Tag Archive for: Jews

Israel in the Eye of the Storm By Tom Wilson

Tom Wilson, Resident Associate Fellow at the Centre for the New Middle East, writing in The Journal for International Security Affairs, outlines the key geopolitical challenges facing Israel.

In a region convulsed by the turmoil of civil wars, revolutions, and insurgencies, Israel stands out as an island of relative stability, one that has successfully weathered the multiple storms of the Islamist winter that abruptly followed the so-called “Arab Spring.” Yet in the summer of 2014, the calm in Israel was shattered by rockets, terrorists emerging from tunnels, and amphibious attacks along the country’s shoreline. The abrupt intrusion of terrorism back into Israeli domestic life—with all of the country’s major cities within reach of missiles fired by the Hamas terrorist group—was reminiscent of the second intifada, when suicide bombers from Hamas and other extremist factions entered Israel’s busy city centers and transformed them into war zones, paralyzing daily life.

During the height of the summer 2014 Gaza War, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu commented that Israel could not afford to give up control of the West Bank and risk the creation of “another 20 Gazas” there.(1) That remark resonated particularly strongly with many Israelis, not least because it came just months after a failed American-led effort to push for a peace agreement with the Palestinians—one that would have obliged Israel pull out of the vast majority of the West Bank. And whereas Netanyahu’s statement about the potential horrors of Palestinian terrorism appears to have been received approvingly by many in Israel, Secretary of State John Kerry’s peace-making efforts enjoyed far less popularity. Indeed, many sections of Israeli society came to resent the Obama administration’s focus on promoting a peace agreement, as did some in Israel’s political establishment.

That they did speaks volumes about just how much Washington’s diplomats, like their counterparts in Europe, have fundamentally failed to appreciate the changes that have taken place in Israel’s calculus of risk over the preceding decade. Furthermore, they have failed to view Israel’s predicament in its full regional context.

Rather, ever since Barack Obama took office, his administration has pressed unrelentingly for reconciliation between the Israelis and Palestinians. It has done so, moreover, as if the parties in question were still operating in the relative stability of the Middle East of the 1990s. Thus, Kerry’s approach is reminiscent of the Clinton administration’s hammering out of the Oslo Accords with Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres, and its subsequent full-court press for a final agreement at Camp David between Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat. But while it is true that the current Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, is a somewhat more preferable negotiating partner to Arafat, the similarities end there; the political landscape for a peace agreement today is more inhospitable than ever before.

This is so for two reasons. The first relates to the changing regional circumstances now confronting Israel. The second is tied to the fundamental transformation that has taken place in Palestinian society and politics.

Region on fire

Half-a-decade into the “Arab Spring,” Israel faces numerous Islamist militant groups on its borders, from Hezbollah in southern Lebanon and Jabhat al-Nusra in Syria to Hamas in Gaza and al-Qaeda and Islamic State-aligned factions in the Sinai. The emergence of each of these groups has transformed Israel’s security outlook and diminished hopes for securing a durable peace. Rather than an environment ripe for a modus vivendiwith essentially pragmatic neighboring states, Israel now faces jihadist non-state actors, most of which are locked in power struggles with other militants as well as with the nation-states whose territory they now operate from.

The spread of this regional turmoil has had a mixed impact on the Israeli-Palestinian situation. To some extent, the conflicts in Syria, Iraq and Yemen have made the mostly-cold confrontation between Israel and the Palestinians appear far less pressing and far less relevant. Whereas once the words “Middle East conflict” were shorthand for referring to the dispute between Israel and its Arab neighbours, now this expression is more likely to refer to the struggle between Sunni and Shi’a extremists, backed by the Gulf States and Iran, respectively.

It is particularly significant that many of these militant groups are now operating from territories that Israeli security forces have previously withdrawn from (the Sinai, Southern Lebanon, and Gaza) or are directly adjacent to strategically important territories that Israel has previously considered giving up (e.g., the Golan Heights and the Jordan Valley). This naturally has had a considerable impact on Israel’s current willingness to make territorial concessions in return for peace agreements or international good will. From a strategic point of view, such moves have ultimately amounted to creating power vacuums that have eventually been filled by militants, so effectively moving a range of security threats ever closer to Israel’s civilian population centers and core national infrastructure.

Take Hezbollah, Iran’s most significant terrorist proxy. The Shi’ite militia represents one of the most formidable fighting forces in the Middle East, and is one of the greatest security challenges facing the Jewish state. Hezbollah and the Israeli military engaged in a deadly clash in 2006, one in which Israel’s military failed to strike a truly decisive blow against the Shi’a militants. Since then, Hezbollah is understood to have dramatically increased its military capabilities, and even with Israel’s Iron Dome and David’s Sling air defense systems operational, it is likely that Hezbollah could still inflict considerable damage in the event of a future conflict, since most of Israel’s territory is now well within Hezbollah’s reach.

The other major threat to Israel’s north has been the unfolding crisis in Syria. Stray projectiles from the fighting have impacted the Israeli-controlled parts of the Golan on numerous occasions, but it is the advance of Islamist groups close to the Syrian border that has caused the most alarm in Israel. For the moment, militants have been too absorbed with the fighting in Syria to direct their attention toward Israel. Nevertheless, the threat from chemical weapons and other capabilities falling into the hands of such groups must be taken seriously. Given that less than a decade ago, the Israeli government had contemplated a withdrawal from the Golan Heights—a territory that borders the Galilee, one of Israel’s most vital fresh water sources—these developments have done nothing to win public support for the notion of making further territorial concessions for peace. To the contrary, they have demonstrated that while Israel might hand territory into the possession of one regime, there is no guarantee that that territory will remain secure, or that the regime in question will survive long after the signing of any such peace treaty.

That, in part, has been the Israeli experience in the Sinai as well. True, Egypt’s short-lived Muslim Brotherhood government never officially revoked the peace treaty between the two countries, as many feared would happen after the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak in 2011. Yet in Egypt—as in Lebanon and Syria—the threat to Israel has not come from the state itself, but rather from the weakness of those states and the prevalence of terrorist non-state actors moving into the resulting ungoverned and under-governed territory. Today, groups loyal to both al-Qaeda and the Islamic State continue to operate in the Sinai Peninsula. And while Israel has now constructed a security barrier along its Egyptian border, and jihadists there are currently occupied with battling Egypt’s military, the lawless nature of the peninsula represents a major security concern, among other things because of the way in which the Sinai has served as the primary channel through which weapons and weapons-related matériel have reached the Gaza Strip.

The one border from which Israel currently faces the least significant threat is the Jordanian one. Like other monarchies in the region, the Hashemite Kingdom has so far survived the ripple effects of the “Arab Spring” uprisings—but this may not remain the case indefinitely. The growing popularity of Salafism in Jordan(2) may well come to undermine stability in Jordan, creating a scenario that would almost certainly jeopardize Israel’s security. Although it has been the case that some Jordanian Salafists have been drawn away from that country to join the fighting in Syria, it is also true that Jordan’s proximity to both Iraq and Syria places it in a particularly fragile situation. Furthermore, the significant influx of refugees into Jordan from those conflicts may well have brought other extremists into the country. The resulting concerns about Jordan’s long-term future have contributed to Israel’s insistence that the Jordan Valley must remain its most eastern border, or at the very least that the Israeli military must be allowed to maintain a presence there.

The Islamization of Palestinian politics

Ever since the establishment of Hamas (The Islamic Resistance Movement) in 1987 at the outset of the first intifada, Islamist jihadist groups have played an increasingly prominent part in Palestinian political life in general, and in particular as part of the Palestinian clash with Israel. Hamas had, of course, grown out of the Muslim Brotherhood, which was operating in the area even during the days of the British Mandate in Palestine.(3) The group’s founder, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, had led the Muslim Brotherhood in Gaza since 1968, but Islamists had always played a minor role in Palestinian terrorist activities compared to the secular and Marxist guerrilla groups as represented by the PLO.

The past two decades, however, have seen a veritable explosion of Islamist politics in the Palestinian Territories. Drawing from the lessons of Hamas, Palestinian militants began to adopt the tactic of suicide bombing as a preferred method of attack. As they did, other Islamist groups (such as the smaller Palestinian Islamic Jihad) became increasingly prominent across the West Bank and Gaza Strip. And, beginning in the mid-2000s, Salafist- and al-Qaeda-aligned groups began to proliferate in Gaza. Among them were small groups, such as Jaish al-Islam (Army of Islam), Jaish al-Umma (Army of the Nation), and Fatah al-Islam (Islamic Conquest), all of whom began to make their presence felt in the Gaza Strip. (4)

The Islamist politics of the Gaza Strip have been far from harmonious. These factions were always fiercely critical of Hamas’s failure to fully implement Islamic law, in particular following the group’s takeover of the Strip in 2007, and have opposed the temporary cease-fires Hamas has agreed to with Israel from time to time. But while these groups certainly attracted some disaffected Hamas operatives,(5) they did not appear to represent an immediate challenge to Hamas rule—at least for a time. More recently, however, some of these factions have sworn loyalty to the Islamic State, and clashes have broken out between them and Hamas, which has found itself in the position of needing to eliminate more extreme Islamist elements to maintain its hold on power. At the same time, Fatah has been locked in a long-running struggle to prevent a takeover by Hamas Islamists in the West Bank, where it holds sway.

