Nice Pope, shame about his clergy and activists

Popes come, and they go, and thankfully yet another one, a friend of the Jewish People is now in office.Yet for all this we are reminded daily by the Catholic Church that as with any country, the leader is just one solitary person. Tony Blair and Mr Brown were both leaders who understood that jews were not the problem in the middle east, yet their party contains some of the most unpleasant anti-semites in the UK, and an organisation hatred of Israel that permeates the labour party and the left.

So anyone with Israel and the West's interests at heart (because western civilization and its survival is inextricably linked with that of Israel) can not expect too much of the new Pope Francis the saintly and modest. His love of the Jewish People is not at all shared by his clergy who carry out a daily effort to malign and distort news about Israel. Whichever Church website you find, and there are many, you will find the same Vatican sourced lies against Israel.

So today I wasn't at all surprised to see this long report about Israeli arrests of palestinian arab children. Not one word was devoted on catholic websites that reported this incident to the reason as to why the children were arrested, for volleys of stones thrown either at jews living in Hebron or at soldiers protecting the jews there (since jews returned to Hebron in 1967, after having been ethnically cleansed in the massacre of 1929, jews living there have been under constant attack from knifings, stone throwing and shootings. Even baby Shalhevet Pass was not spared by an arab sniper who targeted her in her stroller, Shalhevet's grandfather had earlier been killed  by axe wielding arabs, and her sister was also subsequently injured by arab stone throwers).

Twenty-seven Palestinian children, age seven to 15, were arrested while on their way to school in the West Bank city of Hebron, Christian Peacemaker Teams reported on 24 March. Three were detained for two days; twenty-four others were held for almost twelve hours.
The principal of the Hebron Public School reported that he was standing at the gate to his school at 7.30am when about 22 soldiers arrived and immediately began taking children from the street without speaking with the principal, teachers or the children. The street was full of children on their way to five area schools. Several adults arrived and tried to prevent the soldiers from taking the students but soldiers pulled the children away. Israeli soldiers arrested 27 students, age seven to 15. They made them walk to checkpoint 29 and violently forced them into the jeeps. Some of the children reported injuries.

The soldiers drove them to the police station near the Ibrahimi Mosque, brought 25 children inside and released two on a nearby road. They questioned the students without parents, a lawyer or teachers present and without permission from parents or other adults. Eight of the children were in grades one through four. Obaida Babyeh, age 15, a student at the Ibrahimi School, was one of the two released near the station. He said: “We were passing to go to our school and they arrested us. The soldiers pushed us into the jeep, then they took us away from the school checkpoint. They hit me on my knee. Then the commander came and talked with them in Hebrew. The commander slapped me and my friend on the face and let us go.” On 20 March, Israeli officials committed at least four clear violations of rights guaranteeed to these children under international law..............

We're supposed to understand that the children were just minding their own business, victims of hateful jews. Well one would expect such a report around easter, wouldn't one? It is not exactly acceptable for priests to attack jews physically any more at easter for 'having killed Christ', but incitement against jews is always a pleasant thought for a catholic news website.

I wonder why the 'Ibrahimi mosque' mentioned in the report above was not given its other more well known title, the Cave of the Patriarchs, the Machpelah Cave mentioned some 3,000 or so years ago in the Bible? The present building was not a mosque when Herod erected it around the time that Jesus made an appearance.

As with other campaigns to wipe out jewish attachment to the land, catholic clergy should understand that jews will still be around in the middle east, that Israel will be ever more firmly in control of its ancestral lands when the last christian communities in arab and islamic countries have long been wiped out.

In the words of Shalhevet Pass's father:

First of all, we are stubborn. The Jewish people are stubborn, a stiff-necked people. We are enrooted in this land. Both in our personal family, and in a more general way, this is everything. There is nothing, not murder, not Arabs, which can uproot us from here, because we are a stiff-necked people. Despite what the Jewish people have experienced, we have been able to hold our heads high. We have to understand how they lived in Galut where anyone could do whatever he wanted to Jews, and here, and here, in Eretz Yisrael, we hold our heads high, standing straight and tall, no one will ever get us out of here.

