Too Many Leaves Have Fallen

 

In these days between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, Jewish New Year and the Day of Atonement, Jews spend much of their free time, and some of the not so free time, reflecting on their actions and shortcomings of the last year and also their entire lives where less than golden practices became habit. In this time I have too often strayed beyond my shortcomings and looked beyond to the shortcomings of my people and the entirety of the human race. Slavery has to be a practice which was carried on far too long nearly into modern times and even now exists in some measure. We were slaves and know its hardships which we recount every year at our Seders. Passover is one of the singular observances where traditions are pretty much set in stone. The odd thing is there are different stones for Jews of different backgrounds. I should know as my father was as Ashkenazi as one can be and my mother was equally Sephardim. Perhaps this was why we only got a half serving of rice at Passover and never enough for a meal. The Seder service which is said in the home in privacy closes with an important and universal hope of all Jews, “Next year in Yerushalayim (Jerusalem). The Seder is far from the only set of prayers which end with this overriding and continual desire amongst all Jews no matter their individual customs, Jerusalem, as the Song of Babylon states, “If I forget thee may my right hand lose its cunning (strength) and my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth.” That is the seriousness a Jew or any Israelite feels for their eternal Capital City and why the Arabs so demand they control the Old City, the part of which that pleading relates for they know that is the Jewish heart.

 

Remembering our past no matter where your ancestry originates there were pogroms, purifications, jihad, and just simple hatreds which drove our ancestors from their homes with what they could carry. All too often the older children had to carry the younger while father and mother carried what meager belongings they could, the Shabbat table cloth, candle holders, challah plate and cover were mother’s load in addition to what kitchen utensils she could manage while father carried his Tallits, Tefillin, Prayerbooks, Siddurim, Haggadah, necessities for his trade (which may include leading a cow or two or sewing machine, threads, cloth, butchery knives, or whatever and the Rabbi and sons carried the Torah, as many as possible and a few more as leaving even one behind was unthinkable), and whatever other items mother or children could not continue without (his was the burden of family). These fleeing Jews were often the fortunate ones as behind them were those Jews who joined the too lengthy list of fallen leaves. Every Pogrom, Purification, Jihad, forced conversions, Crusades, conquest for Allah, blame for every calamity, blame for disease in the community, and all too often just because we were Jews the leaves fell. People ask how humans could treat their neighbor so cruelly. Well, look to Europe or the past hundred years in the Arab and Muslim worlds or to Russia and remember Nazi Germany and the reasons abound.

 

One need understand the enormity of the history of the Israelite people. Abraham, Isaac and Jacob came from the time when agriculture and herding were just coming into their own and the city states were forming. At this point the first Jews were but a family and believe it or not we are largely still that very same family plus those we have married and the few converts over the ages, often these converts also married into the family and converted in order to do so. There are the claims that the Exodus from Egypt we brought numerous non-Jews with us and if one reads Torah they will see we know of this and these people were kept in a separate camp and were partially responsible for the sin of the golden calf. These others were sent on their separate way with many sailing to Greece with even some Jews who found our ways too difficult and desired a more earthy and pleasure seeking existence which was all the rage in those primitive times. Egypt saw us build a city to a Pharaoh who fashioned himself to be a god. The story of our exit from Egypt is chronicled in the best-selling book in history and one of, if not the, first books ever printed by the printing press. Our travels and travails of forty years in the desert are well chronicled and many youth learn of it early in their educations. The reason why is not so well noted. Put simply, we lacked faith in the promise from Hashem that the land would be granted us by His hand. Instead ten of twelve spies told of giants living in cities behind great and unbreakable walls. The illogic of giants needing walled cities never occurred to the Israelites who reacted to these recounting with great timidity and fear. The two who told of peoples in fear of the coming of the chosen of Hashem and a land flowing with goodness went unheeded as the Jewish people who had lived a life under slavery had not the bravery or independent spirit to conquer a land even with Hashem. For forty years we gave birth to a new people free of the yoke of slavery and filled with the miracles of Hashem such as the manna which fed them in the parched desert of the wastelands they traveled through.