The heavy involvement of Islamists in the terror attacks of the second intifada was certainly an indication that radical Islam was playing an increasingly decisive role in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Nevertheless, few at that time predicted that Hamas would win a decisive victory when elections were held for the Palestinian national assembly in 2006. The group’s subsequent seizure of power in Gaza by force in 2007, and the ousting of Fatah there, further cemented the process of radicalization sweeping Palestinian society.

Indications of what was happening should already have been apparent from the results of two surveys conducted in the mid-2000s. A 2004 survey by the Jordanian Center for Strategic Studies found support for al-Qaeda to be noticeably higher among Palestinians than in neighboring Arab countries, with 70 percent describing al-Qaeda as a resistance movement as opposed to a terrorist organization.(6) Similarly, a 2005 survey by the Norwegian group Fafo found 65 percent of Palestinians questioned supported al-Qaeda attacks against the West, and in Gaza that figure rose to 79 percent.(7) European observers living in Palestinian society at the time noted this trend of popular extremism, with one European diplomat stating that Palestinian society was undergoing “an accelerated process of broad Islamization and radicalization.”(8)

While the Palestinian Authority had itself noted the presence of Salafist evangelist preachers operating in the West Bank,(9) Palestinian sympathies for violent extremism had still tended to be expressed as support for nationalistic Islamist groups such as Hamas and the Islamic Jihad. Indeed, by many estimations Hamas would have a strong chance of winning West Bank elections were they to be held again today. Although certain West Bank cities such as Ramallah, Bethlehem and Jericho have remained quite firmly under the control of Mahmoud Abbas’s Palestinian Authority, there are other localities where Fatah has been severely weakened.

Abbas’s approval rating had clearly plummeted by the time of the summer 2014 war in Gaza. An indication of where the sympathies of West Bank Palestinians lay came shortly before major hostilities erupted. At the time, Israel’s security forces had undertaken a military operation to rescue three Israeli teenagers kidnapped by a Hamas cell based in Hebron in the southern West Bank. During that eleven-day operation, Israeli forces arrested some 350 militants, including almost all of Hamas’s leadership in the West Bank. But while this operation received the backing of the Palestinian Authority and the cooperation of its security forces, widespread anger erupted into several nights of anti-Fatah rioting in Ramallah.

The Gaza conflict in the summer of 2014 appeared to give Hamas a significant boost with the Palestinian public, with many believing that the organization was doing far more than Fatah to lead “resistance” against Israel. Polling shortly after the war revealed that support for Hamas had doubled among West Bank Palestinians, rising from 23 percent in March to 46 percent in September.(10) There are other indications to suggest that the pro-Hamas feelings that arose during last summer’s war have not dissipated. Student elections across West Bank universities in the spring of 2015 witnessed a surge of support for Hamas and the Islamist bloc, with the two being tied at the Palestinian Polytechnic University in Hebron, while the Islamic bloc won outright at Birzeit University.(11)

What Israel is now watching for are signs of whether or not sympathies for the Islamic State and its ideology are increasing among Palestinians. Unlike in Gaza, the security presence of the Israeli military throughout the West Bank will go some way to ensuring that IS militants are unable to establish fully operational cells in the West Bank. Nevertheless, there have been early indications of pockets of support for IS among West Bank Palestinians. Israel’s intelligence services have already warned of a process of militants defecting from existing terror groups, primarily Hamas and Islamic Jihad, and swearing allegiance to IS.

This process may have been underway for some time now. At the time of Hamas’ kidnapping of the three Israeli teenagers in June 2014, a previously unknown group claiming to be aligned with IS attempted to take responsibility for that action. And during the Gaza war that followed, the Islamic State’s media wing, al-Battar, released a series of images depicting the Dome of the Rock and threatening Israel’s Jews that the Islamic State was coming for them, and in August images appeared online showing an individual displaying the group’s flag on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.

In Gaza, the process of extremists shifting their allegiances to the Islamic State is far more advanced than in the West Bank. This is partly because in recent years violent Salafist groups have already been able to establish a foothold in Gaza, with some groups such as Suyuf al-Haq (Swords of Righteousness) launching IS-styled attacks against institutions and individuals accused of spreading Western influence. It had also become increasingly apparent that the military wing of The Popular Resistance Committees (Al-Nasser Salah al-Deen Brigades), the third-largest military group in Gaza, was displaying signs of radicalization, placing it further to the extreme than either Hamas or Islamic Jihad. It is out of this milieu that support for the Islamic State appears to have arisen.

Early indications of the growing support for IS in Gaza began to emerge in the fall of 2014. At that time, a group calling itself “ISIS-Gaza Province” began to establish an online presence, with a video appearing on YouTube showing a group of armed militants claiming to be the Islamic State in Gaza, complete with IS flag. Indeed, by late 2014 ISIS flags had become an increasingly common sight in Gaza, with eyewitnesses reporting their appearance everywhere from football stadiums to car windshields to wedding invitations. On November 3rd, the Shura council of Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis in the Sinai, as well as the group’s leader, Abu Khattab, formally pledged loyalty to the Islamic State. This was a telling indication that not only individuals but also entire Salafist factions are defecting to IS—a trend that Israel will need to grapple with in the not-so-distant future.

Mind the gap

As the surrounding Middle East increasingly descends into turmoil, Israel for the most part has managed to maintain relative calm and stability over the territory under its control. This stability is not a naturally occurring state of affairs, but rather the result of the extensive efforts of Israel’s security forces to keep a multitude of surrounding threats at bay. Almost all of these threats stem in one way or another from violent Islamism, which refuses to be appeased by any number of Israeli concessions.

International policymakers, however, do not appear to have adjusted to this new reality. The failing has been particularly noticeable in the policies of the Obama administration, whose representatives still seem to regard the Israeli-Palestinian dispute as one of the most pressing and problematic concerns in the region. In the early 2000s, at the height of the second intifada and prior to the second Gulf War, this may indeed have been true. Today, it is not. Yet American and European leaders continue to push for drastic changes in the current status quo, even at a time when much of the rest of the region is already in a state of extreme and unpredictable flux.

They are bound to be disappointed. Israel will naturally be reluctant to make any significant concessions while the surrounding region remains so unpredictable. It knows that the security and stability it enjoys has been hard fought and remains fragile. Under the present circumstances, a dramatic change in the existing status quo could begin a chain of events that would plunge Israel into one of the deepest security crises of its history, making it once again one of the region’s major flashpoints.

It is a reality that Israeli policymakers—and the Israeli public at large—understand well, even if officials in the West do not.

Tom Wilson is a Middle East analyst and a Resident Associate Fellow at the Henry Jackson Society in London.


1.   “Netanyahu: Gaza Conflict Proves Israel Can’t Relinquish Control of West Bank,” Times of Israel, July 11, 2014, http://www.timesofisrael.com/netanyahu-gaza-conflict-proves-israel-cant-….

2.   See, for example, David Schenker, “Salafi Jihadists on the Rise in Jordan,” Washington Institute for Near East Policy, PolicyWatch no. 2248, May 5, 2014, http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/view/salafi-jihadists….

3.   Jonathan Schanzer, Hamas vs. Fatah: The Struggle for Palestine (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), 24.

4.   Jonathan Schanzer and Mark Dubowitz, Palestinian Pulse: What Policymakers Can Learn from Palestinian Social Media (Washington, DC: Foundation for Defense of Democracies, 2010), http://www.defenddemocracy.org/content/uploads/documents/Palestinian_Pul….

5.   Yoram Cohen and Matthew Levitt, with Becca Wasser, “Deterred but Determined: Salafi-Jihadi Groups in the Palestinian Arena,” Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Policy Focus no. 99, January 2010, http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/uploads/Documents/pubs/PolicyFocus%20….

6.   “Revisiting the Arab Street: Research from Within,” Center for Strategic Studies, University of Jordan, February 2005, http://www.mafhoum.com/press7/revisit-exec.pdf.

7.   Gro Hasselknippe, “Palestinian Opinions on Peace and Conflict, Internal Affairs and Parliament Elections 2006,” Fafo Paper 2006:09, 2006, http://almashriq.hiof.no/general/300/320/327/fafo/reports/797.pdf

8.   As cited in Cohen and Levitt, “Deterred but Determined.”

9.   Ibid.

10.   “We’re Back; Hamas in the West Bank,” The Economist, September 3, 2014, http://www.economist.com/blogs/pomegranate/2014/09/hamas-west-bank.

11.   Adnan Abu Amer, “Hamas Sweeps Student Council Elections in the West Bank,” Al-
Monitor
, April 28, 2015, http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2015/04/hamas-victory-student-….

