Israeli Democracy Under Siege

 

The fact that Israel is a parliamentary democratic state is beyond debate. The problem is that leftist anti-Zionist and often both anti-Israel and anti-Semitic political forces supported by foreign interests and financing call that democracy into question whenever Israel does not follow these foreign demands. These efforts were all too often supported by the Israeli Supreme Court which had an identical political leftist ideology. This is a situation unique amongst the governments of the world as in no other nation are NGO’s financed by foreign governments and permitted to claim that they represent the target nation regardless of their financial support. Israel has attempted to pass legislation demanding that any NGO receiving over half of their funding from foreign sources register themselves as foreign agencies and not pretend that they are grassroots Israeli interests. Many of these NGO’s take on names which imply that they are purely Israeli when they most definitely are anything but that. J-Street pretends to be a pro-Israel NGO while opposing the elected government. The New Israel Fund is almost totally financed out of Europe and the Americas and in turn finances numerous other NGO’s claiming they are purely Israeli as they get their funding from the New Israel Fund which acts as a clearinghouse for these efforts. Each time Israel has attempted to address this issue, these NGO’s, the European Union and numerous European nations scream that Israel is destroying its Democracy and becoming a religious totalitarian regime. What they really mean is that their pet NGO’s will be revealed for what they are, foreign lobbyists attempting to steer Israel in the desired direction of numerous foreign interests whose last interest is the health, well-being and future of the Jewish State.

 

Speaking to this problem, Eytan Meir, the director of external relations at Im Tirtzu, proclaimed, “Rather than respecting the wishes of the Israeli public to determine their own policy at the ballot box, foreign governments are bypassing the democratic process by funding organizations that work to change the country from within. There is no parallel to this phenomenon in the democratic world and this is how we have a situation in which millions of European dollars pour into radical NGOs that work to promote the BDS movement.” One may ask, if not the good of Israel, what is it that these foreign interests are attempting to foist upon the Jewish State? Their main claim is that they are supporting the Israeli democracy defending it against those interests who desire to retain the Jewishness of Israel. What they mean by that is they are pressing for a bi-national state where the Palestinian Arabs, instead of being ruled by their respective governance, the Palestinian Authority in Judea and Samaria and Hamas in Gaza, are instead granted full citizenship in Israel along with five or so million Palestinian Arab refugees. One might ask why they would demand such a thing, and the answer is an easy one. They are attempting to demand that the Jews in Israel become a minority and that the Arabs take control of the region thus ending the Jewish State. They are abhorred that the Jews are currently ruling themselves and desire to be rid of the Jews entirely. They know that once the Arabs are given control of the region of Israel that they will soon thereafter be rid of the Jews one way or another. We know already that half of the Jews in Israel are refugees or their children are from the Arab world and have absolutely no possibility of returning to Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, Syria, Algeria and the other places from which they were dispossessed. On the other hand, those who are directly from the numerous nations of Europe equally would be refused return and those from the United States and Canada whose citizenship has expired would also have nowhere to turn. The Jews of Israel would be facing the exact situation which they faced under the Nazis when in early 1939 an unidentified immigration agent was asked how many Jews would be allowed in Canada after the war. He replied, “None is too many.” This was also the answer to the Jews during their desperate times when they were being rounded up and sent to the Concentration Camps and every nation they turned to had the basic answer that none was too many.

 

This is the target aim of these NGO’s and their foreign financiers, the end of Israel as the Jewish State and, as a consequence, the end of the Jewish People as many have noted that should Israel fail, the Jews would within fifty years become so small a population that they would be all but extinct. This should not come as any surprise as anti-Semitism in Europe and in Canada as well as the United States and throughout the rest of the world has been on the rise for the past fifty years. If it were not for the advantages of the discoveries and inventiveness of Israeli society, many more nations would join the Arab boycott of Israel. The problem is they desire to have the software, medical advances, agricultural advances and the various other things which come from Israel but wish to have it without Israel being the Jewish State. These interests know that if they are able to force Israel back to the pre-Six Day War borders that Israel would be vulnerable to attack and as Israel no longer has a military advantage as great as it was in 1967, that Israel would be in grave danger. This is even more obvious when one looks at the encroachment of Iran into Syria and Lebanon and their insistence that they will remove Israel calling it a tumor, a cancer and other derogatory names all implying it as a disease. The Iranian leadership claims that Israel and the Jews are to blame for all the wars everywhere in the world claiming that the Jews make obscene profits from these wars and this is why they are behind all the wars. Iran is a threat beyond Israel and would be free to invade Europe once they cemented their conquests they plan for the Middle East. Of course, this threat does not matter as long as along the way the Jews are wiped out from Israel. This is part of why so many European governments support so many NGO’s and groups which promote the BDS Movement attempting to economically strangle Israel without being overt in the process.

