Response From European Jews Very Telling

 

As commented upon yesterday, Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks received some, should we say, oh so informative responses from both sides of the pond, Europe and America, quoting his saying during his speech at the Herzliya Conference, “Jews have been faced with a choice: live in Europe and criticize Israel or be silent – or leave Europe.” As expected, the responses from the United States were more subdued and respectful while the responses from Europeans rang especially true to form as they were near the exact responses Ze’ev Jabotinsky received from Eastern Europe in the 1930s when he warned, “vacate Europe before Europe vacates you.” Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks will prove to be as forward thinking and prescient as the prophets of ancient Israel who claimed their visions and warning to originate from on high. A definition of a prophet as being one who knows what time it is, and would apply aptly to Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks as he appears to see the writings on the walls of too many synagogues and the desecrations of so many Jewish cemeteries and now Jews being refused entrance to particular colleges and even the Louvre museum in Paris is just too similar to the banning of Jewish professors and students from teaching or attending the colleges and universities as Germany ramped up their rejection of the Jews which culminated in the Holocaust, yet it is beginning to appear that Europe has forgotten this ugliness in her past and being hell bent on returning for another round of complete insanity.

 

The responses out of our European cousins, the European Jews, and especially their Rabbis, have been just as blinded by the seemingly empty promises of protection and affection for the Jewish population in Europe as were the protestations by German Jews when they were assured by their neighbors that their rejection and singling out for special laws and treatments was simply a temporary inconvenience, nothing more. During that fateful time it began with the very same BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) Movement where the Jewish owned establishments were shunned by the Germans and later forbidden to frequent Jewish owned shops which eventually were destroyed during the riots known now as Kristallnacht, the Night of Broken Glass after which the fate of German and eventually almost all of Europe’s Jews were fated and it was too late to leave, to flee to Eretz Yisroel just as Ze’ev Jabotinsky had begged and pleaded that they do just a few years earlier. The responses out of Europe and the United States complained that Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks delivered his “Doom and Gloom Speech” when actually the erudite and prescient man of learning delivered a message of hope, of truth and of and from his deep understanding of history being in a replay of one of its all-time favorite tunes, the tune calling to be rid of the Jewish menace, a tune played on their way to join the Crusades, played when the plague struck the cities of Europe particularly hard, played at the Spanish and other institutes of the inquisition, played before every pogrom, played as an accompaniment to the wars between Catholics and Protestants, played at the onset of the Shoah and being replayed again today as the lead for what is uncertain but the portends are evil, so very evil. Still the response was the same as each time before, the response of the intention to ignore the lessons of history and emphasize the slight and insignificant differences as proof that it cannot happen here as we are an integral and vital segment of the society and the government is behind protecting them. What will their story be when, for their protection, they are relocated to within a walled community with guards and lights around the perimeter? Will the next relocation also be accepted as the government being committed to their protection and just making arrangements to make keeping them safe, or will they finally awaken and realize the time has come to go where the government is honestly interested in keeping them and all Jews safe, Israel. What is even more important is this time; unlike in the 1930s when Ze’ev Jabotinsky pleaded his case always making sure his route back to Israel remained immediately accessible. Still, the cry was their protestation that, “It can’t happen here!” The excuses tagged on behind that phrase sounded more like reassurances made for their own mind’s serenity than a truthful estimation of their precarious lives.

 

The history of the Jews is often related looking at the calamities of both the Biblical years and those that followed managing to overlook the accomplishments of a small segment of the world’s populations which is an unfair telling. Perhaps that is the price paid for allowing ourselves to remain in the Diaspora instead of returning to our homeland sooner. We can only theorize how our lives might have proven to have progressed had we returned from the Roman dispersions immediately after the fall of the Western Roman Empire. Might life have been so different living under the Eastern Roman Empire, a.k.a. the Byzantine Empire, followed by Ottoman Rule and enduring the turmoil during the centuries of the Crusades? The Jews who lived in Spain and the whole of the Arabic Muslim lands of North Africa and the Middle East fared no better and no worse than we did under the European Christian lands north of the Mediterranean Sea. Who knows how our lives might have been different and what twists and turns could have gotten us to this state where one would think we might have learned to see the signs, read the tea leaves if you will. Time after time we told ourselves that it can’t happen here and time after time it happened to that here wherever it happened to be. The Czars in Russia, the Inquisitors in Spain, the Catholics and Protestants in England, the Sultans of Algiers, the Commissars of the Soviet Union, the Imams of Iraq, the self-proclaimed or anointed ones, it made no difference, the leaders were different, the governances were different, their religions were all different but the cry was familiar, the Jew brought this pestilence, famine, disease, crop failure, economic hardship, threats from our neighboring country, millions of excuses, the same results, millions of dead or displaced Jews. There was a reason historically why our forefathers used to keep two suitcases packed with our barest of essentials and the items of our faith ready to relocate anywhere at any time and be able to set up anew.