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared in Journal for International Security Affairs.

Kerry: Israel and American Jews to Blame if Congress Rejects Iran Nuke Deal

Secretary of State Kerry speaking before the Council on Foreign Relations in Manhattan on Friday, July 24th, ‘blamed Israel” and by inference “American Jews” if Congress rejects the Iran nuclear pact. He said:

So, folks, I got to tell you, if this continues, what I’m witnessing, where there’s this fear that is governing the—and emotion that is governing people’s thinking about this program, I fear that what could happen is if Congress were to overturn it, our friends in Israel could actually wind up being more isolated and more blamed.

Watch Kerry’s presentation on the Iran nuclear pact at the CFR on this YouTube video:

His remarks indicated  that he didn’t read the L.A. Jewish Journal Survey on the Iran nuclear pact issued on July 23rd, a day prior to his CFR presentation. In our Iconoclast post this past weekend about the Journal survey suggesting that half of American Jews polled 49% approved the Iran nuclear deal versus less than 28% of all Americans. If you add in his performance Thursday at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee warning Israel not to sabotage Iran’s peaceful nuclear energy program under the JCPOA then he has some reality problems. Kerry appears to have supped from the poisoned chalice of the Internationalist Jewish conspiracy the notorious Anti-Semitic Czarist forgery, The Protocols of the Elders of ZionWe hope that is not the case.

Rafael Medoff posted a response on The Weekly Standard blog yesterday, “Kerry Warns: Jews Will Be Blamed If Congress Sinks Iran Deal.”

Secretary Kerry made his remark in an address to the Council of Foreign Relations on July 24. He appeared to be not merely predicting that Israel might be blamed, but hinting that the Obama administration itself might do the blaming. And since the administration has repeatedly claimed that rejection of the agreement will lead to war with Iran, the implication of Kerry’s statement seems to be that Israel, the Jewish state, would be to blame for such a war. The possibility that the blame would be extended to Israel’s supporters in the United States has already been raised by President Obama himself, in his warning that unnamed “lobbyists” and “money” were trying to block the Iran deal.

The possibility that the blame would be extended to Israel’s supporters in the United States has already been raised by President Obama himself, in his warning that unnamed “lobbyists” and “money” were trying to block the Iran deal.

One unfortunate comparison brought to mind by this kind of talk is an episode involving the pundit and unsuccessful presidential candidate Pat Buchanan. In the months preceding the first Persian Gulf war, Buchanan charged that “there are only two groups that are beating the drums for war in the Middle East—the Israeli defense ministry and its ‘amen corner’ in the United States.”

In another broadside, Buchanan named four prominent supporters of war with Jewish-sounding names as being part of “the Israeli Defense Ministry’s amen corner in the United States.” He accused them of planning to send “kids with names like McAllister, Murphy, Gonzales and Leroy Brown” to the Persian Gulf to do the fighting.

New York Times columnist A.M. Rosenthal described that remark as a “blood libel,” and Anti-Defamation League director Abraham Foxman called Buchanan’s statements “an appeal to anti-Semitic bigotry.”

RELATED ARTICLE: Sharansky Calls on U.S. Jews to Stand Up to White House Over Iran Nuclear Deal

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared in the New English Review. The featured image is of Secretary of State John Kerry speaking on the Iran nuclear deal at the Council on Foreign Relations on July 24, 2015. Photo by AP.

VIDEO: Israel’s Right to Exist

Dr. Ron Wexler gives an eye opening lecture on Israel’s biblical and modern day claims to the land of Israel.

If you know history you will know the future. Dr. Wexler brings these words to life as he paints a picture of Israel’s roots and why President Obama’s Iran Nuclear Deal is so dangerous for Israel and the West.

It is a rare event when all these elements happening in the Middle East are brought together in an easy to understand timeline giving you a glimpse into the future of our world.

We encourage you to sign up for the March 2016 Israel National Security Tour led by Dr. Wexler and me : Heritage Study Program: http://ft.heritagestudyprograms.com/. We will see you on the March 2016 Israel National Security Tour http://ft.heritagestudyprograms.com/

American Jewish friends: Are we talking about you or someone you know?

Netanyahu obama israel

Bibi tête-à-tête Obama.

We were prompted to post an earlier version of this on my Facebook page in response to a Jewish Press op-ed by Varda Meyers Epstein, “How Could we Have Known: Jews who voted for Obama.” A native of Pittsburgh who made aliyah to Israel; she ably cataloged a number of warning signals about President Obama who has proven to be a cunning transformationalist.  Here are Ms. Epstein’s opening and closing tropes.

Beginning in 2007, those of us who saw the writing on the wall began campaigning against Obama. We knew he was bad for Israel from the things he said in interviews and from the people he hung out with, past and present. We posted articles that slammed him on social media and we lost friends for our insistent and incessant need to make our case: the one that would save Israel and Israeli Jews.

[…]

You want to tell me you really didn’t know about Obama’s hatred for the Jews and for Israel? Sorry, but I’m having trouble buying that story. But at the very least, you need to come out from under that rock and get a little, um, daylight. You’ve been looking a little pale since Tuesday.

We added to Ms. Epstein’s dossier with those of our own  thereby expanding on her theme.  After posting it on my Facebook page we received a welter of  “likes” and positive comments  from Australia, Canada, Israel and the U.S.  My chaver, ZoA stalwart in Philadelphia, Steve Feldman, who runs the Israel Activism Facebook page, thought it was “stupendous”.  A bit of hyperbole that, but thanks for the compliment, Steve.  However, I was brought up short by another chaver in Calgary, Bill Narvey, who, while he agreed with what I said, could we please “paragraph “it.  So here is a suitable presentation for Narvey and others.  The title for this piece was borrowed from a headline on Feldman’s Facebook post of what we originally wrote:

[H]ow could normally sensible Jewish Democrats have believed all that hokum about “Hope and Change” back in 2007 from an untried US Senator from Illinois who never completed a full term in office after leveraging a speech at the 2004 Democratic convention and two ghost written New York Times biographies allegedly by Bill Ayres . Who as a State Senator from Chicago voted present 100 times in the Illinois state legislature?

Or allied himself to the anti-Israel, pro-Palestinian crowd at annual dinners of the Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee with Michelle and him seated at a table back in 1998 with one of his alleged mentors, the late Columbia Professor Edward Said.  Or when he told his Chicago Pal Ali Abunimah of The Electronic Intifada blog, during his run for US Senate backed by the gullible Chicago Jewish billionaires from the Pritzker and Crown Families of the Standard Club, that he wouldn’t forget both Abunimah and the Palestinian cause when he got to Washington.

Tell them how Obama lied about he had Israel’s back or that there was no diplomatic daylight between the US under his helm with Israel the only democratic ally in the Middle East. Tell them how he undertook secret negotiations with Iran back in the fall of his 2012 re-election using his Chicago mentor Valarie Jarrett to discuss a possible Iran nuke deal with Ali Akbar Salehi in Dubai, her childhood friend from living in Iran with her Chicago doctor father and mother after her birth in Shiraz.

Or ask them to explain how the July 14th announcement of a Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action to cut off Iran from a bomb was followed by a UN Security Council unanimous endorsement a week later. That was less than a day after the Iran nuke pact was submitted to Congress for a review and vote by Rosh Ha Shanah in 2015.

Ask them why Iran’s nuclear infrastructure remains in place and the EU-3 will commit to hardening it preventing Israel from sabotaging it. Ask them if they ever thought a sitting President would use his executive powers to transform this country into just another member of the multilateral Euro-trash socialist club. Ask them why he cozyied up to the Muslim Brotherhood both in the Middle East and here in the US, only to dump them for apocalyptic End times Shiite Iran giving them a free pass to arm Hamas and Hezbollah and boost the Islamic State ranging on Israel’s borders.

Yes, tell your talented chaverim v mispochim who funded and voted for Obama, not once, but twice, that he is laughing at them behind their backs now that he honored his commitment to his Chicago radical and Palestinian fellow travelers. Tell them to watch out for the Palestinian State UN Resolution that may be introduced for a vote soon now that his Iran nuke pact legacy has been endorsed by the Security Council even before the General Assembly UN meetings in September in Manhattan. Tell them to watch him manipulate gullible Jewish Democratic Members of Congress securing a yes vote for the Iran nuke deal enabling him to veto any negative majority GOP and minority Democrat vote by Rosh Ha Shanah.

Tell them all that and ask them finally, why they voted for this destroyer of their children and grand children’s futures here in America and in Israel. Go ahead, ask them that.

Then tell them to watch this NER You Tube video interview with contributing NER editor, Dr. Richard L. Rubenstein in June 2010.  Tell them to note his prescient bottom line assessment of Obama, as “the the most radical President, ever:”

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared in the New English Review.