To Pope Francis and all the many catholic and other christian friends of Israel and the Jewish People, have a happy Easter. To jewish readers, Chag Sameach and Shabbat Shalom

(h/t Elder of Ziyon)

Israel is weakened by Netanyahu's apology, and Obama pulls the wool over a seasoned observer's eyes

Caroline Glick takes up my points about Netanyahu's foolhardy apology to Turkey for its act of aggression by sending the flotilla including the Mavi Marmara to provoke Israel. This was the worst  yet not the first provocation against Israel. We also need to keep in mind Erdogan's decades long hatred of Israel, his even having penned a Stuermer like play entitled 'Maskomya' when head of the islamic youth organisation. And as

    On Saturday, the Arab League convened in Doha, Qatar and discussed Israel’s apology to Turkey and its ramifications for pan-Arab policy. The Arab League member states considered the prospect of demanding similar apologies for its military operations in Lebanon, Judea, Samaria and Gaza.

    The Arab League’s discussions point to the true ramifications of the apology for Israel. By apologizing for responding lawfully to unlawful aggression against the State of Israel and its armed forces, Israel did two things.

    First, Israel humiliated itself and its soldiers, and so projected an image of profound weakness. Due to this projected image, Israel has opened itself up to further demands for it to apologize for its other responses to acts of unlawful war and aggression against the state, its territory and its citizens from other aggressors. The Arab League like most of its member nations is in an official state of war with Israel. The Arabs wish to see Israel destroyed. Kicking a nation when it is down is a perfectly rational way for states that wish other states ill to behave. And so the Arab League’s action was eminently predictable.

    As for the future of Israel-Turkish cooperation on Syria, two things must be borne in mind. First, on Saturday Erdogan claimed that Netanyahu’s apology was insufficient to restore Turkish-Israel relations. He claimed that before he could take any concrete actions to restore relations, Israel would first have to compensate the families of the passengers from the Mavi Marmara killed while assaulting IDF soldiers with deadly force.

As I noted previously, Erdogan has not even fully accepted the apology. The way is open, as usual with islamists, for further grievances, further demands, that not everything was solved........... In fact just as Egyptian president Morsi complained about the Egyptian-Israel Peace Treaty when he took power, that Israel had to compensate Egypt, that the palestinian arabs needed including in the equation etc etc. With an islamist there is never finality, because the end goal is not peace, but subjugation. This is what by their latest statements, president Peres and Chief of Staff Gantz do not understand. Do they really think that this obeisance to islamist Turkey will bring in a new era of cooperation and friendship with Turkey? How blinkered can you be? Well Israel's leaders were blinkered before 1973 in the face of Sadat's posturing about wanting peace.

I can forgive Peres who at his advanced age is seemingly desperate for peace, can even forgive Benny Gantz for being in favour of just about anything which could possibly break the ring of islamist that is now closing around Israel. Gantz has an impossible task to perform which existential threats looming all around, so a little apology might seem to a soldier but small beer.

But I can not understand just how people of the calibre of professors Dershowitz and Barry Rubin can be so fooled by the slick rhetoric of Obama. Dershowitz after Obama having proved himself week in, week out throughout his first term to be an inveterate enemy of Israel campaigned for Obama's re-election. Okay, Dershowitz is a democrat and could not bring himself to abandon ship even in the face of this mortal enemy of Israel. Dershowitz preferred to listen to the pro-Israel rhetoric that Obama spews out from time to time rather than watch the actions of his minions who condemned Israel incessantly for building a few houses, who set up a propaganda organization 'J Street' with the brief to attack Israel on every occasion. There was also the matter of the Cairo statement and Obama's bringing down of arab regimes which were at peace with Israel (Mubarak was no friend, he allowed the supplying of Hamas with rockets for years through Sinai, a cold peace with Israel, and incessant attacks on jews and Israel by the state controlled Egyptian press). And Obama has supported islamist Turkey with a Nato missile shield from which Israel is excluded, and Egypt has been given money, aid and top of the range F16's and Abrams tanks. All this shortly after Morsy inspired riots at the American embassy in Cairo!

