Tuesday, September 22, 2015

Petraeus Talks, Obama Ignores. Who Is Obama's JV. The Donald's Undoing!




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In typical Arab fashion no agreement is ever settled.  An agreement's life equates with and depends upon evidence of the other side's weakness. (See 1 below.)
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The Great Humanist Catcher for the New York Yankees, "Yogi" Berra died  Tuesday at age 100. He was noted for his baseball abilities as well as his "Yogiism's." (See 2 below.)
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Obama should take a (click on) : "walk"

Meanwhile, David Horovitz: "talks." (See 3 below.)
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Petraeus tells it and Obama is unwilling to listen because he knows it all. (See 4 below.)

 Meanwhile:

 My courageous Israeli Arab friend continues to report on Egypt and Sisi's efforts to disrupt Hamas and the Palestinian's terrorist activity. (See 4a below.)
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Tom Perkins, a major VC founder and board member of HP, defends Carly, tries to set the record straight and responds to Trump's charges. (See 5 below.)

 Who is Obama's JV? 

 I have maintained JV is Obama's surrogate mother and her influence is enormous. (See 5a below.)
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Trump, to his credit, has opened up buried truths but his failure to offer concrete evidence of how he would solve the problems he identifies and his constant attacks on others will ultimately undo him. 

 The Donald is proving to be another thin skinned person, only a white one,  with funny hair.

 We have been subjected to a know it all for almost seven years and it has been the equivalent of a direct torpedo hit.

 It is a shame because The Donald has executive and business skills that would bring a breath of fresh air into The Oval Office.
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Dick
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1) Iran deal open for debate? Tehran presses new ayatollah demand

The Iranian government is pressing the U.S. and others to give even more ground to Tehran in the already-sealed nuclear agreement, posing a new headache as the Obama administration and others try to implement the deal. 

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei earlier this month demanded that sanctions be lifted entirely, not just suspended. A top Khamenei adviser reiterated that demand over the weekend -- ahead of potential informal talks on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly. 

Secretary of State John Kerry plans meet in the coming days in New York with his Iranian counterpart, Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif. According to Iran's Fars News Agency, Iranian officials also plan to meet with all members of the P5+1 group, which negotiated the deal, in New York on Sept. 28. 

These reported plans prompted one group, the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), to question whether talks were being "reopened," in order to address Khamenei's concerns. 
Asked about the speculation, a State Department official said there is no further negotiation and the U.S. expects the deal to be implemented "in good faith." 

"We've long said that we're not going to comment on or react to every statement attributed to the Iranian leadership," the official told FoxNews.com. "Our focus is on implementing the deal, and verifying that Iran completes its key nuclear steps under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. There is no renegotiation, and the nuclear-related sanctions relief that Iran will receive once the IAEA verifies that it has completed its nuclear steps is clearly spelled out in the text of the [agreement]." 

But at the least, the ayatollah's demands show the post-deal debate shifting now from Washington back to Tehran, leaving some uncertainty in the air as the U.S. and U.N. prepare to move forward. 
In Washington, congressional critics have been unable to muster the votes to even send President Obama a resolution disapproving the deal. But in Tehran, the ayatollah on Sept. 3 renewed concerns about the nature of the deal's sanctions relief. 

He said in a statement that sanctions should be lifted entirely, not just suspended -- and said "there will be no deal" unless this is done. 

According to MEMRI's translation, he warned that if sanctions are only suspended, Iran, in turn, will only "suspend" nuclear activities cited in the deal. He also called for a parliamentary vote on the deal, though it's unclear whether that will happen. 

Iran's Fars News Agency over the weekend quoted ayatollah adviser Ali Akbar Velayati saying Khamenei's views "should be materialized." He added: "It is understood from the Supreme Leader's remarks that balance is necessary in the two sides' measures and in case of imbalance, nothing will be done." 

The text of the Iran nuclear agreement actually refers to the "lifting" of sanctions. But the White House has said that sanctions "will snap back into place" if Iran violates its end, indicating they indeed see the sanctions relief as reversible. 

MEMRI wrote that the upcoming meeting could be a forum for all parties to "discuss the Iranian demand for further concessions." MEMRI, though, warned that outright lifting sanctions "would constitute a fundamental change" to the deal. "This is because lifting the sanctions, rather than suspending them, will render impossible a snapback [of sanctions] in case of Iranian violations." 
The nature of the discussions being held next week is unclear. 

On Sept. 20, Kerry said he planned to meet with his Russian and his Iranian counterpart, "regarding Iran and other things." But he indicated the meeting would cover a range of topics, including the Syrian civil war. 

While Fars reported that the Iranians will meet with P5+1 representatives in New York on Sept. 28, the State Department has not announced such a meeting. 