 

It made no difference how crucial we were to their economic health, their physical wellbeing, their armies where our sons fought beside their sons and saved the realm, all of that was meaningless when the disease took hold once somebody decided to cry out those same words in a million tongues, it was the Jews, get them!. They are crying that same cry right now, it just sounds slightly different. This time it is the Zionist, the Israeli government; but these are simply strawmen set up to defuse the feelings of threat felt by the Jews despite their knowing deep inside that they are still screaming that it’s the Jews, just these Jews are all part of a foreign land allowing a feeling of comfort. But was the museum in Brussels in Europe or Israel? How about the Hyper Cacher market, Israel or Europe? We could go down the calamities and the demonstrations filled with hate which have plagued Europe and many targeting the Jews of Europe and it’s only getting worse by the day. It can and is happening here for all too many Jews. But when their Rabbis calm them and speak those soothing words you need to hear, that it is all a phase, it was young teenagers performing a rite of passage, that was because of Israel and not directed at us, the excuses are never ending but that last one is the most dangerous as it reverses the threat levels making Israel the one threatened, not the European Jew. Here is a little secret, Israel is viewed as the eight-hundred-pound gorilla who just reached her highly advanced capabilities for warfare to keep us safe while you are the tempting low hanging fruit as in Europe you are defenseless. They may say Zionist, say Israel, they mean Jews collectively and individually and they would much rather face the Jews individually in Europe than collectively and organized in Israel.

 

The threats are real and they are escalating which the reports by the police and authorities prove. Do not come and tell me about the report compiled for the community of religious leaders from your town, borough, county, city or whatever religious Kumbaya committee presented because we all know deep inside that that report was compiled in just such a way and the data massaged such that it allowed your Rabbi to deliver the sermon of his life depicting the struggle ahead as you repaired the world, you did Tikkun Olam. This, you were told was the challenge in front of you, not making Aliyah as there was so much you could do right there in your little community which would make the world a better and safer place where everyone was equal and people would break out in song and choreographed dance every so often in the center of town just like in an old Disney movie, say like The Music Man. It is not going to happen and the time is late with the situation approaching dire rapidly. Anyways, Tikkun Olam is not about perfecting the world through outside work and feel-good projects which make you believe you are making a difference when in reality you are just spinning your wheels for your own gratification, not to actually help these people who are not looking welcoming as much as they are wondering why you are doing whatever you are doing and what are you thinking. Tikkun Olam is about improving the world by perfecting yourself and making yourself the paragon of virtue and practicing the commandments because you have chosen to actually change the world for the better. Tikkun Olam is about looking deep within oneself and once we have gotten our souls and bodies to work in synchronization, both dedicated to Hashem, then we can worry about the person next and then the next after that, but first repair yourself and be the person you are proud for others to see. Be the person that when you arrive people know that wisdom and pure spirit has arrived and that alone can save the day. Tikkun Olam is what that young Muslim did during the attack taking place in the Hyper Cacher Kosher Market when Lassana Bathily who risked his life to save the market’s customers by concealing them within the freezer, and he did also turn the temperature to a point which balanced human survival and not destroying the contents of the freezer, and then remained outside the freezer and called the police outside and performed a reconnoiter of the situation which assisted and allowed for the Police to target their attack of the market and only shoot the perpetrator and save the remaining customers. This man took his actions above and beyond what might be expected of any normal person and took actions which mattered and saved lives because he believed that these people were worth saving as that is the message Lassana Bathily learned from his Imam and his study of Islam. His Imam teaching the enlightening and hopeful passages of the Quran, such as if you save one person, it says man, then you have saved a world. Lassana Bathily saved many worlds that day; the numbers vary but appear to center around a nice easy number, a dozen. How many worlds have any of us saved, perhaps that might be a better angle and the Jews in Europe could do little better than to speak the truth and by example lead your own Exodus to the Promised Land. Nobody expects anyone to be the next Moses as that would be a hard act to follow, but we can at least strive to be at least as good and promising an individual as Caleb who deserved a little more mention as he took the position of the opposition to the other ten spies who reported the impossibility of the Hebrews even with the help of Hashem and even after all they had witnessed, the ten plagues which broke Pharaoh, the splitting of the Red Sea and subsequent drowning of the Egyptian army, the handing down of the Ten Commandments and yet they doubted that Hashem would not be sufficient to win the day for them. Caleb was thought to be of similar mind while they knew Joshua was Moses’s protégé and thus would report that all would be a cake walk, but Caleb was expected to put the cherry atop the ice cream. Caleb told them that the lands were trembling and fearing their approach and with Hashem all things are possible, he took the righteous high road and then we hear almost nothing more after his one shining moment, but what a moment which I am sure we all wish we too could be such a shining example. Every Jew in the Diaspora if they get one person to also start to consider making Aliya then you have made the supreme effort of overcoming the highest hurdle, getting their attention and having them reason, especially as they will now reason with themselves and that allows. Hashem to add his voice, his quiet almost still voice and not the booming scare the entire valley voice. Lead by example, that is Tikkun Olam.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Anti-Semitism Rising Yet It Can’t Happen Here