Update 27th March 2013: 

Barry Rubin is back to form after his wobble, asking why Obama didn't make similar speeches in Israel and the palestinian arab territories, why did Obama ask Israelis to take risks for peace, but not arabs? Obviously Obama understands the deep hatred for jews by arabs after years of indoctrination. As ever it is Israel which must take all the risks for no gain.

Israel is supposed to be grateful to Obama for some money in the development of the Iron Dome all the while Saudi Arabia and other arab countries, including islamists in Syria are being stuffed with american arms. Whilst Obama speaks softly, the USA Obama administration is acting as Israel's enemy, not its friend. And then there are the palestinian arabs. Obama has forced Netanyahu to begin again its funding of the Abbas undemocratic government, whilst Abbas broke the Oslo Agreement in going to the UN to found a state (not for the betterment of his people, but so that it would be easier to condemn Israel, act against it in UN forums such as the the UNHCR and UNESCO). Jewish shrines such as Rachel's tomb are now to become 'palestinian'. Arabs in Judea, Samaria and Gaza don't wish independence so as to forge a national future, but to further the goal of destroying Israel. A palestinian arab state is seen as helping to bring Israel before the International Criminal Court over its supposed crimes.

So reading Barry Rubin today I could hardly believe my eyes:

 After going through all the possible ways Obama's visit to Israel could be seen, and dismissing them, Rubin comes to the 'Serious Israeli Observer'

    After more than four years of hard work and with the help of the other side’s intransigence, we got Obama to see reality in policy if not always in rhetoric, which is far less important.  Perhaps a narrow escape from what would have been the most anti-Israel president in history by far. Look, the American people elect the president and then we have to deal with whomever they choose. Sure hope he wakes up about the Islamists and stays tough on Iran.

 No Mr Rubin, Obama has not woken up to anything. Obama has rather been well advised that if you want Israelis to accede to your outrageous demands as a president, rather than berating them, as Obama did all through his first term, you should show them some love.

Israel for very good reasons feels so unloved, that the first charlatan to come along gets the wedding ring! Obama through his Taqiya has seen his poll ratings increase in Israel by way of seeming to 'understand' Israel's ancient connection with the lands of Israel. It's funny that in his Cairo speech he did not understand this, stating in effect the arab position that Israel resulted not from any jewish connection but from western states' guilt over the Holocaust. The corollary was therefore, 'why should arabs pay for the Holocaust with their lands'.

So in Israel Obama has shown some understanding for Israel's rights. But then he wanted things from Netanyahu. Probably he asked for a whole lot more than we know about. But what we do  know is worrying.

Firstly Netanyahu  was forced to make that disastrous apology, something that will come back to haunt Israel faced by many enemies, of which Turkey is definitely now one, always seeking Israel's weak points.

Netanyahu was forced to being paying the Palestinian Authority monies collected as customs dues, even whilst Israel has extra security costs because of the palestinian terror on the roads. One israeli baby, Adelle is still fighting for her life after arab stone throwers in Samaria forced her car into a bus.

And Obama has released half a billion dollars to the arabs in Judea and Samaria, even without them agreeing to talk to Israel. For that they have a string of demands, including agreeing to the destruction of Israel via the 'right of arab return.'

All this whilst israeli forces are beginning to come under attack on the Golan Heights from islamists supplied by america and its islamist arab allies.

Rubin might himself be suffering from having fought so hard all these years to understand Israel's enemies so that  he finally can't come to terms with the cognitive dissonance of Israel's greatest friend, the american people being led by one of Israel's greatest enemies.

