The disappearance of law

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The Arab pogrom in Acre on Yom Kippur was yet another wake-up call. The 200 Israeli Arabs who shattered the windshields of 110 Jewish cars, and burned and looted dozens of Jewish businesses in the city on the eve of Yom Kippur while shouting out, "Death to Jews!" "Allah Akbar!" and "We'll kill you if you leave your homes!" couldn't have made their point any more clearly.

They don't like Jews. They don't want peaceful coexistence with Israel. They don't recognize the authority of Israel's laws. They don't accept their identity as Israeli citizens.

If the actual violence wasn't enough to clarify matters, then we have the invitations for the Arab theater festival that began on Thursday, and its program.

Acre's Arab leaders decided to organize their festival in response to Mayor Shimon Lancry's decision to postpone indefinitely Acre's annual Alternative Theater Festival. Fearing continued violence, Lancry opted over the weekend to postpone the annual event that was scheduled to take place this week.

The Arabs called their festival, "Acre Is Not Alone." In the invitations distributed to the Arab residents of the city, the organizers wrote: "We will not surrender to the emergency laws that were enacted after the settlers' [that is, the Jewish residents of the city's] attacks. The settlers are trying to enact an ethnic cleansing of the eastern neighborhoods of the city. We call on Acre's Arab residents to come to the Old City and break the siege that has been enacted against the merchants there. We are organizing these activities to preserve the importance of Acre as a center of Palestinian tourism, culture, history and geography."

So in short, "Acre is not Alone" has been organized to raise Arab awareness of Arab suffering at the hands of the Jews in Israel. Its main attractions include a movie that portrays the Arab riots in October 2000 from the perspective of the families of the Arab rioters killed by police trying to quell their violence against Jews; a one-man play fulminating on the victimization of Arabs in Israel and the Palestinian Authority by Jews; and an "artistic" narration of the plight of an Arab who left Acre in 1948 as a result of Jewish "aggression," and died in a UN camp in Lebanon.

It is important to pause for a moment and set out as precisely as possible what happened in Acre on the eve of Yom Kippur and the following night, after the holiday ended.

On Wednesday night, when as is customary, after prayers ended Jews milled about in the streets that were empty of moving cars out of respect for the holiday, Acre resident Jamal Tawfik drove into the city's predominantly Jewish Ben-Gurion neighborhood. Jewish residents claim that Tawfik was driving at high speed with his windows down and music blasting out of his speakers, in a clear provocation of the Jews. Tawfik denied the allegations.

By all accounts, some Jewish youth approached his car. Some accounts claim that a handful of teenagers hit the sides of his car. Some accounts claim that some teenagers pelted his car with stones. All accounts agree that he exited his vehicle unscathed.

Just after this altercation, a still-unidentified Arab in the Old City broadcast that a Jewish mob had murdered Tawfik via the loudspeakers of a mosque. More than 200 Arab residents then descended on the Ben-Gurion neighborhood with axes and knives. They shattered the windshields of some 110 Jewish-owned cars. They then moved into the business district and looted and vandalized the Jewish-owned stores and businesses. Despite multiple calls for help from terrified Jews, it took the police several hours to appear on the scene. And when they arrived, they did nothing to end the Arab rampage.

The next evening, after the holiday ended, the Jewish residents started a spontaneous protest against the Arab riot. Arab rioters returned.

This time, the police, equipped with riot gear, succeeded in separating the Arabs from the Jews. A group of Jewish protesters, demanding revenge, torched a handful of Arab-owned apartments in mixed neighborhoods. The Arabs continued looting Jewish businesses and attacking Jewish cars. Police arrested rioters on both sides.

In the days that followed, Arab leaders published condemnations of violence "on both sides," and asked Jewish leaders to join them in their statements. Most Jewish leaders in the city refused. As Acre's Chief Rabbi Yoseph Yashar told a reporter, "As long as they speak of the Arab rioters from the eve of Yom Kippur in the same breath as the acts of vengeance carried out by Jews in response, it will be very hard to calm matters down."

On the national political level, Kadima and Labor party leaders have embraced the Arabs' moral equivalence. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, Defense Minister Ehud Barak and their subordinates have all decried "acts of violence" and "lawlessness," while refraining from making any special mention of the fact that the violence was carried out almost entirely by Acre's Arabs.

