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DEMILITARIZED
PALESTINIAN STATE?
By ARIEH ELDAD
Once upon a time, there
was such a state.
"I don't think there's a
Palestinian nation. There's an Arab nation. I
don't think there's a Palestinian nation. That's
a colonial invention. Since when were there
Palestinians? I think there's only an Arab
nation. Until the end of the 19th century,
Palestine was the southern part of Greater
Syria."
If I had said this, I
would undoubtedly be called a Jewish
nationalist, a racist, and worst of all -
detached from reality. Yet, note well, these
words were spoken by former MK Dr. Azmi Bishara
in an interview with Yaron London several years
ago. Bishara is a leader of Israeli Arab
citizens who openly identify with the enemy, and
who was forced to flee Israel under suspicion of
aiding Hizbullah in wartime.
When Benjamin
Netanyahu delivered his Bar-Ilan speech, he
could have used these words. He could have
ripped the mask of deception from the terrible
historical lie that we have taken to our hearts
as if it were written on the Tablets of the Law
given at Sinai. "Two States for Two Nations" has
become holy dogma and anyone who challenges its
validity is suspected of blasphemy.
But even if we assume
that Netanyahu wished to speak in terms
acceptable to Europe and the United States,
rather than to fight a battle which he
considered lost, still it would have been better
had he not deceived his listeners with the scam
known as "a demilitarized state."
When I heard the speech,
my initial reaction was: "There ain't no such
animal." Of course, I don't mean nano-states
such as Andorra or the Vatican, which have
themselves chosen not to maintain an army. There
is no real state in the world defined as a
demilitarized state. And Netanyahu did not make
do with a misleading general statement, he went
into details: the state won't have missiles and
rockets and planes, and will not be able to sign
treaties. The more I listened to this and said
to myself that there is no such thing, I was
reminded of something quite bothersome. Was
there once such a state? And then one of my
friends reminded me there had been.
"It will be forbidden to
Germany to maintain or build fortifications...
in this territory (West of the Rhine).... It is
forbidden for Germany to maintain an army....
the German army will not include more than seven
infantry divisions.... It is forbidden for
Germany to import or export tanks or any other
military hardware.... The German naval forces
will be limited and are not to include
submarines. The armed forces of Germany will not
include any air forces.... In the political
realm, Germany is forbidden to enter into any
treaty with Austria."
So it was written and
sealed in the Treaty of Versailles. The treaty
was signed on June 28, 1919, as part of the
Paris Peace Conference following the First World
War. Essentially, Germany became a demilitarized
state and was also limited from a political
perspective. So what happened? Did the
"demilitarized" status prevent the Second World
War and, worst of all, the destruction of
European Jewry?
By 1922, an agreement
between Russia and Germany had been signed in
the Italian city of Rapallo. The agreement was
open and met the terms of the Versailles Treaty,
but the conference that prepared it was secret;
and there, Soviet Russia and Germany agreed on
joint establishment of weapons factories, poison
gas and ammunition. German army officers were
sent to Russia to be trained in the use of
weapons that were forbidden to be maintained in
Germany. In Germany, civilian factories were
refurbished into arms factories, funded, as it
were, by private individuals, not the state.
When I heard about the
widespread activity of Jews in the Obama court
and about the extreme anti-Israeli stance they
are taking, and about the anger of the extreme
Left in Israel over Netanyahu's speech - in that
he did not express a willingness to take in Arab
refugees, give away Jerusalem and dismantle
settlements, all as a prepayment for negotiating
with the enemies of Israel - I again thought of
the Rapallo Treaty. It was the Jewish foreign
minister of Germany, Walther Rathenau, who stood
behind the agreement that years later gave Nazi
Germany its powerful war machine. And it was
Erhard Milch, the son of a Jewish father, who
subverted the Versailles Treaty and, in the
guise of civilian aeronautic companies and
flying clubs, established Lufthansa, which
during the war became the Luftwaffe, the German
air force that in weeks overcame Poland and
France and bombed London in the Blitz. The
Jewish people can be trusted to bring forth
warped members who will arm the "demilitarized
Palestinian state", if one should ever come to
be.