Earlier this month, after Iran's Supreme Leader spoke out against the process for sanctions relief in the deal, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest put the onus on Iran to follow through with its end before sanctions relief is even implemented. 

"We've been crystal-clear about the fact that Iran will have to take a variety of serious steps to significantly roll back their nuclear program before any sanctions relief is offered," he said. "... And only after those steps and several others have been effectively completed, will Iran begin to receive sanctions relief.  The good news is all of this is codified in the agreement that was reached between Iran and the rest of the international community." 
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------2) Here are 35 "Yogism's:"
1. “It ain’t over till it’s over.”
2. “It’s deja vu all over again.”
3. “I usually take a two-hour nap from 1 to 4.”
4. “Never answer an anonymous letter.”
5. “We made too many wrong mistakes.”
6. “You can observe a lot by watching.”
7. “The future ain’t what it used to be.”
8. “If you don’t know where you are going, you might wind up someplace else.”
9. “It gets late early out here.”
10. “If the people don’t want to come out to the ballpark, nobody’s going to stop them.”
11. “Baseball is 90 percent mental. The other half is physical.”
12. “Pair up in threes.”
13. “Why buy good luggage, you only use it when you travel.”
14. “Nobody goes there anymore. It’s too crowded.”
15. “All pitchers are liars or crybabies.”
16. “A nickel ain’t worth a dime anymore.”
17. “Bill Dickey is learning me his experience.”
18. “He hits from both sides of the plate. He’s amphibious.”
19. “I always thought that record would stand until it was broken.”
20. “I can see how he (Sandy Koufax) won 25 games. What I don’t understand is how he lost five.”
21. “I don’t know (if they were men or women fans running naked across the field). They had bags over their heads.”
22. “I’m a lucky guy and I’m happy to be with the Yankees. And I want to thank everyone for making this night necessary.”
23. “I’m not going to buy my kids an encyclopedia. Let them walk to school like I did.”
24. “In baseball, you don’t know nothing.”
25. “I never blame myself when I’m not hitting. I just blame the bat and if it keeps up, I change bats. After all, if I know it isn’t my fault that I’m not hitting, how can I get mad at myself?”
26. “I never said most of the things I said.”
27. “It ain’t the heat, it’s the humility.”
28. “I think Little League is wonderful. It keeps the kids out of the house.”
29. “I wish everybody had the drive he (Joe DiMaggio) had. He never did anything wrong on the field. I’d never seen him dive for a ball, everything was a chest-high catch, and he never walked off the field.”
30. “So I’m ugly. I never saw anyone hit with his face.”
31. “Take it with a grin of salt.”
32. (On the 1973 Mets) “We were overwhelming underdogs.”
33. “The towels were so thick there I could hardly close my suitcase.”
34. “You should always go to other people’s funerals, otherwise, they won’t come to yours.”
35. “When you come to a fork in the road, take it.”
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3) Full text of an address by The Times of Israel’s editor to the United Jewish Israel Appeal’s Annual Dinner in London, September 21, 2015:

Strong-arming the sides isn’t going to solve the Palestinian conflict or wider hostilities, ToI editor says at UJIA dinner in London; gradually changing the tone, deepening understanding, tackling extremism at its roots, just might


Thank you for bringing me back from my home in Israel, to home territory in London. I want to use this talk for three prime purposes. To sum up the challenges facing Israel right now, to share some thoughts on the revival of anti-Semitism, and to suggest a series of ways you as individuals, and as the wonderful community that you are, can further boost Israel.

Let me first briefly tell you a little about myself, and why it is I left London for Jerusalem 30 years ago. Mine is a rabbinical family. My great-grandfather founded one of the two Orthodox synagogues in Frankfurt in the late 1800s. My grandfather was badly wounded fighting for Germany in World War I. They were that quite common mix of very Orthodox and very German Jews, and it took them a long time to realize that their beloved Germany was not going to rid itself of the Nazis. They finally fled to England in 1937. My great-grandfather’s synagogue was burned down on Kristallnacht a year later.

My father was young enough when they arrived in England not to be interned as an enemy alien, and old enough towards the end of the war to volunteer for the RAF. So in the space of a generation, we went from my grandfather fighting for Germany in World War I to my father fighting against Nazi Germany in World War II. With that background, and being born at a moment when, for the first time in 2,000 years, the Jewish nation got its country back, it was very compelling for me to want to be part of an effort, by the Jews, to determine their own future, as much as a tiny, embattled state can.

I also met my wife, Lisa, in Jerusalem — she’s the Dallas-born fourth of four daughters of a Holocaust survivor from Lodz, who sent all his girls to Israel to study. Two live in New York; two stayed in Israel — Lisa and Rita. Rita’s husband is an Israeli diplomat; actually he’s Israel’s ambassador to the Vatican — which I happen to think is the best job in Israeli diplomacy: You get to live in Rome. And there’s such a lovely Pope right now.