 

This brings us to the greatest false claim of the anti-Israel movements, especially the BDS Movement. These groups claim they are protecting the interests and economic well-being of the Palestinian Arabs. One example of the falsity of these claims comes from the moving of the SodaStream factory from the Shomron where it employed numerous Arabs alongside of Jews to within the Green Line where they had to let their Arab employees go, as they are unable to travel into Israel. On this subject, we quote Mendi Safadi, who heads the Safadi Center for International Diplomacy, Research, Public Relations and Human Rights advised a reality check stating, “Every Palestinian who works in Jewish settlements in Judea and Samaria earns around $1,200 per month while the Palestinian minimum wage is $250 per month. When a factory closes in Judea and Samaria, 80% of the workers are Palestinians and they lose their jobs, as was the case with Soda Stream.” The BDS Movement does nothing to assist Palestinian Arabs and in fact damages many of them removing their ability to make a decent wage. But this may actually be another part of their desire to cause problems for Israel. When these people lose their employment in an Israeli company, they may eventually get to the point where their best hope to have a decent life is to turn to terrorism which is the highest paying profession for the Palestinian Arabs. This is known as ‘Pay to Slay” and provides a permanent income for the family of any Palestinian Arab or even Israeli Arab who murders Jews; the more Jews they murder, the higher the family is rewarded. Further, if the IDF tears down their house, the Palestinian Authority will build them a new one in the same place. There have been terrorists who admitted that the reason they committed their acts of terror was for the cash payments and they did not care if they died as they would go to heaven and their family would be taken care of.

 

Results of Pay to Slay is Dead Israelis Including the Children

 

Now we would like to address a fallacy which is so often repeated that it has become fact for all too many people. The fallacy is that Israel prevents the Palestinian Arabs from having elections and does not allow them to vote in Israeli election in which they have a right to vote because Israel occupies them. First, let us talk about Gaza. Israel pulled everything and everyone out of Gaza in 2005 and has had no interference except in response to being attacked by Hamas and other terrorists from Gaza. Gaza was given over to the Palestinian Authority who lost it to Hamas in a 2007 coup. After Hamas, a universally recognized terrorist group, assumed rule in Gaza, this was when Israel imposed a blockade which even the United Nations recognized as legal. Aid still flows into Gaza in the form of dozens of tractor-trailers each day which carry everything from food to building supplies and medicines. Hamas takes everything and doles it out through friends who are getting very wealthy. They retain the building supplies and use them to build tunnels into Israel, bunkers within Gaza and fortified positions for their rocket launchers. Hamas has a dictatorship and their upper echelons choose who will govern. They, for all intents and purposes, are their own nation completely independent of Israel and allowing them to vote in Israeli elections would be the same as Taiwan allowing mainland Chinese to vote in their elections, though the numbers are somewhat different. Now for the Palestinian Authority (PA) which occupies Israel lands west of the Jordan River in parts of Judea and Samaria, or are people going to claim that Judea is not Jewish. They also are independent of Israel and in Area A, the area where the PA is in total control, they are completely ruled by Mahmoud Abbas and his government. Area B is also under PA civil control and is under mutual PA and Israeli security control and is the region where any border, were one to be agreed upon, would be drawn. Area C, according to the Oslo Accords, is under complete Israeli control and was intended to be annexed completely by Israel once a peace was reached along with whatever parts of Area B were to become part of Israel. The idea that Israel must return to the pre-Six Day War borders is an idea supported by the Muslim and Arab worlds and adopted heartedly by Europe and has become another lie taken as fact. People really need to read the agreements starting with the San Remo Conference and the rest after World War I, that is the World War before any Holocaust and when Israel was proposed and its border set in the east as the Jordan River. Mahmoud Abbas is in thirteenth year of his five-year term and is in no hurry to hold elections. The Arabs under the PA would vote in those elections if only Abbas was not fearing that he would not live very long if he were to lose the election, which he would.