VIDEO: Three Reasons Every Religion is Better Than Islam

Every religion is better than Islam, and so is atheism. Here are three reasons:

  1. All religions, except Islam, have the Golden Rule as an ethical cornerstone. Instead Islam has a dualistic ethical code.
  2. In Islam, the Sharia demands that all humanity submit to Islamic customs and law.
  3. The only religion that can kill apostates is Islam. Leaving Islam is a capital crime under the Sharia.

Some say that all religions are the same. But, from these reasons, we can see that Islam is inferior to all others.

RELATED ARTICLES:

Syria: Obama-backed rebels persecute Christians, force them from their homes

UK: Man carries Islamic State flag by Big Ben & Houses of Parliament, police refuse to arrest him

EDITORS NOTE: To learn more about Islam and why they slaughter visit: www.Fitnaphobia.com.

Aliyah — Jewish Return to Israel a Good Plan, But Not in 2015

The book of Daniel supports Jewish Aliyah, but also offers a time-frame for it that is overlooked. This is based on the double application of Daniel, once in history and again in our time.

Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky, a leading rabbi in Ultra-Orthodox Judaism, urges Jews to return to Israel this fall. Aliyah, the Hebrew verb for “going up”, refers to immigrating to Israel, as it can help herald the coming of the Messiah.

I, a student of Hebrew prophecy, agree with the need for aliyah but I warn of the risk in returning to Israel this year before the prophetic time specified by the prophet Daniel. How is this so?

The book of Daniel was sealed till the time of the end but it also defines the time of the end in the 8th chapter where Gabriel said “the vision is at the time of the end” Dan 8:17. Gabriel explained that the ram horns were the kings of Media and Persia and the goat represented Grecia.

History confirms the victory of the goat in the Battle of Arbela, 331 BCE, but that was not the time of the end. This suggests that the “unsealed” meaning of Daniel is a double application—once in history, and again “at the time of the end” when the Medes and Persians are Iraq, Iran/ISIS. Militant Islam will be stomped (Dan 8:8) by a goat—Global Organization Against Terrorism.

It is not safe to return to Israel now. Wisdom will wait for Scripture to be fulfilled. God says, “All nations [Arab nations? United Nations?] will be gathered against Jerusalem to battle. The city shall be taken, the houses rifled and the women ravished. Half the city will go into captivity,…Then shall the Lord go forth to fight against those nations.” Zechariah 14:2,3. How will God fight? He used Babylon, now a GOAT.

It’s not difficult to see how this can develop. We should note that the timing for aliyah is specified in the next chapter which also links to the Messiah’s coming–that’s why aliyah will be timely: “Seventy weeks are determined on your [Daniel’s] people…from the command to restore and build Jerusalem [we saw its destruction in the text above] shall be 69 weeks.” Daniel 9:24,25.

That command by the Persian king, Artaxerxes in 457 BCE was the signal for aliyah and allowed it. So it must be again after an impending destruction foretold by Zechariah (above).

The big picture that God offers us in a double application of Daniel (ram and goat again—good news to spare Israel) and while we look for Messiah soon, the first application of Daniel 9 pointed 69 weeks of years to 27 CE when Yeshua was anointed (the meaning of Messiah). The Spirit as a dove descended at His baptism by John who proclaimed Him as the “Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world.” as foretold by the prophet Isaiah (53:3-7).

We can’t help the mistakes of our ancestors, but we don’t have to bury our heads from reality now. We must see the bigger picture. The New Covenant Promise for God to write His law in our hearts has an end-time context of aliyah. We must have His law in our hearts to be ready for Messiah, but it won’t happen until aliyah, Ezekiel 26:24-28.

Christians who accept the Torah, and Jews who accept Messiah will be fully compatible when the two sticks, one for Israel and one for Judah, come together to make one kingdom in Ezekiel 37:16,17,22. May God bless readers with shalom as we consider the light of prophecy!

EDITORS NOTE: Dr. Richard Ruhling is a physician whose interest in retirement is Bible prophecy. His website, http://Exodus2.wordpress.com offers his ebook, Exodus 2, that shows the U.S. with a dozen parallels to Egypt and supports an impending return.

It’s Ramadan 2015 — Time to Kill Some Jews! [VIDEO]

If you want to break the Fitna code regarding how Muslims can increase the killing of Jews during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan tune in to our daily radio show – Monday thru Friday.

We start out with a little history lesson where we try to convince us Americans to change Independence Day to July 3rd! Huh?

Then we move into a report from Jerusalem Jane, in Jerusalem, about the many attacks this week, against Jews, by Fitnaphobic Muslims celebrating their Holy Month! Yep, there are dead Jews in Israel because of devote Muslims believing they are doing Allah’s will.

Folks, this is evil personified.

RELATED ARTICLE: Islamic State Boy Soldier Reportedly Kills At Least 50 Kurds In Suicide Attack

Needed: A New Church Policy Toward Islam by William Kilpatrick

The below article, by the ever-incisive William Kilpatrick, is written for a Roman Catholic audience, but the questions raised apply to all Christians. Secular leaders, too, can profit by his patient reasoning. 
Part One of a Three Part Series. 

Needed: A New Church Policy Toward Islam

By William Kilpatrick, Crisis Magazine

Part 1: The Dilemma

In a speech to Egypt’s top Islamic authorities, President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi called for a “religious revolution.” Why? Because he believes that Islam has problems: “That corpus of texts and ideas that we have sacralized over the centuries … is antagonizing the entire world.” He continued: “Is it possible that 1.6 billion people should want to kill the rest of the world’s inhabitants…?” He then warned the assembled imams not to “remain trapped within this mindset” but to “reflect on it from a more enlightened perspective.”

However you interpret el-Sisi’s remarks, it’s clear that he believes the problems of Islam are not the fault of a tiny minority. He seems to think that a great many are to blame, and he particularly singles out Islamic religious leaders, whom he holds “responsible before Allah” on “Judgment Day.” And, most tellingly, he refuses to indulge in the this-has-nothing-to-do-with-Islam excuse favored by Western leaders. Rather, he states that “the entire umma [Islamic world]” is “a source of anxiety, danger, killing and destruction for the rest of the world” because of “the thinking that we hold most sacred.”

By contrast, after his visit to Turkey, Pope Francis compared Islamic fundamentalists to Christian fundamentalists and said that “in all religions there are these little groups.” A little over a year ago in his apostolic exhortation, he joined the ranks of those who say that terror has nothing to do with Islam by observing that “authentic Islam and the proper reading of the Koran are opposed to every form of violence.”

So the leader of the largest Muslim country in the Arab world thinks that the entire Islamic world is suffused with dangerous and destructive thinking, and the leader of the Catholic Church thinks terror is the work of a few misunderstanders of Islam.

Or does he?

It’s very likely that when world leaders say that terror has nothing to do with Islam, many of them do so for reasons of state. In other words, they are afraid that if they say anything else they will provoke more violence.

Is this the case with the Pope? My guess is probably not. The Pope does not seem the type to dissemble. He, along with many of the bishops, seems to genuinely believe that Islam is a religion of peace that has been hijacked for nefarious purposes.

One of the unspoken hopes of Church and secular leaders is that by saying Islam is a religion of peace… eventually even the Islamists will believe it and begin to act peacefully.

Still, even if many prelates do entertain doubts about the peaceful nature of Islam, it can be argued that the present policy of saying positive things about Islam makes sense from a strategic point of view. A great many Christians live as minorities in Muslim lands, and the wrong word might put them in danger. After Pope Benedict’s Regensburg reference to the violent nature of Islam, Muslims took out their anger on Christians living in their midst. And things have worsened since then. Christians in Iraq, Syria, Nigeria, Pakistan, and elsewhere already live at peril of their lives. Why make it any worse for them?

There’s another argument for this power-of-positive-thinking approach, although it’s an argument that’s best left unsaid. One of the unspoken hopes of Church and secular leaders is, undoubtedly, that such an approach will set in motion a self-fulfilling prophecy. Keep saying that Islam is a religion of peace and eventually even the Islamists will believe it and begin to act peacefully.

Of course, jihadists aren’t the main target of this strategy. Even if hardcore Islamists remain unmoved by this flattering of their faith, the tactic will—or so it is supposed—have the merit of reinforcing moderate Muslims in their moderation. If Catholic prelates were to start criticizing Islam itself instead of the terrorist “betrayers” of Islam, they would risk alienating peaceful Muslims. A hardline policy might even have the effect of pushing moderates into the radical camp. Better, from a strategic point of view, to stress our commonalities with Muslims. If they see us as a brother religion, they are more likely to protect the Christians in their midst.

Whether or not this is the reasoning at the Vatican, I don’t know. But such a strategy is not without merit. In Islam, blasphemy and slander are taken quite seriously and any criticism of Islam or its prophet can be construed as blasphemous. Slander is defined even more loosely. One of the most authoritative sharia law books defines it as “saying anything about a person that he would dislike.” That covers a lot of territory. So the argument that drawing attention to the violent side of Islam will only incite further violence is a compelling one.