Olmert went further than his colleagues. During a meeting with anti-Israel activists from the Arab sector, including the deputy head of the Hamas-linked northern branch of the Israeli Islamic Movement on Monday, Olmert claimed, "There can be no doubt that for years the Arab population has suffered from discrimination that stemmed from a variety of sources."

By making the statement to some of the most extreme anti-Israel voices in Israeli Arab society, Olmert seemingly justified the lawlessness of their followers.

The police have reacted to the Arab violence with now customary passivity. Decrying the police's belated and feckless response to Wednesday night's violence, Likud MK Yuval Steinitz minced no words: "The public security minister [Avi Dichter] and the chief of police [David Cohen] must resign. The State of Israel has become the only country in the Western world where pogroms are carried out against Jews. Physical assaults are carried out against them and against their property amid calls of 'Death to the Jews.' A police force that is incapable of defending Jewish neighborhoods requires a serious overhaul."

WHILE STARTLING, the events in Acre – and the official response to them – are not new phenomena. Last Yom Kippur, an Arab driver from Shibli in the Galilee mortally wounded nine-year-old Tal Zino from neighboring Kfar Tavor. The driver entered the community at top speed on his all-terrain vehicle. Children playing outside the synagogue ran to evade him. Tal couldn't get out of his way fast enough. He ran her over.

As Tal's mother, Haya Zino, told Ma'ariv last Friday, that incident was the first attack against Jews carried out by an Arab operating a heavy motor vehicle. In her view, the more recent murders of Jews in Jerusalem by Arab bulldozer operators are simply a continuation of the attack on Kfar Tavor that killed her daughter.

Two years ago, an Arab mob in Acre violently attacked yeshiva students dancing in the streets on Simhat Torah. The students were forced to flee to their yeshiva, where the Arabs then besieged them. Rather than disperse the crowd, the police simply helped the students escape to their homes through the yeshiva's backdoor.

And in the riots in Peki'in in October 2007, the police refused to confront the Arab mob that attacked the Jewish homes in the village. They allowed a policewoman to be held hostage for several hours and essentially begged anti-Israeli local leaders to intervene on her behalf.

THE EVER-INCREASING radicalism of Israeli Arabs, who today openly and officially oppose the existence of the Jewish state, shows the imbecility of the government's plan to "separate" from the Palestinians by withdrawing from Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem.

Given that Israeli Arabs and Pal
estinian Arabs openly identify themselves as one society, there is no way to separate from the Palestinians.

But the fact that Israeli Arabs are indistinguishable from Palestinian Arabs does not mean that there is no way to contend with their rejection of Israel. To the contrary, it points to the only way to contend with both the Palestinian Arab and the Israeli Arab rejection of Israel: By reestablishing law and order and respect for the law both within the 1949 armistice lines and in the areas Israel took control of in 1967.

Here, it is worth pointing out that in their rejection of the authority of Israel, the Israeli Arab rioters in Acre are little different from the French Muslim rioters who set their country ablaze in November 2005. In both cases, the rioters demonstrated their abject contempt and rejection of the state in which they live, at the same time that their governments were doing everything in their power to appease them as a suffering minority.

Responding to the violence, French voters elected President Nicolas Sarkozy. Sarkozy campaigned on a law and order platform. Sadly, since taking office, he has done little to abide by his campaign pledges in this regard.

In Israel's case, no political leaders have made the connection between law and order and Israeli Arab or Palestinian Arab irredentism. Indeed, since the Arab riots in 2000, Israel has simply stopped enforcing its laws in the Arab sector. This is true not only with regard to violent crimes and treason, but also in relation to lesser offenses. For instance, polygamy is illegal in Israel. Yet, over the past decade, the prevalence of polygamy among Israeli Beduin has grown to unprecedented levels.

Last spring the government announced its intention to contend with the issue by forming committees and support groups for children of polygamous marriages and women who are involved in these illegal relationships. No thought was given to the obvious remedy of arresting the polygamous husbands and trying them for their crimes.

And this gets to the heart of the matter. While no doubt, historically, Israel has witnessed discrimination against members of its Arab sector, today, the chief form of discrimination they suffer is what US President George W. Bush has referred to as "the soft bigotry of low expectations." This of course causes both Israeli Jews and Arabs to feel contempt for the law and so increases the tendency of both Jews and Arabs to take the law into their own hands.