 

The problem is that there is no heir apparent should Abbas, who is over 80 and in very delicate health, drop dead. When he does finally leave the mortal coil, there is going to be a struggle between the numerous separate parties on who will replace him and the ensuing potential for violence will probably translate into a multi-faceted civil struggle where the people will pay the highest price. When this violence breaks out, we predict that the European Union, United Nations and all too many nations are going to warn Israel against interfering while blaming the violence upon Israel. Holding contradictory positions when it comes to Israel is one of the balancing acts which is popular in many places of our world. Eventually, Israel will be forced to intervene and then set up some form of governance within the territories so the Arabs can actually have somewhat normative lives. The one solution which has been proposed which would permit for the Arabs to finally have governance which does not steal them blind has been setting each small region surrounding the numerous cities and towns under their own governments often led by the largest family in that region. This was how they were ruled before the British left and the Arab armies of six Arab nations invaded to try to wipe out the Jews. When they left the region, they placed the Mufti of Jerusalem to form some form of local governance with Jordan ruling the area in Judea and Samaria, the lands they illegally occupied, and Egypt with Gaza which they ruled and occupied illegally. One has to go back to the League of Nations Mandates which are enforceable under Article 80 of the United Nations Charter, and then they would realize that Gaza actually belongs to Israel and everything west of the Jordan River was to belong to Israel and Arab nations illegally occupying those areas did not alter that despite what the world loves to think. Once Israel has settled the squabbles and set up a workable form of governing for the Arabs, they will probably be granted legal resident alien status while Israel roots out the last of the terrorists. The officers and security leaders from the PA will probably be exiled and may find themselves back in Tunis, Tunisia. This time they will not be permitted to return no matter what the world demands. With the Arabs of the Shomron under stable governance which is more interested in their welfare than lining their pockets, this will be even more true as Israel will have annexed these lands and be the overseeing force, then they and Israel can open factories and other infrastructure and their lives will improve greatly. Even the Europeans will have to end their incessant screaming for the Arab plight to be addressed and blaming Israel despite Israel not having direct control. Israel will then have indirect control and the leadership of the numerous Arab communities will have to have clean governance otherwise Israel might decide to replace them and place somebody else in charge of running the area. Israel will provide all of the necessary infrastructure and that in and of itself will be a great benefit. Then the only problem will be Gaza which is a terrorist sanctuary at present. Any terrorism which emanates from the former PA region will result in the terrorist and their immediate family being exiled from Israel and not permitted to return under pain of death for the one who committed the terrorist act, or some equally undesirable result.

 

Then with Gaza, should they continue to export terror attacks and sending rockets into Israel, it will not take long before Israel cleans out the terrorist leadership and infrastructure from Gaza and either make a deal with Egypt where they resume their control of the region or Israel take control of Gaza and run the area until it can be turned back to the people of Gaza to elect their own government with the one proviso, no terrorism unless they desire Israel to have to return, something which is always unpleasant to have to endure. The other threat is in the north with Hezballah which has almost taken over the Lebanese government and military. Hezballah is a direct actor under the command of Iran. This makes Iran directly responsible for any attacks Hezballah might make upon Israel. Israel knows that once the areas of Judea and Samaria are cleared of terrorist influences and the Arabs have decent governments ruling them and their lives improve, that front will be taken off the threat board leaving mainly Hamas and Hezballah, both direct agents of Iran. This makes the solution to these two obvious, let Iran know that they will be held directly responsible for any and all attacks from either entity. This will put the onus on Iran to keep Hamas and Hezballah as well as the minor operatives such as Islamic Jihad, also controlled by Iran, in check or face possible retaliation from Israel. This will hopefully serve as sufficient a threat to prevent further terrorist activities from these groups and the same threat can be applied to Syria which has also become another pawn of Iran as well as Iraq. For those seeking to find the real threat over the Middle East need look no further than the nation which has been sweeping across the Middle East taking over such nations’ governments as Iraq, Syria, Yemen and soon Lebanon while controlling terrorist groups of Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Hezballah plus their military arm for international actions the IRGC. Iran’s leaders have often made mention that they see themselves as the renewed Persian Empire and as such the rightful rulers of the world, just as Cyrus declared that he ruled when he swept across the Middle East, North Africa and into Europe as far as Greece. Iran has also, beyond threatening Israel, threatened to take control of the Saudi Arabian oil fields, Mecca and Medina as well as the United States. But the Europeans see Iran as money of which they can partake for as long at it lasts and thus refuse to join the United States in sanctioning Iran and have even set up get-arounds for companies to trade with Iran and receive their payments through a third company so as to not be targeted by the United States sanctions. So, Iran is the darling of Europe for as long as the cash flows while Israel is the devil incarnate but they still desire the developments and discoveries which come from Israel.