 

Israelite Sin Worshiping of the Golden Calf

 

Jericho put to rest the fears of the former generation as its great walls were no match for the formulae given by Hashem which brought them down. The following victory of Ai and then of the combined armies of the Kings of Canaan proved Hashem truly would grant us the land. What is often passed over is that the Torah gives the Jews the exact method we are to pursue when coming into our promised land with any tribes of people who reside within and it is a very simple method for selecting how one treats those tribes. We are to make them a simple offer. They have three choices of varying ease for their people. The most easy is to remain within the lands on the lands they hold and simply obey the Seven Laws of Noah, the Noahic Code and we will both live and prosper in peace. They can leave the lands and we will not pursue them and wish them well. The least favorable choice is they can choose to war with us at which time we will endeavor to kill every last inhabitant and member of their tribe and burn their crops, slaughter and leave for the buzzards their cattle and remove any and all record that they ever existed from the story of mankind. That was then and we no longer live in those times. What is not well known is that some of the Canaanites chose the first two options and were granted what was promised.

 

History passed and we had an expository period under King David and King Solomon who conquered lands until they reached the Euphrates River, the farthest we have ever reached and we desire far less today, only what was promised which is well documented and for the sake of my regular readers we will not go over this again. You’re welcome. The life went well until we had strayed from Torah and had practiced even idolatry and thus lost the guardianship of Hashem so we fell before the Babylonian sword. This was not our best of times but this exile ended when the Persians conquered Babylon and knowing of Hashem from their recounting of history beseeched that we return and rebuild our Temple and worship Hashem as we desired and simply pay our tribute to the Persians and we would be left in peace. Rather nice of them had that continued forward but there came an overachiever named Haman the Agagite and descendant of Agag, the king of the Amalekites and our saving grace in the form of the Persian Queen Esther. We built the Second Temple and in human history soon thereafter came such luminaries as Confucius, Buddha, Tao, and others who all founded various ancient religions of which a few continue into the modern era. The namedropping was more as making note in history when much of what we call a more modern age came into being and where much of Eastern philosophy had its roots. Eventually we once again gained our freedom, but wait, there’s more.

 

Eventually there was the inevitable family squabble and the Tribes of Israel chose sides with the ten northern tribes taking the name Israel and the southern two tribes being called after the far larger tribe, Judah and the Priestly tribe remained spread amongst the people and largely in Jerusalem under Judah. After the ten northern tribes were carried away as slaves by the Assyrians there were just the priests in Jerusalem and the tribes of Benyamin (a smaller tribe) and Judah the lion, the defenders of the southern borders, remained where most belonged to the tribe of Judah so we became Judeans and eventually simply Jews. The Assyrian Greeks eventually defeated Judah as well and then the Polemic Greeks and one more the Assyrian Greeks followed by the Romans. The Romans got a little put out after the Jews, the name had cemented by them, did which no other people managed, threw off the Roman yoke twice. They dispersed the Jews to the far reaches of their kingdoms and everywhere inbetween such that we would never again challenge Roman rule. That worked rather well and as the Roman Empire slowly crumbled the Jews spread even further but we had a secret weapon through which we remained attached to Jerusalem and our lands always hoping for the Messiah to return us to Eretz Yisroel, and that weapon is Torah. Torah is our history, our rules for life, our traditions, and our defining center which keeps us in touch with Hashem and our covenant and the promises Hashem gave to us. The Torah has kept us a family despite great distances and the stories abound of Jews traveling to a strange place often not by their choosing and upon arrival finding family there, finding Jews who greeted them as only family greets one they have never even known existed. This too was one of the many strands of string that when twined together make the rope which will eventually be spun in Israel, in Jerusalem.

 

Now, as we gather slowly from the far corners of the globe from America to Europe to Japan and the Philippines and India or Ethiopia as well as South Africa, Australia, even the outback and places even stranger and more remote, the time has come to stop believing we are Jews as we no longer are. Jew was the name we were given in captivity by the Greeks and Romans who shortened Judean to Judian to Juw which became spelled Jew. The actual spellings and pronunciations are not important but what Jew came to mean to the gentiles is important. The Jew was the reason for famine, for plague, for war they were always siding with the enemy on both sides as both sides saw Jews fighting for their enemy but were blind to the Jews fighting with them in their armies. The Jew was accused of every ill and even potential harm and the fact that the Jews lived in their own small area, ghetto, and practiced a different religion, often the parent religion to the one the others practiced, they had to be the reason as they were the other wherever they found themselves. When the time came to clean the lands of the disbeliever, the Jew too was cast out or burned at the stake, hung, crucified or whatever punishment was dealt the disbeliever. Often they were simply driven from the land and forced to travel through place after place before finding one which allowed them to settle and reside for the time being. The Jew always kept a number of suitcases packed and one special suitcase in which all their religious items were kept. They would be removed when required to observe the Sabbat or to do morning prayers or observe a holiday and then carefully and respectfully repacked in case they had to leave with little notice. This suitcase was the first one grabbed by the mobs of the pogrom, Crusade or whatever reason was for killing the Jews as this suitcase must have precious jewels to be so carefully guarded. Imagine the look when all they found were some candlesticks, candles, a special tablecloth and few other religious items and books but no jewels or gold or silver other than the few religious items, often only the Shabbat candlesticks. The main thing is the Jew was a temporary guest to be bullied and thrown away when hatreds overwhelmed the people and a frenzied mob sought a target.