Rubin will wake up, as will hopefully Benny Gantz. Peres is too far gone,  as with Abba Eban too gullible, too much the diplomat to understand when the knife is at the neck and draws blood that the time has long passed for action (Eban urged Israel's government not to begin a pre-emptive attack to break the arab stranglehold and armies poised to strike in 1967. Eban delayed the attack by around a month to allow the USA to live up to its commitment to sail a fleet to break the egyptian blockade of Suez and the Straits of Tiran. The Israeli people forced a change of government after a disastrous speech by Israel's PM Eshkol, and Israel under Dayan managed to save the day).

The situation for Israel is bad, but allowing snake oil salesman Obama to force toxic remedies on it is not the answer.

Whilst mealy mouthed Franciscans talk of 'occupation' and human rights for arabs...........

 Jihadists make no bones about their hatred being old style hatred of jews. Israel is being surrounded by an islamist crescent all the way from Egypt, Gaza and Turkey to the border of Jordan.
And Obama spent his time twisting Netanyahu's arm to apologize to islamist Turkey. This makes no sense for Israel, for the USA seen again as stabbing its ally in the back under this administration, and no sense for turkish secular democrats fighting to survive the onslaughts being made against them on every level by the islamist turkish state. Erdogan and his AKP islamists are riding a wave now after the latest humiliation forced on Israel by this US President. Obama if he was a real friend of Israel as he keeps proclaiming, might have pressured Erdogan to make the apology for sending a ship full of violent activists who attacked a legal boarding party enforcing the legal blockade of islamist Gaza that has fired over 12,000 indiscriminately fired rockets at Israel.
Obama's legacy will be the rise of islamism throughout the middle-east, possibly engulfing Jordan before too long.
But at least the islamist enemy sometimes announces just what they are fighting against, "bloody Jews." Without the normal Taqiya (muslims pretending they seek peace, disguising their real aims when dealing with 'infidel' kuffars) Israel will find it easier to defend itself.


 Syrian Mujahideen gained ground in the Golan Heights, which is partly occupied by bloody Jews, launching coordinated attacks in the area and in nearby Daraa province on Thursday.

 Mujahideen launched coordinated attacks on multiple parts of the Golan, taking control of areas and villages in the province of Quneitra.

 The offensive came as some 2,500 trained and equipped Mujahideen fighters had entered the Daraa region in recent weeks.
  
Kavkaz Center

After the apology Turkey plans the next provocations, and Syria enters the next stage

After Israel's craven apology to  Turkey the turkish pm Erdogan is on a high. To rub salt in the wound he has said that this is just the start, and that  a trip to Gaza is in the offing. Of course there is never an end when Israel gives concessions or land. Further demands follow as night follows day. You can take your pick for examples such as when Israel withdrew from Lebanon in 200 (recognized as a full withdrawal by the UN) we then heard about the Sheva Farms and other villages from 1948. And when Israel froze all settlement in order to help sweeten the atmosphere for talks with palestinian arabs for 10 months (after Obama's arm twisting) Abbas decided he didn't need to talk with Israel as everything was cosy enough in Judea and Samaria (remember that interview with Diel in Wapo?).


From Turkey's Huriyet news:

Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh had already announced March 22, hours after Israel’s apology, that Erdoğan would visit Gaza in the near future.

Taher al-Nunu, spokesman for Ismael Haniyeh, the head of the Hamas government in the Gaza, confirmed that "Recep Tayyip Erdogan will soon visit the Gaza Strip where he will meet with Prime Minister (Haniyeh)".

Yet again Israel has been forced by the USA to give in to arab and muslim terror, for what gain? The more Obama reduces his own country's stature and that of Israel the more muslim terrorists of which Erdogan is a main sponsor, will be emboldened.

Nunu said that Erdogan had called exiled Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal "to tell him Israel had accepted Turkey's conditions: apologies for the murder of the Turkish militants, recognition of (Israel's) responsibility and the lifting of the embargo".

However, Erdoğan was cautious regarding the restoration of diplomatic ties by the appointment of ambassadors.  “We will see what will be put into practice during the process. If they move forward in a promising way, we will make our contribution. Then, there would be an exchange of ambassadors,” he said, adding that the amount of the compensation would be determined by the competent bodies.