The lesson being that
there is no political power that can prevent a
sovereign state from doing whatever it wants.
Netanyahu knows that if ever a Palestinian state
should, Heaven forbid, be established, Israel
will not be able to declare war on it if it
should choose, for instance, to sign an
international tourism agreement with Cyprus or a
transfer-of-technology agreement with Iran. If
pipes are manufactured in Tulkarm, Israel will
not be able to start a war that can be justified
in the eyes of the world if steel cutters turn
the pipes into Kassam rockets. Since nothing
other than Israeli force could possibly preserve
demilitarization, Netanyahu is deceiving the
people of Israel and promising them something
that cannot be delivered. But all of the above
is not the main thing. The main thing is that
Netanyahu has recognized the right of Arabs to
establish a sovereign state in our homeland.
None of his conditions and reservations can hide
this abomination. Whoever recognizes the right
of his enemy to establish a state in his
homeland has abandoned all principle and all
that is left to do is argue over the price.
Whoever has left his religion and changed his
faith cannot insist on observing the
commandments of what is no longer his faith.
Whoever has abandoned his patrimony has no basis
on which to insist on continuing to build on its
lands.
Knesset Member Arieh
Eldad ,
Jerusalem, Israel
* * *
NCJW DEPLORES LATEST HATE
VIOLENCE
By NANCY RATZAN
The shooting … at the US
Holocaust Museum is a dreadful reminder of the
poisonous connection between hate and gun
violence. Our thoughts and prayers are with the
family of murdered security officer Stephen
Johns.
Following so soon after
the murder of abortion provider Dr. George
Tiller in his church during Sunday services,
this latest attack cries out not only for
condemnation by public officials, but a
commitment to do everything in their power to
prevent such incidents from multiplying
including common-sense gun regulations. … Dr.
Tiller’s clinic was closed for good, a result
that pleased anti-choice extremists. … [P]eople
visiting a museum that bears witness to the
ultimate result of untrammeled hate have been
targeted.
Violence of any kind is
abhorrent. Hate violence seeks to not only wound
or kill its target, but to intimidate and
terrify the larger community. If the Dr. Tillers
of this world are not safe, if the Holocaust
Museum just blocks from the White House is not
safe, then none of us is safe. We must proceed
with vigilance and expediency to address all
forms of hate, violence and intolerance in our
country.
Nancy Ratzan, Washington
DC
* * *
CREATE JOBS FOR
AMERICANS
By DONALD A.
MOSKOWITZ
A while ago I read that
Bill Gates and Mayor Michael Bloomberg were
planning on donating a total of $500 million to
reduce the incidence of smoking in developing
countries, especially China. I haven’t seen any
recent information on this subject, but I
believe they made a commitment to this
ridiculous project.
Why are they concerned
with the habits of the Chinese people? Do the
Chinese worry about our health when they send
all of those tainted products to the U.S.? Do
the Chinese concern themselves with our economy
when they flood our country with their products
and eliminate U.S. jobs?
It is admirable for Bill
and Mike to give back to society some of the
many millions they have earned, but they should
concern themselves with the plight of all the
Americans who have lost their jobs because of
the cheap goods manufactured in China and
exported to the U.S. With U.S. unemployment
projected to approach 10% in 2009, they should
be investing the $500 million in the U.S. to
create jobs for Americans, the same American
workers who made them wealthy.
Donald A. Moskowitz, Londonderry,
NH
* * *
NATIONAL
GEOGRAPHIC BLAMES ISRAEL FOR CHRISTIANITY'S
TROUBLES IN MIDDLE EAST
By DEXTER VAN ZILE
National Geographic has long enjoyed
unique influence and credibility on the American
scene. The publication, which boasts a worldwide
circulation of 6.7 million readers, sends
journalists to the far parts of the globe and
publishes their stories alongside vivid
photographs. Regrettably, the publication abused
the trust of its readers in a June 2009 article
that veered into political terrain and
scapegoated Israel for Christianity's decline in
the Middle East.
