Right-wing paranoia

I have received a curious comment on my April 20 post, "The right-wing malcontents are bashing Obama." It was written by a highly educated, articulate reader who occasionally visits and comments on my blog.

She wrote: "Just because [Obama] is coming after the Christians, veterans, pro-lifers, etc...doesn't mean the Jews are safe."

I expected disagreement, of course, with my view of President Obama's opponents. But what could have produced such an hysterical response to my criticism about the recent series of anti-Obama" tea parties." At those events, I had written, "paranoid Obama-bashers vented their spleen about taxes, soaring government spending for financial bailouts, and what they regard as government encroachment into their private lives"?

President Obama is a Christian, and his much-publicized search for a church to attend on Sundays suggests that he is an observant believer. I have seen no evidence that he is "coming after" his fellow Christians. And why would he do that?

Nor as a World War II veteran have I seen any evidence that he is about to do something awful to my fellow veterans. Indeed, as some one who has been frustrated by my rare dealings with the Dept. of Veterans Affairs, I am impressed by President Obama's appointment of retired Gen. Eric Shinseki as Secretary of Veterans Affairs. A critic of the Bush Administration's Iraq war, he is a refreshing change from the incompetent political hacks who have headed the department in recent years.

But what really strikes me about my respondent's comment is her frightening claim that Obama's policies do not mean that "the Jews are safe." What does she mean? The only explanation that I can imagine for the provocative comment is her knowledge that I am a Jewish-American who has an intense interest in Israel.

Her point, I guess, is to warn me that Obama is will be less sympathetic to Israel than his predecessor. President George W. Bush's policies were indeed very favorable to the Jewish state. I believe that this was largely because of benign neglect of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, however, rather than of any profound pro-Israel sentiment on Bush's part.

President Obama has demonstrated that he will take an aggressive stance to settle the Middle East conflict. Presumably, this would mean pressure on Israel to make concessions that could affect its security.

I had recognized that this might occur if Obama became President. Nevertheless, I voted enthusiastically for him, and I strongly admire what he has accomplished so far. Like many ardent Jewish-American partisans of the Israeli cause, I am not a single-issue voter.

While I am seriously concerned about Israeli security, I am also interested in other important issues--national security, health, education, and other matters dealing with foreign affairs.

So my respondent's warning that the Jews might not be "safe" because Obama is "coming after the Christians, veterans, pro-lifers, etc." makes no sense.

I resent the use of the term "pro-life" by those who want to ban abortion, and I support efforts to preserve a woman's right to have one. I thus do not worry that Obama is "coming after...the pro-lifers."

A letter from Israel regarding the Gaza tragedy

I have received the following letter from an Israeli citizen, offering a personal view about the tragic events unfolding in Gaza.

Dear family and friends,

I feel that events are such I should once again try and relay to you my thoughts, in order that you will be able to have a better understanding of the situation here. Again, as in many times before, I am dismayed at the lack of proportions in the in-depth information from Israel as opposed to that coming from other sources. Due to this unfortunate state of events, the international community is too frequently exposed to communications which are far from being "even-handed" or fair.

I will try to be as fair as possible, in portraying the very sad situation here. This is the first report I will be sending you, and I would welcome any comments or questions, and would certainly be happy if you thought that this was something you would like to pass on to your friends.

First some questions:

· When was the last time you ran for your life to a shelter to avoid being bombed?

· When was the last time your children were terrorized to the point where they wet their beds even at ages of 6 and 7?

· When was the last time your child demanded that the light stay on all night, and even then told you of his nightmares the next morning - all this on a daily basis?

· When was the last time you realized that your child will need a psychologist to help overcome his/her fears of loud noises and sirens?

· When was the last time your house had a near miss of a rocket fired at you, or worse, had your house crumble under the impact of a mortar shell?

· When was the last time that you could not tend to your crops, because the last time you went out to your fields you were fired on by snipers?

· When was the last time you lost your job because you wanted to stay at home with your family when your town was under attack?

· When was the last time that your child saw your neighbor lying in a pool of blood?

· When was the last time you checked to see if your child's kindergarten had a bomb shelter, and if not you took the child to another kindergarten which had one?

· When was the last time you went with friends to have a drink at a pub and had a suicide bomber blow himself up in front of you?