We have three kids — two boys and a girl — my eldest fought in Gaza last summer; my second son is in the army somewhere in the West Bank right now; my feisty red-haired daughter went into the army last month.

Which brings me from the personal to the national: I flew in yesterday morning, from a country that is ever more atypical in the Middle East. Drive a few hours from Israel in almost every direction, and you’re in territory where people want to cut your head off.

Egypt is unpredictable. Jordan is flooded with refugees, worried by Islamic State.Gaza is run by Hamas, committed to destroying Israel, digging tunnels under the border, firing rockets — 3 in the last 3 days, actually. The West Bank is seething, unpredictable, with daily low-level violence and talk of a third intifada. Lebanon is a mass of internal-hatred. Syria is anarchic, bloody. 250,000 dead in four years of civil war. Hell on earth.

And then you have Israel. Nine miles wide at its narrowest point. Determined to ensure both its Jewish majority and its democracy — and therefore needing an accord with the Palestinians. But fearful that if it leaves the West Bank, Hamas and other extremists will fill the vacuum, oust Mahmoud Abbas and then target us in the way that Hamas targets us from Gaza. Except that Hamas in the West Bank would paralyze Israel to a degree that 50 days of war last summer did not. Hamas in the West Bank would shut the airport, close down the country, because we’d all be in range of the most rudimentary rocket and mortar fire. Hamas running the West Bank would bring a suicide-bombing upsurge; we saw 15 years ago how devastating that would be.




Amid all the craziness, Israel is a cocoon. A country that strives not merely to survive, but to survive while acting morally, against enemies who exploit that to an often gullible international community.

We’re a country whose 22% Arab minority have equal voting rights, freedom of press, freedom of religion — have all the things those Arab Spring demonstrators were demanding before their uprisings were subverted.

We’re a country that set up a field hospital on the border with Syria, which officially hates us, to save the lives of its war wounded. Syrian doctors now send patients to our border with notes on their clothing, “to our friends in Israel; maybe you can save this patient’s life.”

We’re a country with an army unit that has bags packed ready to fly to any disaster in the world. Setting up a field hospital in Nepal after this spring’s earthquake. Saving lives in Haiti, a 16-hour flight away, after the earthquake there 5 years ago.

Really, we’re quite the Middle East aberration. We revived a land that was partly uninhabitable 150 years ago; we revived a language; we’ve beaten the drought; we’ve transitioned from the land of Jaffa oranges to the land of high-tech; we’re worth caring about, worth getting involved in.


So let’s look a little at two of the key challenges we face — regarding Iran and, first, the Palestinians.
Broadly, I’d say we’re now facing the 3rd phase of efforts to destroy us.

We defeated our enemies in conventional warfare — in 1948, ’56, ’67, ’73 — otherwise we would not be here tonight. Phase one.
We defeated the suicide bombers of the 2nd Intifada in the early 2000s — terrorism as a strategic weapon — when pretty much everywhere on the planet was a safer place to bring up our children. It wasn’t that we had Churchillian leadership, rallying the nation; we took a subconscious decision that we would not be driven from our country. Phase two.

And now we’re in the midst of phase 3 — the combination of rocket attacks launched from residential areas and demonization — in which our enemies crow and gloat when they kill and maim us, and cry foul to the international community, when we, trying to stop the rockets, fire back and inadvertently harm the people they have cynically placed in harm’s way.

These are difficult conflicts to fight on the battlefield, and harder still on the battlefield of public and diplomatic opinion, since most people don’t care enough to look carefully at who is to blame. You might want to remind the lazy critics of this fact: If Israel stopped defending itself and put down its weapons, our country would be wiped out immediately. If our enemies put down their weapons, there’d be peace.

Most of us are desperate for any reasonably credible guarantee of medium-term tranquility. Israelis are not stupid. We didn’t need persuading to seize the day when Egypt’s Sadat and Jordan’s King Hussein made their overtures. It’s very easy to tell us to get out of all or part of the West Bank, the Biblical Jewish heartland, with or without an agreement. Except, what happens when Hamas ousts Abbas and takes over? As it did when we left Gaza. Or as Hezbollah moved in when we left south Lebanon. Not so simple.
I’ll be very personal for a moment. As I said, my eldest son fought in Gaza last summer, in the combat engineers. One of his very best friends was killed. I do not want to be melodramatic. I do want to say that no parent should have to go through what Israeli parents routinely endure at times like that.

If Israelis can see a path to avoiding that, we’ll be clamoring to sign the deal.

We don’t want to rule the Palestinians; it’s not good for them; it’s certainly not good for us.