In addition to targeting Israel, the article,
"The Forgotten Faithful," written by Don Belt,
the magazine's senior editor for foreign
affairs, offers no honest description of the
mistreatment of Christians at the hands of
Muslim majority populations in the Middle
East.
Belt reveals his bias when he reports that
Christianity "began a long, steady retreat" into
minority status during the Crusades which began
in 1095. This is preposterous. As Bat Ye'or, a
leading scholar on Christianity under Islam, has
documented Muslim conquerors began a systematic
campaign to eradicate Christianity from the
Arabian Peninsula soon after Mohammed's death in
632. By the eighth century, Muslim rulers had
instituted a system of taxation and slavery
throughout the Middle East that clearly
contributed to the decline of Christianity in
the Middle East – hundreds of years before the
first crusader ever set foot in Jerusalem.
The article also fails to provide any detail
of the current mistreatment of Christians in the
Middle East, particularly in Palestinian
society. Numerous reports detail the
intimidation of Christians at the hands of
Muslim gangs in Palestinian society. For
example, Khaled Abu Toameh, Arab affairs
correspondent for the Jerusalem Post, recently
reported that Christians in the West Bank "have
repeatedly complained that Muslims have been
seizing their lands either by force or through
forged documents." Belt ignores this.
In an obvious effort to portray Israel as the
culprit behind Christianity's decline in the
Middle East, Belt obscures the growth of the
Christian population in the Jewish state by
reporting that the overall percentage of
Christians in Israel, the West Bank and the Gaza
Strip has declined from 13 percent of the
population in 1894 to 2 percent of the
population today. What Belt fails to report,
however, is that in absolute terms, the
Christian population in Israel has increased
from 34,000 in 1949 to 120,600 in 1995 and
151,600 in 2007, yielding a 345 percent
increased over the past six decades.
By way of comparison, Palestinian Christians,
are leaving the West Bank and the Gaza Strip at
twice the rate of their Muslim compatriots.
Clearly the behavior of Muslim leaders in
Palestinian society has caused this exodus –
even if the leaders of Christian denominations
in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip report good
relations between the two communities. In the
words of one lay Christian who spoke to Israeli
author Yossi Klein Halevi in the 1990s, "Our
leaders are liars: They tell the newspapers
everything is OK. But when Christians go to the
market, they're afraid to wear their crosses."
Belt does report the accusations of a married
Christian couple - whose real names are not used
- who cannot legally live together in Jerusalem
because under Israeli law, the husband, a
Bethlehem native cannot get an Israeli ID card.
Yes, it's sad that the couple cannot live
together in Jerusalem, but it's also
unreasonable to expect that he would be given
citizenship based solely on his marriage to an
Arab Christian who has an Israeli ID. Belt
neglects to point out that America offers no
automatic citizenship for non American spouses
either.
Why doesn't the couple move to Bethlehem?
Probably because as a Palestinian Christian the
wife enjoys far more rights in Israel than she
would in the Fatah-controlled West Bank. Still,
according to Belt, the woman admits to hating
Israelis.
The same hypocrisy is apparent when Belt
describes the scene of the husband being unable
to wash his car on Easter, ostensibly because
water is being shipped to nearby Jewish
settlements. This is a familiar canard used by
propagandists. Israel is not diverting water
from Palestinians to Jewish communities. On the
contrary, Israel annually pipes over 40 million
cubic meters (MCM) of its own water over the
Green Line to Palestinian cities and towns.
Ramallah, for example, receives over 5 MCM
annually from Israel.
So, contrary to Belt, Palestinians are using
Israeli water, not the other way around. Belt's
cavalier parroting of false anti-Israel innuendo
without, evidently, bothering to check the
facts, is indicative of the story as a
whole
Dexter Van Zile, Boston, MA
* * *
DESTROYING OUTPOSTS
INCREASES IRANIAN THREAT
By ROB
MUCHNICK
The Obama government has
made known its commitment to go full steam ahead
with pressuring Israel into a two state solution
(an Arab terrorist entity on Jewish Land) which
most Israeli's recognize to be the final
solution. Although Bibi Netanyahu convinced many
voters that he is against further expulsions in
order to facilitate the continuance of the
suicidal Bush road map, those who know Bibi well
remember that he gave away Hevron and voted for
the expulsion of Jews from Gush Katif until it
was politically expedient to change his mind.