· When was the last time you made sure your child had an armed escort when he/she went on a school outing?

· When was the last time your government decided to spend over 400 million dollars on bomb shelters for your town?

· When was the last time your neighboring country swore to wipe you off the face of the earth, and does not recognize your right to exist?

· When…..

Now some facts:


· For the last 8 years (yes… eight whole years, which are 96 straight months) , the southern part of Israel (population around 250,000) has had over 22,000 rockets and mortar shells fired into its cities and villages. This is an average of approximately 2500 per year (since January 2008, we have counted over 3000). This means an average of approximately 8 (!!) rockets a day. Can you even imagine such a number?

· There is no child in Sderot under the age of 10, who knows any other existence than that of daily fear of a bomb landing on his home, school, or shopping mall. How would you feel if this happened in your town and to your children?

· Over three years ago, we unilaterally left the Gaza Strip, removed all vestiges of our army, uprooted all the civilian population which lived there, and abandoned all the homes, fields, and industrial complexes. All this without a reciprocal agreement on the side of the Palestinians to cease all hostilities. This action was intended to allow the Palestinians to fulfill their own dream of a sovereign state, without any interference on our part.

· Since June 2008, there has been a "cease-fire" agreement brokered by the Egyptians. The only trouble is that we have "ceased" while the Hammas has "fired" an average of 6 rockets a week (this is their understanding of an agreement). Besides trying to spot the launchers, and pinpoint attacking them if we were able to do so with 100% certainty, and only then, we did not reciprocate in any other way.

· During this period, we restrained ourselves not to hit back. The only recourse we had, when words, agreements, unilateral restraint and requests did not work, was to warn the Hammas government that if they did not stop the rocket attacks which totally disrupted any sort of "normal" existence for our citizens in the region, we would reduce the entry of supplies to the Gaza Strip. However, out of humane considerations, we continued to send urgent supplies, even under fire.

· To this day, we supply 70% of all the electricity in Gaza, and have never stopped this supply, except for one day when the electric plant in Ashdod, which supplies the "juice" to Gaza, was attacked by a suicide bomber. There is no "darkness" in Gaza, whatever is said or shown to the contrary.

· During the three days prior to our attack in Gaza over 200 rockets were fired at southern Israel, mainly at the city of Sderot, but also to many of the agricultural settlements around the Gaza strip – all inside Israel's international borders. This was the response of Hammas to our willingness to sit and discuss the continuation of the so-called "cease-fire" between us.

· Every such attack has had the entire civilian population of these towns and agricultural settlements running as fast as they can for a shelter - women, children, the elderly, sick people, in short, the whole civilian population.

· These rocket and mortar attacks are aimed specifically at civilian concentrations, to kill and injure as many innocent people as possible.

· Countless times over this period, and before, we have deliberated how to combat this situation, and each time we have opted for another concession towards peace, and have responded infrequently and even then at a very specific location from which the rockets were launched

· The fact is that of the hundreds of Palestinians killed over the past 2-3 years, 95% have been terrorists either setting up their rocket launchers , or on their way to an attack on one of the settlements in the region

· Sgt. Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier who was abducted to Gaza by the Palestinian terrorists over 920 days ago, has not been allowed to send or receive letters, the Red Cross has not been allowed to visit him, and he has spent the whole time, close to three years, in a hole somewhere in the Gaza Strip. This is outrageously inhumane.

· During the past ten years, we have signed at least five agreements, in which we requested the same demands that were initiated by the "Quartet" (The USA, Russia, the U.N., and the European Community), namely:

o Recognition of the State of Israel (which all countries of the world have done)

o Cessation of all terrorist activities

In return we would be willing to negotiate for a fair settlement to all the problems between us

· Even though the Palestinian leaders, first Arafat then Mahmoud Abbas (Abu-Mazen), signed the agreements, the attacks continued unabated


Now to some comments:

· When we left Gaza, with all the small industrial works and the very modern and sophisticated greenhouses intact, at the request of the world community so that the Palestinians will have the ability to support themselves, they destroyed all of these down to rubble. This has to mean that they had little intention of trying to help their population to self-reliance and the country to some income.

· How can the world sit back for so many years and look upon what was going on in our towns and villages around Gaza, and only become outraged when we finally say: "enough is enough" and hit back?

