They say (ISIS) the Caliphate is on the rise in Iraq & Syria, not such bad news

The time might be approaching when the loss will be reversed

The middle east never ceases to amaze. The arab ISIS assassins gave a swift kick at Mosul and the whole rotten Iraqi edifice came crumbling down. General Petreaus' much vaunted military wonder at Falujah is shown to be the smoke and mirrors that it always was. ISIS now commands Falujah with it's own peculiar way of winning hearts and minds, through sheer terror and decapitation.

Years of American lives and US money are now as nothing. Obama ever the idiot is now readying the US to send in more money, support and eventually waste even more American lives in the service of Iran. Because Iraq is the fiefdom of Iran in the areas ruled by the shiah and far be it from Obama to let his new buddies in Iran take a pasting ( let's not worry about Obama. Whatever he touches turns to dust in the end, and he'll be gone soon in any case).

Iran can not afford to lose Iraq as it is the major supply route to Assad and to Hezbollah. And in any case Iran doesn't want ISIS on its border with Iraq so Iran will fight for Iraq with or without US help. But with trillions of dollars of debt, the US like every good gambler is happy to throw some more money away in the forlorn hope things will improve.

All this is as nothing to the Obama's national security team, unless he's simply ignoring their advice. In Obama's rush to destroy US credibility throughout the world, what better policy than to engender more Taliban style killings of US troops, sent to the battlefield and being virtually forbidden from opening fire in their defense. Which reminds me, Israeli troops are mighty sick of the same thing. And if you are a Jewish inhabitant of Judea and Samaria forget about ever using your gun. You will be arrested by Israeli police, your gun taken away, and no end of further proceedings taken against you.

This is Israel today where it's better to have a soldier hurt than for him to defend himself. David the Nahlai recently gained much support in Israel after his drawing his weapon was believed to have led to his punishment (It wasn't the reason in this case but IDF soldiers have had so much of this policy of 'havlagah' or 'restraint', as now a bad policy in the 1930's which led not to less attacks, but more and intensified ones against Jews. Orde Wingate changed the policy and the desperate situation of the kibbutzim with his offensive Night Squads. They lay in wait outside arab villages and when the terrorists emerged to shoot up and burn Jewish villages they were themselves destroyed. The British new it in the 1930's, the Jews won the 1948 war by defending themselves actively, but now Jewish soldiers need to be social workers protecting the interests of their enemies ).

So okay lets get to Chief of Staff Gantz. Now you would expect him to have a certain relief that his neighbours to the north and east are somewhat embroiled at the moment. Not a chance:

Gantz says conflict in Syria could continue for more than a decade; warns that both Hezbollah and World Jihad gaining strength in Syria.

Israeli generals as their politicians have little strategic horizon, so Gantz of course doesn't understand that the first part of his sentence necessarily contradicts the latter half. If the war goes on for a decade neither Hezbollah, Iran, the sunni al Qaida gangs or anyone else will be in much position to take on Israel. And in that time Israel will have relative peace, as long as it keeps its defense posture secure.

The present Israeli Defense Minister is thankfully on the ball unlike effete Barak and that labor union guy before him. Whereas Barak during the second intifada and afterwards, was nonchalant about Jews being slaughtered by suicide bombers, for Sderot and the south of Israel to get hammered year after year, Ya'alon made it clear the rules have changed. 

So the rockets still come but not every shabbat morning in time for synagogue service and shabbat lunch, not every day when the kids are walking to and from school. Yes the terrorists know Israel's timetable exactly and used to time the rockets accordingly. Sometimes that helped locate and destroy the rocket squads . Things are now very much better in the south. Ya'alon understands that in this region, the only way you get peace is not by smiling and giving away your silver, but by carrying a cosh and grimacing at your enemy.

And Ya'alon fits in with the Israeli street now. Apart from the usual feeble minds which along with Nobel prizes, Jews seem to be endowed with in larger numbers than is their fair share, Israelis understand that to show weakness to arabs, to free murderers for nothing, as 'gestures', is to invite further attack.

And that attack has come with the kidnapping of the yeshivah students. May God grant them a quick and safe return. Of course the lower level attacks nowadays are counted in the hundreds each month, and collated in the monthly Low IntensityConflict Report.

Until Israel was tested in the 1^st Intifada and found wanting, there were virtually no attacks on Jews in Judea and Samaria. The fear of 1948 and 1967 was still in their minds. I know because I travelled all over the area during part of that time. Then the human rights era started and palestinians were allowed to attack Israeli soldiers for the benefit of the cameras on a daily basis. This undermined Israel's reputation for robustness with the arabs as regards deterrence, and with the rest of the world with regards Israel's respect of human rights. 