But more important, the pro-Arab discrimination of Israel's political and law enforcement arms has facilitated the radicalization of Arab Israeli society. Far from appeasing them, Israel has shown them that they are right to reject its authority. And their rejection of Israel – like their Palestinian Arab brethren's rejection of Israel – only increases as Israel seeks to appease them.

By opting not to assert its authority over Arabs in Israel and the Palestinian Authority, by refraining from punishing their lawlessness and aggression against Jews, and even rewarding it, Israel guarantees that yet more dangerous attacks will soon follow.

Originally published in The Jerusalem Post.

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12 Comments

  • Marc Handelsman, USA 10/17/2008 at 18:41

    Israel’s recent Arab riot in Acre is proof that a “Fifth Column” is a growing threat to the country. One of the strategies of jihadists is to destabilize Israel from within. In the next regional Mid-east war, Israel will have to fight a multi-front war, along with an Israeli-Arab insurrection. If Kadima stays in power, we can expect to see more riots like the one last week. The Israeli police force cannot effectively do its job due to weak leadership. Let’s pray that Likud will return to power, and restore Israel’s strategic deterrent.

    Reply
  • marcel cousineau 10/17/2008 at 18:50

    Who is to blame for the Arab Pogrom of Akko ? Ever Jew who has stood with the phony peace process or been silent about the 2 state final solution.
    That is a majority in Israel and what we saw in Akko but 10 times worse will hit to everyone of them soon.
    The roots of Israel’s decline,it’s internal and external rot can be found in the ‘peace process’ Israel has embraced with open arms.
    A people who ignore their God and makes a god out of a scumbag like Bush will get what we now see coming upon Israel and it’s not peace but the worst horror you can imagine.
    This seems to be the only thing that will awaken the crazed idol worshipers who prostitute themselves to their god of no peace.
    The ones to blame for all of this are the faithless Jews who stand for nothing and believe in strong delusion of real peace with the hordes of Islam when it is impossible. Today ,the god whom Israel religiously obeys and worships has called for the amputation of the Golan for more delusion and lies and Israel has yet to end the Road Map or removed the betrayers of Israel,Kadima,Labor,Shas from power.
    Never again is so easy to accomplish again with Jews who hate the truth and only believe in lies.
    You have stood by with religious zeal with the liar in Washington as he drew more and more blood from you,you foolish idol worshipers and you think you will have peace for this sin against Hashem ?
    You stand for nothing but the failed and cursed Road Map and do not resist this highway to hell which will soon engulf every Israeli city amnd it’s your own fault.
    You surrender to and appease those intent on exterminating you , by yourown hands inviting another holocaust.
    The peace you sought under the false,failed U.S. peace plan has brought you closer to all out war on all fronts.When will you snap out of your strong delusion for Bush and his 2 state final solution ?
    You’ve been proven dead wrong time after time and yet you continue down the Road Map path of the god you serve Bush.
    http://averyheavystone.blogspot.com/

    Reply
  • Timothy Kriete For Israel Forever More The Apple Of Jehovah EL Shaddai's Eyes AMEN 10/18/2008 at 4:26