 

Beyond the Cusp

EPA, Scott Pruitt and Regulation

 

Scott Pruitt as Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has opened up the dark reality and truths about government agencies and regulations. The EPA had been weaponized almost since its founding in December of 1970, after President Richard Nixon signed an executive order. Congress was not convened nor have even an advisory participation in the forming of this agency which makes it vulnerable as if it was formed by an executive order, it could be dismantled by an executive order. What has been found by Scott Pruitt since taking the mantle of heading the EPA is that they had been using tainted science and cherry picked data to form their regulations. The EPA had actually paid scientists to test and make models to produce the results as dictated in their given premise. They would tell the scientists what regulations they desired to have data ensure would be required as a result of their study into carbon dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuels threatened the health or pertaining to fine particulate pollution. There not only was no allowance for peer review but much of the EPA research was classified such that it could not be viewed by the public or even other scientists. So the EPA was refusing to release the data and research, studies, methodologies or findings of the research they were funding while also giving grants only to those scientists who were attempting to prove the exact findings the EPA required to enact further regulations and restrictions on traditional fossil fuels and carbon based energy as well as restriction on chemical fertilizers forcing more and more switching to expensive, intermittent, unreliable wind and solar energy installations and other unsustainable sources of energy and even fertilizers.

 

The EPA sins are not the only item that the people need be concerned about, one should also make an impartial examination of regulations in general. Has anybody ever honestly thought about where regulations come from? There are two means by which regulations can originate, one pernicious and the other even worse. The less harmful versions are a result of legislation passed by the Congress. Do not allow this to give you the wrongheaded idea that this means that the Congress had any oversight of such regulations as they are generated by legislation, but not limited or reviewed by Congress. When a piece of legislation is passed and signed by the President, making it a law, often will have as part of the legislation language which instructs separate departments to write the necessary regulations to accomplish the concepts defined in the legislation and to request other departments to also make regulations should they see such a need from the legislation. This means that once the legislation is passed into law, the numerous different departments will write regulations to enact what they see as the demands of the legislation as found to be necessary. They can also ask other departments other than the initial ones designated by the legislation to have an opportunity to make input and possibly add regulations they feel are required. These regulations carry the same effect and weight as law as they are driven by legislation and that gives them their presumed legal backing. Then there is another set of regulation which are driven by the departments themselves as required for the department to fulfill their directives which define their reason for existing. These regulations are simply generated by the perceived reason that the agency was formed. These regulations are simply the concepts of bureaucrats purely from their fertile minds and imaginations which they believe are necessary as the reason for their agency’s existence. They require no legislation and get no oversight by Congress or anyone else; they are simply generated by the bureaucrats at each agency. These are the type the EPA has been generating since its inception. The EPA had even gone one-step further by backing their regulatory desires by hiring scientists who are willing to do research reaching the desired results desired by the regulatory bureaucrats of the EPA. Now Scott Pruitt is demanding that the EPA bureaucrats have the results they receive from often the same scientist time after time to now have their results tested by open peer review. This means that scientists who may not agree with the results desired by the EPA bureaucrats are going to repeat the research and experiments of the regular EPS hired scientists to see if they get the same results. This apparently has frightened, even panicked, the EPA regulators and their friendly same neighborhood scientists as their little secret is very probably going to be brought out into the light of day. This is particularly a problem as the EPA had been working to formulate regulations in order to force coal use into bankruptcy in order to close down all electrical energy which used coal and had showed intent to then go after oil powered plants forcing almost all electricity to be generated by green energy sources alone such as wind, solar and geothermal.