And after Israel's apology to a country where anti-semitism is promoted on state media and which has fomented terror against Israel, we see that nothing has changed. Turkey is going to consider whether to restore ties, i.e. look for the next pretexts to reduce the relationship to where the islamists AKP and Erdogan want it. Netanyahu is no fool, he knows that Erdogan has Israel in his sights, Netanyahu knows full well that Turkey is no longer the secular country of Attaturk, but an islamist state that is stoking the fires in Syria next door, that is conducting exercises with the Egyptian navy, which is doing its best to create an islamist ring of states around Israel to throttle it at some future date.

There is no good to be had by showing weakness to islamist countries, but Obama is deaf to all this, just as is Britain and France. All three powers are doing their best, via the good offices of Turkey to supply the islamist sunnis in Syria with all the weapons and training they need to bring Assad down.

And because of this otherwise lunatic policy of helping the West's bitter islamist enemies (Turkey is still a member of Nato, privy to its secrets, funding and all the rights conferred on members not to mention armaments and military help) in fighting Assad, the conflict will not end but be intensified.

How can Western countries even think that Assad is going to be forced out by their helping sunni islamists?
The sunni-shia fault line running through Syria means only that the war will become ever more brutal, and will suck in ever more fighters from both the sunni and shia camps. The internecine civil war in Syria is now and international war of muslims, the Islamic World War in the making.

Israel today took incoming fire with fire hitting a military patrol's jeeps, but luckily there were no casualties. Israel is on high alert on the Golan Heights, but the danger is not so much to Israel but stability in the whole islamic world, most notably in the middle east.

Lebanon which is seeing daily fighting in Tripoli between rival shia and sunni factions is set to 'blow' according to one observer. Lebanon which could have been a peaceful oasis in the middle east has through its determination to never have peace with Israel, has instead determined its own instability and probable destruction as an independent entity, if it has ever been that.

One thing Obama, Cameron and Hollande should know is that Assad might come or go, but the war will go on, because the alawite regime in Syria actively backed by Iran and Hezbollah, supported by Iraq, Russia and China can not fall, whilst Turkey, Egypt, Qatar and Saudi Arabia can not allow the shia to gain ascendancy in the region. 

Obama's last present to Israel was to force it to lose face yet again, in a region where Israel needs its deterrance buttressed. But then Obama, scion of Rashid Khalidi and Edward Said never was about increasing Israel's security but within the context of a US people who are pro-Israel, in reducing that security whilst professing to protect it.

Will Netanyahu's apology bring reconciliation with Turkey?

Having good relations with Turkey has been for years recognised as being of the highest importance. Indeed when relations with Turkey began to sour some time before the Mavi Marmara episode Israel's then defence minister Barak groaned that he hoped it wasn't true as Israel had invested very heavily in its relationship with Turkey, had not a few of its secrets in the hands of Turks. The truth of the deterioration in the relationship came with the appointing of an islamist to head Turkey's intelligence services.

PM Netanyahu of Israel today apologised for Israeli forces having killed 9 terrorists on board the Mavi Marmara ship trying to break Israel's legal blockade of Gaza (according to the UN Palmer commission). It should be remembered that of 5 ships the only violence broke out on the Mavi Marmara with jihadist turks of the IHH 'charity' on board. The IHH had previously donated its 'charitable services' to Chechniya in the form of funds and fighters.

It is to Turkey's leadership that we should look when we consider whether this apology to Turkey by Israel will actually help the relationship with that country. We have to keep in mind just who Erdogan and his AKP party are, outright islamist parties that have decimated their own military in the successful attempt to reform secular islamic Turkey into a country ruled by the tenets of islam. Erdogan has done this slowly whilst professing to keep the secular character of Turkey. Turkey has however been changed from within, the educational, social and other organs of state being slowly infiltrated by the islamists.  And none more so than the armed forces. Hundreds of generals and half of Turkey's admirals are now languishing in prison. Over a hundred journalists are imprisoned along with thousands of students.