 

We are now coming home and we are not going to be bullied or thrown from our lands. We may not be granted easy access to all our lands, even our most precious Biblical Lands in Judea and Samaria. Jerusalem will hopefully not allow to be divided and we again forbidden from visiting our Temple Mount which we built during the times of the Second Temple before Christianity and long before Islam came into this world. Allowing the Synagogues we so meticulously restored or even rebuilt to once again be defiled and destroyed would be a sin of great magnitude. Where we need to try and be accommodating and live with our neighbors on this little sphere orbiting an insignificant star in a moderately large galaxy soon to be merged with an even larger galaxy, we also must remain true to ourselves, our history and, most of all, to Hashem which means that Jerusalem’s old city must remain with the Temple Mount as an intricate and vital part of Israel. The Islamics know the importance of these areas which is the sole reason they demand them to be separated from the Jews. This is the same story which was the reason there were so many wars between Christian and Muslim over Jerusalem and only Jerusalem as that was the reason behind the Crusades and the Islamic conquests, they both wanted to hold the City of the Jewish holiest of places as that is the home of Hashem which both claim to worship (the validity of such claims cannot be covered in brief even in this article). But Jerusalem must remain a part of what is Israel and that should not ever be placed in doubt and slowly the Israelis are realizing this fact.

 

As for the name Jew, that needs change. Those of us residing here in the Holy Lands of Israel are no longer merely Jews even if we are of the seed of Judah, we are Israelites once again. With the airlift of Ethiopians and the Bnei Menashe community from India home to Israel we are once again to be known as the tribes of Israel. There is a group in southwestern India who call themselves the Tribe of Ephraim who were found when a Chabad couple shared a Passover Seder with them. With these tribes of the ten lost tribes of Israel reappearing, the people of Israel are not all but universally of the tribe of Judah, we are once again in transition and should recognize such and refer to ourselves as what we are, Israelites, the Tribes of Israel reuniting in our ancient and holy homelands.

 

Some may ask what should become of the Arab Palestinians. Well, we can offer them three choices. They can live in their own area under their own leadership in a semiautonomous area within Israel where we promise them security and to live in peace and in return they obey the Noahic Code, or they can leave and settle elsewhere in the world and we will wish them safe travels and the best of luck and promise not to pursue them or do them harm as they leave, or they may choose to treat us with violence and hate and do injury to us as a form of war for which we will do as we can to destroy their existence and to erase the fact that they ever resided amongst us. That is what any other people would do and for those who doubt such we would like to point to items such as Northern Ireland and the British.

 

Continuing on, other examples abound such as the Spanish and the Tribes of the Basque and Spain and even France, the many different tribes which made up Yugoslavia until they each went their separate ways, the Czech Republic and Slovakia which separated from Czechoslovakia and the numerous nations which were formed by the victorious powers after World War I that make up much of the Arab Islamic world today and which are now breaking even further into tribal regions, and the conquered lands which now live under the fist of their conquerors such as Tibet or those threatened by nations claiming their right to regain control of these areas such as Taiwan and Mainland China (Red China if your old enough to remember that term) and also Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Belarus and the currently challenged Ukraine all of which are currently under direct or indirect challenge from Putin the Invader’s Russian bear. The changing tides of war and the formation and dissolution of nations has not ended as many wished to believe and world wars are no longer unimaginable. The claim that after the fall of the Soviet Union that history had ended and everything was now at peace and in equilibrium leading Francis Fukuyama to write a piece titled, “The End of History?” which has proven as much folly as the claim once made by the Commissioner of the United States Patent Office in 1899 who it is (attributed) claimed to have said, “Everything that can be invented has been invented.”