I personally think there’s more we could do to help encourage Palestinian moderation, including by halting settlement building in areas we don’t envisage retaining under a permanent accord. There needs to be more sensitivity regarding the incendiary Temple Mount, where we currently face another flare-up and where we know all too well how quickly violence can spiral out of hand. And we had better be sure to overcome our own Jewish extremists — people allegedly capable of setting fire to a Palestinian home, and burning to death the family sleeping inside, as happened just weeks ago. I actually think this is a barometer moment for Israel. As the prime minister rightly said, the test of a society is how the mainstream deals with its extremists.

But there’s no point trying to strong-arm Israel into agreements with a Palestinian leadership that does not acknowledge to its own people that we Jews have history and sovereign legitimacy in the holy land; Yasser Arafat told his people there was no Jewish temple in Jerusalem and by extension no Jewish history there. Mahmoud Abbas hasn’t reversed that falsification.

What we all need, I believe, is to deepen a climate of knowledge and conciliation on both sides, a climate in which, vitally, the Palestinians acknowledge that, Oh well, what can you do, the Jews do have history and legitimacy here as well, and so we’re going to have compromise. That’s not going to happen by UN imposition, or on a nine-month time line dictated by an American secretary of state. It requires fundamental changes in education, in media — in mindset. Not easy or immediate, but it’s the only path that does offer gradual hope of improvement. So long as we have to live by the sword, so be it. But let’s at least work toward the possibility of something better.

As for Iran, most of us in Israel are in a mood I’d define as baffled anguish. We do not understand why the world powers gave up on the original plan of dismantling Iran’s rogue nuclear weapons program, and instead opted to freeze and inspect that program, and didn’t secure the necessary agreements even to do that.

We do not understand why the West refuses to internalize that Iran is not led by a government seeking to live and let live, but by a regime with a perverted sense of religious imperative — religious imperative — a regime that is rapacious ideologically and territorially.

A regime that is bringing Europe into the range of its rockets and seeking to bring North America into range as well. A regime that demands Death to Israel and Death to America, and means it.
We don’t understand why, when Iran was on the ropes economically, it was the West that capitulated. It cut a deal that entrenches this benighted regime in power — to continue to oppress its own people. It cut a deal that gives Iran the money to escalate its terrorism and regional evil; that turns Iran into a regional power; that potentially sparks a Middle East nuclear arms race. The West cut a deal that allows Iran to get close to the bomb legally and then to break out to a nuclear arsenal at a time of its choosing.

So, no, we don’t get it, in Israel. And we resent the false claim that no deal would have satisfied us. Quite the contrary. We wanted a deal that could have ensured no military intervention was necessary. But the US-led world powers failed us, failed the free world, and then misrepresented what had happened. I think it’s a shameful moment in history, and I fear it will come back to haunt us all. I hope I’m wrong.


But now let me put aside my anger and frustration, and get constructive. I want to encourage all of you, first of all, to get to know Israel as well as you can, really understand its complexity, including by visiting as often as you can — as I know many of you already do. Read the Times of Israel, of course. Preferably several times a day! The more you understand Israel, the more you empathize with it.

The UJIA does incredibly important work in developing the Galilee, fostering centers of excellence in Israel’s north, and in backing Birthright and other such programs in Israel — programs that energize young British Jews, and give them the first-hand knowledge to fight the intellectual battles for Israel on campus back here.

Also, do what you can to help ensure Israel remains or becomes the country you think it should be.

By all means move to Israel. It’s up to us to make sure our latest experiment in sovereignty flourishes for longer than Jewish sovereignty did two and three millennia ago. Plus, we build wonderful children in the Jewish state.

But there’s also so much you can do from here. Invest, and I’m not only talking financially, in the Zionist causes that motivate you. Invest your intellect and your time in a constructive dialogue with Israel.

There’s no shortage of areas where we could use some fresh thinking — not only on the Palestinian conflict. Religious pluralism comes to mind; education; economic and social inequalities; and that uniquely Israeli ultra-Orthodox aberration that sees a large proportion of young males studying full time rather than working.


I also want to urge you as a community, who can and do make a difference, to help tackle the blight of Islamic extremism.
We need a global strategy, and sketching it out may be the most important part of what I say this evening.

We all know that when armies rise to kill us or, more commonly in this era, when terrorists rise to murder us, we must stop them before they stop us. We’ve not done enough on this battlefield: It is my firm conviction that the west’s moral failure in Syria, its readiness to let Bashar Assad slaughter his people, the British parliament and the US administration’s decision not to step in when Assad actually gassed his own people — that moral failure is one of the causes of the refugee crisis now challenging Europe. I don’t have quick fixes for Syria. But the Middle East is the dinner guest who will not leave; and you can’t just ignore it.

People are fleeing Syria for Europe en masse because they have no lives there; they are being massacred; and the international community, which has known, for years, precisely what is going on, has barely lifted a finger.