On the other hand, there are good reasons for questioning the Church’s accommodative approach. The primary and most practical one is that it doesn’t seem to have worked. The let’s-be-friends approach has been in place even since Vatican II, but other than dialoguers congratulating themselves on the friendships they have made, it hasn’t yielded much in the way of results. Christians in Muslim lands are less safe than they have been for centuries. So, for that matter, are Muslims themselves.

What’s wrong with the diplomatic approach? Well, look at it first from the Islamic point of view. Islam is a religion that respects strength. It was spread mainly by the sword. To say that it is a peaceful religion might elicit reassuring responses from those Muslims who, like their Western counterparts, are constrained by diplomatic protocols, but from others it elicits scorn. The Ayatollah Khomeini put it this way: “Those who know nothing of Islam pretend that Islam counsels against war. Those are witless.”

Muslims of Khomeini’s ilk don’t care whether or not others think of Islam as peaceful, they only care whether God is on their side. A weak response from the enemy, whether on the battlefield or from the pulpit proves that he is. Appeasement on the part of prelates reinforces the conviction held by many Muslims that Christianity is an inferior religion, not worthy of respect. By the same token, it reinforces the belief that Islam is the superior religion, deserving of special respect. “Allahu akbar” doesn’t mean “let’s dialogue”; it means “God is greater” and its specific meaning to Muslims is that their God is greater than your god. Duke University recently reversed its decision to allow the Muslim Student Association to chant the call to prayer from the massive chapel bell tower, but if the decision had held it would not have been seen as a sign of Duke’s commitment to cultural diversity but as a sign that it is on the road to submission. Duke was founded by Methodist Episcopalians and was originally called Trinity College. The Muslim call to prayer includes the words “Allahu akbar,” and the Allah they call upon is decidedly not a Trinity.

Islam, which considers itself to be the best religion on the planet, is also the touchiest religion on the planet. The way you show Islam respect is not by treating it as an equal but by treating it with deference. Not doing or saying anything to offend Muslims might seem like a wise strategy, but once you adopt it, you’re already on a slippery slope. Islam has an insatiable appetite for deference, and there is no end to the things that offend Muslims. The word “Islam,” after all, means submission, and that, ultimately, is how non-Muslims are expected to show respect. Catholics who are worried about offending Islam might note that in Saudi Arabia the mere presence of a Catholic church is considered offensive. Will the wearing of a cross by a Christian student at Duke someday be considered intolerably offensive to the Muslim students? How much of your weekly salary would you be willing to wager against that eventuality?

Muslims who are disaffected from Islam aren’t likely to convert to another religion which proudly proclaims its commonality with the faith they would love to leave.

Of course there are many Muslims who are tolerant and open-minded, but in much of the Muslim world they keep their open-mindedness to themselves. What about them? The Church’s current “diplomatic” policy runs the risk of increasing their sense of hopelessness. Islam is an oppressive religious and social system. Many Muslims feel trapped by it. President el-Sisi acknowledged as much when he urged Egypt’s imams not to “remain trapped within this mindset.” When Christian leaders won’t acknowledge the oppression, it reinforces the “trapped” Muslim’s belief that he has nowhere to turn. The problem is compounded when Church leaders insist on expressing their respect for Islam and their solidarity with Islamic religious leaders. Muslims who are disaffected from Islam aren’t likely to convert to another religion which proudly proclaims its commonality with the faith they would love to leave.

The current approach is unlikely to win over many Muslims. At the same time, it’s likely to alienate a lot of Christians. For one thing, it does a disservice to Christian victims of Islamic persecution. As I observed in a previous column:

Such an approach also tends to devalue the sacrifices of those Christians in Muslim lands who have had the courage to resist submission to Islam. It must be highly discouraging to be told that the religion in whose name your friends and relatives have been slaughtered is prized and esteemed by the Church.

That’s not to say that Church leaders shouldn’t exercise discretion in what they say. During World War II, Vatican officials understood that saying the wrong thing about the Nazis could result in retaliation against both Jews and Catholics. On the other hand, they did not go out of their way to express their esteem and respect for Nazis and thus risk demoralizing Christians who lived under Nazi control. In order to protect Christians and Jews in Nazi-occupied Europe and later in Communist-controlled Eastern Europe, the Vatican did exercise a degree of diplomatic caution. But that diplomacy was based on an accurate understanding of Nazi and Communist ideology. It’s not at all clear that today’s Church leaders possess a correspondingly clear-eyed understanding of Islamic theology/ideology. The current outreach to Islam seems to be based more on wishful thinking than on fact. And, as Pope Francis himself observed in Evangelii Gaudium, “Ideas disconnected from realities give rise to ineffectual forms of idealism” (232).

“Ideas disconnected from realities” is a good way to describe the Church’s Islam policy. That policy does not seem to have done much to prevent persecution of Christians in Muslim lands. How about Catholics who do not live in the danger zones? Catholics who live in the West and rely on the Church for their understanding of Islam can be forgiven if they still remain complacent about the Islamic threat. That’s because there is absolutely nothing in recent official Church statements that would lead them to think that there is anything to worry about. Lumen GentiumNostra AetateThe Catechism of the Catholic ChurchEvangelii Gaudium? All discuss Islam, but not in a way that would raise the slightest concern. The Catholic who wonders what to think about Islamic terrorism and then consults his Catechism only to find that “together with us they adore the one, merciful God” will likely conclude that terrorists are distorting and misinterpreting their religion. Confident that the Church has spoken definitively on the matter, he’ll roll over and go back to sleep.

It’s ironic that a Catholic can get a better grasp of the Islamic threat by listening to a short speech by Egyptian President el-Sisi than by listening to a hundred reassuring statements from Catholic bishops.

Conversely, Catholics who do not rely strictly on the Church for their assessment of Islam are in for a bout of cognitive dissonance. On the one hand, they know what the Church says. On the other hand, they can read the news and note the obvious discrepancy. As time goes by and as car bombings and beheadings occur at more frequent intervals in the West, dissonance is likely to be replaced by disrespect. Church officials who keep repeating the one-sided narrative about “authentic” Islam will lose credibility. Catholics won’t necessarily lose their faith, but it will be sorely tested. At the least, they will stop trusting their bishops on this issue. The trouble with “ideas disconnected from realities” is that they eventually do bump up against realities, and when they do, the bearers of those ideas lose respect. A good case can be made that Catholic leaders should pursue a policy geared toward weakening Muslims’ faith in Islam (a proposition I will discuss in the next installment), but the current policy seems more likely to undermine the faith that Catholics have in their shepherds. It’s ironic that a Catholic can get a better grasp of the Islamic threat by listening to a short speech by President el-Sisi than by listening to a hundred reassuring statements from Catholic bishops.

Of course, it’s not enough to simply criticize the Church’s current policy without proposing a viable alternative option. That’s something I propose to do in my next column.

Editor’s note: In the image above, Pope Francis meets with the Grand Mufti of Istanbul Rahmi Yaran during his three day state visit to Turkey last November.

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A Tale of Two Cities Babylon and Jerusalem: Is Our  Religion Symbolical or Spiritual?

In the days of Nimrod whose kingdom was Babel, men built a tower, saying, “Let us make a name lest we be scattered abroad,” but God said, “let us go down and confound their language…so the LORD scattered them abroad.” Genesis 10:9,10; 11:4,7,8.

It seems significant that even now the Tower of Babel is used as a symbol of the  European Union with its poster, “Many Tongues, One Voice” (Google), a symbol of defiance to God and with 5-pointed stars pointing down—the official insignia for the Church of Satan. (Google).

From the beginning, God was trying to spare man an external focus that engenders pride. Babel became Babylon and its king later said, “Is this not great Babylon that I have built?” Daniel 4:30. That meant time out for another lesson as the king lost his mind and ate grass for a 7-year humbling of Babylon.

The impending end-times will test our grasp of Bible truth as Babylon will again be humbled for 7 years. The issues are more subtle now, for we are dealing with spiritual Babylon that has permeated society’s systems of medicine, education, welfare, government, correction and religion. Our focus now is religion.

When God liberated Israel from Egypt, He gave them a system of types that foreshadowed spiritual truth. The lamb that they sacrificed represented the lamb in Isaiah 53:5-7, “wounded for our transgressions and bruised for our iniquities,” and announced as “the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world” by a Jewish prophet, John. John 1:29.

They loved Him for the loaves and fishes, but when He made the internal and spiritual nature of His kingdom clear, they rejected Him, saying “Crucify him!”–He thus fulfilled His sacrificial role as a lamb.

The question is, do we learn from those lessons, or are we as Christians trying to make Jerusalem and its external symbols right so we can feel ok, instead of “the kingdom of God is within you”? Luke 17:21.

In the “Tale of Two Cities,” Christians want Jerusalem, not Babylon, but it’s looking like Jerusalem will become permeated by spiritual Babylon depicted as a harlot involved with kings, wealthy (gold) and wearing scarlet (color of cardinals), a “mother of harlots” (other false churches) and abominations… drunken with the blood of saints (persecuting church in medieval history) on 7 hills, Revelation 17:2-9.