    Dear Caroline; Thank You Sis For This Article,
    I SALUTE YOU For Your Holy Ghost Inspired
    Boldness, Please STAY STRONG BABY GIRL AND
    NEVER EVER STOP SOUNDING THE SHOFAR FOR ZION’S
    SAKE AND FOR JERUSALEM’S SAKE NEVER EVER BE
    SILENT Caroline Glick My Sister You Are Truly
    A Courageous Woman For Such A Time AS THIS
    (Esther 4:14,Joel 2:21-32,Genesis 12:1-3,
    Habakkuk 2:1-3 AMEN). Know This For A FACT:
    When Israel And The Jewish People World Wide
    Suffer, A PART OF ME DIES INSIDE, Yet I
    Continue To Pray The Eternal Blessings And
    Protections Of Hashem Upon Israel And The Jewish
    People World Wide Eternally As I Shed Tears Of
    Frustration & Righteous Anger FOR ZION’S SAKE
    AMEN. I DAILY Pray To The LORD And Repent Of
    My Anger, It Is Written, “Be Angry But SIN NOT”
    Please Give Everyone In Israel A Hug For Me Sis,
    I Stand WITH YOU ALL IN SPIRIT AND IN TRUTH AMEN
    My Regret Is I Only Have 1 Life To Offer As A
    LIVING Sacrifice To The LORD God Of Israel. I
    Daily Pray For The Peace Of Jerusalem The
    Eternal City Of Jehovah EL Shaddai And The
    Capital City Of Israel Regardless Of What Any
    FOOL Thinks Or Covets In Their Hearts Caroline.
    Proverbs 3:1-12 Is What I Live By DAILY, Please
    Stay Strong My Precious Sister Caroline Glick I
    Definitely Believe Hashem Has Raised YOU Up For
    SUCH A TIME AS THIS, Thus I Am Thinking Shula
    Cohen Would Be Pleased With Your Efforts. I Pray
    That The LORD Our God To Strengthen You ALL
    As The LORD Did With Queen Esther (Hadassah),
    Shula Cohen, And Many Others AMEN. To Quote
    Pastor Joy L. Thornton, “I LOVE YOU ALL And
    You Can’t Do Anything About It” AMEN Thy Servant
    And Brother For Zion’s Sake Timothy Kriete AMEN.

    Reply
  • Dan 10/18/2008 at 5:44

    GW Bush didn’t invent the “2 state solution.”
    That was something he inherited, and he lacked the wit, the nerve, the wisdom to trash it thoroughly, and embrace a policy of relocation of muslims west of the Jordan, beyond the confines of Isarel.
    Such a policy is damned as “ethnic cleansing,” even though it’s the only real policy that holds within it a semblance of a chance.
    Put out $50K per capita. Buy ’em out, relocate ’em throughout the realm of islam.
    It’s not an ideal solution, not by any stretch.
    But the situation is grim, and getting worse.

    Reply
  • Ron Grandinetti, USA 10/18/2008 at 14:41

    A view from the outside.
    God, if all the hate in this region could be converted into energy and electricity, it would light up the whole world.
    The rouge nations and their terrorist organization stooges keep the fire of hate going, constantly fanning it with the hope that it will end up destroying Israel.
    Destroy Israel, no, first of all, Israel won’t let it happen, the free world isn’t going to let it happen and above all, GOD will not allow it to happen.
    So, what are the choices? The Palestinians and the other Arabs can continue down the hate road with no hope of peace. Hate doesn’t provide for a healthy enjoyable life style. Think, leaders promoting hate are not walking the walk. Talk is cheap as long as they have your willingness to shoulder the consequences.
    Or, you can say “enough is enough”. Try, put hate aside, it’s a heavy burden to carry. Work towards living in peace with your Jewish neighbor.
    Understanding, respect and tolerance promotes a much better way of life. You won’t have to live in fear. You just may like it. Let the choice be yours. Don’t let the promoters make it for you.
    It may be sooner than later said, “A funny thing happened to us along the way to peace, we achieved statehood”.

    Reply
  • marcel cousineau 10/18/2008 at 16:11

    “GW Bush didn’t invent the “2 state solution.”
    Pass the Buck.
    This is what the shallow, deceived blind one’s do to protect their god George.
    The denial is deep and it is strong.
    Even after all the evil he has done against Israel his loyal followers make excuses for him and cover up his open,blatant evil against Am Yisrael.
    Their silence will judge them at the last day.
    The amount of diversion away from his personal responsibility to Rice or others is staggering as well as breathtaking as they work hard to keep any tarnish away from their shiny idol.
    Even at this late hour as the destroyer of Israel by his false peace works overtime to accomplish even more evil,the idol worshipers are fast to protect him and deflect the truth away from this evil man who has much innocent Jewish blood dripping from his hands as he OPENLY strengthens Israel enemies without shame.
    He does this with impunity because the average supporters of Israel are blind easily seduced fools who cannot see and refuses to stop rolling around in the sewage of delusion they have willingly swallowed up.
    The superpower leader of the free world has the power like no other man on earth and he uses it deceptivly to weaken and destroy Israel.
    Until you can face this truth ,you are part of the problem.