 

Any sane person, one might think, would not doubt that anti-Semitism is rising in the four corners of the globe. While that is true, each admission of that carries an additional modifier. That modifier is the exact same modifier used by Jews everywhere from the beginning of Judaism as a major religion, “It can’t happen here.” Now, that modifier always has some accompanying rationalizations such as the following: We Jews are an intricate part of the society; we are accepted in society; we are seen as judges, lawyers, businesspeople, and are even elected to positions in government; we Jews are accepted and assimilated; and my favorite, this isn’t Nazi Germany, this is America. There is one item from the previous which has always puzzled me, how it is such an intelligent people, as Jews presumably are, can misunderstand that their being assimilated does not infer automatically that the population has assimilated them into the whole. There are other qualifiers and whatever one you can dream up is probably used by some Jews somewhere. What is really ridiculous is when there are leaders of Jewish society, the central pillar around which the community seeks wisdom and guidance, the Rabbis who when asked, “Should not the Jews leave here and seek someplace less threatening to live?” They answer, “No, of course not. Why would you suggest that? This has been our home and the homes of our families for generations. We have a lot invested in this community.” And my favorite and usually their final rationalization, “The authorities have promised to help us and keep the peace and guard against any further anti-Semitism.” Do not get me wrong, they honestly feel that these rationalizations are completely valid and hold water. They refuse to see that the actual realities have struck holes in their every argument.

 

Things in Europe are at the worse and mostly beyond the cusp range of realities; so I will stick with the queries and responses we received when we began telling the other members of the congregation with whom we had a familiar friendship. First allow me to point out that those with whom we still converse online and the Rabbi all supported our making Aliyah and gave it their blessings if not their desire that it be they who were going to live in Eretz Yisroel. But the others gave responses such as, “Why would you want to go there? You are leaving the United States? But things are so much more civil here. Aren’t you worried about the terrorism? And our favorite, you will be returning here within a year once you see what it is like in Israel. I’ve been there and I know. Those naysayers were wrong. We’ve been here well over a year and are loving it. I, myself, have never felt more comfortable and accepted as I have here and can only imagine how much more so once we have mastered Hebrew, at least master enough to, through spits and starts, get through an entire thought.