It must be remembered that the flotilla was organized by the IHH, the islamist activist group on behalf of Erdogan's AKP. The flotilla could have been stopped at any time by Turkey and the violence that the IHH activists unleashed need never have happened. The violence was however intended in order to make the break with Israel. The flotilla was a provocation designed to break the relationship between Israel and Turkey. So if Obama thinks that forcing Netanyahu to make this ludicrous apology will lead to any positive results then he is badly mistaken. But then Obama is not about improving Israel's situation. American presidents normally think in terms of how their own country's situation is affected (e.g. remember how Israel was forced by Nixon to feed two egyptian armies it had surrounded and were at Israel's mercy in 1973). And Obama is a man who has negative feelings for Israel no matter the orchestrated circus while he was in Israel. There is just too much history to the man, including his recent remarks about Israel being destroyed if it didn't improve its behaviour, to think that he has Israel's interests at heart.

We must also ask ourselves whether this apology will help improve the relationship with Erdogan. People think the souring of the relationship started at Davos with the 'Israel likes killing' remarks, but Erdogan began  his anti-semitic career very early on. When he was head of the NSP islamist youth party he wrote a play called MasKomYa about the supposed evils of jews:

In 1974, Erdogan, while serving as president of the Istanbul Youth Group of his mentor, former Prime Minister Necmettin Erbakan’s National Salvation Party, wrote, directed, and played the leading role in a theatrical play entitled Maskomya, staged throughout Turkey during the 1970s. Mas-Kom-Ya was a compound acronym for “Masons-Communists-Yahudi” — the latter meaning “Jews.” The play focused on the evil, conspiratorial nature of these three entities whose common denominator was Judaism.

 Netanyahu must know who he is dealing with but nevertheless was unable to resist Obama's latest arm twisting of Israel.

When thinking of Netanyahu's apology we must keep in mind the effect on its enemies of Israel yet again showing weakness, when the american president was there. Israel is seen to be no more than the US lapdog, a country that receives its orders from America.

Netanyahu has once again shown that he can not stand up to this president who has got it in for Israel. Let's hope that on the one decision that really matters, to take away Iran's nuclear weapons capabilities, Netanyahu will find the will to ignore Israel's enemy in the White House.

Shabbat shalom.

Catholic Church welcomes Obama with attack on Israel

Finally we se an acknowledgment on the Franciscan website that christians might not be faring too well in arab lands. Rather than an article this comes as a short book review whereby the statistic of middle eastern christians reducing from 20% after WWI to 10% is explaine as, "in the 2000’s, for several reasons: a low birth rate, a division into several churches (Coptic, Maronite, Armenian, Melkite, Chaldean, Byzantine, Syriac) and especially Islamic fundamentalism."

I would be very surprised if this figure of 10% holds now after Iraq ethnically cleansing a million christians in the last ten years and with the decimation of christian communities elsewhere. The cleansing of christians are most notable after the Arab Spring/Winter in Egypt and Syria but this is also happening in all other arab and islamic countries. As islamist countries invoke sharia law, violence against christians increases, and their population shrinks. Simple isn't it, but you will search in vain for this simple equation on catholic websites.

Of more interest to catholic institutions however is to keep up their ungrateful yet continuous lambasting of Israel. Christians are under attack everywhere in the middle east by islamists whilst in Israel christians lead free and equal lives. This doesn't impress the leaders of catholics in Israel however. To welcome Obama, various catholic websites have been promoting the euphemistically named, "Justice and Peace commission (ACOHL) 'letter', a diatribe containing all the usual apartheid references such as the 'separation wall' (rather than what is mostly is, a security fence built to keep out waves of arab suicide bombers who killed over a thousand israelis).

