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Panetta writes " Obama is a "poor little lamb' who has lost his way.'
What is obvious is Obama always makes decisions based on their political impact and not based on what is best for the nation. V.J is Obama's J.V staffer who has tremendous influence on his decision making!
And then there is V.P. Biden, who cannot help himself, but at least tells the truth. However, in the process, insults and embarrasses our allies and makes a fool of himself and then sets about apologizing.
What a pair the Democrats have given us!
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Iran nuclear facility explodes. (See 1 and 1a below.)
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Emory's president responds! (See 2 below.)
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ISIS Keeps rolling along and Turkey is placed in a dilemma. (See 3 below.)
Fight ISIS on the ground there or fight them somewhere else closer to home and for decades. (See 3a below.)
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Another American Icon - The Waldorf Astoria Hotel, is being sold by Hilton to Chinese Insurance interests for $1.9 Billion by Hilton Hotels!
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Everyone always presses the strong to make concessions. This is a ploy the 'oppressed' Palestinians know they can use and always play.
Obama is one of the worst offenders and even when Israel makes concessions there is no quid pro quo.
VIDEO: What Palestinian Concessions? |
What are all the concessions that the PA made to Israel?
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I posted Rabbi Lewis' not very PC sermon several memos ago and now we have responses. (See 4 below.)
This is Rabbi Lewis; response to a congregant friend. (See 4a below.)
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Dick
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1) Massive blast reported at suspected Iranian nuke facility
Two reportedly killed in explosion at secretive Parchin site that shatters windows 12 kilometers away
Read more: Massive blast reported at suspected Iranian nuke facility | The Times of Israel http://www.timesofisrael.com/massive-blast-reported-at-suspected-iranian-nuke-facility/#ixzz3FQ2Lu01H
Follow us: @timesofisrael on Twitter | timesofisrael on Facebook
TEHRAN, Iran — Two people were killed in an explosion at a defense ministry plant east of Tehran for the production of explosives, Iran’s state news agency IRNA reported Monday.
Read more: Massive blast reported at suspected Iranian nuke facility | The Times of Israel http://www.timesofisrael.com/massive-blast-reported-at-suspected-iranian-nuke-facility/#ixzz3FQ2AgmTl
Follow us: @timesofisrael on Twitter | timesofisrael on Facebook
The BBC, citing a report from the semi-official Iranian Students News Agency (ISNA), reported on Monday that the incident happened in an “explosive materials production unit” at the site south-east of the capital Tehran.
According to ISNA the blast was so powerful it shattered windows up to 12 kilometers away and the glare from the explosion lit up the night sky.
Several arms facilities and military bases are located east of the Iranian capital, including Parchin. UN nuclear inspectors have been seeking to visit the site to answer concerns about Iran’s atomic program.
The base lies at the centre of allegations of past Iranian research into sophisticated explosives that can be used to detonate a nuclear warhead.
Tehran, which has denied inspectors access to Parchin since 2005, insists its nuclear program is for purely civilian uses. Israel and the West fear Iran is seeking to attain nuclear weapons.
In August Iran reiterated that it will not allow IAEA inspectors to visit the site.
Nuclear experts from the IAEA were due to hold talks Tuesday in Tehran to try and resolve outstanding issues regarding Iran’s disputed atomic program.
The IRNA news agency said the visitors were expected in the capital on Monday night ahead of talks with Iranian officials.
IAEA inspectors have been given access to a string of declared nuclear sites as part of an interim nuclear deal reached with the major powers last November. Access to Parchin was not agreed under the terms of that accord but the IAEA has been seeking to visit the base as part of its mission to answer all concerns about Iran’s nuclear program, past and present.
1a) A range of Western news outlets reported Monday morning that an explosion had rocked the Iranian military base at Parchin - where the UN's nuclear watchdog (IAEA) suspects Iranian scientists conducted work related to nuclear weaponization - just a day before an IAEA team was set to land in the Islamic republic in an bid to secure access to sites where military-related atomic work is thought to have occurred.
The BBC conveyed a report from the regime-linked Iranian Students News Agency, which described a fire in "explosive materials production unit" and which quoted Iranian officials acknowledging that "two workers of this production unit lost their lives." Reuters conveyed a similar report from Iran's official IRNA news outlet, describing a fire at an explosives factory somewhere east of Tehran. Both outlets also quoted an Iranian opposition website putting the exact location as inside the Parchin complex, though analysts cautioned that the latter reports were not entirely trustworthy.