Bibi of yesterday appears to be the Bibi of
today.
Bibi has never come out
against the ill conceived Land for Peace formula
and his appointment of Ehud Barak-the man who
ordered the beating of women and children in
Amona-defense minister speaks volumes as did
sending Shimon Peres as his emissary to the
recent AIPAC conference.
Obama is linking American
cooperation dealing with the Iranian nuclear
threat to Israel (cutting it's own throat) by
evacuating outposts (settlements in the making)
In reality, the destruction of new Jewish
communities and the creation of an Arab State on
Jewish soil poses a greater threat to Israel and
the rest of the world than the Iranian threat.
Israel 's leaders have
not learned the lesson of Judenrat according to
a statement by Moshe Feiglin. According to Moshe
Feiglin , the leader of the opposition inside
the Likud party, " Israel's leadership is now
attempting to buy quiet from the US and Iran by
selling out the settlers. It has not learned
from the lesson of the Judenrat.
Sacrificing Yitzhar to the enemy will bring
Bushehr to Tel Aviv." The Judenrat (Jewish
government leaders) was required to carry out
Nazi directives against other Jews, to supply
forced labor, and eventually to cooperate in the
Final Solution. The destruction of the Jewish
communities will bring the Iranian nuclear
reactor to Israel’s shores.
Rob Muchnick, Long Island, New
York
* * *
CAN
NETANYAHU RISE TO THE OCCASION?
By RON SKOLNIK
During the Oslo years of
the 1990s, one of the more justified critiques
of the Israeli right was that Yasser Arafat and
his aides were doing far too little to prepare
Palestinian public opinion for the gut-wrenching
compromises that peace would entail.
So I
was disappointed, though not exactly surprised,
that before their plane back to Israel even hit
the tarmac at Ben-Gurion Airport, members of
Prime Minister Netanyahu's entourage were
already trashing the Obama administration's
emerging peace initiative. In doing so, of
course, they were hurting the chance for peace,
while weakening Israel's greatest strategic
asset - American friendship.
One
unidentified "senior figure" in the Prime
Minister's company called the two-state
solution, "stupid". Another termed it "juvenile"
(or "infantile", depending on one's translation
of the Hebrew "yalduti"). Lest we forget: The
two-state solution is the cornerstone of the
entire Middle East peace process and remains at
the heart of the Obama administration's
diplomatic approach. But as if this weren't
enough, another senior member of the Netanyahu
government, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman,
then offered up this rebuff to the American (and
international) attitude on Israel's expansion
into the West Bank via civilian settlement.
Responding to the all-but-universally-held
belief that settlements undermine the peace
effort, Lieberman asked ("bewilderedly", as YNet
put it).
Ron Skolnik, executive
director of Meretz
USA
* * *
IRANIAN NUCLEAR MISSILE
THREAT
By DONALD A. MOSKOWITZ
Iran tested
the launch of a Scud missile from a ship in the
Caspian Sea, which was designed to provide the
capability of launching intermediate range
missiles from cargo ships sitting off
coastlines. Also, within a few years Iran will
have long[-]range missiles capable of striking
North America.
Iran could have nuclear warheads
available to mount on missiles in late 2009. The
U[nited] S[tates] and other countries do not
have missile defense systems to ward off an
attack. Counter strikes could be launched
against Iran, but this would not prevent Iran
from launching an initial strike based on
irrational thinking by Amadmanejad and his
Iranian cohorts.
The Obama Administration is making
conciliatory gestures towards Iran, but is not
making any progress in curtailing Iran’s nuclear
development program. According to Walid Phares,
an expert on global terrorism and the Middle
East, "the perception in Tehran is the Obama
Administration will not use everything at its
disposal to apply pressure on Iran".