    Reply
  • Jay 10/22/2008 at 9:08

    Caroline,
    You are such a mensch! I love your articles!The following was taken from Joel Rosenberg’s blog Flash Traffic. It’s really worth your time.
    How much time do we have before war between Iran and Israel breaks out? Could it happen between the U.S. elections on November 4th and the inauguration on January 20th? A number of top U.S. and Israeli officials and analysts fear the answer could be yes. Last month, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad again vowed to wipe Israel and “these germs of corruption off the face of the Earth.” Israeli officials believe time is running out before Iran gets the Bomb. What’s more, they know full well that President Bush — widely considered the most pro-Israel commander-in-chief in U.S. history — is leaving office very soon. One question, then, is whether Israel might launch a pre-emptive war against Iran’s nuclear weapons program before a new American President steps in.
    Sen. Joe Biden, the Democratic Vice Presidential nominee, this week actually guaranteed a major international crisis would erupt within the next six months if running mate Barack Obama is elected. “Mark my words — it will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama like they did John Kennedy,” Biden told supporters in Seattle on Sunday. “The world is looking. We’re about to elect a brilliant 47-year-old senator president of the United States of America….Watch. We’re going to have an international crisis, a generated crisis, to test the mettle of this guy.”
    Is Ahmadinejad and his regime preparing to launch such a crisis? They are certainly ratcheting up their anti-Semitic and anti-Israeli rhetoric. “The Zionists are crooks,” Ahmadinejad said recently. “A small handful of Zionists, with a very intricate organization, have taken over the power centers of the world….Jewishness is a great lie. They have no religion whatsoever. They are a handful of lying, power-greedy people who have no religion, who only want to take over all the peoples and countries, and to trample the rights of the peoples….I’ve heard that one of them [Prime Minister Ehud Olmert] recently said that the idea of Greater Israel is dead. I would like to declare that the idea of ’smaller Israel’ is also dead. The very notion of Israel is dead, but they are lagging behind the times. Just as the idea of Greater Israel died 30 years ago, and they did not realize this, and have continued to perpetrate crimes for 30 years…Today, I say to them: The idea of smaller Israel is dead.” Ahmadinejad added that if the Jews do not end their support for Israel and Zionism, “the strong arm of the [Muslim] peoples will wipe these germs of corruption off the face of the Earth.”
    In other news from the epicenter, “Libya may agree to buy more than $2 billion worth of Russian weapons during a visit by Muammar Gaddafi to Moscow this month, Interfax news agency reported on Monday.” The Israeli media immediately picked up on the reports. Given Libya’s historic enmiity towards Israel, there is a very real concern that should Libya receive billions of dollars of advanced new weaponry from Moscow, those arms could eventually be turned against the Jewish State. There are also prophetic implications. The “War of Gog and Magog” described in Ezekiel 38-39 involves a military alliance between Russia, Iran, Libya and a group of other Middle Eastern countries that surround and seek to destroy Israel in “the last days” after Israel has been reborn as a country and Jews have returned en masse to the Holy Land. A development worth watching closely.