We, the heads of the Catholic/Christian Churches in Jerusalem, welcome you wholeheartedly on your forthcoming visit to Israel and Palestine. On this occasion we would like to draw your attention to some major problems that deeply affect the Christian presence in these countries.
In this year, the Palestinian people are living for 46 years under Israeli military occupation. The plight of the Palestinian Christians is the same as that of the Palestinian People as a whole, and as a consequence everything that affects the Palestinian people also affects the Christians.
In the occupied Palestinian territories, among the numerous violations of international law by the Israeli authorities we mention only a few:  illegal Israeli settlements, a permit regime which restricts severely access to the Holy places for Muslims and Christians alike, expropriation of privately owned Palestinian land for settlement expansion and the construction of the separation barrier (like in the present case of the valley Cremisan), etc.

It is fanciful to expect that the truly decent new pope will have any effect whatsoever on the legions of jew hating catholic clerics who use every opportunity to attack Israel. I've said it before that the tragedy of christians is their leaders. Whilst muslims are killing and ethnically cleansing their bretheren everywhere in muslim lands, christian leaders continue to berate the one island of safety for christians in the middle east.
Of course this incitement against Israel never mentions the real oppression carried out against christians in palestinian arab controlled areas of Judea and Samaria and Gaza. Confiscations of land, attacks on people. Even the Franciscans finally admitted to an attack on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem recently, whilst trying to avoid reference to who actually did it (coming after an attack on Israel, without close reading of the article, the impression could have been gained that Israeli's may have been responsible). Such a low key response to the third mass attack on a catholic institution by palestinian arabs.

Whilst all these attacks on Israel by catholic leaders will in the long run have little effect on a tiny country that is nevertheless managing to forge an ever brighter future for itself amongst a sea of arab self-inflicted misery, christians will continue to pack their bags and leave arab countries for the West (ot christians in Israel though. They share fully in Israel's success).

Israel's love for America is reciprocated but arab indoctrination is making inroads

The latest Gallup poll shows that americans are becoming increasingly pro-Israel. Whereas last year 61% of americans professed to be pro-Israel, on the eve of Obama's visit this has risen to 64%. And this is in the face of a president who loses no opportunity to criticize Israel, who called into question Israel's very existence in the face of its so-called 'intransigence' recently, and where the mass media apart from Fox news  is solidly anti-Israel.

That americans know who their friends (and enemies) really are should not lead to complacency however. Just as in europe for the last 30 years, american universities are the battleground for the minds of future opinion formers in  the USA. Arab  countries are very active in sponsoring professorships at american universities, even whole departments. And the whole panoply of anti-Israel activities are in full swing.Those who care about Israel in the US should not be complacent as the present anti-Israelism seen in much of old europe began with the arab propaganda effort in the universities.

To some extent the fruits of the arab effort in the USA is already bearing its poisoned fruit. Those who are anti-Israel are increasingly being seen in those who have a university education, with 20% of those with a degree favoring the palestinian arabs over Israel.

So the more educated you are nowadays, the more indoctrinated you will be against the only state in the middle east which gives full equality to citizens no matter what their religion, the only country where arabs are free to lead their lives in equality and without fear of expressing themselves.

The only country in the middle east where a christian can plan his future in safety, where he can see his family grow without one or more daughters being kidnapped and forcibly converted to islam is the country that arab dictatorships are successfully portraying to educated americans as 'apartheid'.

What a world.

Another good pope

 A visit to Israel and various other commitments have meant that my blogging has been curtailed of late. Hopefully things will improve in the next month or so.

It is with relief that jews can welcome Jorge Mario Bergoglio an Argentinian cardinal as Francis I the new pope. Pope Francis is a jesuit with a long record of friendship with the Jewish People someone who will ensure that the line of friendly post World War II popes is unbroken.

It is a sad fact however that anti-semitism within the church, and anti-jewish propaganda (masquerading as being 'pro-palestinian') is still enough of a factor so as to always give jews reason to worry when church leaders are elected. The collective jewish sigh at the election of Francis I is palpable.

May this undoubtedly good man, Pope Francis I have a long and successful ministry as head of his church.