The Vatican plans a millennial reign in Jerusalem (Google it)  and Bible prophecy unmasks the pope’s role to introduce “Jesus” to the world after moving his headquarters there for the end-time, Daniel 11:45; 2 Thessalonians 2:3-10.

To answer the question in our title, we must not conclude that we need to see Christian or Jewish symbols or temples in Jerusalem, because in the end, Babylon will use them as it forces everyone to bow as in Daniel 3.

Abraham, the father of the faithful, let Lot have his choice of geography, and Lot picked Sodom. The Bible shows Sodom and Jerusalem as equivalent in Revelation 11:8. So let’s not fight over it–it will end as the last chapters show, with Christ coming on the white horse* to deliver His people in Armageddon, represented also in Daniel as the fiery furnace deliverance.

In the end, only the religion that comes from God can lead to God. We must not insist on our own terms, but seek Him on His terms. Now is our opportunity to study the Bible as it reveals a significant part of what modern religions believe as false and no single denomination as having all the truth, Revelation 3:17.

*The white horse in Revelation 19:11 is pre-figured by the white horse in Rev 6:2, a message of truth that helps us decode the enemy’s counterfeits so we are not deceived.

This article should not be construed as against any sincere Christians, including Catholics who seek a better understanding of Bible truth to explain the incongruities they see in their church and leadership.

RELATED ARTICLE: Politics and Pope Francis: The Role of the Catholic Church and the State

EDITORS NOTE: Dr. Ruhling believes the white horse of Revelation 6:2 also represents information linked to the  7 seals in that chapter—information that is the basis of a covenant enabling us to marry Christ as Israel did and that whether Jew or Gentile, God will bless a covenant-keeping people as His bride in and through end-times, ( http://TheBridegroomComes.com ) not raptured out of it.

Florida: Prayer March For Persecuted Christians and Jews 2015

We had a Prayer March For Persecuted Christians and Jews in Orlando, FL on May 16. Close to 300 people of all faiths and political affiliations attended.

Please watch the Video and I’m sure you will find it newsworthy and inspirational at the same time. Share this with your Pastors, Priests, Rabbis, Shaman’s, and Atheist friends – we are all in the same boat.

Go to our Facebook Page and friend us.  We have speakers at the ready to talk at schools, Churches, Synagogues, political clubs, and home groups of any size.  https://www.facebook.com/events/351504328371891/

Today we have the noble declaration of human rights enshrined in Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights:

“Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.”

Despite Article 18, there are severe human rights violations in many countries, especially in the so-called 10-40 window. Christians and Jews are persecuted across Africa, Latin America, the Middle East, most of Asia (including China) and now Europe (via the European Union). Iran is one of the world’s most repressive states, and those who offend Sharia law may be publicly flogged or even executed by hanging in the streets.

In 2008 over 200 million Christians around the world were in danger of being tortured, persecuted, or killed for their faith.

North Korea and China see Christianity as a threat to their respective political systems.  As closed societies North Korea and China are able to keep news of the politically motivated persecution of the Christians from reaching the outside world.

The persecution of the Christians, Jews, Yazidis, Hindu, Buddhist, Atheists, Pagans, and the many others who do not follow the Islamic doctrine, theology, and politics also face persecution.

As Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolf wisely stated,  “The purpose of this March is to force awareness of this persecution into the public consciousness.”

Now you have been informed and all people of conscience have a duty to act.  All the leadership of Churches and Synagogues at the  local level must become the voice for their persecuted voiceless.  Prayer is good but your voices must shout out from every pulpit and bema – when my people bleed we all bleed.

Each act of persecution  anywhere in the world should be taken personally by everyone who is currently safe in the cocoon of western religious plurality and has the freedom to exercise your spirituality without fear.

The issue of persecuted Christians and Jews crosses all party lines and denominations.  Those individuals who believe in no faith at all are also targets of persecution – we are all in the same boat.

Each one of us has free will.  How you use that free will defines who you are as a person.  Be a part of the solution.

Anti-Semitism and Jewish Dissonance on the 2016 Campaign Trail

The left has to do some soul-searching and reflect why it describes anti-Semitism as political expression, but criticism of Muslims as hate speech. Liberal Jews have to do the same about Obama.

The 2016 presidential cycle is beginning to gear up, with Hillary Clinton assuming the mantle of presumptive Democratic nominee and Republican hopefuls preparing to compete with each other during the primary season.  And Jewish Democrats are already lining up to shill for Clinton and attack the Republicans.

If the litmus test for Jewish voter loyalty is Israel, however, Democrats long ago abdicated any authority to determine “who’s good for the Jews” by their continuing support for Barack Obama – despite his relationships with Israel-bashers, his appeasement of Islamist regimes, his disrespectful treatment of Binyamin Netanyahu, and his pursuit of a deal with Iran that rewards aggression, enables its nuclear ambitions and threatens the existence of the Jewish State.

Jewish Democrats attacked Republican Senator Marco Rubio for allegedly creating a political wedge issue when he spoke in support of Israel from the Senate floor in response to the White House’s personal attacks against Netanyahu before his address to Congress in March.  They criticized Rubio even as Obama refused to meet with Netanyahu and Democratic operatives were meddling in Israel’s election in an unsuccessful attempt to push a left-wing coalition to victory.  It seems that party hacks were more interested in belittling Rubio’s unwavering support for Israel than in condemning the negative message sent by the fifty-eight Congressional Democrats (some of them Jews) who boycotted Bibi’s speech, and by House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s churlish conduct in turning her back to the Prime Minister as he spoke.

Similarly, the National Jewish Democratic Council was quick to criticize Kentucky Senator Rand Paul for his position on aid to Israel and to insinuate that he would be detrimental to the Jewish State.  This criticism is actually valid in light of Paul’s past statements about reducing aid to Israel and his isolationist rhetoric – as well as the dubious positions of his father, Rep. Ron Paul, regarding Israel.  But it is hypocritical for Jewish Democrats to sound the alarm regarding Paul’s candidacy considering how they portrayed Obama as a friend to Israel and champion of Jewish values while ignoring his associations with anti-Semites, his uncritical acceptance of the revisionist Palestinian narrative, and his hostility toward the Jewish State – particularly during last year’s war in Gaza.

There is clearly a strategy to push a distorted narrative that taints all conservatives with the presumption of anti-Semitism, though hatred of Jews is far more prevalent on the political left these days.  While there is a history of anti-Semitism on the right to be sure, there is just as long and pernicious a tradition of Jew-hatred on the left, where it has been a potent political force since the rise of socialism, communism and European liberalism.  It permeated the ideological fabric of these movements because it was part of the societies in which they grew.  Progressives today often project hostility for Jews and Israel onto conservatives while pretending that liberal and Muslim anti-Semitism does not exist.

Studies show that anti-Semitism today is much more pervasive on the left than the right.  As reported in the “Annual Report: Anti-Semitism in 2013, Trends and Events” by Israel’s Ministry for Jerusalem and Diaspora Affairs, for example, “[t]he anti-Zionism prevalent mainly on the left, which has already become an integral part of the permanent worldview of individuals and groups of the left, can today be defined as a cultural code replacing anti-Semitism and enabling its disseminators to deny all connection to anti-Semitism.”

And a 2014 German study analyzing anti-Semitic trends reflected by hate mail showed that most bigoted communications during the survey period came from the political mainstream, including university professors and the well-educated (i.e., segments of the population that tend to identify as liberal).  In contrast, only three percent of the offensive communications came from right-wing nationalists.  The study, conducted by Professor Monika Schwarz-Friesel, professor of linguistics at the Technical University of Berlin, and published in a book entitled, “The Language of Hostility toward Jews in the 21st Century,” indicated that hatred of Jews was often presented as criticism of Israel using traditional anti-Semitic canards and imagery.

Though progressive anti-Zionists glibly attempt to distinguish hatred of Israel from hatred of Jews, it is a distinction without a difference.  The left-wing movements in Europe traditionally considered religion and nationality societal evils and, accordingly, disparaged the Jews because they represented the most enduring elements of both.  The anti-Zionism espoused by so many progressives today makes use of the same stereotypes and conspiracy theories that have been ascribed to Jews for generations and, consequently, is no different from old-fashioned Jew-hatred.

The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (“BDS”) and Israel Apartheid Week (“IAW”) movements are purely creations of the progressive left in partnership with Islamist interests.  The left is obsessed with demonizing Israel and advancing anti-Jewish conspiracy theories, with progressive academics routinely defending campus anti-Semitism as political speech while simultaneously censoring any criticism of Muslims as “Islamophobic.”