With all the cameras, the odd lapse by a soldier instantly got, and gets beamed around the world. Rather than be seen for what it is, a human rights respecting bastion, Israel is besmirched as an apartheid state with impunity, and there's the pallywood filming in abundance to 'prove' it.

Some time soon people will begin to wake up because the never ending violence coming out of arab countries is getting intense, it will be all but impossible even for the most misled to ignore the fact that Israel is not the problem, but the arab, and those darlings known as 'Balestinians' ( pronounced the arab way, as they can not pronounce the 'P'. Fancy that, a 'people' who can't even utter the name of their own country properly. Something fishy there to start with).

Our poor:

IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Benny Gantz said Monday that only a handful of states have more firepower than Hezbollah.

Okay the man has sleepless nights and does a magnificent job showing the al Nusrah types and shia on the borders that when they mortar Israel it's no longer forgive and forget like in the 1950's all the way up to 1967. If they mortar Israeli communities they get a Tammuz missile up the tochos about 5 minutes later, or less. And lo and behold, rather than this becoming a 'cycle of violence' as the european fools like to berate Israel, the Syrian border is mostly quiet. A little education goes a long way in this region.

But the General is clearly worried:

Speaking at the Herzliya Conference at the Interdisciplinary Center, Gantz said, "Show me four or five states with more firepower than Hezbollah: the US, China, Russia, Israel, France, the UK."

Okay, but they need all that firepower to protect Israel. Sorry? Come again? PROTECT Israel? Yes. 

Without Hezbollah and all its weaponry on the borders of Syria and Lebanon the sunni jihadis would be able to munch their sandwiches opposite the guard post at Rosh Haniqra whilst taking the odd pot shot, at point blank range.

The Chief worries too much about the firepower of Hezbollah and all the training it is getting in the field. Hezbollah are shi as in Iran, Assad's gang of Alawites and Maliki's domain of Baghdad. They are but a tenth the size of the sunni world, and if only they weren't such fanatical believers in the second coming of the Mahdi, they'd be buying their houses in Park Lane and Paris, just in case.

As it is they have to make do with renting houses in Thailand, Argentina and Bulgaria, but I digress, as that's for wholly different purposes.

Going from a stable shia ruled Syria two years ago that could put around a thousand tanks into Israel in a future war, Allah forbid, Iran now is fighting a war in Syria and now Iraq. Hezbollah has lost around 500 men so far in Syria. 

It's not so much fun to lose around 10% of your men on the battlefield (including top commanders of Hezbollah and the IRGC), and to know that there is not only no end in sight, but that there's so far not been so much as a peep from the Mahdi to say when he's gonna come and finish of those Jews and infidel apostate sunni muslims.

Of course Hezbollah is busy training up thousands of replacements, and so are the sunni jihadists, and so the party is getting bigger and better, and the carnage is set to increase exponentially.

And so:

Gantz said that Syria was falling apart "like a house of cards," and no outcome was good for Israel.

Sorry old boy. Just hold onto your hat, steady your nerve and get ready for the ride. You might even have just a little faith in the good Lord who has sent miracle upon miracle to the benefit of a state that otherwise could never have even got off the ground in 1948. If Christy Anastas can believe with her somewhat garbled understanding of our history that the survival of Israel is part of God's intention, for the world, “a Covenant“ , then you can surely afford to relax a little.

ISIS has been braying in the last few days about their caliphate coming to fruition, and however much Obama might move to help them, they are going to have a long hard slog, just as was predicted

here

The rock of Iran (and its ally Assad and proxy Hezbollah) has hit the hard sunni world, a world unforgiving of those they see as apostates threatening their very regimes.  A world full of extremist madrassas with students just longing to become involved in the fight against the shia 'heretics', as they see them.

The USA and Russia should sit this one out as it has little to do with them, and much to do with islam.
But the USA and Russia will not sit on the sidelines, more pity for the region, and also for Israel, although it might continue to be spared direct involvement.

Israel has been the wisest actor in the region, keeping its cool, growling menacingly and acting firmly when its interests are threatened or missiles, mortars or even bullets come over the border on the Golan Heights. Hamas learned last November that the rules have changed, that Israel will no longer tolerate its border communities being terrorized

The carnage we have seen this week is as nothing to what is about to happen, and whilst it does Amalek will be steadily weakened so that Israel will  hopefully have peace for a generation, quite a lot for us Jews.

All General Gantz needs to do is pick the time he bombs Iran's nuclear installations. God expects us to help ourselves to some extent, and Israel might need to clear Hezbollah from south Lebanon and allow its hostile population to escape the fighting, if Hezbollah does indeed attack Israel. If so, the most foolhardy thing to do would be to allow the shia civilian population back into the border after the inevitable ceasefire to start things up again.