· What is this nonsense about "excessive force"? For years we have restrained ourselves, we have made every effort to find peaceful solutions, such as those we have in our peace agreements with Egypt and Jordan, while we are being shelled on a daily basis. How long can any country stand this? I bet not even Norway, which has grave concerns about our intentions, would stand for this for even one month without retaliating

· As to excessive force, should we send our kids out to throw stones at passing Arab vehicles, as Arab kids do on our roads? Should we sporadically shell cities in the Gaza Strip, just so that our response is "measured" against theirs? Should we recruit maniacs who are willing to commit ritual suicide in Arab restaurants? What are we, as a normal and democratic country, supposed to do? Continuously "understand" that the Palestinian demands should be met so that the world community can finally have some peace in the Middle East? These "salami" tactics will find us in the Mediterranean within five years!

· No. As in any country you are familiar with will do, we will use whatever means we have to achieve peace and quiet for our citizens. If we do not, then are failing our duty as a country to its citizens.

· In addition, since we do not intend to carry out such actions on a regular basis, then on the one time we do strike back, we will do so until the Hammas does not have the will to continue its policy. We have attacked only Hammas installations, and if there was a fair reporting of the events, you would notice that over 90% of all the Palestinian casualties were wearing uniforms. We have tried to be as accurate as possible in our attacks so that we spare the civilian population. We have NEVER targeted civilians, as they have ours

· No one asked Joe Louis to fight all comers with one hand behind his back because he was stronger than his opponents, and no one has asked Michael Jordan to shoot only with his left hand, because he was so much better than all other basketball players.

· We are a country, and we have an army to protect its citizens. Our army has been carefully built so as to be able to answer any threat to our existence. We will use all measures necessary, once all other avenues have been blocked, to thwart this threat.

o The Hammas does not recognize us or our borders.

o The Hammas has sworn to continue to attack us until we drop

o The Hammas gets its weaponry and orders from Iran and the extremist Islam leaders of the world, and will not listen to anyone or any other voice

· We cannot allow this to happen, and cannot allow another Holocaust to our people

· What would you and/or your government do if your border towns were shelled on a regular basis? Sit and wait for the world community to give your neighbor a slap on the hand? I would venture to say that in any Western country, you would hit back after the second or third rocket attack, whether there were casualties or not, irrespective of what the world community says or requests. We have been holding ourselves in restraint for years!

· Barak Obama, when he visited Sderot a year ago, said that if his house, and his girls, were attacked by rockets, he would not stand for it and retaliate

· The Hammas, as part of the radical Islamic groups, is a serious threat not only to Israel, but perhaps even more so to the moderate Arab countries, as well as the Western world. It is inflaming the minds of the Islamic youths, teaching them to hate while not giving them any hope for a future

· During these last few days, we have heard the Egyptian foreign minister and the editor of the official Saudi newspaper, say that the Hammas can only blame itself for what is happening to it now. The other moderate Arab countries have the same sentiments. The Hammas, as the representative of the extremist Islamic groups, is a real and present danger to them and their countries

· What are the ultimate goals of the Hammas? If it is to establish a sovereign state, then three years ago when we left Gaza they had the opportunity to show themselves and the world, that they can do so. We opened all the crossing points to Palestinian workers, assisted Palestinian officials in all the professional activities that a country needs (agriculture, medicine, sanitation, education, etc), and what we got back were suicide bombers and rocket attacks. In this situation, what does any "normal" country do? It closes the border crossings and discontinues its open policy. Would you shake your neighbor's hand, if on a daily basis his dog attacks your child despite your requests from him to rein in his dog?

· If the goal is not to establish a state, then it seems as if is their only aim is the annihilation of Israel. We will not stand for this moment.

The Palestinians' self-inflicted wounds

Israel is about to observe its 60th anniversary as an independent state. If the Palestinians had accepted the United Nations partition of the former British Mandate territory into separate Arab and Jewish nations, they would also be celebrating an independence anniversary.

Instead, the Palestinians rejected the partition. They immediately went to war, supported by the armies of Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq, in an attempt to destroy the infant Jewish state. In a historic military miracle, the vastly outnumbered Israelis soundly defeated the Arabs and acquired territory that significantly increased the size of their tiny new state beyond the UN-established borders.

