Muslim world. How is it he is not savy enough to understand that & I, a lowly Israeli citizen, am???
http://news.theage.com.au/breaking-news-world/ahmadinejad-calls-for-obama-apology-20090129-7s6d.html

So where are we now? In the same place we were before the recent activities in Gaza. We still need to spend our time in prayer.. seeking our G-d and His direction for our lives. We still need to struggle to find the right way between the angry armed response (which I advocate!), and the need for mercy to that Arab family that literally is our next door neighbor, not involved in the conflight & embarrased by the lies their brothers tell. We still need to look & listen for the bias in the media, write the authors and editors providing references that prove their error (thank you HonestReporting.com and CAMERA for your continued work!)
http://www.honestreporting.com/
http://www.camera.org/
We still need to live with emunah and kavana here in the Land, and encourage our brothers and sisters in Galut to join us.

Some would say that I live my life with rose colored glasses on. I hope by reading this post they will see that I have a very clear view of what is going on in the world. I love my life in Israel. Each and every morning I look out at my beautiful view and thank HaShem that I am here. I am working and living in the land, raising my sons with the understanding that they too will serve in the army. I love Israel and I have put my life where my words are. Life is serious here, life is full here, life has real meaning here. Life is precious here.

They've been Casting lots of Lead at us!

I am always amazed and frustrated by the amount of MISinformation regarding the war in the Middle East. The basic truth is readily available, but the propaganda engine of participating terrorist regimes is incredibly successful, and readily accepted by the fearful and politically correct Left.

So here is yet another attempt to educate the world, to document accurately the facts from history.

First I will start with the Arab world’s insistence that Jews did not live in Ancient Israel, that they have no historic right to be here. This absurd idea is widely taught and believed in the Arab world. It is found in their textbooks, taught in their mosques. However, there is a massive amount of archeological evidence of Jewish existence in ancient Israel. Here for your perusal is a link to a most recent article regarding the identification of a city supporting the biblical account of King David: http://www.elahfortress.com/page26/page26.html
Found at that dig is the oldest known Hebrew text to date, estimated to be 3,000 years old:
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/10/30/news/ML-Israel-Ancient-Inscription.php
More links :
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Archaeology/hebrewalphabet.html
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Archaeology/kfarkana.html
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Archaeology/templemountgarbage.html
http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/History/Early%20History%20-%20Archaeology/Beit%20Alpha%20-%20An%20Ancient%20Synagogue%20with%20a%20Splendid
http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/History/Early%20History%20-%20Archaeology/Archaeological%20Sites%20in%20Israel%20-%20Gamala-%20Jewish%20Ci
http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/History/Early%20History%20-%20Archaeology/Archaeological%20Sites%20in%20Israel%20-%20Jerusalem-%20Burial

These are just a few websites documenting Jewish habitation in Ancient Israel, hundreds more are easy to find. I challenge anyone to produce even one documentable proof that Jews did not live in this land since the time of Abraham!

The Palestinians also claim that they have been in Israel since ancient times, but what is their proof? Rather than taking their word for it, let’s examine the facts.
There has never been a nation called Palestine. The name Palaestina was a name given to the region by the Roman emperor Hadrian following the crushing of Bar Kochba's revolt in 132-135 in an attempt to suppress Jewish national feelings.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestine
(please take the time to read & study the timeline and documentation in the above link!)

So do modern day “Palestinians” have a link to the land? They claim to be descendants of the Philistines of the bible:
http://www.bga.nl/en/articles/filist1.html
But are they?
http://www.imninalu.net/myths-Arabs.htm
Since there is documentation that the original Philistines were not Arabs & the modern day Palestinians are, how can they be the same people? If you read the timeline in the above wikipedia link you will see that there never has been any Philistinian/Palestinian government in the land of Israel. The Islamics who ruled under the Ottoman Empire (the former Arab nation in the land) were only one of several conquering nations to reside in Israel for a time. At no time did these Islamics claim to be Philistinian or Palestinian. The Ottoman empire ruled over the land from 1517 to around 1917 when the British Empire took occupation during WWI. (Interestingly enough, modern day Palestinians do not claim to be Ottoman descendants – which would give them an actual historical link to the land.) http://archaeology.about.com/od/oterms/g/ottoman.htm.