If Israel is attacked, then in its defense it will be entitled to extend its borders up to the Litani river, an ancient border of Israel, and a natural defense line. The line could then be settled with Jews or any mix of loyal allies such as Christians and druze. Even Walid Jumblatt who humbled himself with such bad timing before Assad, the son of his father's murderer, even Jumblatt is very possibly asking himself if a lifetime's hostility to Israel has been a mistake. Sandwhched between sunni and shia violence, Jumblatt will himself begin to feel the heat before long.

We must learn from Russia, that if you attack us, we will not give you anything other than a bloody nose, and we'll also take back our ancient lands as compensation. A growing population means there will never be a problem settling and defending the new borders.

So things are not half bad for Israel with a strong economy, a strong army and an ever increasing and young population. All that is needed is a little faith.

Another Israeli general who's lost the plot

This is a time for arabs to be at war with themselves and with Iran's proxy Hezbollah, and for Israel to enjoy some peace

Usually the problem is of Israeli generals is that of their feeling so powerful that they wish to test Israel's strength to resist attack. By making Israel such a tempting target through the giving away of land the surrounding arabs will be just unable to resist having another go. General Nizan Alon is just one of a number of such generals and intelligence Diskin types who really believe that miniscule Israel is way too large for its own good.

So it's refreshing to have an ex-general Amos Yadlin, who headed military intelligence between 2006 and 2010 who comes along without weeping for the poor palestinians, about how if he was a Palestinian he'd also take up the gun and slaughter Jews - Yes ex-defence Minister Barak actually said he could understand our enemies attacking Israel, that he would in their shoes. Well thankfully Barak the walking security disaster who during two years of the 2nd Intifada and thousands of dead and injured Israelis is well out of the picture. Barak didn't have a clue to stop the slaughter. Sharon did however, and the job was done within the year. Sharon didn't spend years using the friendly Nato manual on how to make friends with hostile muslim population and Palestinian Arab enemies, or by throwing money at them as Nato did in Afghanistan. No Sharon used good intelligence to find the murdering swine who sent idiots high on islam to place bombs in cafes, buses and even in a Passover seder for the elderly. He then arrested or assassinated the killers. There was much condemnation from the world, but Jews stopped dying, and the PalArabs have little stomach for a rerun of the intifada. Israel managed what western armies say is impossible, to suppress terror without cosying up to the enemy population. And that's why Israel won during the second intifada, and Nato is leaving Afghanistan with its tail between its legs.

Of course Israel has gone soft again since 2002 and the arabs are making Israeli's lives hell on the roads with tactics just short of an armed intifada. Isolated killings and daily firebombings and stonings are the rule, and woe betide a Jew who draws his weapon in self defence.

But I digress. Back to Amos Yadlin who believes Israel has so few problems that it should go look for a little action, as in bombing Syria, with the best of intentions of course.  Yadlin seems to believe the anti-Israel propaganda about Israel's being the region's policeman, and wishes to stop Assad from massacring his civilians.

“We have red lines [for intervention]. Our red lines include [Syria] firing at Israel, the transfer of advances weapons to Hezbollah, and activity by the chemical [weapons] units. I believe we should add to these red lines the murder of civilians at a level where we can no longer stand idly by,” Yadlin said.

But what Yadlin doesn't explain is why Israel should pull the arab irons out of the fire when arab countries such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt are just brimming full of western weapons, with many hundreds of the most modern fighter aircraft including Awacs radar. If arabs themselves don't feel the necessity to go put Assad's airforce out of business, why should Israel risk doing the job?

And in any case let's be frank, is it in Israel's strategic interest to stop this war between the sunni and shia world? We know very well that what will happen once this conflict ends is that those thousands of seasoned jihadis in Syria will turn their guns and their rockets on Israel. They make no secret of their goal being Israel after they have sorted Assad out. Thankfully Assad has powerful friends who are propping him up, true friends such as Israel can only dream of. Russia doesn't spill crocodile tears for Assad's enemies as the US and Britain do for each arab terrorist Israel knocks on the head. China is quite happy to sell anything Assad needs, if Iran doesn't have it in its own armory.

Has Yadlin even given a thought to how many of the 170,000 rockets shared between Hezbollah, Syria and Iran might descend on Israel were Iran to take offense at Israel knocking out the air force of their best buddy in the middle east?

Yadlin goes on:

Unilateral action should by no means be Israel’s first option, said the retired major general, who currently heads the Institute for National Security Studies at Tel Aviv University.