The rumors in any case renewed focus on Parchin specifically and more broadly on widespread suspicions - described across years of IAEA reports - that the Iranian military engaged in atomic research, up to and including experiments related to the construction and detonation of nuclear warheads. The IAEA has been seeking access to Parchin since 2005, and has concluded that Iranian scientists conducted tests at the facility that were likely aimed at the successful detonation of a nuclear warhead.
The Israelis last month revealed that they had intelligence, which they assessed as "highly reliable information," documenting full-blown weaponization work at Parchin. IAEA nuclear experts arrived Monday night in Tehran in anticipation of Tuesday talks aimed at securing access that Iran is obligated to give to Parchin and beyond, after the agency last month issued a blistering report accusing Iran of stonewalling inspectors, destroying evidence, and sabotaging verification efforts.
At stake are long-standing international demands that Iran come clean about the so-called "possible military dimensions" (PMDs) of its nuclear program. Iranian disclosure is considered essential to setting a baseline for any future verification regime: In the most basic sense, inspectors would need a full accounting of Iran's atomic work to ensure that the Iranians had ceased such work. American lawmakers and Western diplomats have long emphasized the degree to which full Iranian disclosure must be part of any robust and credible deal between Tehran and the West. Potential backsliding by the P5+1 on the issue has generated concerns among analysts not just about the substance of any agreement, but also about the credibility of any future non-proliferation demands.
Danielle Pletka, senior vice president for foreign and defense policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, told journalists on a Monday conference call held by The Israel Project that IAEA credibility was closely linked to the fate of the Non-Proliferation Treaty writ large, to the point where "the very existence and credibility of the NPT and the IAEA hang in the balance."
1a) A range of Western news outlets reported Monday morning that an explosion had rocked the Iranian military base at Parchin - where the UN's nuclear watchdog (IAEA) suspects Iranian scientists conducted work related to nuclear weaponization - just a day before an IAEA team was set to land in the Islamic republic in an bid to secure access to sites where military-related atomic work is thought to have occurred.
The BBC conveyed a report from the regime-linked Iranian Students News Agency, which described a fire in "explosive materials production unit" and which quoted Iranian officials acknowledging that "two workers of this production unit lost their lives." Reuters conveyed a similar report from Iran's official IRNA news outlet, describing a fire at an explosives factory somewhere east of Tehran. Both outlets also quoted an Iranian opposition website putting the exact location as inside the Parchin complex, though analysts cautioned that the latter reports were not entirely trustworthy.
The rumors in any case renewed focus on Parchin specifically and more broadly on widespread suspicions - described across years of IAEA reports - that the Iranian military engaged in atomic research, up to and including experiments related to the construction and detonation of nuclear warheads. The IAEA has been seeking access to Parchin since 2005, and has concluded that Iranian scientists conducted tests at the facility that were likely aimed at the successful detonation of a nuclear warhead.
The Israelis last month revealed that they had intelligence, which they assessed as "highly reliable information," documenting full-blown weaponization work at Parchin. IAEA nuclear experts arrived Monday night in Tehran in anticipation of Tuesday talks aimed at securing access that Iran is obligated to give to Parchin and beyond, after the agency last month issued a blistering report accusing Iran of stonewalling inspectors, destroying evidence, and sabotaging verification efforts.
At stake are long-standing international demands that Iran come clean about the so-called "possible military dimensions" (PMDs) of its nuclear program. Iranian disclosure is considered essential to setting a baseline for any future verification regime: In the most basic sense, inspectors would need a full accounting of Iran's atomic work to ensure that the Iranians had ceased such work. American lawmakers and Western diplomats have long emphasized the degree to which full Iranian disclosure must be part of any robust and credible deal between Tehran and the West. Potential backsliding by the P5+1 on the issue has generated concerns among analysts not just about the substance of any agreement, but also about the credibility of any future non-proliferation demands.
Danielle Pletka, senior vice president for foreign and defense policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, told journalists on a Monday conference call held by The Israel Project that IAEA credibility was closely linked to the fate of the Non-Proliferation Treaty writ large, to the point where "the very existence and credibility of the NPT and the IAEA hang in the balance."