Thus, while the Israelis are celebrating their 60th anniversary of independence, the Palestinians will be observing the anniversary of the UN partition resolution as a day of mourning, which they call the "Nakba," Arabic for "catastrophe."

In a bizarre historic twist, the autocratic-led Palestinians now bear the international image of victimhood, despite the Arab aggression. But Israel, a democratic nation almost wholly composed of refugees, and their descendants, from centuries of persecution in Christian and Muslim lands, is widely defamed as an aggressor occupying foreign territory and and oppressing its inhabitants.

The 1948 war produced hundreds of thousands Palestinian refugees, very few of whom were allowed to settle as citizens in the countries of their former Arab allies. Meantime, equal numbers of Jews who had lived in Arab and other Muslim countries since ancient times, were also forced to flee. They fled primarily to the new state of Israel and were immediately absorbed as citizens. From their ranks have come an Israeli president, defense minister, army chief of staff, and other Israeli notables.

Abba Eban, the late Israeli statesman, once declared that the Palestinian leadership "never missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity." Their rejection of the 1948 partition has been followed by other missed opportunities for the creation of Palestinian statehood.

During the next 19 years, Egypt and Jordan ruled the West Bank and Gaza--territories that were allotted to the Palestinians by the UN partition. The Palestinians, apparently content with Arab governance, did not clamor for independence. Those who may have sought independence were presumably ignored or imprisoned.

Israel acquired control over the West Bank and Gaza in 1967 in a war initiated by Egypt, Syria and Jordan. In an extraordinary historic event, the Israelis offered to return virtually all the territory it had captured from the Arabs in return for diplomatic recognition and a peace treaty. But the response, declared by the 22 Arab countries at the famous Khartoum conference, was "no"-- to negotiation, recognition or peace.

During the Clinton Administration, at a conference at Camp David, the Israelis again offered to withdraw from Gaza and the West Bank in return for assurances of military security and recognition of their right to exist. Yasser Arafat, the late Palestinian leader, rejected both the offer and an opportunity to make compromises.

Three years ago, Israel unilaterally withdrew from Gaza. Foreign financial aid quickly began to pour into the territory, providing an opportunity for the Palestinians to establish a flourishing mini-state that would be a model of responsible and peaceful statehood in case of Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank.

In a demonstration of what Israel could expect in terms of security and peace in case of further withdrawals, Gaza quickly descended into political chaos and became a base for rocket assaults on neighboring Israeli civilian communities.

Israel has essentially deviated from the historic pattern in which nations that start and lose wars pay the penalty of territorial loss and possible population transfers. After defeating the Arabs in four full-scale wars and suffering prolonged wars of attrition, the Israelis have offered to return territories acquired in warfare in return for peace and security. They have been consistently rebuffed.

Since Hamas took control of Gaza, Israeli civilian populations have been hit by a growing wave of terrorist attacks. In responding to the terrorism, Israel is once again defamed as the "bad guys." In a strange interpretation by the Israel-bashers, perpetrators of terror directed at civilians are presented as "victims," and the targets of such terror are seen as perpetrators reacting "disproportionately."

The suggestion that both Hamas and Israel are to blame for bloodshed is like saying that a would-be victim who fights off a mugger is as responsible for the violence as the assailant.

As "conquerors" Israeli leaders are no Genghis Khans or Napoleons

Reporting yesterday on the Jordanian king's scheduled visit to the West Bank to discuss peace efforts with the Palestinians, the New York Times noted that Jordan ruled that region from 1948-49 until 1967, "when Israel conquered the area, which it still occupies."

Perhaps I'm a nit-picker, but I have always resented the simplistic and common use of the word "conquer" to explain how Israel acquired control of the West Bank. I recognize that the dictionary defines the word: "to gain control by the use of force." But as I see it, the implication is that a "conqueror" is one who launches an aggressive attack to deliberately acquire land. Israel did not do that in the West Bank--or in other Arab territory in Sinai, Gaza and the Golan.

In each of these cases, Israel reacted to aggression by the Arabs. The distinction is significant. Exaggerating Israel's role as a "conqueror" has become a standard term in the Israel-bashing vocabulary.

During the 1967 Six-Day War, for example, Israel was engaged in a war against Egypt and Syria. The war was provoked by the two countries' open mobilization to invade Israel and by Egypt's blockage of Israeli access to the Red Sea. Israel warned Jordan to stay out of the war.

