Not just Americans should watch this video. It is sponsored by Dennis Prager who is a right wing radio talk show broadcaster. Despite his right wing stance and some of his foolish commentaries, his position on Israel and Jews is on target.
Arabs should watch this video.
Underground tunneling from Gaza to Israel was apparently unknown by Israeli’s prior to this current 2014 conflict. Along with Hamas’ more powerful long range rockets the these tunnels will obviously make Israelis more fearful and perhaps more determined to strike critical blows to that terrorist organization. However, the very existence of Israel is a rallying topic for all Muslims. Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Iran, and most other Middle East nations are pouring more arms and money into destroying the Jewish state. The long term likelihood of peace are remote.
Click the first link at this web site to see some of the significant tunneling dug by the Hamas fighters. http://cryptome.org/2014-info/gaza-ugi/gaza-ugi.htm
David Bancroft
Israel has the right to defend itself, by itself, from the continued campaign of terror being waged by Hamas. The moral bankruptcy of Hamas, its lack of concern for civilians or international law (on Thursday, the UN said it had found rockets hidden in one of its Gaza schools), its indiscriminate rocket launches that it hopes will cause civilian casualties, its refusal to recognize the very existence of Israel gives Israel absolute right to defend itself.
Margaret Wente wrote the following commentary in the Canadian Globe and Mail newspaper
Human shields are Hamas’s PR
Published Tuesday, Jul. 15 2014, 7:00 AM EDT
Last updated Tuesday, Jul. 15 2014, 7:00 AM EDT
It’s hard to figure out why Hamas would launch a missile attack against Israel. They can’t possibly win. Their missiles are useless, and seldom hit anything before the Israelis blow them up. If they wanted to, they could crush Hamas like a bug.
What Hamas does get is good PR. The visuals are golden: fleeing civilians, injured kids, apartment buildings bombed to rubble. So are the lopsided statistics – hundreds of Palestinians dead but zero Israelis. European press coverage has been overwhelmingly sympathetic to the Palestinians. In the Guardian, one commentator called the conflict “as perverse as Mike Tyson punching a toddler.”
There’s another difference between the two sides. Israel doesn’t want to shed civilian blood. Hamas needs it – especially from its own civilians. That’s one reason why it puts rocket launchers and ammunition dumps in mosques and homes in crowded neighbourhoods. That’s why it told people not to leave northern Gaza this weekend after Israel warned it was going to bomb.
Even Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas has called out Hamas. “We are the losing side, and every minute there are more and more unnecessary deaths,” Mr. Abbas said in an interview on Lebanese television. “I don’t like trading in Palestinian blood.” (In response, Hamas called him a criminal.)
Israel tries to minimize civilian deaths by warning people in advance of a strike, either with a telephone call or a harmless missile (known as a “knock on the roof”). These tactics don’t always work. A few days ago, the IDF mistakenly bombed a home for the disabled, whose residents were unable to flee despite the warning. Advance warnings also fail because instead of running away from the scene, some people rush to it. They hope their presence might deter an attack. Either it works or they become martyrs.
Earlier this month, the IDF targeted a compound in Khan Younis that was allegedly a headquarters for leading Hamas bad guys. They made a phone call warning noncombatants to get out. They also sent a knock-knock missile. But instead of leaving, people rushed in and headed to the roof to form a human shield. Eight noncombatants died, including several children. The IDF called it a “tragic mistake,” noting that by the time the people were spotted on the roof, the missile was already in the air.
Hamas openly encourages civilians to act as human shields. Here’s what Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri had to say recently on Al-Aqsa TV (via the Middle East Media Research Institute): “This attests to the character of our noble, jihad-fighting people, who defend their rights and their homes with their bare chests and their blood … We in Hamas call upon our people to adopt this policy in order to protect the Palestinian homes.”
The willingness to sacrifice Palestinian children has served Hamas well. Rights groups have condemned the advanced-warning efforts as just another version of collective punishment. “There is no way that firing a missile at a civilian home can constitute an effective ‘warning,’ ” said Amnesty International’s Philip Luther. United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay says there is “serious doubt” that Israel is complying with international human-rights law.
In the greater bloodbath that has engulfed the Middle East, this doesn’t add up to much. It will probably be over soon, and things will quiet down until next time. And there will be a next time – the younger generation of Israelis isn’t all that interested in peace. Nor are the kids on the other side. As one boy said on Palestinian TV, “We love the resistance. We want to die as martyrs. Long live the martyrs.”