Aha, it's preferable to have some friends join in, but Israel with all of 8 million people should be prepared to go it alone to start a totally unnecessary war on behalf of the civilians of an enemy state who spare no opportunities to tell how much they hate jews and the 'zionist entity,' unless they are receiving treatment for wounds at the zionist's field hospital in the Golan.

The preferable contingency would be a NATO operation led by the United States with Turkey as its key member to implement a no-fly zone over Syria “at the very minimum.” 

Where has Yadlin been for the last few years? He wants Turkey to drive its war planes up to the Golan Heights? Will Erdogan be able to resist the opportunity for another provocation? What will Israel do when Turkey's jets 'stray' over the border? Nato might not be so interested in going to war with Israel once Israel down a couple of Turkey's F16's, or F35's when they arrive, but does Israel really need to get entangled with such a mess.

Turkey would dearly like to 'protect' Syrian civilians, just as Jew baiting and killing Russia 'protected' Jerusalem's Jews in the 19th century. There was reason for its interventions to help Jews, and that was of a grand strategy for warm waters that Yadlin is blissfully unaware. In those days Britain and France protected themselves from Russian hegemony in the area, in their own interests of course. Yadlin might not be that savvy or knowledgeable, but with Turkish troops already 30kms inside of Syria at least, 'protecting' a tomb, it would not take much encouragement for Turkey's army to march up to the Golan.

And that might not be such a bad idea as that would surely bring the islamic proxy war between Iran, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and others into a hot one. Sadly the truth is the hotter the Syrian-Islamic war gets, the better for Israel and western interests. Only when a terrible price in blood has been paid, by many arab actors, Iran and Turkey will they, as with Europe after two world wars learn the meaning of peace. Iran should have learned the lesson when it lost a million men fighting Saddam Hussein. Like Germany after WWI, it needs another opportunity to learn the lessons.

Israel should learn from the Kurds. They lie low until attacked, but will not be pushed around, as ISIS and Al Nusrah have found to their cost.

As for the muslim Arab world, it is wedded to violence in its culture, violence in the family, in the tribe and in the state. And unbridled violence will be the cure.

Turkey's irascible PM Erdogan is itching to join in against Syria and he should not be dicouraged to do so, but with his fellow muslim radicals for support, not with any Israeli complicity or help. Turkey is nowadays no friend, it is an enemy state not only for Israel but for the West and its values.

The sooner Israel learns to ignore the sometimes lukewarm overtures from Turkey the better. Erdogan has been a lifelong antisemite, a man who even wrote a disgustingly antisemitic play called MasKomYa, supposedly about Jews controlling the world as masons, communists and simply being jews. Hatred of Jews is in Erdogan's blood and he will spare no effort to undermine Israel, even if it means for a time suppressiong his hatreds.

Israel has lost enough blood because of a hundred years of arab aggression against the jewish People. We must suppress our sadness at seeing so much conflagration in a region that could be so different were arabs to lust after peace rather than conquest and war in the name of islam. Any intervention Israel makes will rebound on it, as when Israel tried to force a peace agreement with Lebanon in 1982.

Let Israel instead continue to enjoy its breathing space, to sit this one out and thank the Lord who works in mysterious ways to keep his People safe.

An Israeli soldier found Judea-Samarian checkpoints more traumatic than fighting in Lebanon

Elon Perry is an israeli journalist and soldier who gave a lecture at Limmud on 'Jerusalem Burning, 100 years of the Arab-Israeli conflict'. EP's account of his own life was fascinating, but his many historical mistakes means he should leave the history of Zionism and Israel to others who know it better and concentrate on his own wealth of experiences.  

This howler is an example where Perry talks about palestinian arab opposition to zionism:

“They started sending messages to Herzl and others 'don't dare to make aliyah'”

I don't know his sources for this statement, but when Herzl was alive there was no palestinian arab identity, and even arab nationalists were only beginning to form their movements. There was if anything some understanding from arab leaders such as Faisal that arabs could benefit from jewish immigration to Israel. Of course Faisal represented himself and his tribe but there were few other arab representatives for zionists to approach before the British overturned the ruling Ottoman Turkish rulein Syria.

“The masscres in Haifa, Hebron... were messages to Herzl, don't do what you're going to do” (The arab killers who took part in those attacks would have been sending their messages to a man who died 25 years before)

The statement is, apart from the two decade time lag ludicrous as the jews affected were not zionists but those jews who had lived in Pekiin, Hebron,Safed and Jerusalem amongst other places for hundreds if not thousands of years. The jews were attacked on account of their religion as Jews and because the racist arab leadership appointed by the British used their opportunity to foment pogroms. Trying to ascribe a nationalistic motive to these unprovoked attacks on jews is post facto anti-zionist obfuscation of the facts.