Under the false belief that Israel had been virtually defeated, however, Jordan foolishly disregarded Israel's warning and began to bombard Israeli territory in West Jerusalem. Only in reaction to Jordan's unprovoked attack did Israeli forces move into what had been Jordanian-ruled Palestinian territory. There had been no preemptive Israeli plan to invade the area.

I was so annoyed by the Times' failure to put the situation into perspective that I have written a letter to the editor to complain. Considering the enormous number of letters-to-the-editor that the Times receives daily, I doubt whether mine will be published. But now I have this blog to vent my frustration over the issue.

Four decades later, it seems to have been forgotten that the Israelis quickly offered to return the West Bank to Arab rule. (It had already returned the Sinai to Egypt; subsequently a chunk of the Golan was given back to Syria and Gaza was returned to the Palestinians.)

The response to the Israeli offer to return the West Bank to Arab rule was the historic Sept. 1, 1947 resolution of the Arab Summit Conference in Khartoum, Sudan. It read: "No negotiations with Israel, no recognition of Israel, no peace with Israel."

Israel's leaders do not easily fit the description of "conquerors." Genghis Khans or Napoleons, they're not.

MEMOIR: How Israel destroyed a longtime friendship

One of my best friends at college was a fellow World War II veteran named Michael Ameer (a pseudonym). We were both journalism majors and were among the handful of our classmates who were lucky enough to land jobs and establish careers in the field.

Michael was an infantryman decorated for bravery during the Battle of the Bulge. He was born and raised in Brooklyn, the son of immigrants from Lebanon. I recall that he told me that his parents were Eastern Orthodox Christians who became Episcopalians in the U.S.

While in college, I do not remember ever discussing Middle East politics with Michael. But he was well aware of my ardent support of Israel. In a class on editorial writing, I regularly argued the Israeli cause. Indeed, my heated classroom debates with our professor, who opposed Zionism, underscored how passionate I was about the issue.

At that time (1947-48), Lebanon's Maronite Roman Catholic community supported the creation of Israel.Its leaders apparently believed that a Jewish state in the region would be an important ally against their traditional rival, Lebanon's huge Muslim population.

Soon after graduation, Michael settled in Rochester, N.Y., where he became a star reporter for the local daily paper, and where he still lives. He also worked for several years in Albany as a speech writer and publicist for New York state legislators.

My career took me to Washington, D.C. and later back to New York City. Over the years Michael and I kept in touch. We lunched together on his frequent visits to his family in New York. And when my older daughter enrolled in the Rochester Institute of Technology, Michael and his wife were exceedingly hospitable, easing my daughter's transition to college life.

Whenever we met during the four decades after our college graduation, we invariably talked mostly about our families and careers. I don't recall ever discussing the subject of Israel with Michael until one day at lunch a couple of years before my retirement in 1989.

I do not remember what triggered the discussion, but Michael suddenly launched into a tirade against Israel, employing the standard Israel-bashing arguments. He explained that he had become an active supporter of the Palestinian Arab cause.

Michael denounced the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory, but disregarded the history of Arab invasions that caused the occupation. He complained about Israeli restrictions on Palestinian life, but avoided mention of the Arab terror attacks on Israeli civilians that were responsible for those measures.

As I recall, he even referred to PLO leader Yasser Arafat as a "heroic freedom fighter," disregarding Arafat's role in killing innocent Israeli women and children. And on he went, depicting Israel as an ogre victimizing the Palestinians, using all the Israel-bashing cliches that have become part of the vocabulary of Israel's opponents.

I made no effort to defend Israel against Michael's harangue. Instead, I said to him: "Michael, we've been friends for about 40 years. If we are to remain friends, I think it would be wise if we do not discuss the Israel-Palestine issue."

I do not remember how Michael responded. But I have not seen or heard from him since then.

Meanwhile, I have discovered that he has become a prolific, Palestinian propagandist on the Internet. I have read his articles published in such anti-Israel, on-line newsletters as the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs and on such loony left-wing web sites as Counterpunch, which continues to insist that the Israelis were somehow involved in the 9/11 attacks.

I regret that Michael and I are no longer friends. And I wonder whether Michael also regrets the loss of our friendship.