Beyond even this, though, the free world, the world that wants to live, has barely lifted a finger to prevent the next generations of recruits to the death cult of Islamic extremism — be it Islamic State, Hezbollah, Hamas. Right now, in mosques, schools and most especially via laptops and mobile phones in Gaza, the West Bank, Syria, Iraq, across the Middle East and far closer to home as well, new generations of impressionable youths are being persuaded that the finest thing they can do for their god is to kill and be killed, that this foul brand of Islam is the true path, and that they must wage brutal war in its cause.

What we need is a coordinated effort by the free world to use every iota of diplomatic, economic and any other leverage to marginalize the schools, the preachers, the media channels and the online avenues by which extremists are made, and to encourage moderate educational hierarchies and spiritual leaders and online messaging.
This is no easy task. But it is barely being attempted. And it must be. And Anglo-Jewry can help convey and champion that imperative.

Tackle Islamic extremism at its grass roots, and you calm the Middle East. Allied with smart, transparent economic assistance, you provide the chance to rehabilitate failing countries. You help protect Israel. You help reduce the strain on Europe of tens of thousands, then hundreds of thousands, and potentially, millions of people fleeing the dysfunctional Middle East.

Already, you in Europe face an anguishing dilemma — you want to be decent, to be a refuge for the persecuted. But you worry about who you might be taking in. And how they might threaten the societies, the freedoms, that we in the West so rightly cherish. How to respond? Well, those in power should act morally against the Middle East’s ruthless tyrants, and they should work to thwart Islamic extremism at its recruiting base.

I want to offer some thoughts on anti-Semitism, viewed from an ex-Brit’s Israeli perspective.

Like most of you, I grew up in a generation that wanted to believe that anti-Semitism had been, if not destroyed, then shamed into near-extinction by the horrors of World War II. But here it is again, flaring.

Some may want to comfort themselves by asserting that it’s “only” Israel that they hate. That it’s the Israelis, not the Jews. Let me tell you, we are not perfect, and we are emphatically not above criticism, and we insist on holding ourselves to the highest moral standards. But on an Earth where almost every nation is involved in some degree of conflict, if we are the only country held up for censure, the only country being boycotted and embargoed and prosecuted, then that’s anti-Semitism.

We used to rightly mourn that Israel was revived too late to save the Jews of Europe from the Holocaust. But we also used to rejoice in the fact that Europe was now so secure for Jews that Israel, for European Jewry, was a homeland of choice — a country that rescued persecuted Jews from elsewhere, but that we could opt to live in or not. And yet right now, in 2015, there are European Jews who look to Israel with relief, as a safe haven from anti-Semitism. In fact, they don’t merely look to Israel, they move to Israel. Thousands of Jews today believe they must leave France. Not surprising after January’s Paris grocery store massacre and a list of far too many other incidents. 10,000 French Jews are moving to Israel this year alone.

I met on Thursday with Sammy Ghozlan, a retired senior French police officer who was then a kind of liaison between the police and the Jewish community, and who has just moved to Netanya: It’s not that there’s no future for Jews in France, Sammy told me. It’s that there’s no future in France that the Jews want — as a minority under relentless fear of attack, living under permanent protection.

I have to warn you, the climate here will not get easier, partly because Israel will be dragged into more wars. Hamas is rearming. Digging terror tunnels. Testing better rockets. Hezbollah has tens times as many missiles as Hamas ever had, and they’re all pointing at Israel. When Iran deems the moment right, we will again be dragged into a conflict we do not want. And while we battle to survive, there’ll be more of the vicious anti-Israel demonstrations worldwide that you saw last summer, including right here.
There’ll be those huge headlines, again, when an Israeli-fired rocket goes astray. There’ll be that shameful global media failure, again, to properly and fully show Hamas’s rocket fire and aggression.

I imagine that Britain’s new opposition leader will be at the forefront of the protests. And you can also be sure that every anti-Semite, from extreme-right and extreme-left, will crawl out of the woodwork to exploit the tensions and frictions. And there’ll be a temptation among some British Jews to blame Israel for the discomfiting deluge of nastiness, a deluge that will again complicate life for Jews in the UK.

What to do? Well, individually and as a community, make sure you know as much as you possibly can. Be fully informed. And then fight back — through academia, or journalism, or political action, or whichever is your area of expertise. Help others understand what Israel faces.

You won’t persuade the haters. But you can help prevent fair-minded people being manipulated and misled by the haters. And the benefits of meeting this challenge are enormous: you’ll be protecting Israel, and you’ll be working toward a smart, more knowledgeable climate for Jews in the UK and Europe. We are inextricably linked — the Jews of Israel and the Jews of the UK and the rest of the Diaspora. Our well-being is linked. We had better stand together.


I want to wind-up with a short personal story — to close the circle I opened at the beginning of this speech.