The Balfour Declaration of 1917 divided the land between Jew and Arab.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balfour_Declaration_of_1917
The original plan looked like this:
http://focusonjerusalem.com/maproom.html
http://www.npr.org/news/specials/mideast/history/history2.html
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1225199622058
http://www.palestinefacts.org/pf_maps.php

Note there are two maps, the second being published in 1926. Originally all of the British Mandate (1917) was intended to be a Jewish Homeland. But due to Arab pressure 75% of the land was ceded to the Arab people under the name of Transjordan, which is today’s modern state of Jordan.

With the exception of King Faisal in 1919 the British Mandate was rejected by the Arab world community. Tensions were high in the area between the occupying English, Jews and Arabs in the years between 1922 and the end of WWII. Jewish immigration into the land was limited by the English despite the overwhelming need due to the Holocaust. Finally in 1948, England withdrew completely from the land. The UN voted to support Israel as a modern state, and the modern war began.

Before we discuss the war, let’s take a look at the basic geography. Modern day Israel (2008) has a land mass of 8,522 square miles (about the size of the state of New Jersey at 8,729 square miles) with a population of 7,282,000 – that’s a population density ratio of 854.5.

Here’s a map of the Middle East, Asia and Africa highlighting Islam:
http://www.islam101.com/dawah/muslim_world_map.html
The influence of Islam is growing.

Israel is the ONLY Jewish state in the world. Israel has 21 Islamic recognized neighbors, but the reality is that there are many neighbors where Islam is the controlling religion. I have listed 23 nations below (with their square miles, population and population density):

Israel's Islamic Neighbors Sq Miles Population Density Year Est
Algeria 919,595 33,769,669 36.722 1962
Saudi Arabia 829,996 27,601,038 33.254 1932
Libya 679,359 6,173,579 9.087 1951
Iran 636,372 70,472,846 110.742 1979
Mauritania 397,954 3,069,000 7.712 1960
Egypt 387,048 75,500,662 195.068 1953
Pakistan 340,403 172,800,000 507.634 1956
Afghanistan 251,772 32,728,376 129.992 1919
Yemen 203,849 23,013,376 112.894 1990
Morocco 172,414 1,541,130 8.939 1956
Iraq 169,234 29,267,000 172.938 1932
Malaysia 127,355 27,730,000 217.738 1965
Oman 119,498 2,577,000 21.565 1651
Syria 71,479 19,405,000 271.478 1946
Tunisia 63,170 10,102,000 159.918 1956
Bangladesh 55,559 150,448,340 2707.902 1971
Jordan 45,495 6,198,677 136.250 1946
United Arab Emerites 32,278 4,621,399 43.175 1971
Kuwait 6,880 3,399,637 494.133 1961
Qatar 4,416 1,541,130 348.988 1971
Lebannon 4,035 4,196,453 1040.013 1943
Bahrain 253 1,046,814 4137.605 1971
Maldives 115 350,000 3043.478 1965

TOTAL 5,518,529 707,553,126 128.214

On May 15th 1948, the day after Israel declared itself an Independent Nation State, 5 countries attacked. Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq.
1948 Agressors Sq Miles Population Density Year Est
Egypt 387,048 75,500,662 195.068 1922
Iraq 169,234 29,267,000 172.938 1932
Syria 71,479 19,405,000 271.478 1946
Jordan 45,495 6,198,677 136.250 1946
Lebannon 4,035 4,196,453 1040.013 1943

TOTAL 677,291 134,567,792 198.685

(The facts from these tables are easy to verify - just type the country name into your web browser).

It’s quite clear, when you look at the population density figures from the above tables that the “Land for Peace” premise makes absolutely no sense. If you also review the years these modern states were established – with the exception of Oman, every single one of these Islamic states has a 20th Century inception making them no different from Israel regarding appearance on the international stage as a modern entity.

“Occupation”. Where did this term come from in relation to the War in Israel? In 1967 Israel defended itself against 3 aggressors: Egypt, Jordan and Syria. During the war, Israel as the defender, not the aggressor, took the Sinai Desert, the Golan Heights, the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and East Jerusalem. In 1979 Israel returned the Sinai Desert to Egypt. In 2005 Israel disengaged from the Gaza Strip. In history, there has been no other country required to return land taken in defensive actions. Defensible borders against it’s aggressing neighbors has required that Israel maintain a presence in the so called “occupied” areas. But please note, that the countries these areas were “taken” from (Golan Heights from Syria, West Bank from Jordan, East Jerusalem from Jordan) technically had no more right to the land than Israel did & lost those areas as a result of their unwarranted aggression. Again, there was no “Palestinian Nation” against which Israel aggressed to occupy these areas. Also note that Jordan is not demanding the return of the West Bank or East Jerusalem. The Gaza strip technically never belonged to any country post the British Mandate:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaza_Strip

Since the Gaza disengagement in 2005 there has been a constant barage of rockets into Israel, targeting innocent civilians:
http://www.sderotmedia.com/

"Peace Partners"? The PLO is not a country. It is a terrorist organization. Hamas is not a county. It is a terrorist organization. Gaza is not a country. Where else in the world is any other country expected to negotiate peace in exchange for land with a terrorist organization?