    Reply
  • Timothy Kriete For Israel Forever More AMEN 10/22/2008 at 12:42

    Dear Caroline; STAY STRONG SIS, Did You See
    This From The Walid Shoebat Foundation That
    Speaks Out AGAINST TERRORISM AND FOR ISRAEL???
    Friends
    Below is the reason Jews need to vote common sense.
    John McCain For President
    Date: Wednesday, October 22 2008
    The Jewish Press heartily endorses John McCain for president of the United States.
    Senator McCain has long been the poster boy for what’s made America great. He heroically served our nation in the Vietnam War, doing what he was called on to do and going well beyond, incurring great personal suffering and deprivation he could have avoided simply by trading on his family connections. For five years he famously declined to abandon his fellow prisoners and end his travail. In a time of political pandering and rank opportunism, Sen. McCain’s courage, integrity and fortitude are traits to be treasured in a national leader.
    And in a period of corrosive inter-party political strife, Sen. McCain offers a solid record of bipartisanship. Indeed, his failure to regularly follow the Republican Party line often drew the ire of President Bush and Republican congressional leaders.
    Plainly, Sen. McCain has demonstrated he has the leadership skills key to lead our nation at a time of great testing. He is also persuasive on the issues and was actually highly thought of even in Democratic circles until Barack Obama made it the linchpin of his campaign to try to persuade voters of a direct link between Sen. McCain and the policies of President Bush – particularly with regard to the war in Iraq and the current economic crisis – and therefore a shared responsibility.
    The New York Daily News, even while endorsing Sen. Obama, heaped great praise on Sen. McCain, calling him an “outstanding” senator, a man of character, a man of “courage in the face of torture,” “dead on” right on Iraq, the soul of bi-partisanship, and “tough minded” on foreign affairs and military issues.
    But while the paper acknowledged “there is no question [Sen. McCain] would bring change,” it lamented that “McCain’s misfortune is that he is the standard bearer of a party whose leadership, starting at the top, ran the U.S. onto the rocks.”
    But let’s look at this notion of shared responsibility.
    Sen. Obama makes the point that Sen. McCain supported the invasion of Iraq while he himself spoke out against it from the beginning. Yet whatever one thinks of President Bush’s foreign policy, including the war in Iraq, the fact is there has not been another terrorist attack on U.S. soil since 9/11. Yes, there have been more than 4,000 American deaths in Iraq, and each loss is a great tragedy in itself, but there were nearly 3,000 deaths on 9/11.
    Without question the war in Iraq, which drew Al Qaeda into an arena where America’s military power could be most effectively deployed against the terrorist infrastructure, palpably disabled the ability of Islamic extremists to coordinate large-scale attacks on the American continent. And it should not be forgotten that Sen. McCain had long criticized President Bush for not putting enough American power on the ground.
    Sen. McCain is also being linked to the current economic downturn, again because both he and President Bush are Republicans. But as documented by the release of Sen. McCain’s correspondence file on Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, it was Sen. McCain who had long been drawing attention to the excesses of the two agencies which contributed so greatly to the current economic meltdown.
    More pointedly, consider the following excerpts from a front-page story in Sunday’s New York Times about the role of Henry Cisneros, President Bill Clinton’s secretary of housing and urban development, in the mortgage debacle:
    As the Clinton Administration’s top housing official in the mid-1990’s Mr. Cisneros loosened mortgage restrictions so first-time buyers could qualify for loans they could never get before…. While Mr. Cisneros says he remains proud of his work…[he] acknowledges that “people came to homeownership who should not have been homeowners….”
    Homeownership has deep roots in the American soul. But until recently getting a mortgage was a challenge for low-income families. Many of these families were minorities, which naturally made the subject of special interest to Mr. Cisneros, who, in 1993, became the first Hispanic to head the Department of Housing and Urban Development. He had President Clinton’s ear…. [Emphasis added]
    If anything, President Bush inherited a mess left by President Clinton. By what stretch does one then lay this on Sen. McCain simply because he is a Republican?
    But it is not only Sen. McCain’s positives that commend him to voters as their choice on November 4. Unfortunately, there is also the matter of Sen. Obama’s glaring negatives, some of which are quite alarming.
    As The Jewish Press and others have pointed out, there is a rather disturbing dimension to Sen. Obama. Although he has succeeded in denying public access to much of his past relating to his work as a community organizer and his connection to the radical advocacy ACORN group, what we do know speaks volumes of where his views are grounded.
    For more than 20 years he turned to the virulently anti-American and anti-Israel churchman Reverend Jeremiah Wright for counsel and advice. He has explained away Rev. Wright’s diatribes as an understandable reaction to the black experience in America.
    He also worked closely for years with the notorious William Ayres, Jr. on reforming educational policy, though Mr. Ayres’s stated mission is to employ education to cleanse America of its many alleged sins.
    From where we sit, Sen. Obama emerges as a representative of the radical left, which does not accept the notion of American exceptionalism and the presumptive validity of American tradition. We recall his gratuitous ridicule of those middle Americans who, supposedly out of frustration, “cling to their religion and their guns.”
    We fear Sen. Obama is not intent on merely changing this or that policy but the system in its entirety.
    This strain emerges also in the area of international affairs. His observation that the leaders of Hamas support him because they expect him to abandon President Bush’s “cowboy diplomacy” reflects the view that perhaps our enemies have a point and America is to be blamed for most of the world’s problems. This was underscored when he said he would negotiate with such leaders as Iran’s Ahmadinejad “without preconditions.”
    And then there are the insults to our intelligence he regularly delivers. When he immediately backtracked from his declaration that he supported an “undivided Jerusalem” as the capital of Israel, he explained that he only meant it shouldn’t be divided by fences. He has also regularly played the race card by asserting that Sen. McCain would resort to claiming that he, Sen. Obama, doesn’t look like others who have run for president.
    To criticisms of his relationship with Rev. Wright, Sen. Obama claimed he wasn’t present on those occasions when Rev. Wright spilled his venom. He initially said of his contacts with William Ayres that they were minimal, and later that he thought Mr. Ayers had “been rehabilitated” – despite the fact that Mr. Ayres regularly bemoans his failure to have planted more bombs during his terrorist heyday.
    Perhaps among the most troubling things about Sen. Obama was his recent comment to the now famous “Joe the plumber.” When “Joe” asked him why he planned to raise taxes on him, Sen. Obama responded: “It’s not that I want to punish your success. I just want to make sure that everybody that is behind you, that they have a chance for success too. I think that when you spread the wealth around, it’s good for everybody.”
    This a radical departure from mainstream thinking in our country. It is one thing for the government to provide for the less fortunate and for those in dire need. It is quite another to embrace a scheme to arbitrarily redistribute the wealth from the get-go in order to institutionally equalize the situation of all Americans.
    In addition to the concerns we have as Americans about Sen. Obama’s decidedly leftist predilections, those of us with a particular interest in Israel are troubled by the prospects of an Obama presidency. His political bent, facile changes of position and overall failure to stick to his word make us leery of the reliability of his oft-stated commitment to the Jewish state. We have no such hesitancy about Sen. McCain.
    Copyright 2008 http://www.JewishPress.com