Tel Aviv University researchers are literally setting a new gold standard in cardiac tissue engineering to develop functional substitutes for damaged heart tissues. Because heart cells cannot multiply and cardiac muscles contain few stem cells, heart tissue is unable to repair itself after a heart attack. So, Dr. Tal Dvir and his graduate student Michal Shevach of TAU’s Department of Biotechnology,Department of Materials Science and Engineering, and Center for Nanoscience and Nanotechnology, set out to develop innovative methods to restore heart function. Using sophisticated micro- and nanotechnological tools — ranging in size from one millionth to one billionth of a meter — they created cardiac “patches” with gold particles that could be transplanted into the body to replace damaged heart tissue. The integration of gold nanoparticles into cardiac tissue, Dr. Dvir and his team discovered, increased the conductivity of biomaterials. “To address our electrical signaling problem, we deposited gold nanoparticles on the surface of our patient-harvested matrix, ‘decorating’ the biomaterial with conductors,” said Dr. Dvir. “The result was that the nonimmunogenic hybrid patch contracted nicely due to the nanoparticles, transferring electrical signals much faster and more efficiently than non-modified scaffolds.” In a study published by Nano Letters, Dr. Dvir’s team presented their model for a superior hybrid cardiac patch, which incorporates biomaterial harvested from patients and gold nanoparticles. “Our goal was twofold,” said Dr. Dvir. “To engineer tissue that would not trigger an immune response in the patient and to fabricate a functional patch not beset by signaling or conductivity problems.”
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2) To the Emory Community:
It saddens me to report that the Alpha Epsilon Pi fraternity house, an historically Jewish fraternity here at Emory, was the target of crude, offensive graffiti, including swastikas, early Sunday morning, October 5, shortly after the end of the observance of Yom Kippur.
On behalf of our community, I denounce this abhorrent act. It is an offense against a Jewish fraternity and the Jewish members of our community, and it is a repugnant, flagrant emblem of anti-Semitism. It is also an offense against the entire university. Among the many pernicious things the swastika symbolizes, in the last century it represented the most egregious and determined undermining of intellectual freedom and truth-seeking. In short, its appearance on our campus is an attack against everything for which Emory stands.
Emory University will not tolerate such acts. Instead we must together pledge Emory University’s continuing commitment to raise awareness and prevent all forms of violence and discrimination; to foster openness and diversity of thought, experience, spirituality, and culture; and to seek positive transformation in our community and the world. We all have a responsibility to uphold the principles we hold dear as an academic community, and to create a community that is inclusive, open, respectful, and welcoming to all.
Emory Police officers are actively investigating the incident and have increased patrols to the area. If you have any information about the individuals who may have perpetrated these acts, please contact the Emory Police at 404-727-6111.
Sincerely,
Jim Wagner
President
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3) Turkey, the Kurds and Iraq: The Prize and Peril of Kirkuk
By Reva Bhalla
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4) American Rabbi Calls for Genocide of Muslims
3) Turkey, the Kurds and Iraq: The Prize and Peril of Kirkuk
By Reva Bhalla
In June 1919, aboard an Allied warship en route to Paris, sat Damat Ferid Pasha, the Grand Vizier of a crumbling Ottoman Empire. The elderly statesman, donning an iconic red fez and boasting an impeccably groomed mustache, held in his hands a memorandum that he was to present to the Allied powers at the Quai d'Orsay. The negotiations on postwar reparations started five months earlier, but the Ottoman delegation was prepared to make the most of its tardy invitation to the talks. As he journeyed across the Mediterranean that summer toward the French shore, Damat Ferid mentally rehearsed the list of demands he would make to the Allied powers during his last-ditch effort to hold the empire together.
He began with a message, not of reproach, but of inculpability: "Gentlemen, I should not be bold enough to come before this High Assembly if I thought that the Ottoman people had incurred any responsibility in the war that has ravaged Europe and Asia with fire and sword." His speech was followed by an even more defiant memorandum, denouncing any attempt to redistribute Ottoman land to the Kurds, Greeks and Armenians, asserting: "In Asia, the Turkish lands are bounded on the south by the provinces of Mosul and Diyarbakir, as well as a part of Aleppo as far as the Mediterranean." When Damat Ferid's demands were presented in Paris, the Allies were in awe of the gall displayed by the Ottoman delegation. British Prime Minister David Lloyd George regarded the presentation as a "good joke," while U.S. President Woodrow Wilson said he had never seen anything more "stupid." They flatly rejected Damat Ferid's apparently misguided appeal -- declaring that the Turks were unfit to rule over other races, regardless of their common Muslim identity -- and told him and his delegation to leave. The Western powers then proceeded, through their own bickering, to divide the post-Ottoman spoils.