Aid to the Palestinians. What is rarely reported in the media is that any Arab who applies for Israeli citizenship is awarded the same rights and freedoms of any other Israeli citizen. Freedom of religion, freedom of speech, representative government, socialist support in the form of medicine, aid with food, living expenses, and education among other benefits are available. Before the 1st intifada in 1987 180,000 Palestinians held jobs in Israel. As aggression increased against innocent Israeli civilians that number has been greatly reduced. So what is the basis for the claim of Israeli “oppression” against the Palestinians?

There has been an uneasy but steady peace with Jordan and Egypt 1977 and 1994 respectively. Although it should be noted that Hamas manages to access arms through hidden tunnels between Gaza and Egypt.

So what is this war all about? Keeping in mind all the information above, there is not really a clear answer.
Here are some links to review:

PLO charter – note especially points 15, 19, 21 and 22. In light of the fact that it has been established there has never been a nation of “Palestine” what is this based on?!
http://www.iris.org.il/plochart.htm

Hamas Charter – of course the “people of the Scriptures” are Jews and Christians.
http://www.palestinecenter.org/cpap/documents/charter.html

Iran / Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahmoud_Ahmadinejad

Of Course there is always the ADL’s watch on antisemetic political commentary & satire:
http://www.adl.org/main_Arab_World/Financial_Crisis.htm
http://www.adl.org/PresRele/ASaw_14/5245_14.htm
http://www.adl.org/PresRele/ASaw_14/default.htm
http://www.adl.org/main_Arab_World/asam_jul_dec_qatar_2006.htm

The world loves an underdog. And I suppose those who scream the loudest get the most attention. Media the world wide tends to lean in support of this supposed underdog. Unfortunately it appears to be "politically incorrect" to double check the facts. Militant Islam has no problem acknowledging they are embroiled in a religious war with Jewish Israel. When will the rest of the world acknowledge it?

Lord God.... How can Jacob stand, He is so small?

Dearest Friends,

This month I offer a blog not of my own making. Instead here is an article that was forwarded to me.

It is copied exactly as written, all emphasis original from the author. I have not altered it in any way.

It is very powerful & ought to be read by every world leader today, for I believe it states plainly the truth.

Ever "politically incorrect"
Rivka


Facing Suicide Bombers and Suicide States: How Shall Israel Stand?
Louis René Beres - Dec 16, 2008

Lord God.... How can Jacob stand, He is so small?
Amos 7:2

In patently ritualized chants from Iran, threats to annihilate Israel are now a commonplace. Were it not for that country's complementary capacity to inflict major harms – a capacity that has now become existential - these genocidal threats might not really be all that worrisome. But Tehran’s ascent to full membership in the Nuclear Club is now less than two years away, and such membership may also coincide with a fixed and firm Iranian leadership belief in the Shi’ite apocalypse. It follows that Jerusalem could soon have to face not only Palestinian suicide-bombers, but also, in Iran, the suicide bomber in macrocosm.It would be a daunting confrontation. The true goal of Israel's myriad Islamist enemies, not only the goal expressed openly by Iran, is extermination. Even in a world that has grown comfortable with every conceivable form of slaughter, Israel remains the object of glaringly new kinds of crimes against humanity. In the bitterest of ironies, an ancient nation that was ingathered to prevent another Holocaust has now become the dominant focus of yet another “final solution.”

For the Jews, it must seem, yet again, that there is nothing new under the sun. Looked at more broadly, the goal of Israel's enemies, especially Iran and the still-impending Palestinian state (Hamas, Fatah, it won’t really make a difference) is to be left standing while Israel is forced to disappear. For these irremediable enemies of a Jewish state, there can be no coexistence of any kind. Never. This is because their own survival presumably requires Israel's extinction.

Soon, the next president of the United States, Barack Obama, will soberly and seriously extol the virtues of the same old twisted cartography – that is, the so-called “Road Map” to peace in the Middle East. Yet, like the Oslo Agreements that preceded it, this plan is premised on Israel’s acceptance of land for nothing.