    Reply
  • sol vason 10/22/2008 at 21:44

    Israel is your country and your government must decide how to defend it. If you bow down to the opinions of foreign governments you will eventually lose.
    If you are unwilling to name your true enemies and defeat them, no foreign government will do it for you.

    Reply
  • David Custis Kimball 10/23/2008 at 5:25

    I recently was enlivened to read a shortened essay by Judge Clarence Thomas who urges us to know what our constitution says in order to gauge our laws and their basis. That all men are created equal…to pursue inalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. In many ways….that is what the USA is about…maybe too much on the pursuit of happiness of late and forgetting life and liberty and those that would snuff it like a dog devours a piece of meat, but chews for quite a while on a piece of bread (something foreign).
    Israel, in her effort to forge a mighty example of a country who celebrates life and allows everyone a voice of equality…, but has sacrificed so much happiness because of the neighbors, the neighbors and their attitude are not one to forge an alliance….but like jackals devour the bounty as it is presented them and forget all else but the submission of anyone that is Israeli… because they have submitted their hand showing life… in hopes of recognizing equality and self-reliance… which is a form of happiness.
    And now too, this article published by the Wall Street Journal shows some concern about USA’s future as we look into those who will take it all…. devour it… and ask only to be considered Superior … above equality …. and trust them to meet out the rewards and punishments, having all the while hidden their hand of malice … and like Professor Bill Ayers, terrorism, anarchy and Marxism with a shrug of what…. of ultimately just that …..nothingness.
    http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122445985683948619.html
    is the URL to access the article published by WSJ on 10/20/2008
    How to Read the Constitution
    The following is an excerpt from Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’s Wriston Lecture to the Manhattan Institute last Thursday:

    Reply
  • Philippe Ohlund 10/23/2008 at 10:19

    Great post, Caroline!

    Reply
  • Mike Packer 10/25/2008 at 9:57

    “And this gets to the heart of the matter. While no doubt, historically, Israel has witnessed discrimination against members of its Arab sector, today, the chief form of discrimination they suffer is what US President George W. Bush has referred to as “the soft bigotry of low expectations.” This of course causes both Israeli Jews and Arabs to feel contempt for the law and so increases the tendency of both Jews and Arabs to take the law into their own hands.”
    I think that this is the reason for all the inter-racial violence occurring in Israel at the moment. Because the Police are reluctant to bring Arab perpetrators to justice the Jewish population feels that it has to take the law into its own hands. Unfortunately, the Police have no qualms about bringing Jewish perpetrators to justice and this is one of the major causes of the breakdown in Police/Public relations.

    Reply

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