 

With all the turmoil in the world today, it is beyond reasonable but is yet true that the world considers what the Israelis do within the lands granted under international laws and treaties to them for their homeland dating from the early 1920’s and the numerous conferences, treaties and conventions which were signed by all the parties involved including the Arab League and King Farouk granting the lands west of the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea to be the area for the land of Israel to be formed. We, the Israeli people ask for no more than that which all powers, even to include the Arabs and Japan, British, French, German, Ottoman, Russian, and eventually the United States, League of Nations and United Nations all recognized and gave their blessings and agreement and yet to this day this is contested. The facts are not contested, just the realization, and there appears to be an undercurrent which is driven by the concept that by ridding the world of Israel, and with it the Jewish people once and for all, will end their ever considering having a real home anywhere on Earth. This is considered a desirable and possible eventuality by the leaders of the Western World to appease and pacify the Arab World. There is one answer for such people, and it is what we promised, “Never Again!”

 

Beyond the Cusp 

 

Disturbing Dreams Near and Far

 

The nightmares can also come from our subconscious mind and strike while we are walking, gazing out the window, watching what passes for television or simply staring into the far end of the room but not really seeing anything as you’re listening to your mind. For me this often happens when I am sifting through articles and reading one which just did not quite measure up to expectations so you continue seeing the world but hearing a different tune, or set of thoughts. OK, maybe I’m a bit different getting stories weaving between two extremes, in this case the near reality which is going to have serious consequences as the masses try to continue to differentiate between the events in their world from the events in the Middle East.

 

The recent Islamist terrorist shooting in San Bernardino on December 2, 2015, where fourteen people were killed and twenty-two people were seriously injured and the terror couple were caught traveling on their way to another location and had the SWAT team not been at a training exercise with all their equipment and vehicles within a few miles from the last reported position and were able to intercept the Islamist couple and end their rampage before they reached their next location and victims. It was discerned the couple had planned to continue their murder rampage until stopped. The very recent execution style assault on a Philadelphia police officer where thirteen bullets were fired at Officer Jesse Hartnett while he was in his patrol car with the self-declared jihadist and suspect, Edward Archer, told homicide investigators he “pledges his allegiance to Islamic State, he follows Allah, and that is the reason he was called upon to do this.” Below is coverage from ABC in the United States with video of the assault and the officer responding and giving chase miraculously despite three bullets in his left arm making it unusable yet Officer Jesse Hartnett managed to shoot and wound the assassin leading to his being captured.

 

 

 

 

I can barely hold my excitement to hear President Obama explain how this has nothing to do with Islam because the man was deranged and though he was responding for the Islamic State which we all know had been contained by President Obama’s coalition and they too are not Islamic as Islam is the religion or piece, oops, did I misspell that, so sorry. The truth is that there have been numerous terror attacks since initial World Trade Center bombing on February 26, 1993 where a truck loaded with explosives detonated at approximately seventeen minutes past noon and killed six people and injured more than a thousand people causing a reportedly half-billion dollars in damage. It is claimed that the main terrorist players were rounded up and caught though we will never know for certain. The one certainty was that the plotters were all Islamists and they were driven by the same book, the Quran, which is actually two books written in two cities and two opposing viewpoints, the Medina Quran and the Mecca Quran representing the contrasting periods and fortunes in Muhammad’s life. The followers who finally recorded the modern Quran almost two centuries after Muhammad’s death decided that the verses they attributed to Medina were to supercede those written after the original supernatural inspirations Muhammad received in a cave outside Mecca from spiritual visitation of the Archangel Gabriel as the Medina’s verses served their motivations of conquest and spreading Islam and their rule by their swords. The people the FBI claimed were the main forces and minds behind the 1993 World Trade Center bombing are pictured below.

 

 

World Trade Center Original
1993 Bombing FBI Top Seven

 

 

The ringing sounds of Islamic terrorism is something Israelis do not candy-coat, though the level of violence required for even Israeli politicians to actually label an act as terrorism is often beyond belief. Huge stones, cinderblocks, firebombs and mob massing and surrounding a car using tire-irons and bats to break the windows and assault the occupants are not reported or commented on as terrorism unless there is a rising of emotion of the Israeli people or they cause a fatality or something else forces such an attack into the news cycle. Shootings where the shooter does not injure anybody, or worse, are often simply dismissed as harassment, not actual terrorism, and we don’t even have anyone once known as Barry Soetoro for the media to run to for the wisdom of the ages or at least the Maison Blanc. The proof is the stabbing terrorist attacks which hit the news cycles at the end of September and into the third week of October and since have gotten spotty coverage at best but these stabbings have continued at near the same pace and silence even in much of the news in Israel. Arab attacks and murderous intents and actions against Israelis are not newsworthy.