 

That little anecdotal trip down memory lane was to point out we have seen this attitude play itself out in our own experience. Of course, as mentioned, our friends all expressed their longing to make Aliyah and come to Israel and many expected to do so in the near future, but time will tell on that. Getting to make Aliyah as a Jew is no longer you show up and announce that you are Jewish, kiss the ground, and be granted immediate citizenship. The paperwork we filled out made a pile almost rivaling the stuff we brought with us. OK, that was a bit of an exaggeration. Still, the process for us was a little complicated and took over two years to complete and during that time it had its many ups, downs and why would they need to know this questions. Eventually we completed the process and many of the items we were puzzled why they were necessary proved not to be required but was stuff they gathered for statistical reasons. OK, so you were collecting mega-data, why didn’t you just say so, we’ve heard about Edward Snowden, we would have understood, honest.

 

Our making Aliyah had to do with a young nine year old boy promising himself, the worst promise you can make because it requires you to either complete the promise or let yourself down, that when the time came and all things in America were fulfilled he would retire in Israel, something the wiffie really might have preferred knowing about before we got married, but she already knew I was a bit strange, right, quite strange, well, if you insist, beyond the cusp strange! There, I’ve admitted it, happy? Still, it may have been the most advantageous thing we ever did as it changed our lives for the better and really opened up our lives much as a rose stretches out its petal to greet the morning sun and drink up the warmth and the blessed energy G0d has seen in His wisdom to provide for that rose bud so tightly shuttered to awaken stretching out revealing its beauty and spreading its fragrance for all to inhale and exclaim that this is a beautiful day. That is how we awaken here most mornings.

 

Back to the subject which is as horrific and threatening as our returning home to Eretz Yisroel was rewarding and enriching. The news we read about places in Europe such as Malmo, London, Toulouse, and numerous other places are horrific and makes us feel for those Jews residing amongst such hatreds it amazes us that they don’t simply pick up their lives and come to Israel. Surprisingly, even including all the terrorism within the Green Line in Israel, you are still safer in Israel than you are from crime in the United States or Europe, surprising but true. Yet not only do these people continue to live in places where their lives are under threat both day and night, but their Rabbis all tell them it is the Jewish thing to do to remain in defiance to the threats. Where in all that is holy is that written? Looking back over the past year or so in the United States, pulling solely from news stories, I am able to remember we have had some horrific acts of anti-Semitism. There was the Rabbi visiting family in Florida walking to synagogue in a predominantly Jewish neighborhood who was approached by two youths, at least younger adults if not teens, a brief exchange of words, the sound of gunfire and the two youths walked away calmly leaving the Rabbi sprawled out dead on the pavement. The Florida local police listed this as a robbery gone bad, as if the youths had no realization that religious Jews, which the attire of the Rabbi was obvious, do not carry money or items of wealth on the Sabbath. There have been near countless desecration of Jewish cemeteries or the Jewish section of a cemetery yard throughout the United States and ten times worse in Europe. There have been desecration committed against Holocaust memorials often accompanied by writings on such structures of “Jews to the gas,” “Hitler was right,” “Jews get out,” “Holocaust was a myth,” “We are the new Holocaust” amongst numerous other defamations of this ilk. Then there was a stretch of time where a “game” which became known as the “knockout the Jew” game where a member of a group of youths as they passed somebody sporting Jewish identifying clothing would attempt to one-punch the targeted Jew at a minimum knocking them off their feet or knocking them unconscious, scoring howls and celebratory knuckle tapping in recognition of this person’s singular accomplishment. Eventually this happening caught sufficient attention from the authorities, especially after one elderly man died from his wounds from striking his head on a curb after being struck as part of this fun game. There have been defiling of synagogues with such an event just this past week in Gaithersburg, Maryland. which is located in Montgomery County. which is heavily Jewish with a percentage of eighteen and two-tenths. That is actually a very impressive percentage when one figures in the percentage of people in the world who are Jews, a whopping two-one hundredths of one percent, for those who might be having difficulty with realizing how small a percentage that is, allow me to reference it in other ways, 0.02% which mathematically comes out to 0.0002 Jews per unit of population, one would require counting out a section of any random grouping of people from around the world a staggering five-thousand people in order to have relative assurance that there would be a single Jew in the group. Perhaps placing a bit of writing that Mark Twain once wrote about the Jewish people will be far more impressive than anything I could ever imagine up, so the rest is from Mark Twain’s essay “All Things are Mortal but the Jew”* also referred to as “The Eternal Jew.”