Elon's description of Ben Gurion's statesmanship in declaring the State of Israel (in the teeth of opposition by Britain and also the USA whose Defence Secretary Marshall believed/hoped that jewish forces would not last more than 3 weeks) is correct. He didn't however go into the extremely acrimonious relationship that developed between these two giants of zionism. Ben-Gurion in addition to being the outstanding leader of Israel was extraordinarily spiteful. He even forbade Weizmann from signing the Declaration of Israel's Independence.

EP gets interesting when recounting his own experiences:

Checkpoints

In the West Bank in those territories I found myself a policeman, a teacher ....... It's crazy we had to make decisions in seconds. The decisions were not to shoot or not to shoot but should I let this person in. This woman crying with her baby,what can you do? We are people, and we have mercy and you have to say yes you can go. And there's 300 in the queue. And some of them exploded.

When I go home I think of how to be better next time, but the media they condemn you, they call you killers...

It was really so difficult, you have a lot of pressure psychologically.

A lot of situations were like if I don't let her in she may die, how will I live with it.

 Elon complained that he had not got any help or training for such situations.

“when I think back on it, those situations were more dangerous than what we faced in Lebanon because in Lebanon you just took cover and could shoot. But here decisions stay with you all day.”

Before the wall (Oops-mostly a fence) we had 700 checkpoints, now less, 50 or 45 i'm not sure (Oops-I read somewhere that there are now just 3 plus mobile checkpoints, which is why there is an epidemic now of stonings and molotov and shooting attacks on israelis throughout Judea and Samaria).

People who complain about the fence, “don't know about the real situation where the wall is protecting Israel.”

“We give them jobs. We expect them to come to Israel, do their job, say thank you and go home. But some of them use terror.

“It's not that they want to use terror. Their leaders, they entice them...either they are offered money or they are blackmailed.”

"I nearly got killed many times at the checkpoint because we have to be up at front. We can't hide. I prefer the war."

 When asked about Britain condemning Israeli "occupation", the response was "what a chutzpah, the nation that occupied the whole of the world.......Jews in Israel will always be blamed, even for the weather."

"We built something from nothing in 70 years, and i travel the world a lot.... i see countries with nothing to compare "
Elon explained about his time in Gaza also published on his website:

“When I was a soldier serving in Gaza, we had been ordered to take shelter in the back of a hospital.
“We saw Palestinian kids covered in blood rushing into the hospital from an ambulance. At the back of the hospital the children took off their T-shirts which had been covered in ketchup.”

 Elon als recalled when his unit surrounded a house with terrorists in it. A child entered it and suddenly they were ordered not to fire at the house. A Hamas sniper there however did not have any such orders, and wounded 4 of his group. Elon had a friend die in his arms.

A general in the background had given express orders not to open fire, because of human rights concerns and fear over the Geneva Convention.

 The Geneva Convention does not apply in such a situation where human shields are deployed to protect combatants firing from a defended position. I challenge anyone to show otherwise, rather than just assert it as fact.

Mr Elon could not understand this point when I put it to him that not firing on the house was madness. Israel's enemies have so changed the situation that Israeli troops are scared of defending their lives, and pay for it.

As one Israeli commander said, 'I prefer my troops in hospital than before a courts martial'.

Israeli commanders need to back their troops if they expect them to do their duty. Covering their backs now will mean much blood spent uselessly in the future. Never in the history of warfare has an army faced such an untenable situation. If the enemy knew that the war crime of using human shields would not help them, the practice would very quickly disappear.

Elon should read the revolt by Begin to understand that Britain was not benign in its occupation of Israel, but often took sides, facilitating arab attacks on jews before the state existed. The Irgun and Lehi made Britain's continued stay in Israel hot enough for Montgomery to complain of Britain having been 'driven' out of Israel. 

Britain was never an honest broker in Israel. And even its present friendliness is hard headed opportunism with regard to Israeli technology and energy security, a hankering after Israel's gas reserves. Britain's dealings with arabs go back a long way and until Israel can offer Britain the lucrative bribes that the Saudis do with their billions of dollars arms contracts the change will be long coming.

Elon Perry has served Israel well and is still doing his best in its defence. But I believe he should avoid imparting wrong history to Jews about Israel and zionism.

He would be better to instead talk about his fascinating experiences fighting in Israel's wars and of highlights of his journalistic career in Israel.

I would have wished to have heard much more from Elon Perry about himself and his own experiences.

Allah, the Ten Plagues and Koranic Zionism

Michelangelo's 'horny' Moses

The Egyptian columnist who is calling for compensation from Israel over the 10 plagues seems to be in ignorance of what the Koran says about this episode.