I mentioned my three kids. Well, my second son Adam, currently in the army, is a black belt in Karate. Martial arts get a bad rap. People think it’s all about smashing planks, when actually Karate is about mutual respect and harmony as well as self-defense. Adam’s been doing karate since he was five. And when he was 11 he got roped into a lovely project called Budo for Peace — martial arts for peace — which involves Israeli Jews, Christians and Muslims doing karate together, and when it was possible, Israeli and Palestinian kids doing karate together.

I’ll never forget the first time the Israelis and the Palestinians met. They got together at a dojo — a gym — that’s on the roof of the Dizengoff shopping center in Tel Aviv. The Israeli and the Palestinian coaches gave the command to do the first kata — that’s like a series of dance steps — and these kids, these Israelis and Palestinians, start the kata and realize they’re doing exactly the same moves! And they’re looking across at each other, and these smiles broaden across their faces. It was really a gorgeous moment.
Anyhow, the Japanese government hears about Budo for Peace and is delighted — Japanese martial arts being used for conflict resolution. So they invite the Israeli and Palestinian kids to Tokyo to perform together at the World Karate Championships. This is where it gets interesting for the Horovitz family.

It turns out that the world karate championships in Japan are right before Adam Horovitz’s Bar Mitzvah. Now of course it’s unthinkable to have your son on the other side of the world three days before he’s supposed to be reading his Bar Mitzvah parsha in shul. Out of the question, right? Except we live in Israel, and you sometimes just have to go for it. So we did send Adam off to Tokyo. With a CD of his parsha so he could practice while he was away.

Now, his grandparents had flown in from Dallas for the Bar Mitzvah, and not unsurprisingly, they kept asking us, you know, Where’s Adam? And, as my beloved grandmother used to say, they were not that young anymore. So we thought, better not actually tell them that Adam is in Tokyo. We just said, he’s out of Jerusalem for a few days. And changed the subject.

Well, to cut to the chase, the Tokyo event was okay. The Israeli and Palestinian kids did their karate together, although some of the Palestinians backed out at the last moment, because they were worried that their families might get into trouble back home simply because they were performing together with Israelis.

Adam got home safely — well, a little bit late — for his Bar Mitzvah, and that went fine too. The grandparents asked, Adam, where were you? And he said, Tokyo, as though that was entirely natural. All good.

But the bottom line, the reason I told this story, is that I’d like to believe that the kids on that program — the Israelis and the Palestinians — simply because they’ve spent time together, well, it’ll be a lot harder to manipulate them into hating each other. That may not sound like much of an achievement, but actually I think it’s really something. I think it shows what banal interaction can do. I think if you can replicate programs like that, contact like that, many times over, you can start to create that climate in which hatreds get quashed and the positive is possible.

And it’s that image — of sweet, innocent Adam Horovitz doing karate in Tokyo with his Israeli and Palestinian friends just before his Bar Mitzvah — it’s that image that I’d like you to have in your minds when you leave here tonight. And when you think about what else you can do for Israel, and for Anglo-Jewry, and for marginalizing hatred, and for encouraging the positive.
Thank you.
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4)

The Petraeus Intervention

Absent a strategy, the fallout in Syria will threaten us for decades.



President Obama may tune out the chaos in the Middle East, but reality tends to assert itself eventually. David Petraeus emerged from political exile to apply the defibrillator paddles on Tuesday, while word also slipped that the nominal architect of the war against the Islamic State is retiring.

In his first testimony before Congress since a personal scandal ended his government career four years ago, General Petraeus methodically deconstructed the “revolutionary upheaval that is unparalleled in modern history” across Iraq, Syria and Iran as traditional states ebb or collapse. The dangers multiply, he added, if the U.S. remains “ineffective or absent in the face of the most egregious violations of the basic principles of the international order” (his emphasis).

Featured nearby are excerpts of the General’s diagnosis of “inadequate” progress degrading ISIS in Iraq, as well as the U.S. abdication in the “geopolitical Chernobyl” that is Syria. He urged a stronger airstrike and special forces response to mitigate the civil war and refugee crisis—or else “the fallout from the meltdown of Syria threatens to be with us for decades, and the longer it is permitted to continue, the more severe the damage will be.”

These are the hard-won lessons of the civil-military surge that defeated al Qaeda in Iraq in 2007-08, and one of General Petraeus’s chief lieutenants in that effort is quitting in frustration: Former Marine four-star John Allen will end his year-long tour as the “special envoy” who tried to assemble a global coalition against ISIS.

General Allen had the credibility to prosecute a limited campaign against the would-be caliphate and an abiding moral obligation to the people under jihadist oppression. But he was micro-managed by the West Wing and National Security Council, which often overruled his requests for more resources and policy commitments, such as air-control teams on the battlefield to guide tactical bombing.

The larger problem at the top of the chain of command is that the Middle East’s crises threaten to undermine not merely regional stability but also U.S. interests world-wide. “The principal winners, thus far, have been the most ruthless, revolutionary and anti-American elements in the region,” as General Petraeus put it. They’ll continue to win until the U.S. changes strategy, or even articulates one.