David Bancroft
More than 700,000 Israelis, many rending their clothes, packed the streets of Jerusalem two weeks ago to mourn Ovadia Yosef (died October 7,2013), the ultra-Orthodox rabbi who once led Israel’s Sephardic Jews. Yosef, 93, founded the influential Shas party to speak for working-class Jews from the Middle East, who had less clout in Israel than Ashkenazi Jews from Europe. A polarizing figure, he paved the way for peace with Egypt by ruling that territorial concessions were permissible, yet he also denounced Muslims as “ugly” and “stupid,” and said Jews who died in the Holocaust were being punished for ancestral sins. Non-Jews, he said in a 2010 sermon, “were born only to serve us.”
Jeffrey Goldberg, a Bloomberg columnist, called Yosef “the Israeli Ayatollah.” Goldberg went on to write:
In the manner of the crudest fundamentalists everywhere, Yosef blamed misfortune and death on apostasy, irreligiosity and homosexuality (gay people, in his eyes, were “completely evil”). About Israeli soldiers who fell in battle, Yosef once said, “Is it any wonder if, heaven forbid, soldiers are killed in a war? They don’t observe the Sabbath, they don’t observe the Torah, they don’t pray, they don’t put on phylacteries every day. Is it any wonder that they’re killed? It’s no wonder.” Even more famously, he blamed the deaths of Jews during the Holocaust on the spiritual deficiencies of their ancestors.
In 2005, he argued that Hurricane Katrina was God’s punishment for the Gaza withdrawal and for the alleged godlessness of the black residents of New Orleans. “There was a tsunami and there are terrible natural disasters, because there isn’t enough Torah study,” he said. “Tens of thousands have been killed. All of this because they have no God.” He went on to argue — if that’s the word for it — that the deaths were also punishment directed at President George W. Bush for pressuring Sharon to remove Jewish settlers from the Gaza Strip. “It was God’s retribution,” he said. “God does not short-change anyone.”
Sorry, no: Prejudice is prejudice, whether it comes from an imam in Qatar or from the man whose Jewish critics labeled him, correctly, the “Israeli ayatollah.”
David Bancroft
A tourist youtube video. Turn up the sound on your computer.
David Bancroft
This really is worth watching!
David Bancroft
President Barack Obama “delivered an impassioned appeal Thursday for Israel to recognize that compromise will be necessary” to achieve lasting security and reverse international isolation. This was reported in an AP article.
A short review of history tells us that Israel cannot provide any more compromises than have already been given.
Tens of thousands of Hamas supporters gathered in Gaza City near a large replica of an M-75, a Hamas rocket, that bore the words “Made in Gaza.”
Precisely what compromise would Mr. Obama propose?
David Bancroft
This is wonderful! Watch this YouTube video to learn some astonishing facts about this country that only has 7 million residents!
Happy New Year!
David Bancroft
For pro-Israel Democrats who continue to support Obama, this article should raise some thoughts.
What does it mean to those who attack Israel when this US administration refuses to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital? Will this keep Israel safe? Or does it embolden them in their continued rejection of a Jewish State of Israel? If Iran attacked Israel what would the US administration do?
Thanks for reading these columns, David Bancroft
From Lawrence White
Sent: Sunday, July 29, 2012 5:47 PM
Lawrence W. White
At a news briefing in the White House three days ago, Jay Carney, White House press secretary, was asked by a reporter:
” What city does this administration consider to be the capital of Israel, Jerusalem or Tel Aviv?”
Carney refused to answer, other than to say “Our position has not changed.” Other reporters pressed him for an answer, again with no response.
The next day, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) responded to Carney’s refusal to answer.
“For thousands of years, Jerusalem has been the eternal capital of the Jewish people, but this administration refuses to say if Jerusalem is the true capital,” Cantor said. “At a moment when Israel is facing so many perils, the United States should be standing by our ally, not quibbling or quarreling about its capital city.”
In 2008, then candidate Barack Obama told AIPAC that “Jerusalem will remain the capital of Israel, and it must remain undivided.” (Within 24 hours he backtracked on this statement).
Since taking office, the President, Vice President and the Secretary of State, all of whom had previously touted strong pro-Israel credentials, have made statements or taken actions detrimental to Israel’s security, as well as opposed any construction in Jewish neighborhoods of Jerusalem.
This should give pause to those who believe our President when he claims that, with respect to pro-Israel credentials, he has the best record of any President of the US. Never mind the repeated hostility shown to the Prime Minister of Israel by our President, never mind the fact that Secretary Clinton screamed at Benjamin Netanyahu over the telephone, something she has done to no other foreign leader, never mind that, in the words of Aaron Miller, “unlike his two predecessors — Bill Clinton and George W. Bush – he’s not in love with the idea of Israel.”
And now, we have Mitt Romney visiting Israel. For him, there is no ambiguity as to the capital of Israel. Below is an article written by Jennifer Rubin, who writes for the Washington Post, describing the visit to Jerusalem by Mitt Romney.