 

So what are the real purposes of regulations? They are to define the desired results of legislation or to fulfill the reason for the establishment of the agency. They are intended to fulfill the legal needs basically of the government. But regulations have another use in establishing the necessity of each agency and to provide reasons for the agency budget and to be able to demand further funding and increased funding. The problem is they are also used by each person at each agency to justify their employment and to establish the domain of or the establishment of a group to address a domain as defined by regulations. Once you have your little fiefdom, then it will need to generate more regulations which they will enforce and even enforcement will require them to add additional regulations making their governance over their fiefdom more established and thus perpetuate any need for their group, their fiefdom. Imagine if your employment required that you generate rules which other people, companies, businesses, institutions or governments were going to have to follow and you were not required to give any deep reasoning or required to have scientists to validate your ideas; scientists who are basically dependent upon you and your fellow workers for grant monies, funding and salaries, and the more of these rules you produced would be met with rewards and good job reviews and faster promotions. This is the situation of a large number of Federal Government employees in the large buildings in Washington D.C. (and now some out in the suburbs and even in West Virginia) who have taken to generating unnecessary and even counterproductive regulations just because it will serve their job reviews and they see their position as their justification is their formulating new regulations. Their claim is that they are protecting the people from evils of big businesses or to save people from themselves and making our society more fair, safe and protected. They will claim that many regulations are there to prevent people from doing things which could produce harmful results and by having regulations against these acts, they are preventing such activity from occurring in our society.

 

So these regulations will protect us from dangerous activities, dangerous people, dangerous scientists going out to make some monsters or big business from producing products which might be dangerous and could result in people being hurt of even being killed by these products. Imagine any company which manufactured a product which would necessarily result in any user ending up dead. How long would such a company be able of surviving? Two lawsuits, three lawsuits, or what and why would any company make such a product expecting on remaining in business. Businesses are not going to produce products which through being defective of through proper use which will result in murdering their customers with very few exceptions. We will hear about the tobacco companies which when they were initially formed did not know of the link between smoking and cancer and other diseases. The alcohol industry warns against drinking too much and getting drunk, let alone getting drunk regularly. The interesting thing is smoking and drinking in moderation, possibly extreme moderation, has been found to have some advantages for a person’s health. But manufacturers generally do not make products which will kill their users. Imagine an electric shaver which would probably slice the user’s throat within six weeks of use, would they sell any more shavers after about six months when the word got out that all those using this shaver died from a defect? Manufacturers do not win by making products which are not safe and adding required levels of testing or safeguards upon safeguards such that an infant crawling up the wall and getting the product down from a shelf and then plugging it in and turning it on the infant could not be harmed is ridiculous, but there are such types of regulations to foolproof products. Lawsuits have moderated manufacturers’ carefulness and warning labels far more than have regulations. There is something that regulations do make every manufacturer do; they have had to raise their prices. Higher prices and less competition are the main two results of regulations. Often regulations are produced to make new companies getting into a business more onerous thus protecting the existing companies. One such is the requirement in most major cities is to have a certificate to operate a taxi company. These are the most onerous requirement which prevents others from breaking into this fairly lucrative business in most cities. This was also why Taxi companies attempted in these cities to force anyone responding to UBER and the other ride-share apps to have to have a certificate as if they were an actual taxi service. Some of these cases ended up in the courts as the taxi companies did not like having this type of competition.

 

Creatures from the Laboratory of Dr. Moreau

 