 

On the other hand, especially in Haaretz, the Duma Jewish perpetrated arson terror attack was given constant daily deep coverage and was considered a national disgrace, and it was. But why was that two Jews who acted possibly out of frustrations similar in magnitude and importance to these youths as the Arab’s are constantly excused for their acts because of frustration but Israelis, especially Israeli Jews are supposed to be above such distresses and act more morally and never give in to such distress in their lives and just bear anything and everything and never lash out in violence. Such would be a nice thing if the world were anywhere near perfection but the world is not. If the world was perfect the promises to the Jews and the Zionist Congress that all the lands west of the Jordan River would be sacrosanct reserved throughout time immemorial but that had been made into a mockery. Stabbings daily and that is considered just the price of being a Jew in the Middle East as if the half of the Jewish families in Israel who lost all as they were forced from the Muslim lands where their families had lived through good times and not so wonderful times where being a Jew brought scorn and abuse and times of acceptance or at least passivity and were suddenly facing increasing belligerence and violence forcing them from their homes and businesses leaving all wealth behind. These Jews arrived mostly in Israel and were met over the first decade of Israeli existence by a core of Jews who had been residing in Israel and an equal number of survivors from Europe and the death camps and knowing they too could never go home again and were leaving all behind. The real miracle was that these difficulties never produced any refugee camps or any sob stories to the world on how things which were done to them were so terrible that all they could think to do was sit in an apartment complex and wait to be returned to a place that likely no longer exists and for that they have basically sacrificed three and four generations of their family as they are held behind high fences and barbed wire and some even with guards by their own fellow Arabs.

 

So, Arab refugees from the late 1940’s through the 1950’s and through the 1960’s are to be supported by the world and because their leaders refuse any settlement which does not end the existence of a Jewish Israel. Now Europeans and much of the third world as well as Barry Soetoro, oops, I meant President Obama all insist there must be almost another quarter of Israel sacrificed in the name of peace and equality. This sacrifice would include the most emotionally, religiously and historically precious locations to be surrendered and placed beyond the ability of Jews to easily visit. Just as today it requires a military guarding force provided by the IDF using cover of darkness to visit Joseph’s Tomb despite promises by the Arab authority leader, Mahmoud Abbas, and their lead liar, I mean negotiator, Saeb Erekat; their promises for these other locations would be equally as false this time as they proved last time. This is the great deal which sacrifices what was promised lands by the League of Nations and presumably by the United Nations but instead of returning lands stolen through act of war started by at the least a half dozen Arab States in 1948-9 to the rightful nation who liberated these lands west of the Jordan River and the world knows all of this but refuse to even permit the Jews their Promised Lands in peace. There is only one Jewish States while there are twenty plus Arab States with Hamastan founded from lands stolen by Egypt and then stolen again by Hamas founding their own little fiefdom and the world wants us to allow another rocket launching failed state all along the high ground overlooking the heart of Israel giving the rocket launchers line of sight to correct their aim. Unlike Hamas who in Gaza are shooting over expanses of desert where the land is less developed, the other state proposed by the worlds arbiters of what is fair to handicap Israel want to place rockets to fire where every rocket would be bound to strike something unless intercepted by Iron Dome which would mean requiring Israel to fire a ten to twenty thousand dollar interceptor at every last fifty dollar rocket. That would be a surefire economic disaster in the making eventually, and not all that eventually, such would bankrupt Israel which somehow appears to be the plan.

 

But the world is about to realize the real danger of terrorism in this world. The levels of terror attacks suffered in Israel will never be visited on the world, and for that we here at BTC are glad as nobody should be forced to suffer the constant terror levels suffered in Israel. Israel has worked to keep the price on both sides to a minimum but this latest Intifada if it continues to escalate as it has shown is likely the price will become very high on both sides. No matter the level the terror rises to in Israel as the other shoe is preparing to drop and, as the Reverand Wright would say, “The chickens are coming home to roost.” The first show has been the sporadic terrorism throughout the developed first world but nothing even remotely comparable to what Israel faces. That will become a closing gap as time passes and the Islamic State and Iran each try to make the biggest splash in Europe and the United States with al-Qaeda and Taliban amongst others also in the mix seeking fame and followers. The world thinks what they will; as soon, when the Islamic State, Hezballah and other injected terror leaders who are amongst the ‘Syrian refugees’ and lone wolves each seek the glory of constant news coverage and their fifteen minutes on the world’s stage, will erupt in a symphony of terror. When Iran decides it’s their turn to take center stage, then the real horrors will begin. Iran has not had Hezballah training terrorists in the Tri-Border Region in South America since the 1970’s and possibly even earlier for nothing. Hezballah has trained terror cells and inserted into the United States and others in Mexico working with the Cartels.