—
Romney: You bet Jerusalem is the capital
Without specifically criticizing President Obama in his speech in Jerusalem, Mitt Romney delivered a blow to the Obama campaign’s frantic efforts to defend the president’s hostile stance toward the Jewish state simply by saying: “It is a deeply moving experience to be in Jerusalem, the capital of Israel.” The Obama administration can’t even say that much, a sign of how reflectively protective of the Palestinians’ sensibilities is this president. Of course, Jerusalem is the capital. It was declared so in 1948. The Knesset is there. The disposition of its borders is a matter for final status negotiation, but only an uninformed or virulently insensitive administration would be unable to distinguish the two.
In a bit of cleverness the Romney team sent out the text of the speech with this header: “Mitt Romney today delivered remarks to the Jerusalem Foundation in Jerusalem, Israel.” That is a deliberate dig at this administration. which has repeatedly put out documents suggesting that Jerusalem isn’t in Israel and has attempted to scrub from the White House Web site the reference to Israel’s capital.
Romney’s speech paid tribute to America’s historic relationship with Israel. (“Different as our paths have been, we see the same qualities in one another. Israel and America are in many respects reflections of one another.”)
It also was a forceful rebuke to Obama on a number of levels. First on Iran:
Over the years Iran has amassed a bloody and brutal record. It has seized embassies, targeted diplomats, and killed its own people. It supports the ruthless Assad regime in Syria. They have provided weapons that have killed American soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq. It has plotted to assassinate diplomats on American soil. It is Iran that is the leading state sponsor of terrorism and the most destabilizing nation in the world.
We have a solemn duty and a moral imperative to deny Iran’s leaders the means to follow through on their malevolent intentions.
We should stand with all who would join our effort to prevent a nuclear-armed Iran — and that includes Iranian dissidents. Do not erase from your memory the scenes from three years ago, when that regime brought death to its own people as they rose up. The threat we face does not come from the Iranian people, but from the regime that oppresses them.
Five years ago, at the Herzliya Conference, I stated my view that Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons capability presents an intolerable threat to Israel, to America, and to the world.
That threat has only become worse.
He also pushed back on Obama’s notion that because he’s been supportive of Israel with military assistance he can be credited with a good record on Israel:
I believe that the enduring alliance between the State of Israel and the United States of America is more than a strategic alliance: It is a force for good in the world. America’s support of Israel should make every American proud. We should not allow the inevitable complexities of modern geopolitics to obscure fundamental touchstones. No country or organization or individual should ever doubt this basic truth: A free and strong America will always stand with a free and strong Israel.
And standing by Israel does not mean with military and intelligence cooperation alone.
We cannot stand silent as those who seek to undermine Israel voice their criticisms. And we certainly should not join in that criticism. Diplomatic distance in public between our nations emboldens Israel’s adversaries.
And he delivered an implicit warning about Egypt:
After a year of upheaval and unrest, Egypt now has an Islamist president, chosen in a democratic election. Hopefully, this new government understands that one true measure of democracy is how those elected by the majority respect the rights of those in the minority. The international community must use its considerable influence to ensure that the new government honors the peace agreement with Israel that was signed by the government of Anwar Sadat.
As you know only too well, since Hamas took control of the Gaza Strip in 2007, thousands of rockets have rained on Israeli homes and cities. I have walked on the streets of Sderot and honor the resolve of its people. And now, new attacks have been launched from the Sinai Peninsula.
It was a forceful and thoughtful address signaling how his own attitude with Israel differs from Obama. No wonder Democrats are frantic.
Obama’s ablest surrogate to the Jewish community, Dennis Ross, is conspicuously sitting out the election. (He couldn’t even bring himself to say in the present tense that he supports Obama’s Israel policy.) Those pro-Israel Democrats who vouched for Obama in 2008 are now desperate to concoct criticisms of Romney (see my exchange with Jeffrey Goldberg), even for the moving symbolism of visiting the Kotel (the wall of the Second Temple) on the day mourning its destruction, Tisha A’Bav. (Romney noted: “It was Menachem Begin who said this about the Ninth of the month of Av: ‘We remember that day,’ he said, ‘and now have the responsibility to make sure that never again will our independence be destroyed and never again will the Jew become homeless or defenseless.’ This, Prime Minister Begin added, “ ‘is the crux of the problems facing us in the future.’ ”)
That Romney would visit the site of the Second Temple’s destruction on the commemoration of its destruction, like going to Normandy cemeteries on D-Day, is a sign of great sensitivity. (Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu underlined this point by inviting him to break the fast on the mourning day at Bibi’s home).
Pro-Israel Democrats, like all supporters of the Jewish state, should be honest enough to acknowledge, as Aaron David Miller does, that Obama “is not in love with the idea of Israel.” He can’t even get along with its elected government. Romney, by contrast, is plainly an Israel-phile and already enjoys a close relationship with the prime minister. On this, Romney left little to the imagination.