Furthermore, Obama’s apparent bow
to Saudi King Abdullah is perceived as an act of
submission and weakness by the international
community. I fear Obama’s naive blunders will
embolden Iran to pursue and possibly use its
nuclear missile
capabilities.
Donald A. Moskowitz, Londonderry,
NH
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THE LAND OF ISRAEL: IS
THERE AN ALTERNATIVE?
By MOSHE
PHILIPS
Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad wants to wipe the state of Israel
off the face of the planet. Sadly and strangely,
two American born Jewish writers seem content to
go along with the idea. One of the writers
explains "…sometimes I think it might have been
better had Herzl dreamed of a Jewish state in a
place less embattled than the Middle East…" The
defeatism from these writers and far too many
others is blatant.
Pulitzer Prize winning
author Michael Chabon was the first Jewish
writer to recently examine the modern history of
plans to establish sovereign and semi-sovereign
Jewish territories outside of the Land of
Israel. Chabon’s 2007 novel The Yiddish
Policemen's Union is set in an imaginary Jewish
settlement in Alaska. In Chabon’s alternate
universe Israel was destroyed in the 1948 war
and a proposal by President Franklin Delano
Roosevelt’s Interior Secretary Harold L. Ickes
to develop parts of Alaska as a "haven for
Jewish refugees from Germany and other areas in
Europe where the Jews are subjected to
oppressive restrictions" had been implemented.
Now, Hollywood filmmaking mavens Joel Coen and
Ethan Coen are reportedly planning to make The
Yiddish Policemen's Union into a movie. So,
tragically, these long forgotten ideas will be
romanticized for still larger audiences
throughout the world.
Adam Rovner is
writing a non-fiction book that examines the
proposals to create a Jewish refuge on the
island of Madagascar off the coast of Africa and
"various [other] proposals to establish Jewish
"homelands" around the globe."
In an article
in the May/June 2009 issue of Moment magazine
titled "Madagascar: An Almost Jewish Homeland"
Rovner writes that "Early Zionists debated a
host of proposals to settle Jews in remote
regions of the world, and one of them was
Madagascar. I’m an American-born, naturalized
Israeli citizen and sometimes I think it might
have been better had Herzl dreamed of a Jewish
state in a place less embattled than the Middle
East. That’s why I am so curious about this
would-be promised land that, at least until a
recent military coup, was a relatively pacific
republic in the Indian Ocean."
As if the
dream of a Jewish state originated with Herzl.
Hatikvah, the anthem of modern Zionism, was
written in 1878, 18 years before Herzl published
The Jewish State. The dream began in Biblical
times with the Prophet Abraham, and survived
Babylonians, Greeks, Romans, Arabs, Mamelukes
and Ottomans.
There are three key points
to consider when looking at this nonsense from
Chabon and Rovner: First, at the core of
Ahmadinejad’s rhetoric is a strategy of breaking
down Israel’s will to survive. Chabon and Rovner
play right into his hands. If Ahmadinejad really
wanted to nuke Israel, G-d forbid, why would he
declare it? What would be his advantage to warn
Israel of his plans? Ahmadinejad wants to
destroy Israel’s key security asset: its morale.
He wants to force Jews to re-consider the value
of a national Jewish homeland versus the threat
of annihilation. Iran wants to drive Israel into
making suicidal concessions.
Secondly,
there is a disconnect of the Jewish commitment
to the Land of Israel that Chabon and Rovner
imply. The Land of Israel is called the
"Promised Land" for a reason. It was not
promised to the Muslims. The Holy Land was
deeded to the Jewish People in the Holy Bible.
Does any people anywhere in the world have a
clearer deed than that? There was never an
independent Muslim nation in the Land of Israel
in all of history. Moreover, how would the U.S.,
Israel or the West benefit from the creation of
yet another hostile Muslim state - wherever it
would be?
Lastly, for
President Obama as well as Chabon and Rovner,
there is a misunderstanding of Zionist history
as it stands apart from the Holocaust. Zionism
was not born of a wish to escape Nazi
persecution or any other modern forms of
anti-Semitism.
Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu, in his June 14, 2009 foreign
policy speech at Bar Ilan University summarized
it as follows: "The
right of the Jewish People to a state in the
Land of Israel does not arise from the series of
disasters that befell the Jewish People over
2,000 years: persecutions, expulsions, pogroms,
blood libels, murders, which reached its climax
in the Holocaust, an unprecedented tragedy in
the history of nations. There are those who say
that without the Holocaust the State would not
have been established, but I say that if the
State of Israel had been established in time,
the Holocaust would not have taken place. The
tragedies that arose from the Jewish People’s
helplessness show very sharply that we need a
protective state. The right to establish our
sovereign state here, in the Land of Israel,
arises from one simple fact: the Land of Israel
is the birthplace of the Jewish
People."
Netanyahu,
tragically missed the essential point, just as
he does far too often. Yes: "the Land of Israel
is the birthplace of the Jewish People" - but
that is not all. G-d decided that the Jewish
People be given the Land of Israel as their only
homeland for all time, it was not a decision the
Jewish People the Jewish People made of their
own volition. The Jewish connection to the Land
of Israel is unlike the attachment of any other
people to their homeland. The relationship is
unique.
Modern Zionist
re-settlement in the Land of Israel began before
Hitler was born. Tel Aviv was established in
1909. The desire of Jews to return to the Jewish
homeland never left the Jewish People throughout
our exile and Jews throughout history lived in
Jewish communities in Jerusalem, Hebron, Safed
and elsewhere for hundreds of years before
Zionism was re-initiated. Jews from Iran, Iraq,
Egypt, Yemen, Afghanistan, Libya, Morocco and
elsewhere in the Islamic world did not return to
Israel because of European anti-Semitism. Jews
from throughout the world made their way to
Israel for the same reason as did Jews in the
times of Moses and Joshua - it is the Divinely
established homeland for Jews. There is no
other.
Moshe
Philips, Philadelphia,
Penn
* * *
SHOOTING AT THE U.S. HOLOCAUST
MEMORIAL MUSEUM IS SHOCKING AND DEEPLY
DISTURBINGBy B’NAI
B’RITH INTERNATIONAL
[The] shooting
at the United States Holocaust Museum is
shocking and deeply disturbing on several
counts.
B’nai B’rith
is appalled that the shooting took place in a
building dedicated to remembering the worst
genocide in history. The museum was founded in
the hope that, by remembering the Shoah, it will
never be repeated. For it to be the site of a
shooting by a man identified as anti-Semitic and
a white supremacist is testimony to the need for
humanity to take actions to prevent hate
incidents from ever happening again.
Authorities
have identified the gunman as James W. von
Brunn, a known white supremacist who runs a
website with anti-Semitic writing.
B’nai B’rith
is highly sensitive to the impact of hate-filled
terror, as many staff members at B’nai B’rith
headquarters were held hostage for 39 hours in
1977 by members of the Hanafi Muslim sect. Our
thoughts and prayers go out to the family of
Officer Stephen Tyrone Johns, who was killed in
the attack
B'nai B'rith
Inernational
* * *
OBAMA AS TODAY’S
CHAMBERLAIN
By HELEN
FREEMAN
In Obama’s
fawning speech to the Muslim Arab world,
delivered in Cairo on June 4, 2009, he once
again threw logic to the winds when he made "a
tougher line on Israel a core tenet of his
Mideast policy." Obama states that "no system of
government can or should be imposed by one
nation on any other," when he is
semi-apologizing for the Bush policy to promote
democracy in the Middle East. However, when it
comes to imposing his will, and dictating policy
to Israel, there is no hesitation on the
President’s part. He does "not accept the
legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements," as
if these settlements in the tiny country of
Israel are to blame for the huge variety of
problems in the despotically controlled Arab
world spanning over 100 nations with 1.5 billion
people.
Obama is
concerned about Israel’s "violation of previous
agreements." What about the many agreements
signed by the Arabs which were intended to be
violated from the very outset, beginning with
the Oslo Accords in 1993? What about the reign
of terror begun by the PLO which continues to
this day? Wasn’t the PLO charter supposed to be
changed to accept Israel’s right to exist? And
isn’t it true that the change never took place
and the Arab world still refuses to recognize
Israel’s very right to exist? Should Israel
continue to put its neck in the noose to satisfy
such flagrant enemies?