 

 

Tri_Border Region of South America Terror training haven and Iranian proxy state in the Americas and Base of operations for the 17 March 1992 Israeli Embassy Bombing murdering 29 injuring 242 and the Asociación Mutual Israelita Argentina (AMIA) 18 July 1994 bombing murdered 85 injured over 800 and now we must add the murdered Argentine Prosecutor Alberto Nisman to AMIA fatalities

 

 

These plans have been in the works for decades and the level they will unleash will be horrific and will cause an upheaval as the people demand of the government protection even at the price of their freedoms being temporarily curtailed. Those freedoms will never be restored as once gone government will feed on the added powers. Once drinking the intoxicant that is the power of a police state, always will continue the police state. That story has been written and been the last stage before the democracy dies throughout history and in every case the people always claimed the same thing as they would sing these words as they watched all hope slowly dim, “It can’t happen here.”

 

 

 

 

Sing the extra verse with the ending fade out:
Honest, it can’t happen here; can it, well, please tell me, truthful or not, it can’t happen here. If I say it, sing it, shout it out drowning the news and those screaming about doom, then it can’t happen here, can it?

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Abbas, PLO, and the Endless News Cycle

 

Why does the world sympathize with the Arab side of things against Israel? Sheer volume of noise coming from Mahmoud Abbas, Dealer of Lies, alone even without including Bassem al-Tamimi and family with the endless incitement of the IDF every Friday; Saeb Erekat and his once or twice news condemning the Israelis for some super-critical impingement of the Arabs from some right or freedom; Marwan Barghouti and his updates on the horrific treatment of Arabs by the Jews from his almost country Club prison accommodations; the nearly endless parade of NGOs, Human Rights groups, media stringers feeding stories to the mainstream media usually at times most convenient for European news cycle with some intended attention to the United States media as well; independent research group hoping to find that singular item which propels them into the limelight; college or university campus holding demonstration against Israeli mistreatment, victimization, incarceration, crushing of spirit, demeaning or other Israeli criminal adventure against some innocent Arab; Independent research group reporting on Israeli crimes as fed them by Fatah Party; Yasser Abed Rabbo twice monthly complaint of Israeli criminal actions; Knesset Minister Zoabi or Tibi or other Arab or pro-Palestinian or Israeli leftist complaints against Netanyahu or other fascist government entity or group within the Knesset making their representing the Palestinian cause near impossible; or any number of Pallywood releases against Israel; governments imposing embargo, labeling, pulling from nation’s store shelves of Israeli products; the Israeli blood-libel or two of the week be it the old Israelis stealing organs and limbs from bodies of terrorists, who died while conducting attacks on Israeli civilians, returned to PA; and lastly the denial of some Arab’s right to free expression by ramming their vehicle into crowded bus stop or bombing some Pizza Parlor.

 

Every single story which conceivably might have occurred with film showing the action of the complaint is immediately sucked up by some European media outlet or leftist United States media and then this one story is repeated day after day as it winds its way to production with each rendition of the story having ‘new’ details as reported by some obscure but Arab sounding name at least once every other month. I have lost count of the number of times beautiful blue eyes have been removed from some Arab corpses and replaced with the brown eyes from the Israeli wanting the blue eyes but the sister, brother, mother but rarely father (not quite sympathy grabbing as the other options) remembering solemnly and tearfully how they loved their son, brother or whatever relation, eyes switched before turning them over to the Arab PA officials which is provable by the sheer numbers of Jews with blue eyes as if it were impossible for a Jew to have blue eyes (and I assure all that my blue eyes are original equipment for my body and have been blue since my birth) though apparently fairly common for Arabs. But the volume of complaints, charges, demands and endless cycling of condemnations of Israel, Netanyahu, the Zionist criminal of the week, crime against Arab of the moment, demand for recognition, denunciation of the heartless Zionists, settler story, stolen fruit from Arab grove which the Israeli was seen stealing the fruit after tilling, planting, pruning and all other care but the reaping the fruit was one thing too many, after all, what did the Israeli expect living beyond the all-important Green Line.