 

If statistics are right, the Jews constitute but one percent of the human race. It suggests a nebulous dim puff of stardust lost in the blaze of the Milky Way. Properly, the Jew ought hardly to be heard of, but he is heard of, has always been heard of. He is as prominent on the planet as any other people, and his commercial importance is extravagantly out of proportion to the smallness of his bulk.
His contributions to the world’s list of great names in literature, science, art, music, finance, medicine, and abstruse learning are also away out of proportion to the weakness of his numbers. He has made a marvelous fight in this world, in all the ages; and had done it with his hands tied behind him.
He could be vain of himself, and be excused for it.The Egyptian, the Babylonian, and the Persian rose, filled the planet with sound and splendor, then faded to dream-stuff and passed away; the Greek and the Roman followed; and made a vast noise, and they are gone; other people have sprung up and held their torch high for a time, but it burned out, and they sit in twilight now, or have vanished.
The Jew saw them all, beat them all, and is now what he always was, exhibiting no decadence, no infirmities of age, no weakening of his parts, no slowing of his energies, no dulling of his alert and aggressive mind.
All things are mortal but the Jew; all other forces pass, but he remains. What is the secret of his immortality?”

 

Beyond the Cusp

 
* “Concerning The Jews,” Harper’s Magazine, 1899
The Complete Essays of Mark Twain, Doubleday [1963] pg. 249

The Menace Rising

 

Every once in a while the writing of an article virtually daily gets to a point where you ask yourself if perhaps you are looking so hard at a few items that you may be missing the big picture. You realize that you have burrowed into one subject and you have to take stock and realize if maybe this one main has consumed you. I was thinking that perhaps the whole Iran toxic miasma which has surrounded me and others might be hiding something just as important or even more threatening and pressing that it may be time to look elsewhere for another angle or new subject. So why don’t we try and see some of the other items of the day that are happening and see what we can decipher.

 

One of the items I have seen rising is the challenges to the leadership of Mahmoud Abbas. The claim is as valid as can be, the charge that he is an illegitimate leader since he has not been elected to the post and it is way past time for him to stand for reelection and answer the rising challenges from others who believe he has become obsolete and his belief that he can be President for Life is far too dictatorial and the Arab people deserve an elected leader who is more in tune with their hopes and dreams. The challenge comes from a man who desires to unseat Abbas as President of Fatah and to restructure Fatah to serve the real desires of the Arab people and their desire for a whole and entire state. There was only one small fly in this ointment which makes it as illegitimate as Abbas and potentially even worse. The person behind this Abbas must stand for election now or give up his right to lead does not have the desires of the Arab people living west of the Jordan River in mind. How can I make such a statement? Well, easily as the person making this demand the loudest is likely the man who would try and unseat him and take his place, Mahmoud al-Zahar. For those unfamiliar with Mahmoud al-Zahar allow me to fill in some of the more pertinent information. Mahmoud al-Zahar is a long-time Hamas leader who vilifies Abbas as being too passive and not seeking the desire of the Arabs of destroying Israel and replacing it with the heart of the next Caliphate blessed with the blood of every Israeli and Arab living between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea who fails to meet his standard of belief and dedication to a rising Islamic supremacy which will, as per the Hamas Charter, seek out every corner of the world and annihilate every Jew and disbeliever. This would be a frightening thought for somebody who may actually be a credible threat to replace Abbas as the leader of Fatah and then become a legitimate claimant to lead the Authority. Fortunately, al-Zahar is a member of Hamas and not Fatah, not that this would prevent him from running to replace Abbas, presumably making him ineligible to run for the position. If he were to challenge Abbas as the leader of the Palestinian Authority (PA) then he would have a legitimate claim to the position as the unity government is technically in place and valid. Perhaps this makes it feasible for al-Zahar to attempt to unseat Abbas from Fatah, who knows the inner workings, dysfunctional as they may be, of the Arab Fatah Party structure and whether the unity government would add its blessing to such a challenge. But fear not for if one looks deeply enough into the eyes of al-Zahar and peers into his darkened soul one would find the heart of a true Hamas leader whose ideas and ideals come partially from hatreds he is steeped in as a leader of Hamas and gained locally and there are further drives for an Arab entity to replace all the lands west of the Jordan River including all of Israel and purify such a nation in blood. A look just slightly deeper into al-Zahar’s soul and one finds the hands of Iran manipulating many of his actions and implanting desires of leading a victorious Arab army conquering the lands and cleansing them for his Iranian masters. There for all to witness is the driving heart of al-Zahar; simply another soldier of Iran waiting anxiously for the day when the order is given to rise up and claim all the lands which are Israel for his Iranian masters.