Mormons in Israel
By Rafael Medoff
Mitt Romney’s trail to the Holy Land was blazed by a Utah missionary a century ago.
MITT ROMNEY’S visit to Israel will generate much speculation on the role Jewish voters will play in the U.S. presidential election. His visit may also spark discussion about Mormon-Jewish relations in the wake of the recent controversy over a Mormon temple that conducted posthumous baptism ceremonies for some Holocaust victims.
But another Mormon’s visit to Jerusalem, 99 years ago, deserves some of the spotlight too. Because that little-known visit ultimately had a decisive impact on Jewish history and America’s response to the Holocaust.
In 1913, 29-year-old Elbert Thomas and his wife, Edna, wrapped up their five-year stint in charge of a Mormon mission in J apan and prepared to return to their native utah. They decided to pay a short visit to Turkish-occupied Palestine on the way home.
The Holy Land figures prominently in Mormon theological tracts. Thomas was keenly aware of Mormon prophecies about an in- . gathering of the Jewish exiles and the rebirth of the Jewish homeland.
“We sat one evening on the Mount of Olives and overlooked Jerusalem,” he later recalled. “We read the poetry and the prophecy, the forebodings and the prayers, with hearts that reached up to God.” Under “stars the likes of which you see nowhere else in the world but on our own American desert, out where I grew up,” Thomas read the lengthy “Prayer of Dedication on the Mount of Olives” by Orson Hyde, an early Mormon leader and fervent Christian Zionist.
“Consecrate this land … for the gathering together of Judah’s scattered remnants … for the building up of Jerusalem again after it has been trodden down by the Gentiles so long,” Hyde had written in 1841. “Restore the kingdom unto Israel, raise up Jerusalem as its capital…. Let that nation or people who shall take an active part in behalf of Abraham’s children, and in the raising of Jerusalem, find favor in Thy sight. Let not their enemies prevail against them … but let the glory oflsrael overshadow them.”
The moment, the mood and the words moved Thomas to feel a deep spiritual connection to the Jewish people and to commit himself to becoming one of those who would “take an active part in behalf of Abraham’s children.” And three decades later, he was presented with an opportunity to do so.
In the 1940s, as a U.S. senator from utah, Thomas became deeply concerned about the plight of the Jews in Nazi Europe. He joined the Emergency Committee to Save the Jewish People of Europe, a lobbying group led by Jewish activist Peter Bergson. Thomas signed on to its full-page newspaper ads criticizing the Allies for abandoning European Jewry. He also cochaired Bergson’s 1943 conference on the rescue of Jews, which challenged the Roosevelt administration’s claim that nothing could be done to help the Jews except winning the war. Although a loyal Democrat and New Dealer, the Utah senator boldly broke ranks with President Franklin D. Roosevelt over the refugee issue.
Thomas played a key role in advancing a Bergson-initiated congressional resolution calling for creation of a government agency to rescue Jews from the Nazis. Sen. Tom Connally CD-Texas), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, initially blocked consideration of the resolution. But when Connally took ill one day, Thomas, as acting chair, quickly introduced the measure. It passed unanimously.
Meanwhile, senior aides to Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau Jr. had discovered that State Department officials had
been obstructing opportunities to rescue Jewish refugees. Morgenthau realized, as he told his staff, that the time had come to say to the president, “You have either got to move very fast, or the Congress of the United States will do it for you.” Armed with a devastating report prepared by his staff, and with congressional pressure mounting, Morgenthau went to FDR in JanuaryI944.
Roosevelt could read the writing on the wall. With just days to go before the full Senate would act on the resolution, Roosevelt preempted Thomas and the other congressional advocates of rescue by imilaterally creating the agency they were demanding: the War Refugee Board.
Although understaffed and underfunded, the board played a major role in saving more than 200,000 Jews during the final 15 months of the war. Among other things, the board’s agents persuaded a young Swede, Raoul Wallenberg, to go to German-occupied Budapest in 1944. There, with the board’s financial backing, he undertook his now-famous rescue mission. Thomas’ action in the Senate was an indispensable part of the chain of events that led to Wallenberg’s mission.
The Swedish government, together with Holocaust institutions and Jewish communities around the world, recently launched a yearlong series of events commemorating this summer’s 100th anniversary of Wallenberg’s birth. One hopes these celebrations will include appropriate mention ofthe role played by Americans such as Thomas in making Wallenberg’s work possible.
And as Romney retraces some of Thomas’ steps in Jerusalem, he will have special reason to feel proud of the role played by a fellow Mormon in helping to save Jewish lives.
RAFAEL MEDOFF is director of the David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies and the coauthor with Sonja Schoepf Wentling of the new book “Herbert Hoover and the Jews: The Origins of the ‘Jewish Vote’ and Bipartisan Support for Israel.”
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