Under far different circumstances today, Ankara is again boldly appealing to the West to follow its lead in shaping policy in Turkey's volatile Muslim backyard. And again, Western powers are looking at Turkey with incredulity, waiting for Ankara to assume responsibility for the region by tackling the immediate threat of the Islamic State with whatever resources necessary, rather than pursuing a seemingly reckless strategy of toppling the Syrian government. Turkey's behavior can be perplexing and frustrating to Western leaders, but the country's combination of reticence in action and audacity in rhetoric can be traced back to many of the same issues that confronted Istanbul in 1919, beginning with the struggle over the territory of Mosul.
The Turkish Fight for Mosul
At the time of the British negotiation with the Ottomans over the fate of the Mosul region, British officers touring the area wrote extensively about the ubiquity of the Turkish language, noting that "Turkish is spoken all along the high road in all localities of any importance." This fact formed part of Turkey's argument that the land should remain under Turkish sovereignty. Even after the 1923 signing of the Treaty of Lausanne, in which Turkey renounced its rights to Ottoman lands, the Turkish government still held out a claim to the Mosul region, fearful that the Brits would use Kurdish separatism to further weaken the Turkish state. Invoking the popular Wilsonian principle of self-determination, the Turkish government asserted to the League of Nations that most of the Kurds and Arabs inhabiting the area preferred to be part of Turkey anyway. The British countered by asserting that their interviews with locals revealed a prevailing preference to become part of the new British-ruled Kingdom of Iraq.
The Turks, in no shape to bargain with London and mired in a deep internal debate over whether Turkey should forego these lands and focus instead on the benefits of a downsized republic, lost the argument and were forced to renounce their claims to the Mosul territory in 1925. As far as the Brits and the French were concerned, the largely Kurdish territory would serve as a vital buffer space to prevent the Turks from eventually extending their reach from Asia Minor to territories in Mesopotamia, Syria and Armenia. But the fear of Turkish expansion was not the only factor informing the European strategy to keep northern Iraq out of Turkish hands.
The Oil Factor
Since the days of Herodotus and Nebuchadnezzar, there have been stories of eternal flames arising from the earth of Baba Gurgur near the town of Kirkuk. German explorer and cartographer Carsten Niebuhr wrote in the 18th century: "A place called Baba Gurgur is above all remarkable because the earth is so hot that eggs and meat can be boiled here." The flames were in fact produced by the natural gas and naphtha seeping through cracks in the rocks, betraying the vast quantities of crude oil lying beneath the surface. London wasted little time in calling on geologists from Venezuela, Mexico, Romania and Indochina to study the land and recommend sites for drilling. On Oct. 14, 1927, the fate of Kirkuk was sealed: A gusher rising 43 meters (around 140 feet) erupted from the earth, dousing the surrounding land with some 95,000 barrels of crude oil for 10 days before the well could be capped. With oil now part of the equation, the political situation in Kirkuk became all the more flammable.
The British mostly imported Sunni Arab tribesmen to work the oil fields, gradually reducing the Kurdish majority and weakening the influence of the Turkmen minority in the area. The Arabization project was given new energy when the Arab Baath Socialist Party came to power through a military coup in 1968. Arabic names were given to businesses, neighborhoods, schools and streets, while laws were adjusted to pressure Kurds to leave Kirkuk and transfer ownership of their homes and lands to Arabs. Eviction tactics turned ghastly in 1988 under Saddam Hussein's Anfal campaign, during which chemical weapons were employed against the Kurdish population. The Iraqi government continued with heavy-handed tactics to Arabize the territory until the collapse of the Baathist regime in 2003. Naturally, revenge was a primary goal as Kurdish factions worked quickly to repopulate the region with Kurds and drive the Arabs out.
Even as Kirkuk, its oil-rich fields and a belt of disputed territories stretching between Diyala and Nineveh provinces have remained officially under the jurisdiction of the Iraqi central government in Baghdad, the Kurdish leadership has sought to redraw the boundaries of Iraqi Kurdistan. After the Iraqi Kurdish region gained de facto autonomy with the creation of a no-fly zone in 1991 and then formally coalesced into the Kurdistan Regional Government after the fall of Saddam Hussein, Kurdish influence gradually expanded in the disputed areas. Kurdish representation increased through multi-ethnic political councils, facilitated by the security protection these communities received from the Kurdish peshmerga and by the promise of energy revenues, while Baghdad remained mired in its own problems. Formally annexing Kirkuk and parts of Nineveh and Diyala, part of the larger Kurdish strategy, would come in due time. Indeed, the expectation that legalities of the annexation process would soon be completed convinced a handful of foreign energy firms to sign contracts with the Kurdish authorities -- as opposed to Baghdad -- enabling the disputed territories to finally begin realizing the region's energy potential.