Asymmetrical international agreements always miss an important point: International law is not a suicide pact. Under the longstanding customary rule of "anticipatory self-defense," Israel still has every right to strike first at developing Iranian nuclear infrastructures. Further, to undertake such a preemption could become more than a legal right. In certain circumstances, it could even become a distinct obligation, not only to the imperiled people of Israel, but also to the most elementary expectations of civilized international relations.

If anticipatory self-defense remains operationally possible (a problematic determination at this point), Jerusalem should not be inhibited by smug assurances of alternative protections from the “international community.” Here, for Israel to decline an operationally plausible preemption could be nothing less than an implicit acknowledgment that international law may expressly defile international justice.

It must be a fatal mistake for Israel to believe that Reason and Justice govern the world. It must be an unforgivable error for Israel to project its own Western, rational and humane sentiments upon its most relentless and barbarous foes. It would be a life risk for Israel to seek to remain standing by stubbornly clinging to false promises and manifestly false hopes.

It is always an error for Israel to fashion policies upon fundamentally incorrect assumptions. Whether in Gaza, West Bank (Judea/Samaria) or Tehran, Israel's Jihadist enemies wish to kill Jews because such murder is felt to be a deeply sacred obligation. For these enemies, killing Jews is plainly an expression of religious sacrifice, and – perhaps most significantly - one that will confer precious immunity from personal death.

Could there be any greater incentive to plan the next genocide of Jews, albeit in this case one in which war and terror have become the prescribed method of extermination? This idea of death as a zero-sum commodity - "I kill you; I therefore remain alive forever" - has been explained in some of the finest psychology literature. For example, it is captured perfectly in Ernest Becker's paraphrase of Nobel Laureate Elias Canetti: "Each organism raises its head over a field of corpses, smiles into the sun, and declares life good."

Shouldn't this idea be especially obvious to the Jewish People? Isn't it time that Israel finally start to elect leaders who can understand what Otto Rank had revealed so courageously in Will Therapy and Truth and Reality: "The death fear of the ego is lessened by the killing, the Sacrifice, of the other; through the death of the other one buys oneself free from the penalty of dying, of being killed."

Israel's enemies, in order to remain standing - and to prevent Israel from standing up - seek to sacrifice the Jewish State on a blood-stained altar of war and terrorism. The idea of sacrifice, therefore, is absolutely central to what is now happening in the Middle East. The planned genocidal destruction of Israel is integrally part of a system of religious worship that is oriented toward the conquest of personal death.

Present-day Israel should not simply ignore four thousand years of Jewish history and world politics. The true source of global influence is always power, and the greatest expression of raw power is always the conquest of death. For the president of Iran, and for the proposed government of executioners now battling each other for control in a future Palestinian state, killing Jews - indeed, killing Israel itself - offers an incomparable fusion of private ecstasy and personal survival. These sworn enemies of Israel are much more than dimly aware that in killing Jews and in killing Israel, they will have killed their own death. For the Islamist "martyr," whether as a terrorist individual or as a murderous individual writ large (i.e.,, the state of Iran), killing Jews and the Jewish State is manifestly the optimal way of affirming life.

Only when Israel finally learns to understand and to appreciate this particular enemy perception will the country finally understand the overriding obligation to stay alive. To fulfill this obligation, Israel should combine a determined willingness to preemptively destroy Iran’s now nearly complete engines of atomic annihilation (a willingness spawned in part by the persistent refusal of the United States to itself exercise this expression of anticipatory self-defense) with a clear and parallel determination to resist any further territorial withdrawals from Judea/Samaria. The now-disgraced and outgoing Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, never received any sort of mandate for the further surrender of Jewish land to the Palestinians. Moreover, the People of Israel are entitled to live securely on this land without constant threats of intimidation and dispossession issued by their own foolish and cowardly leaders.

The intolerable security costs to Israel of former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s Gaza “disengagement” are incontestable. To the extent that Hamas continues to collaborate closely in Gaza with al-Qaeda, these costs will also have to be borne by unwitting citizens of the United States. Although still widely unreported, Hamas has begun to allow al-Qaeda elements to fashion certain WMD terror weapons for strategic use in New York, London, Washington and other selected “crusader” targets in the West.

Israel is so small, but if it can turn quickly to plain truth and serious understanding, it can still stand.

LOUIS RENÉ BERES (Ph.D., Princeton, 1971) lectures and publishes widely on Israeli security matters. His work is well known in Israel's political, military and intelligence communities, and to these same communities in the United States. Professor Beres was Chair of “Project Daniel.”