Conversely, the European right today is generally more supportive of Israel, Jews and free speech.  American conservatives likewise exhibit greater affinity for Israel than do their liberal counterparts, and Congressional Republicans support pro-Israel legislation and resolutions far more frequently than do their Democratic colleagues.  These trends were reflected in a recent Gallup poll showing that 83% of Republicans sympathize with Israel compared to only 48% of Democrats.  Indeed, pejorative Congressional letters mischaracterizing Israeli policies as belligerent and reproaching Israel for defending herself are written almost exclusively by Democrats.

The left maintains a sympathetic attitude towards Islamist rejectionism as reflected by its support for BDS, IAW and the revisionist Palestinian narrative, and this cannot be obscured by the hurling of scandalous accusations of Jew-hatred against conservatives who, unlike liberals, have taken meaningful and effective steps to combat it.  Nearly a quarter century ago, the late William F. Buckley rid the National Review of those whose denunciations of Israel he believed were motivated by anti-Semitism.  He then wrote “In Search of Anti-Semitism,” which represented a watershed in political self-analysis and moral accountability.

The left has yet to engage in similar soul searching.  Instead, it excuses anti-Semitism as political expression, even as it stifles criticism of Muslims as hate-speech.  Unfortunately, warped views often attributed to the “hard left” have infected the liberal mainstream, as evidenced by the failure of its establishment to wholeheartedly condemn bigotry against Jews and Israel the way Buckley did in 1992, or to ostracize progressive extremists whose venom clearly sounds in classical anti-Semitism.

When it comes to party politics, Jewish Democrats have been deluding themselves since the days of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, when they substituted New Deal priorities for authentic Jewish values and regarded FDR as a savior.  Despite their blind devotion, FDR was accepting only of those who were assimilated and aligned with him politically.  He seemed indifferent to Jewish suffering in Europe, as reflected by the views of his special Mideast envoy, Harold Hoskins, who recommended censoring “Zionist propaganda” that consisted largely of publicizing the Nazi genocide and lobbying for rescue efforts.  Roosevelt’s Secretary of State, Cordell Hull, advised the maintenance of tight immigration restrictions that effectively condemned many to the death camps, and such recommendations guided FDR’s policy for much of the Second World War.

When reports of the genocide began to spread early in the war, the administration prevailed upon its progressive Jewish allies to downplay the news and discredit those reporting it.  Many Jewish New Dealers acquiesced in an effort to prevent distractions to the war effort and embarrassment to a president they idolized.  Some of FDR’s Jewish acolytes waged a shameful campaign to malign those who were publicizing the Holocaust, including Peter Bergson (Hillel Kook), going so far as to demand that Bergson and his compatriots be investigated for tax crimes and jailed or deported, though no improprieties were ever found.

Some Jewish Democrats even attempted to undermine the 1943 “Rabbis’ March on Washington” conceived by Bergson in conjunction with the Aggudat HaRabonim.  The event involved four-hundred Orthodox rabbinical scholars, including Rabbis Eliezer Silver, Avraham Kalmanowitz and Moshe Feinstein, many of whom were immigrants and none of whom looked or dressed like FDR’s secular political cronies. Encouraged by some of his Jewish confidantes, Roosevelt left the White House to avoid meeting the rabbis.

Many assimilated New Dealers sacrificed Jewish interests and pledged themselves to an administration that devoted military resources to saving works of European art, but which refused to bomb the concentration camps or the railway lines leading to them in order to stop the carnage.  When US policy finally changed to make saving Jewish lives a priority, it proved too little, too late.  Nevertheless, the lionization of Roosevelt provided the blueprint for a political cognitive dissonance that continues today.

The endorsement of President Obama is a case in point.  He sat in the pews of Jeremiah Wright’s church for more than twenty years and associated with radical academics and anti-Israel ideologues.  As a senator he had no record of support for Israel, and since becoming president he has conspicuously refused to acknowledge the Jews’ historical rights in their homeland.  He has treated Israel more like an enemy than an ally and has appeased Islamist regimes dedicated to destroying her and exterminating her people.  Nevertheless, he has been portrayed as philo-Semitic by the liberal Jewish elite.

The real story should be apparent from his words and actions, however, including his public spats with Netanyahu and lecturing to Israelis who reject his worldview – which to the attuned ear might sound similar in tone to common progressive excoriation of Israel.

It would be more honest for his Jewish supporters to admit they no longer regard Israel and traditional values as political priorities.  However, given their support for a man who has been deemed more hostile to the Jewish State than any other president, it is disingenuous for them to use faux concern for Israel as a pretext for discouraging other Jews from voting Republican.

Since the days of FDR, politically progressive Jews have sacrificed religious and ethnic loyalty for political acceptance.  That was why Roosevelt knew he could count on Jewish support in downplaying reports of the Holocaust when he so requested.  And this is why Obama recently met with American Jewish leaders in an attempt to silence criticism of an Iran policy that threatens the future of the Jewish homeland.

The partisan delusion continues with groups such as “Jewish Americans for Hillary,” whose website proclaims that “[t]hroughout her career, Hillary Clinton has fought for the issues that matter most to Jewish Americans.”  Given her complicity in Obama’s efforts to “put daylight” between the U.S. and Israel, one has to wonder what issues they believe are important to American Jews.  Her position during the Ramat Shlomo crisis in 2010 should indicate where she really stands.  When Obama referred to Ramat Shlomo – an established Jewish neighborhood in Jerusalem – as a “settlement” and demanded that Israel cease all building activities there, Clinton chided Netanyahu publicly and characterized neighborhood construction as “an insult to the United States.”

During her tenure under Obama, Clinton did not disagree when he demanded that Israel pull back to the 1949 armistice lines and divide Jerusalem; and she devalued Israeli sovereignty by lambasting construction on ancestral Jewish land while ignoring illegal Arab building.  She promoted Mahmoud Abbas as moderate, whitewashed the PA’s support for terrorism, and presided over renewed American participation in the anti-Semitic UN Human Rights Council.

As Mrs. Clinton attempts to rewrite her history at the State Department and posture herself as a stalwart ally within the Obama administration, Jewish voters should instead consider the decline in American national prestige and the shameful treatment of Israel that characterized her tenure as America’s top diplomat.

If Jews who supported President Obama now truly care about Israel’s future, they should acknowledge how he has compromised her national integrity, empowered her enemies and exacerbated the existential threat to her survival.  They must also recognize that he has not acted alone, and that his ill-conceived policies have been enabled by fellow Democrats – including Hillary Clinton, whose actual record on Israel is spotty and opportunistic at best.

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared in the Israel National News.

Jericho — No Jews Allowed

Join The United West Israel tour as we explore the West Bank village of Jericho.

Jericho is under Palestinian Rule and they make it very clear that Jews and Israelis are not welcome. The hypocrisy here is the residents of Jericho own all the food and tourist shops right outside of Jericho on Israeli land. This is modern day Israel.

Area A (full civil and security control by the Palestinian Authority): circa 3% of the West Bank, exclusive East Jerusalem (first phase, 1995).

This area includes eight Palestinian cities and their surrounding areas (Nablus, Jenin, Tulkarem, Qalqilya, Ramallah, Bethlehem, Jericho and 80 percent of Hebron), with no Israeli settlements. Entry into this area is forbidden to all Israeli citizens.

The Israel Defense Forces occasionally enters the area to conduct raids to arrest suspected militants.

Commonly known as “the oldest city in the world,” Jericho is an important historical, cultural, and political center located northwest of the Dead Sea.

The city is perhaps best known from the Biblical story of a great victory over its Canaanite citizens by the Israelite leader Joshua. In the story, the walls of the heavily fortified city were destroyed with divine assistance during the year 1400 b.c. The site of ancient Jericho, known today as Tell es-Sultan, has been the focus of several archaeological excavations to investigate the Biblical story. The original settlement was built on a hill, or “tell”. The results of these excavations suggest that the walls of Tell es-Sultan have been built and rebuilt many times, due mainly to collapse caused by earthquakes, which are common in the region.

One of these events may be the basis for the story of Joshua.

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Australia: Muslim cleric quotes Qur’an to incite Muslims against Jews, “strongest people in enmity towards the believers”

“You shall find the strongest people in enmity towards the believers to the Jews and the polytheists.” That’s Qur’an 5:82. “Fight them until there is no fitna [‘strife’], and religion belongs to Allah alone.” That’s Qur’an 8:39. “Fitna is worse than killing.” That’s Qur’an 2:191 and 2:217.

Will some moderate Muslim leader please explain how Ismail Al-Wahwah is misunderstanding and misinterpreting the Qur’an?

Meanwhile, “Al-Wahwah” would be the perfect name for a Muslim leader whining about “Islamophobia.” I hope that will be the subject of this learned imam’s next Friday sermon.

“Australian Islamist Leader Ismail Al-Wahwah Incites to Wage Jihad against Jews: ‘They Are the Most Evil Creatures of Allah,’” MEMRI, March 3, 2015:

In a Friday sermon, Ismail Al-Wahwah, spokesman for the Australian chapter of Hizb ut-Tahrir, said: “The Jews are the most evil creatures of Allah. Moral corruption is linked to the Jews.” He further said: “There is only one solution for that cancerous tumor: It must be uprooted and thrown back to where it came from.”