Then the unexpected happened: In June, the collapse of the Iraqi army in the north under the duress of the Islamic State left the Kirkuk fields wide open, allowing the Kurdish peshmerga to finally and fully occupy them. Though the Kurds now sit nervously on the prize, Baghdad, Iran, local Arabs and Turkmen and the Islamic State are eyeing these fields with a predatory gaze. At the same time, a motley force of Iran-backed Shiite militias, Kurdish militants and Sunni tribesmen are trying to flush the Islamic State out of the region in order to return to settling the question of where to draw the line on Kurdish autonomy. The Sunnis will undoubtedly demand a stake in the oil fields that the Kurds now control as repayment for turning on the Islamic State, guaranteeing a Kurdish-Sunni confrontation that Baghdad will surely exploit.
The Turkish Dilemma
The modern Turkish government is looking at Iraq and Syria in a way similar to how Damat Ferid did almost a century ago when he sought in Paris to maintain Turkish sovereignty over the region. From Ankara's point of view, the extension of a Turkish sphere of influence into neighboring Muslim lands is the antidote to weakening Iraqi and Syrian states. Even if Turkey no longer has direct control over these lands, it hopes to at least indirectly re-establish its will through select partners, whether a group of moderate Islamist forces in Syria or, in northern Iraq, a combination of Turkmen and Sunni factions, along with a Kurdish faction such as Kurdistan Regional Government President Massoud Barzani's Kurdistan Democratic Party. The United States may currently be focused on the Islamic State, but Turkey is looking years ahead at the mess that will likely remain. This is why Turkey is placing conditions on its involvement in the battle against the Islamic State: It is trying to convince the United States and its Sunni Arab coalition partners that it will inevitably be the power administering this region. Therefore, according to Ankara, all players must conform to its priorities, beginning with replacing Syria's Iran-backed Alawite government with a Sunni administration that will look first to Ankara for guidance.
However, the Turkish vision of the region simply does not fit the current reality and is earning Ankara more rebuke than respect from its neighbors and the West. The Kurds, in particular, will continue to form the Achilles' heel of Turkish policy making.
In Syria, where the Islamic State is closing in on the city of Kobani on Turkey's border, Ankara is faced with the unsavory possibility that it will be drawn into a ground fight with a well-equipped insurgent force. Moreover, Turkey would be fighting on the same side as a variety of Kurdish separatists, including members of Turkey's Kurdistan Workers' Party, which Ankara has every interest in neutralizing.
Turkey faces the same dilemma in Iraq, where it may unwittingly back Kurdish separatists in its fight against the Islamic State. Just as critical, Turkey cannot be comfortable with the idea that Kirkuk is in the hands of the Iraqi Kurds unless Ankara is assured exclusive rights over that energy and the ability to extinguish any oil-fueled ambitions of Kurdish independence. But Turkey has competition. Iraqi President Jalal Talabani's Patriotic Union of Kurdistan is not willing to make itself beholden to Turkey, as did Barzani's Kurdistan Democratic Party, while financial pressures continue to climb. Instead, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan is staying close to Iran and showing a preference to work with Baghdad. Meanwhile, local Arab and Turkmen resistance to Kurdish rule is rising, a factor that Baghdad and Iran will surely exploit as they work to dilute Kurdish authority by courting local officials in Kirkuk and Nineveh with promises of energy rights and autonomy.
This is the crowded battleground that Turkey knows well. A long and elaborate game of "keep away" will be played to prevent the Kurds from consolidating control over oil-rich territory in the Kurdish-Arab borderland, while the competition between Turkey and Iran will emerge into full view. For Turkey to compete effectively in this space, it will need to come to terms with the reality that Ankara will not defy its history by resolving the Kurdish conundrum, nor will it be able to hide within its borders and avoid foreign entanglements.
Most Americans are understandably reluctant to send troops back into Iraq let alone Syria. But, given the fact that,as Max Boot noted earlier today,bombing isn’t stopping the ISIS terrorists from making progress toward their initial goal of taking over either or both countries, more U.S. action is likely to follow. That has provoked the usual anti-war chorus on the left to proclaim that all American action is ultimately futile. But as worthless as many of those arguments may be, it is important to address the more substantive of these complaints head on and explain why it is that Americans are fated, like it or not, to be drawn into conflicts with radical Islamists now and in the years to come.