 

 

Abbas Speech in Geneva October 28 2015 to Human Rights Council
Demanding Peacekeeping Forces to Guard Terrorists Stabbing Israelis

 

 

Never mind the realities that even if the Jews generally, the Israeli government, or any Israeli politician or activist particularly, attempted to file a report and seek an interview to state their case in some similar story that nary a reporter would even bother to file a report without them needfully being vetted and validated and then questioned by their being asked some pertinent question starting with a statement as if it were fact followed by this ending, ‘and how long had that illicit torturing of Arab babies been happening and when do you plan to ever stop such acts?’ The propagation of almost exclusively the Arab narratives, and the most radical stories always have some victim who was now forced from their home overlooking the Sea of Galilee and are now forced to reside in their main much less roomy home, please do not remind all the second house is a villa on a mountain top with only a dirt driveway reaching the front door (the implication is undeniable that the Israelis were the reason why there was no paved road). Such is the reporting news cycle after news cycle. If you do not believe us then please try this little experiment, it is a rather easy experiment; first choose a leftist newspaper such as the New York Times or television news such as CNN or some easily identified newswire such as AFP (Agency France Press) or radio on the hour news such as the BBC or even a leftist Israeli newspaper such as Haaretz and simply tally the number of stories filed, one can even restrict their search to front page above the fold newspapers that way they need not actually buy any newspaper as they can read that much simply browsing newspapers at the stand without purchasing one. Now that you have your sources all you need do is to log reports in the main section and grade each from a one to a nine where one is heavily pro-Israel and nine pro-Arab and do this until you have collected one-hundred stories which usually will take about eight weeks or so and you will have your data, the lengthier the sampling period the more accurate the results. All one need do is add together all the scores and then divide that by the number of stories and then you will have your newspaper’s honest reporting quotient which can be rated as follows; a score of one to two and the news source is untrustworthy as they are whitewashing everything using a strongly pro-Israel position; from three and a half down to but not equaling two the news is definitely slanted towards Israel; from higher than three and a half to four the news is slanted towards Israel; if your news hits the sweet spot of between four to five then your news is respectfully reporting on both sides, but such a source would be difficult to find as even here we slant towards Israel while trying to give credit and criticism where demanded; from five to almost six and a half the news is slanted towards the Arabs; from six and a half to almost eight the news is slanted pretty far towards the Arab side; from eight to nine, the news source is untrustworthy as they are whitewashing everything using a strongly pro-Arab position.

 

 

 

 

With all of that out of the way, now we can, each and every one of us, can grade our news services by their printed, spoken words. Truth be told, we all know on which side our bread is buttered and towards which end of the political spectrum our news sources slant the news and we would like to think that our readers know we support Israel but endeavor to call things straight up reporting on Israeli aggressions just as we do Arab Palestinian aggressions. As with many news services the slant comes just as much on how we represent our side and how we admit to the truths presented from the other side.

 

We report a lot on what President/Chairman/and whatever other titles he has taken Abbas quotes simply because he provides new material far more frequently than does any other person we cover and often says things with which we disagree and thus we try to refute those positions he takes which we find dishonest. We also attempt to present facts with links where such are found. Some of the statements made about Israel simply make no sense at all considering the facts. The statements that the Israelis are threatening to destroy the al-Aqsa Mosque are ludicrous and when the rebuilding of an ancient synagogue which was gutted and left to fall by the Jordanians as they did to for too many Jewish religious sites after their gains made taking Israeli lands of Judea and Samaria as well as East Jerusalem in the 1948-9 war for the annihilation of Israel and her people led by the Mufti of Jerusalem; the same war the Israelis emphasize as their War of Independence as they knew if they had lost the war outright instead of losing some territory, though much of the territories lost held either great historic and religious importance as well as tactical importance, there would have been no Israel and another Holocaust, though of lesser magnitude, would surely have ensued. Perhaps we could look at some of these as Mahmoud Abbas claims all of these sites as being exclusively Arab and/or Muslim sites. The Cave of Machpelah (also called Cave of the Patriarchs as it is the cave holding the tombs of Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebecca, Jacob and Leah. It sits in its subterranean areas under a building built by Herod the Great, a large, rectangular enclosure over the caves, the only fully surviving Herodian structure from the period of Hellenistic Judaism. Herod’s building, with 6-foot-thick stone walls made from stones that were at least 3 feet (0.91 m) tall and sometimes reach a length of 24 feet. Muslims added a roof and renamed this Jewish holy site the Ibrahimi Mosque. Additionally are Kever Rachel (Tomb of Rachael) north of Bethlehem and Kever Yoseph (Tomb of Joseph). There had been numerous Synagogues of which any were located on the Old City of Jerusalem and thus were conquered and held under occupation by the Jordanians who destroyed the vast number of these centers for prayers and learning.