Egyptian columnist Ahmad Al-Gamal wants:

 compensation for the [Ten] Plagues that were inflicted upon [us] as a result of the curses that the Jews’ ancient forefathers [cast] upon our ancient forefathers, who did not deserve to pay for the mistake that Egypt’s ruler at the time, Pharaoh as the Torah calls him, committed,” ... “For what is written in the Torah proves that it was Pharaoh who oppressed the Children of Israel, rather than the Egyptian people.”

Putting aside the time lag involved one piece of information that seems to have escaped Mr Ahmad Al-Gamal is that to claim compensation in any court in the world you need to be either the aggrieved party or his representative. Mr Gamal's forbears were not of ancient egyptian ancestry but related instead to Muhammad's arab cohorts who were bottled up in the arabian peninsula until the 7th century AD (this of course does not apply the indigenous Coptic Christians who don't count anyways as they are steadily being ethnically cleansed from Egypt by their muslim neighbours, despite the new regime's general tolerance towards them). When the arab armies erupted from what is now Saudi Arabia they came as imperialist occupiers. Islam is after all a crusading and supremacist religion.

Ahmad Al-Gamal dips into the Bible saying:

“They inflicted upon us the plague of locusts that didn’t leave anything behind them; the plague that transformed the Nile’s waters into blood, so nobody could drink of them for a long time; the plague of darkness that kept the world dark day and night; the plague of frogs; and the plague of the killing of the firstborn, namely every first offspring born to woman or beast, and so on”

Our arab Bible expert seems to be in ignorance of what the Koran says about the matter. As usual a little gratuitous violence is added to the biblical crib, such as a bit about cutting of a hand and foot on alternate sides. But in addition the Koran takes all the credit for the Exodus for Allah:

We sent forth Moses to pharaoh and his nobles (7:101,Koran, Penguin Classics, N.J.D.)

And in true Koranic style, even the Jew's narrative was taken with Moses now being outed as a muslim:

 Moses said: 'Pharaoh, I am an apostle from the Lord of the Creation and may tell nothing of Allah but what may be true'. (7:104)

Here whilst Moses the muslim is plugging for Allah, Allah is at the same time showing himself to be a zionist. In a parallel to Genesis 1 in the Bible where God first tells us who created the earth before ascribing the Land of Israel to the Jews:

Moses said to his people;'seek help in Allah and be patient, The earth is Allah's; He gives it to those of his servants he chooses'(7:129)

'Your Lord will perchance destroy your enemies and make you rulers in the land (the Koran can not be referring to  Egypt because it deals with the Exodus in the next few verses. Yet again the Koran recognizes that the Land of Israel belongs to the Jews. Muslims who work for the destruction of Israel are going against their own founding text).(7:130)

Here Allah takes the credit for the 10 Plagues:

 We afflicted Pharaoh's people with dearth and famine so that they might take heed.(7:130)

If Egyptian  Ahmad Al-Gamal wants compensation for the10 Plagues it is surely with the islamic deity of Allah that he must take issue ( presuming he's a muslim which in a 80-90% muslim country where Christians are not asked for their opinions as columnists in the wholly state run media, a pretty good presumption) .

As arab countries ban any text that is of a zionist nature, may I humbly enquire as to whether there are any moves afoot to put that zionist work the Koran on their banned list, or even whether any muslims are boycotting their mosques in protest?

Limmud day school, Sepharadi Music and Palestinian narrative

The Limmud day schools have become a fixture in the Jewish calendar. Until this year I haven't managed to attend one, and to be truthful I didn't feel much need to do so as much of my time is spent reading and blogging about subjects affecting Jews I thought there would be little to  learn from such a series of talks. I was wrong. The Limmud I attended had many topics of interest, some of which such as sepharadi music I had barely thought about previously.

The  lectures I attended were generally interesting although one talk given by an Israeli journalist was so replete with palestinian narrative distortions of zionism and the history of Israel that I thought at first that the speaker was an anti-zionist. This later turned out not to be the case. However even with my understanding of the general ignorance and orientation towards the Palestinian Arab cause amongst israeli journalists that I see on a daily basis reading their press in hebrew and english I was shocked. I'll hopefully write more about this talk soon.

The lecture by Rabbi Ariel Abel and Daniel Moussa on sepharadi music was an eye opener to someone brought up mainly in the western ashkenazi musical tradition. Until now my exposure to eastern music has been quite eclectic, that of eastern european, azeri (Davut Guloglu is one of my favourite singers) and 'arab' music (as arabs are relative newcomers to most of the region, the Jews are very possibly the founders of that musical tradition. Jews were also traditionally the ablest musicians in the arab world, which often forbade music altogether, the legendary Al Kuwaiti Brothers come to mind), being especially fond of the singer Fayrouz. Happily I can't understand the lyrics to the military sounding 'Jerusalem'. Arab music can sound very beautiful in service of a heinous intent (and i'm not even referring to the Al Qaida type videos with their associated evil sounding chants).