 

Then one can decide to look further afield to the new interest in Argentine where the official Offices of the Prosecutors is not only looking into the mysterious death of one of their own, Alberto Nisman, who was assassinated the morning right before he was scheduled to present his findings concerning the bombing of the Asociación Mutual Israelita Argentina (AMIA; Argentine Israelite Mutual Association) where eighty-five people were murdered and the injured numbered over three-hundred. Alberto Nisman had presumably uncovered evidence which implicated criminal accusations which he had filed against President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner. Apparently Mr. Nisman discovered plans, a plot even, to permit the attack by Hezballah and Iranian terrorists on the Jewish Community Center in a deal in which it was believed that the Argentine government had sought the arrangement as part of a trade pact with Iran. So, here again we find Iran’s sticky little terrorist fingers only this time the deeds appear to have been carried out by Hezballah in conjunction with the IRGC (Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps or “Pasdaran”) both operating out of the “Tri-Border Region” which is a long standing center for the training and launching point for terrorist activities in the Americas located where the borders of Argentina, Paraguay, and Brazil conjoin allowing for each nation to ignore the town and training areas set up by the IRGC along with Hezballah claiming it is within the other two national areas of jurisdictions and as such they have no powers under which to investigate. It appears that the tri-border facility has a really nice set-up going there on the border of Argentina, Paraguay, and Brazil and financed and directed by the IRGC enforcing the interests and policies of Iran in the Americas. So, here to it all leads back to the Mullahs in Iran.

 

There have been warnings from the IDF over the possibility of a front opening up other than the expected repeat of last summer and the firing of rockets from out of Gaza into most of Israel, with as anywhere from a thousand to fifteen-hundred rockets each day from out of Lebanon and probably mainly from Syria onto the entirety of Israel and with some longer range rockets actually being new missiles which have excellent accuracy and may prove to be a large problem should they be used to target Tel Aviv or the Dimona Nuclear Research Site outside of the Capital of the South, Beer-Sheva. The main perpetrator of these rockets and missiles which will reach the entire length of Israel is largely Hezballah possibly receiving some support from the IRGC. These attacks will be directed from Tehran and may come in support of the rocket attacks from Gaza and possibly some from the Sinai Peninsula. Unsurprisingly, the orders for both the barrages from the north as well as those from the south by Hamas will be at the directive from where else, that’s right, Iran.

 

Apparently there is a good reason why almost all of our posts have been concerning Iran and their apparent drive for nuclear weapons and President Obama’s naiveté in his handling of the entire negotiations. President Obama is accomplishing two objectives simultaneously by allowing Iran all the time they require to realize their needs for nuclear weapons and refining them to produce a device capable of delivering a knockout electromagnetic pulse (EMP) along the design provided Iran by Russia for their super EMP device which was originally intended by the Soviet Union to deliver a knockout punch to either the European Union electrical grid or to destroy the United States and partially the Canadian electronic grids. This or any other nuclear device would appear to be the goal of the Iranians to continue the negotiations which, for the benefit of Iran would be to continue until they had sufficient devices to allow the usage of one device as a notification that the Iranians have arrived at the gates to the nuclear group demanding admittance and recognition. To continue the talks after such a demonstration would prove to be a further exercise in futility. The question then becomes what does the world do about a nuclear armed Iran and what does Iran do to further the reach of its already extensive network of tentacles reaching even to the far corners of the globe originating in Tehran.