4a)

Egypt's War on Terrorism Bears Fruit

By Khaled Abu Tomeah -

Egypt began this week flooding smuggling tunnels along their border with the Gaza Strip with water from the Mediterranean Sea -- a move being condemned by Hamas and other Palestinian factions as a "disturbing nightmare."

The Egyptian army's move is another sign of President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi's determination to destroy the tunnels that were used to smuggle weapons, people and merchandise from Sinai to the Gaza Strip and the other way around.

This act is also a sign of Sisi's resolve to pursue his military campaign against Islamist terror groups that are waging war against the Egyptian authorities in Sinai. The Egyptians are convinced that Hamas and other Palestinian groups have been providing aid to the terror groups in Sinai.

Since the beginning of the year, dozens of Egyptian soldiers and police officers have been killed in a spate of terror attacks launched by Islamist groups in Sinai.

Earlier this week, Egypt's Interior Ministry announced that terrorists shot dead an Egyptian general in Sinai. In another similar shooting a few days earlier, a terror group killed General Khaled Kamel Osman.

The decision to pump water into the smuggling tunnels is seen as a severe blow not only to the terror groups in Sinai, but also to Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other Palestinian factions inside the Gaza Strip.
Seawater covers parts of the ground where Egypt has been pumping water into smuggling tunnels along the border with Gaza. (Image source: Al Jazeera video screenshot)

Judging from the reaction of the Palestinian groups, it is clear that they are in a state of hysteria as they see their tunnels collapsing one after the other.

In a statement published in the Gaza Strip, Palestinian groups, including Hamas, denounced the flooding of the tunnels as a "disturbing nightmare" for the Palestinians. The factions appealed to the Egyptian authorities to "stop this despicable crime against the Palestinian people and their environment."

"The Palestinian people are surprised by the Egyptian move, which will tighten the blockade on the Gaza Strip, destroy vast areas of agricultural land and harm those living near the border (with Egypt)," the statement said.

Initially, Hamas leaders did not take the reports about flooding the tunnels seriously. Some Hamas leaders, in fact, first thought that these were rumors designed to scare them and other Palestinian groups in the Gaza Strip.

But when Hamas leaders woke up on September 13 to discover that the Egyptians had begun pumping water into the smuggling tunnels, they could not believe what they were seeing.
Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri announced that his movement asked the Egyptians to stop flooding the tunnels with seawater. "We hope that the Egyptians will comply with our demand," Abu Zuhri said. "This measure is completely unacceptable and poses a threat to many families living alongside the border."

Sources in the Gaza Strip noted this week that the Egyptian move has thus far proven to be effective and successful. They said that since being flooded with water, several tunnels have collapsed.

It is worth noting that despite its outrage, Hamas has stopped short of issuing threats against Egypt in response to the flooding of the tunnels.

Hamas's response would have been different had it been Israel that was flooding the tunnels with water. But Hamas knows very well that it would not be a good idea to mess with the Egyptian authorities and President Sisi.

During the past two years, the Egyptians have destroyed hundreds of smuggling tunnels along their border with the Gaza Strip. Nevertheless, Hamas did not dare launch one terror attack against Egypt.

Hamas is now pretending that it is concerned about the damage to the environment that is caused by the flooding of the smuggling tunnels. But the truth is that the environment of the Gaza Strip is the last thing that Hamas cares about.

Hamas did not think about damage to the environment or to agricultural fields when its men fired thousands of rockets at Israel in the past few years. In fact, Hamas used these fields, as well as populated areas, as launching pads for attacking Israel.

Hamas is interested only in one thing: preserving its rule in the Gaza Strip. The tunnels that are now being destroyed by the Egyptians were used by Hamas to smuggle all types of weapons into the Gaza Strip. Hamas warlords are also believed to have earned millions of dollars from the smuggling industry during the past few years.

Sisi's war against the smuggling tunnels will undoubtedly weaken Hamas and other radical groups in the Gaza Strip. The Egyptian president should be commended, rather than criticized, for his courageous actions against Islamist terrorists, both in the Gaza Strip and in Sinai.
Sisi's actions will benefit not only Egyptians, but also many Palestinians who are opposed to Hamas and radical Islamist groups. Israel also stands to benefit from Sisi's war against Hamas. The destruction of the tunnels means fewer weapons used by Hamas to attack Israel.
However, Israel still has good reason to be worried about Hamas's plans and intentions.
While Sisi is busy flooding the tunnels on the border with Egypt, Hamas continues to dig new ones on the border between the Gaza Strip and Israel.

It is no secret that Hamas has also managed to rebuild many of the terror tunnels that were used to infiltrate gunmen into Israel during last year's military confrontation between the two sides. Hamas is planning to use these tunnels in the future, to dispatch its men to kill as many Israelis as possible.