The duo gave a fascinating introduction to oriental modes of the maqam including many well known israeli songs such as Hava Nagilah ( Hijaz mode similar to the phrygian mode), Hatiqvah  (Nahwand mode which is equivalent of the minor scale) and Jerusalem the Golden (Nahwand mode) are sung according to these modes. In western classical and popular music we are basically limited to just two modes of the harmonic minor and major scales whereas sepharadi music uses 22 different modes used according to the mood of the text.


It would have preferable to my mind were audience participation not encouraged as hearing the subtelties of the music sung by the Rabbi and Daniel was drowned out by the enthusisatically loud group.

The newly formed duo intend to take their show on the road, a very good idea. I'm looking forwards to that.

Further information is on www.pizmonim.com which amongst other things lists 22 different scales in sephardic music.

Now the Catholic Church wants another piece of Israel

 

Jews in Israel must not give away their heritage, their ancient homelands of the Bible. The reaction to arab aggression must not be to give away land but to retake lands lost to our enemies. .

UPDATE 13/05/2014  - The unpardonable intention to give away an essential part of Jewish heritage to the Roman Catholic Church is beginning to cause a storm in Israel, and not before time. There needs to be a strong reaction to stop this act of folly.

--------------------------

Israel seems unable to forgive itself for having managed to wrest back control of its ancestral homelands and holy places. That's just as well because there is no lack of interested parties wishing to divest Israel of its lands. 

The Palestinian Arabs are ever present with their threats and their constant terrorism in service of their stated goal to destroy Israel. Hamas and Egypt took their bits of Israel without ever guaranteeing peace. Hamas encouraged by Sharon's retreat from Gaza stepped up its rocket attacks. 

Egypt would have been content to lick its wounds after the Yom Kippur War thrashing Israel gave it. Beigin had no need to give the strategic Sinai away for a scrap of paper, a peace treaty that Muhammad Morsy was content to undermine whilst conniving with Turkey to encircle Israel by land and sea, creating the conditions for another war. 

During the reign of Israel's much touted egyptian 'friend' President Mubarak, he was happy for Hamas to smuggle thousands of rockets into Gaza before being delivered to Israel. Mubarak complained that it was too much to expect of him to find up to a thousand tunnels in a strip of land a few miles wide. Strangely enough the present government of Sisi has done just that in less than a year. But Egypt now sees Muslim Brotherhood offshoot Hamas as a threat to its own security. 

So Israel unnecessarily gave away the whole of Sinai to Egypt which had no historical claims whatsoever on it (It was a present from Britain that wrested the Sinai in 1917 from the Ottoman Turks, for purely British imperial reasons of defence of its Suez canal positions). 

And then there was Oslo whereby Israel gave Palestinian Arabs de facto independence by withdrawing from 60% of Judea and Samaria. That of course could never be enough for arabs who don't recognize Israel, or Jews rights to any land anywhere in the region. Arab maps do not even mention Israel with Palestinian Authority and Fatah maps of 'Palestine' including the whole of Israel. So much for giving away Israel's land in the cause of peace. There is always a demand for more.

Israel withdrew from all of Lebanon rather than keeping a militarily sensible defensive line from the Litani river southwards. The result was not peace but constant aggression until the war of 2006. Even the UN agreed that with Israel's withdrawal in 2000 all of Lebanon's territory had been returned. So then the 'Sheba Farms' red herring was raised. Anything to deny Israel peace. And if Israel were to give the 'Sheba Farms' to Lebanon you can bet your bottom dollar that the case of villages that Israel conquered when defending itself in 1948 would come up as new demands.

Olmert wanted to give away the whole of east Jerusalem, probably in exchange for some bribe or another. For Olmert what was good for east Jerusalem was good for the rest of Jeruslaem. He decided to hand over parts of Jerusalem to Russia. Russia as we all know is so small that in its desperation for land it has annexed parts of Georgia and Ukraine.
So we can't blame the Catholic Church for now getting in on the act. The Israelis so much want to be liked by the gentile world that they will give away everything to achieve a temporary popularity. Anyone can enter the reputed room of the last supper which is over the Tomb of David. Why does the Church feel the need to take possession of it?


Which other country in the world voluntarily gives up its land? Israel which has paid such a heavy price in blood to defend itself from arab aggression seems always ready to give away that which its people died, and are dying to protect.