In Saturday’s Washington Post, historian and former soldier Andrew Bacevich wrote to say that it didn’t matter whether the battle with ISIS was won or not. By his count, the U.S. had invaded, occupied, or bombed 14 Islamic countries in the last 35 years and that this latest chapter of a long-running war wasn’t likely to end any more satisfactorily than any of the others. To summarize Bacevich’s thesis, he thinks each successive U.S. intervention has only made things worse than its predecessors and that the end result is as futile as American military efforts in Vietnam, a telling analogy as it betrays his frame of reference about these conflicts.
What does Bacevich advise to do instead of attacking ISIS? On that point, he’s a bit hazy other than to imply that staying out will be less messy than going in. Moreover, he believes that since the U.S. is no longer as dependent on Middle Eastern oil, there’s no real need to fuss about the future of the region, a point that also betrays his cynical and somewhat dated echo of the original discredited arguments about the reason the U.S. went into Iraq in 2003.
Bacevich, who lost a son in Iraq, has a right to feel bitter about that conflict but though George Will praised his piece yesterday on Fox News Sunday, his plea for isolationism offers us little that is useful in untangling the current conflict or about the options the U.S. currently faces in Iraq and Syria.
Let’s start by noting that Bacevich’s list of 14 Islamic countries attacked by the U.S. is more than a bit misleading. Including Kosovo, a conflict in which NATO mercilessly bombed the Serbian Christian enemies of Kosovo Muslims, in this roster of invasions is absurd. The whole point of that effort was to defend Muslims and to ultimately aid their creation of another Muslim state at the expense of their neighbors who had themselves misbehaved. But he’s right that Americans have gotten little satisfaction out of any of our encounters in the other 13 nations.
Yet his idea that the U.S. is only making the problem worse is looking at the problem from the wrong perspective.
Radical Islamists do use American actions as a recruiting tool, but to claim that their atrocities or campaigns are primarily a reaction to the West rather than something that reflects the desperate state of their own political culture is fundamentally mistaken. Conflicts with Iran or Libya didn’t create the Taliban or al-Qaeda. Rather the growth of these radical movements is a reflection of the dire state of the Islamic world as it attempts to confront modernity and instead seeks a solution in the old formula of jihad and world domination.
It is comforting to think that the West can simply ignore the war being waged on it by a host of ever-changing Islamist groups whose names change but whose methods are consistently barbarous and whose goals are uncompromising. But every time we do, whether in the ’90s when al-Qaeda’s rise was considered insignificant or during an Obama administration that pretended it could take credit for “ending” wars in Iraq and Afghanistan or staying out Syria, we end up paying a price.
Bacevich is right to note that the conflict against ISIS won’t be easy. Nor will we be able to conclude it with victory parades the way Americans prefer to end wars. Instead, it will require a long-term commitment that recognizes that our foes view this as a hundred years’ war and not a neat little battle that can be quickly won and then forgotten.
The Islamists aren’t looking to behead Westerners, take over Arab countries, and then extend their terror to Americans and our allies because we stumbled into Iraq or bombed Libya in the distant past. Nor is it about our supposed sins in Iran in the 1950s or any other oft-repeated tale of Islamic woe. Rather, it is a function of a basic conflict between Islamist belief and the West and those Muslims who prefer peace and coexistence to Sharia law and endless war.
The call to retreat from the Middle East is advice that President Obama and the American people would do well to ignore. Sooner or later, if we stay out of the conflict with ISIS, that group or those that ultimately replace it will bring their war to America. Contrary to Bacevich and Will, our choice is not whether or not to fight Islamists but where we will fight them. It is simply common sense to do so on their home turf and at a point when Western military superiority can be brought to bear on the group and their allies before they become even more dangerous. The outcome of each battle in this new hundred years’ war won’t be satisfying, but that doesn’t make it any less necessary to fight. The enemy will make sure to remind us that giving up isn’t an option.
4) American Rabbi Calls for Genocide of Muslims
By Celine Hagbard - IMEMC News
As Jewish congregations around the world gathered this past week to celebrate Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, the members of one synagogue, located near Atlanta, Georgia were subjected to a diatribe against Muslims and a call for a 'Holy War' to 'exterminate the savages'.