 

 

 

 

This is another of Mahmoud Abbas’s favorite areas to make grand statements denying the Jewish holy sites and along with that denial he denies there having ever been any holy sites for the Jewish people in all of Israel and goes further claiming that the Jews who returned to Israel were not even the original Israeli Jews but rather some sect of Europeans who converted to Judaism though this is a common libel against European Jews. One need also remember that Mahmoud Abbas was awarded his doctoral degree based on his study which proved that the Holocaust never happened and that only a small number of Jews were ever used for labor or simply murdered claiming instead that the entire idea of a Holocaust was perpetrated by the Jews and Nazis so as to be able to conquer the world together. Abbas was amongst the Arab officials who perpetrated the Jenin slaughter which even a United Nations investigation proved was not the case and that the majority of those who died in Jenin were actually fighters from both sides. Abbas had been known to also give credence to the idea that Israelis murdered Yasser Arafat and that Arafat’s death was anything but due to natural causes or a natural result of Arafat’s life style. Personally, my thought is that often when one lives for seventy-five years it is entirely possible they died of being seventy-five years old as not all of us are permitted a life reaching to one-hundred-twenty years. Unfortunately, all too often much of what Mahmoud Abbas claims are simply spun from the same cloth as were the Emperor’s new clothes yet just as all were far too scared of what the Emperor might do if they revealed the truth so nobody was willing to step forth and tell the Emperor that he had been played for the fool and that he was parading about the city in his royal undergarments. I keep waiting for someone with a decently loud voice to carry the message far and wide that the Emperor is wearing no clothes and that Abbas spins tales of woe and incitements to murder just as he lies claiming that he is the one true peace-seeker despite turning down peace agreement after proposed agreement always without a counter demand as he fears that he will demand too little one day and the Israelis will accept and then he will find himself in the same trap that Arafat found himself almost trapped.

 

Along these lines, Abbas recently outed himself in a rare moment of crystal clear truth sneaking its way out his mouth when he stated he had refused an agreement offered by Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert which granted him virtually everything he had ever claimed to want in order to make peace. This admission is the real truth which Abbas skirts around like a professional ice skater pirouetting around the elephant in the middle of the ice rink, a large pink and orange stripped elephant which can actually speak one phrase over and over while Abbas continues to skate. The phrase the elephant speaks as Abbas twirls and jumps making a great spectacle stating, “Slow down and make peace before you trip and fall getting hurt and the peace walks away as do all elephants on the room or on the rink if you ignore their proffers one too many times.” The problem is Abbas claims that even should he agree to make peace, peace does not include surrendering the Arab claim to all the lands and their struggle to replace Israel with Palestine, not share the lands. That is the definitive problem, which Abbas wants to continue the struggle indefinitely which will only lead to one final outcome, the Arabs receiving nothing and being forced from the lands of Israel, all of Israel. Abbas knows the reality is that all the lands are Israel under International Law and that the occupying entity are the Arabs who refuse to recognize Israeli rule or who wish to overthrow the government of Israel and slaughter the Jews taking their lands. This dream that they will possess all the land will lead to their residing on none of the land as if they insist there can be only one nation, then so be it and may we observe the admonitions of Torah and make every inch of the lands given to Abraham and Isaac and Jacob be settled and the claims settled once and for all if it is to be all or none, we will take all and Abbas will have let his people down as he could have had so much and his risky game will result in no land for the Arabs who oppose Israel and the national home to the Jewish People from ancient history our return had been known, prophesized; and going against the prophets is a very risky business.

 

 

This is the model of the plans for the restoration and rebuild of the Tiferet Yisrael Synagogue in the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem. The Synagogue was originally constructed in the 1860s and was destroyed when the Jordanians dynamited the original Tiferet Yisrael Synagogue along with virtually every other religious or significantly Jewish building in all ot Eastern Jerusalem which includes the entirety of the Old City Jerusalem which includes structures over two thousands of years in age and other built throughout the centuries. These destructions were wanton, senseless, vile acts for which there was no outcry in 1948 as the world turned a blind eye as has proven to be the reaction to virtually every terrorist or destructive act towards Israel and particularly the Jews residing therein.

 

Beyond the Cusp