Following are excerpts from the video, which was posted on the Internet on March 3 by the Hizb ut-Tahrir channel.

Ismail Wahwah: Allah said [in the Quran]: “Fight them until there is no fitna [‘strife’], and religion belongs to Allah alone.” He said: “Fitna is worse than killing.” Refraining from fighting and from waging Jihad against the Jews constitutes fitna. This fitna is worse than killing, because it means that the Israelites will rule the Muslims until Judgment Day.

Recognizing the Jews and giving them even a single inch of Palestine constitutes the epitome of evil, because this will strengthen that cancerous entity. They are the most evil creatures of Allah: “You shall find the strongest people in enmity towards the believers to the Jews and the polytheists.” Refraining from fighting them constitutes widespread evil. It will enable them to kill Muslims and take over their countries, in order to spread corruption upon the land, and to capture and kill women and men. All forms of corruption are linked to the Israelites and their arrogance.

[…]

The wombs of this nation’s women have not ceased to give birth to heroes. This nation is abundant in women giving birth to heroes and mujahideen. It has always been so and will continue to be so until Judgment Day.

[…]

Past, present, and future – since their inception, the Israelites have gone hand in hand with evil and disobedience. “They did not prevent one another from any wrongdoing.” A Jew does not prevent another from wrongdoing. If [a Jew] criticizes another in the media, it is only to pull the wool over one’s eyes. The Jews are in alliance and in concert with one another.

Some superficial Muslims tell you about some Jew who demonstrated against the corruption. As long he is in Palestine, that Jew is an aggressor like any criminal. His very presence in Palestine constitutes an aggression, because he is an occupier, no matter who he is.

We must not be deceived by this. The Jews are the most evil creatures of Allah. Moral corruption is linked to the Jews. Prostitution in the world began with the Israelites. Usury and gambling began with the Israelites. Killing who began with the Israelites. They slayed the prophets without just cause. Prophets must not be killed, yet the Israelites killed them.

[…]

If the Jews were given the whole world, they would want the heavens. That is the nature of the Jews.

[…]

It is a delusion to think that there can be peace and coexistence with the Israelites, with the Jews. It is a delusion to think that we can share one state or two states, and that the Jews can be our neighbors, as suggested by some self-proclaimed, yet deluded, “scholars.” One such [“scholar”] claims that fighting neighbors is forbidden. He is one of them. Therefore, coexistence with Israel and the Jews is a delusion. There is only one solution for that cancerous tumor: It must be uprooted and thrown back to where it came from.

[…]

They have corrupted the world with their corrupt media. The Israelites have corrupted the world with so-called art, cinema, and corrupt films, and with sex trade, drug trade, and moral depravity. They have corrupted the world in every respect. These are the Israelites.

[…]

Whatever the outcome is of today’s battle, it is not the final battle. There is a sea of blood between the Jews and us. They will pay with blood for blood, with tears for tears, and with destruction for destruction. They are deluding themselves if they think that this nation will ever surrender to a gang of foreigners.

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Bill Nye on Muslim Terrorism: Jews Need to Get to Know Their Neighbors Better

It was a solution right up there with “Let them eat cake.” Addressing the issue of Jews fleeing Europe due to increasing Islamic terrorism and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s call for them to seek safety in Israel, Bill Nye “the Science Guy” had an interesting solution: “Get to know your neighbors.” The comment, made on Bill Maher’s show Real Time Feb. 20, was then followed by Nye’s interrogative, “What, does it take a century, something like that?”

This prompted some commentators, such as Fox News’ Greg Gutfeld, to say that Nye was blaming Jews for the Muslim threat. Get to know your neighbors? Yes, to pick up on a point Gutfeld made and run with it, perhaps a few dinner parties and other assorted soirees would inspire epiphanies such as, “You know, I was going to chop your head off, but you make a killer matzo ball soup.” The problem here, as Gutfeld said in so many words, is not Jews shooting up halal grocery stores. Nor are Muslims being taunted and spat upon while walking Paris streets as the Jewish man in this video was.

But perhaps Nye is like those school administrators who punish a victimized child who tried physically defending himself just as harshly as his attacker in the thinking, “Hey, he was repeatedly punching the kid on top of him in the fist with his face, right?”

This commentary by Nye — who has invoked Holocaust terminology in branding climate-change realists “deniers” — caused Gutfeld to label him, “Bill Nye ‘the Denial Guy.’” It may be a more fitting moniker than one relating to science, too, as a real scientist is actually out there, you know, inventing stuff. Instead, Nye took his B.S. in mechanical engineering, cut his entertainment teeth on a Seattle sketch-comedy TV show, and then parlayed his credentials into his well-known children’s science program. Now he’s supposedly qualified to dismiss climate-change realism and pontificate as an Expert in the Area of Everything. But Nye has always been a left-wing guy; take Barney the dinosaur, put a bowtie around his neck, a beaker in his hand, starve him for two months and make him a quasi-Marxist — and you have Bill Nye.

In fairness to the Denial Guy, perhaps he would say that he’d counsel both Jews and Muslims, and everyone else, to get to know each other better. And maybe he meant that what takes a century is assimilation. Regardless, his commentary betrays a fundamental misunderstanding about man’s nature.

Nye reflects a common belief today: Just get people to know each other, and silly prejudices are dissolved by the solvent of reality. It’s easy for Americans to believe this not only because of Kumbaya-multiculturalism conditioning, but also because of the common impression that this has been our experience. After all, anti-Irish bigotry was once rife, but how much exists now?

And assimilation had worked to a great degree in America, but our relatively short, 239-year history is a mere snapshot of man’s story. In places such as Ruanda and the Balkans, there have been genocide and ethnic cleansing. Countless times in history peoples have been subsumed, as has largely happened to the Ainus in the Japanese islands. And in ancient Greece, the Spartans got to know their neighbors quite well — well enough to turn them into helots, a captive slave class. So, yes, sometimes it takes a century for assimilation.

And sometimes it takes a century to effect conquest.

There’s a funny joke that illustrates a common difficulty living up to the injunction “Love thy neighbor.” It goes: “You know, I basically love everyone in the whole world — everyone. I just have a problem with the 16 or 17 people who happen to be around me.” Sure, Abraham Lincoln once said, “I don’t like that man. I must get to know him better,” but another saying to ponder is “Familiarity breeds contempt.” To know people is to love them? Sometimes it’s to hate them.

Of course, some interaction-induced irritation is inevitable. Being around people oftentimes means “bumping into them,” with their occupying the bathroom when you want it or slowing you down on the road; this is where tolerance, properly defined as abiding something you perceive as a negative, actually is a virtue. But then there’s the fact that getting to know people does dispel illusions — and that this includes illusions of goodness.

A family close to me once acquired a DVD of vintage cartoons, the kind they don’t show on TV anymore because, as the politically correct disclaimer stated at the disc’s opening (I’m paraphrasing), “WARNING: These cartoons contain stereotypes that may be offensive to some viewers.” They were referring to things such as depictions of turban-bedecked Arabs in traditional garb and Japanese speaking stereotypical pidgin English. They were the kinds of cartoons I watched Saturday mornings as a boy — and the politically correct critics have it all wrong. Far from inducing in me and my friends negative attitudes toward the groups in question, they instead were intriguing portrayals that might have piqued our interest in learning more about their cultures. What tends to happen, however, when a person from an “intriguing culture” moves in next door? Then you often find that in many ways he’s “just like us.”

“It’s the differences that kill you, though,” as least in certain cases, to quote Colonel Ralph Peters. It’s as when a man and woman marry and really get to know each other. While you usually have that normal bumping into each other, their deepening knowledge of one another can enrich their love. Then again, sometimes there are what many call irreconcilable differences. The husband may learn that his wife harbors a deep-seated hatred of men that sabotages their relationship, or the woman may find out that the man is a lecherous lout. And then there’s that occasional person who was unfailingly charming during courtship, and maintains a sterling public persona, but has a collection of shrunken heads in the attic.

A romantic may now say that love conquers all — and it does have transformative power — but sometimes being too softly loving can lead to being conquered. And, as someone I once knew put it, some people have to be loved from afar.

Speaking of which, why do liberals such as Nye judge situations and people (e.g., Muslim terrorism vis-à-vis the Jews) so wrongly? It’s because they deny the existence of Truth — the only thing that can reveal your emotions as wrong — and thus have deified their emotions, making them the ultimate arbiters of reality. And anyone governed by emotion, that irrational judge, will always fall sway to prejudice.

It takes a century? Sometimes the melting pot boileth over. For not everything melts. Some things just burn.

Contact Selwyn Duke, follow him on Twitter or log on to SelwynDuke.com

EDITORS NOTE: The featured image is of Bill Nye on the left, President Obama, and astrophysicist/author Neil deGrasse Tyson on the right. Selfie courtesy of Bill Nye.

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