This is not the first time that Rabbi Shalom Lewis of Congregation Etz Chaim in Marietta, Georgia has given a sermon demonizing Islam. Three years ago, also on Rosh Hashanah, he gave a similar talk comparing Muslims to Nazis and warning of the coming wave of Islam that would end up wiping out Jews and Christians, and calling for a war against Islam.
This year's speech is filled with racist platitudes, demonizing the religion of Islam, and calling for a new World War against Islam.
At one point, Rabbi Lewis says of Muslims, “We are dealing with a moral species that eats its own, kills it’s young and celebrates innocent death as homage to God.”
He says of Muslim residents of Europe, “There is a cold darkness settling on Europe. A nihilism. A corruption. A perversion in the name of Allah. A Kristallnacht of European and Western culture is coming that will destroy a millennia of creative genius.”
He ends his speech with a call to action: “These Islamist criminals are unlike us in the most basic of ways and we have yet to accept and understand their total immersion in moral debauchery.
“The enemy has eyes and ears. Fingers and toes. Speaks with lips. Runs with legs. Eats. Drinks. Has the face of a human being – but, has a much different heart and a much different soul. Three years ago on this bima, on this very same day, standing at this podium, I cried out, 'Ehr Kumpt – they are coming.' 3 years later on this bima, on this very same day, standing at this podium, I cry out not 'Ehr Kumpt – they are coming,' I cry out, 'Ehr daw – they are here.' The fury of ultimate evil is upon us and we must act – not to contain it. Not to degrade it. Not to manage it. Not to tolerate it, but to exterminate it utterly and absolutely.”
According to Adam Horowitz of Mondoweiss.net, “It’s as hateful as any you would expect from any fringe religious demagogue. Except Lewis isn’t a fringe figure. As the website Loonwatch points out, Lewis was given commendations by the Georgia legislature and the US House of Representatives. He has been at Etz Chaim for nearly 40 years. In fact when he recently announced his retirement in 2017, congregation President Cheryl Miller said, 'Rabbi Lewis will continue to be an active participant in the leadership of our congregation, a wealth of information and resources, a trusted friend, and a role model to our future clergy.' This man who has called for the annihilation of millions of people is apparently a beloved figure.”
You can read the whole speech, along with Adam Horowitz' response, at the link below
This year's speech is filled with racist platitudes, demonizing the religion of Islam, and calling for a new World War against Islam.
At one point, Rabbi Lewis says of Muslims, “We are dealing with a moral species that eats its own, kills it’s young and celebrates innocent death as homage to God.”
He says of Muslim residents of Europe, “There is a cold darkness settling on Europe. A nihilism. A corruption. A perversion in the name of Allah. A Kristallnacht of European and Western culture is coming that will destroy a millennia of creative genius.”
He ends his speech with a call to action: “These Islamist criminals are unlike us in the most basic of ways and we have yet to accept and understand their total immersion in moral debauchery.
“The enemy has eyes and ears. Fingers and toes. Speaks with lips. Runs with legs. Eats. Drinks. Has the face of a human being – but, has a much different heart and a much different soul. Three years ago on this bima, on this very same day, standing at this podium, I cried out, 'Ehr Kumpt – they are coming.' 3 years later on this bima, on this very same day, standing at this podium, I cry out not 'Ehr Kumpt – they are coming,' I cry out, 'Ehr daw – they are here.' The fury of ultimate evil is upon us and we must act – not to contain it. Not to degrade it. Not to manage it. Not to tolerate it, but to exterminate it utterly and absolutely.”
According to Adam Horowitz of Mondoweiss.net, “It’s as hateful as any you would expect from any fringe religious demagogue. Except Lewis isn’t a fringe figure. As the website Loonwatch points out, Lewis was given commendations by the Georgia legislature and the US House of Representatives. He has been at Etz Chaim for nearly 40 years. In fact when he recently announced his retirement in 2017, congregation President Cheryl Miller said, 'Rabbi Lewis will continue to be an active participant in the leadership of our congregation, a wealth of information and resources, a trusted friend, and a role model to our future clergy.' This man who has called for the annihilation of millions of people is apparently a beloved figure.”