The other reason given for regulations is to prevent people from doing certain activities. One of our favorites is the idea that if scientists were not kept curbed from certain areas of research, then we would end up with some scientists going out into dangerous regions of science and we could end up with a Dr. Moreau and his hideous creations. First, does anybody honestly expect that such experimentation would be performed by any reasonable scientist? And if a scientist was twisted enough to do such experiments, would regulators honestly actually have any preventive powers on such a twisted mind? The problem with the idea that regulations prevent people from performing dangerous and harmful actions is that people who are going to do things which by any reasonable mind would be illegal and dangerous, regulations are not going to prevent their actions. There are laws against robbing banks, yet people still rob banks. There are laws against killing people yet murder still happens every day in some city. In cities such as Chicago, Los Angeles and other it is illegal to have a weapon within the city limits yet Chicago has had one-hundred-thirty-seven gun homicides as of April 22, 2018. What if the guns have been pretty much removed from a society such as in London? Well, London has had a rising homicide rate in 2018 with stabbings being the problem so much so that knife control laws have been demanded, the step beyond total gun control will be blade control. Regulations and laws will never prevent criminal elements from acts which are against the health and safety of the community; criminal acts are the proof that regulations and laws are not sufficient. There is but one way that evil will end, that is when the human spirit is able to find the satisfaction it requires from a gentler and calm forms of excitement, when the human desire for entertainment is satisfied through actions which are not harmful to the community. This will also mean no wars, no murders, no theft, no unfulfilled desires and this will only be realized with the arrival of the Messiah. For those who do not believe in the divine or the coming of a Messiah, then it will come when the human spirit has found the path to completeness, something which many believe is not possible, but perhaps with the evolution of society and the people within, such might be brought within reach. Until then, laws and regulations will probably be required, but let us at least have regulations based upon truth and good science and not simply responding to personal biases. We can only hope that is not too much to ask, but it appears it is.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

New Approach Needed in Caring for Israeli Needy

There is a pressing need in many governments around the world and, oddly enough in the industrialized and technologically advanced Western World the need has become dire, to find some manner of caring for the most needy among the societies. Granted that being needy in places like the United States and much of the European Union is a far cry than it is in lands where thousands every year, mostly children and elderly, die from starvation or simply malnutrition. This is also true in Israel where, like many advanced nations responding to deficits resulting from the economic downturns recently, the government in order to cut deficits and balance budgets made cuts in the stipends to the poor and for children and other similar programs along with their cuts to other areas in their budgets. The only viable answer is to relieve governments of their need, their requirement to care for the needy and to assuring that every child gets enough food and a balanced diet with sufficient nutrients. That begs the question, if not the government, then who should these people turn to? That is the question we will discuss here.

 

The most simple answer is claimed to often be the best answer. The simple answer here is for the responsibility for feeding, clothing and caring for the poorest among us to be returned to where historically it has always rested, with our religious institutions. Another place that can be established would be charities which depend on the contributions from those who have sufficient and are living fairly to extravagantly comfortable lives. Churches, Synagogues, Temples, Mosques and other established places for religious worship, study and other activities could use their food preparation areas to make meals and open their doors and feed those who have need. These same places could hold clothing drives, bring a can or fruits to services and countless other means for collecting items and food and other items for distribution to those in their community who are left wanting due to the cutbacks by government. Congregants and members of these institutions could also donate their time if they too were only making do in order to assist with these efforts. The most wealthy among us could return to taking responsibility for helping the needy by adopting a needy family and assisting them with the necessities in life, or adopt a neighborhood if they are able. Such means to address the needs of those among us who are in need would do more than just address a problem and return a true and solid sense of neighborhood and rebuild much of what society was like before the age of large, or even the megalopolises that are forming in this modern age.

 

When we read some old literature and histories of the early beginnings of the rise of cities due to the industrial revolution we also read of private networks run by a combination of the religious institutions and of charities which often had one or a group of benefactors who were wealthy and who could be known or remain anonymous at their choice that worked as the safety net of the city making sure that those who fell on hard times or simply were unable to make ends meet had a place to turn. The governments as part of their drive to become the sole place that people could turn replaced these support systems over the years as they sought to be all things for all people and supplant G0d and a sense of responsibility for our fellow people in their rush to create the perfect society. Now the governments are finding out that they cannot be all things for all people and their shortfall is causing some to have nowhere to turn and there is once again the need for the old manner of caring for those the most unfortunate among us. This is another case where the old way is very much the best way as it builds up relations and connects people with each other and makes our society more integrated and codependent. By bringing all together to care for those in need and allowing people to be the answer instead of government there will be benefits unseen up front and even some unexpected as we have forgotten how society used to work such that everybody had their place and the wealthiest and the poorest know each other and cared about each other each helping in whatever way they were able. Perhaps it is time to take a step backwards through time and readopt the tried and true way of community and a sense of everybody belonging and working together to make the world a better and more caring place. That is something which government is not suited to do but people excel at doing, so perhaps it is time to give it one more try and see what comes of it. I have a feeling where such attitudes succeed the people’s lives will be the richer and more blessed for it.

 

Beyond the Cusp