The Israelis have thus far been monitoring the situation very closely and have refrained from attacking the tunnels. That is because Israel is keen on maintaining the unofficial truce with Hamas that was reached in the aftermath of last year's war, known as Operation Protective Edge.

There is not much that Israel can do at this stage other than hope that Sisi will continue with his measures to undermine Hamas. Any attempt by Israel to flood a Hamas tunnel will most likely spark an international outcry and bring condemnations from the United Nations. In addition, such a move on the part of Israel is likely to trigger a violent response from Hamas -- one that could lead to another war.

When the Egyptians destroy a Hamas tunnel, that is called "war on terrorism." But when Israel destroys a tunnel, that is condemned as an "act of aggression." This moral slithering is why it is important for the international community to stand behind Sisi's relentless war on radical Islam. Without such backing, the Islamists will continue to pose a major threat not only to Israel, but to many Arabs and Muslims who oppose Hamas, Islamic State and Islamic Jihad.

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5) 
THE TRUTH ABOUT CARLY

By Tom Perkins
To The Point


The consensus is clear: Carly Fiorina won both the first and now second Republican Primary debates. As a result she is climbing in the polls and into the top tier of candidates. Her rise has led pundits to speculate about her tenure as CEO of Hewlett-Packard.

I was a member of the HP Board of Directors much of the time Carly was the CEO (1999-2005). I was in the room for many of the decisions she made. I can attest to the strength of Carly’s leadership, the accuracy of her vision and the quality of her management.

Carly was an excellent CEO. She led HP through one of the worst economic times in decades. Less than two years into Carly’s leadership, the dot com bubble went bust. Silicon Valley was in chaos. Companies were shedding jobs almost daily. There were so many layoffs The Associated Press ran weekly announcements regarding layoffs at tech companies. And The San Francisco Chronicle declared 2001 “The Year of the Layoff.”

While other Silicon Valley icons like Sun Microsystems disappeared, Carly’s vision and execution not only helped to save HP but made it a strong, more versatile company that could compete in the changing technology sector.

I was on the Compaq Board during the HP-Compaq merger and remained a member of the new HP Board once the merger was complete. Both companies knew that we needed something dramatic to inject life back into our companies.

The merger, while controversial, was unanimously approved by every member of the HP Board and won approval from shareholders. Thanks to Carly’s leadership there was a path forward for this storied but troubled company.

Critics questioned the move, but history proves Carly was right. Post merger, HP became the biggest computer company in the world. It positioned HP to compete in integrated systems and allowed us to compete in sectors beyond the core strength of the company, printers.

Carly was hired at HP because it was struggling. Revenues were down, quarterly earnings were missed, innovation lagged and growth stagnated. HP, once the leader in Silicon Valley, was clinging to the status quo and failing to embrace the new tech era.

Silicon Valley companies were prospering by taking advantage of the new technologies; HP was stubbornly clinging to the past. HP needed a change agent and someone who could return the company to its glory days. Carly was the right choice.

The results of Carly’s transformational leadership? HP revenues doubled to more than $80 billion, innovation tripled to 15 patents per day, the growth rate more than quadrupled 6.5 percent and we grew to become the 11th largest company in the country.

Carly did what she was brought in to do: turn the company around and make it successful again. Not only did she save the company from the dire straits it was in, she laid the foundation for HP’s future growth.

Critics often claim was fired at HP because she was unsuccessful. As a member of the board, I can tell you this is not true.

In truth, it was the Board I was a part of that was ineffective and dysfunctional. The HP board of directors included family members of the founders. Carly worked with the hand she was dealt as best as one could. While Carly fought to save the company and the employees within, some board members fought for their own power or advancement.

You see, some board members wanted to micro-manage the company, hand picking friends and allies to run divisions. This is no way to run a global company and Carly had the strength of character and courage of conviction to stand up to it and ultimately she lost her job because of it.

While lesser leaders would have accepted offers of transition plans and graceful resignations, Carly would have none of that. Carly demanded to be fired. In order to restore peace to the board I voted to fire her. That was a mistake.

In the months and years after Carly left, the Board of Directors remained dysfunctional. The Board members who plotted Carly’s ouster eventually resigned after an embarrassing investigation by Congress.

I have no question that Carly is a transformational leader who uniquely has both vision and the expertise to implement it. We are in the middle of a heated election, and often facts and the truth get lost in the heat of partisan rhetoric.
As someone who worked with and observed Carly first hand I can attest to her abilities, intellect and talent. I am proud to support Carly Fiorina for President of the United States.


Tom Perkins is the founder of the California venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kleiner_Perkins_Caufield_%26_Byers>, arguably the most famous and successful VC firm in Silicon Valley history.


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