 

We know of the very long and reinforced tentacle through which any strikes on the United States would be directed. Currently this tentacle can reach anywhere in South America through the tri-border area, the area which is currently focused on Buenos Aires and the investigation and eventually the potential trial of those implicated and arrests warrants issued which may implicate Tehran or Lebanon and Hezballah leaders. Such an eventuality might trigger the start of the planned assault on Israel from both directions, both along the northern front and the southern fronts. Should Iran desire to carry out any terrorist activities within the United States, such activities would easily be facilitated and provided access into the United States using their connections with the Mexican drug cartels who Hezballah has trained in tactics and other techniques used by Hezballah to all but run the country of Lebanon where they have free range to train, recruit and plan exercises which has made them one of the finest armies assisting Bashir al-Assad to continue his reign of murder and terror over the nation of Syria. Needless to point out but additionally Iran and Hezballah likely have numerous cells within the United States just waiting for the day they are activated to conduct a mission. The faithful execution of any missions such cells may be utilized to commit is often assured through holding family members within Lebanon as persuasion over their actions and trusted loyalty. We know Iran has extensive abilities to strike anywhere within the Americas as we witnessed in two separate bombings in Argentina the first was the bombing of the Israeli Embassy on March 17, 1992, with the second being the bombing of the Asociación Mutual Israelita Argentina (AMIA) on July 18, 1994, both in Buenos Aires. These were both perpetrated, as best as we can ascertain, by Hezballah trained operatives with the aid of special agents sent to the Tri-Border Region often in order for them to advance within the Basenji or the ranks of the IRGC, which both have initiation rites, one needs to successfully complete a terrorist operation in order to be considered trustworthy and committed.

 

On the European front there have been a number of terrorist attacks which potentially could have been traced back to Hezballah and Iran with the most recognized being the bombing of the Israeli tourist bus at the Burgas airport along the Black Sea coast of Bulgaria. The threats posed by Hezballah have driven the European Union to have placed the “military wing” of Hezballah on their terrorist list, as if there is a non-militant wing of Hezballah. The European reference to the military wing is done so as to allow the Europeans to provide Hezballah funds in Lebanon for such things as building libraries, health clinics and the like which are actually built by the Lebanese government which has not been totally co-opted by Hezballah, at least not currently. There was also a Cyprus magistrate who in March of 2013 indicted a Hezballah courier in Plot to Attack Israeli Tourists. There exist terrorist entities within the civil strife ongoing in Libya which unsurprising as virtually any terrorist groups even to include both ISIS and al-Qaeda have splinter groups inside Libya. Their representation in Libya is just one example of Hezballah presence in northern Africa. In the Middle East there have been reports recently that Hezballah has offered the Houthis in Yemen assistance if they feel it would benefit their efforts. Everybody by now knows that the Iranians have been supplying guns, ammunition, crew-served weapons and the training with the more advanced weapons to assist them in their conquest of the remainder of Yemen. And then there are the Iranians who appear to have completely taken over the ground operations against ISIS in Iraq so completely that the Iranian commanders are the people making the calls for airstrikes. This is a development which should be cause for alarm on behalf of the European and United States pilots and their actual commanders to be relying so completely on Iranian officers and even enlisted men of which most likely belong to the IRGC, a group considered as a borderline or actually declared terrorists and they are now calling in allied air strikes. How are the pilots to know that their strikes are supporting ground actions and not supporting the wonton destruction of property and lives being carried out by the Shiite IRGC members who have been murdering Sunni Iraqis who survived the ISIS occupation and are not facing violence and destruction often by Iraqi troops who actively aid in the destruction of entire Sunni villages and neighborhoods.

 

Finally we get back to the root source of so much of the terrorist and militia violence around the world and who stands as the commander of cells who could turn Europe or the United States into a roiling turmoil striking at soft targets such as malls holding special weekend only sales events, state and county fairs, political rallies, sporting events or anywhere that a large number of people would be attending making for a rich field of victims simply provided for the murdering much as happened in Nairobi, Kenya or the Embassy attacks using car-bomb attacks in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Whether any assaults by terrorist murderers were actually perpetrated by directly linkable entities to Iran or belonging to al-Qaeda or Hamas, both Sunni Muslim terrorist groups, have received safe quarter, training, arming and whatever other resources these presumably enemy Sunni entities to the majority Shiite Iran, but Iran is pragmatic and willing to assist in any actions which will harm Israeli or Western interests and pressure democratic governments potentially causing their collapse. Iran has been behind so many different murderous attacks and has tentacles reaching across the entirety of the globe such that the terror attack planned for next week, or next month or whenever you least expect it, hold sure that it very well will be traceable to Iranian assistance or actual manpower and arms support. Those who accuse Iran of being the greatest sponsor of terrorism on the face of the Earth are serious and know of what they speak. Iran changed drastically largely due to the incompetence and unfathomably simple-minded reasoning by then United States President Jimmy Carter.