And with whom
should Israel negotiate the "peace" which the
curtailment of settlements is supposed to push
forward? The President called Holocaust denial
"baseless, ignorant, and hateful." Mahmoud
Abbas, the Fatah and Al Aqsa Brigades leader who
is being supported by the U.S. with money,
weapons, ammunition, and training, to prepare
for its battle with Hamas – or Israel – wrote
his doctorate on the denial of the Holocaust. Is
such an ignorant leader supposed to be the one
who will renounce terror and become the lion who
will lie down side by side with the lamb in
peace?
It is tragic
that President Obama is walking the path of
Neville Chamberlain. Will Israel become the new
Sudetenland, sacrificed to the cause of "peace
in our time," which will end up in another
merciless, cruel, horrific war? Let’s hope the
Israelis are strong enough to resist the demands
of their ‘ally’, America.
Helen
Freedman, New York
* * *
CARS COMING FROM CHINA
By DONALD A.
MOSKOWITZ
General Motors
(GM) received $20 billion in U.S. government
loans and might need another $50 billion to
survive. GM plans to close a number of U.S.
plants and lay off thousands of workers. The UAW
has agreed to eliminate or reduce employee
benefits to drop the average wage, including
benefits, from around $75 per hour to near $45
per hour, which is the average wage of U.S. auto
workers at foreign plants in the United States.
Hopefully, GM will cut management staff and
reduce executive salaries.
These actions
should make GM cost competitive and save
thousands of American jobs. However, to my
astonishment, GM plans to increase imports from
Mexico, South Korea, Japan and China from 15% in
2009 to 23% by 2014. Approximately 50,000 cars
will be imported from Communist China by
2014.
Evidently the
U.S. taxpayers are loaning GM $20-$50 billion to
stay alive so it can close U.S. plants, lay off
U.S. workers, transfer some production to
foreign countries like Communist China and
import inferior cars to the U.S. so more U.S.
workers can be laid off, and our insurance rates
and health care costs will increase from
accidents as the wheels falls off the Chinese
made vehicles. We don’t need imported cars. We
need fuel efficient, reasonably priced cars
manufactured in the United
States..
Donald A.
Moskowitz, Londonderry,
NH
* * *
SEN. FEINSTEIN COMMENTARY ON
GOV. SCHWARZENEGGER’S PROPOSED BUDGET CUTS
By SEN. DIANNE
FEINSTEIN
Let me say one
other thing about what the governor said,
because I think he said it accurately. I think
these cuts are unavoidable. But what I would
like to add is that there's about $85 billion
coming as part of the stimulus to California;
$35 billion of it is in the tax rebates. The
remainder will be plugged into various programs;
about $14 billion has been appropriated of that.
So the federal government is trying to help.
But I think
what the governor said is so important, that
this particular way of budgeting is so dependent
on the economy that, if the economy falls and
those revenues don't come in, it creates this
enormous structural budget deficit. And they're
projected to be down next year as well.
So it's a very
difficult situation. And you know, I have been
around in 15 elections. I have never seen a time
when the voters did what they did, in view of
what they were told about cuts, in the enormous
defeat of these propositions. I can't give you
the reason for it, but I can tell you, to me it
was astonishing. And what they said is, in so
many words, take the cuts, because that's the
alternative. And nobody wants them, but people
have to understand.
You know, I'll
tell you one last thing and then I'll go. When I
was mayor of San Francisco I used to go out in
the neighborhoods and I'd say, "Do you want more
police?"
And the answer
would come back, loudly, "Yes."
Do you want
more firefighters?
The answer
would come back loudly, "Yes."
Do you want to
pay for them?
And instantly,
it was, "No," in a booming way.
And that's
part of the dilemma of all of this. And the hard
part of it is where the cuts have to come from.
People don't like it. But they didn't seem to
know that when they voted no on these
propositions, so it left the governor and the
state legislature with really no alternative
other than to make the cuts.