Rather than offering to give away lands, to strip itself of its defences, Israel should itself draw up demands for the return of its ancient biblical territories in Jordan, and lands that zionists bought south of Damascus before the establishment of Israel.

When the Pope comes to visit, a man who is recognized as a friend of the Jewish People he should be given all honors, courtesy and some presents such as an ancient oil lamp or two. But the land belongs to the Jewish People as our Bible reading pope knows only too well.


Report: Vatican Pushing for Control of Mount Zion
Christian leaders push Israel to hand over control of area housing King David’s tomb, ‘last supper’ hall.
By Maayana Miskin

Christian leaders reportedly pressured Israel to turn over control of Mount Zion in Jerusalem during a clandestine meeting of senior city officials.

The meeting took place Tuesday in the office of Attorney Amnon Merhav, the director-general of the Jerusalem municipality. It was attended by officials from the Prime Minister’s Office, President’s Office, Tourism Ministry, Police, Kotel Rabbi’s Office, and more.

During the meeting, representatives of Christian groups in the capital pushed Jerusalem leaders to give the Catholic Church control over the Mount Zion area that includes the “Hall of the Last Supper.” There have been reports that Israel’s government is planning to turn the building in question over to the Vatican prior to the Pope’s expected visit in May.

Pope Francis is expected to visit Israel and to lead a service in the Hall of the Last Supper.

The same building that houses the hall, which is holy to Christianity, also includes the tomb of King David, a holy site frequently visited by Jews. Some Church officials expressed upset over what they termed a major increase recently in the number of Jewish visitors to the site.

Representatives of the Israel Police and Shin Bet who were at the meeting warned that turning the building over to the Church could spark Jewish “price tag” attacks.

Several Members of Knesset and ministers have asked the Prime Minister to respond to rumors that he is planning to give control of the Mount Zion compound to the Vatican. To date, the Prime Minister’s Office and Foreign Ministry have refused to respond, although Deputy Foreign Minister Zev Elkin stated in mid-2013 that the government has no such plans.

In response to reports regarding the Tuesday meeting, the city of Jerusalem released a statement saying, “The state of Israel and the Jerusalem municipality are paying special attention to the Mount Zion compound, with the goal of improving and updating the infrastructure and the municipal service, and of calming tension… The municipality will continue to lead the process as the central sovereign power on Mount Zion.”

The Prime Minister’s Office declined to respond.

Obama's getting desperate

Obama has again been unable to keep his vitriol against the Jewish State to himself. Last time he called Israel a 'pariah' even whilst bowing and scraping to the saudi rapists and killers of women and gays. Obama tried in 2012 to ambush Netanyahu whilst flying to Washington, and has now done it again.

Obama, in the lengthy interview with Jeffrey Goldberg that was released precisely as Netanyahu was flying in to meet with him, had chosen to assail the prime minister for overseeing “aggressive settlement construction,” indicated that Netanyahu’s positions on the Palestinian conflict were threatening Israel’s wellbeing, and warned that the US would find it increasingly difficult to defend Israel from the international consequences.

Last time it was about forcing Israel back into the 1967 'borders' which were ceasefire lines (Jordan attacked Israel in 1967 when King Hussein, believing Nasser's empty boasts thought Israeli forces had been finished by Nasser's troops, when the opposite was the case).

And now Obama has attacked Israel's"aggressive settlements" when housing starts under Netanyahu in Israel's ancient homelands of Judea and Samaria ('WB') have been lower than in the left wing Barak government.

It is good that Obama is finally coming out in his true colors. Too many people have been tricked by Obama's near constant stating of his commitment to Israel's security, usually before he stabs that security in the back.

Netanyahu thankfully kept his cool and did not respond to this latest provocation, and instead heaped praise on Kerry in his appearence before AIPAC for Kerry's attempts to bring peace between Israel and Arabs.

Obama will survive Obama who attacked Israel even whilst Russian tanks were invading the Crimea. Obama has plenty of time to attack Netanyahu, but had none to attend a Homeland Security meeting to discuss how to respond to Putin.

As throughout our history the Jewish People's enemies can think of nothing else but how to destroy us. There are of course righteous gentiles amongst the most wicked. People like Martin Luther King who knew an antisemite when he met one, and was not afraid to call them out, or the beautiful young lady above who is defending Israel from its enemies whilst still at university.

Golda Meir's words come to mind, written about Idi  Amin who broke off relations in 1972 with Israel (her autobiography was written before the Amin's siding with palestinian terrorists at Entebbe) but apt for that other enemy of Israel:

But Idi Amin is not uganda and even he can't remain a dictator forever, which is some consolation                                                                                    (Golda Meir: My Life: page 279)