You can read the whole speech, along with Adam Horowitz' response, at the link below
1) Get informed both historically and with present day events. A great local source is the Institute for the Study of Modern Israel of Emory. Read the book by Daniel Friend “Watching the World Change” and Dennis Prager’s “Still the Best Hope”. Subscribe to an assortment of periodicals and journals that will help educate. The Jerusalem Report. The Jerusalem Post. Commentary. The Wall Street Journal. The Washington Post. Haaretz English language website. MEMRI-Middle East Media Research Institute. The Weekly Standard. Listen to Fox News. Listen to Michael Medved. Ynet. Joinwww.stophamasnow.com
2) The world has become complex when it comes to forming alliances. There is no perfect partnership, but good folks are out there. We have allies in the enlightened Liberal community and in the enlightened Liberal Church but also in the enlightened Conservative community. Old rules no longer apply. We must watch out for the Left and for the “Progressives”. Some of our most enthusiastic and morally clear friends are in the Evangelical, Conservative Christian community. I know for some it’s uncomfortable and yes, their stand on choice, gay rights, etc. many of us find disturbing, but we must recognize the urgency of the day. Survival trumps all other issues in this war of values and decency.
3) Many in the enemy camp are not concerned with facts, authentic evidence, with honesty. They are too often immoral ideologues with an agenda. Often, they are well educated, sophisticated, articulate but do not mistake graduate degrees, titles, prominence, fame and eloquence for wisdom, virtue, integrity and the truth. Our children attending university are on the front lines, away from home and exploring new ideas. Support Hillels and their programming. Encourage our kids to get involved in pro Israel activities and not think that a charismatic radical Ph.D is a god. Let our youngsters know that they have support beyond the campus. Their parents. Rabbis. Teachers.
4) Don’t turn away from confrontation with the bigots, the useful idiots, the hateful in our midst. Most minds will not be changed but we never know who’s listening who might abandon the dark side. We are to keep cool in any argument because otherwise the volume of our words is what is heard or unheard, not their contents. Be respectful but not politically correct. Be blunt. Forceful. Informed. Do not be a ‘The sky is falling’ zealot because we then marginalize ourselves and we are easily dismissed. But, if opportunities arise, speak up with authority, conviction and appropriately pointed humor. Write letters to the editor. Participate in lawful protests. Send e mails/letters to networks, stations that display bias. Read articles and headlines with a ‘third eye’—MEMRI can help greatly in developing such a skill(see 1 above) Be a proud Jew. A proud lover of Israel. A proud lover of America. A proud lover of freedom.
5) Following are talking points/ questions/challenges that can be used in dialogue. Prepare for the encounters…Where are the ‘good’ Muslims? Why are they not more visible? Why are they not trying to reclaim their faith?...If Israel loses one war, what happens to Israel? The Arabs have lost many wars and they are still around. What does that say about the libel of Israel’s genocide and ethnic cleansing?...Did you know that Arabs serve in the Israeli parliament/Keneset and have full civil right?...What trumps what for a Muslim?-the Constitution or Sharia?...More Germans died in the second world war than did Americans. Did that make Germany right and America wrong? Why, then, was that standard set in the recent Gaza war?...What difference is there between ISIS, Hamas, Hezbollah, Boco Haram, Taliban...?...Why is it ok to poke fun at Catholics, Protestants, Jews, Italians, Irish…but not at Muslims?...Why are Muslims leaving their homelands for Western countries? And then, once here, why are they trying to turn their new homeland into their old homeland?...Are honor killings moral?...In what Middle East country do women, gays and Arabs have the most freedom?...For a Muslim, what is more important-ritual or ethics/morals?...Who protected their children in the Gaza war-Israel or Hamas?...What would you do if a neighbor started shooting at your home, at your family and used a child as a shield?...Why is air travel today so unpleasant?...Israel used rockets (Iron Dome) to protect her children. Hamas used children to protect their rockets…Is terror ever justified?
6) Get involved in organizations that understand the threat. AIPAC. ADL. AJC. CUFI. Moderate Muslim groups.
7) Understand we are dealing with an irreconcilable enemy who wants our total destruction or submission. Compromise is not an option with such deadly fanatics. We are in greater peril today than we were in World War II. We made no apologies then, and crushed the Nazis and the Japanese utterly. It was an unconditional surrender. A powerful American military is a critical part of the solution. We must advocate for a military second to none. We have seen what happens to the planet when we retreat. We must support politicians, regardless of party, who understand that we are at a tipping point in Western civilization. I
I hope this provides some guidance and some strategies. Spread the word - do not tolerate intolerance, religious narcissism, moral arrogance, violence directed at the innocent. Do not be fooled by slick talkers who claim the moral high ground. Do not be gripped by guilt that we are to blame for the rage and violence. Know absolutely, that they are evil and wrong and that we are moral and right in this war.
Rabbi Shalom Lewis
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