Sen. Dianne
Feinstein
* * *
APPEASEMENT
JEOPARDIZES NATIONAL SECURITY
By DONALD
MOSKOWITZ
President
Obama is making mistakes impacting our foreign
policy. The Administration tried appeasement
when it declared Chavez’s president-for-life
referendum was "for the most part … a process
that was fully consistent with a democratic
process."
The
Administration looked the other way when Russia
pressured Kyrgyestan to shut down a valuable
U.S. air base. In
Turkey Obama said "The United States is not, and
never will be, at war with Islam," which is
true, but he should have stated the U.S. will
pursue Islamic terrorists.
The president
warned North Korea it would suffer
"consequences" if it went ahead with the launch
of a long-range missile, but North Korea snubbed
the U.S. and launched the missile on a 2,000
mile run. Also, North Korea recently restarted
its nuclear weapons development
program.
President
Obama attempted to charm Iran, but Iran’s
parliament speaker rebuked our president and
told him the U.S. has to acknowledge 60 years of
crimes against Iran, change our policies, and
abandon Israel. Obama is making reconciliation
overtures to Cuba, but Cuba is negotiating to
allow Russian warships and aircraft to refuel at
Cuban bases; and Russia might be allowed to
reopen an electronic intelligence gathering
operation in Lourdes. Appeasing and apologizing (for
nothing) to these totalitarian countries is
interpreted as groveling weakness by the
Administration, and it is jeopardizing our
national security.
Donald A.
Moskowitz. Londonderry,
NH
* * *
OBAMA BREAKS NEW GROUND ADDRESSING
HOLOCAUST DENIAL IN EGYPT
By B’NAI B’RITH
INTERNATIONAL
In his first visit to a Muslim
nation since taking office, the president noted
the U.S.-- Israel relationship is "based upon
cultural and historical ties." But the president
also missed a chance to address the ongoing
issue of incitement and hatred against Jews,
which is taught in much of the Muslim
world.
"In the heart of the Arab world,
the president addressed the issue of Holocaust
denial, noting specifically the six million Jews
who were murdered," said B’nai B’rith President
Moishe Smith. "In doing so, President Obama
attempted to end an insidious ongoing campaign
against Jews. Holocaust denial, by the Arab
world in general and Iran specifically, will not
be tolerated. It’s a vital message."
The president must also be
commended for noting: "The Arab-Israeli conflict
should no longer be used to distract the people
of Arab nations from other problems. Instead, it
must be a cause for action to help the
Palestinian people develop the institutions that
will sustain their state; to recognize Israel's
legitimacy; and to choose progress over a
self-defeating focus on the past."
But Obama also missed an
opportunity to discuss incitement – in mosques,
schools, and the media – against the Jewish
population, and he did not fully address the
long record of Palestinian noncompliance with
peace initiatives.
"The Palestinians have not honored
their commitments to the Oslo peace accord to
dismantle terrorist organizations and end
incitement," said B’nai B’rith International
Executive Vice President Daniel S. Mariaschin.
"Many crucial, specific Palestinian obligations
have not been met in the nearly 15 years since
Oslo. At this time, the Israelis have no viable
peace partner to fulfill the hopes of President
Obama."
By calling upon the Arab world to
not use the Palestinian-Israeli conflict as an
excuse for all the region’s ills, the president
laid the groundwork for the next steps in the
peace process. B’nai B’rith will work to ensure
the Untied States continues to honor the
"unbreakable" bond it has with
Israel.
B’nai B’rith
International
* * *
|
EDITORIAL
MASTHEAD
Bard, Mitchell G. --
contributing columnist
Cravatts, Dr. Richard L. --
contributing columnist
Mann, Charles (Chuck)--
contributing columnist
Moskowitz, Donald --
contributing columnist
Phillips, Moshe -
contributing columnist
Reuben, Liz -- editor
Smith, Moshe --
contributing columnist
Squires, Bonnie --
contributing columnist
Vinokur, Eli --
ccontributing columnist
_________________________________
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