 

He rationalized that the Shah of Iran who was methodically bringing Iran forward integrating advanced Western technological and manufacturing possibly even with the intent of eventually installing democratic principles, but all President Carter saw was a wealthy despot taking wealth from his people. On the other side President Carter believed that the Ayatollah Rouhollah Mousavi Khomeini had to be a kind and benevolent person as he was a cleric and religious person. Needless to say but President Carter knew little or nothing, if even that much, about Islam and the messianic message commanding that Islam must be spread by any and all means necessary until it becomes the only religion for all mankind on planet Earth and that the Ayatollah Khomeini was a man dedicated to that end. President Carter accepted the promises from Ayatollah Khomeini that he would establish a Western style democracy and grant the people of Iran freedoms and rights beyond President Carter’s wildest imaginations. Well, we can assume that the Ayatollah delivered on the actions beyond President Carter’s wildest imaginations when the Ayatollah allowed, some like I believe aided and planned, the takeover of the United States Embassy followed by a four-hundred-forty-four days until the next President, Ronald Reagan, was inaugurated at which point fearing and immediate war being launched by the new President, ended the siege and returned the hostages. After the final release of every last hostage, the truths about some of the treatment received by the hostages with some being accused of being spies and torture used to coerce confessions and other atrocities, the full and shocking story was finally told. It is good to know that the Iranian leadership has not changed that much from the early days in 1979 when Ayatollah Khomeini returned triumphantly and installed his theocracy and all the horrors one might imagine.

 

Now we have President Barrack Obama who looks to Iran and sees a potential ally who can replace the current United States allies of Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Israel and take over as the hegemonic power in the Middle East which will not require United States military presence, an ultimate goal of President Obama, removing the United States military presence from everywhere outside the American borders. Iran, now under the rule of Ayatollah Ali Hosseini Khamenei, has changed as little as the names of its rulers’ have, from Khomeini to Khamenei. The Ayatollah Khamenei is more than happy and quite eager to take advantage of every possible advantage he realizes he holds over President Obama. This has been most evident in the nuclear arms negotiations where the representatives for the United States state their position and the Iranian negotiators state their position. Then the debate begins eventually leading to a one-on-one meeting behind closed doors between United States Secretary of State John Kerry and Iranian Foreign Minister and Chief Negotiator Mohammad Javad Zarif. These are often long and drawn-out sessions and when they finally are completed the two men meet with their respective teams and negotiations continue with one slight alteration, the United States negotiators are now assisting the Iranian in pressing their positions on France, Britain and Germany. This has been the basic functioning premise of the negotiations with it becoming almost comical had it not also been such a disaster for the western world including Israel and the Middle East especially for Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the Gulf States, Jordan and I guess we can include Israel again as it does seem to be twice as much trouble where Israel is concerned. The one nation which appears will win no matter which side, Saudi Arabia or Iran, becomes the leader of the Islamic world, and that is Turkey which is sitting on both sides of the fence. In the meantime the Iranians are spinning their way to nuclear weapons and holding the biggest club over the Middle East, North Africa and eventually Europe and capable of going toe-to-toe with Russia as by then Iran will be the hegemonic power of half of the world and well on their way to completing the dream of Islam since 765 A.D. Much of the most recent round of nuclear negotiation talks have been the stuff of nightmares and are promising to only get worse. There is no actual candidate who will play savior and come dashing over the hill riding high on his white stallion with a white Stetson atop his head blowing the bugle for the cavalry to charge in and save the day. I fear that President Obama has had the cavalry’s steeds sold off for a bag of magic beans. The question is will the world be capable of surviving the events yet to happen over the next two years. How much damage will be done by an Iranian menace cut loose and armed with nuclear warheads to enforce their will, how does the world coexist with that? Do we all survive a messianic cult with dreams of an eventual battle which engulfs the world and only then does their messiah arrive and grant them victory over a world made mostly of radioactive dust. What can we do and how can we do whatever will prevent the destruction of all everybody knows.

 

Beyond the Cusp